diff --git "a/data_all_eng_slimpj/shuffled/split2/finalzzrmhg" "b/data_all_eng_slimpj/shuffled/split2/finalzzrmhg"
new file mode 100644--- /dev/null
+++ "b/data_all_eng_slimpj/shuffled/split2/finalzzrmhg"
@@ -0,0 +1,5 @@
+{"text":" \n#\n\n\"Walters builds the tension masterfully.\"\n\n\u2014 _The Wall Street Journal_\n\n\"Quite simply, a tour de force.... It succeeds magnificently at almost every level.\"\n\n\u2014 _The Observer_ (London)\n\n\"A fascinating, page turning experience that is a cross be tween an Agatha Christie whodunit and a Thomas Harris thriller.\"\n\n\u2014 _The Denver Post_\n\n\"Almost impossible to put down.... A stunner.\"\n\n\u2014 _Booklist_\n\n\"Minette Walters asks as much of her readers as many literary novelists, and yet she offers them a book as gripping as any thriller.\"\n\n\u2014 _The Times Literary Supplement_ (London)\n\n#\n\nMinette Walters's bestselling novels have been published in more than thirty countries. She has won the John Creasey and Golden Dagger Awards from the Crime Writers Association of Great Britain, and the Edgar Allan Poe Award from the Mystery Writers of America, as well as the Grand Prix des Lectrices d'Elle in France. She lives in Dorset with her husband and two children.\n\nwww.minettewalters.co.uk\n\n# Also by MINETTE WALTERS\n\n_The Chameleon's Shadow_\n\n_The Devil's Feather_\n\n_The Tinder Box_\n\n_Disordered Minds_\n\n_Fox Evil_\n\n_Acid Row_\n\n_The Breaker_\n\n_The Echo_\n\n_The Dark Room_\n\n_The Scold's Bridle_\n\n_The Sculptress_\n\n_The Ice House_\n\nFor John, Henry  \nand Frank\n\nWith thanks to:\n\nAdrian, Alec, Andrew, Annika, Beverley, Caroline, James, Jane, Michael, Philippa, Richard, Sharon and Susanna.\n\nAnd with special thanks to Nick Godwin, Allen Anscombe, Rachel Harris and Ruth Wild for their professional help and advice.\n_Tics are categorized as Motor or Vocal, Simple or Complex.... Complex symptoms include: Body jerking, Skipping, Hitting, Walking on toes, Talking to oneself, Yelling, Coprolalia\u2014vocalizing obscene or other socially unacceptable words or phrases.... Tics increase as a result of tension or stress._\n\n**K** ANSAS **C** ITY **C** HAPTER  \nOF THE **T** OURETTE  \n **S** YNDROME **A** SSOCIATION\n\n_Unhappiness has a habit of being passed around._\n\n**M** ARGARET **A** TWOOD,  \n **BBC** **R** ADIO 4'S ** _B OOK **C** LUB_**, **M** AY **9, 1999**\n\n# one\n\nI could never decide whether \"Mad Annie\" was murdered because she was mad or because she was black. We were living in southwest London at the time and I remember my shock when I came home from work one wet November evening to find her collapsed in the gutter outside our house. It was 1978\u2014the winter of discontent\u2014when the government lost control of the trade unions, strikes were an everyday occurrence, hospitals ceased to cater to the sick and uncollected rubbish lay in heaps along the pavement. If I hadn't recognized her old plaid coat I might have ignored her, thinking the bundle in the gutter was a heap of discarded clothes.\n\nHer real name was Ann Butts and she was the only black person in our road. She was a well-built woman with a closed expression and a strong aversion to social contact, who was known to enjoy a drink, particularly Caribbean rum, and was often to be found sitting on the pavement in the summer singing gospel hymns. She had acquired the \"Mad\" label because she made strange faces and muttered to herself as she scurried along in a bizarre dot-and-carry trot that suggested a child playing \"Ride a cock horse to Banbury Cross.\"\n\nLittle was known about her circumstances except that she had inherited her house and a small independent income upon her mother's death and, apart from a menagerie of stray cats that had taken up residence with her, she lived alone. It was said that her mother had been madder than she was and that her father had abandoned them both because of it. One of the long-term residents of Graham Road swore blind that Mrs. Butts senior used to shout obscenities at passersby and twirl like a dervish when the mood was on her, but as Mrs. Butts had been dead some time the story had undoubtedly grown in the telling.\n\nI didn't believe it any more than I believed the rumors that Annie kept live chickens inside her house, which she killed by boiling, feathers and all, for her own and her cats'supper. It was nonsense\u2014she bought her meat, dead, at the local supermarket like everyone else\u2014 but her close neighbors talked about rats in her garden and a terrible smell coming from her kitchen, and the story of live chickens was born. I always said she couldn't have rats _and_ cats, but no one wanted to hear the voice of reason.\n\nThe same neighbors made life difficult for her by reporting her regularly to the local council, the RSPCA and the police, but nothing came of their complaints because the council couldn't force her out of her own house, the cats were not ill-treated and she wasn't mad enough to be committed to an institution. Had there been family and friends to support her, she might have taken her harassers to court, but she was a solitary person who guarded her privacy jealously. At various times health visitors and social workers made unsuccessful attempts to persuade her into sheltered accommodations, and once a week the local vicar knocked on her door to make sure she was still alive. He was always cursed loudly for his trouble from an upstairs window, but he took it in stride, despite Annie's refusal to go anywhere near his church.\n\nI knew her only by sight because we lived at the other end of the road but I never understood why the street took against her so strongly. My husband said it had to do with property values, but I couldn't agree with him. When we moved onto Graham Road in 1976 we had no illusions about why we could afford it. It had a Richmond postcode but it was very definitely \"on the wrong side of the tracks.\" Built for laborers in the 1880s, it was a double row of two-up, two-down terraced housing off the A316 between Richmond and Mortlake, and no one who bought a house there expected to make a fortune overnight, particularly as council-owned properties were seeded among the privately owned ones. They were easily identified by their uniform yellow doors and were looked down on by those of us who'd bought our houses because at least two of them held problem families.\n\nPersonally, I thought the way the children treated Annie was a better barometer of the adults' feelings. They teased her mercilessly, calling her names and aping her dot-and-carry trot in a cruel demonstration of their right to feel superior, then ran away with squeals of fear if their pestering irritated her enough to make her raise her head and glare at them. It was a form of bearbaiting. They goaded her because they despised her, but they were also afraid of her.\n\nIn retrospect, of course, I wish I'd taken up cudgels on her behalf but, like everyone else who stayed silent, I assumed she could take care of herself. Certainly the children weren't alone in finding her intimidating. On the one occasion when I made an attempt to speak to her, she rounded on me angrily, calling me \"honky,\" and I didn't have the courage to try again. Once in a while afterward I would come out of my front door to find her staring up at our house, but she scampered off the minute she saw me and my husband warned me not to antagonize her any further. I told him I thought she was trying to say \"sorry,\" but he laughed and said I was na\u00efve.\n\nOn the night she died a freezing rain was falling. The hunched trees that lined the pavements were black and sodden with water and made the street look very grim as I turned onto it from the main road. On the other side, a couple paused briefly under one of the few lampposts, then separated, the man to walk ahead, the woman to cross on a diagonal in front of me. I pulled up my coat collar to shield my face from the stabbing rain before stepping off the curb to run through sheets of water toward my house.\n\nI found Annie lying on the edge of the yellow lamplight in a space between two parked cars and I remember wondering why the couple hadn't noticed her. Or perhaps they had chosen to ignore her, believing, as I did, that she was drunk. I stooped to rock her shoulder but the movement caused her to cry out and I stepped back immediately. She lay with her head cradled in her arms, her knees drawn up tight against her chin and I assumed she was protecting herself from the rain. She smelled powerfully of urine, and I guessed she'd had an accident, but I shrank from the responsibility of cleaning her up and told her instead that I was going home to call for an ambulance.\n\nDid she think I wouldn't come back? Is that what persuaded her to uncradle her poor head and lift her pain-filled eyes to mine? I have no idea if that was the moment she died\u2014they said afterward it probably was, because her skull was so badly fractured that any movement would have been dangerous\u2014but I do know I will never experience such an intense intimacy with another human being again. I felt everything she felt\u2014sorrow, anguish, despair, suffering\u2014most poignantly, her complete bewilderment about why anyone would want to kill her. \"Was I unlovable?\" she seemed to be asking. \"Was I unkind? Was I less deserving because I was different?\"\n\nMany hours later, the police questioned my incoherent ramblings. Did Miss Butts actually say these things? No. Did she accuse someone directly? No. Did she speak at all? No. Did you see anyone run away? No. So there's no evidence to support your assertion of murder other than a puzzled look in her eyes? No.\n\nI couldn't blame them for being skeptical. As they pointed out, it was unlikely I could have interpreted Annie's look with any accuracy. Sudden death was always difficult to come to terms with because the emotions surrounding it are complex. They tried to convince me it was heightened imagination following my shock at finding her and offered me post-traumatic stress counseling to get over it. I refused. I was only interested in justice. As far as I was concerned, whatever residual shock I felt would vanish the minute Annie's murderer or murderers were caught and convicted.\n\nThey never were.\n\nThe coroner's verdict, based on the postmortem results and witness statements taken during a two-week police investigation, was death by misadventure. He painted a picture of a woman whose hold on reality was poor even when she was sober but who, on the night in question, had been drinking heavily. Her blood showed a high level of alcohol and she was seen staggering around the road by passing motorists and several neighbors. One said he had tried to persuade her to go home but gave up when she started swearing at him. Her injuries\u2014in particular the fractures to her skull and broken left arm\u2014were consistent with a glancing blow from a heavy vehicle, probably a truck, which had thrown her between the stationary cars and against the lamppost as it passed. Due to the heavy rainfall that night, it was unsurprising that no blood, hair or tissue traces were discovered on the lamppost.\n\nThe fact that no driver had come forward to admit liability was not considered significant either. It was dark, pouring with rain, parked vehicles restricted visibility and the street lighting was inadequate. With a critical reference to council officers who allowed badly lit streets in poorer areas to become rat-runs for heavy traffic, the coroner endorsed the police view that Miss Butts had stumbled off the pavement into the side of a passing truck without, in all probability, the driver being aware of the contact. It was impossible to establish when the accident occurred, although due to the seriousness of Miss Butts's injuries it was doubtful she could have survived more than fifteen to thirty minutes.\n\nIt was a sad case, the coroner said, which highlighted the need to have an element of compulsion in the treatment of vulnerable people in a modern society. There was clear evidence\u2014the squalid state of her house when the police entered it the day after her death; her alcohol dependency\u2014that she was unable to look after herself properly, and it was his opinion that if social services and health workers had been able to force Miss Butts to accept help, she would still be alive today. The witness who found Miss Butts's body had alleged a racist campaign against Miss Butts by her neighbors, but there was no evidence to support this and the coroner accepted that her neighbors' actions had been prompted only by concern for her welfare. In conclusion and despite the same witness's emotional insistence that Miss Butts had been deliberately pushed in front of an oncoming vehicle, the coroner's verdict was unequivocal. Death by misadventure. Case closed...\n\nI fell ill shortly afterward and took to my bed for several days. I told the doctor who came to see me that I had the flu, but he diagnosed depression and prescribed tranquilizers, which I refused to take. I became frightened of the telephone; every sound from the road had me jumping out of my chair. My husband, Sam, was initially sympathetic but soon lost interest when I began sleeping in the spare room and talking about rats in the downstairs lavatory. Thereafter, I developed mild agoraphobia and found it harder and harder to go to work. I was a teacher at a local comprehensive school and my overburdened colleagues were even less sympathetic than Sam when I said I felt stifled by the way the children crowded around me in the corridor. After a few weeks I ceased going in altogether.\n\nThe whole episode\u2014from Annie's death to the loss of my job\u2014 caused a rift between me and Sam, who walked delicately around me for weeks, then took to speaking to my mother for hours on the telephone. He was careful to close the door but I could still hear most of his conversation through the paper-thin walls on the rare occasions when I bothered to listen. The phrases repeated most often were \"impossible to live with...\" \"having a nervous breakdown...\" \"got a thing about rats...\" \"stupid fuss over a bloody black woman...\" and \"divorce...\"\n\nSome time in February my parents drove up from Hampshire where they were then living. Sam had moved out three weeks previously to sleep on a friend's sofa, and our marriage was effectively over. Wisely, my father refused to get involved, but my mother couldn't resist taking Sam's part. She comes from that generation of women who believe that marriage is the key to a woman's happiness and she told me in no uncertain terms that if I was determined to reject Sam then I needn't look to her and my father for support. As she pointed out, I'd been deserted by my friends because my behavior was so peculiar.... I was rapidly becoming anorexic.... I had no job... worse, no prospect of a job while I remained firmly closeted in the house. What was I planning to do? Where was I planning to go?\n\nI expressed only mild annoyance that she believed everything Sam told her, and suggested she question a man's honesty for once in her life. It was like a red flag to a bull. We couldn't talk about sex\u2014or lack of it, Sam's real bone of contention with me\u2014because it was a taboo subject between us, so instead she lectured me on the way I was letting myself go, my failure to cook proper meals for my hardworking husband, my lackluster approach to cleaning the house and inevitably my absurd obsession with the death of a colored person.\n\n\"There might be some sense in it if she'd been one of us,\" she finished tartly, \"but she wasn't even English... just another wretched immigrant living off benefit and clogging up the health service with imported diseases. Why we ever let them in, I can't imagine, and for you to jeopardize your marriage\u2014\" She broke off abruptly. \"Can't you see how ridiculous you're being?\"\n\nI couldn't, but it wasn't something I was prepared to discuss with her. Predictably, my silence persuaded her she'd won the argument when all she'd really achieved was to prove to me how little I cared about anyone's opinion but my own. In an odd way her complete lack of sympathy was more liberating than distressing because it made me realize that control rests with whomever worries least about being seen to exercise it, and with cold deliberation I agreed to mend fences with my husband if only to keep a roof over my head.\n\nThree months later, Sam and I moved abroad.\n\nCORONER'S COURT\n\nMedical Report on Miss Ann Butts, submitted to Mr. Brian A. Hooper, coroner, on December 12, 1978, by Dr. Sheila Arnold, GP, FRCP, from the Howarth Clinic, Chicago, Illinois, U.S.A. (Formerly a partner in the Cromwell Street Surgery, Richmond, Surrey.)\n\n**(Dr. Arnold left for a twelve-month sabbatical in America on September 10,1978, and was absent at the time of Miss Butts's death. Although Miss Butts had been assigned to one of Dr. Arnold's partners for the duration of the sabbatical, Miss Butts died before the partner had time to meet and assess her. It was therefore agreed that Dr. Arnold would submit the following report from America. A full set of medical notes relating to Miss Butts has been made available to the Coroner by the Cromwell Street Surgery.)**\n\nAnn Butts was my patient from June 1969 until my departure for America on September 10, 1978. She suffered from Tourette's syndrome, a neuropsychiatric disorder characterized by recurrent muscle tics and involuntary vocalizations. It was an inherited condition from her mother who had a complex form of the disorder, which manifested itself as _coprolalia_ , a compulsion to utter obscenities. Ann, who cared for her mother for many years until her death in 1968, had a good understanding of Tourette's syndrome and had learned to manage her own condition successfully. Ann's most noticeable symptoms were 1) motor tics in the face and shoulders; 2) a compulsion to talk to herself; and 3) obsessive behavior, particularly in relation to home and personal security.\n\nI referred her in December 1969 to Dr. Randreth Patel (Middlesex Hospital), who took a particular interest in Ann and was sympathetic toward her firmly held views against the taking of psychoactive drugs, which she felt had worsened her mother's condition rather than improved it. While no one has yet discovered a cure for Tourette's syndrome, the disorder tends to improve with age and Ann was no exception to this. My understanding is that her tics were a great deal more pronounced when she was a teenager (DOB\u201412.3.36). As a result, she suffered considerable teasing and unkindness from her peers and had few social skills following an early withdrawal from formal education. In recent years Ann's symptoms had been comparatively mild although she was inclined to exacerbate them from time to time through an overindulgence in alcohol. She had an average IQ and had no difficulty leading an independent life, although her obsession with home and personal security meant she shunned the company of others. I made a point of visiting her every six to eight weeks and on my last visit\u2014September 8, 1978\u2014she was in good health, both physical and mental.\n\n_Sheila Arnold Gp, FRCP_\n\nSheila Arnold GP, FRCP\n\n**_Family correspondence prior_**  \n ** _to the Ranelaghs' return to England\u2014dated 1999_**\n\nCURRAN HOUSE\n\n_Whitehay Road_\n\n_Torquay_\n\n_Devon_\n\nPS Dear M, personally, thought the \"dodgy ticker\" was wonderful and loved to hear Sam laugh at the other end. What a marvelous relationship you and he have with your boys and what a blessing they've been these last few months. I'm much looking forward to sharing some of the Ranelagh Jr. fun, even if it means driving two hours to experience it! Tell Luke I have every intention of having at least one go on a surfboard even if I do go \"arse over tit\" in the process. I may be an old codger, but I'm not in my grave yet.\n\nDad\n\nX X X\n\nCape Town\n\n5 June\n\nDear Mother,\n\nWritten in haste. Sorry about the screaming but the line was bad. I enclose a photocopy of the farmhouse details. I have taken up references and am reliably informed that \u00a3650 is a good price. It would be considerably more, apparently, if it weren't a property of \"character,\" which appears to be real estate-agent shorthand for \"somewhat dilapidated.\" However, Sam and the boys are looking forward to slumming it as much as I am. All being well we should be there by the first week in July and will expect you and Dad at the end of the month. I'll ring to confirm a weekend as soon as we're installed. We're all fine and send our love to you both.\n\n# two\n\nI recognized Dr. Arnold as soon as I opened the door to her, although there was no answering smile of recognition from her. I wasn't surprised. We were both twenty years older, and I had changed a great deal more than she had after two decades abroad. She was silver-haired and thinner, late fifties, I judged, but she still had the same rather searching gray eyes and air of unassailable competence. On the only other occasion I'd met her, I'd found her thoroughly intimidating, but today she gave me a sisterly pat on the arm when I told her my husband was complaining of chest pains.\n\n\"He says it's a pulled muscle,\" I said, leading the way up the stairs of our rented farmhouse, \"but he had a coronary six months ago and I'm worried he's about to have another one.\"\n\nIn the event, Sam was right\u2014it was a pulled muscle from too much digging in the garden the day before\u2014and I concealed my total lack of surprise behind an apologetic smile. Dr. Arnold reproved him for scoffing at my concern. \"You can't take chances,\" she told him, folding her stethoscope, \"not when you've had one close shave already.\"\n\nSam, whose memory for faces was almost as bad as his memory for names, buttoned his shirt and cast an irritable glance in my direction. \"It's a ridiculous fuss about nothing,\" he complained. \"I said I'd go to the surgery but she wouldn't let me... just takes it into her head to start treating me like a blasted invalid.\"\n\n\"He's been biting my head off all morning,\" I told Dr. Arnold. \"It's one of the reasons I thought it might be serious.\"\n\n\"Goddamit!\" Sam snapped. \"What's the matter with you? All I said was, I had a small twinge in my side... which isn't surprising in view of the number of weeds I hauled out yesterday. The garden's a mess, the house is falling down. What am I supposed to do? Sit on my hands all day?\"\n\nDr. Arnold poured oil on troubled waters. \"You should be grateful you have someone who still cares enough to make the phone call,\" she said with a laugh. \"I had a patient once whose wife left him to writhe in agony on the kitchen floor while she downed half a bottle of gin to celebrate her imminent widowhood.\"\n\nSam wasn't the type to stay angry for long. \"Did he survive?\" he asked with a grin.\n\n\"Just about. The marriage didn't.\" She studied his face for a moment, then looked curiously toward me. \"I feel I know you both but I can't think why.\"\n\n\"I recognized you when I opened the door,\" I said. \"It's an extraordinary coincidence. You were our GP in Richmond. We lived in Graham Road from '76 to the beginning of '79. You came to our house once when Sam had a bout of bronchitis.\"\n\nShe nodded immediately. \"Mrs. Ranelagh. I should have recognized the name. You're the one who found Annie Butts. I've often wondered where you went and what happened to you.\"\n\nI looked casually from her to Sam, and was relieved to see surprised pleasure on both their faces, and no suspicion...\n\nSam landed a job as overseas sales director for a shipping company, which took us in turn to Hong Kong, Australia and South Africa. They were good times, and I came to understand why black sheep are so often sent abroad by their families to start again. It does wonders for the character to cut the emotional ties that bind you to places and people. We produced two sons who grew like saplings in the never-ending sunshine and soon towered over their parents, and I could always find teaching jobs in whichever school was educating them.\n\nAs one always does, we thought of ourselves as immortal, so Sam's coronary at the age of fifty-two came like a bolt from the blue. With doctors warning of another one being imminent if he didn't change a lifestyle that involved too much traveling, too much entertaining of clients and too little exercise, we returned to England in the summer of '99 with no employment and a couple of boys in their late teens who had never seen their homeland.\n\nFor no particular reason except that we'd spent our honeymoon in Dorset in '76, we decided to rent an old farmhouse near Dorchester, which I found among the property ads in the _Sunday Times_ before we left Cape Town. The idea was to have an extended summer holiday while we looked around for somewhere more permanent to settle. Neither of us had connections with any particular part of England. My husband's parents were dead and my own parents had retired to the neighboring county of Devon and the balmy climate of Torquay. We enrolled the boys at college for the autumn and set out to rediscover our roots. We'd done well during our time abroad and there was no immediate hurry for either of us to find a job. Or so we imagined.\n\nThe reality was rather different. England had changed into New Labor's \"Cool Britannia\" during the time we'd been abroad, strikes were almost unknown, the pace of life had quickened dramatically and there was a new widespread affluence that hadn't existed in the '70s. We couldn't believe how expensive everything was, how crowded the roads were and how difficult it was to find a parking space now that \"shopping\" had become the Brits' favorite pastime. Hastily the boys abandoned us for their own age group. Garden f\u00eates and village cricket were for old people. Designer clothes and techno music were the order of the day, and clubs and theme pubs were the places to be seen, particularly those that stayed open into the early hours to show widescreen satellite feeds of world sporting fixtures.\n\n\"Do you get the feeling we've been left behind?\" Sam asked glumly at the end of our first week as we sat like a couple of pensioners on the patio of our rented farmhouse, watching some horses graze in a nearby paddock.\n\n\"By the boys.\"\n\n\"No. Our peers. I was talking to Jock Williams on the phone today\"\u2014an old friend from our Richmond days\u2014\"and he told me he made a couple of million last year by selling off one of his businesses.\" He made a wry face. \"So I asked him how many businesses he had left, and he said, only two but together they're worth ten million. He wanted to know what _I_ was doing so I lied through my teeth.\"\n\nI took time to wonder why it never seemed to occur to Sam that Jock was as big a fantasist as he was, particularly as Jock had been trumpeting \"mega-buck sales\" down the phone to him for years but had never managed to find the time\u2014 _or money?_ \u2014to fly out for a visit. \"What did you say?\"\n\n\"That we'd made a killing on the Hong Kong stock market before it reverted to China and could afford to take early retirement. I also said we were buying an eight-bedroom house and a hundred acres in Dorset.\"\n\n\"Mm.\" I used my foot to stir some clumps of grass growing between the cracks in the patio, which were symptomatic of the air of tired neglect that pervaded the whole property. \"A brick box in a modern development more likely. I had a look in a real estate agent's window yesterday and anything of any size is well outside our price range. Something like this would cost around \u00a3300,000 and that's not counting the money we'd need to spend doing it up. Let's just hope Jock doesn't decide to visit.\"\n\nSam's gloom deepened at the prospect. \"If we'd had any sense we'd have hung on to the house on Graham Road. Jock says it's worth ten times what we paid for it in '76. We were mad to sell. You need to keep a stake in the property market if you want to trade up to something reasonable.\"\n\nThere were times when I despaired of my husband's memory. It was a peculiarly selective one that allowed him to remember the precise details of past negotiating triumphs but insisted he forgot where the cutlery was kept in every kitchen we'd ever had. It had its advantages\u2014he was easily persuaded he was in the wrong\u2014but once in a while it caught me on the raw. At the very least, he ought to have remembered the weeks of abuse that followed the inquest into Annie's death...\n\n\"It was _my_ choice to leave,\" I said flatly, \"and I don't care if we end up living in a caravan, it's one decision I'll never regret. You might have been able to stay on Graham Road.... I certainly couldn't... not once the phone calls started anyway.\"\n\nHe eyed me nervously. \"I thought you'd forgotten all that.\"\n\n\"No.\"\n\nThe horses kicked up their heels for no apparent reason to canter to the other side of the field, and I wondered how good their hearing was and whether they could pick up vibrations of anger in a single word. We watched them in silence for a moment or two, and I put money on Sam backing away as usual from the period in our lives that had brought us to the brink of divorce. He chose to follow a tangent.\n\n\"In purely financial terms Jock's probably right, though,\" he said. \"If we'd kept the house and let it, we'd not only have had an income all these years but we'd have made a 1,000 percent increase on our capital to boot.\"\n\n\"We had a mortgage,\" I told him, \"so the income would have gone straight into paying it off and we'd never have seen a penny of it.\"\n\n\"Except Jock says...\"\n\nI only half-listened to Jock's views on the beneficial effects to borrowers of the galloping inflation of the late '70s and early '80s and how the Thatcher revolution had freed up entrepreneurs to play roulette with other people's money. I hadn't had much time for him when we lived in London and, from Sam's reports of the conversations he'd had with him via the international phone network over the years, I could see no reason to change my opinion. Theirs was a competitive relationship, based on vainglorious self-promotion from Jock and ridiculous counterclaims from Sam, which anyone with an ounce of intelligence would see straight through.\n\nI roused myself when Sam fell silent. \"Jock Williams has been lying about money since the first time we met him,\" I murmured. \"He latched on to us in the pub for the sole purpose of getting free drinks because he claimed he'd left his wallet at home. He said he'd pay us back but he never did. I didn't believe him then and I don't believe him now. If he's worth ten million\"\u2014I bared my teeth\u2014\"then I've got the body of a twenty-year-old.\"\n\nI was doing Sam a kindness although he couldn't see it because it would never occur to him that I might know more about Jock than he did. How could I? Jock and I had had no contact since our strained farewells on the day Sam and I left London. Yet I knew exactly what Jock was worth, and I also knew that the only person likely to lose sleep over it was Jock himself when his braggadocio lies finally came home to roost.\n\nSam's gloom began to lift. \"Oh, come on,\" he said. \"Things aren't _that_ bad. The old bum's spread a bit, admittedly, but the tits still hold their shape.\"\n\nI gave him an affectionate cuff across the back of the head. \"At least I've still got all my hair.\"\n\n**POLICE WITNESS STATEMENT**\n\n**Date:** 16.11.78\n\n**Time:** 18:27\n\n**Officer in charge:** PC Quentin, Richmond Police\n\n**Witness:** Sam Ranelagh, 5 Graham Road, Richmond, Surrey\n\n**Incident:** Death of Miss A. Butts in Graham Road on 14.11.78\n\nOn Tuesday, 14.11.78, I reached Richmond station at about 7:30. My friend, Jock Williams, who lives at 21 Graham Road, was on the same train and caught up with me as I passed through the ticket barrier. It was raining heavily, and Jock suggested we make a detour to the Hoop and Grapes in Kew Road for a pint. I was tired and invited him back to my house instead. My wife, a teacher, was at a parents'evening and was not due home until 9:30. The walk along the A316 takes approximately 15 minutes, and Jock and I turned into Graham Road at around 7:45.\n\nI have lived in Graham Road for two years and knew Ann Butts well by sight. On several occasions in the last six months I have come across her outside our house, staring in through the windows. I have no idea why she did this although I believe she may have been trying to intimidate my wife, whom she called \"honky.\" In view of the bad weather, I was surprised to see her there again on Tuesday night (14.11.78). She moved away as we rounded the corner. She was clearly drunk and when I pointed her out to Jock we both used the word \"paralytic\" to describe her. We were reluctant to approach her because she seemed to have a strong dislike of white people. We crossed the road behind her and let ourselves into my house.\n\nJock remained with me for approximately one-and-a-half hours, and we spent most of that time in the kitchen. The kitchen is at the back of the house and the door to the corridor was closed. At no point did we hear anything from the road that would suggest an accident had occurred. Jock left at approximately 9:15 and I accompanied him to the front door. I had completely forgotten seeing Ann Butts earlier and it did not occur to me to look for her again. I watched Jock turn right out of our gate toward his own house before going back inside.\n\nI was shocked when my wife came rushing in fifteen minutes later to say Mad Annie had collapsed in the gutter and looked as if she was dying. I ran out with a torch and found her body between two parked cars outside number 1. It seemed obvious to me that she was already dead. Her eyes were open and there was no pulse in her neck or her wrist. I made an attempt at mouth-to-mouth resuscitation but gave up when there was no response. An ambulance arrived shortly afterward.\n\nI regret now that I made no attempt to assist Ann Butts back to her house at 7:45, although I am convinced she would have rejected the offer.\n\n**Signed:**\n\n_Sam Ranelagh_\n\n**In the presence of:**\n\n_A. Quann_\n\n**_Letter from Libby Williams\u2014-formerly  \nof 21 Graham Road, Richmond\u2014dated 1980_**\n\n_39a Templeton Road_\n\n_Southampton_\n\n_Hampshire_\n\n_UK_\n\nMay 20, 1980\n\nM'dear!\n\nYou could have knocked me down with a feather when your letter came through my door. And what great news about the baby. Seven months old, eh? Conceived in England and born in Hong Kong. Has to be lucky! Of course we must remain friends. God knows, I didn't spend hours listening to your heartache in the wake of Annie's death to abandon you the minute you move abroad. I'm just so glad you got in touch because the way things are\u2014i.e., Jock and I aren't speaking. AT ALL!\u2014I didn't know how to contact you. Of course I'll help you in any way I can, although I'm a little worried that your letter seems to imply Jock and Sam had a hand in Annie's death. Much as I loathe the two-timing maggot I married, I don't think he's vile enough to kill anyone and certainly not someone he hardly knew. As for Sam! Do me a favor!\n\nOkay, so Sam got drunk one night and admitted they lied to the police about where they were and now refuses to have Annie's name mentioned. Well, trust me, sweetheart, I don't think you should read too much into it even if I do understand how angry you must feel. Sam had no business to lie for Jock however \"good\" the cause. Still, that's men for you. They stick to each other like glue, but cast off their women whenever it suits them!\n\nRe your questions:\n\n1) Did I tell the police that Jock had been with Sam? Yes. As you know, they started knocking on everyone's doors the day after the event, wanting to know if we'd seen or heard the accident. I said I'd been alone at home watching telly and hadn't heard a thing, so they promptly asked me what my husband had been doing and I said, \"Having a drink with Sam Ranelagh at number 5.\"\n\n2) Did Jock volunteer the information when he got home or did I ask for it? I asked him the night of the 14th. The little toerag came rolling in half-cut as usual and I said, \"Where the hell have you been?\" \"Round at Sam's having a beer,\" he came back quick as a flash. I should have known he was lying! He always used Sam as a way out of a crisis.\n\n3) What time did Jock get home that night? Nine-fifteenish. Can't recall exactly. I'm sure the nine o'clock news was still on.\n\n4) Have I any idea when Jock spoke to Sam in order to concoct the alibi? Knowing Jock, he would have phoned Sam at work the next morning and told him he was on the spot and had to think up a lie on the spur of the moment. \"If anyone asks, I was with you. So don't let me down, will you?\" That kind of thing.\n\nIn passing, I doubt very much if Jock had been gambling again, whatever he may have told Sam. He had a floozy in Graham Road, a bleached vampire called Sharon Percy, who was little better than a prostitute. He claims he was having an affair with her but my solicitor forced him to produce his bank statements and it looks as if he was making regular payments to her every Tuesday in return for sex. He's denying the payments at the moment (but not the affair\u2014he seems quite proud of that!) but my solicitor's confident we can drag the truth out of him if he refuses to make a reasonable settlement and we end up in court.\n\nAnyway, the point is, Annie died on a Tuesday and I suspect Jock was rogering Sharon rather than gambling! For all I know it may have been the first time because he never bothered to explain his lateness on a Tuesday again. Or any other day for that matter! You're right. The prospect of imminent divorce is a great relief and I have every intention of taking him to the cleaners if I possibly can. He only produces documents after my solicitor applies thumbscrews, and he explains his purchase of a house in Alveston Road (v. swank \u00a3.70,000 five-bedroom job within spitting distance of Richmond Park\u2014complete with live-in blonde bimbo!) as a \"long-term, heavily mortgaged investment.\" This, on the back of the paltry \u00a3.10,000 he took as his 50 percent share of 21 Graham Road. Do me a favor! Do the sums add up, or do they? The best I could afford was this two-room flat in Southampton.\n\nFeel free to ask for any help I can give you. It would never occur to me for a minute that talking about Annie might bring on \"a fit of the vapors\" and how very old-fashioned of Sam to come up with such an expression. No woman I know goes in for such idiocies, and I doubt if they ever did. It was yet another invention of man to undermine the onward march of female supremacy. Yes, I'm bitter, and... yes, the whole male sex can go fuck itself as far as I'm concerned... I've taken a leaf out of your book and have come to Southampton to train for a career in teaching. Dammit, girl, if you can make money tutoring Chinamen in Hong Kong, I can surely make money tutoring brats over here!\n\nLove,\n\n_Libby_ ,\n\n# three\n\n\"It blew over very quickly,\" Sheila Arnold told me as we went downstairs, \"except that Annie's house stood empty for about three years. She hadn't made a will and no one knew if there were any living relatives. In the end, everything was appropriated by the government and the property was released for sale. It was bought by a builder who renovated it before selling it to a young couple with two small children.\"\n\n\"A white couple presumably,\" I said with poorly veiled sarcasm.\n\nShe ignored the remark although her mouth lifted in a faint smile. \"I visited the house soon after they moved in when the younger child fell ill,\" she went on, \"and the place was unrecognizable. The builder had gutted the whole of the downstairs and redesigned it as one huge open-plan room with patio doors to the garden.\" There was reservation in her voice as if she wasn't sure that an open plan was an improvement.\n\n\"Didn't you like it?\"\n\nShe paused by the door. \"Oh, it was splendid enough, but I couldn't help remembering what it was like in Annie's day. Did you ever go inside while she was living there?\" I shook my head. \"It was like an Aladdin's cave. She and her mother were both hoarders. The front room was packed with West Indian and Central American artifacts, all brought back to England by Annie's father during the '40s and '50s. Some of them were quite valuable, particularly the gold pieces. I remember there was a little statuette on the mantelpiece which had emeralds for eyes and rubies for lips.\"\n\n\"I didn't know there was a Mr. Butts,\" I said in surprise. \"I always assumed the mother had been left holding the baby.\"\n\n\"Good Lord, no. Her father died of lung cancer some time in the late '50s. I never knew him but one of my partners remembered him fondly. His name was George. He was a retired merchant seaman with a fund of anecdotes about his travels round the world. He married Annie's mother in Jamaica in the '30s and brought her and Annie home to live in Graham Road soon after the war.\" She smiled again. \"He said he couldn't bring them back while his parents were alive because they wouldn't have approved of a black daughter-in-law.\"\n\nI shook my head in amazement, realizing how many gaps there still were in my knowledge of a woman I had never spoken to. Did Annie's neighbors know she was half white? I wondered, and would it have made a difference if they had? I thought \"no\" to both questions. They had been even later arrivals to the street than Sam and I... and Annie had been too dark-skinned to pass as anything other than black. \"I didn't know any of this,\" I told Sheila. \"I certainly didn't know her father was a white man. Why didn't someone come forward to claim her estate? She must have had English relations, surely?\"\n\n\"Apparently not. My colleague said George had a younger brother who was torpedoed in the North Atlantic, but other than that\u2014\" She broke off on a shrug. \"It's tragic but not unusual. Whole families were wiped out during the two world wars, particularly those with sons and no daughters.\" She glanced reluctantly at her watch and stepped outside. \"I really must go. I've two more patients to see.\" But she moved slowly as if she didn't want to break this link with the past. \"Do you still think she was murdered?\"\n\n\"I know she was.\"\n\n\"Why?\"\n\nI led the way down the path. \"I can't explain it. I tried once, but everyone just thought I was as mad as she was. Now I don't bother.\"\n\n\"I meant, why would anyone have wanted to murder her?\"\n\nIt was the great imponderable. \"Because she was different,\" I suggested. \"Perhaps they'd have left her alone if she'd been mad but not black... or black but not mad... Sometimes I think they despised her for her color, other times I think they were afraid of her.\"\n\nWe halted beside her car. \"Meaning you think one of her neighbors killed her?\"\n\nI didn't say anything, just gave a small shrug which she could interpret as she liked.\n\nShe watched me for a moment, then opened the rear door of her car and put her bag on the backseat. \"She wasn't mad,\" she said matter-of-factly \"She had Tourette's syndrome, which caused her to grimace and talk to herself, but she was as normal as you or I in every other respect.\"\n\n\"That's not the impression the coroner gave at the inquest.\"\n\nDr. Arnold nodded unhappily. \"The man was an idiot. He knew nothing at all about TS and wasn't interested in finding out. I've always felt very badly about not giving evidence in person, but I left for a twelve-month sabbatical in the U.S. before she died and had no idea he would effectively ignore Annie's medical records.\" She saw the sudden hope in my face. \"The verdict would have been the same,\" she said apologetically. \"There was no evidence to suggest it was anything other than an accident but I was very angry afterward to discover how her reputation had been destroyed.\"\n\nI thought cynically that the anguish I'd seen in Annie's dying eyes had had nothing to do with concern for her reputation. \"Did you read the pathologist's report?\"\n\nShe nodded. \"I was sent a copy with the inquest verdict. It was very straightforward. She caught a glancing blow from a truck and was thrown against a lamppost. Frankly, it was a tragedy waiting to happen\u2014they should never have let Graham Road be used as a shortcut\u2014 but I always thought a child would be hit, not someone as mindful of safety as Annie was.\"\n\nI nodded. \"She was wearing a dark coat the night she died, and the weather was frightful... rain like stair rods. I only saw her because I almost stepped on her as I was crossing the road.\" I put a hand on Dr. Arnold's arm as she prepared to open the driver's door. \"You said you were angry about her reputation being destroyed. Did you follow that up?\"\n\nA faraway look crept into her eyes as if she were searching some distant horizon. \"Not for three years. It may sound callous but I forgot all about her while I was in the States, and it wasn't until I saw what the builder had done to her house that it occurred to me to ask what had happened to the contents.\"\n\n\"Presumably they were sold off.\"\n\nShe went on as if she hadn't heard me. \"People had a very false impression of Annie because of the way she dressed and the way she behaved, but she wasn't a poor woman by any manner of means. She once showed me a list of valuations that a dealer had put on some of the artifacts, and my recollection was that the total came to over \u00a350,000. That was a fair sum in the 1970s.\"\n\n\"The police must know what happened to it all,\" I said. \"Did you ask them?\"\n\nShe gave a theatrical shudder. \"Not _them,\"_ she countered tartly, \"just the one. A man by the name of Sergeant Drury\u2014-Joseph Stalin's younger, ruder and more aggressive brother. It was his case so I wasn't allowed access to anyone else.\"\n\nI laughed. \"I knew him. It's a good description.\"\n\n\"Yes... well, according to him, Annie was destitute. They took some RSPCA inspectors in the day after the accident in order to remove her cats, and Drury said there was nothing of value in the house. Worse, he described the conditions inside as little short of a cesspit.\"\n\nI nodded again, remembering. \"It was mentioned at the inquest. The Coroner said the RSPCA should have taken her animals away from her when the neighbors first complained about the smell.\"\n\n\"Except squalor was alien to her nature,\" said Dr. Arnold, folding herself behind the steering wheel. \"I used to visit her regularly and it was a battle to stop her jumping up every ten minutes to wash her hands. She had a thing about germs\u2014it's a common symptom of Tourette's syndrome\u2014along with a compulsion to check the bolts on the front door hourly. Of course Drury didn't believe me. It was three years down the road and he decided I was confusing her house with someone else's.\" She reached out to shut her door, apparently under the impression that I understood what she was talking about.\n\nI held it open. \"What didn't he believe?\"\n\nShe blinked in surprise. \"Well... obviously... that Annie's house had been ransacked and everything of value stolen.\"\n\nIn the past, Sam had always shied away from discussions about Annie. I remember his embarrassment when I tackled a chief superintendent at a party in Hong Kong and pinned him to a wall with an hour-long diatribe on the inequities of the Richmond Police. Sam had hauled me away eventually and by the time we reached home his embarrassment had turned to fury. \"Have you any idea how idiotic you sound when you start talking about that bloody woman?\" he had demanded angrily. \"You can't lecture total strangers on garbage about the eyes being the windows of the soul if you want to be taken seriously. You're my wife, for Christ's sake, and people are starting to avoid the pair of us because they think you're as mad as she was.\"\n\nTwo decades on, and once he'd ruminated at length on the bizarre coincidence of having Sheila Arnold as our GP for a second time\u2014 \"You've got to admit, it's pretty damn spooky.... It's only a couple of days since Jock reminded me of Graham Road\"\u2014he was surprisingly interested in what Sheila and I had been talking about. I thought I knew why. He was never inclined to believe anything I said, but he rolled over to have his tummy scratched by doctors... particularly female ones.\n\n\"Does she agree with you? Does she think Annie was murdered?\"\n\n\"I'm not sure,\" I answered. \"All she said was the house had been ransacked.\"\n\nHe ruminated some more. \"When? Before Annie died, or after?\"\n\n\"What difference does it make?\"\n\n\"If it happened afterward,\" he said reasonably, \"then it means somebody knew she was lying in the gutter and grabbed the opportunity to break in.\" He gave his jaw a thoughtful scratch. \"Which in turn means she was probably out there a damn sight longer than the coroner said she was.\"\n\n\"That's one way of looking at it,\" I agreed, before wandering off to the kitchen to prepare some lunch. Old habits die hard, I find, and the subject of Annie had been taboo for so long between us that she wasn't easily resurrected from her grave.\n\nSam pursued me. \"And if it happened _before_ she died,\" he went on, \"that might explain why she drank herself into a stupor. It must have been a terrible shock to go home and find all her treasures gone. Poor woman, I've never understood why she did that. I mean, we saw her pretty tipsy on occasion but never so paralytic that she didn't know what she was doing.\" He flicked me an apologetic smile. \"I've always had a problem believing one of her neighbors pushed her under a lorry. Okay, some of them were shits, and some of them made her life miserable by complaining about her, but that's a far cry from committing cold-blooded murder.\"\n\nI opened the fridge door and wondered what sort of meal I could make out of half a can of tomatoes, some staggeringly old cheese and iceberg lettuce. \"She was five-foot-nine-inches tall and weighed fourteen stone,\" I murmured, \"and was exactly fifteen milligrams over the legal driving limit\u2014the equivalent of five shots of spirits or five pints of lager. By any stretch of the imagination that does not amount to drinking herself into a stupor.\" I pulled out the tin and inspected it for mold. \"In fact the chances were she wasn't even tipsy because she was a practiced drinker and could probably consume twice as much as the rest of us before showing any signs of drunkenness.\" I smiled at him. \"Look at yourself, if you don't believe me. You're a stone lighter and two inches taller, and you can put away eight pints of lager before you become embarrassing.\"\n\nHe retreated into his shell immediately because it was one thing for him to introduce the subject, and quite another for me to challenge the facts from superior knowledge. \"Everyone said she was paralytic,\" he said huffily\n\n\"Even if she was,\" I went on, \"what makes you think one of her neighbors didn't give in to a spur-of-the-moment temptation to shove her into the road? It was dark.... It was raining.... She was mad as a hatter... deeply irritating... the street was empty... and there was a truck coming. One quick shove and, hey presto, problem solved. No more blacks on the road and property values rise immediately.\" I lifted an amused eyebrow. \"No one ever said her murder was planned, Sam.\"\n\nTwo or three days later, a folder of photocopied documents arrived in the post from Sheila Arnold with \"Annie Butts\" written on the front. \"Thought the enclosed might interest you,\" she wrote on a compliments slip. \"It's not much, I'm afraid, because I gave up when I realized I was beating my head against a brick wall! PS How delightful to run into you both again.\"\n\nBy coincidence, it was the same day that Sam and I went for lunch in Weymouth, and Sam took against a man who seemed to be staring at me. We had chosen a pub overlooking the harbor, with tables outside, which allowed us to bathe in the sun and watch the yachts drift in and out of the marina every time the swing bridge lifted. It was a pretty place to while away a couple of hours, with eighteenth-century houses lining cobbled wharfs and battered trawlers unloading crates full of monkfish and crab, but Sam started bellyaching about the landlord who kept coming to the door to look at me, and my pleasure in the peaceful scene evaporated. I was wearing dark glasses and I studied the man secretly from behind my lenses. He was as lean and hungry as he had always been and undoubtedly as vicious. But he was better looking than Joseph Stalin... or Joseph Stalin's brother...\n\n**INCIDENT REPORT**\n\n**Date:** 15.11.78 **Time:** 11:15\n\n**Officer in charge:** PS Drury, Richmond Police\n\n**Incident:** Authorized entry to 30 Graham Road, Richmond, following the death of the owner, Miss Ann Butts. Neighbors had reported a number of cats trapped inside the property. No next of kin was available. **Officers attending:** PS Drury, PC Andrew Quentin. Also in attendance: RSPCA Inspectors: John Howlett, Tony Barrett\n\nEntry to the property was gained via the front door with a Yale key that Miss Butts was wearing on a string around her neck at the time of her death. The house was very cold with no central-heating provision. There were two gas fires in each of the downstairs rooms, but neither was lit at the time of entry. None of the windows was open, although a small casement in the back cloakroom was insecurely fastened due to a broken fixing.\n\nThe officers had been informed by neighbors that there were at least twenty cats inside the premises, and the smell of cats'urine in the front hallway was overpowering. The conditions inside the house were squalid and untidy\u2014in particular the downstairs cloakroom and the upstairs bathroom where neither toilet had been flushed and soiled paper was lying on the floors. Human feces was found in the two downstairs rooms. Boxes of empty vodka bottles were stacked against the kitchen walls.\n\nThe smell of cats'urine in the kitchen was particularly bad. Litter from a tray had been scattered across the linoleum floor and used indiscriminately by the animals. The RSPCA inspectors expressed concern that Miss Butts had wedged a small chest of drawers against the cat flap, which she had agreed to install after a previous visit from them. Numerous food and water bowls lined the edges of the floor, but all were empty.\n\nA search of the cupboards in the kitchen revealed inadequate provisions, both for Miss Butts herself and the colony of cats in her care. There was little in the way of tinned or boxed food, although there were fifteen pints of milk in her fridge and some raw meat, mostly chicken. \"Reduced price\" stickers suggested Miss Butts had acquired the goods cheaply, although subsequent inquiries at a local supermarket provided information that she picked over \"binned\" goods in order to obtain cat food free.\n\nThere were two downstairs rooms, excluding the kitchen and cloakroom, and the doors to both were open. These rooms had also been fouled by the animals, although to a lesser extent than the kitchen. In the front sitting room, three dead cats were found under a pile of cushions in a corner. In the opinion of John Howlett (RSPCA) all three had been dead for a minimum of four days. Two of them, both toms, had little or no fur on their faces and severe scratches to their bodies, and appeared to have died from untended wounds inflicted during a fight. The third, also a tom, had lost most of its fur and had died from a broken neck. Two more dead tomcats were discovered upstairs in Miss Butts's bedroom, wrapped in towels and placed in the wardrobe. Both were severely undernourished, shorn of fur and had broken necks.\n\nThe doors to all the upstairs rooms were closed. Five live cats, all toms, were found trapped in the back bedroom. The animals were in a distressed state, and had clearly been fouling the room for several days. All had bite and scratch wounds from fighting. There were bowls on the floor, which may have contained water or food, but were empty at the time of entry to the house. Apart from the dead toms in the wardrobe, the front bedroom contained four live queens and two neutered toms that were also in a distressed state.\n\nThe total number of cats removed from the premises by the RSPCA inspectors was twenty-one, five of which were dead.* Their full report (attached) concludes that the tomcats had suffered the worst neglect while the condition of the queens and neutered toms gave less cause for concern. It is their view that Miss Butts had been allowing the animals to foul the interior for some time\u2014in particular the tomcats whose odor is powerful and distinctive. They also pointed to clear evidence of cruelty in the shorn fur, broken necks and apparent willingness to allow the animals to fight \"to the death,\" and drew attention to the fact that it was the male animals that appeared to have been singled out for torture. The inadequate supplies in the kitchen and the estimated time of death of the dead cats suggests that Miss Butts had ceased to provide proper care and attention some five to seven days before her death.\n\nA superficial search of the house produced nothing to indicate the names and\/or addresses of Miss Butts's next of kin. A box of papers was removed from a cupboard in the front sitting room for later examination.**\n\nThe general impression received by those attending was that Miss Butts had been living in conditions of extreme poverty for some time. There were no carpets in either of the downstairs rooms, much of the furniture was broken and dilapidated and there were few adornments. The temperature in the house was cold, yet the gas supply in the cupboard under the stairs had been turned off. In addition, several fuses had been removed from the electrical circuits, although the main supply was still on. When an attempt was made to flush the toilets, it was discovered that the stopcock under the sink had also been turned off. One explanation is that Miss Butts had become worried about paying her utility bills. This may have been influenced by a dependence on alcohol.\n\n* Veterinarian postmortems of the five dead cats concurred with John Howlett's assessment at the time of entry to the premises. Two had died of untreated wounds following a fight; three had died after having their necks broken. All showed clear evidence of cruelty, specifically: fur ripped from their faces\u2014probably from the application of cellophane tape, parcel tape or carpet tape, which was then torn off. Also, two of the dead animals appeared to have had superglue applied to their lips and lids, residues of which remained on scraps of fur around their mouths and eyes. Estimated time of death: four to seven days prior to the bodies being found. Allowances were made for the cold conditions in the house, which had slowed decomposition.\n\n** All the papers were official: various bills\u2014some paid, some (gas and electricity) unpaid; a check book and bank statements; a building society book (Abbey National), showing \u00a315,340.21 in an interest-bearing account; TV license; and tax and rate receipts. There was an envelope containing assorted photographs of a woman (black) and man (white) with \"Mum\" and \"Dad\" or \"Elizabeth\" and \"George\" written on the back, but nothing else of a personal nature. Subsequent inquiries at Miss Butts's bank produced the deeds to the house, various share certificates and a current bank-account statement showing \u00a34,324.82 in credit. (NB: Miss Butts's bank manager said she was \"regularly abusive toward the cashiers and had bees in her bonnet about them stealing her money.\" He also said it wouldn't surprise him if she was confused about whether she could afford to pay her bills because she wasn't \"quite with it.\")\n\n**_Correspondence between Dr. Sheila Arnold and  \nInspector John Howlett, of the RSPCA\u2014dated 1983_**\n\n**39 LYVEDON AVENUE, RICHMOND, SURREY**\n\nInspector John Howlett\n\nRSPCA\n\nGuardian House\n\nTwickenham\n\nSurrey\n\nFebruary 22, 1983\n\nDear Mr. Howlett,\n\nI am making inquiries about a visit you and your colleague, Tony Barrett, made to 30 Graham Road, Richmond, just over three years ago on November 15, 1978. The house belonged to a woman called Ann Butts who died in a road accident, and you were asked to accompany the police to her house the following day in order to rescue her cats. I have a copy of the police report of the incident, but the report that you and your colleague made had been omitted. Do you still have a copy on file and, if so, would it be possible for me to read it?\n\nI was Miss Butts's general practitioner for several years and I have a number of concerns relating to the way the police described her living conditions. \"Squalid\" and \"living in conditions of extreme poverty\" does not accord with my memories of Miss Butts and\/or her house. With reference to her cats, my recollection is that they were always sleek, deeply loved and well cared for. In addition: my understanding is that, following complaints from Miss Butts's neighbors, you made several visits to 30 Graham Road in 1978, but that none of the complaints was upheld.\n\nFrom your memory of those visits, can you describe any of the West Indian or Central American ornaments or artifacts that she had in her front room? I am puzzled that the police have no record of their existence, particularly as Ann was proud of them and often told me how valuable they were.\n\nI should be most grateful for any information you can give me.\n\nYours sincerely,\n\n_Dr. Sheila Arnold_\n\n_Dr. Sheila Arnold_\n\nDr. Sheila Arnold\n\n_White Cottage  \nLittlehampton  \nNr Preston  \nLancashire_\n\nDr. Sheila Arnold  \n39 Lyvedon Avenue  \nRichmond  \nSurrey\n\nMarch 7, 1983\n\nDear Dr. Arnold,\n\nI regret to say that I retired from the RSPCA in June 1980, and, while my colleagues were kind enough to forward your letter to my new address in Lancashire, I no longer have access to files and cannot supply you with a copy of the report you requested. Nevertheless, I do recall the case quite well and am happy to pass on what I remember of Miss Butts.\n\nIn fact you're correct in saying I made several visits (four in total) to 30 Graham Road in the months prior to Miss Butts's death. You are also correct in saying that none of the neighbors' complaints was borne out by the evidence. Her cats were well looked after and in excellent condition. However, on none of those visits did I find more than seven cats in residence (six on the last occasion, following the death of one which affected Miss Butts deeply) nor was there any evidence to suggest there were more cats to find.\n\nI made two recommendations on my first visit in March 1978: 1) that she install a cat flap in the kitchen door to allow the animals free access to and from the garden; 2) that she consider having her tomcats neutered in order to mitigate her neighbors' complaints of offensive odor. She followed both recommendations and, despite continued complaints against her, I had no reason to suspect her of neglect and\/or cruelty to her animals. Indeed, I went further and suggested to the police that the complaints were malicious and would warrant investigation. However, I have no idea if anything was done about it.\n\nWhat my colleague and I found in her house on November 15, 1978, was a different matter altogether. Between my last visit\u2014some time in August 78\u2014and that November morning she seemed to have acquired another fifteen cats. If you have a copy of the police incident report, you will know that we found five tomcats dead, and another five severely distressed and injured behind the closed door of the back bedroom. Not to put too fine a point on it, the dead ones had either killed each other or had their necks broken, and the live ones had been so badly tortured and neglected that they were skin and bone, and covered in scratch and bite marks from fighting each other. A decision was made to put three of them down immediately and the other two died within forty-eight hours. Of the remaining eleven cats, all were either neutered or queens, six of which I was able to identify as the cats I had seen on my previous visits.\n\nIn my opinion, the police description of the house as \"squalid\" was an understatement. In truth, it was disgusting. The cat flap in the kitchen had been blocked by a piece of furniture with the result that the animals had been fouling the interior for several days. Miss Butts's own sanitary arrangements were appalling with reeking unflushed toilets and dirty paper and feces on the floors. I cannot stress too highly that I was horrified by what we found, although I have no idea why her circumstances had deteriorated so badly between August and November. There was evidence that she had been drinking heavily\u2014as I recall the police discovered in excess of fifty empty spirit bottles about the house\u2014and this may have contributed to her decline.\n\nI regret I cannot give any clear descriptions of West Indian or Central American ornaments from my previous visits. I do remember that Miss Butts had a number of interesting and colorful displays in her front room but I was never allowed to inspect them long enough to be precise about what they were. Sadly, she viewed me with suspicion because of my uniform and preferred to talk to me in the kitchen. I recall some vivid paintings on the wall opposite the sitting-room doorway and a display of peacock feathers in a brass artillery shell beside the front door; also, a pair of matching silhouette pictures in the hall which she told me represented her grandparents. However, the house was bare of ornamentation on November 15, and I assume she sold everything off to pay for her drinking habit.\n\nWith particular reference to the twenty-plus cats we found in the house, I can only speculate that she began to attract strays to the property following my last visit in August and panicked when the tomcats fought. It seems to me significant that: 1) there was evidence the toms'mouths had been taped, which implies she was trying to find a way to stop them from biting each other; 2) the cat flap was wedged closed with the intention, presumably, of trying to stop more strays from coming in, although why she chose to contain the ones already there remains a mystery. The male cats had received the worst treatment, which I found disturbing\u2014evidence perhaps that Miss Butts had developed some sort of obsession against men in general?\u2014and I do wonder if she chose to contain them for fear of giving her neighbors the proof of neglect and cruelty of which they habitually accused her.\n\nIn conclusion, I have always been sorry that her life ended in the way it did. She wasn't an easy woman to deal with as I'm sure you know. However, despite the official nature of my visits, I believe she looked on me as a friend and I'm saddened that she did not think to call me when my help might have made a difference.\n\nYours sincerely,\n\n**39 LYVEDON AVENUE, RICHMOND, SURREY**\n\nJohn Howlett, Esq.  \nWhite Cottage  \nLittlehampton  \nNr Preston  \nLancashire\n\nMarch 23, 1983\n\nDear Mr. Howlett,\n\nThank you for your letter of March 7.I should tell you that I visited Annie in her house two months before she died and there was nothing then to indicate a deterioration in her circumstances. I am not a cat lover myself, so did not take particular notice of the ones I saw that day. However, had there been more than normal I'm sure I would have registered the fact. Certainly there was no question of the house smelling.\n\nOne of the reasons for my visit was to tell her that I was going away for twelve months. Annie became extremely agitated at the news, which I had been expecting. Sufferers from Tourette's syndrome dislike change, so I sat with her for an hour in her sitting room talking about the colleague who would be taking over in my absence. I had ample opportunity, therefore, to evaluate the room and what was in it. Before I left, she said she wanted to give me a going-away present and invited me to choose something. We spent a further fifteen minutes examining the many treasures she had\u2014most of them quite small\u2014and I can say with absolute certainty that, on that day\u2014 September 8\u2014that room was full of ornaments.\n\nUnfortunately I am having huge difficulty persuading the police that the most likely explanation for the house being \"empty\" nine weeks later is that she was robbed. I have shown your letter to Sergeant James Drury\u2014one of the officers who accompanied you that day\u2014and he tells me that unless I can find someone who saw the interior during the week before her death, he must conclude, as you did, that she sold her possessions herself in order to buy drink. This was his most helpful contribution! Rather less helpful was his suggestion that my memory is at fault or, worse, that I am deliberately lying in order to gloss over my failure to safeguard the health of a patient. Neither is true. I cannot repeat often enough that the last time I saw Annie she was in good mental and physical health. There was no indication that she was drinking more than usual and certainly no evidence of incontinence.\n\nAt the time of her death, I assumed that the only privileged knowledge I had about her was her medical history. However, I now realize I also had privileged information about the inside of her house because I was among the handful of people who were allowed beyond the front door. Even the vicar was made to stand on the doorstep because she mistrusted his perceived friendship with her neighbors. I have located a social worker who was shown into the sitting room in 77 but her description of it, although it accords with mine, has been ruled too out of date to be of value. Sergeant Drury dismisses your recollection of \"vivid paintings,\" \"peacock feathers\" and \"silhouette pictures\" for the same reason\u2014i.e., your last visit was in August 78\u2014on the basis that three months was quite long enough for her to have disposed of the items herself.\n\nI won't bore you with my extreme irritation (and anger!) at having both my memory and my professional expertise questioned by a policeman who is clearly reluctant to reopen an old case, but I do wonder if you could try to picture to yourself what was on the right-hand side of the mantelpiece in the sitting room. The going-away present that Annie gave me came from there and, as I still have it, it would be very helpful indeed if I could demonstrate to Sergeant Drury that in this respect at least I am not \"imagining things.\" A positive and unprompted memory from one of her few \"friends\" would be invaluable.\n\nIt's only fair to tell you that I am extremely unimpressed by both Sergeant Drury and by the coroner, both of whom seem to have paid lip service to their responsibility for investigating Annie's death. While I wouldn't go so far as to say she was murdered\u2014as I understand one of her neighbors did\u2014I certainly believe she was reduced to a state of extreme anxiety by having her house invaded and her treasured possessions stolen. This, in turn, may have led to the deterioration in her circumstances and the overindulgence in alcohol, which was a contributory factor in her death.\n\nYours sincerely,\n\n_Dr. Sheila Arnold_\n\nDr. Sheila Arnold\n\n_White Cottage_  \n _Littlehampton_  \n _Nr Preston_  \n _Lancashire_\n\nDr. Sheila Arnold  \n39 Lyvedon Avenue  \nRichmond  \nSurrey\n\nMarch 24, 1983\n\nDear Dr. Arnold,\n\nI regret I cannot remember the mantelpiece at all, nor what was on it, but my wife has reminded me that one of the pictures in the sitting room was a framed mosaic of an Aztec god\u2014Quetzalcoatl\u2014 otherwise known as the plumed serpent or feathered snake. My wife is a lover of D. H. Lawrence's work and apparently I told her after one of my visits to Graham Road that Miss Butts owned an extraordinary mosaic of \"The Plumed Serpent.\" Sadly, I can barely remember either the picture or the conversation, but my wife is adamant that it was \"the mad black woman with the cats\" who had the Quetzalcoatl on her wall.\n\nTrusting this will be of help,  \nYours sincerely,\n\n**_Correspondence between Dr. Sheila Arnold and  \nRichmond Police\u2014dated 1983_**\n\n**39 LYVEDON AVENUE, RICHMOND, SURREY**\n\nSergeant J. Drury  \nRichmond Police Station  \nRichmond  \nSurrey\n\nMay 25, 1983\n\nDear Sergeant Drury,\n\nRe Miss Ann Butts, 30 Graham Road, Richmond, Surrey\n\nFollowing numerous conversations with you, both in person and on the telephone, I have become increasingly angry about your refusal to investigate the possible theft of property from Miss Ann Butts prior to her death on 14.11.78. In the absence of any other explanation, I am forced to conclude that Richmond Police are as indifferent to Miss Butts today as they clearly were at the time of her death.\n\nIt is unacceptable to say, as you did on the telephone this morning, that \"anyone as mad as Mad Annie could easily have blown a fortune on drink over a nine-week period.\" As your own report from the time states, she had \u00a34,000 in her bank account and \u00a315,000 in a building society. Therefore there was no necessity for her to sell her prized possessions as you claim she must have done. Nor can I stress too strongly that Tourette's syndrome is not a form of insanity, but rather an inability to control certain motor functions, and the fact that Miss Butts made faces and muttered to herself in no way affected her intelligence.\n\nI am now convinced that her extraordinarily rapid decline must have been due to her house being ransacked in the week before her death. I have said to you many times that an invasion of her property would have triggered extreme anxiety because of her compulsive\u2014therefore uncontrollable\u2014obsession with home and personal security, and it is pointless to keep arguing that she would have called the police if such an invasion had happened. All strangers worried her, including officials in uniform (cf. John Howlett's letter, dated March 7, '83) and if you and your colleagues treated her while she was alive with the sort of indifference you seem to be demonstrating now, she would have had no reason to trust you. In this one respect\u2014trusting strangers\u2014Ann's behavior could be described as irrational but only because obsessive behavior is compulsive. In all other respects her behavior was normal.\n\nI hesitate to say that your indifference amounts to contempt, although I am angry enough to believe that that is what it is. Yes, Ann suffered a neuropsychiatric disorder, and yes, she was black, but neither fact should influence your decision to pursue belated justice on her behalf.\n\nOf course it's true\u2014and I am quoting your own words\u2014that the cost of pursuing her alleged robbers will far outweigh any benefit to the taxpayer from the recovery of her possessions, but since when did justice have anything to do with cost? Justice is, and should be, impartial, yet your remark suggests that the police are selective in how, when and for whom they enforce the law.\n\nYours sincerely,\n\n_Sheila Arnold_\n\nDr. Sheila Arnold\n\nc.c. Police Superintendent Hathaway, Richmond Police Rt. Honourable William Whitelaw, home secretary\n\n**From the office of:**\n\n**Police Superintendent A. P. Hathaway** ,\n\n**Metropolitan Police, Richmond**\n\nDr. Sheila Arnold  \n39 Lyvedon Avenue  \nRichmond  \nSurrey\n\nJune 21, 1983\n\nRef: APH\/VJ\n\nDear Dr. Arnold,\n\nRe Miss Ann Butts, 30 Graham Road, Richmond\n\nThank you for the copy of your letter of May 25 to PS Drury, together with photocopies of correspondence and notes of telephone conversations, all of which I have read with interest. I have since discussed the case at some length with Sergeant Drury and, while I have some sympathy with your contention that Miss Butts was robbed prior to her death, I also agree with Sergeant Drury that no purpose would be served by investigating it.\n\nSergeant Drury admits that the inquiry in November 1978 did not take into account the possibility of robbery, however he stresses that at _no time_ was it suggested to him that the situation found inside Miss Butts's house was unusual. Quite the reverse. There was considerable evidence, already on record following complaints from her neighbors, that the house was overrun with cats; that there was a continuous unpleasant smell from the premises; and that her living conditions were unhygienic and squalid. In these circumstances I do not consider that Sergeant Drury was either indifferent or negligent in his handling of the case.\n\nThe incidence of theft and burglary in England and Wales is rising at over 15 percent per annum, with few successful convictions resulting from police investigations. These figures are a matter of public record, and politicians from all parties are now demanding tougher sentencing policies and increased funding for police forces in order to stem what has effectively become a crime epidemic.\n\nIn such a climate it would be unreasonable to order an investigation into a burglary that may or may not have happened five years ago; where the alleged victim is no longer alive to give evidence; where there is no accurate inventory of what was in her house; and where the chances of successful closure are zero. While I realize this is not what you want to hear, I hope you will understand the reasoning behind this decision. It would be different had there been any question marks over the manner of Miss Butts's death, but the inquest verdict was unequivocal.\n\nIn conclusion, let me assure you that Richmond Police take their responsibilities to all members of the public extremely seriously, irrespective of race, color, creed or disability.\n\nYours sincerely,\n\nPolice Superintendent A. P. Hathaway\n\n# four\n\n\"One of your letters to the RSPCA inspector mentions a going-away present that Annie gave you,\" I said to Sheila Arnold when she and her husband came to lunch the following Sunday. \"What was it?\"\n\nShe extended an arm. \"A jade bracelet,\" she said, turning a pale green bangle on her slender wrist. \"There was a set of them on her mantelpiece and she chose this one for me because she thought it suited my coloring. I had red hair in those days.\"\n\n\"I remember,\" I said.\n\nHer husband, Larry, a tall, soft-spoken American, stirred in his seat. \"In fact it's jadeite,\" he said, \"which is the most expensive of the jades. We had it assessed in '83 so that Sheila could demonstrate to the police that she wasn't imagining the value of what was in Annie's house.\" He circled the bracelet with a finger and thumb. \"It's of Mexican origin... probably eighteenth century... worth in excess of \u00a3200. Considering Sheila thinks there were ten in the set, it gives you some sort of starting point for estimating Annie's wealth.\"\n\nSam gave a low whistle. \"No wonder you wanted the police to investigate.\"\n\nSheila sighed. \"I still feel I should have pushed a bit harder... at the very least forced Drury to face a disciplinary hearing. He was appallingly negligent. Worse, a racist. He just assumed a black woman would be living in squalor.\"\n\nLarry clicked his tongue impatiently. \"That's twenty-twenty vision speaking. I agree the man was an asshole but he was correct about one thing... no one suggested there was anything odd about the house... even John Howlett, the RSPCA inspector, didn't challenge the conditions.\" He spoke with surprising firmness as if the subject were a touchy one between them. \"And there weren't enough hours in the day for you to commit any more time to Annie's cause, not with your practice and two kids to bring up. Also,\" he went on, turning to us, \"the Superintendent made sense when he talked about zero success rates. Sheila made a list of the things she remembered but it was very vague on detail and, as the police pointed out, there was no hope of a prosecution if she couldn't be more positive in her descriptions. In the end it seemed pointless to go on.\"\n\nWe were sitting outside on the terrace under the shade of a worn umbrella which had had most of its color bleached out by long summers of sunshine. The garden fell away at the back of the house and some sensible person in the distant past had had the foresight to construct a raised platform out of Portland stone, which gave a glorious view of the other side of the bowl-shaped valley in which we lived. It seemed strange to me how the English climate had changed during the years we'd been away. I had always thought of it as a green and luscious place, but the garden, paddocks and fields had turned brown in the heat, and the drought-starved flowers drooped their heads. Sheila and Larry were sporting matching panama hats and they made an elegant couple, she in a primrose-colored cotton dress, he in white shirt and chinos. I guessed him to be about ten years older than she was, and I wondered where they'd met and when they'd married, and whether the two children he'd mentioned were his or a previous husband's.\n\nI leaned across the table to refill their wine glasses while I thought lazily about going inside to fetch lunch, a simple affair of cold meat, salad and French bread. \"If it was one of her neighbors who robbed her,\" I said idly, \"they might have kept some of the pieces, particularly if they weren't of any value. The peacock feathers in the artillery shell, for example... the one John Howlett described. When I read his letter I couldn't help thinking they were the kind of things someone would hang on to, if only because feathers could never be specifically identified as Annie's.\"\n\nSheila eyed me curiously. \"You seem to have quite a down on her neighbors,\" she remarked. \"Why is that?\"\n\nSam answered for me. \"The whole damn street took against her after she labeled them racists at the inquest. They plagued us for weeks with abusive phone calls. It's the reason we left England.\"\n\n_Liar!_ I thought.\n\n\"No wonder you hate them,\" said Larry sympathetically.\n\nIt was a throwaway line, which Sheila, with a questioning lift of her eyebrows, invited me to expand upon. Instead I stood up and said it was time for lunch. I had learned to talk about threatening phone calls without becoming strident...\n\n... but _hate?_ That was a different matter entirely.\n\nSheila and I walked down to the paddock after lunch and leaned on the rail to watch the horses nibble halfheartedly at the withered vegetation. \"Larry and I always assumed it was professional thieves,\" she told me. \"I don't think it ever occurred to us that it might have been someone closer to home.\"\n\n\"How would professionals know what was in the house?\" I asked. \"You said yourself she never let anyone inside.\"\n\n\"That's equally true of her neighbors,\" she pointed out reasonably. \"She was more suspicious of them than she was of strangers.\"\n\n\"They used to look through her windows,\" I said, remembering how I'd come across a gang of young thugs making faces at her through the glass. \"The children were the worst. They thought it was funny to frighten her.\"\n\nSheila caught at the brim of her hat as a warm breeze blew across the field. \"Larry's convinced it was whoever did that valuation she showed me. He thinks it was a scam\u2014someone knocking on doors and posing as an art or antiques expert in order to find out which houses were worth robbing.\"\n\n_It makes sense_ , I thought.\n\n\"But I don't agree with him,\" she went on. \"I'm almost certain it was a Sotheby's valuation because I remember thinking that the figures must be right if a bona fide auction house had come up with them.\" She sighed. \"And now I'm furious with myself that I didn't question it at the time. I mean, the whole episode was very odd. What prompted her to get a valuation? And how on earth did she gear herself up to letting a stranger loose on her treasures?\" She shook her wrist and rattled the jade bracelet against her watch. \"When she asked me to choose a present she wouldn't let me touch anything. I had to choose by sight, not by feel.\"\n\n\"When did she show you the valuation?\"\n\n\"Sometime during the summer. I remember she was particularly difficult that day. One minute she wanted me to read it, the next she snatched it away as if she thought I was going to steal it. She used to get caught in mental loops that made her repeat the same words and actions over and over until something new pushed her on to another track. She could be very tiresome when she was in that sort of mood, which is probably why I didn't question what the valuation was for.\"\n\n\"An insurance condition?\" I suggested. \"No valuation, no insurance.\"\n\nShe gave an exasperated sigh. \"That's what the police said and it made me boiling mad. 'You can't have it both ways,' I told them. Either she was a mindless cretin who let cats and drink destroy her life, or she was so switched on that she was able to organize insurance for herself. It might have helped if I could have talked to her bank manager but by the time I got around to thinking about it he was long gone. Someone told me he was working in Saudi Arabia but I never followed it up.\"\n\n( _I_ had, and I could remember the man's answer verbatim down a crackly line from Riyadh. \"I can't help you, I'm afraid. Unfortunately Miss Butts decided I was stealing her money, so I passed her account to my deputy, who died five years ago.\")\n\n\"Did you think of contacting Sotheby's to find out if they still had a copy of the valuation and why she wanted it?\" I asked.\n\n\"No, but it wouldn't have made any difference if I had,\" she said with a dry laugh. \"Larry started getting stroppy about the amount of time I was wasting so I put the husband and children first and let Annie go.\"\n\nI thought about Sam's fury over the policeman in Hong Kong. \"It's very irritating, isn't it?\"\n\n\"What?\"\n\n\"Doing your duty.\"\n\n\"Yes.\" She pulled a wry smile. \"The worst is yet to come, though.\"\n\n\"How do you mean?\"\n\n\"Larry's older than I am and he's here under sufferance until I reach pensionable age... and that's only two years away. Then we retire to his condo in Florida.\"\n\n\"Why?\" I asked curiously.\n\n\"It's the bargain we made when he took on me and the children.\" She read my expression as criticism. \"We don't have the same sort of marriage as you and Sam. The plan was to return to the States when Larry retired, but he agreed to wait after I was offered this job in Dorset. He said he could tolerate another few years as long we weren't in London.\" She sighed. \"It's a long story... full of compromise.\"\n\n\"It sounds it,\" I said sympathetically. \"Do you want to live in Florida?\"\n\n\"No,\" she said honestly, \"but I want lonely old age even less. I've seen too much of it to consider it as an option.\"\n\nIt was a salutary warning, coming from a doctor. \"What makes you think Sam's and my marriage is any different?\"\n\nShe shrugged. \"He wouldn't abandon you if you gave him an ultimatum.\"\n\nI was about to point out that Sam had done it once and there was no reason to imagine he wouldn't do it again. But I realized she was probably right. Somewhere along the line our roles had changed and it was Sam who feared ultimatums now. \"He's more afraid of loneliness than I am,\" I said slowly, \"which means I hold the cards in our relationship...just as Larry does in yours.\"\n\nShe glanced at me in surprise. \"That's a very calculated way of looking at it.\"\n\n\"Born out of experience,\" I said lightly. \"I think real loneliness is to be abandoned _inside_ a relationship... to find yourself questioning your worth all the time. I know what that's like, and I know I can survive it. I imagine the same is true of Larry. He's been there, done it, got the T-shirt... and you haven't. Neither has Sam. It puts you both at a disadvantage.\"\n\n\"Larry wouldn't know what loneliness was if it smacked him in the face,\" she protested. \"He's the most gregarious creature I know. It drives me to distraction sometimes. I'm constantly being hauled out to social functions when all I want to do is sleep because I'm dog-tired from pandering to the ill all day.\"\n\nI smiled at her. \"That's the whole point. You're leading a fulfilled existence and Larry isn't. He has to go outside to find a sense of purpose. Yours is so strong you just fall asleep and prepare for the next day's challenges.\"\n\nShe propped her arms on the fence and stared across the field. \"Is this your way of telling me Annie was your sense of purpose?\"\n\n\"Part of it.\"\n\n\"You had babies,\" she said. \"Didn't they fill a gap?\"\n\n\"Did yours?\"\n\n\"No, but then I had a career. In any case I'm not remotely maternal. I can cope with my patients being totally dependent on me... but not my children. I expect my children to fend for themselves.\"\n\nI wondered if she was listening to herself, and whether she'd asked Larry how he felt about the professional\/private divide. \"Mine just added to the general anxiety,\" I said, joining her at the fence. \"My elder one did, anyway. We moved to Hong Kong while I was pregnant and a child was about the last thing I needed at that stage.\"\n\n\"How did Sam take it?\"\n\n\"Blindly.\"\n\nSheila gave a snort of laughter. \"What's that supposed to mean?\"\n\n\"He had a son,\" I said dryly. \"He was thrilled... just so long as someone else looked after it.\" We stood in companionable silence for a few moments, understanding each other. \"Do you still have a copy of the list you made of Annie's possessions?\" I asked her next.\n\n\"Isn't it in the file?\"\n\n\"No.\"\n\nShe looked doubtful. \"I'll have a look when I get home... the problem is we threw so much out when we moved down here seven years ago. The other thing that's missing is the correspondence I had with the social worker. I remember she wrote a long letter describing the interior of Annie's house, but none of it was in the file when I photocopied it for you. I'm afraid it must have come adrift during the move.\"\n\nI wondered what else had come adrift and indulged in a few dark thoughts about Larry, who clearly wasn't above a little sabotage to ensure that his needs came first. _Shades of Sam?_ \"Could you make another list?\"\n\n\"I can try. It won't be as detailed as the first. What do you expect to find?\"\n\n\"Nothing valuable,\" I said. \"Little things that someone might have kept.\"\n\n\"Like the peacock feathers?\"\n\nI nodded.\n\n\"They could never be used as evidence.\"\n\n\"I know but...\" I hesitated, afraid of sounding ridiculous. \"It's a stupid idea really but supposing you put on your list the peacock feathers, the silhouette pictures of her grandparents and... well, other things of little or no value... a wooden statue, say....\" I ran out of ideas. \"I just thought that if I found someone with a similar combination in their house, I'd at least feel I was on the right track.\"\n\nShe threw me a startled glance. \"Does that mean you're going to look?\"\n\nI shrugged self-consciously.\n\n\"But where would you start, for goodness'sake?\"\n\n\"Graham Road? There must be someone left who was there in 1978. If I knock on a few doors I might come up with something.\" I spoke only to give her an answer, not because I had any intention of taking such a scattergun approach. I watched her expression change to one of skepticism.\n\n\"But why? It'll just be a lot of hard work for nothing. Larry was right when he said there'd be no prosecution.\"\n\n\"I wouldn't be looking for a prosecution for theft, Sheila; I'd be looking for a prosecution for murder. As the chief superintendent said in his letter to you, it would be different if there were question marks over Annie's death.\" I smiled. \"Well, there are... and I intend to prove it.\"\n\nShe searched my face intently for a moment. \"What really happened between you and Annie that night?\" she asked abruptly. \"Drury showed me your statement, but you said she never spoke to you.\"\n\n\"She didn't.\"\n\n\"Then... _why?\"_\n\n\"I've got nothing better to do at the moment.\"\n\nIt wasn't much of an explanation but it seemed to satisfy her. \"I doubt many of her neighbors will still be there,\" she warned. \"Most of them had moved on even before we left.\"\n\n\"What about the vicar?\" I asked. \"He was always visiting people in Graham Road.\"\n\nShe pulled on the brim of her hat to shade her eyes from the sun. \"I don't think he's there anymore.\"\n\nI lifted one shoulder in a relaxed shrug. \"His successor at St. Mark's ought to be able to tell me where he is. Do you know his name?\"\n\n\"The new vicar? No.\"\n\n\"What about the one who knew Annie?\"\n\nShe didn't answer immediately, and I turned to look at her. Her expression was impossible to read because her eyes were still in shade, but the set of her jaw was very grim. \"Peter Stanhope,\" she said.\n\n**_Letter from Libby Williams\u2014-formerly  \nof 21 Graham Road\u2014dated 1982_**\n\n# five\n\nAn immediate pall fell over our little party when Sheila told Larry that I was planning to look up Peter Stanhope to see if he knew what had become of Annie's possessions. Neither of them seemed remotely interested that he had never been inside her house, and couldn't possibly know what possessions she had. His name alone spelled depression.\n\nLarry didn't like the idea at all and watched me warily from behind his wine glass, while Sam flicked worried glances around the three of us, clearly wondering who Peter Stanhope was and why his name should cause Larry concern. Sam became rather loud as a result\u2014he always hated finding himself at a disadvantage\u2014and, in an unkind way, I took pleasure from his embarrassment. He had only himself to blame, after all, for it was he who had imposed a silence on the whole subject.\n\nI spent half an hour that evening trying to locate the Reverend Peter Stanhope through directory inquiries, but no one of that name was listed in Richmond and the operator refused to look for Rev P. Stanhopes in other parts of England. Nor was there a listing for St. Mark's Church and, as I didn't know the name of the present vicar, I couldn't obtain the number of the vicarage either. It would all have been a great deal easier if Sam hadn't stood over me while I did it\u2014I could have suggested the operator try Stanhopes in Exeter, but I wasn't ready to show my hand quite so blatantly. In the end, and half-jokingly, I suggested Sam phone Jock Williams, a confirmed atheist, and ask him to drive to St. Mark's Church from his house on the other side of Richmond to see if the new vicar's name was printed on the board outside. To my surprise he agreed.\n\n\"He wants to know what's up,\" Sam said on his return to the kitchen where I was doing the washing up.\n\n\"What did you tell him?\"\n\n\"That the boss would have my guts for garters if I didn't help her track down 'Mad Annie's' missing valuables.\" He gave a quirky grin. \"He thought you were 'round the bend twenty years ago. Now he thinks we've both lost it. He asked me why anyone would think an old tramp like Annie had valuables.\"\n\nI propped a plate on the drain board. \"What did you say?\"\n\n\"Repeated what Larry told us about jadeite. It gave him a bit of a shock, as a matter of fact... said he didn't think Annie had two brass farthings to rub together.\"\n\n\"I expect he'd have been nicer to her if he'd known,\" I said tartly. \"Jock always responds better to the chink of money.\"\n\n\"Mm, well, he's now advising me to put my huge gains from Hong Kong into some offshore fund he's operating out of the Isle of Man. He's got a wheeze for avoiding tax and he's prepared to cut me in on the deal if I'm interested.\"\n\n\"Knowing Jock, it'll be illegal.\"\n\n\"Unethical certainly,\" said Sam cheerfully, \"but then he doesn't believe in a welfare state. Says it's against Darwin's theory of evolution. The sick, the lame and the poor are supposed to die. That's how natural selection works.\"\n\nI held up a fork to examine the prongs. \"He'll get his comeuppance one day,\" I said. \"Arrogant, self-serving bastards always do. That's the _unwritten_ law of natural selection\u2014old bulls die painfully.\" I eyed him suspiciously. \"I hope you told him where to stuff his tax wheeze.\"\n\n\"Not likely,\" he said. \"The only reason he's driven off to St. Mark's on a Sunday evening is because he thinks I'm going to swell his coffers with megabucks.\" He straddled a chair. \"How come you and Jock know each other so well? As I remember it, you used to avoid him as much as possible.\"\n\nThe question took me by surprise. \"What kind of 'knowing'are we talking about?\"\n\n\"I've no idea. That's why I'm asking.\"\n\nI tried unsuccessfully to hide a smile. \"Are you hinting at the biblical kind?\"\n\n\"Maybe.\"\n\nI snorted laughter through my nose. \"That's funny.\"\n\n\"Why?\"\n\n\"He's a boring little squirt with a power complex,\" I said. \"Even his wife didn't fancy him, so I don't know what makes you think I would.\"\n\n\"It was just a question,\" he said huffily\n\n\"What brought it on?\"\n\n\"He wasn't surprised when I told him you'd taken up Annie's cause again. He said he'd been expecting it.\"\n\n\"So?\" I asked curiously.\n\n\"He seems to know you better than I do. I thought you'd forgotten all about her. You haven't mentioned her name in twenty years.\"\n\n\"You asked me not to.\"\n\n\"Did I?\" he said with a puzzled frown. \"I don't remember.\"\n\nI wasn't sure how genuine the frown was, so I changed the subject. \"You shouldn't believe everything Jock tells you,\" I said. \"He's needling you, just as he's needling you about how much money he has. He enjoys making you squirm.\"\n\n\"Why?\"\n\nI shook my head at his na\u00efvet\u00e9. The trouble with my husband, I sometimes thought, was that he was too ready to take people at face value. It should have been a disadvantage to him in his career, but oddly enough it worked the other way because people responded positively to his easy acceptance of the image they wanted to present. When I first knew him, I thought he was using a peculiarly sophisticated form of reverse psychology but, as time passed, I came to understand that he genuinely had no conception of the sides that exist in most people's natures. It was his most attractive quality.... It was also the most irritating....\n\n\"Jock's a stirrer,\" I said lightly. \"He resents other people's happiness... particularly where relationships are concerned. He's only ever known disasters... divorced parents... a brother who killed himself... a failed marriage... no children.\" I pointed a pan scourer at Sam's heart. \"He wouldn't be needling you at all if you'd told him about your coronary and hadn't lied about how much money you've made. As far as he's concerned you've got everything. Health. Wealth. Happiness. Early retirement. A faithful wife. _And_ sons.\"\n\nSam laced his fingers behind his head and stared at the ceiling. \"He never got over his brother's death,\" he said.\n\n\"So you always say, but you never explain why.\" \"I didn't want you jumping to conclusions.\" I frowned at him. \"How did the brother kill himself?\" \"Hanged himself from a tree one day. There was no suicide note so the police thought it was murder and most of the suspicion fell on Jock because he took some money from the kid's bedroom after he was dead. In the end the coroner accepted that the boy had been depressed about his parents'divorce and came down on the side of suicide, but it wrecked the entire family, according to Jock. They all ended up blaming each other.\"\n\n\"That's sad,\" I said, meaning it. \"How old was he?\" \"Sixteen. Three years younger than Jock.\" \"God, that really _is_ sad. What happened to the parents?\" \"Jock lost all contact with them after the divorce. I don't think he even knows where they are anymore... whether they're alive... or whether they still care about him. He claims it doesn't worry him, then spends every waking hour trying to prove he's a man to be reckoned with.\" Sam lowered his eyes to look at me. \"It doesn't stop him being an arrogant, self-serving bastard but it probably explains the reasons behind it.\"\n\nIt explained a lot, I thought, as I promised to make a point of being pleasant when Jock came back with the name of St. Mark's vicar. What it didn't explain was where Jock had found the extra money that had allowed him to trade up his share in 21 Graham Road for a more impressive, and expensive, property near Richmond Park.\n\nIt was Wednesday before I was able to speak to Peter Stanhope in person. My previous calls had been answered by a recorded message and it seemed unreasonable to fill his tape with long explanations of who I was and why I wanted to talk to him. His new parish was in Exeter, about sixty miles west of Dorchester, and I was about to begin a letter to him when he answered the phone on Wednesday morning.\n\nI had spoken to him only once when we lived in Richmond, and I wasn't confident that he'd remember me as well as I remembered him. I gave him my name and said I wanted to talk to him about Annie Butts, \"the black woman who was run over by a truck.\"\n\nThere was a long pause and I had time to recall Libby's description of him as \"a fat little bloke with sweaty palms.\" I was beginning to wonder if the reason for the silence was because the phone had slipped from his hand, when he suddenly barked, \"Did you say Ranelagh? Any connection with the woman who claimed Annie was murdered?\"\n\n\"That's who I am,\" I said. \"I didn't realize the name would mean anything to you.\"\n\n\"Oh, goodness me, yes! You were quite famous for a while.\"\n\n\"For all of fifteen minutes,\" I agreed dryly. \"They weren't the most pleasant fifteen minutes of my life.\"\n\n\"No, I don't suppose they were.\" A pause. \"You had quite a tough time of it afterward.\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\nHe clearly didn't like one-word answers and sought for a change of subject. \"Someone told me you and your husband went abroad. Did that work out all right?\"\n\nI guessed it was his polite way of asking me if I was still married, so I assured him I was, gave him a thumbnail sketch of our twenty years away, mentioned my two boys, then asked him if I might pay him a visit. \"To talk about Annie's neighbors,\" I explained, wishing I could put a little more enthusiasm into my voice at the prospect of seeing him again. I was relying on his sense of duty to agree to the meeting, but I didn't believe he had any more relish for it than I did.\n\nA more noticeably guarded edge crept into his voice. \"Is that wise?\" he asked. \"Twenty years is a long time, and you seem to have done so well for yourselves... stayed together... made a family... put the unpleasantness behind you.\"\n\n\"You remember our little chat then?\" I murmured. \"I didn't think you would.\"\n\n\"I remember it well,\" he said.\n\n\"Then you'll understand why I want to talk about Annie's neighbors.\"\n\nI heard his sigh down the wire. \"What good will it do to rake over dead ashes?\"\n\n\"It depends what you find,\" I said. \"My father put a log on the fire once and a gold sovereign dropped out of it as it burnt. Someone had obviously hidden it in the tree and a couple of centuries later my father reaped the reward.\"\n\nAnother pause. \"I think you're making a mistake, Mrs. Ranelagh, but I'm free on Friday afternoon. You're welcome to come any time after two o'clock.\"\n\n\"Thank you.\" It was my turn to pause. \"Why am I making a mistake?\"\n\n\"Revenge is an unworthy ambition.\"\n\nI stared into a gilt-edged mirror that was hanging on the wall in front of me. It was old and cracked and, standing where I was then, it produced a lengthened image that made my face look thin and cruel. \"It's not revenge I'm after,\" I said with studied lightness. \"It's justice.\"\n\nThe vicar gave an unexpected laugh. \"I don't think so, Mrs. Ranelagh.\"\n\nI had no intention of taking Sam to Exeter so I told him it was pointless for the pair of us to go when the lawn needed mowing and the flower beds tidying. He seemed happy enough although I caught him looking at me rather strangely over breakfast. \"What's the matter?\" I asked.\n\n\"I was just wondering why everyone seems to be moving to the west country,\" he said.\n\nPeter Stanhope's parish was in the St. David's area of Exeter. I arrived too early and sat at the end of the road for an hour, watching the world go by through my windshield. I was on the edge of the university campus, and most of the pedestrian traffic seemed to be students\u2014groups of boys and girls carrying books, or young couples clamped at the hip and shoulder like Siamese twins. I found myself envying them, particularly the skimpily clad girls in bottom-hugging skirts and crop tops, who swung along in the sunshine and radiated the sort of confidence I had never had.\n\nThe original vicarage was an impressive Victorian mansion, hidden behind high hedges, with a real estate agent's board outside, advertising a \"desirable penthouse flat\" for sale. The new vicarage was a cheaply constructed cube, across the road from the church, lacking both charm and character. As I parked outside at exactly two o'clock, I was beginning to wish I'd had the sense to spend the last hour in a pub. Dutch courage would have been better than no courage at all. A part of me thought about driving away with my tail between my legs, but I noticed a net curtain twitch in a downstairs window and knew I'd been seen. Pride is always a stronger motivator than courage.\n\nThe door was opened by a tall, cadaverous-looking woman with a beak of a nose, shoulder-length grey hair and the speed of delivery of a machine gun. \"You must be Mrs. Ranelagh,\" she said, taking my hand and drawing me inside. \"I'm Wendy Stanhope. Peter's running late. It's his morning at the shelter. Battered wives, poor souls. Come into the kitchen. He told me you were driving from Dorchester. Are you hungry? What about a drink? Chardonnay do you?\"\n\nI followed her across the tiny hall. \"Thank you.\" I looked around the white melamine kitchen which was mind-numbingly uniform and hardly big enough to swing a cat. \"This is nice.\"\n\nShe thrust a glass into my hand with long, bony fingers. \"Do you think so?\" she asked in surprise. \"I can't stand it myself. I much preferred the one we had in Richmond. The church doesn't give you much choice, you see. You have to make do with whatever pokey little kitchen they give you.\" She took a breath. \"But there you go,\" she went on cheerfully, \"I've only myself to blame. No one forced me to marry a vicar.\"\n\n\"Has it been a good life?\"\n\nShe filled her own glass and tapped it against mine. \"Oh, yes, I don't have many regrets. I wonder sometimes what it might have been like to be a lap dancer, but I try not to dwell on it.\" Her eyes twinkled mischievously. \"What about you, my dear?\"\n\n\"I don't think I've got the body for it,\" I said.\n\nShe laughed happily. \"I meant, has life been good to you? You're looking well, so I assume it must have been.\"\n\n\"It has,\" I said.\n\nShe waited for me to go on and, when I didn't, she said brightly, \"Peter tells me you've been living abroad. Was that exciting? And you've two boys, I believe?\"\n\nThere was so much blatant curiosity in her over-thin face that I took pity on her\u2014it wasn't her fault that her husband was late\u2014and talked enthusiastically about our years abroad and our children. She studied me over the rim of her glass while I spoke, and there was a shrewd glint in her eyes that I didn't much like. I wasn't used to having people see straight through me, not after so many years of growing an impenetrable skin.\n\n\"We've been lucky,\" I finished lamely.\n\nShe looked amused. \"You're almost as good a liar as I am,\" she said matter-of-factly \"Most of the time I can contain my frustration, but every so often I drive to a wide-open space, usually a cliff top, and scream my head off. Peter knows nothing about it, of course, because if he did he'd think I was mad and I simply couldn't bear to have him fussing round me.\" She shook her Lear-like locks in grotesque parody of a lap dancer. \"It's quite absurd. We've been married forty years, we have three children and seven grandchildren, yet he has no idea how much I resent the utter futility of my existence. I'd have made an excellent vicar, but my only choice was to play second fiddle to a man.\"\n\n\"Is that why you scream?\"\n\nShe refilled my glass. \"It's more fun than having a hangover,\" she said.\n\n**_Psychiatric report on_**  \n ** _Mrs. M. Ranelagh\u2014dated 1979_**\n\n**QUEEN VICTORIA HOSPITAL**\n\n_Hong Kong_  \n _Dept. of Psychiatry_\n\nA consultation was requested for Mrs. M. Ranelagh of 12 Greenhough Lane, Pokfulam, Hong Kong, by her general practitioner, Dr. J. Tang, querying postpartum depression after the birth of her son, Luke (DOB 20.10.79). According to her husband, she has been suffering from depression for some time. She refuses all medication. Mrs. Ranelagh had a two-hour consultation with Dr. Joseph Elias on December 19, 1979.\n\n(The following extracts are taken from Dr. Elias's report, which was released to Mrs. Ranelagh in February 1999.)\n\n... Mrs. Ranelagh was a difficult patient. She insisted on making it clear from the outset that her only reason for attending was to prove once and for all that she wasn't suffering from depression. She was uncooperative and angry. She expressed considerable hostility toward \"men in authority\" and \"people who throw their weight about,\" and referred to \"coercion,\" \"bullying\" and \"intimidation\" on a number of occasions. When I suggested to her that, far from persuading me to give her a clean bill of health, such statements were leading me to question the existence of a paranoid disorder, she agreed to cooperate.\n\n... She admits to feelings of emotional turmoil following various events that happened at the end of last year and the beginning of this in London. She refused to discuss these in any detail for fear of confirming my suspicion of paranoia, however, she touched on three\u2014two of a highly personal nature\u2014to explain her \"anger.\" She produced a number of newspaper clippings as evidence that the first incident had occurred\u2014the death of a black woman\u2014but was unable to support her other allegations. Without independent confirmation, I cannot say whether the subsequent incidents a) happened or b) are a construct to validate her sense of injustice re the black woman's death.\n\n... The main focuses of her resentment are her husband (resident with her in Hong Kong) and mother (resident in England), whom, for various reasons, she feels betrayed her. This has resulted in a \"coldness\" toward them, which she \"needs time to overcome.\" She describes her pregnancy as \"ill-conceived\"\u2014(pun intentional?)\u2014pointing to the difficulties of starting a new life abroad while carrying a baby to term. She talks lovingly about the child, calling it \"my baby,\" while blaming her husband for \"exposing her to an unplanned pregnancy.\" She retains a close bond with her father (resident in England), whom she contacts regularly by telephone and who is her only confidant. In addition, she listed a number of related problems: a dislike of being touched; feelings of insecurity when alone in her house; an obsession with hygiene; dislike of certain sounds\u2014i.e. doorbells, London accents, rats scratching(?).\n\n... I advised her against forging alliances\u2014particularly with her father, who is \"conducting some research\" for her\u2014which her husband will almost certainly see as betrayal if he finds out. I also pointed to the potential danger of making an ally of her son as he matures. She concurred on both counts, but remains adamant that her marriage will end tomorrow if she forces another confrontation with her husband. This is not what she wants. She rejected my offer of a joint session with herself and Mr. Ranelagh, as she believes that neither of them would be able to talk honestly without causing the immediate separation referred to above. Her feelings for her husband are confused. She seems to re tain a close bond with him despite her resentment and believes her decision earlier this year to stay in the marriage was the right one. Nevertheless she is intent on punishing him for sins of \"omission and commission.\"\n\n... Mrs. Ranelagh presents herself as an intelligent, self-aware woman who is trying to come to terms with some extremely unpleasant, and as yet unresolved, issues in her life. Once satisfied that she had persuaded me she was not a \"depressive\"\u2014a view I encouraged\u2014 she talked at length about her intention to seek \"closure,\" although she is clearly ambivalent about what sort of closure she wants. In simple terms, she prefers the more anodyne description of \"justice\" for her black friend to the rather more accurate one of \"revenge\" for herself.\n\n... When I warned her that prolonged internalized anger, be it well-founded or capricious, could lead to the sort of paranoid disorder\u2014persecutory, delusional, phobic\u2014that she was so determined to dissociate herself from, she said the damage had already been done. \"I'm between a rock and a hard place, Dr. Elias. I'm a coward if I give in and a neurotic bitch if I fight back.\"\n\n... In conclusion, I can find no evidence of depression in this patient. She is obsessive and extremely manipulative, but is also well in command of herself. I found her rather frightening....\n\n# six\n\nIn the end I exchanged less than twenty words with Peter Stanhope. He bustled in half an hour late, full of apologies for the delay, only to be sidetracked almost immediately by a telephone call. Pausing only to say it was important, he disappeared into his study and left his wife to murmur courtesies into the receiver until he picked up the extension. It hardly mattered. Wendy was a mine of information, and I was fairly sure they weren't the sort of facts I would ever have had from her husband since most of it was gossip, and some of it was scurrilous.\n\nWhile waiting for Peter's return we had transferred to the sitting room, where Wendy had tried to relieve me of my small single-shoulder rucksack, not realizing that it was held by a buckle across my chest. She was surprised by how heavy it was and how reluctant I was to let it go. I relented enough to unbuckle the chest strap and lower it to the sofa beside me\u2014but if she wondered why I needed to bring the kitchen sink on my travels she was too polite to say anything. I was clearly an enigma to her, for whatever picture she had in her mind of a crusading zealot it certainly wasn't me.\n\nShe made a small moue as she replaced the receiver, and I wondered how often she was left to hold the fort and how accommodating Peter would be if their roles were reversed and she were the vicar and he the helpmeet. My expression must have been more revealing than I realized.\n\n\"Has he let you down, my dear?\" she said into the silence.\n\n\"Not at all,\" I assured her. \"I wanted to talk about Annie's neighbors on Graham Road and I think you probably know more about them anyway.\"\n\nShe fixed me with her all-seeing eyes. \"I meant in the past,\" she said gently. \"Did he let you down before?\"\n\n\"In a way,\" I said, looking about the room to avoid looking at her. \"He told me I was hysterical when I wasn't.\" Wendy was apparently a collector of porcelain figures because every surface seemed to have them. She had a fine array of white Dresden ladies along her mantelpiece and some tiny hand-painted birds in a small glass cabinet on the wall. Photographs were her other love, with pictures of her family everywhere, and a huge blown-up snapshot of seven laughing children on one wall. \"Who are they?\" I asked, nodding in their direction.\n\nShe accepted the change of tack without demur. \"My grandchildren. It was one of those rare moments when they all looked their best.\" She gave a little chuckle. \"Usually one of them can be relied on to scowl.\"\n\n\"Who took it?\"\n\n\"I did.\"\n\n\"It's brilliant,\" I said truthfully. \"Forget being a vicar, you should have been a professional photographer.\"\n\n\"I was for a time... well, semi-professional. I used to do the weddings at St. Mark's, particularly for the couples who didn't have much money to spend.\" She pulled open a drawer in a desk to one side of the fireplace and produced a bulging photograph album. \"I think this might interest you. Most of Annie's neighbors are in here somewhere.\"\n\nShe passed it across to me and I flicked my way through a pictorial history of weddings, christenings, funerals and feast-day services at St. Mark's. The pictures from the '70s made me smile because the fashions were so dated\u2014men in suits with flared trousers, frilly shirts and chunky identity bracelets; women with big hair, wearing empire-line dresses and slingback shoes. There was even a picture of me at Annie's funeral, twenty-four years old and desperately self-conscious in a brand-new black maxi-overcoat which hadn't fitted properly and gave me the look of an orphan in someone else's cast-offs. I recognized very few of the faces because they weren't all from my era, but some I remembered.\n\n\"Why did you take so many?\" I asked Wendy. \"You can't have been paid for all of them.\"\n\n\"I thought it would be interesting for future generations,\" she said. \"I wanted to leave copies with the parish register so that when people came looking for information about their families, there'd be a visual record as well as a written one.\" She laughed. \"It wasn't a very good idea. There was so much time and paperwork involved in cross-referencing pictures with written entries that I got snowed under very quickly. After that I went on doing it for fun.\"\n\n_She does a lot of things for fun_ , I thought, warming to her. I even began to wonder if I could excuse what I was doing in the same way. Would anyone accept that I was asking questions about Annie's death because I was bored? I touched a finger to a picture of a family group. \"The Charleses,\" I said. \"They lived next door to us at number 3.\"\n\nWendy moved across to sit next to me on the sofa. \"Paul and Julia, plus two children whose names I can't remember. Peter christened one of them and it howled nonstop throughout the service. These were the christening photographs.\"\n\n\"Jennifer,\" I told her. \"She used to cry all night. Sam went 'round once to read the riot act because we couldn't sleep for the row that was going on, but Julia was so exhausted she burst into tears on the doorstep and he couldn't bring himself to do it. After that we took to wearing ear plugs. Jennifer's about twenty-four now and working as a solicitor in Toronto. The whole family emigrated to Canada in 1980.\"\n\n\"Goodness me! You _are_ well informed.\"\n\n\"I recognize this man's face,\" I said, pointing to another picture.\n\n\"Derek Slater,\" she told me. \"He was a horrible brute... used to beat his wife and children when he was drunk. The poor creature was always taking refuge with us because she was so frightened of him.\" She turned a page and pointed to a dark-haired woman holding a toddler in her arms. \"That's her... Maureen Slater. She had four children by him\u2014two boys and two girls\u2014all of whom got thrashed at one time or another. Derek was always being arrested... usually for drunk and disorderly... although I believe he had theft convictions, too.\" She placed a finger on the toddler's face. \"Derek certainly spent time in prison because this little chap came long after the other three. As far as I know Maureen's still living on Graham Road, but goodness knows where Derek went. There was a terrible fight some time in 1979 or '80 when his elder son finally found the courage to take a baseball bat to him and told him to leave.\"\n\n\"That would be Alan?\"\n\n\"Yes. Did you know him?\"\n\n\"I taught him English for a year... a tall, heavily built child with hands the size of dinner plates. They lived next to Annie at the end of the terrace. Number 32. Do you have a picture of Alan?\"\n\n\"I think so... but he wasn't in church when I took it. As far as I recall the only time he ever set foot in St. Mark's was to see if there was something worth stealing.\" She tut-tutted to herself. \"He was a frightful thief, stole my mother's brooch from under my nose when I offered Maureen sanctuary one day, and I've never forgiven him for it. Mind you, all her children were thieves... only to be expected, I suppose, with a father like Derek. It's very sad the way the sins of the fathers are visited on the next generation.\"\n\n\"Did you report the theft?\"\n\nShe sighed. \"There was no point. He'd just have denied it. And it was my fault, anyway. I should have been more careful. After that I made sure everything was locked away whenever they came to the house.\"\n\nI wondered what else Alan had got away with. \"He tried to steal from me, too,\" I told her. \"I left my bag on my desk while I went to collect some notes from the staff room, and when I came back he was going through my wallet. I didn't report him either.\" I tapped a finger against my lip where a tiny tic of hatred pulsed and throbbed beneath the skin. \"I'd never have let my own children get away with it.\"\n\n\"No,\" she said slowly, watching me with her sharp eyes, \"but I don't suppose you liked Alan much so you overcompensated.\"\n\nI didn't answer.\n\n\"I'd forgotten you were a teacher,\" she said to break the silence.\n\nI nodded. \"For my sins.\" I ducked my head down for a closer look at Derek Slater's face. He had long, dark hair and a pleasant smiling face and appeared anything but a wife-beater. \"What did Derek go to prison for?\"\n\n\"I've no idea. Theft? Assault?\"\n\n\"On his wife?\"\n\n\"A woman certainly. I don't think he was brave enough to pick fights with men.\"\n\n\"Who's this?\" I asked, touching a picture of a heavily made-up blonde, simpering at the camera from beneath a wide-brimmed hat.\n\n\"Sharon Percy,\" said Wendy, turning her mouth down at the corners. \"Mutton dressed as lamb. She wasn't far off forty when that was taken but most of her bosom's hanging out and her skirt barely covers her knickers. You must remember her. She lived next to Annie on the other side from the Slaters and was forever complaining about her.\" She heaved a sigh. \"Poor Annie. She was sandwiched between the two worst families in the street\u2014a thieving violent family, the Slaters, on one side and a tart with an out-of-control son on the other.\"\n\nSharon Percy\u2014aka Jock's floozy and Libby's \"bleached vampire,\" I thought with amusement. \"I don't believe I ever saw her,\" I said, \"or if I did I don't remember. I taught her son, Michael... at the same time I was teaching Alan Slater, but I don't think she ever came near the school.\"\n\n\"She was a dreadful woman,\" said Wendy tartly, \"little better than a prostitute... entertained a different man in her house every night... but she still thought she was superior to a black woman... made Annie's life a misery with her endless complaints to the council.\"\n\nI studied the young-old face with interest and recalled some of the rednecks we'd met in South Africa. \"It's the 'poor white' syndrome,\" I said slowly. \"The lower you are in the pecking order the more important it is to have someone beneath you.\"\n\n\"Mm, well that was certainly true of Sharon.\"\n\nIt seemed a very unchristian attitude and I wondered what the woman had done to make Wendy dislike her. \"How do you know so much about her?\" I asked curiously. \"Was she a regular churchgoer?\"\n\n\"Oh, yes. Regular as clockwork as long as Peter was willing to give her an hour a week to discuss her problems. Hah!\" she snorted suddenly. _\"Alleged_ problems, I should have said. Called him _Father_ Stanhope because she knew it would appeal to his vanity. It was only when she started putting her hand on his thigh that he realized what she was up to and told her he wouldn't see her again unless I sat in on the discussion. After that she never set foot inside the church again.\"\n\nI hid a smile. For all her declared frustration with her marriage, she could still feel jealousy. \"Did she ever marry?\"\n\n\"Not when we knew her. I couldn't even say who Michael's father was, and I don't suppose Sharon could either. The poor child was always getting into trouble with the police and Peter would be dragged out at midnight to stand in loco parentis because his mother was flat on her back somewhere.\"\n\n\"Turned fourteen in '78,\" I said, remembering. \"Dark-haired, rather adult-looking... always wore white T-shirts and blue jeans.\"\n\nShe nodded. \"He wasn't a bad lad, just hopelessly out of control. He was very bright and very articulate\u2014the complete opposite to Alan Slater, who could hardly speak without uttering an obscenity. I was rather fond of him, as a matter of fact, but he wasn't the type to give his affection easily.\" A wistful expression crossed her face. \"I read in the newspaper about six years ago that a Michael Percy had been sentenced to eleven years for armed robbery. The age was right but the photograph was very different from the boy I remembered.\"\n\nI couldn't bring myself to shatter her illusions. \"Does Sharon still live at number twenty-eight?\"\n\n\"Presumably. She was certainly there when we left in '92.\" She took the album from me and leafed through the pages until she came to a picture of a gray-haired man with a pointed, raddled face like a tortoise. \"Geoffrey Spalding,\" she said. \"Married to a woman called Vivi-enne who died of breast cancer in '82. Poor creature\u2014she fought a long battle against it\u2014nearly five years in all. I took this at her funeral. They lived across the road from Sharon, and it was one of the big scandals that, while his wretched wife was dying, Geoffrey spent more time in Sharon's house than he did in his own. He moved in for good about six months after Vivienne's death.\" She sighed again. \"The whole business upset Geoffrey's children terribly. He had two teenage daughters who refused to acknowledge that Sharon even existed.\"\n\n\"Did they move in with her as well?\"\n\n\"No. They stayed across the road and took care of themselves. It was all very sad. They had virtually no contact with Geoffrey afterward except to post the gas and electricity bills through his door. I think they blamed him for their mother's death.\"\n\n\"I suppose we all lash out when we're hurt,\" I said, thinking of Jock and his parents. \"It's human nature.\"\n\n\"They were very quiet girls... rather too quiet, I always thought. I can't ever remember seeing them laugh. They started caring for their mother when they were much too young, of course. It meant they were never able to make friends with their own age group.\"\n\n\"Do you remember their names?\"\n\n\"Oh Lord, now you're asking.\" She pondered for a moment, then shook her head. \"No, dear, I'm sorry. They were pretty girls with blonde hair and blue eyes... always reminded me of Barbie dolls.\"\n\n\"You said they were teenagers when their mother died. Late teens or early teens?\"\n\n\"I think the elder was fifteen and the younger thirteen.\"\n\nI did some mental arithmetic. \"So they'd have been eleven and nine when Annie died?\"\n\n\"More or less.\"\n\n\"They were called Rosie and Bridget,\" I said. \"They used to walk to school every morning, hand-in-hand, wearing beautifully ironed uniforms and looking as if butter wouldn't melt in their mouths.\"\n\n\"That's right,\" said Wendy. \"What a wonderful memory you have.\"\n\n_Not really_ , I thought. Before Annie's death the two girls and I had been friends. We would greet each other with smiles and hellos, I on my way to one school, they on their way to another. Then, for no reason that I ever understood, everything changed in the months following Annie's death. Their wide smiles vanished and they avoided looking at me. Once upon a time Bridget had had pigtails like her sister until someone cut them off and posted them in long, blond strands through our letter box. At the time I didn't know their surname or which house they lived in. All I knew was that Rosie grew paler and thinner, while nine-year-old Bridget's hair was long one day and short the next. But I had no idea why the ends were sent to me or what their significance was.\n\n\"I didn't know their mother was ill,\" I said sadly. \"I used to think what a nice woman she must be because they were so sweetly behaved in contrast to some of the others.\"\n\nMore sighs. \"They were very lost after she died. I tried to help them but Geoffrey became appallingly belligerent and told me to stop interfering. There's only so much you can do, unfortunately... and Geoffrey made them suspicious of me by saying I was trying to have them put into care. It wasn't true, but they believed him, of course.\" Her mouth turned down at the memory. \"He was a beastly little man... I never did like him.\"\n\n\"Are either of the girls still on Graham Road?\" I asked.\n\nShe looked troubled. \"No, and the awful thing is I've no idea where they went or what happened to them. I believe Michael was living with them at one point, but he was in and out of juvenile prison so much it was difficult to keep track. I asked Geoffrey once what had happened to them but he brushed me aside as if I were an irritating gnat. A most pernicious creature. I've always felt he and Sharon deserved each other.\"\n\nI brought her back to Rosie and Bridget. \"Did the girls marry?\"\n\nShe shook her head. \"I couldn't say, my dear. If they did it wasn't in St. Mark's.\" She paused for reflection. \"Mind, the report on the armed robbery\u2014the one about Michael Percy\u2014mentioned a wife called Bridget\u2014and I thought at the time\"\u2014she pursed her lips into a tight little rosebud\u2014\"well, well! All those children were close. They used to run around in a gang together... couldn't prize them apart most of the time.\"\n\nI wasn't there to score points with superior knowledge so I searched for a photograph of Jock Williams instead. Predictably, I couldn't find one. He vaunted his atheism as loudly as a born-again Christian vaunts Jesus's love, and he wouldn't set foot inside a church if his soul depended on it. There was a picture of Libby talking to Sam and me at Annie's funeral, and I pointed it out to Wendy and asked her if she'd ever met the husband. \"His name was Jock Williams. They lived at number 21.\"\n\n\"What did he look like?\"\n\n\"Late twenties... about five years older than Libby... dark-haired, quite good-looking, five foot ten.\" Another shake of her head. \"He and Libby divorced eighteen months after Annie died. Libby took herself off to Southampton but Jock moved to a three-story town house in Alveston Road.\"\n\nWendy smiled apologetically. \"To be honest I wouldn't have known who this woman was if you hadn't told me. Is it important?\"\n\n\"Probably not.\"\n\nShe watched me for a moment. \"Meaning it is,\" she declared. \"But why?\"\n\nI concentrated on a small figurine on a side table which was the same shade as Sheila Arnold's bracelet. \"Most people have to settle for smaller houses when they get divorced,\" I said mildly, wishing I knew more about jade. \"Jock moved into a bigger one.\"\n\nShe was clearly puzzled by my interest. \"It was the way we were living then. People took absurd risks on property after Margaret Thatcher came to power. Sometimes it worked and sometimes it didn't. I remember one of our parishioners saddled himself with a mortgage of nearly \u00a3200,000 and doubled his investment within five years. Another bought just as the market peaked and within a few months found himself owing more than the house was worth. Your friend was lucky.\"\n\nI nodded agreement. \"What about Maureen Slater's and Sharon Percy's houses?\" I asked her. \"If they're still living on Graham Road does that mean they remained as council tenants or did they exercise their right to buy?\"\n\n\"Oh, they bought, of course,\" she said sourly. \"Everything in public ownership was sold off within the first two or three years. It was laughably cheap... no one in their right mind would have turned their backs on an offer like that. Sharon paid for hers outright, I believe, and Maureen opted to stagger her payments. Now, of course, they're quids in. Their houses are worth about \u00a3200,000... and they paid an absolute pittance for them because the wretched taxpayers subsidized the sales.\"\n\nI smiled. \"You don't approve.\"\n\n\"Why would I?\" she countered crossly. \"Every time I see a homeless person lying in a doorway I think how criminal it is that there's no housing left for the genuinely deprived.\"\n\n\"Some might say Maureen Slater was genuinely deprived,\" I murmured. \"She took a lot of punishment from her husband.\"\n\n\"Yes, well, Maureen's different,\" she admitted grudgingly. \"Her brain was turned to mush by that brute. Peter used to describe her as 'punch drunk' from all the beatings, but if I'm honest I think real drunkenness probably had more to do with it. She was just as addicted to alcohol as Derek was... though with rather more justification.\" She caught my surprised expression. \"Anesthesia,\" she explained. \"It must have been very painful to be used as a sparring partner.\"\n\n\"Still...\" I said slowly, \"if her brain was turned to mush, how could she have afforded to buy her house? Presumably she couldn't work, so what did she use for money... even if it was only a pittance that she had to find?\"\n\nThere was a long silence.\n\n\"What aren't you telling me?\" demanded Wendy finally.\n\nI took time to consider my answer, but in the end I decided to be straight with her. \"I met Sheila Arnold recently... Annie's doctor. She told me Annie was robbed. Now I'm wondering who robbed her, how much they made on the deal and what the money was used for.\"\n\n\"Oh, dear, dear,\" said Wendy with genuine concern. \"I really don't think there's any truth in that story. Sheila only came up with it when she was accused of neglecting another patient\u2014and that was three or four years after Annie died. She wasn't remotely interested until her own interests were compromised.\" She tapped the tips of her fingers together in agitation. \"It was all a bit strange. Not a word said for ages... then suddenly Sheila expects us to believe that, far from being the vulnerable soul we thought she was, Annie was a wealthy woman, living in comfort, until shortly before she died. It all became very unpleasant very quickly... insults being thrown about... everyone accusing everyone else of lying.\"\n\nI didn't say anything, and she seemed to think she'd upset me.\n\n\"Are you disappointed?\" she asked. \"I'm so sorry. Peter told me what a shock Annie's death was to you.\"\n\n\"Please don't apologize.\" I wondered what else Peter had divulged. \"I'm not disappointed.\" I opened my rucksack to reveal a six-inch-thick file, then took out an envelope of press clippings and flicked through the pile till I came to June 1982. \"Is this the story you mean?\" I asked her, handing her the \"Local doctor denies neglect\" report.\n\n\"Yes,\" she said slowly, glancing up from the yellowed paper. \"How long have you had it?\"\n\n\"Sixteen years. It was the fifth time Annie's name was mentioned in the press since the publicity over her death. These\"\u2014I removed the remaining clippings from the envelope and flicked my thumb down the guillotined edges\u2014\"are all the other references. Her case is generally cited to illustrate the dangers of allowing vulnerable people to fend for themselves.\" I smiled slightly at Wendy's expression. \"Various friends save articles for me. Also, I pay my old university library to monitor the local and national press for any mention of Ann Butts,\" I explained.\n\n\"Good gracious!\"\n\n\"And for any mention of the two police officers who investigated her death,\" I went on, removing another envelope. \"These are the articles that refer to them. One, PC Quentin, died in a car crash seven years ago. The other, PS Drury retired from the police in 1990 to take over a pub in the Radley brewery chain. There are also clippings about anyone mentioned in previous articles... for example, there's a reference to Dr. Arnold's move to Dorchester... and one about you and your husband leaving St. Mark's to take up a parish in the west country.\"\n\nShe looked at the piece on Sheila's alleged negligence. \"The previous reference to us being Peter's quote at the end, I suppose?\"\n\nI nodded. \"He didn't pull any punches either. 'There's no excuse for this kind of neglect. Lessons should have been learnt... so that the same mistakes could not happen again.' \" My eyes strayed toward the jade figurine. \"Did he know what he was talking about? Had he ever been inside Annie's house?\"\n\nWendy shook her head. \"She wouldn't give him the time of day because she knew Maureen took refuge at the vicarage.\"\n\n\"Then he had no business to talk about 'this kind of neglect,'\" I said lightly. \"It suggests an informed comparison, which he couldn't make, and it was hardly surprising that Sheila was upset about it.\"\n\n\"I know,\" she agreed unhappily. \"The only good thing is, he didn't mention her by name.\"\n\nI shrugged. \"He didn't need to. It's perfectly clear who he's talking about. In any case, the newspaper probably edited it out to avoid a libel suit. The whole article's carefully constructed to record Sheila's _denials_ of neglect without ever actually accusing her of it.\"\n\nWendy gave yet another heartfelt sigh. \"It was my fault really. I'm the one who reminded Peter about Annie, and he promptly rushed off in high dudgeon to talk to the press. Sheila never forgave him for it and it made life very difficult afterward.\"\n\n\"I can imagine\"\u2014I extracted \"Doctor cleared by BMA\"\u2014\"particularly as Sheila was exonerated. Mr. Potts wasn't even her patient.\"\n\n\"It was too late by then. The damage had been done. Peter did try to apologize but Sheila was having none of it.\" She paused. \"But it wasn't entirely his fault, you know. Sheila was spreading some frightful counteraccusations against him, saying the reason Annie distrusted him so much was because he'd supported the neighbors' attempts to get rid of her from the street. She even suggested he was a racist.\"\n\n\"Is he?\"\n\nI thought she might be angry, but she wasn't. \"No. He has many faults but racism isn't one of them. Sheila knew it, too. It was an unkind thing to say.\"\n\n\"Not much fun for any of you,\" I murmured.\n\n\"Terrible!\"\n\n\"But it doesn't mean Sheila was wrong to say Annie was robbed,\" I pointed out.\n\n\"It just seems so unlikely,\" said Wendy. \"No one thought Annie had a house full of treasures while she was alive. Did _you_ think she had?\"\n\n\"No,\" I admitted, \"but Sheila does have evidence to support her story. Letters from the RSPCA inspector, for example, who went in to check on her cats. And if it _is_ true that Annie was robbed, then it's also true that the police investigation into her death was flawed because it failed to take into account that someone took a small fortune off her either before or after she died.\"\n\n\"But who, for goodness'sake?\"\n\n\"That's what I'm trying to find out,\" I said, putting the press clippings back into their envelopes. \"Someone fairly close to home is my guess... someone who knew what was in there.\"\n\nShe canted her head to one side to study me closely with her bright, perceptive eyes. \"What's your husband's view?\"\n\n\"He doesn't have one,\" I said slowly. \"The subject hasn't been mentioned in our house for twenty years.\"\n\nShe put a gentle hand on my shoulder. \"I'm sorry.\"\n\n\"No need to be,\" I told her gruffly. \"This is my project, not his.\"\n\nDid she think \"project\" was an inappropriate word? \"It's not your fault Annie died,\" she said with sincerity. \"You've nothing to feel guilty about.\"\n\n\"I don't.\"\n\nPerhaps she didn't believe me. Perhaps she saw a contradiction between my apparent composure and the evidence of obsession in my lap. \"No one escapes justice,\" she said, dropping her hand to pick up one of mine and rubbing it gently between hers. \"It may not be a justice we can see or understand, but the punishment is always appropriate.\"\n\n\"I expect you're right,\" I agreed, \"but I'm not interested in abstract punishment. I want the kind I can _see..._ the eye for an eye... the pound of flesh.\"\n\n\"Then you'll be disappointed,\" she told me. \"There's no joy in causing pain... however worthy the motive.\"\n\nI had no answer to that except to return the pressure of her fingers. It was acknowledgment of a sort and to that extent it mollified her, but worry remained etched around her eyes until I left.\n\n**_Family correspondence\u2014dated 1999_**\n\n_CURRAN HOUSE_\n\n_Whitehay Road_\n\n_Torquay_\n\n_Devon_\n\nWednesday, July 28 1999\n\nDearest M,\n\nIf I can give you any advice at all\u2014and of course there's no reason why you should take it\u2014it's that you talk things through with Sam before your mother and I come for our visit on Saturday She's still very unhappy about your move to Dorchester and will, I fear, put pressure on the boys to supply answers if she can't get them from you. Sam has told her the farmhouse was the only property you could find at short notice\u2014which is clearly what he believes\u2014and she's now convinced \"something's going on\" as she says her tame real estate agent faxed you a list of suitable lets in Devon at the beginning of June.\n\nSorry to be a nuisance but the old adage\u2014\"of two evils choose the lesser\"\u2014is a good one, I find. You know what your mother's like when she gets the bit between her teeth, and I fear Sam would be very hurt to learn the truth from his children after a quizzing from their grandmother! It won't be easy \"coming clean\"\u2014secrecy is frighteningly addictive, as I've discovered myself since I realized how much closer you and I have become through our shared crusade, my dear, and how jealously I want to guard that closeness\u2014but I think the time has come for honesty. I know you would never hurt Sam unnecessarily.\n\nLove,\n\nDad\n\nX X X\n\n# seven\n\nThe house was full of young people when I arrived back that evening to find an impromptu barbecue taking place on our terrace. \"Another end-of-term celebration,\" explained my younger son en route from the kitchen with a tray of spare ribs. He dropped me a mischievous wink. \"Luke and I were voted the people most likely to throw a good party.\" He had a pretty girl draped off his elbow whose hair was almost as long and blonde as his own. \"Georgie,\" he offered by way of introduction. \"Mum.\"\n\nThe girl was too besotted to look at me for long. \"It's nice of you to invite me,\" she said.\n\nI nodded, wondering how Luke and Tom had managed to become the center of attention so quickly At their age I had hidden behind a fringe, longing to be noticed and invariably overlooked, while Sam had followed in the wake of the Jock Williamses of this world, acquiring girlfriends courtesy of their friends'superior pulling power. The boys would say it was their height, surfers'good looks and neat bums, but I thought it had more to do with taking jobs as checkout cashiers in the local Tesco's, which seemed to be the modern equivalent of the village pump. In the end all paths meet across a supermarket trolley.\n\nWith a promise to put in an appearance as soon as I'd changed, I retreated to the bedroom where I found Sam laid out on the bed and glaring at the ceiling. \"It's bedlam down there,\" he said crossly. \"Why didn't you tell me the boys were planning to invite half of Dorchester to eat us out of house and home?\"\n\n\"I forgot,\" I lied.\n\n\"Well, for your information,\" he growled, \"I was sunbathing in the nude when they all came piling round the corner of the house. It was bloody embarrassing.\"\n\nSmiling, I flopped down beside him. \"Is that why you're hiding up here?\"\n\n\"No,\" he said, jutting his chin toward some boxes in the corner of the room. \"I'm guarding my wine. I found a girl in the kitchen trying to open a bottle of Cloudy Bay because she thought it looked like cheap plonk, so I gave her a lecture on the quality of New Zealand viniculture and she burst into tears.\"\n\n\"I'm not surprised if you had no clothes on. She probably thought you were a rapist.\"\n\n\"Ha-bloody-ha!\"\n\n\"I suppose you shouted at her?\"\n\nHe rolled over to face me, propping himself on one elbow. \"I told her I'd have her guts for garters if she didn't learn to tell the difference between liebfraumilch and a priceless sauvignon blanc. Matter of fact, I nearly asked for her birth certificate in case we got raided. She didn't look more than twelve.\"\n\nHe had a pleasant face, my husband, with laughter lines raying out around his eyes and mouth, and I thought how well he wore his years and how little he had changed in the quarter of a century I'd known him. He had the kind of temperament that people felt comfortable with because he was slow to anger and quick to pacification, and his face was the mirror of his geniality. Most of the time, anyway.\n\nNow, he eyed me thoughtfully. \"How was your day? Did the Reverend Stanhope tell you anything useful?\"\n\nI shook my head. \"I hardly spoke to him.\"\n\n\"Then why so late back?\"\n\n\"I talked to his wife,\" I explained. \"She kept a photographic record of their time at St. Mark's and she's lent me pictures of some of the people who were living on Graham Road in '78.\"\n\nHe studied me for a moment. \"That was lucky.\"\n\nPerhaps I should have seized the opportunity to be honest, but as usual I couldn't decide if then was the right time. Instead I just nodded.\n\n\"I suppose she knew all their names?\"\n\n\"Most of them,\" I agreed.\n\n\"And could tell you every last thing about them?\"\n\n\"Bits and pieces.\"\n\nHe pushed a strand of hair off my forehead with the tips of his fingers. \"There can't be many vicar's wives who photograph their husband's parishioners.\"\n\nI shrugged. \"She was semiprofessional, used to cover the weddings of the poorer couples. It grew out of that. She's rather good actually. If she was forty years younger, she'd have made a career out of it.\"\n\n\"Even so\"\u2014he let his hand drop to the counterpane\u2014\"you could have driven all the way to Exeter to find some dumpy little homebody who'd never done anything more interesting than bake cakes for the Mothers'Union. Instead you come up with David Bailey. That's pretty amazing, don't you think?\"\n\nI wondered what was bugging him. \"Not really. At the very least I knew she must have some photographs of Annie's funeral. Don't you remember her taking a picture of us with Libby Williams? She's a very striking woman, tall and gaunt... like a vulture... rather difficult to miss.\"\n\nHe shook his head. \"How did you know she was the vicar's wife and not a press photographer?\"\n\n\"Julia Charles told me. Apparently, Wendy\u2014Mrs. Stanhope\u2014took pictures of Jennifer's christening so Julia knew her quite well.\" I paused as he shook his head in unhappy denial. \"What's the matter?\" I asked.\n\nHe swung his legs off the bed and stood up, disbelief crackling out of him like small electric charges. \"Larry came to see me this afternoon. He says you're stirring up a hornets'nest by asking questions about Annie. He wants you to stop.\"\n\n\"I hope you told him it was none of his business.\"\n\n\"Quite the reverse. I sympathized with him. Apparently Sheila nearly had a breakdown the last time she got involved. She was hauled before the BMA after your precious vicar accused her of neglect. It was all rubbish, of course\u2014she was cleared immediately\u2014but Larry doesn't want a repeat.\"\n\nHe walked to the window where sounds of laughter drifted up from the terrace. I kept my fingers crossed that Tom wouldn't choose that moment to power up his sound system to full volume, which was the one thing guaranteed to drive his father 'round the bend.\n\n\"What else did Larry say?\" I asked.\n\n\"He wanted to know what brought us to Dorchester. Claims he's not much of a believer in coincidences.\" He frowned at me in hurt recrimination. \"I told him he was wrong... that it was a coincidence... that there was no way we could have known in advance where Sheila was working. So he accused me of being na\u00efve. Your _wife_ knew, he said. She went into the surgery the day after you moved here to register specifically with Dr. Arnold, then asked for a copy of Sheila's work roster so that she could be sure of getting her.\"\n\nI frowned back. \"Where would he get a story like that?\"\n\n\"He asked Sheila's receptionist if Mrs. Ranelagh had known in advance which doctor would respond to her request for a home visit.\"\n\nI sat up and crossed my legs. \"I thought that kind of information was confidential,\" I murmured.\n\nHe waited for me to go on and when I didn't he stabbed a finger at me. \"Is that it?\" he demanded. \"You make me look a complete idiot, then talk about confidentiality.\"\n\nI gave an indifferent shrug. \"What do you want me to say? Yes, I knew this house was in Sheila's practice, and that's why we're renting it.\"\n\n\"Why didn't you ask me?\"\n\n\"Ask you what?\"\n\n\"If I was happy about it.\"\n\n\"I did. You said Dorchester was as good a place as any.\"\n\n\"You didn't tell me there was a hidden agenda, though, did you?\" He was managing to keep his voice under control but I could feel the tremors of a major tantrum building inside him. And that, of course, is the trouble with people with equable temperaments\u2014once they lose it, they lose it big time. \"I might have felt differently if you'd told me you were planning to resurrect Annie Butts. _Jesus!_ Don't you think we went through enough bloody misery at the time?\"\n\nI suppose everyone has a pet subject that triggers their anger\u2014with me it was my mother's wicked talent for stirring, with Sam it was his fear of Mad Annie and everything her death represented: the mask of respectability that overlaid the hatreds and the lies. He always hoped, I think, in a rather free interpretation of the karma principle, that if he refused to look beneath a surface then the surface was the reality. But he could never rid himself of the fear that he was wrong.\n\nI took a moment to reply. \"It wouldn't have passed the 'so what'test, Sam. I'd have come anyway.\"\n\nA look of incomprehension crossed his face. \"Without me?\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"Why?\"\n\nIt was such a little word but its interpretations were endless. Why would I think of deserting him? Why was I being so devious? Why didn't I trust him enough to tell him the truth? If he cared to, of course, he could answer those questions rather better than I could as he'd had a great deal longer to think about them. Admittedly, I'd never challenged him with them directly, but there must have been occasions in the small hours when he prepared his explanations in case I did.\n\nI answered straightforwardly. \"I chose Dorchester because I guessed Sheila had more information than anyone else,\" I explained, \"though to be honest, it wouldn't have mattered where we went. The diaspora from Graham Road has been so widespread that we'd have had this conversation whether we'd come here or\"\u2014I gave another shrug\u2014 \"Timbuktu. Paul and Julia Charles are in Canada... Jock and assorted others are still in London... Libby remarried and lives happily with her second husband and three children in Leicestershire... the Stanhopes are in Devon... the coroner retired to Kent... John Howlett, the RSPCA inspector, is in Lancashire... Michael Percy, the son of Annie's immediate neighbor, is in prison on Portland... Bridget Percy, n\u00e9e Spalding\u2014one of the girls who lived opposite Annie\u2014works in Bournemouth...\" I ran out of names and turned to plucking the dowdy candlewick bedspread which was part of the fixtures and fittings and filled me with loathing every time I looked at it.\n\nI'd shocked him to the core. \"How do you know all this?\"\n\n\"The same way you know that Jock lives in Alveston Road. I kept in touch. I have a file of correspondence from my father, who's been writing letters on my behalf for years, and Julia and Libby drop me a line every six months or so to keep me informed about people's movements.\"\n\nHe looked horrified. \"Does Jock know you've been talking to Libby?\" He used the sort of tone that suggested I'd been party to a nasty piece of treachery. _Which was pretty rich, all things considered..._\n\n\"I doubt it,\" I said. \"They haven't spoken since the divorce.\"\n\n\"But he's always believed we were on his side. Dammit, I told him we were.\"\n\n\"You were half-right then,\" I said, absorbed in teasing the bedspread with my fingernails. _\"You've_ always been on his side.\"\n\n\"Yes, but...\" He paused, clearly grappling with some new and unpleasant thoughts. \"Does your mother know your father's been writing letters for you?\"\n\n\"No.\"\n\n\"She'll go apeshit,\" he said in alarm. \"You know bloody well she thought the whole damn mess was dead and buried twenty years ago.\"\n\nI yanked a particularly large tuft out of the candlewick and poked it back again when I realized I'd made a hole. I wondered if he remembered that my parents were coming to stay with us the following day, or whether like all the other disagreeable things in his life he had pushed it out of his mind. \"I wouldn't worry about it,\" I murmured. \"She won't be angry with you... only with me.\"\n\n\"What about your father?\" he demanded, his voice rising in pitch. \"She'll tear strips off him for going behind her back.\"\n\n\"There's no reason why she should ever find out.\"\n\n\"But she will,\" he said pessimistically. \"She always does.\"\n\nI thought of my father's advice on the lesser of two evils. If nothing else, Sam's inability to hide his feelings would start my mother on a hunt for hidden secrets. \"She might be cross for a day or two,\" I said, \"until she persuades herself it's all my fault. She's programmed never to blame men for anything. As far as she's concerned, Eve corrupted Adam\"\u2014I held Sam's gaze\u2014\"when she ought to know that Adam almost certainly took Eve without permission.\"\n\nHe had the grace to blush. \"Is that what this is all about? Getting your own back?\"\n\nI didn't answer.\n\n\"Couldn't you have told me?\"\n\nI sighed. \"Told you what? That I was pursuing something that was important to me? As I recall, the last time I used those words to you, you accused me of being a neurotic bitch and said if Annie's name was ever mentioned in your presence again, you'd divorce me.\"\n\nHe waved a despairing hand. \"I didn't mean it.\"\n\n\"Yes, you did,\" I said flatly, \"and if I'd been half as confident then as Tom and Luke are now, I'd have told you where to stuff your pathetic little divorce. I only stayed with you because I had nowhere else to go. My mother banned me from going home and none of my friends wanted a loony parked in their spare bedroom.\"\n\n\"You said you wanted to stay.\"\n\n\"I was lying.\"\n\nSam lowered himself gingerly on to an unopened box of wine. \"I thought this was all over a long time ago. I thought you'd forgotten about it.\"\n\n\"No.\"\n\n\"Jesus,\" he muttered, dropping his head into his hands and lapsing into a long silence. He roused himself finally. \"Have you _ever_ loved me?\" he asked bitterly.\n\nI wanted to tell him it was a childish question, that if he didn't know the answer after twenty-four years then nothing I could say would make a difference. Did he think anyone could live indefinitely with someone they didn't love? _Could he?_ But outside on the terrace Tom's boom box roared into sudden life, causing the walls and floors of the old farmhouse to thump in sympathy, and I was spared the necessity of replying.\n\nI went into the bathroom to change and left my rucksack on the bed for Sam to explore. It was a cowardly way to impart information but I didn't feel badly about it. As the old adage has it\u2014you reap what you sow\u2014and Sam's harvest was well overdue.\n\n**_E-mail from Mrs. Julia Charles, formerly next-door neighbor to the Ranelaghs at 3 Graham Road, Richmond\u2014now living in Toronto, Canada\u2014dated 1999_**\n\n**M. R**.\n\n**From:** Julia Charles (juliac@cancom.com)\n\n**Sent:** 11 February 1999 18:50\n\n**To:** M. Ranelagh\n\n**Subject:** The Slater children!\n\nYou won't believe the trouble we've had just to locate one of the Slater children! Not the one you wanted, I fear\u2014being the youngest (Danny)\u2014but he may be the most amenable to persuading his mother to answer your letters! I won't bore you with full details of the swings and roundabouts\u2014suffice it to say that Jennifer's preschool chum at number 6 (Linda Barry) kept in touch with another preschool chum (Amy Trent) who was at art school with Danny and still keeps in touch with him. We really did bust a gut to find Alan but got nowhere, I'm afraid. Word has it that he married six or seven years ago and is living somewhere in Isleworth, but I don't know how accurate that is. It might be worth trying international directory inquiries to see if there's an A. Slater in that area, but it's a common name and you may come up with several.\n\nAnyway, Danny Slater is living somewhere in Brixton (no address or phone number) and teaching graphic design at a college there. The name and address of the college is: Freetown Community Center, Brixton, London. However, the really good news is that he has an e-mail address\u2014michelangelo@rapmail.com\u2014and collects his messages regularly via an Internet caf\u00e9 near Waterloo station. Jennifer's game to make the contact if Luke and Tom don't want to, but it would speed things up, I think, if you approach him direct. NB: Your idea to say it's an IT project using e-mail and Internet only is a good one and worked well with Linda and Amy.\n\nSo glad to hear Sam's on the mend. I know what a shock it must have been for you!\n\nSpeak soon, love\n\nJulia\n\n**_Part of the e-mail correspondence between Luke Ranelagh and Danny Slater during the first six months of 1999_**\n\nLuke Ranelagh\n\n**From:** Danny Slater (michelangelo@rapmail.com)\n\n**Sent:** 20 February 1999 20:50\n\n**To:** Luke Ranelagh\n\n**Subject:** IT Project\u2014Database: Graham Road\n\nListen, mate, anyone who wants to build a database 'round a black hole like Graham Road needs his head examining. Okay, so you're on the other side of the world and you don't know shit about the UK. It's an excuse of sorts\u2014and I guess I can accept it on that basis\u2014but do me a favor and send me some pictures of babes in bikinis. I'm an artist, for Christ's sake! I have an aesthetic appreciation of beautiful women. Word pictures will do if you don't have access to a scanner. The truth is I am DESPERATE to forget I ever lived in Graham f*****g Road. If you'd met my mother you'd understand! Cheers. Danny.\n\nDanny Slater\n\n**From:** Luke Ranelagh (beachbum@safric.com)\n\n**Sent:** 22 February 1999 15:12\n\n**To:** Danny Slater\n\n**Subject:** Babes in bikinis\n\nHow about these? Mine's the blonde babe on the right. Word pictures of Graham Road will do if you don't have access to a scanner. I'm an ex-pat, for Christ's sake! I have an aesthetic appreciation of all things English. Cheers. Luke.\n\n**_Extracts from an educational psychologist's report on Alan Slater, 32 Graham Road, Richmond. Requested by his head teacher\u2014re: permanent exclusion from school\u2014dated April 1979_**\n\n**... Alan shows a pattern of bullying behavior. He employs his strength to intimidate others through unprovoked violence, and uses abusive language toward children of different ethnic groups. He has a history of discipline problems and reacts aggressively toward teachers who attempt to control him\u2014particularly the females...**\n\n**... His academic performance across all subjects is poor and this has resulted in feelings of inadequacy and low self-esteem. He regards himself as isolated from his peer group and becomes enraged by seemingly minor slights. He feels rejected by family, peers and teachers, and seeks further rejection through disruptive behavior in order to provide himself with a reason for why no one likes him. There is evidence of violence at home. He speaks about his hatred of his father and refers to his mother as \"a vicious bitch.\" He has a close bond with Michael Percy, a near neighbor and classmate, whom he regards as similarly disaffected....**\n\n**... In conclusion, I have real concerns about Alan's dangerous sense of alienation, which may already have led to criminal behavior. I believe rapid intervention is required to prevent matters from becoming worse. There are problems at home andat school, but permanent exclusion is not a solution. He requires intensive \"special needs\" teaching to improve his self-esteem, and he should be encouraged to form strong and positive bonds with adults\u2014either inside the school environment or in the broader community. He needs to feel valued: Only then will he have the necessary motivation to correct his aggressive and antisocial attitudes....**\n\n# eight\n\nI found Luke, my elder son, straddled across a chair in the kitchen. \"Your man's outside smoking a spliff,\" he shouted into my ear over the cacophony of sound from the terrace. \"I told him not to make it too obvious in case Dad saw him, so he's lurking behind a hedge at the bottom of the terrace steps.\" He handed me a can of lager, then stood up to steer me toward the French windows. \"He's a bit of a whinger,\" he warned. \"Keeps saying we must be loaded to afford a place like this, then goes on and on about how he's never had any luck in his life.\"\n\nI nodded.\n\n\"So where's Dad?\"\n\n\"Upstairs,\" I shouted back.\n\nLuke smiled guiltily. \"He's not still angry about his Cloudy Bay, is he?\"\n\n\"No, but he's going ballistic about the noise.\"\n\n\"Okay.\" He pushed his way through the crowd and turned the volume down to bearable proportions. When he came back he had a wiry, dark-haired man in tow, about age twenty-five, with a nervous frown on his face. \"Danny Slater,\" he said, introducing us. \"He's one of the guys who's been giving me gen on Graham Road... teaches art at a community center in Brixton. He's on Portland for the summer learning to carve stone at a workshop in Tout Quarry. I couldn't believe it when we end up in a house just a stone's throw away... seemed like a good opportunity to get acquainted.\"\n\nLuke spoke for Danny's benefit rather than mine. It was hardly tactful, as he'd pointed out several times, to spend months making friends with a bloke, only for him to guess the first time you meet him that there was a hidden agenda behind the friendship and that the reason you're living less than ten miles from his holiday hideaway is because you want to get close to his parents. \"I'd be sodding mad if it happened to me,\" he'd told me firmly, \"so we take a bit of trouble. Okay? I like him... he's cool... and his e-mails are funny.\"\n\nDid I feel guilty about making an ally of my son? Yes. Did I remember Dr. Elias's words of warning about Sam's sense of betrayal when he found out? Yes. Would it have stopped me using Luke? _No_. I had enough faith in my husband to believe he would never blame his children for something they had done for their mother.\n\n_This patient... is obsessive... manipulative... and...frightening..._\n\nDanny wasn't the most attractive young man I'd ever seen, but I put on my best smile and shook his hand warmly as Luke took his leave and wandered over to the barbecue. \"You won't remember me,\" I said, \"but my husband and I used to live at number 5 Graham Road. You can't have been more than three or four at the time, but I knew your elder brother very well... Alan... I was his English teacher at King Alfred's.\"\n\nHe shook his head. \"It won't have been my brother,\" he answered. \"Alan's thirty-five. You're thinking of someone else.\"\n\n\"No,\" I assured him. \"It was certainly Alan. I taught him in '78 when he was fourteen. He was a bit of a handful,\" I finished with a laugh, \"but I expect he's calmed down by now.\"\n\nDanny examined me closely for a moment, before pulling a packet of cigarettes from his pocket. \"You must have had an easy life then,\" he said, more in criticism than compliment. \"My mum's not much over fifty but she looks a damn sight older than you do.\"\n\nI smiled. \"It depends whether you think teaching is easy. _I_ don't, but then I've never taught art. Perhaps that's less stressful than trying to force Shakespeare down the throats of reluctant adolescent boys.\"\n\nHe rose immediately to the bait and I listened with patience to five minutes of complaint about the intolerable necessity of an artist having to earn a regular income... about the wear and tear on the nerves caused by the arrogant egotism of students who hadn't a creative bone in their bodies... about how, if he'd been lucky enough to live in a country where culture was valued, he'd have been given a grant to make his own art instead of teaching brain-dead morons how to make theirs...\n\nI nodded sympathetically when he drew breath. \"And I suppose your family isn't in a position to help you?\"\n\n\"I'm not married.\"\n\n\"I meant your parents. I remember your father quite well.\" I thought of the photograph of Derek Slater which Wendy Stanhope had lent me. \"Dark-haired, rather good-looking. Very like you, as a matter of fact.\"\n\nHe wasn't easily flattered. \"There's only my mother,\" he said, \"and she's on invalidity benefit.\" He offered me a cigarette and lit one for himself when I shook my head. \"Dad abandoned us years ago... can't even remember what he looked like anymore.\"\n\n\"I'm sorry.\"\n\nHe shrugged. \"It was for the best,\" he said unemotionally. \"He took his belt to all of us at one time or another. Alan worst of all. Dad used to beat him about the head when he tried to protect Mum, and Alan's still got the scars to prove it.\"\n\n\"I did wonder,\" I said, equally unemotionally. \"More often than not he was sporting a black eye at school, but he always told me he'd been in fights with boys from rival gangs. 'You should see the other guys,'he used to say.\"\n\nFor the first time Danny smiled. \"He was a good kid. He took a hell of a lot of punishment till he got to fifteen and slammed a baseball bat into Dad's face. That's when Dad took off.\" Another shrug. \"I don't remember him but everyone says he was a right bastard. He got in touch with one of my sisters a few years ago but nothing much came of it. He was only after money. Sally tried to persuade Alan to help him out, but he refused and we haven't heard from him since.\"\n\n\"Do you know where he is now?\"\n\nThere was a small hesitation. \"Somewhere in London, I think.\"\n\n_Prison?_ I wondered. \"And what of Alan?\" I asked in the sort of reassuring tone that said I was more interested in my ex-pupil than I was in his father. \"How's he getting on? Is he married?\"\n\nDanny nodded. \"He's got a couple of kids, a girl and a boy. Never raises his voice to them... won't even give them a smack.\" He sucked moodily on his cigarette. \"It fucks my head to visit him. He lives in this great little house in Isleworth and his wife's brilliant. She's called Beth... plain as a pikestaff and wide in all the wrong places... but every time I go there I think, this is how families are supposed to be, with everybody loving each other and the kids feeling safe. It makes you realize what you missed.\" His eyes strayed toward Luke and Tom, who were arguing over which CD to put on next. \"I'd say your sons are pretty lucky, too.\"\n\nI realized suddenly how vulnerable he was, and felt ashamed of the way I was using him. Until that evening he had been a name on a computer screen, an unremembered child from twenty years ago who had responded to an e-mail in the innocent belief that he was helping a lad in Cape Town complete a thoroughly trivial IT project. Yet he had no responsibility for Annie's death, and I wondered if he even knew that a black woman had died in Graham Road in '78. Certainly the name Ranelagh meant nothing to him, which suggested that both Annie and I had been long forgotten by the time Danny was old enough to understand that one woman had died on his road and another had accused her neighbors of racially motivated murder.\n\nI followed his gaze. \"Luke and Tom might argue that you're the lucky one,\" I said.\n\n\"How do you make that out?\"\n\n\"Because their upbringing means they will never have your creativity or your commitment to proving yourself. Internalized pain is always a stronger motivator than security and contentment. Contented people take happiness for granted. Anguished people struggle to find it through self-expression. At least you have a chance of greatness.\"\n\n\"Do you honestly believe that?\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"Then why aren't you making your son's lives hell?\"\n\nThe question was simplistic enough to bring a smile to my face. At the very least, it was predicated on the assumption that parental love can be switched on and off according to circumstance... although perhaps for him that was the reality of childhood. \"Shouldn't you ask me first if I think greatness is a sensible ambition for a mother to want for her children?\"\n\n\"Why wouldn't it be?\"\n\n\"Because the odds are stacked against it. Anguish doesn't guarantee success, it merely offers the possibility. After that it's down to genius. In any case, as far as Luke and Tom are concerned, I'm guided entirely by selfishness. I want them to like me.\"\n\nHe was unimpressed. \"Everyone's motivated by selfishness,\" he said, \"including Luke and Tom. They behave the way you expect because they think they'll get something in return. Alan used to kowtow to my father to avoid a thrashing, but I'll bet Luke and Tom only kowtow for money.\"\n\nI nodded. \"More often than not.\"\n\n\"Alan's kids are the same. They're barely out of nappies but they've got him wound 'round their little fingers.\" He dropped his cigarette butt on to the terrace and ground it out under his heel. \"All they have to do is burst into tears and say they want ice cream and he starts emptying his pockets. I told him he's making an ass of himself but he's so fucking paranoid about the way Dad treated us that he won't listen to reason.\"\n\nI wondered if Danny realized how confused his views on parenting were and what he meant by \"reason.\" Spare the rod and spoil the child, presumably, although why, like so many people, he believed harshness was a better educator than kindness was a perennial mystery to me. \"How does your mother feel about it?\"\n\n\"Christ knows. She's a Prozac junkie,\" he said bitterly, \"so it depends what mood she's in at any given moment. It's a good day if she can drag herself out of bed... as for having an opinion on something...\" He fell silent, staring at the ground.\n\n\"I'm sorry,\" I said again.\n\n\"Yeah, it's a mess.\" He gave a mirthless laugh. \"I guess you're pretty disappointed.\"\n\n\"About what?\"\n\n\"That a type like me responded to Luke's e-mails. You were probably hoping for something better.\"\n\n\"I never make those kinds of judgments,\" I replied truthfully. \"If I did, I'd have to wear a label 'round my own neck, and that's not something I'm prepared to do. In any case, I'm not sure what type you think you are.\"\n\nHe kicked at a flagstone, refusing to meet my eyes. \"Fucking useless,\" he muttered. \"The last I heard of my dad he was banged up in the Scrubs for assault, but we've all been there at one time or another. I got six months for twocking\u2014that's taking cars without consent. Alan got four years in juvenile for dealing... both my sisters have done time for shoplifting. We're bad news. Poor old Mum used to get the cold shoulder every time she left the house because of the stuff her kids did.\" He lapsed into a brief, unhappy silence. \"I guess that's why she doesn't get out of bed anymore.\"\n\nThe admission clearly wounded him, and I wondered if he hadn't looked for us\u2014or people like us, uninfected by anti-Slater bias\u2014just as assiduously as we had looked for him. _Yet, if that were true, why had he confessed to his family's failings so readily?_ The sly glance he gave me when he raised his head persuaded me it was a cynical test of my refusal to label him, and my sympathy waned a little. I guessed he enjoyed holding grudges and sought rejection for the purpose of fueling them... and I wondered which of us was the more manipulative.\n\n\"I thought you were going to classify yourself as a struggling artist,\" I said with a small laugh. \"I hadn't bargained on 'fucking useless.'Does that mean I'll be wasting my time if I visit you at the sculpture workshop?\"\n\nHe gave me an unwilling smile. \"No. I'm a good sculptor.\"\n\n\"You ought to be,\" I told him. \"Your brother had real talent at fourteen.\"\n\nHe looked surprised. \"Alan?\"\n\nI nodded. \"I've still got a little wooden figure he carved for me. It's in the shape of a snake with feathers 'round its head.\"\n\n\"That's probably right,\" said Danny. \"He's got this thing about an Aztec god who was half snake, half bird. It's a load of crap, but Alan reckons the bastard was an alien who came to earth to create a lost civilization in Mexico.\"\n\n\"Quetzalcoatl?\" I suggested.\n\n\"That's the one. He's got a mosaic of him on his sitting-room wall.\"\n\nI learned nothing further about Alan's picture that evening because Danny was more interested in pouring scorn on his brother's belief in extraterrestrials than he was in discussing his taste in art. I clung to my dwindling patience in order to listen to the hoary old arguments on both sides, and was somewhat relieved when a six-foot-tall brunette with legs up to her armpits seduced him away with a cigarette.\n\nI watched them perform the opening moves of a courtship dance\u2014 an awkward affair of wriggling shoulders and pretended casualness as they dipped their heads to the cigarette lighter\u2014and was about to go back inside when Sam appeared at my elbow with a peace offering. \"It's Cloudy Bay,\" he said gruffly, shoving a glass of wine into my hand. \"I was going to drink the lot to drown my sorrows, then I thought, to hell with it, it's not your fault Larry got me fired up.\"\n\nIt wasn't a white flag exactly but I could always recognize a truce when I saw one. I responded with a chink of glasses and a smile, while wondering if Sam had used the opportunity I'd given him to find out who Danny Slater was and why he was there. If not, I feared the truce would be of short duration. It was one thing for his wife and his father-in-law to keep secrets from him... quite another for his sons to do it as well.\n\nHe might have read my thoughts. \"Who's the dark-haired chap you were talking to?\" he asked, nodding in Danny's direction. \"I was watching from the window. He seemed to have a lot to say to you.\"\n\n\"His name's Danny Slater,\" I told him. \"He's working up at the sculpture park on Portland.\"\n\n\"Any relation to Derek Slater?\"\n\n\"His son,\" I said evenly. \"Do you remember Derek?\"\n\n\"No. I've been going through your rucksack.\" He hunched his shoulders like a boxer preparing to defend himself. \"And don't give me any heartache over it because if you didn't want me looking, you shouldn't have left it on the bed.\"\n\n\"My fault,\" I agreed, hoping he'd had the sense to go through everything. Ignorance had kept him happy for years; _partial_ ignorance would eat away at him like a rotten worm.\n\n\"You were right about the Rev's wife. She took some useful photographs. This lad's the spitting image of his father twenty years ago.\"\n\n\"There's a lot of his mother in him,\" I demurred.\n\n\"That would be Maureen Slater?\"\n\nI nodded.\n\n\"Mm, well, I didn't recognize her. In fact I didn't recognize any of them except Julia Charles and Libby Williams. There's a blonde woman who came into the pub occasionally, I think, but other than that\"\u2014he shook his head\u2014\"they were all strangers.\"\n\nI wondered how much of the correspondence he'd read and how much he thought I'd withheld. If he knew the truth, he'd be devastated.\n\nHe flicked an abstracted glance across the field of heads in front of the house, looking for Luke and Tom. \"That's quite a file the boys have collected on Graham Road. How long have they been doing it?\"\n\n\"Since your coronary.\"\n\nHe smiled slightly. \"On the principle that you'd be coming home whether I lived or died?\"\n\n\"Something like that.\"\n\nHe paused before his next question, as if considering the wisdom of asking it. He knew as well as I that bridges were best left unburnt, but his need for reassurance was stronger than his caution. \"Did you tell them I walked out on you?\"\n\n\"No. I told them Annie was murdered and that I was trying to get the investigation reopened. Nothing else.\"\n\nHe stared into his wine glass, his mouth working strangely as if trying to formulate unaccustomed words. But in the end, all he said was: \"Thank you.\"\n\n**_Statement made by Mrs. M. Ranelagh in 1979 re: an alleged assault by Derek Slater of 32 Graham Road, Richmond_**.\n\n**INCIDENT REPORT**\n\n**Date:** 25.01.79\n\n**Time:** 10:32\n\n**Officer:** PS Drury, Richmond Police\n\n**Witness:** Mrs. M. Ranelagh, 5 Graham Road, Richmond, Surrey\n\n**Incident:** Alleged assault on Mrs. Ranelagh at 15:00 approx. on 24.01.79\n\nMrs. Ranelagh states: I went to the shops yesterday afternoon because there was no food in the house and I had had nothing to eat for three days. I thought it would be safe because it was still light. As I turned onto Graham Road, a man came up behind me and pushed me into the alleyway at the back of the even-numbered houses. I was unable to call out because he put a hand over my mouth and clamped my arms to my sides in a bear hug before slamming me face first into a fence and using his weight to hold me there. It all happened very fast and there was nothing I could do to break free. I couldn't see his face because he was behind me, but his breath smelled of drink and his clothes smelled unclean. I was wearing trousers and could feel something being pushed between my thighs. I thought it was the man's penis. He had his face pressed against the side of my head and whispered \"slag,\" \"bitch\" and \"cunt\" into my ear. He also said he'd \"do for you proper\" if I didn't keep my \"filthy, nigger-loving mouth shut.\" He was very strong and I was frightened because I thought he intended to rape me. I believe that is what he wanted me to think. Before releasing me, he forced me to my knees and pushed my head into the mud at the bottom of the fence. He said if I reported what had happened to the police I wouldn't \"get away so lightly next time.\" I raised my head to watch him turn the corner into the main road. He was dressed in a dark jacket, blue jeans and sneakers. It was Derek Slater who lives in the neighboring house to where Ann Butts used to be. I know him by sight, although I have never spoken to him. He had disappeared by the time I found the courage to go back onto Graham Road. I saw no one else and went straight home.\n\n**MEMO**\n\n**To:** Police Superintendent Hathaway\n\n**From:** PS Drury\n\n**Date:** 29.01.79\n\n**Subject:** Advice re cautioning Mrs. Ranelagh against wastin police time\n\nSir,\n\nAs you know, Mrs. Ranelagh has made a number of accusations against Derek Slater, including: 1) harassing and murdering Ann Butts; 2) making abusive telephone calls to the Ranelagh household in the middle of the night and; 3) attempting to keep Mrs. Ranelagh a prisoner in her own home by loitering outside her front door. None of these accusations stands up to investigation. 1) The inquest verdict on Ann Butts was unequivocal. 2) The Slaters have no telephone\u2014nor do they have access to the Ranelaghs' new ex-directory number. 3) Mrs. Charles at 3 Graham Road\u2014next-door neighbor and friend of Mrs. Ranelagh\u2014denies ever seeing Derek Slater at their end of the street.\n\nThere is no evidence that the above incident took place other than Mrs. Ranelagh's word. The clothes she claims to have been wearing are unmarked and unstained\u2014i.e., there are no muddy marks on the knees of her trousers and no semen staining between the thighs. Despite the aggressive way in which she says she was held \"in a bear hug\" and slammed against a fence, her face and arms are unmarked. (N.B.: She waited nineteen hours to report the incident and claimed to have cleaned herself up.)\n\nMrs. Ranelagh admitted to me that her husband has left her. She is clearly disturbed by Mr. Ranelagh's desertion. She says she phoned him to tell him about the alleged assault and was upset when he accused her of lying. \"He said I'd invented it to make him jealous. I sometimes think the only thing he thinks about is sex.\" (N.B.: Mrs. Ranelagh has lost a lot of weight and appears to be anorexic. Also, her behavior is irrational\u2014she breaks off in the middle of a conversation to listen for rats.)\n\nI spoke to Mr. Ranelagh by telephone. He claims his wife is \"bored with being a teacher and is reveling in her fifteen minutes of fame.\" According to him, nothing she says can be believed at the moment.\n\nI have questioned Derek Slater and he denies being anywhere near Graham Road at 15:00 hours on 24.01.79. He says he was at Kempton Park Races until the early evening and has a ticket stub to support this. He has supplied names and telephone numbers of three friends who were with him\u2014one supports the alibi; two yet to be checked.\n\nPlease advise. My personal view is that Mrs. Ranelagh is pursuing a vendetta against Derek Slater because she believes him to be responsible for the death of Ann Butts. I consider this vendetta to be: a) an invention; b) paranoid; and c) strongly linked to shock and\/or the failure of her marriage. I strongly recommend an official caution against wasting police time.\n\n# nine\n\nWe survived the party wreckage on the terrace the following morning with sore heads and mixed feelings. The boys were savoring last night's success, while Sam and I peered into a black hole as I reminded them all that my parents were due at noon. Luke and Tom, who were both on the afternoon shift at Tesco's, took the news in stride. Forget lunch, they said cheerfully, but as long as dinner was late they'd make an effort to get back for it. Sam, by contrast, crumpled dramatically as if he'd been axed by a pole.\n\n\"It's been on the calendar for ages,\" I said unsympathetically, handing him a cup of black coffee as he slumped into a chair, \"so don't blame me if you never bother to read it.\"\n\n\"I don't feel well.\"\n\nThe boys were immediately solicitous, worried that \"not feeling well\" had more to do with Sam's coronary than too much to drink the night before. They fussed about him, staring anxiously into his face and patting him encouragingly on the shoulder as if that would somehow prevent another attack. Sam eyed me with sudden mischief, as if seeing a way out of a nightmare weekend, so I gave him the Ranelagh glare.\n\n\"Don't even think about it,\" I warned, massaging my hangover. \"You know my mother. Nothing prevents her turning up. And do not _dream_ of disappearing off to bed. It's your job to charm her until the boys get back.\"\n\n\"Oh God!\" he groaned theatrically, sinking his head into his hands. \"She'll _kill_ me. I've told her at least ten times that it was chance that brought us to Dorchester.\"\n\nLuke and Tom eyed him curiously, wondering at this sudden reversal in their father's usually sanguine, if never very thrilled, acceptance of his mother-in-law.\n\n\"What's up?\" asked Luke.\n\n\"Nothing,\" I said. \"Dad's looking for trouble where it doesn't exist.\"\n\n\"We could call in sick,\" said Tom helpfully. \"I quite like Gran.\"\n\n\"Only because you've never seen her breathing fire,\" muttered Sam.\n\n\"She's even more scary than your mother when she's angry\"\u2014another mischievous glance in my direction\u2014\"probably because there's so much more of her.\"\n\nI handed Tom a black plastic bag to start clearing the mess on the terrace. \"Your father's being ridiculous. Granny adores him. He only has to smile and she's putty in his hands.\"\n\nIt didn't work out like that, of course. Nothing ever does. My father had taken his own advice\u2014 _of two evils choose the lesser_ \u2014and had tucked a magazine article on racially motivated murder into his overnight bag, which my mother unearthed and read when she decided unilaterally to repack their clothes into one large case. Dad swore it was an accident, but I didn't believe him any more than he would have believed that Sam had read my files \"by accident.\" I remarked to him afterward that it was a damn good thing I hadn't ignored his letter of warning, otherwise we'd have had a repetition of the mother\/son-in-law alliance of twenty years ago, but Dad just laughed and said Sam wasn't the kind of man to make the same mistake twice.\n\nThe article in question had been written in the wake of the official inquiry into the murder in London in 1993 of a young middle-class black man called Stephen Lawrence. The inquiry\u2014not held until 1999\u2014 had condemned the police for \"institutionalized racism\" following the shoddy and lackluster investigation into Stephen's murder by a gang of youthful white supremacists, all known to the police, who escaped conviction because of the culture of legal carelessness that existed in regard to the deaths of black people. My mother might have thought it was a general interest story if my father hadn't taken the trouble to highlight a paragraph and make this note to me in the margin: _M. Some good points here. Suggest you contact the journalist re police apathy and violent treatment of offenders. N.B.: River of Blood speech, 1968\u2014Annie Butts's murder, 1978_.\n\nThe paragraph read:\n\n_By definition, to describe anything as \"institutionalized\" means the tradition is a deep-seated one, and this suggests that Stephen Lawrence's murder isn't the only investigation to be bungled by a predominantly white police force, long riddled with apathy and indifference toward black victims. In the thirty-one years since Enoch Powell M.P. predicted war between the races in his notorious \"River of Blood\" speech, little has been done by police and government to address the issue of racially motivated attacks on Afro-Caribbeans and Asians. Indeed, many in these communities point to the number of black people who have died while in police custody or while resisting arrest, and argue that some of the worst treatment they receive is at the hands of the very people whose duty it is to protect them_.\n\nMy mother sniffed a conspiracy immediately, and set out to prove it by berating my father nonstop all the way from Devon. By the time they reached our house she had worked herself into a fine fury, made worse by my father's stubborn refusal to comment. He hoped, I think, that good manners would prevail once they reached the farmhouse, but he had forgotten how much she enjoyed confrontation, particularly where her daughter was concerned. She assumed\u2014with some justification\u2014that Sam was as much in the dark as she was and, all too predictably, the full weight of her moral outrage descended on me.\n\nShe cornered me in the kitchen. \"It's the deceit I can't stand,\" she said. \"All your life you've been saying one thing and doing another. I wouldn't mind so much if you didn't involve other people in your lies. I remember the time you and that beastly little friend of yours... Hazel Wright... swore you'd spent the night at her house when the reality was you were both passed out, drunk, on the floor of some boy's bedroom.\" She clenched her fists at her sides. \"You _promised_ us,\" she declared aggressively. \"'A new start,'you said. No more recriminations. No more dragging the family down with your dreadful fantasies. And what do you do? Break your word at the first opportunity, then manipulate your father into helping you.\"\n\nI put some glasses on a tray. \"Is Dad still on the pink gins?\" I asked her, searching the larder for Angostura bitters.\n\n\"Are you listening to me?\"\n\n\"No.\" I raised my voice to reach the open French windows which led directly from the quarry-tiled kitchen on to the Portland flags of the terrace. \"Sam! Find out if Dad wants his gin pink, will you?\"\n\n\"He does,\" came the shout back. \"Do you need a hand?\"\n\n\"Not at the moment,\" I called, taking a lemon from the fruit bowl and cutting it in half.\n\n\"I'll talk to Sam if you insist on ignoring me,\" my mother warned. \"I've already given your father a piece of my mind. God knows what he thought he was doing, encouraging you like this.\"\n\nI watched her for a moment, wishing I hadn't inherited so many of her features. She was a good-looking woman, although she rarely smiled because of worries about wrinkles, but I'd done my damnedest in twenty years to wipe out the similarities between us\u2014slimmed down, changed my hair color, forced a permanently cheerful expression to my face\u2014but it was all just window dressing. Every time I saw her, I was seeing myself thirty years on, and my smile would become a little more fixed and my resolve not to leap to critical judgments a little more determined. It made me wonder who I really was, and whether I had any substance beyond a childish desire to prove I was a better person than she was. I recalled my father telling me once\u2014as if it were something that needed saying\u2014that my mother _did_ love me, and I answered, \"Of course she does, as long as I agree with her. Not otherwise.\"\n\n\"You're her proudest achievement,\" he had said simply. \"If you reject her views, you reject her.\"\n\nI turned one of the lemon halves on its side and sliced into the oozing flesh. \"You look as if you've been sucking one of these,\" I murmured, \"and if the wind changes you'll be stuck with that sour expression forever.\"\n\nHer mouth turned down even further. \"That's not funny.\"\n\n\"You found it funny when you said it to me.\"\n\nThere was a short silence.\n\n\"You have a cruel streak in you,\" she said. \"You don't mind who you hurt, just as long as you can have your petty little revenges. I've often wondered where you get it from. There's no forgiveness in your nature. You brood over people's mistakes in a way that neither I nor your father has ever done.\"\n\nI gave a laugh of genuine amusement. \"My God! And this from elephant-brain who's just been quoting Hazel Wright at me. I was thirteen years old, Ma, and Hazel and I drank two shandies each before falling asleep on Bobby Simpkin's bed.\" I shook my head. \"You wouldn't let it rest. I don't know what you thought we'd been doing but from that moment on, I had nothing but lectures on how no decent man would take on shop-soiled goods.\"\n\n\"There you go again,\" she snapped. \"Always blaming others, never yourself.\"\n\nI shrugged. \"I was merely pointing out that my cruel streak, assuming it exists, comes from you.\"\n\n\"Have I ever broken my word? Do I lie?\"\n\n_Maybe not_ , I thought, _but I might prefer a few white lies and broken promises to the painful recognition that she would rather I had been a son_. \"The only promise I made,\" I reminded her, \"was never to mention Annie Butts in front of you or Sam again, and the fact that you're now interpreting my keeping of that promise as deceit is hardly my fault.\"\n\n\"Then how did your father get caught up in it?\"\n\n\"In what?\"\n\n\"Whatever it is you're doing... the reason you chose to come here despite the trouble I went to to find you a house in Devon.\"\n\n\"I didn't make the promise to Dad,\" I said, \"and he wouldn't have accepted it if I had. He offered to help me before Sam and I left England, and he's been a tower of strength ever since. As a matter of fact, he's the one who spotted the ad for this place in the _Sunday Times_ and phoned me in Cape Town to suggest we rent it for the summer.\"\n\nAnother silence, rather longer this time. She wanted to ask me why\u2014much as Sam had done last night\u2014but she was embarrassed to admit just how far she'd been excluded from our lives and decisions. Instead she adopted an injured air. \"I hope you haven't turned Sam's sons against him as well,\" she said. \"That really would be unforgivable.\"\n\n\"I haven't turned anyone against him,\" I answered, searching the cupboards for a jug.\n\n\"Oh, for goodness'sake!\" she said sharply. \"Don't be so na\u00efve. When you persuaded your father to take your side against your husband's, you effectively set them at each other's throats.\"\n\n\"It was never a question of taking sides,\" I said, finding a glass carafe, \"only a question of research. In any case you took Sam's side against mine, so Dad thought it reasonable for at least one of my parents to redress the balance.\"\n\n\"I did it for your own good. You were behaving like a spoiled child.\"\n\n\"How odd,\" I said with a laugh. \"That's exactly what Dad said about Sam.\"\n\n\"That's nonsense. Your father and Sam used to get on like a house on fire until you insisted on jeopardizing your marriage over that wretched negro.\" She paused. \"Dad's worked hard to restore their relationship, which is why it's so unkind of you to persuade him to go behind Sam's back like this.\"\n\nI cocked an ear to the rumble of relaxed conversation outside. \"They're certainly not at each other's throats yet, so let's hope you're worrying unnecessarily.\"\n\n\"For how much longer? You can't have forgotten how upset Sam was in the wake of that woman's death. What on earth induced you to raise the whole sorry business so soon after his coronary? Do you want to cause another one?\"\n\nI filled the carafe with water and put it on the tray. \"It doesn't seem to have worried him so far,\" I said mildly, \"but feel free to ask him yourself if you don't believe me.\" I lifted the tray. \"That's everything, I think. Could you bring the lemon?\"\n\nWe talked about everything under the sun except Annie Butts, yet her presence was powerfully felt\u2014in my father's refusal to meet my mother's eyes, in Sam's obvious discomfort every time the subject of Dorchester was raised, in my mother's dreadful attempts at flirtatious-ness to reestablish a hold on her menfolk. When it became obvious that I was _de trop_ as far as she was concerned, I took the hint and vanished inside to make lunch. Ten minutes later a monumental row erupted on the terrace. I caught it only in snatches but so much heat was generated, particularly between my parents, that their rapidly rising voices carried through to the kitchen.\n\nIt does me no credit to say I enjoyed every minute of it. But I did. It was the first of my petty little revenges and I raised a silent cheer when my father told my mother it was a pity her life was so bereft of interest that her only joy came from stirring up trouble within her family.\n\nThe silence that followed my reappearance on the terrace with trays of salad was interminable. I remember thinking there was a multitude of wasps that summer. I watched them drone in their black and yellow stripes around the spirit-sugared glasses, and wondered if there was a nest nearby that needed destroying. I also remember thinking that wasps were less harmful than people, and that a sting was a bagatelle compared with the poison of a long-suppressed grievance.\n\n\"Why does your father stay with her?\" Sam asked me in bed that night.\n\n\"Once he signs up to something he always sees it through.\"\n\n\"Is that the only reason they're still together? Because your father has a sense of duty?\"\n\nI shook my head.\n\n\"What else is there?\"\n\n\"Love,\" I said. \"He's a very affectionate man and he never gives up on anyone.\"\n\n\"Like father like daughter then?\"\n\nI turned to look at him. \"Is that how you see me?\"\n\n\"Of course. How else would I see you?\"\n\n**_Letter from Dr. Joseph Elias, psychiatrist_**  \n ** _at the Queen Victoria Hospital, Hong Kong\u2014dated 1980_**\n\n**QUEEN VICTORIA HOSPITAL**\n\n_Hong Kong_\n\n_Dept. of Psychiatry_\n\n**Mrs. M. Ranelagh  \n12 Greenhough Lane  \nPokfulam**\n\n**February 14, 1980**\n\n**Dear Mrs. Ranelagh** ,\n\n**Thank you for your letter of July 3. I'm sorry you feel that a follow-up visit would be of no benefit, particularly as your reference to \"a new calm\" suggested that our previous conversation had been valuable. However, as you so rightly point out, there is no compulsion on you to attend further sessions**.\n\n**I have pondered deeply on the question you posed toward the end of our session. Why should your husband escape punishment for raping you? And I pass on some wisdom I received as a child in Auschwitz concentration camp when I asked a rabbi if the Germans would ever be forgiven for what they were doing to the Jews. \"They will never forgive themselves,\" he said. That is their future and also their punishment**.\n\n**Should you not have asked, however, whether it was right for Sam to escape your punishment? Andare you so free of guilt yourself, Mrs. Ranelagh, that you feel comfortable standing in judgment on your husband?**\n\n**With best wishes,  \nYours sincerely**,\n\nDr. J. Elias\n\n**_Letter from Betty Hepinstall in answer to a request for information about animal cruelty in the UK\u2014dated 1999_**\n\n**THE CHESHIRE CAT HOSPITAL**\n\n**Cheadle Hulme, Cheshire, UK**\n\nMrs. M. Ranelagh  \nJacaranda  \nHightor Road  \nCape Town  \nSouth Africa\n\nDecember 3, 1998\n\nDear Mrs. Ranelagh,\n\nIn response to your detailed inquiry about the ill treatment of cats in the UK, I enclose a copy of a leaflet we produced last year to boost interest in a fund-raising drive. As you will see, it makes grim reading, but I make no apology for the contents. The work we do is costly and time-consuming and would be entirely unnecessary were it not for the terrible cruelty that is regularly inflicted on defenseless animals.\n\nI have no difficulty in believing that someone would put superglue in a cat's mouth and tape its muzzle with Elastoplast or parcel tape to stop it from eating or crying. In the past, we have seen cats with their paws dipped in quick-drying cement to prevent them walking; cats with their back legs paralyzed by broken spines; cats with their claws and teeth pulled out by pliers; cats blinded with red-hot pokers; and cats with rubber bands wound so tightly round their muzzles that the flesh of their mouths had closed over the band. And all, apparently, to the same purpose: to stop them from catching birds and mice.\n\nI would like to be able to tell you that a person who pursues this sort of vendetta against cats is easily identifiable, but I'm afraid I can't. There is considerable evidence-largely through behavioral-science studies in the U.S. and the UK-to indicate that cruelty to animals in childhood leads to sociopathic behavior in adulthood. However, cruelty is far more common in adults than it is in children, and such cruelty is usually the result of an obsessional dislike of certain animals or an uncontrollable temper-often drink-related-which lashes out at anything it finds irritating.\n\nSadly, I cannot say with any certainty that because Miss Butts treated her own cats with kindness she would not have inflicted cruelty on strays intruding into her house. I can only draw parallels with people, and people are notoriously unwilling to show the same charity to foreigners as they show to their family and friends.\n\nYours sincerely,\n\nBetty Hepinstall\n\n# ten\n\nThe following day I drove my mother to Kim-meridge Bay on the Isle of Purbeck. It was a beautiful summer morning with puffs of white cloud dotted across the sky, and we climbed the cliff path to the Clay Tower on the eastern arm of the bight. Larks sang in the air above us, and the occasional walker passed us by, nodding good day or pausing to look at the bizarre folly behind us that some long-dead person had built as a permanent sentinel to guard the ocean approaches. Mother and I conversed with the strangers but not with each other and, in the silences between, we stared as resolutely across the channel at the tower, unwilling to speak in case we started another argument, locked in mutual ignorance despite the genes and experiences we shared.\n\nIn the end I mentioned a vicar's wife I knew who drove to clifftops whenever the pressures of life became too much and screamed her frustrations to the heavens. I suggested my mother had a go. She refused. It wasn't her sort of thing, she told me. Nor could she understand why a vicar's wife would want to do something so common. What sort of woman was she?\n\n\"Eccentric,\" I murmured, as I watched the seagulls float effortlessly over the sea like fragments of tissue paper. \"Very thin and gaunt... hates being married to a vicar... likes her booze... fancies being a lap dancer... looks like a vulture.\"\n\n\"That explains it then,\" said my mother.\n\n\"What?\"\n\n\"The screaming. Thin people are always more high-strung than fat ones.\"\n\nIt sounded reasonable, but then much of what my mother said sounded reasonable. Whether it was true or not was another matter. I decided she was being snide because _she_ was plump and _I_ was thin but, for once, I chose to ignore the bait. \"I've been wondering if it works,\" I said idly. \"My screams are always silent ones that circle 'round my head for days until they run out of steam and die naturally.\"\n\n\"It's pure affectation to scream at all. You should learn to deal with your problems quietly instead of making a song and dance about them.\" I gave a weary sigh as I thought to myself that that was precisely what I had done, and she cast me a suspicious glance. \"I suppose that's why you brought me here? So you can scream at me?\"\n\n\"Not at _you,\"_ I corrected her. \"At the wind.\"\n\n\"You'll only embarrass yourself,\" she said. \"Someone's bound to appear up the path at the wrong moment.\"\n\n\"Perhaps that's the point,\" I murmured reflectively. \"A double whammy Physical and mental adrenaline all in one shot.\" I watched a dinghy, full of divers in wetsuits, motor out of the bay and head toward the southwest. \"Would it embarrass you?\"\n\n\"Not in the least.\" She perched her behind on the edge of a rock. \"If I wasn't embarrassed twenty years ago when you were behaving like a madwoman then I'm hardly likely to start now.\"\n\n_She has a short memory_ , I thought, as I lowered myself to the ground to sit cross-legged in front of her. Her embarrassment had been colossal. I concentrated my attention on a clump of pink thrift that had rooted itself tenaciously in a crevice. \"I wasn't mad, Ma, I was exhausted. We were kept awake night after night by the phone ringing nonstop, and even when we changed our number the calls just kept on coming. If we took the damn thing off the hook, we had mud thrown against our windows or constant hammering on the front door. We were _both_ suffering from sleep deprivation, _both_ behaving like zombies, yet for some reason you decided that everything Sam told you was true while everything I said was a lie.\"\n\nShe examined the distant horizon where the blue of the sea met the blue of the sky, and I remembered her telling me once that the difference between a woman and a lady was that a woman spoke without thinking while a lady always considered what she was about to say. \"You screamed and yelled about rats in your downstairs lavatory,\" she said at last. \"Are you saying _that_ wasn't true? You poured gallons of bleach down the loo in order to kill them, then became hysterical because you said they'd moved into the sitting room.\"\n\n\"I'm not denying I said some strange things, but they weren't lies. I kept hearing scratching sounds and I could only think of rats.\"\n\n\"Sam didn't hear them.\"\n\n\"He most certainly did,\" I contradicted her. \"If he told you he didn't, he was lying.\"\n\n\"Why would he want to?\"\n\nI thought back. \"For a lot of very complicated reasons... mostly, I imagine, because he didn't like me much at the time and thought that everything was my fault. He said I was making the noises myself to get attention and was damned if he was going to pander to any more of my childishness.\"\n\nShe frowned. \"I remember him saying he called in the rat catcher to try to persuade you it was all in your imagination.\"\n\nI shook my head. \"It was me who called in the rat catcher, and for exactly the opposite reason. I wanted proof that there _were_ rats.\"\n\n\"And were there?\"\n\n\"No. The man said there was no evidence of rodent infestation, no nests, no indication that any food had been eaten, and no droppings. He also said that if we had rats then our neighbors would be complaining as well.\" I ran my finger lightly over the thrift and watched the pink heads shiver. \"The next day Sam phoned you to tell you I was going 'round the bend and he wanted a divorce.\"\n\nShe didn't say anything for several moments, and I raised my head to look at her. There was a perplexed expression on her face. \"Well, I'm completely lost. If you and Sam both heard it but it wasn't rats and it wasn't you, then what was it?\"\n\n\"I think it might have been cats,\" I said.\n\n\"Oh, for goodness'sake!\" she declared crossly. \"How could there be cats in your house without your noticing?\"\n\n\"Not _in,\"_ I said, _\"under_. It took me a long time to work it out because I didn't know the first thing about building houses. I couldn't even change a plug when I married, let alone get to grips with the importance of underfloor ventilation.\"\n\nHer mouth thinned immediately. \"I suppose that's a sly dig at me and your father.\"\n\n\"No,\" I said with an inward sigh, \"just a fact.\"\n\n\"What does it have to do with cats?\"\n\n\"Houses have holes in their walls below ground level to allow a free flow of air under the floorboards. It prevents the wood from becoming rotten. They're usually constructed out of airbricks, but the houses in Graham Road were built in the 1880s and in those days they used wrought-iron grills to make a design feature out of them. Before he left, the rat catcher mentioned that one of ours was missing from the back of the house. It happened all the time, he said, because there was quite a market for them in architectural salvage. It wasn't a problem because someone had wedged a metal bootscraper over the hole, but he suggested we get it replaced at some stage if we didn't want trouble in the future. He kept calling it a ventilation grill, and I assumed he was talking about something that was attached to the extractor fan in the upstairs bathroom because that was the only ventilation I knew about.\"\n\nI fell silent and she made an impatient gesture with her hand, as if to say, \"Get on with it.\"\n\n\"I wasn't very with it at the time\u2014all I wanted was confirmation that rats existed\u2014so it went in one ear and out the other because whatever was missing didn't seem to stop the extractor fan working. Then, one day in Sydney, I watched our neighbor's Jack Russell dig a hole in the flower bed beside our house and vanish through a hole into the crawl space beneath the house, and I realized the rat catcher had probably been talking about underfloor ventilation. He was telling me we had a hole in our back wall at ground level, and probably quite a sizeable one if a wrought-iron grill had been hacked out.\"\n\n\"And because of that you think cats got in?\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"Didn't you say the rat catcher said it wasn't a problem because a boot scraper was wedged over the hole?\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"Then how did they get in?\"\n\n\"I think someone carried them down the alleyway at the back of our house, pushed them in and covered the hole afterward.\"\n\nShe gave a snort of incredulity. \"That's too absurd. The rat catcher would have heard them. They'd have been yowling their heads off. And why cats? Why not dogs? You said it was a Jack Russell that went into your crawl space in Sydney.\"\n\n\"Because Annie's house was full of cats.\"\n\n\"Now you really _are_ being ridiculous! The woman had been dead for weeks by that time. They can't possibly have been hers.\"\n\n\"I'm not suggesting they were,\" I said, \"just that cats are more likely than dogs in the circumstances. My guess is they were pushed in under our floorboards to die because there was no convenient cat flap in our back door. If there had been, I think I'd have found them dying in my kitchen. I called out the gas board twice because I thought I could smell gas, but each time they said there was nothing wrong. One of the men said it smelled like a dead mouse, but I said it couldn't be because we didn't have any.\"\n\nI could feel the weight of her disbelief bearing down on my bent head. \"You'd have known if something had died. The smell of death is terrible.\"\n\n\"Only when it's warm. This happened in winter\u2014a particularly cold winter\u2014and we had fitted carpets over all the floors.\"\n\n\"But\u2014\" She broke off to marshal her thoughts. \"Why didn't you hear them? Tomcats make a terrible noise when they yowl.\"\n\n\"It depends what was done to them first.\" I shook my head. \"In any case, I think they must have died of hypothermia very quickly.\"\n\nAnother pause. \"What on earth could be done to a cat to stop it crying?\"\n\nI hunched my shoulders as I thought of the chilling research I'd done on the subject. \"At a guess, they had superglue pumped into their mouths and eyes and Elastoplast wrapped tightly 'round their faces so they couldn't see, eat, drink or cry. Then they were pushed under our house to try to scratch their way out with the only things left to them... their claws.\"\n\nMy mother drew a disgusted breath, although whether her disgust was leveled at me for making the suggestion or at the suggestion itself, I couldn't tell. \"What sort of people would do a thing like that?\"\n\nI reached into my pocket for a copy of the police report describing the entry into Annie's house the day after her death and passed it across to her. \"The same people who tortured cats for Annie's benefit,\" I said. \"The only difference is, they pushed the wretched creatures through her cat flap so she could see what was happening to them.\"\n\nShe glanced at the report but didn't read it. \"Why? What was the point?\"\n\n\"Any reason you like. Sometimes I think it was done to cause fear, other times I think it was done for pleasure.\" I turned my face to the wind. \"In a perverted sort of way, I ought to feel flattered. I think the assumption was I was cleverer than Annie and could work out for myself that animals were dying in dreadful agony under my house. And the fact that I wasn't... and didn't... must have been a disappointment.\"\n\nIf my mother asked me why once, she asked it a hundred times on our journey home. Why hadn't Annie gone to the police? Why hadn't Annie phoned the RSPCA? Why would anyone feel confident about tormenting me in the same way they'd tormented Annie? Why weren't they afraid I'd go to the police? Why _hadn't_ I gone to the police? Why would anyone want to reinforce my suspicions about Annie's death? Why risk getting Sam involved? Why risk getting the rat catcher involved? Why hadn't I questioned the RSPCA findings at the inquest? Why... ? Why... ? Why... ?\n\nWas she finally beginning to understand how betrayed I'd felt when she hadn't believed me at the time? Or was I being cynical in my absolute conviction that it was only her recognition of my father's tireless support of me that had shamed her into asking any questions at all?\n\nIn any case, I had few answers for her, other than to say no one believes a mad woman. \"But why assume there was a logical thought process at work,\" I asked her finally, \"when whoever tortured the cats was clearly unbalanced?\" It was done for the pleasure of inflicting pain, not because it was possible to predict how Mad Annie or I would react to having mutilated animals left on our doorsteps.\n\n**_Family correspondence\u2014dated 1999_**\n\nCURRAN HOUSE\n\n_Whitehay Road_\n\n_Torquay_\n\n_Devon_\n\nPS I know she's barking up the wrong tree but do give her credit for trying. She's very \"down\" at the moment because she feels we ganged up on her and can't understand why I said she should have expected it\u2014i.e., what goes around comes around\u2014but she doesn't want to be reminded of how she ganged up on you all those years ago. It would be tactful, my dear, to avoid saying \"I told you so,\" however strong the temptation. I would think less of you if you did!\n\nDad\n\nX X X\n\n# eleven\n\nPortland Peninsula was under assault from a blustery southwest wind the following Wednesday when Sam and I drove up from Chesil Beach in search of the sculpture park. Given the choice, I'd rather have gone on my own. There was too much that still needed explaining\u2014my more-than-passing interest in Danny, for example\u2014but I balked at telling Sam his presence would only exacerbate the problem when, like my mother, his way of making up for past indifference was a belated wish to be involved.\n\nI had made a halfhearted attempt the previous day to talk about the three weeks at the end of January and beginning of February '79 that I spent alone on Graham Road, but my habit of silence was so ingrained that I gave it up after a few minutes. I found I couldn't talk about fear without becoming cruel, and I couldn't become cruel without turning on Sam because he had abandoned me when I needed him most. In the end, as so often in my life, I took the fatalistic view that whatever would be would be. Sam was a grown man. If he couldn't learn to live with the truth, irrespective of how it was revealed to him, then nothing I did or said would make a difference.\n\nThe Isle of Portland, a tilted slab of limestone four miles long and one mile wide, forms a natural breakwater between Lyme Bay to the west and the sweep of sheltered water between Weymouth and the Isle of Purbeck to the east. Its precipitous cliffs rise out of the sea to a high point of nearly five hundred feet, with only the hardiest of vegetation surviving the mercurial English weather. As Sam and I wound our way up its spine, I thought how bleak it was, and how unsurprising that successive governments had claimed it both as a fortress against foreign invasion and as a colony for prisoners.\n\nIn 1847 the Admiralty had employed convict labor awaiting transportation to Australia to construct a mighty harbor on Portland's eastern shores, which remained the preserve of the Ministry of Defense until the government abandoned it in the early 1990s. It seemed fitting somehow, in view of the convicted men who had toiled to create the anchorage, that the most prominent feature in Portland harbor that Wednesday was a gray prison ship that had been imported from America some four years previously to deal with the chronic overcrowding in Her Majesty's inland gaols.\n\n\"Is Michael Percy being held there?\" Sam asked me.\n\n\"No. He's in the adult prison here on the island. It's called the Verne. It's off to our left somewhere.\" I pointed to a sprawling Victorian building ahead of us which dominated the skyline. \"That's the young offenders'institution. It was built to house the convicts who worked on the harbor.\"\n\n\"Good God! How many prisons are there?\"\n\n\"Three, including the ship.\" I laughed at his expression. \"I don't think it means Dorset's a hive of criminal activity,\" I said, \"just that desolate lumps of rock make good holding pens for society's rejects. Think of Alcatraz.\"\n\n\"So what did Michael do?\"\n\nI thought back to the press cuttings of his trial which had arrived toward the end of 1993. \"Went into a village post office in leathers and a crash helmet, and pistol-whipped an elderly customer until the postmaster agreed to open his security door and hand over what was in his till.\"\n\nSam whistled. \"A bit of a bastard then?\"\n\n\"It depends on your viewpoint. Wendy Stanhope would say it was his mother's fault for letting him run out of control. Her name was Sharon Percy. She's the blonde you saw in the pub occasionally.\"\n\nHe made a wry face. \"The prostitute? She used to haunt the flaming place looking for customers. She tried to hit on me and Jock once so I gave her a piece of my mind. Jock was furious with me afterward. He said Libby was giving him a hard time, and he'd have been up for it like a shot if I hadn't queered his pitch.\"\n\n\"Mm. Well, at a guess he was double-bluffing you in case you got suspicious about her approach. According to Libby, he was paying out thirty quid a week to Sharon for most of '78. They didn't bother to keep it much of a secret either, except from the people who mattered... like you and me and his long-suffering wife.\" I watched him out of the corner of my eye. \"Paul and Julia Charles worked out what was going on because Paul saw Jock coming out of Sharon's house one evening and put two and two together.\"\n\nHe threw me a startled glance. \"You're joking!\"\n\n\"No. She charged twenty for straight sex, thirty for a blow job, and Jock visited her every Tuesday for months.\" I was amused. \"You can work out for yourself which service he was getting.\"\n\n\"Shit!\" He sounded so shocked that I wondered if \"Tuesday\" had registered as the day Annie died, and if he was now trying to remember the details of the alibi he'd given Jock. \"Who told you?\"\n\n\"Libby.\"\n\n\"When?\"\n\n\"A year or so after we left. It all came out in court when Jock decided to contest the divorce settlement. Libby hired a hotshot solicitor who demanded an explanation for the _\u00a330_ withdrawals from the joint bank account every Tuesday, along with an explanation for the numerous other bank accounts he'd set up without Libby's knowledge. He wasn't very good at hiding his peccadillos and the judge took him to the cleaners for it.\" I pointed to a sign for Tout Quarry. \"I think this is where we need to turn off.\"\n\nHe flicked his indicator. \"Where did they do it?\"\n\n\"In her house. Sharon used to smuggle her clients down the alleyway at the back as a way of protecting her reputation... such as it was.\"\n\n\"What about her kid?\"\n\n\"Michael? I'm not sure he was there very much. Wendy said he was always in trouble with the police so I imagine he was made to roam the streets.\"\n\n\"Jesus!\" said Sam in disgust, as he drove onto a rough unmade track that led down to the sculpture park. \"No wonder he went to the bad.\" He drew the car to a halt and switched off the engine. \"How was he caught for the post-office job?\"\n\n\"He confessed to his wife three months later and she promptly turned him in. She gave the police a black leather jacket which she said Michael was wearing on the day of the robbery. It still had blood spots round the cuffs which matched the customer's in the post office.\" I thought back. \"Michael pleaded guilty but it didn't do him much good. The judge commended Bridget for the brave assistance she'd given the police, and said he was sending her husband down for eleven years as a result of her efforts.\"\n\n\"And this is the Bridget who lived on Graham Road?\"\n\n\"Mm. She was at number 27... opposite Annie's house. Her father, Geoffrey Spalding, shacked up with Michael's mother when Bridget was thirteen, leaving her and her older sister, Rosie, to fend for themselves. I don't know what happened to Rosie, but Bridget and Michael married sometime in 1992, just after Michael finished a long sentence for aggravated burglary and ten counts of breaking and entering. He stayed out of trouble for about six months then robbed the post office. All in all, he and Bridget have spent less than a year living together as a married couple.\"\n\n\"And now they're divorced?\"\n\n\"No. The last I heard she was working in Bournemouth and making a monthly trip to Portland to visit Michael. That's why he was moved down here... because no one visits him except his wife. She said at the trial that she still loved him\u2014said she can't rely on anyone the way she relies on Michael because they've known each other since they were children\u2014and the only reason she turned him in was because she was afraid he was going to kill somebody. I thought how brave she was,\" I said dryly. \"His mother's a coward by contrast\u2014that's Sharon\u2014won't go near him... hasn't done for years because of the shame he's brought on her. She's been respectable ever since Bridget's dad moved in with her and she was able to give up the game.\"\n\n\"She sounds a right bitch,\" he said grimly\n\n\"She's not much of a mother, that's for sure.\"\n\nSam leaned his arms on the steering wheel and stared thoughtfully out of the window. \"Were all the kids as bad?\" he asked. \"What about the Charles children next door?\"\n\n\"The oldest was only five,\" I said, \"and Julia never let them out of her sight. It was really only Michael and the Slaters who ran wild... in both cases because their mothers had given up on them. Sharon didn't care... and Maureen was so brutalized by Derek that she spent most of her time getting stoned in her bedroom.\"\n\n\"Did you know all this in '78?\"\n\n\"No. Most of it came from Libby after we moved. I knew Alan Slater was getting into fights because he had so many bruises, but I didn't realize it was his father who was hitting him. I talked it over with the head on one occasion, but he just said it would do Alan good to be thrashed by his own peer group because he was a bully himself. As for Michael\"\u2014I gave a small laugh\u2014\"I always thought how mature he was for his age. He wrote me a couple of love poems and left them on my desk, signed: The Prisoner of Zenda.\"\n\n\"How did you know they were from him?\"\n\n\"I recognized his handwriting. He was an incredibly bright child. If he'd come from a different background, he'd have an M.A. from Oxford by now instead of a ten-page criminal record. The trouble was he was a persistent truant so he only ever attended one class in three.\" I sighed. \"If I'd been a little more experienced\u2014or less intimidated by the bloody headmaster\u2014I could have helped him. As it was, I let him down.\" I paused. \"Alan, too,\" I added as an afterthought.\n\n\"Did Jock know Michael was truanting?\"\n\nI reached for my door handle. \"I shouldn't think so,\" I said bluntly. \"He was paying to have his dick sucked, not listen to stories about Sharon's only child.\"\n\nIt was years before I understood that Michael's poems were more about loneliness than love. At the time I swung between suspicion that he had plagiarized them, possibly from song lyrics, and admiration that a fourteen-year-old could write so poignantly. Either way, I decided he had an unhealthy crush on me and made a point of keeping him at arm's length to prevent him becoming a nuisance.\n\n_If I was older. If I was wise.  \nYou'd look at me with different eyes  \nand love me_.\n\n_If I was handsome. If I was strong.  \nNo one would say that you were wrong  \nto love me_.\n\n_It always makes me sad to see  \na weed grow where a flower should be.  \nSo I think of flowers when I think of you.  \nIt always makes me sad to hear  \nthe deathly silence in the air.  \n_\n\n_So I think of music when I think of you.  \n_\n\n**_Letter from Libby Garth\u2014ex-wife of Jock Williams,  \nformerly of 21 Graham Road, Richmond\u2014  \nnow resident in Leicestershire_**\n\n**Windrush  \nHenchard Lane  \nMelton Mowbray  \nLeicestershire**\n\n**December 4, 1989**\n\n**M'dear** ,\n\n**Happy Christmas! I'd send a card if I didn't think Sam would go ballistic at the idea. It still hurts, you know, that he took Jock's side without ever bothering to hear mine. I know you say it's not in his nature to think ill of anyone\u2014 let alone a close friend\u2014but he must think ill of me if you can't even tell him we're still in touch. It's one of the horrible truisms that divorce doesn't just divide property, but friends as well. That being said, it's probably better this way if he's still shying away from the whole subject of Annie's death**.\n\n**Have you ever worked out why that is? I know you say he has a habit of forgetting anything he doesn't want to remember\u2014like your frigid spell, your near-divorce, your \"fits of the vapors,\" your police caution, etc.\u2014but surely Annie doesn't hold any fears for him now? He can't possibly have killed her because he's not the type to push people under trucks! Surely, that had to be Derek Slater? He was the only man on Graham Road who was vicious enough**.\n\n**Jim and the girls are fine. At the moment I'm resistingJim's blandishments for one more try to see if we can make a boy. I keep telling him a three-year-old, a nine-month-old and a teaching job are more than enough to occupy anyone, but he seems to think I'm Superwoman. I don't know how you managed without a nanny. The only thing that keeps me sane is to get into my car every morning and spend the day with my alternative \"family\" at school, though I'm still trying to work out how to persuade fourteen-year-old gorillas with twice as much testosterone as brain that learning is a \"good thing.\" I leave every class feeling as if I've been raped and ravaged by their revolting imaginations. Did that contribute to your agoraphobia after Annie died? I've often wondered. I remember you telling me that you couldn't stand the way Alan Slater and Michael Percy looked at you**.\n\n**Apropos, I enclose two cuttings. One about Michael, who goes from bad to worse, which is only to be expected of the tart's son. Yes, I'm being beastly, but I'd have to be a saint to view the \"bleached vampire\" and her progeny with anything other than hatred since they received a rather more regular income from Jock than I ever did! The second is about the policeman, Sergeant Drury\u2014the one you had a yen for at the beginning. (Looked like a shorter-haired version of Patrick Swayze in Dirty Dancing\u2014have you seen the movie? It's to die for!) I might have fancied him myself if he hadn't turned out to be such a shit. It was unforgivable of him to \"kiss and tell\" to Sam. Have you considered that that might be Sam's problem with the Annie saga? It was certainly his problem the night before he took himself off for three weeks. Have you forgiven him for forcing you yetIt was a shabby and beastly way to treat you when you were struggling with agoraphobia and depression. But that's men for you\u2014act first, think later! I bet he regrets it now, especially if you managed to persuade him that Drury was lying**.\n\n**Anyway, Drury's taken early retirement, though by the way the piece is worded the implication is he was given the boot for whacking a seventeen-year-old Asian boy**.\n\n**Keep smiling** ,\n\n**All my love** ,\n\n_Libby_\n\n# twelve\n\nTout Quarry, home to the sculpture park and once a source of hand-quarried Portland stone, had been long worked out and abandoned. It was a wild and wonderful place. A man-made labyrinth of tangled gorges and wide-open spaces like amphitheaters where stunted shrubs and trees grew among blocks of half-excavated sedimentary rock. It looked as if a giant hand had rummaged in the belly of the earth and stirred the stone into a chaotic, tumbling dance.\n\nSam was fascinated by the intermittent sculptures which had been carved in situ and introduced subtle shape to the craggy landscape. Antony Gormley's _Still Falling_ \u2014a cameo figure plunging down a rocky cliffside. Robert Harding's _Philosopher's Stone_ \u2014an intricate layer of cut stones perched between V-shaped rocks. A crouching man with his chin resting on his knees. Footsteps. A tulip, prized from the rock to lie in reflection on the ground. \"Is anyone allowed to have a go?\" he asked, examining a fossil in a slab and trying to work out if it was a real ammonite or a simulated one.\n\n\"I think you have to be invited.\"\n\n\"Pity,\" he said wistfully. \"I quite fancy leaving my mark for posterity.\"\n\nI laughed. \"Which is probably why people like you aren't allowed to do it. You'd get bored after a while and carve out 'Sam woz 'ere, 1999,'then the whole place would be desecrated with graffiti.\"\n\nWe heard the sculpture workshop before we saw it. A constant rata-tat of hammers on chisels, overlaid by the whistle of wind through a polythene canopy that had been rigged above the sculptors'heads. It was a scene of intense industry because everyone was there for a purpose, to learn how to work in three dimensions. White stone chippings littered the ground, and a fine dust clung to arms, hair and clothing like baker's flour. It might have been a Renaissance atelier in Italy but for the polythene canopy, the uniform prevalence of T-shirts and jeans, and the fact that half the sculptors were women.\n\nIt was situated in a sheltered gulley, and Danny stood out from the rest of the group, not just because he'd positioned himself near the entrance but because his block of stone was three times the size of anybody else's. It was also a great deal more advanced. Where most of the others were still working to establish basic form, Danny had already released a bespectacled head and upper torso from the limestone's grip and was using a claw chisel to give grained texture to the skin of the face.\n\nHe looked up as we approached. \"What do you think?\" he asked, stepping back and letting his hands fall to his sides, unsurprised that we'd come to admire his work. His physique interested me. I was amazed by how well developed his shoulders and arms were without a jacket to hide them.\n\n\"Excellent,\" observed Sam with the overdone bonhomie that he reserved for men he didn't know very well. \"Who is it? Anyone we know?\"\n\nA scowl of irritation narrowed Danny's eyes.\n\n\"Mahatma Gandhi,\" I said, casting a quick verifying glance at the drawings and photographs on the ground beside him. I didn't need to. The likeness was there, even if more reliant on intuition than reality. \"It's an ambitious subject.\"\n\nThat didn't please him either. \"I can tell you're a teacher,\" he said witheringly glancing toward the canopy where instructors were passing on advice and help to the other students. \"That's what they keep telling me.\"\n\nI eyed him curiously. \"Why don't you take it as a compliment?\"\n\nHe shrugged. \"Because I know a put-down when I hear it.\"\n\n\"You're too sensitive,\" I said. \"In my case it's a spur to keep you going. You're obviously the star here\u2014head and shoulders above the others\u2014and unless you're blind and stupid you must recognize the fact.\"\n\n\"I do.\"\n\n\"Then stop bellyaching and prove you can cope with an ambitious subject.\" I ran a finger along the larger-than-life spectacles which grew at a forty-five-degree angle from the wrinkled stone cheeks. \"How did you do these?\"\n\n\"Carefully,\" he said, more serious than ironic.\n\nI smiled. \"Weren't you afraid of knocking them off?\"\n\n\"I still am.\"\n\n\"There's a bronze statue of Gandhi in Ladysmith in South Africa. It commemorates the ambulance corps that he set up there during the Boer war. It's the only other one I've ever seen of him.\"\n\n\"How does it compare?\"\n\n\"With this one?\"\n\nHe nodded. I might have mistaken his question for arrogance if the muscles in his shoulders had been less rigid or his scowl less ferocious. _He is preparing to defend himself again_ , I thought.\n\n\"It's a thoroughly professional life-size representation in bronze of a tiny little man who did his duty by the Empire after accepting British citizenship,\" I said. \"But that's all it is. It gave me no sense of his greatness, no sense of the extraordinary effect his humility had on the world, no sense of inner strength.\" I moved my fingers to touch the rough limestone face. \"Gandhi was a giant with no pretensions. For myself, I'd rather have him larger-than-life and rough-hewn in stone than realistically small and neatly polished in bronze.\"\n\nHis scowl relaxed. \"Will you buy it?\"\n\nI shook my head regretfully.\n\n\"Why not? You just said you liked it.\"\n\n\"Where would I put it?\"\n\n\"In your garden.\"\n\n\"We don't have a garden. We're only renting the farmhouse for the summer. After that\"\u2014I shrugged\u2014\"who knows? If we're lucky we may be able to afford a brick box with a tablecloth for a garden and a few roses 'round the border... and, frankly, a bust of Mahatma Gandhi in the middle of it would look very out of place.\"\n\nHe was disappointed. \"I thought you were loaded.\"\n\n\"Sadly not.\"\n\nHe pulled out his cigarettes. \"Just keeping up appearances, eh?\"\n\n\"Something like that.\"\n\n\"Ah, well,\" he said with resignation, bending his head to shield his lighter from the wind. \"Maybe I'll give him to you for free.\" He blew smoke through his nose. \"It'll cost me an arm and a leg to get him back to London, and the chances are the specs'll get knocked off in the process. You can start a collection... put him next to Alan's Quetzal-coatl... make the Slaters famous for something other than drugs, burglary and wife-beating...\"\n\nI suggested we treat Danny to lunch at the Sailor's Rest in Weymouth but Sam wasn't keen. \"The food's good,\" he admitted, \"but the landlord's an asshole.\"\n\n\"I think you already know him,\" I told Danny as we made our way back to the car. \"He's the policeman who got Alan sent down. I thought it might amuse you to see him in different surroundings.\" I interrupted the silence that followed this remark to point at the wreck of a Viking long ship that was creatively cast upon some rocks to our left. \"That's a clever use of materials,\" I murmured.\n\n\"What's his name?\" asked Danny.\n\n\"James Drury He was a uniformed sergeant in Richmond until he was forced to take early retirement and took himself off to train as a pub manager for Radley's Brewery. They started him off in Guildford, then moved him to the Sailor's Rest in '95.\"\n\nDanny eyed me with understandable suspicion. \"How do you know he's the one who nicked Alan?\"\n\n\"A neighbor of ours in Graham Road told me,\" I explained. \"Libby Williams?\" He shook his head. \"She knew I was interested in anything Mr. Drury did, particularly if it concerned an ex-pupil.\" I tucked my hand companionably into the crook of Sam's elbow to soften the blows of revelation. \"I had several encounters with him before we moved abroad. He's probably the most corrupt person I've ever met... a thief, a liar, a bully... and a racist. Quite the wrong sort of man to be given a police uniform.\"\n\nA mirthless laugh escaped Danny's mouth. \"He sure as hell stitched Alan up. Okay, I'm not saying my brother was an angel, but he was no drug pusher. A user, maybe\u2014never a pusher.\"\n\n\"What happened?\"\n\n\"I don't know the exact details... I was just a kid at the time... but Ma said Drury nicked him in a pub one night, and dropped four ounces of hash into his pocket while he was slapping on the handcuffs. He was a right bastard. If he couldn't get you for one thing, he'd get you for another.\"\n\n\"What had Alan really done?\"\n\nDanny made fists of his hands and punched the knuckles against each other. \"Couldn't stay out of a fight, particularly when he was drunk. Took the whole damn police force on one evening and laid about him like a good 'un, never mind he was only fifteen.\" A reminiscent smile curled his mouth. \"He got five thousand quid compensation for it.\"\n\n\"That's some trick,\" said Sam.\n\n\"Not really. Al's injuries were much worse than the coppers' Three broken ribs... boot marks all over him from the kicking they gave him... internal bleeding. You name it, he had it. The only problem is\"\u2014Danny sent a stone flying with a well-aimed toecap\u2014\"Drury had it in for the Slater kids from that moment on. He arrested us all at one time or another. He rubbed his arm in tender recollection. _\"And_ gave us a damn good thrashing whenever he got the chance.\"\n\n\"So what was Alan actually convicted of?\" I asked curiously. \"Possession or assault on the police?\"\n\nDanny frowned. \"Dealing, I think,\" he said vaguely. \"But it was a stitch-up whichever way you look at it. They reckoned he was a bad influence on the rest of us, so Drury had him put away till he calmed down. He's been straight ever since... so I guess it worked.\"\n\nI wondered if any of it was true, or if it was a story the family had invented for public consumption.\n\nSam turned to me with a puzzled look. \"And this Drury is the man who was staring at you?\"\n\nI nodded. \"I think he was trying to work out who I was.\"\n\n\"Well, he'll know by now. I paid by credit card.\"\n\n\"Yes,\" I agreed. \"That's why we went there.\"\n\nHe looked away, racing to put the pieces of his own personal jigsaw puzzle together. \"So what's the plan?\" he asked as we approached the car. \"Do we walk up to this thug and confront him? Or do we behave with civilized disdain?\"\n\n\"We behaved with civilized disdain last time,\" I reminded him.\n\n_\"You_ may have done,\" he snapped irritably, inserting his key into the car door. \" _I_ didn't know him from Adam. All I saw was a middle-aged prick ogling my wife.\" He frowned at us across the roof. \"If you're intending to talk to him about the robbery you won't get anywhere. Larry said he wasn't remotely interested when Sheila tried to raise it with him. He just became extremely offensive and reduced Sheila to a nervous wreck.\"\n\nI exchanged a quick glance with Danny and saw only curiosity in his eyes. \"I want to unsettle him a little,\" I said. \"Make him wonder what three ex-residents of Graham Road are doing in his pub.\"\n\nSam shook his head, clearly unimpressed. \"Yes, but _why?_ What are you expecting to achieve? There's no reason to think you'll be any more successful than Sheila, and I'm not keen to end up in the middle of a screaming match in public.\"\n\nDanny spoke before I could answer, after shoving his hands into his pockets to protect whatever was there. _Cannabis?_ I wondered. \"I've done my best to put distance between me and Mr. Drury these last ten years,\" he grumbled, \"and I'd be well pleased if he thought I was dead.\"\n\nI gave a noncommittal shrug. \"Okay, we'll go somewhere else. I always planned to confront him on my own anyway. He doesn't scare _me..._ or not as much as he'd like to think.\"\n\nI was lying of course.\n\nSam took up the gauntlet as I hoped he would, albeit reluctantly since he obviously thought I was planning a scene, while Danny muttered that the issue had nothing to do with being scared and everything to do with common sense. He asked me if we intended to drive him back to the sculpture park afterward, and when I said we would, he brightened visibly and tucked something down between the cushions of the back seat before we left the car.\n\nWhen we reached the Sailor's Rest, Sam chose a table near the harbor wall and eyed the other customers warily to see if he recognized anyone. \"Just try to keep your voice under control,\" he muttered irritably. \"You get very strident when you talk about Annie.\"\n\n\"Not anymore,\" I said, switching my attention to Danny and asking him to come inside with me. \"Sam can guard the table,\" I told him, \"while you and I sort out the drinks.\"\n\n\"What you mean is, you want the ferret to see the rabbit,\" Danny muttered despondently as I led the way across the cobbles to the front door of the pub.\n\nI smiled, liking him a great deal. \"Rabbits plural,\" I said. \"We're both in the same boat. But there's strength in numbers... any rabbit will tell you that.\"\n\n\"So who's this Annie you get strident about?\" he asked as we paused on the threshold to let our eyes adjust from brilliant sunshine to the Stygian gloom inside.\n\n\"Annie Butts,\" I told him. \"She was living next door to you in Graham Road while Sam and I were there. Your mother would probably remember her. She was a black lady who was killed by a truck shortly before we left. Her death was one of the reasons Mr. Drury and I came to blows.\"\n\nHe shook his head. \"Never heard of her.\"\n\nI believed him. He seemed to have no memories of his early childhood\u2014perhaps because it was too painful and he had chosen to blank it, just as I had done with some of my more disturbing memories\u2014and I was grateful for his ignorance. If nothing else, it meant my conscience could ride a little lighter. \"There's no reason why you should,\" I said. \"People die every day, but they're usually only remembered by their families.\"\n\nHe looked toward the bar where Drury was standing. \"So why did you and him come to blows over her?\"\n\nIt was a good question. \"I don't know,\" I answered honestly. \"It's something I've never understood. But I'll get an explanation one day... assuming there is one.\"\n\n\"Is that why we're here?\" he asked in an unconscious echo of my mother three days before. In a way it was flattering. They both assumed I knew what I was doing.\n\n**_Correspondence from Michael Percy, son of Sharon\u2014  \nconvicted of armed robbery and serving out his sentence at  \nthe Verne Prison, Portland\u2014-formerly of 28 Graham  \nRoad\u2014dated 1999_**\n\n# thirteen\n\nI don't know if it's enough to say I wanted revenge on Drury because I hated him. One should have reasons for hatred, not just a visceral antipathy that causes a red mist before the eyes at the mere mention of a name. Dr. Elias had asked me several times why I bothered to invest so much emotion in a man I had known for only a matter of weeks, but I could never bring myself to answer for fear of sounding paranoid.\n\nHe had changed very little in twenty years except that his hair was grayer and his eyes darker and more impenetrable. He was the same age as Sam, but he'd always been tougher, stronger and more attractive. He was a type that women invariably fell for and invariably wished they hadn't when the hard-man image\u2014a thin disguise for misogyny\u2014 proved to be an immutable reality.\n\nHe studied us with amusement as we approached. \"Mrs. Ranelagh.\" He gave an ironic nod in Danny's direction. \"You're scraping the bottom of the barrel with this one, aren't you? What is he? Toy boy or minder?\"\n\nI had to run my tongue around my mouth to stimulate some saliva. \"Moral support,\" I replied.\n\nHis smile broadened. \"Why would you need it?\"\n\n\"Because you won't like these,\" I said, taking some photographs from my pocket and laying them on the bar.\n\nHe reached out a hand to pick them up but Danny was there before him. \"Is this the black lady you were talking about?\" he asked.\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"She looks as if she's been hit with a baseball bat,\" he said, laying them back on the counter.\n\n\"She does, doesn't she?\" I put my finger on the top picture and pushed it aside to fan out the five others underneath. None of them was pleasant. Each showed Annie in death, bruised and battered about the face, and with a discolored right arm where blood had seeped under the skin to form an extended hematoma from shoulder to wrist. \"Mr. Drury decided all these injuries came from a single glancing blow from a truck, which resulted in death within thirty minutes... but I can't find anyone who agrees with him. These pictures were taken during her autopsy in 1978. I've had them examined by two independent pathologists and they both say the bruising to the arm points to severe physical trauma some hours before she died.\"\n\n\"What's that in English?\"\n\n\"Annie was murdered.\"\n\nThe irritation from across the counter heightened abruptly, and I wondered why Drury thought I was there. A desire to renew an old friendship? Lust?\n\n\"Jesus wept!\" he growled. \"Don't you ever give up? It's like listening to a skipping record. Haven't you anything better to do with your life than make a martyr out of a miserable black who couldn't hold her drink?\" He lifted the top picture and turned it over to inspect the back for an official stamp. \"Where the hell did you get these?\"\n\n\"PC Quentin sent them to me.\"\n\n\"Andrew?\"\n\nI nodded.\n\n\"He's been dead seven years,\" he said dismissively \"Died in a car crash after chasing a joyrider at high speed for three miles.\"\n\n\"I know. He sent them to me shortly after we left England. I wrote and asked him for copies because I knew he was unhappy with the inquest verdict.\"\n\nDrury gave a grunt of irritation. \"What would he know? The guy was still wet behind the ears. He had a half-assed degree in sociology, and he reckoned it gave him an edge over a home office pathologist and a beat copper with ten years'graft on the streets.\"\n\n\"He was right, though,\" I said. \"This kind of bruising\"\u2014I touched one of the photographs\u2014\"takes time to develop. It also suggests more than one contact. If her arm was hit in several places, the individual hematomas would have spread out, darkening the skin from shoulder to wrist.\"\n\n\"A photograph proves nothing. She was black. You can't say what's a bruise and what's not.\"\n\n\"These are color photos,\" I pointed out mildly, \"so unless you're blind you can certainly see the bruising.\"\n\nHe shook his head angrily. \"What difference does it make? The accepted version was given by the man who performed the postmortem and he said her injuries were caused by a glancing blow from a truck.\"\n\n\"But not fifteen to thirty minutes before I found her. Two or three hours _perhaps_. And that means the people who say they saw her staggering about the road were probably looking at someone with severe head injuries.\"\n\nHis eyes flickered unwillingly toward the pictures again, as if he were both repelled and fascinated by them. \"Even if that's true, you can't blame them for assuming she was drunk.\"\n\n\"I don't.\"\n\n\"Then what the hell is this in aid of?\"\n\nI licked the inside of my treacherous mouth again. \"I'm going to have the case reopened,\" I said. \"I want the way you handled it investigated. I want questions asked about why a rookie cop with a half-assed degree in sociology could see that something was wrong... but _you_ couldn't. I want to know why, when he tried to raise it with you, you had him thrown off the case.\"\n\nHe tore the photographs in half and tossed the pieces across the bar to flutter at my feet. \"Problem sorted. And if that's all you've got to show for the last twenty years then you've been wasting your time.\"\n\nDanny stooped to retrieve the bits. \"You don't want to let him get to you,\" he said as he handed them back to me. \"He's a bully. It's the only way he knows how to control people. He's busting a gut to change the subject rather than explain why he did fuck all about this poor black lady having her face smashed in.\"\n\nDrury stared him down. \"What would you know about it, shithead? You were still in nappies.\" He jerked his chin at me. \"And you're backing the wrong horse if you back her. It was your dad she wanted locked up... your dad she accused of murder. No one else.\"\n\nThere was a long silence.\n\nDanny cast me an uncertain glance. \"Is that true?\"\n\n\"No,\" I said honestly. \"Mr. Drury asked me if I knew of anyone who had a grudge against Annie, so I named your father, mother and Sharon Percy. I never at any point suggested they'd murdered her. That was Mr. Drury's interpretation.\"\n\nDrury laughed. \"You were always good at twisting the facts.\"\n\n\"Really? I thought that was your speciality.\"\n\nHe held my gaze for a moment, searching for chinks in my armor, then crossed his arms and turned to Danny. \"Ask yourself why she brought you here and why she wanted you to see those photographs. She's planning to use you to get at your family, preferably by turning you against them first. It's what she's good at\u2014manipulating people.\"\n\nDanny hunched his shoulders unhappily as if all his worst fears had been confirmed, and my son's voice echoed uncomfortably in my ear. _I'd be sodding mad if it happened to me...._\n\n\"Your father had an alibi from five o'clock until midnight,\" I told him, \"and it was Mr. Drury who established it. He knows as well as I that Derek couldn't have killed Annie.\"\n\n\"Then why am I here?\"\n\n\"Because Mr. Drury lied about me to your family. He told your parents I was saying things that I wasn't... and I need you to pass on to your mother and brother that all I ever accused them of was racism. And that was true, Danny. They _were_ racists\u2014probably still are\u2014and they weren't ashamed of it.\"\n\nI touched a hand to his shoulder by way of apology because it was cruel to associate him with his family's hate when he'd stated so often in his e-mails to Luke that he didn't approve of white people living in South Africa. \"But my argument isn't with the Slaters,\" I told Drury, \"it's with _you.\"_ I stirred the torn photographs with the point of my finger. \"Because when I accused you and your colleagues of the same thing, it frightened you so badly that you manipulated every piece of evidence to support the theory that Annie had died in an accident. And I'd like to know why you did that.\"\n\nDid I imagine the flicker of fear in his cold, reptilian eyes or was it real? \"We didn't have to manipulate anything,\" he said sharply. \"We accepted the inquest verdict... accidental death after stumbling under a truck some fifteen to thirty minutes before you found her.\"\n\n\"But you didn't know what the verdict was going to be when you began the investigation into Annie's death.\"\n\n\"So?\"\n\n\"So you can't claim it as justification for your refusal to make proper inquiries. The only evidence you put forward was a description of Annie's house after she was dead, but it didn't stop you weighing in with a conclusion that she was a chronic drunk, an abuser of animals and a mental incompetent who neglected herself. I even remember your words. You said that in view of 'Mad Annie's'numerous problems your only surprise was that she'd lived as long as she had.\"\n\n\"Which was a view endorsed by everyone except you.\"\n\n\"Her doctor didn't endorse it.\"\n\nHe looked beyond me toward the door. \"Your husband did,\" he murmured. \"He and Mr. Williams described Annie as paralytic outside your house when they came home an hour and a half before you did. They also implied it wasn't unusual.\"\n\nI followed his gaze to where Sam was hovering uncertainly in the doorway. We'd tarried too long, I thought. In the end everyone's patience ran out, even the guilty's. \"They were lying,\" I said flatly.\n\n\"So you kept saying in '78.\"\n\n\"It's the truth.\"\n\n\"Why would they want to? If anyone was going to back you it ought to have been the man you married.\"\n\nOnce upon a time that had been my view, too, but only because I'd believed that truth was simple. \"He was trying to protect his friend,\" I said carefully. \"The two people I saw under the street lamp that night were Jock Williams and Sharon Percy. I suppose Jock was afraid I'd seen him... and didn't want his wife finding out he'd been with a prostitute. So he and Sam concocted their story about going back to our house for a beer.\"\n\nDrury glanced toward the door again, but Sam had disappeared. \"Why didn't you tell me this twenty years ago?\"\n\n\"I did. I gave you Jock's name as the man I thought I saw.\"\n\n\"But that's the point,\" he said sarcastically. \"You only _thought_ you saw him... and you didn't say he was with Sharon Percy.\"\n\n\"At the time I didn't know who she was.\"\n\nHe gave a dismissive shake of his head. \"Sharon had an alibi and Mr. Williams was ruled out when your husband vouched for him.\"\n\n\"But you never even questioned him,\" I said, \"just accepted Sam's word against mine. But why? Wasn't a woman's word as good as a man's?\"\n\nHe leaned his hands on the counter and shoved his face close to mine. \"You were 'round the bend, Mrs. Ranelagh. Nothing you said was believable. Everyone agreed with that... even your husband and mother. And they should know because they had to live with you.\"\n\nIf I'd had a gun at that moment, I'd have killed him. _Bang! Straight between the eyes_. How dare he quote my family at me when he had been the cause of their distrust? But hatred is a futile emotion which damages the hater more than the hated. Yes, he'd have been dead... but so would I... to everything that mattered to me. Perhaps my expression said more than I realized because he straightened abruptly.\n\n\"Sam and Jock invented their story to conform with what you told Jock's wife the next morning,\" I said evenly. \"You told Libby Williams, and anyone else who was interested, that Annie had been seen staggering about the road an hour before she died, you also mentioned the outside time she could have stumbled in front of the lorry. All Sam and Jock did was recycle that information to give you what you wanted\u2014a stupid, drunk nigger lurching around from 7:45\u2014and the fact that none of it was true didn't bother you one little bit.\"\n\n\"Why would your husband and Mr. Williams do that?\"\n\nI shrugged. \"It was easier for everyone if she died in an accident. For the police, too. It meant no one had to address the issue of racism.\"\n\nHe stared at me for a moment, his brows furrowed in what looked like genuine perplexity. \"When did your husband tell you this?\"\n\n\"Six months after we left England.\"\n\nIt was in the wake of the Hong Kong policeman debacle. Sam had drowned himself in whisky while stomping about the room, lecturing me on my behavior. Most of it\u2014the issue of how my \"madness\" was affecting his career and social life\u2014washed over me. Some of it did not, particularly when he started to feel sorry for himself at three o'clock in the morning. He was missing England... and it was my fault. What the hell had induced me to go spouting off to the police about murder... ? He could hardly switch horses midstream... not when poor old Jock was caught between a rock and a hard place. Half the bloody road had seen the stupid woman roaring around like a bear with a sore head. All he did was agree with them...\n\nI fancied I could hear Drury's brain whirring.\n\n\"You told me your husband was lying as soon as I read his statement to you. How could you know that if he didn't admit it until six months later?\"\n\n\"There were no beer cans in the rubbish bin,\" I said.\n\nDanny took a swig of Radley's draught lager and eyed Sam suspiciously across the table as he wiped the froth from his lips. \"How come you didn't recognize Mr. Drury when your missus brought you here the other day?\" he demanded. \"I haven't seen him in years but he hasn't changed that much.\"\n\nSam went on the defensive immediately. \"I only met him a couple of times. As far as I remember, I was more interested in what he was saying than what he looked like.\"\n\n\"Sam's not very good with faces,\" I offered by way of mitigation.\n\nDanny ignored me. \"How about when you made your statement? He must have interviewed you first. Didn't you look at him then?\"\n\n\"It wasn't Drury who took it. It was a constable. And, no, I was never interviewed... just asked to write out where I was and what I was doing.\" He raised his eyes briefly to mine. \"The statement ended my involvement. I wasn't even required to appear at the inquest.\"\n\nDanny was unimpressed. \"Yeah, but you don't walk away when your family's in trouble,\" he said. \"You should have insisted on being there whenever your missus was questioned. Christ! I wouldn't let my lady go through Drury's wringer on her own.\"\n\nSam cupped his own glass in his hands but made no move to drink from it. \"You're describing a different scenario. My wife wasn't facing charges, she was the one who was asking for charges to be brought.\"\n\n\"I don't blame her. That poor black lady looks as though she had the shit beaten out of her. It doesn't make any difference anyway. Your wife is family. You should have been there for her. That's the way it works.\"\n\nSam buried his face in his hands, and I had to harden my heart to his pain because there was no avoiding the issue that my husband was part of the problem... not part of the solution...\n\n\"It wasn't that simple,\" he muttered wretchedly.\n\n\"Sure it was,\" said Danny scathingly. \"Trust me. I know this stuff backward. Families pull together... rats jump ship.\"\n\n**_Letter from Danny's mother, Maureen Slater, dated 1999_**\n\n**_Letter to Sergeant James Drury\u2014dated 1999_**\n\n**Leavenham Farm  \nLeavenham  \nNr Dorchester  \nDorset DT2 XXY  \n**\n\nThursday, August 5, 1999\n\nDear Mr. Drury,\n\nFollowing our conversation yesterday, I enclose a copy of a letter I received in 1985 from a colleague of Dr. Benjamin Hanley, the pathologist who performed the postmortem on Ann Butts. In view of your confidence in Dr. Hanley's findings, you may find it interesting reading. The colleague's name was Dr. Anthony Deverill and he worked with Benjamin Hanley from 1979 until Hanley's compulsory retirement on medical grounds in 1982.\n\nYours sincerely,\n\nPS: Following the investigations referred to in (3) of Anthony Deverill's letter, both cases (believed at the time to be murders) were referred back to the Court of Appeal and the convictions against two innocent men were overturned. The evidence provided by Dr. Hanley was deemed \"unsafe\" and the deaths of the alleged \"victims\" were subsequently ruled to have occurred from \"natural causes.\"\n\nPPS: I have several sets of the postmortem photographs.\n\n**Dr. Anthony Deverill, MRCPath  \n25 Avenue Road  \nChiswick  \nLondon W4**\n\nMrs. M. Ranelagh  \nP.O. Box 103  \nLangley  \nSydney  \nAustralia\n\nFebruary 6,1985\n\nDear Mrs. Ranelagh,\n\nThank you for your letter of January 10, together with the enclosed postmortem photographs of Miss Ann Butts and the written report from Professor James Webber. As you so rightly say, I have met Professor Webber on several occasions and have a high regard for his judgment. Indeed, after studying the photographs myself, I have no reason to disagree with his detailed assessment that Miss Butts received the injuries to her face and arm some hours before her death.\n\nYour specific request was for information on my predecessor Dr. Benjamin Hanley, who conducted the postmortem in November '78. You say that both you and your father made unsuccessful attempts to contact him over the years, and that the only response either of you had was when his secretary admitted to your father over the telephone in 1982 that the file relating to Miss Butts's postmortem was \"missing.\" Unfortunately, a search of the archive files appears to confirm this last statement, as the only evidence that Dr. Hanley conducted a postmortem on Miss Butts is an entry beside his name on the work schedule for 15.11.78\u2014\"10:30 A.M. Butts. RTA. Report requested by PS Drury, Richmond.\"\n\nYou may be interested to learn that Miss Butts's file is not the only one we have been unable to locate. Of the 103 entries against Dr. Hanley's name on the '78, '79 and '81 rosters, nine are currently \"missing.\"\n\nRe your specific inquiries:\n\n  1. As you already know, Dr. Hanley was compulsorily retired on medical grounds in 1982 and died of liver failure eighteen months later. However, the compulsory element to his retirement related to a deterioration in his work and performance over a twelve-month period and not to a diagnosed medical condition since he refused to consult a doctor. This is not unusual among pathologists who deal with death every day and can forecast their own prognoses. In simple terms, Dr. Hanley was a chronic alcoholic who became increasingly incapable of doing the job assigned to him. The \"medical\" tag was attached to the retirement order to allow him to keep his pension, but the cirrhosis that killed him was not discovered until shortly before his death when he was admitted to hospital. These facts are a matter of public record, and I betray no confidences by passing them on to you.\n\n  2. I worked alongside Dr. Hanley for two and half years\u2014 from September '79, to March '82, when he retired\u2014and I am sorry to say that I had serious reservations about his competence from the beginning. It is, of course, impossible for me to comment on a postmortem that a) took place before I joined the team and b) has no supporting documentation on file; however, it is my considered opinion that Dr. Hanley's alcoholism would certainly have affected his judgment in November '78.\n\n  3. I have no precise knowledge of Dr. Hanley's relationship with PS Drury of Richmond Police, nor can I validate your contention that: \"Dr. Hanley may have taken direction from PS Drury and produced a report that suited Richmond Police.\" However, I expressed concern on several occasions that Dr. Hanley was compromising the independence of his department by writing postmortem reports that appeared to mimic the police version of affairs. Two of these incidents are now under official investigation. In defense of Dr. Hanley, I do not believe there was any malicious intent behind his actions, simply a recognition that he could no longer cope with the demands of his job and a compensatory willingness to place too much confidence in the \"hunches\" of certain police officers. I should say that in most cases this would not be a cause for concern\u2014most of the deaths we see are \"natural\"\u2014but clearly it could create problems where facts are disputed.\n\n  4. I can say with absolute certainty that Dr. Hanley would have had no racist motive for ignoring evidence of murder in the case of Miss Butts. I am black myself and never experienced any sort of prejudice at his hands. He was a kindly man who had no interest in politics and clearly found his job distressing, particularly when he was obliged to open the chest cavities of women and children, which he began to see as an \"unnecessary mutilation.\"\n\n  5. In the absence of a file, I am afraid there is very little assistance I can give you other than to support Professor Webber's interpretation of the photographs. As mentioned above, nine sets of case notes seem to be missing and there is some evidence that Dr. Hanley destroyed them himself prior to leaving the department. In view of his long service record, a decision was taken to allow him to \"work out\" a three-month notice and we believe he used that time to remove any files that he believed to contain questionable findings. Sadly, he appeared to become deeply confused about the \"examiner's\" role in society and consistently questioned the value of \"righteous judges.\"However, there is no proof of this and any such speculation could never be used in court.\n\nIn conclusion, I am happy to give my permission for this letter to be used as supporting evidence for the deterioration in Dr. Hanley's performance and standard of work during the years I worked with him, all of which is already in the public domain. Beyond that, I can only advise you to gather as much supporting evidence as you can, from whichever source, in order to present a tight and compelling argument for a reopening of the investigation into Miss Butts's death. Trusting this is of help, With all best wishes,\n\nDr. Anthony Deverill\n\n# fourteen\n\nI took the train to London on my own the following Monday. It caused a row because I refused to tell Sam where I was going or what I was planning to do, and he drove off in a huff after dropping me at Dorchester South station at eight o'clock in the morning. His mood had been depressed since Danny's throw-away line about rats jumping ship\u2014 _It wasn't like that.... I needed time to get my head together....Jock was on my back all the time trying to persuade me to make you take those flaming tranquillizers.... He said you needed help...he said you'd flipped...he said... he said_ \u2014and his temper was not improved by my sour comment that if Jock was such a guru he should be talking to him and not to me.\n\nI didn't keep tabs on him, so when I set out on Monday morning I had no idea if he'd taken my advice or not. I thought it unlikely. Sam wasn't the type to poke a sleeping dog unnecessarily, particularly when he was the most afraid of being bitten.\n\nI found Graham Road changed beyond recognition that August morning. It had become a one-way street with speed bumps down the center. Parking was restricted to permit holders only, and trucks were banned. The houses were smarter than I remembered, the pavements wider, the sunlight brighter and more diffuse. It had lived for so long in my memory as a dark, foreboding place that I found myself wondering what else my mind had poisoned over the years. Or perhaps it wasn't my memory that was at fault? Perhaps Annie's death had actually achieved something?\n\nI glanced at number 5 as I passed and was put to shame by its natty appearance. Someone had lavished the love and care on it that we should have done. Window boxes splashed the front with brilliant color, a new stained wood door had taken the place of our elderly blue one and the tiny front garden, barely three feet deep, boasted a neat brick wall, tubs of scarlet petunias and a semicircle of clipped green grass beside the path to the door. Nor was it alone. Here and there, untidy front gardens and peeling paintwork spoke of residents who were unable or unwilling to conform, but for the most part the road had moved decisively upmarket and made sense of Jock's statement that property prices had skyrocketed.\n\nI guessed that some of that was due to the sale of the council-owned properties, which had stood out like sore thumbs twenty years before because of their uniform yellow doors. Now it was impossible to distinguish them from those that had always been in the private sector, and I wondered how many of them were still owned by the council tenants who had bought at rock-bottom prices. If Wendy Stanhope was to be believed, most of them had sold up within a year to achieve a 100 percent return on their investment, but the wiser ones had stayed and watched their investments grow.\n\nI crossed the road and paused beside Sharon Percy's gate. Her house was almost as natty as ours, with Austrian blinds in the windows and a clump of Pampas grass in the front garden, but I couldn't believe she hadn't cut and run the minute she saw a profit. I knew she'd bought the house because Libby's letters had ranted on for months about how Jock's thirty quid a week had paid for Sharon's bedroom, but I found it difficult to equate the new subdued classiness of number 28 with the simpering peroxide blonde in Wendy's photograph.\n\nI looked into her downstairs window\u2014more curious than expectant\u2014and was taken aback when her flour-white face, slashed red lips and heavily outlined eyes appeared briefly behind the pane. I recalled Libby's nickname for her, \"the bleached vampire,\" but she looked more pathetic than predatory that morning. An aging woman trying to paint away the ravages of time. Was Geoffrey Spalding still with her? Or had his infatuation died along with her sex appeal? I felt an absurd desire to raise my hand in greeting before I remembered that we'd never spoken and that, if she'd known me at all twenty years ago, she certainly wouldn't recognize me now.\n\nI barely glanced at Annie's house as I moved on to number 32. Even when I'd stood in front of her boarded-up house in the months following her death, her ghost had never troubled me, and I certainly didn't expect to be bothered by it now.\n\nIn the end, the only ghosts that lingered here were lonely mothers....\n\nMaureen Slater opened her door before I could knock, and thrust out a miniature hand to pull me inside. \"I don't want anyone to see you,\" she said.\n\n\"They won't know who I am.\"\n\n\"They'll guess. Everyone talks.\"\n\nI wondered why that mattered when there was no one left who remembered Annie, and decided that by \"everyone\" she meant Sharon. I thought it would be counterproductive to say I'd already been seen, and followed her down the corridor to the kitchen, catching glimpses of the two ground-floor rooms as I passed their open doors.\n\nThe sitting room looked as though it was rarely used, but the dining room had been converted into a comfortable den with brightly colored bean bags littering the floor, a cushioned sofa along one wall and a wide-screen television in the corner. It was already switched on, showing a daytime magazine program, and the rumpled duvet on the sofa and the fug of smoke in the room suggested Maureen had either been watching it all night or had started early. She closed the door as we passed to deaden the volume.\n\nEven though Maureen's was an end-of-terrace house, the layout in side was identical to ours, as indeed was every alternate house in the row: sitting room and dining room on the right with the corridor running past the stairs on the left-hand side toward the kitchen at the back. The in-between houses were built in mirror image so that corridors adjoined corridors on one side, and living space adjoined living space on the other. Upstairs, in precisely the same way, it was either the bedrooms or stairwells that adjoined. In order to allow for a window in the dining rooms, the kitchens were offset against the ends of the houses and shared a party wall with the people on the corridor side. As none of the structures was built to modern soundproof standards, the inevitable result was that we all came to know our neighbors rather better than we would have liked.\n\nIndeed, it had been Sam's permanent complaint that we should have done some \"noise\" research before we bought number 5. On the corridor side, number 7\u2014the side that acted as a sound buffer\u2014lived an elderly couple, who rarely spoke above whispers even when they were in their kitchen. On the living-space side, number 3\u2014the side that acted like a huge echo chamber divided by a thin vibrating wall\u2014were the Charles children, whose nighttime screaming had kept us awake. One day, in a spirit of optimism, Sam invited both couples in for drinks and suggested they swap houses so that peace could break out all 'round, but Paul Charles took exception to some of the things Sam claimed to have heard through the wall and treated him with hostility from that moment on.\n\nI had often wondered if a similar situation had existed with Annie, although, of the many complaints made against her, the question of noise had never been mentioned. In fact it was more likely she had been a victim of it and had suffered in silence while her life was made a misery. Certainly Michael Percy and Alan Slater had taken great pleasure from teasing her in public, and I couldn't believe they hadn't continued the sport in private by shouting insults at her through the party walls.\n\n\"Danny phoned last night,\" said Maureen, pulling out a chair in the kitchen and pressing me on to it. \"You seem to be making quite a hit with him.\" She had a trace of the Midlands in her voice, which showed itself in the hard \"g\" she added to \"ing,\" but whether she had been born there or whether she had learned it from her parents I didn't know.\n\nLike everything else about her it set my teeth on edge, and I had to glue a smile to my face to mask my dislike. Whatever Wendy Stanhope may have said about her brutal treatment at the hands of her husband, I'd always thought there was something evil about Maureen Slater, perhaps because I held her responsible for the hate campaign against Annie. I'm sure she knew what my real feelings were, but for the moment she was prepared to go along with the pretense of friendship.\n\n\"The feeling's mutual,\" I assured her. \"Danny's a nice fellow.\"\n\nShe busied herself with cups and saucers. I had written to her many times over the years, seeking answers, but the only response I had ever received was the one a week ago, agreeing to this meeting. I assumed it was my contact with Danny that had persuaded her to change her mind, and I wondered how far she suspected that I had sought him out deliberately and how far she was worried about what he had been telling me. There was, after all, so much that she wouldn't want me to know.\n\n\"You're the only person who thinks so,\" she said, filling a kettle at the sink. \"Danny's been in and out of trouble since he was ten... fighting... stealing cars... he started shooting heroin when he was twelve.\" She paused, waiting for an answer. When I didn't give one, she went on a little tartly, \"Not the type most mothers want hanging around teenage boys. He says he's been out drinking with your lads.\"\n\n\"He has. They've met up with him on Portland a couple of times.\"\n\n\"You know he smokes cannabis.\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"He's probably offering it to your kids,\" she said with a touch of malice, as if the idea pleased her.\n\n\"Then he isn't the first, and he won't be the last.\"\n\nShe eyed me suspiciously. \"You're pretty laid back about it. You must have a lot of faith in your boys.\"\n\nI gave a noncommittal smile. \"I'd be more worried if Danny was still on heroin.\"\n\n\"No chance of that.\" She plugged in the kettle. \"It's the one good thing Mr. Drury did for me... caught the stupid little bastard at it one day and put the fear of God into him so he'd never go near a needle again.\"\n\n\"How did he do that?\"\n\n\"He gave him a choice: punishment now, or a care order imposed by the juvenile court. Danny chose punishment now.\" She laughed. \"I think he thought Drury was going to slap him about a bit... didn't reckon on honest-to-God sadism.\" The idea seemed to amuse her.\n\n\"What did he do?\"\n\n\"He broke off the needle and pressed it into Danny's arm with the edge of his handcuffs, then told him if he went to a doctor to get it removed there'd be that many questions asked he'd find himself in care so quick his legs wouldn't touch the ground. It was two days before Danny could find the courage to cut down deep enough to pull the needle out with a pair of tweezers. He's never been able to look at a syringe again without turning green.\"\n\n\"That sounds like Mr. Drury's style,\" I murmured. \"Brutal but effective. Did you report him for it?\"\n\n\"Did I hell!\" She spooned coffee into the mugs. \"In any case I was grateful. The last thing I wanted was one of my children dead of an overdose.\"\n\nA silence fell while we waited for the kettle to boil. I had no idea what kind of background she came from, but Drury's parting shot to Danny\u2014\"How's that downtrodden slut of a mother of yours? Still on the booze?\"\u2014was uncomfortably close to the mark. My mother would say it was breeding (or lack of it)\u2014a scientist would say it was genes\u2014 I would say it was poor education and low self-esteem. If she cared about anything at all, I thought, it was probably her benefit checks and whether they would buy enough smokes and alcohol to last her through the week.\n\nHer windowsill was lined with empties, testimony to the drinking habit she hadn't been able to kick. An unopened bottle of vodka stood beside the salt and pepper on the table like an unearned reward. But if she was drunk or stoned on Prozac that day it wasn't noticeable. Indeed in some ways the sharp, assessing glances she kept flicking in my direction reminded me of Wendy Stanhope, although there was no kindness in them, only suspicion.\n\n\"Thank you,\" I said when she put a mug of coffee in front of me. Out of habit, she had added milk and sugar, neither of which I could stand, but I sipped enthusiastically as she sat herself in the chair opposite and lit a cigarette.\n\n\"Do you want one?\" she asked.\n\nI shook my head. \"I never got hooked, thank God. If I had, I'd be a sixty-a-day woman by now.\"\n\n\"How do you know?\"\n\n\"I have an addictive personality. Once started, I can't stop.\"\n\n\"Like this thing with Annie?\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\nMaureen gave a baffled shake of her head. \"You wouldn't have liked her, you know. That's what makes this all so... _stupid_. If anyone else had found her, there'd have been no fuss, she'd have been quietly buried and we could all have got on with our lives.\" She paused to draw pensively on her cigarette. \"You, too,\" she added, watching me through the smoke.\n\n\"I haven't done badly so far.\"\n\nShe dropped ash into her saucer. \"Except you can't let her go, and that's not healthy.\"\n\nI might have answered that Annie was the least of my obsessions but I didn't want to put her on her guard. Instead I asked, \"Why wouldn't I have liked her?\"\n\n\"Because she wouldn't have liked _you_. She didn't like any white people. We were all 'white trash'to her. She used to chant it through the kitchen wall whenever Derek raised his voice. 'White trash... white trash...'On and on for minutes on end. It used to drive him mad.\"\n\n\"Is that why he hated her?\"\n\nShe nodded.\n\n\"Perhaps he didn't like hearing the truth?\" I remarked dryly.\n\nA wary expression crept into her eyes. \"We never claimed to be anything we weren't.\"\n\nThe pretense at friendship began to unravel at speed. \"You were known as 'the family from hell,'Maureen. When you and Derek weren't screaming at each other, your children were running riot in the street. I've never known a group of people make their presence felt so rapidly in so short a time. Alan's favorite occupation was to practice his jump kicks against other people's front fences. He flattened Annie's within a month of you being rehoused here... and ours within three months.\"\n\nShe bridled immediately. \"He wasn't the only one. Michael Percy was just as bad.\"\n\n\"I agree.\"\n\n\"But it was always my Alan who got the blame.\"\n\nI shook my head in disagreement. \"Michael faced up to what he'd done. Your son never did. Alan used to run away the minute trouble appeared and leave Michael to take the flak.\"\n\n\"Only because he knew his father would give him a larruping if he got caught.\"\n\n\"But it was all right for Michael to be given a larruping?\"\n\nHer mouth thinned immediately. \"It never happened. Who was going to give it to him? Sharon? He'd have thumped her first. He was a nasty piece of work that Michael... a bad influence on all the kids 'round here. He was the one got my lad into trouble, never the other way 'round.\"\n\nI wondered if Sharon saw it that way, or if she cared. \"I watched a man hurl him head first into a brick wall once,\" I said idly. \"It all happened very quickly and I was too far away to stop it. The wretched child was only fourteen\u2014and he wasn't very big for his age\u2014so he went down like a sack of potatoes.\"\n\n\"Serves him right,\" said Maureen balefully \"He almost killed somebody not so long ago... got eleven years for his troubles. That should tell you the sort of boy he was. It makes me sick the way we got dumped on all the time, when it was him and his tart of a mother caused all the problems in the street.\" A sly expression crept into her eyes. \"Annie had their measure all right. She called Sharon a 'whore'and Michael a 'son of a bitch.'\"\n\n\"Did she call her 'white trash'?\"\n\n\"Nn-nn. 'Whore'... 'ho'... 'cunt.'Annie'd get going at the top of her voice every time she was with a client. It was pretty funny.\"\n\nThere was a time, I remembered, when she and Sharon had been thick as thieves, and I wondered what had happened to make them fall out. Something to do with money, I guessed, as it was the single passion they both shared. \"So it was just the Slaters who were 'white trash'?\" I murmured.\n\nMaureen studied the end of her cigarette. \"Think what you like,\" she said.\n\n\"Do you know who the man was who knocked Michael down?\" I asked her.\n\nShe gave an indifferent shrug.\n\n\"It was your husband,\" I told her. \"He was fighting drunk and caught Alan and Michael trying car doors to see if any of them were unlocked. Alan took to his heels but Michael stood his ground and ended up with a bloody face. I wanted to report Derek, but Michael said he'd take his anger out on you if we grassed him up. 'Mr. Slater's a right bastard,'he told me. 'He beats up on his missus every time his kids get the better of him.'\" I watched her for a reaction, but there was none. \"So I let Derek get away with it, and took Michael to my house instead of a police station. It was three hours before his nose stopped bleeding.\"\n\nShe stubbed out her cigarette, refusing to meet my eyes. \"You can't blame me for that. Most of the time I didn't even know where Derek was, let alone what he was doing.\"\n\nIt sounded like the beginnings of a defense. \"I'm not blaming you.\"\n\n\"Sure you are. You're like everyone else. It's Maureen's fault her kids were out of control. Maureen's fault she married a lousy husband. Well, maybe it was and maybe it wasn't. But who the fuck ever cared about me? Tell me that.\"\n\n\"The vicar and his wife?\"\n\nAnger sparked briefly in her eyes. \"They were more interested in the nigger than they were in me.\"\n\nI looked away to hide my anger, recalling what Wendy Stanhope had said. _The poor woman was always taking refuge with us...._ \"I understood they took you in whenever Derek became violent.\"\n\n\"Only out of charity, never out of liking.\"\n\n_It was something she resented_ , I thought.\n\n\"The vicar knocked next door once a week. He never did that for me. I had to go looking for help.\"\n\n\"Perhaps he felt Annie had more to put up with.\"\n\n\"No more than we did. You should have heard her cursing and swearing at us through the wall.\"\n\n\"You said she only did it when you made a noise.\"\n\n\"Not always. Sometimes it was hard to say which came first... her or us. She had a mouth like a sewer. When it wasn't 'white trash,'it was 'honkies'or 'scum.'It used to rile us up something rotten.\"\n\n\"She couldn't help herself,\" I said. \"She suffered from a neuropsychiatric disorder called Tourette's syndrome. Sometimes it manifests itself as _coprolalia_ , which is a compulsion to utter obscenities. Her mother was far more prone to it than Annie, but maybe Annie resorted to it when she was stressed.\"\n\n\"Then she should have been in a loony bin.\"\n\n_Does she believe that?_ I wondered. Or was it something she repeated like a mantra to excuse what she did? \"A more sensible solution would have been for the council to rehouse you and your family somewhere else,\" I suggested. \"To be honest, I never understood why they didn't. You lived entirely on benefit, had more social workers allocated to you than anyone else in the street, yet for some reason the pressure was always on Annie to move and never on you. That always seemed grossly unfair to me when she was a householder, paying rates, and you were paying nothing.\"\n\n\"That wasn't our fault. Derek was out of work. Would you have liked it better if we'd starved?\"\n\nI refused to be sidetracked. \"Why did the council take your side against Annie's, Maureen? It must have been clear to them that she wasn't getting on with her neighbors.\"\n\n\"Why would it? She never complained.\"\n\n\"She called you 'white trash.'What's that if it's not a complaint?\"\n\nShe lit another cigarette and shook her head at my stupidity. \"I meant she didn't complain to the council.\"\n\nI had to make a conscious effort to stop my mouth dropping open. I had imagined any number of conspiracy theories to account for why the Slaters and the Percys had been allowed to wage a terror campaign against Annie, but it had never entered my head that the explanation was so simple. \"Are you saying that, despite all the complaints you and Sharon made against her, she never once retaliated?\"\n\nMaureen nodded.\n\n\"Why not?\"\n\nShe didn't answer and another silence developed between us. She wore her hair in a tight ponytail and kept running the flat of her hand across her crown as if to check that the elastic was still in place. She seemed to be debating with herself whether after twenty years there was anything to be gained by telling the truth, although I guessed that her real concern\u2014indeed the only reason we were having this conversation\u2014was to find out how much I knew and what I was planning to do about it.\n\n\"She was too afraid of Derek,\" she admitted suddenly.\n\n\"To make an official complaint?\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"What did he do to stop her?\"\n\nAnother silence, longer this time, before she gave an embarrassed shrug. \"Killed one of her cats and said he'd kill the others if she ever spoke out against us. The thing is\"\u2014she wriggled her shoulders uncomfortably, knowing that nothing could excuse her husband's behavior or her complicity in it\u2014\"we'd been moved three times in three years, and we didn't want to move again. We sure as hell didn't want to go back to a high rise.\"\n\n\"No,\" I said slowly. \"I don't suppose you did.\"\n\n\"It was only a cat.\"\n\n\"Mm.\" I paused to glance along the corridor. \"It was quite a bargain when you think about it... a cat for a house.\"\n\n\"There you are, then.\"\n\n\"Oh, no.\" I gave a small laugh. \"Don't you dare bracket me with a sadist. If Derek had been married to me, he'd never have got near a cat. I'd have beaten his brains out with a sledgehammer the minute he lifted a finger against one of my children. Why were you such a coward? Why didn't you fight back?\"\n\nHer malice intensified. \"You don't know what it was like. You didn't go in fear of your life every day. What do you think he'd have done to me and the kids if I'd tried to stop him?\"\n\n\"Why didn't you go to the police?\"\n\nShe shook her head scornfully as if the question weren't worth answering, and in fairness, it probably wasn't. Domestic violence was a low priority in 1978. As was harassment of black people.\n\n\"How did he kill the cat?\" I asked, reverting to what interested me.\n\n\"Strangled it,\" she said irritably. \"They kept coming into our garden, and he'd already warned her he wasn't going to stand for it. He chucked the body back over the fence with a note tied to its collar so she'd get the message.\"\n\n\"What did the note say?\"\n\n\"I don't know, for sure. Something like he'd nail the next one to the fence. He didn't tell me about it till afterward.\" She watched me slyly through her lashes while she cooked up another defense. \"I like cats. I'd have stopped him if I could. The children were all over them when we first came here... they kept asking where the marmalade one was.\"\n\n\"When did it happen?\"\n\n\"About two months before she died.\"\n\n\"September '78?\"\n\n\"Probably.\"\n\nI recalled John Howlett's letter to Sheila Arnold. _I made two recommendations on my first visit in March 1978: 1) that she install a cat flap in the kitchen door to allow the animals free access to and from the garden...._ \"After you'd set the RSPCA inspector on to her then?\"\n\nMaureen tapped the glowing end of her cigarette against her saucer and watched a curl of ash deposit itself against the side. \"I can't remember.\"\n\n\"His first visit was in March. He ordered her to put a cat flap in her door because you and Sharon kept complaining about the smell coming from her house.\"\n\nShe lifted a shoulder in a careless shrug.\n\n\"Weren't you worried she'd show Derek's note to him the next time he came?\"\n\n\"She wouldn't have dared. She was almost as frightened of the RSPCA as she was of Derek.\"\n\n\"How did she let the cats out before she had the flap installed?\"\n\n\"She never did. That's why the house stank.\"\n\n\"That's not true,\" I said bluntly. \"You just told me how your children were all over the cats when you first came here. How could they have had any contact if there was no way for the animals to get out until the flap was installed?\"\n\nA stubborn note crept into Maureen's voice. \"Maybe she didn't bother to close her back door.\"\n\n\"Well, did she or didn't she? You must have known. Your kitchens were next door to each other.\"\n\n\"Most of the time it was open.\" Her eyes caught mine, then slid away to hide their cunning. \"That's what made us think she had chickens in there. The smell that came out of it was disgusting.\"\n\n\"Oh, for Christ's sake!\" I said wearily. \"The only stink 'round here was your family's body odor. God knows if you ever gave Alan a bath or washed his clothes, but no one wanted to sit next to him at school. Poor kid. He was always the first to be checked for head lice... and _always_ had them. Always the first to have his locker searched for missing games kit... and _always_ had it. The PE teacher asked him once what his problem was, and he said he liked things that smelled clean.\"\n\n\"It wasn't my fault,\" she said again, her voice rising to an irritating whine. \"We didn't have a washing machine.\"\n\n\"Neither did we. I used the laundrette on the main road.\"\n\n\"You didn't have kids.\"\n\n\"Two machines take the same time as one.\"\n\n\"The bags were too heavy.... I couldn't abandon Danny.... In any case, I never had any money. Derek spent it all on drink.\"\n\nI looked at the vodka bottle on the table. \"He wasn't the only one.\" I rode roughshod over her attempt at a retort. \"Why didn't you do the washing by hand in the bath? You weren't working. You had all day to devote to your children. The one thing you could have done was keep them clean.\"\n\n\"I did my best.\"\n\nI'd waited so long to get this off my chest that caution gave way to honesty. \"Then you should be ashamed of yourself,\" I said flatly. \"I've seen women in Africa do better than that when all they had was a tub of cold water. You did nothing for your children, and the only reason Danny's a nice kid now is because somewhere along the line someone took an interest in him. I suspect it was Alan's wife\"\u2014I could see from her expression that I was right\u2014\"because it certainly wasn't you. You were in a drunken stupor most of the time... like your husband.\"\n\nShe was surprisingly indifferent, as if she'd heard the same accusations many times before. \"You do what you can to get by,\" she said, \"and it wasn't always like that. Some days were better than others. In any case, you don't feel the pain so much when you're drunk. You should try having your face smashed into a brick wall once in a while and see how you like it.\"\n\n**_Letter from Ann Butts to Councillor J. M. Davies,  \nRichmond\u2014dated 1978_**\n\n**_Carbon copy of Councillor J. M. Davies's reply_**\n\nPendlebury\n\nDuke's Avenue\n\nRichmond\n\nSurrey\n\n01-940-0000\n\nJune 20,1978\n\nDear Miss Butts,\n\nThank you for your letter of June 12, 1978.I am deeply disturbed by what you say, however, there is little I can do without more information. You did not give me Morin's surname, nor the name of her husband, nor indeed did you say where she lives. As I'm sure you appreciate, it will be difficult for me to raise the matter with the appropriate authorities without these details.\n\nIf you wish me to pursue the matter, please write again or telephone me on the above number. Alternatively, you may prefer to attend one of my \"surgeries\" at the above address, which would give you a chance to discuss your concerns in person. They take place between 9 A.M. and midday on the first Saturday of every month and do not require an appointment.\n\nYours sincerely,\n\n# fifteen\n\nI stared into my coffee. \"How did she stop her cats coming into your garden after Derek killed the marmalade one? It was long after the cat flap had been installed.\"\n\n\"She propped a board in front of it so they couldn't use it, then let them out one at a time to do their business. It was quite funny watching her. She used to run up and down flapping her arms to stop them coming anywhere near our fence. We reckoned she'd have lost a couple of stone with all the exercise if she hadn't had her face in the trough all the time. You should have heard her... right noisy she was. Gobble, gobble, gobble. It made us sick just to listen.\"\n\nMy expression must have given away more than I intended because she dropped her eyes immediately. I thought what a vile little woman she was and how injurious her poison must have been to her family.\n\n\"You asked.... I told you,\" she muttered. \"Don't blame me if you don't like the answers.\"\n\nI caught at the edges of my anger and drew it back inside. \"How do you know she used a board?\"\n\n\"The kids used to climb over the fence at night and push the flap open to make the board fall on the floor.\"\n\n\"That must have frightened her.\"\n\n\"It did. She used to wail her head off.\"\n\n\"Why didn't she fix the board to the door?\"\n\n\"Because she didn't want the RSPCA to know she was blocking the flap. She'd keep the inspector waiting at the door while she scurried around trying to find somewhere to hide the stupid thing.\"\n\n\"Is that why you and Sharon kept pestering the RSPCA? So they'd catch her out?\"\n\nShe blew a smoke ring in my direction, then stabbed it through the heart with the point of her cigarette. \"Maybe.\"\n\nI gave my coffee cup a violent shove and watched it slop across the table. \"You had her in a vise. On the one hand Derek was threatening to kill her cats if they _did_ run free; on the other, the RSPCA was telling her she could face prosecution if they _didn't_ run free.\"\n\nShe took to smoothing her hair again.\n\n\"What was she supposed to do?\"\n\n\"Leave,\" she said matter-of-factly, \"and take her cats with her.\"\n\n\"Just because she was black?\"\n\n\"Why not? We didn't want a coon for a neighbor.\" She retreated rapidly as she saw my expression. \"Look, it wasn't my idea.... I'd have done it differently if I could. But Derek wanted rid of her... he had this thing about nig\u2014\" She corrected herself\u2014\"blacks... really hated them. In any case, she had her chance. The social workers told her she only had to say the word and they'd rehouse us. But she said no, she was happy the way things were.\"\n\n\"She had no choice. Derek knew where she lived. Her cats were never going to be safe from him.\"\n\n\"Right, and she got so scared of him in the end, we reckoned she'd leave before Christmas.\" She paused. \"Then the silly cow falls under a flaming truck,\" she finished lamely, \"and the cops find she's been killing the cats herself.\"\n\nI rested my chin in my hands and studied her with grim curiosity. \"They were already half-dead when they were pushed through her flap,\" I told her. \"Someone thought it was funny to catch strays and bind their mouths with superglue and parcel tape so they'd either starve to death or have most of the fur ripped out of their heads if Annie tried to save them. I think she killed the weakest ones when the others started attacking them, but it was done out of kindness, not out of cruelty.\" I favored her with a crooked smile. \"So whose bright idea was that? Yours? Or your husband's?\"\n\nShe squashed her cigarette into the ashtray, mashing it to shreds with nicotine-stained fingers. \"It weren't nothing to do with us,\" she said flatly, while apparently agreeing with the facts. \"We weren't like that.\"\n\n\"Oh, come on!\" I said sarcastically. \"You've just told me Derek strangled one cat and threatened to nail another to a fence. And all for what? Because he was thick as pig shit and had to terrorize women to give himself a sense of authority.\"\n\nShe didn't like the way the conversation was going, and licked her lips nervously. \"I don't know anything about that.\"\n\n\"What? The way he liked to terrorize women?\"\n\nShe recovered quickly. \"All I know is what he did to me and the kids. But he was more talk than action. Most of the time he never followed through.\"\n\n\"Maybe not when Annie was alive,\" I agreed, \"but he certainly made up for it after she was dead. He was far more violent when he knew there were no witnesses.\"\n\nI recalled my visit to her in hospital. It was a wet afternoon at the end of November, and I'd dripped water all over the vinyl floor beside her bed while I tried not to show my shock at Derek's handiwork. I couldn't believe how small she was, how damaged she was, and how panic-stricken her eyes were. It was a wasted journey in terms of gathering information because she was too suspicious of me to answer questions. I listened to her dreary insistence that, far from Derek using her as a punchbag, she'd been alone in the house and had missed her footing at the top of the stairs, while saying in her next breath that she'd be dead if Alan hadn't been there to call an ambulance for her. It was a ridiculous story because her broken cheekbone and blackened eyes looked too much like Annie's death mask for anyone to believe that either of them had suffered an accident; but all too belatedly I was given a glimpse of the walls of terrified silence that protect violent men.\n\n\"What are you talking about?\"\n\n\"Derek putting you in hospital two weeks after Annie's death. Didn't you ask yourself why that happened? He'd never hit you so hard before that you went into a coma and had to rely on your children calling an ambulance for you.\" I jerked my head toward the party wall. \"Your protector was dead. Her house was empty. Derek was free to break every bone in your body if he wanted to, then dump you in the road somewhere and claim you were run over by a truck...\"\n\nMaureen rejected my suggestion that Annie had been her \"protector.\" It was rubbish, she protested\u2014Annie hated her. I repeated what she'd said herself, that Annie had wailed every time Derek raised his voice. \"You asked me earlier who had ever cared about you,\" I reminded her. \"Well, Annie did. I know it isn't what you want to hear, but it _is_ the truth.\" I took two letters from my rucksack and pushed them across the table. \"The top one's a copy of a note she wrote to your then councillor, J. M. Davies, in June '78. The one underneath is his reply. She obviously didn't know how to spell your name and, because she was incoherent when she tried to raise the matter over the telephone, he put the whole thing down to maliciousness.\"\n\nMaureen looked uncomfortable reading Annie's bold handwriting as if, even in reproduction, it had the power to summon her into the room with us. \"Perhaps it _was_ malicious,\" she said, laying the letters aside. \"Perhaps she was just trying to cause trouble for me and Derek.\"\n\n\"Oh, for God's sake!\" I sighed impatiently. \"If that was her intention, she'd have made a better job of it. She'd have written a barrage of letters, almost certainly unsigned, and she'd have accused Derek of killing animals instead of hurting them. Can't you see her concern was for _you?_ She says, 'something should be done for Maureen,'not, 'something should be done about the white trash next door because they keep stealing from me.'\"\n\nShe fumbled nervously at her cigarette packet. \"She'd have been lying if she had.\"\n\nI shook my head in contradiction. \"Alan gave me a tiny wooden statuette which he told me he'd carved himself from an old table leg as an end-of-year present. I believed him because it's very primitive, and looks like something a child might do, but I'm certain he stole it from Annie.\"\n\n\"You can't prove that.\"\n\n\"No,\" I agreed, \"but I can certainly prove he never carved it. It's been analyzed by an expert. It's a representation of an Aztec god, called Quetzalcoatl, and was cut from pine, probably around the turn of the century, in a style common to natives of Central America. Annie's father made a collection of Central American artifacts during the '30s and '40s, so the circumstantial evidence suggests that the Quetzalcoatl in my possession once belonged to her. The only question is, did she give it to Alan, or did he steal it?\"\n\nMaureen leaped at the bait. \"She gave it to him.\"\n\n\"How do you know?\"\n\nShe thought for a moment. \"He ran an errand for her... it was her way of saying thank you. Matter of fact, I was the one who made him pass it on to you. He kept on about what a nice lady you were, and how you'd kept quiet about the time you caught him thieving from your wallet. 'One kindness deserves another,'I said, 'and Mrs. Ranelagh's more likely to appreciate a wooden statue than you are.'\"\n\n\"Why did he tell me he'd carved it?\"\n\nShe caught my eye briefly. \"I expect he wanted to impress you.\"\n\nI laughed. \"I'd have been more impressed if he'd told me he earned it running errands for Mad Annie. He used to shout 'daft nigger'after her in the street. She turned on him once with a growl and grabbed at the sleeve of his jacket. He was so terrified he took to his heels and left the jacket in her hand.\" I paused. \"She'd never have asked him to run an errand for her. And, even if she had, she'd have cut off her right hand before she rewarded him with one of her treasures. She disliked him even more than she disliked Derek. The little brute never left her alone.... He was always on the lookout for her....\" I fell silent before anger made me strident.\n\n\"That's lies. You're inventing things to suit yourself. All you're saying is that Alan played in the street a lot. It doesn't mean he was on the lookout for Annie.\"\n\n\"He was an abused and neglected child, Maureen, who was too frightened to take on his father and saw Annie as easy meat. He learned that bullying worked and put it into practice on the most vulnerable person he could find.\" I gave a humorless laugh. \"I wish I'd known how you and Derek were treating him. I wish I'd had him prosecuted when I had the chance. Most of all, I wish he'd been taken away from you and taught some decent values when it mattered.\"\n\n\"You were just as responsible as us,\" she muttered. \"You were his teacher. Why didn't you say something to him when he called her a 'daft nigger'?\"\n\nIt was a good question. Why hadn't I? And what sort of excuse was it to say I was frightened of a fourteen-year-old? But I was. Alan was a huge child for his age, tall and heavily built, with a low IQ and little understanding of anything except aggression, which both emboldened and scared him. Had there been no Michael Percy to take the flak, then I think Alan's problems would have been more obvious and he might have attracted sympathy instead of dislike and disgust. As it was, most people avoided him and, in the process, turned a blind eye to the way he and his gang terrorized Mad Annie. It seemed an even contest, after all. She was bigger than they were, crazier than they were, older, bulkier and perceptibly more aggressive\u2014particularly when she'd been drinking\u2014and she had no compunction about lashing out when their teasing became intolerable.\n\n\"I've spent twenty years regretting my silence,\" I told Maureen. \"If I'd been a little braver, or a little more experienced\"\u2014I gave an uneasy laugh\u2014\"maybe I wouldn't feel so guilty now.\"\n\nShe shrugged. \"I wouldn't fret about it. Alan wouldn't have listened to you even if you had taken him to task. The only person he paid any mind to was his father.\"\n\n\"Until he turned on him with a baseball bat.\"\n\n\"It was bound to happen one day,\" she said indifferently. \"Kids grow up. It was Derek's fault anyway. He didn't realize Alan wasn't up for a thrashing anymore.\"\n\nI looked again at the cluster of empty bottles on her windowsill. \"Do _you_ ever feel guilty, Maureen?\"\n\n\"Why should I?\"\n\nI gave her a copy of Michael Percy's letter, detailing how her children had stolen trinkets from Annie. She was more amused than fazed by it for, as she said herself, I'd have a job proving it. \"No one's going to believe Michael,\" she pointed out, \"and he wouldn't talk to the police anyway, not while he's in prison. It's more than his life's worth to be known as a grass.\"\n\n\"They might believe Alan,\" I suggested.\n\n\"He'll just deny it. He's got a family now... doesn't want something he did as a kid coming back to haunt him this long afterward. And Danny doesn't even remember his dad, let alone who lived next to us twenty years ago. He asked me down the phone what Annie was like and why I've never mentioned her.\"\n\n\"What did you say?\"\n\n\"That she was a fat bitch who made our lives hell, and he didn't ought to believe anything you said because you had about as many screws loose as she did.\"\n\nI smiled at her as I pulled a manila envelope from the bottom of my rucksack and put it on the table in front of her. \"He'll probably believe this, though. I made this copy for you. When you've read it, give me a call. My number's on the front.\"\n\n\"What is it?\"\n\n\"An affidavit from a jeweler in Chiswick who bought several items off a woman called Ann Butts. It took me and my father about two hundred letters to find him after Michael suggested you'd sold the ring you took off Bridget. We started with jewelers and pawnbrokers in Richmond and radiated out until we hit pay dirt in Chiswick. He's still in business and keeps a record of every item that passes through his hands... together with the name of the seller and purchaser.\"\n\nShe dropped the envelope on to the table as if it were a red-hot coal.\n\n\"He's an honest trader and pays an honest price, so he requests proof of identity and ownership in order to be sure that the goods aren't stolen. He also records the type of proof that's offered. In the case of Ann Butts, it was a bank card and supporting statement, and a Sotheby's valuation of a list of items, including the jewelery, which were viewed on site at 30 Graham Road, Richmond. I presume you don't still have it?\" I said with a lift of my eyebrows. \"You wouldn't have been that stupid, would you?\"\n\nShe reached for another cigarette but I took the packet away from her and flattened it under my heel as I stood up.\n\n\"The really interesting fact,\" I finished, leaning my hands on the table, \"is that the first item wasn't sold until June '79, and my jeweler friend is positive that the Ann Butts he dealt with was a small white woman with a Brummy accent.\"\n\nShe had a quick mind for a Prozac junkie and a drinker. \"Just like half a million others then,\" she said.\n\n\"My phone number's on the envelope,\" I reminded her. \"Call me if you want to trade. If you don't, I'll give the affidavit to the police.\"\n\n\"Trade what?\"\n\n\"Information. I want to know who murdered Annie, Maureen... not who stole from her.\"\n\nSharon Percy refused to open her door beyond the burglar chain. \"I'm not going to talk to you,\" she said. \"You thought I wouldn't recognize you, but I watched you go into Maureen's so it didn't take much guessing.\"\n\nA tortoise head loomed behind her in the hallway. \"First you pester us with bloody letters,\" Geoffrey spat at me, \"now you turn up in the flesh. Why don't you just bugger off and leave us alone?\"\n\n\"I would have done if you'd written back,\" I said.\n\n\"What's to say?\" he growled. \"We don't know anything. Never did.\"\n\n\"Then why did you lie in your statements to the police?\"\n\nThere was a look of panic on both their faces before the door was slammed against me. As I hadn't expected anything else, I set off on the two-mile walk to Jock Williams's house.\n\n**_Letter from Libby Garth\u2014ex-wife of Jock Williams,  \nformerly of 21 Graham Road, Richmond\u2014now resident in  \nLeicestershire\u2014dated 1997_**\n\n**Windrush  \nHenchard Lane  \nMelton Mowbray  \nLeicestershire**\n\n**June 19, 1997**\n\n**M'dear** ,\n\n**Written in haste before I start cooking supper for the hungry horde. Would you believe Jock's moved yet another bimbo into that mansion of his! He seems to replace them every few months, yet he's hardly sex on wheels, for God's sake! How on earth does he attract them? I know he makes money from time to time but it's not as if he holds on to it for very long**.\n\n**His new project, \"Systel\"\u2014something to do with mobile phones\u2014looks optimistic, but if it goes the way of the others he'll be looking for a huge injection of cash within a year or so. Word has it (the new bimbo) he has such a lousy reputation with venture capitalists he's now looking at loans secured against the house. He needs his head examined if he does because he'll end up without a roof over his head if he overreaches himself. Heh! Heh!**\n\n**God, I'm a bitch! And why am I still doing this? Perhaps I'm a** _voyeur manque?_ **If so, I blame you for it. You should never have encouraged me to keep tabs on him, because it is so addictive chatting up his \"crumpet.\" It must be a \"comfortthing.\" I feel better knowing I wasn't the only one who couldn't make a relationship work with him**.\n\n**All love** ,\n\n# sixteen\n\nJock kept me standing on the step for several minutes before he opened the door, and I took the time to catch my breath after my hike from Graham Road to the rather grander street between Queen's Road and Richmond Hill where he was now living. The area had been developed in the wake of rail travel when the middle classes first began to exploit the benefits of living at a distance from their workplaces in noisy city centers; and the houses, though still in terraces, were more substantial than their humbler counterparts in Mortlake, with a third story to accommodate servants. A hundred years ago, each house would have had a walled front garden with trees and shrubs for privacy, but since the advent of the two-car family the gardens had been opened and paved to provide off-street parking.\n\nTo one side of Jock's frontage was an elderly black Mercedes with worn leather seats, and I was peering through the windscreen wondering if it was his when the door to the house snapped open and he appeared at my side. \"You're half an hour early,\" he said irritably. \"I thought we agreed two o'clock.\"\n\nI had expected age, divorce and thwarted ambition to have mellowed him a little, but attack, I saw, was still his favored form of defense. I was surprised by the sense of pleasurable recognition I felt, as of an old friend, and offered my cheek for a kiss. \"Hello, Jock,\" I said. \"How are you?\"\n\nHe gave me a quick peck. \"Where's Sam?\"\n\n\"Didn't he phone you?\"\n\n\"No.\"\n\n\"He got tied up at the last minute and couldn't make it,\" I lied with convincing regret, \"so I'm on my own.\" There was a beat of time while I pretended not to see the swift look of relief that crossed Jock's face. \"I didn't know you were into classic cars,\" I said mischievously, patting the Mercedes's hood. \"You always hankered after the newest model in the old days. I remember how rude you were when Sam and I bought that secondhand Allegro estate.\"\n\nHe made a dismissive gesture. \"I keep the Merc as a runabout. The Jag's in a lockup garage down the road.\"\n\n\"A Jag!\" I exclaimed. \"My God! Sam will be green with envy. He's been wanting an XK8 since they came out.\" I looked past him into the shadows of the hall where a coin-operated telephone hung off the wall. \"Don't let me stop you if I've interrupted something,\" I said. \"I'm in no hurry.\"\n\nHe pulled the door to. \"I've some e-mails to answer.\"\n\n\"I can wait.\" I hitched a buttock onto the bonnet of the Mercedes and lifted my head to look at the house. It was an attractive building with sandstone bays containing the high, wide windows of which Victorian architects were so fond. According to Libby the house had cost him \u00a370,000 in 1979 and, according to a local real estate agent, it was now worth upward of three-quarters of a million. \"Nice place,\" I murmured when he made no move to return inside.\n\nHe nodded. \"I like it.\"\n\n\"So what was wrong with it when you bought it? Sitting tenants? Subsidence? Dry rot?\"\n\nHe looked surprised. \"Nothing.\"\n\n\"You're joking! How on earth did you afford it? I thought you got a pittance out of the divorce settlement.\"\n\nHe recoiled slightly as if I'd just revealed teeth. \"Who told you that?\"\n\n\"Libby.\"\n\n\"I didn't know you were still in touch.\"\n\n\"On and off.\"\n\n\"Well, she's wrong,\" he said warily. \"She thought she could clobber me by hiring an expensive solicitor but he never came close to finding the investments that mattered.\"\n\n_It is odd_ , I thought, _how the memory plays tricks_. In my mind, I had likened him for so long to a weasel that his rather charming face surprised me. \"It must have been a first then,\" I said with a small laugh. \"You never managed to hide anything else from your wife.\"\n\n\"What else has she told you?\"\n\n\"That you moved a blonde in here before the ink was dry on the divorce. 'Young enough to be his daughter,'she said, 'but old enough to recognize a sucker when she sees one.'\"\n\nAnother flash of relief. \"That's her jealousy talking,\" he scoffed.\n\nI laughed again, amused by his cocky expression. \"You always were a hopeless liar, Jock. It used to irritate me... now it amuses me... probably because I know so much more about your business affairs than Sam does.\"\n\nHis expression soured. \"Like what?\"\n\n\"Like you have an outstanding loan on this place of \u00a3500,000 which you took out to keep Systel afloat and now can't repay.\"\n\nThere was a short silence while he considered his response. \"Is this something else Libby told you?\"\n\nI nodded.\n\n\"Well, it's a lie,\" he said curtly. \"She doesn't know a damn thing about my finances. Hell, she didn't even know what they were twenty years ago, so she certainly wouldn't know now. I haven't spoken to her since the divorce.\" He waited for me to say something and, when I didn't, he ratcheted up his aggression. \"I could sue you both for slander if you repeat it to anyone else. You can't go 'round destroying people's reputations just because you hold a grudge against them.\"\n\nI was tempted to say such considerations hadn't stopped him twenty years ago from helping Sam to destroy _my_ reputation. Instead I said mildly: \"I'm always happy to be put straight, Jock. So which is the lie? That you don't have an outstanding loan, that you didn't plow it into Systel and lose it or that you can't repay it?\"\n\nHe didn't answer.\n\n\"Perhaps you should have been a little more selective in your girlfriends,\" I suggested. \"According to Libby the blonde bimbette was the first of many, and none of them knew how to keep her mouth shut.\"\n\n\"What's that supposed to mean?\"\n\n\"Libby's been prying information out of them for years while you were out at work, and even she couldn't believe how indiscreet some of them were. All she had to say was that she was conducting research for a hosiery manufacturer, then offer them a dozen free packs of luxury tights in return for twenty minutes of their time answering lifestyle questions, and the floodgates would open.\"\n\nHe frowned. \"Why the hell would she do a thing like that?\"\n\nIt was a good question, but not one I was ready to answer. I needed him off balance if I was ever to get at the truth. \"She wanted to know how much you ripped her off in the divorce settlement.\"\n\n\"None of my exes could have told her that,\" he said confidently.\n\n\"No,\" I agreed, \"but she never asked anything so direct. She was far more subtle\"\u2014I smiled\u2014\"and _very_ patient. She built on what she already knew about you.\" I thought of the regular lists Libby had sent me with updated information on Jock. \"Do you or your partner own the house? Was the value of the house more or less than \u00a350,000 at the time of purchase? Is the present value of the house more or less than \u00a3100,000... \u00a3200,000, et cetera? Is your partner self-employed? Does he earn more or less than \u00a350,000... \u00a3100,000, et cetera? Does he have a mortgage? Is it more or less than \u00a350,000, et cetera, et cetera?\" I laughed unkindly. \"She never got a straightforward yes or no. One of your girlfriends even fished out your bank statements so that the figures would be accurate.\"\n\n\"That's illegal.\"\n\n\"Undoubtedly.\"\n\n\"You're lying,\" he said with more certainty than his expression sug gested he felt. \"Why would she keep on with something like that? It doesn't make sense.\"\n\nI smiled ruefully as if I agreed with him.\n\n\"What answers did she get?\"\n\n\"That your mortgage went from \u00a320,000 to \u00a3500,000 in fifteen years, and you worked your way through seven girlfriends in the process. Two of your start-up businesses failed and the half million you made on the one you sold last year went straight into staving off bankruptcy. The only reason you're still here\"\u2014I nodded toward his front door\u2014 \"is because the capital value of the house exceeds the loan and the bank's allowing you to make interest-only repayments while you look for a job with a six-figure salary. You're not having much success because you're almost fifty and your track record is far from impressive. You're fighting the bank's pressure to sell the house because you're afraid you'll only walk away with \u00a3200,000 once the bills have been paid, and that's barely enough to buy back your old place in Graham Road.\"\n\nHe looked devastated, as if I'd just torn his life apart and tossed the pieces to the winds. I felt no remorse. In a small way he was beginning to understand what he had once done to me.\n\n\"If it's any consolation,\" I went on amiably, \"Sam's been just as economical with the truth. We didn't make a killing in Hong Kong, there's no eight-bedroom mansion on the horizon, and the farmhouse we're renting is falling down. In fact we're not much better off than you are, so it seems rather pointless to spend the next half-hour trying to impress each other with our nonexistent fortunes.\"\n\nHe sighed\u2014more in resignation than anger, I thought\u2014and gestured toward the door. \"You'd better come in, though I warn you I'm pretty much confined to my study these days. The rest of the house is let out to foreign students as the only way to cover the bills. Matter of fact, I was planning to take you to the pub so you wouldn't find out, but it's a hell of a sight easier this way.\" He led me across the hall toward a room at the back. \"Have you told Sam any of this?\" he asked, opening the door and ushering me in.\n\n\"No. He still believes everything you tell him.\" I took stock of the room, which had barely enough space to maneuver. It was packed to the scuppers with sealed boxes, piles of books and pictures hung in tiers on every wall, and if anything of Annie's was in here, it was stubbornly invisible. \"My God!\" I said, unbuckling my rucksack and dropping it to the floor. \"Where the hell did all this come from? You haven't taken to burglary, have you?\"\n\n\"Don't be an idiot,\" he said tetchily \"It's the stuff I'm keeping from the lodgers. If they don't steal it they'll break it. You know what they're like.\"\n\n\"No,\" I assured him. \"I haven't met them.\"\n\n\"I meant foreigners in general.\"\n\n\"Ah!\" I gave a snort of laughter, enjoying the irony of Jock sharing his house with strangers. \"Are we talking _black_ foreigners, Jock?\"\n\n\"Arabs,\" he said crossly. \"They're the only ones with any money these days.\"\n\n\"Is that why you're sleeping in here?\" I asked, looking at the bed in the corner. \"To guard your possessions from dusky predators?\"\n\n\"Ha-bloody-ha!\" He took the swivel seat in front of his desk, leaving the armchair for me. \"Only when the other rooms are full. It's a bit hand-to-mouth but it's tiding me over.\"\n\nHe had grown a beard since the last time I saw him and his dark hair was going gray, but it suited him and I decided he must thrive on adversity because he had none of the worry lines that characterized Sam's face. \"You look good,\" I said, settling myself in the chair. \"Sam's lost most of his hair and is very sensitive about it. He'll be upset to hear you've kept all yours.\"\n\n\"Poor bugger,\" he said with surprising sympathy. \"He was always paranoid about going bald... used to count the hairs in his comb every day.\"\n\n\"He still does.\" I transferred my attention to a tortoiseshell cat that was curled up on a padded footstool in the corner of the room. \"I didn't know you liked cats.\"\n\nHe followed my gaze. \"This fellow's grown on me. One of the exes stormed out when I refused to pay her credit-card bill and poor old Boozey got abandoned in the rush.... Either that, or he went to ground the minute the estrogen started to fly. He's more interested in me than my wallet so we rub along pretty well together.\"\n\n\"Do you have a girlfriend now?\"\n\n\"You mean Libby hasn't told you?\" he asked sarcastically. \"I thought she knew everything.\"\n\n\"She gave up calling when foreigners started answering the phone.\"\n\n\"Why wasn't she worried about me picking it up?\"\n\n\"You did,\" I told him, \"several times. She always pretended to be an old lady phoning the doctor's surgery. You were very patient with her. Kept telling her to correct the number in her book so she wouldn't get it wrong again.\"\n\n\"Godammit! Was that Libby? It didn't sound like her.\" He looked impressed, as if I'd just said something laudable about a nonexistent daughter instead of the wife who'd cast him aside nearly a quarter of a century before.\n\n\"She's good at putting a tremble in her voice.\" I paused. \"Do you miss her?\"\n\nIt was a question he hadn't expected and he stroked his beard pensively while he considered his answer. \"Sometimes,\" he admitted. \"Where is she now? I know she remarried because one of her friends told me, but I've no idea where she went.\"\n\n\"Melton Mowbray in Leicestershire. She did a postgraduate course in Southampton after you and she split up and now she's head of the history department at a comprehensive in Leicester. Her husband's a bank manager called Jim Garth. They have three daughters. The eldest is thirteen and the youngest seven.\"\n\nHis lips twisted in a regretful smile. \"She always said she could do better without me.\"\n\n\"She wanted an identity of her own, Jock\"\u2014I leaned forward, clamping my hands between my knees\u2014\"and if you'd encouraged her to train as a teacher while you were still married... who knows? Maybe you'd still be together.\"\n\nHe didn't believe that any more than I did. \"Hardly. We weren't even on speaking terms by the end.\" His eyes narrowed as he looked at me, and I guessed he had as much pent-up distrust of me as I had of him. \"I've always blamed you for the divorce, you know. Libby didn't have a problem till you came along, all she wanted was babies... then _you_ move into the street and, suddenly, babies aren't good enough. She _has_ to have a career, and it _has_ to be teaching.\"\n\n\"I didn't know she was so easily influenced.\"\n\n\"Oh come on! Every idea she had was recycled from the last person she spoke to. That's probably why she became a history teacher,\" he said sarcastically. \"You don't have to think so much when your subject's been chewed over for centuries by other people.\"\n\n\"That's rubbish, Jock. Libby knew exactly what she wanted out of life... also what she _didn't_ want.\"\n\n\"Yes, well, I could always tell when she'd been with you. She was a hell of a sight more belligerent about her rights when she'd had a dose of Ranelagh left-wing feminism.\"\n\n\"Maybe it's a good thing you never introduced her to Sharon then,\" I said dryly. \"Or you'd have had a prostitute for a wife.\"\n\nHe wouldn't look at me\u2014afraid, I think, of what I might read in his eyes\u2014but his neck flushed an angry red. \"That's a stupid thing to say.\"\n\n\"No more stupid than you trying to blame me for your divorce,\" I said evenly. \"Nothing I said or didn't say could alter the fact that Libby was sick to death of your gambling. She wanted some stability in her life, not a roller-coaster ride of wins one day and losses the next. It was bad enough when it was just the stock market, but when you admitted to losing three thousand quid on a poker game....\" I shook my head. \"What did you expect her to do? Pat you on the back?\"\n\n\"It was _my_ money,\" he said sulkily.\n\n\"It was also your money when you won,\" I pointed out, \"but you never shared your winnings with her, only your losses. You put Libby through hell every time you lost and used your winnings to buy blow jobs off Sharon.\"\n\nIt began to dawn on him just how much Libby had told me and he retreated into an offended silence, punctuated only by the regular ticking of a pendulum clock on the mantelpiece. I made no effort to break it. Instead I glanced about the study, trying to imprint what I could see on my memory. It was an impossible task, so I looked for what wasn't there: silhouette pictures of Annie's grandparents, mosaics of Quetzal-coatl, items of jade, artillery shells and peacock feathers...\n\nThere was a fine seascape in a gilded frame on the wall opposite showing a ship under full sail battling with a storm-tossed sea, and I could just make out the words on the small plaque screwed to the bottom of the frame. _Spanish Privateer in Great Storm off Kingston, Jamaica, 1823_. I was so absorbed in trying to decide whether the date represented the year the storm happened or the year the picture was painted, that it was a while before I realized Jock was watching me.\n\n\"What the hell's going on?\" he asked suspiciously, following my gaze. \"Has Libby got some crazy idea that she can get more money out of me?\"\n\nI shook my head. \"I came to ask you about the night Annie Butts died.\"\n\nHe gave an exasperated sigh. \"So why drag Libby into it? Why not be upfront at the beginning?\"\n\nIt was an obtuse remark from a man who always attacked first and asked questions later. \"Sorry,\" I said apologetically.\n\n\"You could have talked to me on the phone,\" he said, warming to his grievance. \"I've always answered your questions in the past. I even drove round to St. Mark's Church the other day to find out the vicar's name for you.\"\n\n\"That was kind,\" I agreed.\n\n\"Then what's the big deal?\"\n\nI pulled a wry expression. \"Nothing really. I'm just not very good at this. I was afraid you'd clam up if I dived straight in with questions about where you were and who you were with that night.\"\n\nHe looked surprised. \"You already know all that. It was in my statement. I was with Sam at your place. We had a couple of beers and then I went home.\"\n\n\"Except it was a Tuesday,\" I reminded him, \"and Libby told me Tuesday was your fellatio day.\"\n\n\"God almighty,\" he growled angrily, hating the whole subject, \"I went to Sharon first. Okay? I came out at about half-seven, bumped into Sam and went back to his place for a beer.\"\n\n\"Sam said you bumped into each other at the tube station.\"\n\nHe shifted uncomfortably. \"It was twenty years ago. You can't expect me to remember every wretched detail.\"\n\n\"Why would you be at the tube if you'd just left Sharon? I thought you had sex in her house.\"\n\n\"What the hell difference does it make? Annie was alive and well when we passed her in the street.\"\n\nI shrugged. \"The reason Sam knows he met you at the station is because you were on your way home from a poker game.\"\n\nHe was taken by surprise. \"A poker game?\" he echoed. \"Where on earth did that spring from?\n\n\"It's what Sam said.\"\n\n\"Not in his statement, he didn't.\"\n\n\"No, it was the explanation he gave me afterward,\" I lied. \"He said he took you home for a drink because you were in a blue funk about how to tell Libby you'd lost another fortune.\"\n\nSurprise was abruptly replaced by irritation. \"You didn't pass that on to Libby, did you?\"\n\n\"No. I didn't hear about it until after we'd left England.\"\n\nHe pondered for a moment. \"Maybe Sam didn't want to say I'd been with Sharon.\"\n\n\"Did he know about her?\"\n\nHe gave a half-hearted nod.\n\n\"But who could have told him, Jock? _You?\"_ I said in amazement when he didn't answer. \"God! I'd have put money on you keeping that a secret. It wasn't something to be proud of, was it?\"\n\nHis mouth thinned. \"Give it a rest, all right? None of this has anything to do with Annie's death.\"\n\nI shook my head. \"It has everything to do with it, Jock. She died because she was beaten half to death some hours before she managed to drag herself down to our end of the street for me to find, yet you just said she was alive and well when you came out of Sharon's house at a quarter to eight.\" I lifted copies of the autopsy photographs from the front pocket of the rucksack and spread them on my lap. \"Look at the bruising. It's too extensive to have come from injuries inflicted fifteen to thirty minutes before she died.\" I isolated a close-up of Annie's right arm. \"This is a classic picture of a multitude of defense wounds sustained hours before death. The probability is that she curled herself in a ball to try to protect her head and, instead of a few individual bruises, which is what you would expect to see if a truck had flung her against a lamppost minutes before she died, all the bruises have merged over a period of hours to produce one massive hematoma from shoulder to wrist.\"\n\nHe stared at the photographs with shocked fascination but instead of expressing revulsion over Annie's bludgeoned face, he offered a poignant non sequitur. \"I'd forgotten how young she was.\"\n\n\"Younger than you are now,\" I agreed, \"and very strong, which is why she took so much punishment before she passed out. This bruising at the top of her thighs\"\u2014I turned a picture of Annie's torso toward him\u2014 \"suggests massive internal injuries from being kicked or beaten around her abdomen, causing blood to seep into the tissue of her legs. It's what's usually described as a 'frenzied attack'and it almost certainly happened in her own house because anywhere else would have been too public.\"\n\nHe took time to assimilate what I was saying. \"I thought she was wearing her coat. Why would she wear a coat in the house?\"\n\nIt was a question I'd asked myself many times because she certainly wouldn't have been in any condition to put it on after she'd been attacked. \"I can only guess that someone pushed in behind her when she came home from the pub and attacked her before she had time to remove it.\"\n\nHe began to look worried. \"The police would have found some evidence,\" he protested. \"There'd have been blood on the walls.\"\n\n\"Not if most of her injuries were internal. In any case, there _was_ evidence. The police recorded it themselves. Broken furniture which suggested a fight... absent floor coverings which suggested she _did_ bleed and the rugs were removed... human waste in the hall, which is a classic fear response from intruders. She stank of urine when I found her, Jock, which suggests they pissed on her as well.\"\n\nHe turned away to fiddle with the pens on his desk. \"That's disgusting.\"\n\n\"Yes.\" I gave a tired shrug. \"And if you and Sam hadn't lied about seeing her at a quarter to eight, then maybe the police would have interpreted the evidence properly instead of condemning her as a tramp.\"\n\nHe licked his lips nervously. \"Does Sam say we lied?\"\n\nI nodded, carefully squaring the photographs in my lap. \"He was feeling homesick one night in Hong Kong and started blaming me for the fact that we'd had to leave England. It all came out at about three o'clock in the morning... how you'd phoned him and begged him to give you an alibi... how I'd made his life impossible by telling the police it was murder... how the choice between supporting me or his closest friend had been one of the hardest he'd ever had to make.\" I shrugged. \"I've not had much sympathy for you since. You put me through hell and I've never forgiven you for it.\"\n\n\"I'm sorry,\" he said awkwardly.\n\nI couldn't help admiring his loyalty. It was more than Sam deserved but it said much for their friendship, which had stayed healthy through their regular exchange of phone calls, faxes and e-mails. \"It's only a matter of time before the police reopen the case,\" I told him, \"and the first thing they're going to look at is where people were in the hours before Annie's death. She died shortly after 9:30,\" I reminded him. \"So if you spent thirty to forty minutes in Sharon's house and left at half-seven, then you were there within the timespan that bruises like this\"\u2014 I tapped the photographs\u2014\"need to develop.\"\n\nHis eyes flicked toward my lap.\n\n\"And that means you must have heard what was going on next door,\" I went on matter-of-factly \"or you joined Sharon shortly after she heard it. Either way you'd have noticed something. You don't get good sex off a woman who's just listened to her neighbor being clubbed into unconsciousness.\" I eyed him curiously. \"But Sharon's bound to claim your story's bullshit anyway because, according to her inquest testimony, she was in the pub from 6 till 9:15.\"\n\n\"This is crazy,\" he said, his eyes straying toward the telephone on his desk. \"What does Sam say?\"\n\n\"Nothing much... except that he's adamant he didn't know about Sharon and refuses to take the blame if you lied to him about why you needed an alibi.\"\n\nIt was the accusation of lying to Sam that seemed to goad him toward honesty. Either that or his resentment at being made everybody's scapegoat finally boiled over. \"Sam knew better than anyone that I didn't have the bottle to go near another card game,\" he said bitterly. \"I may be a risk taker but I'm not a bloody fool. I was taken to the cleaners by some pros the first time and I wasn't going to give them a second chance.\" He squeezed the bridge of his nose between finger and thumb. \"And there's no way Sharon was an issue. I could have paraded half the whores in London in front of Libby without her turning a hair. The marriage had been dead for months... it was just a question of which one of us was going to pack our bags first.\"\n\n\"Then why did you lie in your statement?\"\n\nHe saw in my eyes that I knew the answer. \"Do you really want it spelled out? It was dead and buried before you even left England.\"\n\n\"For Sam maybe,\" I said. \"Not for me. That's why I'm here. I've waited a long time to find out who he was with that night... and what they were doing...\"\n\n**_E-mail from Libby Garth\u2014ex-wife of Jock Williams,  \nformerly of 21 Graham Road, Richmond\u2014now resident in  \nLeicestershire\u2014dated 1999_**\n\n**M. R**.\n\n**From:** Libby Garth (liga@netcomuk.co)\n\n**Sent:** 05 May 1999 14:37\n\n**To:** M.R.\n\n**Subject:** Re coming home at last!\n\nM'dear, this is such marvellous news! I truly believed you were gone for good! I suppose Sam's coronary accounts for it\u2014so every cloud does have a silver lining then? Anyway, I can't wait to see you again. Perhaps you can persuade Sam to visit Jock one weekend while you and the boys come up to visit us in Leicestershire? I can't imagine Sam will want to buddy up to Jim for fear of betraying his old friend\u2014and Jim would be v. nervous to have a suspicious mate of Jock's about the place.\n\nTalking about suspicious mates (ha! ha!) are you planning to confront Jock after you get back? As you know, I've never managed to find out how he bought that house in Alveston Road, although I met a university friend of his at a party a while back who made an oblique reference to the effect that Jock's parents had helped him\u2014viz.: \"Jock's never been known to miss a trick. He told me once he'd screwed a small fortune out of the pair of them because each one thinks he doesn't talk to the other, and they can't check because they haven't exchanged a word since the brother died.\" Could that be where the money came from? It sounds like Jock's modus operandi, whatever he may say about being a \"self-made man.\"\n\nHave I ever told you how impressed I am by all your efforts? Who'd have thought the little teacher from Graham Road would have turned into such a tigress! Poor old Sam must wonder what's hit him. You say he still won't talk about the night Annie died, but perhaps that's only to be expected. The longer you remain married the harder it must be for him to admit that he was prepared to put a friend before his wife.\n\nYou're too wise not to put something that happened twenty-plus years ago into perspective. Let's face it, we all make mistakes, and in fairness to Sam you did go a little crazy afterward\u2014classic posttraumatic stress reaction for which you should have had counseling\u2014 and neither he, Jock, nor anyone else had reason to doubt the police view that Annie died in a tragic accident. I know you'll say it doesn't pass the \"so what\" test, but I can't help feeling it would put your marriage under unnecessary strain to keep reminding Sam of his \"failure\" when all the police will require is a straightforward admission that they didn't see Annie that night.\n\nRe the Slaters, Percys and Spaldings. Do be careful how you approach them as there is no doubt in my mind that they'll be extremely hostile to answering questions. Hate groups are notoriously violent\u2014they're too low on the pecking order to be anything else\u2014 and I really don't want to read in my newspaper that your body's been fished out of the Thames! The burning fiery cross is a frightening reality, my darling, not a figment of KKK imagination. They believe in terror because terror gives them status. (It probably gives them orgasms as well because they're all sadists, but they would never admit to that!) Anyway, I do wonder if you shouldn't leave the Slaters to the police, particularly as you've amassed so much evidence already of their petty thieving.\n\nSpeak soon,\n\nAll my love,\n\nL\n\n# seventeen\n\nIt was an involved tale about a pretty little secretary in Sam's office who had ensnared him during the August of '78 while I was in Hampshire dog-sitting for my parents, who were on holiday. It was a brief madness, Jock assured me, a fatal attraction that went sour almost as soon as it started. Sam wanted to dump her the minute I came home, but the girl was having none of it. If she'd worked anywhere else it wouldn't have been a problem, but Sam was worried about how it would affect his career if she turned on him out of spite. It was the early days of sexual harassment cases, and this was a girl who knew what she was doing.\n\nSam strung her along for a couple of months, then made an attempt to end it on the night I was due to stay late at school for a parents'evening. By malign chance, it was also the night Mad Annie died. \"Sam was way out of his depth,\" said Jock. \"He had this crazy idea that if he wined and dined his mistress first, then told her he planned to do the decent and honorable thing and stay with his wife, the girl would accept it. Instead she went ballistic... screamed and yelled at him in the restaurant... poured wine down his suit... and, what with one thing and another, he was in a pretty dire state by the time he reached home.\n\n\"He passed Annie in the gutter,\" said Jock. \"She was under the lamppost so he could hardly miss her, but she reeked of drink so he left her. He knew you'd be back any minute and his first priority was to get out of the suit, clean himself up and pretend he'd been in all evening.\" A glint of humor flashed in his eyes. \"Then you come running in fifteen minutes later to ring for an ambulance and the silly sod promptly shoots himself in the foot.\"\n\nI frowned. \"He was watching television. I never even questioned where he'd been.\"\n\n\"You told him Annie Butts was dying in the road outside and he said, 'No, she's not, she's paralytic.'\"\n\n\"So?\"\n\n\"Why would he say that if he hadn't seen her?\"\n\nI bit back a laugh. \"Are you telling me you lied to the police because of some half-assed remark he made while I was screaming down the telephone for an ambulance? He could have told me she was standing on her head and waggling her legs in the air for all the notice I paid him. I wouldn't have remembered afterward.\"\n\nJock shrugged. \"That's exactly what I said, but he didn't believe me. He reckoned you had a memory like an elephant. He said it would be easier all round if we supported the police version that Annie was staggering drunk at a quarter to eight. I mean it wasn't as if we were the only ones to say it... _everyone_ was saying it. We thought it was the truth.\"\n\n\"There were only five other people who claimed to have seen her,\" I reminded him. \"One was Geoffrey Spalding who lived opposite Annie at number 27. He's the man who said at the inquest that he tried to persuade Annie to go home but gave up when she started cursing him. His estimate of the time was between 8 and 8:30. Two were an elderly couple at number 8, Mr. and Mrs. Pardoe, who went up to bed at approximately nine o'clock because they were cold and saw her from their upstairs window, but decided against doing anything because she was clearly drunk and the last time they'd tried to help her she spat at them. And the remaining two were a man and a woman in a car who were using Graham Road as a shortcut and said they had to slam on the brakes when a bulky figure in a dark coat suddenly lurched in front of them, screaming abuse. They decided she was 'an aggressive drunk'and drove on to avoid a confrontation. They couldn't be accurate about the time, but thought it was shortly after nine o'clock.\"\n\nHe looked at the photographs that were still in my lap. \"You've just destroyed your own argument,\" he said. \"Why would any of those people lie about seeing her?\"\n\n\"I don't think they did,\" I answered slowly, \"except possibly Geoffrey Spalding, and he may only have been lying about the time. You see, timing's important. One of the reasons the police estimated that she received her injuries fifteen to thirty minutes before I found her was because the Pardoes and the couple in the car both said she was on her feet at or around nine o'clock. If she was dead by 9:30, then ipso facto something must have hit her during those thirty minutes.\"\n\n\"Then how can you expect anyone to believe she was beaten to death hours earlier?\"\n\n\"I said she was beaten unconscious, Jock, I didn't say she was dead. There _is_ a difference... particularly when you're talking about someone as well-built and powerful as Annie.\" I ran an exploratory finger across her celluloid face as if it could tell me something. \"I think she came 'round inside her house and managed to get herself out in search of help. The miracle is she had enough strength left to try to stop a passing car. A doctor would probably say it was impossible because her skull was so badly fractured, but it's the only explanation for why she was in the road and why she appeared drunk.\"\n\n\"Or the police were right all the time,\" suggested Jock. \"I remember reading the inquest report. It said there was a high level of alcohol in her blood.\"\n\nI shook my head. \"It was ninety-five milligrams per hundred millilitres of blood\u2014or fifteen milligrams above the legal driving limit. That's the equivalent of four or five shots of rum... a drop in the ocean for someone who drank as much as Annie. Sam and I can manage that with no trouble at weekends... you, too, I expect... but it doesn't make us stagger about like zombies.\" I gave a weary shake of my head. \"She was labeled a road-traffic accident, so the pathologist routinely recorded her as 'unfit to drive,'which the police and the coroner then interpreted as a 'high concentration of alcohol.'In fairness they had witness statements that described her as 'paralytic'and the police found cases of empty vodka bottles in her house, but if the pathologist had done his job properly he would have questioned whether ninety-five milligrams was enough to cause staggering in a fourteen-stone woman with a known alcohol habit.\"\n\n\"You really have done your homework, haven't you?\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"What do the police say?\"\n\n\"Nothing yet. I want my evidence so watertight that they'll be forced to reopen the case whether they like it or not.\" I paused. \"I'll need you and Sharon to admit you were the couple I followed into Graham Road that night,\" I told him.\n\nHe shrugged. \"That won't worry me. It might worry her, though.\"\n\n\"Why?\"\n\n\"She lied at the inquest. She didn't get to the William of Orange till 9:15. We usually met up about half-eight, had a quick drink, then cut down the alleyway at the back of her house, but she was dropped off by a taxi that night, high as a kite, and totally uninterested in making any more money. So I walked her along the A316 and split away from her when we turned into Graham Road.\" He went on before I could ask the obvious question. \"She said she'd been at a hotel with another client. I assume it was true because she was dressed up like a dog's dinner and stank of fags.\" He gave a small shake of his head as he recalled the memory. \"She certainly didn't give the impression that she'd come from her house. Rather the reverse, in fact. Kept saying she wanted to get back to it because she was sick as a dog from all the champagne she'd drunk.\"\n\n\"But if Tuesday was _your_ day, why would she go with somebody else?\"\n\n\"She was a pro,\" he said sarcastically. \"Someone else offered her more money.\"\n\n\"Did she say who it was?\"\n\n\"She didn't give me a name... just said it was another regular whom she couldn't afford to disappoint.\"\n\n\"Geoffrey Spalding was one of her clients,\" I said slowly. \"His wife was dying of breast cancer and he didn't want her or his daughters to know he was paying for sex. He took Sharon to a hotel once a month.\" I laughed at his expression. \"No, it wasn't Libby who told me. It was Sharon's son, Michael. I've been writing to him in prison.\"\n\n\"Jesus! Rather you than me then,\" he said dryly. \"He was a right little sadist when I knew him... used to pluck the whiskers out of Annie's cats just for the fun of it. Do you know why he's in prison?\" I nodded. \"Then you ought to be careful. His mother was shit-scared of him. And with reason. He had a real temper when he was roused.\"\n\nI watched the cat lick itself drowsily in the afternoon sun. \"You know the one thing that's always puzzled me, Jock... why neither you nor Sharon stopped to find out if Annie was alive. You must have seen her. Sharon virtually had to step over her to cross the road.\"\n\n\"We truly didn't,\" he said. \"I asked Sharon about it afterward and she went white as a sheet... kept begging me to keep my mouth shut in case we got accused of being involved in some way.\"\n\nThere seemed little else to say, but I couldn't find the energy to rise from the chair. The journey home held few attractions and, like the cat, I wanted nothing better than to curl into a ball and forget that life was complicated. Perhaps Jock felt the same because the shadows lengthened noticeably before he spoke again.\n\n\"You've changed,\" he said finally.\n\n\"Yes,\" I agreed.\n\nHe smiled. \"Aren't you going to ask me how?\"\n\n\"There's no point.\" I leaned my head against the back of the chair and stared at the ceiling. \"I know what you're going to say.\"\n\n\"What?\"\n\n\"I'm more relaxed than I used to be.\"\n\n\"How did you know?\"\n\n\"It's what Sam always says.\"\n\n\"You used to get pretty hyped-up in the old days,\" he said. \"I remember going into your house one day and having to duck a flying saucepan.\"\n\nI turned my head to look at him, laughing at the memory. \"Only because you and Sam came home plastered at some god-awful hour in the morning and got me out of bed with the row you were making downstairs. The minute you saw me you started demanding food, so I tossed the saucepan in your direction and told you to cook it yourselves. You were supposed to catch it, not duck it.\"\n\n\"Is that right?\" he asked dryly. \"Then how come most of the crockery ended up on the floor as well?\"\n\nI thought back. \"I was hopping mad, particularly as we had a school inspection the next day. In any case, I never liked those plates. Sam's mother gave them to us.\"\n\nHe grinned at me. \"We were so damn legless we probably thought you'd be thrilled to see us. And at least we never did it again. As Sam said, you'd probably start hurling knives the next time.\"\n\nWe exchanged smiles. \"I never did find out where you'd been,\" I murmured lazily. \"You swore it was the pub, but it can't have been because pubs closed at 11.\"\n\nThere was the smallest of hesitations before he answered. \"A strip club in Soho,\" he said. \"Sam didn't think you'd approve.\"\n\nI gave a noncommittal shrug. \"Was the pretty little secretary with you?\" I asked. \"It was October-time, so she must have been around.\"\n\nHe shook his head. \"Sam wouldn't take a woman to a strip club.\"\n\nI leaned forward to tuck the photographs of Annie into my rucksack. \"Did you ever meet her, Jock?\"\n\n\"No,\" he admitted.\n\n\"So you've only Sam's word that she existed?\"\n\nThere was real surprise in his voice when he answered. \"Of course she existed! You can't hate someone who isn't real. He told me that night that strangling was too good for her, and trust me... I was _there_.... I _heard_ him. He meant every word. That's why I took him to the club in the first place... to try to get his mind on to something else. He was terrified she was going to come to you with the sordid details... either that or blackmail him. I'd just about persuaded him to come clean and tell you about it\"\u2014he gave a dispirited sigh\u2014\"then we walk through the door and you start throwing bloody saucepans at us.\"\n\nI smiled at his innocence, thinking it was no wonder Sam loved him as a guru. Pupils always preferred a teacher they could manipulate. \"Sorry,\" I said without contrition, \"but if it's any consolation there's no way he was going to own up to it. I'm not questioning the affair, Jock, only the conveniently streetwise secretary. He invented her for your sake. He's always been useless at keeping secrets and you were bound to get suspicious if he started saying he was too busy to have a drink with you. I think you'll find he was performing closer to home.\"\n\nHe rubbed his head ferociously. \"I don't understand.\"\n\n\"Oh, come on, it's not that hard to work out.\" I started gathering my bits and pieces together. \"What do you think Libby was doing the night Annie died? Darning your socks?\"\n\nHe wouldn't accept it. \"She can't have been with Sam,\" he said. \"Hell, I'd have known if she'd been out. She had my supper waiting, and all the laundry done, for Christ's sake.\"\n\n\"There was a perfectly good bed in your house,\" I murmured. \"What makes you think they didn't use that?\"\n\nHe stared at me with a look of bewildered hurt on his face, and I was reminded of my own devastation as I listened to Sam's drunken ramblings that night in Hong Kong. _It's your fault we're here.... If you hadn't left me in the lurch none of this would have happened.... Women are crooked.... They do one thing and say another.... Why the hell did you have to ask people what they were doing that night? Did you expect them to be honest?_\n\n\"I could have walked in at any moment,\" protested Jock, clutching at straws.\n\n\"It was a Tuesday,\" I said, \"and you never got home before 10 on a Tuesday.\"\n\n\"But...\" His bewilderment increased. \"Was anything Sam told me true?\"\n\n\"I think it was true that it started during the two weeks I was away. I remember him telling me over the phone that Libby had offered to do his washing for him, but when I asked him later if he'd taken her up on it he became incredibly tetchy and said he hadn't seen her. At the time I thought he was cross because she'd let him down, but now I think he was just frightened of giving too much away...\"\n\nI watched resentment steal into Jock's face like a thief, and was surprised at how hollow my little victory felt.\n\n\"I think it's also true that he wanted to end it,\" I went on, \"and was terrified of making an enemy of her. Personally, I doubt Libby would ever have confessed to it herself-\u2014she didn't want to give you ammunition for a divorce\u2014but Sam certainly believed she would.\" I smiled slightly. \"The irony is, I suspect he was far more worried about you finding out than he was about me. He says your friendship is important to him.\"\n\n\"He's a bloody hypocrite.\"\n\nI didn't disagree. \"Why do you care?\" I asked. \"As you said yourself it was dead and buried years ago.\"\n\nBut Jock didn't want to be reminded of his own mealymouthed platitudes. \"He got me to lie for him.\"\n\n\"You were happy to do it,\" I pointed out.\n\n\"I might have felt differently if I'd known he was with Libby.\"\n\nI lifted a shoulder in a half-shrug. \"Who's the hypocrite now?\"\n\nHe turned away, pulling a handkerchief from his pocket.\n\n\"In any case,\" I went on, \"I'm betting it was Libby who pushed him into it. The police were asking everyone in the street if they'd seen or heard anything at the time of the accident, and I think she was afraid someone would say they'd spotted Sam leaving your house around nine o'clock. It was safer all 'round if he could deny it and say he was with you at our place.\"\n\nThe steps from bewilderment to hate were short and ugly and could be measured in their passage across his face. I had taken those steps myself and recognized the signs. Yet the object of his hatred was not the man who'd betrayed him, but the woman. \"She loved making a fool of me, you know. She's probably been wetting herself for years knowing I was the one who covered their tracks.\"\n\nI shook my head. \"You shouldn't dwell on it. If Sam had been anything more to Libby than a stopgap lover, you'd have been out on your ear and he and I wouldn't still be married.\"\n\n\"I was out anyway,\" he said angrily. \"I never had a chance.\"\n\n\"You had the same chances I did,\" I said coolly. \"If either of us had known what was going on, then both our marriages would have ended in divorce. Because we didn't, yours held together a little longer and mine survived. But yours was on the rocks already, Jock, and you can't blame Sam for that. He was a symptom, not a cause.\"\n\nHe began a rambling defense of his own part in that long-dead relationship. Did I have any idea what it was like to be rejected by someone I loved? Why would he have taken up with Sharon if Libby had shown the slightest bit of interest in him? What did I think it did to a man's self-esteem to have to pay for sex? Of course he hadn't told Sam about her. No man in his right mind would want his friends laughing at him behind his back....\n\nListening to him expose his heartache in that room stuffed with hidden secrets, I was more amused than sympathetic. Was he so blind to his own duplicity that double standards held no embarrassment for him? And why did he think he could trust me with his pain, when mine was older, more monstrous and a great deal crueller? Like Sam, he saw himself more sinned against than sinning, and, like Sam, his belligerence grew as his own guilt paled before the guilt of others.\n\nWhen he finally ran out of steam, I stood up and pulled on my rucksack. \"I wouldn't waste any more time on it if I were you,\" I said kindly. \"It won't change anything, just make you angry.\"\n\n\"If that's what you wanted you should have left me in ignorance.\" He watched morosely as I checked to see I'd left nothing behind. \"Why didn't you?\"\n\n\"I didn't think it was fair.\"\n\nHe gave a mirthless laugh. \"Well, maybe I don't put such a high price on fairness as you do. Did you think about that? Sam and I go back a long way. Maybe I'd have been happier not knowing.\"\n\nI was sure he was right. It was truly said that what you don't know can't hurt you, and Sam and he could have gone on forever, the one lying about his stalwart support of his friend, the other lying about his success. It was also truly said that misery loves company and I laid a quiet bet with myself that Jock\u2014a man not given to suffering in silence\u2014would pick up the telephone after I left and offload some of his misery onto my husband.\n\nIt seemed eminently fair to me\u2014-justice demands a penalty\u2014but whether they would ever speak again was questionable. I wasn't troubled by it. I had waited a very long time for my pound of flesh.\n\n**_Family correspondence\u2014dated 1999_**\n\nCURRAN HOUSE\n\n_Whitehay Road_\n\n_Torquay_\n\n_Devon_\n\nFriday\n\nDearest M,\n\nI can't help feeling Libby is right, and you should rethink these visits on Monday particularly the one to Alan's house. I know Danny's told you Alan won't be there\u2014but do at least consider how he's likely to react when his wife tells him you've taken photographs of what's there. Are you sure it wouldn't be more sensible to involve the police? I know I don't need to remind you of what Alan and his father did to you\u2014it distresses me to see you washing your hands all the time\u2014but I'm not as confident as you that just because Alan's brother doesn't seem to know about his past, his wife won't either.\n\nLove,\n\nDad\n\nX X X\n\n# eighteen\n\nMy last port of call that day was a small 1930s semi in Isleworth with pebble-dashed walls and lattice-style windows. It was too far to walk so I took a taxi from Richmond station and asked the driver to wait in case there was no one at home or the occupants refused to speak to me. I heard a dog bark as I rang the bell, then the door was flung open by a small curly haired boy and a Great Dane came bounding out to circle 'round me, growling. \"Mu-mmy!\" the child screamed. \"Satan's going to bite a lady. Mu-mmy!\"\n\nA plump blonde in a baggy T-shirt and leggings appeared behind him and sent the dog back inside with a click of her fingers. \"Don't worry,\" she said comfortably. \"His bark's worse than his bite.\"\n\nI smiled weakly \"How do you know?\"\n\n\"I'm sorry?\"\n\n\"How many people has he bitten?\"\n\n\"Oh, I see!\" She giggled. \"None. _Yet..._ No, I'm joking. Actually, he's a big a softy. Mind you\"\u2014she ruffled her son's hair\u2014\"how many times do I have to tell you not to open the door, Jason? Not everyone's as easy 'round dogs as this lady and if Satan did bite someone we'd have the police here in no time flat.\" She turned him 'round and steered him toward a door to her right. \"Go and watch Tansy for me. I don't want her sticking her fingers in the sockets again.\" The corners of her mouth lifted in a questioning smile. \"So what can I do for you? If you're a Jehovah's Witness you'll be wasting your time. That's why Satan's called Satan... to scare off the God squad.\"\n\nShe was like a gust of fresh air after the watchful suspicion of Maureen Slater, and I wasn't remotely surprised that Danny preferred her company to his mother's. \"That would be Alan,\" I said.\n\n\"That's right.\"\n\n\"And you're Beth?\"\n\nShe nodded.\n\n\"Alan knew me as Mrs. Ranelagh,\" I said, holding out my hand. \"My husband and I used to live down the other end of Graham Road from his parents when he was a child. I was one of his teachers.\"\n\nShe looked surprised as she returned my handshake. \"Are you the lady Danny was on about? He phoned a couple of nights ago and said he'd met someone who used to teach Al.\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\nShe glanced past me toward the taxi. \"He said you were in Dorset.\"\n\n\"We're renting a farmhouse there for the summer. It's about ten miles from where Danny's staying. I'm in London today because there were some people I needed to see\"\u2014I didn't think she'd accept that I'd dropped in on a whim\u2014\"one of whom was Alan.\"\n\nA look of uncertainty crossed her face. \"He went really quiet when Danny mentioned your name... almost like you were Jack the Ripper or something.\"\n\n\"Did he?\" I asked in surprise. \"He always told me I was his favorite teacher. I wouldn't have dreamed of dropping in otherwise.\"\n\nShe looked embarrassed. \"He's not here. He's working on a site out Chertsey way.\" A frown developed. \"I'm surprised Danny didn't tell you. It's one of these executive-type estates... you know, houses with fancy stonework and porches on pillars\u2014and he's been pestering Al for weeks to put his name up for the decorative bits. They're behind with the contract so my poor old boy's working overtime.... most evenings he doesn't get back till 'round 10.\" The frown deepened. \"Anyway, how come you _needed_ to see him? Most of his teachers were glad to be shot of him.\"\n\n\"Me, too,\" I said honestly. \"Most of the time he couldn't be bothered to turn up, and when he did he was so disruptive that I wished he hadn't.\" I smiled to take the sting from my words. \"Then I'd take a deep breath, remind myself of what his father was like, and try again. I couldn't bear to think he'd end up like Derek. And he obviously hasn't if everything Danny's told me about you and the children is true.\"\n\nCuriosity won out, as I hoped it would, because my excuse for being there wasn't enough to persuade her to invite me in. \"I never met his dad,\" she said, a gleam of interest sparkling in her eyes. \"He was long gone before I met Al, but everyone says he was a bastard. Did you know him well?\"\n\n\"Oh, yes. He threatened to rearrange my face once, so I tried to have him arrested.\" I turned irresolutely toward the taxi. \"I asked the driver to wait in case you weren't at home, but I think he's left the clock running.\"\n\n\"Fuck that for a load of bananas,\" she said cheerfully. \"They're all rip-off merchants... charge you an arm 'n'a bloody leg just to look you. Excuse my French. How about I give you a cup of tea and we'll call for a minicab later? If you're lucky, Al might get home early for once. I mean, it's not every day one of his teachers turns up\"\u2014she canted her head to one side\u2014\"though you don't look much like any of the old bats who taught me, and that's a fact.\"\n\nWith a grateful smile for the offer of tea and the compliment\u2014and a silent, earnest prayer that _nothing_ would induce Alan to come home early\u2014I paid off the cab and followed her inside. As I might have predicted, the interior was a reflection of Beth's down-to-earth character. Colors were simple and direct\u2014terra-cotta and straw being her obvious favorites. Floor coverings were practical\u2014sanded floorboards in the hall and cork in the kitchen\u2014and all her furniture was arranged to maximize space and minimize accidents for her children. It worked, and it was attractive, and when I told her so she was pleased but not surprised.\n\n\"It's what I want to do when the kids are both at school,\" she said, \"take over someone's house and make it nice for them. I reckon I've got a talent for it, and it seems a shame to work in a factory if I can make money out of something I enjoy. I do it all myself-\u2014Als too tired to be sanding floors when he gets home\u2014and most of my mates go green when they come visiting. Half of them think women aren't made for this kind of caper, and the other half say they'd be too embarrassed to go to the hire shop for tools like sanding machines and wallpaper strippers because they wouldn't know what to ask for.\"\n\nI skirted cautiously around the Great Dane, which had stretched itself full length on a fluffy rug in front of the cooker. \"What did you do before you married Alan?\" I asked, pulling out a kitchen chair and straddling it. The dog raised its head with a hostile look in its eyes, then, at a click from his mistress's fingers, yawned and went back to sleep.\n\n\"I was a hairdresser,\" Beth said with a laugh, \"and I hated every minute of it. I was supposed to be a stylist but the only styling I ever did was blue rinses for miserable old women who had nothing better to do with their time than whinge about their husbands. And it didn't seem to make much difference whether the poor old bastards were dead or alive, they still got the treatment. Yackety... yackety... yack. He's mean.... He's stupid.... He dribbles on the toilet seat.... _Honestly!_ It didn't half put me off getting old.\"\n\nI laughed. \"It sounds like my mother.\"\n\n\"Is she like that?\"\n\n\"A bit.\"\n\n\"I never knew my mum,\" said Beth, pushing an armful of bangles up to her elbow as she carried the kettle to the sink and turned on the water. \"Not the biological one anyway. She put me up for adoption when I was a baby. My adoptive mum's great... so is my dad... they love Al and they love the kids. They asked me once if I wanted to go looking for my real mum, and I said no chance. I mean, there's no guarantee I'm going to like her\u2014half the people I know can't stand their parents... so why waste time looking for her?\"\n\nI didn't say anything.\n\n\"You think I'm wrong?\"\n\n\"Not at all,\" I said with a smile. \"I was thinking what a levelheaded woman you are and how lucky Alan is to have married you.\" I was also thinking of something that an educational psychologist had once written about Alan.... _He should be encouraged to form strong and positive bonds with adults.... He needs to feel valued...._ \"You've obviously been good for Danny as well.... He certainly talks about you very fondly.\" It was sincerely meant and her cheeks flushed pink with pleasure. \"What about their sisters?\" I asked. \"Do you see much of them?\"\n\nThis must have been a thornier subject because her frown promptly returned. \"The last time we saw them was at Tansy's christening and that's three years ago now. Al said we'd give it one more try, so we invited them, and they promptly lammed into me and Al as per usual... ruined poor little Tan's party... and we thought, to hell with it, life's too short for this kind of aggro.\" She swept some breadcrumbs from the table into her cupped hand and I watched in fascination as the bangles rattled down to her wrist. \"Al says it's jealousy because we're doing okay and they're not\u2014one of them's got four kids and no bloke because he buggered off when she fell pregnant the last time\u2014the other's got five kids by different dads and two of them are in care.\"\n\n\"Where do they live?\"\n\n\"A big estate near Heathrow.\"\n\n\"Together?\"\n\n\"Neighboring blocks. The kids run around in a gang and terrorize the old people living there. I hate to think how many police cautions they've had. Someone told me the other day that the council's planning to take out injunctions to force Sally and Pauline to keep them inside... but I don't know if it's true. The worst thing is, they've been trying to get on the housing list here and I said to Al we'd have to move if it happened because there's no way I'm going to let Jason and Tansy get sucked into trouble by their cousins.\" She poured the tea and, like her mother-in-law, added milk automatically. \"Al says it's not really his sisters'fault,\" she went on, passing me a cup, \"not when you look at the kind of upbringing they had, but as I keep telling him, if that's true then he and Danny should be as bad.\"\n\nShe reminded me of Julia Charles, our neighbor in Graham Road, who had agonized in the same way about the terrible influence Alan Slater and Michael Percy would have on her children if she ever let them play in the street. They're such awful boys, she used to say, and it's not as though it's a \"class\" thing, or not really. It's their parents who're to blame. If their mothers spent more time with the kids and less time on their backs or on the bottle, then the kids would be better behaved. Everyone knew that.\n\n\"It sounds as if they've reversed their roles,\" I said slowly. \"The two girls always seemed quite sensible when they were children. Either that or they were too terrified of their father to put a foot wrong. They used to follow in Alan's wake sometimes, but never further than the end of the road. They were both small and dark like their mother and Sally's the older of the two?\" She nodded. \"They were friendly with two other little girls of about the same age\u2014Rosie and Bridget Spalding\u2014and used to play hopscotch on the pavement. Bridget married Alan's friend, Michael Percy, and moved down to Bournemouth, but I've no idea what happened to Rosie.\" I raised a questioning eyebrow but Beth shook her head as she perched on the edge of a worktop and cradled her cup between her hands.\n\n\"Al hasn't kept up with anyone from Graham Road,\" she said. \"He goes to see his mother once in a while, but never for very long because it makes him so depressed. Left to himself, he wouldn't go at all... but I keep saying, he has to set a good example to Jace and Tan... I mean, I'd die if they never came to see me after they were grown.\" She had pale lashes and pale eyebrows, which gave her face a bland look until she screwed one of her many expressions onto it. Now she made a grimace of irritation. \"She doesn't make it easy, though. All she ever does is complain about how lonely she is and how miserable she is. It's a vicious circle. If she put herself out to be pleasant, he'd probably drop in more often.... Instead, he delays as long as he can, then goes out of guilt.\"\n\n\"Do you and the children visit her?\"\n\nMore grimacing. \"We did till Jason found her Prozac and ended up in the hospital. I was that mad with her. It's not as though she needs the stupid things.... Half the time she doesn't take them.... It's just a way of getting invalidity benefit so she can sit at home and watch the telly all day. I wouldn't mind so much if I hadn't asked her to keep them out of harm's way, but it's like talking to a brick wall. She smokes and drinks around Jace and Tan, takes no notice of what I might feel about it, then has the nerve to tell me she doesn't know what the fuss is about. 'It didn't do _my_ kids any harm,'she says.\"\n\nI laughed. \"I used to get it about disposable nappies. I made the mistake of telling my mother what they cost and she lectured me for months about how I was wasting my money. 'What's wrong with terry toweling?'she kept saying.... 'If it was good enough for you, then it's good enough for your boys.'\"\n\nShe sipped at her tea. \"You don't like her much, do you?\"\n\nThe directness of the question took me aback, if only because it was something I never asked myself. \"Rather more than you like Maureen, I suspect.\"\n\n\"Yes, but Maureen's not my mum,\" she said despondently. \"It doesn't half worry me. I don't like falling out with people, but the way Alan's lot behave we won't be talking to any of them soon. I have nightmares sometimes that it's in the genes, and that my kids'll storm off after a huge row, and me and Al will never see them again.\"\n\n\"I'm sure that won't happen,\" I consoled her. \"If behavior was inherited my two would have upped stumps and left long ago. But they're so laid-back it'll take a stick of dynamite to shift them. Either that or a stunning blonde with a Ferrari.\"\n\nShe eyed me thoughtfully. \"Maybe they got their genes from their father,\" she suggested.\n\n_More likely their grandfather_ , I thought, while thinking it was hardly a good time to remind Beth of the genetic link between her children and Derek. \"Except I agree with Alan that upbringing has more to do with it,\" I answered. \"Jason and Tansy are the sum of their genes and experiences, not the sum of their genes alone, otherwise they'd be virtually indistinguishable from each other. You made the point yourself when you said how different Alan and Danny are from their sisters.\" _And how different Alan seemed now from the boy I once knew_ , I thought wryly.\n\n\"They're also very different from each other,\" she said. \"Danny's a bit of a goer, but Al behaves like he was born middle-aged.\" She giggled and her face lit up immediately. \"Jace said 'fuck'the other day because he heard it at nursery school and Al spent the next two hours worrying about whether it was his fault. I said, 'Don't be so fucking stupid....'Excuse my French.... And he said, 'It's all very well for you to laugh but the only time my dad showed me any attention was when he said, \"Fuck off, bastard.\" ' And now he's hoping he _is_ a bastard and Derek isn't his dad.\"\n\n\"I'd probably feel the same in his shoes,\" I said. \"It's a bit like owning up to having Ivan the Terrible for a father.\"\n\nShe was agog with curiosity. \"You said he threatened you. Why? What happened to make him angry?\"\n\nI was tempted to be honest, and not just because I liked her and felt guilty about using her. She was one of those rare people, irrespective of age, sex or background, whose straightforward, open personality demanded, and deserved, a reciprocal trust. Indeed, if I had any sadness at deceiving her, it was because I knew that in different circumstances I would be only too pleased to have her as an ally.\n\n\"We had a row in the street about the way he was treating Alan and he pushed my arm up behind my back and said if I ever interfered again he'd wipe the smile off my face.\" _It's not a complete lie_ , I thought. The place was wrong, and the threat\u2014which had nothing to do with my smile\u2014was inflicted anyway, but Derek had certainly told me never to interfere again. \"So I did what any sensible person would do and reported him to the police,\" I told her, \"but they didn't believe me and repeated what I'd said to Derek.\"\n\nIf I were telling it as it really was, I would have added that I was betrayed twice in as many days by the same policeman and reaped a double dose of Derek's anger in consequence. But I wanted to woo Beth with amused indifference, not frighten her off with evidence of her father-in-law's savagery.\n\nHer eyes widened. \"What did he do?\"\n\n\"Nothing much,\" I lied. \"He was a typical bully\u2014bluster on the outside and blancmange inside.\" I paused. \"Danny told me he disappeared after Alan gave him a thrashing with a baseball bat?\" I put an upward inflection into my voice, and Beth nodded. \"So where did he go? Does anyone know?\"\n\n\"Al doesn't talk about him much, except to say he doesn't want him anywhere near our kids. I know he went to prison because Sally got his address off a con who'd done time with him. It was before Tan's christening and she kept pestering us to invite him. She said he was back in London and wanted to meet up with his family again\"\u2014she shrugged\u2014 \"but Al said if he showed his face here he'd get another thrashing, and that's what caused most of the aggro at the party. Sally and Pauline said Derek was skint and needed help, and Al said he could die of starvation before he'd lift a finger for him.\"\n\n\"Weren't you worried he'd come anyway?\"\n\nShe glanced at the dog. \"That's why Al got Satan. He wanted a Rottweiler but I said it'd be too dangerous with kids. Mind, I thought it was money down the drain at the time.\" She flexed the muscles in her right arm. \"I reckon I'd be able to deal with Derek... no trouble... if he dared push his way in here, but Satan's sort of grown on us and I wouldn't be without him now.\"\n\nI wanted to warn her against complacency, but instead I murmured, \"Still... it's not surprising Alan was worried, particularly if Derek was close.\"\n\n\"Not _that_ close. Sally said he was shacked up with some bird out Whitechapel way.\"\n\n\"He was lucky to find someone.\"\n\n\"Too right. I said the bird needed her bloody head examined\u2014unless, of course, he hadn't bothered to tell her he was a wife-beater\u2014and Sally got miffed and said I shouldn't spread rumors about people I'd never met. So I said, 'I'll remind you of that when he clobbers this one.'\"\n\nI smiled. \"What did Maureen say?\"\n\nBeth grinned back. \"Said it was a pity Derek hadn't died of drink years ago and that the two girls deserved everything they got if they let him swan back into their lives just because he was family. She got well worked up, said he'd done his best to ruin their lives when they were children and if they had any sense they'd keep well away from him now.\"\n\n\"Better late than never, I suppose,\" I said dryly. \"She didn't do much to protect them when they were living with him.\"\n\nA thoughtful expression creased Beth's forehead and I wondered if I'd displayed my prejudice a little too blatantly. \"Except I reckon she was just as bad. It was her who bought the baseball bat, you know... not to use against Derek... but to beat her kids about the head whenever they annoyed her.\"\n\n\"How do you know?\"\n\n\"Danny was teasing Al one day about being slow on the uptake. He said it was because his mum had addled his brains with the bat.\"\n\n\"Was she strong enough?\" I asked doubtfully.\n\n\"According to Danny she was. He said she was like a wild animal when she was in a temper, and you either scarpered or locked yourself in the toilet till she calmed down.\" She watched my frown of disbelief and gave a small shrug. \"I couldn't swear on oath that it's true\u2014Danny's always telling fibs\u2014but it was pretty convincing at the time. Let's put it this way, Al didn't deny it\u2014just told me never to lift a finger against Jace and Tan or I'd be answering to him. So I said, 'You've gotta be joking! Since when have I ever raised my hand in anger to anyone?'\" She grinned suddenly. \"And I told him straight, it's fucking rich coming from a bloke who calls his dog Satan and reckons the only way to discipline him is to take a rolled-up newspaper to his backside.\" She blew an air kiss toward the animal, which raised its head immediately and thumped its tail on the floor. \"I mean, what kind of way is that to train a dog when he'll do anything as long as you give him a biscuit?\"\n\nSatan and I examined each other cautiously. \"He's a good guard dog,\" I murmured. \"I wouldn't fancy my chances much if I were Derek.\"\n\n\"He'd rip his throat out soon as look at him,\" said Beth. \"I used to tie Satan to the pram outside shops when the kids were smaller. He growled at anyone who came closer than six yards, which meant I could do my shopping in peace without worrying about someone stealing my babies.\"\n\n\"Amazing! And he does all that for a biscuit?\"\n\nHer grin broadened. \"Don't knock it,\" she said. \"It's a damn sight more effective than beating the poor brute with a newspaper. That just made him vicious.\"\n\n\"Mm.\" Ripping throats out seemed fairly vicious to me, and I wondered how he'd react if I stood up unexpectedly. I glanced at my watch. \"I really ought to be going,\" I said, putting reluctance into my voice. \"It's a long journey back to Dorchester and Sam will be wondering where I am.\"\n\n\"Al'll be sorry to have missed you.\"\n\nI nodded. \"It's a shame. I'll phone first another time.\" I finished my tea and stood up. \"Can I say good-bye to the children?\"\n\n\"You surely can. They're in the sitting room. I'd be interested what you think of it.\" She pointed to the floor as a growl rose in Satan's throat and he subsided immediately.\n\n\"So when does he get the biscuit?\" I asked, following her into the hall.\n\n\"When I feel like it. That's why he does what I tell him. He's never too sure when the moment will come.\"\n\n\"Does it work with husbands and children as well?\"\n\nShe flattened her palm and made a rocking gesture. \"It depends what the treat is. Biscuits don't work so well on Al. He likes basques and black stockings better.\" She grinned as I gave a splutter of laughter. \"The kids are in here,\" she said, opening a door. \"You'd better like it because it took me two months to finish. I'll phone for a cab while you're looking.\"\n\nI did like it, although it was totally out of keeping with a 1930s semi. It can't have been bigger than five meters square, but it was decorated in Mexican style with an arched ceiling, tessellated floor, roughly stuccoed walls and an ornate bronze candelabra hanging from the ceiling. French windows opened out onto a tiny patio, and a huge rococo mirror, with a myriad of tilted facets in a scrolled gilt frame, reflected the light in indiscriminate dazzling shafts across every available surface. Even the fireplace had been transformed into something that would have been more at home on a ranch than in a back street in Isleworth, with a brass artillery shell laden with silk flowers standing in the hearth. I wondered why she'd done this room so differently from the rest.\n\n\"It's all fake,\" said Jason from the corner where he and his sister were watching television. \"Mum just painted it to make it look real.\"\n\nI tapped my foot on the tessellated floor and listened to the hollow ring of wood. \"She's a clever lady,\" I said, touching a hand to the rough stucco and feeling the smoothness of plaster. \"Did she make the mirror as well?\"\n\n\"Yup. And the candy-laber.\"\n\n\"What about the picture?\" I asked, gazing at the Quetzalcoatl mosaic on the wall.\n\n\"That's Dad's.\"\n\n\"The sofa and chairs?\"\n\n\"Ten quid, job lot, from a junk shop,\" said Beth proudly behind me. \"And five quid for the patchwork throws. I begged, borrowed and stole material... dresses... old curtains... tablecloths... whatever... from everyone I knew. The five quid went on the reels of cotton to do the sewing. What do you think?\"\n\n\"Brilliant,\" I said honestly.\n\n\"But a bit OTT for Isleworth?\"\n\n\"A bit,\" I agreed.\n\n\"That's what Al thinks, but all I'm doing is setting out my stall. I can create any image you want, and I can do it for peanuts. This whole room cost under three hundred quid. Okay, it doesn't count my time, but you wouldn't believe how many of my friends say they'd pay me a tenner an hour to do it in their houses.\"\n\n\"I bet they would,\" I said dryly. \"They're probably paying their cleaners as much just to Hoover their floors.\"\n\nShe looked crestfallen. \"Al doesn't want me to do it at all, says he won't even think about it unless I ask a hundred per hour minimum.\"\n\n\"He's right.\"\n\n\"Except none of my friends can pay a hundred quid per hour.\"\n\nI gave her hand a quick squeeze. \"It's a bad mistake to work for friends,\" I said. \"You should photograph each room and put a portfolio together, then go out and sell yourself.... Get some fliers printed... Take out ads in the local newspaper. You're way too good to work for \u00a310 an hour.\" I patted my rucksack. \"If you like, I'll take some photographs now and send them to you. I've got my camera with me, and I'd love my husband to see what you've done. We're toying with buying the farmhouse we're renting, and you never know\"\u2014 _How can you be such a bitch?_ I asked myself\u2014\"maybe I can persuade Sam that you're the interior decorator we need.\"\n\nHer face flushed pink with pleasure again. \"If you're sure.\"\n\n\"Of course I'm sure.\" I squatted down beside Jason and Tansy. \"Would you two like to be in the pictures?\" They nodded solemnly. \"Then how about we turn off the telly and you sit on Mum's sofa, one at each end? It might be better if you stood behind me,\" I told Beth as I sat cross-legged in front of the windows and lined up the shot. \"You're blocking the mirror.\"\n\nShe scurried onto the patio. \"I hate having my picture taken. I always look so fat.\"\n\n\"It depends how they're done,\" I said, as I snapped off half a dozen shots of the sofa-side of the room before zooming in on the Quetzl-coatl. \"Why don't you sit on one of the chairs with the kids on your lap, and I'll see if I can get a view of the fireplace with the three of you to the left?\"\n\nI should have choked on my own duplicity, instead I marveled at how easy it was to cajole her into letting me make a record of everything in the room, including the bangles on her wrist and a collection of small china cats at one end of the mantelpiece. \"Who's the cat lover?\" I asked, as I tucked my camera back into my rucksack, when the doorbell rang to announce the arrival of the minicab.\n\n\"Al. He bought them at a jumble sale years ago.\" She jumped the children off her lap and stood up. \"You never said why you needed to see him,\" she reminded me, as we went back into the hall.\n\n\"I wanted to talk to him about Michael Percy,\" I lied, dredging up the only excuse I'd been able to come up with. \"But you've already told me they lost touch\"\u2014I gave a rueful shrug\u2014\"so he wouldn't have been able to help me anyway.\"\n\n\"What did you want to talk about?\"\n\n\"Whether Michael's as bad as he was painted in the newspapers,\" I said, pulling open the front door and nodding to the cab driver to say I was coming. \"I'm thinking of visiting him in prison\u2014he's just down the road from us on Portland\u2014but I'm not sure if it's a sensible thing to do. I rather hoped Alan could give me some advice.\"\n\nIt sounded so weak to my ears that I expected suspicion to bristle out of her like hackles, but she seemed to find it reasonable. \"Well, if it's any help, Al said it was well out of character for him to hit that woman. He reckons Michael was a lot less violent than he was when they used to hang out together. They had a fight before they fell out, and Al said Michael took a beating because he wouldn't defend himself.\"\n\n\"What were they fighting about?\"\n\n\"That girl you mentioned\u2014Bridget. It was when they were in their late teens. Al was so crazy about her he wanted to marry her, then he walked in one day and found her in bed with Michael. He went berserk... broke Michael's jaw and God knows what else... even attacked the policemen who arrived to break it up. It was mayhem, apparently. Bridget was screaming in the hall, Michael was half out the window and it took four policemen to get Al off him. He ended up in juvenile detention for it.\"\n\n\"Goodness!\"\n\n\"He's been straight ever since,\" she assured me.\n\n\"I should hope so.\"\n\nBeth laughed. \"It all worked out for the best. He wouldn't be married to me if he'd stuck with her.\" A wistful note entered her voice. \"But he's never broken anyone's jaw for me... so I guess I'm not as attractive as Bridget.\"\n\nI gave her an impulsive hug before heading for the cab. \"Just don't test him,\" I warned over my shoulder. \"I have a nasty feeling he'd break more than jaws if he found you in bed with someone else.\"\n\nI spoke lightly, but the warning was sincere.\n\n**_Letter from Dr. Joseph Elias, psychiatrist  \nat the Queen Victoria Hospital, Hong Kong\u2014dated 1985_**\n\n**QUEEN VICTORIA HOSPITAL**\n\n_Hong Kong  \nDept. of Psychiatry_\n\n**Mrs. M. Ranelagh  \n12 Greenhough Lane,  \nPokfulam**\n\n**June 12, 1985**\n\n**Dear Mrs. Ranelagh** ,\n\n**I am sad to hear you're leaving Hong Kong. I have enjoyed your letters and those all-too-rare occasions when you have consented to talk to me in person! You will like Sydney. I spent two years there from '72 to '74 and it was a delightful experience. Australia has the enthusiasm and vigor that comes from a mix of different cultures and I'm confident you will enjoy a polygeny where class divides are nonexistent and success depends on merit and not labels. You see, I have come to understand you**.\n\n**You mentioned in your last letter that you and Sam have reached a fine understanding where the past remains buried in England. You also tell me he's an excellent father. You do not, however, say you love him. Am I supposed (like Sam?) to take that for granted? My friend the rabbi would say that nothing thrives in a desert. He would also say thatwhatever lies buried in England will resurface the minute you go home. But perhaps that's the plan? If so, you are a patient woman, my dear, and a little cruel, too, I think**.\n\n**With best wishes for your future wherever it may be**.\n\n**Yours affectionately** ,\n\n**Dr. J. Elias**\n\n# nineteen\n\nSam was sitting in the car outside Dorchester South station when I finally reached it at ten o'clock that evening. I wondered how long he'd been waiting because I hadn't phoned to say which train I was catching, and I feared it couldn't have done his temper much good if he'd been there any length of time. My intention had been to take a taxi home and face the inevitable row behind closed doors but, if his bleak expression when he got out of the car at my approach was anything to go by, he planned to have it in public.\n\n\"Jock phoned,\" he said tersely.\n\n\"I thought he might,\" I murmured, opening the back door and dumping my rucksack on the seat.\n\n\"He told me you left him at about four o'clock. What the hell have you been doing? Why the hell didn't you phone? I've been worried sick.\"\n\nI showed my surprise. \"I said I'd make my own way home.\"\n\n\"I didn't even know if you were _coming_ home.\" He stalked angrily round the bonnet to open the passenger door for me, but it was so out of character that I stepped back automatically, assuming he was opening it for himself. \"I'm not going to hit you,\" he snapped, gripping me by the arm and pressing me clumsily into my seat. \"I'm not a _complete_ bastard.\"\n\nHe slid in behind the steering wheel and we sat for several minutes in silence. The tension in the confined space was palpable, although I had no idea if it was due to anger over my perfidy or concern at my late return. The station was virtually empty at that time of night, but one or two people peered curiously through our windows as they passed, presumably wondering why the two dimly seen occupants were sitting so stiffly and refusing to look at each other.\n\n\"Aren't you going to say anything?\" he asked at last.\n\n\"Like what?\"\n\n\"Explain?\" he suggested. \"I still can't believe you'd talk to Jock, and not to me. Why didn't you tell me Annie was beaten up? You know I'd have come clean if I'd realized how serious it all was.\"\n\n\"When?\"\n\n\"What do you mean, when?\"\n\n\"When would you have come clean?\" I asked evenly. \"I told you at the time what PC Quentin said about the bruising\u2014but you just said we were talking bollocks. As I recall your comment was, 'Since when did a neurotic bitch and a disgruntled policeman know the first damn thing about pathology?'You could have told me the truth then and given me and Andrew Quentin a fighting chance against Drury... but you didn't.\"\n\nHe dropped his head into his hands. \"I thought you were wrong,\" he muttered. \"I was pretty stressed out at the time, and you didn't make it easy for me.\"\n\n\"Fine. Then you've nothing to feel guilty about. You were saving me from myself. No one's going to blame you for that.\" I looked impatiently at my watch. \"Can we go now? I'm hungry.\"\n\n\"You're not making this very easy for me,\" he said. \"You must know how awful I feel.\"\n\n\"Actually, I don't,\" I said honestly. \"You've never felt awful before. That year, 1978, was one of those little unpleasantnesses\u2014like where the cutlery drawer is and how to boil eggs\u2014that you manage to erase so successfully from your memory. I've always envied you for it, and if you're troubled now it's probably just a reaction to knowing you've been rumbled. It'll pass. It usually does.\"\n\nHe tried a different tack. \"The boys are twitched as hell,\" he said. \"They keep asking me what I've done that's so bad you'd want to run away.\"\n\n\"Oh, for Christ's sake!\" I said bluntly. \"If you want to make me angry, then hiding behind your children is the surest way to do it. Luke and Tom know damn well I don't run away from things. They also know I wouldn't abandon them unless I was on a life-support machine somewhere. In any case, I told them I wouldn't be home until late so I imagine they're lying in front of the telly, as per normal, wondering why their father has suddenly gone 'round the bend.\"\n\n\"We had a row,\" he admitted. \"I told them they were unfeeling bastards.\"\n\nI didn't bother to comment because I wasn't in the mood to massage his bruised ego. \"Look,\" I said, tapping my watch, \"I haven't had anything to eat all day and I'm starving, so can we either go home or get a takeaway? Have you and the boys eaten?\"\n\n\"Tom made some spag bol for him and Luke, but I wasn't hungry.\"\n\n\"Good, then we'll have a curry.\"\n\n\"Why didn't you eat on the train?\"\n\n\"Because it was trolley service,\" I said crossly, \"and the only thing left to eat by the time it reached me was a packet of dry biscuits. So I had some wine instead... and now I'm fighting mad and in no mood to play silly buggers with you or anyone else.\"\n\n\"I don't blame you,\" he began self-pityingly as he fired the engine. \"I just wish there was something I could do or say\u2014\"\n\nI cut him off. \"Don't even think of apologizing,\" I said. \"As far as I'm concerned you can grovel to me for the rest of your life. And it won't make a blind bit of difference. It'll make a difference to Jock, though. The sorrier you are the happier he'll be, and you'll be back in each other's pockets before you know it.\"\n\nHe mulled this over quietly as we turned on to the main road. \"I've already apologized to Jock.\"\n\n\"I assumed you would.\"\n\n\"He calmed down pretty quickly as a matter of fact, once I'd explained what a mistake the whole damn thing had been.\"\n\n\"Okay.\"\n\n\"It didn't mean Jack shit, you know... just something that happened while you were away. The trouble is, Libby took it more seriously than I did. She and Jock weren't getting on too well at the time and it sort of ran out of control.\" He paused, inviting me to say something. When I didn't he went on, \"Jock understands that. He's been there himself, knows what it's like to be caught between a rock and a hard place.\"\n\n\"Okay.\"\n\n\"Does that mean you understand?\"\n\n\"Of course.\"\n\nHe flicked me an uneasy glance as he turned left at a pelican crossing. \"You don't sound as if you do.\"\n\nI sighed. \"I'm your wife, Sam, and I've known you since I was twenty. If I don't understand you by now then I doubt I ever will.\"\n\n\"I didn't mean, do you understand _me_. I meant, do you understand how the thing with Libby happened? What a fucking disaster it was? How sorry I was afterward?\"\n\nI gave a small laugh. \"The thing? Do you mean your _affair?_ The time you rogered your best friend's wife because your own wife was away and you hadn't had sex for twenty-four hours?\"\n\n\"It wasn't like that,\" he protested.\n\n\"Of course it wasn't,\" I agreed. \"It was Libby's fault. She caught you at a low ebb, plied you with drink, then persuaded you into a quickie on the kitchen floor. Afterward, you found yourself in an impossible position. _You_ regretted it intensely and hoped it was a one-off. _She_ loved every minute of it and looked on it as the beginning of a great love affair.\" I watched him for a moment. \"I should imagine Libby's version is a little different\u2014 _you_ seduced _her_ in other words\u2014but the truth probably lies somewhere in the middle.\"\n\n\"I knew you'd be angry,\" he said unhappily. \"That's why I never told you.\"\n\n\"Now you're flattering yourself,\" I said. \"It's probably a huge disappointment but the only emotion I have ever experienced re you and Libby is indifference.\" Of course I was lying... but he _owed_ me _... I_ had honored my promises... and _he_ hadn't. \"If I'd been able to work up the energy to feel angry, I think you'd have realized something was wrong. Certainly Libby would, but then she's a woman and women are better at picking up vibes.\"\n\nHe pulled up in front of the Indian restaurant. \"Wasn't it her who told you about us?\"\n\n\"No. I suspect she's even more embarrassed than you are. We're hardly talking Abelard and Heloise in all conscience.\"\n\nHe clamped down on his anger. \"Who then?\"\n\n\"You.\" I smiled at his expression. \"One night in Hong Kong. Not in so many words.... You weren't that drunk... but you said enough for me to put two and two together. It was quite a relief, actually. I remember thinking, _So that's what this has all been about\u2014a grubby little affair with Libby Williams_. I even laughed about it afterward. I kept picturing you and her working up a sweat in Jock's bed while he was out getting blow jobs off the Graham Road tart. There was such a sweet irony about it\u2014you being piggy in the middle of a couple of predators. It explained everything. Your unpleasantness... your lies... your dash to leave England. I even felt sorry for you in a funny kind of way because it seemed so obvious you'd sold your soul to the devil for something you hadn't enjoyed very much.\"\n\nHe shook his head in bewilderment. \"Why didn't you say something?\"\n\n\"I couldn't see the point. We were on the other side of the world. All I'd have been doing was closing the stable door after the horse had bolted.\"\n\nSam wasn't designed to remain humble for long. \"Do you know what this feels like? It feels like I'm married to a stranger. I don't even know who you are anymore.\" He propped his elbows on the steering wheel and ground his knuckles into his eyes. \"You always tell people what a great marriage we have... what great kids we have... what a great father I am. But it's all just crap... one huge pretense at happy families when the truth is you hate my guts. How could you _do_ that? How could you be so bloody devious?\"\n\nI reached for the door handle. \"The same way you did,\" I said lightly. \"Closed my eyes to what a bastard you'd been and pretended none of it had ever happened.\"\n\nHe agonized over my indifference while we waited for the curry, almost as if I'd thrown doubt on his manhood by refusing to take his infidelity seriously. For myself, I was wondering when he was going to realize that the bone of contention was Annie, not Libby and how he would explain that when he did. We took seats in a corner and he muttered away in an undertone, afraid of being overheard, although my refusal to lighten his burden with sympathetic comments meant his tone became increasingly\u2014 _and to my ears sweetly_ \u2014strident.\n\nHe didn't want me to get the wrong impression.... It wasn't true that he'd tried to pretend nothing had happened... more that he'd been terrified of losing me.... Of course he'd have admitted to it if I'd asked but it seemed more sensible to let sleeping dogs lie.... He knew I probably wouldn't believe him, but he _was_ drunk the night Libby seduced him and the whole thing _did_ turn into a total nightmare.... It was absolutely correct to describe Libby as a predator.... She was one of those women who thought the grass was always greener on the other side.... He remembered how shocked he'd been when he realized how jealous she was of me and how determined she was to bring me down to her size....\n\n\"When I told her I wanted to end it, she said she was going to tell you what a rat you'd married,\" he said grimly \"I know it's not much of an excuse but I honestly think I'd have killed her if she'd actually done it. I loathed her so much by then I couldn't be in the same room with her without wanting to strangle her.\"\n\nI believed him, not just because I wanted to but because he'd never been able to mention Libby's name without prefacing it with \"that bitch Jock married.\" There was a brief period when I wondered if he said it out of regret because he, too, had been rejected but I soon realized that the antipathy was real and that Libby was as irrelevant to him as the women he'd slept with before we married. That's not to say I wouldn't have clawed his eyes out if I'd known about the affair at the time\u2014objectivity needs time and distance to develop\u2014but to come across it when the ashes were cold was a reason for private grief only, and not for a fanning of the embers.\n\n\"You don't need to do this,\" I said, glancing toward a nearby customer who had one ear cocked to everything he was saying. \"Not unless you insist on washing your dirty linen in public. Libby's a dead issue as far as I'm concerned.\" I lifted one shoulder in a careless shrug. \"I've always assumed that if you'd loved her you'd still be with her.\"\n\nHe brooded for a moment in offended silence, his gaze fixing abstractedly on the eavesdropper. \"Then why tell Jock about it? Why get everyone worked up if it's all so unimportant to you?\"\n\n\"Not all of it, Sam. Just Libby. I couldn't give a shit what you did to her... but I _do_ give a shit what you did to Annie. You left her to die in the gutter then labeled her a drunk in case anyone accused you of neglect. That's the issue. And, as usual, you're busting a gut to avoid it.\" I paused. \"I know you saw her there\u2014and not just because Jock confirmed it this afternoon\u2014but because you always get so angry every time her name's mentioned.\"\n\nHe wouldn't meet my eyes. \"I thought she was drunk.\"\n\n\"What if she was? It was freezing cold and pouring with rain and she needed help, whatever state she was in.\"\n\n\"I wasn't the only one,\" he muttered. \"Jock and that woman ignored her, too.\"\n\nIt was hardly an answer but I let it go. \"They never got as close as you did,\" I said. \"I was watching them.\"\n\n\"How do you know how close I got?\"\n\n\"Jock said you told him Annie was reeking of drink, but I didn't smell anything until I stooped down to rock her shoulder.\" I watched him curiously for a moment. \"And it wasn't drink I smelled either, it was urine, and I don't understand how you could mistake that for alcohol.\"\n\n\"I didn't. All I told Jock was that she reeked to high heaven. He assumed it was alcohol.\"\n\n\"Did you recognize it as urine?\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"Oh, my God!\" I slammed my palms on to the table. \"Do you know that every time I told Drury to question why her coat was reeking of piss he told me her neighbors said it was _normal..._ that she was filthy and disgusting and _always_ stank.\"\n\nAbruptly he dropped his head into his hands. \"I thought it was funny,\" he said wretchedly. \"Your good cause for the year... Mad bloody Annie... wetting herself on your doorstep because she was too drunk to control her bladder. I went into the house and spent the next ten minutes laughing about it until I realized you were the most likely person to find her. Then I knew you'd bring her inside and clean her up and I thought, this is the day my marriage goes down the drain.\"\n\n\"Why?\"\n\nHe breathed hard through his nose. \"She knew about Libby\u2014I think she must have seen us together at some point because she kept sneaking up behind me in the road and calling me 'dirty man.'\" He forced out the words as if his life depended on it. \"'Have you been fucking the tart today, dirty man.''Is that the tart I can smell on you, dirty man?''What do you want with trash, dirty man, when you've got a pretty lady at home?'I loathed her for it because I knew she was right and when I smelled her in the gutter\"\u2014he faltered painfully\u2014\"when I smelled her in the gutter, I kicked her and said, 'Who's dirty now?'\"\n\nI watched a tear drip through his fingers onto the table.\n\n\"And I've been in hell ever since because I so much wanted to take it back, and I've never been able to.\"\n\nI watched a waiter come out of the kitchen and hold up a shopping bag to signal that our curry was ready, and I remember thinking that fate was all about timing. If I hadn't been at a parents'evening that night... if Jock had abandoned the pub at 8:30 when Sharon didn't show... if food didn't arrive at inopportune moments...\n\n\"Let's go home,\" I said.\n\nTwo days later, Maureen Slater phoned. She was angry and suspicious because Alan had told her I'd taken photographs of his house, and she demanded to know what my side of the trade was going to be. I repeated what I'd told her on Monday, that if she wasn't prepared to tell me what she knew, I would pass the Chiswick jeweler's affidavit to Richmond Police... and, for good measure, the shots of the Mexican artifacts in Alan's sitting room. \"No one would doubt they were thieves,\" I said. The only question would be, were they murderers, too? She told me some of what I wanted to know, but rather more interesting was what she chose to leave out.\n\n**_Letter to Sergeant James Drury\u2014dated 1999_**\n\n**Leavenham Farm**\n\n**Leavenham**\n\n**Nr Dorchester**\n\n**Dorset DT2 XXY**\n\n4:30 A.M.\u2014Friday, August 13, 1999\n\nDear Mr. Drury,\n\nOne of the downsides of finding Annie dying was that my sleep patterns were shot to pieces, and I count myself lucky now if I manage a four-hour stretch without waking. I've always hoped that an uneasy conscience has kept you similarly awake over the years, but I suspect it's misplaced optimism. To have a conscience at all means a man must question himself occasionally, and even in my wildest dreams I've never been able to picture you doing that.\n\nI already know you will be absent when I leave this letter and enclosures at the Sailor's Rest, but it seems only fair you should have time to consider your response to the outstanding issue between us. I have, after all, had twenty years to consider mine.\n\nYours sincerely,\n\n# twenty\n\nDrury was watching for me when I came through the door of the Sailor's Rest at half past ten that evening. Being a Friday night in summer, the pub was crowded with holidaymakers and yachtsmen from the boats in the marina, and I felt a small satisfaction when I saw the flicker of apprehension in his eyes as I approached.\n\nHe came out from behind the bar before I could reach it. \"We'll go through to the back,\" he said curtly, jerking his head toward a door in the corner. \"I'm damned if I'll have this conversation in public.\"\n\n\"Why not?\" I asked. \"Are you afraid of witnesses?\"\n\nHe made an angry movement as if to grab my arm and manhandle me in the direction he wanted me to go, but the curious glances of his other customers persuaded him to change his mind. \"I don't want a scene,\" he muttered, \"not in here and not on a Friday night. You said you wanted to be fair... so _be_ fair. This is my livelihood, remember.\"\n\nI smiled slightly. \"You could have me arrested for making a nuisance of myself, then tell your customers I'm mad,\" I suggested. \"That's what you did last time.\"\n\nHe resolved the problem by heading toward the door and leaving me to follow or not as I chose. I followed. The \"back\" was a scruffy office full of dusty filing cabinets and a gray metal desk, covered in used polystyrene coffee cups and piles of paper. It was a smaller, dirtier version of Jock's office and, as Drury motioned me toward the typist's chair in front of the desk and perched himself on a stack of boxes in the corner, I wondered why men always seemed more comfortable when surrounded by the trappings of \"work.\"\n\nHe watched me closely, waiting for me to speak. \"What do you want?\" he demanded abruptly. \"An apology?\"\n\nI dropped my rucksack to the floor and used the tip of my finger to push a half-filled cup of congealed coffee away from me. \"What for?\"\n\n\"Whatever you like,\" he said curtly, \"just as long as it gets you off my back.\"\n\n\"There'd be no point. I wouldn't accept it.\"\n\n\"What then?\"\n\n\"Justice,\" I said. \"That's all I've ever been interested in.\"\n\n\"You won't get it... not this long afterward.\"\n\n\"For Annie or for myself?\" I asked curiously.\n\nHe placed the flat of his hand on the opened brown envelope, which was sitting to one side of the desk. \"Neither,\" he said confidently.\n\nI wondered if he was aware of what he was saying because his words suggested he knew there was justice to be had. For Annie _and_ me. \"That envelope contains twenty-one years of patient research, showing Annie was murdered,\" I said lightly.\n\n\"And it's a bunch of crap.\" He leaned forward aggressively. \"For every pathologist you produce, saying the bruises were inflicted hours before Annie's death, the Crown Prosecution Service will produce five who agree with the original postmortem finding. It's a budgeting exercise\u2014always has been. Prosecutions are expensive and taxpayers get stroppy about funding failures. You're going to need a damn sight more than that to get the case reopened.\"\n\nHe was uncomfortably close and I sat back to get away from him, repelled by the energy that flowed out of him in waves. It was a far cry from twenty years ago when the same energy\u2014authoritative, capable, comforting\u2014had given me the confidence to talk more freely than I might otherwise have done. It's one of the great truisms that we only learn from our mistakes and, like Annie, I had since developed an abiding distrust of men in uniform.\n\n\"The climate's changed since the Stephen Lawrence inquiry,\" I said mildly. \"I think you'll find the murder of a black woman will be at the top of the CPS's agenda, however long ago it happened... particularly when it's supported by evidence that the sergeant in charge of the case was a racist.\"\n\nHe pummeled and squeezed one fist inside the other, exploding the joints like tiny firecrackers. \"A letter from a WPC claiming sexual and racial harassment, which wasn't upheld at the time?\" he sneered. \"That won't stand. And neither will Andy Quentin's log. The guy's dead, for Christ's sake, and he had an ax to grind because he blamed me for his career going nowhere.\"\n\n\"With reason,\" I said. \"You never had a good word for him.\"\n\n\"He was a creep.\"\n\n\"Yes, well, he didn't have much time for you either.\" I opened the envelope and removed Andy's log of Drury's stop-and-search arrests of Afro-Caribbeans and Asians between 1987 and 1989, giving details of the derogatory language Drury had habitually used. \"What difference does it make if he did have an ax to grind?\" I asked curiously. \"It's a straightforward account, which you're perfectly entitled to challenge if it contains errors.\"\n\n\"He hasn't logged the names of the whites I stopped and searched.\"\n\n\"He's given comparative figures. Your ratio of black to white was way higher than anyone else's in Richmond at the time.\" I shrugged. \"But it's all on record so it's easily proved. If Andy's figures are wrong then you'll be vindicated. If they aren't, his conclusion that you used your stop-and-search powers as a form of racist sport will carry weight.\"\n\n\"Not true,\" he snapped. \"I was doing my job like everyone else. You can twist figures to fit any conclusion you like. I can just as easily demonstrate that his motive in producing that list was vindictive. There was a known history between us.\"\n\n\"What about the seventeen-year-old Asian boy whose cheek you fractured?\"\n\nHis jaw worked angrily. \"It was an accident.\"\n\n\"The police paid undisclosed damages.\"\n\n\"Standard procedure.\"\n\n\"So standard,\" I murmured sarcastically, \"that you were put on sick leave for the duration of the internal inquiry, then took early retirement immediately afterward.\" I unzipped the front pocket of my rucksack and removed a folded piece of paper. \"I left this out of the envelope. It was the last thing Andy sent me. It's the confidential assessment made of you by your superior officer. Among other things, he describes you as 'a violent individual with extreme racist views who has no place in the Metropolitan Police Force.'\"\n\nHe snatched the paper from my grasp and shredded it to pieces, the muscles of his face working furiously. He was the opposite temperament to Sam. A man who brooded over long-held grudges. A man who saw loss of face as weakness.\n\nI stirred the pieces with my toe, thinking I'd be safer poking a viper's nest. \"Is that how you always deal with evidence you don't like? Tear it up?\"\n\n\"It's inadmissible. The slate was wiped clean as part of my retirement package. You'd be prosecuted just for having it in your possession. Quentin, too, if he were still alive.\"\n\n\"Well, maybe I think a prosecution's worth it,\" I murmured, \"just to get it into the public domain. I can fire off a thousand copies tomorrow and throw so much mud at you that there'll be no one left who won't question your motive for wanting Annie's death ruled accidental.\"\n\n\"You'll be seen for what you are,\" he warned, \"a bitter woman with a personal vendetta against the police.\"\n\n\"One policeman, possibly,\" I agreed, \"but not the police in general. I was given too much help by Andy for anyone to think I tar you all with the same brush. In any case, who's going to tell them it's a personal vendetta? _You?\"_ I smiled at his expression. \"How do you plan to explain why I'd want to pursue one?\"\n\nHe screwed his forefinger into his temple. \"It's all in your statements,\" he said. \"You were a head case... persecution complex... mother complex... anorexia... agoraphobia... sexual fantasy... What was I supposed to do? Sit beside your bed and hold your hand while you bawled your eyes out?\"\n\n\"You might have questioned your own judgment,\" I suggested.\n\n\"You've only yourself to blame for that,\" he retorted sharply. \"Maybe if you'd backed off once in a while, I'd have taken you more seriously. I don't like people in my face all the time.\" As if to prove the point, he slammed his back against the wall and stared at me through half-closed eyes.\n\nI looked away. \"Then why didn't you let someone else take over? Why wasn't I allowed to talk to Andy? Why did you get him pushed off the case?\"\n\n\"He was more trouble than he was worth. He believed everything you told him.\"\n\nWe both knew that wasn't the real reason, but I let it go. \"Because everything I said was true.\"\n\n\"You mean like this.\" He jerked his chin at the brown envelope. \"There's no evidence of murder in there. Just different opinions.\"\n\n\"That's only a fraction of what I've got,\" I said. \"You didn't think I'd show my whole hand, did you?\" I took the photographs of Beth and Alan Slater's house from my rucksack. \"There's plenty of evidence that Annie was robbed.\" I passed the pictures across to him. \"Maureen Slater admits most of this stuff was sitting in her house for months after Annie died... claims you saw it and even went back on one occasion, offering to buy the Quetzalcoatl mosaic. Which means you should have treated Annie's house as a scene of crime, if only because it must have been obvious to you that the Slaters had robbed her.\"\n\nHe gave the pictures a perfunctory glance. \"Maureen said she bought it in a junk shop,\" he said dismissively \"I had no reason to think otherwise.\"\n\n\"She couldn't afford to go to the laundrette. How could she afford to buy paintings?\"\n\n\"Not my problem. None of the stuff had been reported stolen.\"\n\n\"You must have recalled the Quetzalcoatl when Dr. Arnold started asking questions about Annie's possessions.\"\n\n\"No,\" he said bluntly. \"It was four years later. How many houses do you think I'd entered in that time? I couldn't describe a picture I'd seen a week before, let alone one from way back.\"\n\n\"You offered Maureen twenty quid for it,\" I reminded him, \"so it obviously made an impression on you.\"\n\nHe shrugged. \"I don't remember.\"\n\n\"I didn't think you would,\" I said with a small laugh. \"Any more than you'll remember Maureen giving you a gold statuette with emeralds for eyes and rubies for lips. She said you had no intention of buying the Quetzalcoatl.... All you wanted was something valuable as a quid pro quo for not asking awkward questions. What did you do with it? Keep it? Sell it? Melt it down? It must have scared you rigid when Sheila Arnold described it as one of the artifacts Annie had on her mantelpiece.\"\n\n\"Maureen's lying,\" he said bluntly.\n\n\"She's prepared to make a statement about it.\"\n\nA glint of amusement sparked in his eyes. \"You think anyone's going to believe her about something that happened twenty years ago? And why wouldn't I want to ask awkward questions of the Slaters? I had a reputation for being tough on the whole damn family.\"\n\n\"Not just tough,\" I said casually. \"According to Danny, you were quite happy to frame them as well. He says you planted some cannabis in Alan's pocket and got him sent down for dealing.\"\n\nDrury shook his head pityingly. \"And you believe him, of course.\"\n\n\"Not necessarily. No one seems to know what Alan actually did. Danny says dealing, but Alan told his wife he was sent down for assaulting Michael Percy.\"\n\n\"Why am I not surprised?\" he said with irony.\n\n\"Well?\" I prompted when he didn't go on.\n\n\"She wouldn't have married him if she'd known the truth.\"\n\n\"Why is it such a secret?\"\n\nHe pointed an accusing finger at me, as if Alan's crime were my responsibility. \"He was always going to get off lightly. He was fifteen and couldn't be named, and neither could his victim. It's a bloody stupid rule in my book. All a kid has to do is see out his sentence, lie through his teeth, put a bit of distance between himself and what he did and he gets off virtually scot-free.\" He started popping his knuckles again. \"Maureen kept it quiet because she was scared stiff of what people would say.\"\n\n\"What did he do?\"\n\n\"Work it out for yourself. The victim was a woman.\"\n\n\"Rape,\" I suggested.\n\nHe nodded. \"Took himself off to the other side of London where he thought he could get away with it. Dragged the woman into a car park behind some houses and proceeded to beat her up. But she managed to scream and one of the occupants called the police. Alan was caught in the act, pleaded guilty and did four years before he was let out.\"\n\n\"Anyone could have predicted it,\" I said unemotionally. \"He was appallingly abused as a child, both physically and mentally.\"\n\nBut Drury wasn't interested in bleeding-heart excuses. \"On that basis Danny would have become a rapist as well.\"\n\nI stared at my hands. \"Danny has no memories of his childhood. He was so young when his father left that he can't even remember what he looked like... and if he heard his mother being thrashed in the bedroom, he wouldn't have understood the connection between sex and violence.\" I raised my head to look at him. \"It makes a difference. All poor Alan ever learned from his parents was that reducing a woman to a shivering wreck would result in an orgasm.\"\n\n# twenty -one\n\nDrury's gaze veered away from mine but not before I saw the quickly veiled flash of intelligence that told me he knew what I was talking about. It was a powerful revelation because, despite everything, I had never been certain of how much knowledge he had. For the moment I let it go. \"Did Alan get into trouble again after the rape conviction?\" I asked then.\n\n\"Not that I know of. He moved into a bedsit out Twickenham way and took laboring jobs. We kept an eye on him but he was wary of coming into Richmond or seeing anyone he knew.\"\n\nI had no reason to disbelieve him. \"So why did Danny tell me Alan received \u00a35,000 compensation for being beaten up by the police?\"\n\nAmusement brought a gleam to Drury's eyes. \"Because the guys who arrested him didn't much like what he'd done to the woman. His solicitor bellyached about police brutality until he saw the state of the victim, then settled on five thousand and told Alan to be grateful they hadn't killed him. I'd say it was cheap at the price.\"\n\nI nodded. \"Did Derek ever get done for rape?\"\n\n\"That would suit you, wouldn't it?\"\n\n\"Why?\" I asked mildly. \"I never accused him of rape.\"\n\n\"All but. You said he shoved his penis between your legs.\"\n\n\"I said he put something between my legs which I _thought_ was his penis, and as a result I _thought_ he was going to rape me. I also told you that's exactly what he wanted me to believe. He was giving me a demonstration of how bad things would get if I didn't keep my nigger-loving mouth shut. It was your choice to tell him I'd accused him of attempted rape... your choice to put me in danger... even though you'd already agreed with Andy's assessment that the worst Derek could be charged with was threatening behavior.\"\n\n\"We couldn't charge him with anything,\" he said dismissively \"He had an alibi. In any case, I thought the guy had a right to know what the latest accusation was. You weren't exactly stinting yourself on the Derek Slater front... and sexual assault was a damn sight more serious than heavy breathing on the end of a phone.\"\n\n\"His alibi was a joke,\" I said. \"You didn't follow it up until three days later.\"\n\n\"It makes no difference. It was watertight.\"\n\n\"Oh, come on!\" I said impatiently. \"A Kempton Park ticket stub which he could have picked out of the gutter the next day? The course is only a few miles outside Richmond in all conscience. And a telephone conversation with one of his friends? You didn't even bother to check on the remaining two.\"\n\n_\"You_ didn't bother to report the incident until the day after it happened,\" he countered sarcastically.\n\nI fingered my lip to quell the tic that was leaping and jumping beneath the skin. I couldn't stand the idea that he might interpret it as fear. \"It took me twenty-four hours to pluck up the courage,\" I said matter-of-factly \"Half of me wanted to let the whole thing drop, the other half recognized that Derek wouldn't be terrorizing me if I wasn't right in what I was saying. I was very na\u00efve, of course. It never occurred to me you'd bend over backward to protect a man you described as scum... just because he was white.\"\n\n\"That's not true, and you know it.\"\n\n\"Then why have you consistently protected the Slaters from questioning about Annie's death?\"\n\n\"I haven't.\"\n\n\"Why didn't you follow through when Dr. Arnold told you Annie had been robbed? You must have realized then where the Quetzalcoatl mosaic came from.\"\n\n\"I didn't. I remember some bits of rubbish in the Slaters'sitting room, but I couldn't describe it now and I certainly didn't link it with anything Dr. Arnold said later.\"\n\nI could almost believe him, if only because the death of a black woman had meant so little to him. \"The children had been stealing from Annie for months,\" I said, \"but they weren't very good at hiding what they were taking, and Maureen beat the truth out of Bridget Spalding when she spotted her wearing a ring that obviously hadn't come from Woolworth's. That's when she began to realize Annie might be sitting on a gold mine.\"\n\nDrury flicked his hand dismissively \"The police can't act if a crime isn't reported.\"\n\nI went on as if he hadn't spoken. \"Annie was such an easy target. She wouldn't let people into her house, she distrusted anyone who spoke to her neighbors, thought council officials and men in uniform were against her, made an enemy of her bank manager. In fact the only person who came close to being a friend was her GP.\" I watched his face for a reaction, but it remained impassive. \"Annie was fairly safe while Sheila was making regular visits because even Derek wasn't stupid enough to make a move while her doctor was taking an interest. Then Sheila left for America and everything changed.\"\n\n\"You can't blame me for that.\"\n\n\"More to the point, after Sheila's departure there was no one who could say what Annie did or didn't have.\" I held his gaze. \"And you never bothered to ask because it suited you to believe a black woman would live in a slum.\"\n\n\"You're forgetting how many empty bottles we found. The conditions inside the house had nothing to do with the color of her skin, they were the result of a drink habit.\"\n\n\"They were vodka bottles,\" I said.\n\nThere was a tiny flicker of doubt in his eyes. \"So?\"\n\n\"She didn't drink vodka.\" I took a sheaf of papers from my rucksack. \"Andy sent me a list of every landlord and off-license manager in Richmond in 1978. My father managed to locate just over half of them. Two of the off-license managers remember Annie well. They both say she was a regular and that she only bought Jamaican rum. And the landlord of the Green Man says he kept a stock of it just for Annie Butts because she used to get agitated if he ran out.\" I thrust the pages into his hand.\n\nDrury frowned as he flicked through them. \"It doesn't prove she wasn't buying vodka from a supermarket,\" he said.\n\n\"No,\" I agreed.\n\n\"Then it's not evidence.\"\n\n\"Not on its own, perhaps, but if you look at the last two pages you'll see that several off-license managers remember Maureen Slater as a vodka drinker. One of them describes how she used to come in after picking up her benefit money and buy half a dozen bottles at a time. He says he refused to serve her after she slapped one of her children\u2014 probably Alan\u2014when he said he needed new shoes.\"\n\n\"So? All that proves is Maureen bought vodka; it doesn't prove Annie didn't. What are you trying to say, anyway? That the Slaters put their bottles in Annie's kitchen?\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"When?\"\n\n\"After she was dead.\"\n\n\"Why?\"\n\n\"To make you think what you did: that she was a chronic drunk who lived in a tip and neglected herself. That's why they turned off the main supplies and took away all the food that she'd bought for the cats.\"\n\n\"Oh, come on,\" he growled impatiently. _\"Everyone_ said she was drunk, not just the Slaters.\" He smacked the paper with the back of his hand. \"In any case, Derek was as thick as two short planks. He couldn't have followed through on a plan like that. He'd have given himself away the minute we started asking questions.\"\n\n\"Not Derek, maybe, but Maureen certainly could. All she had to do was play on your prejudices.\" I quoted his own words at him. \"You'd never believe a 'downtrodden slut'could outmaneuver you, and 'a miserable black who couldn't hold her drink'was bound to soil her own floor and piss on herself. And why would you question the kind of bottles you found in Annie's house when the mere fact of their existence confirmed everything Maureen wanted you to believe?\"\n\n\"There was no reason to question them. No one told us she didn't drink vodka.\"\n\nI handed him another piece of paper.\n\n\"What's this?\"\n\n\"A copy of Sharon Percy's statement. Your name's at the top as the interviewing officer. The first half deals with where she was during the evening\u2014none of which is true as a matter of interest\u2014the second half is her description of what Annie was like. Somewhere in the last paragraph it says: 'She used to get drunk on rum and start insulting everyone. She took swipes at the kids with the empty bottles. I kept reporting it but nothing was done.'\"\n\nImpatiently, he tore this page, too, into shreds and dropped it to the floor. \"You're clutching at straws,\" he said. \"You can muddy the waters as much as you like, it doesn't alter the fact that there was no reason to question anyone's statement at the time... and that includes your husband's. The pathologist's findings were unambiguous\u2014Ann Butts died because she walked in front of a truck.\"\n\n\"Which is what you told him to say.\"\n\n\"You can't prove it. If Hanley's files are missing, there's nothing to show which of us said what first.\"\n\nI gave a small laugh. \"He didn't do you any favors by getting rid of them. At the moment, the only document supporting your accident theory is the one-page report Hanley submitted to the coroner, and that has so many mistakes it's a joke. He spelled Annie's name wrong, referred to bruising on her left arm instead of her right, and completely ignored the lividity in her thighs, which is very pronounced in the photographs.\"\n\nI was amazed to see him run a nervous tongue across his lips. \"I don't think that's right.\"\n\n\"It is,\" I assured him. \"Hanley was so incompetent by that time he was taking dictation from whichever police officer presented a body for inspection. I assume you got muddled over the arms because I told you she was lying left side uppermost with her back to the lamppost.\"\n\nHe had to think about his answer. \"Not my responsibility. He had his job.... I had mine. Let him take the flak.\"\n\nI reached for my rucksack and zipped up the pockets. \"Reporters don't hound dead people,\" I told him. \"Only the living. And there's more human interest in a racist policeman who refused to investigate a black woman's murder than a troubled pathologist who killed himself with drink because he couldn't stand the unnecessary mutilation of corpses. Radley's won't keep you on,\" I went on dispassionately, \"not once you're plastered across the front of the newspapers. All your decent trade will vanish overnight to be supplanted by thugs from the National Front.\"\n\nSmall beads of sweat dampened his forehead. \"Tell me what you came for,\" he said, \"because we both know this has nothing to do with Annie.\"\n\n_Was he right?_ I honestly didn't know anymore. \"It was two years before I learned to trust myself again,\" I said slowly, \"and another two before I dared trust anyone else. I still have nightmares... still run to the basin to wash myself... still check the bolts on the door... still jump out of my skin every time I hear a sound I don't recognize.\" I pushed back my chair and stood up, hooking my rucksack over my shoulder. \"I'd say this has everything to do with Annie. The only difference between us is that she had the courage to stand and fight... and I ran away.\" I moved to the door. \"Which is why she's dead and I'm alive.\"\n\n**_Letter from Dr. Joseph Elias, psychiatrist  \nat the Queen Victoria Hospital, Hong Kong\u2014dated 1999_**\n\n**QUEEN VICTORIA HOSPITAL**\n\n_Hong Kong  \nDept. of Psychiatry_\n\n**Mrs. M. Ranelagh  \nJacaranda  \nHightor Road  \nCape Town  \nSouth Africa**\n\n**February 17, 1999**\n\n**Dear Mrs. Ranelagh** ,\n\n**Goodness me! So it's home to England at last. I shall await your news with bated breath. Yes, despite my incredibly advanced years, I still have a small consultancy in the hospital, but only because my patients seem to prefer the devil they know to the devil they don't**.\n\n**And what of your devils, my dear? Somehow I doubt that justice for Annie will be enough for you. But who am I to criticize when my friend the rabbi would say: To win the peace you must first fight the war?**\n\n**As requested, I enclose the notes I made in 1979. Yours fondly** ,\n\n# twenty -two\n\nDrury couldn't leave it alone, as I knew he wouldn't. For all his protestations about hating having people in his face, he disliked it even more when they walked away. I turned, left the pub and went about fifty yards toward the trawler moorings before I heard his footsteps behind me. Lights from the buildings along the quay shone a quiet glow across the cobblestones and, far ahead, tiny beacons bobbed upon the water like multicolored jewels, showing safe navigation for incoming yachtsmen. I had a moment to wish I could enjoy the scene for what it was\u2014something beautiful\u2014 before his fingers closed about my arm.\n\n\"This is crazy,\" he said, jerking me 'round to face him. \"You say you want to get even. Well, how? Destroying me isn't going to produce justice for you or for Annie. Are you asking me to deliver Derek Slater on a plate? Is that what this is about?\"\n\nI tried to pull away. \"People are watching,\" I said.\n\n\"Let them watch,\" he growled. \"I want this sorted.\"\n\n\"Fine. So when I decide to scream\u2014which I certainly will if you don't let go\u2014there'll be a hundred witnesses to confirm your superintendent's assessment that you're a violent man.\"\n\nHe released me immediately.\n\nI smiled cynically as I rubbed my arm. \"It's not so much fun when the boot's on the other foot, is it? The way things are at the moment, you'd crawl on your belly over these cobbles in exchange for a promise to burn what's in my rucksack. Am I right?\"\n\n\"Don't push your luck,\" he said in an undertone. \"I'm in no mood for games. All you'll achieve by going public is to make me a scapegoat, and that's not going to put Derek behind bars... not after all this time. Is that the kind of justice you want?\"\n\n\"It's better than nothing.\"\n\nHe grasped one writhing fist inside the other as if afraid he wouldn't be able to control them. \"If it was me you wanted, you wouldn't have put me on my guard,\" he said reasonably.\n\n\"Perhaps I like watching you sweat,\" I murmured.\n\n\"How about I break your fucking neck?\" he said through gritted teeth.\n\n\"You wouldn't get very far. My two sons are standing right behind you.\"\n\nThe words made no sense to him\u2014he didn't associate me with children\u2014and he stared at me in baffled fury like a tired bull trying to work out how to defeat a matador. \"What the hell are you talking about now?\"\n\n\"Protection.\" I nodded to Luke and Tom. \"I come better prepared these days.\"\n\nIt took a second or two for his brain to catch on, but he spun 'round eventually to discover I was telling the truth. Perhaps he was expecting something younger\u2014 _or smaller?_ \u2014but whichever, he was suitably impressed. \"Shit!\" he said. \"What the fuck's going on?\"\n\n\"Sam's waiting for us in the car,\" I explained. \"I'd like him to hear what you're going to say next.\"\n\nDrury glanced nervously at the boys. \"Which is what?\"\n\nI made him the same offer I'd made Maureen. \"A trade?\" I suggested. \"You see you're right about one thing. The kind of justice I'm looking for is a little more\"\u2014I sought for a word\u2014\"basic than making you take the blame for everything that happened.\"\n\nI didn't think he'd follow me, particularly as the boys returned to the pub as soon as I moved away. But perhaps he misunderstood what I wanted Sam to hear... or what I meant by basic justice... The car was parked beyond the trawler moorings, facing out over the water, and as we approached Sam opened the door and climbed out. In a spirit of mischief, I introduced them to each other as I lowered my rucksack onto the bonnet. \"Mr. Ranelagh. Mr. Drury.\" They nodded to each other like a couple of wary Rottweilers, but didn't shake hands. \"You asked me if I was expecting you to deliver Derek on a plate,\" I reminded Drury, \"but I don't see how you can do that unless you suppressed evidence at the time.\"\n\nHe looked tight-lipped at Sam, aware that anything he said now would be heard by a witness. \"There was no suppression of evidence,\" he said sharply, \"merely question marks over where Derek was at nine o'clock. He claimed he was having a drink with the local tart who'd been touting for custom since the place opened.\"\n\n\"Sharon Percy?\"\n\nHe nodded. \"It was straightforward stuff-\u2014the two of them were regulars\u2014and the publican agreed they were both in there that night although he disputed the timing when we first questioned him. He remembered seeing Sharon at nine o'clock but he didn't think Derek came in until later.\" He shrugged. \"He backed off when we asked for a statement... said one day was much like another, and he couldn't swear he wasn't confusing two different occasions.\"\n\n\"This being the William of Orange,\" I said. \"The pub Annie was banned from because she was black.\"\n\nHe gave an impatient shake of his head. \"She was banned because she couldn't hold her drink and swore at the other customers. The publican was within his rights to refuse to serve her.\"\n\nI looked questioningly at Sam.\n\n\"It was known locally as the Orange Free State,\" he told Drury. \"There was a sign on the door saying 'no dogs'and the 'd'had been crossed out and changed to a 'w.'It was a popular pub\u2014a fair number of policemen used it\u2014but you never saw any blacks in there.\"\n\n\"If it offended you, you should have reported it.\"\n\n\"It didn't,\" said Sam honestly. \"I never even questioned it.\"\n\n\"Then why expect me to?\"\n\n\"Because it was your job. I'm not saying I'd have given you any medals for it\u2014hell, the last thing I wanted was to have Mad Annie swearing at me over a pint\u2014but the laws on discrimination were clear and anyone who put 'no wogs'on their front door ought to have been prosecuted.\" He paused to exchange a glance with me, clearly wondering how far he should or could go. \"The landlord was cock-a-hoop after the accident,\" he went on abruptly. \"Kept telling anyone who cared to listen that we had a truck driver to thank for making the streets cleaner.\"\n\n\"Not in front of me he didn't,\" said Drury so quickly that I guessed he'd had to answer that question before, probably at the time of his \"retirement.\"\n\n\"So did you bother to challenge Derek about his alibi?\" I said dryly. \"Or was that when you decided to take him aside and tell him that _I_ was the problem, and the best solution for everyone would be to shut me up? And how did you put it exactly? Do us all a favor, Derek, and teach that nigger-loving bitch a lesson because your alibi stinks and you'll be in trouble if you don't. Or did you drop hints to Maureen when you were looking at the bits of junk in her sitting room?\"\n\nI watched him flick a wary glance at Sam, but he took confidence from Sam's obvious ignorance of what I was talking about. \"Of course I challenged him,\" he said bullishly \"He stuck to his story... so did Sharon. They both said they'd been there all evening. We didn't believe them, but there was nothing we could do if no one was willing to contradict them.\"\n\n\"Did you ever find out what they were really doing?\"\n\nHe shrugged. \"Our best guess was that Sharon had been on her back somewhere and Derek was out thieving. They both had convictions\u2014 Sharon for prostitution; Derek for assault and theft.\"\n\n\"Sharon was with Geoffrey Spalding,\" I said. \"He lived at number 27 and used to meet her at a hotel once a month because he didn't want his wife and daughters finding out what he was doing. He's the one who said he saw Annie in the street around a quarter past eight and tried to persuade her to go home.\"\n\n\"I remember him.\"\n\n\"I think he was lying about the time,\" I went on. \"According to Jock Williams, Sharon arrived in a taxi at the William of Orange shortly after nine. He said she was high as a kite and had obviously been with another client, and I'm betting the client was Geoffrey and the same taxi dropped him off at the top of Graham Road before taking Sharon on to the pub. Which means, if Geoffrey talked to Annie at all, it must have been an hour later than he said it was.\"\n\nHe refused to accept it. \"I spoke to him in front of his wife and she didn't question that he was home by 8:30.\"\n\n\"She wouldn't have known. She was on chemotherapy for breast cancer and would have been asleep whatever time he came in. Where did he say he'd been?\"\n\nDrury thought back. \"Late at work. Nothing to raise any eyebrows over.\"\n\nI turned to Sam. \"I've always thought he must have passed the Williams'house as you came out... otherwise you and Libby wouldn't have needed an alibi.\"\n\n\"Someone did,\" he admitted, \"but I've no idea who it was. To be honest, I can't even be sure it was a man. It could have been a total stranger taking a shortcut, but Libby went apeshit and said tongues would start wagging\u2014\" He pressed his thumb and forefinger to the bridge of his nose. \"I'm sorry,\" he said after a moment. \"Is this the man you think killed Annie?\"\n\n\"I don't know,\" I answered slowly, \"but I've never understood why he said he spoke to Annie unless it actually happened. It was an unnecessary lie. He could have done what you and Jock did and said he saw her on the other side of the road.\"\n\n\"People embroider all the time,\" said Drury. \"It makes them feel important.\"\n\nI shook my head. \"She was seen by two different couples at around nine o'clock. The Pardoes at number 8 who watched her from their bedroom window, and the couple in the car who say she lurched out in front of them. They all said she was on her feet... but by the time Sam passed her at 9:15 she was collapsed in the gutter.\"\n\n\"That's not what Mr. Ranelagh said at the time.\"\n\n\"His revised statement was in the envelope,\" I said impatiently, \"so I know you've read it. The question is, was Annie on her feet when Geoffrey Spalding passed her? And if she was, did she speak to him? I think she was\u2014and did\u2014and that whatever she said made him so angry that he pushed her into the road. It would explain why he advanced the time by an hour... it would also explain why Sharon was prepared to give Derek an alibi. If she told you she'd been with a customer\u2014and you found out who it was\u2014you'd have worked out PDQ that Geoffrey was the last person to speak to Annie.\"\n\nDrury frowned. \"And?\"\n\n\"You'd have come to the same conclusion he did... that he killed her.\"\n\nHe gave a grunt of irritation. \"Half an hour ago you were producing pathology reports saying she was beaten up several hours in advance of her death, now you're saying Geoffrey Spalding murdered her. When are you going to make up your mind, Mrs. Ranelagh?\"\n\nSam roused himself. \"She's not saying Spalding killed her,\" he said reasonably, \"just that he _thought_ he did. If it comes to that, I've spent twenty years worrying that I did the same. And maybe I did. Maybe that fifteen minutes I left her to lie in the gutter was the difference between life and death.\"\n\n\"Then you should have cleared your conscience by telling us the truth at the time,\" said Drury with a far from friendly smile, \"instead of contaminating the investigation because you couldn't keep your hands off your friend's wife.\"\n\n_He would have been wiser not to mention Libby_ , I thought with private amusement as I watched an angry flush stain Sam's cheeks. Guilt was the one thing guaranteed to fire my husband's temper.\n\n\"You told us there wasn't going to be an investigation,\" he snapped. \"I remember it very distinctly. You came to the house the next day to explain the postmortem findings. Unequivocal, you said... a clear-cut accident... no hint of foul play. I also remember you saying that if there had been any question marks over the death, the whole matter would have been turned over to the CID.\"\n\n\"There _were_ no question marks, Mr. Ranelagh. It might have been different if you hadn't lied, but we could only work with the information we had.\"\n\nSam smoothed a hand across his bald patch, staring past Drury to the lights on the other side of the water. \"Jock and I didn't offer any information until the Thursday evening when we were asked to make voluntary statements in support of what Libby had told you the day before, namely that Jock was in my house.\"\n\n\"So now you're blaming Mrs. Williams?\"\n\n\"No, merely pointing out that you'd made up your mind it was an accident a good twenty-four hours before Jock or I said anything.\" He stared thoughtfully at Drury as if he were fundamentally reassessing some previous judgment. \"Would it have made any difference if we _had_ told the truth? Wouldn't you just have claimed she was hit by a truck between the couple in the car seeing her and my finding her?\"\n\nDrury's silence was an answer in itself.\n\n\"You telephoned me several times at work,\" Sam went on, \"telling me that my wife was suffering a classic response to stress and needed psychiatric help. You said you'd seen that sort of reaction before and it always led to more and more wild accusations.\"\n\n\"You agreed with every word, Mr. Ranelagh, including the necessity for an official caution.\"\n\nMy husband folded his arms and stared fixedly at the cobbles as if certainty lay within their uneven surface. \"Did I have any choice?\" he asked. \"You read out a catalog of complaints against her... wasting police time... making false accusations against Derek Slater... reporting imaginary sex attacks to win sympathy... plaguing you with telephone calls and visits because she had an unhealthy obsession with you.\" He lifted his head. \"You were a policeman. I had to accept you were telling me the truth.\"\n\n\"It must have tallied with your own opinion,\" said Drury persuasively, \"otherwise you'd have argued your wife's case.\"\n\nSam made a troubled gesture with his hand. \"I was in no position to argue. I hadn't seen her for nearly three weeks, and on the one occasion she phoned she was hysterical. I couldn't make head or tail of what she was saying so I called her parents and asked them to help her.\" He paused, trying to marshal facts in his head. \"But you'd already persuaded my mother-in-law that an official caution in front of her family was the best way to deal with the situation. 'She needs shaming to stop her wasting any more police time,'was the way you put it.\"\n\nThere was a short silence.\n\n\"It worked then,\" I said lightly. \"I'd have slit my throat rather than say another word to Mr. Drury... or to you and Ma, Sam. You both stood by and watched this bastard bully me into keeping my mouth shut\"\u2014I jerked my chin at Drury\u2014\"and then shook his hand at the end as if he'd done something fine. The only person who refused to go along with the charade was my father, yet he knew no more at that stage than you did. He just had faith in the woman he knew me to be rather than a pathetic, disturbed creature who was resorting to sexual fantasy to prolong her fifteen minutes of fame.\"\n\n\"You were never described in those terms or treated with anything other than courtesy,\" said Drury curtly. \"Your husband knows that. That's why I asked him to be present, so that you wouldn't be able to rewrite the history afterward.\"\n\n\"You could be as courteous as you liked,\" I said, \"because you knew I wouldn't argue with you. Not after the _unofficial_ caution you arranged for me the night before. You should have joined the party,\" I told him. \"I imagine it was a great deal more exciting than hammering a needle into a twelve-year-old's arm or pounding at a black face until the cheekbone snapped.\"\n\nThe muscles along the man's jawline tightened. \"Now you're slandering me in front of a witness.\"\n\n\"Then sue me. Give me my day in court. It's all I've ever wanted. But you'll be on thin ice... I've another copy of your assessment in my rucksack.\"\n\nHe took an abrupt step forward, swinging his fists at his sides. I thought he was going to hit me and dodged away 'round the bonnet of the car, but he snatched up the rucksack instead and tossed it into the water beyond the harbor wall. There was a second of silence before it hit with a splash, and Drury stared after it with a look of satisfaction on his lean face.\n\nHe flung off the nervous hand that Sam laid on his arm. \"Leave it,\" he warned. \"This is between me and your wife.\"\n\n\"You always were a shithead,\" I hissed angrily as I thought of my wallet and credit cards sinking into the sludge at the bottom of the river. \"That's the only solution you've ever had to anything. Get rid of the evidence before your crimes find you out.\"\n\nHe laughed at my anger. \"It's not so much fun when the boot's on the other foot, is it?\" he taunted, resting his palms on one side of the bonnet and staring me down.\n\nI did the same from my side, thrusting my face toward his and raking him with furious eyes. \"Do you know what pisses me off the most? Not what you did to me\"\u2014I lifted a finger and stabbed it at his chest\u2014 \"I learned to deal with that. It's the fact that you had the nerve to underestimate me... and _still fucking well_ do.\" I could feel the stridency roaring in my voice and, for once, didn't give a damn how it sounded. If the truth be told, I'd always been closer to loudmouthed fishwives than effete Victorian ladies who gave way to the vapors. \"How _dare_ you think I'm so stupid as to carry a master file with me? How _dare_ you think I'd give you an opportunity to outflank me?\"\n\n\"You talked about a trade,\" said Drury aggressively.\n\n\"I want justice first,\" I flung at him. _\"Then_ I'll trade.\"\n\n\"What sort of justice?\"\n\n\"The eye-for-an-eye kind. The same kind you believe in. You pumped a Neanderthal full of lies, then told him I'd be gagged the next day. What did you think he was going to do? Send me a bunch of flowers?\"\n\nHe looked edgily toward Sam. \"I don't know what you're talking about.\"\n\n\"Yes, you do. You got more and more angry every time I accused you of racism. That's why you made my official caution so public... so that even a moron like Derek Slater knew he could have a free run at the nigger-lover without any fear of my reporting it.\"\n\n\"You're inventing things again, Mrs. Ranelagh. If a crime was committed you had a perfect opportunity to give us the details the next morning.\"\n\n\"You mean in the middle of an official caution for wasting police time? In front of a husband and mother who didn't believe a word I said because they had more faith in a corrupt policeman than they had in me?\" I flung out my arms and caught him across the chest with the backs of my hands. \"How _dare_ you suggest I had an unhealthy fixation on you? How dare you imagine for one minute that I'd be interested in someone who thought a woman's place was under a man... preferably bound and muzzled so that he wouldn't have to listen to her criticizing his performance.\"\n\nHe retreated warily but didn't say anything.\n\n\"I had nothing but contempt for you,\" I said. \"I saw you as a _little_ man... a pygmy in uniform... someone who was allowed to strut his stage because his superiors were too inept to see how incompetent he was... and the only reason I spoke to you at all was because I wanted justice for Annie. But I never thought of you as anything other than a reptile.\" I looked deep into the dead black of his eyes. \"And that was my mistake, wasn't it? If I hadn't made it so obvious that the mere sight of you made my flesh crawl, you wouldn't have set Derek on me. Because it wasn't me who fancied you, you bastard, but _you_ who fancied _me.\"_\n\nI felt Sam move behind me.\n\n\"You're crazy,\" said Drury.\n\n\"You'd better believe it,\" I agreed, slithering 'round the bonnet of the car. \"I haven't been sane since Derek did your dirty work for you. He knew I'd never let him into my house, so he sent Alan in first, blubbing about how his father had been hitting his mother again. The child was twice as big as me, and I was stupid enough to put an arm 'round him while I turned to shut the door.\" I gave a hollow laugh. \"He had me flat on my back before I knew what was happening, and used his weight to hold me down while his filthy great hands yanked my hair out by the roots every time I moved my head.\" I halted in front of the offside headlight so that he wouldn't retreat any further. \"They couldn't mark me,\" I went on, \"because you'd told Derek I'd be at the police station the next morning. And they couldn't rape me because they didn't want to leave any incriminating evidence inside me.\" I tapped two fingers against my mouth. \"So I got a mouthful of Derek Slater's urine instead.\"\n\nI caught a glimpse of Sam's strained, white face out of the corner of my eye. \"He pissed over my mouth and nose while his son held me down\"\u2014I glanced at the harbor's edge\u2014\"and it's like drowning. You can't breathe\u2014so you drink. And the legacy is that you wash your mouth out every hour of every day as long as you live.\" I lifted my lips in a wolfish snarl. \"They swapped places while I was choking to give Alan his turn\u2014but he was too excited and couldn't control himself....\" I fell silent as Sam moved 'round behind the car.\n\nDrury made a half-turn so he could keep an eye on Sam as well. \"No one's going to believe you,\" he said, \"not if there's no record of such a crime being committed. And why focus your anger on me, anyway? Why not blame your husband for abandoning you? If he'd had any guts he'd have stood by you instead of protecting his tart.\"\n\nI had time to think that Drury was a shocking judge of character before\u2014with one galvanizing charge\u2014Sam launched at him, head down, and shunted him into the estuary after my rucksack.\n\n# twenty-three\n\nSam doubled up and backed away from the edge, roaring obscenities from an overdose of adrenaline, but I stayed to watch Drury rise. Luke had assured me that the westerly tidal stream in Weymouth harbor would carry a floating body toward the pontoons, but I had a small twinge of concern about how good a swimmer Drury was. When his face bobbed to the surface, we stared at each other for a moment before I gave him a one-fingered salute and turned away. _Gotcha!_\n\n\"We ought to call the police,\" said Sam, taking deep breaths to calm himself while he watched the man swim to safety.\n\n\"He can do it himself if he wants to. He knows our address.\" I walked back to the car. \"But he won't. He'll bury his head in the sand and hope this counts as an eye for an eye.\"\n\n\"And does it?\" he asked, following me.\n\n\"No chance,\" I said cheerfully, opening the passenger door. \"He still has to answer for Annie, and he'll only do that when his name's plastered across every newspaper in this country with 'racist'attached to it.\" I slid on to the seat. \"Come on,\" I called, buckling my seat belt, \"let's shift. He'll be after your blood if I know anything about anything. Not reporting you to the police doesn't mean he won't break your jaw at the first opportunity.\"\n\nSam scrambled in beside me and fired the engine, twisting 'round to reverse the car out on the road. \"I should have seen to him twenty years ago,\" he said as he spun the wheel. \"I would have done, too, if I hadn't believed him.\"\n\n\"About Annie?\"\n\n\"No,\" he growled, \"about you stalking him. I know it sounds absurd now but at the time it seemed to make sense. The way you went off me after Annie died... the hours you spent at the police station... the fact that you were prepared to talk to him and not me.\" He eased the car forward and pulled out onto the road. \"I started to think he was more your type than I was.\"\n\n\"That figures,\" I said sarcastically, reaching across him to buckle his belt. \"I mean he had everything I wanted in a man: _hair_ , a uniform, not to mention an enormous dick, which he kept permanently erect for the purposes of rogering every bit of totty that crossed his tracks.\"\n\nHe gave me a sheepish grin. \"Actually, I'm being serious. I was incredibly jealous but I didn't think I had much of a leg to stand on after Libby Then you got pregnant, and I thought, _Shit, is the baby mine or Drury's?..._ and I was so bloody churned up that when you agreed to try to make a go of it, all I could think about was getting away, burying the whole bloody saga and starting again.\"\n\nI was so surprised that I felt as if my jaw had just hit the floor. \"You thought Luke was Drury's?\"\n\nHe nodded.\n\n\"Good God! What on earth gave you that idea?\"\n\nHe took his foot off the pedal and the car slowed to a crawl. \"Because the only time we had sex throughout that whole miserable period,\" he said with a sigh, \"was when I forced myself on you and you told me you never wanted to see me again. You really hated me that night... and I couldn't believe that something that was done with so much viciousness could produce something so grand.\"\n\nI shook my head in amazement. \"Why didn't you say something?\"\n\n\"Because it didn't matter,\" he said simply. \"I always thought of Luke as mine whether he was or not.\"\n\nI was humbled. If our roles were reversed\u2014if Libby had given birth to Sam's child\u2014I could never have been that generous. \"But of course he's yours,\" I said, touching the back of my hand to his cheek. \"You should never have doubted it for a minute.\"\n\nHe leaned his head to one side, trapping my hand against his shoulder. \"I haven't for a long time... not since Tom was born, anyway, because they looked so alike.\" He gave an abrupt laugh. \"Then you insisted on bringing me here for lunch so that Drury could leer at you, and I thought, _Is this the first step to telling the sod that my son is really his?\"_\n\nI snatched my hand away. \"You said you didn't recognize him.\"\n\nHe speeded up again. \"I never forget the faces of men who make me jealous.\"\n\n\"There haven't been any.\"\n\n\"That's what you think.\" He leaned forward to wipe mist from the screen. \"Where are we picking up the boys?\"\n\n\"Beyond the swing bridge.\"\n\n\"Well, be prepared for some embarrassed silences,\" he warned matter-of-factly \"I spotted them creeping in behind one of the other cars, so I think the chances are they heard every word.\"\n\n\"Damn!\" I said with sudden weariness, leaning my head against the seat. \"I told them to make themselves scarce.\"\n\n\"Mm, well, I suspect curiosity won out. You can't blame them. We've both been behaving very oddly lately. It could makes things difficult with Danny,\" he warned again. \"And I'll have to come clean about Libby... why I lied... why I ignored Annie. It's only right they should hear the truth from me.\"\n\n\"It's not what I wanted, Sam,\" I said with a sigh. \"It was supposed to be just you who heard it because I didn't think you'd believe it if I told it to you cold.\"\n\n\"You should have trusted me,\" he said lightly. \"I stopped being a bastard twenty years ago.\"\n\n\"I know.\" I felt tears prick behind my eyes. \"But I could never find the right time to tell you. I'm sorry.\"\n\n\"Well, I'm not,\" he declared with sudden boisterous good humor. \"You've got more balls than an entire rugby team, my girl, and it's about time the boys found out what an amazing mother they have.\" He slapped his hands against the steering wheel. \"I keep thinking of this Chinese proverb Jock quoted to me the other day. It's a variation on the theme of 'everything comes to him who waits'\"\u2014he turned to me with another grin\u2014\"and it's peculiarly apt in the present circumstances.\"\n\n\"How does it go?\"\n\n\" 'If you sit by the river long enough the bodies of all your enemies float by.'\"\n\nI thought I knew the man I married before that night, but now I know I could live to be a hundred and still not understand the twists and turns of human nature. I don't know what he said to the boys but whatever it was made them treat me like a valuable antique for twenty-four hours, until I started effing and blinding out of pure frustration, and normal service was resumed. They carefully avoided any reference to the Slaters, all of them understanding that it is one thing to reveal the presence of a scar, quite another to have it split open under the pressure of constant examination.\n\nNevertheless, it wasn't a subject that could be avoided for ever and, after much shuffling of feet on Saturday night, Tom confessed they were supposed to be meeting Danny Slater for a drink but weren't sure whether they should. Sam and I said in unison that Danny bore no responsibility for what his father and brother had done and that it wouldn't be fair to tell him. Leave him in ignorance was our advice.\n\n\"Has Dad told you he's thinking of letting Danny use the barn as a studio?\" Tom asked me. \"Assuming we buy the place, of course.\"\n\n\"It's just an idea at the moment,\" said Sam, \"but I'd like him to know that we aren't just fair-weather friends.\"\n\n\"He'd have to slum it,\" put in Luke, \"because Dad won't let him smoke dope in the house. But he can clean out the tack room and make it reasonably habitable. There's electricity down there and the loose boxes are big enough to work in. All he'd need to do then is beg some stone off one of the quarries, and he could have a bash at being a sculptor without having to bankrupt himself in the process.\"\n\nThree eager faces turned toward me. What did I think?\n\nI nodded and smiled and said it was a grand idea. But I knew it wouldn't happen. Danny would never forgive me for what I was about to do to his family.\n\nThe following Monday I visited Michael Percy in prison on Portland. It was a troubling experience because I was constantly reminded that his life was in limbo. Perhaps the extraordinary setting of the Verne, built inside an old citadel overlooking the harbor and standing alone at the end of a series of hairpin bends, added to my sense of unfulfilled promise and waste. Certainly, I felt its isolation very strongly and wondered if the same feeling was shared by the inmates.\n\nThe weather had turned blustery again and the wind plucked at my hair and clothes as I scurried from my car to the main entrance in the wake of a huddle of similarly windblown visitors. I hung behind them, following their lead, unwilling to show my ignorance in front of older hands who, by their relaxed expressions, had queued at reception a hundred times to present their visiting orders.\n\nI thought of Bridget repeating this process month after month, year after year, and wondered if it was a cause for depression or happiness that at the end of it she would see her husband. For myself, I was overcome by a frightening regression to the agoraphobia of twenty years ago when I hadn't been able to leave my house for fear of being watched. Perhaps it had something to do with the officers'uniforms\u2014or being touched during the searches\u2014or having to sit at a table, twiddling my thumbs until Michael was brought to me\u2014certain that everyone's gaze was upon me, even more certain that their gazes were hostile.\n\nWhichever the case, his arrival was a relief, and I watched him walk toward me with an intense\u2014and pleasurable\u2014recognition. _There is no accounting for taste_ , I thought. He was as bad\u2014 _if not worse_ \u2014than Alan, but, like Wendy and Bridget and every other woman he'd ever met, I imagine, he had won a place in my affections. He gave me a shy smile as he shook my hand. \"I wasn't sure you'd come.\"\n\n\"I said I would.\"\n\n\"Yeah, but not everyone does what they say.\" He dropped into the chair on the other side of the table and scrutinized my face. \"I wouldn't have recognized you if they hadn't said it was Mrs. Ranelagh.\"\n\n\"I've changed a bit.\"\n\n\"That's for sure.\" He tilted his head to one side to examine me, and I became very aware suddenly that the fourteen-year-old didn't exist anymore and this was a thirty-five-year-old man with a troubled background and a history of violence. \"Any reason why?\"\n\n\"I didn't much like that person,\" I said honestly.\n\n\"What was wrong with her?\"\n\n\"Too complacent by half.\" I smiled slightly. \"I decided to try lean and hungry instead.\"\n\nHe grinned. \"I bet it made your husband sit up and take notice.\"\n\nI wondered if he'd known about Sam and Libby or if his intelligence was even more acute now than when I'd known him in school. \"It helped,\" I agreed, scrutinizing him in return. \"You haven't changed a bit, although Mrs. Stanhope, the vicar's wife, claims not to have recognized you from the photograph in the newspaper. She's still hoping it was a different Michael Percy who robbed the post office.\"\n\nHe ran the flat of a hand across his closely cropped hair. \"Did you tell her?\"\n\n\"I didn't need to. I'm sure she knows.\"\n\nHe sighed. \"She was pretty decent to me when I was a kid. I bet she was wrecked to find out I got done for pistol-whipping a lady.\"\n\n\"I doubt it. She has no illusions about you.\"\n\n\"She offered to adopt me one time, you know, and I said, You've gotta be joking.'It'd be like going from the ridiculous to the gorblimey On the one hand there was Mum who couldn't give a shit if I never came home... on the other there was the vicar who kept giving me lectures about how Jesus could change my life. The only one who was halfway sensible was Mrs. S.... but she kept wanting to hug me, and I didn't much fancy that.\" He leaned forward to create an enclosed space for us among the intrusive hubbub of conversation around us. \"I wouldn't have minded _you_ giving me a hug,\" he said with an amused up-from-under look, \"but you never showed much inclination.\"\n\n\"I'd have been sacked on the spot.\"\n\n\"You weren't sacked when you gave Alan Slater a hug.\"\n\n\"When did I give Alan a hug?\"\n\n\"When he bawled his eyes out because the nurse found lice in his hair again. You put your arm 'round his shoulder and said you'd give him some shampoo to get rid of them. You never did that for me.\"\n\nI had no recollection of it\u2014as far as I knew I'd only put my arm 'round Alan once\u2014and I wondered if Michael was confusing me with another teacher. \"Did you ever have lice? You always looked so spick and span while, most days, poor Alan smelled as if he'd emerged from a sewer.\"\n\n\"He was a slob,\" said Michael dismissively \"I used to nick Prioderm out the chemist for him but he never bothered to use it until the nurse spotted eggs in his hair.\" He favored me with a crooked smile. \"It bugged me that everyone thought I was a neat little kid with clean clothes and felt sorry for Alan because he came from a shit background. I started washing my own stuff myself when I was six years old, but it was only ever Mum who got credit for it.\"\n\nI wondered fleetingly if the hug I gave Alan, and the hug I hadn't given Michael, had resulted in one settling down and the other doing fifteen years. \"Most people thought she was a better mother than Maureen,\" I told him, \"but it wasn't much of an endorsement. On a scale of one to ten, Maureen scored nought.\"\n\n\"At least she wasn't a prostitute,\" he said bitterly. \"It does your head in to have a slag for a mother. Did you know that's what she was at the time?\"\n\n\"I didn't know anything, Michael. I was very na\u00efve and very stupid, and if I had my life over again I'd do things differently.\" I watched him for a moment. \"You were too sexually aware,\" I said gently. \"I never felt threatened by Alan in the way I felt threatened by you. I didn't think you'd be content with a hug.\"\n\nHis smile became even more crooked. \"Maybe not, but I'd have been too scared to do anything about it.\"\n\n\"That's not how I saw you,\" I said with a small laugh. \"You had a knack of singling out women who were vulnerable... like Wendy Stanhope. She becomes very wistful when she talks about you, so I doubt her feelings were entirely maternal.\"\n\n\"What about yours?\"\n\n\"I don't know. I never tested them.\"\n\n\"But you _did_ like me?\"\n\nI wondered why that was important. \"Oh yes.\"\n\n\"What about Alan? Did you like him?\"\n\n\"No,\" I said flatly, wondering how much he knew.\n\n\"He had a crush on you,\" he said. \"Used to talk about how you couldn't keep your hands off him and how the only reason you refused to get the police involved when you caught him nicking from your handbag was because you were afraid he'd spill the beans about the sex he'd had with you.\" He examined my face closely and seemed to find the reassurance he wanted. \"I knew it was a load of crap but it used to bug me the way you put yourself out to be nice to him.\"\n\nI didn't say anything.\n\n\"And you're wrong about him not being sexually aware,\" he went on. \"He was so damn big he had tackle the size of an elephant's by the time he was ten. Sex was the only thing he thought about. He used to nick porno mags and wank himself stupid over the pictures. It was pretty funny till he started doing it for real. He got hold of Rosie, Bridget's sister, and said he wanted to do it with her, and when she told him to fuck off he pushed her to the ground and said he was going to do it anyway. Poor little kid, she was only twelve and she didn't stop bleeding for weeks.\" His mouth thinned angrily at the memory. \"But she was too frightened to tell anyone except me. Her Mum was ill and her dad was never around. So it was down to me to do the business. I beat the shit out of Alan and said if he ever did something like that again, I'd rip his head off.\"\n\n\"How old were you?\"\n\n\"Fifteen. It wasn't long after you left.\"\n\n\"Did he do it again?\"\n\nMichael shrugged. \"If he did, I never got to hear about it. He turned on his dad with a baseball bat a week or so later... almost as if his brain caught up with his size and a bubble came out of his head saying, 'I'm big enough to take on guys.'After that, he didn't seem so interested in sex.\"\n\nI tried to get a grip of the timing. \"His wife told me you and he came to blows over Bridget.\"\n\nHe shook his head. \"We only fought the once, and that was over Rosie.\"\n\n\"She told me Alan was besotted with Bridget until he found her in bed with you... then he beat you half to death and spent time in juvenile prison for it.\"\n\n\"In his dreams maybe.\" He pulled a puzzled frown. \"Bridget never gave him a second look after what he did to her sister, so why pretend otherwise? Who's he trying to con?\"\n\n\"Beth?\" I suggested. \"His wife.\"\n\n\"Why?\"\n\nIt was my turn to shrug.\n\n\"Stupid bugger. It's always better to be honest\"\u2014he smiled as he listened to himself\u2014\" _after_ you've been caught anyway. Nothing remains secret very long in this kind of environment.\"\n\nI looked around the room, which was packed with prisoners and their families\u2014all talking, all listening, all under observation from prison officers\u2014and I thought I could easily believe it. There was no privacy in a goldfish bowl. And I wondered what sort of control Maureen Slater exercised over her family that no hint of Alan's viciousness had ever leaked out.\n\n**_Letter from John Howlett\u2014RSPCA inspector who entered  \nAnn Butts's house on the morning after her death\u2014  \nnow resident in Lancashire\u2014dated 1999_**\n\n_White Cottage  \nLittlehampton  \nNr Preston  \nLancashire_\n\nMs. M. Ranelagh  \nLeavenham Farm  \nLeavenham  \nNr Dorchester  \nDorset DT2 XXY\n\nAugust 11, 1999\n\nDear Ms. Ranelagh,\n\nMay I say first how heartened I am by what you wrote. I have always been troubled by what we found in Miss Butts's house, and I feel so much happier to be asked to view it from a different perspective. As you so rightly suggest, I never had any reason to believe Annie was cruel until after she was dead.\n\nDr. Arnold was of the opinion that Annie had been robbed in the days before her death and suggested this was the cause of the rapid decline in her circumstances which we found on 15.11.78. While I had some sympathy with that view, I never felt it adequately explained the number and\/or condition of the cats. The police \"take\" on the matter was that Annie was a difficult and disturbed woman who was clearly unable to look after herself and whose behavior had given rise to numerous complaints. What we found in her house, therefore, merely confirmed this belief. It's worth mentioning here that PS Drury told me an hour in advance of entering the house that there were in excess of twenty cats on the premises in order to ensure I brought enough cages to accommodate them. When I questioned this figure, saying that in my experience there had never been more than seven, he said it was based on information received from neighbors.\n\nI blame myself now for not asking how her neighbors could be so exact about numbers, but it's easy to be wise with hindsight. At the time, my colleague and I were so shocked by what was there that all our efforts went into assessing and rescuing the animals. It would have been different had Annie still been alive because we would certainly have sought to prosecute on the grounds of cruelty, but her death meant that we effectively handed the responsibility for asking questions to Sergeant Drury. I know that Dr. Arnold had severe reservations about his handling of the case\u2014and it would seem from your letter that you do, too\u2014but in fairness I should stress that he was as shocked as we were by the conditions in the house and said several times, \"I should have believed them.\" By this I assume he was referring to her neighbors, whom he described constantly as \"low-life.\" I say this only to remind you that he, and we, were dealing with a situation that, even if it was unexpected, did in fact bear out everything that had been said about Annie for the last twelve months.\n\nWith respect to your specific questions: Annie said her \"marmalade\" cat had died of \"heart failure.\" She was extremely distraught about it and asked me several times if I thought cats felt pain in the same way we did. I said I didn't know.\n\nMost of the live cats were malnourished\u2014except the six I was able to identify as hers. Several of the strays had bald patches 'round their muzzles, but in almost every instance the fur was beginning to grow back. I'm afraid there was no evidence that \"efforts had been made to help them.\" Rather the reverse, sadly, as the only sensible help would have been a visit to the vet. However, if your premise that the cats'mouths were taped by someone other than Annie, then clearly the removal of the tape and the purchase of chicken and milk, etc., were an indication of \"efforts to help.\" Her own cats were in noticeably better health than the rest.\n\nI'm afraid it's impossible to say how much time had elapsed since the tomcats'mouths were taped, simply because their condition when we found them was so appalling. However, I take on board your suggestion that Annie was unlikely to render them helpless only to release them again.\n\nIf I accept your premise that it wasn't Annie who brutalized the animals, then I can also accept your premise that the reason we found sick cats shut into the back bedroom was because she wanted to protect the vulnerable cats from the rest. However, and sadly, I can recall no evidence from the postmortems to prove this, as we had no way of telling if the cats were confined after being bitten and scratched, or before.\n\nAssuming the above premises to be true, then it is certainly possible that the healthy cats killed the sick ones and that the ones with broken necks were the result of \"mercy killings.\" However, if Annie confined the sick toms to protect them from the others, they may well have turned on each other within the confines of the room. I agree that Annie may have chosen to confine the cats inside the house\u2014despite their fouling the floors\u2014in order to protect them from a greater danger outside.\n\nIn conclusion, I am a great deal happier with the suggestion that Annie was a savior of cats rather than a tormentor of them, though I fear you will have difficulty proving it.\n\nWith best wishes for a successful campaign,\n\n# twenty-four\n\nI asked Michael when he last saw Alan. \"We stopped hanging around together after he hurt Rosie,\" he said, stroking his jaw in thoughtful reminiscence. \"If I remember right, I didn't see hide nor hair of him from about '80 on... but I was in and out of the nick myself on a pretty constant basis which probably accounts for it.\" He shook his head. \"It's pretty bad when you think about it.\"\n\n\"What?\"\n\n\"That there were only two families in that whole road that couldn't keep out of trouble. The Percys and the Slaters. We had the same chances as everyone else, but never used them. Do you realize we must have done over twenty years in prison between us\u2014what with Derek and me, and whatever it was Alan did?\"\n\n\"Habits are hard to break,\" I said.\n\n\"Yeah, like Rosie's.\"\n\n\"What happened to her?\"\n\n\"OD'd on smack in a squat in Manchester about five years ago,\" he said bitterly. \"Some idiot dealer was selling it uncut around that time so it was probably accidental and not deliberate. Bailiffs found her body under a mattress the day after her mates vacated the place. The police reckoned she'd been dead three days, but no one did a thing about it... just left her there while they packed their bags and scarpered.\"\n\n\"I'm sorry.\"\n\nHe nodded. \"It was pretty sad. Bridget kept trying to get treatment for her, but Rosie couldn't hack life without it. She always said she'd die of an overdose, so I guess she wouldn't have minded too much if she knew what was happening to her.\"\n\n\"What did her father say?\"\n\n\"Zilch. I'm not sure he even knows she's dead. The girls stopped talking to him after he shacked up with Mum.\"\n\n\"Couldn't you have told him?\"\n\n\"No way. He kicked me out when he moved in. That's when I started living with Rosie and Bridget.\" He jammed his hands between his knees, shoulders hunched in sudden anger. \"He really hates me... persuaded Mum I was no good,\" he said resentfully, \"even though I was the one that looked out for her when it mattered.\"\n\n\"When was that?\"\n\nHe turned away so that I couldn't see his expression. \"It's not important.\"\n\nI was sure it was, but couldn't see the point of pursuing it as he clearly didn't want to tell me. \"What did you do to make Geoffrey dislike you so much?\"\n\n\"Told Rosie and Bridget he was one of Mum's clients. He was a two-faced bastard... kept making out what a saint he was to have given up his job to look after his dying wife... while all the time he was 'round at our place. It was the girls who did everything for their ma. Geoff did sod all except complain when his dinner was late. Vivi-enne was a nice lady. I used to sit with her most afternoons, and it pissed me off to hear her talking about Geoff as if he'd been good to her.\"\n\n\"Did she ever find out about your mother?\"\n\n\"I don't think so. She died with a smile on her face, so I reckon he fooled her to the end. Me and the girls never told her anyway. It didn't seem kind.\"\n\nA small silence fell while I wondered what to say next and immediately unwanted sounds crowded in on us\u2014raucous seagull cries from the skylights above our heads, laughter, a baby's cry from the children's play area\u2014and I found myself blurting out the one question I had been determined to avoid: \"What on earth are you doing here, Michael? How can a man who's kind enough not to tell a dying woman that her husband's cheating on her attack an innocent stranger in a post office? It doesn't make sense.\"\n\n\"I needed the cash,\" he said simply, \"and it seemed like a good idea at the time.\"\n\n\"And now?\"\n\nHe gave a mirthless laugh. \"Now I reckon it's the dumbest thing I ever did. I was only planning to frighten her... hold the pistol to her head... but she started screaming and shouting... and I went crazy.\" He fell silent, contemplating some private darkness. \"She reminded me of Alan's mum,\" he said abruptly, \"so I smashed her ugly face in. I really hated that bitch. It was her who used to get everyone worked up.\"\n\n\"How?\"\n\n\"Just stuff,\" he said before lapsing into another longer silence.\n\nI changed the subject by asking him what he'd meant in one of his letters when he said Bridget had posted her hair through my letter box as a \"sacrifice.\" \"Sacrifice for what?\" I asked.\n\nHe was more comfortable talking about Bridget. \"All the bad things that were happening to you,\" he said. \"You told her once that you wished you had hair like hers, so she thought if she gave it to you the bad stuff would stop.\" He smiled at my expression. \"Okay, it was a bit wacky but she always did have weird ideas. She put a load of raw onions into her mother's room one time because she read somewhere that onions absorb disease, but the smell was so bad that Vivienne couldn't sleep.\"\n\n\"I think they're supposed to work on colds,\" I said abstractedly, while pondering the rest of what he'd said. \"What made Bridget think bad things were happening to me?\"\n\n\"You looked so scared all the time,\" he said matter-of-factly \"It stood to reason there was some lousy shit in your life.\"\n\n\"Did you know what it was?\"\n\nA flicker of emotion crossed his face. \"We guessed they were doing to you what they did to Annie.\"\n\n\"Who?\"\n\n\"The Slaters. I saw Alan's dad try to barge you off the pavement one day... and his mum used to call you a nigger-lover. She said you'd be lynched for the things you were saying if we lived in America.\"\n\n\"What about _your_ mother? Did she agree with Maureen?\"\n\nHe looked away again, as if the subject of his mother was something he found hard to deal with. \"I don't know,\" he said curtly. \"We never talked about it.\"\n\n\"Did you talk about Annie's death?\"\n\n\"No.\" Even more curt.\n\n\"Why not?\"\n\n\"What was to talk about? Hell, we were glad to see the back of her. It meant Mum could take in more clients without having abuse bellowed at them through the wall. And that's all she was interested in,\" he finished bitterly, \"making money out of saps.\"\n\n\"It was a vicious circle,\" I told him. \"Every time you or the Slaters ratcheted up your aggression, Annie got worse. She might have been able to control her language if you'd left her alone, but she hadn't a hope in hell's chance once you started invading her space and making her afraid.\"\n\nHe shrugged. \"Mum always said she should be in a loony bin.\"\n\n\"Only to give herself something to feel superior about,\" I murmured. \"She didn't like being called a 'whore'... because that's what she was. The Slaters didn't like being called 'trash'... because that's what they were.\"\n\nHe gave a surprised whistle as if the comfortable image he had of me had suddenly been shattered. \"That's a bit harsh.\"\n\n\"Do you think so?\" I asked mildly. \"I've always thought how generous Annie was. Had I been her, I'd have come up with something far stronger to describe low-grade scum who got their rocks off torturing cats.\"\n\nHe flinched perceptibly.\n\n\"Was it you and Alan who did it?\" I asked. \"It's the kind of brutality I can imagine you enjoying... inflicting pain on something smaller and weaker... then pushing the sad little remains on to Annie to see how she'd react. Was it Derek killing the marmalade cat that gave you the idea or was Maureen lying about that to protect Alan?\"\n\n\"Jesus!\" he said with a spurt of anger. \"And you wonder why I hate the bitch? Talk about fucking twisted. Alan used to say her brains were shot because his dad knocked the sense out of her, but I'd say it was the other way 'round. The bitch was born twisted and that's the reason the poor sap went for her.\" He leaned forward aggressively. \"It was Maureen killed the cat, and she did it because it made her feel good. She got Alan to hold it down on the kitchen table while she beat its brains out with a baseball bat, and when Alan started blubbing because he really liked animals, she took the bat to him instead and said, if he ever told on her, she'd nail the next one to the fence and make him watch it while it died.\"\n\nIt was like a floodgate opening. Once Michael started on his hatred of Maureen he couldn't stop. He talked about her lousy parenting, her drinking, her vilification of him and his mother. \"It makes me sick what she's got away with,\" he finished angrily. \"It makes me even sicker that she's on the out and me and Derek are stuck inside.\"\n\n\"What would she have been charged with?\"\n\n\"Assault and battery of her kids... drunk and disorderly... you name it.\"\n\n\"Killing Annie?\"\n\nHe didn't answer immediately. \"All I know,\" he said then, \"is what I told you in my letter. That I came home from the arcade to hear that the stupid cow had died in the street from some sort of accident.\"\n\nI nodded as if I believed him. \"Did you know the Slaters went into the house later and robbed it?\"\n\n\"Rosie sussed it when the police described old Annie as living in poverty,\" he admitted. \"She reckoned we ought to say something but I didn't want have to explain how any of us knew what was in there.\"\n\n\"Did Alan not mention it?\" I asked curiously. \"You were inseparable at the time. I'd have expected him to boast about how clever they'd been.\"\n\n\"No.\"\n\n\"Because it _was_ clever, Michael,\" I said idly. \"Way too clever for Derek and Alan alone. It was the odd little extras like turning off the mains water... and soiling the floors to give the impression of self-neglect and poor hygiene. I've always wondered why that was necessary. Unless the smell of human urine was stronger than cats'urine and needed explaining.\"\n\nHe shook his head, but whether in denial that he knew what I was talking about or in refusal to answer the question, I couldn't tell. From the way he started to look for an officer to rescue him from me, it was clear the whole subject made him as uncomfortable as talk of his mother.\n\nI plowed on determinedly. \"You said it makes you sick that Derek's in prison,\" I reminded him. \"Does that mean he's in at the moment?\"\n\n\"He got two years in February '98. A guy on my wing shared a cell with him in Pentonville before he got shipped down here. He reckons Derek's dying. His liver's packed up with the drinking, and the one brain cell he has left can just about remember his name... and fuck all else.\"\n\n\"When's he due for release?\"\n\nHe made a quick calculation in his head. \"He'll have served half so he'll be out by now... assuming he's not dead already.\"\n\n\"What was he convicted of?\"\n\n\"Burglary,\" said Michael dispassionately. \"It's what he gets done for every time.\"\n\n\"Why does that make you sick?\"\n\nHe gave an unexpected sigh. \"Because he needs an education, not endless bloody punishment. Him and me were on the same landing in the Scrubs when I was on remand for this one. He's completely illiterate... just about manages a 'd'and 'e'for his signature but can't get to grips with the 'r'or the 'k.'I wrote some letters for him to his kids, but the only one who ever answered was Sally, and then only because she thought he might have some dosh hidden away somewhere. It pissed me off, it really did. The poor sod was only trying to tell them he loved them, but as far as they were concerned he didn't exist.\"\n\nI was surprised. \"You used to hate him when you were a child.\"\n\nMichael shrugged. \"It doesn't mean I can't feel sorry for him. I got to realizing how limited a guy's life is if he can't read and write. It's pretty mind-blowing when you think about it. I mean, you can't apply for a job if you can't sign your name to a form... and people sure as hell look down on you if they think you're an ignorant jerk. I reckon it's what made Derek violent. The only way he could get people to respect him was to slap 'em about and make 'em afraid of him.\"\n\n\"Is that his excuse?\"\n\n\"No. He's not into excuses. Maybe that's why I feel sorry for him. He told me a bit about his childhood... how he got dumped in institutions because his mum didn't want him, then legged it to live on the streets till he was nicked for shoplifting and sent to Borstal. That's why he's illiterate, never stayed in school long enough to learn basic skills. It makes you realize how important love is to a kid. If his mum had wanted him\"\u2014he pulled a rueful face\u2014\"maybe he'd have been one of the good guys.\"\n\nI guessed he was talking as much about himself as he was about Derek. \"Everyone has to deal with rejection at some point in their lives,\" I said.\n\n\"Worse when you're a child, though,\" he said bleakly. \"There has to be something wrong with you if even your mum doesn't like you.\" He fell silent, squeezing his fists in an echo of Drury \"Derek reckoned he only married Maureen because she reminded him of his mum,\" he said suddenly. \"He had this black and white photo of her, and it was the spitting image of Maureen... skinny and slitty-eyed... called her a sidewinder.\"\n\n\"As in snake?\"\n\nHe nodded.\n\n\"Why?\"\n\n\"Because she never looked him in the face... just stabbed him in the back. It sounded halfway reasonable till I realized he feels like that about all women. 'They're all snakes,'he said, and snakes have shapes. If you can't recognize the poisonous ones you're a dead man.\"\n\n\"How did Maureen stab him in the back?\"\n\n\"Gee-ed up Alan to take him on. It was like a war zone in there, went on for months. If we had our windows open we could hear the fights all the way past Annie's empty house... the screaming and yelling... bodies being slammed against walls. It was like the minute Annie died all hell let loose.\"\n\n\"Why? What changed?\"\n\nMichael shook his head. \"Mum reckoned they reverted to type. They were bullies and bullies need someone to hit on... so while Annie was alive they hit on her and when she was dead they hit on each other.\"\n\nIt made sense, I thought. People never pull together so well as when they have a common enemy. \"How many times did Maureen end up in the hospital?\"\n\n\"Two or three. But it wasn't Derek who put her there, it was Alan. He was well out of control. It was around the time he raped little Rosie. Derek kept him in check for as long as he could but by the time Alan got to fifteen he was two inches taller than his dad and twice as heavy, and there wasn't much Derek could do to stop him.\"\n\n\"Did they know about Rosie's rape?\"\n\nHe shook his head. \"Not unless Alan told them. Rosie was paranoid about her mum finding out\u2014thought it'd kill her quicker than the cancer\u2014so we kept quiet.\"\n\nI tried to make sense of the chronology. \"And this all happened in '79?\"\n\nHe nodded.\n\n\"Was it Alan who attacked Maureen while I was still living there?\" I thought back. \"Sometime during the February of '79?\"\n\nAnother nod. \"She was drunk one day and started slapping him about when he answered her back. He went for her like a maniac.\"\n\n\"Who called the ambulance?\"\n\n\"Derek. He came in about an hour later and found her on the floor with little Danny trying to clean up the blood. Alan was blubbing in the garden because he thought he'd killed her. Derek had to run to the nearest phone box.\"\n\nI eyed him curiously. \"Did you know this at the time, or did Derek tell you about it afterward?\"\n\n\"Derek told me,\" he admitted, \"but it made sense when I thought about what Alan did to Rosie.\"\n\n\"Except Maureen said Derek did it,\" I murmured.\n\n\"Yeah, well, she's a liar. She snapped little Danny's arm across her knee one time, then swore to the doctors he'd fallen off his bike. Us kids knew it wasn't true because she did it in front of us.\" His lips thinned to threads. \"She was a scary woman, and if we hadn't been such fucking cowards\u2014\" He broke off to stare at the table. \"Derek was right pissed off when I told him about it. That's why he wanted to write letters to his kids. He really cared about them.\" He lifted his eyes to mine. \"I know what you're thinking. Michael's not as bright as I thought. He spends a couple of months talking to a man he despises and ends up getting conned by him. Well, that might be true\u2014I wouldn't go to the wall for it\u2014but the one thing I _do_ know is that Derek's so damn stupid even a moron could run rings around him. Sure, he was a bully and, sure, he used his fists, but he had to be _told_ to do it. He was like a guided missile. Point him in the right direction and give him an instruction and\u2014 _wham!_ \u2014he did the business.\"\n\n**_E-mail from Dr. Joseph Elias, psychiatrist  \nat the Queen Victoria Hospital, Hong Kong_**\n\n**M. R**.\n\n**From:** Sarah Pyang (spyang@victorhos.com)\n\n**Sent:** 15 August 1999 14:19\n\n**To:** mranelagh@jetscape.com\n\nSent as from: Dr. Elias\n\nSuch are the wonders of modern technology! My secretary tells me she received your e-mail yesterday (Saturday) and you wish me to reply by return. Well, I'm happy to do so but I wonder if answers given in haste are wise.\n\nYou pepper me with questions. Who is more to blame: the architect of a crime or the one who carries it out? Should a whole police force be smeared because of one bad apple? Can justice be selective? Can the damage done by a mother to her child be mended? Can rapists be cured? Can children be evil? Is any crime excusable? Should the sins of a father be visited on his family? Should the sins of a mother?\n\nIn a poor attempt at wisdom might I suggest that, if you are honestly seeking justice for your friend, then you arrogate too much authority merely by thinking such things? These are not your decisions to make, my dear. Justice is impartial. Only revenge is prejudiced.\n\nBut isn't prejudice what you've been fighting all these years?\n\nAll best wishes,\n\nJoseph\n\n# twenty-five\n\nIt was three o'clock by the time I drove down to the main road with my brain worrying away at what Michael had said like a tongue at a sore tooth. Each time I negotiated a hairpin bend the panoramic view of Weymouth Bay and Chesil Beach was spread out below me, but I was too absorbed in thoughts on motherhood to notice it. I wondered sometimes if my rush to judgment of the Sharon Percys and Maureen Slaters of this world was a way of punishing my own mother\u2014and by extension myself. For everything I did as a parent was either in mimicry of her\u2014or in defiance\u2014 and I had no idea which was right and which was wrong.\n\nI had few feelings for Sharon beyond contempt for abandoning her son out of embarrassment the minute she acquired a modicum of respectability after Geoffrey moved in with her. Yet I couldn't understand why Michael had seemed so worried every time her name was mentioned when anger would have been a more normal reaction. He'd been angry enough with Maureen. Did Sharon's shying away from society's censure of her son's violence really make her ipso facto incapable of murder? And did Maureen's willingness to keep Alan's violence under wraps, together with my absolute certainty that she was the instigator of the hate campaigns against Annie and myself, make her ipso facto capable?\n\nI was tired, and a little depressed, and I hadn't intended to see Danny that afternoon, but when I reached the T-junction at the bottom of Verne Common Road I took an abrupt decision to turn left toward Tout Quarry. He was still at work on Gandhi when I turned into the gulley fifteen minutes later. \"How's it going?\" I asked.\n\nHe dropped his hands to his sides, resting the chisel and hammer against his thighs. \"Okay,\" he said with a pleased smile. \"How about you?\"\n\n\"I've been to see Michael Percy. He sends his regards, says if you're bored he'll be happy to entertain you for an hour in the visitors'room.\"\n\nDanny grinned. \"A bit of a comedian, eh?\"\n\n\"He has his moments,\" I agreed.\n\nDanny laid his tools on the ground and brushed dust from his arms. \"What would we talk about? I was just a snotty-nosed kid to him.\" He took his cigarettes from his pocket and perched on a rock beside Gandhi. \"He gave me a lecture once when he caught me sniffing glue behind the church.\"\n\nI sat next to him. \"Did it do any good?\"\n\n\"It did as a matter of fact. He was pretty decent about it, said he understood why I was doing it, then gave me a graphic description of what it's like to die of suffocation. He told me I had more going for me than to peg it in a graveyard with a nose full of glue fumes.\" He flicked me a sideways glance full of amused self-deprecation. \"So I tried heroin instead.\"\n\nMy disillusionment must have shown. \"Meaning Mr. Drury's terror tactics were more effective than Michael's lecture?\"\n\nDanny's smile widened. \"I never liked glue-sniffing anyway... and as for heroin\"\u2014he gave a sudden laugh\u2014\"I'd been sitting on the bog for half an hour trying to pluck up courage to stick the bloody needle in before Mr. Drury caught me. I'd always hated the damn things.\"\n\nI eyed him affectionately. \"You were going to give up anyway?\"\n\n\"Sure... injecting at least. I went on smoking it for a while, then I thought, to hell with it. I don't need this. I prefer cannabis. You keep a better grip on things with dope.\"\n\n\"Why didn't you tell your mother that at the time instead of letting Drury take the credit?\"\n\n\"Because she wouldn't have believed me.\" He turned his cigarette in his fingers. \"You wouldn't either. I was a pretty wild kid and it's not easy getting people to change their opinion of you when all you do is let them down.\"\n\nI nodded. I'd seen it myself many times during my teaching career. Give a dog a bad name and he was hanged forever afterward. It was the sort of unforgiving prejudice I hated\u2014as Dr. Elias had so pointedly reminded me. \"What did Michael mean when he said he understood why you were sniffing glue?\"\n\n\"He knew what it was like for me at home. There was only me and Mum and we loathed each other's guts. Most of the time she was passed out drunk\"\u2014he shook his head\u2014\"and when she wasn't, she'd lam into the first person she saw\u2014usually me. It was pretty depressing. She's got real problems but she won't do anything about them... just locks the door and sinks into a stupor.\"\n\n\"Has she ever said what her problems are?\"\n\n\"You mean apart from the physical dependency?\"\n\nI nodded.\n\n\"The same as any other addict I guess,\" he said with a shrug. \"Fear of living... fear of pain... fear of having to look at yourself too closely in case you don't like what you see.\"\n\nI wondered if he was right. \"She seemed all right when I saw her.\"\n\n\"Only because she knew you were coming,\" he said dismissively \"but you can bet she was back in front of the telly with her fags and her booze within five minutes of you leaving. She can put on an act for a while... but she's too lazy to want to make it permanent. It makes me sick.\"\n\n\"Do you ever see her?\"\n\n\"No. Last time was at Tansy's christening. I phone her once in a while just to let her know I'm still alive but the only one of her kids she wants to hear from is Alan. He's always been her favorite. She'd forgive him anything... but not me or my sisters.\"\n\nI nodded. \"What stopped you from being wild?\"\n\nHe thought about it. \"Getting sent down at sixteen for nicking and driving cars,\" he said with a grin. \"Remember I told you I spent time in prison? It was the best thing that ever happened to me. Got me out of Graham Road. Made me think about what I wanted in life.\" He tilted the tip of his cigarette toward Gandhi. \"There was an art teacher who showed me I had a talent for this kind of thing... he was a good bloke... got me a place at art school... even let me live with him and his wife for a while till I found somewhere of my own.\"\n\nPerhaps I'd been wrong to tell Maureen that Beth had worked a change in Danny when it seemed to have been an unknown art teacher who had influenced his life. \"Prison can work then?\"\n\n\"Only if you want it to.\"\n\n\"Did Alan want it to work? Is that how he turned himself 'round?\"\n\nHe shrugged. \"He had a bad time... got bullied because he wasn't too bright... made him scared to go back. Then he met Beth and reckoned he had a future even though she strung him along for ages before she agreed to marry him.\" Another shrug\u2014more dismissive this time. \"Prison doesn't seem to have done Michael much good.\"\n\n\"Or your dad,\" I said slowly, thinking about Alan being bullied and the truism that most bullies are cowards. \"Michael told me he and your dad were in the Scrubs together five years ago.\"\n\n\"Lucky Michael,\" said Danny sarcastically.\n\n\"He said your dad's illiterate... can't even manage his own name. So Michael wrote some letters for him. He said there was one to you which you didn't answer.\"\n\n\"He's lying,\" said Danny bluntly. \"I could be dead for all that bastard cares.\"\n\n\"I don't think so.\"\n\n\"Where did he send it?\"\n\n\"To your mum's house.\"\n\n\"She'd have torn up anything with a prison logo on it. What did it say?\"\n\n\"That he cared about you.\"\n\nDanny gave a snort of derision. \"He doesn't even know what I look like.\"\n\n\"Mm,\" I agreed.\n\n\"I expect he was feeling guilty about abandoning us.\"\n\n\"Mm,\" I said again.\n\nDanny frowned. \"What else did Michael say?\"\n\n\"That you had a broken arm when you were a child. Do you remember that?\"\n\nHe cast an involuntary glance at his right hand. \"Sort of. I know I was in plaster once, but I thought it was something to do with my wrist. It aches sometimes.\"\n\n\"Do you know how it happened?\"\n\n\"I fell off my bike.\"\n\n\"Is that something you remember or something you've been told?\"\n\nA difference in my tone\u2014too much curiosity perhaps\u2014made his brows draw together in a puzzled frown. \"Why so interested? All kids break bones at some time or another.\" I didn't answer and he seemed irritated by my silence. \"Probably something I was told,\" he said curtly. \"I don't remember much before I was six or seven.\"\n\n\"Neither do I,\" I said equably. \"It's odd. Some people have very clear memories of their early childhood, but I have none at all. I used to think the stories my parents told me were real memories, but I've come to the conclusion now that if something is repeated often enough it acquires a reality.\" I paused to watch one of the student sculptors chip nervously at a small block of stone which had so little shape I wondered why he was bothering. \"Michael said he doesn't remember seeing Alan after your dad left,\" I said next. \"Is that the time he went to prison for dealing?\"\n\nDanny appeared to be on safer ground with this question. \"Sure. It's the only sentence he's done. He told me about it once, said it did his head in something chronic.\" He leaned forward to pick a stone from the ground. \"He didn't come home afterward. I think they reckoned he was a bad influence on the rest of us, or vice versa.\" He polished the stone with the ball of his thumb. \"I only found out what he looked like when I skived off school one day to go wandering 'round Twickenham. It was when I was about thirteen, and this big guy stops me in the street and says, 'Hi, I'm Alan, how you doing?'He'd have been about twenty-four by then\"\u2014he gave a hollow laugh\u2014\"and I hadn't a clue who he was. I knew I had a brother somewhere but it was a bit of a shock to find he was only four miles away. He said he'd been keeping an eye on me from a distance.\"\n\n\"Did you tell your mother you'd seen him?\"\n\n\"No chance. She used to get really wound up every time his name was mentioned, then she'd hit the bottle and start breaking furniture. I always thought she blamed Al for making my dad leave until Al turned up out of the blue a year later and she wept all over him and said how much she'd missed him.\"\n\n\"Why did he come?\"\n\n\"Wanted to see her, I guess.\"\n\n\"No, I meant, why _then?_ Why wait so long?\"\n\nHe looked interested, as if it were something he'd never considered before. \"It was after Mr. Drury retired,\" he said. \"I remember Mum saying there was no one left who'd recognize him\u2014\" He broke off abruptly. \"She probably just meant he wouldn't be picked on anymore.\"\n\n\"Is Alan fond of her?\" I asked, remembering what Beth had said about Alan's depression every time he visited Maureen.\n\n\"Maybe. He's the only one who bothers to see her.\"\n\n\"But?\" I prompted when he didn't go on.\n\nHe stretched his right arm and dropped the stone, staring at his hand in absorbed fascination as he flexed his fingers. \"He's scared of her,\" he answered abruptly. \"That's the only reason he goes... to keep her from turning on him.\"\n\nWe went for a walk through the sculpture park, diving down little alleyways between craggy walls of stone. We squeezed through a cleft into a cave where a pink blanket and a pile of empty cans suggested someone had taken up residence or a couple of lovers had found a private retreat.\n\n\"Maybe I should take it over,\" said Danny, \"and sneak out at night to carve the stones by moonlight.\"\n\n\"Do you enjoy it that much?\"\n\nHe made a rocking motion with a hand. \"Not all the time\u2014it can be bloody frustrating when it doesn't go right\u2014but it's what I want to do.\"\n\n\"Sam's willing to let you work in the barn at the bottom of our garden,\" I said, leading the way back out again. \"It'll mean slumming it in the tack room and working with the doors open if you want any light\"\u2014I shrugged\u2014\"but it won't cost you anything. If you can scrounge some stone and don't mind sleeping rough for a bit... it's free and available.\"\n\nHe was less than appreciative. \"I'd freeze to death in the winter.\"\n\n\"Mm,\" I agreed, \"and Sam'll have your hide if he catches you smoking cannabis.\"\n\n\"What about you?\"\n\n\"I never argue with my husband in public so if you come... and he catches you... you're on your own.\" I turned to look at him. \"Think about it, anyway. You won't get a better offer today.\"\n\nHe became very quiet as we approached the car. \"Why would you want to help me?\" he asked, taking the keys from my hand to unlock the door.\n\n\"Think of it as an investment in the future.\"\n\nHe held the door open. \"You'd never make a penny,\" he said gloomily. \"I haven't that much talent.\"\n\nI gave him a quick hug. \"We'll see.\" I lowered myself on to the seat. \"But it's not a financial investment, Danny, more a loan of goodwill that you can repay with interest to someone who deserves a similar chance at another time.\"\n\nHe wouldn't meet my eyes. \"What do you want in return?\"\n\n\"Nothing,\" I said honestly, reaching for the door. \"There are no strings attached. The barn's there if you want to take us up on it. If you don't, no hard feelings.\"\n\nHe shuffled his feet on the gravel. \"Alan's phoned a few times wanting to know what you've been saying about him,\" he said abruptly. \"He's really twitched even though I keep telling him you're only interested in what happened to the black lady.\"\n\nI didn't answer.\n\n\"What did he do to you?\" he asked me.\n\n\"What makes you think he did anything?\"\n\n\"Your face goes blank every time his name's mentioned.\" He put his hand on the door to stop me closing it. \"I'd never go against him,\" he said painfully. \"He's my brother.\"\n\n\"I wouldn't expect you to,\" I said as I started the engine. \"But the offer of the barn has nothing to do with Alan, Danny. If you're happy to come, we're happy to have you. I hope you'll remember that... whatever happens...\"\n\nMy last visit that day was a prearranged one to Sheila Arnold in her office. She and Larry had been away the previous week on a whistlestop visit to the Florida condo\u2014\"keeping Larry happy\" had been her wry description over the telephone\u2014and this was my first opportunity to show her the photographs of Beth and Alan's house. She had agreed to see me at the end of afternoon surgery and was updating some patients'notes on her computer when I dropped into the chair beside her desk. She gave me a quick smile, then pushed her keyboard away and turned to face me.\n\n\"Well?\"\n\nI'd had more copies made from the negatives after Drury's fit of pique with my rucksack, and I produced these from my pocket and spread them across her desk.\n\n\"My God!\" she declared in amazement. \"I thought you were exaggerating when you said you'd found the mother lode.\"\n\nI tapped the bangle on her wrist, then pointed to a close-up of Beth Slater's forearm. \"Snap?\" I suggested. \"She has four of them, and I think she wears them all the time because she pushes them up her arm every time she goes near the sink. I doubt she has any idea they're valuable or even that they're jade. She probably thinks they're plastic or resin.\"\n\nSheila studied a picture of Beth with her children. \"She has a nice face.\"\n\n\"Yes,\" I agreed.\n\n\"You liked her.\"\n\n\"Very much,\" I said with a sigh, \"which makes it difficult to know what to do next. I don't think she has any idea these things were stolen. She told me Alan bought the Quetzalcoatl in a junk shop then started collecting other Mexican pieces because he believes the Aztecs were an alien civilization. Her children were full of it while I was taking the photographs\u2014they think their dad's a genius because he knows more about aliens than anyone else\u2014and it seems rather pointless to make them unhappy just for the sake of proving he was a thief twenty years ago.\"\n\nSheila lifted each picture in turn and studied it closely. \"I remember some of these things,\" she said finally, \"but I couldn't swear to all of them. Also, apart from the bangles and the mosaic, there doesn't seem to be much of any value. What happened to the gold and silver pieces, for example?\"\n\n\"Alan's mother sold them to buy her house,\" I said, \"but I've very little proof to back that up.\" I showed her the Chiswick jeweller's affidavit. \"The description of the woman fits Maureen\u2014along with half a million others who can manage a Birmingham accent\u2014but it's only five items and accounts for less than.\u00a31,000.\"\n\n\"How much did the house cost her?\"\n\n\"About \u00a315,000 in total. She claims it all came from a win on the football pools which is why she didn't have to declare it.\" I lifted an amused eyebrow. \"The house is now worth upwards of \u00a3200,000 and increasing every day as the housing boom takes off.\"\n\n\"My God!\" said Sheila in disgust. \"We didn't get much more than that for our four-bedroom job seven years ago.\"\n\n\"I know. It's sickening.\" I isolated a wide-angled shot of the sitting room. \"Maureen stuffed most of this into the cupboard under her stairs because she didn't think it had any value\"\u2014I smiled ironically\u2014\"and it was still there when you were trying to persuade Drury Annie had been burgled. In fact, as Alan didn't retrieve it until a good ten years later Drury could have found it if he'd bothered to investigate.\"\n\nShe looked annoyed. \"And I would have been vindicated?\" I nodded. \"I'll never forgive Peter Stanhope for accusing me of neglecting her, you know. He said I'd only invented her wealth to make myself look better.\"\n\n\"I know.\" It obviously still rankled with her, I thought, and decided to keep to myself that Drury had known about the Quetzalcoatl long before Sheila had reported it stolen. I wanted an objective opinion, not one given in anger. \"The worst of it is,\" I said, showing her the picture, \"that poor Beth did all this decorating herself to make a Mexican setting for the artifacts... and it seems cruel to take them away just to prove a point. No one else is going to appreciate them as much as she and Alan do.\"\n\nSheila propped her chin in her hands and regarded me solemnly. \"Is this a way of asking me to forget that I ever said Annie was robbed?\"\n\n\"I don't know,\" I sighed. \"I keep wondering if it's right to destroy innocent children's lives over a crime that was committed twenty years ago.\"\n\n\"Except I seem to remember you telling me that if you found Annie's thief you'd also find her murderer. Were you wrong?\"\n\nI studied a close-up of the brass artillery shell that stood in Beth's fireplace with colorful silk flowers fanning out of it like peacock feathers. \"Does it matter?\" I asked her. \"Doesn't the same principle apply whatever the crime? Wouldn't I be choosing the lesser of two evils if I left Annie's death as an accident?\"\n\nShe eyed me thoughtfully. \"It depends how two-faced you want to be,\" she said bluntly. \"That was probably Sergeant Drury's excuse as well... yet you've spent twenty years trying to prove him wrong.\"\n\n**_Correspondence re: a meeting on 20.08.99_**\n\n**Leavenham Farm**\n\n**Leavenham**\n\n**Nr Dorchester**\n\n**Dorset DT2 XXY**\n\nAlan Slater\n\n12 Peasmont Road\n\nIsleworth\n\nSurrey\n\nTuesday, August 17, 1999\n\nDear Alan,\n\nI shall be at your mother's house at midday on Friday, August 20. Please ensure that you and she are both there, otherwise I shall carry out my threat to go to the police despite the pain this will cause your wife, children and brother. You should be aware that I am writing to Sharon Percy and Geoffrey Spalding to insist that they, too, attend.\n\nYours sincerely,\n\nFrom: Mrs. Wendy Stanhope, The Vicarage,  \nChanters Lane, St. David's, Exeter\n\n# twenty-six\n\nIt wasn't until we approached the Kew Road intersection on the outskirts of Richmond that Sam asked me if I knew what I was doing. The drive from Dorchester had taken over three hours and he was remarkably restrained throughout with only the odd bout of swearing at other drivers to betray his anxiety. We had discussed tactics the previous day while sitting over a glass of wine in the sunshine, and the plan had seemed reasonable then\u2014 perhaps plans always do under the influence of alcohol\u2014but the friendly, rolling hills of Dorset were a far cry from the congested rat-runs of London's link roads, and the idea of taking on four potentially violent people in the most anonymous city in the world began to seem dangerously flawed.\n\nEven then, I might have abandoned the whole project if Sam hadn't agreed with Sheila's view. The story wasn't mine to control anymore. And it wasn't a question of the lesser of two evils, he said. More of a Pandora's box. I'd opened the lid and the secrets were out. Danny for one\u2014Michael Percy for another\u2014would start asking questions: of Alan, of their mothers, even of Derek if they could find him. And it wasn't fair for the innocent to be tarred with the same brush as the guilty.\n\nI laid an affectionate hand on his arm as he drew up at the traffic lights. \"Thank you,\" I said.\n\n\"For what?\"\n\n\"Holding back. I know how worried you are, but it has to be more sensible to take an open-minded woman with me than an angry husband who's likely to lose his temper.\"\n\n\"We can still go to the police.\"\n\nI shook my head. We'd been through this a dozen times. \"They wouldn't do anything... certainly not today... probably never. It took Stephen Lawrence's parents seven years to win an inquiry, so I can't see myself walking into Richmond Police Station out of the blue and being believed.\" I sighed. \"I tried that twenty years ago and all it achieved was to persuade everyone I was a head case.\"\n\nHe nodded.\n\n\"In any case I really do want the truth this time, and Wendy was the only person I could think of. Sheila's too conservative to work outside the rules\u2014and Larry wouldn't have let her come, anyway.\"\n\n\"Could he have stopped her?\" asked Sam in surprise.\n\n\"She'd have insisted on it,\" I said cynically. \"She uses him as her get-out card whenever her involvement becomes too onerous.\" I recalled Sheila's horrified refusal when I invited her to confront the Slaters\u2014 _Good God, I couldn't possibly. Larry would never allow it for a minute_ \u2014and I thought how wrong I had been to think that Annie's doctor would be the best support I could have. If I'd had any sense I'd have realized how passive she was when she admitted abandoning Annie's cause at the first sign of irritation from Larry, but I'd been seduced by her sympathetic report on Annie to the coroner and her gutsy defense of herself against accusations of negligence. The real irony, of course, was that I need never have upset my mother by moving the family to Dorchester if only I'd known in advance that an eccentric vicar's wife in Devon had more courage and crusading spirit in her little finger than Sheila Arnold would ever have. \"And, apart from my ma,\" I went on with a sigh, \"I couldn't think of anyone other than Wendy who had the guts to come with me.\"\n\nSam gave an abrupt laugh. \"Did I hear right? Did you seriously consider asking your mother? Is this progress... or what?\"\n\n\"Actually, she was the first person I thought of,\" I said with a wry smile, \"until I realized she'd handbag the lot of them and leave me worse off than when I started.\" I gave an indecisive shrug. \"But it _is_ odd... maybe it's true that blood's thicker than water.\"\n\nHe sobered rapidly as we approached the station. \"Well, just keep that in mind when you're talking to Alan Slater,\" he advised. \"Unless he's a complete idiot, he's bound to realize that the best way to keep his children in ignorance is to stand by his mother....\"\n\nWe were fifteen minutes early but I refused to let Sam hang around to meet Wendy. I was afraid he'd be shocked by her age and her thinness\u2014 in his mind I believe he thought of her as a larger-than-life person, a mighty Valkyrie come to conduct me through a battlefield\u2014and I had visions of him putting his foot down about the whole enterprise when he was presented with the reality. It was worse than I feared. Wendy's early start and long journey from Exeter had exhausted her and, away from the secure confines of the vicarage, the impressive vulture had given way to something with about as much substance and solidity as a stick insect.\n\n\"Oh dear,\" she said cheerfully as she crossed between the taxis on the forecourt in response to my wave, \"do I look that bad?\"\n\n\"No,\" I lied, giving her a warm hug, \"but are you sure you want to go through with it? There'll be four of them and two of us,\" I warned, \"and it could get very rough.\"\n\nShe nodded. \"Nothing's changed then. You made that all very clear on the phone the other day. But don't forget I have the advantage of knowing a few of their secrets\"\u2014she gave a little chuckle\u2014\"so if all else fails I ought to be able to shame them into behaving well.\"\n\n_Or fire them up even worse_ , I thought worriedly. \"It just seems more real now,\" I said lamely.\n\nShe tucked her hand through my arm and turned me firmly in the direction of Graham Road. \"If you'd wanted someone to tan their hides, you'd have invited your husband and your sons to go with you,\" she pointed out. \"Instead you invited me. Now, I can't promise not to let you down\u2014I may fold at the first huff and puff-\u2014but I have no intention of giving up before we've even tried.\"\n\n\"Yes, but\u2014\"\n\nShe rapped me sharply over the knuckles. \"You haven't come this far to walk away at the last hurdle, so let's have no more argument about it.\"\n\nSharon and Geoffrey were standing in their open doorway when we came abreast of their house, but they made no move to come out. \"This is pure bloody blackmail,\" snapped Geoffrey angrily. \"And what's _she_ doing here?\" he demanded, catching sight of Wendy at my side. \"What the hell business is it of hers? She was always poking her long nose in where it wasn't wanted.\"\n\n\"Hello, Geoffrey,\" said Wendy with an amiable nod. \"I see your temper hasn't improved much since I left. You really ought to have your blood pressure checked, my dear.\" She switched her attention to the woman. \"And how are you these days, Sharon? You're looking well.\"\n\nA tight little smile thinned Sharon's lips, as if she suspected the compliment was insincere, although as she'd taken so much trouble with her appearance\u2014 _Intent on putting Maureen in the shade_ , I thought\u2014Wendy had spoken only the truth. \"We're not coming,\" she said. \"You can't make us.\"\n\nI shrugged. \"Then the Slaters can say whatever they like about you and I'll have to accept it because this is the only opportunity you'll have to set the record straight before I go public.\"\n\nThey stared at me with fear in their eyes.\n\n\"Look, I know you were together that night until nine o'clock and that because of it Geoffrey was the last person to speak to Annie,\" I said bluntly. \"And I'm guessing that if I could work that out then so could Maureen.\" I watched their fear increase. \"So what did she do? Demand money?\" I shook my head impatiently as I saw from their expressions that I was right. \"And you have the nerve to accuse _me_ of blackmail?\"\n\n\"You're no different,\" said Geoffrey, clenching his fists. \"Sending us threatening letters... on our backs all the time... trying to ruin our lives.\"\n\n\"If you'd been honest at the time,\" I said wearily, \"I wouldn't have had to write any letters at all. You weren't responsible for Annie's death, Geoffrey, any more than my husband was. He passed her _after_ you\u2014also thought she was drunk\u2014and also did nothing to help her. You were both guilty of unkindness but neither of you killed her.\" I watched his eyes widen in shock and smiled unkindly. \"But I'm glad you've spent so long thinking you did. You deserve to pay some sort of penalty for lashing out when she begged you for help. That's what you did, isn't it? Knocked her down, then panicked when you thought you must have pushed her into the path of the traffic?\"\n\nHe put a nervous hand on the door, but whether to steady himself or slam it in my face it was hard to say. Whatever his intention, Sharon thrust him away and wedged her foot against the bottom of the door. \"Go on,\" she told me tightly.\n\n\"Whoever killed Annie attacked her in her house three or four hours before Geoffrey passed her in the street and those are the injuries she died of. She was beaten so savagely that she passed out... but she came to some time later and found the strength to stagger out into the street to look for help. The most likely time for the assault was around six o'clock but, as far as I've been able to discover, neither of you was in Graham Road at that time, so I can't see what you have to fear by telling the truth.\"\n\nGeoffrey wasn't easily convinced. \"How do we know you're not lying?\" he asked.\n\n\"To what purpose?\"\n\n\"To catch us out... make us say what you want.\"\n\n\"Oh, for heaven's sake!\" said Wendy in sudden exasperation. \"I had no idea you were such a stupid man, Geoffrey. Is the truth really so frightening that you must keep Sharon a prisoner to it?\" Her eyes sparkled angrily. \"Mrs. Ranelagh's trying to help you\u2014though, goodness me, I'm not sure you deserve it\u2014but you'll be tying her hands if you can't find the courage to stand up to Alan and Maureen.\"\n\n\"It's not just them though, is it?\" he said unhappily. \"They've got Derek in there as well.\"\n\nI felt like a rag doll that had just lost all the sawdust out of its knees, and, from the way Wendy clutched at the gatepost, I clearly wasn't the only one.\n\nI should have considered the size of Maureen's sitting room before I picked her house as the meeting place. Barely ten feet square, it was too small to allow each of us the amount of space we wanted, and we grouped ourselves in uncomfortable proximity according to our fragile alliances. This meant the Slaters sat rigidly on a sofa against the internal wall while Wendy, Sharon, Geoffrey and I faced them on hard-backed chairs in front of the window. It was reminiscent of trench warfare during the First World War\u2014and I began to wonder if the outcome would be as futile.\n\nI had been swept with nausea from the moment I saw Derek, and I struggled to contain it as the sour smell of him\u2014more remembered, I think, than real\u2014filled my nostrils. I kept asking myself why it hadn't occurred to me that Maureen would confront me with him, when instilling fear was what she was best at. I tried to speak and found I couldn't.\n\n\"Go on then,\" she said, gloating over my discomfort. \"Say what you have to say, then get out.\"\n\nIt was a strange moment. The anger and bitterness inside me had been through a number of evolutions over the years\u2014from a savage desire to kill, through apathy and a wish to forget\u2014to this, my final position. Most of the time I could delude myself that I was pursuing justice for Annie\u2014indeed I believe that most of the time that's what I was doing. But every so often I recognized that Dr. Elias and Peter Stanhope were right and my motives were based on revenge. If Maureen had kept her mouth shut, I might have been able to persuade myself forever that it was justice I was seeking... but such a surge of hatred shot through me in that moment that I was back where I started.\n\nIf Derek was dying, as Michael had suggested, it wasn't immediately obvious. He was thinner than I remembered, and his hands had the permanent tremor of alcoholism, but he still held his head like a boxer, watching for any opening, and he still radiated an illiterate's aggression. As for Alan, he was just an older, broader version of his brother and I couldn't look at him without thinking of Danny. I had pictured him for half my life as a muscular giant with a child's brain, but the reality was a nervous man with grimy fingernails and a beer gut who strove to keep as much distance from his parents as a three-seater sofa would allow.\n\nIn the end it was Derek who spoke first. His voice had changed very little\u2014hard vowels and glottal stops\u2014and it grated on my ears as it had twenty years ago. \"You can't blame the boy,\" he muttered, putting a cigarette between his lips and lighting it. \"He only did what I told him to do.\"\n\n\"I know.\" I looked at Alan's bent head. \"I've never blamed him.\"\n\n\"Then you'll drop the rest of the stuff if I admit to it? That's what you've come for, isn't it? My head in a noose.\"\n\n\"Not just yours.\"\n\nHis eyes glinted dangerously. \"You brought it on your own head,\" he ground out. \"You shouldn't have set Drury on me... shouldn't have accused me of murdering the nigger.\"\n\nI swallowed bile. \"I didn't,\" I answered, forcing my voice to remain steady. \"Mr. Drury asked me to give him the names of anyone I thought might have a grudge against Annie, so I named Maureen, Sharon and you. But he was only interested in you\u2014probably because you had convictions for assault\u2014and asked me what your grudge was. I said you were a drunken bully who made no secret of your racist views, that you had low self-esteem, a negligible IQ and a 'poor white'mentality. I also told him you were in the habit of punching and kicking anyone who annoyed you, and cited the time you thrashed Michael Percy because he stood up to you after your own son ran away. At no point did I accuse you of murdering Annie.\" I held his gaze for a moment. \"In fact the only accusation I ever made was that you threatened me with what might happen if I didn't keep my mouth shut.\"\n\nHe stabbed a trembling finger at me. \"You lied about that.\"\n\nI shook my head. \"If you'd read my statement you'd have known what I said. But you couldn't read, so you accepted Mr. Drury's interpretation.\" I smiled slightly. \"The funny thing is, I don't even blame _you_ very much either. It's your nature to piss on anything you don't understand, so to condemn you for doing it is about as senseless as blaming a rat for spreading disease\"\u2014I looked at Maureen\u2014\"or a snake for being venomous.\"\n\nThe woman's eyes narrowed immediately. \"Don't drag me into this,\" she snapped. \"It was none of my doing.\"\n\nThere was a short silence while she and I stared at each other with our mutual hatred written strong on our faces. \"But at least you know what Derek and I are talking about,\" I said evenly. \"Which no one else does\"\u2014I gestured to right and left\u2014\"except Alan of course. You see, I've always wanted to know who planned it. It was too\"\u2014I sought for a word\u2014 _\"subtle_ for either of these morons to work out alone.\"\n\n\"Whatever they did, they did off their own bat. Ask them if you don't believe me.\"\n\n\"There'd be no point,\" I said with an indifferent shrug. \"You've already persuaded Derek to take the blame. Just as you always did.\"\n\n\"And how would I do that, Miss High-and-Mighty?\" she demanded with a sneer. \"He's a man, isn't he? He does what he wants.\"\n\nIt was interesting to watch Alan's reactions. He sat between his parents, leaning forward, elbows on knees, staring at the floor, but every time his mother spoke his body leaned perceptibly closer to his father's.\n\n\"I don't know,\" I said honestly. \"Probably by frightening Alan into paying him off. It has to be worth a try. Alan's got so much to lose. A wife and children who love him... a home... happiness.\"\n\nAlan's knuckles squeezed into white knots as I spoke. \"You said you didn't blame me,\" he muttered.\n\n\"I don't,\" I answered, \"but I will if you insist on supporting your mother's lies. I came for explanations, Alan, not to have your father made the scapegoat. Why did I have to be threatened, anyway? Drury had lost interest in the whole subject by that time.... All he wanted was to shut me up because I kept accusing him of racism.... That's the only reason he got Derek fired up.\"\n\nMaureen's lip curled in a sneer. \"You were no better than the nigger,\" she said. \"You called my man a 'poor white'and types like him don't take kindly to insults. Particularly not from a jumped-up schoolteacher who fancied herself way above us. Why wouldn't he want to shut you up?\"\n\nThe depressing part was, I was sure she was telling the truth, at least where Derek was concerned. A woman's sneer was the only motivation he would ever need to assault her. I looked at him. \"Did you piss on Annie, too?\" I asked him. \"Is that why she reeked of urine?\"\n\nHe stared at me through unintelligent eyes.\n\n\"When did you do it?\" I went on. \"Before or after she lost consciousness?\"\n\nHe turned irresolutely to his wife, looking for an answer.\n\n\"None of us touched her,\" she snapped angrily. \"She was in the morgue by the time we thieved her stuff. I've already told you that.\"\n\nIt was such an open admission\u2014and so unrepentant\u2014that you could have heard a pin drop in the silence that followed. And I remember thinking to myself, _This would all be so much easier if I didn't believe her_.\n\n# twenty-seven\n\nAlan stirred unhappily to life. \"Mum's telling the truth,\" he said doggedly. \"Okay, I'm not saying we're perfect\u2014and I'm not saying we didn't go into Annie's house after we heard she was dead\u2014but we're not murderers.\"\n\n\"Then why was her coat stinking of urine when I found her?\" I asked him.\n\n\"She always smelled,\" flashed Maureen sharply. \"And how do you know it was on her coat, anyway? Maybe she pissed her pants after she was hit.\"\n\n\"The smell was too strong and she was curled up in a ball to protect herself. In any case, she must have been saturated in it otherwise the rain would have washed it away.\" I turned back to Alan. \"I think it was a practice run for what you did to me two months later... just as _I_ was a practice run...\" I hesitated, all too aware that Rosie Spalding's father was sitting next to me\u2014\"for the cause of your bust up with Michael Percy.\"\n\nHis eyes flickered involuntarily toward Geoffrey before he dropped his forehead into his hands to mask his expression.\n\n\"That was Michael's doing,\" retorted Maureen so fast that my blood ran cold. _My God! Had she known about Rosie's rape and done nothing about it? She didn't stop bleeding for weeks, Michael had said...._ \"Michael lost his temper for no good reason and went berserk. He's always been dangerous... look at what he's in prison for now.\" She flicked a spiteful glance at Sharon. \"If it's a murderer you want, then concentrate on him\u2014even better, his mother's fancy man. Try asking who was the last person to speak to Annie. That'll give you the answers you want.\"\n\nGeoffrey half rose from his seat, his face purpling with anger, but Wendy laid a restraining hand on his arm and held him back. \"Don't let Maureen set the agenda, my dear. Can't you see she's trying to start a fight by provoking that peppery temper of yours? It's really most interesting. She doesn't want Derek and Alan to answer Mrs. Ranelagh's questions and I'm intrigued to know why.\"\n\nMaureen's mean little eyes slid across to look at her. \"What's it got to do with you?\"\n\n\"Quite a lot considering I was one of your victims. You admit to theft so casually, Maureen, as if it's something to be proud of but your children broke my heart when they stole my mother's brooch. It was quite irreplaceable\u2014the only thing I had of hers\u2014but completely worthless, of course, as you must have discovered the minute you tried to sell it.\"\n\n\"Nothing to do with us. It was Michael who took that.\"\n\nWendy shook her head. \"No,\" she said firmly \"I know exactly when it went. You came seeking shelter, as usual, and kept me talking in the kitchen while your children looked for what they could steal. I blamed myself, of course, as you knew I would. I should have locked all the doors the minute you came into the house. It wasn't as though I had any illusions about you.\"\n\nThe woman smiled unpleasantly. \"Too right. You treated us like dirt.\"\n\n\"Not at all,\" said Wendy firmly \"I made a point of extending the same courtesy to you and your family as I did to everyone else.\"\n\n\"Yeah, well maybe you made that a bit obvious. You never liked us, that's for sure.\"\n\nWendy nodded immediately. \"Yes, that is certainly true,\" she confessed. \"In fact, it was a lot worse. I couldn't _bear you..._ couldn't bear your children... couldn't bear to have you in my house. My heart used to sink every time you came knocking on our door because I knew I'd face a struggle between the complete revulsion you all inspired in me and my duty as a Christian.\"\n\nThe directness of this response took Maureen aback, as if she believed vicar's wives should deal only in euphemism. \"There you are then,\" she said doubtfully. \"That proves you treated us like dirt.\"\n\n\"Oh, I don't think so,\" murmured Wendy, \"otherwise you wouldn't be so surprised to hear me agree with you. I said I _struggled_ with my revulsion, not that I gave into it. Our door was never closed to you, Maureen, not even after the theft of my brooch. We gave you and your children every assistance even though you were quite the most unpleasant family we'd ever had dealings with.\"\n\nI watched Alan's head sink deeper into his hands.\n\n\"What about Michael Percy?\" demanded Maureen belligerently. \"He was a thief same as mine, but you couldn't do enough for him... always turning out to hold his hand while the tart\"\u2014she jerked her chin at Sharon\u2014\"was otherwise engaged. But your pet ends up pistol-whipping old ladies and my lad comes good. So how did that happen, eh? Explain that.\"\n\nWendy shook her head. \"I don't claim to know the answers, Maureen. All I can do is tell the truth as I see it.\" She, too, looked at Alan. \"In any case, it's Alan you should be asking, not me. He's the only one who knows his story.\"\n\n\"Yeah, well, maybe I was a better mother than you thought I was,\" said Maureen triumphantly. \"How do you like that for an explanation?\"\n\n\"You were no better than me,\" said Sharon in a tight little voice. \"The only difference between us was that yours were frightened of you, and mine wasn't.\"\n\n\"More fool you then,\" retorted Maureen, her eyes glinting to have lured the woman into the open. \"Look where it's got you. Your Michael's such an embarrassment to you, you haven't spoken to him in years... or that bitch of a wife who shopped him.\" She gave a harsh laugh. \"Not that I blame you. He was a wrong 'un through and through. Do you think my kids would have thieved if he hadn't shown them how? Do you think Annie would have been stinking of piss if he hadn't found her and done the honors?\" She pointed her cigarette at Sharon's heart. \"That makes you sit up and take notice, doesn't it? You didn't even know he was in her house that night, let alone used her as a piss pot.\"\n\nI glanced irresolutely at Sharon and was shocked by her terrible pallor. \"Are you suggesting Michael killed her?\" I asked Maureen.\n\n\"Helped her on her way maybe. He told Alan he got home about 8:30, saw that her door wasn't properly shut and went in to see if he could nick something. He found her lying on the rug in her sitting room, reckoned she was drunk and thought it'd be funny to piss on her.\" She broke off on a laugh. \"The place stank of cats so he didn't reckon she'd notice when she came 'round.\"\n\n\"What happened?\"\n\nShe gave a careless shrug. \"He said she started moaning so he got the hell out in case she went for him. But the chances are he's lying through his teeth, and he gave her a kicking as well. It's what he liked doing.\"\n\nI glanced at Alan's bent head. \"Was Alan with him?\"\n\n\"'Course he wasn't,\" snapped Maureen. \"He's already told you he never touched her. But you'd rather believe it of him than Michael, wouldn't you? You're like _her\"_ \u2014she cast a baleful look at Wendy\u2014 \"always think well of one and ill of the other.\"\n\nWendy leaned forward, propping her elbows on her knees and examining Maureen curiously. \"Why is it so important that Alan wasn't there?\" she asked.\n\nA ferocious frown gathered on Maureen's face. \"What's that supposed to mean?\"\n\n\"You seem so determined to push the blame on to Sharon's son but, if I've understood correctly, it was _your_ son who performed the same disgusting act on Mrs. Ranelagh a few weeks later. Yet none of you seems too worried about that.\"\n\n\"So?\"\n\n\"It suggests that something worse happened to Annie than happened to Mrs. Ranelagh... something you don't want Alan associated with.\"\n\nWas it my imagination or was Maureen scared? Certainly Alan was\u2014if his head dropped any lower, I thought, it would be touching his knees.\n\n\"Michael told us about it afterward... gave us the idea,\" said Derek suddenly. \"Seemed only fair to do to the nigger-lover what was done to the nigger. They both thought they could badmouth us and get away with it.\"\n\n\"That's right,\" said Maureen. \"But it was Michael did it first, just like always. He was a bad influence, that boy. Everything evil in this street started with him and his mother, but it was always us got pilloried for it.\"\n\n\"What about rape?\" I said cynically. \"Whose idea was that? Because it certainly wasn't Michael's. He thrashed Alan within an inch of his life when he did it to Rosie. Doesn't that count as something evil?\"\n\nIt was a form of words\u2014spoken in angry defense of someone who wasn't there to defend himself-\u2014yet time stood still as soon as I'd uttered them. No one moved on the sofa. It was as if they believed that stillness could somehow freeze us all in time and space and leave my knowledge forever unspoken. My first reaction was surprise that Derek seemed to understand what I was talking about until I remembered Michael saying that Alan hadn't come to blows with him until after Rosie's rape.\n\nMy second reaction was entirely physical as the reason for their petrified expressions dawned on me. _Alan had raped Annie, too...._ Oh, dear God! Forget control. Forget justice. Forget _revenge_. Twenty years of reasoned evolution were overturned in a second, and I regressed to a primeval desire to kill.\n\nI leaped on Alan like a tigress\u2014my revulsion\u2014my fear\u2014my hatred\u2014 _everything_ \u2014racing in a torrent through my blood. \"You _FUCKING_ little _SHIT!\"_ I roared, slamming his head against the wall. \"She was _DYING_ , for Christ's sake. How _DARE_ you violate a dying woman?\"\n\nHe cringed away from me. \"I never... only in her mouth...\"\n\nOut of the corner of my eye I saw Maureen's claws reach out to scratch my face. And with every ounce of hatred that I had I planted my fist between her teeth.\n\nIt would have turned into a free-for-all if Geoffrey hadn't been a pacifist at heart. He pulled me off Maureen by seizing me by the arms and spinning me 'round behind him. \"Enough,\" he said sharply, standing between me and the sofa. \"Control your mother,\" he ordered Alan, \"or I'll ask Mrs. Stanhope to call the police.\"\n\nIt was an unnecessary instruction because Alan was already holding her back with an arm hooked 'round her neck, but mention of the police at least persuaded her to sink back into her seat. She eyed Geoffrey balefully \"You're in no position to play God,\" she spat. \"Your hands are as dirty as ours.\"\n\nHe lowered his head like a terrier after a ferret, and stared fixedly at her. \"Mrs. Ranelagh says Annie was beaten up in her house two or three hours before I passed her\u2014and those are the injuries she died of-\u2014so don't accuse me of having dirty hands. You're the only one 'round here got free with a baseball bat.\"\n\nMaureen's narrowed gaze focused on me. \"You're being fed a pack of lies. A week ago this bitch was saying it was Derek gave Annie a thrashing before dumping her in the street.... Now she's trying to put the blame on me. Well, how could I have got the fat cow through her front door? Tell me that.\"\n\n\"She got herself out,\" I said, breathing deeply through my nose to try to quell the shudders that were jolting my body with electric shocks. \"She had a fractured skull... a broken arm... she'd been unconscious for God knows how long with your filthy son all over her... but she still had enough will to live to stagger out into the street and look for help.\" I made another lunge forward, only to be blocked by Geoffrey. \"And no one gave it to her because they thought she was drunk.\"\n\n\"Your husband being one,\" she snarled.\n\nI pressed a finger to the tic of hate that throbbed beneath my lip. \"I think she came to my end of the street because she knew I was the only person who would help her. I even think she may have knocked on my door\u2014and I feel so damn guilty I wasn't there, because I was sitting at school waiting for parasites like you and Derek to come and talk to me about your children's progress.\" I dropped abruptly on to my chair again, energy spent. \"Some joke, eh? We all knew the only direction your children were ever going was toward prison.\"\n\n\"Don't you call us para\u2014\" began Derek.\n\nBut Geoffrey cut him short. \"What did you do to Rosie?\" he demanded of Alan.\n\n\"Don't answer him, son,\" snapped Maureen, spitting blood. \"Just because that bitch of a teacher tells lies about us, it doesn't mean we have to start explaining ourselves.\"\n\n\"It damn well does,\" said Geoffrey belligerently. \"If he raped my Rosie I want to know about it. He ought to be locked up.\"\n\n_\"Your_ Rosie?\" demanded Maureen, dashing the blood from her mouth with the cuff of her sleeve. \"That's rich, that is. How come she's yours all of a sudden when you couldn't get shot of her quick enough to move in with the tart?\"\n\n\"More to the point, Maureen,\" said Wendy forcefully, \"when did Alan tell you about his part in all of this? And why did you do nothing to stop it getting any worse?\"\n\nShe shrank into the back of the sofa. \"You should be asking Derek that,\" she said mutinously. \"He's already said it was him told Alan what to do. What could I have done except take a beating myself... which is what happened every time Derek reckoned I was interfering.\"\n\nBut Derek gave an angry shake of his head. \"I said I'd take the blame for the schoolteacher,\" he muttered. \"Nothing else.\"\n\n\"There _is_ nothing else,\" she snapped angrily. \"All we ever did was thieve a few things off the nigger and teach Miss High-and-Mighty here a lesson in manners. All the rest is lies.\"\n\nI looked up. \"What about the cats?\" I asked coldly. \"Were they a lesson in manners, too?\"\n\nShe dropped her eyes immediately and fumbled for a cigarette.\n\n\"You were too precise about the numbers inside Annie's house. It's not a figure you'd have known if you hadn't notched up each sad little stray as you tortured it.\"\n\nWhy should this be the key that unlocked Alan? Was a cat's death more dreadful than a woman's? A cat's humiliation harder to forget? A cat's cries more poignant? _Apparently so_. Annie could die.... I could be humbled.... Rosie could weep... but an animal must be loved. His anguish was frightening for, as I watched him battle with tears for those long-dead creatures, I found myself wondering if he was still as dissociated from human pain as he so obviously had been then. If so, I had little hope for Beth and her children.\n\nIt would be impossible to relate what he said in the way he said it. Once released, his emotions were a river in spate, sweeping aside everyone's sensibilities but his own and given in stuttered sentences which were barely comprehensible at times. We became party to his mother's hatred of sex, his father's brutal taking of her whenever he wanted it, their drunkenness, their violence toward each other and their children. But, more than anything, he dwelt on Maureen's slaughter of the marmalade cat, repeating over and over that when he tried to stop her she turned the baseball bat on him.\n\nI asked him why she'd done it and, like Michael, the only explanation he could offer was that it made her feel \"good.\" She laughed when its brains went everywhere, he said, and she wished it had been the nigger's head she'd smashed.\n\n\"What about the other cats?\" I asked him. \"Why did she go on with it?\"\n\n\"Because it sent Annie 'round the bend to have them put through her flap. She took to wailing and hollering all the time and behaving like a crazy woman, and Mum reckoned if she didn't pack up and go of her own accord, it was a dead cert she'd be taken out in a straitjacket.\"\n\n\"But if hurting animals upset you so much, why did you help?\"\n\n\"I wasn't the only one,\" he muttered. \"We all did it\u2014the girls, Mike, Rosie, Bridget. We used to go out looking for strays and bring them home in boxes.\"\n\nI wondered sadly if that was the real explanation for Bridget's sacrifice of her hair. \"But why, if you knew what was going to happen to them?\"\n\n\"It wasn't as bad as having their heads split open.\"\n\n\"Only if you believe a quick death is worse than a slow one.\"\n\n\"They didn't all die.... Annie saved most of them... and that's what we reckoned would happen.\" He pressed his forehead into his hands. \"It was better than having Mum kill them straight off, which is what she wanted to do. It was them dying that got Annie worked up.\"\n\n\"The ones you put under my floorboards died,\" I said, \"because I didn't know they were there.\"\n\nHe raised his head with a look of bafflement in his eyes, but didn't say anything.\n\n\"And if you'd refused your mother,\" I pointed out, \"none of the cats need have died. Surely Michael was bright enough to work that out even if you couldn't.\"\n\n\"Us kids wanted rid of Annie, too,\" he said sullenly. \"It wasn't right to make us live next door to a nigger.\"\n\nI don't know what was going through Maureen's mind while he spoke. She made one or two halfhearted attempts to stop him but I think she realized it was too late. The odd thing is I believe she was genuinely ashamed of her cruelty\u2014perhaps because it had been the one crime she committed herself. More interestingly, she had eyes only for Sharon when Alan admitted that he and Michael had entered Annie's house together around 8:30 on the night she died.\n\n\"It was Mike spotted the door was ajar,\" he said. \"We were going into his place to watch telly because we knew his mum was out, and he says to me, 'The coon's left her door open.'The place was black as the ace of spades... no lights... nothing... and he says, 'Let's do a prowl before she gets back.'So we creep into the front room and damn near fall over her. It was Mike started it,\" he insisted. \"He turns on the lamp on the table... reckons she's drunk as a skunk and pulls out his dick\u2014\" He broke off, refusing to go any further.\n\n\"Did she speak to you?\"\n\nHe raised his eyes briefly to Sharon's. \"Kept saying the tart had hit her... so Mike goes apeshit and kicks her till she shuts up. After that we went down the arcade, and Mike says he'll kill me if I ever breathe a word about his mum... and I say, 'Who cares? It's good riddance, whoever did it....'\"\n\n\"I told you it wasn't us,\" jeered Maureen with a gloating smile on her face. \"'Look to the tart,'I said. It was her and her son did it between them.\" She jabbed two fingers in the air at Geoffrey. \"That's why you shoved the mad cow in the gutter\u2014because she told you who'd hit her.\"\n\nI felt physically sick. Even though I'd suspected Michael had known how Annie had died, I'd always hoped he hadn't been involved. _But could a \"kicking\" at 8:30 have caused the sort of blood-seepage into Annie's thighs that was so obvious in the photographs?_ I looked at Sharon. _\"Stand up for your son,\"_ I wanted to shout at her. _Tell them how small he was for his age... and how murderous kicks like that must have come earlier...from someone who was stronger..._\n\n\"Is that true, Geoffrey?\" asked Wendy in shocked tones.\n\n\"No,\" he muttered, looking at Sharon in sudden disbelief. \"She didn't say anything... just kept grabbing at my sleeve, trying to hold herself up... so I pushed her away...\" His voice petered into silence as he began to question how many lies Sharon had fed him. \"No wonder you let me think it was my fault,\" he said resentfully. \"Who were you protecting? Yourself or that bloody son of yours?\"\n\nBut Sharon's only response was a tiny gesture of denial as the last vestiges of color fled from her face.\n\n\"If she faints she'll hurt herself,\" I warned.\n\n\"Let her,\" said Maureen spitefully. \"It's no more than she deserves.\"\n\n\"Oh, for God's sake,\" I sighed wearily, standing up to help Wendy support the limp body. \"If you believed that then why didn't you tell Mr. Drury the truth at the time?\"\n\nBut it was a stupid question, which she didn't bother to answer. She had no regrets over Annie's death. Indeed her only goal had been to steer retribution well away from herself so that she could indulge her spoils to good advantage. And if that meant exploiting men's baser instincts to instill terror in women, then so be it. In a bizarre sort of way I could even admire her for it, for hers was a vicious world, where greed\u2014be it material or sexual\u2014was a way of life, and by her own standards she had made a success of it. Certainly she was the only person in that room who owned her house through the quickness of her mind.\n\nI touched a hand to Sharon's peroxide hair and it felt dry and dusty beneath my fingers. \"The worst thing this lady ever did to Annie was pour a bucket of water over her head and make a few complaints to the council,\" I told Geoffrey, \"but if you can't believe that then you should bugger off and give her a chance to get her son back. Wendy's right. All you've ever done is make her a prisoner to the truth.\"\n\n\"But\u2014\"\n\n\"But what?\" I snapped. \"Would you rather trust Maureen's version of events? Mine come free, remember, and hers come at a price.\" I grabbed his elbow and forced him to look at Sharon. \"This woman has stood by you for over twenty years\u2014how much longer do you need to know her before you trust her? Or must she always be judged by the rotten standards that you\"\u2014I gestured toward the sofa\u2014\"and this vermin over here choose to live by?\" I spoke as much for myself as I did for Sharon, for I knew all too well the pain of living in an atmosphere of disbelief and distrust. You sink or swim... fight or give in... and whichever route you choose, you take it alone.\n\nGeoffrey gave an uncertain shake of his head.\n\nI knelt down abruptly in front of Sharon and took her hands in mine. \"Sell your house and move,\" I urged her. \"Cut this man out of your life and start again. Make friends with Bridget... help Michael go straight. He needs his mother's love just as much as he needs his wife's... and you owe him that much. He thought you were a murderer, Sharon... but he protected you... and he doesn't understand why you were so quick to abandon him. Fight for him. Be the mother he wants you to be.\"\n\nShe was too dazed to grasp what I was talking about and stared helplessly from me to Geoffrey, her subservience to men so ingrained that she would do whatever he told her to do.\n\nMaureen's triumphant voice came at me from the sofa. \"There's only ever been one tart in this street, and she's gone down like a sack of potatoes because she's been found out. So go tell that to the police and see if they care about the few bits of trash we pilfered.\"\n\nI wanted to kill her. I wanted to squeeze her scrawny throat between my fingers and choke the venom out of her. Instead, I stood up with a sigh and reached for my rucksack. \"Annie never called Sharon a 'tart,'Maureen, she called her a 'whore.'You told me that yourself.\"\n\nHer mouth dropped open, for once unable to find words, because she knew I was right. I longed to be strident... to scream and yell... to stamp my feet... to roar my frustration to the winds. I had hoped for the miracle that would prove me wrong, but instead I just felt desperately sad and desperately weary.\n\n\"And I wouldn't rely on the police letting you get away scot-free if I were you,\" I went on with commendable steadiness, exercising the sort of ladylike control that would have brought a smile of approval to my mother's face. \"The only protection you've ever had was other people's silence. As long as they had secrets to hide you were safe.\" I shrugged. \"But there aren't any secrets anymore, Maureen. So where does that leave you?\"\n\nDerek gave an unexpected laugh. \"I told her you'd never give up,\" he said, \"but she wouldn't listen. Said schoolteachers were too prissy to get up off their knees and fight.\" Maureen pursued Wendy and me to the door, demanding answers, which I refused to give. Who did it if it wasn't Sharon? How much was I going to tell the police? What proof had I of anything? Her lip had fattened from the punch I'd delivered and she caught at my sleeve to hold me back, threatening me with prosecution if I didn't give her some _\"fucking_ explanations.\"\n\nI pulled away from her. \"Go ahead,\" I urged. \"I'll even tell you where I'm going\u2014I'll be with Mr. Jock Williams at 7 Alveston Road, Richmond\u2014so by all means send the police 'round to arrest me. It'll save me having to call them. And, as for giving you answers\"\u2014I shook my head\u2014\"no chance. What you don't know can't help you, and I'm damned if I'll be party to Derek and Alan telling any more lies for you.\" I raised my eyes to where Alan was standing in the shadows of the hall. \"I have every reason to hate and despise you,\" I told him, \"but I think your wife is the one woman in a million who can rescue you from your mother. So my best advice is, go home now and take your father with you. If Beth hears the truth about you from Derek, then she may understand and forgive. If she hears it from your mother, she won't.\"\n\n\"Goodness me!\" Wendy gasped, patting her fluttering heart as we walked away. \"That's the first time I've seen her afraid.\"\n\n\"Are you all right?\" I asked in concern, reaching out to support her under the elbow.\n\n\"Absolutely not. I've never had so many shocks in my life.\" She lowered her bottom on to the garden wall of number 18. \"Just let me get my breath back.\" She took some deep breaths, then wagged a finger at me as she began to recover. \"Peter would counsel you strongly against this obsession with revenge, my dear. He'd say the only path to heaven is through forgiveness.\"\n\n\"Mm,\" I agreed. \"That's the advice he gave me when I told him about Derek and Alan.\"\n\nShe tut-tutted crossly. \"Is that the time he let you down?\"\n\nI watched a car negotiate the speed bumps in the road. \"He didn't do it on purpose,\" I demurred. \"He was like everyone else.... He thought I was hysterical.\" I looked toward Maureen, who still hovered by her gate. \"I think I know why now. I never remained objective long enough to keep my voice under control. And that worries people.\"\n\n\"But why Peter?\" she asked curiously. \"Didn't you have anyone else to talk to?\"\n\n_Only Libby..._ \"It was the church more than Peter,\" I said non-committally \"I couldn't think of anywhere else to go.\"\n\n\"Oh, my dear, I'm so sorry. You really _were_ let down then.\"\n\nI shook my head. \"Rather the opposite actually. I went in weepy and pathetic, looking for sympathy, and came out like an avenging angel.\" I gave an abrupt laugh. \"I kept thinking, if I _ever_ forgive, it'll be on my terms and not on the say-so of a fat, sweaty bloke in a dress who thinks I'm lying.\" I sobered just as suddenly. \"I'm sorry. I didn't mean to be rude.\"\n\nWendy squared her thin shoulders and stood up. \"It's a good description of Peter,\" she said tartly. \"He's an actor at heart so he's only really happy when he's in costume. He thinks it lends authority to what he's saying.\"\n\n\"I was pretty peculiar at the time,\" I said by way of apology, \"and he did try to be kind.\"\n\n\"He's got no fire in his belly, that's his problem. I keep telling him his sermons are ridiculously PC. He's supposed to be addressing evil, not offering a policy statement on behalf of liberals.\"\n\nI chuckled. \"You'd be a thunderbolts-and-lightning vicar then?\"\n\n\"It's the only kind to be,\" she agreed cheerfully. \"A whiff of brimstone and sulphur puts sin to flight quicker than anything. _And_ it's more dramatic. The fires of hell and damnation are a great deal more exciting than the bliss and majesty of heaven.\"\n\nI adored her... for her openness... her steadfastness... _God save me, her similarity to my mother..._ but I could see she was too exhausted to take another step. I persuaded her to sit back down while I fished in my rucksack for the mobile I'd borrowed off Luke that morning for the purpose of calling a minicab. A car drew up beside us before I could find it.\n\n\"Do you want a lift?\" asked Alan gruffly through the open passenger window as he leaned across to fasten his father's seatbelt. \"We'll be passing Alveston Road.\"\n\nI was too startled to answer, and looked at Wendy.\n\n\"Thank you, my dears,\" she said, rising graciously to her feet. \"That's most generous of you.\"\n\nNothing more was said until Alan stopped his car in front of Jock's house. Derek and Wendy were content to appreciate the silence, while Alan kept darting me worried glances in the rearview mirror, his mouth working to frame a form of words that would be acceptable to me.\n\nBut it was only when he drew to a halt in Alveston Road that he found the courage to take a chance. He turned 'round. \"It's probably a bit late\"\u2014he faltered\u2014\"and I wouldn't blame you if said no\u2014but I wish I'd never\u2014 Did Danny tell you I've been straight these fifteen years?\"\n\nI stared him down. \"If you want to say sorry, Alan, then say it. Don't spoil it by making excuses.\"\n\nHe ducked his head in a scared nod, an echo of the schoolboy I had caught thieving from my purse. \"I'm sorry.\"\n\n\"Me, too.\" I held out my hand to him. \"I didn't help you when I had the chance and I've always regretted it.\"\n\nHis hand was warm and sweaty in mine\u2014and I can't say my flesh didn't crawl at the contact\u2014but it felt like closure. For both of us. I toyed with warning him against interpreting it as a reason not to be honest with Beth, but Derek's presence was an optimistic sign and I held my peace. In the event I was glad I did.\n\n\"Just so you know,\" he said, as I assisted Wendy out of the car, \"it wasn't us who put cats under your floorboards.\"\n\nI frowned. \"Does that mean there were no cats? Or someone else put them there?\"\n\nHe jerked his head at Jock's front door. \"There was nothing Mr. Williams didn't know.... He used to watch everything us kids did from Sharon's window... and the only reason he kept quiet was because the nigger called him a 'faggot.'He hated her for it 'bout as much as we did for being called 'trash.'\"\n\nI closed my eyes for a moment. \"I _will_ be going to the police, Alan,\" I said sadly. \"You do understand that, don't you?\"\n\n\"Yeah.\"\n\n\"Then do yourself a favor,\" I said with a heartfelt sigh, \"and drop 'nigger'from your vocabulary because I will take you apart piece by piece if you ever refer to Annie in that way again.\"\n\nHe nodded obediently as he engaged his gears. \"Whatever you say, Mrs. Ranelagh.\"\n\nWendy rapped sharply on Derek's window. \"What about you?\" she asked. \"Are you going to apologize, too?\"\n\nBut he looked at her as if at an irrelevance before gesturing to his son to drive on.\n\nWe stood on the pavement, looking after them until they turned on to the main road. \"I think you've just been suckered,\" said Wendy with a small laugh. \"What's the betting they head straight for the nearest cash-point so that Alan can drop Derek a hundred quid to vanish off the face of the earth?\"\n\n\"Oh, ye of little faith,\" I said, escorting her between our car and a mud-splattered Renault Espace that was parked beside it in Jock's drive. I wondered briefly where the elderly Mercedes was before it occurred to me that Jock, forever a prisoner to truth, would have hidden it away in order to continue his pretense that he had an XK8 in a lockup garage.\n\n**_E-mail correspondence with Libby Garth, formerly  \nLibby Williams of 21 Graham Road\u2014dated 1999_**\n\n**M. R**.\n\n**From:** Libby Garth (liga@netcomuk.co)\n\n**Sent:** 17 August 1999 20:17\n\n**To:** M. Ranelagh\n\n**Subject:** Re Meeting on Friday at Jock's house\n\nDear M\u2014written in haste before I rush out to collect Amy from her friend's house. You say it's water under the bridge and that none of us needs be embarrassed after so long, but I am MORTIFIED! How can I look any of you in the face, particularly you and Jock? I know you've asked me not to explain or apologize, but I do feel badly about it. AND I AM SORRY. Please believe me, whatever Sam and I had going all those years ago\u2014it was dead as a dodo before you left England.\n\nI know you say this meeting on Friday is important, but I truly can't face it. You and Jock must feel very raw to have Sam confess after twenty years\u2014you, in particular, must hate me for my hypocrisy. You probably think I was only pretending friendship by helping you over Annie, but it honestly wasn't like that. I was pleased to help, even more pleased that we went on being friends in spite of everything. The truth is I let myself believe that Sam would never tell\u2014more because he remained so close to Jock, I think, than because he thought you wouldn't be able to take it\u2014and it wasn't as if it was terribly important where he was that night, just so long as he and Jock admitted they didn't see Annie at 7:45. In all these years, the only lies I have ever told you were to do with that wretched alibi\u2014God knows, I wish we'd been honest at the time\u2014but it seemed so unimportant compared with the hurt you'd feel to learn about the affair. Of course, it was wrong, but I couldn't see any harm in it. Sam and Jock obviously had nothing to do with Annie's death\u2014as I kept telling you\u2014and I didn't want you thinking badly of me.\n\nAnyway, the upshot of all this is that I have written out a statement, with precise times and details of all movements in and out of number 21 that night\u2014insofar as I remember them\u2014which I am sending as an attachment. I think you'll find they agree with what Jock and Sam say. I will, of course, do it formally when the time comes. Meanwhile, I will end with love, and pray you can still accept it.\n\nLove,\n\nL\n\nPS: Apart from anything else, I can't just abandon the girls to their own devices for the day, and poor old Jim would be deeply alarmed if I told him I was about to have a reunion with my ex-husband! He'd want to know why... and then I'd have to tell him about Sam... and how I'd wronged my best friend. I'm sorry, m'dear. I hope you understand.\n\n**Libby Garth**\n\n**From:** M.R. (mranelagh@jetscape.com)\n\n**Sent:** 18 August 1999 12:42\n\n**To:** Libby Garth\n\n**Subject:** Re Friday\n\nMy dear Libby, attachment received and understood and love accepted in the spirit it was given! Believe me, I've always valued the help you've given me re Annie's \"cause\"\u2014I wouldn't have known half as much as I do about her hateful neighbors if it hadn't been for you! Unfortunately, there are one or two discrepancies between your statement and Sam's\u2014i.e., he says you were doing the laundry when he arrived, while you say you were watching TV. Also, he says you'd had a bath before he arrived, and you say you'd been cooking. I know they're only small things\u2014but I really do need the accounts to match before I hand them to the police. You know I wouldn't ask if it wasn't important. And there really is nothing to worry about. Jock and Sam are reconciled\u2014if a little cool\u2014while Sam and I are like Darby and Joan. We've been together so long we're tied at the hip and can only walk in step these days. However, if you can't manage to come down here because of leaving the girls and worrying about Jim, the three of us can\u2014and will\u2014come to Leicester.\n\nLove,\n\nM\n\n# twenty-eight\n\nI had asked Jock to leave his front door ajar so that Wendy and I could let ourselves in when we arrived, and as we walked through the hall toward the kitchen I saw Libby before she saw me. She was sitting on a hard-backed chair, her face in profile, and I had a second or two to take stock before the sound of our footsteps alerted her to our presence. _Oh, sweet revenge!_ Gone was the startling brunette in her mid-twenties who had flaunted her looks and figure to good advantage, and in her place was a scrawny, beak-nosed woman with a sagging chin and newly dyed hair that was too dark for her complexion.\n\nMy strongest memories of her were the impatient gestures and petulant expression that had spoken volumes about her frustration with her life in 1978, and I was amused to see she still had them. Indeed, the impression she gave was that all the water that should have passed beneath her bridge had merely piled behind a fragile dam... which was on the point of bursting.\n\n\"I've had enough of this,\" she was saying, stabbing angrily at her watch as Wendy and I approached. \"She told me 12:30, and if she doesn't come in the next five minutes\u2014\"\n\nShe broke off as Sam and Jock looked up in relief to see us in the doorway.\n\n\"Hello, Libby,\" I said with a bright smile. \"You're looking well.\" She took similar stock of me but there was no answering smile. \"You're late,\" she snapped.\n\nPerhaps I should have been surprised by her lack of cordiality after the numerous letters, faxes and e-mails she'd sent over the years professing support, friendship and... _love..._ but I wasn't. Her saccharine sweetness had been conditional on my continued ignorance of her affair with Sam because that made me a fool. But Sam and Jock had obviously told her, as I had asked them to do, that I'd known about it since before my first letter to her\u2014which made _her_ the fool. And that was the one thing she had never been able to tolerate... being a laughing stock.\n\n\"I know and I'm sorry,\" I said cheerfully. \"It took longer than I thought. Do you remember Wendy Stanhope, the vicar's wife? Wendy... Libby... Jock... Sam.\" I raised inquiring eyebrows at the men as they stood up to shake Wendy's hand. \"Did you get the sandwiches? Because _we\u2014are\u2014starving!\"_\n\nJock pulled open his fridge door with a flourish. \"All here,\" he said, removing plates to the table, and handing a bottle of chilled Chardon-nay to Sam.\n\n\"We were reliably informed this was your favorite,\" said Sam, filling a glass and handing it to Wendy. \"I should think you've earned it, haven't you?\"\n\nShe chuckled happily as she took a huge swig. \"Goodness me, no! I was just the chorus to your wife's dazzling _coloratura_. You must be very proud of her, Sam.\"\n\n\"Oh, I am,\" he said, handing me a glass before shepherding Wendy to a chair. \"She's a bit of a cracker, too, don't you think?\" He dropped me a sly wink. \"Just as beautiful as the day we married.\"\n\nI watched Libby's mouth turn down as she rejected the glass Sam tried to offer her and wondered how much of this she would be able to take before she sunk her talons into my cheeks. \"I'm driving,\" she said curtly.\n\n\"What do you think of Jock's beard?\" I asked, stationing my back against a worktop from where I could look at her. \"It suits him, don't you think?\"\n\n\"She hates it,\" said Jock, giving it a stroke. \"Says it makes me look seedy.\"\n\nLibby gave an irritated smile. \"We've been there, done it. Also Sam's baldness... Dorchester... Leicester... the weather...\" She drummed her fingers impatiently on the table. \"You _promised_ me 12:30 so that I could be back on the motorway before the Friday rush hour begins,\" she said sharply. \"You _knew_ I wanted to be home before Jim.\"\n\n\"Call him and tell him you're going to be late,\" I said reasonably.\n\n\"That's what we've been suggesting,\" murmured Jock.\n\n\"I can't. I don't want him knowing I've left the girls on their own.\"\n\n\"Couldn't they have gone to friends?\"\n\n\"Not without questions being asked,\" she snapped, \"and I really didn't want to go into long explanations about why this ridiculous meeting was necessary. Can we just get on with it?\"\n\nI ignored the request. \"You should have let us come to Leicester,\" I said disingenuously.\n\n_Ah, me! If looks could kill..._\n\n\"It's not as though Jock's about to stake a prior claim or anything,\" I went on, reaching for his hand and swinging it lightly at my side, cementing alliances, ranging my troops. \"He prefers them younger and blonder these days.\"\n\nJock gave a snort of laughter. \"Too bloody right,\" he agreed unkindly. \"And _never_ with marriage in mind. That's one mistake I don't plan to repeat.\"\n\nIt was cruel but I have no conscience about it. If I'd known of the affair at the time, I'd have slapped the smile off her face before nailing my husband's bollocks to the wall. But a slow revenge is just as satisfying. I was sure it would drive her to distraction if she was forced to make banal small talk with her ex-lovers\u2014her nature was too impatient and too self-centered for anything else\u2014and neither Sam nor Jock was equipped to deal with a frustrated woman. They had failed dismally in the past, and I couldn't believe much had changed in the meantime.\n\nHer lips thinned. \"It's got nothing to do with Jock,\" she said tightly. \"Jim thinks Amy's too young to look after her sisters. But she's not. She's almost fourteen.\"\n\n\"It's only natural,\" said Wendy idly, protruding long fingers like forceps to select a tuna and cucumber sandwich. \"An untended nest and a hungry brood suggests to the male that his partner has flown.\" She smiled at Libby \"I suppose he's found it empty before, has he?\"\n\nThere was a minor hiatus while Libby looked daggers at her and Wendy bit into her sandwich. The rest of us buried our noses in our wine glasses. To be honest, I wasn't remotely surprised that she was still a player but it was a shock to the men who both assumed, na\u00efvely that her passionate nature could be tamed by motherhood and a career. They lowered their heads to stare at their feet, and it was so perfect an example of the double standards that operate between men and women that I couldn't help smiling to myself.\n\nOf course Libby saw it. I was her only real enemy so I was bound to be the focus of her attention. She bridled immediately. \"You think you know it all, don't you?\" she flashed.\n\n\"No,\" I murmured. \"I was completely wrong about you. I thought you had more dignity than to go sniffing after other people's husbands.\"\n\n\"Oh, _please!\"_ she said scathingly. \"Any sniffing that was done was done by Sam. He couldn't get unzipped quick enough when the opportunity arose. Or is that forgiven and forgotten because he's served twenty years of your downcast looks and injured pride?\"\n\nSam stepped forward angrily but I shook my head at him. This was my fight and I'd waited a long time for it. \"If you want a slanging match, Libby, then I'm happy to oblige... Sam and Jock, too, I should imagine. But if you're as desperate to get away as you say then I suggest we sort these statements.\"\n\nShe hated her position of weakness, but she had the sense to force a smile. \"All right. What do you want to know?\"\n\n\"Which is correct? That you'd had a bath and were doing the laundry when Sam arrived? Or that you'd done the cooking and were watching television?\"\n\nShe shook her head in convincing perplexity. \"I honestly don't know,\" she said slowly. \"It's so long ago I've forgotten most of the details. I just wrote down what I normally did at that time\u2014cooking then catching the news\u2014but if Sam's positive\u2014?\" She broke off to look at him. \"Do you remember it that well?\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\nShe was disconcerted by the bluntness of his answer. \"I don't see how you can. It's not as if it was the only time you came to the house looking for sex.\"\n\n\"No,\" he agreed, \"but it was the _last_ time... and I'd told you it was going to be the last time over the phone that afternoon. I said I wanted to talk to you about ending the affair without destroying everyone in the process. And I was furious when you draped yourself all over me the minute I came through the door, saying you'd had a bath in my honor and were washing sheets so you'd be able to replace our dirty ones on the bed before Jock came home. You can't have forgotten that, Libby You told me I was frightening you because I said I'd do you some damage if you didn't take your hands off me immediately.\"\n\nShe gave a small laugh. \"Oh, well... if that's how you want to play it... it's no skin off my nose. What does it matter what I was doing, anyway?\" She shifted her gaze back to me. \"We'll go with Sam's version. Does that make you happy?\"\n\nI nodded.\n\n\"Then you're a fool.\"\n\n\"Maybe.\" I crossed my arms and studied the point of my shoe, in no hurry to go on.\n\n\"Is that all there is?\" she said indignantly. \"Did you make me come all this way just so you could feel better about your husband's cheating?\"\n\n\"Not quite,\" I said without rancor. \"There's a major question-mark over the time of Sam's arrival. He says 7:45, you say 6:30.\"\n\nShe frowned, as if trying to remember. \"Okay, split the difference,\" she said helpfully. \"Make it 7. Neither of us can be that precise after twenty years.\"\n\n\"Sam can,\" I countered mildly. \"He's worked out his timing rather more accurately than you have... and there's no way he could have reached you before a quarter to eight. If you calculate his walk from the office to the tube, the average time of the train journey, plus the walk from Richmond station to Graham Road, it's impossible for him to have done that trip in under an hour and a quarter. Which means 7:45 has to be the agreed time because he didn't leave work until 6:30.\"\n\nHer hands moved impatiently in her lap. \"How do you know that? Why should Sam's memory of the time he left his office be any better than mine of the time he arrived?\"\n\n\"Because I'm not going by Sam's memory,\" I told her. \"I was so suspicious of him after he and Jock made their statements that I checked with his office. I hoped I could get some proof that he was lying about the time he reached Graham Road because I knew the security guard clocked everyone out at the end of the day to make sure the building was empty before he locked up. I persuaded him to let me have a photocopy of the register for 14.11.78.\" I nodded toward the rucksack at my feet. \"It's in there with 18:30 against Sam's name.\"\n\nHer eyes dropped immediately to the bag but she didn't say anything.\n\n\"So we're agreed that 7:45 was the time Sam arrived?\" I repeated.\n\nShe made a dismissive gesture with her hand. \"I can't see what difference it makes. All we did was talk.\"\n\n\"Yes, that's what you both say. Your version is that you talked for two and a half hours. His is that you talked for an hour.\"\n\nShe shrugged. \"I didn't keep track.\"\n\n\"But you disagree over how the conversation went. Sam says he gave you an ultimatum\u2014either the affair had to end or he'd come clean with me that night. You say it was you who delivered the ultimatum.\"\n\nShe cast a malicious glance in Sam's direction. \"He can't say anything else,\" she said, \"not if he wants you to believe I draped myself all over him when he came through the door.\"\n\nI smiled slightly. \"But that's the whole point, Libby After the show you put on when he arrived, Sam expected you to be difficult... but you weren't. You said you'd leave him alone... no more hanging around outside his office... no more demands on his time... and the only quid pro quo was that he keep his mouth shut so that Jock wouldn't have an excuse to divorce you.\"\n\n\"Which suggests it was me who delivered the ultimatum, doesn't it?\"\n\n\"If that were true, why was Sam so keen to accept it?\"\n\nHer eyes narrowed warily as she tried to see the point I was making. \"What makes you think he was?\"\n\nI shrugged. \"Because he couldn't sign up to your fabricated alibi quick enough. He was even happy to rope Jock into the lie if it meant he could distance himself from you. Not that your husband minded,\" I said with an ironic glance in Jock's direction, \"because he didn't want his Tuesday evenings with Sharon made public. But why would _Sam_ go along with it unless he had something to gain? There were any number of reasons he could have given for being in your house that night\u2014 none of which were remotely suspicious. Looking for Jock, being one.\"\n\n\"Why ask me?\" she demanded. \"Sam's the one who lied. All I did was tell the truth, which was that I'd been at home all evening, waiting for my husband. And I didn't have to pretend I was alone either because the police made that assumption themselves. It's not my responsibility if Sam decided to sign a statement saying he was at your place when he wasn't.\"\n\n\"Except he says you didn't give him any choice. According to him, you phoned him at his office the next morning to say the police were asking about people's movements the previous night because they were looking for anyone who'd seen Annie. You then told him you'd dug him out of a hole by saying he and Jock had been at our house from 7:45 and it was down to him to persuade Jock to support the story. You said I'd never suspect he'd been with you if it was your husband who gave him an alibi. And you were right, I didn't.\"\n\n\"This is Sam's version, presumably?\" she murmured sarcastically.\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\nShe glanced at my rucksack again. \"And there's no statement from an earwigging telephone operator to back it up?\"\n\n\"No.\"\n\n\"Then _you_ can believe what _you_ like, and the police can believe what _they_ like,\" she said indifferently. \"Sam's always going to put his own gloss on it\u2014he wouldn't be human if he didn't\u2014but he's the one who lied and I'm the one who told the truth. And I'm damned if I'll let him put the blame for his perjury on to me.\"\n\nI nodded as if I agreed with her. \"Fair enough, but you'll need to be ready for police questions about who proposed what and when because Sam's revised statement says the ideas came from you\u2014in particular his and Jock's alleged sighting of Annie at 7:45.\" I paused. \"According to Sam, that was your suggestion. You told him the police wanted proof that she was staggering about in the road earlier in the evening, and if he gave it to them they'd call it an accident and the whole bloody mess would go away.\"\n\nI was lying, of course\u2014Sam had never denied that the reason he mentioned Annie was to get himself out of the hole he'd dug with me when he told me she was drunk\u2014but Libby didn't have a monopoly on invention, and it was fascinating to see how rapidly her control deserted her when she was accused of something she hadn't done. In a horrible sort of way, she reminded me of Maureen as she hissed and spat her furious denials. We were all shits... ganging up on her because we didn't like her... making Sam out to be the victim... trying to shove responsibility on to her...\n\n\"Why would I have suggested anything so bloody stupid?\" she finished. \"Supposing the police hadn't believed Sam and Jock? Supposing we'd all had to admit what we'd really been doing that night? Why would I tell him to say he'd seen Annie just before the one period in the whole evening when we both had a cast-iron alibi? It's ridiculous. They'd think we were in collusion to cast suspicion away from ourselves. I'd never saddle myself with anything so unnecessary.\"\n\nI studied her for a moment. \"But why would you even worry about collusion?\" I asked curiously. \"Surely all you knew when you phoned Sam the next morning was that Annie had died outside our house at 9:30? How does that make mention of her stupid and unnecessary?\"\n\nShe sobered rapidly. \"Sam told me you were saying it was murder.\"\n\n\"Not true,\" Sam countered fiercely. \"I was so ashamed of leaving the poor woman in the gutter that I steered clear of the whole blasted subject. All you and I discussed that morning was how to avoid saying that I'd been with you.\"\n\nShe gave an angry smile. \"Then maybe I'm talking with hindsight, but it's hardly the point at issue. You're accusing me of inventing an absurd lie when anyone who focused attention on themselves by saying they'd seen Annie that night was a fool... particularly if they were trying to hide an affair. _You_ may be that kind of fool, Sam, but _I'm_ certainly not.\"\n\n\"That's very true,\" I said before Sam could fire off again. \"I've always thought how clever you were to keep your story simple, claim absolute ignorance and offer no alibi at all. All you had to say was: _'I can't help you... I was home alone from five o'clock... didn't hear anything... didn't see anything... didn't go anywhere.'_ You could repeat that till you were blue in the face because there was no one to contradict you except Sam. And once you'd muzzled him, you were safe as houses, because if the police _had_ caught you out in a lie, you'd have shrugged and said, you were only trying to keep the affair secret.\"\n\n\"I didn't need an alibi,\" she said.\n\n\"No,\" I agreed, \"but only because no one saw you with Annie at 6:30. I presume you bumped into each other in the road, and she started calling you a 'dirty tart'again. But why the hell did you have to go out at all, Libby? What was it for? To buy some booze in the hopes of putting Sam in a better mood? Or maybe you needed it yourself because you were boiling mad about being given the elbow? Is that why you lost your temper with Annie so quickly? Because you were angry that Sam had made it clear he'd rather stay with his wife than play stud to a bored tart who hadn't got the gumption to get up off her backside and find an identity for herself that didn't involve exploiting men? Why couldn't you stay in your sordid little bed and weep for your own inadequacies instead of killing Annie because she dared to point them out to you?\"\n\nCaution smoothed the planes of her face turning it into a practiced mask. \"Don't be ridiculous,\" she said. \"What's 6:30 got to do with anything?\"\n\nI took a printout of her e-mailed statement from my pocket. \"It's the time you gave in here, so presumably it's important.\"\n\nShe made another dismissive gesture. \"I've already said I'll go with Sam's version, not mine. Are you going to crucify me for making a mistake?\"\n\n\"Your worst mistake was to have a bath and start washing your clothes,\" I said, \"but I suppose you had her blood on you. The postmortem photographs prove you went for her like a madwoman.\"\n\n\"Oh, for God's sake!\" she said wearily. \"I assumed Sam and I were going to make love, so of course I had a bath. And it wasn't my clothes I was washing\u2014it was sheets.\"\n\nI tapped the e-mail. \"Then why didn't you put that in here? Why pretend otherwise?\"\n\nShe managed a creditable laugh. \"Because I forgot. In any case, I wouldn't have let Sam in at all if I'd had anything to hide.\"\n\n\"You couldn't afford not to. He'd already told you over the phone that he was going to confess everything to me that evening if you didn't agree to end it.\"\n\n\"It was over anyway. Why should I care?\"\n\nI looked at Sam. \"Because you were afraid he'd tell me Annie knew about the affair. He says she was always accosting you in the street calling you a 'dirty tart.'\" I touched my toe to the rucksack. \"There's a letter in here from Michael Percy, describing how you lashed out at her with your shopping bag and ended up on the ground, arse over tit. And you wouldn't want me adding you to the list of people with grudges against Annie,\" I finished, \"not if you'd just left her for dead in her house.\"\n\n\"I never set foot in that tip,\" she said in a remarkably steady voice, \"then, or at any other time.\"\n\n\"Oh, yes, you did,\" I told her. \"You pushed in behind her as she unlocked her door because she'd had the bloody nerve to call you what you were\u2014a cheap tart.\" I took the photograph of the brass artillery shell in Beth Slater's sitting room from my pocket. \"Is this what you used?\" I asked, showing it to her. \"It's the first thing that would have come to hand because Annie kept it in her hallway. What did you do? Yank out the peacock feathers and bring it down on the back of her head with two hands so that she collapsed on her sitting-room floor? Then what? You lost your rag completely and beat her and kicked her until she lost consciousness? Do you dream about that, Libby? Do you wake up in a sweat every time you remember it?\"\n\nShe stood up abruptly, sending her chair flying. \"I don't have to listen to this,\" she said, reaching for her handbag.\n\nSam raised his head. \"I'm afraid you do,\" he said in a surprisingly gentle voice, \"because it won't go away, Libby. Not this time. No one's prepared to support your lies anymore.\"\n\nShe turned to look at him. \"I haven't told any, Sam, or not deliberately anyway. You know that... and so does Jock.\"\n\nHe watched her for a moment. \"You primed Jock to tell me Sergeant Drury was getting his leg over in my house. Wasn't that a lie?\"\n\nShe flicked a triumphant glance in my direction. \"Of course it wasn't. Anyone with an ounce of sense could see what was going on. Your trouble is you're so full of guilt yourself, you assume everything this sanctimonious little bitch says must be true. But why should she be any more faithful than you were?\"\n\nThere was a short silence before my husband answered. I felt his hand creep into mine, and I felt it tremble, but whether from hatred of Libby or hatred of himself I couldn't tell. \"She believes in keeping her promises,\" he said simply. \"Unlike you and me, Libby, who broke ours the minute it suited us.\"\n\nMy one-time friend flicked me another glance, this time full of loathing. \"You're such a child, Sam,\" she said scathingly. \"Don't you know by now how vindictive she is? She was always going to pay me back for stealing you... even if it meant accusing me of murder...\"\n\n**_Official correspondence with the Metropolitan Police\u2014  \ndated 1999_**\n\n**From the office of the Commissioner  \nMetropolitan Police  \nNew Scotland Yard**\n\nMrs. M. Ranelagh  \nLeavenham Farm  \nLeavenham  \nNr Dorchester  \nDorset DT2 XXY\n\nOctober 5, 1999\n\nDear Mrs. Ranelagh,\n\nRe The death of Ann Butts, 30 Graham Road, Richmond\u201414.11.78\n\nThe Commissioner has asked me to keep you informed on matters relating to the above. I can now confirm that a full series of interviews has been conducted, with the exception of Mr. Derek Slater, whose present whereabouts are unknown.\n\nI can also confirm that the following charges have resulted from these interviews. Mr. Alan Slater\u2014burglary at 30 Graham Road at or around 02:00 on 15.11.78. Mr. Alan Slater and Mr. Michael Percy\u2014 indecent assault and actual bodily harm of Miss Butts at or around 20:30 on 14.11.78. Mrs. Maureen Slater\u2014obtaining money by deception from Smith Alder, Jewelers, Chiswick, between 06.06.79 and 10.11.79. In addition, RSPCA officers are looking at the issue of animal cruelty, although as Miss Butts almost certainly contributed to the cats'distress and deaths by failing to report incidents and\/or seek veterinary advice, a prosecution is unlikely.\n\nThe commissioner is aware that these charges may fall short of your expectations. However, he asks me to remind you that the burden of proof in criminal cases is an onerous one, which is not made easier with the passage of time. Indeed, the only reason any charges have been brought is because Mr. Alan Slater, Mr. Michael Percy and Mrs. Bridget Percy have cooperated fully with the investigators. No such cooperation has been forthcoming from Mrs. Maureen Slater, Mr. James Drury or Mrs. Libby Garth, all of whom vigorously deny the allegations made against them.\n\nMr. Drury refutes your allegation that he saw stolen articles in Mrs. Slater's house following Miss Butts's death. He also refutes any suggestion that he accepted a bribe from Mrs. Slater to \"turn a blind eye.\" Without confirmation from Mrs. Slater that these allegations are true, there is no evidence that Mr. Drury was negligent in failing to treat Miss Butts's house as a \"scene of crime.\" Mrs. Slater categorically denies that she ever suggested to you that Mr. Drury had accepted a bribe and further denies any collusion with him, either at the time of the original investigation or more recently.\n\nMrs. Slater also denies that she had any advance knowledge of the crimes her husband and son committed. She admits being told about the burglary afterward, but claims the articles were taken away by her husband and son and subsequently displayed in Mr. Alan Slater's house where you photographed them. She further denies being the woman who sold the rings in Chiswick. Nor is it likely that Mr. Alan Slater's assertion that it was his mother who \"ordered\" the burglary will stand up to cross-examination as he was adjudged during a trial in 1980 to \"be seeking to lay the blame for his worst excesses on his mother.\" This is a matter of public record, and Mrs. Slater has quoted it several times in her defense during interviews. Investigations continue into how she was able to afford the premises at 32 Graham Road. To date there is no evidence to disprove her statement that she won the money on the football pools as records are regularly destroyed.\n\nMrs. Libby Garth has been interviewed on a number of occasions and refutes all suggestions of having any involvement in the death of Miss Butts or trying to persecute you through the making of telephone calls to your house, the writing of poison-pen letters and inflicting cruelty on animals. She denies that the various \"supportive\" conversations she had with you following Miss Butts's death were \"fishing expeditions\" to discover how much you knew and whether your husband was beginning to waver over his alibi. She further denies any knowledge of the Slaters'harassment of Miss Butts in the months prior to her death, refuting absolutely any allegation that she similarly harassed you in order: 1) to focus your suspicions on the Slaters; and 2) to drive a wedge between you and your husband.\n\nIn conclusion, the commissioner has asked me to tell you that the file on the death of Miss Butts remains open, even though, on the evidence to date, it is doubtful that the Crown Prosecution Service will agree to prosecute Mrs. Garth for Miss Butts's murder.\n\nYours sincerely,\n\nFor: the commissioner, Metropolitan Police\n\n**Leavenham Farm  \nLeavenham  \nNr Dorchester  \nDorset DT2 XXY**\n\nAlisdair Fielding\n\nThe Office of the Commissioner  \nLondon Metropolitan Police  \nNew Scotland Yard\n\nOctober 7, 1999\n\nDear Alisdair Fielding,\n\nPlease inform the Commissioner that, not only do the charges mentioned in your letter fall short of my expectations, but I had already foreseen three of them when I encouraged Alan Slater and Michael Percy to be honest with the police. Both men were fourteen years old in 1978, therefore any charges now amount to little more than a technicality unless you intend to try them as adults in a juvenile court. The charge against Maureen Slater is equally valueless, as it will depend on the jeweler's identification of her after twenty years.\n\nI presume the commissioner is offering these charges by way of a sop to keep me quiet for another few months while his officers continue the pretense of investigating Ann Butts's murder. If so, he has dangerously underestimated my commitment to justice for my friend. I repeat what I wrote at the beginning of the report I submitted in September: _Ann Butts was murdered because a regime of racialhatred and contempt for handicap was allowed to fester unchecked in Graham Road_.\n\nI have no intention of letting this rest. Unless you come back to me within a week with more positive news, I will approach the press.\n\nYours sincerely,\n\n# epilogue\n\nIt was an unsettled autumn in Dorset with southwesterly winds piling in from the channel and whipping the trees into a frenzied dance around the farmhouse. Sam and I spent days raking the leaves into russet piles, only for them to be blown away again as soon as the wind returned, but it didn't seem to matter. It was so long since we'd enjoyed the glorious turning colors of an English autumn that just being outside brought contentment.\n\nThe boys settled into local college life in order to prepare for university the following year. They were older than their contemporaries, particularly Luke, but they preferred the idea of a year's adjustment to diving in at the deep end. Sam and I appreciated it, too. None of us was quite ready to see them go their separate ways when we were still trying to put down roots. I had one or two anxieties as we signed away our fortune to buy the farmhouse. Would the roof blow off before we had time to repair it? Was the wet rot under the floorboards as bad as it looked? But Sam was indomitable and gave us all confidence.\n\nMy father took the boys to the highlands of Scotland during the half-term break to give them a taste of the true Ranelagh homeland, and in return Sam and I had my mother to stay. My father's somewhat Machiavellian intention was that we should all get to know each other a little better\u2014and in a way we did\u2014because Mother had a fine old time interfering with Sam's renovation work and telling me how frightful my taste in curtain material was.\n\nIt would be an exaggeration to say our relationship improved. The dynamics of competitiveness and mutual criticism had existed too long between us to vanish overnight. I was still a poor wife to Sam, ignoring his coronary, encouraging him to do too much, not cooking his meals on time... and the boys, though absent, were still too free and easy in their manners and still needed haircuts. As for her... well... she would always be a control freak, offering advice that wasn't wanted and dominating everyone while pretending to play the role of martyred slave. But the sparks flew a little less regularly, so perhaps we were making progress.\n\nShe had a residual jealousy of Wendy Stanhope, whose visits had been rather more frequent than hers. I introduced them on one occasion but it was a mistake. They were too alike, both of them strong-minded women with decided views, though with little prospect of their minds ever meeting. Wendy admired youth and longed to give it space, while my mother wanted only to corral and discipline it. Wendy would never be so rude as to pass a comment afterward, but Mother, with no such restraints, told me it didn't surprise her at all that the silly woman was in the habit of screaming from clifftops. \"Why?\" I asked. \"Because she was unable to make friends with her own age group,\" was the barbed answer.\n\nOne of the reasons for Wendy's frequent trips was to visit Michael in prison and drive on to Bournemouth to see Bridget. Wendy and I made the round journey together the first time, but on subsequent occasions she went alone. In between whiles I visited Michael myself. I asked him once if he thought Wendy still wanted to adopt him. He grinned and said she only ever gave him lectures these days because she'd transferred her affections to Bridget and was acting like his mother-in-law. Was that a good thing or a bad thing? Good, he told me. It would be harder to let his wife down in the future if he had a fire-breathing dragon on his back. He added somewhat wistfully that it was a pity Mrs. S. hadn't taken that tack before. And, by implication, me too.\n\nFor myself, I wondered why my more intelligent pupil had to struggle with the concept of good behavior being its own reward, while Alan, the Neanderthal, had put it into practice and accepted it. In the end I accepted Sam's analysis\u2014a strong-minded woman is a man's best friend.\n\nI had an angry letter from Beth Slater midway through September in response to one from me, which had set out to explain how committed I was to Annie's cause and why it was necessary to involve Alan. But she couldn't be persuaded, and her anger saddened me. She hated people who pretended one thing and did another. She hated the police, who had stripped their house of everything, even the things Alan could prove he'd bought himself. She hated Derek, who was a bastard, and Maureen, who was a bitch. And was it surprising Alan had gone off the rails when he had been so abused as a child? But nothing could excuse what I had done. Did I not realize that by destroying Alan I'd destroyed Danny as well?\n\nShe ended by saying she never wanted to hear from me again. However, I remained optimistic because I'd learned a great deal about the healing powers of time\u2014and I was sure she knew how much I admired her.\n\nTo my relief, Danny turned up like a bad penny toward the end of October. He had a filthy hangover. He was irritable and tetchy, and laid down rules and regulations about his private space and what he was allowed to do in it. \"Like what?\" asked Sam.\n\n\"Chill out... smoke a joint now and then...\" He needed peace and quiet to get his head straight, and we owed him that much for setting his family at each other's throats.\n\nSam, equally relieved, backed him against a wall. \"What about my wife's head?\" he demanded. Didn't his family owe me something for what his father and brother had done to me? Danny was scornful. How could the Slaters compensate his missus? What did they have that she wanted? Hell, she was in a different league. That's why he'd come. He reckoned she could teach him a thing or two... about internalized pain... and how he could use it to exploit his genius.\n\nSheila Arnold and I remained friends, but at a distance. We greeted each other warmly when we met in the street but recognized we had little in common. In the end I preferred the anarchy of clifftop screaming to the elegant conformity of matching panama hats. She agreed grudgingly to allow me to use parts of her correspondence in press releases, but insisted that I make it clear she was unavailable for interviews. \"Larry would never approve,\" she said.\n\nJock arrived for a long weekend in November and helped us re-felt and re-tile the western end of the roof above the attic. He and I did most of the heaving of materials while Sam straddled the gable and shouted orders. Then, come the evenings, we dropped into armchairs and threw cushions at Sam until he agreed to pour us enormous glasses of wine and make our supper. I came to wonder why I had ever disliked Jock, and what had persuaded me that Sam might choose his friends unwisely.\n\nJock disappeared into the barn every so often to share spliffs with Danny and give him the benefit of his wisdom on money and women but, fortunately, most of it went in one ear and out the other. More sensibly, he bought the first, and rather fine, sculpture that Danny carved at Leavenham Farm. It was a folded figure of a woman with her head resting on her knees, entitled _Contemplation_ , and was a huge leap forward from the _Gandhi_ on my terrace. But I wouldn't have swapped _Gandhi_ for the world.\n\nOn his first evening, Jock produced a copy of Richmond's local newspaper, featuring an article on Annie's death with the headline: \"Accident or murder?\" He asked us if we'd seen it, and showered me with new respect when Sam laughed and said I'd written it. Of course it had been heavily edited, but I'd tried to re-create the atmosphere in London during 1978's winter of discontent when society was at war with itself in the months leading up to a vote of no confidence in Parliament and the dramatic fall of the Labor government. I asked how in such a climate there could be any certainty that the death of a black woman had been properly investigated. I went on to describe the racial hatred that had been allowed to flourish in Graham Road, citing the catalogue of unsubstantiated complaints against Annie by \"benefit scroungers\" which went unchallenged by the authorities, and the vicious bullying and harassment of a vulnerable woman by a \"hate group\" that was never questioned by the white policeman in charge of the investigation. They allowed his name to stand, Sergeant James Drury, together with his subsequent \"forced retirement\" for a racist assault on an Asian youth. Publish and be damned, they said! But, for me, the most satisfying part of the article was an unflattering photograph of Maureen Slater, caught in the act of closing her front door, with the caption: \"Benefit recipient denies orchestrating hate campaign.\" _They've done me proud_ , I thought.\n\nI made Sam swear he wouldn't mention Libby There was too much pain involved. Jock had lingering sympathies for her because he felt himself partly to blame.... Sam had lingering guilt for the same reason... while I swung between a sense of triumph at my vindication, and an ongoing sadness for what I was doing to her children. But somewhere along the line I was outvoted and, at Sam's instigation, Jock brought me up to date over the dinner table on the last night of his stay\n\nThe word from \"mutual friends,\" he told me, was that Libby's husband had kicked her out and imposed a restraining order to prevent her having access to her children. Apparently her fuse was so short these days\u2014\"too many police asking too many questions\"\u2014that she'd taken a steel rod to her eldest daughter and the child had ended up in hospital. More disturbingly, the girls had revealed that beatings had been commonplace whenever Libby's frustrations had reached the boiling point, and now she faced prosecution for child abuse and the inevitable loss of her teaching job.\n\nJock said she was showing her true colors and he wouldn't blame me for crowing. But Sam just reached for my hand under the table and held it companionably while I pictured myself beside a river... watching the bodies of Annie's enemies float by...\n\n**_Note from Ann Butts, which was pushed through the  \nRanelaghs' letterbox at number 5 Graham Road the day  \nbefore she died. It was addressed to the \"Pretty Lady. \"_**\n\n_Copyright \u00a9 2001 by Minette Walters_\n\nVintage is a registered trademark and Vintage Crime\/Black Lizard and colophon are trademarks of Random House, Inc.\n\nThis is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.\n\nLibrary of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data  \nWalters, Minette.  \nThe shape of snakes \/ Minette Walters.  \np. cm.  \n1. West Indians\u2014England\u2014Fiction. 2. Women cat owners\u2014Fiction.  \n3. London (England)\u2014Fiction. 4. Women, Black\u2014Fiction. I. Title.  \nPR6073.A444 S48 2001  \n00-065319  \n823'914\u2014dc21\n\n**eISBN: 978-0-307-49784-0**\n\nwww.vintagebooks.com\n\nv3.0\n","meta":{"redpajama_set_name":"RedPajamaBook"}}
+{"text":"\n\nCONTENTS\n\nTITLE PAGE\n\nINTRODUCING . . .\n\nRULE 1\n\nRULE 2\n\nRULE 3\n\nRULE 4\n\nRULE 5\n\nRULE 6\n\nABOUT THE AUTHOR\n\nCOPYRIGHT PAGE\n\nWhen I grow up, I'm going to be a _Performer Extraordinaire!_ So I do singing on Mondays, ballet on Tuesdays, acrobatics on Wednesdays, tap on Thursdays and drama on Fridays!\n\nDrama is my favourite! **FACT!** Each week our drama teacher, Miss Oscar, who is only the most amazing-est drama teacher _in the world_ , gives us a scene from a famous play or musical to perform. Her **RULE** is that you have to learn to walk in your character's _shoes_ before you can perform that character.\n\nMiss Oscar says walking in a character's shoes is also called 'method acting' or 'going method'. She says going method is _crucial_ if you want to be a **PERFORMER EXTRAORDINAIRE!**\n\nYou can't just _pretend_ to be that character \u2013 you have to _be_ them. You have to do what they do, and think like they think, and feel what they feel.\n\nSo that is what I do, every week! But enough about me ...\n\n**'Mum! Dad!** You will not **BELIEVE** what we have to do. It's so uncool! So ultra-blah! _So babyish!_ I'm almost ten!' Lily D storms into the kitchen, drops her schoolbag and slumps on a chair at the kitchen table. Lily's bead bracelets, which run all the way up one arm and all the way down the other, clack on the tabletop like castanets.\n\n'Miss O must think I am a little _kid_!' she groans.\n\n'What are you talking about, Lily-Pilly?' asks Dad. 'Here, I made some fairy bread,' he says, holding out a plate.\n\n'Aaaargh!' yelps Lily. 'Don't mention fairies!'\n\nDad is a chef and makes the **BEST SNACKS**. But he has no idea that no-one eats fairy bread anymore. Once you turn nine, you eat sprinkle sandwiches \u2013 **totally different!**\n\n'I thought you liked fairies, Lily?' says Mum from the other end of the table. She is scrawling little dots and dashes all over a bunch of papers with a red pen. Mum is a writer, and she's in the middle of editing her newest book.\n\nTo Lily D, editing looks like scribble. Funny, if Sonny or Lily drew all over _their_ work it would be naughty, but when Mum does it, it's 'editing'. Weird.\n\n**'BLURGH!'** Lily scrunches up her face. 'Fairies are, like, so grade two. I'm in grade four now, Mum! Compleeeeetely different! I do _not_ like fairies.'\n\nUp in her room, Lily still has a pair of gloriously glittery fairy wings. They are hidden in the back of her cupboard. Sometimes she puts them on in secret. Lily doesn't want to throw them out \u2013 just in case \u2013 but she doesn't need Mum to know that!\n\nMum scratches her head with the red pen. When she reaches for her cup of tea, the pen stays there, tangled in her hair. Parents can be so weird!\n\n'So why all this fairy talk all of a sudden?' Mum asks.\n\n'Drama class,' sighs Lily. 'Next week Miss Oscar wants us to do scenes from this totally strange musical called _Into the Woods_.'\n\n**'Oooooooh!'** squeals Mum. **'I LOVE that play!'**\n\n'What's it about?' asks Dad.\n\n'Fairytales! Heaps of them,' moans Lily, stuffing another piece of fairy bread in her mouth. Whoops \u2013 sprinkle sandwich. 'Cinderella is in it. So is Little Red Riding Hood and that wolf, and Jack from _Jack and the Beanstalk_ and even Rapunzel! Well, the play is actually the story of a baker and his wife. They want to have a baby, but a witch has put a curse on them. So they have to go into the woods and collect all these things to break the curse. And all the fairytale characters are mixed up in the play.' Lily stops to take a breath. 'It's all very **_com-pli-cated_** ,' she says. Lily feels quite grown-up using such a big word. 'But fairytales... well, they are so **_babyish!_** '\n\n'Infantile,' corrects Mum.\n\nLily frowns. 'No offence, Mum, but this is kind of serious. It's not a good time to practise speaking French!'\n\n'Infantile means exactly the same thing as babyish, except it's a real word,' explains Mum in a half-stern, half-giggle voice.\n\n**'WIKE FFFWAT?'** asks Lily around a mouthful of sprinkle sandwich.\n\n'Like manners,' says Mum, in an actual stern voice.\n\nIt's the kind of voice that makes Lily chew politely, with her mouth closed. Lily knows Mum has superpowers when it comes to words. She can tell if a word is used incorrectly, or spelled incorrectly \u2013 even if you just _say_ it with the wrong spelling. But Lily didn't know Mum understood 'talking with your mouth full'!\n\n'Fairytales were invented to scare kids so much that they behaved themselves, right?' says Dad.\n\n'In a way,' says Mum. 'But more importantly, fairytales teach children about the world, and how to face their fears.'\n\n'Even Cinderella?' asks Lily. 'What's Cinderella scared about? Doesn't she just mop the floor, have some mean stepsisters, ride in a carriage and wear glass slippers?'\n\n'Yes, definitely even Cinderella!' says Mum. 'What do you think she might be afraid of?'\n\nLily thinks. 'I guess Cinderella might be scared because she lost her mum.' Lily pauses for a moment. **WHOA.** Losing your mum _would_ be totally scary, and super-sad. 'And her wicked stepmother is ultra-mean and kind of freaky. That would be scary too.'\n\n'Exactly!' says Mum. 'But Cinderella confronts those fears and goes to the ball, and that changes her life for the better!'\n\n'Yeah, but with the help of her _fairy_ godmother,' mutters Lily, rolling her eyes. **'Not another fairy!'**\n\n'Not in _Into the Woods_ ,' Mum says. 'That Cinderella is based on the original story, where a magical tree growing above her mother's grave gives Cinderella the shoes and the dress for the ball.'\n\n'Phew, one less fairy!' sighs Lily. The sprinkles are scratching at the inside of her throat, so she pushes her plate away. Lily is feeling a bit yucky actually.\n\nSonny, Lily D's little brother, wanders into the kitchen wearing some kind of alien overlord cape. 'Oooh! Fairy bread! Yes!'\n\n'Sprinkle sandwiches!' Lily thinks. But Sonny is only six, so she doesn't say anything.\n\nSonny grins at Lily and then stuffs three pieces into his mouth at once. **Little brothers... gross!**\n\n'So,' Lily asks, 'fairytales are about people facing their fears, and then waiting for a prince to rescue you?'\n\n'Well, some might see it that way,' Dad says with a grin. 'But really I think fairytales teach you to face your fears so you can rescue yourself.'\n\nLily smiles. She thinks that sounds **pretty crazy-cool.** But she can't really see how a fairytale could ever help her. She can't think of one single thing that scares her. Lily D is positively _fearless_.\n\n'So which character are you playing, Lily-Pilly?' asks Dad.\n\n'Not sure yet,' Lily whispers. Her throat is starting to tickle, but not in a funny, makes-you-laugh way. 'We're supposed to read the whole play, and prepare a scene with the character we _most identify_ with.'\n\n'I could help you with the baker,' says Dad with a grin. 'I can show you how to bake a chocolate cake!'\n\n'Thanks, Dad... but no thanks.'\n\nDad looks worried. 'Are you okay, Lil? You never say no to chocolate cake.'\n\n'I'm fine,' she replies. But she's not feeling so sure. 'It's just that there are so many fairytale characters all kind of mixed up in the play,' Lily adds. 'I don't know which one to choose.'\n\n'Maybe you could play a mixed-up fairytale character!' giggles Sonny.\n\n'You mean like from _Rapunzel and the Beanstalk_?' asks Dad, laughing.\n\n'Or _The Three Little Cinderellas_ ,' suggests Mum.\n\n'Or _Little Princess Snow Bean Cinder Hood_!' shouts Sonny.\n\nNow everyone is laughing, holding their sides like they might split.\n\n'I like that one.' Lily smiles weakly. **'Little Princess Snow Bean.'**\n\nFairytale character mash-ups are actually kind of funny. But after all those giggles, Lily's head is feeling fuzzy. She feels pretty yucky all over.\n\n'Are you sure you're okay, honey?' Mum asks, coming over to press her hand to Lily's forehead. 'You do feel a bit warm.'\n\n'I'm okay,' mutters Lily, pulling her head away. 'I'm just going up to my room for a bit.'\n\nLily stomps up the stairs to her room a little more slowly than usual. She is going to work on her 'Going Method Rules' notebook.\n\nBut as she lies on her bed with her pen ready to make some ultra-important notes, Lily realises she isn't feeling okay. Her tummy is all squirmy, and her face feels hot and steamy and 'like you could fry an egg on it', as Grandad would say.\n\nWorst of all, Lily is starting to feel worried. How can she 'go method' this time, when she isn't scared of anything? Will she be able to give an amazing performance of a fairytale character facing their fear, when she, Lily D, has no fears to face?\n\nLily just feels like crying, which is so babyish \u2013 so _infantile_ \u2013 it's just embarrassing. 'Focus, Lily, focus!' she tells herself.\n\n'What does it feel like to be truly scared?' she wonders, tapping her swirly-rainbow pencil with the crystal love-heart on the end against her chin. Time to make some character notes...\n\n**'N** o-one can beat Hudson the Great, strongest man in the world.'\n\nLily cracks open one eye. Bright sunlight is pouring through her polka dot curtains and something sharp is sticking into her cheek. **FACT!**\n\nLily props herself up on her elbows to see what it is. It's her notebook. She must have fallen asleep writing her final 'going method' rule. Just as she's pondering what the rest of   might be, Lily notices she's still wearing her school uniform and that her little brother is standing in the doorway.\n\nSonny is dressed in his cape and speaking in a big, deep voice. **'And YES! I can fly too!'** he announces, swishing his cape from side to side. Brothers! _So annoying!_\n\nLily D flops onto her stomach. She feels super- _weird_... like she's Sleeping Beauty, waking from a **_looooong_** sleep.\n\nShe goes to yell her brother's name, but no sound comes out! Just a squeaky 'So\u2014'. Then comes the pain... **OUUUUUCCCCHHH!**\n\nLily's throat burns. It burns like she has smooshed up a mountain of red-hot chillies and drunk the juice.\n\nEvery swallow feels like when you don't chew up a cracker properly before you swallow it, but multiplied by a _gazillion_! It feels as though Lily has pricked all her fingers on one hundred spinning wheels, stubbed all her toes, jammed all her fingers in a door and banged both her funny bones, all at the same time... and then shoved all that pain between two bits of bread and eaten it. Yep, Lily has definitely chomped down on a **pain sandwich** , a **hurt-burger**... and now her throat throbs so bad Lily doesn't think she can ever eat again!\n\n'Hey, Lily,' says Sonny. He has his serious battle face on. 'I know you need to practise fighting your fears for drama class, but what about fighting Hudson the Great to defend your castle first?'\n\nLily wants to tell him that she is busy enough trying to choose a character from _Into the Woods_ to play without fighting a battle, but she only has a tiny little voice left. 'What time is it?' she manages to squeak.\n\n'Huh? Breakfast time, silly. But only if you can get past Hudson the Great!' says Sonny, twirling his light-up plastic sword.\n\nLily is seriously confused. It's morning?! So Lily really did have a Sleeping Beauty-style looooong sleep! Did she sleep through dinner?\n\n'You slept through dinner last night,' says Sonny. 'Mum said to let you rest because you weren't feeling well.'\n\n'Lily!' At that moment, Mum bustles through Lily's bedroom door, like one of the good fairies from _Sleeping Beauty_. She is carrying a mug and a little bottle of medicine. 'How are you feeling?' Mum asks gently.\n\nLily just shakes her head. It hurts too much to talk.\n\n'Oh, dear,' sighs Mum. 'Open up, let's have a look.'\n\nLily opens her mouth wide.\n\n'Well,' says Mum, with a great big sigh that goes from her head to her toes. 'It's back again.'\n\nLily knows exactly what's back, and it isn't Christmas, the Royal Show, or that neighbourhood cat that liked to sit on the front fence and meow in the middle of the night. It's Lily's own **EVIL FAIRY. It's tonsillitis.**\n\nLily has had tonsillitis three times already this year. And five times last year!\n\nLast time, Dr Rodriguez had told Lily in a super-serious voice, 'If it comes back again we will have to do something about those tonsils.'\n\nLily isn't exactly sure what that meant, but she guesses Dr Rodriguez wasn't talking about giving Lily's tonsils detention or making them do extra chores. Whatever it is Dr Rodriguez had planned, **it couldn't be good...** even if Dr Rodriguez is the nicest, gentlest doctor in the entire galaxy and always remembers to warm up the stethoscope before listening to your chest.\n\n'I'm fine, Mum!' Lily croaks.\n\n'No, you're NOT fine!' insists Mum. 'Now drink this while I call Dr Rodriguez.' She hands Lily the mug filled with warm honey and lemon juice.\n\nAs Lily sips, she thinks about how 'doing something about your tonsils' probably means having them **removed**. Lily's friend Missy said it was kind of a teensy bit awesome getting her tonsils removed, because she got to eat nothing but ice-cream for a _whole week_! But before the all-you-can-eat-ice-cream bit, there's the having-the-tonsils-removed bit. And that means doctors, and hospital... and _needles_!\n\nLily sits up straight so fast her warm honey and lemon spills a little bit on her polka dot doona cover.\n\n**NEEDLES!** Of course! Just like Sleeping Beauty and spinning wheels. That is **Lily's greatest fear!** Needles are the _opposite_ of ultra-coolness.\n\nLily lies back on her pillows. This time she thinks even harder. Maybe this is her chance to 'go method' and follow her Little Princess Snow Bean rules. If she faces her fear of needles, then maybe she can learn to be a fairytale character. If Lily can learn to be brave, she can have her own happily ever after! **FACT!**\n\nLily D finishes her honey and lemon juice and then swings down from her bed. She rummages through her top drawer, pulling out her big box of beads.\n\nRunning her pointer finger through the rainbow of beads, Lily selects a handful that she thinks look tough, courageous and ultra-cool. She then chooses a bunch of beads with tiny red letters painted on one side. Cutting a length of thin elastic, Lily threads her beads on before tying the two ends together and slipping her brand-new bracelet onto her wrist. It joins the bracelets that run all the way up one arm and all the way down the other. Lily spins the beads around so the letters are on top. **BE BRAVE.**\n\nShe feels a bit more fearless already! Maybe she can become a fairytale character _and_ fight her fear of needles at the same time.\n\nBut needles... Lily keeps her bracelet on but spins the **BE BRAVE** beads under her wrist and out of view. On second thought, Lily D _likes_ hanging out with her tonsils... and she is determined they will live together happily ever after. **FACT!**\n\nDr Rodriguez puts down the giant icy pole stick she was using to poke around in Lily's mouth.\n\n'Yes, my dear,' she says. 'I'm afraid those tonsils of yours need to be removed as quickly as possible.'\n\nLily grips Mum's hand, hard. Right next to her is a trolley with little plastic drawers. Lily feels sure those drawers are full of _needles_.\n\n'I'm going to give you a super fast-acting antibiotic,' Dr Rodriguez tells Lily, scribbling on her prescription pad. 'I'll also book Lily in at Chester Hill General Hospital for Friday,' Dr Rodriguez says to Mum.\n\n'B-b-but I have DRAMA CLASS on Fridays! I'm performing _Into the Woods_!' croaks Lily. She knows Dr Rodriguez only wants to help her, not put her to sleep for one hundred years. But what will Miss Oscar say if she misses drama class? Lily D has to perform!\n\nDr Rodriguez clasps Lily's hands between her own. 'Just you wait,' she says. 'Once those tonsils are out, you'll feel like a new girl!'\n\n'O-kaaaay, it's just that\u2014' mumbles Lily forlornly. She is actually pretty happy being Lily D, V.A.P. just the way she is \u2013 tonsils and all. She wants to explain, but at that moment Dr Rodriguez gently takes hold of Lily's wrist.\n\n'Beautiful bracelet. What does it say?' she asks.\n\n'BE BRAVE,' reads Lily, twisting the beads towards Dr Rodriguez before giving them a little shake, one quick round of applause for courage.\n\nLily _loves_ beads. When you give them a shake, you have an instant audience clapping! Everyone needs a round of applause sometimes, so why not applaud yourself?!\n\n'Be brave,' repeats Dr Rodriguez. 'Very clever. I couldn't have said it better myself.' She gives Lily a crinkly little wink that makes her smile twinkle.\n\nLily gives a teeny little half-smile in return. Brave or not, she is still determined to hold onto her tonsils, be they pink, green or tangerine. But at least she has discovered she has a fear... that has to mean she is one step closer to becoming Little Princess Snow Bean!\n\n**'I** have three words for you, Lily,' says Missy, waggling three fingers in front of Lily's face. 'Jelly, custard, ice-cream.'\n\n'That's four words,' says Lily with a grin.\n\nLily, Missy, Kat and Jolly are doing some very gentle gymnastics on the oval at lunchtime. The girls have marked out a performance floor using their lunch boxes and water bottles.\n\nDr Rodriguez gave Lily a medical certificate, so she could have stayed at home all week. But after a few days spent cataloguing her slime collection, googling spooky stories to freak Sonny out with and studying fairytales, Lily was bored. **She missed her friends.**\n\nBesides, thanks to the antibiotics, she is feeling okay! So okay, in fact, that Lily is certain she won't need her tonsils removed after all.\n\n'You'll have to get them out,' says Kat, while walking on her hands. 'If you don't, you'll just keep getting sick!'\n\n'Hmm,' says Lily. It's kind of hard to take Kat seriously when she's upside down, but she does have a point. 'But why does it get worse?'\n\n'Dunno.' Kat tries to shrug, which makes her collapse. But, being such a bendy gymnast, Kat twists into an elegant roll and is back on her feet in a second. Awesome!\n\n'Maybe your tonsils will, like, fall off!' suggests Jolly, who is stretching on the grass.\n\n**'Or maybe your WHOLE HEAD will fall off!'** giggles Kat.\n\n'Phew, lucky I've had my tonsils out then!' breathes Missy, ultra-seriously. 'Oh, sorry Lily!'\n\n'That's okay,' Lily says, half-giggling, half-seriously. 'Was it horrible having your tonsils removed? Were there any... ummm... _needles_?'\n\n'Nah!' says Missy, waving her hand like she's shooing flies. 'It was nothing! I mean, I was only five so I can't _totally_ remember it, but I do remember the ice-cream, jelly and custard, and all the teddies my grandparents gave me.'\n\n'Still, I really think I'm too busy to go to hospital this week... I mean, I really need to focus on _Into the Woods_.' Lily decides the best way to take her mind off her tonsils is to concentrate on being Little Princess Snow Bean and fighting her fears. Even though dealing with her tonsils means hospital, which means needles, which are her **BIGGEST fear!** Secretly, Lily is hoping the whole tonsillitis thing will go away and she'll be on stage Friday afternoon, not in a hospital gown.\n\n'Oh! Is _Into the Woods_ the one about fairytales?' Jolly asks, dropping out of a backbend.\n\n'Yeah,' mutters Lily. 'Not that I like fairytales or anything.'\n\n'Yeah, no way!' says Jolly quickly. 'They are so babyish.'\n\n**'INFANTILE,'** confirms Lily.\n\n'Is that how you say \"fairytale\" in Latin?' asks Jolly.\n\nKat says nothing and kicks into a handstand.\n\n'Fairytales aren't so bad,' says Missy, matter-of-factly. 'Sometimes they are really useful. Like for Katherine when she has her insulin shot.'\n\nMissy's little sister, Katherine, was born with a thing called diabetes. She needs to have insulin every day, so her body can process the sugar she eats in food. Lily knows the insulin comes in a **(GULP)** _needle_!\n\n'How does it help?' asks Kat, pausing with her arms outstretched, ready to do a cartwheel.\n\n'Well,' says Missy. 'Katherine loves the _Little Red Riding Hood_ story, so Mum started telling Katherine that the little needles were the wolf trying to have a nibble on her finger.'\n\n**'That sounds scary!'** says Jolly.\n\nMissy grins. 'Then Mum bought Katherine a red cape and told her that as long as she has her red cape on \u2013 like Red Riding Hood \u2013 the wolf can never really eat her up!'\n\nLily crunches her nose up, thinking hard about what Missy said. Nose scrunching always helps when you have a tricky question to answer, or a problem to solve.\n\nShe finds all this information a bit spooky-weird. Is it possible that other kids 'go method' too? Lily always thought she was the only one.\n\nAs the end-of-lunch bell rings, Lily is thinking about Katherine 'going method' as Little Red Riding Hood, to give her the courage to face the needles. If Katherine can use fairytales to face her fear of needles, then Lily can too... maybe!\n\n**'T** ry this one. It's totally not too sour.' Lily passes Kat a bright red lolly covered with sparkly sugar.\n\nLily isn't allowed to go to tap class after school because of her tonsillitis, so Kat invited her over to her place. On the way, they stopped at the supermarket and bought a little bag of funny spicy, sour and sweet lollies. You never knew which was which until you popped it in your mouth, but Lily's lolly bag from Amy's party had had a red one in it. So Lily knew _exactly_ what the red ones tasted like.\n\nKat takes the red lolly from Lily and pops it in her mouth. Her eyes go wide like a goldfish, and her mouth stretches into a giant O. She flaps her hands and breathes in and out super-fast.\n\n**'Ooooooooh! HOT!'** She sticks her tongue all the way out and fans it with her hands. **'Not sweet!'**\n\n'Gotcha!' Lily laughs hard. She hands Kat her drink bottle, and Kat guzzles the cool water.\n\n'Ish ma thongue burnt?' Kat asks, poking her tongue out and crossing her eyes, trying to check out the damage.\n\n'No!' Lily laughs. 'But let's go get some ice cubes. You can make me eat two sour ones at the same time to get me back!'\n\nLily and Kat are at Kat's front door, so they tuck their lollies away deep in their schoolbags before they go inside. Kat has five brothers, and her youngest brother, Joe, gets sick a lot, so Kat's mum only allows lollies in the house on **Very Special Occasions**. Which is kind of confusing because, when you are a kid, any time you have a lolly is a Very Special Occasion. **Weird!**\n\nAs Lily and Kat step through the front door, Joe comes barrelling down the hallway and smacks right into them.\n\n**'JOE!'** Kat roars.\n\n'Sorry!' puffs Joe. 'Escaping the wolf ... he's not coming in! Not by the hairs of my chinny-chin-chin!' Joe is huffing heavily, gasping each breath.\n\nJust then, Kat's mum appears at the end of the hallway, following Joe with an inhaler. Joe immediately darts away.\n\n'Hi Lily! Hi little chika-dee.' Kat's mum does a funny little chicken dance down the hallway and then kisses Kat's forehead. Lily thinks Kat's mum is seriously cool. Kat just rolls her eyes.\n\n'I just need to get Joe to use his inhaler,' Kat's mum says, waving the inhaler with a flourish. 'His lungs are playing up.'\n\nLily notices Kat's mum's eyes change when she says that. Like the sky changes on a summer day when that first rain cloud passes over. 'Go into the kitchen and I will make you both a snack in just a minute.'\n\nLily notices Kat has gone very quiet and is standing very straight and stiff. Kat just nods and Lily follows her to the kitchen.\n\n'Is Joe okay?' Lily asks, as she and Kat sit up at the kitchen bench.\n\nKat sighs. 'You know how Joe was born **reeeally** early?'\n\nLily nods. Kat's brother was teensy tiny and super-fragile when he was born. 'Not quite cooked' Kat's mum always says. Ever since then, Joe gets sick a lot and is in and out of hospital.\n\n'Well,' Kat continues. 'He gets bad lung infections now, and he needs to use an inhaler, but he really doesn't like it.'\n\n'C'mon, sweet little piggy,' Kat's mum is saying to Joe in the lounge room. 'One more huff and puff and you will be made of bricks again!'\n\nLily raises her eyebrows at Kat. **Piggy?!** Lily doesn't want to be rude and ask a whole heap of questions, but her eyebrows sure do! Missy's little sister Katherine with her Red Riding Hood cloak and the needle wolf, now Joe becoming bricks, and Kat's mum huffing and puffing! Had Lily wandered into some magical fairytale parallel universe? Or was everyone 'going method' along with her? No wonder Lily's eyebrows had so many questions! Spooky-freaky, but also ultra-coolness!\n\nKat grabs an apple from the bowl on the bench and turns it around between her fingers.\n\n'From when Joe was about three years old,' Kat explains, 'whenever he got sick, Mum read him fairytales.' Kat speaks in her ultra-quiet voice. 'His favourite is _The Three Little Pigs_ and Mum would tell him to imagine that when he was sick he was made of sticks. But, when he came to hospital, took his medicine and let the doctors do their job, all this helped change his body into a house of bricks.'\n\n'Ahh...' says Lily. 'So the wolf couldn't blow him down?'\n\n'Exactly! If Joe imagined his illness was the wolf and imagined his body was getting stronger, built out of bricks, he seemed to get better much quicker.'\n\nKat does a little cough, like she's swallowed a piece of apple too fast. But she hasn't taken a bite of her apple yet. Lily wonders if it's one of those little balls of sadness that gets stuck in your throat when you talk about something that makes your heart hurt.\n\n**'Whoa!'** breathes Lily. 'That is incredible... so he will be okay if he uses his inhaler?'\n\nKat nods. 'Totally!' she says. 'Joe's seven now, and he is a bit smaller than the other kids, but he'll catch up. Plus, he is super-smart, and much better than me at gymnastics! And he... he...' Kat stops talking and looks at the apple again, her cheeks burning bright red.\n\n**Oh no!** Poor Kat! Lily can tell Kat is still super-scared Joe might get sick again. Lily wants to make Kat feel better.\n\n'Hey, Kat...' Lily says, with the dreamy, faraway voice she sometimes uses when a big idea pops into her head. 'Do you realise Joe was totally \"going method\" when he was imagining himself as the house of bricks? Just like I do for drama class. Just like a **Very Amazing Performer!** And when he became that house of bricks he learned to face his fears. Now he isn't scared of anything. Miss O would be ultra-impressed!'\n\nLily's friends sometimes get their own faraway look in their eyes when Lily starts talking about 'going method', but not today!\n\nKat smiles a big, juicy, beaming smile. 'And he's never going to be a house of sticks ever again!'\n\nLily grins at her friend. That's when she realises the truth, like when Little Red Riding Hood saw the wolf from behind the disguise of Grandma. Fairytales really can help people. Lily can see that now... and maybe they aren't so babyish after all... **FACT!**\n\n**'A** re you feeling scared about tomorrow?' asks Dad, passing Lily a mug of his famous hot chocolate.\n\nMum is upstairs helping Sonny with his reader before bed.\n\nLily shrugs her shoulders, then nods. But she doesn't say a word. It looks like there's no way to escape having her tonsils removed now.\n\n'And are you disappointed you won't get to perform your scene from _Into the Woods_?' Dad asks.\n\nLily is super-disappointed she won't be performing, and **super-dooper** nervous about going to the hospital tomorrow. But she's scared that if she opens her mouth to say anything, a whole bunch of tears might start squirting out of her eyes. Lily gives her beads a little shake \u2013 just a tiny round of applause for bravery.\n\nDad just smiles. 'So... which character from _Into the Woods_ did you choose anyway? Must be pretty sick of those babyish fairytales by now!'\n\nLily thinks for a moment, taking a long sip of hot chocolate. **It is _sooo_ good.** Sipping hot chocolate even makes her grumpy tonsils feel a bit happier. 'I still haven't chosen a character,' Lily confesses. 'But now I do think fairytales can be quite useful.'\n\n'Really? How so?' asks Dad. He takes a long sip of hot chocolate too. When he places his mug back on the table, Lily sees that he has a chocolate moustache! Dad is so funny, especially when he isn't meaning to be.\n\nLily giggles and then puts down her mug, looking serious.\n\n'Well, like Mum said, fairytales are for learning about the world, and facing your fears. So, when a kid is scared, they can imagine themselves in a fairytale. They can go method like I do when I become a character. They can be that strong house of bricks or be clever Red Riding Hood or whatever part of the fairytale that makes them feel a little bit braver than they thought they were. Do you know what I mean? It's a bit complicated, Dad.'\n\nDad nods. He is grinning so wide his chocolate moustache stretches from ear to ear. 'That makes perfect sense, honey. And you know what? It doesn't just work for _kids_ who are feeling a bit scared.'\n\nLily is confused. 'Huh? You mean dogs like fairytales too?'\n\nDad laughs. 'I don't know, I don't speak Dog, so I've never asked. I mean _adults_ can use fairytales too!'\n\n**'Seriously?!'** gasps Lily.\n\n'Wanna hear a secret?' Dad asks.\n\nLily nods, her eyes wide. She loves secrets.\n\n'Okay,' begins Dad. 'Years ago, when you were little, and Sonny was still just a bump in Mum's belly, your mum and I were busy building the restaurant\u2014'\n\n'Oh yeah! I remember that!' Lily had been about three years old, and Dad would leave first thing in the morning, and come home way past Lily's bedtime. Lily remembers that he always looked really tired, and always had paint splattered in his hair from painting the walls.\n\n'Well, it was really hard work, and every day when I went in, I would tell myself I was a bit like Jack from _Jack and the Beanstalk_.'\n\n'Huh? You met a giant?' Lily laughs. **'That is ultra-coolness!'**\n\n'No! I mean that I had to take some risks, like Jack did selling his only cow for some beans. And sometimes, Lil, I worried I had made a big mistake. But building the restaurant was like Jack climbing that beanstalk. I had to climb all sorts of hurdles to get the restaurant up and running. There wasn't a golden goose at the top of the beanstalk, but now the restaurant pays for us. It lets us take holidays, and buy stuff and have pizza on the weekends!'\n\nLily grins. She likes the idea of Dad's restaurant being on top of a giant beanstalk. If it grows giant beans, even better! Yum!\n\n'So, now, when I feel worried about something, or there is a problem, I still imagine I am Jack and I'm chopping down that beanstalk, chopping down my problems!'\n\nLily scrunches up her nose, thinking. By imagining himself as Jack, chopping away at his problems, Dad was totally 'going method'. Then a funny picture pops into Lily's head.\n\n'So...' says Lily, 'if the restaurant is the giant's castle, and you are Jack, is Mum like the giant?' Lily giggles.\n\n**'Hahaha!'** Dad slaps the table, making both mugs of hot chocolate jiggle. 'Only when she can't find her keys and stomps around the house in a bad mood!'\n\nLily laughs. Mum does turn into a grumpy, stompy giant when she loses her keys! If she loses her glasses, she gets even more stompy! **FACT!**\n\n'No,' Dad says. 'Mum is my golden goose, and you guys are the most precious things in my life. It's our job in this fairytale to keep you all happy and safe, forever after!'\n\nSonny pops up from behind the couch. ' _Muuuum!_ Dad said you are a goose!' he calls up the stairs. 'Oooh! Hot chocolate!'\n\nDad pulls out a chair for Sonny to join them at the table and then pours him a mug of steaming chocolate.\n\n'Is Daddy telling you guys his _Jack and the Beanstalk_ story?' asks Mum, coming downstairs with Lily's PJs and fluffy bunny slippers.\n\n'Dad said building the restaurant was kind of like climbing the giant's beanstalk,' blurts Lily.\n\n'That's right,' says Dad, smiling at Mum in the special way that makes Lily all squirmy with embarrassment, but all shiny with joy at the same time.\n\n'Do you think it was worth risking everything on those magic beans?' Dad asks Mum.\n\n'Absolutely.' Mum nods, looking back at Dad in _her_ special way.\n\nFor the first time all week, Lily feels really, really good. Maybe fairytales aren't so ultra- _infantile_. Everyone wants a happily ever after and, looking at her family, Lily knows that everyone is scared of something, but that doesn't mean your dreams can't come true.\n\n**'T** hat's right, Lily's nearly ten.' Mum is busy at the hospital admissions desk, filling in paperwork and answering questions.\n\nLily D is busy squirming in her waiting-room seat. A part of her wants to just run away, and the rest of her is generally freaking out! Outside it's still dark. It seems like the whole world is asleep, except for Lily D, Mum, the admissions desk lady and the girl sitting two seats down from Lily.\n\nThe girl looks about Lily's age, and she's wearing the **MOST AWESOME BEANIE** Lily has ever seen. It's all the colours of the ocean: blues, greys, greens and white. The girl has her nose deep in a book, but keeps scratching her head underneath her beanie now and then, without once taking her eyes off the page. Lily is about to suggest she get checked for nits, like they do twice a year at school, when suddenly the girl whips her beanie off \u2013 and there is no hair underneath!\n\nLily stares... then looks at her hands, looks at Mum at the admissions desk, then looks at the girl. **AARGH!**\n\n'Stop it, Lily!' she thinks to herself. 'Don't stare!' So, Lily looks at the clock on the wall, then checks her bag to see if she had packed PJs and a toothbrush, and then looks at the girl.\n\nThis time, the girl _is looking back at her_!\n\n**'Hi!'** Lily says, with an awkward little wave and a lopsided smile.\n\nThe girl waves back, smiling her own version of a half-smile, before returning to her book.\n\n'What are you reading?' Lily asks. 'Ah, _Rapunzel_ ,' she says, reading the cover of the book the girl holds up to her. 'Do you like fairytales?'\n\n'Ummmmm,' the girl looks kind of startled that Lily is speaking to her. 'Nah, I don't like all fairytales, but I always read _Rapunzel_ when I come into hospital for my treatments.'\n\nSuddenly the girl blushes and looks down at her beanie, before quickly pulling it on over her head. 'Sounds kind of dumb, I know... but this story makes me feel, um, braver?'\n\n'Totally,' Lily says, nodding seriously. 'Fairytales help lots of kids face their fears.'\n\nThe girl smiles. 'Yeah! And it makes me feel better about this too,' she says, pointing to her head.\n\n'Your beanie?' Lily asks. 'Oh! Coz it's itchy, right? Hmm... does Rapunzel have an itchy beanie? I don't remember that bit,' Lily jokes. 'Maybe she just has nits!'\n\nThis makes the girl laugh hard. She has an awesome, honking laugh that is so full of joy it makes Lily feel tingly all over.\n\n'No! Reading _Rapunzel_ makes me feel better about my hair!' the girl explains. 'The treatments made it start falling out so we had the hairdresser shave it all off.'\n\n**'Oh... whoa!'** says Lily. Now it is her turn to feel a bit embarrassed. 'I just thought YOUR parents were really cool and let you shave your head. I begged Mum and Dad to let me shave my hair a while ago, so I could put tattoos all over my head. I wanted to practise being a character that looked different to everyone else, but they wouldn't let me.'\n\n'Well, I sure know what that feels like,' grins the girl.\n\n'What?!' Lily says, her eyes wide. **'Have you tattooed your head?'**\n\n**'NO!'** laughs the girl, and there is that totally awesome laughter again. Lily feels so tingly she giggles too.\n\n'I mean,' the girl starts, 'wherever I go, my shaved head makes me look different, and I am smaller than the other kids my age so that makes me different too. All that difference kind of makes me feel bad... like I'm a bit ugly, so no-one will like me.'\n\nThe girl is facing Lily, but her eyes seem to be looking somewhere far, far away. Seeing things Lily can never imagine. Feeling things Lily doesn't understand.\n\n'That's why I love Rapunzel... because I am kind of like her. Being in hospital all the time is kind of like being locked away in a tower. It makes me different.' The girl pauses, and takes a deep breath. 'Rapunzel is beautiful, with amazing hair, but even after the evil witch cuts it off, she still gets her happily ever after. Well, I don't think I'm beautiful, and all my hair is gone.' The girl's voice gets a bit croaky, and she takes off her beanie again and rubs her hand over her shiny scalp. Her words make Lily's heart hurt. 'But I am DETERMINED I am going to have my happily ever after,' the girl whispers, like it is a very special secret. 'And when I look in the mirror, I see that I am getting better, and I see how hard I have worked to get better... and so I guess I like what I see.'\n\nThe young girl with the big sad eyes and the tinkly, honky laugh rubs her head again. She obviously feels a bit weird without her beanie on.\n\nLily's heart feels like a wet sponge that someone is wringing out to dry. Looking at the girl beside her, all Lily can see is someone who is incredibly brave and more deserving of a happy ending than any character in a fairytale.\n\nLily really wants to make this girl feel good, feel happy, but she is no fairy godmother, and **she has no magic wand.** But then she remembers what Mum tells her and Sonny every time they pass someone in the street who isn't as happy, healthy and fortunate as them: 'Show everyone kindness, and treat them with respect. That is the greatest gift you can give in this world'.\n\nLily sticks out her hand. **'Hey, I'm Lily D, V.A.P.'**\n\nThe girl takes Lily's hand, and gives a firm shake that makes Lily's bracelets applaud.\n\n'Samara Waterhouse... with no letters after my name. What do your letters mean?'\n\n'Pleased to meet you, Samara. The letters usually stand for Very Amazing Performer, but today they stand for **Very Anxious Patient!** I'm having my tonsils out, and I am totally freaking out!'\n\nSamara laughs her tingly, honky laugh.\n\nLily leans in close to Samara's ear and whispers, 'Don't tell anyone, but I am sooooo scared of needles!'\n\nSamara leans in, and whispers in Lily's ear in reply. 'Don't you tell anyone, but I am soooo scared of clowns. Sometimes in here, they bring clowns in to entertain the kids, and I am all like **aaaaaarGHHHHH!** '\n\nLily laughs so hard she snorts.\n\nJust then, a woman and a man walk up. They are wearing big smiles that are a mixture of happy and sad, and pride mixed with a bit of fear. Lily is wearing the exact same smile. Samara is too.\n\n'That's Mum and Dad. I better go...' says Samara.\n\nLily nods as Samara collects her book and turns to face her parents. The girl pulls her beanie on and gives her head a quick scratch as she walks away.\n\n'Hey, Samara!' Lily calls. Samara turns back. 'Your beanie is totally the amazing-est beanie I have ever seen, but if it makes you feel itchy, just don't wear it. You look different, but\n\nSamara smiles a huge smile.\n\n'Hey, while we are in here together, we should hang out,' suggests Lily. 'I could get my mum to bring in my special make-up from drama class, and we could tattoo your head!'\n\nSamara laughs again, big and loud and tinkly. 'That would be cool... and Lily, needles are nothing. If you have to have one, try saying the alphabet backwards, and I guarantee you won't even notice it being done. Even better, imagine the doctor with underpants on their head!'\n\nLily giggles. 'Thanks, Samara! Good advice! See you around.'\n\n**A** lone again, that squeezed-sponge feeling returns and grips Lily's heart.\n\nSuddenly, although she isn't sure why, Lily begins to cry.\n\nMum returns from the admissions desk to find Lily shaking, with tears streaming down her cheeks.\n\n'Sweetie, what's wrong?' she asks.\n\nLily shakes her head. She can't talk.\n\nMum pulls Lily into her arms and makes the gentle _shh shh shh shh sssshhhhhh_ sound she's used on Lily and Sonny since they were tiny babies.\n\nSoon Lily calms down, and stops shaking.\n\nMum tilts Lily's face up and looks into her eyes. 'I'm so proud of you, my wondrous, exceptional daughter. **The amazing-est girl I have ever met!'**\n\n'Mum!' gasps Lily. 'You just said _amazing-est_!'\n\nMum chuckles. 'I know. Don't tell your father! I feel like I need to wash my mouth out with soap!' Mum cuddles Lily closer.\n\nIt feels nice just to be near each other.\n\n'Hey, we have a bit of a wait, still,' Mum says after a little while. 'Why don't you perform the piece you've been learning from _Into the Woods_ for me?'\n\n'Okay.' Lily stands up, feeling a bit nervous. She's learned lots of bits from _Into the Woods_ so she could be ready to play any character, but right now, there's one that seems perfect. So Lily D closes her eyes, and very quietly starts singing the chorus song introducing the woods themselves.\n\nLily loves the part of the song that says even when the woods are dark and full of scary things \u2013 like wolves and witches \u2013 you just have to keep going through the scary parts. You have to face your fears!\n\n**'That was beautiful!'** says a strange voice, as a pair of hands start clapping. Lily's eyes fly open to find a nurse in a pale blue uniform, smiling so wide it looks like she has stuck a banana in her mouth sideways!\n\n'That's from _Into the Woods_ , isn't it?' says the nurse in a happy, giggly, squeaky voice. 'I love that musical. I think it's because **I LOVE fairytales!'**\n\n'Yeah!' Lily grins. 'I love them too!'\n\n'Now,' says the smiley nurse, 'you're Lily D, aren't you?'\n\nLily nods.\n\n**'Ready to head down to your room?'** asks the nurse.\n\nLily starts to follow her, but notices Mum is still sitting, frozen! Mum looks totally freaked out!\n\nLily walks back to the chairs and puts her hand on her mum's. 'Mum, it's cool. You don't have to worry, I've got this!' she whispers. 'I am totally in the zone. I'm more than method. I am Little Princess Snow Bean right now. I could even be Snow White! I'm not scared at all. Well... not much anyway.'\n\nMum looks confused. 'So, now you want to be a princess?'\n\n'No! What I mean is, every time I get tonsillitis it stops me from performing, so it stops me from doing what I love.' Lily smiles her bravest smile, and gives her beads a dramatic shake. Joyful bead-applause rings through the hospital corridor.\n\n'So these doctors and nurses, even the yucky... um... the yucky needles, I guess they are kind of like my fairy godmother, or my magic tree, or my poisoned apple, or beanstalk, or _whatever_.'\n\nLily scrunches her nose, trying to find the right words to explain that after a week of going 'fairytale method', and seeing how people she cares about and respects use fairytales to fight their own fears, she is ready to face hers. Lily is **DETERMINED** to show Mum that like all the brave characters she has studied this week, she is no longer scared.\n\n'I am going to wake up after this operation to see everyone I love... like Snow White! **But I don't need a prince to save me.** I am going to find my own happily ever after. Because I will be me, a healthy, happy, tonsil-free Lily D.'\n\nLily grabs Mum's hand, and together they follow the nurse past the admissions desk and into the hospital.\n\nLily is determined to walk out of the hospital a better V.A.P. than ever. Not a _Very Attractive Princess_ \u2013 **NO WAY!** Lily will be a **Very Amazing Performer**.\n\nAnd after hospital, Lily has a whole week of ice-cream to look forward to! Now _that_ is a happy ending! **FACT!**\n\nOnce upon a time, there was a little girl named Madeleine. Madeleine **LOVED** to tell stories because she believed **EVERYONE** has a story and that story deserves to be told.\n\nThat little girl grew up to become a **Very Ambitious Performer** on stage, film and TV, and now, she is **Virtually an Author Person**. **FACT!**\n\nMadeleine also has six kids, and she believes it is very important for children to experience what it is like to walk in someone else's shoes. Why? Because the greatest gift we can give is treating others with respect and kindness, no matter who they are, what they do or where they come from.\n\nSo Madeleine has created Lily D, V.A.P., a character actor with a difference, and hopes that you have enjoyed reading about her in the book.\n\nMadeleine can also do backflips with just the occasional injury, and dreams of one day owning a chocolate-coated castle made entirely of peanut butter... or Nutella even. Madeleine isn't fussy.\n\n**'OMG!** Wow! You are **TOTALLY** not going to believe this! _Guyzzzzz_ , you are seriously going to _flip_!'\n\n'Lily, it's \"guyS\" with an _s_ , not a _z_ ,' says Mum, who is working on her laptop. Mum is a writer and she knows everything about words. She can even tell if you're spelling them wrong when you _say_ them!\n\n'Hmm? What's going on, Lily-Pilly?' Dad asks. He's chopping vegetables so fast his hands look all blurry.\n\nSonny, Lily's little brother, just keeps stacking his building blocks. His real name is Hudson, but Lily only calls him that when she's cross. Sonny is six, and can be seriously annoying. _But_ , when he pretends to be a zombie it's so scary it makes your skin tingle in the spookily-cool way. So Lily thinks he is okay ... sometimes.\n\n**'You guySSSSSS!'** Lily exclaims.\n\n'Why are we going to flip, Lil?' asks Mum.\n\n' _Well!_ Next week in drama class we are going to perform scenes from _Annie_! It's a _really famous_ musical about this orphan girl called Annie. She is all alone in the world. She lives in a horrible orphanage but then finds a new home, and it's really sad, then really happy.' Lily takes a breath. 'It's _totally_ cool!'\n\nLily shakes her arms to make her beads rattle. Lily D wears heaps of coloured bead bracelets all up one arm and down the other.\n\nSonny rolls his eyes. 'Mum! Lily's applauding herself again!'\n\nIt's kind of true \u2013 when Lily's bracelets rattle, it sounds just like an audience clapping. **INSTANT APPLAUSE!** Just what every performer extraordinaire needs!\n\n'And will you be playing Annie?' asks Dad, changing the subject.\n\n**'You got it, Daddy Warbucks!** That's Annie's new dad's name, by the way. Well, when she gets a new home, that is.'\n\n'That's marvellous, Lil. We are very proud.' Mum actually stops typing on her keyboard!\n\n'So all this week I have to practise being Orphan Annie,' Lily explains. 'I'm going method. That means I have no mum, and no dad and no stinky little brother.'\n\n**'LILY!'** Mum says in her _stern_ voice.\n\n'Sorry, Sonny,' says Lily. 'Anyway, this week I have to do everything for myself. I have to get my own food, clothes, _everything_. Those are the rules... the ORPHAN RULES! **I'M TOTALLY ORPHAN ANNIE** and you can't do anything for me. Okay, Mum and Dad? I mean \u2013 _Clara and Sam_?'\n\n'Mr and Mrs D will do,' Dad says. He tries to do a _stern_ voice too, but he isn't as good at it as Mum. He needs to go to drama class with Lily D to learn how!\n\n'I guess you won't be having any of the chocolate cake I made for dessert then,' Dad says.\n\nLily's dad is a chef, and he makes the _best_ chocolate cake. He makes the best _everything_.\n\n**GGGGGGGRRRRRR!** Lily's tummy grumbles.\n\n**To you ultra-cool captains of chaos, my super-dooper 7. Every day you show me the true meaning of bravery: laugh loud, dream big and never let fear stop you from being the best you can be.**\n\n**\\- M.W.**\n\n_Lily D, V.A.P: Little Princess Snow-Bean_\n\nfirst published in 2018 by\n\nHardie Grant Egmont\n\nGround Floor, Building 1, 658 Church Street\n\nRichmond, Victoria 3121, Australia\n\nwww.hardiegrantegmont.com\n\neISBN 9781743585955\n\nText copyright \u00a9 Madeleine West, 2018\n\nArtwork copyright \u00a9 Joanie Stone, 2018\n\nDesign by Kristy Lund-White\n\nAll rights reserved\n\nCataloguing-in-Publication data is available from the National Library of Australia\n\nWe welcome feedback from our readers. All our ebooks are edited and proofread vigorously, but we know that mistakes sometimes get through. If you spot any errors, please email info@hardiegrantegmont.com.au so that we can fix them for your fellow ebook readers.\n\nAll rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publishers and copyright holders.\n","meta":{"redpajama_set_name":"RedPajamaBook"}}
+{"text":"\n\nText copyright \u00a9 2009 by Gena K. Gorrell\n\nPublished in Canada by Tundra Books,  \n75 Sherbourne Street, Toronto, Ontario M5A 2P9\n\nPublished in the United States by Tundra Books of Northern New York,  \nP.O. Box 1030, Plattsburgh, New York 12901\n\nLibrary of Congress Control Number: 2009928409\n\nAll rights reserved. The use of any part of this publication reproduced, transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, or stored in a retrieval system, without the prior written consent of the publisher - or, in case of photocopying or other reprographic copying, a licence from the Canadian Copyright Licensing Agency - is an infringement of the copyright law.\n\n**Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication**\n\nGorrell, Gena K. (Gena Kinton), 1946-  \nSay what? : the weird and mysterious journey of the English language \/ Gena K. Gorrell.\n\neISBN: 978-1-77049-079-6\n\n1. English language\u2013History\u2013Juvenile literature. I. Title.\n\nPE1075.G675 2009 j420.9 C2009-902917-0\n\nWe acknowledge the financial support of the Government of Canada through the Book Publishing Industry Development Program (BPIDP) and that of the Government of Ontario through the Ontario Media Development Corporation's Ontario Book Initiative. We further acknowledge the support of the Canada Council for the Arts and the Ontario Arts Council for our publishing program.\n\nv3.1\nThis book is dedicated to my father,  \nJack Muir, who was always my best editor,  \nand who taught me from the beginning  \nthat \"Well, you know what I mean\" is  \njust  \nnot  \ngood  \nenough.\nLanguage is the memory of the human race.\n\n\u2014 WILLIAM HENRY SMITH\n\n# Contents\n\n Introduction: The Puzzle of English\n\n1 The Mother Tongue\n\n2 The Glory That Was Greece\n\n3 Echoes of Ancient Greek\n\n4 Britannia, Provincia Romana\n\n5 Amicus, Amice, Amicum\n\n6 Angles and Saxons and Vikings\n\n7 Alfred and the Vikings\n\n8 Riddles, Hymns, and Tales of Battle\n\n9 The Defeat of the English\n\n10 Tales of Cnihts and Fair Ladies\n\n11 How to Spell It? How to Say It?\n\n12 Making the \"Good Book\" Better\n\n13 Gloriana and the Bard\n\n14 Greener Pastures\n\n15 The War between English & English\n\n16 Britannia's Heyday\n\n17 Words, Words, Words\n\n18 Looking Forward\n\n Timeline\n\n Appendix\n\n More about Sanskrit\n\n More about Greek\n\n More about Latin\n\n More about Old English\n\n Source Notes\n\n Selected Bibliography\n\n Picture Sources\n\n Acknowledgments\n\n# Introduction\n\n# THE PUZZLE OF ENGLISH\n\nWhere on earth did the English language come from? Over a million words, and such weird spellings! Aren't there any rules? Some words are spelled the same but said differently (\"The **wind** made the flag **wind** around the pole\"). Others are spelled differently but pronounced the same (\"Did you bring **enough stuff**?\") How did English get so complicated?\n\nThe answer is that English isn't just the speech of one nation; it's the memory of thousands of years of history. It tracks the places people came from and the places they went to; the adventures they had; the friends and enemies they made; the battles they won and lost. It marks the days when legions of Roman soldiers stomped onto England's shore \u2013 the days when Viking warriors sailed their dragon boats across the sea to plunder British villages \u2013 the day a king of England was felled by an arrow on the battlefield and a foreigner seized his throne. As English changed and grew, it became a jumble of sounds and words and rules from countless languages and lands. And it's still changing, still growing, every day.\n\nIf you want an example, look at Tolkien's novel _The Hobbit_. When Bilbo Baggins first meets the wizard Gandalf, the hobbit exclaims:\n\nGandalf, Gandalf! Good gracious me!... Not the fellow who used to tell such wonderful tales at parties, about dragons and goblins and giants and the rescue of princesses...?\n\nThat looks like plain English, doesn't it? But **gracious** and **princess** both come from Latin \u2013 _gratia_ , \"kindness,\" and _princeps_ , \"leader.\" **Dragon** and **giant** are from Greek _drakon_ and _gigant_. **Fellow** and **wonderful** come from the Norse spoken by those ancient Viking warriors. As for **Gandalf** , it's Norse for \"wand-elf\"!\n\nEnglish has words from languages so old that we barely know they existed. It has words from prehistoric tribes, and from today's languages \u2013 from Hindi, Arabic, and Chinese; from the Choctaws in North America, the Guaran\u00eds in South America, and the Aboriginals in Australia. More than seventy percent of all English words were born someplace other than England. Spin a globe and put your finger down on almost any patch of land; English has words that come from there.\n\nThat's why the language can be so confusing and inconsistent. That's why, for every rule about English, there's a fistful of exceptions. And that's why this is the richest, most international, most versatile language in the world.\n\n#\n\nWhere did language start in the first place? It must have been long before there were humans. Imagine primitive ape-creatures huddled together in a cave; they'd have to communicate somehow. They'd want some way to say, _Give that back, it's mine!_ or _Move over, you're standing on my foot!_ And the more they lived together, the more they'd need to say. _Where'd you find those blueberries? Chase that rabbit over here and I'll grab it_. As they evolved into humans, and learned farming and other skills, their language would become more complicated: _I'll trade you half my honey next week for one of those catfish today_.\n\nWhile early humans were developing languages, they were also migrating from place to place. Sometimes they were driven by changes in the weather, or by natural disasters like floods and forest fires. Sometimes they were moving away from hostile neighbors, or following the animals they hunted. For many reasons, groups of people were leaving one home territory and looking for another.\n\nBy comparing certain languages and tracing their roots, finding similar words that seem to come from the same ancient, mysterious source, scholars have concluded that in the far distant past \u2013 maybe six or eight thousand years ago \u2013 some people were speaking a language that has now been lost. They had no writing (that we've found) so we have no records, and we know very little about who they were, or where and how they lived. They seem to have had words for **snow** and **wolf** but not for **ocean** , so their homeland was probably cold and far from the sea \u2013 likely somewhere in Central Europe. But that's about all we can say. That, and one other thing: for some reason, small bands of these people migrated in different directions. They carried their language across Europe and Asia and even up into Scandinavia.\n\nOnce their communities became separated, their ways of speaking slowly began to differ, creating a whole family of languages that we describe as Indo-European. One version, Celtic Indo-European, is the source of modern Welsh, and of the Gaelic spoken in Ireland and Scotland. Farther south, Greek Indo-European developed into ancient and then modern Greek. The Indo-Iranian form is the foundation of most languages of India, Pakistan, and Iran. Italic Indo-European gave rise to Latin, which gave rise to Italian, French, and Spanish. The Slavic version is the basis of Russian, Bulgarian, and Polish. Germanic Indo-European is the root of Dutch, most Scandinavian languages, German and Yiddish \u2013 and English. And these are only a few examples. Altogether, the roots of the languages spoken by about half the people in today's world reach back to the Indo-European tongue of those unknown people so long ago.\n\nHow much Sanskrit is hiding in your kitchen? The ancient Hindus cooked with _pippali_ (berry), _sarkara_ (grit), and _crngaveram_ (powdered horn-body, an antler-shaped root). The Greeks called these seasonings _peperi_ , _sakkharon_ , and _ziggiberis_. We know them as pepper, sugar, and ginger. (Do you see where the artificial sweetener saccharin gets its name?)\n\nOne of the earliest Indo-European languages that we have in written form is Sanskrit. In India, Hindu scriptures called the Veda were written in Sanskrit about 3,500 years ago. ( _Veda_ is Sanskrit for \"knowledge.\") Sanskrit was the language of India's court and literature 2,500 years ago, and although it's not used in daily speech any more, it's still part of Hindu religious ceremonies.\n\nAlthough modern Indo-European languages have been developing separately for thousands of years, and now seem very different from one another, it's intriguing to track down the similarities. For example, the Sanskrit words for **one** , **two** , **three** , are pronounced _eka_ , _dvi_ , _tri_. Compare those ancient words to these:\n\nAnd look at the \"family tree\" for this word:\n\nSanskrit and its descendants \u2013 such as Latin, Ancient Greek, and early French and Germanic languages \u2013 gave English more than just vocabulary. They also left fragments of their grammar, ghosts that lurk behind our sentences like scraps of faded photos in a family album. These odds and ends can be puzzling, even frustrating, but they deserve respect. They come from the dawn of the English language, and long before.\n\nOne of the greatest Hindu gods, Shiva ( _SHEE-vah_ ), appears in Sanskrit texts over two thousand years old. Shiva can take various forms, some kind, some cruel and dreadful. Here he appears as the four-armed Lord of the Dance, surrounded by a fiery halo representing the cycle of creation, destruction, and rebirth, and trampling a demon to symbolize the end of evil.\n\n#\n\nGreece is a smallish country, about the size of England \u2013 and like England, it was once the heart of an empire. At its height, starting around 500 BCE (Before the Christian Era), Greece boasted magnificent architecture, painting, and sculpture. Its poets and playwrights were renowned across Europe. Education was greatly prized, and orators (public speakers) who were logical and eloquent were celebrated as heroes.\n\nAs the Greeks sailed their ships along the shores of the Mediterranean Sea, setting up colonies to trade their wine, olive oil, and pottery for products such as wheat and metals, their language became known as far away as Spain and North Africa.\n\nIn the mid-300s BCE, the brilliant military campaigns of the young king Alexander the Great spread Greek civilization and culture to even more distant lands \u2013 down the Nile River through Egypt, and east into India.\n\n(photo credits 2.1)\n\nThe Greek language was used in government as well as in fashionable, artistic circles. It was also handy as a lingua franca \u2013 a common language understood by traders and travelers from many different places.\n\nOne reason for the success of the language was the Greek alphabet. Earlier cultures had found ways to write words, but their systems were generally very complicated and required a lot of fancy symbols, usually based on pictures. All those symbols were hard to learn, and they weren't easy to copy out, either.\n\nThis pillar marks the tomb of a high-ranking priest-scribe at an Egyptian pharaoh's court more than four thousand years ago. The Ancient Egyptians had about seven hundred hieroglyphic signs, each representing a consonant or a mix of consonants. (They didn't write vowel sounds.) The symbols inside the cartouche (oval line, upper left and middle right) represent a flowering reed, a feather, a hare, and water, and spell out the pharaoh's name. Hieroglyphs were elegant and decorative, but only a few people \u2013 mostly priest-scribes \u2014 could read them. (photo credits 2.2)\n\nBut another ancient civilization \u2013 the Phoenicians, who lived about where Lebanon is now \u2013 had had the brilliant idea of using a handful of simple signs to represent consonants. (The Phoenicians and the Egyptians didn't bother writing vowels.) The Greeks had adapted this system sometime around the 800s BCE, adding a few vowels and other sounds and ending up with about twenty-four letters. And there it was: a quick, efficient way to write a letter or a shopping list or a poem, and so easy that a schoolchild could learn it. And this set of letters began: _a_ , _b_ \u2013 alpha, beta.\n\nWhat word can you make out of A-B-C-D? Abecedarian, meaning something related to the alphabet, or someone learning it. \"Isn't little Sally clever? She's only three, and already she's an abecedarian.\"\n\nThe Greeks were seen as highly cultured, and experts in life's little pleasures \u2014 good food, fine wine, music, and romance. They decorated pottery bowls and vases with scenes from daily life, historical events, and the endless shenanigans of their gods. (photo credits 2.3)\n\nAfter Alexander died suddenly when he was only thirty-three, his empire began to collapse. In time, the remnants of Greece were swallowed up by the Roman Empire. But the Romans themselves had been nourished by the culture of Greece. The Roman alphabet was derived from the Greek alphabet. The Roman language, Latin, had been influenced by Greek. Roman literature was patterned after the works of Greece. Educated Romans were expected to be fluent in Greek; for less privileged people, Greek plays, poems, and speeches were translated into Latin. Children of wealthy Roman families studied under Greek tutors, and often completed their education by traveling in Greece.\n\n\"The art of speaking enchants the soul,\" declared Plato (427?-347? BCE), a writer and philosopher, and one of the most famous Greeks. He also pointed out that \"An orator's virtue is to speak the truth.\" (photo credits 2.4)\n\nThe Greek gods lived on Mount Olympus and led soap-opera lives of passion, deceit, jealousy, and revenge. Nemesis was a goddess who punished those who were evil, arrogant, or vain. Today, a nemesis is a supreme enemy or destroyer. (Harry Potter is Lord Voldemort's nemesis.)\n\nIn Greek mythology, when Halcyone found her drowned husband's body on the shore, she was so heartbroken that she drowned herself. Halcyone and her husband were turned into kingfishers, birds that were thought to nest on a calm sea. That's why calm and peaceful times are called halcyon ( _HAL-see-on_ ) days.\n\nIn the centuries that followed, the writings of the ancient Greeks \u2013 myths, fables, plays, and philosophy \u2013 shaped European society. Well into the 1800s, people could hardly claim to be educated unless they read at least a little Greek.\n\n#\n\nThe Greek alphabet often shows up in our maths and sciences: **beta** blockers are a class of medications, **gamma** rays are a kind of electromagnetic radiation, and **pi** (\u03c0, the Greek letter _p_ ) is a ratio used in math involving circles. The leaders of an animal pack are the **alpha** female and **alpha** male. A triangular airplane wing, or the triangle of a spreading river-mouth, is a **delta** , after the capital Greek _D_ , \u2206. (You can find the whole Greek alphabet in \"More about Greek,\" at the end of this book.)\n\n_Iota_ was the name of the Greek _i_ , the smallest letter in their alphabet. In English an **iota** is the smallest possible amount (\"She hasn't got an iota of talent!\") Our word **jot** comes from _iota_ , and means the same thing. And when we \"jot down a note,\" we are writing as little as possible.\n\nWe borrow Greek words to create all kinds of new meanings. The Greek for **circle** , _kuklos_ , shows up in **bicycle** , **cyclone** (a circular storm), and **recycling** (using over and over). From _naus_ , **ship** , we get **nautical** (related to ships and sailing), navigable (passable by ships \u2013 \"Is that river navigable?\"), and astronaut (\"star-sailor\"). From _hudor_ (water) come **dehydrated** (deprived of water), **hydraulic** (powered by water), and **hydroponics** (growing plants in water without soil). Knowing a little Greek can help you figure out a lot of English words, even if you've never seen them before.\n\nThe Greeks had two versions of the letter o. One was _omicron_ (o), or o-little (as in \"microscope,\" for seeing little things). The other was _omega_ (\u03a9), or o-big (as in \"megacity,\" big city). Since omega was the last letter of the Greek alphabet, \"My dog knows every trick from alpha to omega\" means Rover knows all the tricks from A to Z - in other words, absolutely everything.\n\nIn Ancient Greece, male athletes practiced their exercises naked _(gumnos)_. We still call a room for athletics a gymnasium.\n\nThe Greek alphabet may have been simple, but the language certainly wasn't. It was highly \"inflected\" \u2013 that is, words changed depending on how they were used. A noun could have many forms, because if you wrote \"This crocodile stole the fish from that crocodile and gave it to another crocodile,\" the ending on \"crocodile\" was different each time, depending on what role that particular crocodile played in the action. If you said \"These crocodiles\" you needed a whole different set of endings, for the plural. And if you talked about one lion ( _leon_ ) or two lions instead of one or two crocodiles, you needed two more sets of endings, because words ending in _os_ (like _krokodilos_ ) didn't have the same endings as words ending in _on_ (like _leon_ ) \u2013 in the singular, or in the plural!\n\nIn Ancient Greek, _kroke_ means \"stones\" and _drilos_ means \"worm\" \u2014 so a worm-shaped animal that liked to sunbathe on stony shores was called a _krokodilos_. (photo credits 3.1)\n\nAnd that's only the beginning. All nouns also had gender. **Grasshopper** was masculine but **flea** was feminine. **Soup** was masculine but **dessert** was neuter (neither masculine nor feminine). So if you described some animal as large ( _megas_ ), the ending on _megas_ depended on how many animals you meant, and whether they were masculine or feminine or neuter, and what role they played in the action!\n\nAnd verbs were no easier. We say **come** and **coming** and **came** , and we add a few auxiliary verbs (such as **was** , **will** , or **had** ). A Greek verb could have as many as _two hundred_ different forms, depending on the tense (past, present, future, etc.), the voice (active or passive), how many people were involved, and so on.\n\nHow did schoolkids ever learn all those endings? _Memorize, memorize, memorize!_\n\nEuphemisms (from Greek _eu pheme_ , \"fine-speaking\") are polite ways of not saying what we really mean \u2014 and we work them overtime when it comes to certain bodily functions. Our word \"toilet\" is from French _toilette_ , dressing room. The Romans went to the _necessarium_ ; we go to the washroom, but not just to wash; to the bathroom, but not to bathe; to the powder room, but not to powder anything! We go to the ladies' and gents', the little room, the bog (wet like a swamp), the privy (private place), the john. In England we pop out to the WC (water closet), lavatory (from French _laver_ , to wash,) or loo (perhaps from French _l'eau_ , \"water,\" or _lieu_ , \"place\"). And if we need to \"spend a penny,\" we're recalling the days when many public toilets in England were behind a one-penny turnstile.\n\n#\n\nWe don't know when humans first arrived in England, or how they lived. We do know that by about 2,500 years ago, they were not only using stone and copper tools; they also were mixing copper and tin to make bronze, for tools and weapons that were stronger and lasted longer. But over in Europe, some tribes called Celts were even more advanced. They had learned to make tools and weapons out of iron, which was stronger than bronze. They had mastered the art of riding horses, and harnessing them to chariots.\n\nSometime around thirty-five hundred years ago, people in Britain built Stonehenge and other monuments out of giant, roughly carved stones. We're still not sure what these constructions were used for, and we don't know what language people spoke as they worked together on these huge projects. (photo credits 4.1)\n\nBy 700 BCE, small bands of Celts were sailing from Europe to England as traders or settlers. Larger and larger groups followed. The native Britons, the Stonehenge-builders, tried to resist the invaders, but they were defeated again and again.\n\nMore Celts flooded in, building great earthen castles on hilltops, and fortifying them with high walls and deep ditches. They were ruled by priests and by fierce warriors who fought on horseback or from chariots, cloaked in bronze armor and brandishing iron weapons. Celtic artisans crafted ornate jewelry, wove fine fabrics that they colored with vegetable dyes, and made fragrant soaps and lotions and perfumes. Fleets of Celtic merchant ships carried goods to distant kingdoms, to be traded for exotic novelties.\n\nCeltic weapons and armor were often decorated with superbly crafted metal and enamel, and precious stones like coral and amber. This bronze shield, with its pattern of elegant curlicues, is studded with disks of red glass. (photo credits 4.2)\n\nThe Celts' language, religion, and folklore spread across much of Britain with them. Celtic was not a written language, but Celtic bards (storytellers) knew endless ballads of adventure and romance to enthrall their listeners. For hundreds of years Britain was dominated by the Celts, yet only a few English words come from Celtic \u2013 including **_Britain_** , from _Prydein_.\n\nBut while the Britons and Celts were learning to live together, sometimes fighting, sometimes intermarrying, a new empire was creeping toward their shores. The citystate of Rome had overgrown its boundaries and spilled out into the rest of Italy. Rome's armies were on the march, fighting their way across one land after another, building an empire. The well-armed Roman legions became renowned for their discipline and organization. Building a great navy, Rome spread its rule into France, Spain, and Africa. In 146 BCE, Rome conquered Greece. A hundred years later, Roman territories circled the entire coast of the Mediterranean. And wherever the Romans went, they took Latin as the language of law and government, and Greek as the language of the arts.\n\nIn 55 and 54 BCE, Julius Caesar led the first two Roman invasions into Britain. Some ninety years later \u2013 in 43 AD \u2013 forty thousand Roman troops braved the sea crossing for a massive attack. By 67 AD, four legions (about twenty thousand soldiers) were posted in Rome's new province of Britannia.\n\nCaius Julius Caesar ( _1_ 00?-44 BCE) was not only a Roman general but a brilliant statesman, writer, and orator. He was also a military genius, and he expanded the empire so spectacularly that later Roman emperors also called themselves Caesar. Various forms of the name now mean \"emperor\" in other countries: Kaiser in Germany, and czar (or tsar) in Russia. (photo credits 4.3)\n\n_Castra_ is Latin for army camp. Today, the names of many English towns \u2013 Lancaster, Cirencester, Winchester \u2013 mark them as places where Roman soldiers lived almost two thousand years ago.\n\nIn time, Rome took over much of Britain, well up into what is now Scotland. Roman troops were kept busy suppressing rebellions from within the province, repelling cross-border raids by Celtic tribes on the north and west, and fending off raids by seafaring Germanic tribes along the south and east.\n\nBut the Romans were a practical, businesslike people. Once they more or less controlled Britannia, they focused on matters of trade and government (especially tax-collecting!) The result was the Pax Romana, or Roman Peace (27 BCE to 180 AD), a fairly calm and prosperous interval after so many years of warfare.\n\nRoman soldiers were tough, highly trained professionals who used expert tactics against their many enemies. By locking their shields into this tanklike _testudo_ (\"tortoise\") formation, for example, they could stay protected while attacking an enemy position. (photo credits 4.4)\n\nThe Romans built fortified towns as refuges for times of rebellion, warehouses to protect trade goods, safe harbors for their ships. They laid out long, straight, solidly built roads, with stone bridges and distance-markers, so their armies and supplies could travel swiftly. Then they turned their attention to the details of everyday life: aqueducts to bring water to towns and garrisons, and sewers to take it away; temples and statues to please the many Roman gods; theaters and amphitheaters for entertainment; public toilets and bathhouses; lavish villas for the wealthy. Towns grew into cities, and little villages blossomed into towns.\n\n\"Great Caesar's ghost!\" exclaimed Superman's boss at the _Daily Planet_ newspaper, when he was excited. Most of us use exclamations that don't mean anything except that we're astonished or angry or we've stepped on a wasp. Each culture has its own exclamations, many of them not too polite. When religion dominates daily life, expressions like damn or hell are forbidden (people get around that with inventions like dang or darn or heck). At other times, quite innocent body parts (legs, for example) have been seen as offensive. Today, various body parts and functions are considered unmentionable \u2013 so we won't mention them!\n\nThe Romans did their best to spread Latin and the Roman culture in the province. Roman-style schools were set up, to teach elite British boys. It was difficult to succeed in business, at least in the towns and cities, without speaking passable Latin. Britons enlisted in the Roman legions, to serve at home and abroad; aging Roman soldiers acquired land in Britannia, and built themselves retirement estates. One way and another, Latin became part of the Britons' life, especially around Londinium (London). But in the countryside, and farther north and west, Celtic remained the language of the land.\n\nThe Romans had countless gods and goddesses, and they are with us still. Cereals are named for Ceres, goddess of grain harvests. Flora and fauna, the plants and animals of a particular area, are named for Flora, goddess of flowers, and Fauna, sister of Faunus, a god of woods and forests. And vulcanizing - treating something (like a rubber tire) at high temperatures to make it hard and durable - is named for Vulcan, god of fire. His name also gives us volcanoes, and volcanology or vulcanology, the science of volcanoes.\n\nMeanwhile, things were happening back in Rome. All those colorful, quarrelsome gods were being challenged by the single god of a new religion, Christianity. Rome itself was being attacked by primitive tribes from the east. Weakened by corruption, bad government, and a host of other problems, the Roman Empire split into two sections, and its power declined. The troops occupying Britannia were withdrawn and sent to fight elsewhere. In 410 AD, Rome officially gave up its occupation of Britannia. By the late 400s, the days of the Ancient Roman Empire were over.\n\n#\n\nOn the other side of the English Channel, in the Roman provinces of Gaul and Iberia (France and Spain), Latin had gradually replaced most Celtic languages. (Italian, French, and Spanish are known as Romance languages because they developed from the language of the Romans.) But although Latin was Britain's language of law and government for some four hundred years, it never caught on among the common people. They continued to speak Celtic, with a sprinkling of handy Latin words.\n\nWhat was Latin like? The Romans had adopted the Greek alphabet, dropping some letters, changing others, and rearranging the sequence. They ended up with pretty much the alphabet we use today.\n\nLike Greek, Latin was highly inflected. Nouns, and the adjectives that described them, changed their endings depending on their number and gender and case (the role played by the word). We often use a preposition to indicate the role: \" _to_ a friend, _from_ a friend, _about_ a friend;\" the Romans could just change the ending, like this:\n\n**nominative** ( _subject of verb_ ) My friend ( _amicus_ ) came.\n\n**vocative** ( _one spoken to_ ) \"Hey, friend ( _amice_ )!\"\n\n**accusative** ( _direct object_ ) I gave my friend to the frog ( _amicum_ ).\n\n**genitive** ( _possessive_ ) The father of my friend ( _amici_ ) came.\n\n**dative** ( _indirect object_ ) I gave the frog to my friend ( _amico_ ).\n\n**ablative** ( _other indirect connection_ )\n\nMy frog is from my friend ( _amico_ ).\n\nSalt \u2013 mined from the ground or recovered from sea-water \u2013 used to be a precious commodity; that's why we call good people the salt of the earth. Salt seasoned many dishes people ate, and kept food from spoiling during the long, hungry months of winter. Domestic animals like cows and goats couldn't survive without it. The soldiers of the Roman armies were sometimes paid in salt ( _sal_ in Latin), giving us our word salary, and we still say that people who earn their pay are worth their salt. Greens with salt and other seasonings make a salad, and preserved meats are salami. All of this from salt!\n\nAs in Greek, if the friend was a girl, or there were several boys, or several girls, or the word's nominative (subject) case didn't end in _us_ (like _amicus_ ), the endings were different.\n\nCompare this to English. Do we change endings for number, gender, and case? We usually change plurals, one way or another ( **frog** , **frogs** ; **mouse** , **mice** ). We occasionally change endings to show gender ( **actor** , **actress** ; **waiter** , **waitress** ), although this is going out of fashion. And we don't change adjectives at all \u2013 whether we're talking about one _rude_ girl or ten _rude_ boys!\n\nWhen you study Latin, you learn how to \"decline\" the nouns \u2013 how to change them according to their use. Here's how you decline the word for \"pig.\"\n\nNow, here's how we decline the word in English: pig pig pig pig's pig pig; pigs pigs pigs pigs' pigs pigs.\n\nIt's no wonder you don't find a lot of people speaking Latin these days!\n\nWe don't use all those case endings for nouns, but we do say, \"My _friend's_ glove,\" or the plural, \"My _friends' house_.\" The apostrophe tells us that \"friend\" is in the possessive case. In fact, we can use three systems to show the role of a noun: that _s_ , if it's possessive; a preposition (like **to** or **from** ); or simply the order of the words. We can say, \"I showed Jason's bike _to_ Ali,\" or \"I showed Ali Jason's bike,\" putting Ali first. (Because \"I showed the cat the bird\" is not the same as \"I showed the bird the cat\"!)\n\nPeople sometimes confuse the possessive s with the plural s. This mistake so often appears on shop signs that it's known as the greengrocer's apostrophe. Another common mistake is to put an apostrophe in the possessive _its_. Remember: the possessive his, hers, and its have _no_ apostrophe. It's is short for it is. (photo credits 5.1)\n\nWe still see Latin as a language of scholarship. Those spells that Harry Potter struggles to learn at Hogwarts are Latin, or at least mock-Latin \u2013 _Ferula! Lumos! Expelliarmus!_ When Harry forgets his Latin cases and cries, _\"Expecto patron o\"_ instead of \" _Expecto patron um_,\" his patronus doesn't appear. (In Latin, a _patronus_ is someone who protects people \u2013 like Harry's patronus, a dazzling silver stag that appears out of nowhere to drive away his enemies.)\n\nEven today, some Latin words appear, unchanged, in English. _Campus_ means \"flat field.\" _Victor_ means \"winner.\" _Veto_ (\"I forbid\") now means a rejection: \"Your parents will **veto** your plan to go sky-diving.\" _Recipe_ meant **take** ; now, as well as telling you what ingredients to use and how to cook them, a **recipe** is a prescription for medicine (the \"Rx\" you see in drugstores is a short form for **recipe** ). _Alibi_ (\"in another place\"), _exit_ (\"he, she, or it leaves\"), _ignoramus_ (\"we don't know\") \u2013 see how much Latin you already know?\n\n#\n\nAfter the Romans abandoned Britannia, life there changed for the worse. Without the Roman merchant fleet, international trade collapsed, and workshops ground to a halt. Without constant maintenance by the Roman army, roads and aqueducts fell into disrepair. With fewer jobs available, and not much law enforcement, there was more crime. Towns dwindled as people moved back to the countryside, to make a living any way they could.\n\nThe most serious threat, though, was from overseas. The Romans had fought vigilantly against pirates, raiders, and invaders from all sides. They had manned a chain of forts and watchtowers along the borders, and kept a fleet of warships nearby. Now, Britain's coast lay undefended.\n\nFewer jobs? Less jobs? Which is right? Fewer refers to things counted in whole numbers; less is for things you might have just part of. You wash _fewer_ than three teacups but you drink _less_ than three cups of tea (maybe just two and a half). You go trick-or-treating at fewer than twenty houses (it must be raining!) and bring home less than two bags of loot (the second bag isn't full).\n\nBy 440 CE, immigrants from Germanic tribes were beginning to arrive in Britain from northern Europe. Although they were expert seafarers and skilled farmers, they were not as advanced as the Britons had become under the Romans. And they were pagan, worshipping a host of Scandinavian gods of war and nature. In the last years of the Roman occupation, Rome had adopted Christianity, and the new faith had swept through Britain as well.\n\nAt first, the Britons and the new arrivals got along fairly peacefully, despite their differences. But then more and more immigrants came flooding in \u2013 Angles, Saxons, Jutes, and others \u2013 and began spreading through the southeast. The Britons fought many desperate battles, trying to drive the invaders out, but they failed.\n\n(photo credits 6.1)\n\nAlthough the borders of Anglo-Saxon Britain were constantly changing, we generally divide it into seven kingdoms: Essex, Wessex, Sussex, Kent, Mercia, Northumbria, and East Anglia. (photo credits 6.2)\n\nBy the mid-600s, there were Germanic communities through much of southern and eastern Britain. These grew into little kingdoms that were constantly fighting one another, killing each others' kings, merging territories and then splitting them up again. We call these people the Anglo-Saxons. They called themselves Angles, and their land was Engla-land. Their Germanic dialects, mixed with Celtic and Latin, became the early form of English we call Old English.\n\nAs the Anglo-Saxons took over, many Celts fled back across the sea to Europe, or deeper into the hinterlands of the west and south. The Anglo-Saxons dismissed them as foreigners, Wealas \u2013 the root of our word **Welsh**. (To this day Wales and Cornwall, in the far southwest, are strongholds of Celtic history and language.) The Wealas built tiny chapels and erected stone crosses, and clung to their Christianity. But while their faith remained strong, their memory of Latin slipped away. They repeated the rites and ceremonies of their church, but many of them barely understood the words they were saying.\n\nThe years after the fall of Rome are sometimes called the Dark Ages, because so much knowledge was lost, or at least temporarily misplaced. As the Roman Empire disintegrated into small territories, learning and culture took a back seat to rivalry and war. But Europe still had some important centers of scholarship, mostly in religious communities \u2013 especially in Rome, where the Catholic Church had grown wealthy and powerful.\n\nIn 597, the pope sent a party of monks, led by a learned monk named Augustine, to King Ethelbert of Kent, who was married to a Christian. Augustine persuaded Ethelbert to become Christian, and the religion began to spread through the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms. The monks built a church and monastery in Ethelbert's capital city, Canterbury. Augustine became the first Bishop of Canterbury, and later Saint Augustine of Canterbury. (Today, the Archbishop of Canterbury is still the senior clergyman of the Church of England.)\n\nAt first, many Anglo-Saxons resisted Christianity fiercely. Monks and nuns were murdered; churches were robbed and burned. But the upper classes were gradually converted by scholars like Augustine, while country folk were won over by humble traveling priests. The pagan gods were set aside. The spring festival of the pagan goddess Eastre became Easter, and the pagan winter festival became the Christ-mass.\n\nThese days, with scanners and photocopiers and faxes, it's hard to imagine the time and labor and mental concentration needed to reproduce a book by hand. Yet texts were not only copied meticulously, but embellished with illustrated initials and ornamental borders, sometimes with real gold. Notice all the birds and animals lurking in this capital P. And what's that funny little face in the top left? (photo credits 6.3)\n\nBy the end of the 600s, most of England was once again Christian. New churches were built, and adorned with \"ivories and jewelled crucifixes, golden and silver candelabra... superbly embroidered vestments, stoles and altar-cloths. _\"_ Convents and monasteries sprang up, where ordinary people, as well as monks and nuns, could learn to read and write. The spread of literacy brought back basics of society like record-keeping and accounting and report-writing.\n\nMeanwhile, the Anglo-Saxon kings were still fighting for supremacy. By the late 700s, King Offa of Mercia had more or less taken control of all the kingdoms, by various means (such as beheading the king of East Anglia). Offa called himself Rex Anglorum \u2013 Latin for \"King of the English.\" But when he died in 796, his little empire fell apart. In the early 800s King Egbert of Wessex likewise managed, for a time, to control all the Anglo-Saxon domains, and he is sometimes counted as the first king of England.\n\nBut while the Anglo-Saxons continued their rivalry, some Scandinavian tribes to the east, across the sea, had plans of their own. By the late 700s, these bold Norsemen (\"north-men,\" also called Vikings or Danes) were sailing to Britain and making fast, brutal raids \u2013 looting unprotected churches and monasteries of their gold and silver treasures, burning precious manuscripts, smashing tombs, plundering villages, stealing horses, and slaughtering people or seizing them as slaves. \"'From the fury of the Norsemen,' prayed the peasants in their churches, 'good Lord, deliver us!'\"\n\nThe Vikings (Danes) had learned to be the world's best shipbuilders and sailors, because the rough northern seas were often the only road between their villages. In the 800s and 900s they were not only raiding Britain and northern France, but building their own settlements there. Sometime around the year 1000, their square-sailed, dragon-headed longboats, powered by oarsmen, even traveled as far as North America. (photo credits 6.4)\n\nBefore long, the Danes were not only raiding and going home again. They were beginning to take over the country for themselves \u2013 just as the Anglo-Saxons had done a few centuries earlier. Year after year the Vikings attacked Britain's coasts, and year after year they claimed more land as their own. Sometimes the Anglo-Saxons bribed them to go away, with payments called Danegeld (Danes' gold) \u2013 but sooner or later they always came back.\n\nIn 851, a fleet of Viking dragon boats moored in the Thames River, and the raiders burned London and Canterbury. In 865 they crossed Northumbria, looting and burning; they seized the city of York, and destroyed the school and library. In 869 they murdered the ruler of East Anglia when he refused to give up Christianity. In 872 the King of Mercia abandoned his crown and fled to Europe.\n\nNow only one Anglo-Saxon dominion stood against the Danes \u2013 Wessex. It was ruled by a young king named Alfred.\n\nThe religious life offered women a refuge from difficult circumstances. For a few it was also a rare chance for a professional career. Princess Hilda of Northumbria (614-80) became a Christian when she was thirteen, and took her vows as a nun twenty years later. Revered for her wisdom and piety, she founded a church and \"double convent\" (for both men and women) at Whitby, on a cliff overlooking the sea. Hilda is now a saint.\n\n#\n\nWhen Alfred became King of Wessex in 871, the Vikings (Norsemen) controlled all of England north of the Thames \u2013 including the city of London \u2013 and they were attacking Wessex. Unable to defeat them right away, the new king played for time, paying a large bribe of Danegeld in exchange for a few years' peace. Meanwhile, he started building a fleet of warships to fight off the raiders. By 878 his army was able to win a decisive victory, and England was divided into Alfred's kingdom, and a region to the north and east (called the Danelaw) that was still held by the Norse.\n\nAlfred trained and equipped a strong army to defend the kingdom, and fortified many of the towns. He took back London, and rebuilt it. He compiled a code of laws, reformed the justice system, and reorganized finances. He built monasteries and convents, and brought in foreign scholars to make the Church once again a center of learning. He even invented some handy household gadgets, including a candle-lantern \"clock\" that measured time by the burning-speed of specially made candles. While he was doing all this, he was also fending off fresh attacks by the Vikings (Norse).\n\nAt the age of forty he learned Latin, and began translating important writings \u2013 including some by Saint Augustine \u2013 into Old English. Before then, English had been used for practical purposes like record-keeping and law-writing, and for poetry, but almost everything else was in Latin. Now, both translations and new works began to appear in Old English \u2013 Englisc, as it was called then.\n\nAlfred the Great (849-899) is remembered as much for his wisdom and scholarship as for his political and military feats. \"There will be more wisdom,\" he wrote, \"the more languages we know.\" (photo credits 7.1)\n\nThe Old English verb _witan_ meaning \"know\" has fallen out of use, but it still casts a shadow. Today wit means cleverness or intelligence. Unwittingly means without knowing (\"He unwittingly revealed the secret.\") Wise people, witnesses, and witches and wizards are all named for their knowledge.\n\nThere were further clashes between the English and the Norse after Alfred's death in 899. In 1012, the Archbishop of Canterbury was slaughtered by drunken Vikings. For a short while, from 1016 to 1042, Norse kings once again ruled much of England. But Alfred was the turning point. He brought the Anglo-Saxons together, restored Christianity, and showed his people that they could be one great nation, with a language and literature of their own. For all of this, history remembers him as Alfred the Great.\n\nMany of our most basic day-to-day words \u2013 **land** , **cow** , **sheep** , **dog** , **plow** , **bread** \u2013 come from Old English. **This** and **that** come from _this_ and _thaet_. Our comparisons of **long** , **longer** , **longest** come from Old English _lang, lengra, lengest_. But as many of the invaders adopted Christianity, and the two peoples lived together and intermarried, their language \u2013 Old Norse \u2013 affected Old English. About seven percent of our words \u2013 **take** , **get** , and **keep** ; **sky** , **skin** , and **skirt** \u2013 come from the Vikings. **He** is from Old English, but **they** is from Old Norse.\n\nEtheldrida was a princess of East Anglia. As a girl she loved to wear fancy necklaces, but later she became deeply religious. When she developed a tumor on her neck, she saw it as God's punishment for her youthful vanity. After her death she became Saint Audrey, and the cheap, badly made lace sold in her honor \u2014 \"Saint Audrey's lace\" \u2014 gave us our word tawdry (t'audrey), meaning gaudy but worthless.\n\nAs Norse words passed into English, people could choose between an English-based term and a Norse-based one: **wish** or **want** , **craft** or **skill** , **hide** or **skin**. Over time, those similar words picked up slightly different meanings, different associations, and the English language grew more subtle and versatile. We still have distinctions like this, even if we don't think about them. For example, **Nativity** and **Yule** both mean \"Christmas\" \u2013 but **Nativity** (\"birth,\" from a Latin root) suggests the religious side of the season, while **Yule** \u2013 from Old Norse _jol_ , a twelve-day pagan festival \u2013 suggests a jolly good party. (Yes, **jolly** is also from _jol_.)\n\nOld English nouns and pronouns varied depending on their case, but the changes were not as complicated as they had been in Latin and Greek. In fact, many pronouns looked very similar to ours:\n\nIn Old Norse, _by_ meant \"town.\" Today, bylaws are town laws (such as parking laws), and town names like Grimsby, Whitby, and Rugby echo those long-ago Viking invasions.\n\nAlthough these forms haven't changed much in the past thousand years, people still get confused about the cases of pronouns. **I** or **me**? **He and she** , or **him and her**? There's an easy trick that can help you keep them straight.\n\nAre these sentences right or wrong?\n\nDad saw John and I.  \nMom wants she and Chris to go.  \nHarry thinks Lily and us are right.  \nKids like you and I know a lot!\n\nIf you're not sure (and here's the BIG SECRET), drop one of the people. Drop **John and** , **and Chris** , **Lily and** and **you and**. See how wrong they all sound now? So if you're ever not sure which pronoun to use, you can either stop and think about the case \u2013 is it the subject or the object of the verb? \u2013 or you can try dropping that confusing other person!\n\nOld English had some letters we don't have:   ( _th_ as in \"cloth\"),   ( _th_ as in \"clothe\"), and   (a _w_ sound). A and E joined together (  or  ) sounded like _a_ in \"cat.\"\n\nBut if Old English and Old Norse were both inflected, with words changing their form depending on how they were used, why don't we have all those endings in modern English? As the Norse and Anglo-Saxons struggled to understand each other, they probably gave up most of the pesky endings, just to save trouble.\n\nAfter all, if you were talking to someone who didn't speak much English, would you say, \"Might I trouble you to pass the salt?\" Or \"Pass the salt, please\"?\n\n#\n\nMuch of what we know about Anglo-Saxon times comes from Saint Bede, who wrote \u2013 by hand, of course \u2013 countless works of history, religion, medicine, astronomy, even poetry and grammar. Bede was born about two hundred years before Alfred's reign, in the days when most prose was still written in Latin. Other works \u2013 poems, word games, and long, elaborate riddle-verses \u2013 were sometimes written in Old English. What creature shoots from the stomach and can \"serve no master when unstrung\"? What complains that \"Everybody lifts me, grips me, and chops off my head\"? (See end of chapter.) But most of these writings have been lost, and the ones that survive are often anonymous.\n\nWhen Bede (673-735) was just seven years old, he was sent to the northern monastery of Jarrow. He spent almost all his life there, studying in the monastery's library and filling it with his own books \u2013 including a history of the English people (in Latin) ever since the days of Julius Caesar. Because of his intelligence and tireless scholarship, he's often called the Venerable (much-revered) Bede. (photo credits 8.1)\n\nThe earliest English poet we know by name was a man called Caedmon, who lived around 670. In those days, before TV or radio or even printed books, poets recited works by memory, to entertain and inspire their audiences. According to Bede, Caedmon was an uneducated stablehand at the abbey in Whitby. One night a vision came to him and he was suddenly able to make up a hymn praising the _weorc Wuldor-Faeder_ (\"work of the Glory-Father,\" meaning God). Caedmon remained in Whitby as a lay brother (not a monk), composing other works.\n\nIn 1898 a sandstone cross was erected at Whitby with this picture of Caedmon; notice the horses in the stable. (The image of Saint Hilda in Chapter 6 is from the same cross.)\n\nAlthough Old English looks hard to read, the sounds suggest modern English. Speaking of God, Caedmon says, _He aerest sceop eorthan bearnum heofon to hrofe_. Try reading that out loud (pronouncing _sc_ as _sh_ ) and comparing it to this translation: \"He first shaped for earth's bairns [children] heaven as a roof...\" (The next thing God shaped, according to Caedmon, was _middangeard_ \u2013 middle earth.)\n\nThe most famous Old English work is _Beowulf_ , an epic poem of over three thousand lines celebrating the feats of a \"prince of warriors,\" and his courage and honor. The story comes from the myths and history of Scandinavia, where the adventures are set. We don't know when or where the poem was first recited, but the version that has come down to us is from a manuscript more than a thousand years old.\n\nBeowulf defeats a gruesome monster, Grendel, ripping off Grendel's arm with his bare hands. Grendel's mother later attacks Beowulf in vengeance, and Beowulf dives to the bottom of a haunted lake and slays her and cuts off her head. Beowulf becomes king, but many years later he has to defend his people against a fiery dragon. The dragon is defeated but Beowulf dies in the battle, and is mourned as a noble and beloved leader.\n\nLike Caedmon's poem, _Beowulf_ is built out of short half-lines that build up into sentences. The lines are held together not by rhyme, which the English rarely used in those days, but by powerful rhythm and lots of alliteration (words beginning with the same sound). Try reading these phrases out loud, pausing at the break; imagine how dramatic they would have sounded to an audience sitting in a great hall lit only by a fire, surrounded by darkness.\n\n_Grendel gongan Godes yrre baer...  \n(Grendel walked in, bearing God's ire [anger])...._\n\n_on fagne flor feond treddode...  \n(on the fine floor the fiend trod)...._\n\nHere's the opening of _Beowulf_ , in Old English written around 1000. This manuscript \u2013 the only one surviving from ancient times \u2013 was badly damaged in a fire in 1731, before any copies had been made, so some bits have been lost forever. The word order differs from ours, but the beginning says, \"Truly we have heard of the glory of the Spear Danes' kings  _cyninga_ ] in yore-days [ _in gear-dagum_ ].\" _Gar_ is an old word for spear; the Danes are called _Gar dena_. ([photo credits 8.2)\n\nLate in Alfred's reign, once Old English had been established as a language for serious writing, some monks began compiling a historical record called _The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle_. They filled in past events from whatever sources they could find, and kept adding to the book as the years went by. Here's some of the description of the desperate, bloody year when Alfred became king:\n\n**871:** Then King \u00c6thered fought the troops of the [Viking] kings, and King Barsecg [of the Vikings] was killed; and \u00c6thered's brother Alfred fought the troops of the Viking earls,... and many thousand were slain, and they were fighting until nightfall. About a fortnight later, King \u00c6thered and Alfred his brother fought the invading force at Basing, and there the Vikings were victorious. Two months after that, King \u00c6thered and Alfred his brother fought at Merton, and there was great slaughter on both sides, but the Vikings controlled the battlefield.... Over Easter, King \u00c6thered died; he had ruled for five years.... Then Alfred son of \u00c6thelwulf came to the throne of Wessex. About a month later, King Alfred fought with a small company against the whole Viking force.... In that year, nine great battles were fought against the invading Vikings in the kingdom south of the Thames....\n\nJ.R.R. Tolkien was a professor of English with a special interest in early languages. When he wrote _Lord of the Rings_ he borrowed words from Old English: an _orc_ is a demon, an _ent_ is a giant, and the name of Rohan's King Theoden means \"ruler.\" As for the dread land of Mordor, _morthor_ is Old English for \"death, destruction;\" it's the root of our word murder.\n\nAt last, English was the accepted language of prose and poetry, of science and history, of law-writing and account-keeping. Priests and scholars might still work in Latin and Greek, but English had finally won its place as the language of England.\n\nOr so it seemed.\n\nANSWERS\n\n#\n\nEngland was not the only land invaded by the Vikings. During the 800s, the Norsemen had sent their dragon boats up the rivers of northern France, raiding and burning Paris and other cities. Then they had moved in and begun building settlements. In 911, to put an end to their raids, the French king had granted them land on the north coast of France. The Norse leader had converted to Christianity and had been made a duke. Now these Vikings were called Normans, their territory was Normandy, and they came to speak their own Norman version of French.\n\nBy 1042, England was ruled by a religious but weak king named Edward the Confessor. Edward was descended from Alfred the Great, but his mother was from Normandy and he had grown up in the Norman court. Many people in England thought he was much too friendly with the Normans. Apparently Edward even promised the English throne to their leader, William, Duke of Normandy, since Edward himself had no heir.\n\nIn 1064, a rich and powerful English nobleman \u2013 Harold, Earl of Wessex \u2013 was shipwrecked on the coast of Normandy. It seems that he vowed to support the duke's claim to the throne of England. (Harold may have been forced to make this promise.) But two years later, when Edward the Confessor died, it was Harold who took over the throne.\n\n(photo credits 9.1)\n\nWilliam of Normandy's victory is portrayed in the Bayeux Tapestry, an ancient strip of embroidered linen that is 230 feet (70m) long. The Latin shown here says, _Harold Rex Inter-fectus Est_ \u2014 \"King Harold is killed.\" According to legend, Harold was shot in the eye with an arrow, but experts aren't sure whether he's the victim on the left, or the one on the right \u2013 or both! (photo credits 9.2)\n\nWilliam of Normandy was furious. He loaded troops onto a fleet of ships and sailed for England, to claim the country for himself. The two armies met in battle near the town of Hastings in October 1066, shooting rafts of arrows, hurling spears, dueling face to face with swords, clubs, and battle-axes. The Normans probably had no more than five thousand soldiers, but they had one great advantage: their knights rode horses specially bred and trained for combat. The English used horses for transportation, but they had never before faced an enemy fighting from horseback.\n\nBy the end of the day King Harold was dead, and so were many of his noblemen. William of Normandy \u2013 who was clever and practical, but merciless \u2013 led his army across southern England and seized the city of London. On Christmas Day he was crowned England's new king \u2013 William the Conqueror.\n\nThe Normans expanded their power throughout England, building massive stone castles with moats and drawbridges, and manning them with soldiers. One by one, the English lords were killed or driven from their lands, and Norman barons took their place. Each baron had to keep a host of armed knights ready to do battle whenever the king needed them. Norman French was suddenly the language of law and government, the language of the ruling class, the language of fashionable literature.\n\nWhen William of Normandy landed in England in 1066, he set up camp inside the walls of Anderida, a sea fort built by the Romans eight hundred years earlier to hold off the Vikings. After defeating King Harold, the Normans built Pevensey Castle on Anderida's remains, and used it for about two hundred years. Notice the mighty keep (refuge) at the back, and the twin towers of the gatehouse in front, where the bridge crosses the moat. In the 1500s, when Spain sent a vast \"Armada\" of warships against England, Pevensey was refortified to resist the attack. In World War II, machine-gun posts were hidden in Pevensey's walls in case of a German invasion. (photo credits 9.3)\n\nAlthough most English people continued to speak their own language, and Old English was still used for some writing, French words inevitably filtered into English \u2013 especially words connected with government or fine living. The English we speak today still has traces of the social gap between the victorious Normans and the conquered English. **Crown** is from French _couronne;_ **parliament** is from French _parlement_ ; **royal** is from Old French _roial_. The cow and pig down in the stable are from Old English _(cu_ and _pigga);_ the beef and pork up in the dining hall are from Old French _(boef_ and _porc)_. Plain straw and wool: Old English _streaw_ and _wull;_ elegant lace and velvet: Old French _laz_ and _veluotte_. Most English words ending in _ion, or, ment_ , or _ence_ (like **mention** , **honor** , **compliment** , or **patience** ) came from French.\n\nWe still use French (or French-based) expressions to sound sophisticated. It's _chic_ to have good _etiquette_ , to be _debonair_ (with a _bon aire_ , \"good air\") and _nonchalant_ (not _chal\u00e9_ , worried). We'd like enough _savoir-faire_ to know how to behave, enough _savoir-vivre_ to know how to enjoy life, and enough _sang-froid_ (cool blood) to stay calm in the face of danger. The French even have a name for what they can't name \u2013 it's _a je ne sais quoi_ (\"I don't know what\").\n\nBack in the 1890s, only a few rich people had cars, and it took a while to get them going. The employee who was sent out ahead of time, to _chauffer_ (warm up) the engine so it would run properly, was called a chauffeur.\n\nAnd look how French dominates fine dining! At a _restaurant_ or _caf\u00e9_ we are greeted by the _ma\u00eetre d'_ and we order a _gourmet_ dinner _\u00e0 la carte_ \u2013 an _ap\u00e9ritif_ , _p\u00e2t\u00e9_ , or cheese _souffl\u00e9_ as an _hors d'oeuvre_. \"And for the _entr\u00e9e_ , the _chef_ suggests the _quiche_ or _fondue_ , or a _casserole_. And then perhaps some _\u00e9clairs_ , _meringue_ , _sorbet_ , _cr\u00e8me br\u00fbl\u00e9e_?\"\n\nThe Norman Conquest also brought more Latin into English. Although Latin was still used in church, it had pretty much disappeared from England's daily life after the Romans went home. But French had grown from Latin, and now Latin roots (and Latin ways of organizing a sentence) were back, buried in Norman French. On top of that, much of the history and record-keeping that had been done in English was switched back to Latin. After 1154, there are no more entries in the _Anglo-Saxon Chronicle_. One in three words in English today comes from Latin \u2013 directly from the Romans, or through the church, or through the Normans, or through more modern French.\n\nWhich is correct \u2014 \"one in three _is\"_ or \"one in three _are_ \"? This looks confusing because \"three\" is closer to the verb \u2014 don't we say \"three _are_ \"? But it's the actual subject of the verb that has to match the verb. That subject is \"one\" \u2014 \"in three\" describes it but doesn't change the number \u2014 so we say \"one in three is,\" just as we'd say \"the one in trouble is.\" When people let a subject and verb disagree in number, it's often because something in between confused them. They say, \"Each of the lions have their own den\" \u2014 _each have?_ What they should say is \"Each of the lions has its own den.\" They say, \"The turtle is one of the oldest animals that lives in the zoo\" \u2014 _animals that lives?_ \"The turtle is one of the oldest animals that live in the zoo\" is correct.\n\nJust remember whether the subject of your sentence is singular or plural, and make the verb match. Simple!\n\nEnglish had already lost some of its complications in the days when the Anglo-Saxons and Vikings were trying to understand each other. Now, as English people tried to cope with Norman French and Latin as well, their language lost yet more of its endings, and became even simpler. And once again, as foreign words slipped into the vocabulary, English became more subtle and versatile at expressing different shades of meaning.\n\nThe Norman Conquest of 1066 turned out to be another of history's great turning points, and its effect lives on in both Britain and the English language. Next time you see a picture of handsome young Prince William, grandson of Queen Elizabeth II and likely a future king, remember that one of his ancestors is William the Conqueror, that heir to the Vikings, who crossed the Channel to seize England's throne almost a thousand years ago.\n\n_\"How stinky! Well, not stinky, exactly, but....\"_ We're lucky that English gives us so many ways to say what we mean. When we can't think of exactly the right word, we can reach for a thesaurus \u2014 which sounds like some kind of dinosaur, but is really a book of words grouped by general meaning ( _thesauros_ is Greek for treasure). If you look up stink in the index of one popular thesaurus, you're directed to a section labeled Fetor \u2014 which offers choices like stench, rank, rancid, musty, fusty, skunky, fetid, putrid, and (oddly!) garlic. The thesaurus is a handy tool when you're writing, but remember: all these words have slightly different senses. It's up to you to decide which one is just right.\n\n#\n\nThe Norman Conquest of 1066 was followed by years of unrest, chaos, even civil war. King after king struggled to crush rebellions in England, and to subdue the Welsh, Scots, and Irish. Being as ambitious and warlike as their Viking ancestors, the Norman kings were also fighting to win more territory in France.\n\nCrusaders brought home stories of distant lands and exotic beasts. Fire-breathing dragons were a popular feature, especially if they were guarding fair maidens or fabulous treasures. Beowulf had killed a dragon, after all, and so had Saint George, England's patron saint. Since Christians often portrayed dragons as symbols of the Devil, killing them was noble and virtuous. (photo credits 10.1)\n\nWhen they weren't doing battle with the French, the Norman English were riding beside them as allies on religious crusades \u2013 military campaigns to take back Palestine, the Holy Land of Christians, Jews, and Muslims, from the Muslims. Throughout the 1100s and 1200s, kings, noblemen, and knights rode off to seek victory in the Middle East. Often they stayed away for years. Richard Lion-Heart (the king in the Robin Hood story) ruled England for ten years but spent only six months in the country; most of the time he was away on a crusade.\n\nThe Holy Land wasn't the only place the Europeans wanted to reclaim. Back in 711 \u2013 in the days of the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms, before the Vikings began their raids \u2013 an Arab army had crossed the Mediterranean from Africa and seized much of Spain. It took the Europeans hundreds of years to drive the Muslims out.\n\nWith all this warfare between Arabs and Europeans, there was a constant exchange of ideas and language, and many Arab words were transformed into English \u2013 like _suffah_ (sofa), _sukkar_ (sugar), _ghul_ (ghoul), and _makhazin_ (magazine). A _matrah_ was a place where you put down your mattress; your _rahat_ was the palm of your hand, which holds your tennis racket; an orange was a _naranj_.\n\nNotice how the _n_ of _naranj_ drifted off the noun and attached itself to the indefinite article, **a**. Sounds often floated one way or the other, back in the days when most people couldn't read or write, and just repeated whatever they thought they'd heard. **An apron** used to be **a napron** ( **napron** is related to **napkin** ); a newt was **an ewt** ; **a nickname** was **an ekename** (eke meant \"extra\"); **an umpire** was **a noumpere** , a \"non-peer\" rather than one of the players.\n\nLong ago, alchemy was the search for a way to turn cheap metals into silver and gold. The unknown liquid that would make this happen was called the elixir (from the Arabic _al-iksir; al_ is Arabic for \"the\"). Alchemy and chemistry are from the Arabic word _al-kimiya_ , \"the art of transforming metals.\" These days an elixir is a medicine, perhaps one promised to cure all ills and help you live forever.\n\nEarly European scholars believed that everything was made up out of four elements \u2014 earth, water, air, and fire \u2014 plus a \"fifth essence,\" in Latin _quinta essentia_. These days, the quintessence of something is the most perfect or most complete example of it. In _The Lord of the Rings_ , Sauron is the quintessence of evil.\n\nKohl is a black powder once used as eye makeup. The Arabic word, _al-kohl_ , came to mean any powder, and later came to mean a purified liquid. Eventually it also meant wine \u2014 alcohol.\n\nWhy are some verbs so easy \u2013 I walk, I walked, I have walked \u2013 and some so bizarre? Look at eat ate eaten, freeze froze frozen, slay slew slain, see saw seen, sing sang sung. Verbs that have different forms for the past tense come from the Scandinavian roots of English, not Latin or French. There used to be about three hundred and fifty of them, but many have gradually lost their irregular forms. Of the sixty or so odd verbs that remain, some are half gone. You'll hear people say, \"She sung\" instead of \"She sang,\" or \"I rung the bell\" instead of \"I rang.\"\n\nOld English was now evolving into Middle English (spoken from 1100 to 1500, more or less). Most nouns started taking an _s_ in the plural, though a few continued to change their vowel ( **goose\/geese** ) or to take an _en_ ending ( **ox\/oxen** ), or didn't change at all ( **fish\/fish** ). Endings that showed the case of a noun were being replaced by prepositions: **of** , **to** , **from** , and so on. Letters like **_\u00fe_** ,   and \u03b8 gradually disappeared. Words like _cnawan_ and _cniht_ ( **know** and **knight** ) traded their _c_ for a _k_ , and in time the _k_ became silent. Many of our silent letters today \u2013 the _g_ in **gnaw** , the **l** in **would** \u2013 are whispers of letters that were pronounced in those days.\n\nLiterature was changing too. The Normans brought French styles of poetry to England \u2013 including _chansons de geste_ (\"songs of deeds\") that celebrated the adventures of gallant, gentlemanly knights who risked death to please God (or some fair lady). Though the first _chansons_ were in French, some were soon translated for those who spoke only English, and then original English works began to appear.\n\nMany romantic poems were about King Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table, and his court at Camelot. (Arthur had, of course, killed a dragon.) Although his story is still being told in books, songs, plays, and movies, Arthur remains a mystery. Was he real? Or is his story just a myth? (photo credits 10.2)\n\nThe most famous writer of the time is Geoffrey Chaucer. His best-known work, _The Canterbury Tales_ , tells of a group of people \"high and low, old and young, male and female, lay and clerical, learned and ignorant, rogue and righteous, land and sea, town and country,\" riding to Canterbury together on a religious pilgrimage, and passing the time by telling stories. Chaucer includes humorous details about each of the travelers \u2013 merchant, miller, housewife, nun \u2013 and each story imitates that traveler's own speech, painting us a picture of how these people would have \"cursed and complained and questioned and told each other jokes,\" six hundred years ago. Unlike Caedmon's hymn, this poem depends more on rhyme than on alliteration. Here's how he introduces a \"parfit gentil knight.\" (To make the rhythm work, pronounce the underlined letters as extra syllables.)\n\nA Knight ther was, and that a worthy man,  \nThat fro the time that he first bigan  \nTo riden out, he loved chivalrye,  \nTrouthe and honour, freedom and curteisye.\n\nChaucer started this poem in 1386, but we don't know exactly how he wrote it, because the manuscripts from his time (written by hand) have been lost. All we have now are later copies.\n\nAs a youth, Chaucer (1340?-1400) served as a pageboy to royalty, and learned courtly manners as well as Latin and French. Later, as a diplomat and civil servant, he was sent to France and Italy. His writings are rich in words, ideas, and story twists that he brought back from his travels. Unlike the dragon-slaying heroes in tales of chivalry, his characters are as real and down to earth as anyone you might meet on the road. (photo credits 10.3)\n\nBut here's another poem \u2013 an anonymous work called \"I Have a Young Sister\" \u2013 that shows us what English looked like around 1300. It's similar to the riddle-verses the Anglo-Saxons wrote hundreds of years earlier. The poet announces that his young sister has sent him a cherry with no stone and a dove with no bones.\n\nHow sholde any cherye\n\nBe withoute stoon?\n\nAnd how sholde any dove\n\nBe withoute boon?...\n\nWhan the cherye was a flowr,\n\nThanne hadde it no stoon;\n\nWhan the dove was an ey [egg],\n\nThanne hadde it no boon.\n\nWhat did the poet's sister send him? (If you find this hard to understand, try reading it out loud. There's a modern version at the end of the chapter.)\n\nEnglish was flourishing in all kinds of ways. Although the aristocrats still spoke French and boasted of their French blood, they had to speak English to their servants, their staff, and the farmers on their estates. By the 1300s, Parliamentary proceedings were again conducted in English. By 1350, English had replaced Latin as the teaching language in most schools. In 1362, English replaced French in the law courts, although legal records were still in Latin. In 1399, Henry IV became the first king since the 1066 Norman Conquest to make his coronation speech in English. The offficials of the kingdom followed his example, doing more and more of their work in English.\n\nBy the mid-1400s, the Normans had lost almost all their territory in France. They had become English, and anglophone (English-speaking), whether they liked it or not. English was once again the language of the land.\n\n**_Modern version of \"I Have a Young Sister\"_**\n\n_How could a cherry not have a stone [pit]?_\n\n_And how could a dove not have any bones?..._\n\n_When the cherry was a flower, it had no stone;_\n\n_When the dove was an egg, it had no bones_.\n\nOne reason for the decline of Latin was the Black Death, a terrible epidemic of bubonic plague that reached England in 1348. Spread by fleas on the rats that infested wooden merchant ships, the disease killed thirty to forty percent of England's population. By the time that wave of plague was over, there weren't enough teachers left to educate children in French, let alone Latin, so most schools taught in English. The plague would flare up again and again in the centuries to come.\n\n#\n\nWhile fewer people were learning French and Latin, more were learning to read and write English. The old cathedral schools staffed by monks and priests had grown into universities. (Oxford and Cambridge \u2013 probably the most famous universities in the world \u2013 both date back to the 1200s.) Smaller schools and private tutors were much in demand. But there was one huge problem: creating a book still meant writing it out by hand. One hard-working scribe \u2013 often a monk or nun in a writing hall called a scriptorium \u2013 might complete as little as a hundred pages in a year. So books remained expensive, and most people couldn't afford them.\n\nBut all that was about to change. In the 1400s, a few people in Europe realized that if they molded little letters backwards \u2013   \u2013 and grouped them into a block of words, they could create the reverse image of a page. Then the block could be covered with ink and pressed against paper to make a real page. (People in China and Korea had been doing this for years, but it seems the Europeans hadn't heard about it.) After the individual letters (called movable type) had been used to print enough copies of that page, they could be taken apart and assembled differently to spell out another page, and another.\n\nA scribe works on the laborious process of copying a book, in the early 1500s. (Scribe is from Latin _scribo_ , \"I write.\") (photo credits 11.4)\n\nIn 1455, a German named Johannes Gutenberg printed a Bible in Latin, using movable type. Copies were soon on sale across England and Europe. Then an Englishman named William Caxton went to Germany to learn the procedure, and created the first English book ever printed. Around 1476, Caxton went back to England, built himself a wooden printing press, and went to work. He produced books of his own writings, and translations of foreign writings (including Aesop's fables), and Chaucer's _Canterbury Tales_ , and _Le Morte D'Arthur_ , a long English-language account of King Arthur and his knights.\n\nA page from Chaucer's _Canterbury Tales_ , in Caxton's version of 1484, with an illustration of the \"parfit gentil knight.\" Caxton (1422-1491) printed over ninety books in all, seventy-four of them in English. It troubled him that the handwritten books he copied could be full of mistakes, but he took pains to work from the most accurate, most original text he could lay hands on. (photo credits 11.5)\n\nOne of the problems Caxton had to resolve was how to spell the works he translated. He wanted his books to be read all across England, but different regions pronounced and spelled words differently, and even used different words for the same thing. Which version should he choose? To explain his difficulty, Caxton told the story of a hungry traveler who asked a countrywoman for _egges_. She had no idea what the word meant. Then another man asked her for _eyren_ , and she gave him \u2013 eggs. \"Loo,\" wondered Caxton, \"what sholde a man in thyse dayes now wryte, egges or eyren?\" After much consideration, he decided to reproduce (more or less) the words and spellings used by officials in London. After all, their English was similar to the English used at Oxford and Cambridge. How could it be wrong?\n\nBooks printed before 1501 \u2013 when printing was still in its infancy \u2013 are extremely rare and precious. They're known as incunabula, Latin for \"baby's cradle.\"\n\nNow that publishing was so much faster and cheaper, a snowstorm of books, pamphlets, and other writings swept across the country. In 1525, the first English translation of the Bible's New Testament was printed. A complete English Bible was published ten years later, another version in 1537, and two more in 1539. By this time, perhaps half the population could read, and books (especially the Bible) were becoming part of their daily life. The words and spellings chosen by Caxton and other printers became the normal, customary forms. Eggs were _egges_ , and if you called them _eyren_ , well, you must be ignorant.\n\nIn Caxton's day, many scholarly books were still in Latin. But soon, more and more were printed in English. As late as 1653, _Grammatica Linguae Anglicanae_ \u2013 a book explaining the grammar of the English language \u2013 was written in Latin. But by the late 1600s, even the most important academic and scientific works were being published in English. And as scholars used English to explore all areas of human thought, no matter how complex, their vocabulary had to expand. Now, English had to have the power and precision of classical Latin and Greek.\n\nA printing shop in the early 1500s. Workers at the back are assembling letters of backwards type into a page-size block. Those at the front are rubbing ink onto the page block, and pressing sheets of blank paper against the block to print a stack of pages. Our expression \"the press,\" meaning newspapers and magazines, comes from this pressing of paper against inky type.\n\nMeanwhile, something very strange was happening to speech \u2013 something known as the \"great vowel shift.\" Starting around 1400, people changed the way they pronounced certain vowels.\n\nWe have five real vowels ( _a_ , _e_ , _i_ , _o_ , and _u_ ), and _y_ , which is sometimes a vowel and sometimes not. We have various ways of pronouncing them. They can be short (bit, mat) or long (bite, mate). They can be silent, or run together into a single sound (cream), or one can slide into another (coin). Sometimes they stand side by side but we say them separately, as in No\u00ebl. (The two dots over the _e_ tell you that the vowels are pronounced separately.)\n\nMany old words have fallen out of use, but some of them still pop up inside other words. _Tadde_ used to mean \"toad,\" and _pol_ meant \"head.\" (Today, a poll is a count of one vote per person \u2013 one vote per _head_.) A toad that was mostly head \u2013 that wiggly, legless larva that grows into a toad or frog \u2013 used to be a _taddepol_ (\"toad-head\"). That's why we call it a tadpole.\n\nDo you say _tomayto_ or _tomahto_? Do you call pigeons _brrds, bards, beds, buhds_ , or _boyds_? The way we pronounce vowels varies from place to place, and even from person to person. In the movie _My Fair Lady_ , Eliza, a ragged flower-seller who's learning to talk like a fine lady, has to work desperately hard to say that rain in Spain (not _rine in Spine_ ) falls mainly on the plain (not _minely on the pline_ ).\n\nPronunciation also changes over time. In Chaucer's day, **fine** rhymed with **bean** ; **see** rhymed with **say** ; **to** rhymed with **no**. But in the great vowel shift, many long vowels changed dramatically, to the pronunciations we use today. That's one reason why old poetry like Chaucer's sometimes doesn't seem to rhyme.\n\nWhich is right: \"a historic moment\" or \"an historic moment\"? \"A herb\" or \"an herb\"? Some people omit the _h_ (\"aitch\") on these words, so they need \"an\" as the indefinite article (\"an 'istoric,\" \"an 'erb\") \u2013 but if you pronounce the aitch, drop the _n_ (\"a historic,\" \"a herb\"). Poor Eliza struggles to pronounce her aitches in _My Fair Lady_ , huffing them into a flame \u2013 \"hurricanes hardly happen\" \u2013 to make it flicker.\n\nHave you ever wondered why **police** and **polite** don't have the same _i_ -sound? It's because **polite** is an old word, and the sound of the _i_ changed during the great vowel shift. **Police** came into English after the shift, so it never changed.\n\nAs for spelling, while some people find it difficult, there are tricks to make it easier. If you think about what the word means, what other words it resembles, and what language it comes from, you are more likely to remember the spelling. For example, _terra_ is Latin for **earth** , **land** , **ground**. If you can spell **terrier** (a dog that burrows into the ground), you know how many _r_ s there are in **subterranean** (underground), **Mediterranean** (a sea in the middle of the land), **terrestrial** (on earth), **terraforming** (transforming another planet to resemble earth), and so on.\n\nKids who compete in spelling bees (contests) have an amazing ability to remember how thousands of words are spelled. When the judge asks them to spell a word, they're allowed to ask what the word means; if it sounds like \"tericolous\" (with one _r_ ) but it means \"living on the earth,\" they can guess that it's **terricolous** , from _terra_. They can ask what part of speech the word is (noun? verb?); the noun **callus** (a hard spot on skin) is spelled differently from the adjective **callous**. They can ask what language it comes from; a word that sounds like Latin _terra_ might actually come from Greek _pteron_ , \"wing,\" with that tricky silent _p_.\n\nTwo good movies show what a spelling bee is like. _Akeelah and the Bee_ tells a story about a girl who loves to spell and ends up in a bee. _Spellbound_ follows a real-life spelling bee as, one after another, contestants flub their words, until only the winner is left. Both movies show how much training and practice and hard work it takes to be a winner \u2013 and how scary it is to be up on that stage, spelling words you've never even heard of.\n\nMany people have argued that we should simplify our spelling, and write words the way they sound. But others treasure our weird spellings as a mini-history of the English language. These seemingly strange words are an echo of all those long-ago voices, from so many different cultures and places, that left their mark on this language called English.\n\n#\n\nIn the early days of printing, England was still a Catholic country. It's difficult now to imagine the power that the Church (and the Pope in Rome) had back then, before science improved our lives and helped us understand the world around us. The winters were long and cold, and the typical house was a bare, dark, drafty hut with no heating but a fire. There were few remedies for small miseries like fleas and lice, or aches and pains. Once autumn was past, most people had to survive on whatever food could be dried or salted. When illness or disaster struck, it seemed to come out of nowhere, for no earthly reason.\n\nBut churches, abbeys, and cathedrals, with their lofty pillars and soaring spires, lifted people out of all this. Altars glittered with treasures of silver and gold. Massive stonework echoed the music from organs, choirs, and pealing bells. Statues and paintings and stained-glass windows told stories of virtue triumphant. Feasts and pageants and processions broke up the weary work year. There was drama; there was mystery; above all, there was the promise that those who obeyed God's will during their lifetime would enjoy a glorious eternity.\n\nThe church was the center of the community, consoling people for hard times and giving them hope for the future. Overflowing with beauty, glowing with color, it was an earthly promise of heavenly joy. (photo credits 12.1)\n\nThe cloak ( _cappa_ in Latin) of Saint Martin of Tours, who lived in the 300s, was preserved in a church in a special shrine called the _cappella_. In time, any small area dedicated to worship became known as a _cappella_ , or chapel. ( _Cappella_ is also connected to cobra, the snake that looks as if it's wearing a hood.)\n\nPeople depended on priests to tell them what it was God wanted, and to help them atone for any sins they committed, so they could avoid eternal damnation. Most Bibles and other religious books were still in Latin, and church services were conducted in Latin, even though the congregation didn't understand the language. Indeed, a lot of country priests didn't know much Latin, especially after so many perished in the Black Death. They just followed the rites and rituals they had been taught.\n\nWhen the Church approved a book for publication, it decreed, _\"Imprimatur\"_ \u2013 Latin for \"Let it be printed.\" Today, imprimatur means any official approval \u2013 \"The new dog park bylaws have the mayor's imprimatur.\"\n\nBut the immense wealth and influence of the Church led to problems. One was the conflict between the power of local rulers and the decrees of Church authorities. The Church even decided which books people could read and which were forbidden. Another problem was corruption. While many priests were faithful to their duties, some \u2013 especially high-ranking officials \u2013 lived in pomp and luxury, and abused their position to fill their pockets. Among other things, they sold indulgences \u2013 free pardons \u2013 that let rich people \"buy forgiveness\" for bad behavior.\n\nBack in the 1300s some people had called for reform, saying that the Church's wealth should be put to better use, and that common people should be able to read the Bible for themselves. But while the Bible had been translated into English, at that time it still had to be copied by hand, and there weren't enough books to go around.\n\nBy the 1500s, though, the protest movement was growing stronger. Those protesting \u2013 the \"Protestants\" \u2013 wanted everyone to have access to the Bible. They argued that people should learn to live by their own judgment and conscience, and find salvation through their personal faith \u2013 not through favors bought from the Church.\n\nAnd then along came printing, and the Church no longer controlled the Bible.\n\nIn 1525 that first English printing of the New Testament appeared, translated and printed by an English priest named William Tyndale. Church officials opposed Tyndale, knowing that he supported the protest movement. In any case, it was considered heresy (a crime against God) to translate the Bible into English without permission. Tyndale had to print his Bibles in Europe and smuggle them into England, hidden in bales of cloth and other wares. When copies were found, they were seized and tossed into a fire. People who had them were imprisoned, even tortured and burned alive \u2013 just for daring to own a Bible.\n\nTyndale (1494?-1536) was an exceptional scholar, reading Spanish, Italian, German, and Hebrew as well as English, French, Latin, and Greek, but he paid dearly for his beliefs. He went into hiding in Europe and kept on translating, but English authorities tracked him down and arrested him. He was tied to a cross and strangled, and his body was burned.\n\nBut the Church soon had something new to worry about. King Henry VIII was desperate for a son who could inherit his throne. (After all, no woman could be trusted to rule England!) He wanted to end his marriage and take a new, younger wife. The Pope refused to let him do it.\n\nIn 1534, Henry broke away from the Roman Catholic Church and declared himself head of a new Church of England (the Anglican Church). He closed Catholic monasteries, destroyed shrines, and took over the lands and treasures of the old churches. People who got in Henry's way found their heads on the chopping-block. Enough of this interference from Rome; the English monarch was now the leader of the English church.\n\nWith Rome out of the picture, a number of English-language Bibles were soon on the market. In 1539, a \"Great Bible\" was published under Henry's authority. People across England were reading their Bibles and other books about religion, and asking questions, and making up their own minds about God and their faith. Biblical phrases were becoming everyday expressions: \"my brother's keeper,\" \"the writing on the wall,\" \"an eye for an eye,\" \"casting pearls before swine.\"\n\nAs for Henry VIII, he did finally get a son, but the boy-king died just six years after Henry's death in 1547. Henry's older daughter, Mary, who had remained a devout Catholic, became queen and married King Philip of Spain. In the fifty-odd years since Christopher Columbus had found America in 1492, Spanish armies had defeated and ransacked the empires of the Aztecs in Mexico and the Incas farther south. Shiploads of gold, silver, and gems from America had made Spain immensely wealthy, and a powerful ally for England.\n\nIn her determination to turn England Catholic again, Queen Mary (1516-1568) persecuted Protestants and had almost three hundred people burned at the stake, including the Archbishop of Canterbury. She's remembered as Bloody Mary. (photo credits 12.2)\n\nBut Mary died after only five years on the throne. Her successor \u2013 Henry's second daughter, Elizabeth \u2013 would reign for forty-five years. Although religious conflict continued through much of that time, Elizabeth was firmly Anglican, and England remained Anglican too.\n\nBy the time of Elizabeth's successor, James I, Church authorities felt there were too many different Bibles around; they wanted a new official version. Some fifty scholars worked for several years, revising and retranslating, and depending greatly on William Tyndale's work a hundred years earlier. Their goal was to produce a Bible that was beautifully written, yet accurate and easy to understand. If a passage described carpentry, they asked carpenters what words to use; if trees were the subject, they consulted gardeners.\n\nBishops of the Anglican Church disapproved of some of the attitudes expressed in various Bibles. In 1568 they published their own version, the \"Bishops' Bible,\" and made it the official Bible of the Anglican Church. (The word \"bible\" comes from Greek _biblos_ , \"scroll\" or \"book\" \u2013 also the root of bibliophile, \"book-lover.\") Here's the beginning of the Book of Genesis, opening with a decorative initial: _In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. And the earth was without form, and was void, and darkness was upon the face of the deep, and the spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters_. In the third line, \"the\" has been shortened to _y e_. In the second-last line, \"spirit\" begins with a long form of _s_ , like an _f_ with one arm missing. (photo credits 12.3)\n\nDo you notice something funny about these personal pronouns?\n\nWhat happened to all those other forms? Why do we always use you?\n\nIn many languages, the singular form is considered informal \u2013 all right for talking to children or friends, but not for strangers or people senior to you. In Chaucer's time, the landowner called the peasant \"thou\" but the peasant respectfully called the land-owner \"you.\" (The French have a word for this; to call people _tu_ is to _tutoyer_ them.) But as the gap between classes shrank, people began calling everyone \"you\" to avoid labeling one person as inferior to another.\n\nIf the distinction seems odd, consider this: we call children and friends by their first names (\"Hey, Chris!\") but we often use last names to show respect for other people (\"Hi, Mrs. Jacobs\"). Back when rich people had lots of servants, they might call the maid \"Alice\" but they called the cook \"Mrs.\" even if she wasn't married. Servant or not, they had to treat her with respect if they valued their dinner!\n\nTry reading this speech of Ruth's out loud, listening to the flow of the language. (Ruth's husband has died, and her mother-in-law has said that Ruth should go back to her own people.)\n\nIntreat me not to leave thee, or to return from following after thee: for whither thou goest, I will go; and where thou lodgest, I will lodge: thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God....\n\n#\n\nWhen Elizabeth Tudor was still a toddler, her father, Henry VIII, had her mother's head cut off. Being Anglican, Elizabeth was lucky not to lose her own head in the years when her Catholic half-sister, Queen Mary, was trying to lead England back to the \"true\" faith.\n\nWhen the English weren't cutting off people's heads, they were hanging them, especially from the dreaded gallows on Tyburn Hill, near London. Big cranes called derricks, used to hoist cargo onto ships, take their name from a Mr. Derrick, a hangman who \"hoisted\" convicts there some four hundred years ago.\n\nWhen Mary died and Elizabeth became queen, she found her new realm in sad shape. England was weak and nearly bankrupt, torn by religious violence, riddled with crime, and threatened by richer and stronger Catholic neighbors, France and Spain.\n\nBut Elizabeth was highly intelligent, well educated, and skilled in six languages. She was shrewd and practical, and too sensible to waste her resources on war if she could possibly avoid it. During her long reign, she fended off foreign attacks by dallying with at least fifteen marriage proposals. (Even the King of Spain \u2013 Queen Mary's widower \u2013 hoped to marry Elizabeth and recover England as an ally.) Along the way, Elizabeth almost died of smallpox, and ducked endless conspiracies to exploit her, kidnap her, even murder her.\n\nThough she looks calm and confident, Elizabeth I (1533-1603) had to fight hard to keep her throne. One of the gravest dangers was her Catholic, half-French cousin, Mary, Queen of Scots (not to be confused with Elizabeth's half-sister, Bloody Mary), who kept plotting to take the throne, bring back Catholicism, and make England an ally of France. After years of protecting her troublesome cousin, Elizabeth reluctantly agreed to have Mary, Queen of Scots executed. But after Elizabeth died childless, it was Mary's son who ascended the English throne as James I \u2013 the Anglican who put his name on the King James Bible. (photo credits 13.1)\n\nTo defend the country, Elizabeth made sure the army and the great navy her father had begun were rebuilt and modernized. While Europe was suffering terrible religious wars and atrocities, she did her best to create tolerance and cooperation among the English. The resulting peace and security brought a boom in trade and industry. Elizabeth symbolized a prosperous golden age, and her subjects \u2013 many of them, at least \u2013 adored her. Gloriana, they called her. A few even built their homes in the shape of an E, to show their devotion.\n\nIn Elizabeth's day, some writers felt they had to use classical languages if they wanted their thoughts preserved for eternity (which of course they did). But others deliberately wrote in English, borrowing from Greek and Latin when necessary, to make their own language as rich and versatile as any other. Indeed, some _detested_ the remnants of Latin and Greek, and wanted them rooted out of the English language. One bishop argued that instead of calling something \"penetrable\" (from Latin _penetrare_ ), we should call it \"gothroughsome\" (from Old English _gan-thurh-sum_ ).\n\nNow that they had time and money to spend on themselves, many people turned to entertainment, especially plays. Small companies of actors sprang up. Before that, plays had been staged in any available space, but now real theaters were built, where even poor laborers could stand and watch for just a penny. (Whenever the plague returned, the theaters had to shut down for months or years, until it was over.) By 1592, one of the people working in London theater \u2013 acting, writing, perhaps directing \u2013 was William Shakespeare.\n\nShakespeare was a country boy, born in Stratford-on-Avon ( _avon_ is a Celtic word for **river** ). We don't know much about his early life. His father was a leather-worker, and later a town official. Shakespeare seems to have had a reasonably good education, although he didn't go to university.\n\nLike Chaucer, Shakespeare created lively characters of all types and classes who thought and talked just the way they should. Then he wove them into brilliant tales that felt true to life, no matter how far away or long ago they were set. Shakespeare's language is quite similar to what we speak today. There are some outdated words, and many references from that age of horse-carts and sailing ships are unfamiliar to us now. But for the most part, this is the English we know.\n\nThere were romantic comedies like _The Taming of the Shrew_ , in which Petruchio plans to win the heart of hot-tempered Kate by acting like a lunatic. (To \"rail\" is to complain angrily.)\n\nSay that she rail, why then I'll tell her plain   \nShe sings as sweetly as a nightingale.   \nSay that she frown, I'll say she looks as clear   \nAs morning roses newly washed with dew....   \nIf she do bid me pack, I'll give her thanks   \nAs though she bid me stay by her a week.\n\nThere were tragedies like _King Lear_ , in which an aged king gives his kingdom and his power to his two evil daughters and then discovers that they both despise him. He is so furious that he can barely talk:\n\nI will have such revenges on you both   \nThat all the world shall \u2013 I will do such things \u2013   \nWhat they are, yet I know not; but they shall be   \nThe terrors of the earth....\n\nThis is thought to be a portrait of Shakespeare (1564-1616), although we can't be sure. He wrote almost forty plays, and probably acted in most of them. He also wrote beautiful poems, especially love sonnets. His work is so brilliant that some people refuse to believe he wrote it; they insist that the writer must have been someone with a nobler family and a better education. (photo credits 13.2)\n\nDr. Thomas Bowdler appreciated Shakespeare's genius, but thought his writing was spoiled by indecent words, scenes, and even plots. In 1807 Bowdler published a new collection of Shakespeare, \"improving\" the parts he disapproved of. Today, bowdlerizing means rewriting someone else's work, changing the parts you find unacceptable.\n\nHistorical dramas were often designed to please and flatter Queen Elizabeth. (It was always wise to stay on her good side.) In _Richard II_ , Shakespeare tactfully supported Elizabeth's claim to the throne by giving an earlier king a speech that made him sound like a coward, a liar, and a heartless killer:\n\nIs there a murderer here? No. Yes, I am....   \nO no! Alas, I rather hate myself   \nFor hateful deeds committed by myself.   \nI am a villain. Yet I lie, I am not....\n\nWith Shakespeare and others doing so much writing, thousands of new words entered the English language. It's impossible to say how many were actually invented by Shakespeare, but as far as we know, the following (and many others) first appear in his writing: **countless** , **courtship** , **critical** , **excellent** , **frugal** , **horrid** , **leapfrog** , **lonely**.\n\n\"Striped shorts and a polka-dot T-shirt! He must pick his clothes willy-nilly.\" Willy-nilly (\"any old way\") comes from \"will I, nill I,\" meaning \"whether I'm willing or not willing.\" In _The Taming of the Shrew_ , Petruchio teases Kate that \"will you, nill you, I will marry you.\" We seem to enjoy expressions that rhyme, or at least repeat sounds. Infants learn to say bowwow, din-din, choo-choo; later we speak of a mishmash, flip-flops, hanky-panky, a hodgepodge, and so on. The parts may not make sense (what's a mish? what's panky?) but the sounds are fun.\n\nHe also put together wonderful expressions. He had such a fine ear for the perfect way to say something that we quote him more than any other author \u2013 often mindlessly, without hearing the literal meaning of the words. But take a fresh look at these Shakespearean phrases, and see how vividly an image can sum up an idea in just a few words:\n\n**barefaced  \ncrack of doom   \ndead as a doornail   \neyesore   \nflesh and blood   \nfoul play   \nlily-livered   \ntongue-tied   \ntower of strength   \nvanish into thin air**\n\nMost of Shakespeare's plots were not original; he borrowed from real life, ancient myths, and tales from all over Europe. But nobody had told these stories so vividly and powerfully. His works have been translated into innumerable languages. Scholars re-examine them obsessively, writing thousands of books about them, counting how many different words the \"Bard of Avon\" uses (as many as thirty thousand, compared to just eight thousand in the King James Bible), even counting his commas (138,198). The plays are presented over and over around the world, sometimes as movies and musicals, sometimes with a twist: Julius Caesar as a businessman in a suit and tie, Romeo and Juliet as New York teenagers separated by warring street gangs.\n\nWhat's the difference between these two sentences?\n\n**1) Alice will go to the zoo if she can**.\n\n**2) Alice would go to the zoo if she could**.\n\nDoesn't the second sentence tell you that she can't go?\n\nIn the past, different \"moods\" of verbs were used to show whether something was just doubtful (sentence 1), or actually contrary to fact (sentence 2). English has lost many of these distinctions; they were too complicated, and the moods got confused with other forms. But they can still help you make it clear that what you're describing is _not_ the way things are. The three examples below describe imaginary situations that are contrary to fact. Can you change them so they mean that you simply _don't know_ whether the situation is true or not?\n\n1) If you had five dollars he could bake you a cake.\n\n2) The warthog might still be out there, if the lion hadn't chased it away.\n\n3) If I were going I would have to take a present (but I'm staying home and keeping it for myself!)\n\nANSWERS\n\nIn _Macbeth_ , Shakespeare describes three witches as \"weird sisters.\" The witches foretell Macbeth's fate (death \u2013 though he misunderstands them), and weird comes from the Old English _wyrd_ meaning fate, \"what will be.\" But over the years, audiences watching these eerie characters have given the word a new meaning: \"strange and bizarre.\"\n\nSeven years after Shakespeare died, most of his plays were published in a collection called the First Folio. In this First Folio copy of _Macbeth_ , the spelling is not quite like ours. The letters u and v are the same ( _V_ is the capital), and the long _s_ (similar to _f)_ replaces our _s_ several times in the opening speech by one of the three weird sisters. (photo credits 13.3)\n\nYet if Shakespeare had lived before the invention of the printing press, which could turn out hundreds or thousands of scripts, all his plays and poems might easily have been lost forever.\n\n#\n\nSome of Elizabethan England's new prosperity was coming from South America, through the back door. While Spain had claimed most of that continent, English sea captains were committing outrageous acts of piracy against the Spanish galleons as they lumbered home with their loads of gold and silver and precious gems. Queen Elizabeth pretended to disapprove of the raids, but much of the loot ended up in her treasury. The bold captains were celebrated as heroes, and richly rewarded.\n\nWhat England really needed, though, was more farmland to feed its growing population. In North America, France was taking over the territory around the St. Lawrence River and the Great Lakes. Spain dominated the areas farther south and west. So the English hoped to start settlements along the east coast, between the two.\n\nIn 1607 an English colony was successfully established at Jamestown. In 1620 another group of settlers sailed from England to Cape Cod, in \"New England,\" on a little ship called the _Mayflower_. Some of them were \"Puritans\" \u2013 people who wanted to \"purify\" the English religion of its politics and its fancy rituals. In England, Puritans were being persecuted for their beliefs. Those who sailed to America, in hopes of creating a more virtuous \"Kingdom of God\" where they could live simple, pious lives, are known as the Pilgrims.\n\nFrance held much of the northeastern continent, Spain had territories in the south and west, and before long a chain of English fur-trading posts was spreading through the northwest. As European interests expanded, more and more native peoples were driven off their land. (photo credits 14.1)\n\nThe _Mayflower_ settlers suffered illness and starvation during the winter of 1620, but with help from the local native people the colony survived. After the harvest of 1621, the colonists and natives joined in a feast of thanksgiving. Their dinner probably wasn't as elegant as this romantic painting suggests, but it did include four wild turkeys, and probably cranberries too \u2013 something to think about, next Thanksgiving Day. (photo credits 14.2)\n\nWe often create a new word by naming something for the place it comes from. Those little raisins called currants were once \"raisins of Corinth\" because they came from around Corinth, in the south of Greece. The island of Cyprus, south of Turkey, gave its name to copper ( _cyprium_ is Latin for \"of Cyprus.\") Denim began as cloth _de N\u00eemes_ \u2013 cloth from N\u00eemes, a town in France.\n\nAnd then more shiploads of English-speaking settlers arrived, and they started more farms and built more towns. As they spread out across North America and down into the Caribbean, they needed words for all the unfamiliar things around them. Sometimes they stuck together words they already knew: a frog that roared like a bull became a **bullfrog** ; a snake that rattled its tail became a **rattlesnake**. Sometimes they borrowed (and mangled) names from native North American languages: _segongw_ became **skunk** ; _aroughcun_ became **raccoon** , _mus_ became **moose** , and other native words became **chipmunk** , **pecan** , **squash** , **toboggan** , and so on.\n\nFor a few decades in the 1600s, there were Dutch settlements along the east coast, around where New York is today. Some Dutch words were also adapted into English \u2013 including **cookie** ( _koekje_ , little cake), **coleslaw** ( _koolsla_ , cabbage salad), **waffle** , **sleigh** , and (since this was the time of the great \"Dutch Masters\" painters) the painting terms **landscape** and **easel**.\n\nIn 1763, a treaty ending a war in Europe gave England almost all France's land in North America, and Spain's Florida territory as well. Some eighty years later, the once-Spanish territories of California and Texas would join English-speaking America. The language of that little island on the other side of the Atlantic \u2013 the language that had muddled together the words and rules of so many invaders \u2013 was taking over this faraway continent.\n\n**Another way to create new words is to add onto old ones. A** **_prefix_** **turns think into rethink; a** **_suffix_** **turns it into think ing; with both prefix and suffix we can make unthinkable. Most prefixes and suffixes come from Latin or Greek, and they're handy to know. They can help you figure out words you've never seen before. Look at these prefixes, and see if you can answer the questions below**.\n\n  * 1)If elocution is clear speaking, what's circumlocution?\n\n  * 2) If a utopia is an ideal land, what's a dystopia?\n\n  * 3) If a tripod is a stand with three feet, what's a polypod?\n\n  * 4) If zoology is the study of animals, what kind of animal is an epizoon?\n\n  * 5) If your epiglottis is the little tab that hangs above your tongue, what's a polyglot?\n\n  * 6) If euphoria is a general sense of feeling good, what is dysphoria?\n\n  * 7) If oxygen is a gas we need to live, what's hypoxia?\n\n  * 8) If your domicile is where you live, what's a word for a building where people live together? (This is trickier!)\n\nANSWERS\n\nMany flowers are named after people who discovered or grew them: Kamel's camellia, Dahl's dahlia, Mag-nol's magnolia, Poinsett's poinsettia. Others take their names from ancient words that suggest their shape. The aster has points like a star (Greek _aster_ ); part of the delphinium suggests a dolphin (Greek _delphin_ ); a flower with a leaf like a Roman soldier's sword (Latin _gladius_ ) is a gladiolus. As for the nasturtium, it can make your nose itch ( _nasum torqueat_ is Latin for \"irritates the nose\")!\n\nBut what kind of English did the settlers speak? It depended on where they came from, and what level of society. It also depended on when they migrated, for they took with them the speech of that time. From then on, their English and Britain's English would develop in different ways. For example, the Canadian island of Newfoundland is isolated by the long winters and cold, rough waters of the North Atlantic. Fishing folk from Ireland and western England began settling there way back in Shakespeare's day. Because the island was so cut off, their speech developed in its own direction, keeping or inventing words like **brewis** for stew; **slims** for pancakes; **totties** for dandelions. They called a bumblebee a **dumbledore** , your two front teeth were your **butter teeth** , and if you weren't a **livyer** (a real Newfoundlander), you must be from **upalong** \u2013 meaning just about anyplace else in Canada or the United States.\n\nTo the Aztecs of Mexico, coyote and ocelot were _coyotl_ and _tlalocelotl_ , and tomato was _tomatl_. Our word chocolate comes from _chocolatl_ , but the hot chocolate the Aztecs brewed was dark and bitter, almost coffee-like \u2013 no milk, no sugar, no marshmallows!\n\nThe way people spoke also depended on where they moved to. Perhaps there was already a local population with a certain way of speaking. Perhaps there was a strong Spanish or French influence. Perhaps there were Africans who had been shipped in to labor as slaves in the fields and homes. All these would influence the speech of new arrivals, and their children and grandchildren. In the Caribbean particularly, the jumble of languages \u2013 from native people, early explorers, sailors, Africans, and settlers \u2013 grew (and is still growing) into versions of English that sound almost like whole new languages.\n\nFrom Africa we get banana, chimpanzee, tote, and voodoo. From the Spanish of the American West we get bonanza, ranch, rodeo, plaza, stampede, canyon, bronco, and tornado. English also borrowed words the Spanish had adopted from native people farther south: barbecue, canoe, and potato from Haiti; condor and puma from Peru; hammock, hurricane, manatee, and tobacco from the Caribs, who gave their name to the Caribbean Sea.\n\nWhat about their writing? The first colonial writers were driven by their religion, and their determination to found a better and fairer society. They wrote sermons and prayers and lectures, not thrilling dramas and romances that might waste people's time and lead them into temptation. Cotton Mather, a solemn scholar and historian, was a Puritan minister around 1700, and a grandson of two Puritan ministers who had fled England to find religious freedom. This is from his \"Christian\" account of how the colonists triumphed over the native people (or \"Salvages,\" as he calls them):\n\nThe Flame of War then Raged thro' a great part of the Country, whereby many whole Towns were Laid in Ashes, and many Lives were Sacrificed. But in little more than one years Time, the United Colonies... bravely Conquered the Salvages. The Evident Hand of Heaven appearing on the Side of a people whose Hope and Help was alone in the Almighty Lord of Hosts, Extinguished whole Nations of the Salvages at such a rate, that there can hardly any of them now be found... upon the face of the Earth.\n\nJust after Mather died in 1728, a young American named Benjamin Franklin began an extraordinary career as a writer and editor \u2013 and scientist and inventor and statesman and many other things as well. Franklin disliked pompous language \u2013 \"Here comes the Orator!\" he wrote, \"with his Flood of Words, and his Drop of Reason.\" His writing combined Puritan values like honesty and hard work with humor, common sense, and immense intelligence and learning. When he was twenty, he resolved to set out a plan for his life:\n\nI am now entering upon a new [life]: let me, therefore, make some resolutions, and form some scheme of action, that, henceforth, I may live in all respects like a rational creature.\n\nHis resolutions included being \"extremely frugal\" till his debts were paid, being truthful and sincere \"in every word and action,\" being industrious in his work, and never speaking ill of anyone, \"not even in a matter of truth.\"\n\nBen Franklin (1706-90) dropped out of school at age ten to help his father make soap and candles, became an apprentice in journalism, and then published his own magazines \u2013 including \" _Poor Richard's_ \" _Almanack_ , written under the pen name of Richard Saunders. Franklin started a circulating library, a debating club, a hospital, and an academy that grew into a university. He studied science, especially the mystery of electricity, and proved that lightning was electric. He traveled widely, learned foreign languages, worked in various levels of government, reorganized the post office, invented bifocal glasses and the Franklin woodstove, and was a key contributor to the American Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the United States.\n\nWhile more and more settlers headed west from Britain, hoping for a better life in the New World, ships were sailing in the opposite direction for a very different reason. They carried not pilgrims but prisoners, men and women convicted of various crimes. Britain's prisons were desperately overcrowded and full of disease, and the government wanted to transport some of the inmates to a far-off land where they would make no more trouble. In 1787, eleven convict ships set out for Australia. Over the next eighty years, many more would follow.\n\nThose convicts who were lucky enough to survive the years of their sentence sometimes remained in Australia, and law-abiding settlers began moving there as well, to raise sheep for wool, or to start other businesses. Since they were even more isolated than Newfoundlanders, they developed their own words and ways of saying them; once again, the English language was shifting shape. Some words were adopted from the native Aboriginal people, such as **boomerang** and many plant and animal names: **kiwi** , **kangaroo** , **wombat** , **kookaburra**. Others were adapted or invented: **outback** (the barren interior), **bushman** (an expert traveler in the outback). With jokey suffixes, barbecue and tin can and Christmas became **barbie** and **tinnie** and **Chrissy**.\n\nIn some colonial areas, native people invented their own twist on English, known as \"pidgin.\" (The name is a mangling of \"business,\" since it lets people work together even if they all speak different languages.) Pidgin languages use a minimum number of words \u2013 some English, some not \u2013 and very basic grammar. In Tok Pisin \u2013 the pidgin talk of Papua New Guinea, north of Australia \u2013 anything large is _bigpela_ (\"big fellow\"); possession is shown by _bilong_ (\"belongs to\"); _meri_ (from \"Virgin Mary\") means \"woman,\" _na_ means \"and.\" So _gras bilong fes_ is a beard (face-grass), and a _bigpela haus buk bilong ol man na meri_ is a big house of books for all men and women \u2013 a public library. Pidgin may seem roundabout, but it covers a host of meanings as simply as possible. It's a language of its own.\n\n**Can you guess what these Tok Pisin phrases mean?  \nListen to the sounds of the words. Here are two hints:**   \n**_kaikai_** **means \"food\" and** **_pikinini_** **means \"child.\"**\n\n  * 1) Mi laikim kaikai bilong moningtaim.\n\n  * 2) Man nogut i stilim kar.\n\n  * 3) Hamas yias bilong yu?\n\n  * 4) Nek bilong mi i drai.\n\n  * 5) Mi lukim nambawan pikinini bilong Misis Kwin.\n\nANSWERS\n\n#\n\nAs England's colonies south of the Great Lakes grew larger and richer and stronger, many people there resented being ruled (and taxed!) by a small country far across the Atlantic. In the 1770s these colonies went to war, breaking away from Britain and creating an independent America. Thousands of Loyalists \u2013 people who preferred to remain British \u2013 moved north into Canada, which still belonged to Britain.\n\nNoah Webster (1758-1843) was a schoolteacher, and also a magazine publisher, a lawyer, a lecturer, and an outspoken opponent of slavery.\n\nEven after winning their independence, many Americans still resented all things English. A few thought Americans should all speak French \u2013 or even Greek \u2013 to teach England a lesson. But most people realized that it would be ridiculous to give up the language altogether. Instead, they would start speaking and writing English in their own way. They would make it simpler. More sensible. And better, of course.\n\nOne of these anti-English Americans, Noah Webster, saw the new country as a utopia of liberty and virtue. In 1789 \u2013 not long after the American states became independent \u2013 he predicted that their English would become a different language altogether. It would even use a different alphabet, with added letters and accents, to spell every word the way it sounded. **Health** , **neighbor** , and **tongue** would become **helth** , **nabor** , and **tung**. \"There iz no alternativ,\" he declared. \"A _national language_ is a brand of _national union_.\" In the name of independence and patriotism, Americans should speak American.\n\n**How good is your** **_English_** **English? Can you translate these British words into North American?**\n\n  * 1) Hold the baby for a moment, I'll get a nappy from the boot.\n\n  * 2) The way that lorry is parked, it's blocking the dustmen.\n\n  * 3) I didn't go and get the post because the lift was broken.\n\n  * 4) There's a coach up there on the flyover.\n\n  * 5) Do you want an ice lolly for afters?\n\n  * 6) I'm going to the chemist's. Play noughts and crosses till I get back.\n\nANSWERS\n\nJust a few decades earlier, some people back in England had also been dissatisfied with their language. They complained that English was not properly defined, the way Latin and Greek were. Words were used in too many different ways. Grammar and spelling were inconsistent. Meanings kept changing, and sloppy expressions were slipping in. It was time for some expert to write a rule book everyone could follow, so that English would be preserved for ever. After all, if the language kept changing, future generations wouldn't be able to read the treasures of English literature. In 1722, Jonathan Swift \u2014 who was in the midst of writing _Gulliver's Travels_ \u2013 published an impassioned letter addressed to Britain's Lord High Treasurer, asking him how any author could be expected to go on working\n\nwith Spirit and Chearfulness, when he considers, that he will be read with Pleasure but a very few Years, and in an Age or two shall hardly be understood without an Interpreter? This is like employing an excellent Statuary [sculptor] to work upon mouldring Stone.\n\nDefining a language that had grown out of so many sources, over so many centuries, was a huge challenge. But one man stepped up to it \u2013 a brilliant writer and scholar named Samuel Johnson. It was time, he said, to rid English of its impurities \u2013 its \"barbarous corruptions, licentious idioms and colloquial barbarisms.\" He and a few assistants spent nine years writing an authoritative English dictionary. Johnson came up with definitions for over forty-three thousand words, indicating how each word was said, the part of speech, and the derivation. By including one hundred and eighteen thousand quotations from well-known authors, he showed various ways the words could be used, and how their meanings had changed over the centuries. For good measure, he threw in a history of the English language, and a guide to grammar.\n\nSamuel Johnson (1708-1784) had problems with his vision and hearing, and suffered ill health for most of his life. He was generally gloomy and depressed, and often irritable, even rude. His father owned a bookshop, and Johnson grew up reading English, Latin, and Greek. He went to Oxford University for a while but couldn't afford to stay, so he dropped out to work as a bookseller, teacher, and journalist. But after his dictionary was published, the government gave him a pension, Oxford University gave him a doctorate, and he became known as \"Dictionary Johnson,\" the foremost expert on the English language. (photo credits 15.1)\n\nIn the 1700s there was a kind of writing paper that had a watermark (faint pattern) like a fool (a court jester) or a fool's cap. Three hundred years later, we still call legal-sized paper foolscap.\n\nThe result, published in 1755, was the first great English dictionary. For a hundred years it was the standard reference book that families trusted and relied on. It also gave future lexicographers (dictionary writers) a foundation to build on, to create their own dictionaries. Even today, many of Johnson's definitions appear in modern dictionaries.\n\nThere had been dictionaries before then, but most had been guidebooks to rare or difficult words. Johnson was the first lexicographer to include all kinds of day-to-day words. (He defined **lexicographer** as \"A writer of dictionaries, a harmless drudge....\") He also made some general decisions. For example, what was the right spelling of words like **color** \/ **colour** and **center** \/ **centre**? Some people argued that words from French should have French endings and words from Latin should have Latin endings. But since English came from both Latin and French, and since French itself came from Latin, who could say which words began where? Resolving to settle the matter, Johnson decided on the _our_ ( **colour** ) and _re_ ( **centre** ) endings.\n\nThe title page of Johnson's dictionary, published in 1755, \"in which the WORDS are deduced from their ORIGINALS, and ILLUSTRATED in their DIFFERENT SIGNIFICATIONS by EXAMPLES from the best WRITERS.\" But a greater dictionary was yet to come. In 1928, after seventy years of work by numerous editors and thousands of volunteers, _The Oxford English Dictionary_ was completed. It filled twelve immense volumes \u2014 \"fat, heavy, shelf-bendingly huge\" \u2014 with more than four hundred thousand words, and almost two million quotations. One of the many assistants who worked on it was Tolkien, author of _Lord of the Rings_ ; he was assigned to the letter _w_ , and wrestled with words like wallop, walrus, and wasp.\n\nAs for Noah Webster, over in America, by 1800 he had published several schoolbooks, including a wildly popular spelling book that eventually sold some _400 million_ copies. He began working on his own dictionary, using Johnson's book as a base and noting his additions and changes in the margins. He included some specifically American words, and defined an American style of spelling and pronunciation. For twenty-five years Webster labored alone, compiling entries for seventy thousand words and writing them all by hand. His dictionary, published in 1828, cut many double consonants down to singles, and used the _or_ and _er_ endings that Johnson had rejected. That's why Americans today have **jewelers** with **honor** , the British have **jewellers** with **honour** , and other English-speaking countries have to pick one side or the other.\n\n**We take dictionaries for granted these days, but stop and think for a moment. Isn't it difficult to think of a brief, clear explanation of even a basic word? How would you define** **_to walk_** **? And** **_to laugh_** **?**\n\nANSWERS\n\nDictionaries are handy for telling us what words mean, and how to spell and pronounce them. But why do we need them for short, simple words \u2013 like **run** , from Old English _rinnan_ , \"to set in motion\"? The word is easy to say and easy to explain, isn't it? Running is like walking, only faster.\n\nBut running is also what a motor does when it's working. It's what water does when it's flowing. It's what color does when it leaks out of fabric. You can run a movie or run a business or run a crook out of town. **Run** can be a noun: there are baseball runs and toboggan runs, stocking runs and runs on the stock market. And then there's the present participle, **running**. (Participles are verbs used like adjectives, to describe nouns.) There are running boards, running lights, running mates, and running stitches. If you check a dictionary, you'll see that **run** is used in a lot of other ways as well. And that's just one small word!\n\nHave you ever meant one word, and said another instead? This can happen in a moment of brain-scramble, when we're tired or not paying attention. Other times, we use a word we have heard, maybe to sound clever, and \u2013 oops! \u2013 it doesn't mean what we thought it did.\n\n**See if you can fill in some other runs**.\n\nTry a prefix in front:\n\n1) A movie you've already seen is a_________.\n\n2) Somebody faster can_________you.\n\nTry a suffix after:\n\n3) Butter left in the sun gets_________.\n\n4) A small motorboat is a_________.\n\n5) Someone who won't give you a straight answer is giving you the_________.\n\nNow try adding an adverb or a preposition:\n\n6) If you're slow, time can run_________.\n\n7) Pour too fast, and your cup will run_________.\n\n8) A car can run_________a lamp post.\n\n9) To practice a piano piece, you run_________it many times.\n\n10) A flag is run_________the flagpole.\n\n11) An unwound clock will run_________.\n\n12) The cost of something can run_________twenty dollars.\n\n13) Throw a ball, and your dog will run_________it. (Maybe.)\n\nANSWERS\n\nSpoonerisms are another mistake people fall into when they speak carelessly. Reverend Spooner, a dean at Oxford University around 1890, was famous for mixing up the beginnings of his words, saying \"a scoop of Boy Trouts\" meaning \"a troop of Boy Scouts,\" or \"a well-boiled icicle\" for \"a well-oiled bicycle.\" It's not clear how many spoonerisms really came from the reverend \u2013 mischievous students may have invented some of them \u2013 but Spooner buries the claim \u2013 sorry, carries the blame. Pea soup? Be careful how you say it!\n\nOver two hundred years ago, the Irish playwright Richard Brinsley Sheridan invented a character called Mrs. Malaprop who does exactly this. (Her name comes from French _mal \u00e0 propos_ , \"out of place.\") Straining to speak elegantly, Mrs. Malaprop says \"illegible\" when she means \"ineligible,\" confuses a \"pineapple\" with a \"pinnacle,\" and imagines a scaly \"allegory\" sunning itself on the banks of the Nile.\n\nImagine a malapropist trying to impress a high muck-a-muck: \"Oh please, your exultation, not a syllabub of apoplexy. I would never ask someone of your extinction to defenestrate himself for a person as incontinent as myself.\"\n\n1) What does this garbler mean to say?\n\n2) What is really coming out?\n\nANSWERS\n\nDo you remember Alice, who visited Wonderland and then met Humpty Dumpty in the land behind the looking-glass (mirror)?\n\n\"When _I_ use a word,\" Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone, \"it means just what I choose it to mean \u2013 neither more nor less.\"\n\n\"The question is,\" said Alice, \"whether you _can_ make words mean so many different things.\"\n\nThe more a word is misused, the more mixed up people get about what it's supposed to mean. Eventually both meanings, old and new, end up in dictionaries, because most dictionaries report what people are actually saying, even when the meaning has become muddled. And pretty soon, when you hear or read the word, you can't be sure which meaning is intended. English grows and changes over time, of course. But careless, sloppy mistakes damage the language, instead of making it richer and stronger.\n\nHere are a few examples of words being mixed up these days:\n\n**imply** (suggest) and **infer** (deduce)\n\n_\"No, I'm not implying that you stole my watch. But from the watch strap hanging out of your pocket, I infer that you stole somebody's.\"_\n\n**flout** (refuse to obey) and **flaunt** (show off)\n\n_Brittany flouted the dress code to flaunt her new miniskirt_.\n\n**fortuitous** (by chance) and **fortunate** (lucky)\n\n_Our fortuitous meeting with the karate teacher turned out to be fortunate; a few minutes later, a bully demanded our lunch money_.\n\n**literally** (actually) and **figuratively** (so to speak)\n\n_My dad says he's literally drooling for dinner. That makes him sound like the dog! I hope he means \"figuratively.\"_\n\n**problem** and **dilemma** (a choice between two options when you don't like either one)\n\n_If I tell my dad I lost my math problems, he won't let me go to the movies \u2013 but if I tell my mom, she'll make me clean my room. What a dilemma!_\n\n**disinterested** (unbiased) and **uninterested** (not interested)\n\n_We offered Ajay a dollar to act as a disinterested umpire, but he had just got his allowance so he was uninterested_.\n\n**mano a mano** (by fighting; Spanish for \"hand to hand\") and **man to man**\n\n_Phil and Franco were threatening to settle their argument mano a mano, but eventually they talked it out man to man_.\n\nEven the stress on a word \u2013 the syllable we say more loudly \u2013 can be confusing. How do you say **produce** , **rebel** , **record** , **research** , and **address**? This is a trick question, because all these words can be either a noun or a verb. In Shakespeare's day they were all stressed on the second syllable \u2013 proDUCE, reBEL \u2013 but since then, the stress on the nouns has tended to shift forward to the first syllable. A farmer proDUCEs PROduce. A REbel reBELS. You addRESS an envelope with an ADDress, preSENT a PREsent, and reCORD a REcord.\n\nOr maybe you don't \u2013 because these words are still changing, and how you say them depends on who you are and where you live. Will other words shift their stress in the same way? Will we someday misTAKE our MIStake and rePEAT a REpeat? Who knows?\n\nWith so many words to learn, how can you keep them straight? Think of Samuel Johnson and Noah Webster, and reach for a dictionary. It's not just for spelling. It's a user's guide to the English language.\n\n#\n\nBefore the 1800s, trips to distant lands were slow, uncomfortable, and often dangerous. The wealthy might travel for amusement, taking heaps of luggage and an army of servants. Some adventurers headed off alone, daring the risks and hardships and hoping for the best. But most people only left home if they had to; otherwise, they lived out their lives in the neighborhoods where they had been born.\n\nIn any case, Europe was a dangerous place for a holiday. After the French Revolution in 1789, and the beheading of the king and queen, Napoleon had taken control of France, and had crowned himself emperor. His armies were on the march as he extended his empire west into Spain, south into Italy, and east across Europe and into Russia.\n\nBut Napoleon was defeated in 1815, and much of his empire collapsed, while the British empire was flourishing. The British flag flew over territories not just in the Americas and Australia, but also in the Mediterranean, the East Indies, the Far East, Africa, and countless islands scattered around the globe. The British boasted that the sun never set on their empire; \"Our tongue is known in every clime, our flag on every sea.\"\n\nBy this time, travel was not only safer; it was easier than ever before. Thanks to the inventions of the Industrial Revolution, railways whisked passengers over iron bridges spanning deep valleys, and through tunnels blasted under mountains. Ships chugged along on steam power, no longer waiting for wind to fill their sails. By the 1850s you could even buy a package tour, with the tedious details of tickets and hotels and meals arranged in advance.\n\nTourists were drawn to Italy by ancient Roman ruins and by spectacular buildings like St. Mark's Basilica, in Venice \u2014 so grand, so elaborate, so excitingly foreign. (photo credits 16.1)\n\nTourism \u2013 especially the \"grand tour\" of major cities and antiquities \u2013 became the rage. Travelers returned home entranced by foreign styles of art, architecture, landscaping, cooking, clothing, music, and dance. Wherever the English went, their language went too \u2013 and brought home new words in its baggage.\n\nIn 1869 the Suez Canal opened, linking the Mediterranean and the Red Sea so that ships could head east without making the long, dangerous trip around the bottom of Africa. The voyage to India, once an ordeal of many months, could be done through the canal in just seventeen days. This was vital for the British, because by now much of India was part of their empire.\n\nIndia was a thrilling destination, with its elephants and tigers, its snake charmers, its elaborate temples and romantic palaces. In the evening, travelers could return to a British-style hotel, order roast beef and Yorkshire pudding, and settle down to read a London newspaper, though it might be a few weeks old. (photo credits 16.2)\n\nBack in 1600, in the days of Elizabeth I, a group of merchants had formed the East India Company, to send out great sailing ships (called East Indiamen) that would bring back exotic goods like pepper and other spices, and gems, and indigo (blue) dye. By 1700 the East India Company owned territories around India, and was shipping tea and coffee and printed fabrics. By 1800 the company had its own army and navy. British soldiers, government officials, teachers, missionaries, and merchants lived there, many with their families. Indian servants cleaned their houses, cooked their dinners, and cared for their children. Inevitably, words from Hindi and other Indian languages crept into English.\n\nOur word **guru** (teacher, expert) is a Hindi word, and **pundit** (also meaning expert) comes from _pandit_ , Hindi for scholar; Jawaharlal Nehru, one of India's prime ministers, was known as Pandit Nehru. **Bungalow** began as _bangla_ , \"Bengal-style\" \u2013 light one-story houses must have been common in the steamy Bengal region of India. **Chintz** (flowered cotton fabric) was called _chints_ in Hindi. The small rowboat we call a **dinghy** started out as a _dingi_ , **jungle** comes from _jangal_ , **thug** from _thag_. **Veranda** began as _varanda_ , **bangle** as _bangri_ , **loot** as _lut_ , and **shampoo** as _chhampo_. The British in India developed a taste for hot **curry** ( _kari_ in Tamil) and **chutney** ( _chatni_ ). Even the British nickname for their homeland \u2013 **Old Blighty** \u2013 came from Hindi; _bilayati_ meant \"foreign.\"\n\nHave you ever heard of a juggernaut? It's something immense and almost unstoppable \u2014 like an eighteen-wheeler barreling down the highway. In the Hindu religion, Jagannath is an avatar (form) of the great god Vishnu. (His name comes from Sanskrit _jagat nathas_ , \"world protector.\") Jagannath's statue is paraded through the streets of India in a heavy cart. It's said that some fervent worshippers used to hurl themselves under the cart's giant wheels. (photo credits 16.3)\n\nBy the early 1800s, English tourists were flocking to the cities and health spas of Europe's German-speaking states \u2013 Prussia, Bavaria, Austria, and many others. After all, the English and the Germans were almost cousins. Queen Victoria, who reigned from 1837 till 1901, was partly German; her husband was German; their oldest daughter married the crown prince of Germany. German literature was greatly admired, while German music \u2013 Beethoven, Schubert, Schumann, Wagner \u2013 was unparalleled. How could one be cultured without speaking at least a smattering of German?\n\nSince the English weren't the only ones bringing home new vocabulary, some words ended up with a tangled history. For example, workers in Iraq, in a part of Baghdad called _attabiy_ , used to make glossy striped silk. Italians called the cloth _tabi_. The English turned _tabi_ into tabby \u2013 and pretty soon, glossy striped cats were called tabbies.\n\nGerman looks daunting at first, partly because the words can be stuck together like beads on a string. This creates phrase-words that are useful for combining ideas that really don't fit in one word \u2013 like _Kindergarten_ , \"child-garden.\" (Unlike English nouns, German nouns still begin with capital letters.) Here are some other German constructions that have slipped into English:\n\n_Bildungsroman_ (education-novel): a novel about someone growing up. The Harry Potter books add up to a **bildungsroman**.\n\n_Schadenfreude_ (harm-joy): pleasure from someone else's misfortune; \"After Terry stole my toffee, I felt a thrill of **schadenfreude** when he pulled out one of his fillings.\"\n\n_Doppelganger_ (double-goer): a stranger who looks exactly like someone else. When a **doppelganger** appears in a story, it usually means something spooky is going to happen!\n\nWith many words run together like this, German offers less choice about the order that words are put in. Often an important word like the main verb comes right at the end of the sentence:\n\n_Der Unfall war in zwei Sekunden geschehen_.   \nThe accident had in two seconds happened.\n\nIn English we have a lot of freedom about how we arrange our words. We can choose a certain order because it makes the sense clearer, or it sounds better, or it's less boring. But it's generally wise to keep modifiers close to whatever they describe. Look what can happen when you don't:\n\n_I'm going to say I'm leaving tomorrow_. (Are you _leaving_ tomorrow? Or are you _saying_ tomorrow that you'll leave some other time?) The adverb, **tomorrow** , should be close to the verb it modifies \u2013 but is that **leaving**? Or **going to say**?\n\n_I took my puppy to the vet, who has droopy ears and a waggly tail_. Oops! The modifying clause, \"who has droopy ears and a waggly tail,\" should be close to **puppy**.\n\nWhat's a dangling participle? Remember that a participle is a form of verb that, like an adjective, modifies a noun \u2013 \"the escaped rhinoceros,\" \"the fleeing crowd.\" If the participle is too far from what it modifies, we say it's dangling; it's not attached to the correct word, so it gloms onto whatever is nearby:\n\nAfter chomping on the dragonfly, we saw the frog swallow. (Yuck! The participle, chomping, should be close to frog.)\n\nDressed in her tutu, the cat and the ballerina looked lovely. (Miaow!)\n\nSometimes, whatever the participle was supposed to describe isn't even in the sentence:\n\nGetting up next morning, the house was cold.\n\nDriving into the forest, the mountain disappeared.  \n(How far up did the house get? Does that mountain have a driver's license?)\n\nWhile some English words come from the depths of history and some are from foreign languages, others were deliberately invented. Lewis Carroll, the creator of _Alice in Wonderland_ and _Alice through the Looking-Glass_ , invented many words, including **slithy** and **mimsy**. Meaning what? \"Well,\" Humpty Dumpty explains to Alice, \"'slithy' means 'lithe and slimy'... You see it's like a portmanteau \u2013 there are two meanings packed up into one word.\" ( **Portmanteau** is an old name for a suitcase, from the French for \"carry-coat.\") \"Well then,\" he goes on, \"'mimsy' is 'flimsy and miserable' (there's another portmanteau for you.)\"\n\n**Galumph** blends **gallop** and **triumphant** (\"My dog finally found her ball, and came **galumphing** back to me.\" A guesstimate is an estimate based on guesswork, and **smash** is part **smack** and part **mash**.\n\n**Do you know these portmanteau words? If not, can you figure them out?**\n\n1) What's the name of the tunnel under the English Channel?\n\n2) What's a bit like breakfast and a bit like lunch?\n\n3) What's halfway between a snort and a chuckle?\n\n4) What kind of dog is part Labrador and part poodle?\n\n5) What's a cross between broccoli and cauliflower?\n\n6) What's partly a skirt and partly shorts?\n\n7) How do we describe a day that's gray and drizzly?\n\n8) What are we breathing when fog mixes with smoky pollution?\n\nanswer\n\nSometimes we create a language so that people _won't_ understand us. Kids try to fool their parents by speaking pig Latin \u2013 not Latin at all, but English mangled so that \"hide the book\" becomes \"ide-hay e-thay ook-bay\" (though their parents probably spoke pig Latin when they were young). Each generation invents its own slang, its own private vocabulary, especially for common meanings like **excellent** or **disgusting** or **boring**. Can you think of special words that you and your friends use? Words you don't expect to hear from your parents or grandparents? They probably had their own slang words, when they were your age.\n\n**Can you guess the meanings of these slang expressions from not so very long ago?**\n\n1) groanbox\n\n2) have a cow\n\n3) pucker paint\n\n4) make like a boid (bird)\n\n5) the bee's knees\n\n6) the cat's pajamas\n\nANSWERS\n\nAlthough most biscuits are baked only once, biscuit is derived from Latin _biscoctu_ , \"twice-cooked.\" Those long, thin Italian cookies called biscotti are baked twice \u2013 first in a loaf, and then again in slices. So is zwieback, a crisp bread baked till it's brittle all the way through \u2013 the name comes from German _zwei backen_ , \"twice baked.\"\n\nFrench street slang reverses a word's syllables, or at least its sounds. _Caf\u00e9_ becomes _f\u00e9ca_ , _bonjour_ becomes _jour-bon_ , _fou_ (\"crazy\") becomes _ouf_. _L'envers_ , meaning \"reverse,\" becomes _vers-l'en_ (the _s_ is silent), or _verlan_ , the name of this slang.\n\nWe know now that the tropical disease called malaria is spread by mosquitoes. In the past, though, people thought you caught malaria by breathing infected air \u2013 \"bad air\" \u2013 in Italian, _mal'aria_.\n\nTrickiest of all is the rhyming slang of the Cockneys (people from a region of London). It works like this: take the word you mean (such as **phone** ) and replace it with an expression that rhymes ( **dog and bone** ) \u2013 \"Quiet, I'm on the dog and bone.\" And if you want to be really mystifying, _drop the part that rhymes_. Then **phone** becomes **dog** \u2013 \"Quiet, I'm on the dog _\"_ \u2013 but unless you already know that, good luck figuring it out!\n\nFor Britons making the grand tour, Italy was also a must-see destination. Besides, the language was far easier to learn than German. Because Italian is closely related to Latin, many words resemble their English relatives.\n\nThe years of easy travel were not to last. The German states, already joined in a confederation to protect their mutual interests, were drawing closer together. By 1871, after a war with Prussia and a war with France, Germany declared itself an empire. The daughter of Queen Victoria was now, awkwardly, the Empress of Germany. Europe was seething with rivalry and resentment.\n\nIn 1914, the age of world wars began.\n\n#\n\nWar has been a frequent visitor in our history, and it too has added to the English language. The Romans had hundreds of military words \u2013 for ranks, weapons, armor, strategies \u2013 and some of them remained in Britain after Rome's armies went home. A _cohors_ was a unit of several hundred soldiers, a _legio_ was ten _cohortes, militia_ was military service. To us, **cohorts** are people working together; **legion** means \"many;\" a **militia** is a group of civilians who are trained to fight in time of war.\n\nThe ancient Greeks and Romans invented countless ways of hurling things at their enemies, including the ballista (from Greek _ballein_ , \"to throw\") \u2013 a heavy wooden contraption, similar to a crossbow, that fired a rock or spear. Since a missile (from Latin _missum_ , \"sent\") is anything thrown or shot, many early \"ballistic missiles\" were just big rocks. (photo credits 17.1)\n\nWhen William the Conqueror ferried his Norman horsemen ( _chevaliers_ , from French _cheval_ , \"horse\") across the English Channel, he brought along the language of cavalry. A **cavalcade** used to be a horse parade, but now it's a special series like \"a cavalcade of films.\" A **cavalier** was once a gallant gentleman like a knight, but today being cavalier means being rather arrogant and inconsiderate: \"I said Max could taste my birthday cake, but he's pretty cavalier to take three slices.\"\n\nBomb and bombard are \"imitative\" words; they sound like what they mean. Many imitative words begin with a sibilant sound like _s_ : screech, spit, splash, squawk, squeal. ( _Sibilus_ is Latin for \"hissing.\") There are heavy words (bump, clump, thump), swingy words (swirl, sway, sweep), glowing words (gleam, glare, glitter). We can whoop or whistle; we can whack, wham, or whomp. Other words imitate natural reactions: eek, ugh, blah, pooey, yum, _OW!_\n\nAncient sea battles depended on primitive tactics like ramming or hurling stones, trying to punch holes in the enemy's boats. But sometime in the 1300s, Europeans learned about the explosive force of gunpowder (probably from the Arabs, though it was first invented in China). When the fleet of the Spanish Armada set sail in 1588, it was bristling with **cannons** (from Latin _canna_ , \"tube\"), and the goal was to blast England's ships to smithereens. With gunpowder came words like **detonate** , \"explode loudly\" (related to Latin _tonare_ , \"thunder\"), and **bomb** and **bombard** (from Greek _bombos_ , \"booming\"). Originally, a bombard was a kind of cannon. Today it's a persistent attack, but not necessarily with guns \u2013 \"That new kid bombarded me with questions.\"\n\nBy the time of the twentieth century and the two world wars, combat had spread up into the skies, and down into the ocean. Once again, new words were needed. Some came from German: **snorkel** from _Schnorchel_ , the tube that lets a submarine breathe without surfacing; **blitz** from _Blitzkrieg_ , \"lightning war.\" Today a blitz can be as trivial as an advertising campaign or a football play; in World War II it meant a campaign of sudden, deadly attacks.\n\nOther military words came from Greek: **helicopter** from _helikos pteron_ , \"whirling wing,\" and **periscope** \u2013 a tube that lets a submarine crew see without surfacing \u2013 from _peri skopein_ , \"around-look.\"\n\nSome complex inventions just couldn't be defined in one word. Instead of sticking words together, as the Germans did, anglophones turned to acronyms, made from the beginnings of words. **Radar** detects objects like planes or ships, and determines their distance (range), by bouncing radio waves off them; the name comes from \"radio detecting and ranging.\" **Sonar** locates underwater objects by using sound waves: \"sound navigation and ranging.\" We say **flak** meaning angry complaints (\"Tanesha got a lot of flak for bringing her pet porcupine to school.\") but it began as a wartime acronym from the German for \"anti-aircraft gun,\" _Fl iegerabwehrkanone_ (flight-defence-cannon).\n\n**Acronyms** are pronounced as words (NATO, UNICEF), unlike **initialisms** , which are spelled out (FBI, DVD). (\"Acronym\" comes from Greek _akros onoma_ , \"at the top [of the] name.\") Acronyms and initialisms are both handy shortcuts, but it's easy to forget what they stand for. Do you know the words behind these?\n\n  * 1) OPEC\n\n  * 2) AWOL\n\n  * 3) navy SEAL\n\n  * 4) op-ed page\n\n  * 5) scuba\n\n  * 6) RSVP\n\n  * 7) a.m.\n\n  * 8) RIP\n\nANSWERS\n\nIn the 1900s, anti-Semitism drove many Jewish people out of Europe, to England and other anglophone lands. Most spoke Yiddish as their everyday language, and Yiddish words spread into English. Yiddish \u2013 the name comes from German _judisch_ , \"Jewish\" \u2013 is similar to German but it's written in Hebrew characters. (Hebrew, Israel's official language, is used for religion and scholarship.)\n\nMany people think SOS \u2013 the Morse code message sent by telegraph when a ship is in desperate trouble \u2013 means \"save our souls.\" In fact, it was chosen because in Morse code, S-O-S \u2013 _di-di-dit, dah-dah-dah, di-di-dit_ \u2013 is easy to remember and recognize. When ships communicate in English, the emergency message is mayday, mayday, from French _m'aidez, m'aidez_ , meaning \"help me, help me.\"\n\nBy the 1950s and the Cold War \u2013 the armed standoff between the Communist dictatorships of the east and the democracies of the west \u2013 the race for power reached out into space, as both sides built rockets and satellites. Along with the space race came computer technology, with words for things that are unimaginably tiny and fast. Science in general was booming, coming up with new products, new processes, new ideas \u2013 and words and more words. Back in the early 1900s, about a thousand new words entered English every year. By the end of that century, the number added each year was close to _twenty thousand_.\n\nA nanosecond \u2013 a billionth of a second \u2013 takes its name from Greek _nanos_ , \"dwarf.\" A googol is the number you get when you put a hundred zeroes after \"1,\" and it was apparently named by the nine-year-old nephew of a mathematician. He defined an even bigger number, a googolplex, as \"one, followed by writing zeroes until you get tired\" \u2013 so many zeroes that if you turned the whole universe into paper and ink, you still couldn't write them all down.\n\nBecause scientists cooperate internationally, it makes sense to derive new words from Greek and Latin, so they're familiar in many languages. Besides, classical words often sound so grand: **stratosphere** and **troposphere** , **intermolecular** and **intergalactic** , **supersonic** and **supernova**. Need a name for a scientist who studies fossils of prehistoric spiders? Reach for the Greek: _palaios_ (\"ancient\"), _arakhne_ (\"spider\"), and _logos_ (\"word, talk, discussion\") add up to **paleoarachnologist**.\n\nStill, many of our technical terms are old-fashioned English words with new meanings. Look at computer vocabulary: we **boot** up, use a **mouse** and a **menu** , put up a **firewall** so nobody can **hack** into the system, track down a **bug** , **surf** the **net** , set a **bookmark** , and delete any **cookies**. We call one of the great mysteries of space a **black hole** , and dream of finding a shortcut across the universe through a **wormhole** \u2013 using words that date back to King Alfred and beyond: _wyrm, blaec, hol_.\n\nBig words, small words, new words, old words, Anglo-Saxon words, imported words \u2013 the richness of the English language gives us so many ways to say pretty much the same thing. How do you go about speaking and writing well? Here's a good place to start: _Think about exactly what you mean, and then say it, simply and clearly_.\n\nAs the King of Hearts explains to the White Rabbit in _Alice in Wonderland:_\n\nBegin at the beginning, and go on till you come to the end; then stop.\n\n**The Greek word for \"far away\" is** **_tele_**. **What invention lets you**\n\n  * 1) have a closer look at the moon\n\n  * 2) watch a baseball game in another city\n\n  * 3) talk to a friend in another country\n\n  * 4) use a distant computer\n\n  * 5) photograph a woodpecker on a faraway tree\n\n  * 6) beam yourself up to the spaceship (at least in movies!)\n\nANSWERS\n\n#\n\nClose to four hundred million people speak English as their native language. As many again learned it as a second language. Another seven or eight hundred million have studied the language. All in all, perhaps a quarter of the people on earth have some ability to speak and understand English.\n\nAnd many more would like to. After all, English opens the door to travel, to the Internet, to everything from leading-edge science to the latest Hollywood blockbusters.\n\nWhat will happen to it in the years to come?\n\nWill English continue to grow and spread, displacing all other languages, as people around the globe become more tightly linked by instant communications? Will other languages wither away as nations become more dependent on this common speech of technology and trade?\n\nOr will English fragment into many different languages, the way Latin split into Italian and Spanish and French? Is this happening already?\n\nConsider the Caribbean island of Jamaica, colonized first by Spain and later by England. Around 1640, the first shiploads of Africans were taken there to work as slaves in the sugar plantations. Over the centuries, a Jamaican form of English has developed. The words are mostly English but they are said differently, and linked by African-style grammar. Some words are specifically Jamaican \u2013 _winjy_ for \"sickly,\" _duppy_ for \"ghost,\" _braata_ for \"a little extra,\" _bangarang_ for \"a big fuss,\" _peeny wally_ for \"firefly.\" The result is almost incomprehensible to outsiders. In colonial days, this local speech was dismissed as ignorant and inferior. But today Jamaica is an independent country, and many people say this is their true national language. Will other new languages grow out of English in the same way? Will they eventually replace it?\n\nPerhaps the upset will be more dramatic. Perhaps English will be swept aside by the preferred language of some new superpower. Will it be Chinese, already spoken by a billion or so people? Or Spanish, the language of hundreds of millions in Europe and the Americas? Or will it be some other language that we can't yet imagine being a competitor? Will the world's anglophones scramble to master this vital new language, and end up speaking English only to their children and their dogs?\n\nThe growth of English has depended on so many twists of fate: Rome's invincible armies, the rise of Christianity, the Vikings in their dragon boats, the shocking victory of William and his Norman cavalry, the Black Death, the religious conflict that drove the Pilgrims to North America. Who knows what events will shape it in the future? Or what triumphs or catastrophes will drive other languages?\n\nBut for the past thousand years and more, through conquest and through defeat, English has grown amazingly strong and subtle and versatile. The power of the language, and our ability to use it, affects our whole lives. Language \u2013 any language \u2013 is not just a tool for getting through the day, for chatting and arguing and reading the TV listings. It's the foundation of society, the bond between us that lets us work together and cooperate and share. \"Speech is civilization itself,\" said a German novelist. \"The word, even the most contradictory word, preserves contact.\"\n\nThe way we speak shapes the very way we think. \"Language is the dress of thought,\" said Samuel Johnson. \"Words are absolutely necessary for thinking,\" noted another writer, \"and with a minimum of words there is a minimum of thought.\"\n\nOur speech also determines our ability to change the thinking of others. Whatever we have in our hearts and minds, we need language to express it. \"Axes and atom bombs can change the material world,\" declared a British scientist, \"but only language can alter human ideas.\"\n\nBut let's leave the last word to _My Fair Lady_ 's cranky Professor Higgins, as he urges Eliza the flowerseller to speak English well, to honor its beauty and power and its wealth of history:\n\nRemember that you are a human being with a soul and the divine gift of articulate speech; that your native language is the language of Shakespeare and Milton and the Bible; and don't sit there crooning like a bilious pigeon.\n\n(photo credits 18.1)\n\n# TIMELINE\n\n_(most dates are approximate)_\n\n**BCE** |   \n---|---  \n**2500s** | early Britons build Stonehenge  \n**700s** | Celts begin migrating from Europe to England  \n**55** | Julius Caesar leads first of two expeditions to Britain  \n**CE** |   \n**43** | Romans invade Britain, bringing Latin language  \n**400s** | Romans withdraw from Britain; Angles, Saxons, and others invade, bringing Germanic languages  \n**600s** | Anglo-Saxons are spread across much of Britain  \n**800** | Vikings (Norse, Danes) begin raiding Britain and France  \n**865** | Vikings begin settling in England  \n**871** | Alfred the Great becomes king, unites Anglo-Saxon England  \n**911** | Vikings in France win their own dukedom, Normandy  \n**1000** | earliest surviving copy of _Beowulf_ is written  \n**1066** | Normans conquer England, bringing Norman French  \n**1340** | birth of Chaucer (d. 1400)  \n**1348** | Black Death sweeps Britain (and returns later)  \n**1384** | Wycliffe's hand-written English-language Bible is published  \n**1400s** | English is again the official language of England  \n**1476** | Caxton sets up England's first printing press  \n**1525** | Tyndale publishes New Testament in English  \n**1564** | birth of Shakespeare (d. 1616)  \n**1600s** | England begins gaining power in India  \n**1607** | Jamestown, first permanent English settlement in America, is founded  \n**1755** | Johnson publishes his dictionary in England  \n**1776** | thirteen American colonies rebel against England  \n**1787** | first convict ships sail to Australia  \n**1800s** | British Empire extends around the world  \n**1828** | Webster publishes his dictionary in America\n\n\"Let him read a book.\"\n\n## MORE ABOUT SANSKRIT\n\nSanskrit is the classical language of ancient India. An early version was spoken some thirty-five hundred years ago; long before Indo-Europeans learned to write, Hindu religious texts called the Veda were recited and sung from memory. By 400 bce, classical Sanskrit was the language of Hindu culture and romantic literature, including lengthy poems about love and adventure, and fables and fairy tales. ( **Sanskrit** comes from _samskrta_ , \"perfected.\" _Veda_ is Sanskrit for \"knowledge,\" from the same root as Old English _witan_ , \"know.\")\n\nSanskrit uses a much larger alphabet than English, and a lot of special marks to show how words are pronounced. The language is complex and highly inflected (words change depending on how they're used). It has eight cases for nouns, three genders (masculine, feminine, and neuter), and three numbers (not only singular and plural but also dual, for talking about just two things or two people).\n\nToday a simpler language, Hindi \u2013 which comes from Sanskrit \u2013 is India's official language. Sanskrit is used mostly in the temples. It's often written in a Hindi alphabet called Devanagari, in which the letters of a word are spelled from left to right, as in English, but joined together. Sanskrit numbers look similar to ours:   but the words for **one two three** , pronounced _eka, dvi, tri_ , are written:   .\n\n\"The art of speaking enchants the soul.\"\n\n## MORE ABOUT GREEK\n\nLike Sanskrit, Greek (or something close to it) was spoken at least thirty-five hundred years ago. Greek writing probably developed about five hundred years later. Again like Sanskrit, classical Greek is highly inflected, with words changing according to how they're used. But the Greek uses a much simpler alphabet of about twenty-four letters (a few letters came and went over the years). In fact, the Greek alphabet is much like ours, although some of the letters look a little different.\n\nHere are some Greek words from chapter 4, in English spelling. Can you match up the English spelling with the Greek? (Hint: the letter _e_ has two forms, depending on how it's said.)\n\nGreek does have some tricky bits \u2013 _ph_ and _th_ are combined into single letters, the letter _h_ is shown by punctuation ('\u0454V, above, is pronounced \"hen,\") the _r_ looks like our _p_ , the _p_ looks like a little table, and so on \u2013 but it doesn't take long to learn the alphabet. Here are some harder words from chapter 3 \u2013 can you match them up?\n\nThe ancient Greeks also had capital letters, though they're a bit harder to recognize. As well, they used their letters in their numbering system. Here's the whole alphabet.\n\nModern Greek looks very similar to the Greek of classical times, but the pronunciation has changed, as it has in English.\n\nIn the old days, Greek could be written left to right, right to left, or weaving back and forth in a style called \"boustrophedon\" \u2013 meaning the way an ox ( _bous_ , or ) plows a field, from one side to the other and then back again:\n\nan ox plows a field from   \nrehto eht ot edis eno   \nand then back again\n**VIRTUS MILITUM FUIT ADMODUM LAUDANDA**|    \n---|---  \n|\n\n\"The excellence of our soldiers was most laudable.\"\n\n## MORE ABOUT LATIN\n\nAbout twenty-five hundred years ago, Latini people lived around Roma, in Italy. As these Romans conquered their neighbors, their language, Latin, spread through Italy and beyond. But there were two versions of Latin \u2013 the classical kind, for writing and fine speeches, and a simpler \"vulgar\" kind (from Latin _vulgus_ , \"common people\"), which most people spoke. Sometimes the two were quite different. For example, **cat** was _feles_ in classical Latin but _cattus_ in common Latin; borrowing from both versions, we can talk about either \"cats\" or \"felines.\" Over time, common Latin disintegrated into Romance languages like French and Spanish. Classical Latin was preserved in the works of great writers across Europe, although it hasn't been anyone's mother tongue for over a thousand years.\n\nThe Romans used an alphabet of twenty-three capital letters (Latin was always written in capitals at that time):   \n**A B C D E F G H I K L M N O P Q R S T V X Y Z**\n\nThey had no _J_ , which is a variety of _I_ \u2013 our word \"eject\" comes from _i actare_, \"to throw.\" They had no _W_ , and _U_ and _V_ were the same letter (notice that our letter shaped like two _V_ s is called \"double- _U_ ,\" not \"double- _V_ \").\n\nRoman Latin was highly inflected, but it didn't have as many versions of nouns as Greek or Sanskrit. There were no dual forms, for one thing \u2013 just singular and plural. But some verbs changed dramatically depending on how they were used, and studying Latin means memorizing four \"principal parts\" for every verb. For the Latin word meaning \"give,\" those parts are _do_ , _dare_ , _dedi_ , _datus_ :\n\nI give  | _do_ (the root of English **donate** )  \n---|---  \nto give  | _dare_  \nI have given  | _dedi_  \nhaving been given  | _datus_ (the root of English **date** )\n\nSo English \"donate\" and \"date\" come from Latin _dare_ , and look different because the verb is inflected \u2013 yet our verb \"to dare\" doesn't come from _dare_ at all, but from an Old English word, _durran_.\n\n\"There will be more wisdom, the more languages we know.\"\n\n## MORE ABOUT OLD ENGLISH\n\nEnglish evolved in a long, slow process, but for convenience we give the name \"Old English\" to the language spoken from early Anglo-Saxon times up to about 1150. This is the language of _Beowulf_ and Caedmon and Alfred the Great. Some of it sounds a bit like English, if we read it out loud, but the writing looks foreign to our eyes, as you can see in chapter 8.\n\nBy 1150, English had expanded and borrowed a lot from Norman French. The language from 1150 until about 1500 is called Middle English, and this is what Chaucer used \u2013 more like the language we know, but still not easy to read.\n\nWhen printed books appeared around 1500, they helped pull the language together into Modern English \u2013 the language of Shakespeare's plays and the King James Bible, which are readable and familiar even though they were written hundreds of years ago.\n\nThe earliest Anglo-Saxon writings we have are in futhark, an alphabet of signs called \"runes.\" The runes are made almost entirely of straight lines, and futhark was probably used mostly for carving short inscriptions \u2013perhaps a few words on a coin or a stone, or the blade of a sword. (The name comes from the first six letters \u2013 _th_ is a single letter \u2013 just as our alphabet is named for alpha, beta.) Almost all manuscripts written in Old English use a later alphabet. It's much like the Roman alphabet, with a few letters missing and a few extras added. _A_ and _E_ could be written together _(AE)_ in a sign called a ligature, to mean a sound like the _a_ in \"cat.\"   (eth) and \u00fe (thorn) stood for the _th_ sound in \"cloth\" or \"clothes.\"   (wynn) is confusingly similar to thorn, but it represents a _w_ sound. The alphabet looked something like this:\n\nAs time went by, spellings gradually changed: _ac_ and _bat_ became **oak** and **boat** , _scip_ became **ship** , _ecg_ became **edge**. The letters _h_ and _w_ might change places _(hwael_ became **whale** , _hwil_ became **while** ); an _h_ before a consonant might be dropped _(hrof became_ **roof** , _hlot_ became **lot** ); and so on.\n\nWhile the verbs could still be complicated, Old English was less inflected than Sanskrit or Greek or Latin. Nouns had only four cases, though they still came in singular and plural, and masculine, feminine, and neuter. As time went by, English-speakers were more and more likely to use prepositions to show exactly what they meant \u2013 \"to my friend, from my friend\" \u2013 instead of changing the word endings.\n\nIn grammar as well as vocabulary, English was growing close to the language we know today.\n\n# SOURCE NOTES\n\nPublisher and date are given where a book is first referred to, unless the book is a classic or is included in the Selected Bibliography. All Shakespeare quotations are from two volumes of _The Complete Pelican Shakespeare: The Comedies and the Romances_ and _The Tragedies_ (London: Penguin, 1969). I have relied extensively on the _Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology_ , the _Canadian Oxford Dictionary_ , and _The Oxford Companion to English Literature_.\n\nThe early history of Britain and the English language is still in dispute, and sources often differ. I have tried to speak generally where details are contested.\n\nThe epigraph is from _Thorndale_.\n\n**Introduction: The Puzzle of English**   \nBilbo's speech is from Chapter 1 of _The Hobbit, or There and Back Again_ , by J.R.R. Tolkien (London: Unwin, 1970). Bryson notes in _The Mother Tongue_ that the number of English words depends on whether **mouse** and **mice** are two words, whether computer **mouse** and field **mouse** are one word, and so on. The homophonic spelling quizzes are based on _The Story of English_ , by McCrum, Cran, and MacNeil, and _Alpha Beta_ , by John Man.\n\n**Chapter 1 The Mother Tongue**   \nThe table of numbers is drawn partly from _Inventing English_ , by Lerer.\n\n**Chapter 2 The Glory That Was Greece**   \nThanks to Roberta Shaw at the Royal Ontario Museum for correcting the caption about the priest Khenu's tomb at Sakkara, Egypt. The Plato quotes are from _Phaedrus_ , sec. 271, and _Apologia of Socrates_ , sec. 18, respectively.\n\n**Chapter 5 Amicus, Amice, Amicum**   \nThe magic spells are from chapter 12 of _Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban_ , by J.K. Rowling (Vancouver: Raincoast, 1999).\n\n**Chapter 6 Angles and Saxons and Vikings**   \nThe quotes \"ivories and jewelled crucifixes\" and \"'From the fury'\" are from _Set in a Silver Sea_ , by Bryant.\n\n**Chapter 7 Alfred and the Vikings**   \n\"There will be more wisdom\" is from the prose preface of King Alfred's translation of Pope Gregory the Great's _Pastoral Care_. The comparison of English and Norse words is from _The Year 1000_ , by Lacey and Danziger.\n\n**Chapter 8 Riddles, Hymns, and Tales of Battle**   \nThe riddle-verses are numbers 23 and 65 in _The Exeter Book Riddles_ , translated by Crossley-Holland. The _Beowulf_ translation has been tweaked to emphasize resemblances to English words, for the sake of comprehension. (The meaning of _fagne_ is closer to \"decorated\" \u2013 in this context, probably with blood!) The quote for the year 871 in _The Anglo-Saxon Chronicles_ is based on a translation by Professor Harvey De Roo.\n\n**Chapter 9 The Defeat of the English**   \nThe thesaurus referred to is _Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases_ (revised), by Peter Mark Roget (London: Longman's, 1959).\n\n**Chapter 10 Tales of Cnihts and Fair Ladies**   \nThe story of kohl is drawn from _The Meaning of Tingo_ , by Jacot de Boinod. The quote \"high and low\" is from Professor Nevill Coghill, cited in _English Life in Chaucer's Day_ , by Hart. The quote \"cursed and complained\" is from _The Meaning of Everything_ , by Winchester.\n\n**Chapter 11 How to Spell It? How to Say It?**   \nThe remarks on Caxton, and the Caxton quote, are drawn from _The Story of English_ , by McCrum, Cran, and MacNeil. _The Mother Tongue_ , by Bryson, attributes Caxton's story to Caxton's preface to _Eneydos_ (1490), and is also the source of the comment on _Grammatica Linguae Anglicanae_.\n\n**Chapter 12 Making the \"Good Book\" Better**   \nThe Ruth quote is from Ruth, 1:16.\n\n**Chapter 13 Gloriana and the Bard**   \nThe bishop advocating \"gothroughsome\" was Reginald Pecock. Some details about Shakespeare are drawn from _Shakespeare_ , by Bryson. Petruchio's words are from Act II Scene i. Lear's words are from Act II Scene iv. Richard's words are from Act V Scene iii. References to _Macbeth'_ s \"weird\" witches are in Act II Scene i, Act III Scene i, and Act IV Scene i. The number of different words used by Shakespeare is disputed.\n\n**Chapter 14 Greener Pastures**   \nNative American words could be similar across several languages, so it's often not clear which version was adapted into English. Much of the Newfoundland section is from _The Dictionary of Newfoundland English_ , edited by G.M. Story and others (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1982). The Mather quote is from _Decennium Luctuosum_ , cited in _Narratives of the Indian Wars_ , 1675-1699, edited by Charles H. Lincoln (New York: Barnes & Noble, 1913). All Franklin quotes are from _Benjamin Franklin: A Biography in His Own Words_ , edited by Joseph L. Gardner, in the Founding Fathers series (New York: Newsweek\/ Harper & Row, 1972). Some of the Tok Pisin is drawn from _Pidgin Phrasebook: Pidgin Languages of Oceania_ , by Trevor Balzer and others (Hawthorn, Australia: Lonely Planet, 1999). Tok Pisin is now gaining a place as a first language, becoming a creole rather than a pidgin language.\n\n**Chapter 15 The War between English and English**   \nThe Webster quotes, \"There iz no alternativ,\" from an essay, and \"A _national_ language,\" from a 1786 letter, are cited in _The Long Journey of Noah Webster_ , by Rollins. The Swift quote is from _A Proposal for Correcting, Improving and Ascertaining the English Tongue_..., addressed to the Earl of Oxford and Mortimer (London: Benj. Tooke, 1712). The Johnson quote, \"barbarous corruptions,...\" is cited in _Blooming English_ , by Burridge. Some remarks on the _Oxford English Dictionary_ , including the quote \"fat, heavy,\" are from _The Meaning of Everything_ , by Winchester. The Humpty Dumpty quote is from chapter 6 of _Alice through the Looking-Glass_ , by Lewis Carroll.\n\n**chapter 16 Britannia's Heyday**   \n\"Our tongue is known\" is from \"Old England Is Our Home,\" by Mary Howitt. The Humpty Dumpty quote is from chapter 6 of _Alice through the Looking-Glass_. The example of rhyming slang is from \"The New Pig's Ears,\" by Soraya Roberts, in the _National Post_ , January 4, 2007.\n\n**Chapter 17 Words, Words, Words**   \nThe statistics on new words per year are extrapolated from _The New York Times_ , April 3, 1989, cited in _The Mother Tongue_ , by Bryson. The origin of \"googol\" and \"googolplex\" is from Wikipedia; Milton Sirotta was the nephew of Edward Kasner. The King of Hearts quote is from chapter 12 of _Alice's Adventures in Wonderland_ , by Lewis Carroll.\n\n**Chapter 18 Looking Forward**   \nRemarks on the dominance of English are based partly on _Empires of the Word_ , by Ostler. Much of the Jamaican material is drawn from _The Story of English_ , by McCrum, Cran, and MacNeil. The Johnson quote is from his _Lives of the Poets: Cowper_. The quote from German novelist Thomas Mann is cited in _The Miracle of Language_ , by Lederer, as are those from \"another writer,\" Aubrey A. Douglas, and British scientist H.C. Lonquet-Higgins. Professor Higgins's speech is from Act I of _Pygmalion_ , by George Bernard Shaw, and is also in the film _My Fair Lady_.\n\n**More about Sanskrit, Greek, Latin, Old English**   \nAll these languages evolved over many centuries, across their various regions. The Julius Caesar quote is from _Commentaries of Caesar on the Gallic War_ , Book V (New York: David McKay, 1963), author's translation.\n\n# SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY\n\n* suggested reading\n\nAbrams, M.H. (editor), and others. _The Norton Anthology of English Literature_ , Volume 1, fourth edition. New York: Norton, 1962.\n\nBarber, Katherine, editor. _Canadian Oxford Dictionary_ , second edition. Don Mills, Ontario: Oxford University Press, 2004.\n\n*Branigan, Keith. _Roman Britain: Life in an Imperial Province_. London: Reader's Digest Association, 1980.\n\nBryant, Arthur. A History of Britain and the British People, Volume 1: _Set in a Silver Sea_. London: Grafton, 1985.\n\n____. A History of Britain and the British People, Volume 2: _Freedom's Own Island_. London: Grafton, 1987.\n\nBryson, Bill. _The Mother Tongue: English and How It Got That Way_. New York: William Morrow, 1990.\n\n____. _Shakespeare: The World As Stage_. (Eminent Lives.) New York: HarperCollins, 2007.\n\nBurridge, Kate. _Blooming English_. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004.\n\nChickering, Howell D., Jr., translator. _Beowulf: A Dual-Language Edition_. New York: Doubleday, 1977.\n\nCrossley-Holland, Kevin, translator. _The Exeter Book Riddles_ (revised). London: Penguin, 1993.\n\nDrabble, Margaret. _The Oxford Companion to English Literature_ , fifth edition. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1985.\n\nFatsis, Stefan. _Word Freak: Heartbreak, Triumph, Genius, amd Obsession in the World of Competitive Scrabble Players_. New York: Penguin, 2002.\n\nGaur, Albertine. _A History of Writing_. New York: Cross River Press, 1992.\n\n*Hart, Roger. _English Life in Chaucer's Day_. London: Wayland, 1973.\n\nHitchings, Henry. _The Secret Life of Words: How English Became English_. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2008.\n\n*Humez, Alexander and Nicholas. _Alpha and Omega: The Life and Times of the Greek Alphabet_. London: Kudos and Godine, 1983.\n\n*____. _Latin for People: Latina pro Populo_. Boston: Little, Brown, 1976.\n\n*Jacot de Boinod, Adam. _The Meaning of Tingo and Other Extraordinary Words from around the World_. New York: Penguin Press, 2006.\n\nKurlansky, Mark. _Salt: A World History_. Toronto: Knopf, 2002.\n\n*Lacey, Robert, and Danny Danziger. _The Year 1000: What Life Was Like at the Turn of the First Millennium_. New York: Little, Brown, 1999.\n\nLass, Abraham H., David Kiremidjian, Ruth M. Goldstein. _Dictionary of Allusions_. London: Sphere, 1989.\n\n*Lederer, Richard. _The Miracle of Language_. New York: Pocket Books, 1991.\n\nLerer, Seth. _Inventing English: A Portable History of the Language_. New York: Columbia University Press, 2007.\n\n*McCrum, Robert, William Cran, Robert MacNeil. _The Story of English_ (revised edition). London: Faber and Faber, 1992.\n\n*Man, John. _Alpha Beta: How Our Alphabet Changed the Western World_. London: Headline, 2000.\n\n*Manguel, Alberto. _A History of Reading_. Toronto: Knopf, 1996.\n\nMichaelson, O.V. _Words at Play: Quips, Quirks & Oddities_. New York: Sterling, 1997.\n\nMitchell, Bruce, and Fred C. Robinson. _A Guide to Old English_. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1982.\n\nOnions, C.T., editor. _Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology_. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996.\n\nOstler, Nicholas. _Empires of the Word: A Language History of the World_. New York: HarperCollins, 2005.\n\nRollins, Richard M. _The Long Journey of Noah Webster_. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1980.\n\n*Ross, Val. _You Can't Read This: Forbidden Books, Lost Writing, Mistranslations and Codes_. Toronto: Tundra, 2006.\n\n*Savage, Anne (translator). _The Anglo-Saxon Chronicles: The Authentic Voices of England, from the Time of Julius Caesar to the Coronation of Henry II_. Godalming, UK: CLB, 1997.\n\n*Winchester, Simon. _The Meaning of Everything: The Story of the Oxford English Dictionary_. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003.\n\n# PICTURE SOURCES\n\nEvery reasonable effort has been made to trace the ownership of copyright materials. Any information allowing the publisher to correct a reference or credit in future will be welcomed. Pictures not attributed are from the author's collection.\n\n**MVM** : original art by Margrieta Vandelis-Muir  \n **TRL** : courtesy of the Toronto Reference Library\n\n2.1, MVM; 2.2, photo courtesy of W. Peter Gorrell; 2.3, MVM; 2.4, TRL; 3.1, 4.1, 4.2, MVM; 4.3, TRL; 4.4, 5.1, 6.1, 6.2, MVM; 6.3, TRL; 6.4, MVM; 7.1, 8.1, 8.2, TRL; 9.1, MVM; 9.2, TRL; 9.3, MVM; 10.1, 10.2, 10.3, 11.4, 11.5, TRL; 12.1, MVM; 12.2, TRL; 12.3, by kind permission of David Betts; 13.1, 13.2, 13.3, TRL; 14.1 top, MVM; 14.2 bottom, Library of Congress, LC-USZ62-15195; 15.1 left, MVM; 16.1, by kind permission of the artist, Thomas E. Brown; 16.2, 16.3, photos courtesy of W. Peter Gorrell; 17.1, 18.1, MVM.\n\n# ACKNOWLEDGMENTS\n\nMy thanks to Kathy Lowinger, publisher of Tundra Books, and Carolyn Jackson, my editor, for their patience and fortitude; to Professor Harvey De Roo for all his help and enlightenment regarding the Old English material; and to John Elmslie of the Toronto Reference Library and Susan Meisner for their special expertise. I am indebted to Margrieta Vandelis-Muir for the time and care she put into the maps and other original artwork. Professor Andy Orchard, of the Centre for Medieval Studies at the University of Toronto, very generously read the manuscript and pointed out my lapses into ignorance; any remaining errors are, of course, entirely my own fault.\n\n\u2013 G.K.G.\n","meta":{"redpajama_set_name":"RedPajamaBook"}}
+{"text":" \nEditor\n\nMaura J. Mills\n\nGender and the Work-Family ExperienceAn Intersection of Two Domains\n\nEditor\n\nMaura J. Mills\n\nDepartments of Psychology and Management, Hofstra University, Hempstead, New York, USA\n\nISBN 978-3-319-08890-7e-ISBN 978-3-319-08891-4\n\nDOI 10.1007\/978-3-319-08891-4\n\nSpringer Cham Heidelberg New York Dordrecht London\n\nLibrary of Congress Control Number: 2014947532\n\n\u00a9 Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2015\n\nThis work is subject to copyright. All rights are reserved by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. Exempted from this legal reservation are brief excerpts in connection with reviews or scholarly analysis or material supplied specifically for the purpose of being entered and executed on a computer system, for exclusive use by the purchaser of the work. Duplication of this publication or parts thereof is permitted only under the provisions of the Copyright Law of the Publisher's location, in its current version, and permission for use must always be obtained from Springer. Permissions for use may be obtained through RightsLink at the Copyright Clearance Center. Violations are liable to prosecution under the respective Copyright Law.\n\nThe use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use.\n\nWhile the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication, neither the authors nor the editors nor the publisher can accept any legal responsibility for any errors or omissions that may be made. The publisher makes no warranty, express or implied, with respect to the material contained herein.\n\nPrinted on acid-free paper\n\nSpringer is part of Springer Science+Business Media (www.springer.com)\n\nFor my parents, Chris and Ellen, and for my husband Matthew, each of whom have shown me different aspects of the work\u2013family interface throughout varying phases of my life thus far. And most especially for David, my beautiful son \u2014 my biggest work\u2013family challenge to date, but also my most rewarding.\n\nForeword\n\nEllen Ernst Kossek, PhD\n\nIt is an exciting time for work and family research! The field has been exploding with growing numbers of scholars identifying themselves as work\u2013family researchers. Unlike previous decades, work\u2013family conflict and positive work\u2013life spillover are now core constructs used across many fields of research. A recent Google search in April 2014 of the terms \"work family\" yielded 2 billion six hundred and thirty million results! Growing appreciation of the importance for work\u2013life well-being is recognized and valued in many societies around the globe. Many countries around the world from the USA to the UK to Sweden to Singapore are starting to create work\u2013family research and practice groups. As an example, as the first formally elected President of the Work Family Researchers Network, I helped convene its second ever international conference. Over 1000 scholars and policy makers from over 33 countries met in June 2014 to share work\u2013family research in New York, USA. Work\u2013family scholars build on the work of WFRN Founder Jerry Jacobs of the University of Pennsylvania, the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, and the seminal work of thought leaders such as Rosabeth Moss Kanter (my former dissertation committee member, now at Harvard University), and many other luminaries.\n\nDespite this progress and growing interest in the work\u2013family field, many questions remain regarding work and family research. Despite thousands of studies, the work\u2013family field is still in its relative infancy compared to other scholarly research domains, and faces epistemological challenges. Common measures and ways of conceptualizing work and family are still under discussion (Kossek et al. 2011). Disciplines continue to dispute how best to understand this growing phenomenon. A recent Wall Street Journal article reports that use of workplace flexibility policies seems to have leveled off and stigmatization still faces those who work in different ways from the mainstream, even if strong performers. Such debate suggests that core knowledge and ways of knowing and understanding the work\u2013family nexus are still in flux. More importantly, organizations, individuals, and societies are continually discussing how to best address the continuing chasm between work and family, as solutions are unclear. Despite the increase in availability of work and family policies and the acceptance of work and family in our popular zeitgeist, reports show a vast majority of members of society\u2014regardless of whether they are male or female, single or married, old or young, working or not\u2014reporting increasing work\u2013life stress. Having access to workplace flexibility is another growing aspect of work inequality, as occupation, class, and gender stratification remain potential hurdles to flexibility and work\u2013life supports.\n\nI believe that a key reason for these persistent issues is that theory and research on gender and feminism are generally not well-integrated with traditional psychological work and family research. As an illustration, many work\u2013family researchers under-examine how gendered workplace and societal experiences inherently relate to work and family relationships. Yet it is undisputed that those who grew up in poverty are likely to have been children raised by single mothers. Experiencing a glass ceiling, limited career opportunities, and self-limiting career ambition are all linked to gender discrimination. Women continue to face stigmatization for a host of reasons related to maternity, patriarchal-based stereotypes, and lack of access to flexible jobs that allow caregiving and breadwinning to be aligned. Theories of gender, gender role norms, and gendered work and societal cultures are also under-discussed in the work\u2013family field. When gender is discussed in many work\u2013family studies, it is typically framed mainly as a variable reflective of biological sex differences or a quantitative moderator of an outcome. However, such a narrow view of gender overlooks cultural and social science underpinnings.\n\nMaura Mills' exciting book, Gender and the Work \u2013 Family Experience: An Intersection of Two Domains , begins to address these gaps by assembling an interesting collection of papers. Several cross-cutting themes that help advance the integration between gender and work\u2013family research were apparent across contributors' works.\n\nTheme 1: Increase the range of gender diversity in samples and tailor research to specify the gendered nature of contexts.\n\nTheme 1: Increase the range of gender diversity in samples and tailor research to specify the gendered nature of contexts.\n\nA number of contributors argued that our existing research of work, family, and gender linkages is limited theoretically and empirically by not studying a wider range of gender-diverse samples in specified cultural contexts.\n\nFor example, Sawyer, Thoroughgood, and Cleveland (Chap.  ) build on intersectionality theory (Crenshaw 1989) to examine the ways in which multiple forms of role identity such as LBGT and work and family identities interact and combine to create unique social experiences. They argue that LGBT discrimination fosters gaps between the work and family domains, forcing a separation boundary management strategy for LGBT employees. They also make the interesting case that current measures of work\u2013family conflict do not fully capture unique LGBT needs such as identity-based conflict.\n\nNomaguchi and Milkie (Chap.  ) argue that most work\u2013family conflict research overlooks individuals in the context of the quality of their coupled relationships, which are shifting in gendered expectations. Using a national sample of dual-earner heterosexual couples, they examine how wives' and husbands' inaccuracy in estimating the other partner's level of work-family conflict may shape couples' relationship quality. They find that that over half of couples overestimate or underestimate each other's work\u2013family conflict based on how they believe women or men \"should\" feel. Specifically, men's overestimating their female partners' work-family conflict is related to better relationship quality, while women's underestimating their male partners' conflict is related to poorer relationship quality.\n\nMoving to the cross-cultural level, Rajadhyaksha, Korabik, and Aycan (Chap.  ) note the lack of systematic variation in cross-cultural and institutional values regarding gender ideology. They contend that more research is needed that includes broader cultural views of gender and linkages between the work\u2013family interface. Scholars need to go beyond examining mere biological sex differences to examine cross-cultural value patterns in gender role attitudes. Micro-level frameworks of individual gender and gender role ideology should be meshed with macro-level cultural gender values assessing gender egalitarianism and gender inequality in order to foster multi-level research.\n\nRosiello and Mills (Chap.  ) observe that shiftwork is another understudied occupational context that is gendered and has work\u2013family implications that differ by gender. While it remains disputed whether more men than women engage in shiftwork, as this may vary by occupation, men are more likely to work overtime and weekends than are women. Rosiello and Mills also note that shiftwork has negative work\u2013family consequences, limiting time to dedicate to family or caregiving, have a social life, and increased likelihood of experiencing negative health problems linked with schedule unpredictability and lack of schedule control.\n\nMitchell, Eby, and Lorys (Chap.  ) encourage researchers to examine gender as a \"downstream\" antecedent of the ways in which negative spillover from work to family unfolds in gender-unequal domestic contexts. They argue that the mechanisms underlying within and between sex and gender differences in emotion and behavior must be examined in specified contexts such as the persistent inequality in domestic household division of labor. Gender-unequal contexts shape the mechanisms and unfolding of the work\u2013family spillover process, emotions, and response. For example, women in unequal contexts may adopt different coping behaviors, choices, or goals, and may have access to varying job and family demands and resources. Mitchell and colleagues also make the interesting argument that demonstrating negative emotions related to work and family is not always dysfunctional but rather may mobilize the use of effective coping strategies to reduce negative spillover such as pursuing greater domestic household equality.\n\nTheme 2: Develop new frames to focus on within- and between-group gender differences in work\u2013life inequality.\n\nSeveral contributors pointed to the need to develop new constructs to examine work\u2013family inequality, despite progress. Work\u2013family experiences provide a window into the persistence of work\u2013life inequality across gender and other minority subgroups in society and the workplace.\n\nCleveland, Fisher, and Sawyer (Chap.  ) develop the notion of work \u2013 life equality, which they see as a critical form of equality for well-being. They identify the paradox that while educational attainment and labor force participation have evened out across genders, women continue to not only devote more time to family caregiving but also to housework, family, social, and other meaningful functions than do men.\n\nFrevert, Culbertson, and Huffman (Chap.  ) point to another form of work\u2013life inequality; the growing linkage between work\u2013family experiences, race, and class. Noting the persistence of existing research to overemphasize the work\u2013family experiences of professionals and white women, they highlight the double jeopardy of gender and race in regard to work and family experiences. Minority women's work\u2013family experiences significantly differ from those of white women largely due to continued lack of equal opportunity access to managerial and professional job structures, which have greater job autonomy and access to work\u2013family supports systematically available in professional jobs.\n\nStanfors (Chap.  ) takes a national institutional comparative perspective to understand occupational inequality for women in fast track professions. Using data from Sweden and the USA, Stanfors shows that although the Swedish public policy goals are to provide supports to alleviate work\u2013family conflict for all workers, this goal is not achieved equally across professions and genders. For instance, she found that even though the USA and Sweden have very different levels of public supports for work and family, women doctors in both the USA and Sweden are more likely to have higher fertility rates than academics and lawyers in their countries. This suggests common occupational tradeoffs transcending variation in national cultural values and institutions.\n\nGiven the growing feminization of poverty, Odle-Dusseau, McFadden, and Britt (Chap.  ) conduct an integrative review of the poverty, gender, and work\u2013family literatures. They note that due to the sex segregation of lower income service jobs, women are more likely to fill these jobs and experience work\u2013life inequality. Lower wage secondary market sector jobs have more demands and fewer resources, thereby impeding one's ability to advance to better jobs and garner more work\u2013family resources for effective management of work and family demands. This gap leads to greater likelihood of experiencing work\u2013family conflict, lower levels of work\u2013family enrichment, and ultimately poorer health outcomes and quality of life for low income workers and families.\n\nLucas-Thompson and Goldberg (Chap.  ) look at generational differences in social orientation toward work\u2013family egalitarianism in division of labor in the home, and a trend reverting back toward gender inequality in young adults' work\u2013life behaviors. They note the paradox that despite possessing more gender-egalitarian values, the younger generation entering adulthood is behaving in ways that are inconsistent with their professed values about gender. Their explanations for the gap in aligning ideas and behaviors related to gender are persistent societal ambivalence about maternal employment, the stigmatization of fathers reducing or ending work to stay home with children, and the continued scarcity of resources to help new mothers jointly manage employment and caregiving. They cite data from the Pew Research Center (2013) showing that while marriage and parenthood limit women's time spent in paid work and career advancement, these same factors are associated with greater work involvement.\n\nTheme 3: Adopt new language, constructs, and refined frames to advance more nuanced understanding of gendered images of work and family.\n\nSeveral authors proposed new terms to refine gendered images of work and family. Clark, Belier, and Zimmerman (Chap.  ) focus on the interesting sample of \"women workaholics.\" They encourage work\u2013family researchers to apply the notion of competing devotions coined by Blair Loy (2003) to help reframe work\u2013family conflict as a moral dilemma involving competing work and family devotions.\n\n\" On demand jobs \" is another new term that is being suggested to replace face-time as a form of virtual accessibility. Grotto (Chap.  ) discusses how executive, managerial, and professional jobs have the paradox that while they have job autonomy built into their positions, they are facing a new form of face time\u2014being available \"on demand.\" On demand jobs are defined as jobs that necessitate individuals to be constantly available and accessible to employers and clients during nonwork hours. Moreover, responding on demand is a virtual visibility strategy as a means to demonstrate loyalty.\n\n\" Work \u2013 family guilt \" is explored by Korabik. In Chap.  , she argues that women always feel as though they are cheating their husbands, children, and themselves. Korabik believes that women are more likely to feel and express work\u2013family guilt than are men.\n\nTheme 4: Increase the incorporation of men, masculinity, and masculine work contexts in work\u2013family studies.\n\nCalling for deeper study of men's experiences in work\u2013family samples, Munn and Greer (Chap.  ) observe the paucity of studies on men's work\u2013family experiences, particularly in the USA, and observe that the prevalent conceptualization of the \"ideal worker\" is gendered. Our post-industrial society seems to see women as in greater need to overcome the ideal worker stigma. Research on work\u2013family breadwinning stereotypes needs to incorporate how work\u2013family conflicts affect whether men and women are seen as \"ideal\" workers. Interestingly, however, studies show that men who sought to use workplace flexibility practices are likely to be deemed poor \"organizational citizens,\" less committed to work, and possessing \"undesirable\" feminine traits. Such a reaction is unfortunate as men and especially fathers are increasingly more committed to family not just for financial roles, but also emotional and caretaking roles.\n\nSprung, Toumbeva, and Matthews (Chap.  ) examine how gender influences awareness of, access to, use of, and outcomes associated with work\u2013family policies. In general, women are more aware, have greater access to, and use of policies. Both men and women face stigma for using policies, but contexts and processes may differ. For example, a higher proportion of women than men are more likely to experience positive outcomes when using flexibility. However, supervisors may differentially encourage or tolerate men's versus women's usage of such flexibility policies. As such, Sprung et al.'s interesting chapter suggests that gender is very important for understanding work\u2013family processes and outcomes related to workplace flexibility policy usage.\n\nHuffman, Culbertson, and Barbour (Chap.  ) develop the notion of \"gendered occupations,\" which can be defined as an occupation that society associates with a particular gender. In doing so, they focus on one of the most stereotypically masculine workplace contexts in which to examine work\u2013family relationships\u2014the military. They develop an interesting model and discuss how work\u2013family conflict may differ in the military as opposed to in the civilian context due to the dominant gender of the personnel and more importantly due to the arguably gendered job demands. Examples of the latter include going into combat and hazardous work zones, high schedule unpredictability, lack of flexibility and schedule control, and heavy travel demands and deployment away from family, thereby limiting opportunity for family involvement while increasing work\u2013family stress.\n\nJean, Payne, and Thompson (Chap.  ) focus on another gendered occupational context: that of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields. STEM jobs are often embedded in organizational cultures that are more supportive of men and masculinity. Although many factors create a \"leakier pipeline\" for women as compared to men in STEM, work\u2013family challenges remain an under-addressed critical factor impacting the recruitment and retention of women in such domains. National and individual initiatives countering gender stereotypes and barriers are needed to address this STEM gender gap.\n\nOverall, Mills' edited book includes many interesting chapters that break new ground and offer new perspectives on linkages between gender, work, and family. It is a creative collection of perspectives that will enhance scholarly and practical understanding of gender and the work\u2013family nexus.\n\nEllen Ernst Kossek, PhD\n\nBasil S. Turner Professor of Management\n\nResearch Director, Susan Bulkeley Butler Center for Leadership Excellence, Purdue University, West Lafayette, Indiana, USA\n\n## References\n\nCrenshaw, K. (1989). Demarginalizing the intersection of race and sex: A black feminist critique of antidiscrimination doctrine, feminist theory, and antiracist politics. University of Chicago Legal Forum, 139\u2013167.\n\nKossek, E. E., Baltes, B. B., & Matthews, R. A. (2011). How work-family research can finally have an impact in the workplace. Industrial and Organizational Psychology: Perspectives on Science and Practice, 4, 352\u2013369.\n\nPew Research Center (2013). On pay gap, millenial women near parity-for now. Washington, DC: Pew Research Center.\n\nPreface\n\nMaura J. Mills, Ph.D.\n\nAs I begin writing this preface, I am sitting at the hospital waiting for my husband to emerge from day surgery. Such is the life of a work\u2013family juggler\u2014and we all do it. The irony of this has emerged at every corner throughout the development of this book, beginning when I submitted the book proposal the night before leaving for my honeymoon\u2014which was already a year delayed as a result of inflexible post-wedding work schedules. The challenge of being a successful work\u2013family balancer becomes even heavier once one begins a book on the topic\u2014and yet perfect success in both domains still always seems fleeting to me\u2014and to most.\n\nThis almost ubiquitous struggle was highlighted by the plethora of enthusiastic and positive responses I received from across the globe when I initially announced plans for this book and was soliciting chapter proposals. While many submitted chapter proposals, many more took the time to contact me about how very much needed\u2014and long overdue\u2014this book was, and to communicate their deep hopes for its impact on research and practice, as well as on general societal awareness of the issues at hand. Further evidencing this interest in and relevance of the book's topics, when I accessed my university's library to find the 'competitive' books of similar topics while researching for the book proposal, I was informed that all but one of the books were checked out, indicating the high demand for information regarding work\u2013family issues, and pointing toward the universal tensions that we all feel between these domains.\n\n## Why This? Why Now?\n\nAs suggested by the above anecdotes, the current zeitgeist\u2014both in the field and also in popular culture\u2014is ripe for a book thoroughly addressing the intersection of these domains. In light of the recent media coverage garnered by Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer's controversial announcement regarding work\u2013life policy changes at the company, in addition to the recent publication of Lean In by Facebook's Sheryl Sandberg, this seems the ideal time for a comprehensive, research-based, and interdisciplinary work addressing the various aspects of the intersection of the work\u2013family and gender 1 domains.\n\nAlthough work\u2013family research and policy are becoming more widespread, comparably little research has examined possible gender differences or similarities between male and female employees in terms of work\u2013family conflict, its antecedents, and its outcomes. In an attempt to account for this research gap, the chapters comprising this book explore various aspects of work\u2013family conflict for both genders, as well as offering comparisons between the two in terms of career and gender perceptions, the conflict experience itself, and the consequences of such conflict, among other considerations. This is crucial because with gender-stereotypical ideologies shifting, women are taking on more demanding work roles, and men are taking on increased home responsibilities. This is the case not only in so-called traditional families, but also as divorce rates increase and as homosexual couples adopt children, forming nuclear families of their own. As such, work\u2013life conflict arguably becomes as much an issue for male employees as it has traditionally been for female employees.\n\nNevertheless, despite these shifting gender roles and family constitutions, many organizations\u2014not to mention national policies\u2014are not adapting accordingly. Consequently, male employees with substantial home responsibilities may not be receiving the support they need from their organizations, and likewise female employees\u2014who are increasing their participation in paid work but also still absorb the majority of household duties\u2014may not be receiving sufficient support either. In response, this book, in part, responds to criticism suggesting that neither research nor practice has kept up with these changing gender roles insofar as examining or managing work\u2013family conflict for males as well as for females, and for shifting family structures. In an attempt to contribute toward filling this gap, this book incorporates various chapters which collectively impact how work\u2013family research considers employee gender as the field moves forward. Each chapter is grounded within the work\u2013family research literature as well as gender-role literature, and each addresses a unique but related consideration of work\u2013family conflict in regard to employee gender and\/or gendered jobs.\n\n## For Whom?\n\nI like to think that the issues explored herein are relevant to everyone, to varying extents, as well as to society as a whole. Nevertheless, the book is likely to be more relevant for some individuals or purposes than for others. For instance, this book is ideal for use as a text or reader in an upper-level undergraduate or graduate-level seminar-style course. Beyond more traditional textbooks that focus on outlining definitions and the like, this edited book takes a critical and in-depth approach to a representative variety of issues surrounding the work\u2013family\/gender intersection, thereby yielding opportunities to spur students' critical thinking for class discussions, debates, and dialogues. Further, this book is also likely to be of interest to researchers in the fields of work\u2013family and\/or gender, who I hope will find it to be a thorough and representative consideration of issues surrounding the intersection of these fields of interest. As such, this book serves as potential fodder for future research ideas and recommendations, as well as giving a comprehensive, research- and theory-informed discussion of various issues surrounding these domains.\n\n## The End of the Beginning\n\nAs should be clear by now, given the increasing interest in these issues as of late, in addition to new and important zeitgeist shifts in the field and in society as a whole, there is a very real need for an up-to-date, comprehensive book evaluating them from various perspectives. The unique and comprehensive collection of chapters included herein together offer an updated assessment of these topics in light of their various facets and with an eye toward both depth and breadth. My greatest hope for this volume is that it will serve as an updated, interdisciplinary, and comprehensive resource in these domains, giving both a voice and a research-based justification to those currently entrenched in the struggle, and in the joys, of the work\u2013family interface.\n\nAs I finish writing this preface, I am 9 months pregnant and furiously trying to tie up as many work-related loose ends as possible before this little one makes his appearance. Nothing could be more fitting, and the irony of it has not been lost on me throughout my work on this book. Indeed, it is a funny thing, loving both your children and your job in a maternal, protective, enjoyable\u2014and yet frantically overworked\u2014type of way. Both bring some of life's greatest joys, proudest moments, and most frustrating struggles. Neither lets up during or makes way for the other. And yet somehow, someway, we do it. And we love it. Because this is the life we have made and chosen for ourselves, and we would not have it any other way (despite what we may think when we're awake in the wee hours of the morning consoling a crying child while sketching out the upcoming day's work commitments in our foggy minds). Keep at it, mothers and fathers and employees everywhere. This is life.\n\nAcknowledgments\n\nIt goes without saying that an edited book does not come to fruition through one person alone. It took the hard work and dedication of many wonderful people who believed in the importance of this work, who saw value in the cause, and who each viewed the topic from a distinctive and worthwhile perspective, contributing something uniquely theirs. My editing of this book is merely the vessel through which their hard work is disseminated. As such, I would like to thank all of my chapter authors for their continued commitment to this project and their intrinsic belief in the importance of this compiled work. It very literally could not have been done without them.\n\nIn a similar vein, I would like to thank the two very wonderful women at Springer Publishing with whom I have had the pleasure of working throughout this process. It is worth emphasizing that this book would not exist without Sharon Panulla, Executive Editor at Springer. Were it not for her attending one of my conference symposia on this topic, and approaching me afterward with the request that I undertake this venture, there would be no book at all. Subsequently, Sylvana Ruggirello, Assistant Behavioral Sciences Editor at Springer, was indispensable in navigating the publication process and ensuring that my chapter authors and I had all the information we needed in order to produce a quality work. Both of these women have made this process a pleasure, and I thank them for that.\n\nFinally, I would be remiss in a book about work\u2013family were I not to acknowledge my own family. Thank you to my mother, who sacrificed the frequency of our phone calls throughout my work on this book, and to my father, who instinctively knew that what I needed most was simply space and time, and who quietly gave me both without my having to ask. Thank you to my husband for setting up a wonderful home office for me, complete with dreamy extra-wide double screens, which greatly facilitated those times when I \"needed\" five or six windows open at the same time. And finally, many thanks to my baby for sacrificing many hours of prenatal yoga and the like so that I may complete this venture (and similarly to my dog, who endured many substantially abridged walks during my work on this book!).\n\nMy greatest appreciation goes to each and every one of the aforementioned individuals who contributed to making this book a reality. It exists because of you.\n\nContents\n\nPart I SOCIETAL INFLUENCES & ENTRENCHMENT\n\n1 Gender Ideology and Work\u2013Family Plans of the Next Generation\n\nRachel G. Lucas-Thompson and Wendy A. Goldberg\n\n2 Beyond the \"Ideal\" Worker:\u200b Including Men in Work\u2013Family Discussions\n\nSunny L. Munn and Tomika W. Greer\n\n3 Gender, Poverty, and the Work\u2013Family Interface\n\nHeather Odle-Dusseau, Anna C. McFadden and Thomas W. Britt\n\n 4 Exploring the Double Jeopardy Effect: The Importance of Gender and Race in Work\u2013Family Research\n\nTonya K. Frevert, Satoris S. Culbertson and Ann H. Huffman\n\n5 Challenging Heteronormative and Gendered Assumptions in Work\u2013Family Research:\u200b An Examination of LGB Identity-Based Work\u2013Family Conflict\n\nKatina B. Sawyer, Christian N. Thoroughgood and Jeanette N. Cleveland\n\n6 Gender, Gender-Role Ideology, and the Work\u2013Family Interface:\u200b A Cross-Cultural Analysis\n\nUjvala Rajadhyaksha, Karen Korabik and Zeynep Aycan\n\nPart II CONSIDERATIONS FROM THE HOMEFRONT\n\n7 Feeling Work at Home:\u200b A Transactional Model of Women and Men's Negative Affective Spillover from Work to Family\n\nMelissa E. Mitchell, Lillian T. Eby and Anna Lorys\n\n8 The Intersection of Gender and Work\u2013Family Guilt\n\nKaren Korabik\n\n9 Gender, Accuracy About Partners' Work\u2013Family Conflict, and Relationship Quality\n\nKei Nomaguchi and Melissa A. Milkie\n\n10 Work\u2013Life Equality:\u200b The Importance of a Level Playing Field at Home\n\nJeanette N. Cleveland, Gwenith G. Fisher and Katina B. Sawyer\n\n11 On-Demand:\u200b When Work Intrudes upon Employees' Personal Time\u2014Does Gender Matter?\u200b\n\nAngela R. Grotto\n\nPart III CAREER & ORGANIZATIONAL CONSIDERATIONS\n\n12 Family-Friendly Organizational Policies, Practices, and Benefits through the Gender Lens\n\nJustin M. Sprung, Tatiana H. Toumbeva and Russell A. Matthews\n\n13 Shiftwork as Gendered and Its Impact on Work\u2013Family Balance\n\nRyan M. Rosiello and Maura J. Mills\n\n14 Gender Roles in a Masculine Occupation:\u200b Military Men and Women's Differential Negotiation of the Work\u2013Family Interface\n\nAnn H. Huffman, Satoris S. Culbertson and Joseph Barbour\n\n15 Women in STEM:\u200b Family-Related Challenges and Initiatives\n\nVanessa A. Jean, Stephanie C. Payne and Rebecca J. Thompson\n\n16 Examining the Work\u2013Family Experience of Workaholic Women\n\nMalissa A. Clark, Angela A. Beiler and Lauren M. Zimmerman\n\n17 Family Life on the Fast Track?\u200b Gender and Work\u2013Family Tradeoffs Among Highly Educated Professionals:\u200b A Cross-Cultural Exploration\n\nMaria Stanfors\n\nIndex\n\nContributors\n\nZeynep Aycan\n\nDepartments of Psychology and Management, Ko\u00e7 University, Sariyer, Istanbul, Turkey\n\nJoseph Barbour\n\nDepartment of Psychology, Northern Arizona University, Flagstaff, AZ, USA\n\nAngela A. Beiler\n\nDepartment of Psychology, University of Georgia, Athens, GA, USA\n\nThomas W. Britt\n\nDepartment of Psychology, Clemson University, Clemson, SC, USA\n\nMalissa A. Clark\n\nDepartment of Psychology and Institute for Women's Studies, University of Georgia, Athens, GA, USA\n\nJeanette N. Cleveland\n\nDepartment of Psychology, Colorado State University, Fort Collins, CO, USA\n\nSatoris S. Culbertson\n\nDepartment of Management, Kansas State University, Manhattan, KS, USA\n\nLillian T. Eby\n\nDepartment of Psychology and Owens Institute for Behavioral Research, University of Georgia, Athens, GA, USA\n\nGwenith G. Fisher\n\nDepartment of Psychology, Colorado State University, Fort Collins, CO, USA\n\nTonya K. Frevert\n\nOrganizational Science PhD Program, University of North Carolina at Charlotte, Charlotte, NC, USA\n\nWendy A. Goldberg\n\nDepartment of Psychology and Social Behavior, University of California, Irvine, Irvine, CA, USA\n\nTomika W. Greer\n\nDepartment of Human Development and Consumer Sciences, College of Technology, University of Houston, Houston, TX, USA\n\nAngela R. Grotto\n\nDepartment of Management and Marketing, Manhattan College, Riverdale, NY, USA\n\nAnn H. Huffman\n\nDepartments of Psychology and Management, Northern Arizona University, Flagstaff, AZ, USA\n\nVanessa A. Jean\n\nDepartment of Psychology, Texas A&M University, College Station, TX, USA\n\nKaren Korabik\n\nCentre for Families, Work and Well-Being, University of Guelph, Guelph, ON, Canada\n\nAnna Lorys\n\nDepartment of Psychology, University of Georgia, Psychology Building, Athens, GA, USA\n\nRachel G. Lucas-Thompson\n\nDepartment of Human Development and Family Studies and Colorado School of Public Health, Colorado State University, Fort Collins, CO, USA\n\nRussell A. Matthews\n\nDepartment of Psychology, Bowling Green State University, Bowling Green, OH, USA\n\nAnna C. McFadden\n\nDepartment of Psychology, Clemson University, Clemson, SC, USA\n\nMelissa A. Milkie\n\nDepartment of Sociology, University of Toronto, Canada, ON, USA\n\nMaura J. Mills\n\nDepartments of Psychology and Management, Hofstra University, Hempstead, NY, USA\n\nMelissa E. Mitchell\n\nDepartment of Psychology, University of Georgia, Psychology Building, Athens, GA, USA\n\nSunny L. Munn\n\nDepartment of Leadership Studies, Dwight Schar College of Education, Ashland University, Ashland, OH, USA\n\nKei Nomaguchi\n\nDepartment of Sociology, Bowling Green State University, Bowling Green, OH, USA\n\nHeather Odle-Dusseau\n\nDepartment of Management, Gettysburg College, Gettysburg, PA, USA\n\nStephanie C. Payne\n\nDepartment of Psychology, Texas A&M University, College Station, TX, USA\n\nUjvala Rajadhyaksha\n\nDepartment of Business Administration and Economics, St. Mary's College, Notre Dame, IN, USA\n\nRyan M. Rosiello\n\nDepartment of Psychology, Hofstra University, Hempstead, NY, USA\n\nKatina B. Sawyer\n\nDepartment of Psychology, Villanova University, Villanova, PA, USA\n\nJustin M. Sprung\n\nDepartment of Psychology, Luther College, Decorah, IA, USA\n\nMaria Stanfors\n\nCentre for Economic Demography, Lund University, Lund, Sweden\n\nRebecca J. Thompson\n\nUniversity of Baltimore, Baltimore, MD, USA\n\nChristian N. Thoroughgood\n\nDepartment of Management and Organizational Development, Northeastern University, Boston, MA, USA\n\nTatiana H. Toumbeva\n\nDepartment of Psychology, Bowling Green State University, Bowling Green, OH, USA\n\nLauren M. Zimmerman\n\nDepartment of Psychology, University of Georgia, Athens, GA, USA\n\nFootnotes\n\n1\n\nIt should be noted that, for simplicity's sake, throughout this book the term gender is used to refer to biological, anatomical sex, as opposed to the gender with which one psychologically identifies.The latter is usually, although not necessarily, redundant with anatomical sex, a consideration overlooked by assumptions of biopsychological equivalence.\n\n# Part I  \nSOCIETAL INFLUENCES & ENTRENCHMENT\n\u00a9 Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2015\n\nMaura J. Mills (ed.)Gender and the Work-Family Experience10.1007\/978-3-319-08891-4_1\n\n# 1. Gender Ideology and Work\u2013Family Plans of the Next Generation\n\nRachel G. Lucas-Thompson1  and Wendy A. Goldberg2\n\n(1)\n\nDepartment of Human Development and Family Studies and Colorado School of Public Health, Colorado State University, Campus Delivery 1570, Behavioral Sciences Building Room 419, 80523 Fort Collins, CO, USA\n\n(2)\n\nDepartment of Psychology and Social Behavior, University of California, Irvine, 4564 Social and Behavior Sciences Gateway, 92697 Irvine, CA, USA\n\nRachel G. Lucas-Thompson (Corresponding author)\n\nEmail: lucas-thompson.rachel.graham@colostate.edu\n\nWendy A. Goldberg\n\nEmail: wendy.goldberg@uci.edu\n\nKeywords\n\nGender ideologyGenderWork\u2013familyGenerationAgePerceptionStereotypeEmerging adultAdolescentDemographics\n\n## 1.1 Introduction\n\nOver the last several decades, the gender disparity in the work force has been declining, as evidenced by findings that women now make up approximately half of the work force (Bureau of Labor Statistics 2010) . Women's employment is vital to the national economy and to the well-being of their families (Joint Economic Committee Majority Staff 2010). In addition, the gender gap in education has not only narrowed but reversed: in the USA, women now receive almost 60 % of 4-year college degrees (Becker 2010). Most Americans (62 %) endorse the idea that both husband and wife should contribute to family income (Pew Research Center 2010), but ambivalence remains about the effects of mothers working, particularly while children are young (Sylvester 2001). Most Americans think that men should be economic providers for their families: Two-thirds of Americans say that in order to be ready for marriage, a man should be able to financially support his family, while only one-third say that about women (Pew Research Center 2013). Due to increases in egalitarianism over time, American attitudes toward gender roles were expected to widely embrace egalitarianism by this time; instead, changes in gender-role attitudes appear to have leveled off, or stalled, since the mid-1990s (Cotter et al. 2011). The stalled attitudes correspond to the slowed pace for maternal employment since the 1990s, the persistent though narrowed wage gap (Cotter et al. 2011; Joint Economic Committee Majority Staff 2010), and the less-than-equal amount of time that dual-earner married men and women spend on housework (Bianchi et al. 2006).\n\nFollowing the birth of children, it is rare for men to reduce or end their work outside the home; in the USA, only 3 % of families with children younger than 15 have stay-at-home fathers (e.g., Kreider and Elliott 2009; Townsend 2002). In the USA, most women with children are employed outside the home (Bureau of Labor Statistics 2012) ; 34 % of employed mothers are their families' sole wage-earners, and over half of mothers with children under 18 work full-time (51 %; Joint Economic Committee Majority Staff 2010). However, in dual-earner families, fathers spend more time on paid work while mothers spend more time on housework and childcare (Pew Research Center 2013). Moreover, many married women in the USA delay their return to work following childbirth and\/or reduce their work hours to balance work and family (e.g., Kaufman and Uhlenberg 2000).\n\nLonger parental leave policies would help dual-earner and single parents spend more time at home before re-entering the labor force . Federal parental leave policies in the USA provide up to 12 weeks of job-protected, unpaid leave (see the 1993 Family and Medical Leave Act), which extends to up to 24 weeks of combined unpaid parental leave for two-parent families (Ray et al. 2009). Although some states provide paid leave , parental leave policies in the USA are modest compared to the extended, paid leave policies found in the European Union and in most industrialized nations around the world (Ray 2008). Extended paid maternity leaves sound like an ideal policy for employed women but Dex (2010) suggests that maternity leave policies can \"give with one hand\": By reinforcing traditional gender divisions, generous maternity leave policies can impede women's long-term career potential by encouraging them to be out of the labor force , which in turn limits their career earnings and advancement opportunities. Cross-nationally , longer leaves are associated with a lower proportion of women in the labor force (Hegewisch and Gornick 2011). As such, there are serious financial and advancement costs to women and families when women curtail their employment to raise children (e.g., Barker 1993; Drobnic and Witting 1997; Hochschild 1989; Machung 1989). A number of countries (e.g., Australia, the Scandinavian nations) have taken steps to encourage men to share primary caregiving of infants by stipulating provisions for paternity leave and\/or parental leave that can be divided (Ray 2008).\n\nWhile strides are being made in the sharing of child care, the equitable division of housework has lagged behind (Parker and Wang 2013). Many theorists have argued that division of labor in the home is a particularly important context for understanding gendered behavior (e.g., Brines 1994; Coltrane 1989). From the perspective of gender theorists, the allocation of housework is a \"symbolic enactment of gender relations\" (Drobnic 2010, p. 241). Within the home, even adults who endorse gender equality continue to divide domestic labor and decision-making in traditional ways (e.g., Bianchi et al. 2000; Franco et al. 2004; Himsel and Goldberg 2003; Hochschild 1989). The household division of labor remains gendered (Parker and Wang 2013) even though men are doing somewhat more housework and women are spending less time on housework than in the past (Bianchi et al. 2000, 2006).\n\nWhen women work outside the home and carry the weight of the \"second shift\" (Hochschild 1989), they often experience negative mental health consequences (e.g., Moen and Yu 2000). At work, the status of motherhood may elicit negative evaluations for women workers, particularly those in high-powered occupations (Ridgeway and Correll 2004), thus giving pause to young women who plan to combine a demanding career with family. Considering the career advancement and mental health ramifications of inconsistencies between gender role attitudes and behavior, coupled with stalled behavioral change in the domestic sphere, insight into whether these gendered patterns are likely to continue can be revealed by studying the views of the generation transitioning to adulthood.\n\nIn the current chapter, we review past research on the plans and strategies that adolescents and emerging adults (defined as the age period roughly from 18 to 25, Arnett 2004, 2007) have for managing work and family responsibilities, and what factors account for individual variability in these plans. In the face of empirical and theoretical arguments that ideas about gender change in important ways across adolescence and young adulthood (e.g., Galambos 2004; Hill and Lynch 1983), and that it is in adolescence that individuals first begin to decide how to balance work and family (e.g., Corder and Stephan 1984), we also present new data from two studies that examine these issues in two age groups , one in mid-adolescence and the other college-aged, i.e., in emerging adulthood. Attention in these studies is given to examining the work\u2013family plans and expectations of the participants. The theories of planned behavior (e.g., Ajzen and Fishbein 1977) and reasoned action (e.g., Ajzen 1991) include intentions as one of the few and primary predictors of later behavior, and support for these theories has been demonstrated across a wide range of behaviors (see for reviews: Ajzen 1991; Eagly and Chaiken 1993). Although expectations of future plans can be criticized for being a far from perfect representation of future behavior (Fishbein and Ajzen 1975), there are several lines of research indicating that expectations do predict later behavior in terms of educational attainment, risky behaviors, and childbirth (e.g., Harris et al. 2002; Sewell and Hauser 1980).\n\nIn the first study, the Adolescent Study, participants were 15-year-olds (n = 101; 49.5 % female) from one site of the NICHD Study of Early Child Care and Youth Development, a sample that was primarily (66 %) European American with significant Hispanic American representation (18 %); adolescents came from families that were mostly middle-to-upper-middle class. Adolescents' families were recruited at childbirth from selected hospitals based on a conditional random-sampling plan that was designed to ensure the sample reflected the economic, educational, and ethnic diversity of the area. Adolescents provided the information described below during a visit to their home, and received payment for participation in the larger study during which these data were collected.\n\nIn the second study, the Emerging Adult Study, participants were undergraduates (n = 343; 69 % female) from three diverse colleges\/universities across the country; a small liberal arts institution in Wisconsin (n = 92), a commuter university in Chicago, IL (n = 76), and a large research university in California (n = 175). As a result, the college sample was heterogeneous geographically and in terms of socioeconomic status and ethnicity (42 % European American, 30 % Asian American, 12 % Hispanic American, and 16 % other or multiple ethnicities). College students averaged 20.35 years of age (SD = 1.59; range of 17\u201324 years). Students provided the information described below during a visit to their classrooms, and received extra credit for participating.\n\nAcross studies , participants provided background\/demographic information and completed a 24-item scale that assessed their gender ideology (Wenzel and Lucas-Thompson 2012). Their expectations for work\u2013family roles were reported in terms of how much\/whether they planned to work after marriage but before children (\"I will not work outside the home,\" \"I will work part-time,\" and \"I will work full-time\") and after the birth of children (\"I will not work outside the home,\" \"I will work part-time,\" and \"I will work full-time\"). Participants also indicated how they anticipated dividing childcare responsibilities (\"I will be the primary care-taker,\" \"My partner will be the primary care-taker,\" and \"My partner and I will share care-taking equally\").\n\nIn data analysis for both studies, gender differences in work and caregiving aspirations were examined; in addition, using bivariate correlations, chi-square analyses, and ordinary least squares regression analyses, associations were examined among gender ideology , work aspirations, and plans to divide caregiving responsibilities . Before presenting the results of these studies, we review prior research on the work\u2013family plans of the generation coming to adulthood.\n\n## 1.2 Adolescents' and Emerging Adults' Plans for Managing Work and Family\n\nResearch focusing on how young individuals expect to manage work and family has primarily focused on work aspirations. Social changes that picked up steam during the 1970s and 1980s have led to many young women planning to continue to work after having children (e.g., Baber and Monaghan 1988; Boushey 2008; Dennehy and Mortimer 1993; Goldin and Katz 2008; O'Connell et al. 1989), but many other young individuals plan to replicate the gendered pattern of their parents' generation in terms of men, but not women, planning full-time employment when they have young children (Goldberg et al. 2012). More recent cohorts of women expect future employment (Goldin et al. 2006) but typically both young men and women expect that wives will dramatically reduce (or end) their work outside the home when children are born (de Valk 2008; Weinshenker 2006). In addition, by high school, concerns about balancing work and family are already on the minds of young women, including choosing occupations that will allow a work\u2013family balance that they desire (McDonald et al. 2011; Hardie and Hayford 2012). In contrast, young men do not engage in the same planning process (Hardie and Hayford 2012), or report expecting that family life will be a far second to work life in their adult years (McDonald et al. 2011).\n\nExpectations about work before and after children are clearly important to include when investigating how emerging adults expect to deal with gender issues. However, other expectations need to be considered as well, including how individuals transitioning to adulthood expect to divide or share child-rearing, and how and whether work expectations are related to expectations about child-rearing (e.g., do emerging adults who expect to share child-rearing expect both partners to work equal hours?). For instance, a robust finding is that adults are often inconsistent in terms of behaving in line with their gender ideologies, in that even those with egalitarian ideals continue to divide household tasks in traditionally gendered ways (e.g., Bianchi et al. 2000; Franco et al. 2004; Himsel and Goldberg 2003; Hochschild 1989). Therefore, it is likely that emerging adults may also display inconsistencies in their expectations about balancing work and family.\n\nTraditionally, work\u2013family arrangements are most likely to become more gender-typed after the birth of children (e.g., Goldberg et al. 1985). Following the birth of children, it is rare for men to reduce or end their work outside the home (e.g., Kaufman and Uhlenberg 2000; Townsend 2002); indeed, emerging adults who become fathers plan to work more hours once the baby is born (Goldberg 2014). However, in the USA, most women with children under six years are employed outside the home (61.6 %; U.S. Census Bureau 2011) , and over half of mothers with children under 18 work full-time (51 %; Joint Economic Committee Majority Staff 2010).\n\n### 1.2.1 Findings from the Adolescent and Emerging Adult Studies\n\nResults from our new studies confirm many of the findings from past studies, but also extend knowledge about how contemporary adolescents and emerging adults think about balancing work and family in the future. For example, among those adolescents and emerging adults who reported that they want to get married, men and women had similar aspirations for paid work after marriage and before children, with most expecting to work full-time (see Figs. 1.1 and 1.2). However, among those who hoped to have children someday, when asked to think about work aspirations after children are born, plans differed between males and females, \u03c72s(3) > 25.34, ps < 0.001. Young men by and large expected to be employed full-time when they become parents, whereas a sizable number of women did not expect to be employed or expected to be employed part-time (see Figs. 1.1 and 1.2). Interestingly, however, the majority of both male and female individuals reported that they planned to share caregiving equally with their partner (although more women than men reported that they planned to be the primary caregiver of their children; see Fig. 1.3).\n\nFig. 1.1\n\nGender differences in work aspirations before and after children are born. (Adolescent Study)\n\nFig. 1.2\n\nGender differences in work aspirations before and after children are born. (Emerging Adult Study)\n\nFig. 1.3\n\nGender differences in plans to divide childrearing responsibilities\n\nAn interesting difference between adolescents and emerging adults was revealed in the links between employment aspirations and child-rearing plans. Specifically, for adolescent girls, their plans to share caregiving equally with future partners were not related in predictable ways to their expectations about work status after children were born, \u03c72(4) = 3.40, p = 0.49. Among girls who indicated that they will share caretaking equally with their partner , 23 % reported that they will not work for pay outside the home, 51 % reported that they will work part-time, and 26 % reported that they will work full-time. However, among emerging adult women, these work and family aspirations were significantly related to each other, \u03c72(6) = 18.10, p = 0.006. College women who planned on being the primary caregiver were more likely to report not planning to work outside the home (42 %) or planned to work part-time (38 %) than to report planning to work full-time (21 %). In contrast, college women who planned to share childrearing responsibilities equally with their partners were more likely to report plans to work full- (37 %) or part- (51 %) time than to report planning not to work outside the home (11 %). Compared to adolescents, emerging adults may be displaying plans that are more consistent across work\u2013family domains because they are more cognitively mature, because they are further along in the process of identity exploration, because they are more likely to have a steady partner, and\/or because they have had more time to think about work\u2013family issues. This pattern, though, is in line with suggestions that increasing age predicts having more family- and work-related goals (relative to education- and friend-related goals; Salmela-Aro et al. 2007).\n\nOverall, these new results combined with past studies suggest that a large number of adolescents and emerging adults expect to manage work\u2013family commitments in much the same traditional, gendered way as the generations that have come before them in terms of the general pattern of women continuing to assume more housework and family care responsibilities than men (e.g., Dennehy and Mortimer 1993; O'Connell et al. 1989) and less paid work involvement after having children (Kaufman and Uhlenberg 2000; Townsend 2002). Despite changes in rates of employment and education that reflect increasing gender equality (e.g., U.S. \u00adDepartment of Labor 2010) , college students still seem to hold stereotyped notions about the work competence of mothers (Fuegen et al. 2004) and exaggerated stereotypes about the negative consequences of maternal employment for children (Goldberg and Lucas-Thompson 2014). Therefore, the pattern of mothers being employed but working less than full-time (Kaufman and Uhlenberg 2000) may continue to be a common strategy to manage work\u2013family commitments , despite more equal participation of men and women in the workforce (U.S. Department of Labor 2010) .\n\nSimilar to results of studies with adults (Bianchi et al. 2000; Franco et al. 2004; Goldberg et al. 2012; Himsel and Goldberg 2003; Hochschild 1989), adolescents and young men and women are also demonstrating idealized expectations for gender equality. Across gender and age , most participants reported wanting to share childcare equally (although a small sub-set of women plan to be the primary caregiver), but the majority of young women plan to work part-time or not at all after having children. The expectation seems to be one of sharing child-rearing while following a traditional gendered employment pattern , the \"transitional\" pattern that echoes findings of adults; endorsing gender equality while behaving \u00adunequally (Hochschild 1989). However, unequal does not equate to unfair in the eyes of \u00admarried women of different gender ideologies using differing comparative referents (i.e., \"relative deprivation theory\"; Greenstein 1996) .\n\nIf the future behavior of these adolescents and emerging adults matches their expectations, the next generation may perpetuate some of the gender inequality in the workforce that persists today, despite the greater equality in labor force participation overall (U.S. Department of Labor 2010) that includes a narrowed wage gap (Pew Research Center 2013). Reduced labor force involvement when women become mothers can mean longer time to promotion and lower lifetime pay as well as economic hardship for their families (Drobnic and Witting 1997; Machung 1989). Despite these potential costs, some researchers have commented that this pattern may still be \"the most rational plan for those who value both career and family\" (Weinshenker 2006, p. 885), given the meager institutional and policy support given to parents. What is perhaps most troubling, though, is the potential that these young adults will make decisions to reduce or end employment without being aware of the long-term consequences. Indeed, the finding in the current study that young women expect to share child-rearing equally but follow a traditionally gendered employment pattern suggests that their plans may not be fully informed or \"rational.\" However, these new data suggest increasing consistency in work\u2013family plans once youth reach college-age. To sort out which factors explain this apparent developmental shift, longitudinal studies are needed, as is a closer look at individual differences in work\u2013family plans.\n\n## 1.3 Individual Differences in Plans to Manage Work and Family\n\n### 1.3.1 Demographic Differences\n\nThere is consistent evidence that women's employment rates as well as their work\u2013family values differ based on culture and ethnicity (Orbuch and Eyster 1997): Caucasian and African American women typically return to work sooner after the birth of a child than do Asian and Hispanic women (Han et al. 2008; Laughlin 2011). From a developmental perspective, parental ideas about gender and work\u2013family balance are shaped, in part, by ethnic and cultural values, and parental ideas in turn influence children's expectations, aspirations, and values (Eccles 1994). It is not surprising, then, that there is some evidence that ethnic differences are reflected in adolescent and emerging adult work\u2013family balance plans. For instance, research in the Netherlands has found that ethnic differences extend to the work\u2013family plans of adolescent males and females (de Valk 2008) and research in the USA has found differences in the plans of Asian and Caucasian college students (Goldberg et al. 2012). Other family characteristics also appear to shape the types of expectations that adolescents have for balancing work and family in their future. For instance, coming from a religious family, or a family with lower levels of parental education, is related to more traditional work\u2013family balance plans, particularly for girls (de Valk 2008) .\n\nTheoretically, one of the most important characteristics shaping children's ideas about balancing work and family is whether or not their own mothers worked while they were young. Working mothers provide positive role models for combining work and motherhood (Greenberger et al. 1988), and role theory predicts that children, particularly girls, of working mothers will be more likely to make nontraditional career choices and have greater levels of labor force attachment , and research generally supports this argument (Alessandri 1992; Eccles and Hoffman 1984; Hoffman 1980; Weinshenker 2006). There is some evidence that same-sex parental models are most important for adolescents in terms of expectations about their own work behavior, and other-sex parents are important for adolescents' expectations about their future partners' work behavior (Wiese and Freund 2011). Young women who had working mothers have more positive stereotypes about the effects of \u00ad(particularly full-time)employment on several domains of child development, differences that appear explained, in part, by differences in gender ideology , attitudes about the benefits and costs of maternal employment, and work values (\u00adGoldberg and Lucas-Thompson 2014). Less studied are young men's experiences of having an employed mother, but these childhood experiences are relevant for them, too. For example, greater participation in household chores has been observed among married men whose own mothers were employed during their childhood (Gupta 2006).\n\n#### 1.3.1.1 Findings from the Adolescent and Emerging Adult Studies\n\nResults from the new studies presented here suggest that there are many ways in which having a working mother does not appear related in predictable ways to the work\u2013family plans of adolescents and emerging adults. For instance, for college-aged men and women, plans about dividing or sharing caregiving did not appear related to maternal work history . In terms of one's own employment plans, adolescent boys were more likely to report plans to work part-time after the birth of children if their own mothers had stayed home rather than worked for pay while they were children, an unexpected finding that deserves further investigation. More expected was the finding that adolescent girls of mothers who did not work for pay during their childhood were much less likely to report planning to work full-time (0 %) than part-time or not at all, particularly after the birth of children. In addition, female (but not male) college students were more likely to report planning to work full-time (41 % vs. 18 %) after children if their own mothers had been employed when they were young. Therefore, although sharing of childcare was not related to one's own mother's employment, it appears that adolescent girls and emerging adult men and women are more likely to report plans to reduce work hours after the birth of children if their own mothers were not employed. Other research indicates that college students' beliefs about the costs and benefits of maternal employment for children are linked to whether or not their own mothers were employed during their childhood (Goldberg et al. 2012). In line with role theory , it seems likely that a mechanism of transmission of gendered ideas, gendered behavior , and inconsistency between the two may be in part due to what children observe their own parents do.\n\n### 1.3.2 The Importance of Gender Ideology\n\nSocial role theory was developed as a means to explain behavioral similarities and differences between men and women (Eagly 1987; Eagly et al. 2000). From this perspective, beliefs that people have about the genders are formed from observations of the roles that men and women occupy. Gender differences in personality and social behavior reflect the gendered division of labor around paid work and domestic work and the gender hierarchy for power , status, and resources (Eagly et al. 2000). Importantly, social role theory views gender roles as dynamic and open to change as the typical work and family roles change in a given culture (Eagly et al. 2000).\n\nConsistently, gender ideology has emerged as an important contributor to the nature of the plans that young individuals make for their future work\u2013family balance . Gender ideology refers to a set of attitudes about the appropriate roles, rights, and responsibilities of men and women in a given society; traditional ideologies ascribe distinctive work and care roles for the genders whereas egalitarian ideologies endorse equal provider and care roles for the genders (Hochschild 1989; Kroska 2007). Gender ideologies can be thought of as \"factors that frame the strategies of action an individual sees as possible\" (e.g., Davis and Pearce 2007, p. 250); they reflect the extent of an individual's support for gendered and separate spheres of paid work and family work (Davis and Greenstein 2009). Gender ideology has been linked with a range of gender-relevant behaviors across the lifespan, including marriage, timing of first birth, division of household labor , educational attainment, and labor force participation (see Davis and Greenstein 2009 for a review). Furthermore, considering gender ideology can inform our understanding of the work and family decisions that young adults make (Davis and Greenstein 2009).\n\nResearch indicates that egalitarian and traditional gender ideologies formed before adulthood are associated with decisions about future occupation and education . Young men are frequently reported to hold more traditional attitudes toward work and family roles than do young women, but the mean differences can be small and there is substantial variability within each gender (Kerpelman and Schvaneveldt 1999). Adolescents, particularly young girls, who endorse more egalitarian gender ideologies also espouse more ambitious educational and career aspirations (Davis and Pearce 2007; Eccles 1994). In addition, a more egalitarian maternal (but not paternal) gender ideology is associated with adolescents' less gendered work\u2013family balance plans (Weinshenker 2006).\n\nThere are several mechanisms through which gender ideology early in life can exert its influence on future plans. They include girls' and boys' internalization of societal norms about their abilities and the value placed on the expected roles for their gender (Correll 2001; Eccles 1994), and adolescents' attitudes about how men and women should balance work and family (Davis and Pearce 2007). This evidence suggests that young men and women with more traditional ideas about gender will anticipate work\u2013family arrangements that are more gendered than those of less traditional men and women. However, much of the data concerning young peoples' extent of work expectations and gender ideology were collected in the 1970s (e.g., Corder and Stephan 1984). Constructions of gender have dramatically changed since that time (e.g., Bolzendahl and Myers 2004; Thornton and Young-DeMarco 2001), as has the demographic composition of the USA. Therefore, an updated examination of the relations between gender roles and work expectations is needed in a culturally diverse sample.\n\n#### 1.3.2.1 Findings from the Adolescent and Emerging Adult Studies\n\nConsistent with past research (e.g., Kerpelman and Schvaneveldt 1999), the results from our new studies suggest that in both adolescence and emerging adulthood, young women were more egalitarian in their gender ideology than were young men. Interestingly, gender ideology was associated in ways that theory would predict with the work\u2013family aspirations of emerging adults, but only very rarely with the work\u2013family aspirations of adolescents. For female (but not male) college students, those who reported more egalitarian gender ideologies were more likely not to want to get married, r = \u2212 0.14, p = 0.031, but were no less likely to report wanting to have children, rs < \u25020.13\u2502, ps > 0.11. This finding suggests that marriage and having children are not as intertwined for contemporary young adults as they once were. In addition, gender ideology was associated with plans about dividing caregiving responsibility for both male and female emerging adults: a more egalitarian gender ideology was associated with plans to share caregiving responsibilities , associations that remained after adjusting for ethnicity and income. In addition, for women , there was a significant association between gender ideology and work aspirations after children, controlling for demographic variables: more egalitarian ideologies were associated with plans to work full-time relative to part-time.\n\nFor adolescents, particularly adolescent boys, gender ideology was largely unrelated to work\u2013family aspirations. More specifically, gender ideology was not related to adolescents' plans to get married or have children, rs < \u25020.06\u2502, ps > 0.67. For boys, gender ideology was not related to plans about work after children or dividing caregiving responsibilities. For adolescent girls, a more traditional gender ideology was associated with more traditional expectations about who will raise children (e.g., women being the primary caregiver). This association remained significant after controlling for ethnicity and family income.\n\nBy definition, gender ideologies reflect whether individuals support gendered separate spheres or shared spheres of paid work and family work (Davis and Greenstein 2009); however, for young adolescent and emerging adult men and women, there were many ways in which work\u2013family role behavior appears independent of reported ideas about gender roles. There was some evidence that work\u2013family expectations were related to gender ideology , particularly for adolescent girls and for the sample of college students. Some researchers expect the liberalization of gender role attitudes to continue apace (e.g., Bolzendahl and Myers 2004; Brooks and Bolzendahl 2004), but others claim a plateau or reversal since the mid-1990s (Brewster and Padavic 2000; Cotter et al. 2011; Thornton and Young-DeMarco 2001). Our findings with circa 2007\u20132009 data can be seen as consistent with the latter position and with studies that found women to be more egalitarian than men (e.g., Bolzendahl and Myers 2004; Brewster and Padavic 2000; Galambos 2004; Goldberg et al. 2012; Steil 2000). In addition, for female adolescents and college students, a more traditional gender ideology was associated with expectations for more traditional caregiving arrangements. Across developmental periods, then, gender ideology seems to be particularly important for ideas about who will take primary responsibility for children.\n\nThe stronger associations between gender ideology and work aspirations in the college student sample compared to the adolescent sample could be due to several factors. First, the comparatively smaller sample of adolescents had less adequate power; therefore, the non-significant associations between gender ideology and work aspirations could be due to limited power to detect small effects rather than non-existent relations. Second, it is possible that the college students\u2014for whom decisions about balancing work and family are more imminent and who have had more time to explore their identities\u2014may display behavior that is more consistent with their ideals (Arnett 2007). They may also be more realistic about the \u00adchallenges of managing work and family.\n\n## 1.4 Conclusion\n\nOn a societal level, we are witnessing the reversing of the gender gap in higher education, but a stall in the progress toward egalitarianism in the home and workplace. Looking at the plans and behavior of adolescents and emerging adults, we do not find seeds of renewed vigor in the move toward egalitarian gender roles. Why is the generation now entering adulthood behaving in ways that are inconsistent with their ideas about gender? One potential reason is the difficulty of successfully aligning ideas and behavior related to gender (Sjoberg 2010), particularly with societal ambivalence about maternal employment (Sylvester 2001), disapproval of fathers reducing or curtailing work to stay home with children (Nock 1998; Townsend 2002), limited parental leave policies (Ray et al. 2009), and scarce allocation of resources to help new mothers reconcile employment and caregiving. Marriage and parenthood exact a toll on women's time spent on paid work activities, including career interruptions , whereas for men, marriage and parenthood are associated with more work involvement (Pew Research Center 2013).\n\nAlthough the new studies presented here provide important current information about gender equality and gendered behavior , there are several limitations of note in addition to the power issue mentioned above. The adolescent sample was also mostly middle- to upper-middle-class and from one region of the USA; however, the college student sample was diverse geographically and in terms of socioeconomic background. Demographic differences between the adolescent and college samples (e.g., proportion Asian American, socioeoconomic status) could have contributed to differences attributed to age cohorts. Utilizing samples of different age cohorts is important for gender and work\u2013family issues (e.g., Corder and Stephan 1984; Galambos 2004; Hill and Lynch 1983), and along with samples composed of diverse cultures\/ethnicities, strengthen the generalizability of our findings.\n\nThe new data presented in this chapter were from cross-sectional studies. Needed are longitudinal studies that could illuminate the factors that might explain the apparent developmental shift from adolescence to college such as greater experience with romantic relationships, more time spent contemplating work\u2013family balance , and more mature cognitive and long-term planning abilities. In the current study, participants reported their plans for future employment; however, future research would benefit from providing more specific trajectories for employment plans (e.g., 'employment in the first year after a child is born' rather than 'after a child is born'). Despite these limitations , these two studies make important contributions to our knowledge about how the next generation of potential worker-parents intends to balance work and family, and suggest that a traditionally gendered pattern will likely persist at least into the near future.\n\nReferences\n\nAjzen, I. (1991). The theory of planned behavior. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 50, 179\u2013211.CrossRef90020-T)\n\nAjzen, I., & Fishbein, M. (1977). Attitude-behavior relations: A theoretical analysis and review of empirical research. Psychological Bulletin, 84, 888\u2013918.CrossRef\n\nAlessandri, S. M. (1992). Effects of maternal work status in single-parent families on children's perception of self and family and school achievement. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 54, 417\u2013433.\n\nArnett, J. J. (2004). Emerging adulthood: The winding road from the late teens through the twenties. Oxford: Oxford University Press.\n\nArnett, J. J. (2007). Emerging adulthood: What is it, and what is it good for? Child Development Perspectives, 1, 68\u201373.CrossRef\n\nBaber, K. M., & Monaghan, P. (1988). College women's career and motherhood expectations\u2013New options, old dilemmas. Sex Roles, 19, 189\u2013203.CrossRef\n\nBarker, K. (1993). Changing assumptions and contingent solutions: The costs and benefits of women working full- and part-time. Sex Roles, 28, 47\u201371.CrossRef\n\nBecker, G. (2010). The revolution in the economic empowerment of women. http:\/\/\u200bwww.\u200bbecker-posner-blog.\u200bcom\/\u200b2010\/\u200b01\/\u200bthe-revolution-in-the-economic-empowerment-of-women-becker.\u200bhtml. Accessed 3 June 2012.\n\nBianchi, S. M., Milkie, M. A., Sayer, L. C., & Robinson, J. P. (2000). Is anyone doing the housework? Trends in the gender division of household labor. Social Forces, 79, 191\u2013228.CrossRef\n\nBianchi, S. M., Robinson, J. P., & Milkie, M. A. (2006). Changing rhythms of American family life. New York: Russell Sage.\n\nBolzendahl, C., & Myers, D. J. (2004). Feminist attitudes and support for gender equality: Opinion change in women and men, 1974\u20131998. Social Forces, 83, 759\u2013790.CrossRef\n\nBoushey, H. (2008). \"Opting out?\" The effect of children on women' employment in the United States. Feminist Economist, 14, 1\u201336.CrossRef\n\nBrewster, K. L., & Padavic, I. (2000). Change in gender ideology, 1977\u20131996: The contributions of intracohort change and population turnover. Journal of Marriage & the Family, 62, 477\u2013487.CrossRef\n\nBrines, J. (1994). Economic dependency, gender, and the division of labor at home. American Journal of Sociology, 100, 652\u2013688.CrossRef\n\nBrooks, C., & Bolzendahl, C. (2004). The transformation of U.S. gender role attitudes: Cohort replacement, social-structural change, and ideological learning. Social Science Research, 33, 106\u2013133.CrossRef00041-3)\n\nBureau of Labor Statistics, U.S. Department of Labor. (Dec 2010). Women in the labor force: A databook. http:\/\/\u200bwww.\u200bbls.\u200bgov\/\u200bcps\/\u200bwlf-databook-2010.\u200bpdf. Accessed 2 June 2012.\n\nBureau of Labor Statistics, U.S. Department of Labor. (April 2012). Employment characteristics of families summary. http:\/\/\u200bwww.\u200bbls.\u200bgov\/\u200bnews.\u200brelease\/\u200bfamee.\u200bnr0.\u200bhtm. Accessed 2 June 2012.\n\nColtrane, S. (1989). Household labor and the routine production of gender. Social Problems, 36, 473\u2013490.CrossRef\n\nCorder, J., & Stephan, C. W. (1984). Females combination of work and family roles-adolescents aspirations. Journal of Marriage and the Family, 46, 391\u2013402.CrossRef\n\nCorrell, S. J. (2001). Gender and the career choice process: The role of biased self-assessments. American Journal of Sociology 106(6), 1691\u20131730.CrossRef\n\nCotter, D., Hermsen, J. M., & Vanneman, R. (2011). The End of the Gender Revolution? Gender Role Attitudes From 1977 to 2008. American Journal of Sociology, 117, 259\u2013289.CrossRef\n\nDavis, S. N., & Greenstein, T. (2009). Gender ideology: Components, predictors, and consequences. Annual Review of Sociology, 35, 87\u2013105.CrossRef\n\nDavis, S. N., & Pearce, L. D. (2007). Adolescents' work-family gender ideologies and educational expectations. Sociological Perspectives, 50, 249\u2013271.CrossRef\n\nde Valk, H. A. (2008). Parental influence on work and family plans of adolescents of different ethnic backgrounds in the Netherlands. Sex Roles, 59, 738\u2013751.CrossRef\n\nDennehy, K., & Mortimer, J. T. (1993). Work and family orientations of contemporary adolescent boys and girls. In J. C. Hood (Ed.), Men, work, and family (pp. 87\u2013107). Newbury Park: Sage.\n\nDex, S. (2010). Can state policies produce equality in housework? In J. Treas & S. Drobnic (Eds.), Dividing the domestic: Men, women, and housework in cross-national perspective. Palo Alto: Stanford University.\n\nDrobnic, S. (2010). Concluding thoughts on the societal context of housework. In J. Treas & S. Drobnic (Eds.), Dividing the domestic: Men, women, and household work in cross-national perspective. (pp. 241\u2013251). Palo Alto: Stanford University.CrossRef\n\nDrobnic, S., & Witting, I. (1997). Part-time work in the United States of America. In H. P. Blossfield & C. Hakim (Eds.), Between equalization and marginalization: Women working part-time in Europe and the United States of America (pp. 289\u2013314). New York: Oxford University.\n\nEagly, A. (1987). Sex differences in social behavior: A social-role interpretation. John M. MacEachran memorial lecture series; 1985. Hillsdale: Erlbaum.\n\nEagly, A. H., & Chaiken, S. (1993). The psychology of attitudes. Orlando: Harcourt Brace.\n\nEagly, A. H., Wood, W., & Diekman, A. B. (2000). Social role theory of sex differences and similarities: A current appraisal. In T. Eckes & H. M. Trautner (Eds.), The developmental social psychology of gender (pp. 123\u2013174). Mahwah: Erlbaum.\n\nEccles, J. (1994). Understanding women's educational and occupational choices: Applying the Eccles et al. model of achievement-related choices. Psychology of Women Quarterly, 18, 485\u2013609.CrossRef\n\nEccles, J. S., & Hoffman, L. W. (1984). Sex roles, socialization, and occupational behavior. Child development research and social policy: Harold W. Stevenson & Alberta E. Siegel.\n\nFishbein, M., & Ajzen, I. (1975). Belief, attitude, intention, and behavior: An introduction to theory and research. Reading: Addison-Wesley.\n\nFranco, J. L., Sabattini, L., & Crosby, F. J. (2004). Anticipating work and family: Exploring the associations among gender-related ideologies, values, and behaviors in Latino and White families in the United States. Journal of Social Issues, 60, 755\u2013766.CrossRef\n\nFuegen, K., Biernal, M., Haines, E., & Deaux, K. (2004). Mothers and fathers in the workplace: How gender and parental status influence judgements of job-related consequences. Journal of Social Issues, 60, 737\u2013754.CrossRef\n\nGalambos, N. L. (2004). Gender and gender role development in adolescence. In R. M. Lerner & L. Steinberg (Eds.), Handbook of Adolescent Psychology (pp. 233\u2013262). Hoboken: Wiley.\n\nGoldberg, W. A. (2014). Father time: The social clock and the timing of fatherhood. London: Palgrave Macmillan.CrossRef\n\nGoldberg, W. A., & Lucas-Thompson, R. (2014). Stereotype accuracy: Do college women hit or miss the mark when estimating the \"impact\" of maternal employment on children's achievement and behavior? Psychology of Women Quarterly, 38, 1\u201313.\n\nGoldberg, W. A., Kelly, E., Matthews, N. B., Kang, H., Li, W., & Sumaroka, M. (2012). The more things change, the more they stay the same: Gender, culture, and college students' views about work and family. Journal of Social Issues, 68, 814\u2013837.CrossRef\n\nGoldberg, W. A., Michaels, G. Y., & Lamb, M. E. (1985). Husbands' and wives' adjustment to pregnancy and first parenthood. Journal of Family Issues, 6, 483\u2013503.\n\nGoldin, C., Katz, L. F., & Kuziemko, I. (2006). The homecoming of American college women: The reversal of the college gender gap. Journal of Economic Perspectives, 20, 133\u2013156.CrossRef\n\nGoldin, C., Katz, L. F. (2008). Transitions: Career and Family Lifecycles of the Educational Elite. American Economic Review: Papers and Proceedings 98, (2), 363\u2013369.\n\nGreenberger, E., Goldberg, W. A., Crawford, T. J., & Granger, J. (1988). Beliefs about the consequences of maternal employment for children. Psychology of Women Quarterly, 12, 35\u201359.CrossRef\n\nGreenstein, T. N. (1996). Gender ideology and perceptions of the fairness of the division of household labor: Effects on marital quality. Social Forces, 74, 1029\u20131042.CrossRef\n\nGupta, S. (2006). The consequences of maternal employment during men's childhood for their adult housework performance. Gender & Society, 20, 60\u201386.CrossRef\n\nHan, W. J., Ruhm, C. J., Waldfogel, J., & Washbrook, E. (2008). The timing of mothers' employment after childbirth. Monthly Labor Review, 131, 15\u201327.PubMedCentralPubMed\n\nHardie, J. H., & Hayford, S. R. (2012). Opting In: Adolescent girls' work and family plans. paper submitted at the inaugural work and family researchers network conference. New York, USA.\n\nHarris, K. M., Duncan, G. J., & Boisjoly, J. (2002). Evaluating the role of \"nothing to lose\" attitudes on risky behavior in adolescence. Social Forces, 80, 1005\u20131039.CrossRef\n\nHegewisch, A., & Gornick, J. C. (2011). The impact of work-family policies on women's employment: A review of research from the OECD countries. Community, Work, & Family, 14, 119\u2013138.CrossRef\n\nHill, J. P., & Lynch, M. E. (1983). The intensification of gender-related role expectations during early adolescence. In J. Brooks-Gunn & J. Petersen (Eds.), Girls at puberty: Biological and psychosocial perspectives (pp. 201\u2013228). New York: Plenum.CrossRef\n\nHimsel, A. J., & Goldberg, W. A. (2003). Social comparisons and satisfaction with the division of housework: Implications for men's and women's role strain. Journal of Family Issues, 24, 843\u2013866.CrossRef\n\nHochschild, A. R. (1989). The second shift: Working parents and the revolution at home. New York: Viking.\n\nHoffman, L. W. (1980). The effects of maternal employment on the academic attitudes and performance of school-age children. School Psychology Review, 9, 319\u2013336.\n\nJoint Economic Committee Majority Staff, U. S. C. (Dec 2010). Invest in women, invest in America: A comprehensive review of women in the U.S. Economy. http:\/\/\u200bjec.\u200bsenate.\u200bgov\/\u200bpublic\/\u200bindex.\u200bcfm?\u200bp=\u200bReports1&\u200bContentRecord_\u200bid=\u200b11dd6449-8d54-41ff-9bb2-87d98cbf66c2&\u200bContentType_\u200bid=\u200befc78dac-24b1-4196-a730-d48568b9a5d7&\u200bGroup_\u200bid=\u200bc120e658-3d60-470b-a8a1-6d2d8fc30132. Accessed 2 June 2012.\n\nKaufman, G., & Uhlenberg, P. (2000). The influence of parenthood on the work effort of married men and women. Social Forces, 78, 931\u2013947.CrossRef\n\nKerpelman, J. L., & Schvaneveldt, P. L. (1999). Young adults' anticipated identity importance of career, marital, and parental roles: Comparisons of men and women with different role balance orientations. Sex Roles, 41, 189\u2013217.CrossRef\n\nKreider, R. M., & Elliott, D. R. (2009). America's families and living arrangements 2007. Current Population Reports, P20-561. Washington, DC: U.S. Census Bureau.\n\nKroska, A. (2007). Gender ideology and gender role ideology. In G. Ritzer (Ed.), The Blackwell Encyclopedia of Sociology (Vol. 4, pp. 1867\u20131868). Malden: Blackwell.\n\nLaughlin, L. (2011). Maternity leave and employment patterns of first-time mothers: 1961\u20132008. Current Population Report, P70-128. Washington, DC: U.S. Census Bureau.\n\nMachung, A. (1989). Talking career, thinking job-Gender differences in career and family expectations of Berkeley seniors. Feminist Studies, 15, 35\u201358.CrossRef\n\nMcDonald, P., Pini, B., Bailey, J., & Price, R. (2011). Young people's aspirations for education, work, family and leisure. Work, Employment and Society, 25, 68\u201384.CrossRef\n\nMoen, P., & Yu, Y. (2000). Effective work\/life strategies: Working couples, work conditions, gender, and life quality. Social Problems, 47, 291\u2013326.CrossRef\n\nNock, S. L. (1998). Marriage in men's lives. New York: Oxford University.\n\nO'Connell, L., Betz, M., & Kurth, S. (1989). Plans for balancing work and family-life-Do women pursuing nontraditional and traditional occupations differ? Sex Roles, 20, 35\u201345.CrossRef\n\nOrbuch, T. L., & Eyster, S. L. (1997). Division of household labor among Black couples White couples. Social Forces, 76, 301\u2013332.CrossRef\n\nParker, K., & Wang, W. (2013). Modern parenthood: Roles of moms and dads converge as they balance work and family. Pew Research: Social & Demographic Trends. http:\/\/\u200bwww.\u200bpewsocialtrends.\u200borg\/\u200b2013\/\u200b03\/\u200b14\/\u200bmodern-parenthood-roles-of-moms-and-dads-converge-as-they-balance-work-and-family\/\u200b. Accessed 5 Sep 2013.\n\nPew Research Center. (2010). The decline of marriage and rise of new families. Washington: Pew Research Center.\n\nPew Research Center. (2013). On pay gap, millenial women near parity-For now. Washington: Pew Research Center.\n\nRay, R. A. (2008). A detailed look at parental leave policies in 21 OECD countries. Washington: U.S. Center for Economic and Policy Research.\n\nRay, R. A., Gornick, J. C., & Schmitt, J. (2009). Parental leave policies in 21 countries: Assessing generosity and gender equality. Washington: U.S. Center for Economic and Policy Research.\n\nRidgeway, C. L., & Correll, S. J. (2004). Unpacking the gender system: A theoretical perspective on gender beliefs and social relations. Gender & Society, 18, 510\u2013531.CrossRef\n\nSalmela-Aro, K., Aunola, K., & Nurmi, J. E. (2007). Personal goals during emerging adulthood: A 10-year follow up. Journal of Adolescent Research, 22, 690\u2013715.CrossRef\n\nSewell, W. H., & Hauser, R. M. (1980). The Wisconsin longitudinal study of social and psychological factors in aspirations and achievements. Research in Sociology of Education and Socialization, 1, 59\u201399.\n\nSjoberg, O. (2010). Ambivalent attitudes, contradictory institutions ambivalence in gender-role attitudes in comparative perspective. International Journal of Comparative Sociology, 51, 33\u201357.CrossRef\n\nSteil, J. M. (2000). Contemporary marriage: Still an unequal partnership. In C. Hendrick & S. Hendrick (Eds.), Close relationships: A sourcebook (pp. 125\u2013152). Thousand Oaks: Sage.\n\nSylvester, K. (2001). Caring for our youngest: Public attitudes in the United States. (Review). The Future of children\/Center for the Future of Children, the David and Lucile Packard Foundation, 11, 52\u201361.PubMedCrossRef\n\nThornton, A., & Young-DeMarco, L. (2001). Four decades of trends in attitudes toward family issues in the United States: The 1960s through the 1990s. Journal of Marriage and the Family, 63, 1009\u20131037.CrossRef\n\nTownsend, N. W. (2002). The package deal: Marriage, work, and fatherhood in men's lives. Philadelphia: Temple University.\n\nU.S. Census Bureau (2011). The 2011 statistical abstract. http:\/\/\u200bwww.\u200bcensus.\u200bgov\/\u200bcompendia\/\u200bstatab\/\u200bcats\/\u200blabor_\u200bforce_\u200bemployment_\u200bearnings.\u200bhtml.\n\nWeinshenker, M. N. (2006). Adolescents' expectations about mothers' employment: Life course patterns and parental influence. Sex Roles, 54, 845\u2013857.CrossRef\n\nWenzel, A. J., & Lucas-Thompson, R. G. (2012). Authenticity in college-aged males and females, how close others are perceived, and mental health outcomes. Sex Roles, 67, 334\u2013350.CrossRef\n\nWiese, B. S., & Freund, A. M. (2011). Parents as role models: Parental behavior affects adolescents' plans for work involvement. International Journal of Behavioral Development, 35, 218\u2013224.CrossRef\n\u00a9 Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2015\n\nMaura J. Mills (ed.)Gender and the Work-Family Experience10.1007\/978-3-319-08891-4_2\n\n# 2. Beyond the \"Ideal\" Worker: Including Men in Work\u2013Family Discussions\n\nSunny L. Munn1  and Tomika W. Greer2\n\n(1)\n\nDepartment of Leadership Studies, Dwight Schar College of Education, Ashland University, 128 Dwight Schar, 401 College Ave., 44805 Ashland, OH, USA\n\n(2)\n\nDepartment of Human Development and Consumer Sciences, College of Technology, University of Houston, 110 Cameron Building, 77204 Houston, TX, USA\n\nSunny L. Munn (Corresponding author)\n\nEmail: smunn2@ashland.edu\n\nTomika W. Greer\n\nEmail: twgreer@central.uh.edu\n\nKeywords\n\nMalesMenTraditional familyIdeal workerContemporary employeeGenderWork\u2013family\n\n## 2.1 Introduction\n\nTraditional workplaces are based on the \"ideal worker\" (Williams 2000)\u2014\u00adidentifying a man as the earner of the primary paycheck within a family\u2014and coincide with gender ideology that perpetuates the norm of the \"ideal parent\" (Sperling 2014), which names a woman as the primary caretaker of the family. The ideal worker's life is organized in a way that accommodates the demands of the employer, while the ideal parent's life accommodates the demands of family.\n\nThe ideal worker is the preferred employee in both white collar and blue collar contexts. This employee is willing to work swing shifts as a blue-collar worker and able to travel on short notice or work 80-hour weeks in white-collar positions. This employee is not distracted by the demands of children or commitments outside of work. The ideal worker is\u2014nearly without exception\u2014characterized as a male. Alternatively, the ideal parent provides unlimited support at home and handles all childcare responsibilities. The expectation is that the ideal parent is female and maintains this role regardless of whether or not she is working outside of the home. For employed women, their home responsibilities are frequently referred to as the \"second shift\" (Hochschild 1989).\n\nFemale employees are, therefore, thought to need work\u2013family friendliness in their workplace more so than do male employees. Accordingly, organizations are more likely to offer work\u2013family initiatives when the percentage of women employed in the organization is high (Konrad and Mangel 2000). Although alternative work arrangements are becoming increasingly possible, men are less likely to take \u00adadvantage of organizational work\u2013family initiatives (Fried 1998; Kirby and Krone 2002). This is likely influenced by unspoken organizational norms and the attitudes of coworkers which perpetuate negative attitudes toward men who use work\u2013\u00adfamily benefits. Furthermore, men's use of work\u2013family initiatives challenges traditional perceptions of masculinity (Vandello et al. 2013). Employees who are most likely to use such initiatives are married, female, and\/or have children (Thompson et al. 1999). As women are considered to be the ideal parents, there is little effort on behalf of organizations to offer work\u2013family benefits to men , to accept that they might need to use such benefits, or to encourage a culturally responsive organization that allows men to do so.\n\nIn this chapter, we point to evidence that contemporary men do not always fit the ideal worker stereotype. Instead, men are taking on more responsibilities in the home and may struggle with the collision of work and family demands (Kaufman 2014)\u2014a struggle that is stereotypically reserved for women. Even the gender neutral terms \"work\u2013family\" and \"working parent\" are often interpreted as being primarily applicable to women (Levine and Pittinsky 1997), as well as excluding individuals without children.\n\nWorking men have real needs for work\u2013family initiatives and balance just as working women might. According to data from the 1997 National Study of the Changing Workforce, collected by the Families and Work Institute, employed fathers with children under the age of 18 years reported 48.5 hours of work per week (Hill 2005). However, these working fathers also reported 24.7 hours in child care and 21.2 hours doing household chores each week (Hill 2005). Increased involvement with childcare and household responsibilities is one reason why \"work\u2013life research on men is necessary in order to challenge the norm of the 'ideal worker'\" (Sav et al. 2013, p. 673) and the ideal parent. As a result, there is a need to consider men in work\u2013family discussions and make workplace adjustments that consider the work\u2013family interface for male employees.\n\n## 2.2 From Ideal Worker to Contemporary Employee\n\nOver the past four decades, the US workforce has experienced a general declining trend of men's prominence in the workforce as more women seek employment outside of the home (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics 2013) . In the 1970s, men comprised about 61 % of the US workforce. Into the 1980s, that number dropped to about 56 % of the workforce. In the 1990s, men only made up 54 % of the workforce. This trend continued into the 2000s as men comprised 53 % of the workforce. Currently, women comprise about half of the workforce as the gap continues to close (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics 2013).\n\nAs women's presence in the workforce is equalizing with men's presence, there have been shifts in the traditional breadwinner status that men historically held in American society. Since the late 1980s, the number of wives who earn more than their husbands in dual-earner families has steadily increased (U. S. Bureau of Labor Statistics 2013). In 1987, there were 29.7 million dual-earner couples and 17.8 % of the wives earned more than their husbands. By 2011, there were 31.4 million dual-earner families. This number represents a relatively modest increase in dual-earner families over the preceding 24 years. However, 29.2 % of the wives were earning more than their husbands in 2011, suggesting that nearly one-third of dual-earner couples no longer fit the male breadwinner family structure.\n\nIn conjunction with women taking on more participation and responsibilities in the paid labor force , men have increased their engagement in matters of the home and family. Although men's increased involvement in housework and childcare did not mirror women's entrance into the workforce during the 1960s and 1970s (Coverman and Sheley 1986), a marked increase in men's household involvement has been documented (Coltrane 2000).\n\nUltimately, as traditional male-role expectations are changing, more American men have started to transition from the breadwinner role to the involved family man. As a result, balancing work and family roles has become an important issue for working men just as it has been for women (Yonetani et al. 2007). In fact, in a recent study , Kaufman (2014) classified fathers into three types: old, new, and superdad . The \"old\" dads are the traditional breadwinners; \"new\" dads are a mixture between breadwinner and caregiver; and \"superdads\" are those whose priority is caregiving as opposed to work.\n\nThe changes in the contemporary definition of family also contribute to the need to consider work\u2013family interactions for men . \"While the definition of family can be interpreted widely (Powell et al. 2012) within the work\u2013family literature, it is typically used to refer to married and dual-earner couples or those with children\" (Munn 2013, p. 6). The work\u2013family literature overwhelmingly fails to define the meaning of family, most frequently creating the assumption that the family structure is \"traditional.\" The traditional family is comprised of an employed father and an unemployed mother (Schneer and Reitman 1993), thus perpetuating the notion of the ideal worker and the ideal parent. As evidenced by the rise in women's employment and the realization that 54 % of married-couple families are dual-earner families (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics 2013) , and 13.6 million families are separated or unmarried (U.S. Census Bureau 2012) , the traditional family including the ideal worker and parent do not accurately reflect the lives of many Americans.\n\nInstead, a \"post-traditional\" family can include dual-earner couples and children who require adult supervision and care. In this family, it may be the case that mothers pick up a \"second-shift\" by becoming active labor force participants and remaining primary caregivers at home (Bailyn et al. 2001; Damaske 2011; Hochschild 1989, 1997). Additionally, fathers may also share more household responsibilities and\/or earn less income than mothers.\n\nThe post-traditional family can also be a single-parent family. The prevalence of single-parent families has been on the rise in the United States since the 1960s. In 1960, there were less than 300,000 households with minor children that were headed by a single father ; in 2011, that number had risen above 2.6 million single father families (Livingston 2013). The number of single mother households has risen even more sharply in the same time period\u2014from 1.9 million households in 1960 to 8.6 million households in 2011 (Livingston 2013). Therefore, the ability of single parents\u2014including fathers\u2014to balance work and family responsibilities is increasingly important.\n\nIn this post-traditional family era, the \"new\" father (Kaufman and Uhlenberg 2000) differs from the traditional breadwinner in that he spends more time with his children, although he may be torn between spending quality time and working more to provide better options for his family (Kaufman 2014; Roy 2005). Still, the work\u2013family literature continues to perpetuate the ideal worker by differentially including women and men in work\u2013family discussions according to stereotypical views of traditional gender roles. For example, in western societies, work\u2013family research has focused on the experiences of married, white, educated women in professional\/managerial job positions (Casper et al. 2007; Sav et al. 2013). Within this population, researchers have studied the relationships between working mothers and child outcomes , marital satisfaction, and issues of self-efficacy. This narrow focus is likely an outcome of the persistence of the ideals of the traditional family structure where women are thought to be plagued with higher demands to maintain equilibrium between work and the rest of the life (Guest 2002) due to the child- and home-care responsibilities not regularly expected of men. Researchers have also studied the effects of women in the workplace, organizational needs, and family needs to help shape work\u2013family policies and practices for women and their children.\n\nAlternately, compared to women, men are minimally studied in work\u2013family research. When men are included, the research tends to be more concerned with work outcomes than family outcomes. However, we contend that a more thorough understanding of men's work\u2013family issues is warranted to develop equitable work\u2013family initiatives and make concessions for changing gender role expectations and the contemporary US workforce (Hill 2005). The myth of the ideal worker and ideal parent is now obsolete. Instead, we find men in the workforce who have demanding work and family responsibilities and a desire to perform well in both roles. Accordingly, the aim of this chapter is to portray a holistic view of men's work\u2013family experiences and advocate for the value of consistently considering men in work\u2013family discussions.\n\n## 2.3 Theory of the Work\u2013Family Interface: Conflict, Enrichment, and Balance\n\nThe work\u2013family interface is often studied in terms of work\u2013family conflict and work\u2013family enrichment. Work\u2013family conflict occurs when work or family demands hinder a person's performance in the alternate role. Work\u2013family conflict follows when the responsibilities of work and family are incompatible (Greenhaus and Beutell 1985). Conversely, work\u2013family enrichment ensues when work or family experiences enhance performance in the other domain. Enrichment occurs when resources are gained in one domain that can be used to improve performance or affect in the other domain (Carlson et al. 2006). Work\u2013family conflict is more often studied than work\u2013family enrichment. However, researchers advocate for studying both conflict and enrichment: The positive side of the work\u2013family interface has been shown to predict work and nonwork outcomes over and above the effects of work\u2013family conflict alone (van Steenbergen et al. 2007).\n\nWork\u2013family conflict and work\u2013family enrichment have been theorized and empirically supported as bidirectional constructs (Carlson et al. 2006; Greenhaus and Powell 2006). The conflict can originate in either the work domain or the family domain. The conflict that originates in the work domain has been called work-interference-with-family (WIF) . The conflict that originates in the family domain has been called family-interference-with-work (FIW) . WIF is thought to be more prevalent than FIW among both men and women (Allard et al. 2011; Kinnunen and Mauno 1998). The work\u2013family enrichment characterized by experiences in the work domain positively influencing the quality of life in the family domain has been called work-to-family enrichment (WFE). The enrichment characterized by experiences in the family domain that positively influence the quality of life in the work domain has been called family-to-work enrichment (FWE).\n\nPrevious studies have led researchers to believe that work\u2013family conflict and work\u2013family enrichment are independent constructs. Work\u2013family conflict is not necessarily the opposite of work\u2013family enrichment (Powell and Greenhaus 2006). For many, the elusive notion of \"work\u2013family balance\" could exist in the case of minimized work\u2013family conflict and maximized work\u2013family enrichment. There is no single agreed-upon definition of work\u2013family balance, but in general there is an agreement that work\u2013family balance occurs when an employee is satisfied with the amount of time and effort spent in each life domain with as little conflict as possible (Clark 2000; Greenhaus et al. 2003; Grzywacz and Carlson 2007).\n\n### 2.3.1 Differences Between Men's and Women's Work\u2013Family Experiences\n\nIn 1992, Higgins and Duxbury published one of the earliest identified studies that looked specifically at men's work\u2013family conflict amidst changing family structures . The primary premise of their study recognized that the woman's work\u2013family conflict had been thoroughly studied as her role expectations were changing from homemaker to working mother while work\u2013family conflict for men who found themselves in dual-earner families was drastically understudied. Higgins and Duxbury (1992) sought to compare the antecedents and consequences of work\u2013\u00adfamily conflict for men in single-earner families compared to men in increasingly popular dual-earner families. Their results confirmed differences between the two groups of men in their model of work\u2013family conflict.\n\nThe results of the Higgins and Duxbury (1992) study suggested that as men's roles in relation to work and family have evolved, so have their experiences with work\u2013family conflict. A similar case can be made regarding work\u2013family enrichment. The results of this study suggested that what has been discovered about work\u2013family interactions based on women's experiences is not necessarily generalizable to contemporary men. It is, therefore, necessary to discuss men's work\u2013family experiences separately from women's experiences because the expectations of men in their work and family roles differ from the expectations of women in similar roles. For instance, mothers spend more time in the presence of their children, dealing with daily hassles, and performing caregiving tasks as compared to fathers (Lee et al. 2003).\n\nAlthough there is some evidence to support the idea that there are no significant differences between men and women in work\u2013family conflict (Anafarta and Kuru\u00fcz\u00fcm 2012; Kinnunen and Mauno 1998), there is also research that suggests that men experience less work\u2013family conflict and more work\u2013family enrichment than women (e.g., Figueroa et al. 2012; Hill 2005; van Steenbergen et al. 2007). Such differences point to gender as an embedded factor in how employees negotiate their work and family role demands (Emslie and Hunt 2009). Indeed, working fathers have reported less individual stress , and greater family satisfaction , marital satisfaction , and life satisfaction than working mothers (Hill 2005). Even among self-employed men and women, women report more intrusions on their work from their family than do self-employed men (Loscocco 1997). Alternately, work intrudes more on family for self-employed men than for self-employed women (Loscocco 1997).\n\nMuch of the research around men's work\u2013family experiences compared to women's experiences provides a foundation for continuing research in this area. There is clearly not enough research on men in this regard. However, there is also evidence that men's work\u2013family experiences have different antecedents and consequences than women's work\u2013family experiences. In the following sections, we explore the extant research on the antecedents and consequences of men's work\u2013family conflict and work\u2013family enrichment.\n\n## 2.4 Understanding Men's Work\u2013Family Conflict\n\n### 2.4.1 Antecedents of FIW and WIF Conflict\n\nFor both men and women, FIW is best explained by family domain variables, such as the number of children living at home (Kinnunen and Mauno 1998). Other findings indicate that FIW is likely to increase when men have more advanced job tenure (Anafarta and Kuru\u00fcz\u00fcm 2012), and for those that are married or cohabiting and have eldercare responsibilities (Barrah et al. 2004). Furthermore, spousal support is negatively related to FIW (Aycan and Eskin 2005).\n\nCompared to FIW, there is much more research on the WIF experiences of men. WIF is best explained by work domain variables (e.g., full-time job, poor leadership relations) among women, as well as by high education and number of children living at home (Kinnunen and Mauno 1998). For men, one study indicated that higher workloads and more work hours are associated with increased WIF (Sav et al. 2013). However, organizational support \u2014including supervisory support , work\u2013family policies, and time flexibility\u2014is associated with less WIF for men (Aycan and Eskin 2005). Another study found that WIF is negatively correlated with men's education and job tenure (Anafarta and Kuru\u00fcz\u00fcm 2012). Additionally, for men, the frequency of family intrusions and total role involvement predict time-based WIF (Loerch et al. 1989). In another recent study, male senior leaders reported more WIF than female senior leaders (Mills and Grotto 2012). Although gender was not significant, this study also found that satisfaction with flexible work practices and organizational work\u2013life support was important for reducing WIF .\n\nAnother important factor for men is relationship status . In general, men's marital status has been positively correlated with WIF (Anafarta and Kuru\u00fcz\u00fcm 2012). Employed fathers who are not partnered have reported greater work\u2013family conflict and lower family-to-work enrichment than partnered fathers (Janzen and Kelly 2012). Men who are married with an employed spouse experience more work\u2013family conflict than men in single earner families or who are partnered with a homemaker (Crowley 1998; Higgins and Duxbury 1992). Men who view themselves as adequate breadwinners reported a greater sense of work\u2013family role overload than those who view themselves as inadequate breadwinners (Crowley 1998).\n\nGender role assignments remain prevalent within work and family situations. A recent LA Times (2013) article noted that women are more likely to break the gender divide by entering more male dominated fields such as medicine, business, or law while men are much less likely to take on traditional female-oriented employment opportunities like teaching, nursing, or administrative work. In fact, less than 1 % of fathers were stay-at-home dads in 2013 while 24 % of mothers were stay-at-home moms, according to U.S. Census data . Previous research findings suggest that while stereotypical gender-role attitudes tend to increase work\u2013family conflict for women, they actually decrease work\u2013family conflict for men (Izraeli 1993). Spending time with family on the weekends and being concerned about work performance contributes to more work\u2013family conflict in men than in women (Izraeli 1993). For example, fathers who are also managers might have increased access to flexible work practices yet still tend to experience high levels of work\u2013family conflict. However, for these same dads in more gender egalitarian families, access to flexible working practices creates less work\u2013family conflict and also sets a positive example, encouraging other employees' use of such benefits (Allard et al. 2007).\n\n### 2.4.2 Consequences of FIW and WIF Conflict\n\nThere is significant research demonstrating the impact of FIW and WIF conflict on women and children. However, much less is known about the impact on men and fathers. For instance, when fathers bring stress from work into the home, mothers are more likely to experience decreased work\u2013family balance , thus increasing conflict for mothers (Fagan and Press 2008). Additionally, mothers tend to experience higher levels of work\u2013family balance when fathers have more flexibility at work and are more involved at home with childcare (Fagan and Press 2008).\n\nHigher levels of emotional exhaustion are common for both men and women experiencing work\u2013family conflict. Work\u2013family conflict was associated with poorer health among women and drinking problems among men (Leineweber et al. 2013). Another study found that work\u2013family conflict was strongly related to problem drinking among both women and men (Roos et al. 2006). Aycan and Eskin (2005) found that work\u2013family conflict had a negative relationship with psychological well-being , marital satisfaction , and parental role performance for men. Additionally, FIW was positively related to men's guilt (Livingston and Judge 2008).\n\n## 2.5 Understanding Men's Work\u2013Family Enrichment\n\nAlthough work\u2013family conflict is more prominently studied in the literature as compared to work\u2013family enrichment, there is a small amount of research related to work\u2013family enrichment for men, which is summarized here.\n\n### 2.5.1 Antecedents of Men's Work\u2013Family Enrichment\n\nA qualitative study of Australian Muslim men revealed interesting experiences of work and family interactions (Sav et al. 2013) . Results of the study suggest that these Muslim men experienced both conflict and enrichment, however enrichment appeared to dominate their experiences. The researchers in this study suggested that the high reports of work-to-family and family-to-work enrichment were likely due to the religious beliefs of the Muslim men, who view paid employment as a religious obligation and value the breadwinner role (Sav et al. 2013). The study concludes that religion can influence men's experience of work\u2013family enrichment. Furthermore, these Muslim men also engaged in flexible work hours and perceived a supportive workplace, which is also likely to improve work\u2013family enrichment (Sav et al. 2013) .\n\nInterestingly, in a representative sample of working fathers in the United States, work\u2013family conflict was more prevalent among the employed fathers than work\u2013family enrichment (Hill 2005). Moreover, as an additional contrast to the Australian Muslim men, supportive organizational culture was negatively related to family-to-work enrichment, suggesting that with a more supportive organization, American employed fathers are less likely to experience positive gains from the family to the work domain. In the same study, organizational commitment was also negatively associated with family-to-work enrichment (Hill 2005). So, when working fathers experienced family-to-work enrichment, they were less committed to remaining employed in their organizations. However, the more time these employed fathers spent on childcare , the less family-to-work enrichment they experienced (Hill 2005) .\n\nThe findings from the studies of Australian Muslim men and the American working fathers highlight how context-specific experiences of work\u2013family interactions can be. However, in both cases, the men appear to value their work and their family roles, which is consistent with the idea of contemporary men who are not conforming to the ideal worker stereotype.\n\n### 2.5.2 Consequences of Men's Work\u2013Family Enrichment\n\nWork-to-family enrichment has been positively related to job satisfaction and life satisfaction, and negatively related to individual stress (Hill 2005). Family-to-work enrichment has been positively related to marital satisfaction , family satisfaction , and life satisfaction, and negatively related to organizational commitment (Hill 2005).\n\nOthers took a more granular approach to looking at the consequences of men's work\u2013family enrichment by measuring its distinct facets (van Steenbergen et al. 2007). Specifically, they looked at enrichment as being energy-based , time-based , behavioral , and psychological in addition to being bidirectional. For men, energy-based work-to-family enrichment was a significant predictor of life satisfaction and job satisfaction (van Steenbergen et al. 2007) . This finding suggests that when men perceive that their work gives them additional energy to perform at home, they are more satisfied with both their work and nonwork roles. Higher psychological work-to-family enrichment predicted better job performance and lower job search behavior, suggesting that these men were performing well and less likely to be looking for a job change. Furthermore, energy-based work-to-family enrichment predicted higher affective commitment for men. It is important to note that many of these significant findings are different between men and women, reinforcing the notions that the outcomes of men's and women's work\u2013family interactions are experienced differently .\n\n## 2.6 Practical Implications\n\n\"The way work itself is organized\u2014around stereotypical [heterosexual white] male employees with no substantial responsibilities outside of the workplace\u2014is often a major obstacle for people trying to combine work and family\" (Rapoport et al. 2002, p. 183). Yet, there is often an unconscious disconnect between the existence and the use of work\u2013family benefits because the \"ideal worker\" (Bailyn et al. 2001; Williams 2010) (also called a \"zero-drag\" worker ; Hochschild 1997) is most accurately depicted as the traditional male worker, while work\u2013family benefits were created to assist female employees with children (Lewis 2001). The \"ideal worker\" is traditionally male and works full-time. He is able to keep the spheres of work and family separate thus not \"needing\" to use work\u2013family policies (Allen 2001; Bailyn et al. 2001; Campbell 2001; Thompson et al. 1999; Williams 2010; Williams et al. 2006). However, while work may still be organized this way, the way individuals work and interact with family have changed over time\u2014especially for fathers. Unfortunately, organizational expectations and the actions of male employees who are also fathers have not caught up with one another. \"Opportunities and [organizational] rewards go to those who most closely conform to the \"ideal worker\" by compartmentalizing work and family caregiving so that these are separate spatially, temporally, and psychologically\" (Winfield and Rushing 2005, p. 58). The desire to fulfill this ideal worker norm causes many employees to fear and, therefore, avoid using any policies that may provide \"family-friendly\" benefits (Bailyn et al. 2001; Blair-Loy 2001; Kirby and Krone 2002; Williams et al. 2006; Winfield and Rushing 2005). Similarly, Berdahl and Moon (2013) found that men who take on childcare responsibilities, thus acting outside of the role of an ideal worker and traditional father, are typically mistreated at work via criticisms of their masculinity . This suggests that adjustments need to be made regarding how we conceptualize work and fatherhood\u2014adjustments which allow for a new definition of fatherhood that goes beyond the provider role to also include the caretaker role. In other words, the \"new dad\" and \"superdad\" conceptualizations should also be perceived as strengths of a man's masculinity.\n\nWhile research has shown that men also value flexibility and work\u2013family balance, they tend to seek out opportunities for improving such balance less frequently than do women (Vandello et al. 2013), perhaps because of the fear of stigmatization and ridicule (Berdahl and Moon 2013). Fathers are more dependent on spousal support than organizational support (Hill 2005), sustaining research demonstrating men's underuse of work\u2013family benefits (Kirby and Krone 2002; Lewis 1997). With the presence of a more supportive organizational culture, supervisor-supported flexibility, and greater use of family-oriented benefits, mothers experience less work\u2013family role strain (Warren and Johnson 1995). Winfield and Rushing (2005) found, for both men and women, that in organizations with \"family-friendly\" policies and jobs that provide autonomy \"employees are more likely to perceive their supervisors as supportive of interactions in the workplace that bridge the borders between work and family life\" (p. 56).\n\nFrequently, companies have cultural norms that keep work and family separate from one another. When a family-supportive organizational culture is not well developed, fathers tend to experience more work\u2013family conflict. However, when a family-supportive culture exists within the organization, work and family are more easily combined (Allard et al. 2011, Galinsky et al. 2013). A common perception applied to working mothers is the \"mommy track\" , which includes lower earnings and less challenging work for women with children who seek more flexible work schedules . Recently, it was found that fathers who choose the \"daddy track\"\u2014opting for more flexibility for family purposes\u2014also incur decreased earnings over the course of their careers because they are seen as less focused (Coltrane et al. 2013). Similarly, managers are more likely to accommodate men who request flexible work practices for career advancement rather than family (Brescoll et al. 2013).\n\nEmployees who believe their managers support the use of family-friendly policies and programs are more likely to use available options (Allen 2001). When employees do not perceive informal support from their managers and peers, they are less likely to take advantage of family-friendly interventions. Although Hill et al. (2003) found that fathers were less likely than mothers to have used corporate programs to help find harmony between work and family life, fathers frequently chose options that provided flexibility as to when and where work was done. Overall, use of work\u2013family programs such as flexible work practices by fathers were found to be work\u2013family adaptive strategies that predicted greater work\u2013family fit (Hill et al. 2003).\n\nA very basic work\u2013family policy offered in many countries is some type of national parental leave policy (Block et al. 2013). The United States has no national paid maternity or paternity leave policies, thereby leaving this decision to each individual employer. Even without the existence of a national paternity leave policy, which would provide fathers with the ability to take paid time off work after the birth or adoption of a child, many fathers still find a way to take leave for varied amounts of time. This might be through the use of sick days, vacation time , flexible work practices, or even unpaid time off such as the Family and Medical Leave Act. Use of leave, regardless of type, is influenced by fathers' employment characteristics, such as type of employer, tenure of position, level of earnings, etc. The fact that fathers are taking leave regardless of policies or payment indicates that they want and need to spend time with their children and partners after this significant life event. If leave after the birth of a child can increase a father's work\u2013family balance , then it is likely that work commitment and productivity will also be greater due to reduced stress and conflict levels at home. Similar situations exist in the UK and Australia, where paternity leave is either not available or is difficult to use due to cultural barriers and stigmatization of appropriate family roles (Fox et al. 2009; Whitehouse et al. 2007).\n\nOverall, we know that work\u2013family balance programs in the workplace have received great attention, but typically focus on assisting mothers with work\u2013family issues, thus excluding fathers and individuals without children (Hill 2005). Yet, we know that taking leave and working shorter hours are related to fathers being more involved with their infants (Nepomnyaschy and Waldfogel 2007; O'Brien et al. 2007). Employee autonomy at work has also been shown to impact the relationship between work hours and time spent with children (MacDonald and Almeida 2004), as well as decrease work\u2013family conflict (Galinsky 2013). Available work\u2013family policies have the ability to impact fathers' behavior both at home and on the job. Therefore, policies that provide parental leave, shortened work hours, or flexible work practices are likely to increase father involvement (Tanako and Waldfogel 2007). For the employer, the goal is to create and successfully implement programs which not only assist the worker but also maintain or increase productivity of their employees on the job.\n\nSimilarly, developing work\u2013family initiatives that specifically aim to benefit fathers and those without children has the potential to increase productivity, retention , and company loyalty. For example, through the existence of maternity leave but not paternity leave , the policies imply that a mother's responsibility is to childcare and a father's responsibility is financial support , thereby reinforcing the gendered ideal parent and worker stereotypes . \"Social policies supporting men's care\u2014particularly parental leave dedicated to fathers\u2014are needed to enhance gender equality and work\u2013family reconciliation for men and for women\" (Fox et al. 2009, p. 313).\n\n## 2.7 Opportunities for Future Research\n\nFuture research regarding men and their work\u2013family experiences is very necessary, and there are ample research streams to pursue (Hill 2005) . For instance, there are relatively few published research studies that analyze men separately from women. As demonstrated earlier in this chapter, there are some differences in the ways that men and women experience work\u2013family conflict and enrichment. By not considering men separately from women in work\u2013family research, researchers send the message that they do not recognize the need to understand men's work\u2013family interactions distinctly from women's. Omitting such research diminishes our understanding of the work\u2013family interface and disenfranchises men, especially fathers .\n\nIn addition to analyzing men's experiences separately from women's experiences, future work\u2013family research should also consider more cross-cultural studies of men. This should include fathers and men without children, sexual minorities, and others with responsibilities outside of the family, such as community. Other countries appear to be ahead of the USA in terms of understanding men's work\u2013family experiences. For instance, Canada (Doucet 2004; Konrad and Yang 2012), Belgium (Doucet and Merla 2007), Sweden (Allard et al. 2011), and Australia (Sav et al. 2013; Whitehouse et al. 2007) have been represented in men's work\u2013family research. However, this research is not necessarily generalizable to American men, given the differences in work\u2013family accommodations at national levels among the various countries and the role that culture can play in perceptions of work\u2013family experiences (Sav et al. 2013) .\n\nAdditionally, cultural differences based on race , ethnicity, and country of origin are likely to provide further insight into men's work\u2013family experiences, especially in the USA, where cultural diversity is prevalent. For example, one study found differences in the work\u2013family experiences of Hispanics versus Blacks and Whites. Hispanics are more likely to demonstrate an increased difference between men and women, likely because of differences in culture and work experiences (Roehling et al. 2005). Future research is needed to continue to build understanding of different cultures and perceptions of gender in terms of work\u2013family research.\n\nWhile we agree that paternity leave allowance is an important starting point for accommodating the evolution of men's work and family involvement, there is a need for future research to be devoted to further understanding the determinants and consequences of paternal leave-taking (Nepomnyaschy and Waldfogel 2007). Researchers have reported that taking advantage of parental leave policies may have a negative stigma within an organization that generally discourages employees from taking advantage of such policies. When women take maternity leave , they may find themselves perceived as less devoted to their work than either before having children and\/or in comparison to their male coworkers. For many women, their maternity leave initiates their entrance onto the \"mommy-track\" where they have fewer upward mobility options within their organization, regardless of whether or not they are on the mommy-track by choice. Future research should be devoted to determining whether such consequences also await men who take advantage of paternity leave options. We surmise that because the length of maternity leave is generally longer than a paternity leave, men may not necessarily face the same consequences as women, but understanding what consequences men will face is critical to fully exploring paternity leave policies as a consideration for men's changing roles in both the work and family domains .\n\nSimilarly, women usually take the maternity leave that is offered to them because of the physical complications associated with giving birth, in addition to the desire to bond with their new child (which would also apply to adoption). However, men's motivations for engaging in paternity leave are somewhat less obvious than women's reasons for taking maternity leave . Future research into the determinants of men's use of paternity leave will be important for determining how best to devise paternity leave policies that actually meet the needs of employed fathers.\n\nFinally, future research should also consider the roles of occupational status and\/or differences in place of employment as potential explanatory variables for differential work\u2013family experiences between men and women (Izraeli 1993). Since the work\u2013family literature is primarily applicable to professional\/managerial employees, little is known about the work\u2013family experiences of employees who are employed in blue-collar positions, earn hourly wages, and\/or are not eligible for benefits such as the paternity leave policies for which we advocate. For this segment of the population, there may be fewer differences between men and women with regard to work\u2013family experiences. This speculation is based on the assumption that lower wage workers have fewer occupational options than their counterparts in higher status positions. So, both women and men in the lower status demographic may feel like they need their jobs to support their families, whereas managerial\/professional employees may have the option of reducing work hours, working a flexible schedule, working from home, or utilizing benefits to help them manage work and family demands with less fear of losing their livelihood. Such options, of course, will vary from one organization to the next, based on the organizational culture and \"work\u2013family friendliness\" .\n\n## 2.8 Conclusion\n\nWhile we are moving away from the notions of the \"ideal worker\" and the \"ideal parent\" in contemporary society, they have not gone without penalizing men who desire more flexibility in the workplace or more time with family. Two recent studies found that men who sought to use workplace flexibility practices were deemed poor \"organizational citizens,\" seen as uncommitted to their workplace, and were characterized as portraying more \"undesirable\" feminine traits (Rudman and Mescher 2013; Vandello et al. 2013). Such a reaction is unfortunate, as men\u2014especially fathers\u2014are increasingly committed to family at emotional and caretaking levels. As Kaufman (2014) demonstrates, an increasing number of fathers are filling the roles of \"new\" or \"super\" dads, as described earlier, in an effort to contribute more equally with their female partners. One step to including men in the work\u2013family discussion is first to recognize that they\u2014like women\u2014have work\u2013family needs. We can begin to be inclusive of men by more actively pursuing research which investigates men's work\u2013family issues independently from those of women. It is time to recognize that everyone, not just mothers, have work\u2013family needs. As such, we start by including men, specifically fathers, in the conversation.\n\nReferences\n\nAllard, K., Hass, L., & Hwang, C. P. (2007). Exploring the paradox: Experiences of flexible working arrangements and work-family conflict among managerial fathers in Sweden. Community, Work, and Family, 10, 475\u2013493.CrossRef\n\nAllard, K., Haas, L., & Hwang, C. P. (2011). Family-supportive organizational culture and fathers' experiences of work-family conflict in Sweden. Gender, Work, and Organization, 18, 141\u2013157.CrossRef\n\nAllen, T. D. (2001). Family-supportive work environments: The role of organizational perceptions. Journal of Vocational Behavior, 58, 414\u2013435.CrossRef\n\nAnafarta, N., & Kuru\u00fcz\u00fcm, A. (2012). Demographic predictors of work-family conflict for men and women: Turkish case. International Journal of Business and Management, 7, 145\u2013158.CrossRef\n\nAycan, Z., & Eskin, M. (2005). Relative contributions of childcare, spousal support, and organizational support in reducing work-family conflict for men and women: The case of Turkey. Sex Roles, 53, 453\u2013471.CrossRef\n\nBailyn, L., Drago, R., & Kochan, T. A. (2001). Integrating work and family life: A holistic approach. A report of the Sloan work-family policy network. MIT: Sloan School of Management.\n\nBarrah, J. L., Shultz, K. S., Baltes, B., & Stolz, H. E. (2004). Men's and women's eldercare-based work-family conflict: Antecedents and work-related outcomes. Fathering, 2, 305\u2013330.CrossRef\n\nBerdahl, J. L., & Moon, S. H. (2013). Workplace mistreatment of middle class workers based on sex, parenthood, and caregiving. Journal of Social Issues, 69, 341\u2013366.CrossRef\n\nBlair-Loy, M. (2001). Cultural constructions of family schema: The case of women finance executives. Gender and Society, 15, 687\u2013709.CrossRef\n\nBlock, R. N., Park, J. Y., & Kang, Y. H. (2013). Statutory leave entitlements across developed countries: Why US workers lose out on work-family balance. International Labour Review, 152, 125\u2013143.CrossRef\n\nBrescoll, V. L., Glass, J., & Sedlovskaya, A. (2013). Ask and Ye shall receive? The dynamics of employer-provided flexible work options and the need for public policy. Journal of Social Issues, 69, 367\u2013388.CrossRef\n\nCampbell, C. S. (2001). Work cultures and work\/family balance. Journal of Vocational Behavior, 58, 348\u2013365.CrossRef\n\nCarlson, D. S., Kacmar, K. M., Wayne, J. H., & Grzywacz, J. G. (2006). Measuring the positive side of the work-family interface: Development and validation of a work-family enrichment scale. Journal of Vocational Behavior, 68, 131\u2013164.CrossRef\n\nCasper, W. J., Eby, L. T., Bordeaux, C., Lockwood, A., & Lambert, D. (2007). A review of research methods in IO\/OB work-family research. Journal of Applied Psychology, 92, 28\u201343.PubMedCrossRef\n\nClark, S. C. (2000). Work\/family border theory: A new theory of work\/family balance. Human Relations, 53, 747\u2013770.CrossRef\n\nColtrane, S. (2000). Research on household labor: Modeling and measuring the social embeddedness of routine family work. Journal of Marriage and family, 62, 1208\u20131233.CrossRef\n\nColtrane, S., Miller, E. C., DeHaan, T., & Stewart, L. (2013). Fathers and the flexibility stigma. Journal of Social Issues, 69, 279\u2013302.CrossRef\n\nCoverman, S., & Sheley, J. F. (1986). Change in men's housework and child-care time, 1965-1975. Journal of Marriage and Family, 48, 413\u2013422.CrossRef\n\nCrowley, M. S. (1998). Men self-perceived adequacy as the family breadwinner: Implications for their psychological, marital and work-family well-being. Journal of Family and Economic Issues, 19, 7\u201323.CrossRef\n\nDamaske, S. (2011). For the family? How class and gender shape women's work. Oxford: Oxford University Press.\n\nDoucet, A. (2004). \"It's almost like I have a job, but I don't get paid\": Fathers at home reconfiguring work, care, and masculinity. Fathering, 2, 277\u2013303.CrossRef\n\nDoucet, A., & Merla, L. (2007). Stay-at-home fathering: A strategy for balancing work and home in Canadian and Belgian families. Community, Work, and Family, 10, 455\u2013473.CrossRef\n\nEmslie, C., & Hunt, K. (2009). 'Live to work' or 'work to live'? A qualitative study of gender and work-life balance among men and women in mid-life. Gender, Work, and Organization, 16, 151\u2013172.CrossRef\n\nFagan, J., & Press, J. (2008). Father influences on employed mothers' work-family balance. Journal of Family Issues, 29, 1136\u20131160.CrossRef\n\nFigueroa, A. J., Aburto, M. A. C., & Acevedo, R. Z. (2012). Work-family conflict, parental efficacy and perceived parenting styles in fathers and mothers from the city of Talca, Chile. Acta Colombiana de Psicolog\u00eda, 15, 57\u201365.\n\nFried, M. (1998). Taking time: Parental leave policy and corporate culture. Philadelphia: Temple University Press.\n\nFox, E., Pascall, G., & Warren, T. (2009). Work-family policies, participation, and practices: Fathers and childcare in. Europe. Community, Work, and Family, 12, 313\u2013326.CrossRef\n\nGalinsky, E., Aumann, K., & Bond, J. T. (2013). Times are changing: Gender and generation at work and at home in the USA. In S. Poelmans, J. Greenhaus, & M. Las Heras Maestro (Eds.), Expanding the boundaries of work-family research: A vision for the future (p. 279). London: Palgrave Macmillan.\n\nGreenhaus, J. H., & Beutell, N. J. (1985). Sources of conflict between work and family roles. Academy of Management Review, 10, 76\u201388.\n\nGreenhaus, J. H., & Powell, G. N. (2006). When work and family are allies: A theory of work-family enrichment. Academy of Management Review, 31, 72\u201392.CrossRef\n\nGreenhaus, J. H., Collins, K. M., & Shaw, J. D. (2003). The relation between work-family balance and quality of life. Journal of Vocational Behavior, 63, 510\u2013531.CrossRef00042-8)\n\nGuest, D. E. (2002). Perspectives on the study of work-life balance. Social Science Information, 41, 255\u2013279.CrossRef\n\nGrzywacz, J. G., & Carlson, D. S. (2007). Conceptualizing work-family balance: Implications for practice and research. Advances in Developing Human Resources, 9, 455\u2013471.CrossRef\n\nHiggins, C. A., & Duxbury, L. E. (1992). Work-family conflict: A comparison of dual-career and traditional-career men. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 13, 389\u2013411.CrossRef\n\nHill, E. J. (2005). Work-family facilitation and conflict, working fathers, and mothers, work-family stressors and support. Journal of Family Issues, 26, 793\u2013819.CrossRef\n\nHill, E. J., Hawkins, A. J., M\u00e4rtinson, V., & Ferris, M. (2003). Studying 'working fathers': Comparing fathers' and mothers' work-family conflict, fit, and adaptive strategies in a global high-tech company. Fathering, 1, 239\u2013261.CrossRef\n\nHochschild, A. R. (1989). The second shift. New York: Avon Books.\n\nHochschild, A. R. (1997). The time bind: When work becomes home and home becomes work. New York: Holt.\n\nIzraeli, D. N. (1993). Work\/family conflict among women and men manager in dual-career couples in Israel. Journal of Social Behavior & Personality, 8, 371\u2013385.\n\nJanzen, B. L., & Kelly, I. W. (2012). Psychological distress among employed fathers: Associations with family structure, work quality, and the work-family interface. American Journal of Men's Health, 6, 294\u2013302.PubMedCrossRef\n\nKaufman, G. (2014). Superdads: How fathers balance work and family in the 21st century. New York: New York University Press.\n\nKaufman, G., & Uhlenberg, P. (2000). The influence of parenthood on the work effort of married men and women. Social Forces, 78, 931\u2013947.CrossRef\n\nKinnunen, U., & Mauno, S. (1998). Antecedents and outcomes of work-family conflict among employed women and men in Finland. Human Relations, 51, 157\u2013177.\n\nKirby, E. L., & Krone, K. J. (2002). \"The policy exists but you can't really use it\": Communication and the structuration of work-family policies. Journal of Applied Communication Research, 30, 50\u201377.CrossRef\n\nKonrad, A. M., & Mangel, R. (2000). The impact of work-life programs on firm productivity. Strategic Management Journal, 21, 1225\u20131237.CrossRef21%3A12<1225%3A%3AAID-SMJ135>3.0.CO%3B2-3)\n\nKonrad, A. M., & Yang, Y. (2012). Is using work-life interface benefits a career-limiting move? An examination of women, men, lone parents, and parents with partners. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 33, 1095\u20131119.CrossRef\n\nLee, M., Vernon-Feagans, L., Vazquez, A., & Kolak, A. (2003). The influence of family environment and child temperament on work-family role strain for mothers and fathers. Infant and Child Development, 12, 421\u2013439.CrossRef\n\nLeineweber, C., Baltzer, M., Hanson, L. L. M., & Westerlund, H. (2013). Work-family conflict and health in Swedish working women and men: A 2-year prospective analysis (the SLOSH study). European Journal of Public Health. http:\/\/\u200beurpub.\u200boxfordjournals.\u200borg\/\u200bcontent\/\u200bearly\/\u200b2012\/\u200b06\/\u200b08\/\u200beurpub.\u200bcks064.\u200bfull.\u200bpdf+html. Accessed 15 Jan 2014.\n\nLevine, J. A., & Pittinsky, T. L. (1997). Working fathers: New strategies for balancing work and family. Reading: Addison-Wesley.\n\nLewis, S. (1997). 'Family friendly' employment policies: A route to changing organizational culture or playing about at the margins? Gender, Work and Organization, 4 (1), 13\u201323.\n\nLewis, S. (2001). Restructuring workplace cultures: The ultimate work-family challenge? Women in Management Review, 16, 21\u201329.CrossRef\n\nLivingston, B. A., & Judge, T. A. (2008). Emotional responses to work-family conflict: An examination of gender role orientation among working men and women. Journal of Applied Psychology, 93, 207\u2013216.PubMedCrossRef\n\nLivingston, G. (2013). The rise of single fathers: A ninefold increase since 1960. Pew Research Center: Washington, D.C. (http:\/\/\u200bwww.\u200bpewsocialtrends.\u200borg\/\u200bfiles\/\u200b2013\/\u200b07).\n\nLoerch, K. J., Russell, J. E., & Rush, M. C. (1989). The relationships among family variables and work-family conflict for men and women. Journal of Vocational Behavior, 35, 288\u2013308.CrossRef90031-6)\n\nLoscocco, K. A. (1997). Work-family linkages among self-employed women and men. Journal of Vocational Behavior, 50, 204\u2013226.CrossRef\n\nMacDonald, D. A., & Almeida, D. M. (2004). The interweave of fathers' daily work experiences and fathering behaviors. Fathering, 2, 235\u2013251.CrossRef\n\nMills, M. J., & Grotto, A. R. (2012). Work-life and the upper echelon: Perceptions, outcomes, and gender differences in senior leadership. Paper presented at the Academy of Management Conference. Boston, Massachusetts, USA.\n\nMunn, S. L. (2013). Unveiling the work-life system: The influence of work-life balance on meaningful work. Advances in Developing Human Resources, 15, 401\u2013417.CrossRef\n\nNepomnyaschy, L., & Waldfogel, J. (2007). Paternity leave and fathers' involvement with their young children. Community, Work, and Family, 10, 427\u2013453.CrossRef\n\nO'Brien, M., Brandth, B., & Kvande, E. (2007). Fathers, work, and family life. Community, Work, and Family, 10, 375\u2013386.CrossRef\n\nPowell, B., Bolzendahl, C., Geist, C., & Steelman, L. C. (2012). Counted out: Same-sex relations and Americans' definitions of family. New York: Russell Sage.\n\nPowell, G. N., & Greenhaus, J. H. (2006). Managing incidents of work-family conflict: A decision-making perspective. Human Relations, 59, 1179\u20131212.CrossRef\n\nRapoport, R., Lotte, B., Fletcher, J. K., & Pruitt, B. H. (2002). Beyond work-family balance: Advancing gender equity and workplace performance. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.\n\nRoehling, P. V., Jarvis, L. H., & Swope, H. E. (2005). Variations in negative work-family spillover among White, Black, and Hispanic American men and women: Does ethnicity matter? Journal of Family Issues, 26, 840\u2013865.CrossRef\n\nRoos, E., Lehelma, E., & Rahkonen, O. (2006). Work-family conflict and drinking behaviours among employed women and men. Drug and Alcohol Dependence, 83, 49\u201356.PubMedCrossRef\n\nRoy, K. M. (2005). Transitions on the margins of work and family life for low-income African-American fathers. Journal of Family and Economic issues, 26, 77\u2013100.CrossRef\n\nRudman, L. A., & Mescher, K. (2013). Penalizing men who request a family leave: Is flexibility stigma a femininity stigma? Journal of Social Issues, 69, 322\u2013340.CrossRef\n\nSav, A., Harris, N., & Sebar, B. (2013). Work-life conflict and facilitation among Australian Muslim men. Equality, Diversity, & Inclusion, 32, 671\u2013687.CrossRef\n\nSchneer, J. A., & Reitman, F. (1993). Effects of alternate family structures on managerial career paths. Academy of Management Journal, 36, 830\u2013843.CrossRef\n\nSperling, J. H. (2014). Reframing the work-family conflict debate by rejecting the ideal parent norm. American University Journal of Gender, Social Policy & the Law, 22, 47\u201390.\n\nTanako, S., & Waldfogel, J. (2007). Effects of parental leave and work hours on fathers' involvement with their babies. Community, Work, and Family, 10, 409\u2013426.CrossRef\n\nThompson, C. A., Beauvais, L. L., & Lyness, K. S. (1999). When work-family benefits are not enough: The influence of work-family culture on benefit utilization, organizational attachment, and work-family conflict. Journal of Vocational Behavior, 54, 392\u2013415.CrossRef\n\nU.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. (2013). Women in the labor force: A databook. http:\/\/\u200bwww.\u200bbls.\u200bgov\/\u200bcps\/\u200bwlf-databook-2012.\u200bpdf. Accessed 29 March 2014.\n\nU. S. Census Bureau. (2012). Profile America factors for features: Unmarried and single Americans week Sept. 16\u201322, 2012. http:\/\/\u200bwww.\u200bcensus.\u200bgov\/\u200bnewsroom\/\u200breleases\/\u200bpdf\/\u200bcb12ff-18_\u200bunmarried.\u200bpdf.\n\nVandello, J. A., Hettinger, V. E., Bosson, J. K., & Siddiqi, J. (2013). When equal isn't really equal: The masculine dilemma of seeking work flexibility. Journal of Social Issues, 69, 303\u2013321.CrossRef\n\nvan Steenbergen, E. F., Ellemers, N., & Mooijaart, A. (2007). How work and family can facilitate each other: Distinct types of work-family facilitation and outcomes for women and men. \u00adJournal of Occupational Health Psychology, 12, 279\u2013300.PubMedCrossRef\n\nWarren, J. A., & Johnson, P. J. (1995). The impact of workplace support on work-family role strain. Family Relations: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Applied Family Studies, 144, 63\u2013169.\n\nWinfield, I., & Rushing, B. (2005). Bridging the border between work and family: The effects of supervisor-employee similarity. Sociological Inquiry, 75, 55\u201380.CrossRef\n\nWhitehouse, G., Diamond, C., & Baird, M. (2007). Fathers' use of leave in Australia. Community, Work, & Family, 10, 387\u2013407.CrossRef\n\nWilliams, J. C. (2000). Unbending gender: Why work and family conflict and what to do about it. Oxford: Oxford University Press.\n\nWilliams, J. C. (2010). Reshaping the work-family debate: Why men and class matter. Cambridge. Massachusetts: Harvard University Press.\n\nWilliams, J. C., Manvell, J., & Bornstein, S. (2006). How the press covers work\/family conflict: The untold story of why women leave the workforce. The Center for Worklife Law, University of California, Hastings College of the Law.\n\nYonetani, Y., Watanabe, S., & Kanazawa, Y. (2007). On the relationships among organizational family supportiveness, work-family conflict, and turnover intention: Evidence on Japanese men. International Journal of Human Resources Development and Management, 7, 319\u2013334.CrossRef\n\u00a9 Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2015\n\nMaura J. Mills (ed.)Gender and the Work-Family Experience10.1007\/978-3-319-08891-4_3\n\n# 3. Gender, Poverty, and the Work\u2013Family Interface\n\nHeather Odle-Dusseau1  , Anna C. McFadden2  and Thomas W. Britt2\n\n(1)\n\nDepartment of Management, Gettysburg College, 300 North Washington Street, Box 395, 17325 Gettysburg, PA, USA\n\n(2)\n\nDepartment of Psychology, Clemson University, 418 Brackett Hall, 29634 Clemson, SC, USA\n\nHeather Odle-Dusseau (Corresponding author)\n\nEmail: hodle@gettysburg.edu\n\nAnna C. McFadden\n\nEmail: amcfadd@clemson.edu\n\nThomas W. Britt\n\nEmail: twbritt@clemson.edu\n\nKeywords\n\nWork\u2013familyGenderPovertyJob demands-resourcesSegmented labor markets\n\n## 3.1 Introduction\n\nThe work\u2013family interface cannot be discussed without taking into consideration the role that gender plays in work and family systems. Yet much of our understanding of gender and the work\u2013family interface has been through the lens of middle- and upper-class, as well as professional-level, employees' experiences. As such, the work\u2013family experiences of low-income individuals and those living at or below the poverty line are less understood. Given that women are more likely to be in poverty than men, leading to the coined phrase \"feminization of poverty\" (Pearce 1978), it is important to consider gender and work\u2013family interactions within the context of poverty. Drawing from multiple disciplines (e.g., psychology, sociology, gender studies, and economics), this chapter examines how gender and the work\u2013family interface interact for individuals who are working in low-wage jobs , and are often found to be living at or below the poverty line. Combining the theoretical frameworks of segmented labor markets and the Job Demands-Resources (JD-R) model (Demerouti et al. 2001), our goal is to integrate the themes of gender, poverty, and work\u2013family experiences, and to develop avenues for future research .\n\nIn order to guide our discussion of these issues, in Fig. 3.1 we provide a descriptive model for how gender interacts with employment in low-wage jobs to affect work\u2013family dynamics, which then affect the health and well-being of women. We begin this chapter by first addressing descriptions and explanations of the sex segregation of jobs, or the trend that certain jobs are more likely to be filled by men (e.g., \u00adconstruction workers) while other jobs are more likely to be filled by women (e.g., child care providers). This leads into a discussion of the phenomenon of the \"feminization of poverty,\" examining the organizational, economic, and labor structures that contribute to the fact that women are more likely to live in poverty than men, which can be directly linked to the sex segregation of jobs.\n\nFig. 3.1\n\nModel of the integration of gender, poverty, and the work\u2013family interface\n\nWe then apply the framework of the Job Demands-Resources (JD-R) model (Demerouti et al. 2001) to help describe how different types of jobs are also associated with different demands, resources, and subsequent outcomes for males and females. Specifically, we describe how low-wage jobs , which are more likely to be filled by women, often have higher demands and fewer resources (e.g., wages, flexibility, autonomy) for managing family responsibilities. The lack of resources then contributes to a higher potential for work\u2013family conflict, a lower potential for work\u2013family enrichment, and subsequently compromised levels of health and well-being. We also discuss public programs aimed at curbing poverty and its correlates , relative to the interaction of gender, poverty, and the work\u2013family interface. Our overall model addresses how the sex segregation of jobs contributes toward a context of poverty that is experienced at different rates for men and women, subsequently creating situations in which men and women differentially experience job demands and resources. These differential demands and resources then influence work\u2013\u00adfamily experiences and subsequent work and well-being outcomes.\n\n## 3.2 Sex Segregation of Occupations and the Feminization of Poverty\n\nThe number of low-income working families in the United States reached 10.4 million in 2011 (an increase from 10.2 million in 2010), according to the Working Poor Families Project (Roberts et al. 2012). Across the globe, and especially in the United States, women are more likely to live in poverty than men; in 2011, the poverty rate for women was 14.6 %, while the poverty rate for men was 10.9 % (National Women's Law Center 2012). Given that this difference can be largely attributed to the fact that there are higher proportions of women found in low-wage jobs (Litchenwalter 2005), we attempt to further explore the work\u2013family interface within these contexts.\n\nSingle mothers and their children are particularly vulnerable to poverty, often due to limited access to employment and the cost associated with raising children (Misra et al. 2012). When looking at poverty rates of female-headed households with children, the proportion of those women living in poverty jumps (from 14.6 % overall) to 40.0 % (National Women's Law Center 2012). Because women are often the main caregivers for children, and because of the risk of poverty associated with women and children, it is imperative to examine how this systemic, dynamic interaction of work, family, gender, and poverty influences the work\u2013family interface.\n\nOccupations can be sex segregated, meaning that some occupations are held by a higher proportion of men, while others are held by higher proportions of women. Powell (2011) used the terms \"female-intensive\" and \"male-intensive\" to describe those jobs that have two-thirds or more of the workforce made up by males or females, such that those jobs where women make up at least 66.7 % of the workforce are considered \"female-intensive.\" Scholars have described various mechanisms to explain why this differentiation exists, with many explanations being traced back to societal categorizations of sex and the prescribed gender roles that form the expectations of male and female roles in society. One set of these expectations is the division of labor , which outlines the paid work domain as mainly the responsibility of men, while the nonwork, home, and caregiver domains are the obligation of women. Although women have increased their labor force participation to approximately 47 % (Powell 2011), there still persists a division of labor in the form of sex segregation of occupations.\n\nThere are a myriad of inter- and intraorganizational reasons that help explain why sex segregation takes place, such as the sex composition of the applicant pool, job search techniques of applicants, job assignment, and promotion practices (Reskin and Bielby 2005). While some of these reasons lie with individuals' choices, there are organizational structures and practices that also contribute to the segregation. Kmec (1995) proposed that sex segregation can arise from both the job applicants' techniques for attaining jobs, as well as the employer's organizational practices and policies and their subsequent discretion in hiring decisions. Similarly, Reskin and Bielby (2005) suggested that there are two specific ways that organizations create sex segregation. First, contributing to trends at the societal level, by not hiring a woman for a particular organization, the chance that she will go to another firm that is more likely to hire women increases. Stemming from psychological biases, although some organizational decision-makers may not consider sex when making the initial hiring decision, sex can be a consideration when making job assignments (Reskin and Bielby 2005). For example, in a factory, males may be more likely to be assigned a job that requires heavy lifting, while females are more likely to be assigned to support staff jobs that do not require heavy lifting. So while sex segregation across organizations may be lowered by hiring practices that explicitly, and legally, disregard biological sex , segregation within an organization could still exist and be reinforced through organizational structures, polices, and practices (Reskin and Bielby 2005).\n\nNoting the shifts in our country's economic structure over the past 40 years, Reid and Rubin (2003) recommended Dual Labor Market Segmentation Theory to help describe potential explanations of the wage inequality among men and women. This framework of segmented labor markets , which became popular in the 1960s and 1970s, is often used to describe two types of labor markets: (1) the primary sector that consists of jobs requiring high levels of skills , education , and training , and rewards employees with high wages and benefits, (2) the secondary sector consisting of low-wage jobs that require little training and education, low levels of skills, and pay low wages with little opportunity for promotion (Reid and Rubin 2003). There is an obvious parallel between these two sectors and the differences seen between the jobs that are male-intensive and female-intensive . Not surprisingly, jobs in the secondary sector tend to be female-intensive. Thus, segmented labor theories provide us with a framework for describing the sex segregation of occupations and jobs.\n\nAlthough not without its critiques (see Reid and Rubin 2003) , segmented labor market theories can aid in describing sex segregation of occupations for several reasons. As outlined by Reid and Rubin (2003), wage inequality, and the place of human capital in work outcomes, is of interest to scholars. Additionally, women and minorities continue to disproportionately make up low-wage occupations and do not as often occupy jobs where there are opportunities to develop new skills and \"move up\" in the organization. Reid and Rubin (2003) note that although intraorganizational processes do influence wage inequality for gender and race , labor market and industrial sectors are also important influences .\n\n### 3.2.1 The Feminization of Poverty\n\nAs seen in Fig. 3.1, the sex segregation of jobs contributes to the feminization of poverty, a term coined in 1978 by Diana Pearce in reference to the concentration of poverty among women as compared to men. When describing this trend, it is important to understand that it is too simplistic to designate the feminization of poverty as that which describes poor women in need of financial assistance . Rather, beyond the struggle to obtain basic living wages for food and housing, the feminization of poverty also refers to the lack of opportunity to move out of poverty and obtain a quality of life that considers more than basic needs. These effects on quality of life then permeate to the family structures in which these women live.\n\nThe disproportionate number of women in poverty is seen despite increased workforce participation by women and increased education levels . Litchenwalter (2005) analyzed data from the 2000 census in order to examine the contributors to the gender-poverty disparity in the 70 largest cities in the United States. Noting the long-standing sex differences in paid and unpaid labor (i.e., women are usually more responsible for unpaid labor like childrearing and domestic work), the shift toward more single female-headed families, and organizational structures that are themselves hindrances to working women and mothers, Litchenwalter (2005) found that women were more likely than men to be in poverty when in cities where women work more low-wage jobs and where there were a high proportion of women heading single parent homes. In addition, there was no significant correlation of poverty with education. When using regression analysis, which included the predictors of overall earnings, female representation in low- and high-wage jobs, labor force participation, and proportion of female-headed households, only the proportion of females in low-wage jobs remained a significant predictor of poverty disparity between men and women. What is more, it explained a substantial 41 % of the variance in that disparity (Litchenwalter 2005) .\n\nThe feminization of poverty is not unique to the United States, although it is more prominent in the United States. For example, the risk of poverty for single mothers is below 2 % in Sweden, but is 35 % in the US (Misra et al. 2012). Casper et al. (1994) compared the correlates of the gender-poverty gap in the US to those of other Western industrialized countries. The results revealed that the US has the largest gender\u2013poverty gap, with women being 41 % more likely to be living in poverty than men. In a more recent analysis, Brady and Kall (2007) examined the pattern of men and women's poverty in 18 countries across 31 years. They found that important correlates of poverty for both men and women were economic growth, manufacturing employment , social security transfers (e.g., social security pensions, family allowances, unemployment) , public health spending, and labor force participation. However, the feminization of poverty was most related to social security transfers, single motherhood, and labor force participation. In other words, the experiences of work and family are different for women in poverty. We consider these factors when discussing the implications of the feminization of poverty for the work\u2013family interface .\n\nA related issue when discussing the feminization of poverty is that of the motherhood wage penalty , or the occurrence of overall loss in wages and benefits that mothers experience as compared to fathers and to women in the labor force who do not have children. Budig and Hodges (2010) examined whether the motherhood penalty affected women across income levels similarly. They compared low-wage, middle-wage, and high-wage white1 female workers. High-waged women were more likely to have access to resources that assist in work\u2013family management than their lower-waged counterparts, as well as hold more family-friendly jobs (e.g., have workplace policies that assist in managing family responsibilities) .\n\nThere are various contexts the authors analyzed to better understand how the motherhood penalty may impact those differently across wage levels , such as spouse's earnings, welfare receipt, age of children at home, and timing of motherhood. Although human capital (e.g., education and experience) plays a part, it is small in that the motherhood penalty decreases (but does not go away) as education increases, yet the motherhood penalty increases with skill levels. What is more, the authors found that low-wage workers experienced the largest motherhood wage penalty, and that the penalty for low-wage women with young children is five times higher than that of high-wage women with young children. Budig and Hodges (2010) concluded that mothers who are most in need of stable wages (low-income mothers) are the ones most likely to experience the motherhood penalty .\n\nIn addition, Glauber (2012) examined if the wage penalty is larger for women in female-intensive jobs or for those in male-intensive jobs. She pointed out that both men and women pay a wage penalty when working in female-intensive jobs, but the penalty is greater for women. Glauber outlined some of the arguments for the production of sex segregation, such as differences in human capital (i.e., women lose job experience and skills after a child is born while they take time off), and discrimination against hiring and promoting mothers. Yet even when controlling for job characteristics, part-time work , education, and experience, the motherhood wage penalty still exists. Based on data collected longitudinally from a national sample, Glauber (2012) found that women in female-intensive jobs were paid less, were more likely to be married and to have children, and were also more likely to work part-time than were women working in male-intensive or sex-neutral jobs. In addition, the wage penalty for women working in female-intensive jobs increased with the number of children a mother had (7 % for one or two children, and 15 % for three or more), while those women in neutral or male-intensive jobs only paid a penalty when the number of children reached three or more (10 %). Overall, women in female-intensive jobs \"start out with lower wages and pay a large wage penalty for each child they have\" (p. 126). What is more, this penalty does not appear to be offset or compensated for by benefits in female-intensive jobs , such as job satisfaction , access to health insurance , vacation time , flexible scheduling, or maternity leave .\n\n### 3.2.2 Feminization of Poverty and the Work\u2013Family Interface\n\nResearch has provided evidence that low-wage workers experience work and family responsibilities differently, and when we consider gender, these negative effects become even more robust. Low-income families have different experiences when managing work and family domains compared to the more commonly studied middle- to upper-class families. Perry-Jenkins (2005) interviewed 153 dual-earner , working-class couples during their transition to parenthood. The parents were working in occupations that would be classified in the \"secondary sector\" based on the level of education and experience required, as well as the wages paid. Participants described experiencing unstable work hours, the need to \"piece together\" sick and personal time for maternity leave (thereby leaving limited or no time to take off from work when a child was sick or had a doctor's appointment), limited health insurance coverage, and rarely any child care assistance or benefits. Relatedly, Offer (2012a) points out that recent research undermines prior thinking that low-income individuals rely more on social support networks for childcare than high-income individuals, finding that in terms of total financial, instrumental , and emotional support , low-income families tend to have fewer support networks when compared to middle and upper-class families.\n\nWhen limiting analyses to female-headed households in low-wage families, the picture becomes even bleaker. Offer (2012b) examined how low-income mothers, who often rely on social support for childcare , also face barriers to achieving that support. These barriers include poor health, which is experienced at higher rates among low-income individuals than middle- and upper-class individuals (Burton et al. 2005), as well as \"adverse life events\" such as domestic violence incidents and illegal activities . Offer (2012b) provided data suggesting that both poor physical and psychological health serve as barriers to social support , including child care support, emotional support , instrumental support, and financial support . Specifically, participants who reported low health at Time 1 reported low perceived support at Time 2. This pattern was also observed for women who experienced domestic violence. Moreover, there appeared to be a mediating effect of poor health on the relationship between domestic violence and low support, in that the experiences of domestic violence lead to poor health, which in turn leads to low levels of perceived support .\n\nIn summary, sex segregated occupations have been demonstrated to contribute to the higher proportion of females in poverty as compared to males. This propensity to live in poverty is even higher when considering the presence of children in a household. What is more, individuals in low-wage jobs have very different experiences when managing work and family domains. In the next section, we utilize the Job Demands-Resources (JD-R) model to provide a framework for explaining the effects that the sex segregation of jobs and poverty may have on the work\u2013family experiences of women in low-wage jobs. Components of this model are highlighted in Fig. 3.1.\n\n## 3.3 Applying the JD\u2013R Theory to Gender, Poverty, and the Work\u2013Family Interface\n\nThe JD-R model (Demerouti et al. 2001) contends that job demands deplete energy , and therefore have negative effects on employees, leading to burnout . Alternatively, job resources can activate motivational processes, thereby having positive effects that lead to job engagement . This theory has been successfully applied to the work\u2013family interface, in that resources have also been associated with positive outcomes in the context of work\u2013family experiences. For example, perceptions of family-supportive work environments have been associated with employee well-being (e.g., Odle-Dusseau et al. 2013; Thompson and Prottas 2006).\n\nIn considering how demands and resources differ for low-wage individuals, and how these differences might contribute to problems managing the work\u2013family interface, we turn to an analysis of how poverty affects individuals, as provided by Leana et al. (2012). Specifically, these authors view the effect poverty may have on low-income individuals as developing for three potential reasons: categorical explanations, whereby individual-level factors are seen as the source (e.g., less training can mean fewer skills to take with them to the next job or to deal with specific work stressors, causing an increase in negative personal and work-related outcomes); compositional explanations, whereby the structure of the environment (such as the organization) is the focus (e.g., low-wage workers may not be well integrated into the organization with those who earn higher wages, which can limit opportunities for advancement); and relational explanations, whereby individual relationships and social connections are the focus (e.g., low-wage workers may have a more difficult time engaging in social or networking relationships with higher wage earners within the organization). Each facet may exert a negative influence when explaining how lower income individuals may lack the resources necessary to appropriately combat demands at work, resulting in negative work\u2013family experiences.\n\nUnderstanding why women in single-parent households are more likely to experience poverty and other negative consequences of low-wage work can be considered within the JD-R framework. Specifically, children tend to create more demands on a household, and are not able to provide equivalent resources to offset these demands (Brady and Kall 2007). In the same vein, childcare (a potential resource) is not available in poor communities at the same rate that it is in more affluent communities, making childcare for low-wage mothers even more difficult to obtain (Budig and Hodges 2010). Thus the demands of having children in single-parent households, in combination with a lack of resources to manage these responsibilities, can contribute to the poverty of single mothers and their children.\n\nThe JD-R model can also assist us in understanding how sex segregation of occupations influences different work and family experiences. Reskin and Bielby (2005) point out that segregation, whether at the organizational level or the job level, can result in unequal rewards for men and women. Therefore, inequalities between men and women can be traced to sex compositions of organizations and jobs, not actual differences between men and women (i.e., their biological sex) . Some researchers suggest that this can be partly attributed to the devaluation of jobs that are female-intensive (e.g., Rapoport et al. 2002). Importantly, the inequalities are not due to the amount of effort put into work by men and women. Past research has contradicted this suggestion, finding women to report just as much or more effort compared to men with similar household responsibilities (Bielby and Bielby 1988). As this chapter highlights, there are more valid explanations of these inequalities.\n\nWhen considering why resources may differ for jobs that are lower wage and are more likely to be filled by women, Glauber (2011) compared the opportunities for flexibility in male-intensive, female-intensive, and integrated\/neutral (i.e., neither male- nor female-intensive) jobs. Based on the theory of compensating wage differentials , female-intensive jobs should provide employees more access to flexibility as a trade-off for the lower wages. However, Glauber's (2011) results did not support this\u2014individuals in integrated occupations reported more flexibility access than individuals in female-intensive jobs. These results suggest that dual labor market theory is a more appropriate framework for understanding how resources differ among male- and female-intensive jobs, in that female-intensive jobs tends to be those in the secondary sector, thus having fewer benefits like flexibility.\n\nAs seen in Fig. 3.1, the sex-segregation of jobs has the effect of increasing the number of demands for female employees, while decreasing the resources available for offsetting those demands. The differential experience of demands and resources has implications for the work\u2013family interface of employees in low-wage, female-intensive occupations . Yet, while there has been some research on the work\u2013family experiences of low-wage individuals, as well as research on how work\u2013family experiences can differ for men and women, the research incorporating all three components is sparse. As such, we turn first to research that assessed how work\u2013family experiences differ for low-wage workers, followed by research showing how males and females can differentially experience work and family interactions. We then discuss how to integrate these findings to fit within the larger context of our proposed model.\n\nRecently, Sinclair et al. (2013) suggested that income or economic status may have an important relationship with work\u2013family conflict. Relatedly, Leana et al. (2012) suggested that poverty is a \"strong situation\" that affects how individuals process information and respond to their environment . Thus differences in economic standing have the potential to affect how low-income individuals differ on perceptions of various work and family experiences, as well as work-related outcomes. The negative impact of work\u2013family conflict on work, health, and well-being outcomes may be reduced for those individuals in high-earning jobs because of the increased resources and control over work. Looking specifically at the part one's income plays on the relationships among work demands and work\u2013family experiences, Ford (2011) tested models of the cross-domain effect of work-to-family conflict and family-to-work conflict, hypothesizing that work-to-family conflict would mediate the relationship between work demands and family strain, while incorporating income as a moderator into the models. Finding income to have an important moderating role, Ford (2011) concluded that while high levels of income did not appear to lower the rates of work\u2013family conflict, higher income did seem to provide resources to lower the influence of work\u2013family conflict onto family strain. If gender is taken into account, this effect perhaps could be exacerbated for women, given the evidence that women are more likely to live in poverty.\n\nOther empirical research has shown a direct impact of perceived economic hardship on work and family outcomes. Schieman and Young (2011) hypothesized that the stress from difficulty in obtaining basic necessities due to economic hardship would spill-over into other domains (namely the work domain) and might result in family-to-work conflict. Relying on the premises of the JD-R framework, Schieman and Young (2011) expected that more demanding work conditions would intensify the relationship between economic hardship and family-to-work conflict, but conditions which acted as resources would buffer the negative association between the two. The study found that economic hardship was predictive of family-to-work conflict, and that work conditions also acted as a moderator. For example, those individuals in jobs with less job authority and more job demands experienced a stronger relationship between economic hardship and family-to-work conflict. Although not including gender in their analyses, these findings become relevant as women may be more likely to work in demanding situations with low autonomy , based on the segmented labor theories (Reid and Rubin 2003), therein perhaps increasing their experiences of family-to-work conflict.\n\nTurning to the part that gender plays in the links among poverty and work\u2013family experiences, it is difficult to find research that specifically addresses these relationships simultaneously. The experience of women in professional and managerial-levels jobs has been studied to a much larger extent. For example, in a study of white collar, dual-earner workers, Batt and Valcour (2003) found that women reported marginally higher levels of work\u2013family conflict than did men, but significantly less control over managing work and family conflict. So how do these experiences translate for low-wage women? Unfortunately, the influence that income may have on these relationships is not well understood. As seen in Fig. 3.1, we would hypothesize that the higher levels of work\u2013family conflict experienced by employees in low-wage jobs (that are more likely to be occupied by a greater percentage of women) have the potential to more negatively affect the work, health, and well-being of the employees.\n\nThe negative work outcomes brought on by lack of resources when facing a stressor can be numerous, and in the work\u2013family literature, the outcomes experienced by those facing work-to-family conflict have been shown to include lower performance , job satisfaction (Bruck et al. 2002), and organizational commitment (Aryee et al. 2005), as well as higher turnover intentions and actual turnover (Shaffer et al. 2001), and absenteeism (Kirchmeyer and Cohen 1999). Work\u2013\u00adfamily conflict has also been linked with job performance , with meta-analyses finding that such conflict is related to decreased employee performance. In a review of work-to-family conflict and performance outcomes, Kossek and Ozeki (1999) found that, on average, increases in both work-to-family conflict and family-to-work conflict were associated with decreased performance metrics. This finding was echoed by Hoobler et al. (2010), who reported both work-to-family conflict and family-to-work conflict were negatively related to manager-rated performance (r = \u2212 0.19 for work-to-family conflict; r = \u2212 0.16 for family-to-work conflict), and self-rated performance (r = \u2212 0.03 for work-to-family conflict; r = \u2212 0.22 for family-to-work conflict). In addition, the perception of family support from one's supervisor (a potential resource) has been linked across time with increased perceptions of work\u2013family enrichment, and to subsequent supervisor ratings of performance (Odle-Dusseau et al. 2012). If, as outlined by our model, we expect resources to be fewer for those working in low-wage jobs , we would then expect less likelihood of increases in work\u2013family enrichment and any consequent effects on job \u00adperformance.\n\nAdvancement in one's career is another work-related outcome that stands to be differentially influenced by income, demands, and resources for women. The \"glass ceiling effect,\" or the seemingly invisible barriers women face in advancing their careers, was the focus of Hoobler et al.'s (2009) research. When asked to rate their subordinates' family-to-work conflict and performance , managers tended to rate females lower in performance . These results were obtained even while controlling for a number of variables that can be related to family-to-work conflict (i.e., caring for a dependent, number of children, and marital status) . Additionally, managers also perceived those subordinates high in family-to-work conflict as having less fit with the organization, a variable that was also shown to have a significant impact on subordinate promotability. These results show that women in particular are perceived as experiencing more family-to-work conflict, regardless of how much conflict they may actually experience. In turn, these perceptions predicted how employees were rated for performance and fit with the organization, ultimately affecting the promotions an employee may receive.\n\nHealth and well-being outcomes are also important factors to consider when examining the outcomes of work\u2013family conflict. The JD-R model (Demerouti et al. 2001) provides an explanation as to why individuals experiencing work\u2013family conflict may subsequently experience other negative outcomes, such as depression (Kossek et al. 2006), hypertension, poor physical health , and heavy alcohol use (Frone et al. 1997), decreased well-being (Karimi et al. 2011), and decreased life satisfaction (Greenhaus et al. 2003). Individuals experiencing the demand of work\u2013family conflict may use up their resources attempting to deal with the demand, leading to negative personal outcomes. Additionally, individuals in low-wage jobs may be at a further disadvantage in that they also likely have fewer resources to buffer the negative consequences of work\u2013family conflict, again leading to negative personal and work-related outcomes. For certain, the research examining the intersection of work\u2013family outcomes, gender, and poverty is limited. Additional research is clearly needed in this area in order to understand more fully how contextual variables such as poverty and gender can help to explain differences in work\u2013family experiences.\n\n## 3.4 The Effects of Public Programs on Managing the Work\u2013family Interface\n\nWe have established that low-income workers, who are more likely to be female, are more likely to experience negative work and family interactions. Public policy has been developed to address some of the correlates of these patterns, in the spirit of decreasing the negative outcomes on one's health and well-being . One important assumption of work\u2013family policies on a societal level is that people should not be at risk of falling into poverty because of family care demands (Misra et al. 2007). Although there are public policies in place in the United States that are aimed to assist low-income individuals, Casper et al. (1994) noted that some feminist analyses have demonstrated that welfare programs are often unsuccessful at increasing gender equality , but rather reward households comprised of heterosexual, married couples . In other words, single mothers are often unable to become financially independent with current welfare programs.\n\nIt is important to understand how public policy influences all types of families so that the effectiveness of such policies can be evaluated holistically. Hennessy (2009) proposed that societal expectations of the roles held by men and women are exacerbated by the current policies that are created to assist low-income women, creating a moral dilemma for these women who need to provide financially for their families, but are also expected to be the primary caregiver to their children. Hennessy (2009) described how low-income women are expected to fulfill work responsibilities because they should be responsible for pulling themselves out of the need for welfare . At the same time, a mother's commitment to her family, rooted in societal expectations, is one associated with intense mothering, and is based on the experiences of white, middle-class women. Specifically, work and family conflict arises not only from the need to provide for families, but also from \"cultural and moral contradictions that arise out of constraints on poor mothers' ability to do so\" (p. 560). The part that public policy plays to reinforce societal expectations that perpetuate scenarios for women to remain in poverty is an important component of this discussion.\n\nLooking directly at how work\u2013family policies (i.e., parental leave and child care policies) influence poverty outcomes via support for employment, Misra et al. (2012) noted that we need to be aware of how individual and societal factors intersect to influence the risk of poverty. Misra et al. (2012) examined two types of policies across countries: those that provide state support (such as financial allowances), and those that provide employment opportunities (such as parental leave policies). Based on a sample of women with children, across countries in 11 developed welfare states (i.e., wealthy Western Europe and North American countries, as well as Australia, Israel, and former socialist nations in Eastern Europe), Misra et al. (2012) found that single mothers were at a higher risk of poverty than mothers with partners, and that this probability of poverty was increased when there were fewer family allowances, less generous parental leave policies, and fewer child care provisions. For example in Sweden, where mothers have a low probability of falling into poverty, there are moderate levels of government financial allowance along with generous child care provisions, and high levels of women working full-time. In the United States, where women have a high risk of falling into poverty, there are high levels of women working full-time, but no government allowance for paid leave and low amounts of childcare provisions. Thus, policies that support single mothers outside the home are just as important as supporting them inside the home when it comes to reducing the risk of poverty .\n\nRelatedly, Ray et al. (2009) noted the need to consider the effect that generosity (of time) of family leave has on gender equality . These authors looked at the degree to which family leave policies, across 21 countries, promote an even distribution of time devoted to child care by a mother and father. Interestingly, policies that were more generous to the mother actually created less gender equality, in that the women receive more incentive to take time off of work, therein decreasing the ease with which they could re-enter the workforce after giving birth because of the amount of time she is away from the workplace. With more generous family leave time, mothers end up working even less compared to fathers. What's more, there is also evidence that policies requiring fathers to take parental leave or \"lose it\" (i.e., not transfer it to the mother) increases gender equality.\n\nYet, a lack of family paid leave is also harmful. The United States is the only industrialized country to not offer paid leave when a child is born or adopted into a family. Although the United States does not currently provide paid leave, there is some protection of one's job if time is taken off work when a child is born or adopted, as well as due to the illness of an individual (or one of their family members). The Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) protects jobs up to 12 weeks for those employees who have been working for at least 1250 hours over the past year at an organization that has 50 or more employees. However, there are several limitations of the FMLA. For one, there is a large number of workers not covered\u2014only 11 % of work establishments are eligible (Kelly 2008). In addition, those who are eligible also tend to have higher levels of education and income. Put another way, the poorest individuals and families have the least eligibility (Ray et al. 2009), yet these are the ones who need it the most. Finally, the lack of pay makes it hard to take time off. As a result, men are less likely to use FMLA , because they tend to be paid higher amounts than women, and people tend to take shorter leaves so as not to lose out on pay (Kelly 2008). Given that those who fall into low-income categories are in greater need of such a resource, it becomes clear that improvements are necessary. By comparison, Sweden provides 47 weeks of paid leave, the United Kingdom provides 31 weeks, Canada provides 28 weeks, Japan provides 26 weeks, and Italy provides 25 weeks of paid leave (Ray et al. 2009).\n\nAs of January 2014, there is a proposal in the United States Senate that would pass the Family and Medical Insurance Leave Act , otherwise known as the FAMILY Act . The FAMILY Act would allow both full-time and part-time employees, regardless of the size of their employer or tenure with their current employer, the opportunity to take partially paid leave in the event of pregnancy or childbirth , a personal serious health condition, or a serious health condition of a child, parent, spouse, or domestic partner , or for specific military leave purposes. Paid leave would be available for 12 weeks at 66 % of the average monthly income, with a cap of $ 1000 per week (Center for American Progress 2013). The ability to take paid leave from work would assist low-wage workers in managing health issues and would be particularly important for women, to whom the majority of caregiving responsibilities (not to mention childbirth medical needs) fall.\n\nPolicy makers, therefore, need to consider the information gained through research on the influence of work\u2013family policies on those families they are intended to help. It would be advantageous for policy researchers and work\u2013family researchers to work together to assess the intricate interactions that influence the success of such policies for individuals, organizations, and society, so that policy makers have the information that is necessary to help those who are most in need.\n\n## 3.5 Conclusion\n\nIn sum, it becomes apparent that sex (the biological characteristics that make an individual male or female) and gender (the societal expectations of how women and men are to behave\/stereotypes) are critical considerations when having \u00adconversations surrounding the experiences of low-income individuals and the work\u2013family interface. Based on this review and integration of information on poverty, gender, and work\u2013family experiences, we make several conclusions:\n\n1.\n\nWomen are more likely to fill lower-wage jobs, a result of sex segregation of jobs. One of the correlates of this sex segmentation of jobs is the fact that women are more likely to live at or below the poverty line.\n\n2.\n\nThese low-wage, secondary market sector jobs have more demands and fewer resources, including the ability to move into higher levels of the organizational hierarchy (that are also paid higher incomes), as well as resources that allow for the successful managing of family demands in conjunction with work demands .\n\n3.\n\nThe high level of demands and low amount of resources can create a higher probability of work\u2013family conflict and lower levels of work\u2013family enrichment.\n\n4.\n\nThis interaction of gender, poverty, and work\u2013family interactions therein produce a greater likelihood of lower well-being and greater numbers of health symptoms for women compared to men when balancing work and family responsibilities in the context of poverty.\n\nWe see these interactions as a cycle wherein women and others in low-paying jobs have difficulties in managing the work\u2013family interface that place them at greater risk for well-being and health-related problems, which hurts the quality of life for themselves and their families. As such, there is a systematic nature of poverty that includes feedback loops, with a myriad of predictors and outcomes. Work\u2013family researchers have recently begun to incorporate a systems approach to understanding the work\u2013family interface (e.g., Hammer and Zimmerman 2011), allowing for a more holistic evaluation of work and family systems. This approach incorporates the importance of reciprocal relationships, which clearly become important when poverty and gender are incorporated into the overall systemic nature of work and family domains.\n\nTo add to the understanding of the interactions among these systems, we encourage future research that examines how workplace demands and resources differentially impact work\u2013family conflict, work\u2013family enrichment, and subsequent work, family, health, and well-being outcomes for low-wage workers compared to the more traditionally-studied professional and managerial employees. In addition, a better picture of how policy change could improve the ability of low-wage employees, especially women and single mothers, to move out of poverty and into positions where their overall life quality can improve is warranted. We also recommend using a systems-based approach for modeling these variables and their dynamic, interrelated contexts and processes.\n\nWe have proposed a descriptive model (Fig. 3.1) to understand the part that poverty plays on the relationship between gender and work\u2013family experiences. We see poverty as a moderator of this relationship, in that poverty differentially impacts women's work\u2013family experiences compared to men's work\u2013family experiences. This is especially important to consider given the societal role expectations that women are assumed responsible to fill. The restrictions poverty imposes on resources available to manage the work\u2013family interface is pronounced among women in comparison to men. However, we also see poverty as part of the process that explains how sex impacts work\u2013family experiences. Specifically, we see sex as a predictor of poverty, which in turn predicts work\u2013family experiences. As such, we also view poverty as a mediating mechanism explaining how sex can predict work\u2013family experiences. In sum, poverty creates a context for understanding these differences between men and women in work and family domains, and as a result, should be included in discussions of gender and work\u2013family experiences.\n\nReferences\n\nAryee, S., Srinivas, E. S., & Tan, H. H. (2005). Rhythms of life: Antecedents and outcomes of work-family balance in employed parents. Journal of Applied Psychology, 90, 132\u2013146.PubMedCrossRef\n\nBatt, R., & Valcour, P. M. (2003). Human resources practices as predictors of work-family outcomes and employee turnover. Industrial Relations: A Journal of Economy and Society, 42, 189\u2013220.\n\nBielby, D. D., & Bielby, W. T. (1988). She works hard for the money: Household responsibilities and the allocation of work effort. American Journal of Sociology, 93, 1031\u20131059.CrossRef\n\nBrady, D., & Kall, D. (2007). Nearly universal, but somewhat distinct: The feminization of poverty in affluent Western democracies, 1969\u20132000. Social Science Research, 37, 976\u20131007.CrossRef\n\nBruck, C. S., Allen, T. D., & Spector, P. E. (2002). The relation between work-family conflict and job satisfaction: A finer-grained analysis. Journal of Vocational Behavior, 60, 336\u2013353.CrossRef\n\nBudig, M. J., & Hodges, M. J. (2010). Differences in disadvantage: Variation in the motherhood penalty across white women's earnings distribution. American Sociological Review, 75, 705\u2013728.CrossRef\n\nBurton, L. M., Lein, L., & Kolak, A. (2005). Health and mothers' employment in low-income families. In S. M. Bianchi, L. M. Casper, & R. B. King (Eds.), Work, family, health, and well-being (pp. 493\u2013509). Mahwah: Lawrence Erlbaum.\n\nCasper, L. M., McLanahan, S. S., & Garfinkel, I. (1994). The gender-poverty gap: What we can learn from other countries. American Sociological Review, 59, 5949\u20135605.CrossRef\n\nCenter for American Progress. (2013). The FAMILY Act: Facts and frequently asked questions. http:\/\/\u200bwww.\u200bamericanprogress\u200b.\u200borg\/\u200bwpcontent\/\u200buploads\/\u200b2013\/\u200b12\/\u200bFamilyActFactshe\u200bet-FAQs1.\u200bpdf. Accessed Jan 2014.\n\nDemerouti, E., Bakker, A. B., Nachreiner, F., & Schaufeli, W. B. (2001). The job demands-resources model of burnout. Journal of Applied Psychology, 86, 499\u2013512.PubMedCrossRef\n\nElmelech, Y., & Lu, H. (2004). Race, ethnicity, and the gender-poverty gap. Social Science Research, 31, 158\u2013182.CrossRef00044-9)\n\nFord, M. T. (2011). Linking household income and work-family conflict: A moderated mediation study. Stress and Health, 27, 144\u2013162.CrossRef\n\nFrone, M. R., Russell, M., & Cooper, M. L. (1997). Relation of work-family conflict to health outcomes: A four-year longitudinal study of employed parents. Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology, 70, 325\u2013335.CrossRef\n\nGlauber, R. (2011). Limited access: Gender, occupational composition, and flexible work scheduling. The Sociological Quarterly, 52, 472\u2013494.PubMedCrossRef\n\nGlauber, R. (2012). Women's work and working conditions: Are mother's compensated for lost wages? Work and Occupations, 39, 115\u2013138.CrossRef\n\nGreenhaus, J. H., Collins, K. M., & Shaw, J. D. (2003). The relation between work-family balance and quality of life. Journal of Vocational Behavior, 63, 510\u2013531.CrossRef00042-8)\n\nHammer, L. B., & Zimmerman, K. L. (2011). Quality of work life. In S. Zedeck (Ed.), APA handbook of industrial and organizational psychology, Vol 3: Maintaining, expanding, and contracting the organization (pp. 399\u2013431). Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.CrossRef\n\nHennessy, J. (2009). Morality and work-family conflict in the lives of poor and low-income women. The Sociological Quarterly, 50, 557\u2013580.CrossRef\n\nHoobler, J. M., Wayne, S. J., & Lemmon, G. (2009). Bosses' perceptions of family-work conflict and women's promotability: Glass ceiling effects. Academy of Management Journal, 52, 939\u2013957.CrossRef\n\nHoobler, J. M., Hu, J., & Wilson, M. (2010). Do workers who experience conflict between the work and family domains hit a \"glass ceiling?\": A meta-analytic examination. Journal of Vocational Behavior, 77, 481\u2013494.CrossRef\n\nKarimi, L., Karimi, H., & Nouri, A. (2011). Predicting employees' well-being using work-family conflict and job strain models. Stress and Health, 27, 111\u2013122.CrossRef\n\nKelly, E. L. (2008). Work-family policies: The United States in international perspective. In M. Pitt-Catsouphes, E. E. Kossek, & S. Sweet (Eds.), The work and family handbook: Multi-disciplinary perspectives and approaches (pp. 99\u2013123). Mahwah: Lawrence Erlbaum.\n\nKirchmeyer, C., & Cohen, A. (1999). Different strategies for managing the work non-work interface: A test for unique pathways to work outcomes. Work & Stress, 13, 59\u201373.CrossRef\n\nKmec, J. A. (1995). Setting occupational sex segregation in motion: Demand-side explanations of sex traditional employment. Work and Occupations, 32, 322\u2013354.CrossRef\n\nKossek, E. E., & Ozeki, C. (1999). Bridging the work-family policy and productivity gap: A literature review. Community, Work & Family, 2, 7\u201332.CrossRef\n\nKossek, E. E., Lautsch, B. A., & Eaton, S. C. (2006). Telecommuting, control, and boundary management: Correlates of policy use and practice, job control, and work-family effectiveness. Journal of Vocational Behavior, 68, 347\u2013367.CrossRef\n\nLeana, C. R., Mittal, V., & Stiehl, E. (2012). Organizational behavior and the working poor. Organization Science, 23, 888\u2013906.CrossRef\n\nLitchenwalter, S. (2005). Gender poverty disparity in US cities: Evidence exonerating female-headed families. Journal of Sociology and Social Welfare, 32, 75\u201396.\n\nMisra, J., Moller, S., & Budig, M. J. (2007). Work-family policies and poverty for partnered and single women in Europe and North America. Gender and Society, 21, 804\u2013143.CrossRef\n\nMisra, J., Moller, S., Strader, E., & Wemlinger, E. (2012). Family policies, employment and poverty among partnered and single mothers. Research in Social Stratification and Mobility, 30, 113\u2013128.CrossRef\n\nNational Women's Law Center (2012). Poverty rates among women, men, and children, 2011, 2010, 2000. http:\/\/\u200bwww.\u200bnwlc.\u200borg\/\u200bresource\/\u200bsummary-table-poverty-rates-among-women-men-and-children-2011-2010-2000. Accessed Dec 2013.\n\nOdle-Dusseau, H. N., Britt, T. W., & Greene-Shortridge, T. M. (2012). Work resources as predictors of job attitudes and performance: The process of work-family enrichment. Journal of Occupational Health Psychology, 17, 28\u201340.PubMedCrossRef\n\nOdle-Dusseau, H. N., Herleman, H. A., Britt, T. W., Moore, D. D., Castro, C. A., & McGurk, D. (2013). Family-supportive work environments and psychological strain: A longitudinal test of two theories. Journal of Occupational Health Psychology, 18, 27\u201336.PubMedCrossRef\n\nOffer, S. (2012a). Barriers to social support among low-income mothers. The International Journal of Sociology and Social Policy, 32, 120\u2013133.CrossRef\n\nOffer, S. (2012b). The burden of reciprocity: Processes of exclusion and withdrawal from personal networks among low-income families. Current Sociology, 60, 788\u2013805.CrossRef\n\nPearce, D. (1978). The feminization of poverty: Women, work, and welfare. Urban and Social Change Review, 11, 28\u201336.\n\nPerry-Jenkins, M. (2005). Work in the working class: Challenges facing families. In S. M. Bianchi, L. M. Casper, & R. B. King (Eds.), Work, family, health, and well-being (pp. 453\u2013472). Mahwah: Lawrence Erlbaum.\n\nPowell, G. N. (2011). Women and men in management (4th ed.). Thousand Oaks: Sage.\n\nRapoport, R., Bailyn, L., Fletcher, J. K., & Pruitt, B. H. (2002). Beyond work-family balance: Advancing gender equity and workplace performance. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.\n\nRay, R., Gornick, J. C., & Schmnitt, J. (2009). Parental leave policies in 21 countries: Assessing generosity and gender equality. The Sloan Work and Family Research Network News, 11.\n\nReid, L. W., & Rubin, B. A. (2003). Integrating economic dualism and labor maker segmentation: The effects of race, gender, and structural location on earnings, 1974\u20132000. The Sociological Quarterly, 44, 405\u2013432.CrossRef\n\nReskin, B. F., & Bielby, D. D. (2005). A sociological perspective on gender and career outcomes. Journal of Economic Perspectives, 19, 71\u201386.CrossRef\n\nRoberts, B., Povich, D., & Mather, M. (2012). The working poor families project: Policy Brief Winter 2012\u20132013. The Working Poor Families Project. www.\u200bworkingpoorfamil\u200bies.\u200borg. http:\/\/\u200bwww.\u200bworkingpoorfamil\u200bies.\u200borg\/\u200bwp-content\/\u200buploads\/\u200b2013\/\u200b01\/\u200bWinter-2012_\u200b2013-WPFP-Data-Brief.\u200bpdf Accessed Sept 2013.\n\nSchieman, S., & Young, M. (2011). Economic hardship and family-to-work conflict: The importance of gender and work conditions. Journal of Family and Economic Issues, 32, 46\u201361.CrossRef\n\nShaffer, M. A., Harrison, D. A., Gilley, K. M., & Luk, D. M. (2001). Struggling for balance amid turbulence on international assignments: Work-family conflict, support and commitment. Journal of Management, 27, 99\u2013121.CrossRef\n\nSinclair, R. R., Probst, T., Hammer, L. B., & Schaffer, M. M. (2013). Low income families and occupational health: Implications of economic stress for work-family conflict research and practice. In A. Antoniou & C. Cooper (Eds.), The psychology of the recession on the workplace (pp. 308\u2013323). Cheltenham: Edward Elgar.CrossRef\n\nThompson, C. Q., & Prottas, D. J. (2006). Relationships among organizational family support, job autonomy, perceived control, and employee well-being. Journal of Occupational Health Psychology, 10, 100\u2013118.CrossRef\n\nFootnotes\n\n1\n\nOf course, left out of this discussion is the important issue of race and ethnicity that intersects with gender and class in terms of income inequality. See Frevert, Culbertson, and Huffman (Chap. 4 in this book), and Elmelech and Lu (2004) for an insightful analysis of gender, race, ethnicity, and poverty.\n\u00a9 Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2015\n\nMaura J. Mills (ed.)Gender and the Work-Family Experience10.1007\/978-3-319-08891-4_4\n\n# 4. Exploring the Double Jeopardy Effect: The Importance of Gender and Race in Work\u2013Family Research\n\nTonya K. Frevert1  , Satoris S. Culbertson2  and Ann H. Huffman3\n\n(1)\n\nOrganizational Science PhD Program, University of North Carolina at Charlotte, 9201 University City Boulevard, 28223 Charlotte, NC, USA\n\n(2)\n\nDepartment of Management, Kansas State University, 110 Calvin Hall, 66506 Manhattan, KS, USA\n\n(3)\n\nDepartments of Psychology and Management, Northern Arizona University, P.O. Box 15106, 86011 Flagstaff, AZ, USA\n\nTonya K. Frevert (Corresponding author)\n\nEmail: tfrevert@uncc.edu\n\nSatoris S. Culbertson\n\nEmail: satoris@ksu.edu\n\nAnn H. Huffman\n\nEmail: ann.huffman@nau.edu\n\nKeywords\n\nGenderRace\/ethnicityDouble jeopardyMultiple identitiesIntersectionalityWork\u2013family\n\n## 4.1 Historical Background\n\nThe passage of the Civil Rights Act in 1964 created significant economic, political, and social changes within the USA. Title VII of this historic legislation changed the structure of the labor market in the United States by outlawing some forms of discrimination in the workplace, most notably (at least for discussion of work\u2013life issues) in terms of gender and race . For example, the ratio of women to men in the workforce has moved to near equal numbers (Domenico and Jones 2006). As the USA has slowly implemented and adapted to these changes in workforce demographics , researchers have responded in kind, by examining how these changes differentially impact women versus men (e.g., England 2010; Kmec 2005; Padavic and Reskin 2002) and, in a separate but related research stream, how these changes differentially impact individuals from different racial\/ethnic groups, such as blacks versus whites (e.g., Collins 1997; Pager et al. 2009) or blacks versus Latinos (e.g., Zamudio and Lichter 2008). While these separate streams of research certainly inform us, there is a pressing need to reframe research such that we categorize individuals according to their multiple identities (e.g., black women, Asian men, upperclass Hispanics) to allow for a better understanding of how experiences differ not only between groups (e.g., women vs. men) but also within groups (e.g., black women vs. white women).1 For example, whereby some have suggested that all women are already disadvantaged in the workplace (e.g., Hakim 2004), women of color are considered to be in \"double jeopardy\" for belonging to two disadvantaged status categories\u2014gender and race (King 1988). As such, given their status, it is reasonable to suspect that the work\u2013family needs, resources, and experiences of women of color may be significantly different from the professional white women who have been the primary source of data for work\u2013family researchers. Thus, our goal in this chapter is to demonstrate why using a multiple identities approach is crucial to future work\u2013family research.\n\n## 4.2 Multiple Identities in Work\u2013Family Research: The Intersection of Gender and Race\n\nThere appears to be a paucity of work\u2013family research that examines the experiences of people of color, as the majority of research has been conducted on white employees who live in the USA (Casper et al. 2007). Furthermore, in studies directed at women, the emphasis has been on professional white women to the exclusion of women of color. Given the extant research combined with the beliefs espoused in the popular press that women are getting the short end of the work\u2013family stick (so to speak), researchers have attempted to examine the needs of women in particular as they attempt to fit into a work structure that remains best suited for men (Sandler and Rao 2012). One emergent criticism of this research stream, however, is that the existing research has tended to emphasize work\u2013family experiences of professional white women (typically in management positions; Bianchi and Milkie 2010; Blair-Loy 2003), while work\u2013family experiences of women of color have been largely overlooked (for exceptions, see Glauber 2008; Glauber and Gozjolko 2011; Grzywacz et al. 2007; Han et al. 2008). The advancement of theoretical and empirical work\u2013family research rests on developing a meaningful understanding of women of color's work\u2013family experiences that are situated within the complex power relations affecting their daily lives. In the following section, we discuss the possible reasons for this oversight, both in the academic research and in the popular press .\n\nAlthough all women are linked by their gender (or more specifically, their biological sex) , race separates women of color from white women and thus their access to power, such that black women largely remain in the lowest-paid and lowest-status occupations (Branch 2011). Their position at the bottom of the labor market is one potential reason why women of color have been overlooked in work\u2013family research. Holvino (2010) put forth that \"women of color have always worked and been seen as workers\" (i.e., throughout history as slaves, indentured servants, and domestic service workers) and \"have been generally confined to secondary labor markets and to positions at the bottom of the organizational hierarchy\" (p. 252). Holvino further posits that during the early stages of the women's movement , the contentious division between the private and the public spheres primarily reflected the reality of white women. While white women desired for both the role of housewife or mother to be recognized as work and also for access to the paid workplace, women of color considered \"being able to stay at home and being supported by a husband's paycheck...a luxury that only affluent white women have\" (p. 252). In contrast to their white peers, women of color\u2014traditionally confined to secondary labor markets and jobs at the bottom\u2014desired better working conditions and more job opportunities. Arguably, all women continue to encounter the effects of sexism . The differences in the daily realities between black women and white women, however, reflect the privileges and deficits that stem not only from sexism but also from the simultaneous intersection with racism .\n\nThe omission of women of color has been reflected not only in scholarly research, but also within the contemporary popular press , where the ongoing debate of whether women can \"have it all\" still assumes that the question is most germane to professional white women. For example, while the 2013 bestselling book Lean In by Sheryl Sandberg (2013) was widely lauded as helpful career advice for women, dissenters criticized it for being applicable to only a very small percentage of the female workforce (Rottenberg 2013). Sandberg is a Harvard graduate who once worked as Chief of Staff to the US Secretary of the Treasury and has been Facebook's Chief Operating Officer since 2008 (CNBC.com 2012). Critics argue that, while she is certainly credentialed, Sandberg sits in an extremely high position of privilege that precludes her from grasping the day-to-day hurdles that the majority of women face in simply trying to survive in a rough economy (Dowd 2013) where choices and access are often limited. Books such as Lean In may help women who have fought their way into the C-suite (i.e., corporate officers and directors), but they do not address the needs and realities of women (regardless of race) working in retail\/service\/low-wage jobs that typically have low autonomy , low power , and few career ladders . Further, it assumes that all women have the freedom and resources to make choices as women in Sandberg's position do, when the reality for many women is a job that is not due to choice, but merely due to survival. That is not to say that the work\u2013family experiences among all women (and for that matter men) do not share commonalities (e.g., needing time off from work to handle family matters), but the resources available to manage both are far from universal (e.g., actual time-off policies), and thus it behooves work\u2013family researchers to investigate how and when these differences and similarities occur. Ultimately, such research should thus help inform organizations' work\u2013family policies to fit the needs and realities of their workforces, at all levels of the hierarchy.\n\n### 4.2.1 Gender in Work\u2013Family Research\n\nThe role of gender in work\u2013family research has dramatically changed over the years. Historically, within family settings, men were seen as the breadwinners whereas women were seen as the caretakers, responsible for fulfilling domestic duties (Diekman and Goodfriend 2006; Eagly et al. 2000). These beliefs about where men and women belong\u2014men at work and women at home\u2014persisted long after women joined the paid workforce en masse and began performing alongside their male counterparts. Indeed, whether it is a case of art imitating life or life imitating art, the 1983 comedy-drama film Mr. Mom was arguably successful because it depicted what was seen as a seemingly absurd situation at the time: A married man (portrayed by Michael Keaton) takes on the role of a stay-at-home dad while his wife (portrayed by Teri Garr) becomes the primary breadwinner.2 Thirty years later, the demarcation line persists as men's and women's work and family roles remain relatively divided, particularly at home. Advertisements for cleaning products typically feature women (Lindner 2004) and qualitative research suggests that men who act as primary caregivers to their children are often viewed as an anomaly, despite the practice becoming increasingly common (Rochlen et al. 2008). However, there has been a slow shift away from this traditional framework in which men work outside the home while women work within it, toward a more contemporary one , in which men and women work outside of the home in approximately equal numbers (Friedman and Greenhaus 2000).\n\nDespite the proportion of men and women in the workforce being relatively even in 2013, gender differences persist in terms of family responsibilities as well as perceptions of women who work. The playing field remains far from even, with research demonstrating that women, unlike their male counterparts, face several penalties in both domains. For example, within the workplace, women suffer lower wages compared to men, and remain underrepresented in managerial positions and, in particular, the C-suite (O'Neil et al. 2008). Women also appear to be penalized within the workplace for choices they make outside of the work domain, such as having children. Women with children often suffer a \"motherhood penalty\" 3 in the workplace whereby their careers stagnate, they are seen as less serious workers, and they are not promoted because people assume they prioritize family over the job, career, or firm (Budig and England 2001). Along with penalties in the workplace, women also face penalties at home. Although men have become more involved as caregivers, women are by and large still the ones that are primarily responsible for childcare (Bianchi et al. 2012), even when they are working outside of the home just as much as or more than their partners. As Duxbury and Higgins (1991) aptly noted over two decades ago, and which seems to hold true today, \"...there have been very few changes in society's perception of gender-specific work- and family-role responsibilities over the past few decades,\" and that \"...women have fewer options than men for achieving control over competing role demands\" (p. 71).\n\nThe \"gender perspective posits that caregiving responsibilities reflect cultural prescriptions about who should perform these tasks\" (Maume 2011, p. 414; emphasis in original). For example, when a woman has a child, she is often expected by both her coworkers and her family and friends to reduce her work hours or quit her job, although this assumption is not made about men (Nsiah et al. 2013). In fact, even when women earn more than their husbands, they will often leave their job to care for their children (e.g., Blair-Loy 2003). Moreover, once a woman does leave the workplace for family reasons, research suggests that it is very difficult for her to regain her footing and pick up where she left off in her career (Budig and England 2001).\n\nOf course, it is not just the academics who have noticed these gender discrepancies. In the popular press , a 2012 article in The Atlantic generated much controversy when its female author argued that women \"cannot have it all\"\u2014career and family\u2014given today's economic and social structures (see Slaughter 2012)4 and must often choose one or the other (Hewlett 2002). Yet men do not face the dilemma of choosing between career or family\u2014it is assumed they will have both. A 2001 survey of ultra-achieving career professionals (i.e., those earning more than $ 100,000) by economist Hewlett (2002) found that 49 % of the women were childless , contrasted with 19 % of the men. Although ambitious careers make high demands of all individuals pursuing them, men often do not have to make tradeoffs, as their likelihood of finding a spouse and having children increases as they become increasingly successful. The opposite is true for women and thus those pursuing careers often put off childbearing until later in life or drop out of the career track if they do have children5 . It is clear that differences persist between men and women in terms of the work and family expectations that they encounter both in the labor market and in society-at-large.\n\n### 4.2.2 Race in Work\u2013Family Research\n\nThe role of race in work\u2013family research has also been examined, but to a much lesser extent than gender. In 2000, Perry-Jenkins et al. (2000) compiled a review of work\u2013family research conducted in the 1990s, noting that the focus was almost entirely placed on white families who were typically middle-class professionals. An updated review of work\u2013family research conducted from 2000 to 2010 by Bianchi and Milkie (2010) noted that national changes in the economy and the demographic composition of the US population has driven an expansion in the scope of work\u2013family research. For example, increased immigration from Latin America and Asia has led to increased research on families of color (e.g., Goldberg et al. 2012; \u00adGrzywacz et al. 2007; Olson et al. 2013; Roehling et al. 2005). While this expansion is most welcome, it still largely fails to address the experiences of the United States' historically oppressed and largest racial\/ethnic minority: black Americans.\n\nIt is worth noting at this point that although we are attempting within this chapter to remedy some of the oversight in the work\u2013family literature for not substantially addressing the needs of people of color, the scant research that does exist makes it difficult to paint a precise picture across all racial or ethnic groups (i.e., combining all people of color into a \"nonwhite\" category), let alone between them (i.e., comparing blacks to Asians to Hispanics\/Latinos). Although we do highlight some work\u2013family research studies representing both approaches, our primary frame is comparing and contrasting the experiences of black women to white women. We take this approach for two reasons: (1) although the work\u2013family literature is lacking in its inclusion of all women of color, the parallel inequality literature from sociology does inform our understanding of the experiences of black women (but to the large exclusion of Hispanic\/Latina women and Asian women) and (2) it has been hypothesized that colonized groups (i.e., in the US, blacks) experience greater prejudice and discrimination than immigrant groups (i.e., in the US, Asians and Hispanics\/Latinos; Healey 2012). For example, Asian Americans who were schooled in the United States have recently shown an approximate parity in the labor market with whites (Sakamoto et al. 2009). However, while much more empirical research is needed to truly understand these differences, methodological considerations when employing a multiple identities approach pose some hurdles, given the variability that occurs within racial\/ethnic groups (as we discuss later). Further, the United States' tumultuous history regarding race relations suggests that the \"answers\" are embedded within a network of complex relationships at the individual, familial, organizational, and larger social, political, or economic levels that will take some effort to unravel.\n\nStructural inequalities in terms of race and gender stem from centuries ago, when white males colonized the New World and people of color and women had little to no rights. While there certainly have been some significant moves toward equality following the US Civil War and in the 150 years that subsequently followed, these old threads of race and gender inequality unfortunately persist, despite legislation and efforts otherwise. As history marches on, old patterns of discrimination are reinforced\u2014often without our awareness\u2014as they are so deeply embedded in our social, political, and economic structures. Complex power relations shape the experiences of people of color (Wight et al. 2013), as argued by contemporary scholars such as Patricia Hill Collins, Kimberl\u00e9 Crenshaw, bell hooks, and Charles W. Mills. Because sexism and racism remain embedded in our social structures, those individuals who belong to a dominant social group (i.e., whites) have different experiences than those individuals who do not belong to a dominant social group (i.e., people of color). To a vast extent, work\u2013family research has acknowledged the complex power relations of sexism by exploring how women manage the work\u2013family interface6, but at the same time has failed to acknowledge the complex power relations of racism.\n\nOver the course of the last several decades since the passage of the Civil Rights Act , research has consistently demonstrated that women have faced penalties in both the work and home domains. In parallel to women's penalties, individuals in minority racial\/ethnic groups have also been penalized in both the work and home domains. For example, upon comparing whites and blacks (without consideration of other racial minority groups for the sake of simplicity and brevity), black individuals have been, and continue to be, at a disadvantage within the workplace. An experimental study found that\u2014all else being equal in terms of education and experience on job applicants' resumes\u2014white applicants were twice as likely than black applicants to get a callback or job offer (Pager et al. 2009). This finding suggests that employers still discriminate against black workers in favor of white workers. Although many blacks have moved into management positions, they remain underrepresented at executive management levels (Collins 1997). Further, despite years of legislation and organizations' well-intentioned attempts to diversify their workforces, affirmative action policies and diversity training programs have been shown to be largely ineffective due to larger structural forces that reinforce discriminatory beliefs and attitudes (Kalev et al. 2006). For example, an individual manager or supervisor may want to promote a black employee, but unspoken barriers within some organizations (e.g., a black person has never been in a position of authority in that organization) prevent career advancement from occurring.\n\nAlong with workplace changes following the Civil Rights Act , the subsequent decades also saw shifts in family structures, such as the increased prevalence of single parents (McLanahan and Percheski 2008). Indeed, over half of today's children are projected to spend some time living with a single-parent family before the age of 18. What effect this will have on shaping their life chances is beginning to be explored by researchers, as family structure is argued to be a key link between inequality and intergenerational mobility. Although some previous research found that married black couples divide housework and paid work more equally than do married white and Latino couples (Glauber 2008), recent trends indicate that more black households are headed by women and that blacks have also seen a decline in marriage rates (Branch 2011). As such, increases in single motherhood are more prevalent among black women as compared to white women (McLanahan and Percheski 2008). Additionally, black women have lower education levels relative to white women and black women are overrepresented in low-wage occupations such as service work (e.g., home health aides)\u2014in 2008, 25 % of black women held such jobs (Branch 2011). This overrepresentation is problematic, because individuals in service work (regardless of race and gender) face higher poverty levels. We must make clear, however, that we are not reporting these recent trends to deem single parenthood as \"immoral\"\u2014rather, we report these recent trends to demonstrate that single parents are often penalized economically, particularly if the single parent is a woman of color. With fewer economic resources available, it stands to reason that single parents will face high levels of work\u2013family conflict. Furthermore, for all individuals who live in precarious economic conditions, the stress of such daily living conditions (often correlated with poverty, crime, and substandard housing) translates into greater disparities in physical and mental health outcomes for those individuals (Jackson et al. 2010). Again, this suggests the potential for work\u2013family conflict to be higher among single parents, especially for women of color.\n\nAs empirical research on the work\u2013family experiences of blacks is scant, however, such conclusions are merely speculative and may not be empirically supported. For example, blacks may tap into noneconomic resources to buffer against these stressors, such as social support from extended-kin networks and the larger community (McLanahan and Percheski 2008). Until work\u2013family research is extended beyond the experiences of professional white women, however, nuanced differences will remain unknown. As we have outlined above, gender inequality and racial inequality have been traditionally examined as separate complex power relations. In the past few decades, however, the recognition that individuals exist in the social structure in multiple categories that differentially affect their individual experiences (e.g., not just as women, but as white women or black women) has spurred researchers to study multiple identities through the intersection of gender and race .\n\n## 4.3 The Consequences of Multiple Identities: The Double Jeopardy Effect\n\nOne particularly salient concept for work\u2013family research is the double jeopardy effect, which occurs when race and gender intersect in ways that disadvantage individuals in the social structure (King 1988). For example, white men have historically held the most advantages in US society, seconded by black men and white women (often on parallel trajectories), with black women suffering the most disadvantages at the bottom (Stainback and Tomaskovic-Devey 2012). Since 1964, when institutionalized white male privilege began to be officially dismantled, gains in equal opportunity have spread to black men, white women, and black women. However, these gains have been uneven and inconsistent, tempered by varying trends and varying enforcement during each subsequent decade. For example, the strength of the civil rights movement in the 1960s yielded gains primarily for black men. When legal enforcement of Title VII began in earnest in the 1970s, both white women and black women made progress into better jobs. Indeed, as a negative response to affirmative action by some groups, black women were falsely accused of getting a \"double advantage\" at work, as they fulfilled both race and gender requirements for employers seeking to be compliant with the new laws (Sokoloff 1992). This advantage, however, was a myth. As the civil rights movement declined in the 1980s and corporate human resource practices grew in response to legal oversight, pressures on employers began to wane (Stainback and Tomaskovic-Devey 2012). The women's movement was able to maintain pressure on employers until the 1990s, although white women were the primary beneficiaries . For example, although wage inequality between black women and white women had decreased in the 1970s, black women's wages lagged behind white women's wages by 14 % by 1991 (Branch 2011). Additionally, by 1999, the unemployment rate for black women was double that of white women.\n\nStainback and Tomaskovic-Devey (2012) argue that without pressures from both the government and affected constituencies today, many organizations are slipping back toward resegregation in terms of race and gender (see also Sokoloff 1992). If this regressive trend persists, black women, holding minority status for both race and gender\u2014double jeopardy \u2014are thus most at risk for deleterious treatment within the workforce. For example, black women experience more overall harassment in the workplace than white women (Berdahl and Moore 2006). Overall, research supports the hypothesis that black women are most disadvantaged in the workplace, but how that plays out between the work\u2013family domains remains unclear. As we discuss below, the scant work\u2013family research including women of color has yielded inconsistent findings.\n\n## 4.4 Work\u2013Family Research Including Gender and Race\n\nStudies considering both gender and race are infrequent in work\u2013family research, although the few studies that have done so categorized participants differently such that patterns are hard to discern. For example, in a study using employed women (those working at least 30 hours per week) from a variety of occupations and income ranges, Bernas and Major (2000) found that women of color (defined as nonwhite) experienced significantly less work-to-family conflict and less job stress compared to the women in their sample who were white. Such findings are contradictory to the expectations posited by the double jeopardy effect, but may be due to grouping all women of color into a nonwhite group, as findings may be different when people of color are distinguished between racial\/ethnic groups. Further, Bernas and Major make a point of mentioning that they \"found recruiting a sufficient number of working women with families to be quite challenging and, as a result, relied on several convenient sources\" (pp. 175\u2013176). We further address methodological considerations and limitations below.\n\nOther studies, however, have distinguished between racial\/ethnic groups. For example, Glauber (2008) posits that black women face a second penalty at work beyond the motherhood penalty that all women face. Citing an earlier study by Kennelly (1999)\u2014which found that while employers view all women workers as mothers and less capable in their jobs, they also view all black women as single mothers\u2014Glauber argues that black women are thus perceived as having children out of wedlock, which exacerbates the motherhood penalty . Yes, recent data indicate that more black women are single mothers than white women (Branch 2011; McLanahan and Percheski 2008), but anti-discrimination laws prohibit employers from making decisions rooted in both sex-based and race-based stereotyping (Equal Employment Opportunity Commission 2011) . As men often get a double bonus for both marriage and fatherhood in the workplace, this benefit stands in stark contrast to black women who are often penalized in the workplace not only for motherhood, but also for a perceived lack of marriage. This unequal treatment provides further evidence of the double jeopardy effect for black women.\n\nCompared to their white counterparts, however, African American women who are married and have children are more likely to be employed (Han et al. 2008). Recent research conducted by Glauber and Gozjolko (2011) suggests that wives of white men who hold traditional views (e.g., \"a woman's place is in the home\") are less likely to work outside of the home compared to wives of white men who hold egalitarian views. In contrast, wives of African American men are equally likely to work outside of the home, regardless of their husbands' beliefs about whether this is acceptable or not. One would imagine that tension would arise for women who are employed and whose husbands are against this. If this is indeed the case, it would not be surprising to discover that African American women experience greater levels of work\u2013family conflict than do white women.\n\nReflecting Bianchi and Milkie's (2010) earlier finding that since 2000, work\u2013family research has responded to rising immigration rates from Asia and Latin America, studies have started to reflect this growth among their samples. For example, Grzywacz et al. (2007) quantitatively and qualitatively examined work\u2013family conflict and health experiences of immigrant Latino men and Latina women, and found that work\u2013family conflict was greater for the women than it was for the men. As the authors noted, \"women described clear examples of work-to-family conflict in their daily life, whereas men saw little connection between their work and their family\" (p. 1125). Grzywacz et al., however, did not examine any non-Latino\/a individuals in their study. In a study that did contrast work\u2013family conflict between Hispanic Americans and whites, Hispanic individuals reported more strain-based family interference with work (Olson et al. 2013). In another study that included whites, blacks, and Hispanics, larger gender differences in family-to-work and work-to-family spillover were found among Hispanics than among whites or blacks (Roehling et al. 2005).\n\nDue to the limited research on the intersection of gender and race in work\u2013\u00adfamily research, we now turn to recent labor force data to highlight larger trends in the differences between white women and black women that may inform future work\u2013family research.\n\n### 4.4.1 Labor Force Characteristics of White and Black Women\n\nProgress toward race and gender equality in the workplace is best advanced by increasing the number of women and people of color in management and professional occupations (Stainback and Tomaskovic-Devey 2012). When management and professional positions become increasingly diverse, the odds increase that women and people of color in these positions will help \"pull-up\" other women and people of color into these positions. If women and people of color remain underrepresented in these positions, however, opportunities for advancement stall and patterns of work inequality perpetuate; gains are made, but at a very slow pace. Furthermore, these gains are made disproportionately in terms of race . While women are advancing into management and executive positions, white women are gaining over black women. While women's wages are getting closer to those of men, white women are gaining over black women. While women are participating in the labor force at an increasing rate, white women are gaining over black women.\n\nRecent labor force data from the US Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS 2011) supports this state of affairs. Among white women, 42 % were employed in management, professional, and related occupations\u2014the highest paying major job category\u2014compared to 34 % of black women. This difference is very important to work\u2013family research, as the emphasis on management\/professional participants leads to more white women participating in said research, thus reflecting their experiences more than others. Ideally, work\u2013family research should reflect the experiences of all workers at all levels of the labor market, which would certainly include those in management\/professional occupations. If the default remains set to management\/professionals occupations, however, we are missing the needs of workers in other jobs and occupations who have work\u2013family issues to tackle too. For example, as black women are more likely than white women to work in service occupations (28.3% vs. 20.1 %), it is crucial that we do not leave service workers out of work\u2013family research. We recognize, however, that this limitation is partly due to access to and representation of people of color across the labor force , as discussed above. However, researchers can overcome this limitation by examining more occupational and industrial sectors so as to include those on the fringes and lower tiers of the labor market.\n\nThe need for work\u2013family research to incorporate racial diversity is also reflected in labor force data about families and mothers (BLS 2011), as previously discussed. \"In 2010, nearly one-half (45 %) of black families were maintained by women without a spouse present\" (p. 2), compared to about 15 % of white women. Black women are three times as likely as white women to be \"going it alone.\" If we consider Hobfoll's conservation of resources theory (1989) as it pertains to work\u2013family research in terms of resource allocation , black women are thus at a greater disadvantage than white women in terms of resources and support, often lacking a second income and emotional support from a partner.\n\nAlthough women as a group overall earn less than men, full-time black female employees typically earn about 85 % of what their full-time white female counterparts earn (BLS 2011). The 2008 recession also hit black women harder than white women, as labor force participation for white women fell 2.3 % from 2008 to 2010 (56.3%\u201354.0%), but fell 4.1 % for black women (55.8%\u201351.7%) during the same time period. Further, \"among mothers with children under 18, black mothers are more likely to be in the labor force than white mothers\" (75 % vs. 71 %; p. 2). For households with children under six years old\u2014arguably when demands for flexible work\u2013family policies are at their highest\u2014black mothers are more likely to be in the labor force than white mothers (70 % vs. 63 %). In today's global 24\/7 economy where the boundary between work and home is diminishing, all employees need tools, skills , and resources to successfully manage their work and personal lives . Since work\u2013family research helps inform the policies that organizations implement for their employees' benefit, knowing the needs of the factory worker on the line are just as important as knowing the call center manager's needs. If we do not know how those needs differ\u2014not only within the organization but also across occupations\/industries\/locations\u2014and how those needs are compounded by multiple identities that differentially locate individuals within the overarching social structure, then we are only serving a limited subset of the population. Some might argue that policies implemented in one sector will trickle down to another, but only empirical research can answer our questions and tell us if those needs have been met or are yet to be met.\n\nThus far, we have contrasted the similarities and differences between white women and women of color in terms of their work and family experiences. Next, we address some of the methodological considerations and limitations that arise with intersectional models.\n\n## 4.5 Methodological Considerations\n\nBecause the racial divide in the United States has historically fallen along a black-white dichotomy, there is scant social science research that explicitly includes other racial\/ethnic groups, such as Hispanics\/Latinos, Asians, or Native Americans. These groups are frequently lumped together with blacks into a \"nonwhite\" category and findings generalized to minorities as a whole (Ruggs et al. 2013). While this approach is an attempt to include other racial\/ethnic groups in research, it fails to not only consider the differences between these racial\/ethnic groups (e.g., social class, education, family norms) , but also the differences within the various racial\/ethnic groups (e.g., outcomes for light-skinned blacks vs. dark-skinned blacks; Marira and Mitra 2013). That said, it is important to remember that researchers rarely have free, easy, and open access to whatever data they desire. As Thompson et al. (2013) point out, researchers are often limited by (1) numerical representation of minority groups, such as Native Americans comprising 1.7 % of the general population and (2) methodological issues that may violate assumptions of sampling, power, and generalizability in such targeted approaches. Nevertheless, given that the overall population of people of color in the United States is projected to become the numerical majority of the total US population by 2043 (Ortman 2013), these limitations should start to ease. Further, as scholarly research usually reflects the larger culture, a greater number of studies will likely give way to more diverse participants in time. If work\u2013family researchers want to be ahead of the curve and not stuck in the past or scrambling to catch up, however, it is incumbent upon us to remedy this oversight sooner rather than later.\n\nA second methodological consideration for intersectional research is that it should be employed as a multiplicative model, not an additive one. One of the \u00adfrequent assumptions of measurement in data analyses is that social identities are additive (e.g., black + woman) versus intersectional (e.g., black woman; Bowleg 2008). An additive approach, however, contradicts the central tenet of intersectionality : Social identities and inequality are interdependent for groups such as black women, not mutually exclusive. They do not act independently (i.e., one is never just a person of color without also being of one sex or the other). Intersectionality theory requires that we conceptualize social categories in terms of the stratification that arises through the practices of individuals, institutions, and cultures rather than merely as individual characteristics (Cole 2008). For example, the life experiences of a black woman are a product of the intersection of sexism with racism such that her simultaneous social identity both as a woman and as a person of color marginalizes her in both socially structured categories (Crenshaw 1991).\n\nMoreover, as \"psychologists aim to simplify models for parsimony, either by omitting variables or by statistically controlling for membership in categories other than the one of interest\" (Cole 2009, p. 170), work\u2013family researchers should move forward by considering \"the meaning and consequences of social categories\" (p. 176). Cole (2009) urges researchers to ask three pertinent questions during the research process (Who is included within this category?, What role does \u00adinequality play?, and Where are the similarities?), so that we move away from empirical models in which self-evident demographic variables shape how participants are categorized and thus move toward empirical models that employ intersectional frameworks. Intersectional frameworks may increase our understanding of the complex, intertwined relationships that differentially locate individuals within the overarching social structure. That is not to say that work\u2013family researchers must do away with all methodological practices and turn all of their focus onto underrepresented groups . Rather, work\u2013family researchers can use an intersectional framework\n\n> to look for causes of human behavior both upstream and downstream, to notice and hypothesize about the multiple paths that may lead individuals to the same or similar outcomes, and to understand the ways that different social categories depend on each other for meaning and, thus, mutually construct one another and work together to shape outcomes. (Cole 2009, p. 179)\n\n## 4.6 Broader Impacts and Future Research\n\nAlthough overt prejudice and discrimination have been substantially tempered over the past 50 years, covert prejudice and discrimination persist. For example, women and people of color still face significant barriers to getting a seat at the boardroom table, and those barriers are fortified by inequalities of place, education , and opportunity. As these inequalities come to a head, however, they are on a collision course with changing definitions of family as well as changing roles and role expectations that men and women have traditionally held. The en masse entry of women into the workforce in the 1960s and 1970s coincided with major shifts in work arrangements in the post-Fordist era (e.g., the disappearance of career ladders; Rubin 1995). As men and women negotiated new institutional arrangements in both the work domain and the family domain, their race\/ethnicity rode along with their gender. The long crusade toward workplace equality cannot be achieved with a sole gender lens or a sole racial\/ethnic lens\u2014a proper set of glasses includes both lenses.\n\nTo that end, it behooves researchers to expand their populations of study so that the larger conversation taking place among the popular press , public policy makers, and business leaders is not exclusionary. As such, another factor for consideration is differences by occupational and industrial sector. Not only do different occupations have their own unique stressors, but they are also gendered and\/or racialized. For example, women of color account for an above-average percentage of representation in the field of nursing aides (Alonso-Villar and del Rio 2013). Research has shown that the job of nursing aide\u2014a job that does not require a college degree\u2014has many characteristics that can lead to high stress. Nursing aides primarily focus on caregiving, are more likely to have shift work, and have lower than average pay. But this pattern also exists for jobs that require college degrees. The field of social work, for example, also has a disproportionate number of employees who are women of color. Similar to nursing aides, social work is also considered a high stress job (Wooten et al. 2011). Work\u2013family research has consistently shown that high demand and low resource jobs are especially susceptible to work\u2013family stress , and thus simply examining different occupations may be one way to diversify work\u2013family research.\n\nDifferences in family characteristics should also be considered. The age of becoming a mother for women of color is younger than other women. A report by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (2013) showed that women of color have their first child, on average, at the age of 22.7, compared to white women at the age of 26.0. Research has suggested that this age difference could have several implications. Starting a family at a younger age could introduce some additional stressors for women of color. For example, younger parents are likely to be less financially secure and less mature to handle this responsibility . On the other hand, research has shown that the work\u2013family interface can vary over the life course (Huffman et al. 2013), with the least work\u2013family stressors occurring early in life and then again late in life. This inverted u-shaped curve could mean that individuals who have children early might have fewer stressors since they are not also burdened with extensive job demands. Whatever the case, future research should examine the implications of younger parenting for women of color and their associated work\u2013family stressors.\n\nWe suggested earlier that the numerical representation of people of color makes it methodologically more challenging to assess work\u2013family issues based on both gender and race\/ethnicity . To overcome these challenges, the work\u2013family community needs to find strategies that will allow these groups to be included in work\u2013family research. For example, qualitative methodologies allow us \"to generate new conceptualizations and interpretations of culture that will enable us to make sense of increasingly complex cultural phenomena\" (Birkinshaw et al. 2011, p. 574), an approach that seems particularly suited to the complexity of intersectional research. Additionally, archival data sets exist (e.g., General Social Survey, National Study of the Changing Workforce, Midlife Development in the United States, Panel Study of Income Dynamics) that tap into work\u2013family issues and provide demographic information that would allow researchers to answer questions related to the intersection of gender and race . These extensive data sets may provide work\u2013family researchers with the necessary respondents and variables to answer research questions specific to women of color.\n\nWork\u2013family researchers have used different theories to describe race and\/or gender differences in work\u2013family experiences (e.g., stress resource perspective, organizational leadership theory; Bernas and Major 2000). Work\u2013family researchers need to continue to build on these different theories to develop a comprehensive model of how the characteristics associated with being a woman of color affect the work\u2013life interface. For example, the demands-resource paradigm has become very relevant in trying to explain work and family experiences. The job demands\u2013resources model (Bakker and Demerouti 2007) suggests that every occupation has its own specific risk factors and resources that are associated with the job, and when the worker experiences high risks\/demands and low resources, the individual is likely to experience negative outcomes. Bakker and Demerouti (2007) suggest that this comprehensive model could be applied to various occupational settings. We extend this idea and suggest that this could also be applied to individuals with different personal characteristics. For example, women of color might experience additional demands due to discrimination they endure at work compared to white males (Sokoloff 1992), and these demands that women of color experience may result in increased distress. Although this is just one example of using one theory, we propose that there are others across the social sciences that can provide researchers with a more comprehensive understanding of the workplace experiences of women of color.\n\nAlthough our chapter focuses on the two minority characteristics of gender and race\/ethnicity (specifically women of color), we should also note that there are many other minority characteristics that could further affect women of color. For example, women of color who are lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender (LGBT) experience additional stressors. Potentially, a lesbian woman of color who has children could face \"quadruple jeopardy\" since she is dealing with four minority status characteristics (i.e., gender, race\/ethnicity, sexual orientation, and lesbian parent) that not only carry each of their own disadvantages, but also intersect to compound those disadvantages (Huffman et al. 2012).\n\n## 4.7 Conclusion\n\nThe negotiation between work and family is not a woman's problem; it is a problem that belongs to all of us, as we all interact in the larger social structure that encompasses our work days, our home lives, and the interface between the two. An individual's success in negotiating the increasingly fuzzy work\u2013family boundary depends upon not only her gender, but also upon her race\/ethnicity . Work\u2013family researchers have done a commendable job helping organizations understand why it is in their best interest to offer policies that help workers manage their work and home lives. However, because of structural inequalities that keep women of color out of management\/professional positions, not everyone has benefitted from these efforts. As such, if work\u2013family researchers can inform the leaders of work organizations as well as public policy makers about what needs to be done to eradicate these inequalities, then we must ensure that work\u2013family research reflects the experiences of everyone.\n\nReferences\n\nAlonso-Villar, O., & del Rio, C. (2013). The occupational segregation of black women in the United States: A look at its evolution from 1940 to 2010. Number 304, Working Papers, ECINEQ, Society for the Study of Economic Inequality.\n\nBakker, A., B., & Demerouti, E. (2007). The job demands-resources model: State of the art. Journal of Managerial Psychology, 22, 309\u2013328.CrossRef\n\nBerdahl, J. L., & Moore, C. (2006). Workplace harassment: Double jeopardy for minority women. Journal of Applied Psychology, 91, 426\u2013436.PubMedCrossRef\n\nBernas, K. H., & Major, D. A. (2000). Contributors to stress resistance: Testing a model of women's work-family conflict. Psychology of Women Quarterly, 24, 170\u2013178.CrossRef\n\nBianchi, S. M., & Milkie, M. A. (2010). Work and family research in the first decade of the twentyfirst century. Journal of Marriage and Family, 72, 705\u2013725.CrossRef\n\nBianchi, S. M., Sayer, L. C., Milkie, M. A., & Robinson, J. P. (2012). Housework: Who did, does or will do it, and how much does it matter? Social Forces, 91, 55\u201363.CrossRef\n\nBirkinshaw, J., Brannen, M. Y., & Tung, R. L. (2011). From a distance and generalizable to up close and grounded: Reclaiming a place for qualitative methods in international business research. Journal of International Business Studies, 42, 573\u2013581.CrossRef\n\nBlair-Loy, M. (2003). Competing devotions: Career and family among women executives. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.\n\nBowleg, L. (2008). When black + lesbian + woman \u2260 black lesbian women: The methodological challenges of qualitative and quantitative intersectionality research. Sex Roles, 59, 312\u2013325.CrossRef\n\nBranch, E. H. (2011). Opportunity denied: Limiting black women to devalued work. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press.\n\nBudig, M. J., & England, P. (2001). The wage penalty for motherhood. American Sociological Review, 66, 204\u2013225.CrossRef\n\nBureau of Labor Statistics. (Aug 2011). Labor force characteristics by race and ethnicity, 2010. Report 1032. http:\/\/\u200bwww.\u200bbls.\u200bgov\/\u200bcps\/\u200bcpsrace2010.\u200bpdf. Accessed 25 Sep 2013.\n\nCasper, W. J., Eby, L. T., Bordeaux, C., Lockwood, A., & Lambert, D. (2007). A review of research methods in IO\/OB work-family research. Journal of Applied Psychology, 92, 28\u201345.PubMedCrossRef\n\nCenters for Disease Control and Prevention. (21 Nov 2013). Births and natality. http:\/\/\u200bwww.\u200bcdc.\u200bgov\/\u200bnchs\/\u200bfastats\/\u200bbirths.\u200bhtm. Accessed 18 Jan 2014.\n\nCNBC.com. (22 May 2012). Sheryl Sandberg: Facebook IPO. http:\/\/\u200bwww.\u200bcnbc.\u200bcom\/\u200bid\/\u200b47386998.\n\nCole, E. R. (2008). Coalitions as a model for intersectionality: From practice to theory. Sex Roles, 59, 443\u2013453. Accessed 9 Jan 2014.CrossRef\n\nCole, E. R. (2009). Intersectionality and research in psychology. American Psychologist, 64, 170\u2013180.PubMedCrossRef\n\nCollins, S. M. (1997). Black mobility in white corporations: Up the corporate ladder but out on a limb. Social Problems, 44, 55\u201367.CrossRef\n\nCrenshaw, K. W. (1991). Mapping the margins: Intersectionality, identity politics, and violence against women of color. Stanford Law Review, 43, 1241\u20131299.CrossRef\n\nDiekman, A. B., & Goodfriend, W. (2006). Rolling with the changes: A role congruity perspective on gender norms. Psychology of Women Quarterly, 30, 369\u2013383.CrossRef\n\nDomenico, D. M., & Jones, K. H. (2006). Career aspirations of women in the twentieth century. Journal of Career and Technical Education, 22, 1\u20137.\n\nDowd, M. (23 Feb 2013). Pompom girl for feminism. The New York Times. http:\/\/\u200bwww.\u200bnytimes.\u200bcom\/\u200b2013\/\u200b02\/\u200b24\/\u200bopinion\/\u200bsunday\/\u200bdowd-pompom-girl-for-feminism.\u200bhtml?\u200b_\u200br=\u200b2&\u200b.\n\nDuxbury, L. E., & Higgins, C. A. (1991). Gender differences in work-family conflict. Journal of Applied Psychology, 76, 60\u201374.CrossRef\n\nEagly, A. H., Wood, W., & Diekman, A. (2000). Social role theory of sex differences and similarities: A current appraisal. In T. Eckes & H. M. Trautner (Eds.), The developmental social psychology of gender (pp. 123\u2013174). Mahwah: Erlbaum.\n\nEngland, P. (2010). The gender revolution: Uneven and stalled. Gender & Society, 24, 149\u2013166.CrossRef\n\nEqual Employment Opportunity Commission. (8 Feb 2011). Enforcement guidance: Unlawful disparate treatment of workers with caregiving responsibilities. http:\/\/\u200bwww.\u200beeoc.\u200bgov\/\u200bpolicy\/\u200bdocs\/\u200bcaregiving.\u200bhtml.\n\nFaludi, S. (2007). The terror dream: Fear and fantasy in post-9\/11 America. New York: Metropolitan Books.\n\nFriedman, S. D., & Greenhaus, J. H. (2000). Work and family-allies or enemies? New York: Oxford University Press.CrossRef\n\nGilbert, N. (2008). A mother's work: How feminism, the market, and policy shape family life. New Haven: Yale University Press.\n\nGlauber, R. (2008). Race and gender in families and at work: The fatherhood wage premium. Gender and Society, 22, 8\u201330.CrossRef\n\nGlauber, R., & Gozjolko, K. L. (2011). Do traditional fathers always work more? Gender ideology, race, and parenthood. Journal of Marriage and Family, 73, 1133\u20131148.CrossRef\n\nGoldberg, W. A., Kelly, E., Matthews, N. L., Kang, H., Li, W., & Sumaroka, M. (2012). The more things change, the more they stay the same: Gender, culture, and college students' views about work and family. Journal of Social Issues, 68, 814\u2013837.CrossRef\n\nGrzywacz, J. G., Arcury, T. A., Mar\u00edn, A., Carrillo, L., Burke, B., Coates, M. L., et al. (2007). Work-family conflict: Experiences and health implications among immigrant Latinos. Journal of Applied Psychology, 92, 1119\u20131130.PubMedCrossRef\n\nHakim, C. (2004). Key issues in women's work: Female diversity and the polarisation of women's employment. London: The Glass House.\n\nHan, W. J., Ruhm, C. J., Waldfogel, J., & Washbrook, E. (2008). The timing of mother's employment after childbirth. Monthly Labor Review, 131, 15\u201327.PubMedCentralPubMed\n\nHealey, J. F. (2012). Race, ethnicity, gender, and class: The sociology of group conflict and change. Thousand Oaks: Sage.\n\nHewlett, S. A. (April 2002). Executive women and the myth of having it all. Harvard Business Review, Reprint R0204E, 1\u201311.\n\nHewlett, S. A. (2003). Creating a life. New York: Hyperion.\n\nHewlett, S. A. (2009). Top talent: Keeping performance up when business is down. Cambridge: Harvard Business Press.\n\nHobfoll, S. E. (1989). Conservation of resources. American Psychologist, 44, 513\u2013524.PubMedCrossRef\n\nHolvino, E. (2010). Intersections: The simultaneity of race, gender and class in organization studies. Gender, Work & Organization, 17, 248\u2013277.CrossRef\n\nHuffman, A. H., Culbertson, S. S., Henning, J., & Goh, A. (2013). Work-family conflict across the lifespan. Journal of Managerial Psychology, 28, 761\u2013780.CrossRef\n\nHuffman, A. H., King, E., & Goldberg, A. E. (2012). Valuing lesbian and gay parenting in the workplace. In M. Paludi (Ed.), Managing diversity in today's workplace (pp. 163\u2013185). Westport: Praeger.\n\nJackson, J. S., Knight, K. M., & Rafferty, J. A. (2010). Race and unhealthy behaviors: Chronic stress, the HPA axis, and physical and mental health disparities over the life course. American Journal of Public Health, 100, 933\u2013939.PubMedCentralPubMedCrossRef\n\nKalev, A., Dobbin, F., & Kelly, E. (2006). Best practices or best guesses? Assessing the efficacy of corporate affirmative action and diversity policies. American Sociological Review, 71, 589\u2013617.CrossRef\n\nKennelly, I. (1999). \"That single-mother element\": How employers typify Black women. Gender & Society, 13, 168\u2013192.CrossRef\n\nKing, D. K. (1988). Multiple jeopardy, multiple consciousness: The context of black feminist ideology. Signs, 14, 42\u201372.CrossRef\n\nKmec, J. (2005). Setting occupational sex segregation in motion. Work and Occupations, 32, 322\u2013354.CrossRef\n\nLindner, K. (2004). Images of women in general interest and fashion magazine advertisements from 1955 to 2002. Sex Roles, 51, 409\u2013421.CrossRef\n\nLundberg, S., & Rose, E. (2000). Parenthood and the earnings of married men and women. Labour Economics, 7, 689\u2013710.CrossRef00020-8)\n\nLundberg, S., & Rose, E. (2002). The effects of sons and daughters on men's labor supply and wages. Review of Economics and Statistics, 84, 251\u2013268.CrossRef\n\nMarira, T. D., & Mitra, P. (2013). Colorism: Ubiquitous yet understudied. Industrial and Organizational Psychology: Perspectives on Science and Practice, 6, 103\u2013107.CrossRef\n\nMaume, D. J. (2011). Reconsidering the temporal increase in fathers' time with children. Journal of Family and Economic Issues, 32, 411\u2013423.CrossRef\n\nMcLanahan, S., & Percheski, C. (2008). Family structure and the reproduction of inequalities. Annual Review of Sociology, 34, 257\u2013276.CrossRef\n\nNsiah, C., DeBeaumont, R., & Ryerson, A. (2013). Motherhood and earnings: Wage variability by major occupational category and earnings level. Journal of Family and Economic Issues, 34, 224\u2013234.CrossRef\n\nOlson, K. J., Huffman, A. H., Leiva, P. I., & Culbertson, S. S. (2013). Acculturation and individualism as predictors of work-family conflict in a diverse workforce. Human Resource Management, 52, 741\u2013769.\n\nO'Neil, D. A., Hopkins, M. M., & Bilimoria, D. (2008). Women's careers at the start of the twentyfirst century: Patterns and paradoxes. Journal of Business Ethics, 80, 727\u2013743.CrossRef\n\nOrtman, J. M. (7 Feb 2013). U.S. population projections: 2012 to 2060. U.S. Census Bureau presentation for the Federal Forecasters Consortium Brown Bag Seminar Series on Forecasting at George Washington University, Washington, D.C.\n\nPadavic, I., & Reskin, B. (2002). Women and men at work. Thousand Oaks: Pine Forge.\n\nPager, D., Western, B., & Bonikowski, B. (2009). Discrimination in a low-wage labor market: A field experiment. American Sociological Review, 74, 777\u2013799.PubMedCentralPubMedCrossRef\n\nPerry-Jenkins, Repetti, R. L., & Crouter, A. C. (2000). Work and family in the 1990s. Journal of Marriage and the Family, 62, 981\u2013998.CrossRef\n\nRochlen, A. B., Suizzo, M., McKelley, R. A., & Scaringi, V. (2008). \"I'm just providing for my family\": A qualitative study of stay-at-home fathers. Psychology of Men & Masculinity, 9, 193\u2013206.CrossRef\n\nRoehling, P. V., Jarvis, L. H., & Swope, H. E. (2005). Variations in negative work-family spillover among White, Black, and Hispanic American men and women: Does ethnicity matter? Journal of Family Issues, 26, 840\u2013865.CrossRef\n\nRottenberg, C. (2013). The rise of neoliberal feminism. Cultural Studies, 28, 418\u2013437.CrossRef\n\nRubin, B. A. (1995). Shifts in the social contract. Thousand Oaks: Pine Forge.\n\nRuggs, E. N., Hebl, M. R., Law, C., Cox, C. B., Roehling, M. V., Wiener, R. L., et al. (2013). Gone fishing: I-O psychologists' missed opportunities to understand marginalized employees' experiences with discrimination. Industrial and Organizational Psychology: Perspectives on Science and Practice, 6, 39\u201360.CrossRef\n\nSakamoto, A., Goyette, K. A., & Kim, C. H. (2009). Socioeconomic attainments of Asian Americans. Annual Review of Sociology, 35, 255\u2013276.CrossRef\n\nSandberg, S. (2013). Lean in: Women, work, and the will to lead. New York: Knopf.\n\nSandler, J., & Rao, A. (2012). The elephant in the room and the dragons at the gate: Strategising for gender equality in the twentyfirst century. Gender & Development, 20, 547\u2013562.CrossRef\n\nSlaughter, A. (July\/Aug 2012). Why women still can't have it all. The Atlantic. http:\/\/\u200bwww.\u200btheatlantic.\u200bcom\/\u200bmagazine\/\u200barchive\/\u200b2012\/\u200b07\/\u200bwhy-women-still-cant-have-it-all\/\u200b309020\/\u200b. Accessed 25 Sep 2013.\n\nSokoloff, N. J. (1992). Black women and white women in the professions. New York: Routledge.\n\nJohn, S. W. (20 May 2002). The talk of the book world still can't sell. The New York Times. http:\/\/\u200bwww.\u200bnytimes.\u200bcom\/\u200b2002\/\u200b05\/\u200b20\/\u200bus\/\u200bthe-talk-of-the-book-world-still-can-t-sell.\u200bhtml?\u200bpagewanted=\u200ball&\u200bsrc=\u200bpm.\n\nStainback, K., & Tomaskovic-Devey, D. (2012). Documenting desegregation: Racial and gender segregation in private-sector employment since the Civil Rights Act. New York: Sage.\n\nThompson, R., Bergman, M., Culbertson, S. S., & Huffman, A. H. (2013). Yes, we're fishing-in rough waters for hard-to-find fish. Industrial and Organizational Psychology: Perspectives on Science and Practice, 6, 61\u201365.CrossRef\n\nWight, V. R., Bianchi, S. M., & Hunt, B. R. (2013). Explaining racial\/ethnic variation in partnered women's and men's housework: Does one size fit all? Journal of Family Issues, 34, 394\u2013427.PubMedCentralPubMedCrossRef\n\nWooten, N. R., Kim, H., & Fakunmoju, S. B. (2011). Occupational stress in social work practice. In J. Langan-Fox & C. L. Cooper (Eds.), New horizons in management. Handbook of stress in the occupations (pp. 71\u201387). Northampton: Edward Elgar.\n\nZamudio, M. M., & Lichter, M. I. (2008). Bad attitudes and good soldiers: Soft skills as a code for tractability in the hiring of immigrant Latina\/os over native Blacks in the hotel industry. Social Problems, 55, 573\u2013589.CrossRef\n\nFootnotes\n\n1\n\nFor a scholarly debate about why and how organizational scientists and practitioners should study workers' multiple identities, see Ruggs et al. (2013) and its twelve associated commentaries in Industrial and Organizational Psychology: Perspectives on Science and Practice.\n\n2\n\nArguably, the plot device in this film was not only a man being a stay-at-home father or a woman being the primary breadwinner, but also from the difficulties that each faced in his\/her new role, which speaks even more to prevailing social norms that these were not \"typical\" or \"natural\" roles for these individuals because of their gender. Further, the film presents the switch as forced: the husband is laid off and unable to find a new job, thus the wife dusts off her college degree and gets a job in advertising. At the film's end, he is called back to work and she happily quits her job, insinuating the role reversal was an anomaly and life has returned to \"normal.\"\n\n3\n\nThe persistence of traditional gender norms is further demonstrated by the sharp contrast between the expectations of mothers at work and the expectations of fathers at work, as men appear to be a given a wage premium for fatherhood (Lundberg and Rose 2000, 2002). The \"fatherhood premium,\" however, seems to advantage white and Latino males, but not necessarily black males (Glauber 2008).\n\n4\n\nAs of 2013, Slaughter's article is the most widely read piece in The Atlantic's history (Rottenberg 2013).\n\n5\n\nIndeed, Hewlett once suggested that women should start having babies in their twenties or risk ending up being childless and sad (see Creating a Life 2003). Her controversial message was trumpeted by news media outlets as a dire warning to women to mind their biological clocks (St. John 2002), yet was criticized by the feminist community (Gilbert 2008), attributed to the \"baby panic\" narrative (Faludi 2007), and lampooned on Saturday Night Live (Hewlett 2009).\n\n6\n\nFor a review on men and work\u2013family research, see Chap. 2.\n\u00a9 Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2015\n\nMaura J. Mills (ed.)Gender and the Work-Family Experience10.1007\/978-3-319-08891-4_5\n\n# 5. Challenging Heteronormative and Gendered Assumptions in Work\u2013Family Research: An Examination of LGB Identity-Based Work\u2013Family Conflict\n\nKatina B. Sawyer1  , Christian N. Thoroughgood2  and Jeanette N. Cleveland3\n\n(1)\n\nDepartment of Psychology, Villanova University, St. Mary's Hall, Suite 119, 800 Lancaster Avenue, 19085 Villanova, PA, USA\n\n(2)\n\nDepartment of Management and Organizational Development, Northeastern University, 360 Huntingdon Avenue, 112 Hayden Hall, 02115 Boston, MA, USA\n\n(3)\n\nDepartment of Psychology, Colorado State University, 228 Behavioral Sciences Building, 1876 Campus Delivery, 80523 Fort Collins, CO, USA\n\nKatina B. Sawyer (Corresponding author)\n\nEmail: katina.sawyer@villanova.edu\n\nChristian N. Thoroughgood\n\nEmail: c.thoroughgood@neu.edu\n\nJeanette N. Cleveland\n\nEmail: jeanette.cleveland@colostate.edu\n\nKeywords\n\nWork\u2013family conflictLGB identitiesHeterosexual biasDisclosure disconnects\n\n## 5.1 Introduction\n\nA vast body of research on work\u2013family conflict (WFC) exists across a variety of disciplines, with studies accumulating rapidly since the formalized inception of the term in 1985. WFC refers to a form of interrole conflict in which role-related pressures from the work and family domains are incompatible in some respect- that is, participation in the work role is made more difficult by virtue of participation in the family role and vice versa (Greenhaus and Beutell 1985). However, despite many important contributions made by scholars over time, studies of WFC continue to suffer from certain heteronormative assumptions that organize, make coherent, and privilege heterosexuality by building it into the fabric of organizational cultures and structures (Berlant and Warner 1998). This chapter seeks to highlight how these assumptions may inform our conceptualization of the family as a unit of study, which constrains the extent to which we capture the experiences of WFC for lesbian, gay, and bisexual (LGB) individuals. Specifically, we suggest that WFC may be experienced differently for LGB employees due to the exclusion of LGB families within traditional conceptualizations of the family structure.\n\nBy expanding our definition of the family, and by implication, WFC, more inclusive measures that are less susceptible to heterosexual bias are made possible. In turn, such work promises to provide an understanding of the underlying biases that may exist within the current WFC framework, as well as a greater awareness of the ways in which WFC operates across certain nontraditional family structures. In contrast, by ignoring heterosexual bias in our conceptualizations of WFC, we run the risk of perpetuating potential construct contamination and deficiency in our measures and limiting the construct validity of the WFC construct more broadly. Even more importantly, we may risk limiting the explanatory power of our theories, as well as silencing and rendering invisible members of LGB families in future WFC studies. Finally, because LGB individuals make up an increasingly greater proportion of the workforce (Day and Schoenrade 2000), with estimates of anywhere between 4 and 17 % (Ragins et al. 2007), employers stand to gain from work\u2013family policies that effectively attract and retain top LGB talent.\n\nIn order to highlight previously unexamined heterosexual biases within the WFC literature, we discuss how conceptualizing WFC as an issue of time, strain, or behaviors only, without considering issues related to identity, may restrict our definition of what a family can be and how families are envisioned in the workplace. Specifically, we examine how the current framing of WFC creates a heteronormative view of the family by overlooking the potentially unique identity-related experiences of LGB individuals (e.g., conflicting pressures between partners and coworkers to come out at work, reluctance to ask for family insurance and other benefits) that may contribute to tensions between their work and family lives.\n\nLGB experiences of WFC may differ dramatically from those of heterosexuals, and thus have implications for the effectiveness of potential work\u2013family policies. Given that LGB individuals may not be accepted at work (Croteau 1996; Foldy and Creed 2003; Ragins 2004; Ragins et al. 2007; Ragins and Cornwell 2001), WFC may occur when individuals have families who fall within the LGB domain (i.e., when they are members of same sex couples\/families). Examining WFC for members of same sex couples allows for the examination of unique WFC issues which have not previously been considered, and calls for more inclusive WFC policies within organizations.\n\nTo provide a theoretical foundation for our propositions, we take an interdisciplinary perspective by drawing on the field of women's studies and, in particular, Intersectionality Theory (Crenshaw 1989). Intersectionality refers to the ways in which multiple aspects of identity, including race, gender, class, and sexual orientation , combine and interact with one another to form qualitatively different meanings and social experiences (Warner 2008). Intersectionality allows us to examine experiences and outcomes for members of more specific identity groups (e.g., black women instead of women more broadly, or with an additional layer, black gay women instead of all black women). Given that previous work has not considered LGB identity as an additional layer that might affect the work\u2013family interface, intersectionality offers a useful tool for examining how LGB identities might impact relationships between work and family. Thus, the current work extends our understanding of WFC beyond a singular focus on traditional gendered and sexuality-based experiences and toward the inclusion of more diverse populations. This added layer may alter some of the prevailing assumptions within the WFC literature and expand our conceptualization of WFC moving forward.\n\nTo organize our discussion, we first briefly discuss how WFC has been traditionally conceptualized and assessed in the literature. Second, we discuss the origins and prevalence of LGB discrimination in the workplace, and the implications of prejudice on LGB employees' decisions to \"come out\" at work, in order to provide a basis for understanding how LGB workers may experience WFC differently from their heterosexual peers. Third, based on our discussion, we suggest that current measures of WFC may suffer from heterosexual bias in that such scales consist of items that may be uniquely interpreted by LGB individuals . Furthermore, we argue that an additional dimension (identity-based conflict) may be necessary to better capture the WFC experiences of LGB employees. Fourth, we suggest how to proceed with developing a more inclusive measure of WFC, highlight the potentially unique antecedents of LGB identity-based WFC, and describe several other important avenues for future research. Finally, we conclude with practical implications.\n\n## 5.2 Defining Work\u2013Family Conflict\n\nAs noted earlier, WFC broadly refers to the ways in which aspects of one's work life interfere with one's family life and vice versa. A number of researchers have called attention to the need to distinguish between two separate constructs\u2014one that focuses on the ways in which work demands impede on the family (WFC) and the other examining the ways in which family interferes with work (family-work conflict, FWC) (Frone et al. 1992, 1997; MacEwen and Barling 1994; O'Driscoll et al. 1992; Williams and Alliger 1994). Both WFC and FWC have been traditionally conceptualized and measured using time, strain, and behavior-based dimensions (Carlson et al. 2000; Greenhaus and Beutell 1985; Greenhaus et al. 2006).\n\nTime-based conflict occurs when time devoted to one role makes it difficult to devote time to another role, reducing one's performance in the latter role. For example, time-based conflict may arise when a family member's birthday dinner falls on an evening when an employee is required to stay late at work. Strain-based conflict exists when stress experienced in one role spills over into another role, causing strain symptoms (e.g., anxiety, irritability) and reducing one's ability to perform in the second role. People may experience strain-based conflict, for instance, when work-related stress leads to a conflict with a family member or members. Finally, behavior-based conflict occurs when behaviors required to be effective in one role are incompatible with those required to be effective in another role. For example, behavior-based conflict might occur when an individual is lacking authority at work, but is then required to act as an authoritative figure at home.\n\nIt is important to note that we use the term \"family\" to refer more specifically to \"families of choice\" , a distinction that captures the experiences of individuals with LGB family structures (Cherlin 2004) . Families of choice do not necessarily include biological or legal relationships, but nonetheless encompass relationships that are considered as close as those in which blood or legal ties are present (Weeks et al. 2001). As such, we define \"family\" as those individuals that one identifies as family members, without the necessity of blood or legal ties, allowing us to categorize those in same-sex relationships as families.\n\n## 5.3 Gender and Sexuality: Intersecting Identities and the Roots of Heterosexism\n\nIn order to better understand why LGB individuals might experience WFC differently than their heterosexual counterparts, it is important to first consider the influence of gender and gender norms in creating heterosexist attitudes within society. While sex is determined by one's biology, gender refers to a more general term that encompasses \"all social relations that separate people into different gendered statuses\" (Lorber 1994, p. 3). As such, gender is not solely a reflection of biology, but rather is a product of a complex and interwoven pattern of social interactions, which constitutes and reconstitutes what it means to be \"male\" and \"female\" at a societal level.\n\nButler (2004) further focused on the link between gender and sexuality by questioning the extent to which both categories are purely performative. Specifically, she argued that gender, as well as sexuality, should not be thought of categorically, but rather as a continuous state of being that can fluctuate over time. Butler (2004) also suggested that our construction of gender assumes that part of being male and part of being female is implicated in who we choose as a sexual partner (i.e., someone of the opposite sex). That is, once one is labeled as male or female in terms of their gender, the individual is assumed a priori to have a partner of the opposite sex. In this way, gender and sexuality are inextricably linked within our current heteronormative societal framework.\n\nSimilarly, our performance of sexuality assumes that there exists a \"natural\" sexual orientation (heterosexual) and that any other orientation reflects merely a poor imitation (Butler 2004). In turn, binaries between heterosexuality and all other forms of sexuality are created, along with a false sense of naturalness for heterosexuality and an assumption of abnormality for any other form of sexuality . Given that gender norms lay the framework for the assumption that people should prefer romantic associations with those of the opposite sex, the link between the false naturalization of gendered performance and heterosexuality is made (Butler 2004). Consequently, LGB individuals may be perceived negatively at a societal or individual level because they simultaneously break with deeply rooted gender norms and demonstrate assumedly \"unnatural\" sexual behavior. In the current work, we call for work\u2013family research that begins to challenge these heteronormative assumptions and examines the intersections of gender and sexuality in a less biased way, by placing a greater emphasis on LGB identities in experiences of WFC.\n\n## 5.4 LGB Discrimination in the Workplace\n\nMaking clear the discrimination that LGB employees experience at work contributes to a better understanding of why they may view the workplace as particularly insensitive, or even hostile, toward their LGB identity and family status, in turn contributing, as we argue below, to differential experiences of WFC compared to their heterosexual peers. It has been estimated that between 25 and 66 % of LGB employees have been discriminated against in the workplace, based upon their sexual orientation (Croteau 1996). Further, Ragins and Cornwell (2001) found that one-third of gay and lesbian professionals had been verbally or physically harassed at work and a little over a third had been harassed just because they were assumed to be gay or lesbian. Nearly 12 % found the harassment to be so severe that they decided to leave their jobs entirely. Because sexual orientation is not yet a legally protected class , organizations are not required to include sexual minority status in nondiscrimination statements or to be LGB-friendly. Thus, LGB workers can be fired without any legal protection (Van Den Bergh 2004). Employees are particularly vulnerable to discrimination if they are not living in one of the 21 US states (or the District of Columbia) which have made LGB discrimination illegal at the state level. Even these state laws , however, can be overturned at the federal level, demonstrating a lack of real legal protection for LGB individuals at work.\n\nIn addition to interpersonal prejudice , certain structural features of organizations, including policies and practices related to work\u2013family issues, play a major role in the level of discrimination that LGB employees experience (Ragins and Cornwell 2001; Button 2001). Many organizations do not provide domestic partner benefits and will not extend the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) to domestic partners (Van Den Bergh 2004). The lack of policies that are sensitive to the experiences of LGB individuals and their families is problematic given that their absence has been previously shown to be the best predictor of frequency and severity of discrimination at work (Button 2001; Ragins and Cornwell 2001). Because LGB employees are frequently not able to benefit from inclusive antidiscrimination policies, inconsistent and potentially harmful experiences for LGB employees are more likely to occur across their careers. Further, organizations that do not endorse a friendly climate toward LGB employees create spaces in which it is both frightening and detrimental for individuals to reveal their \"family of choice\" (Van Den Bergh 2004). Although it has been demonstrated that participation in diversity training , which includes information about sexuality , may produce more positive attitudes toward LGB individuals (Probst 2003), diversity training sessions, especially those including sexuality, may not be offered within organizations (Day and Schoenrade 2000).\n\nThus, as a result of prejudice toward LGB employees and their families, LGB individuals may experience unique WFC when compared to heterosexual employees and their families. The pathologizing of homosexuality and the belief that LGB individuals suffer from mental illness or that they make the choice to be LGB (Sedgwick 1988) allows individuals to feel as if discrimination against LGB individuals is warranted. If the general population believes that LGB individuals are inherently \"sick\", then fully incorporating LGB individuals into the workplace is not seen as a given, but rather as a choice that should be made on an individualized basis. Thus, LGB individuals are not granted the same rights as other minority groups, who have identities which are viewed as immutable and psychologically \"normal\".\n\nIndeed, Colgan et al. (2000) found evidence for many people's restricted definitions of \"family\" with regard to LGB families versus heterosexual families. The authors highlighted the extent to which stereotypical markers of a heterosexual family (in this instance, children), may lead to confusion when an employee reveals an LGB identity. Thus, based on stereotypically heterosexual family indicators, coworkers may make assumptions that fellow employees must also be heterosexual. In the same vein, Williams et al. (2009) highlighted the ways in which organizations privilege heterosexual families through policy, reinforcing heterosexual relationship norms, and by implicitly encouraging employees and clients to normalize heterosexuality in their interactions with one another. Overall, it appears that (in many instances) LGB families are rendered invisible and impossible (Foucault 1992) within organizations. However, because LGB individuals are able to choose whether or not to reveal their LGB identity, these individuals have the option to either remain silent or to become visible within their organization with regard to their LGB identity. Thus, LGB individuals have a unique WFC vantage point\u2014their partner or family identity must be actively revealed in order for individuals at work to be aware of its existence.\n\n## 5.5 Implications of LGB Discrimination on \"Coming Out\" at Work\n\nBecause LGB employees may be well aware of the risks inherent in being LGB at work, they may choose not to reveal their LGB identity in the workplace. Ragins et al. (2007) found that fear of disclosure predicted a variety of important workplace outcomes in addition to employee strain, over and above actual disclosure. Thus, fear of disclosure is an important consideration when estimating the effects of acceptance (or lack thereof) for LGB employees in the workplace. Further, Croteau (1996) found that, across nine studies, fear of disclosure is a major concern for LGB employees. Results also demonstrated that LGB employees were more likely to be discriminated against when they were \"out\" at work. This is pertinent to WFC because LGB individuals may be unlikely to disclose their LGB identity and, at the same time, their family identity in order to avoid this discrimination. In this way, the fear of being LGB at work causes LGB individuals to monitor their behavior at all times, self-policing and managing their identity constantly, similarly to the way in which Foucault (1992) described the watchtower mentality. Even when an authoritative figure is not physically present, individuals continue to monitor their identity, fearing the repercussions that might befall them if they are \"discovered\" as their true selves. This constant experience of invisibility and the impossibility of truly \"being\" at work may be both mentally and physically exhausting for LGB employees (Colgan et al. 2008; Ellis and Riggle 1996; McDermott 2006). Thus, if individuals actively wish to be out of the closet and are unable to do so because of a hostile work environment (c.f., Croteau 1996; Ragins et al. 2007; Ellis and Riggle 1996), the experienced push and pull between identity preferences and situational reality may lead to increased conflicts between work life and home life. We focus here on the relationships between being closeted and WFC stressors that may arise as a result.\n\n## 5.6 Disclosure Disconnects and LGB Work Family Conflict\n\nGiven the impact of actual and perceived discrimination on LGB employees' decisions to \"come out\" at work, it is easy to imagine the various pushes and pulls between the work and family domains on such individuals. Ragins (2004) noted that LGB individuals may be \"out\" to varying degrees in both their work and personal lives. Indeed, research suggests that LGB employees disclose at different rates to parents, spouses, friends, schoolmates, and coworkers (Schope 2002). This variation in \"outness\" across groups produces a \"disclosure disconnect\" (Ragins 2008), which creates stress for LGB employees. Hill (2009), for instance, noted that LGB employees are often expected to leave their family lives at home, while heterosexual employees may not have to worry about creating separation between work and family life.\n\nThis creates an important difference in the WFC experienced by heterosexual employees versus LGB employees. It may be the case that for heterosexual individuals the separation between work and family leads to lower WFC, given that heterosexual employees are able to freely choose the extent to which they disclose various aspects of their family lives at work. It may also be the case that, when convenient, heterosexual employees are also able to effectively fuse, or reduce the space between, their work and family lives through various work\u2013family policies (e.g., on-site childcare, bringing family to work events). Thus, the impetus to separate work and family domains by choice or increase the ways in which work and family life can be combined may benefit heterosexual employees who can freely select between a number of viable WFC solutions. In contrast, the option to mix work and family may not be available for LGB employees, resulting in the forced construction of barriers between the work and family realms.\n\nThus, within organizations that do not accept LGB families as legitimate, the active separation between the work and family domains is not done by choice, such that even speaking about one's LGB relationship\/family at work is considered taboo. Consequently, it may be that the separation of the work and family domains is an issue of having options\u2014an employee (no matter their sexual identity) benefits from the personal choice to leave work at the office and family at home when it is convenient. However, for LGB employees this decision is made a priori\u2014the family domain is deemed unacceptable within the work domain. The conclusion is that, while attempting to extricate the work and family domains from one another may reflect a plausible solution for WFC among heterosexual employees, this very act may produce WFC for LGB employees. The implicit message sent when organizations allow for selective separation of work and family time is that the organization is cognizant of the heterosexual family only, and thus creates policies that make it possible for certain employees to keep family time \"sacred.\"\n\nHowever, when LGB relationships\/families are invisible at work (thereby forcibly separating the work and family spheres), it fosters a belief that the organization views LGB families as nonexistent. This belief is propagated by the lack of fair and inclusive workplace policies and practices for LGB employees. In effect, the experience of being \"allowed\" to keep work and family life separate or integrated is quite different from the experience of forcible separation of work and family realms through fear and a lack of acceptance, especially when this separation is not favorable or preferred. Consistent with this assertion, Day and Schoenrade (2000) found that higher levels of disclosure were related to less perceived WFC.\n\nOverall, the persistence of LGB discrimination seems to reflect a continued social stigma related to being gay, thereby leading to fear, ostracism, disregard, or even disgust toward LGB employees in the workplace (Embrick et al. 2007). Given that WFC is a major issue at work, and given that members of LGB families may be discriminated against with respect to work\u2013family policies, it is vital that we study the ways in which our assessments of and preventative measures regarding WFC may be biased toward heterosexism. A necessary first step is to examine how current conceptualizations and measures of WFC may be contaminated or deficient, potentially leading to more inclusive work\u2013family studies and policies.\n\n## 5.7 Heterosexual Bias in Measures of Work\u2013Family Conflict\n\nWhile measurement bias and unfair testing practices remain a consistent issue of concern to psychologists, the impact of heterosexual bias on many popular survey measures is still understudied . Heterosexual bias is a belief system that places more value on heterosexuality and views heterosexuality as a more \"natural\" form of sexuality than homosexuality (Morin 1977). Heterosexual bias is reinforced by systems and methodologies, which assume heterosexuality as a given (heteronormativity) , privileging heterosexual views and rendering others unnecessary or invisible (Morin 1977). Indeed, most surveys are constructed and tested within populations that are assumed a priori to be heterosexual. As a result, heterosexuality tends to be the normative lens through which researchers study \"natural\" phenomena. However, given that LGB individuals make up between 4 and 17 % of the workforce (Gonsiorek and Weinrich 1991), questions remain regarding the extent to which various surveys used in studies of organizational phenomena function equally across participants and capture certain populations' unique experiences.\n\nGiven our discussion in the preceding sections, we suggest that it is important to consider the possibility that LGB workers may experience WFC differently given real and perceived prejudicial barriers that prevent them from discussing their LGB identities and families at work. More specifically, we argue that current WFC measures contain items that may be differentially interpreted across heterosexual and LGB groups, introducing construct contamination and inaccuracy into studies of WFC. We also suggest the possibility that the WFC construct may be deficient in that it may not fully capture the ways in which work and family can conflict with one another, particularly for LGB individuals. In the following section, we examine the ways in which LGB members may uniquely interpret WFC items from existing scales.\n\n### 5.7.1 Differential Item Interpretation Among LGB Members\n\nFor the purposes of the present effort, we discuss Carlson et al.'s (2000) measure as a potential example of heterosexual bias in measures of WFC. Carlson et al.'s measure is comprised of six dimensions: time (WFC and FWC) , strain (WFC and FWC), and behavior-based (WFC and FWC) conflict . As such, it conforms to the popular three-dimensional framework introduced by Greenhaus and Beutell (1985), while also acknowledging more recent distinctions made between WFC and FWC. Carlson et al. (2000) selected nonredundant items across 25 previously existing scales in the work\u2013family literature, resulting in their inclusion of 31 items from 8 scales. This initial pool of items was then factor-analyzed and narrowed down to a final set of 18 items, which were then validated against various work\u2013family criteria. Because the measure represents a synthesis of 25 existing measures, it is the most comprehensive to date, and therefore provides a useful starting point for identifying potential heterosexual bias inherent in various WFC scales. (See Carlson et al. 2000 for the full measure, although sample items are discussed below.)\n\n#### 5.7.1.1 Time-Based WFC and FWC\n\nBeginning with time-based work interference with family, from a heterosexual viewpoint, items such as \"My work keeps me from my family activities more than I would like\" clearly relate to time . However, from an LGB perspective, this item may be differently interpreted. Being kept from family activities because of work could be due to a variety of circumstances, which may have little to do with time. For example, if one works in a small town and does not feel inclined to reveal his\/her LGB identity to an employer, then work may serve to keep LGB employees away from taking part in family activities where it is possible they will be observed by a coworker (e.g., going to a local park with one's LGB family, grocery shopping with one's LGB partner), even if there is ample time to perform such activities. Further, being able to bring a spouse or significant other to work events has been noted as a major determinant of satisfaction at work for LGB individuals (Ragins and Cornwell 2001). Those who are unable to bring partners or other family members to work events may feel that they are missing family time given that they are unable to combine work and family time, even when they are \"off the clock.\"\n\nAuthors have noted that those who hide their sexual orientation at work may find it stressful merely discussing summer vacations, weekend activities, or other occurrences outside of work (Preston et al. 2006; Gedro 2007). As such, the fear of revealing one's sexual identity may keep employees from participating in family activities through which they may be \"outed.\" This is likely to vary according to one's level of outness , however. Those who are \"out\" at work are unlikely to feel that they need to shield themselves from being seen at events outside of the workplace. However, for those who are \"out\" to only a few or to none, the consequences of being seen with one's partner or family outside of work are much greater . The other two items within time-based WFC are more clearly worded to be about time specifically and, as such, are unlikely to pose a problem with respect to heterosexual bias . As such, we believe that current measures of time-based WFC may suffer from heterosexual bias such that LGB individuals will interpret certain scale items differently than heterosexual individuals .\n\nMoving from WFC to FWC, time-based family interference with work also contains another potentially problematic item\u2014\"The time I spend with my family often causes me not to spend time in activities at work that could be helpful to my career.\" When read in the context of a heterosexual family , the item reflects an issue of time\u2014if you spend a lot of time with your family, there may not be enough time to complete work tasks. Yet those in LGB families may interpret spending time with their family as inextricably linked with being a part of a family structure which is not well accepted at work . As such, for those who are \"out\" at work, this item might read very differently, such that the interpretation may be, \"Because I am a part of an LGB family, I am passed over when opportunities arise at work.\" Further, if a closeted LGB employee is unable to engage in social gatherings where employees are expected to bring their partners, or becomes involved in conversations surrounding weekend plans, vacations, etc., he\/she may feel disconnected from coworkers and less likely to receive job rewards . Thus, deciding whether to engage in work activities that could result in rewards may have nothing to do with whether one has time to complete such activities and more to do with whether one feels comfortable engaging in them .\n\nIt is important to mention that one of the most popular interventions to WFC stems from the time-based dimension: flexible working arrangements (FWAs). FWAs provide the ability to vary working hours and scheduling around personal obligations and family needs (Rau and Hyland 2006). For example, Shockley and Allen (2007) found that FWAs were negatively related to WFC for women with high levels of family responsibility . FWAs are becoming increasingly popular in organizations as effective interventions for WFC. However, FWAs have only been demonstrated to have beneficial outcomes for those who experience high levels of WFC as it is traditionally measured (Rau and Hyland 2006). Therefore, time reflects only one cause of work\u2013family constraints and while a lack of time may be a primary facet of WFC for LGB employees, similar to their heterosexual counterparts, there may be additional layers of WFC that LGB individuals experience. Following this logic, it is possible that current measures of time-based FWC may suffer from heterosexual bias such that LGB individuals will interpret certain scale items differently than heterosexual individuals .\n\n#### 5.7.1.2 Strain-Based WFC and FWC\n\nStrain-based items focus in on a different facet of WFC, such that their interpretation may be similar across heterosexual and LGB participants, yet their antecedents may differ. For example, the strain-based WFC scale includes the items, \"When I get home from work, I am often too frazzled to take part in family activities\/responsibilities,\" \"I am often so emotionally drained when I get home from work that it prevents me from contributing to my family\", and \"Due to pressures at work, sometimes when I come home I am too stressed to do the things I enjoy.\" Here, the root cause for being \"frazzled\", \"emotionally drained\", or \"stressed\" may vary for LGB employees. Higher levels of stress and strain at home may reflect not only job-related demands but also a need to conceal one's LGB identity\/family at work. Thus, LGB employees may score higher on these items than their heterosexual peers for reasons that reflect their LGB identities and family situations, rather than simply job demands. Thus, current measures of strain-based WFC may suffer from heterosexual bias such that LGB individuals may interpret certain scale items differently than heterosexual individuals .\n\nSimilarly, items within the strain-based FWC scale that read, \"Due to stress at home, I am often preoccupied with family matters at work\", \"Because I am often stressed from family responsibilities, I often have a hard time concentrating on my work\", and \"Tension and anxiety from my family life often weakens my ability to do my job\", may elicit higher endorsement from LGB workers. Stress, tension, and anxiety at work arising directly from one's family life may stem from the stress and strain of daily living (e.g., conflicts with a spouse, caring for a disabled child), but can also be exacerbated by the inability to reveal one's LGB family structure at work. Such items may be assessing a different kind of strain from an LGB standpoint, given that stress and anxiety can arise when employees are discriminated against for coming out at work or are \"closeted\" and find themselves in heterosexist work environments. Further, some individuals may experience conflict at home about whether or not to come out at work. For example, it may be the case that one's partner is out at work, while they are not . The partner who is out might put pressure on the closeted partner to reveal his\/her identity. In this way, being a part of an LGB family may add to tension and stress at work given there may be more complicated boundaries to navigate between partners when only one person in a couple is willing or able to reveal the existence of the other. Thus, we may find a higher level of endorsement (reflecting contamination) and a different set of antecedents for such items. As discussed earlier, all of this may be due to overflow from other unmeasured domains of WFC (i.e., identity-based) for LGB relationships and families, potentially leading to criterion deficiency.\n\nFor example, Button (2001) found that LGB individuals who experienced greater workplace discrimination were more likely to use strategies such as counterfeiting (pretending to be heterosexual) or avoiding (acting as if one has no sexuality at all) at work. The use of such strategies may be stressful for LGB employees, especially if they are used in order to avoid discrimination. While there are various reasons that one may wish to remain closeted (and power may often reside in the closet) (Brown 2000; Ferfolja 2009), for those who do not wish to be closeted, yet feel they have no other choice, choosing strategies of silence may create anxiety . Indeed, there is evidence to suggest that LGB individuals who work in gay-friendly environments and who are out in the workplace experience higher job satisfaction and lower stress and anxiety (Day and Schoenrade 2000; Driscoll et al. 1996; Griffith and Hebl 2002). Therefore, current measures of strain-based FWC may suffer from heterosexual bias such that LGB individuals will interpret certain scale items differently than heterosexual individuals .\n\n#### 5.7.1.3 Behavior-Based WFC and FWC\n\nHeterosexist bias may also exist in the behavior-based WFC items: \"The problem solving behaviors I use in my job are not effective in solving problems at home\", \"Behavior that is effective and necessary for me at work would be counterproductive at home\", and \"The behaviors I perform that make me effective at work do not make me a better parent and spouse.\" For example, the behaviors that may make an LGB individual more \"effective\" at work (e.g., concealing one's family status, pretending to be heterosexual) would not contribute to being an effective member of an LGB family. While these behaviors are obviously not the only behaviors that contribute to on-the-job performance, they reflect a subset of activities that are not required of heterosexual employees and thus expand the requirements for what it takes to be \"successful\" at work as an LGB employee. Further, while faking or passing behaviors are not equivalent to actual job-related tasks (typing, answering calls), they must be constantly monitored, and thus may infringe upon or affect behaviors that are directly job-related. As such, it is possible that LGB individuals may be aware of the necessity of these behaviors in the workplace and interpret items in light of this range of seemingly \"required\" on-the-job behaviors. This suggests that current measures of behavior-based WFC may suffer from heterosexual bias such that LGB individuals will interpret certain scale items differently than heterosexual individuals .\n\nSimilarly, the behavior-based FWC items highlight similar themes: \"The behaviors that work for me at home do not seem to be effective at work\", \"Behavior that is effective and necessary for me at home would be counterproductive at work\", and \"The problem solving behavior that works for me at home does not seem to be as useful at work.\" Such items may be differently interpreted given that behaviors that are necessary at work and behaviors that \"work\" at home may not coincide for individuals with LGB families. In a heterosexist workplace, behaviors that LGB individuals enact at home (displaying affection toward one's partner [while at a company party, for example], talking freely about one's LGB family structure and other LGB-related issues or concerns in the presence of coworkers) may be damaging when performed at work and are most likely limited in coworker discussions on the job. Finally, in line with the previously discussed dimensions , it may be the case that current measures of behavior-based FWC suffer from heterosexual bias such that LGB individuals will interpret certain scale items differently than heterosexual individuals .\n\nFigure 5.1 illustrates the hypothesized overlap between WFC as it is currently assessed and a more inclusive measure of the construct. The figure suggests that preexisting scales may suffice for LGB and heterosexual individuals with respect to certain items (e.g., \"The time that I spend at work keeps me from family responsibilities more than I would like\"). Other items, however, may be contaminated (e.g., \"The behaviors that work for me at home don't seem to be as effective at work\" may be interpreted quite differently for LGB individuals) and deficient, such that individuals cannot talk about their family at work but do not have a place within present measures to report that experience. Current measures may contain possible contamination and construct overlap, but we have not yet explored their deficiencies .\n\nFig. 5.1\n\nConceptual model of current work-family measures\n\n## 5.8 LGB Identity-Based Work-Family Conflict: A New Dimension of WFC\n\nBased on our discussion above, it is also possible that we are omitting an entire dimension of WFC for LGB individuals, which stems directly from their LGB family identity. Given that LGB individuals may face discrimination that leads to a lack of \"outness\" at work (Ragins and Cornwell 2001; Waldo 1999), it may be the case that WFC stems directly from one's LGB family identity. For example, if employees are not out at work, or are out only to some individuals, they may experience difficulty asking about LGB family-friendly benefits or taking advantage of other work\u2013family policies within the organization that might be useful to them. Moreover, given that LGB individuals may feel uncomfortable coming out at work, they may be less likely to bring their partner to company events or display pictures of their partner on their desks at work. These conflicts stem more from one's LGB family status and are not currently being captured in the work\u2013family domain. While some of these items have been captured in other measures (e.g., Griffin 1992; Ragins 2004), it seems that these issues are more clearly tied to work and family domain conflicts than to other constructs within the psychological domain. As such, we suggest that an additional dimension of WFC, identity-based conflict , may be necessary in order to more fully capture the WFC experiences of LGB populations. Here, we define identity-based conflict as occurring when one's relationship\/family identity is in conflict with the range of acceptable\/recognized relationship\/family identities at work. Thus, we propose that an additional dimension of WFC, identity-based conflict, is necessary in order to more fully capture the unique WFC experiences of LGB individuals.\n\n### 5.8.1 Potential Antecedents of LGB Identity-Based Work\u2013Family Conflict\n\nIn order to properly evaluate the conditions under which LGB individuals may experience WFC to a greater or lesser degree, it is also important to consider potential antecedents of LGB identity-based WFC . That is, while the larger WFC literature has explored various predictors of WFC in the general population, we still know relatively little regarding the potentially unique antecedents of WFC within LGB samples. Greater insight into the links between LGB-specific antecedents and LGB identity-based WFC is further necessary given that different predictive models of WFC may exist for LGB individuals as compared to their heterosexual counterparts.\n\n#### 5.8.1.1 Level of \"Outness\" at Work\n\nAs noted earlier, while some LGB employees may derive a certain degree of power from remaining closeted and freely choose to conceal their LGB identities for strategic purposes (Brown 2000), others may wish to come out but do not believe that they have the choice if the workplace is believed to be discriminatory toward them and their LGB families. As noted by Ragins (2004), one's level of \"outness\" across different life domains, such as work and family, tends to produce disclosure disconnects that are stressful for LGB individuals. We argue that lower levels of \"outness\" in the workplace lead to higher levels of identity-based WFC for LGB employees, given that disclosure disconnects are likely to be associated with perceptions that the organization is imposing barriers between the work and family domains and restricting the choice to freely intermix elements of work and family when convenient. It may be the case, then, that lower levels of \"outness\" at work among LGB individuals may be associated with higher levels of LGB identity-based WFC .\n\n#### 5.8.1.2 Fear of Disclosure\n\nAlthough one's fear of disclosure is likely to be negatively related to his\/her level of \"outness\" in the workplace (Ragins et al. 2007), the two constructs may nonetheless be unique predictors of LGB identity-based WFC given that decisions to remain closeted may reflect other factors outside of such fear (e.g., self-esteem, introversion, locus of control). Fear of disclosure may stem from real and perceived discrimination at work, which causes LGB employees, in most cases, to hide their sexual orientation and family status from supervisors and colleagues. In turn, they are likely to experience a clash between the work and family realms, given that they are unable to freely select among the range of work\u2013family solutions that are more accessible to heterosexual employees. As a result, we predict that fear of disclosure may be positively related to higher levels of identity-based WFC for LGB individuals within the workplace.\n\n#### 5.8.1.3 Social Support\n\nA number of studies point to the buffering effects of perceived social support on experienced levels of WFC (Carlson et al. 2000; Greenhaus et al. 1987; Schaubroeck et al. 1989) . Within a sample of 99 LGB individuals, Huffman et al. (2008) found that supervisor support was positively associated with job satisfaction , coworker support was positively correlated with life satisfaction , and organizational support was positively linked to being \"out\" at work. It may be that when LGB employees perceive their organization, supervisor , and colleagues as supportive and sensitive to LGB-related issues, they may feel more comfortable disclosing information regarding their LGB identity and family status. Thus, perceptions of support may play a vital role in shaping an organizational culture where LGB families are valued and accepted, thereby removing disclosure disconnects that forcibly separate the work and family domains for LGB employees. When social support is present, LGB employees, like their heterosexual counterparts, may feel free to choose the extent to which they separate or mix aspects of their work and family lives, such that higher levels of social support may be associated with lower levels of LGB identity-based WFC .\n\n#### 5.8.1.4 Organizational Policies and Practices\n\nIn addition to social support, organizational policies and practices that are LGB-friendly, including same-sex partner benefits, LGB antidiscrimination policies, and LGB resource support groups, are likely to promote a perception of the organization as supportive and sensitive to LGB-related issues, which in turn may eliminate disclosure disconnects and socially imposed boundaries between the work and family lives of LGB employees. In contrast, organizations that do not institute such policies and practices are likely to promote, whether implicitly or explicitly, an assumption that they do not value or recognize LGB families. Perceptions of discrimination contribute to disclosure disconnects and in turn to higher levels of identity-based WFC among LGB employees. As noted earlier, an organization's espoused policies regarding LGB-related issues have been shown to be the most powerful predictor of perceived discrimination and various work-related attitudes (Button 2001; Ragins and Cornwell 2001). Overall, then, LGB-friendly organizational policies and practices may be associated with lower levels of LGB identity-based WFC .\n\n#### 5.8.1.5 Centrality of Sexual Identity\n\nIt is also likely that the more strongly one sees their sexual identity as being central to their overall identity, the more likely they will report experiencing LGB identity-based WFC. For people who do not attach aspects of their sexuality as strongly to their core identity, the desire to \"come out\" at work may not be as much an issue as it is for those who place a greater focus on their sexual identity. Such individuals may not experience the same tension between their work and private lives and may be more comfortable keeping these life domains separate. Moreover, centrality of identity has been found to relate to identity salience (Sellers et al. 1998) for race (Griffith and Hebl 2002; Law et al. 2011). Thus, it is possible that it holds for sexuality as well. As a result, greater centrality of sexual identity among LGB individuals may be associated with higher levels of LGB identity-based WFC .\n\n#### 5.8.1.6 Gender\n\nAlthough patterns of WFC differ by gender in heterosexual samples (Duxbury and Higgins 1991), this same pattern may not hold true for LGB couples. Gay and lesbian couples are found to split household chores and responsibilities for child care in a more egalitarian manner than heterosexual couples (Solomon et al. 2005). In fact, in a study of same-sex couples in civil unions and heterosexual couples in Vermont, Solomon et al. (2005) found that the strongest predictor of couples' division of household labor was sexual orientation , which predicted over and above income differences. Given these findings, it may be the case that LGB couples experience smaller gender discrepancies in identity-based WFC compared to heterosexual couples.\n\n## 5.9 Implications for Research\n\nBased on our discussion, there are several areas that future research should address. First, in order to begin assessing whether LGB employees experience WFC differently, a first step might be to explore LGB individuals' WFC experiences via qualitative interviews, as well as quantitative analyses of the potentially unique antecedents of LGB identity-based WFC . Such work would lend initial insight into whether or not current measures \"work\" across LGB populations or whether there are substantive differences in the WFC experiences of LGB individuals. More specifically, participants might be asked how they define and experience WFC and how they interpret items comprising existing scales, as well as to report the extent to which various presumed antecedents of WFC play a role in their experiences of WFC.\n\nSecond, if qualitative differences in LGB WFC experiences appear to exist, a necessary second step would be to generate a set of items, based on earlier interviews, that capture the content domain of identity-based conflict and to examine whether these new items and those comprising existing scales demonstrate content validity in representative samples of LGB employees; that is, can LGB individuals adequately classify the new identity-based items and preexisting WFC scale items into their respective dimensions? Consistent with best practices outlined in the scale development literature (e.g., Conway and Huffcut 2003; Ford et al. 1986; Hinkin 1995), it would be necessary to then examine and confirm the underlying dimensionality of this more inclusive measure and determine the extent to which it offers predictive validity over and above existing measures of WFC for LGB individuals.\n\nThird, beyond the work\u2013family domain, our discussion points to a broader need for researchers to examine the common assumptions that may underlie surveys of organizational phenomena. Thinking more inclusively about who constructs a given scale, which groups were included in samples that were used to validate the scale, and which groups the validation process did not include allows researchers to assess various measures from unique and more inclusive perspectives. Indeed, our analysis suggests that LGB family issues have not been considered to the extent that they should be within the existing work\u2013family literature, despite the long-standing history of work\u2013family research. Similarly, other researchers have called attention to the need to reassess many common scales for potential bias. Cole and Sabik (2009), for example, pointed out that racial bias in the measurement of women's self-esteem about appearance may be driving differences between white and ethnic minority women. While the need to re-examine our surveys from a minority perspective is not a difficult concept to grasp, substantive work in this area lags in psychology. However, there are significant gains to be made by thinking about \"for whom\" our measures work and for whom they do not if we are to understand the complexities underlying the phenomena we study. As such, we hope that this chapter spurs future work that reexamines long-standing constructs in I\/O psychology and organizational behavior and asks whether or not these constructs hold in more diverse populations.\n\nFourth, our discussion highlights the need to examine alternative family structures in greater depth. It may be the case that families who possess other stigmatized identities (disability, size, religion , socioeconomic status , single parent status, etc.) may experience similar identity-based WFC. Examining unique family experiences may lead to a more complete and nuanced conceptualization of the work\u2013family domain. Our definition of identity-based WFC may relate to a range of families with stigmatized identities. However, the examination of LGB families is a logical first step since there appears to be both a stigma attached to an LGB identity (Ragins et al. 2007) and also a visceral negative reaction associated with the realization of this identity for some individuals (Stacey 1998). As such, there may be something particularly unique about an LGB identity that affects the work and family domains in a more negative fashion than other \"alternative\" families might experience because an LGB identity is often viewed as \"controllable\". It is possible that this difference produces a greater level of conflict because the stakes for \"coming out\" about one's stigmatized identity might be higher. Thus, starting with LGB families might provide insight into the more extreme cases in which work and family conflict on the basis of identity, but should also be complemented with work on other stigmatized family identities.\n\nFifth, while we examine WFC in the present effort, it may be of interest in the future to examine the ways in which work and lifestyle conflict for those LGB individuals who do not consider themselves a part of a family. For example, for single LGB individuals who are not a part of an LGB family, the survey might be administered with the words \"life\" or \"lifestyle\" in place of \"family.\" In turn, this may permit researchers to compare and contrast responses of those who are currently in an LGB family\/relationship with those who are not. Although much of the literature talks about work-life balance conceptually , scale items still reflect a family focus [as demonstrated in Carlson et al.'s (2000) meta-measure]. While only those who are partnered or consider themselves to be a part of an LGB family are the focus of this chapter, nonpartnered individuals may be included in future research to determine whether or not it is necessary to consider additional issues when measuring LGB identity-based work-life conflict as opposed to LGB identity-based WFC .\n\nSixth, this chapter provides an impetus for researchers to assess sexuality as part of a standard set of demographics measured within psychological research. While measures of gender or race are staples in most surveys' demographics sections, measures of sexual orientation are not commonly collected. To understand LGB experiences at work, we must begin assessing sexuality in a more standardized way. In particular, and consistent with Intersectionality Theory (Crenshaw 1989), it is possible to examine family identity as a layered construct with multiple pieces. Instead of assuming a unified definition for the term \"family\", we open the door to realizing how multiple layers of family identity may influence outcomes of interest in unique ways. By beginning to expand our definition of family and becoming cognizant of the multitude of ways that individuals might define family [i.e., \"family of choice\" (Cherlin 2004)], we are able to better understand how multiple family identities might combine and then, as a result, have a different impact on variables that are important to families, their quality of life and their quality of work.\n\nFinally, we highlight the need for gender researchers to become more heavily invested in examinations of sexuality-based bias within the work\u2013family literature. Because gender and sexuality-based discrimination are inherently intertwined, open dialogue between researchers interested in gender and researchers interested in sexuality will help to develop future work in a more holistic way. By focusing on the intersections of identity and resulting discriminatory or silencing mechanisms, we create more accurate models of the work\u2013family experiences of diverse individuals with potentially diverse or alternative family structures.\n\n## 5.10 Implications for Practice\n\nThe literature reviewed above suggests that organizations may be overlooking the experiences of LGB employees, a significant omission given gay and lesbian employees are estimated to comprise anywhere between 4 to 17 % of today's workforce (Gonsiorek and Weinrich 1991; Ragins and Cornwell 2001). It behooves organizations to create better LGB organizational policies and practices (i.e., same-sex partner benefits, LGB partner-friendly social events, LGB resource support groups, and LGB antidiscrimination policies), given that these policies may have the strongest effects on gay and lesbian employees' perceptions of discrimination (Ragins and Cornwell 2001). Thus, by actively assessing LGB identity-based WFC , organizations may allow employers to implement more inclusive work\u2013family policies which address the needs of a historically silenced population within the workplace. These policies may not only prove effective in increasing the perception of acceptance and lowered discrimination, but may also impact important business metrics such as job satisfaction , commitment, and turnover intention (Ragins and Cornwell 2001).\n\nKnowledge of the potentially unique WFC experiences of LGB employees may further serve to inform relevant LGB affinity groups, who might utilize such work to lobby for more effective work\u2013family policies within organizations, such as those related to LGB family benefits, same-sex partner recognition, and more inclusive, LGB-friendly work environments. Including organizational identity politics within a work\u2013family framework may be an effective means for affinity groups to work toward more inclusive organizational policies and practices for LGB families in a way that fits with existing organizational goals.\n\nFinally, because improving WFC may improve job satisfaction (Bruck et al. 2002; Grandey et al. 2005; Kossek and Ozeki 1998), examining LGB identity-based WFC may provide the tools for creating the \"business case\" for HR professionals interested in decreasing the conflicts between work and family for employees. Creating awareness of the positive effects of decreasing LGB identity-based WFC among those responsible for talent management and human capital programs and solutions within organizations may help to spearhead inclusive work\u2013family policies and practices on a broader scale.\n\n## 5.11 Concluding Remarks\n\nThe present chapter has brought to light the role that heterosexual bias has played thus far in our conceptualizations of WFC. Because gender stereotypes also encompass our assumptions about sexual preferences (i.e., that men are attracted to women and that women are attracted to men), questioning the gendered nature of WFC should also prompt us to question the heteronormative assumptions that exist within the current work\u2013family literature. If our current measures do not allow for or consider the presence of LGB employees and their families, we run the risk of silencing these populations within the WFC domain, both academically and practically. However, urging researchers and employers to consider the plight of LGB individuals when examining and remedying WFC may allow us to collectively create more inclusive studies, measures, and interventions for addressing the needs of LGB families in the future. Decreasing the deficiencies in our current conceptualizations of WFC can only lead to a more nuanced and accurate understanding of the various forms of WFC moving forward\u2014a goal which is preferable for both scientists and practitioners alike.\n\nReferences\n\nBerlant, L., & Warner, M. (1998). Sex in public. Critical Inquiry, 24, 547\u2013566.CrossRef\n\nBrown, M. P. (2000). Closet space: Geographies of metaphor from the body to the globe. London: Routledge.\n\nBruck, C. S., Allen, T. D., & Spector, P. E. (2002). The relationship between work-family conflict and job satisfaction: A finer grained analysis. Journal of Vocational Behavior, 60, 336\u2013353.CrossRef\n\nButler, J. (2004). Undoing gender. New York: Routledge.\n\nButton, S. B. (2001). Organizational efforts to affirm sexual diversity: A cross-level examination. Journal of Applied Psychology, 86, 17\u201328.PubMedCrossRef\n\nCarlson, D. S., Kacmar, K. M., & Williams, L. J. (2000). Construction and validation of a multidimensional measure of work-family conflict. Journal of Vocational Behavior, 56, 249\u2013276.CrossRef\n\nCherlin, A. J. (2004). The deinstitutionalization of American marriage. Journal of Marriage and Family, 66, 848\u2013861.CrossRef\n\nCole, E. R., & Sabik, N. J. (2009). Repairing a broken mirror: Intersectional approaches to diverse women's perception of beauty and bodies. In M. T. Berger & K. Guidroz (Eds.), The intersectional approach: Transforming the academy through race, class and gender (pp. 173\u2013192). Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press.\n\nColgan, F., Creegan, C., McKearney, A., & Wright, T. (2008). Lesbian workers: Personal strategies amid changing organisational responses to 'sexual minorities' in the UK workplaces. Journal of Lesbian Studies, 12, 31\u201345.PubMedCrossRef\n\nConway, J. M., & Huffcutt, A. I. (2003). A review and evaluation of exploratory factor analysis practices in organizational research. Organizational Research Methods, 6, 147\u2013168.CrossRef\n\nCrenshaw, K. (1989). Demarginalizing the intersection of race and sex: A black feminist critique of antidiscrimination doctrine, feminist theory, and antiracist politics. University of Chicago Legal Forum, 140, 139\u2013167.\n\nCroteau, J. M. (1996). Research on the work experiences of lesbian, gay, and bisexual people: An integrative review of methodology and findings. Journal of Vocational Behavior, 48, 195\u2013209.CrossRef\n\nDay, N. E., & Schoenrade, P. (2000). The relationship among reported disclosure of sexual orientation, anti-discrimination policies, top management support, and work attitudes of gay and lesbian employees. Personnel Review, 29, 346\u2013363.CrossRef\n\nDriscoll, J. M., Kelley, F. A., & Fassinger, R. E. (1996). Lesbian identity and disclosure in the workplace: Relation to occupational stress and satisfaction. Journal of Vocational Behavior, 48, 229\u2013242.CrossRef\n\nDuxbury, L. E., & Higgins, C. A. (1991). Gender differences in work-family conflict. Journal of Applied Psychology, 76, 60\u201373.CrossRef\n\nEllis, A. L., & Riggle, E. D. B. (1996). The relation of job satisfaction and degree of openness about one's sexual orientation for lesbians and gay men. Journal of Homosexuality, 30, 75\u201385.CrossRef\n\nEmbrick, D. G., Walther, C. S., & Wickens, C. M. (2007). Working class masculinity: Keeping gay men and lesbians out of the workplace. Sex Roles, 56, 757\u2013766.CrossRef\n\nFerfolja, T. (2009). State of the field review: Stories so far: An overview of the research on lesbian teachers. Sexualities, 12, 378\u2013395.CrossRef\n\nFoldy, E. G., & Creed, W. E. D. (2003). Action learning, fragmentation, and the interaction of single, double, and triple-loop change: A case of gay and lesbian workplace advocacy. In R. J. Ely, E. G. Foldy, & M. A. Scully (Eds.), Reader in gender, work, and organization (pp. 242\u2013257). Oxford: Blackwell.\n\nFord, J. K., MacCallum, R. C., & Tait, M. (1986). The application of exploratory factor analysis in applied psychology: A critical review and analysis. Personnel Psychology, 39, 291\u2013314.CrossRef\n\nFoucault, M. (1992). The history of sexuality Vol. 2: The use of pleasure. London: Penguin.\n\nFrone, M. R., Russell, M., & Cooper, M. L. (1992). Antecedents and outcomes of work-family conflict: Testing a model of the work-family interface. Journal of Applied Psychology, 77, 65\u201378.PubMedCrossRef\n\nFrone, M. T., Yardley, J. K., & Markel, K. S. (1997). Developing and testing an integrative model of the work-family interface. Journal of Vocational Behavior, 50, 145\u2013167.CrossRef\n\nGedro, J. (2007). Conducting research on LGBT issues: Leading the field all over again! Human Resource Development Quarterly, 18, 153\u2013158.CrossRef\n\nGonsiorek, J. C., & Weinrich, J. D. (1991). The definition and scope of sexual orientation. In J. C. Gonsiorek & J. D. Weinrich (Eds.), Homosexuality, research implications for public policy (pp. 161\u2013176). London: Sage.CrossRef\n\nGorman, E. H., & Kmec, J. A. (2007). We (have to) try harder: Gender and required work effort in Britain and the United States. Gender and Society, 21, 828\u2013856.CrossRef\n\nGrandey, A. A., Cordiero, B. L., & Crouter, A. C. (2005). A longitudinal and multi-source test of the work-family conflict and job satisfaction relationship. Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology, 78, 305\u2013323.CrossRef\n\nGreenhaus, J. H., & Beutell, N. J. (1985). Sources of conflict between work and family roles. Academy of Management Journal, 10, 76\u201388.\n\nGreenhaus, J. H., Bedeian, A. G., & Mossholder, K. W. (1987). Work experiences, job performance, and feelings of personal and family well-being. Journal of Vocational Behavior, 31, 200\u2013215.CrossRef90057-1)\n\nGreenhaus, J. H., Allen, T. D., & Spector, P. E. (2006). Health consequences of work-family conflict: The dark side of the work-family interface. In P. L. Perrewe & D. C. Ganster (Eds.), Research in occupational stress and well-being (Vol. 5, pp. 61\u201398). Amsterdam: JAI\/Elsevier.\n\nGriffin, P. (1992). From hiding to coming out: Empowering lesbian and gay educators. In K. M. Harbeck (Ed.), Coming out of the classroom (pp. 167\u2013196). Binghamton: Harrington Park.\n\nGriffith, K. H., & Hebl, M. (2002). The disclosure dilemma for gay men and lesbians: Coming \"out\" at work. Journal of Applied Psychology, 87, 1191\u20131199.PubMedCrossRef\n\nHill, R. J. (2009). Incorporating queers: Blowback, backlash, and other forms of resistance to workplace diversity initiatives that support sexual minorities. Advances in Developing Human Resources, 11, 37\u201353.CrossRef\n\nHinkin, T. R. (1995). A review of scale development practices in the study of organizations. Journal of Management, 21, 967\u2013988.CrossRef\n\nHuffman, A. H., Watrous-Rodriguez, K. M., & King, E. B. (2008). Supporting a diverse workforce: What type of support is most meaningful for lesbian and gay employees? Human Resource Management, 47, 237\u2013253.CrossRef\n\nKossek, E. E., & Ozeki, C. (1998). Work-family conflict, policies, and the job-life satisfaction relationship: A review and directions for organizational behavior-human resources research. Journal of Applied Psychology, 83, 139\u2013149.CrossRef\n\nLaw, C. L., Martinez, L., Ruggs, E. N., Hebl, M. R., & Akers, E. (2011). Trans-parency in the workplace: How the experiences of transsexual employees can be improved. Journal of Vocational Behavior, 79, 710\u2013723.CrossRef\n\nLorber, J. (1994). Paradoxes of gender. New Haven: Yale University.\n\nMacEwen, K. E., & Barling, J. (1994). Daily consequences of work interference with family and family interference with work. Work & Stress, 8, 244\u2013254.CrossRef\n\nMcDermott, E. (2006). Surviving dangerous places: Lesbian identity performances in the workplace, social class, and psychological health. Feminism Psychology, 16, 193\u2013211.CrossRef\n\nMiller, S. L., Forest, K. B., & Jurik, N. (2003). Diversity in blue: Lesbian and gay police officers in a masculine occupation. Men and Masculinities, 5, 355\u2013385.CrossRef\n\nMorin, S. F. (1977). Heterosexual bias in psychological research on lesbianism and male homosexuality. American Psychologist, 32, 629\u2013663.PubMedCrossRef\n\nO'Driscoll, M. P., Ilgen, D. R., & Hildreth, K. (1992). Time devoted to job and off-job activities, interrole conflict, and affective experiences. Journal of Applied Psychology, 77, 272\u2013297.CrossRef\n\nPreston, R. C., Fredericksen, R. J., & Herrschaft, D. (2006). The need for change: Bridging employers and business. In M. D. Shankle (Ed.), The handbook of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender public health: A practitioner's guide to service (pp. 317\u2013332). Binghamton: The Haworth.\n\nProbst, T. (2003). Changing attitudes over time: Assessing the effectiveness of a workplace diversity course. Teaching of Psychology, 30, 236\u2013239.CrossRef\n\nRagins, B. R. (2004). Sexual orientation in the workplace: The unique work and career experiences of gay, lesbian and bisexual workers. Research in Personnel and Human Resources Management, 23, 35\u2013120.CrossRef23002-X)\n\nRagins, B. R. (2008). Disclosure disconnects: Antecedents and consequences of disclosing invisible stigmas across life domains. Academy of Management Review, 33, 194\u2013215.PubMedCrossRef\n\nRagins, B. R., & Cornwell, J. M. (2001). Pink triangles: Antecedents and consequences of perceived workplace discrimination against gay and lesbian employees. Journal of Applied Psychology, 86, 1244\u20131261.PubMedCrossRef\n\nRagins, B. R., Singh, R., & Cornwell, J. M. (2007). Making the invisible visible: Fear and disclosure of sexual orientation at work. Journal of Applied Psychology, 92, 1103\u20131118.PubMedCrossRef\n\nRau, B. L., & Hyland, M. (2006). Role conflict and flexible work arrangements: The effects on applicant attraction. Personnel Psychology, 55, 111\u2013136.CrossRef\n\nSchaubroeck, J., Cotton, J. L., & Jennings, K. R. (1989). Antecedents and consequences of role stress: A covariance structure analysis. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 10, 35\u201358.CrossRef\n\nSchope, R. D. (2002). The decision to tell: Factors influencing the disclosure of sexual orientation by gay men. Journal of Gay and Lesbian Social Services, 14, 1\u201322.CrossRef\n\nSedgwick, E. K. (1988). Epistemology of the closet. Berkeley: University of California.\n\nSellers, R. M., Smith, M. A., Shelton, J. A., Rowley, S. A. J., & Chavous, T. M. (1998). Multidimensional model of racial identity: A reconceptualization of African-American racial identity. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 2, 18\u201339.PubMedCrossRef\n\nShockley, K. M., & Allen, T. (2007). When flexibility helps: Another look at the availability of flexible work arrangements and work-family conflict. Journal of Vocational Behavior, 71, 479\u2013493.CrossRef\n\nSolomon, S. E., Rothblum, E. D., & Balsam, K. F. (2005). Money, housework, sex, and conflict: Same sex couples in civil unions, those not in civil unions, and heterosexual married siblings. Sex Roles, 52, 561\u2013575.CrossRef\n\nStacey, J. (1998). The neo-family-values campaign. In R. Lancaster & M. di Leonardo (Eds.), The gender\/sexuality reader (pp. 453\u2013470). New York: Routledge.\n\nVan Den Bergh, N. (2004). Getting a piece of the pie: Cultural competence for GLBT employees at the workplace. Journal of Human Behavior and the Social Environment, 8, 55\u201373.CrossRef\n\nWaldo, C. R. (1999). Working in majority context: A structural model of heterosexism as minority stress in the workplace. Journal of Counseling Psychology, 46, 218\u2013232.CrossRef\n\nWarner, L. R. (2008). A best practices guide to intersectional approaches in psychological research. Sex Roles, 59, 454\u2013463.CrossRef\n\nWeeks, J., Heaphy, B., & Donovan, C. (2001). Same sex intimacies: Families of choice and other life experiments. London: Routledge.CrossRef\n\nWilliams, K. J., & Alliger, G. M. (1994). Role stressors, mood spillover, and perceptions of work-family conflict in employed parents. Academy of Management Journal, 37, 837\u2013868.CrossRef\n\nWilliams, C., Giuffre, P. A., & Dellinger, K. (2009). The gay-friendly closet. Sexuality Research and Social Policy, 6, 29\u201345.CrossRef\n\u00a9 Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2015\n\nMaura J. Mills (ed.)Gender and the Work-Family Experience10.1007\/978-3-319-08891-4_6\n\n# 6. Gender, Gender-Role Ideology, and the Work\u2013Family Interface: A Cross-Cultural Analysis\n\nUjvala Rajadhyaksha1  , Karen Korabik2  and Zeynep Aycan3\n\n(1)\n\nDepartment of Business Administration and Economics, St. Mary's College, 46556 Notre Dame, IN, USA\n\n(2)\n\nCentre for Families, Work and Well-Being, University of Guelph, N1G2W1 Guelph, ON, Canada\n\n(3)\n\nDepartments of Psychology and Management, Ko\u00e7 University, Rumeli Fener Road, 34460 Sariyer, Istanbul, Turkey\n\nUjvala Rajadhyaksha (Corresponding author)\n\nEmail: urajadhy@saintmarys.edu\n\nKaren Korabik\n\nEmail: kkorabik@uoguelph.ca\n\nZeynep Aycan\n\nEmail: zaycan@ku.edu.tr\n\nKeywords\n\nGender-role ideologyGenderWork\u2013familyCross-culturalInternationalEgalitarianismEquality\n\n## 6.1 Overview\n\nThe current chapter examines the effects of gender and culture on work\u2013family conflict (WFC) and work\u2013family enrichment (WFE) . We first review the literature on WFC and WFE. We then look at the impact of different aspects of gender (including physical gender, gender-role ideology, gender egalitarianism , and gender inequality) 1 on the work\u2013family (W\u2013F) interface. Throughout the chapter we highlight the similarities and differences in relationships between the various aspects of gender and WFC and WFE that have been found in international studies and cross-cultural comparisons. The chapter concludes with a discussion on the agenda for future research.\n\n## 6.2 Work\u2013Family Conflict\n\nWFC has become the reality in the lives of many employed adults all over the world. Several factors are associated with the ever-increasing challenge of juggling work and family responsibilities. Some of these include longer work days and international business travel as a result of globalization (Westman et al. 2008); increased participation of women in the workforce and its concomitant impact on gender roles and ways of doing 'work'; changing family structures characterized by a rising number of dual career couples, single-parent families, families with aging parents requiring care; and the growth of a sandwich generation of workers who have to simultaneously care for dependent elders and children (Casper and Bianchi 2002).\n\nWFC arises due to \"simultaneous pressures from both work and family that are mutually incompatible in some respect\" (Greenhaus and Beutell 1985, p. 77). W\u2013F research has been dominated by Role Theory whereby conflicting expectations from multiple roles create psychological tension and conflict. Underlying the notion of WFC is the 'scarcity hypothesis' \u2014the belief that an individual's time and energy resources are in short supply, and therefore that any resource drain or depletion in one sphere will have negative ramifications for the other sphere (Rothbard 2001). WFC is generally operationalized as a bidirectional and multi-dimensional construct with the possibility of work-interfering-with-family conflict (WIF) and family-interfering-with-work conflict (FIW) occurring along the three dimensions of time, strain, and behavior (e.g., Frone et al. 1992a; Gutek et al. 1991). Further, boundaries between work and family are asymmetrically permeable\u2014the incidence of WIF tends to exceed that of FIW (Frone et al. 1992b; Pleck 1977).\n\nResearch on WFC includes many investigations of integrative models that examine how it is related to its antecedents and outcomes (e.g., Frone et al. 1992a). A number of meta-analyses and path analytic meta-analyses of the literature have been carried out (Amstad et al. 2011; Bryon 2005; Ford et al. 2007; Michel et al. 2011; Shockley and Singla 2011). The results have indicated that work domain variables have the potential to impact and create conflict in the work domain as well as cross over boundaries and create conflict in or affect variables in the family domain. Similarly, family domain variables can create conflict in or affect variables in the family domain as well as in the work domain. However, within-domain relationships tend to exceed cross-domain relationships in magnitude (Amstad et al. 2011; Shockley and Singla 2011).\n\nThe majority of studies on WFC have been conducted in the context of Anglo English speaking countries (Casper et al. 2007). This is a notable limitation, and pleas have been made for more WFC research to be performed in international contexts (Poelmans et al. 2005). Studies on WFC have been carried out in many areas of the world beyond the United States, including Western Europe and Scandinavia (e.g., Kinnunen and Mauno 1998), Eastern Asia (e.g., Aryee 1992; Aryee et al. 1999; Matsui et al. 1995), and Southern Asia\/Africa (e.g., Ayo et al. 2009; Tabassum 2012). However, most of the research conducted outside North America consists of single-country studies that have not specifically accounted for cultural variables or facilitated cross-cultural comparisons (Aycan 2008; Gelfand and Knight 2005; Shaffer et al. 2011). Recently, there have been more cross-cultural investigations of the W\u2013F interface (e.g., Billing et al. 2014; Joplin et al. 2003; Lapierre et al. 2008; Spector et al. 2004, 2007; Yang et al. 2000), but these have not explicitly focused on the role of gender.\n\n## 6.3 Work\u2013Family Enrichment\n\nThe notion of WFC implies a negative spillover between the work and family domains. This negative thrust has been critiqued with researchers asking for more examination of positive relationships between the work and family domains (Greenhaus and Powell 2006). Positive W\u2013F relationships have been variously referred to as positive spillover , enrichment, enhancement, or facilitation (Greenhaus and Powell 2006; Grzywacz and Marks 2000; Wayne et al. 2006). Essential to all these terms is the idea that the role exchange between work and family is not always detrimental and can have enhancing effects. Following Shockley and Singla (2011), we use the term work\u2013family enrichment (WFE) to refer to positive W\u2013F relationships. Unlike WFC, which is based on the scarcity hypothesis , WFE is based on Role Accumulation Theory , which suggests that participation in multiple roles could produce positive outcomes through opportunities and resources that individuals can use to promote growth and better functioning in different life domains. Similar to WFC, WFE has been found to be bi-directional in nature with work\u2013family enrichment (WFE) occurring along with family-work enrichment (FWE) . Relative to WFC, research on WFE is sparse (Frone 2003). While some WFE studies have been conducted outside of the Anglo context (e.g., Baral and Bhargava 2011; Bosmat 2013; Choi and Kim 2012; Ho et al. 2013; Karatepe and Azar 2013; Nasurdin et al. 2013), there are few cross-cultural studies that specifically examine gender and WFE.\n\nMeta-analyses have indicated that both WFE and FWE are related to a number of positive outcomes including affective commitment, physical and mental health , and job and family satisfaction . For example, Haar and Bardoel (2008) looked at positive spillover in 420 Australian employees and found WFE was negatively associated with psychological distress and turnover intentions, while FWE was negatively linked with psychological distress and positively linked with family satisfaction. However, WFE is more strongly related to work-related variables, whereas FWE was more strongly related to non-work related variables (McNall et al. 2010; Shockley and Singla 2011). This is somewhat resonant of the stronger impact of same domain relationships observed in WFC literature (Michel et al. 2011).\n\n## 6.4 Gender and Work\u2013Family Conflict\n\nThe examination of gender is integral to W\u2013F research\u2014both its positive and negative elements\u2014given that gender roles influence how men and women distribute resources across work and family domains. Interestingly, although the boost to work and family research has come from the increasing presence of women in the workforce, few studies have specifically focused on W\u2013F and gender (Parasuraman and Greenhaus 2002). Even when gender has been included as a variable, its treatment has been atheoretical and gender as operationalized by whether someone is a man or a woman has often been used as a proxy for other aspects of gender (Korabik et al. 2008). One drawback of treating gender as a biologically determined variable is that it does not consider the possibility that there may be greater within-gender variation than across-gender variation in roles. Gender is actually a multidimensional phenomenon. Korabik et al. (2008) proposed that rather than considering only physical gender, research should consider intrapsychic aspects of gender that influence not only individuals' identities, but also their behaviors, the roles they choose to enact and how they choose to enact them. One such variable that is pertinent to W\u2013F research is gender-role ideology (GRI) (Korabik et al. 2008). In addition, sociological or cultural conceptions of gender, like gender egalitarianism and gender inequality , can be studied in an effort to better understand the W\u2013F interface (Lyness and Kropf 2005; Powell et al. 2009).\n\n### 6.4.1 Gender and WFC: Theoretical Approaches\n\nTwo perspectives are frequently used in the literature to explain the relationship between gender and WFC. One is the rational viewpoint (Gutek et al. 1991), which posits that the more the hours one spends in a domain, the more potential there is for conflict to occur. This theory predicts that men should experience more WIF than women because they spend more time at work, whereas women should experience more FIW than men because they spend more time at home. A competing theory is Pleck's (1977) gender-role theory. It postulates that family demands will more likely affect work roles for women, whereas work demands will more likely spill over into the family for men. This gender-asymmetrical impact of work and family roles is due to the differential importance given to these roles by men and women. This affects their perceptions of WIF and FIW so that additional hours spent in one's prescribed gender-role domain (family for women and work for men) are not seen as an imposition as much as additional hours spent in the domain associated with the other gender. According to the gender-role perspective, women should report more WIF than men even when they spend the same number of hours in paid work, and men should report more FIW than women even when they devote the same number of hours to family activities.\n\nIn their review of WFC studies, Eby et al. (2005) concluded that there is mixed evidence as to whether men and women report different levels of WFC. Their meta-analysis mentions that some research has found no gender differences in WFC (Duxbury and Higgins 1991; Eagle et al. 1997), some studies have found men to report higher WFC than women (Parasurman and Simmers 2001), and other studies have found women to experience higher WFC than men (Frone et al. 1992b) or higher levels on some dimensions of WFC (e.g., Gutek et al. 1991; Loerch et al. 1989).\n\nRegarding Pleck's (1977) hypothesis of gender differences in the permeability of W\u2013F boundaries , support has also been mixed. Gutek et al. (1991) reported more WIF for women than men, but no gender difference in FIW . Other studies have found no significant gender differences at all, though family boundaries were consistently more permeable than work boundaries (Eagle et al. 1997; Frone et al. 1992a, b). Overall it appears that gender has a near zero relationship to WIF and is only weakly related to FIW , suggesting that men and women experience similar levels of interference in both domains (Bryon 2005).\n\n### 6.4.2 Gender Differences in Antecedents and Consequences of WFC\n\nAs with research examining mean differences, studies of gender differences in the antecedents of WFC have produced conflicting results. In an investigation of family-related antecedents of WFC, Loerch et al. (1989) found that family role conflict was a significant predictor of strain- and behavior-based WFC for both genders, and a unique predictor of time-based conflict for men, but not women. Furthermore, family intrusions and total role involvement predicted time-based conflict for women, whereas family intrusions were a unique predictor of strain-based conflict for men.\n\nFocusing on work domain antecedents, Wallace's (1999) study of lawyers found that work involvement variables were not predictive of either time- or strain-based WFC among women, though higher work motivation and working more hours were associated with men's strain- and time-based conflict, respectively. Furthermore, work overload and being in a profit-driven environment had similar effects on time-based WFC for men and women lawyers, while the impact of these antecedents on strain-based WFC was stronger for women as compared to men. Wallace also found that work context was important\u2014working in a law firm setting was associated with greater time- and strain-based conflict for women though not for men. Finally, as the percentage of women lawyers in the workplace increased, men reported greater time-based conflict, but women reported more strain-based conflict. Duxbury and Higgins (1991) examined gender differences in work and family domain antecedents of WFC. They found that work involvement was a stronger predictor of WFC for women, whereas family involvement was a stronger predictor for men. Work expectations , on the other hand, were a more significant predictor of WFC for men, while family expectations were a stronger predictor of family conflict for women. Gutek et al. (1991) examined the effect of hours spent in the home and work domain and found that for women, the number of hours spent on the job was related to WIF . For FIW , no gender effect of hours spent in family work was found. This was contrary to Huffman et al.'s (2003) study of military personnel where time demands measured by the number of hours worked were more strongly related to WFC for men than for women. This gender difference disappeared, however, when time demands were measured via perceptions of workload . McElwain et al. (2005) used a time demands measure that was a composite of work hours and perceived job demands and found no significant gender differences for the relationships between work time demands and WIF. However, there was a significant gender difference in the relationship between family demands and FIW. Specifically, women tended to experience high levels of FIW when they had high family demands as compared to men. Men's levels of FIW, however, were not dependent on the amount of family demands they had. It would seem that control over work hours plays a significant role in determining women's versus men's WFC rather than work hours per se. In support of this notion, Gr\u00f6nlund (2007) found that in Sweden women in jobs with high demands and high control did not experience more WIF than men, even when working the same hours.\n\nSocial support is another important antecedent associated with reduced WFC. Aycan and Eskin (2005) found gender differences in the type of support used by men and women in Turkey. For women, spousal support was associated with reduced WIF and FIW , whereas for men spousal support was associated with reduced FIW and organizational support was associated with reduced WIF. Their finding supported earlier literature suggesting that men needed more social support than women in coping with WFC, because although changing gender roles prescribe men to be more involved in their families, this is still not tolerated by most organizations (cf., Cinnamon and Rich 2002). Furthermore, men do not have as many role models as women do to show them how to cope with WFC, and they do not exhibit help-seeking behavior as much as women do (Addis and Mahalik 2003).\n\nTurning to the outcomes of WFC, although Frone et al. (1996) and Frone et al. (1993) established that higher WFC resulted in poor physical and psychological health, as well as heavy alcohol use, their findings did not support the hypothesized gender differences in the relationship between WFC and outcomes. By contrast, Duxbury and Higgins (1991) found that women were more likely than men to report low quality of work life when they had high WFC, whereas men were more likely than women to report low quality of family life when they had high WFC. In addition, Burley (1995) found that the relationships of WFC to spousal support and marital adjustment were significantly more negative for men than for women.\n\nThe results with regard to the moderating effect of gender on the relationships of WIF and FIW to satisfaction are extremely inconsistent. Bagger et al. (2008) found that family identity salience acted as a buffer such that higher FIW was related to higher job distress and lower job satisfaction more so for women than men. By contrast, McElwain et al. (2005) found the negative relationship between FIW and job satisfaction to be stronger for men than for women, but that there was no significant gender difference in the relationship between WIF and family satisfaction . Ford et al.'s (2007) path analytic meta-analysis indicated that the negative correlation between job stress and family satisfaction was less strong for women than for men. However, Shockley and Singla's (2011) meta-analysis showed that the negative correlation between WIF and family satisfaction was stronger for men than women, whereas the negative correlation between FIW and family satisfaction was stronger for women than men.\n\n## 6.5 Cross-Cultural Studies of Gender Interacting with WFC and WFE\n\nSeveral studies of gender and WFC have been conducted in individual countries outside of the North American context, including Malaysia (e.g., Hassan et al. 2010), India (e.g., Ramadoss and Rajadhyaksha 2012), Iran (e.g., Namayandeh et al. 2011), Hong Kong (e.g., Fu and Shaffer 2001), Finland (e.g., V\u00e4\u00e4n\u00e4nen et al. 2004), and Turkey (e.g., Yavas et al. 2008). Some studies have demonstrated within-gender differences in WFC based on ethnicity (e.g., Mahpul and Abdullah 2011), whereas other single-country studies have supported both a 'gender similarity' as well as a 'gender difference' model of WFC depending on the database used for drawing the sample (e.g., Keene and Quadagno 2004). We will not review the results of this research here since a substantial cross-cultural literature exists.\n\nThe results of cross-cultural comparisons on gender and WFC have been characterized by the same inconsistency found in the North American literature on gender and WFC. Some studies have revealed no significant gender effects. For instance, in a cross-cultural test of the W\u2013F interface in 48 countries, Hill et al. (2004) found little support for a culture-specific or gender-specific model of WFC. A few of their observed gender differences included marital status being more likely to reduce FIW for women than for men, parental status being associated with significantly more FIW for women than for men, and perceptions of a lack of fit being more strongly related to WIF for women than for men. However, there were no gender differences across cultures. Shaffer et al. (2011) examined 219 studies that used non-USA samples and also found no differences due to gender. Their results indicated that work demands predicted both WIF and FIW in their Anglo, Asian, Nordic, and Western European country clusters. Family stressors were positively related to WFC for countries in the Anglo cluster, to both WIF and FIW for countries in the Asian cluster, and to FIW for countries in the Western European cluster. WIF and FIW were negatively related to work-related affective reactions and positively related to withdrawal outcomes in all country clusters. WIF and FIW were often, but not always, negatively related to family attitudes (e.g., satisfaction) in the Anglo, Asian, and Nordic, East, and West European country clusters.\n\nBy contrast, other studies have found gender differences in WFC, but these have not always been consistent. Steibler (2009) examined dual-earner couples in 23 European countries and found that after work hours were controlled, women reported both more time- and strain-based WIF than men. In a study of eight European countries, Simon et al. (2004) found that WIF was higher than FIW in all countries, supporting the notion of asymmetrical boundaries between work and family (Pleck 1977). However, men experienced greater WIF than women in Italy, whereas the reverse was the case in the Netherlands. Mortazavia et al. (2009) conducted a cross-cultural study using samples from Iran, Ukraine, and the USA to examine interactions between gender, nationality, and the cultural values of horizontal individualism\/collectivism measured at the national and individual levels (idiocentrism and allocentrism) on W\u2013F demands and WFC. They found that men reported more WIF than women in all three countries, but there was no significant gender difference in FIW . In a study comparing the USA and China, Yang et al. (2000) reported that men experienced higher levels of WFC than women did in China, whereas a gender difference did not exist in the USA sample. Using data from Project 3535 2, Korabik et al. (2012) found that men reported higher WIF than women in all countries except India, Taiwan, and Turkey where WIF was higher for women than men. Conversely, women reported higher FIW than men in all countries except Australia, China, and the USA, where FIW was higher for men than women. In addition, greater satisfaction with organizational policies was associated with lower WIF for both genders in Australia, Canada, Indonesia, and the USA. This relationship also held for men in Israel and women in Spain and Turkey. Greater satisfaction with organizational policies was also significantly associated with lower turnover intent for both genders in every country except Turkey. Greater satisfaction with organizational policies was significantly associated with higher life satisfaction for both genders in Canada, Indonesia, Israel, Turkey, and the USA. This relationship also held for men in China and India and women in Australia and Taiwan. Greater satisfaction with government policies was significantly associated with higher life satisfaction for both genders in Canada, China, India, and Indonesia. This relationship also held for men in Australia and the USA and for women in Israel. Satisfaction with government policies was less consistently related to intent to turnover, with the strongest correlations evident for men in the USA, women in Spain, and both men and women in Israel (Korabik et al. 2012).\n\nGender has been largely overlooked in the literature on WFE (Greenhaus and Powell 2006). Studies do show, however, that women tend to perceive higher levels of FWE than men (Grzywacz and Marks 2000; Rothbard 2001). Although in a three-year cross-lagged panel study carried out in Finland (Hakanen et al. 2011) gender was found to be related to WFE the same way for men and women, Shockley and Singla's (2011) meta-analysis indicated that WFE had a greater effect on satisfaction outcomes for women than for men. Moreover, using a sample from Spain, Boz et al. (2009) found that FWE was related to life satisfaction and mental and physical well-being in a different manner for women and men. Their results also showed that women were able to experience FIW and FWE concurrently, while men were more likely to separate their family from their work roles. In addition, when women reported experiencing both FIW and FWE, the positive effect of FWE outweighed the negative consequences of FIW on well-being .\n\nData from Project 3535 (Korabik et al. 2012) have indicated that women reported higher WFE than men in all countries except China, Spain, and Indonesia where WFE was higher for men than women. Moreover, greater satisfaction with organizational policies was associated with higher WFE for both genders in Canada and Turkey. This relationship also held for men in China and women in Australia, Israel, Taiwan, and the USA (Korabik et al. 2012).\n\n## 6.6 Gender-Role Ideology\n\nTypically, GRI is conceptualized as falling on a unidimensional continuum ranging from traditional to nontraditional or egalitarian (Gibbons et al. 1997). Individuals with a traditional GRI believe that women should give priority to family responsibilities and men to work responsibilities (Gutek et al. 1991). By contrast, nontraditional or egalitarian individuals believe in a more equal role distribution for men and women. The conceptualization of GRI does not make the assumption of bio-psychological equivalence , i.e., both men and women can have either traditional or egalitarian attitudes (Korabik et al. 2008).\n\nResearch indicates that individuals' GRI can change both between and within generations (Moen et al. 1997; Wentworth and Chell 2005), thus supporting the notion that GRI is shaped by environmental influences. The GRI of individuals also can vary between countries. In a comparative study of gender-role attitudes among the North American countries of Mexico, Canada, and the USA, Harris et al. (2006) found that in general Mexicans were slightly more likely to exhibit traditional attitudes and gender-role behavior that was congruent with their biological gender. Additionally, being a man was slightly more likely to predict traditional GRI than being a woman in Canada and the USA, as compared to Mexico. Goldberg et al. (2012) found that GRI varied between ethnic groups within a country. They studied a large culturally and ethnically diverse sample of students at a US university and found that Asian Americans, especially men and those less acculturated , were more likely to hold more conservative GRI and support gender-role segregation and maternal nonemployment when children are young. Their mothers' employment and own employment status, however, was associated with more positive views about maternal employment overall. Additionally GRI can be shaped by national cultural and economic variables. For instance, Parboteeah et al. (2008) found that managers' traditional gender-role attitudes were positively related to a nation's cultural values of power distance and uncertainty avoidance while being negatively related a nation's cultural values of gender egalitarianism , as well as to degree of regulation of the economy and degree of educational attainment.\n\nWomen's exposure to the labor force and to education can foster more egalitarian GRI on account of role expansion (Smith-Lovin and Tickamyer 1978). Individuals in industrialized countries have been found to hold more egalitarian GRIs with more favorable views of married women's labor force participation (Treas and Widmer 2000). In fact, with more women entering the workforce, individuals' attitudes in many societies are experiencing a change from traditional to more egalitarian (Friedman and Weissbrod 2005). However in some transitional societies men's GRI could become more traditional as a backlash. For instance, in a study conducted in urban China, Pimentel (2006) found that husbands had become more traditional in their GRI over cohorts while wives' GRI had stayed constant and was more egalitarian than that of husbands. Pimentel explained this difference in terms of increasing expectations of equality among women and declining job opportunities for men in reformist China, resulting in declining levels of marital satisfaction over time. In a comparison of GRI of women in Taiwan and coastal China, Tu and Liao (2005) found that urbanization had a more significant impact on women's attitudes than on men's attitudes and this effect was more significant in coastal China which has seen more marked changes in development in recent decades, as compared to Taiwan. Also, cohort-effect differences in gender-role attitudes were found to be more significant in coastal China and more so for men than for women.\n\nThere can be gender differences in GRI particularly for working individuals. Husbands' and wives' GRIs within working couples can influence each other (Kulik 2004). In a study of dual-earner couples in Sri Lanka, Kailasapathy and Metz (2008) found that spouse's GRI affected the ability to negotiate within the home to reduce WFC. Women's egalitarian GRI in dual-earner marriages could cause them to experience a sense of unfairness when they feel that they do more than their spouse (Frisco and Williams 2003). On the other hand, the more egalitarian the husband's GRI relative to the wife's, the weaker the relationship between job-role quality and distress tends to be (James et al. 1998). The more egalitarian the GRIs of husband-wife pairs, the less likely they are to adopt gender-stereotypic decisions regarding relocation for jobs, i.e., with the wife hesitating from capitalizing on a job move because of the loss that it would mean to the husband (Bielby and Bielby 1992). Along with gender, GRI can moderate the link between spousal support and marital quality. For instance, emotional spousal support has been found to better predict marital satisfaction and less marital conflict for traditional women and egalitarian men, while emotional and instrumental spousal support has been found to better predict marital satisfaction for egalitarian women and traditional men (Mickelson et al. 2006).\n\n### 6.6.1 GRI and the W\u2013F Interface\n\nStudies have examined relationships between GRI and broad work and family variables. For example, Davis and Pearce (2007) found that adolescents' work\u2013family gender ideologies were linked to their educational attainments. For girls and boys, having more egalitarian views of gendered work and family roles made them more likely to desire a college education and a graduate or professional degree, although the relationship was stronger for girls than for boys. Schwarzwald et al. (2008) in a study of Izraeli married couples found that GRI moderated the relationship between a couple's usage of power tactics and marital satisfaction .\n\nStudies linking GRI and the W\u2013F interface specifically defined as WFC and WFE are relatively few. GRI has been found to be a better predictor of WFC than physical gender (Velgach et al. 2006) which might help explain many of the inconsistent findings in the gender and WFC literature. To the extent that attitudes affect behavior, GRI is likely to impact WFC by influencing the degree to which individuals resort to traditional versus nontraditional division of labor . Thus, it would be expected that working women with traditional GRI would experience more WIF than would working women with egalitarian GRI because their traditional attitude would influence them to exert most of their efforts into their home roles. Conversely, working men with traditional GRI should experience more FIW than working men with egalitarian attitudes as their attitudes would dictate that they should spend their time providing for their family through paid work (Gutek et al. 1991; Korabik et al. 2008).\n\nEmpirical examinations of the relationship between GRI and WFC have produced mixed results. No significant differences between those with traditional and egalitarian GRI were found on either WIF or FIW in a study by Chappell et al. (2005) with a sample from Canada or by Drach-Zahavy and Somech (2004) using Project 3535 data from Israel. By contrast, Ayman et al. (2005) found significant negative relationships between GRI and strain-based WIF, time-based WIF, and time-based FIW, indicating that egalitarian individuals experienced lower WFC than traditional individuals on these dimensions. In a sample of working men and women from India gathered as part of Project 3535, Rajadhyaksha and Velgach (2009) found that those with traditional GRI experienced more of both WIF and FIW than those with egalitarian GRI. Moreover, there was an interaction effect between gender and GRI. Women 'traditionals' experienced more FIW than men 'traditionals'. Using Project 3535 data from Israel, Somech and Drach-Zahavy (2007) found an interaction effect between gender and GRI with regard to the relationship between coping strategies and WIF and FIW.\n\n### 6.6.2 Cross-Cultural Studies of GRI and the W\u2013F Interface\n\nThere have been few cross-cultural examinations of the relationship between GRI and WFC, and almost no studies have examined the relationship between GRI and WFE. Steibler's (2009) study of dual-earner couples in 23 European countries showed that men with more egalitarian gender-role attitudes had lower levels of WIF. Using preliminary data from five of the countries (i.e., Canada, India, Taiwan, Spain, and the USA) involved in Project 3535 , Poelmans et al. (2006) conducted a cross-cultural analysis of the relationship between GRI and WFC. After controlling for job sector and job level, it was found that in all countries, those with traditional GRI reported greater WIF and greater FIW than those with egalitarian GRI. Somech and Drach-Zahavy (2011) used the data from all ten Project 3535 countries and found that individual coping strategies were related to WIF and FIW as a function of GRI and individualism\/collectivism .\n\n## 6.7 Cross-Cultural Studies of Cultural Gender Egalitarianism, Gender Inequality, and the W\u2013F Interface\n\nThere have been relatively few studies that have investigated the impact of cultural gender egalitarianism or societal\/national gender inequality on the W\u2013F interface. In a study of managers and professionals from 20 European countries, Lyness and Kropf (2005) found that both national gender equality (measured using the United Nations Gender Development Index) and the proportion of women in senior management positions predicted perceptions of supportiveness of organizational culture which in turn was related to employees' perceptions of greater work\u2013life balance. They suggested that future studies of the W\u2013F interface recognize the importance of the larger context and a nation's standing with regard to gender equality . \u00d6un (2012) looked at data from four Nordic countries and found that overall, women reported higher WFC than men. However, greater gender equity at the household level was related to lower WIF . Further, WFC was higher in Finland compared to the other three Nordic countries of Denmark, Sweden, and Norway. This difference was explained in terms of the relatively greater gender inequity within Finland with lesser integration of women in to the workforce. Beham et al. (2012) conducted a study of how utilization of W\u2013F resources affected work interference with family (WIF) and satisfaction with W\u2013F balance (SWFB) among professional and non-professional service employees across five Western European countries. They found that the utilization of organizational W\u2013F resources varied across welfare state regimes and levels of national gender equality, being highest in Sweden and the Netherlands and lowest in Portugal. Across the five countries, professional employees experienced higher levels of WIF and lower levels of SWFB than non-professional employees and the gap between professionals and non-professionals varied across countries for WIF, but not for SWFB. It was significantly larger in the UK and in Sweden than in the other three countries. Finally, a family-supportive supervisor and a family-supportive organizational culture differentially affected the WIF of professional and non-professional workers, with a family-supportive supervisor being more beneficial to non-professionals and a family-supportive organizational culture being more beneficial to professional employees.\n\nMany national policies that affect working conditions, especially of female workers, play a role in determining women's socioeconomic status and therefore gender inequality (e.g., Guan et al. 2011; Ray et al. 2010). In a recent study conducted across 12 industrialized nations that examined the relationship between WFC and national paid leave policies, Allen et al. (2014) found that of the three forms of paid leave examined\u2014sick, annual, and parental\u2014paid sick leave had a small but significant negative relationship with WFC, while paid parental leave and paid annual leave had very little impact on WFC. Also, the impact of national leave policies on WFC was moderated by employees' perceptions of the family-supportiveness of their organization as well as their supervisor, such that the impact was more beneficial when employees perceived more rather than less support . Clearly, it appears that national gender inequality has the potential to impact the W\u2013F interface directly as well as indirectly through the utilization and\/or availability of organizational resources and national policies that affect conditions of work.\n\nCultural gender egalitarianism has also been found to affect the W\u2013F interface. Steibler (2009) examined 23 European countries and found that those in countries with higher levels of gender egalitarianism as a cultural value had higher levels of strain-based WIF. In a comparison of work\u2013life balance (WLB) perceptions of employees in Indian and American multinational corporations, Chandra (2012) found that within the Indian context, gender socialization led WLB to be perceived as more of a women's issue that needed to be solved at the individual level, and there was greater emphasis on employee welfare schemes to balance work and family. By contrast, within American companies the emphasis of WLB programs was on flexible work arrangements.\n\nA recent study conducted by Lyness and Judiesch (2014) examined the interplay between gender and gender egalitarianism on the W\u2013F interface in 36 countries. Their study used multi-source data as well as multilevel analyses and found that supervisors' perceptions of employees' WLB differed by ratee gender and country context. Supervisors rated women lower than men in WLB in low egalitarian countries, but similar to men in high egalitarian countries, and only appraisals of women (but not men) varied depending on egalitarian context. Societal gender inegalitarianism explained the majority of variation in supervisors' appraisals of women's WLB, whereas women's self-reported balance was linked to objective gender inequalities.\n\n## 6.8 Conclusion\n\nIn a call for more culture sensitive theories of the W\u2013F interface, Powell et al. (2009) suggest gender egalitarianism, among other cultural variables, for inclusion in future research studies. They also refer to several ways in which culture could be examined in W\u2013F research\u2014namely, culture-as-nations, culture-as-referents, and culture-as-dimensions. Poelmans (2003) recommended that we consider the micro-layer, the meso-layer, the macro-layer, and the micromacro-layer while studying the antecedents and consequences of WFC. Ollier-Malaterre et al. (2013) \u00adrecommended that future W\u2013F research should consider positive and negative aspects of the W\u2013F interface and examine interactions between institutional factors such as national policy contexts in addition to cultural dimensions on individual and organizational levels of analyses.\n\nOur review of the literature indicates that gender-based examinations of the W\u2013F interface built on the notion of 'biological' gender provide a somewhat incomplete understanding of the phenomena of WFC and WFE by yielding mixed results. Future W\u2013F studies should incorporate wider conceptions of gender that account for differences in the ways that gender is enacted in diverse contexts by men and women. GRI could be one such variable that operates between biological and sociological conceptions of gender. Our review of the literature also indicates that there are several interactions and complex relationships between gender and GRI (micro variables) and gender egalitarianism and gender equity (macro variables covering culture and nation). Exploring the relationships between these variables and WFC\/WFE may turn out to be the most likely way to plug the many existing lacunae in W\u2013F research.\n\nReferences\n\nAddis, M. E., & Mahalik, J. R. (2003). Men, masculinity and the contexts of help seeking. American Psychologist, 58, 5\u201314.PubMed\n\nAllen, T. D., Lapierre, L. M., Spector, P. E., Poelmans, S. A. Y., O'Driscoll, M., Woo, J., et al. (2014). The link between national paid leave policy and work-family conflict among married working parents. Applied Psychology: An International Review, 63, 5\u201328.\n\nAmstad, F. T., Meier, L., Fasel, U., Elfering, A., & Semmer, N. (2011). A meta-analysis of work-family conflict and various outcomes with a special emphasis on cross-domain versus matching-domain relations. Journal of Occupational Health Psychology, 16, 151\u2013169.PubMed\n\nAryee, S. (1992). Antecedents and outcomes of work-family conflict among married professional women: Evidence from Singapore. Human Relations, 45, 813\u2013837.\n\nAryee, S., Luk, V., Leung, A., & Lo, S. (1999). Role stressors, interrole conflict, and well-being: The moderating influence of spousal support and coping behaviors among employed parents in Hong Kong. Journal of Vocational Behavior, 54, 259\u2013278.\n\nAycan, Z. (2008). Cross-cultural approaches to work-family conflict. In K. Korabik, D. S. Lero, & D. L. Whitehead (Eds.), Handbook of work-family integration: Research, theories, and best practices (pp. 353\u2013370). San Diego: Elsevier.\n\nAycan, Z., & Eskin, M. (2005). Childcare, spousal, and organizational support in predicting work-family conflict for females and males in dual-earner families with preschool children. Sex Roles, 53, 453\u2013471.\n\nAyman, R., Velgach, S., & Ishaya, N. (April 2005). Multi-method approach to investigate work-family conflict. Poster presented at the meeting of the Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology, Los Angeles, California, USA.\n\nAyo, H. T., Henry, A. S., & Taiwo, A. (2009). Psychosocial variables as predictors of work-family conflict among secondary school teachers in Irele local government area, Ondo State, Nigeria. Pakistan Journal of Social Sciences, 6, 11\u201318.\n\nBagger, J., Li, A., & Gutek, B. A. (2008). How much do you value your family and does it matter? The joint effects of family identity saliency, family-interference-with-work and gender. Human Relations, 61, 187\u2013211.\n\nBaral, R., & Bhargava, S. (2011). Examining the moderating influence of gender on the relationships between work-family antecedents and work-family enrichment. Gender in Management: An International Journal, 26, 122\u2013147.\n\nBeham, B., Drobnic, S., & Pr\u00e4g, P. (2012). The work-family interface of service sector workers: A comparison of work resources and professional status across five European countries. Applied Psychology: An International Review, 63, 29\u201361.\n\nBielby, W. T., & Bielby, D. (1992). I will follow him: Family ties, gender-role beliefs, and reluctance to relocate for a better job. American Journal of Sociology, 97, 1241\u20131268.\n\nBilling, T. K., Bhagat, R. S., Babakus, E., Krishnan, B., Ford Jr, D. L., Srivastava, B. N., Rajadhyaksha, U., Shin, M., Kuo, B., Kwantes, C., Setiadi, B., & Nasurdin, A. M. (2014). Work\u2013family conflict and organisationally valued outcomes: The moderating role of decision latitude in five national context. Applied Psychology: An International Review, 63 (1), 62\u201395.\n\nBosmat, S. (2013). Combining multiple roles among high position women in Israel, as seen by the woman, her husband and a child. Journal of International Women's Studies, 14, 69\u201393.\n\nBoz, M., Martinez, I., & Munduate, L. (2009). Breaking negative consequences of relationship conflicts at work: The moderating role of work family enrichment and supervisor support. Revista de Psicolog\u00eda del Trabajo y de las Organizaciones, 25, 113\u2013121.\n\nBryon, K. (2005). A meta-analytic review of work-family conflict and its antecedents. Journal of Vocational Behavior, 62, 169\u2013198.\n\nBurley, K. A. (1995). Family variables as mediators of the relationship between work-family conflict and marital adjustment among dual-career men and women. Journal of Social Psychology, 135, 483\u2013497.PubMed\n\nCasper, L. M., & Bianchi, S. M. (2002). Continuity and change in the American family: Anchoring the future. Thousand Oaks: Sage.\n\nCasper, W., Bordeaux, C., Eby, L., Lockwood, A., & Lambert, D. (2007). A review of research methods in IO\/OB work-family research. Journal of Applied Psychology, 92, 28\u201343.PubMed\n\nChandra, V. (2012). Work-life balance: Eastern and western perspectives. The International Journal of Human Resource Management, 23, 1040\u20131056.\n\nChappell, D., Korabik, K., & McElwain, A. (June 2005). The effects of gender-role attitudes on work-family conflict and work-family guilt. Poster presented at the meeting of the Canadian Psychological Association, Montreal, Quebec, Canada.\n\nChoi, H., & Kim, Y. T. (2012). Work-family conflict, work-family facilitation, and job outcomes in the Korean hotel industry. International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management, 24, 1011\u20131028.\n\nCinnamon, R., & Rich, Y. (2002). Gender differences in the importance of work and family roles: Implications for work-family conflict. Sex Roles, 47, 531\u2013541.\n\nDavis, S. N., & Pearce, L. P. (2007). Adolescents' work-family gender ideologies and educational expectations. Sociological Perspectives, 50, 249\u2013272.\n\nDrach-Zahavy, A., & Somech, A. (July 2004). Emic and etic characteristics of coping strategies with WFC: The case of Israel. Paper presented at the International Congress of Cross-Cultural Psychology, Xi'an, China.\n\nDuxbury, L. E., & Higgins, C. A. (1991). Gender differences in work-family conflict. Journal of Applied Psychology, 76, 60\u201373.\n\nEagle, B. W., Miles, E. W., & Icenogle, M. L. (1997). Interrole conflicts and the permeability of work and family domains: Are there gender differences? Journal of Vocational Behavior, 50, 168\u2013184.\n\nEby, L. T., Casper, W. J., Lockwood, A., Bordeaux, C., & Brinleya, A. (2005). Work and family research in IO\/OB: Content analysis and review of the literature (1980\u20132002). Journal of Vocational Behavior 66, 124\u2013197.\n\nFord, M. T., Heinen, B. A., & Langkamer, K. L. (2007). Work and family satisfaction and conflict: A meta-analysis of cross domain relations. Journal of Applied Psychology, 92, 57\u201380.PubMed\n\nFriedman, S. R., & Weissbrod, C. S. (2005). Work and family commitment and decision-making status among emerging adults. Sex Roles, 53, 317\u2013325.\n\nFrisco, M. L., & Williams, K. (2003). Perceived housework equity, marital happiness, and divorce in dual-earner households. Journal of Family Issues, 24, 51\u201373.\n\nFrone, M. R. (2003). Work-family balance. In J. C. Quick & L. E. Tetrick (Eds.), Handbook of occupational health psychology (pp. 143\u2013162). Washington: American Psychological Association.\n\nFrone, M. R., Russell, M., & Cooper, M. K. (1992a). Antecedents and outcomes of work-family conflict: Testing a model of the work-family interface. Journal of Applied Psychology, 77, 65\u201378.PubMed\n\nFrone, M. R., Russell, M., & Cooper, M. L. (1992b). Prevalence of work-family conflict: Are work and family boundaries asymmetrically permeable? Journal of Organizational Behavior, 13, 723\u2013729.\n\nFrone, M. R., Russell, M., & Cooper, M. L. (1993). Relationship of work-family conflict, gender, and alcohol expectancies to alcohol use\/abuse. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 14, 545\u2013558.\n\nFrone, M. R., Russell, M., & Barnes, G. M. (1996). Work-family conflict, gender, and health-related outcomes: A study of employed parents in two community samples. Journal of Occupational Health Psychology, 1, 57\u201369.PubMed\n\nFu, K. C., & Shaffer, M. A. (2001). The tug of work and family: Direct and indirect domain-specific determinants of work-family conflict. Personnel Review, 30, 502\u2013522.\n\nGelfand, M. J., & Knight, A. P. (2005). Cross-cultural perspectives on work-family conflict. In S. A. Y. Poelmans (Ed.), Work and family: An international research perspective (pp. 401\u2013414). Mahwah: Erlbaum.\n\nGibbons, J., Hamby, B., & Dennis, W. (1997). Researching gender-role ideologies internationally and cross-culturally. Psychology of Women Quarterly, 21, 151\u2013170.\n\nGoldberg, W. A., Kelly, E., Matthews, N., Kang, H., Li, W., & Sumaroka, M. (2012). The more things change, the more they stay the same: Gender, culture, and college students' views about work and family. Journal of Social Issues, 68, 814\u2013838.\n\nGreenhaus, J., & Beutell, N. (1985). Sources of conflict between work and family roles. Academy of Management Review, 10, 76\u201388.\n\nGreenhaus, J. H., & Powell, G. N. (2006). When work and family are allies: A theory of work-family enrichment. Academy of Management Review, 31, 72\u201379.\n\nGr\u00f6nlund, A. (2007). More control, less conflict? Job demand-control, gender and work-family conflict. Gender, Work & Organization, 14, 476\u2013497.\n\nGrzywacz, J. G., & Marks, N. F. (2000). Reconceptualizing the work-family interface: An ecological perspective on the correlates of positive and negative spillover between work and family. Journal of Occupational Health Psychology, 5, 111\u2013126.PubMed\n\nGuan, J., Rajadhyaksha, U., & McElroy, J. (2011). The relation between work conditions and women's socio-economic status: A global exploratory study. Journal of Research in Peace, Gender and Development, 1, 271\u2013285.\n\nGutek, B. A., Searle, S., & Klepa, L. (1991). Rational versus gender-role explanations for work family conflict. Journal of Applied Psychology, 76, 560\u2013568.\n\nHaar, J. M., & Bardoel, E. A. (2008). Positive spillover from the work-family interface: A study of Australian employees. Asia Pacific Journal of Human Resources, 46, 275\u2013287.\n\nHakanen, J. J., Peeters, M., & Perhoniemi, R. (2011). Enrichment processes and gain spirals at work and at home: A 3-year cross-lagged panel study. Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology, 84, 8\u201330.\n\nHarris, R. J., Firestone, J. M., & Bryan, P. J. (2006). A comparative analysis of sex-role ideology in Canada, Mexico and the United States. Advances in Gender Research, 10, 97\u2013124.\n\nHassan, Z., Dollard, M. F., & Winefield, A. H. (2010). Work-family conflict in East vs Western countries. Cross Cultural Management: An International Journal, 17, 30\u201349.\n\nHill, E. J., Yang, C., Hawkins, A. J., & Ferris, M. (2004). A cross-cultural test of the work-family interface in 48 countries. Journal of Marriage and the Family, 66, 1300\u20131316.\n\nHo, M., Xuefei, C., Cheung, F. M., Liu, H., & Worthington, E. (2013). A dyadic model of the work-family interface: A study of dual-earner couples in China. Journal of Occupational Health Psychology, 18, 53\u201363.PubMed\n\nHuffman, A. H., Payne, S., & Castro, C. (April 2003). Time demands, work-family conflict and turnover: A comparison of men and women. Poster presented at the Annual meeting of the Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology, Orlando, Florida, USA.\n\nJames, B., Barnett, R., & Brennan, R. T. (1998). The psychological effects of work experiences and disagreements about gender-role beliefs in dual-earner couples: A longitudinal study. Women's Health: Research on Gender, Behavior and Policy, 4, 341\u2013368.\n\nJoplin, J. R. W., Shaffer, M. A., Francesco, A. M., & Lau, T. (2003). The macro environment and work-family-conflict: Development of a cross-cultural comparative framework. International Journal of Cross-Cultural Management, 3, 305\u2013328.\n\nKailasapathy, P., & Metz, I. (2008). Work-family conflict in Sri Lanka: Negotiations of exchange relationships in family and at work. Journal of Social Issues, 68, 790\u2013813.\n\nKaratepe, O., & Azar, A. K. (2013). The effects of work-family conflict and facilitation on turnover intentions: The moderating role of core self-evaluations. International Journal of Hospitality and Tourism Administration, 14, 255\u2013281.\n\nKeene, J. R., & Quadagno, J. (2004). Predictors of perceived work-family balance: Gender difference or gender similarity. Sociological Perspectives, 47, 1\u201323.\n\nKinnunen, U., & Mauno, S. (1998). Antecedents and outcomes of work-family conflict among employed women and men in Finland. Human Relations, 51, 157\u2013177.\n\nKorabik, K., McElwain, A., & Chappell, D. (2008). Integrating gender-related issues into research on work and family. In K. Korabik, D. S. Lero, & D. L. Whitehead (Eds.), Handbook of work-family integration: Research, theory, and best practices (pp. 215\u2013232). San Diego: Elsevier.\n\nKorabik, K., Lero, D. S., Aycan, Z., & Bardoel, A. (Dec 2012). HR policies to enhance work-family balance: Fostering organizational sustainability in global context. Paper presented at the Research Colloquium on Creating Sustainable Organizations: The Human and Social Dimensions, Deakin Management Centre, Victoria, Australia.\n\nKulik, L. (2004). Predicting gender role ideology among husbands and wives in Israel: A comparative analysis. Sex Roles, 51, 575\u2013588.\n\nLapierre, L. M., Spector, P. E., Allen, T. B., Poelmans, S., Cooper, C. L., O'Driscoll, M. P., Sanchez, J. I., Brough, P., & Kinnunen, U. (2008). Family-supportive organization perceptions, multiple dimensions of work-family conflict, and employee satisfaction: A test of model across five samples. Journal of Vocational Behavior, 73, 92\u2013106.\n\nLoerch, K. J., Russell, J. E., & Rush, M. C. (1989). The relationships among family domain variables and work-family conflict for men and women. Journal of Vocational Behavior, 35, 288\u2013308.\n\nLyness, K. S., & Judiesch, M. K. (2014). Gender egalitarianism and work-life balance for managers: Multisource perspectives in 36 Countries. Applied Psychology: An International Review, 63, 96\u2013129.\n\nLyness, K. S., & Kropf, M. B. (2005). The relationships of national gender equality and organizational support with work-family balance: A study of European managers. Human Relations, 58, 33\u201360.\n\nMahpul, I. H., & Abdullah, N. A. (2011). The prevalence of work-family conflict among mothers in peninsular Malaysia. International Journal of Humanities and Social Science, 1, 154\u2013161.\n\nMatsui, T., Ohsawa, T., & Onglatco, M. L. (1995). Work family conflict and the stress buffering effects of husband support and coping behavior among Japanese married workingwomen. Journal of Vocational Behavior, 47, 178\u2013192.\n\nMcElwain, A., Korabik, K., & Rosin, H. M. (2005). An examination of gender differences in work-family conflict. Canadian Journal of Behavioural Science, 37, 269\u2013284.\n\nMcNall, L. A., Nicklin, J. M., & Masuda, A. D. (2010). A meta-analytic review of the consequences associated with work-family enrichment. Journal of Business and Psychology, 25, 381\u2013396. doi:10.1007\/s10869-009-9141-1.\n\nMichel, J. S., Kotrba, L. M., Mitchelson, J. K., Clark, M. A., & Baltes, B. B. (2011). Antecedents of work-family conflict: A meta-analytic review. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 32, 689\u2013725.\n\nMickelson, K. D., Claffey, S. T., & Williams, S. L. (2006). The moderating role of gender and gender role attitudes on the link between spousal support and marital quality. Sex Roles, 55, 73\u201382.\n\nMoen, P., Erickson, M., & Dempster-McClain, D. (1997). Their mother's daughters? The intergenerational transmission of gender attitudes in a world of changing roles. Journal of Marriage and the Family, 59, 281\u2013294.\n\nMortazavia, S., Pedhiwala, N., Shafiro, M., & Hammer, L. (2009). Work-family conflict related to culture and gender. Community, Work & Family, 12, 251\u2013273.\n\nNamayandeh, H., Yaacob, S. N., & Juhari, R. (2011). The effect of gender-role orientation on work interference with family (WIF) and family interference with work (FIW) among married female nurses in Shiraz-Iran. Asian Culture and History, 2, 165\u2013171.\n\nNasurdin, A., Ahmad, N. H., & Zainal, M. (2013). Comparing work-family conflict and facilitation among male and female entrepreneurs in Malaysia. International Journal of Business and Society, 14, 149\u2013162.\n\nOllier-Malaterre, A., Valcour, M., Den Dulk, L., & Kossek, E. E. (2013). Theorizing national context to develop comparative work-life research: A review and research agenda. European Management Journal, 31, 433\u2013447.\n\n\u00d6un, I. (2012). Work-family conflict in the Nordic countries: A comparative analysis. Journal of Comparative Family Studies, 43, 165\u2013184.\n\nParasuraman, S., & Greenhaus, J. H. (2002). Toward reducing some critical gaps in work family research. Human Resource Management Review, 12, 299\u2013312.\n\nParasurman, S., & Simmers, C. A. (2001). Type of employment, work-family conflict and well-being: A comparative study. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 22, 551\u2013568.\n\nParboteeah, K. P., Hoegl, M., & Cullen, J. B. (2008). Managers' gender-role attitudes: A country institutional profile approach. Journal of International Business Studies, 39, 795\u2013813.\n\nPimentel, E. E. (2006). Gender ideology, household behavior, and backlash in urban China. Journal of Family Issues, 27, 341\u2013365.\n\nPleck, J. H. (1977). The work-family role system. Social Problems, 24, 417\u2013427.\n\nPoelmans, S. A. Y. (2003). The multi-level 'fit' model of work and family. International Journal of Cross Cultural Management, 3, 267\u2013274.\n\nPoelmans, S. A. Y., O'Driscoll, M., & Beham, B. (2005). An overview of international research on the work-family interface. In S. A. Y. Poelmans (Ed.), Work and family: An international research perspective (pp. 3\u201346). Mahwah: Lawrence Erlbaum.\n\nPoelmans, S. A. Y., Ayman, R., Korabik, K., Rajadhyaksha, U., Huang, T. P., Lero, D. S., & Pande, D. T. (July 2006). How far is too far?: Comparing Spain, Taiwan, India, US & Canada on work-family conflict. Paper presented at the 18th Congress of the International Association for Cross-Cultural Psychology, Spetes, Greece.\n\nPowell, G. N., Francesco, A. M., & Ling, Y. (2009). Toward culture-sensitive theories of the work-family interface. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 30, 597\u2013616.\n\nRajadhyaksha, U., & Velgach, S. (Aug 2009). Gender, gender-role ideology and work-family conflict in India. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the Academy of Management, Chicago, Illinois, USA.\n\nRamadoss, K., & Rajadhyaksha, U. (2012). Gender differences in commitment to roles, work-family conflict and spousal support. Journal of Social Sciences, 33, 227\u2013233.\n\nRay, R., Gornick, J. C., & Schmitt, J. (2010). Who cares? Assessing generosity and gender equality in parental leave policy designs in 21 countries. Journal of European Social Policy, 20, 196\u2013216.\n\nRothbard, N. P. (2001). Enriching or depleting: The dynamics of engagement in work and family roles. Administrative Science Quarterly, 46, 655\u2013684.\n\nSchwarzwald, J., Koslowsky, M., & Izhak-Nir, E. (2008). Gender-role ideology as a moderator of the relationship between social power tactics and marital satisfaction. Sex Roles, 59, 657\u2013670.\n\nShaffer, M. A., Joplin, J., & Hsu, Y. (2011). Expanding the boundaries of work-family research: Review and agenda for future research. International Journal of Cross-Cultural Management, 11, 221\u2013268.\n\nShockley, K., & Singla, N. (2011). Reconsidering work-family interactions and satisfaction: A meta-analysis. Journal of Management, 37, 861\u2013886.\n\nSimon, M., K\u00fcmmerling, A., & Hasselhorn, H. M. (2004). Work-home conflict in the European nursing profession. International Journal of Occupational and Environmental Health, 10, 384\u2013391.PubMed\n\nSmith-Lovin, L., & Tickamyer, A. R. (1978). Nonrecursive models of labor force participation, fertility behavior, and sex role attitudes. American Sociological Review, 43, 541\u2013557.PubMed\n\nSomech, A., & Drach-Zahavy, A. (2007). Strategies for coping with work-family conflict: The distinctive relationships of gender-role ideology. Journal of Occupational Health Psychology, 12, 1\u201319.PubMed\n\nSomech, A., & Drach-Zahavy, A. (July 2011). Coping with work-family conflict from a cross cultural perspective. Paper presented at the meeting of the International Association of Cross-Cultural Psychology, Istanbul, Turkey.\n\nSpector, P. E., Allen, T. D., Poelmans, S., Lapierre, L. M., Cooper, C. L., O'Driscoll, M., et al. (2007). Cross-national differences in relationships of work demands, job satisfaction and turnover intentions with work-family conflict. Personnel Psychology, 60, 805\u2013835.\n\nSpector, P. E., Cooper, C. L., Poelmans, S., Allen, T. D., O'Drsicoll, M., Sanchez, J. I., Siu, O. L., Dewe, P., Hart, P., Lu, L., Moraes, L. F. R., Ostrognay, G. M., Sparks, K., Wong, P., & Yu, S. (2004). A cross-national comparative study of work-family stressors, working hours, and well-being: China and Latin America versus the Anglo world. Personnel Psychology, 57, 119\u2013142.\n\nSteibler, N. (2009). Reported levels of time-based and strain-based conflict between work and family roles in Europe: A multilevel approach. Social Indicators Research, 93, 469\u2013488.\n\nTabassum, A. (2012). The impact of social support on work-to-family and family-to-work conflict: An analysis on the female primary school teachers of Bangladesh. International Journal of Research Studies in Management, 1, 67\u201378.\n\nTreas, J., & Widmer, E. D. (2000). Married women's employment over the life course: Attitudes in cross-national perspective. Social Forces, 78, 1409\u20131436.\n\nTu, S., & Liao, P. (2005). Gender differences in gender-role attitudes: A comparative analysis of Taiwan. Journal of Comparative Family Studies, 36, 545\u2013566.\n\nV\u00e4\u00e4n\u00e4nen, A., May, K., Ala-Mursula, L., Pentti, J., Kivim\u00e4ki, M., & Vahtera, J. (2004). The double burden of and negative spillover between paid and domestic work: Associations with health among men and women. Women & Health, 40, 1\u201318.\n\nVelgach, S., Ayman, R., Antani, A., & Ishaya, N. (July 2006). Impact of GRI on WFC: The case of a health organization in the USA. Paper presented at the International Congress of Applied Psychology, Athens, Greece.\n\nWallace, J. E. (1999). Work-to-nonwork conflict among married male and female lawyers. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 20, 797\u2013816.\n\nWayne, J. H., Randel, A. E., & Stevens, J. (2006). The role of identity and work-family support in work-family enrichment and its work related consequences. Journal of Vocational Behaviour, 69, 445\u2013461.\n\nWentworth, D. K., & Chell, R. M. (2005). Gender identity at home: Comparing the role of househusband to housewife. In J. W. Lee (Ed.), Psychology of gender identity (pp. 113\u2013126). Hauppauge: Nova Biomedical.\n\nWestman, M., Etzion, D., & Gattenio, E. (2008). International business travels and the work-family interface: A longitudinal study. Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology, 81, 459\u2013480.\n\nYang, N., Chen, C., Choi, J., & Zou, Y. (2000). Sources of work-family conflict: A Sino-US comparison of the effects of work and family demands. Academy of Management Journal, 43, 113\u2013123.\n\nYavas, U., Babakus, E., & Karatepe, O. M. (2008). Attitudinal and behavioral consequences of work-family conflict and family-work conflict: Does gender matter? International Journal of Service Industry Management, 19, 7\u201331.\n\nFootnotes\n\n1\n\nIn this chapter we discuss the impact of several distinct, yet interrelated aspects of gender. We use the term gender to refer to the physical aspect of gender or whether someone is a man or a woman. Gender-role ideology is defined as whether individuals' attitudes about the roles of men and women are traditional versus egalitarian. In contrast to these two individual-level variables, gender egalitarianism and gender inequality are cultural or societal level variables. In cultures with traditional values men are seen primarily as breadwinners and women primarily as caregivers, whereas in cultures with egalitarian values there is less adherence to this traditional division of labor. The term gender inequality is used to refer to differences in power and status between men and women in different countries.\n\n2\n\nProject 3535 is a collaborative investigation of the W\u2013F interface among organizationally employed married\/cohabiting parents in ten countries (i.e., Australia, Canada, China, India, Indonesia, Israel, Spain, Taiwan, Turkey, and the US). The contributions of the members of the Project 3535 research team to this chapter are gratefully acknowledged. The team consists of: Drs. Zeynep Aycan, Roya Ayman, Anne Bardoel, Tripti Desai, Anat Drach-Zahavy, Leslie B. Hammer, Ting-Pang Huang, Karen Korabik, Donna S. Lero, Artiwadi Mawardi, Steven Poelmans, Ujvala Rajadhyaksha, Anit Somech, and Li Zhang. The project website is www.\u200bworkfamilyconfli\u200bct.\u200bca.\n\n# Part II  \nCONSIDERATIONS FROM THE HOMEFRONT\n\u00a9 Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2015\n\nMaura J. Mills (ed.)Gender and the Work-Family Experience10.1007\/978-3-319-08891-4_7\n\n# 7. Feeling Work at Home: A Transactional Model of Women and Men's Negative Affective Spillover from Work to Family\n\nMelissa E. Mitchell1  , Lillian T. Eby2  and Anna Lorys1\n\n(1)\n\nDepartment of Psychology, University of Georgia, Psychology Building, 30602 Athens, GA, USA\n\n(2)\n\nDepartment of Psychology and Owens Institute for Behavioral Research, University of Georgia, 510 Boyd GSRC, 30602 Athens, GA, USA\n\nMelissa E. Mitchell (Corresponding author)\n\nEmail: melmitch@uga.edu\n\nLillian T. Eby\n\nEmail: leby@uga.edu\n\nAnna Lorys\n\nEmail: lorysa@uga.edu\n\nKeywords\n\nWork\u2013familySpilloverAffectEmotionAppraisalCopingGender\n\n## 7.1 Introduction\n\nAffect is central to individuals' daily experiences at work and with family. Affect is fundamentally tied to those things that are most important to us\u2014our goals, values, and beliefs\u2014and is salient in virtually all of our interactions with others (Lazarus 2006). The most important and memorable moments of our lives are characterized by high emotion, and our attitudes toward our relationships and our jobs are, at least in part, determined by our affective reactions within those domains (Levenson and Gottman 1985; Weiss and Cropanzano 1996). Given the importance of affect in daily experience, it is critical to understand how affective states transfer across life domains. Specifically, how does affect generated at work transmit into the family, who is most likely to experience this transmission, and what are the ways in which the transmission of affect can be regulated? Through the lens of spillover theory (Staines 1980), this chapter examines these questions with a focus on the transmission of negative affect from work to family.\n\nSpillover theory is a dominant paradigm in the work\u2013family literature. The central premise of this theory is that experiences in the work domain spill over into the family domain, and vice versa (e.g., Staines 1980). Several studies find that affect in the work domain is related to affect in the family domain (e.g., Ilies et al. 2009; Judge and Ilies 2004; Song et al. 2008; Sonnentag and Binnewies 2013). Given the importance of the family domain to overall life satisfaction and well-being (e.g., Heller et al. 2004; Proulx et al. 2007), and findings suggesting that negative mood mediates associations between job stressors and family behavior (Story and Repetti 2006), it is crucial for researchers to understand what processes may exacerbate or ameliorate the transfer of negative affect from work to family. However, the existing literature lacks a comprehensive understanding of how the emotion process, including cognitive appraisal and coping , is involved in the transfer of affect from work to family. In addition, it is critical to explore the person and environment factors that make certain work events and emotion processes more or less likely. Thus, the purpose of this chapter is to explore the role of the emotion process in the transfer of work experiences into family life. Guided by Lazarus and Folkman's (1984) seminal transactional model of emotion , we conceptualize affective responses as resulting from the dynamic interplay between characteristics of the person and the environment . In doing so, we respond to Judge and Ilies' (2004) call for an expansion of affective events theory (AET; Weiss and Cropanzano 1996) to include the effects of work events on affective processes with family, and to Allen et al.'s (2012) call for expanded theoretical models of how personal and situational variables interact to predict outcomes in the work and family domains.\n\nThroughout this review, we consider gender as a key antecedent that has downstream effects on the work-to-family spillover process. We conceptualize gender as both a person and an environment variable consisting of gender role expectations , individual differences in masculinity and femininity , and biological sex differences. We suggest that these aspects of gender influence work events, as well as the appraisal and coping processes. By placing gender front and center in the proposed model, we address Story and Repetti's (2006) call for an approach to affective spillover that focuses on cognitive processes and gender.\n\nAlthough we recognize that there is a growing body of literature on positive affective spillover and family-to-work spillover, this chapter focuses on negative affective work-to-family spillover for several reasons. First, research finds that gender differences are most apparent under conditions of stress (Schulz et al. 2004; Vogel et al. 2003). Second, there is evidence that individuals experience stronger work-to-family spillover than family-to-work spillover (Brotheridge and Lee 2005; Evans and Bartolom\u00e9 1984; Williams and Alliger 1994). Third, research suggests that negative spillover is more enduring than positive spillover (Sonnentag and Binnewies 2013). However, we note that it is also important to examine the role of gender and the emotion process in positive affective spillover in order to gain a complete understanding of the spillover process. Although we focus primarily on negative affective spillover in our review, we believe that our model can be extended to capture the unique processes involved in positive affective spillover. We think it would be fruitful for future scholars to examine the person and environment factors that give rise to benign-positive appraisals of work events, and the behaviors that tend to generate and sustain positive affect across domains. In addition, our review focuses on within-person affective spillover rather than between-person crossover (i.e., the transfer of affect from one person to another). Although crossover processes are important to consider, it is excluded from the current review in order to provide an in-depth treatment of within-person spillover.\n\nWe begin our review by briefly introducing the transactional model of emotion . Next, we discuss how negative affective work-to-family spillover fits into the transactional framework and present our conceptual model. Then, we discuss person and environment factors that may play roles in the emotion process, and consequently in affective spillover , specifically focusing on how these factors may differ for men and women. This leads to a discussion of the emotion process as a moderator of the association between affective states at work and affective states at home. We conclude our review with suggestions for future research.\n\n### 7.1.1 Transactional Model of Emotion\n\nTransactional theories of emotion posit that all affective experience is mediated by appraisal: \"an evaluation of the personal significance of a particular encounter between the person and the environment\" (Lazarus 1991, p. 820) . Individuals engage in two types of appraisal when evaluating an event as stressful (Lazarus and Folkman 1984). In primary appraisal , people evaluate whether the event is harmful or beneficial for their well-being . In secondary appraisal , people evaluate their ability to cope with the event. Appraisals are influenced by both person and environment factors, that is, within a particular encounter, characteristics of the person and the environment interact to make certain appraisals more or less likely. Appraisals then give rise to coping behaviors , defined as efforts to manage environmental demands (problem-focused coping) and the emotions generated from those demands (emotion-focused coping). Coping behaviors, in turn, give rise to reappraisals as individuals encounter new information; these reappraisals engender additional coping behaviors . Thus, appraisal and coping reciprocally influence each other throughout an encounter (Lazarus and Folkman 1984) .\n\n### 7.1.2 Transactional Model of Work-to-Family Affective Spillover\n\nAffect is an umbrella term for both mood and emotion; following previous emotion theorists (Lazarus 1991; Weiss and Cropanzano 1996), we conceptualize emotion as distinct from mood in that emotions or affective states arise in response to a specific event, whereas moods are not directed at a particular object or event. A number of studies have found that negative affect at work is related to negative affect at home (e.g., Ilies et al. 2009). Moreover, research suggests that the spillover of negative work experiences into the family domain is mediated by the affective strain resulting from those experiences (Barling and Macewen 1992). Additionally, as discussed above, transactional theories of emotion (e.g., Lazarus and Folkman 1984) suggest that all affective states are mediated by cognitive appraisal . Taken together, prior theory suggests that work events give rise to appraisal processes, which generate negative affective states if (1) the person appraises the event as threatening to their well-being and (2) the person evaluates their coping resources as inadequate for managing the event. We propose that these affective states may spill over into the family domain through the reciprocal processes of appraisal and coping. These associations between work events, the emotion process, and affective states at work and with family are depicted in Fig. 7.1.\n\nFig. 7.1\n\nA transactional model of affective work-to-family spillover\n\nOur conceptual model follows AET's (Weiss and Cropanzano 1996) tenet that work events lead to affective states at work. However, in accordance with transactional theories of emotion, we conceptualize the emotion process as the critical mediator required for a work event to produce an affective state. In addition, we follow AET's recognition of person and environment factors as causes of work events; however, consistent with transactional theories of emotion, we assert that person and environment factors have interactive effects on the occurrence of work events and appraisals of those events. For example, imagine that Leslie, a local government employee with high career goals, has just finished an important project proposal when her supervisor informs her that the funding for the project has been cut due to government overspending. Because of her high career goals, Leslie appraises this event as highly threatening to her personal well-being , causing her to feel anxious and angry. This example illustrates how person (career goals) and environment factors (government overspending) interact to trigger a work event (loss of funding for valued project), which is appraised as threatening (appraisal), resulting in negative affective states at work (anxiety and anger) . Our transactional spillover model acknowledges that work events, appraisals, and resulting affective states derive from a complex interplay of the person and the environment .\n\nA novel contribution of the model is our framing of the emotion process as not just a mediator of the association between work events and affective states, but also as a moderator of the association between affective states at work and affective states at home (see Fig. 7.1). In so doing, we contend that certain appraisals and coping behaviors make affective work-to-family spillover more or less likely, and that these processes have a dynamic relationship within a particular transaction. For example, imagine that Ron, an engineer who has low self-esteem , receives negative feedback from a supervisor, which causes him to feel anger and shame at work. Throughout the day, Ron ruminates about the feedback, which only exacerbates his negative emotion. By the time he returns home, Ron is extremely upset and attempts to further cope with his anger by venting to his partner . Thus, the use of rumination as a coping strategy moderates the association between negative affect at work and negative affect at home, such that it exacerbates Ron's negative emotion, and thus his spillover of negative emotion from work to home. This example illustrates the dynamic interplay between coping and appraisal; appraisals influence coping, which in turn influence reappraisals . As such, we propose that these emotion processes hinder or facilitate the transfer of negative affect from work to home.\n\nAlthough appraisal and coping occur at the individual level, transactional theories of emotion acknowledge that characteristics of the social system also influence (1) the environmental conditions groups of people are exposed to and (2) characteristic ways of reacting to the environment, including appraisals and coping (Lazarus and Folkman 1984; Lazarus 1999). While acknowledging the considerable intragroup and intraindividual variability in appraisal and coping, we suggest that gender plays a role in the stress process by making certain person and environment factors more or less probable for men and women (Lazarus 1999). We suggest that these factors, in turn, have downstream effects on the emotion process and affective spillover from work to home. We view gender as a multifaceted construct composed of socially constructed norms and beliefs about the roles of men and women (i.e., gender role expectations), individual differences in masculinity and femininity , and biological sex differences. Throughout this chapter, we explore the role of gender in the emotion process, specifically as it relates to negative affective spillover from work to family. We suggest that gender role expectations present individuals with social demands (social pressure to act in accordance with gender roles and to hold gendered attitudes) and constraints (social pressure to not act in certain ways in accordance with gender roles) that shape both personal and environmental factors (see Fig. 7.1). These differentiated gender roles are facilitated by biological sex differences, including those resulting from physical specialization (e.g., pregnancy , breastfeeding) and hormones (Wood and Eagly 2002), and individual differences in gender role (Rosenkrantz et al. 1968). Through gender's effects on person and environment factors, we suggest that gender has reverberating effects on the affective spillover process. Thus, we take the position that gender differences in spillover are largely the result of differences in the meaning of men's and women's experiences. These meanings, we argue, are derived through the interdependent processes of appraisal, coping, and reappraisal . We now turn our attention to a discussion of specific person and environment factors that affect the emotion process, and consequently negative affective spillover from work to family.\n\n## 7.2 Person Factors\n\n### 7.2.1 Dispositional Traits\n\nThere are a number of dispositional traits that influence affective experience. However, most research on negative affect at work, and negative spillover more specifically, focus on affective disposition as a predictor of work and nonwork outcomes. A large body of research demonstrates that trait negative affectivity (NA) , the tendency to experience negative emotional states (Watson and Clark 1984), consistently influences appraisals of negative events. Research finds that people higher in NA tend to experience negative work events more negatively than those who are lower in NA, and NA has been found to influence mood and interpretations of events at work (Judge and Ilies 2004). Additionally, people who are higher in NA may trigger aversive work and family events through their negative appraisals of the environment (Weiss and Cropanzano 1996). Individuals who are higher in NA and trait anxiety also are more likely to engage in potentially problematic coping behaviors, such as confrontation, disengagement, and avoidance, than those lower in these traits (Carver et al. 1989; O'Brien and DeLongis 1996). Thus, there is considerable support for the idea that NA affects how individuals appraise and cope with life and work events.\n\nThere is also evidence that trait-based negative affect plays a role in negative affective work-to-family spillover. For example, Repetti and Wood (1997) found that the associations between workload and parental withdrawal and irritability were particularly strong among mothers with more symptoms of depression and higher trait anxiety , suggesting that individual tendencies to experience negative emotion can have downstream effects on negative affective spillover from work to family. Grzywacz and Marks (2000) also found that negative affective spillover was higher among more neurotic individuals. Similarly, Wang et al. (2011) found that neuroticism exacerbated negative spillover among men, such that the positive association between job stress and negative emotion display with family was stronger among more neurotic men. Collectively, these studies indicate that negative affective spillover is higher among individuals who tend to experience negative emotions, particularly anxiety.\n\nResearch suggests that women score higher on negative affectivity and neuroticism than men (e.g., Costa et al. 2001), and report feeling negative emotions more intensely and for longer durations than men (Brody and Hall 2008). Thus, to the extent that negative affectivity is related to greater negative affect, we would expect women to experience more spillover than men. However, the literature in this area is inconsistent. For example, Wang et al. (2011) found that neuroticism exacerbated negative emotion spillover among men, but not women. By contrast, Grzywacz and Marks (2000) found no gender differences in the association between neuroticism and negative spillover , although they found that women experienced more negative spillover than men. Other research finds that men and women may differ in specific emotional reactions to work stress when in the home. For example, Schulz et al. (2004) found that more negative workdays were associated with more angry marital behavior for women and more withdrawn behavior for men. These results suggest that both men and women experience negative affective spillover from work to family, although their specific affective reactions may differ.\n\nAlthough women tend to score higher on negative affectivity than men, there is also evidence that women score higher in positive affectivity (Grandey et al. 2002). This suggests that women may be more emotionally reactive than men, regardless of valence (Brody and Hall 2008). Consistent with this idea, Campos et al. (2013) found that mothers displayed both more positive and negative emotion than fathers per day, and Williams and Alliger (1994) found that women experienced both higher negative and positive affective spillover than men. Other researchers have suggested that women's affective range may be broader than men's (Fujita et al. 1991); therefore, women may experience spillover of a broader range of emotions from work to home. In support of this idea, Matjasko and Feldman (2006) found that mothers experienced spillover of happiness, anger , and anxiety from work to home, whereas fathers only experienced anxiety spillover. These findings indicate that women may experience higher levels of negative and positive spillover than men as well as spillover of a greater range of emotions. These gender differences in emotional reactivity may be the result of gender role socialization . In childhood, boys learn to minimize, suppress, and control their expression of vulnerable emotions, whereas girls' emotions are accepted and attended to by others (Brody and Hall 2008). As a result, women learn to express a greater range of emotion across domains than men. As a result, women may be more likely than men to experience spillover of both positive and negative emotion from work to family.\n\n### 7.2.2 Goal Commitments\n\nAccording to the transactional model (Lazarus and Folkman 1984; Lazarus 1999), appraisals are influenced by a number of person factors, most importantly goal commitments\u2014defined as those things that are valued, meaningful, and important to an individual . Goal commitments determine the significance of a particular experience to an individual's well-being . Lazarus and Folkman (1984) describe several ways that goal commitments influence appraisal. First, goal commitments affect the activities and situations in which individuals choose to be involved. For example, individuals who are highly committed to work goals will likely spend a lot of time involved in work activities and much of their time thinking about and discussing work (Greenhaus and Beutell 1985). Second, people are more sensitive to those things that are relevant to their goal commitments . For example, an individual who is highly committed to work goals may be more aware of and attentive to potential threats to these goals, and thus more likely to appraise ambiguous work events negatively. Third, goal commitments influence the extent to which individuals are vulnerable to threat and harm, such that the more a person is committed to a particular goal, the greater the potential threat. For example, individuals who are highly committed to work goals may appraise negative work events as particularly distressing. In support of these propositions, Song et al. (2008) found that negative affective work-to-home spillover was higher among those who were higher in work orientation (a strong commitment to the work role).\n\nHistorically, it was assumed that men were more likely to be committed to work goals, whereas women were more likely to be committed to family goals due to men and women's differential socialization into sex-stereotypic roles (Pleck 1977). From this perspective, men may be expected to have higher negative work-to-family spillover than women because they are more likely to attend and react to negative work events, given their higher commitment to work goals. Thus, men may experience greater negative affect at work, which may then spill over into the family . However, although some previous research has found that men are more likely to report stressful episodes at work than are women (Folkman and Lazarus 1980; Kendler et al. 2001), and that women tend to be more involved with family and men with work (e.g., Byron 2005), gender differences in work and family goals are often small. Additionally, recent research suggests that as more women have entered the workforce, gender roles have eroded somewhat (Wood and Eagly 2002), and as a result, men and women have become more equally committed to both work and family roles (Barnett and Hyde 2001; Barnett et al. 1993). For example, more than a third of men and women in Cinamon and Rich's (2002) sample viewed both work and family roles as highly important. Additionally, recent research finds that men and women who hold similar jobs report similar levels of job demands (McElwain et al. 2005), suggesting that earlier findings of gender differences in commitment may have had more to do with the differing characteristics of men's and women's jobs than men's greater prioritization of the work role . Moreover, research suggests that gender identity (i.e., description of the self in terms of masculine or feminine traits) may be a better predictor of commitment to the work and family roles than biological sex (Powell and Greenhaus 2010). One potential implication of men and women's greater commitment to goals in both domains is an increase in affective spillover for both genders. This is in line with Williams et al.'s (1991) suggestion that the effects of role juggling may be more severe for those who are highly committed to both their work and family roles, as a compromise in either domain threatens an important role. Given these findings, we suggest that researchers who are interested in affective spillover also carefully consider respondents' commitment to work and family goals .\n\n### 7.2.3 Personal Resources\n\nAccording to Lazarus (1999), as well as other prominent theories of job stress (e.g., Job Demands-Resources, Demerouti et al. 2001; Conservation of Resources Theory, Hobfoll 1989) , individuals and groups experience stress when the demands of the environment are greater than their resources. Although researchers often include dispositional factors such as self-esteem and locus of control in definitions of personal resources (e.g., Lazarus and Folkman 1984), we define personal resources more narrowly as external sources of support that may be engaged under stress. From the view of transactional emotion theories, although individuals may have \"objective\" personal resources, these resources only influence affect through cognitive appraisal ; that is, although individuals' appraisals are generally congruent with reality, it is the appraisal of these resources that determines affective reactions rather than the objective situation (Lazarus and Folkman 1984). Thus, individuals who hold the same or similar personal resources may appraise the availability of resources differently. Research has found that personal resources, such as perceived social support, are negatively related to psychological strain (e.g., Vermeulen and Mustard 2000) and are positively related to adaptive coping (Holahan and Moos 1991). Given their effects on the emotion process, personal resources may also influence the extent to which negative affect from work spills over into the family .\n\nDespite advances in women's status in the workplace and society, considerable research finds that men have more financial resources than women. American women working full-time earned 77 % of men's earnings in 2012 (DeNavas-Walt et al. 2013). Women's comparatively lower income may increase women's likelihood of experiencing negative affective spillover from work to family. This is because women\u2014particularly those in single-earner households, who earn considerably less money than those in other household structures (DeNavas-Walt et al. 2013)\u2014may appraise work events that threaten their earnings as particularly distressing, resulting in more negative affect at work. This negative affect may be exacerbated to the extent that women are confronted with additional financial demands in their family life. Thus, to the extent that women have fewer financial resources than men, we would predict that women experience greater negative affective spillover from work to family.\n\nAlthough women may have less access to financial resources than men, women tend to have broader social support networks that may mitigate negative affective spillover from work to home. There is consistent evidence that men and women differ in the desire to affiliate with others during stress. Taylor et al. (2000) argued that women's stress response may be better characterized as \"tend-and-befriend\" rather than \"fight-or-flight\"; that is, women tend to seek support during times of stress more than men, particularly from other women. Seeking support may have several benefits, including an expanded network of potential supporters with greater exchange of resources , and increased recovery from stress (Taylor et al. 2000). There is also evidence that social support has a larger impact on negative affect for those with more feminine gender roles; for example, Beehr et al. (2003) found that individuals higher in femininity had a greater decline in psychological strain when their supervisors were supportive than those lower in femininity. Thus, women may have greater access to social support resources than men, potentially mitigating the threat of negative work events, and consequently reducing negative affect .\n\nHowever, there are also drawbacks to receiving social support. For one, involvement of a supportive network may necessitate both the receipt and provision of support; the provision of social support may be draining and may undermine one's own recovery from stress (Shumaker and Hill 1991). Second, affiliation may increase the likelihood of problematic social coping strategies such as corumination (Haggard et al. 2011). Considerable research has found that women are more likely to focus on and discuss negative affective states (i.e., ruminate), which tends to sustain or amplify negative affect (Nolen-Hoeksema 1987) and cortisol and immune reactivity (Denson et al. 2009). This ruminative tendency may be fostered by intimate affiliative groups, and may paradoxically sustain negative affect rather than ameliorate it. Finally, high social contact also increases the likelihood that one will encounter stressful social situations (Taylor et al. 2000). For example, Kendler et al. (2001) found that women reported higher rates of interpersonal problems within their proximal networks than did men, and that the relationship between experiencing interpersonal problems within one's network and the onset of major depression was stronger among women than men. Clearly, these complex gender differences in personal resources need to be taken into account in further comparisons of men and women's spillover experiences .\n\n## 7.3 Environmental Factors\n\n### 7.3.1 Job Demands and Resources\n\nAccording to AET (Weiss and Cropanzano 1996), features of the work environment may trigger the occurrence of certain work events, leading to specific affective reactions. Considerable research supports the idea that the combination of high job demands and low job resources predict psychological strain (e.g., Demerouti et al. 2001). Thus, to the extent that individuals are employed in jobs that are associated with high job demands and low job resources, we would expect greater appraisal of stress and subsequently greater transfer of negative emotion from work to family. Men and women may differ in the types of jobs they are employed in and therefore in the types of workplace stressors to which they are exposed. These differences may impact appraisal and coping , and consequently influence affective spillover from work to family. That is, gender differences in job demands and resources may have downstream effects on men and women's negative affective spillover from work to family.\n\nMuch research has focused on the additional job demands faced by women in organizations. For example, women are more likely to experience gender discrimination and harassment at work than are men (Rotundo et al. 2001). In addition, occupational sex segregation makes certain work demands more salient for women than men. For example, many authors have argued that emotional labor \u2014managing affective displays as part of a work role (Hochschild 1979)\u2014is more commonly expected of women than men (e.g., Guy and Newman 2004). Research finds that surface acting, a component of emotional labor involving faking emotions as part of a work role (Hochschild 1979), is associated with negative affective states at work (Scott and Barnes 2011), which in turn are associated with work\u2013family conflict (Yanchus et al. 2010). Given these associations, it is likely that emotional labor has subsequent effects on work-to-family affective spillover, and that this job demand is faced disproportionately by women. As discussed below, this effect may be compounded given women's arguably greater emotional work in the home domain compared to men (Wharton and Erickson 1993).\n\nMen and women may also differ in job resources. For example, there is some evidence that women have greater access to work\u2013family resources at work. Research suggests that women perceive greater availability of work\u2013family benefits than men (Thompson et al. 1999) and use work\u2013family benefits more than men (Allen 2001). This may be indicative of strong gender norms that discourage men from using the work\u2013family resources that are available to them. For example, Allen and Russell (1999) found that men who took an extended family leave received fewer organizational rewards than those who did not. Similarly, Butler and Skattebo (2004) found that raters viewed men experiencing family conflict as lower performers and gave them lower reward recommendations than those who did not experience family conflict, whereas ratings of women were unaffected by family conflict. This may suggest that men may be less likely to use family supportive resources in order to protect themselves from negative career perceptions and\/or outcomes associated with family conflict. Women's greater access to support for work\u2013family benefits may decrease women's negative affective spillover through its effects on appraisal of coping resources; that is, women may perceive greater ability to cope with work stressors due to their greater perceived and actual availability of work\u2013family support. However, although women may receive greater work\u2013family and social support at work, they may also be more affected when they perceive a lack of support. For example, Grzywacz and Marks (2000) found that low social support at work was more strongly associated with negative work-to-family spillover for women than for men.\n\nOther gender differences in job demands and resources may influence how men and women cope with work events. For example, Folkman and Lazarus (1980) found that men were more likely than women to use problem-focused coping (i.e., attempting to change the environment in order to cope with a stressor) at work. They interpreted this difference as resulting from men and women's different job contexts, such that the men in their sample likely had higher-level jobs and thus more opportunities to change their environment through problem-solving than women. It is likely that these gender differences have weakened over time as women's status in the workplace has improved.\n\n### 7.3.2 Family Demands and Constraints\n\nResearch consistently finds that women face greater demands in the home than men. Hochschild and Machung (1989) argue that women face a \"second shift\" after work that involves housework , childcare , and other domestic duties. As a result of this greater household burden, women may not have the same opportunities as men to recover from job stress through after-work coping behaviors such as withdrawal . As a result, women may experience sustained negative affect from work within the family domain. In addition, several studies have found that women experience less physiological recovery from work compared to men, as indicated by women's higher stress hormone excretion after work and on rest days (e.g., Frankenhauser et al. 1989; Pollard et al. 1996). Thus, due to their higher demands in the home, women may be less able than men to recover from negative affect from work, resulting in women experiencing increased spillover of negative affect from work to home.\n\nWomen are the primary providers of socioemotional support in the family domain. This emotion work can be considered an additional household demand that primarily falls on women (Erickson 2005). Considerable research finds that men are more comfortable seeking social support from and disclosing emotion to women than to men, particularly their spouses (Brody and Hall 2008; Erickson 1993). As a result, female partners are often the primary sources of social support for their male partners. As discussed above, providing social support confers both costs and benefits; however, an additional cost of support provision within the family is emotional contagion. Research finds that men's negative emotions tend to crossover to other family members to a greater extent that do women's (Larson and Almeida 1999); one explanation for this finding is that women are expected to respond to their male partners with empathy and support, and therefore, are more likely to \"catch\" their partners' negative emotions (Brody and Hall 2008). Thus, women are expected to manage emotions both at work and with family to a greater extent than men. This additional burden may exacerbate women's negative affective spillover from work to home.\n\n## 7.4 The Emotion Process as a Moderator of the Work-to-Family Spillover Process\n\nThroughout this chapter, we have argued that gender has direct effects on person and environment factors, which in turn influence the emotion process. Further, we argued that this process has downstream effects on affective work-to-family spillover. We also contend that affective spillover from work to home is moderated by the emotion process\u2014specifically, the appraisals and coping strategies involved in the response to a work event. We have already discussed how gender influences the person and environment factors that give rise to work events and appraisals of those events. To the extent that individuals appraise work events as more threatening to well-being and taxing to their resources, we would predict greater negative affective work-to-family spillover based on higher levels of negative affective states at work. However, we also argue that some coping strategies are likely to lead to further negative reappraisals , and thus greater negative spillover from work to family. Specifically, certain coping behaviors, and subsequent reappraisals resulting from coping behaviors , may moderate the association between affective states at work and affective states at home, such that affective spillover is ameliorated or enhanced depending on the strategy used.\n\nOne common strategy for coping with negative work events is withdrawal . Although both men and women tend to withdraw at home after stressful workdays (Repetti 1989; Repetti and Wood 1997), some research suggests that this strategy is more common among men. For example, Schulz et al. (2004) found that husbands, but not wives, were more likely to withdraw from their partners in the evening after feeling negative affect at the end of the workday. In the short term, withdrawal behavior may be beneficial for well-being (Repetti 1992). Research finds that psychological detachment from work attenuates negative affective spillover (Sonnentag and Binnewies 2013); thus, withdrawing or detaching may be one way that individuals use to minimize the extent to which negative affect from work spills over into the home.\n\nHowever, although withdrawal may be an adaptive coping strategy in the short-term, such behavior may be problematic for family relationships. Women may be particularly distressed by their male partners' withdrawal behavior due to their greater preference for affiliation and emotional engagement (Levenson and Gottman 1985). This is consistent with Schulz et al.'s (2004) finding that wives whose husbands tended to withdraw in the evening had lower marital satisfaction than wives whose husbands did not withdraw. Since women tend to prefer to cope with strain in affiliative ways by discussing problems with others (Taylor et al. 2000), husbands' tendencies to withdraw from marital interaction may result in wives' feeling unsupported and rejected. Among heterosexual dual-earner couples, men's tendencies to withdraw to cope with negative work events may be problematic when combined with women's desire to affiliate. These gendered patterns of coping with stress may not only undermine both partners' ability to minimize negative affective spillover, but may also trigger additional negative events (e.g., arguments) within the family domain.\n\nOther ways of coping may lessen negative affective spillover from work to home. For example, Wiese et al. (2010) found that individuals who were told to think about a positive family-related experience after thinking about a job-related failure showed faster emotional recovery than those told to think about a positive job-related experience. These results suggest that negative spillover can be ameliorated to the extent that individuals cope with negative work events by reflecting on positive experiences in their family lives. As discussed earlier, other coping behaviors , such as rumination and co-rumination, may amplify negative spillover by sustaining negative affective states (Nolen-Hoeksema 1987). Future research is needed to examine the specific coping strategies individuals can use to change their appraisals of negative work events and reduce negative affective spillover .\n\n## 7.5 Conclusions and Directions for Future Research\n\nThroughout this chapter, we emphasized the importance of the emotion process to negative affective work-to-family spillover. Although research demonstrates the affective links between the work and family domains, more research is needed to examine how specific discrete emotions experienced at work are associated with discrete emotions at home. For example, an initial anger reaction at work may change over the course of the day and interactions with others, and may develop into a different emotion as the individual engages in coping behaviors and reappraises the work event. Thus, affective states at work may develop into quite different affective states at home. An expanded focus on the spillover of discrete emotions is consistent with Lazarus' (1999) view of emotions as distinct \"stories\" of how a person appraises and copes with a particular transaction. However, a focus on discrete emotions requires more complex methodologies, particularly when it comes to physiological measures. Recent research suggests that typical physiological measures of stress, such as cortisol, differ depending on the specific emotion experienced and the coping strategy used (Denson et al. 2009). Thus, future research is needed to examine spillover processes at the discrete emotion level.\n\nAnother direction for future research is an examination of how family characteristics affect the spillover process. The research on spillover consistently finds that the quality of family life can ameliorate or exacerbate negative affective spillover. For example, relationship satisfaction can protect against negative emotions resulting from work events (Campos et al. 2013). Likewise, Story and Repetti (2006) found that positive associations between workload and anger were strongest in conflictual family environments. Extending these findings, it would be interesting to explore the types of behaviors that spouses and children engage in to help reduce their family members' negative affect, and the short- and long-term consequences of these behaviors on relationship satisfaction and stability.\n\nFollowing Judge et al. (2006), we also encourage more research on the functionality of negative emotions in the work and family domain. Negative affective spillover may have adaptive value as a signal to family that something is wrong and that caretaking behaviors should be mobilized. For example, research indicates that preschool children behave in a less aversive and more positive manner on days when mothers are rated as more withdrawn (Repetti and Wood 1997). In addition, Repetti (1989) found that husbands were more withdrawn when wives engaged in more supportive behavior, perhaps suggesting that wives' support enabled men to psychologically detach from work. Likewise, negative affective spillover may motivate employees to engage in more effective coping strategies to reduce negative spillover, such as negotiating housework with a partner or exercising. These findings underscore the need to study affective spillover from a family systems perspective by focusing on the ways that family members inhibit and encourage negative affective spillover.\n\nAlthough the focus of this chapter was negative affective spillover, it is important for researchers to examine the roles of gender and the emotion process in positive affective spillover. Recent research finds that positive affect at work is related to positive affect at home (e.g., Judge and Ilies 2004; Ilies et al. 2009; Song et al. 2008); however, less research has examined the mechanisms and antecedents involved in the positive affective spillover process. Aspects of our model may be applicable to positive spillover. For example, personal factors that encourage appraisal of stressors as challenges rather than threats\u2014such as resilience , optimism, and self-efficacy beliefs\u2014may encourage the spillover of positive affect from work to home through the emotion process. Job resources, such as supportive supervision or mentoring support, may also result in positive affective spillover from work to home. This would be in line with previous research documenting that autonomy , learning opportunities, respect, and meaningful work are positively related to work\u2013family facilitation (Voydanoff 2004). It would be interesting to examine the implications of such job resources for the emotion process; perhaps when job resources are high, environmental events are appraised benevolently, generating positive affect. There is also some evidence that experiencing stressors can bolster subsequent positive affect; for example, Bolger et al. (1989) found that mood was more positive on days following a stressful event than it would have been if a stressful event was not experienced. This suggests that there may be some time-lagged affective gains associated with successful coping with stress. Future research should examine how individual differences in protective traits like resilience and optimism may encourage gains in positive affect following stressful work events.\n\nAlthough coping is discussed as a response to threat appraisals in the transactional model, there may be analogous behaviors that sustain positive affect across work and family domains. For example, savoring can be considered an analog to rumination for positive events, whereby individuals recall and reminisce about positive events in ways that tend to sustain and amplify positive affect (Sonnentag and Grant 2012). To the extent that individuals savor positive work experiences throughout the day, we would expect them to experience greater positive affective spillover from work to home. Additionally, capitalization \u2014sharing positive events with others (Gable et al. 2004)\u2014can be considered an analog to co-rumination about positive events. Previous research has found that capitalization is associated with increases in positive affect beyond experiencing the event itself (Lambert et al. 2013; Langston 1994), suggesting that positive affective spillover may be enhanced to the extent that individuals share positive work events with their family members. This is consistent with research finding that capitalization about work events strengthens the positive association between daily work engagement and work\u2013family facilitation (Culbertson et al. 2012), and that capitalization about work events is positively related to life satisfaction and positive affect (Ilies et al. in press). Future research should also explore the role of gender in these cognitive and social processes; it may be that behaviors such as capitalization are more common among women, given their greater preferences for affiliation (Taylor et al. 2000). This propensity may lead women to experience greater spillover of positive and negative emotions, depending on how work events are appraised. This is consistent with evidence that women experience higher levels of both work\u2013family conflict and facilitation compared to men (Grzywacz and Marks 2000; Powell and Greenhaus 2010; van Steenbergen et al. 2007).\n\nConsistent with previous critiques of the use of gender as an explanatory variable, we encourage researchers to measure the proposed mechanisms underlying sex and gender differences using strong theoretical rationale. Some potential mechanisms proposed in this chapter include differences in goal commitment, personal resources , job and family demands and resources, and choice of coping behaviors. With this said, it is important to note that there is usually greater variability within gender than between genders, and that gender differences in emotion and behavior often depend on the context (Brody and Hall 2008). We suggest that researchers focus on understanding these contextual features when examining gender and the spillover process. Wood and Eagly (2002) suggest that gender differences in behavior are driven by a gendered division of labor ; thus, to the extent that work and family responsibilities become more equitable across genders, we should expect gender differences to become smaller. Meta-analytic work on gender differences in work attitudes and work\u2013family conflict across time would be a welcome addition to the often inconsistent literature in this area.\n\nWe acknowledge that given the reciprocal associations within the emotion process, depicted in Fig. 7.1, and our focus on work events as primary causes of affective reactions, our proposed model will be difficult to fully test. We support Lazarus' (1999) suggestion that researchers shift their measurement of emotion from self-report surveys to narratives ; narrative methodologies allow individuals to describe how a particular transaction unfolds in terms of appraisal, coping, and reappraisal , while drawing on their past experiences, goal commitments, and resources. In combination with experience sampling methodologies, narratives of emotion would be a fruitful approach to a person-centered understanding of affective spillover.\n\nIn conclusion, given the importance of affect and the work\u2013family interface to individuals' everyday lives, an approach to spillover that focuses on the how characteristics of the person and the environment jointly affect the emotion process is important and necessary. Throughout this chapter, gender was discussed as an important antecedent variable that has downstream effects on negative affective spillover from work to family. It is hoped that the proposed model offers a theory-based framework for additional empirical and conceptual work on the intersection of gender, the emotion process, and affective spillover from work to family.\n\nReferences\n\nAllen, T. D. (2001). Family-supportive work environments: The role of organizational perceptions. Journal of Vocational Behavior, 58, 414\u2013435.CrossRef\n\nAllen, T. D., & Russell, J. E. (1999). Parental leave of absence: Some not so family-friendly implications. Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 29, 166\u2013191.CrossRef\n\nAllen, T. D., Johnson, R. C., Saboe, K. N., Cho, E., Dumani, S., & Evans, S. (2012). Dispositional variables and work\u2013family conflict: A meta-analysis. Journal of Vocational Behavior, 80, 17\u201326.CrossRef\n\nBarling, J., & Macewen, K. E. (1992). Linking work experiences to facets of marital functioning. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 13, 573\u2013583.CrossRef\n\nBarnett, R. C., & Hyde, J. S. (2001). Women, men, work, and family. American Psychologist, 56, 781\u2013796.PubMedCrossRef\n\nBarnett, R. C., Marshall, N. L., Raudenbush, S. W., & Brennan, R. T. (1993). Gender and the relationship between job experiences and psychological distress: A study of dual-earner couples. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 64, 794\u2013806.PubMedCrossRef\n\nBeehr, T. A., Farmer, S. J., Glazer, S., Gudanowski, D. M., & Nair, V. N. (2003). The enigma of social support and occupational stress: Source congruence and gender role effects. Journal of Occupational Health Psychology, 8, 220\u2013231.PubMedCrossRef\n\nBolger, N., DeLongis, A., Kessler, R. C., & Wethington, E. (1989). The contagion of stress across multiple roles. Journal of Marriage and the Family, 51, 175\u2013183.CrossRef\n\nBrody, L. R., & Hall, J. A. (2008). Gender and emotion in context. In M. Lewis, J. M. Haviland-Jones, & L. Feldman Barrett (Eds.), Handbook of emotions (pp. 395\u2013408). New York: Guilford.\n\nBrotheridge, C. M., & Lee, R. T. (2005). Impact of work\u2013family interference on general well-being: A replication and extension. International Journal of Stress Management, 12, 203\u2013221.CrossRef\n\nButler, A. B., & Skattebo, A. (2004). What is acceptable for women may not be for men: The effect of family conflicts with work on job performance ratings. Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology, 77, 553\u2013564.CrossRef\n\nByron, K. (2005). A meta-analytic review of work\u2013family conflict and its antecedents. Journal of Vocational Behavior, 67, 169\u2013198.CrossRef\n\nCampos, B., Wang, S. W., Plaksina, T., Repetti, R. L., Schoebi, D., Ochs, E., et al. (2013). Positive and negative emotion in the daily life of dual-earner couples with children. Journal of Family Psychology, 27, 76\u201385.PubMedCrossRef\n\nCarver, C. S., Scheier, M. F., & Weintraub, J. K. (1989). Assessing coping strategies: A theoretically based approach. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 56, 267\u2013283.PubMedCrossRef\n\nCinamon, R. G., & Rich, Y. (2002). Gender differences in the importance of work and family roles: Implications for work\u2013family conflict. Sex Roles, 47, 531\u2013541.CrossRef\n\nCosta Jr, P., Terracciano, A., & McCrae, R. R. (2001). Gender differences in personality traits across cultures: Robust and surprising findings. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 81, 322\u2013331.PubMedCrossRef\n\nCulbertson, S. S., Mills, M. J., & Fullagar, C. J. (2012). Work engagement and work\u2013family facilitation: Making homes happier through positive affective spillover. Human Relations, 65, 1155\u20131177.CrossRef\n\nDemerouti, E., Bakker, A. B., Nachreiner, F., & Schaufeli, W. B. (2001). The job demands-resources model of burnout. Journal of Applied Psychology, 86, 499\u2013512.PubMedCrossRef\n\nDeNavas-Walt, C., Proctor, B. D., Smith, J. C. (2013). Income, poverty, and health insurance coverage in the United States: 2012. Resource document. U.S. Census Bureau. www.\u200bcensus.\u200bgov\/\u200bprod\/\u200b2013pubs\/\u200bp60-245.\u200bpdf.\n\nDenson, T. F., Spanovic, M., & Miller, N. (2009). Cognitive appraisals and emotions predict cortisol and immune responses: A meta-analysis of acute laboratory social stressors and emotion inductions. Psychological Bulletin, 135, 823\u2013953.PubMedCrossRef\n\nErickson, R. J. (1993). Reconceptualizing family work: The effect of emotion work on perceptions of marital quality. Journal of Marriage and Family, 55, 888\u2013900.CrossRef\n\nErickson, R. J. (2005). Why emotion work matters: Sex, gender and the division of household labor. Journal of Marriage and Family, 67, 337\u2013351.CrossRef\n\nEvans, P., & Bartolom\u00e9, F. (1984). The changing pictures of the relationship between career and family. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 5, 9\u201321.CrossRef\n\nFolkman, S., & Lazarus, R. S. (1980). An analysis of coping in a middle-aged community sample. Journal of Health and Social Behavior, 21, 219\u2013239.PubMedCrossRef\n\nFrankenhauser, M., Lundberg, U., Fredrikson, M., Melin, B., Tuomisto. M., Myrsten, A. L., et al. (1989). Stress on and off the job as related to sex and occupational status in white-collar workers. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 10, 321\u2013346.CrossRef\n\nFujita, F., Diener, E., & Sandvik, E. (1991). Gender differences in negative affect and well-being: The case for emotional intensity. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 61, 427\u2013434.PubMedCrossRef\n\nGable, S. L., Reis, H. T., Impett, E. A., & Asher, E. R. (2004). What do you do when things go right? The intrapersonal and interpersonal benefits of sharing positive events. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 87, 228\u2013245.PubMedCrossRef\n\nGrandey, A. A., Tam, A., & Brauburger, A. (2002). Affective states and traits in the workplace: Diary and survey data from young workers. Motivation and Emotion, 26, 31\u201355.CrossRef\n\nGreenhaus, J. H., & Beutell, N. J. (1985). Sources of conflict between work and family roles. Academy of Management Review, 10, 76\u201388.\n\nGrzywacz, J. G., & Marks, N. F. (2000). Reconceptualizing the work\u2013family interface: An ecological perspective on the correlates of positive and negative spillover between work and family. Journal of Occupational Health Psychology, 5, 111\u2013126.PubMedCrossRef\n\nGuy, M., & Newman, M. A. (2004). Women jobs, men's jobs: Sex segregation and emotional labor. Public Administration Review, 64, 289\u2013298.CrossRef\n\nHaggard, D. L., Robert, C., & Rose, A. J. (2011). Co-rumination in the workplace: Adjustment trade-offs for men and women who engage in excessive discussions of workplace problems. Journal of Business and Psychology, 26, 27\u201340.CrossRef\n\nHeller, D., Watson, D., & Ilies, R. (2004). The role of person versus situation in life satisfaction: A critical examination. Psychological Bulletin, 130, 574\u2013600.PubMedCrossRef\n\nHobfoll, S. E. (1989). Conservation of resources: A new attempt at conceptualizing stress. American Psychologist, 44, 513\u2013524.PubMedCrossRef\n\nHochschild, A. R. (1979). Emotion work, feeling rules, and social structure. American Journal of Sociology, 85, 551\u2013575.CrossRef\n\nHochschild, A., & Machung, A. (1989). The second shift: Working parents and the revolution at home. New York: Viking.\n\nHolahan, C. J., & Moos, R. H. (1991). Life stressors, personal and social resources, and depression: A 4-year structural model. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 100, 31\u201338.PubMedCrossRef\n\nIlies, R., Wilson, K. S., & Wagner, D. T. (2009). The spillover of daily job satisfaction onto employees' family lives: The facilitating role of work\u2013family integration. Academy of Management Journal, 52, 87\u2013102.CrossRef\n\nJudge, T. A., & Ilies, R. (2004). Affect and job satisfaction: A study of their relationship at work and at home. Journal of Applied Psychology, 89, 661\u2013673.PubMedCrossRef\n\nJudge, T. A., Ilies, R., & Scott, B. A. (2006). Work\u2013family conflict and emotions: Effects at work and at home. Personnel Psychology, 59, 779\u2013814.CrossRef\n\nKendler, K. S., Thornton, L. M., & Prescott, C. A. (2001). Gender differences in the rates of exposure to stressful life events and sensitivity to their depressogenic effects. American Journal of Psychiatry, 158, 587\u2013593.PubMedCrossRef\n\nLambert, N. M., Gwinn, A. M., Baumeister, R. F., Strachman, A., Washburn, I. J., Gable, S. L., et al. (2013). A boost of positive affect: The perks of sharing positive experiences. Journal of Social and Personal Relationships, 30, 24\u201343.CrossRef\n\nLangston, C. A. (1994). Capitalizing on and coping with daily-life events: Expressive responses to positive events. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 67, 1112\u20131125.CrossRef\n\nLarson, R. W., & Almeida, D. M. (1999). Emotional transmission in the daily lives of families: A new paradigm for studying family process. Journal of Marriage and Family, 61, 5\u201320.CrossRef\n\nLazarus, R. S. (1991). Progress on a cognitive-motivational-relational theory of emotion. American Psychologist, 46, 819\u2013834.PubMedCrossRef\n\nLazarus, R. S. (1999) Stress and emotion: A new synthesis. New York: Springer.\n\nLazarus, R. S. (2006). Emotions and interpersonal relationships: Toward a person-centered conceputalization of emotions and coping. Journal of Personality, 74, 9\u201346.PubMedCrossRef\n\nLazarus, R. S., & Folkman, S. (1984). Stress, appraisal, and coping. New York: Springer.\n\nLevenson, R.W., & Gottman, J. M. (1985). Physiological and affective predictors of change in relationship satisfaction. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 49, 85\u201394.PubMedCrossRef\n\nMatjasko, J. L., & Feldman, A. F. (2006). Bringing work home: The emotional experiences of mothers and fathers. Journal of Family Psychology, 20, 47\u201355.PubMedCrossRef\n\nMcElwain, A. K., Korabik, K., & Rosin, H. M. (2005). An examination of gender differences in work\u2013family conflict. Canadian Journal of Behavioural Science, 37, 283\u2013298.CrossRef\n\nNolen-Hoeksema, S. (1987). Sex differences in unipolar depression: Evidence and theory. Psychological Bulletin, 101, 259\u2013282.PubMedCrossRef\n\nO'Brien, T. B., & DeLongis, A. (1996). The interactional context of problem, emotion- and relationship-focused coping: The role of the big five personality factors. Journal of Personality, 64, 775\u2013813.CrossRef\n\nPleck, J. H. (1977). The work\u2013family role system. Social Problems, 24, 417\u2013427.CrossRef\n\nPollard, T., Ungpakorn, G., Harrison, G., & Parkes, K. (1996). Epinephrine and cortisol responses to work. Annals of Behavioral Medicine, 18, 229\u2013237.PubMedCrossRef\n\nPowell, G. N., & Greenhaus, J. H. (2010). Sex, gender, and the work-to-family interface: Exploring negative and positive interdependencies. Academy of Management Journal, 53, 513\u2013534.CrossRef\n\nProulx, C. M., Helms, H. M., & Buehler, C. (2007). Marital quality and personal well-being: A meta-analysis. Journal of Marriage and Family, 69, 576\u2013593.CrossRef\n\nRepetti, R. L. (1989). Effects of daily workload on subsequent behavior during marital interaction: The roles of social withdrawal and spouse support. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 57, 651\u2013659.PubMedCrossRef\n\nRepetti, R. L. (1992) Social withdrawal as a short-term coping response to daily stressors. In H. S. Friedman (Ed.), Hostility, coping, and health (pp. 151\u2013165). Washington, D.C.: American Psychological Association.CrossRef\n\nRepetti, R. L., & Wood, J. (1997). Effects of daily stress at work on mothers' interactions with preschoolers. Journal of Family Psychology, 11, 90\u2013108.CrossRef\n\nRotundo, M., Nguyen, D., & Sackett, P. (2001). A meta-analytic review of gender differences in perceptions of sexual harassment. Journal of Applied Psychology, 86, 914\u2013922.PubMedCrossRef\n\nRosenkrantz, P., Vogel, S., Bee, H., Broverman, I., & Broverman, D. M. (1968). Sex-role stereotypes and self-concepts in college students. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 32, 287\u2013295.PubMedCrossRef\n\nSchulz, M. S., Cowan, P. A., Cowan, C., & Brennan, R. T. (2004). Coming home upset: Gender, marital satisfaction, and the daily spillover of workday experience into couple interactions. Journal of Family Psychology, 18, 250\u2013263.PubMedCrossRef\n\nScott, B. A., & Barnes, C. M. (2011). A multilevel field investigation of emotional labor, affect, work withdrawal, and gender. Academy of Management Journal, 54, 116\u2013136.CrossRef\n\nShumaker, S. A., & Hill, D. R. (1991). Gender differences in social support and physical health. Health Psychology, 10, 102\u2013111.PubMedCrossRef\n\nSong, Z., Foo, M. D., & Uy, M. A. (2008). Mood spillover and crossover among dual-earner couples: A cell phone event sampling study. Journal of Applied Psychology, 93, 443\u2013452.PubMedCrossRef\n\nSonnentag, S., & Binnewies, C. (2013). Daily affect spillover from work to home: Detachment from work and sleep as moderators. Journal of Vocational Behavior, 83, 198\u2013208.CrossRef\n\nSonnentag, S., & Grant, A. M. (2012). Doing good at work feels good at home, but not right away: When and why perceived prosocial impact predicts positive affect. Personnel Psychology, 65, 495\u2013530.CrossRef\n\nStaines, G. L. (1980). Spillover versus compensation: A review of the literature on the relationship between work and nonwork. Human Relations, 33, 111\u2013129.CrossRef\n\nStory, L. B., & Repetti, R. (2006). Daily occupational stressors and marital behavior. Journal of Family Psychology, 20, 690\u2013700.PubMedCrossRef\n\nTaylor, S. E., Klein, L. C., Lewis, B. P., Gruenewald, T. L., Gurung, R. A., & Updegraff, J. A. (2000). Biobehavioral responses to stress in females: Tend-and-befriend, not fight-or-flight. Psychological Review, 107, 411\u2013429.PubMedCrossRef\n\nThompson, C. A., Beauvais, L. L., & Lyness, K. S. (1999). When work\u2013family benefits are not enough: The influence of work\u2013family culture on benefit utilization, organizational attachment, and work\u2013family conflict. Journal of Vocational Behavior, 54, 392\u2013415.CrossRef\n\nvan Steenbergen, E. F., Ellemers, N., & Mooijaart, A. (2007). How work and family can facilitate each other: Distinct types of work\u2013family facilitation and outcomes for women and men. Journal of Occupational Health Psychology, 12, 279\u2013300.PubMedCrossRef\n\nVermeulen, M., & Mustard, C. (2000). Gender differences in job strain, social support at work, and psychological distress. Journal of Occupational Health Psychology, 5, 428\u2013440.PubMedCrossRef\n\nVogel, D. L., Wester, S. R., Heesacker, M., & Madon, S. (2003). Confirming gender stereotypes: A social role perspective. Sex Roles, 48, 519\u2013528.CrossRef\n\nVoydanoff, P. (2004). The effects of work demands and resources on work-to-family conflict and facilitation. Journal of Marriage and Family, 66, 398\u2013412.CrossRef\n\nWang, S. W., Repetti, R. L., & Campos, B. (2011). Job stress and family social behavior: The moderating role of neuroticism. Journal of Occupational Health Psychology, 16, 441\u2013456.PubMedCrossRef\n\nWatson, D., & Clark, L. A. (1984). Negative affectivity: The disposition to experience aversive emotional states. Psychological Bulletin, 96, 465\u2013490.PubMedCrossRef\n\nWeiss, H. M., & Cropanzano, R. (1996). Affective Events Theory: A theoretical discussion of the structure, causes and consequences of affective experiences at work. In B. M. Staw & L. L. Cummings (Eds.), Research in organizational behavior: An annual series of analytical essays and critical review (Vol. 18, pp. 1\u201374). New York: JAI.\n\nWharton, A. S., & Erickson, R. I. (1993). Managing emotions on the job and at home: Understanding the consequences of multiple emotional roles. Academy of Management Review, 18, 457\u2013486.\n\nWiese, B. S., Seiger, C. P., Schmid, C. M., & Freund, A. M. (2010). Beyond conflict: Functional facets of the work\u2013family interplay. Journal of Vocational Behavior, 77, 104\u2013117.CrossRef\n\nWilliams, K. J., & Alliger, G. (1994). Role stressors, mood spillover, and perceptions of work\u2013family conflict in employed parents. Academy of Management Journal, 37, 837\u2013868.CrossRef\n\nWilliams, K. J., Suls, J., Alliger, G. M., Learner, S. M., & Wan, C. K. (1991). Multiple role juggling and daily mood states in working mothers: An experience sampling study. Journal of Applied Psychology, 76, 664\u2013674.PubMedCrossRef\n\nWood, W., & Eagly, A. H. (2002). A cross-cultural analysis of the behavior of women and men: Implications for the origins of sex differences. Psychological Bulletin, 128, 699\u2013727.PubMedCrossRef\n\nYanchus, N. J., Eby, L. T., Lance, C. E., & Drollinger, S. (2010). The impact of emotional labor on work\u2013family outcomes. Journal of Vocational Behavior, 76, 105\u2013117.CrossRef\n\u00a9 Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2015\n\nMaura J. Mills (ed.)Gender and the Work-Family Experience10.1007\/978-3-319-08891-4_8\n\n# 8. The Intersection of Gender and Work\u2013Family Guilt\n\nKaren Korabik1\n\n(1)\n\nCentre for Families, Work and Well-Being, University of Guelph, N1G2W1 Guelph, ON, Canada\n\nKaren Korabik\n\nEmail: kkorabik@uoguelph.ca\n\nKeywords\n\nGenderWork\u2013familyGuiltEmotionFaultResponsibilityBlameAttitudeMeasurement\n\n## 8.1 The Problem\n\n> I always feel as though I am failing in some way, as though I am cheating my children, my husband, and myself. The guilt is very difficult to deal with. (McElwain 2008)\n\nAs this quote from a working mother illustrates, work\u2013family (W\u2013F) guilt is not only pervasive, but it can also be extremely detrimental to the well-being of workers and their families. As illustrated by the following quote, there is a common perception that women are more likely to suffer from W\u2013F guilt than men.\n\n> I do think men and women experience guilt differently. I believe...women feel more guilt about the work\/family balance\u2014perhaps it's innate...perhaps it's because of the traditional roles men and women have had in the home. I know my husband is sad that he doesn't get to spend as much time with his family as he would like, but I don't think he struggles with the same degree of guilt. (McElwain 2008)\n\nGuilt arising from attempting to balance work and family has been a frequent topic of interest in the media and popular press (Bort et al. 2005; Chapman 1987), as well as in the organizational behavior literature. Despite this, until recently, research on W\u2013F guilt has been very limited (Seagram and Daniluk 2002). In this chapter, I review the empirical evidence pertaining to the intersection of gender and W\u2013F guilt.\n\n## 8.2 Definition and Conceptualizations of W\u2013F Guilt\n\nMost theory and research on guilt has focused on guilt in general rather than on guilt as it applies specifically to the W\u2013F interface. In the general guilt literature, guilt is viewed as a negative emotion that arises when individuals violate their internalized standards about what constitutes proper behavior (Kubany 1994). Thus, when individuals believe they should have thought, felt, or acted differently, it can result in feelings of guilt (Kubany 1994; Zahn-Waxler et al. 1990). Guilt has been conceptualized as consisting of a cognitive component, which consists of the recognition that one has harmed another; an affective component, which refers to the unpleasant feelings that are experienced; and a motivational component, which is the desire to undo the harm that has been caused (Hoffman 1982). Kubany et al. (1996) propose that more guilt will be experienced to the extent that individuals act in a way that violates their values, feel their actions are unjustified, feel responsible for what happened, and\/or believe that they could have foreseen and prevented the outcome.\n\nMany different definitions of W\u2013F guilt can be found in the literature (McElwain and Korabik 2004). Most of them emphasize one or more of the aspects of general guilt discussed above. Thus, W\u2013F guilt is often seen as resulting from having to make a choice between work and family (Conlin 2000; Pollock 1997), allowing work to interfere with family life (Glavin et al. 2011), or failing to adequately balance work and family roles (Napholz 2000). Similarly, W\u2013F guilt has been defined as a discrepancy between one's preferred and actual level of role participation at home versus at work (Hochwarter et al. 2007). Another view is that W\u2013F guilt arises from the perceived failure to adequately fulfill prescribed gender-role norms (Livingston and Judge 2008; Simon 1995). Finally, some authors have speculated that W\u2013F guilt stems from attempts to deal with the double standards that are placed on women as compared to men (Banarjee 2003; Bui 1999).\n\n## 8.3 The Measurement of W\u2013F Guilt\n\nResearch into W\u2013F guilt has been hampered by a lack of reliable and valid measurement instruments (McElwain and Korabik 2004). As a result, many studies in this area have been qualitative in nature. Some quantitative investigations exist, but mostly these have relied on single-item (e.g., \"In the past seven days, how many days have you felt guilty?\") or multi-item measures of general guilt.\n\nRecent meta-analytic results have demonstrated that W\u2013F-specific support constructs are more strongly related to W\u2013F conflict than are the more general constructs of supervisor support and perceived organizational support (Kossek et al. 2011). It is likely that this is also the case for guilt. However, hardly any measures of guilt specific to the W\u2013F context exist and many of these consist of single items (e.g., \"I feel guilty that I don't spend enough time with my family\").\n\nAmong the few multi-item measures that are specific to W\u2013F guilt is the Feelings of Guilt about Parenting Scale (Martinez et al. 2011). This 14-item measure was developed and validated in Spain. It assesses situations that could evoke guilt in employed parents (e.g., \"Playing with my child for less time than I would like\") on a scale ranging from 1 = not at all guilty to 4 = very guilty. The Spanish version of the scale has excellent internal consistency reliability, and confirmatory factor analysis has indicated that it appears to be unidimensional.\n\nAnother measure is an employment-related guilt scale constructed based on the results of interviews and focus groups conducted in Turkey (Aycan and Eskin 2005). The items (e.g., \"I feel guilty for not being able to spend as much time as I wish with my children\") are rated on a scale ranging from 1 = strongly disagree to 5 = strongly agree. The internal consistency reliability of the English version is excellent. A similar employment-related guilt scale (Hochwarter et al. 2007) has three items (e.g., \"I feel guilty about the time that I am unable to spend with my family due to work\") that are rated on a scale ranging from 1 = strongly disagree to 5 = strongly agree. The measure has good internal consistency reliability.\n\nThe W\u2013F guilt scale (WFGS; McElwain 2008; McElwain et al. 2005a) consists of seven items. It differs from the previously discussed measures in that, analogous to the W\u2013F conflict literature, W\u2013F guilt is viewed as being bidirectional. Thus, four of the items assess work interference with family guilt (e.g., \"I regret not being around for my family as much as I would like to\") and three assess family interference with work guilt (e.g., \"I feel bad because I frequently have to take time away from work to deal with issues happening at home\"). The items are rated on a scale ranging from 1 = strongly disagree to 6 = strongly agree. The measure and its subscales have excellent internal consistency reliability and very good test-retest reliability over a 3-month interval. A confirmatory factor analysis established the existence of a two-factor structure with work interference with family guilt (WIFG) and family interference with work guilt (FIWG) as separate dimensions. The WFGS has excellent convergent and discriminant validity. The scale was included in the survey for Project 3535 1. Measurement equivalence for culture was established across all ten countries (Korabik and van Rhijn 2014). Measurement equivalence for gender has also been found for the Canadian subsample, indicating that men and women attribute the same meaning to the scale items (McElwain 2008).\n\nMcElwain (2008) also created a 24-item faceted version of the W\u2013F guilt scale (WFGS-R). It has six subscales assessing physical, emotional, and psychological WIFG and FIWG . Physical W\u2013F guilt refers to guilt from one's inability to be physically present to attend to both work and family duties, e.g., \"I regret missing family (work) events because of work (family) responsibilities\". Emotional W\u2013F guilt refers to the negative feelings experienced due to W\u2013F conflicts, e.g., \"I regret when I take out my frustrations from my work (family) on my family (at work)\". Psychological W\u2013F guilt refers to the psychological spillover from one role to the other, e.g., \"I feel guilty for having my family (work) on my mind while at work (spending time with my family)\". Items are rated on a scale ranging from 1 = never to 7 = always. Thus far, the WFGS-R has only been validated on a sample of women. Despite this, the results look very promising. The internal consistency reliability was excellent. A confirmatory factor analysis verified a structure with two higher order factors (WIFG and FIWG), each with three lower order factors (physical, emotional, and psychological guilt). The measure also has excellent content, convergent, and discriminant validity in the contexts in which it was evaluated (McElwain 2008). There is a high positive correlation between the WIFG subscale from the WFGS-R and the WIFG subscale from the WFGS; however, there is only a moderate positive correlation between the FIWG subscale from the WFGS-R and the FIWG subscale from the WFGS (McElwain 2008).\n\n## 8.4 Guilt and the W\u2013F Interface\n\nSeveral studies have shown that W\u2013F conflict and W\u2013F guilt are interrelated. Aycan and Eskin (2005) found that work interference with family (WIF), but not family interference with work (FIW), was positively correlated with employment-related guilt. Similarly, data from Canada indicate that for both the WFGS and the WFGS-R, significant positive correlations exist between the WIF and WIFG , as well as between the FIW and FIWG subscales . Despite this, scores on W\u2013F guilt do not correlate so highly with those on W\u2013F conflict as to indicate redundancy between these constructs (Korabik and Lero 2004; McElwain 2008; McElwain et al. 2005a, b). As this research is correlational in nature, however, it cannot be determined whether W\u2013F guilt is an antecedent or an outcome of W\u2013F conflict.\n\nEmployment-related guilt has been found to be associated with a variety of negative consequences including time inflexibility, depression , and lower satisfaction with life, organizational policies, parenthood , and time spent with children (Aycan and Eskin 2005). Hochwarter et al. (2007) examined whether the ability to manage resources at work could enhance personal control and help to reduce the negative effects of work-induced guilt. They conducted two studies using business school students and public employees as participants, respectively. They found that work-induced guilt had detrimental effects on job and life satisfaction when individuals did not have the ability to manage resources. However, the unfavorable effects of work-related guilt on job and life satisfaction were neutralized when there was an ability to manage resources.\n\n## 8.5 Physical Gender and W\u2013F Guilt\n\nGender is a multidimensional construct consisting of physical and demographic gender,2 as well as a range of socialized gender-role characteristics such as gender-role orientation , attitudes, and behaviors (Korabik et al. 2008b). The vast majority of studies into the effects of gender on the W\u2013F interface have focused solely on physical or demographic gender.\n\nIn terms of general guilt proneness, gender differences in guilt have been found as early as 33 months. Zahn-Waxler and Kochanska (1988) reported that preschool-aged girls exhibited guilt-related behaviors when they either observed or committed a transgression. Furthermore, girls have been found to be more affected by their wrongdoings than boys (Kochanska et al. 2002). Many other studies have indicated that general guilt levels are higher in women than men (e.g., Kubany and Watson 2003). It is believed that this may stem from the stereotype that women are more interpersonally sensitive than men (Zahn-Waxler et al. 1990), making them more vulnerable to guilt feelings (Zahn-Waxler and Kochanska 1988).\n\n### 8.5.1 Qualitative Research\n\nMost of the research on guilt as it specifically applies to the W\u2013F interface has been qualitative in nature, and much of it has employed samples consisting solely of women. For example, Napholz (2000) interviewed eight employed Native American women. They were asked to offer explanations for the feelings of guilt that arose due to their multiple roles. One participant stated that women felt obligated to fix everything and felt guilty when they couldn't handle all of the demands placed on them. Another respondent said that guilt had driven her to spend more time with her family because she constantly felt like she should be doing more. She admitted to being so preoccupied with guilt that she was unable to properly complete the tasks on which she was working. Some of the women tried to make amends for the guilt by being a \"cool\" mother or by spending more time with their children.\n\nIn another study, Elvin-Nowak (1999) examined W\u2013F guilt in 13 working mothers in Sweden. Participants' feelings of guilt stemmed from their perceived failure in responsibility toward caring for others. This was due primarily to their lack of control over circumstances which resulted in their inability to balance the demands from their different life spheres. While the mothers felt the most guilt in regard to their children, they also expressed guilt feelings toward their husbands, parents, friends, and coworkers. For example, because these women felt that they should be responsible for mothering their children, they felt guilty when delegating this to someone else (e.g., a babysitter). The women also reported experiencing aggression and anger in reaction to the burden of their guilt feelings. They tried to alleviate the guilt by devising strategies that would allow them to justify putting their own needs first.\n\nGuendouzi (2006) investigated women teachers in the UK, finding that W\u2013F guilt stemmed from trying to achieve an ideal balance between personal and social needs. In addition, she found that guilt resulted from the social pressure placed on mothers to be constantly available and accessible (i.e., the intensive mothering norm). On a related note, Seagram and Daniluk (2002) studied maternal guilt in eight mothers of preadolescent children. They found that the mothers felt a connection or bond with their children and a sense of responsibility for their children's well-being . This manifested itself both in feeling that they needed to prepare their children for life's challenges and in fearing their children might come to harm. The participants' maternal guilt resulted in a sense of inadequacy and emotional depletion (e.g., feelings of anger, frustration, exhaustion, and resentment) .\n\nOne component of Project 3535 was to collect qualitative data. The findings revealed that women from a variety of countries mentioned W\u2013F guilt during focus group discussions about W\u2013F balance. These included Australia (Bardoel 2004), Canada (Korabik and Lero 2004; McElwain et al. 2005a), India (Desai and Rajadhyaksha 2004), Indonesia (Mawardi 2004), Israel (Drach-Zahavy and Somech 2004), Taiwan (Huang 2004), and the USA (Velgach et al. 2005). Although there were many similarities, women in different countries tended to emphasize somewhat different themes when speaking about what made them feel guilty. Women in Australia and India were most likely to report experiencing guilt due to their inability to be superwomen (Bardoel 2004; Korabik 2005). Women in the USA mentioned feeling guilty about having to put their jobs before their families and their inability to be in two places at one time (Velgach et al. 2005). By contrast, women in India appeared to experience guilt more when they ignored the academic achievement of their children (Desai and Rajadhyaksha 2004). Women in Indonesia, Taiwan, and the Arab women in Israel spoke about feeling guilty for not fulfilling their traditional gender roles (Korabik 2005). Four of the seven Jewish Israeli women, however, felt that they had moved from guilt to positive spillover as a function of their life stage (Drach-Zahavy and Somech 2004).\n\nMore recently, there has been recognition that fathers are not immune from experiencing guilt due to having to deal with the stresses of balancing work and family life (Daly 2001; Martinez et al. 2011). As a result, some qualitative studies have included both men and women as participants. My colleagues and I obtained data from online focus groups with both male and female parents employed by Canadian organizations (Korabik and Lero 2004; Korabik et al. 2007; McElwain et al. 2005a, 2007). When asked if they felt W\u2013F guilt, all participants except one man overwhelmingly indicated that this was a common occurrence. The majority of both men and women said that although they felt guilt both toward balancing their work roles and their family roles, the guilt was strongest in regard to their family responsibilities. Moreover, respondents reported feeling more guilt about their children than their spouses\/partners due to a greater sense of responsibility regarding the well-being of their children. Respondents also reported experiencing guilt when their coworkers made them feel that they were not \"pulling their weight\" at work.\n\nThe men and the women were very similar to one another both in the extent to which they admitted experiencing W\u2013F guilt and in the things that made them feel guilty. Despite this, most participants, both men and women alike, believed that there were gender differences in W\u2013F guilt, such that women were more prone to feelings of guilt than men. Some respondents felt that men and women experienced W\u2013F guilt differently either because women were more emotionally sensitive than men or because women were more able to verbalize their feelings than men were. Other participants felt that these gender differences stemmed from societal expectations that men and women should fulfill traditionally prescribed gender roles. Both men and women felt that higher expectations were put on women than on men. Although some men realized that they were currently \"getting off easy\" compared to women, they did worry that they might have to pay a price later in life for their current neglect of their families.\n\nIn another study from Canada, Daly (2001) investigated men and women in both dual-earner and single-parent families. The participants reported feeling guilty about what they were unable to do. The contradiction between their ideal aspirations and the reality of their lives resulted in chronic guilt. More specifically, both women and men felt guilty for working too much, not spending enough time with their children, leaving their children with babysitters, and taking time for themselves. Many had given up on trying to rid themselves of the guilt and had focused on how to live with it.\n\nSimon (1995) compared 40 men and women in dual-earner couples who were employed full-time and had a child under the age of 18 living at home. Eighty-five percent of the women reported feeling guilty because their work took time away from their families and made them feel like they were neglecting their children and spouses. Men, on the other hand, did not report feeling guilty or a feeling of being pulled in different directions. Men's guilt appeared to stem more from their inability to fulfill their breadwinner role.\n\nIn summary, it appears that in many countries around the world women report experiencing W\u2013F guilt. Although there are some cultural differences , their stories have many similar themes. There also seem to be few differences between the extent to which men and women report feeling guilty. Despite this, both men and women hold the stereotype that women are more prone to W\u2013F guilt than are men.\n\n### 8.5.2 Quantitative Research\n\nThe quantitative research on physical\/demographic gender and W\u2013F guilt is still quite sparse. In an early study with a sample of all women, Nevill and Damico (1977) found that those between the ages of 25 and 39 reported significantly higher levels of guilt due to the stress experienced from competing role demands than women at other ages. They suggested that because older women had older children who required less supervision, they were more able to pursue their individual goals without feeling as though they were doing so at the expense of others.\n\n#### 8.5.2.1 Mean Gender Differences in W\u2013F Guilt\n\nAmong the few studies that have examined whether W\u2013F guilt is more prevalent in men or women, the results have been mixed. Aycan and Eskin (2005) found that women reported significantly higher levels of employment-related guilt than did men. However, there was still a significant relationship between W\u2013F conflict and guilt for men. By contrast, Hochwarter et al. (2007) found no correlation between gender and employment-related guilt in either of their samples. Martinez et al. (2011) found that mothers and fathers of preschoolers in Spain were similar in reporting high levels of guilt on the Guilt About Parenting Scale. Both mothers and fathers felt guilty that they could not pay as much attention to their children as they wanted and because they had to delegate some parenting tasks to others. However, mothers' guilt was more related to their fear that they were not being a \"good\" mother, whereas fathers' guilt was more related to their conflict between their desire to be involved with their children and their need to be breadwinners.\n\nData on the WFGS from Project 3535 indicated no significant overall main effect for gender or gender by country interaction for either WIFG or FIWG . However, in the Canadian subsample men scored significantly higher than women on WIFG (McElwain 2008), whereas in the Israeli subsample women scored significantly higher than men on FIWG.\n\n#### 8.5.2.2 Gender Differences in How W\u2013F Guilt Relates to Antecedents and Outcomes\n\nMy colleagues and I conducted research examining the antecedents and outcomes of W\u2013F guilt (Korabik and McElwain 2011; Korabik et al. 2009). We collected data from two samples of employed parents in Canada. The first consisted of 171 employed women who completed both the WFGS and the WFGS-R along with measures of antecedent (i.e., demands, W\u2013F conflict) and outcome (e.g., satisfaction, turnover intent) variables on one occasion. The second sample consisted of 264 men and 180 women who were employed and who were married\/cohabiting parents. They completed the WFGS and measures of the antecedent and outcome variables. Data on the outcome variables were also collected three months later from a subsample of this group (122 men and 138 women).\n\nWe carried out a variety of structural equation modeling analyses on the data to try to understand what was driving the effects (i.e., the gender composition of the sample, the version of W\u2013F guilt scale used, or use of a cross sectional versus prospective design). The results can be found in Table 8.1. Column 1 displays the effects for the all-women sample on the WFGS-R using a cross-sectional design, whereas Column 2 displays the effects for the same sample and design, but using the WFGS as the measure. Column 3 displays the effects for the mixed gender sample (N = 444) on the WFGS using a cross-sectional design. Column 4 displays the effects for the mixed gender subsample (N = 260) on the WFGS using a prospective design.\n\nTable 8.1\n\nResults of analyses with different samples, measures, and designs | Results of analyses\n\n---|---\n\nRelationships among variables | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4\n\nJob demandsa \u2192 WIF conflict | + | + | + | +\n\nFamily demandsa \u2192 FIW conflict | + | + | + | +\n\nWIF conflict \u2192 WIFG | + | + | + | +\n\nFIW conflict \u2192 FIWG | + | + | + | +\n\nWIF conflict \u2192 Job satisfaction | \u2212 | \u2212 | \u2212 | \u2212\n\nWIF conflict \u2192 Turnover intent | + | + | + | +\n\nFIW conflict \u2192 Family satisfaction | \u2212 | \u2212 | \u2212 | \u2212\n\nWIFG \u2192 Job satisfaction | \u2212 | \u2212 | \u2212 | ns\n\nWIFG \u2192 turnover intent | + | + | + | ns\n\nFIWG \u2192 Family satisfaction | ns | ns | ns | ns\n\nJob satisfaction \u2192 Life satisfaction | + | + | + | +\n\nFamily satisfaction \u2192 Life satisfaction | + | + | + | +\n\nWIF conflict \u2192 Psychological distress | N\/A | N\/A | + | +\n\nFIW conflict \u2192 Psychological distress N\/A | N\/A | + | +\n\n|\n\nWIFG \u2192 Psychological distress | N\/A | N\/A | + | +\n\nFIWG \u2192 Psychological distress | N\/A | N\/A | ns | ns\n\naJob and family demands were used as predictors only in models where turnover intent was the outcome variable; Column 1 = 171 women, WFGS-R, cross-sectional design; Column 2 = 171 women, WFGS, cross-sectional design; Column 3 = 448 men and women, WFGS, cross-sectional design; Column 4 = 360 men and women, WFGS, prospective design\n\nAs can be seen, except for the fact that higher FIWG did not significantly predict a lack of family satisfaction or greater psychological distress, most of the relationships were significant in the expected direction. Moreover, most of the relationships were consistent across samples, measures, and designs. The exception was that higher WIFG did not predict lower job satisfaction or higher turnover intentions when a prospective design was used. This pattern of effects indicates that the gender composition of the sample (all women versus mixed gender) did not have an impact on the results. This may have been due to the fact that many extraneous factors that often produce spurious gender effects had been controlled (Korabik et al. 2008b). For example, in the mixed gender sample, the men and women were similar to one another in that they were all employed parents who were married\/cohabiting. However, although the results appear similar for men and women, additional analyses on the mixed gender sample data specifically testing whether the men's and women's models differ significantly from one another are necessary before firm conclusions can be drawn regarding a lack of gender differences.\n\n#### 8.5.2.3 Gender in Context\n\nShields (2013) has argued that we need to move away from studying whether men and women are different from one another and toward studying gender in context or what factors accentuate or diminish gender differences. In this regard, Glavin et al. (2011) examined the impact of work interruptions outside of work hours. In their large sample of employed American adults, they found that women reported higher levels of general guilt than men. Moreover, among women, but not men, the frequency of work interruptions outside of work hours was positively correlated with guilt, and guilt mediated the association between work contact outside of work hours and psychological distress even after W\u2013F conflict was controlled. In a similar study, Offer and Schneider (2011) examined mothers and fathers in dual-earner families in the USA. They found no gender differences on their single-item family time guilt measure. However, for mothers, but not fathers, greater frequency of W\u2013F multitasking at work and in public places was associated with more family time guilt. Dealing with work interruptions outside of work hours and engaging in W\u2013F multitasking are circumstances that are characterized by low control coupled with high demands\/overload. In the literature on W\u2013F guilt, issues related to demands, overload , and control have often been mentioned as being important (Aycan and Eskin 2005; Elvin-Nowak 1999; Hochwarter et al. 2007; Napholz 2000). Thus, the relationship between gender and W\u2013F guilt may be impacted by contextual variables such as overload and control.\n\nTo address this possibility, my colleagues and I used the WFGS with samples of employees from the USA (Ishaya et al. 2013) and Canada (Ewles et al. 2013). We examined the effects of gender, work and family overload, and job and family control on WIFG and FIWG , respectively. For both men and women in Canada, higher work overload predicted higher WIFG. However, in the USA, WIF moderated this relationship. A lack of job control was predictive of higher WIFG for both genders in the USA, but was not a significant predictor in the Canadian sample. In both the USA and Canada, greater family overload was related to higher WIFG for both genders. A lack of family control predicted higher WIFG for both genders in the USA, but this held true only for women in Canada. Finally, in both the USA and Canada, higher family overload was associated with greater FIWG for men, but not for women. It is difficult to reconcile the disparate findings about how gender interacts with overload and control to impact W\u2013F guilt. This is because the various studies carried out thus far differ as to their samples, their designs, and the measures of W\u2013F guilt used.\n\nSocial support has been found to help alleviate the negative effects of W\u2013F conflict (Ayman and Antani 2008). Aycan and Eskin (2005) found that for women, but not men, supervisory support and emotional spousal support were associated with lower work-induced guilt. We (Ewles et al. 2014) used the WFGS to examine gender differences in how received social support from work and nonwork sources was related to W\u2013F guilt. Support from work-related sources (supervisors and coworkers) for work-related issues was not significantly related to WIFG , but it was associated with significantly lower FIWG for those of both genders. In terms of support for family-related issues, when supervisors provided support for household tasks, men were more likely than women to report higher WIFG. By contrast, the more the supervisors and coworkers provided encouragement and appreciation regarding the family, the lower the FIWG for both men and women. Greater support for work-related duties by spouses\/partners, neighbors, relatives, and friends was associated with greater WIFG for both genders. Conversely, for both men and women there was no significant association between the support received from nonwork sources for work-related issues and FIWG. However, when their parents\/in-laws provided support for both work and family issues, women were significantly more likely than men to report higher WIFG. Furthermore, when they received appreciation from their spouses\/partners regarding their work or family life or from their children regarding their family life, men reported significantly lower WIFG than women. Finally, for both genders, the more often children, neighbors, relatives, and friends listened to and discussed family-related problems, the lower the FIWG . These results indicated that the effects of gender and social support on W\u2013F guilt are complex and depend upon the source, domain, type of support, and the direction of W\u2013F guilt examined.\n\n## 8.6 Gender-Role Attitudes\/Ideology and W\u2013F Guilt\n\nGender-role ideology (GRI) refers to the attitudes or beliefs an individual holds about the proper roles of men and women in society. It is generally conceptualized as a unidimensional construct with traditional attitudes at one pole and egalitarian attitudes at the other. Chappell et al. (2005) studied a small sample of dual-earner parents from Canada using the WFGS. They found that men with egalitarian GRI reported experiencing more FIWG than traditional men. Egalitarian men also reported higher levels of FIWG than egalitarian women. No significant results were found for WIFG . The Project 3535 data, however, showed a different pattern of results. Those with egalitarian attitudes had lower WIFG than those with traditional attitudes in every country except China (where there was no significant difference) and Turkey (where traditionals had lower WIFG than egalitarians). For FIWG, those with egalitarian attitudes were also lower than those with traditional attitudes in every country except Spain (where there was no significant difference) and Turkey (where traditionals had lower FIWG than egalitarians). Over all countries, both men and women with egalitarian attitudes reported lower FIWG than those with traditional attitudes . However, for WIFG there was an interaction between gender and GRI such that egalitarian men scored higher than traditional men, whereas traditional women scored higher than egalitarian women.\n\nThe Project 3535 data from India, Indonesia, and Taiwan were examined by Rajadhyaksha et al. (2011). They established that their GRI scale had measurement equivalence for culture , and found no differences in the gender-role attitudes of men and women in each country. In structural equation models , GRI was treated as an antecedent variable that impacted WIFG via work overload and WIF and impacted FIWG via family overload and FIW. GRI predicted W\u2013F guilt in the same way in each country such that more traditional GRI was associated with higher WIFG and FIWG.\n\nLivingston and Judge (2008) looked at how traditional\/egalitarian attitudes and W\u2013F conflict were related to general guilt. They found that there was a stronger positive relationship between WIF and guilt for those with more egalitarian gender role attitudes than for those with more traditional attitudes. By contrast, there was a stronger positive relationship between FIW and guilt for those with traditional gender-role attitudes than for those with egalitarian gender-role attitudes. However, there was an interaction between gender and FIW. Traditional men reported the highest levels of guilt and this was exacerbated when FIW was high. By contrast, egalitarian men reported the lowest levels of guilt, and this was particularly so when FIW was high. Traditional and egalitarian women reported moderate levels of guilt.\n\n## 8.7 Gender-Role Orientation and W\u2013F Guilt\n\nGender-role orientation refers to those personality characteristics in the instrumental\/ agentic and expressive\/communal domains that are acquired through gender-role socialization . McElwain et al. (2004) used the WFGS to examine W\u2013F conflict and W\u2013F guilt with respect to gender-role orientation as assessed by the Extended Personal Attributes Questionnaire. Participants were dual-earner employed parents from Canada. W\u2013F guilt was significantly related only to the instrumentality aspect of gender-role orientation such that those lower in instrumentality (feminine and undifferentiated individuals) had higher levels of FIWG than those higher in instrumentality (masculine and androgynous individuals). There were no significant differences between those in the different gender role groups in their levels of WIFG.\n\n## 8.8 Summary and Critique of the Literature\n\nResearch on gender and W\u2013F guilt is still in its infancy. Despite a tremendous interest in the issue, empirical research on the subject is very limited. Mirroring the literature on gender and emotions (Shields 2013), the overall picture is currently one of few gender differences and many inconsistent results. Where differences have been found, results are often congruent with the stereotype of women as being more guilt-prone than men. What's more, such findings have been more frequent when global, nonspecific measures of self-reported guilt have been used and when women have been sampled from the general population regardless of their employment, marital, or parental status. This may be because under such circumstances societal gender stereotypes are more likely to influence self-construals to produce stereotyped gender differences on self-reports about emotions (Shields 2013).\n\nResearch in this area may also be characterized by a lack of meaningful and consistent results because it suffers from a number of other methodological limitations. First, many studies on W\u2013F guilt have employed qualitative methodologies, and most of these have used samples comprised solely of women. Not only can conclusions about gender differences not be drawn from such data, but an implicit assumption behind such research is that W\u2013F guilt is a woman's problem that does not pertain to men.\n\nSecond, when comparative research has been carried out, it has consisted almost exclusively of atheoretical studies of physical\/demographic gender. This is particularly problematic when it pertains to gender and emotions. If a theoretical reason for why gender differences exist is not provided, the categories of man\/woman can become reified and used as the explanation (Shields 2013). Moreover, this can produce conceptual confusion and result in physical gender being employed as a proxy for some other variable, something that introduces confounds into the research (Korabik et al. 2008b). For example, physical gender is frequently used as a proxy for gender role variables like gender-role orientation . In this case, findings regarding W\u2013F guilt can be mistakenly attributed to whether someone is a man or woman instead of to the degree of instrumentality and expressivity in their personality. Moreover, in our society, physical gender is a status marker. Because of this, when research fails to control for status-related variables (e.g., job level), differences in W\u2013F guilt may be mistakenly attributed to whether someone is a man or a woman rather than to gender-related status differences (Korabik et al. 2008b).\n\nA third problem is that W\u2013F guilt has often been assessed with one-item measures of unsupported reliability and validity or with measures of general guilt, which are only moderately correlated with W\u2013F specific measures like the WFGS (McElwain 2008). Fourth, a wide variety of different operationalizations, measures, samples, and designs have been used, making it very difficult to compare the results of different studies to one another.\n\n## 8.9 Future Directions\n\nClearly, much more research on the topic of gender and W\u2013F guilt is necessary. This should include studies that focus not only on physical gender, but also on gender role constructs. Researchers should be careful to articulate their theory about why they expect gender differences to exist and to use gender-related constructs that are appropriate to the underlying processes that they are studying (i.e., intrapsychic, interpersonal, or social structural) (Korabik et al. 2008b). In addition, more attention needs to be paid to making sure that confounding variables are controlled and to examining gender in context (Korabik et al. 2008b; Shields 2013).\n\nFuture research should employ multi-item bidirectional measures created specifically to assess W\u2013F guilt. For example, the WFGS has been shown to be psychometrically sound and to evidence measurement equivalence across a number of cultures . It is also essential to establish the measurement equivalence for gender of any W\u2013F guilt measure before going on to draw any conclusions regarding gender differences. If this is not done, any differences found may be due to the different meaning that men and women attribute to the scale items rather than to actual gender differences.\n\nThus far, most quantitative research on gender and W\u2013F guilt has been correlational in nature, making it impossible to draw strong inferences about causality. Furthermore, W\u2013F guilt has been variously conceptualized as an antecedent to W\u2013F conflict, as an outcome of W\u2013F conflict, and as a mediator of the relationships between WIF and FIW and outcomes. Longitudinal data is necessary to understand the place of W\u2013F guilt in the larger context of the W\u2013F interface.\n\n## 8.10 Conclusion\n\nW\u2013F guilt is frequently discussed in the literature on W\u2013F conflict as being an important phenomenon. Gender-related effects in this area appear to be complex and dependent upon participant characteristics (e.g., marital, parental, and employment status), culture , and the direction of W\u2013F guilt assessed (WIFG versus FIWG). In addition, it appears that variables such as the degree of control, overload , and social support in the work and family domains may be important moderators .\n\nWhen it comes to gender, it is crucial that we do not fall into the traps of viewing W\u2013F guilt as primarily a woman's concern or of accepting gender-related stereotypes as reality (Shields 2013). In addition, it is important not to overgeneralize results so as to emphasize between-gender differences at the expense of within-gender variability (Shields 2013). For example, we must recognize that not all mothers are the same, nor are all fathers, and that many different types of families exist. Likewise, the potential impact of race and culture cannot be underestimated.\n\nDealing with the combined pressures of work and family is a major issue for employees in today's global workforce (Korabik et al. 2008a). The ensuing stress can result in W\u2013F guilt, a negative emotional state that is associated with a variety of consequences detrimental to individual workers as well as to their organizations, including decreased job and life satisfaction and increased psychological distress, depression , and turnover intentions . Understanding what makes people feel guilty, why they feel guilty, under what circumstances they feel guilty, and the gender dynamics underlying these processes will assist us in designing interventions that will improve the well-being of individual workers and the bottom line of organizations.\n\nReferences\n\nAycan, Z., & Eskin, M. (2005). Relative contribution of childcare, spousal, and organizational support in reducing work\u2013family conflict for males and females: The case of Turkey. Sex Roles, 53, 453\u2013471.CrossRef\n\nAyman, R., & Antani, A. (2008). Social support and work\u2013family conflict. In K. Korabik, D. S. Lero, & D. L. Whitehead (Eds.), Handbook of work\u2013family integration: Research, theory, and best practices (pp. 287\u2013304). San Diego: Elseiver.CrossRef\n\nBanarjee, S. (1\u20133 Nov 2003). Double standards. Businessline.\n\nBardoel, A. (April 2004). Work family conflict in Anglo-Saxon and European cultural context: The case of Australia. Paper presented at the Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology, Chicago, Illinois, USA.\n\nBort, J., Pflock, A., & Renner, D. (2005). Mommy guilt: Learn to worry less, focus on what matters most, and raise happier kids. New York: American Management Association.\n\nBui, L. S. (1999). Mothers in public relations: How are they balancing career and family? Public Relations Quarterly, 44, 23\u201326.\n\nChapman, F. S. (Feb 1987). Executive guilt: Who's taking care of the children? Fortune, 115 (4), 30\u201337.\n\nChappell, D. B., Korabik, K., & McElwain, A. (June 2005). The effects of gender-role attitudes on work\u2013family conflict and work\u2013family guilt. Poster presented at the Canadian Psychological Association, Montreal, Quebec, Canada.\n\nConlin, M. (2000). The new debate over working moms: As more moms choose to stay home, office life is again under fire. Business Week, 3699, 102\u2013104.\n\nDaly, K. J. (2001). Deconstructing family time: From ideology to lived experience. Journal of Marriage and Family, 63, 283\u2013294.CrossRef\n\nDesai, T. P., & Rajadhyaksha, U. (April 2004). Work family conflict in the Asian cultural context: The case of India. Paper presented at the Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology, Chicago, Illinois, USA.\n\nDrach-Zahavy, A., & Somech, A. (April 2004). Work family conflict in the Middle Eastern cultural context: The case of Israel. Paper presented at the Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology, Chicago, Illinois, USA.\n\nElvin-Nowak, Y. (1999). The meaning of guilt: A phenomenological description of employed mothers' experiences of guilt. Scandinavian Journal of Psychology, 40, 73\u201383.PubMedCrossRef\n\nEwles, G., Korabik, K., & Lero, D. S. (June 2013). Work\u2013family guilt: The role of overload and control. Poster presented at the Canadian Psychological Association, Quebec City, Quebec, Canada.\n\nEwles, G., Korabik, K., & Lero, D. S. (June 2014). Social support and work\u2013family guilt: The role of gender differences. Poster presented at the Canadian Psychological Association, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.\n\nGlavin, P., Scheiman, S., & Reid, S. (2011). Boundary spanning work demands and their consequences for work and psychological distress. Journal of Health and Social Behavior, 52, 43\u201357.PubMedCrossRef\n\nGuendouzi, J. (2006). \"The guilt thing\": Balancing domestic and professional roles. Journal of Marriage and Family, 68, 901\u2013909.CrossRef\n\nHochwarter, W. A., Perrew\u00e9, P. L., Meurs, J. A., & Kacmar, C. (2007). The interactive effects of work-induced guilt and ability to manage resources on job and life satisfaction. Journal of Occupational Health Psychology, 12, 125\u2013135.PubMedCrossRef\n\nHoffman, M. L. (1982). Development of prosocial motivation: Empathy and guilt. In N. Eisenberg (Ed.), The development of prosocial behaviour. New York: Academic.\n\nHuang, T. P. (Aug 2004). Work\u2013family conflict of employees in business organizations in Taiwan. Paper presented at the International Association of Cross-Cultural Psychology, Xi'an, China.\n\nIshaya, N., Ayman, R., & Korabik, K. (April 2013). Why so much guilt? Investigating how overload hurts, and why control may help. Paper presented at the Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology, Houston, Texas, USA.\n\nKochanska, G., Gross, J., Lin, M., & Nichols, K. (2002). Guilt in young children: Development, determinants, and relations with a broader system of standards. Child Development, 73, 461\u2013482.PubMedCrossRef\n\nKorabik, K. (July 2005). Alleviating work\u2013family conflict for women managers in a global context. Paper presented at the Eastern Academy of Management, Cape Town, South Africa.\n\nKorabik, K., & Lero, D. S. (Aug 2004). A cross-cultural research project on the work\u2013family interface: Preliminary findings. Paper presented at the International Association of Cross-Cultural Psychology, Xi'an, China.\n\nKorabik, K., & McElwain, A. (April 2011). The role of work\u2013family guilt in work\u2013family conflict. Paper presented at the Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology, Chicago, Illinois, USA.\n\nKorabik, K., & van Rhijn, T. R. (May 2014). Examining the cross-cultural measurement equivalence of work\u2013family interface measures. Paper presented at the Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology, Honolulu, Hawaii, USA.\n\nKorabik, K., McElwain, A., Warner, M., & Lero, D. S. (July 2007). The impact of coworker support and resentment on work\u2013family conflict. Paper presented at IESE Conference on Work and Family, Barcelona, Spain.\n\nKorabik, K., Lero, D. S., & Whitehead, D. L. (Eds). (2008a). Handbook of work\u2013family integration: Research, theory, and best practices. San Diego: Elseiver.\n\nKorabik, K., McElwain, A., & Chappell, D. B. (2008b). Integrating gender-related issues into research on work and family. In K. Korabik, D. S. Lero, & D. L. Whitehead (Eds), Handbook of work\u2013family integration: Research, theories, and best practices (pp. 215\u2013232). San Diego: Elsevier.CrossRef\n\nKorabik, K., McElwain, A., & Lero, D. S. (Nov 2009). Does work\u2013family guilt mediate relationships between work\u2013family conflict and outcome variables? Paper presented at the Work, Stress and Health Conference, San Juan, Puerto Rico.\n\nKossek, E., Pichler, S., Bodner, T., & Hammer, L. (2011). Workplace social support and work\u2013family conflict: A meta-analysis clarifying the influence of general and work\u2013family-specific supervisor and organizational support. Personnel Psychology, 64, 289\u2013313.PubMedCentralPubMedCrossRef\n\nKubany, E. S. (1994). A cognitive model of guilt typology in combat-related PTSD. Journal of Traumatic Stress, 7, 3\u201319.PubMedCrossRef\n\nKubany, E. S., Haynes, S. N., Abueg, F. R., Manke, F. P., Brennan, J. M., & Starhura, C. (1996). Development and validation of the Trauma-Related Guilt Inventory (TRGI). Psychological Assessment, 5, 428\u2013444.CrossRef\n\nKubany, E. S., & Watson, S. B. (2003). Guilt: Elaboration of a multidimensional model. The Psychological Record, 53, 51\u201390.\n\nLivingston, B. A., & Judge, T. A. (2008). Emotional responses to work\u2013family conflict: An examination of gender role orientation among working men and women. Journal of Applied Psychology, 93, 207\u2013216.PubMedCrossRef\n\nMartinez, P., Carrasco, M. J., Aza, G., Blanco, A., & Espinar, I. (2011). Family gender role and guilt in Spanish dual earner families. Sex Roles, 65, 813\u2013826.CrossRef\n\nMawardi, A. (April 2004). Work\u2013family conflict in an Asian cultural context: The case of Indonesia. Paper presented at the Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology, Chicago, Illinois, USA.\n\nMcElwain, A. (2008). An examination of the reliability and validity of the Work\u2013family Guilt Scale. (Unpublished doctoral dissertation), University of Guelph, Guelph, Ontario, Canada.\n\nMcElwain, A., & Korabik, K. (2004). Work\u2013family guilt. In M. Pitt-Catsouphes & E. Kossek (Eds.). Work and Family Encyclopedia Online. Chestnut Hill, MA: Sloan Work and Family Research Network. Retrieved February 16, 2009, from http:\/\/\u200bwfnetwork.\u200bbc.\u200bedu\/\u200bencyclopedia_\u200bentry.\u200bphp?\u200bid=\u200b871&\u200barea=\u200bAll.\n\nMcElwain, A., Korabik, K., & Chappell, D. B. (Aug 2004). Beyond gender: Re-examining work\u2013family conflict and work\u2013family guilt in the context of gender-role orientation. Paper presented at the International Society for the Study of Work and Organizational Values, New Orleans, Louisiana, USA.\n\nMcElwain, A., Korabik, K., & Chappell, D. B. (June 2005a). The work\u2013family guilt scale. Poster presented at the Canadian Psychological Association, Montreal, Quebec, Canada.\n\nMcElwain, A., Korabik, K., & Chappell, D. B. (June 2005b). The impact of work\u2013family conflict on work\u2013family guilt. Poster presented at the Canadian Psychological Association, Montreal, Quebec, Canada.\n\nMcElwain, A., Korabik, K., & Lero, D. S. (June 2007). Coping mechanisms in work\u2013family conflict. Paper presented at the Canadian Psychological Association. Ottawa, Ontario, Canada.\n\nNapholz, L. (2000). Balancing multiple roles among a group of urban midlife American Indian working women. Health Care for Women International, 27, 255\u2013266.CrossRef\n\nNevill, D., & Damico, S. (1977). Developmental components of role conflict in women. The Journal of Psychology, 95, 195\u2013198.CrossRef\n\nOffer, S., & Schneider, B. (2011). Revisitng the gender gap in time use patterns: Multitasking and well-being among mothers and fathers in dual-earner families. American Sociological Review, 76, 809\u2013833.CrossRef\n\nPollock, E. J. (10\u201313 March 1997). Work and family (a special report): Regaining a balance\u2014This is home; This is work. Wall Street Journal (Eastern Edition).\n\nRajadhyaksha, U., Huang, T. P., Mawardi, A., & Desai, T. P. (July 2011). Gender-role ideology, work\u2013family overload, conflict and guilt: Examining a path analysis model in three Asian countries. Paper presented at the International Association of Cross-Cultural Psychology, Istanbul, Turkey.\n\nSeagram, S., & Daniluk, J. C. (2002). It goes with the territory: The meaning and experience of maternal guilt for mothers of preadolescent children. Women and Therapy, 25, 61\u201388.CrossRef\n\nShields, S. A. (2013). Gender and emotions: What we think we know, what we need to know, and why it matters. Psychology of Women Quarterly, 37, 423\u2013435.CrossRef\n\nSimon, R. W. (1995). Gender, multiple roles, role meaning, and mental health. Journal of Health and Social Behaviour, 36, 182\u2013194.CrossRef\n\nVelgach, S., Ishaya, N., & Ayman, R. (April 2005). A multi-method approach to investigate work\u2013family conflict. Paper presented at the Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology, Los Angeles, California, USA.\n\nZahn-Waxler, C., & Kochanska, G. (1988). The origins of guilt. In R. A. Thompson (Ed.), Nebraska Symposium on Motivation: Vol. 36. Sociometric Development (pp. 183\u2013258). Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press.\n\nZahn-Waxler, C., Kochanska, G., Krupnick, J., & McKnew, D. (1990). Patterns of guilt in children of depressed and well mothers. Developmental Psychology, 26, 51\u201359.CrossRef\n\nFootnotes\n\n1\n\nProject 3535 is a collaborative investigation of the W\u2013F interface among employed married\/cohabiting parents in ten countries (i.e., Australia, Canada, China, India, Indonesia, Israel, Spain, Taiwan, Turkey, and the USA). The contributions of the members of the Project 3535 research team to this chapter are gratefully acknowledged. The team consists of: Dr. Zeynep Aycan, Dr. Roya Ayman, Dr. Anne Bardoel, Dr. Tripti Desai, Dr. Anat Drach-Zahavy, Dr. Leslie B. Hammer, Dr. Ting-Pang Huang, Dr. Karen Korabik, Dr. Donna S. Lero, Dr. Artiwadi Mawardi, Dr. Steven Poelmans, Dr. Ujvala Rajadhyaksha, Dr. Anit Somech, and Dr. Li Zhang.\n\n2\n\nPhysical gender (whether someone is, or considers themselves to be, a man or a woman) refers to the psychological ramifications of biological sex (whether someone is biologically male or female). This terminology avoids assumptions of biopsychological equivalence (equating sex and gender with one another) and biological essentialism (the belief that behavior is solely attributable to biological causes). In self-report studies, physical gender is not directly observed, rather it is assessed by proxy as a demographic category. For simplicity's sake, in this chapter the term gender is used to refer to physical and demographic gender in contrast to the term gender-role which is used to refer to gender-role orientation, attitudes, ideology, etc.\n\u00a9 Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2015\n\nMaura J. Mills (ed.)Gender and the Work-Family Experience10.1007\/978-3-319-08891-4_9\n\n# 9. Gender, Accuracy About Partners' Work\u2013Family Conflict, and Relationship Quality\n\nKei Nomaguchi1  and Melissa A. Milkie2\n\n(1)\n\nDepartment of Sociology, Bowling Green State University, 213 Williams Hall, 43403 Bowling Green, OH, USA\n\n(2)\n\nDepartment of Sociology, University of Toronto, 725 Spadina Avenue, M5S 2J4 Toronto, ON, Canada\n\nKei Nomaguchi (Corresponding author)\n\nEmail: knomagu@bgsu.edu\n\nMelissa A. Milkie\n\nEmail: melissa.milkie@utoronto.ca\n\nKeywords\n\nCultureCouplesSpouseGenderRelationship qualityWork\u2013family\n\nAuthor Note: Earlier versions of this chapter were presented at Pilot Data Conference, National Center for Family and Marriage Research at Bowling Green State University, Ohio, August 4, 2011, and the Work and Family Researchers Network Inaugural Conference, New York City, June 14\u201316, 2012. The data were collected with support from a grant to the National Center for Family and Marriage Research, Bowling Green State University from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Office of the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation (5 UOI AEOOOOOI-03). This research was supported in part by the Center for Family and Demographic Research, Bowling Green State University, which has core funding from the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (R24HD050959-07).\n\n## 9.1 Overview\n\nFor employed women and men in a dual-earner marriage or partnership, every day is truly a balancing act\u2014of the regular demands that are related to two paid work positions, of an often complex relationship with each other, and for many pairs, the endless dance of emotions and labor that relate to owning a home or raising children. Two jobs means that both adults have a multitude of day-to-day issues at home to deal with\u2014mundane but vital things like having clean clothing to wear to work, having meals ready, and making sure that the household and any children stay afloat during the days, weeks, and months, as dishes, laundry, repairs, and bills pile up seemingly endlessly. At the same time, demands and strains from the job, such as an overload of tasks or hours, coworker problems, and unreasonable clients, often \"spill over\" into the home domain (Pearlin and McCall 1990). Not surprisingly, then, many employed adults feel that their work and family lives interfere with one another (Bellavia and Frone 2005; Nomaguchi 2009; Schieman et al. 2009; Young et al. 2014). Accordingly, scholars have focused a great deal of attention on this topic (for reviews see Bellavia and Frone 2005; Bianchi and Milkie 2010).\n\nPartners are at the epicenter of conflicts. As Pearlin (1983) noted, families have a \"uniquely pivotal position\" in the stress process because they not only generate their own stressors, but are also the backdrop for problems that enter from the outside world. And yet, how a partner's problems with balancing work and family come into the awareness of the other partner may be anything but straightforward. Of course, there are often clear work\u2013family conflicts displayed\u2014for example, he may openly discuss how being passed over for a promotion at work disrupts his sleep ; she may be visibly upset about an absence from an important school event that other parents are present for. These provide some clues about how the partner's world outside the home conflicts with his or her home life. But what a partner understands from the other partner is likely to be incomplete. This is because some conflicts are not easily observable given that the partners' respective places of work are typically separate. Sometimes partners may purposely try to segregate job stresses and concerns from their partner in order to protect their spouse, or perhaps because they have not received supportive feedback in the past (Pearlin and McCall 1990). Moreover, within relationships, even the same reality\u2014of a wife's or husband's low or high level of work\u2013family conflict\u2014may be viewed quite differently. As Bernard (1972) insightfully observed years ago, there is not \"a\" marriage, but \"his\" and \"hers\" marriages. She notes that even many questions about basic components of life together, such as how long partners have been together, or who did the dishes yesterday, generate very different responses from spouses. Thus, in terms of work\u2013family conflict, even things that can be directly observed by partners\u2014perhaps exasperation or frustration at work demands spilling over\u2014are not likely to be fully appreciated or understood in the same way by the other spouse.\n\nEspecially when information is incomplete, a gender perspective (Ridgeway 2011) posits that a partner's views about the amount and kinds of conflict that a wife or husband experiences is filtered through a gendered lens about what that spouse \"should\" be expected to feel. Thus, what a husband does observe of the problems his wife is experiencing in balancing work and family\u2014and what a wife observes about her husband's conflicts\u2014sits against a cultural backdrop of work and family ideology that remains highly gendered (Correll et al. 2007; Cotter et al. 2011; Milkie 2010; Milkie and Peltola 1999). In an era of blurred boundaries and insecurities in work and family roles, then, an important and under-examined question about couples' work\u2013family conflict centers on how accurate people are about their partner's level of conflict and how patterns may be gendered.\n\nDo inaccuracies matter for relationship quality? The question of the consequences of inaccuracies in assessing how the partner is balancing work and family is important to investigate. If misunderstandings cause dissatisfaction in relationships, then it becomes crucial to try to increase understanding, especially as partners make work decisions that affect one another. To maximize both partners' ability to meet workplace and family obligations, dual-earner couples employ various adaptive and coping strategies (Moen and Wethington 1992) and these decisions and strategies about their combined work and family roles tend to be made at the couple level (Becker and Moen 1999). Understanding each other's work\u2013family conflict accurately may help couples make decisions about their adaptive strategies that both partners find to be fair and to enhance the relationship.\n\nIn this chapter, we ask two questions: First, how accurately do members of US dual-earner heterosexual couples assess their partner's level of work\u2013family conflict? As part of this question, we ask whether inaccuracies are systematically gendered, i.e., do men tend to overestimate the level of conflict wives feel whereas women tend to underestimate men's conflicts? Second, is a partner's inaccuracy related to relationship quality ? How? For each question, we develop a framework for examining the question, provide a brief review of prior empirical studies, and state our predictions. Then we assess our predictions with dual-earner couples in The Married and Cohabiting Couples 2010 Study (see the Appendix for methodological notes) .\n\n## 9.2 Gender and Inaccuracy in Estimating Partners' Work\u2013Family Conflict\n\nWhy might dual-earner couples inaccurately estimate each other's work\u2013family conflict? A gender perspective suggests that individuals' perceptions are largely influenced by cultural meanings of what men and women \"should\" do and be like (Correll et al. 2007; Milkie 1999; Ridgeway 2011). In the area of work and family responsibilities, a series of qualitative studies have emphasized that although dual-earner relationships have become the norm, cultural scripts of the division of labor remain gendered. Women are assumed to be better and more interested in care work\u2014i.e., the tasks and mental activities in which a person meets the needs of others\u2014and to feel greater family responsibilities than men (Blair-Loy 2003; Hays 1996), whereas men are believed to feel greater breadwinning responsibilities than women (Townsend 2002). Because employed wives may feel responsible for overseeing what is happening at home, perhaps they are believed to feel a strong domestic pull, and thus feel a high level of work\u2013family conflict whenever they are employed. Employed husbands are seen to \"help\" their employed wives around the house and with childcare, but rely on their wives for the overall responsibility of the home and thus may not feel a substantial degree of work\u2013family conflict (Doucet 2006; Hays 1996; Hochschild 1989).\n\nIn contrast, recent quantitative research has shown that husbands' and wives' work\u2013family conflicts are relatively similar, indicating that the cultural images of stressed women and slacker men may be somewhat inaccurate. Bianchi et al. (2006) found that there was little difference between married mothers' and married fathers' total work time (i.e., time for market work and nonmarket work). Additional studies show few or no gender differences in work\u2013family conflict and balance (Grzywacz and Marks 2000; Gutek et al. 1991; Milkie and Peltola 1999; Schieman et al. 2009). Notably, it may be that women may not report more work\u2013family conflict than men in part because they may be pushed toward employing various strategies or trade-offs in order to balance work and family responsibilities (Milkie and Peltola 1999), as unfriendly workplaces and cultural expectations degrading them as \"bad mothers\" push them to reduce employment hours (Correll et al. 2007; Ridgeway 2011; Stone 2007). For men, unlike the cultural image, the sense of work\u2013family conflict has increased in recent cohorts. Nomaguchi (2009) found that work\u2013family conflict increased significantly more among men in dual-earner marriages than among women in dual-earner marriages between 1977 and 1997.\n\nWe argue that the discrepancy between qualitative and quantitative findings suggests the possibility that there may be an increasing gap between the gendered cultural script of work\u2013family conflict and actual work\u2013family conflict that men and women are experiencing. Specifically, we expect that men are more likely to overestimate their partners' work\u2013family conflict due to cultural scripts that employed women \"should\" feel a pull toward the home, whereas their female partners may not feel as much conflict as those cultural scripts suggest they should. In addition, we expect that women are more likely to underestimate their partners' work\u2013family conflict due to cultural scripts that men's \"hearts\" are in breadwinning and they do not feel primarily responsibility toward family, whereas their male partners actually feel more work\u2013family conflict than the cultural scripts suggest. Thus, on the basis of a potential gap between gendered cultural scripts and reality, we predict that male partners are more likely to overestimate than underestimate female partners' work\u2013family conflict, and female partners are more likely to underestimate than overestimate male partners' work\u2013family conflict.\n\nTo date, only a handful of studies have examined accuracies of couples ' perceptions of each other's work\u2013family conflict. Using a sample of 191 dual-earner parents collected in the Netherlands, Demerouti et al. (2005) found that the average ratings that women provided for their partners' work\u2013family conflict were higher than the average ratings that their partners reported as their own work\u2013family conflict (2.06 vs. 1.98 ranging from 1\u20135), suggesting women overestimated their partners' work\u2013family conflict, a finding opposite from our prediction. They found no difference between men's average rating of their partners' work\u2013family conflict and their partners' average self-rating of conflict (1.76 vs. 1.76). In contrast, using 224 dual-earner couples (married, cohabiting, or in a serious relationship) from a 1989 random sample of residents in Erie County, New York, Streich et al. (2008) found that the average scores that women provided for their partners' work\u2013family conflict were lower than the average scores that their partners provided as their own work\u2013family conflict (2.45 vs. 2.72 with a range from 1\u20135), indicating that women were underestimating their partners' work\u2013family conflict, as we predict. There was little gap between men's reports of their partners' work\u2013family conflict and their partners' self-reports of work\u2013family conflict (2.47 vs. 2.41).\n\nThese studies measured the inaccuracies in partners' perceptions of work\u2013family conflict at the aggregated individual level, not by matching a pair of partners and calculating the differences at the couple level. Thus, it is not clear what percentage of men and women overestimate or underestimate their partners' work\u2013family conflict. In addition, because the US study by Streich et al. (2008) used a regional sample, it is not clear to what extent the findings could be generalized. In this regard, The Married and Cohabiting Couples 2010 Study is useful because it offers couple-level data\u2014that is, data were collected from each partner of the couple\u2014from a \u00adnational sample of married and cohabiting couples in the USA. The couple-level data allow us to more clearly examine how accurately US dual-earner couples perceive each other's work\u2013family conflict.\n\nIn The Married and Cohabiting Couples 2010 Study, each partner rated his\/her own work\u2013family conflict by responding to the question, \"How much conflict do you face in balancing your paid work and family life?\" (1 = not at all, 2 = not too much, 3 = some, 4 = a lot, 5 = a great deal). The mean scores for men and women's self-report of work\u2013family conflict were very similar\u20142.3 and 2.2 (range 1\u20135), respectively. Each partner also rated his\/her partner's work\u2013family conflict via the question, \"How much conflict does your partner\/spouse face in balancing his\/her paid work and family life (1 = not at all 2 = not too much, 3 = some, 4 = a lot, 5 = a great deal)?\" On average, men rated perceptions of their partners' work\u2013family conflict higher than did women (2.4 vs. 2.2).\n\nTaking advantage of these two pieces of information, we assessed whether couples accurately perceive each other's work\u2013family conflict. Table 9.1 shows two cross-tabulations, one for male partners' report of female partners' work\u2013family conflict by female partners' self-report of work\u2013family conflict, and the other for female partners' report of male partners' work\u2013family conflict by male partners' self-report of work\u2013family conflict. These tabulations show how we created measures of inaccuracies of partners' work\u2013family conflict. First, male partners' accuracies or inaccuracies of female partners' work\u2013family conflict was measured by taking men's perceptions of their partners' work\u2013family conflict and subtracting their partners' self-report of work\u2013family conflict. We created three categories. If the value was less than 0, men were underestimating their partners' work\u2013family conflict. If the value was more than 0, men were overestimating their partners' work\u2013family conflict. If the value was 0, men were accurately estimating their partners' work\u2013family conflict. For example, if a husband reports that his wife experiences a \"great deal\" of conflict (5), whereas the wife herself reports \"some\" (3), (5\u22123 = 2; 2 > 0), he would receive a score of \"1\" for the dummy \"overestimating,\" a score of 0 for \"underestimating,\" and a score of 0 for \"accurately estimating.\" Likewise, the same three groups were created for female partners' underestimating, overestimating, and accurately estimating partners' work\u2013family conflict.\n\nTable 9.1\n\nCross-tabulations between respondents' perception of partner's work\u2013family conflict (WFC) and partner's self-report of WFC for men and women (%). (Source: The Married and Cohabiting Couples 2010 Study (N = 545))\n\n|  |\n\nMale partner's report of female partner's WFC\n\n---|---|---  \n|  |\n\nNot at all | Not too much | Some | A lot | Great deal\n\n|  |\n\n(1) | (2) | (3) | (3) | (4)\n\nFemale partner's self-report\n\n|\n\nNot at all (1) | 13.3 | 7.6a | 5.3a | 0.4a | 0.2a\n\n|\n\nNot too much (2) | 7.0b | 13.4 | 13.0a | 1.6a | 0.0a\n\n|\n\nSome (3) | 2.0b | 6.7b | 14.2 | 4.7a | 0.1a\n\n|\n\nA lot (4) | 0.6b | 0.9b | 3.6b | 2.9 | 0.5a\n\n|\n\nGreat deal (5) | 0.0b | 1.0b | 0.5b | 0.3b | 0.2\n\n|  |\n\nFemale partner's report of male partner's WFC\n\n|  |\n\nNot at all | Not too much | Some | A lot | Great deal\n\n|\n\n(1) | (2) | (3) | (4) | (5)\n\nMale partner's self-report\n\n|\n\nNot at all (1) | 10.4 | 8.0c | 1.9c | 0.0c | 0.2c\n\n|\n\nNot too much (2) | 11.0d | 18.9 | 10.8c | 0.6c | 0.8c\n\n|\n\nSome (3) | 3.4d | 9.1d | 14.2 | 3.3c | 0.3c\n\n|\n\nA lot (4) | 0.8d | 0.9d | 3.2d | 1.1 | 0.4c\n\n|\n\nGreat deal (5) | 0.0d | 0.3d | 0.3d | 0.1d | 0.4\n\naMale partner overestimating female partner's WFC = 33.4 %\n\nbMale partner underestimating female partner's WFC = 22.6 %\n\ncFemale partner overestimating male partner's WFC = 26.1 %\n\ndFemale partner underestimating male partner's WFC = 28.9 %\n\nThe percentage distributions of these three groups\u2014overestimating, underestimating, and no discrepancy\u2014are presented in Fig. 9.1. Less than half of male partners (44.1 %) and female partners (45.0 %) were accurate in their report of their partners' work\u2013family conflict. One third (33.4 %) of male partners overestimated female partners' work\u2013family conflict, whereas 22.6 % underestimated it. About one fourth (26.1 %) of female partners overestimated male partners' work\u2013family conflict, and slightly more female partners (28.9 %) underestimated male partners' work\u2013family conflict. As expected, male partners were more likely to overestimate than underestimate female partners' work\u2013family conflict, while female partners were only slightly more likely to underestimate than overestimate male partners' work\u2013family conflict. Differences between male partners and female partners in these distributions were statistically significant.\n\nFig. 9.1\n\nPercentage distributions for overestimating or underestimating partners' work\u2013family conflict. (Source: The Married and Cohabiting Couples 2010 Study)\n\n## 9.3 Does Inaccuracy Matter for Relationship Quality?\n\nHow are accuracies or inaccuracies of partners' estimates of each other's work\u2013family conflict related to their relationship quality ? Prior work has shown that individuals' work\u2013family conflict is related to family-relationship qualities, such as lower family satisfaction (Frone et al. 1994) and lower marital satisfaction (Coverman 1989). However, we do not know much about how couples' inaccuracies of each other's work\u2013family conflict are related to relationship quality, nor of the influence of actual level of work\u2013family conflict on relationship quality. We are particularly interested in the patterns wherein partners' estimates are biased in the direction that reflects the possibility that there has been an increasing gap between the gendered cultural script of work-family conflict and actual work-family conflict that men and women experience, i.e., male partners expecting more work\u2013family conflict for female partners and female partners expecting less work\u2013family conflict for male partners.\n\nOn the basis of prior research on relationship quality , we expect that a male partner's overestimating of his female partner's work\u2013family conflict may be linked to both the male partner's and female partner's perceptions of better relationship quality, because it is indicative of an acknowledgment of and openness to her difficulties. For example, Thompson (1991) found that husbands' appreciation and understanding of wives' juggling paid work and housework is important for wives' sense of fairness and relationship happiness. In contrast, women's underestimating their partners' work\u2013family conflict may be linked to their partners' perception of poorer relationship quality, because male partners may feel as though their female partners do not understand or appreciate their sense of being torn between paid work and family life. Wilkie et al. (1998) found that a higher sense of being understood by one's partner was related to a higher level of marital satisfaction for husbands. Underestimating their partners' conflicts may also relate to women's own perception of poorer relationship quality , because women may perceive it as unfair that their husbands work at their paid jobs without (from their perspective) feeling guilty or torn. Other research has shown that a sense of fairness in the division of labor is related to a higher level of marital satisfaction for wives (Frisco and Williams 2003; Wilkie et al. 1998).\n\nTo our knowledge, there have been no published studies that have examined the associations between partners' inaccuracies in understanding each other's work\u2013family conflict and their relationship quality with empirical data. For example, \u00adStreich et al. (2008), mentioned earlier, examined organizational commitment as an outcome of inaccuracies, but not relationship quality. Thus, our assessment using data from dual-earner couples in The Married and Cohabiting Couples 2010 Study is one of the first studies to examine this question. We focused on three aspects of couples' relationship quality\u2014emotional support , enchantment, and global relationship happiness (for measurement specifics, see the Appendix). These three aspects of relationship quality are known as strong indicators of divorce (Booth et al. 1985; Bradbury et al. 2000; Huston et al. 2001). In general, we found that couples tended to highly rate each of these aspects of relationship quality. The average \u00adrating for emotional support was 4.5 for male partners and 4.4 for female partners (range 1\u20135); average rating for enchantment was 4.2 (range 1\u20135) for male partners and 4.2 for female partners; average rating for relationship happiness was 8.7 (range 1\u201310) for male partners and 8.6 for female partners.\n\nFirst, we examined whether male partners' overestimating or underestimating of female partners' work\u2013family conflict was related to male partners' and female partners' reports of relationship quality respectively. As shown in Panel A of Table 9.2, compared to male partners who accurately estimated female partners' work\u2013family conflict, male partners who overestimated female partners' work\u2013family conflict reported higher ratings of enchantment and global quality. However, male partners' underestimating of their female partners' work\u2013family conflict, compared to their accurately estimating it, was not related to their own report of relationship quality. Panel B, which predicted female partners' reports of relationship quality, indicates that male partners' inaccuracies about female partners' work\u2013family conflict\u2014either overestimating or underestimating\u2014were not related to female partners' reports of relationship quality.\n\nTable 9.2\n\nUnstandardized coefficients from ordinary-least-squared (OLS) regression models predicting the associations between male partner's underestimating or overestimating female partner's work\u2013family conflict (WFC) and male partner's and female partner's reports of relationship quality. (Source: The Married and Cohabiting Couples 2010 Study) | Emotional support | Enchantment | Relationship happiness\n\n---|---|---|---  \n|\n\nb | SE\n\n|  |\n\nb | SE\n\n|  |\n\nb | SE\n\n|\n\nPanel A. Male partner's reports of relationship quality\n\nMale partner overestimating female partner's WFC | 0.109 | 0.056\n\n|  |\n\n0.230 | 0.073 | ** | 0.426 | 0.144 | **\n\nMale partner underestimating female partner's WFC | \u2212 0.099 | 0.060\n\n|  |\n\n\u2212 0.028 | 0.076\n\n|  |\n\n\u2212 0.113 | 0.150\n\n|\n\nMale partner accurately estimating female partner's WFC | \u2013 | \u2013\n\n|  |\n\n\u2013 | \u2013\n\n|  |\n\n\u2013 | \u2013\n\n|\n\nControls\n\n|  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |\n\nMale partner's WFC | \u2212 0.061 | 0.028 | * | \u2212 0.133 | 0.036 | *** | \u2212 0.219 | 0.070 | **\n\nMale partner's report of female partner's WFC | \u2212 0.165 | 0.029 | *** | \u2212 0.243 | 0.037 | *** | \u2212 0.379 | 0.073 | ***\n\nMale partner's age | \u2212 0.006 | 0.002 | ** | \u2212 0.007 | 0.003 | * | \u2212 0.010 | 0.006\n\n|\n\nMale partner nonwhite | \u2212 0.008 | 0.051\n\n|  |\n\n\u2212 0.114 | 0.066\n\n|  |\n\n0.024 | 0.129\n\n|\n\nMale partner's relationship type\n\n|  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |\n\nFirst marriage | \u2013 | \u2013\n\n|  |\n\n\u2013 | \u2013\n\n|  |\n\n\u2013 | \u2013\n\n|\n\nRemarriage | 0.244 | 0.068 | *** | 0.272 | 0.088 | ** | 0.591 | 0.173 | ***\n\nCohabiting | \u2212 0.092 | 0.064\n\n|  |\n\n\u2212 0.100 | 0.083\n\n|  |\n\n\u2212 0.240 | 0.162\n\n|\n\nHave children < 18 (male partner's report) | \u2212 0.098 | 0.048 | * | \u2212 0.024 | 0.062\n\n|  |\n\n\u2212 0.089 | 0.122\n\n|\n\nMale partner college educated | 0.053 | 0.055\n\n|  |\n\n-0.005 | 0.069\n\n|  |\n\n0.055 | 0.137\n\n|\n\nFemale partner college educated | 0.057 | 0.053\n\n|  |\n\n0.203 | 0.068 | ** | 0.127 | 0.133\n\n|\n\nMale partner self-employed | \u2212 0.029 | 0.067\n\n|  |\n\n\u2212 0.146 | 0.087\n\n|  |\n\n\u2212 0.140 | 0.171\n\n|\n\nFemale partner self-employed | 0.147 | 0.068 | * | 0.119 | 0.089\n\n|  |\n\n0.316 | 0.174\n\n|\n\nIntercept | 5.257 | 0.132 | *** | 5.316 | 0.171 | *** | 10.335 | 0.338 | ***\n\nR 2 | 0.146*** | 0.185** | 0.129***\n\nN | 530 | 520 | 536\n\nPanel B. Female partner's reports of relationship quality\n\nMale partner overestimating female partner's WFC | \u2212 0.010 | 0.066\n\n|  |\n\n\u2212 0.051 | 0.079\n\n|  |\n\n\u2212 0.009 | 0.154\n\n|\n\nMale partner underestimating female partner's WFC | \u2212 0.036 | 0.080\n\n|  |\n\n0.139 | 0.095\n\n|  |\n\n0.054 | 0.186\n\n|\n\nMale partner accurately estimating female partner's WFC | \u2013 | \u2013\n\n|  |\n\n\u2013 | \u2013\n\n|  |\n\n\u2013 | \u2013\n\n|\n\nControls\n\n|  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |\n\nFemale partner's WFC | \u2212 0.202 | 0.038 | *** | \u2212 0.274 | 0.046 | *** | \u2212 0.376 | 0.089 | ***\n\nFemale partner's report of male partner's WFC | 0.034 | 0.037\n\n|  |\n\n0.003 | 0.044\n\n|  |\n\n\u2212 0.077 | 0.086\n\n|\n\nFemale partner's age | \u2212 0.003 | 0.003\n\n|  |\n\n\u2212 0.007 | 0.003 | * | \u2212 0.008 | 0.006\n\n|\n\nFemale partner nonwhite | 0.019 | 0.069\n\n|  |\n\n-0.109 | 0.081\n\n|  |\n\n0.064 | 0.159\n\n|\n\nFemale partner's relationship type\n\n|  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |\n\nFirst marriage | \u2013 | \u2013\n\n|  |\n\n\u2013 | \u2013\n\n|  |\n\n\u2013 | \u2013\n\n|\n\nRemarriage | \u2212 0.166 | 0.061 | ** | \u2212 0.226 | 0.073 | ** | \u2212 0.527 | 0.143 | ***\n\nCohabiting | 0.145 | 0.083\n\n|  |\n\n0.288 | 0.098 | ** | 0.452 | 0.193 | *\n\nHave children < 18 (female partner's report) | \u2212 0.095 | 0.084\n\n|  |\n\n\u2212 0.148 | 0.100\n\n|  |\n\n\u2212 0.368 | 0.196\n\n|\n\nMale partner college educated | 0.042 | 0.069\n\n|  |\n\n0.115 | 0.082\n\n|  |\n\n\u2212 0.126 | 0.160\n\n|\n\nFemale partner college educated | 0.203 | 0.068 | ** | 0.108 | 0.079\n\n|  |\n\n0.314 | 0.156 | *\n\nMale partner self-employed | \u2212 0.030 | 0.082\n\n|  |\n\n\u2212 0.200 | 0.098 | * | \u2212 0.344 | 0.191\n\n|\n\nFemale partner self-employed | \u2212 0.001 | 0.085\n\n|  |\n\n\u2212 0.052 | 0.102\n\n|  |\n\n0.117 | 0.199\n\n|\n\nIntercept | 4.833 | 0.173 | *** | 5.117 | 0.200 | *** | 10.061 | 0.393 | ***\n\nR 2 | 0.121*** | 0.155*** | 0.131***\n\nN | 528 | 516 | 532\n\n*p < 0.05; **p < 0.01; ***p < 0.001\n\nSecond, we examined whether female partners' overestimating or underestimating of male partner's work\u2013family conflict was related to their own as well as their partner's reports of relationship quality respectively. Panel A in Table 9.3 shows that female partners who underestimated male partners' work\u2013family conflict were more likely than those who accurately estimated male partners' work\u2013family conflict to report lower emotional support. However, female partners' overestimating male partners' work\u2013family conflict was not related to their own perceptions of relationship quality. As shown in Panel B, female partners' underestimating of male partners' work\u2013family conflict was related to male partners' lower rating of enchantment. Female partners' overestimating of male partners' work\u2013family conflict was not related to male partners' report of relationship quality. In sum, our findings indicate that male partners' overestimating female partners' work\u2013family conflict was related to their own\u2014but not their female partners'\u2014perceptions of better relationship quality. Female partners' underestimating male partners' work\u2013family conflict was related to their own and male partners' reports of poorer relationship quality.\n\nTable 9.3\n\nUnstandardized coefficients from ordinary-least-squared (OLS) regression models predicting the associations between female partner's underestimating or overestimating male partner's work\u2013family conflict (WFC) and female partner's and male partner's reports of relationship quality. (Source: The Married and Cohabiting Couples 2010 Study) | Emotional support | Enchantment | Relationship happiness\n\n---|---|---|---  \n|\n\nb | SE\n\n|  |\n\nb | SE\n\n|  |\n\nb | SE\n\n|\n\nPanel A. Female partner's reports of relationship quality\n\nFemale partner overestimating male partner's WFC | \u2212 0.019 | 0.077\n\n|  |\n\n\u2212 0.010 | 0.092\n\n|  |\n\n0.017 | 0.177\n\n|\n\nFemale partner underestimating male partner's WFC | \u2212 0.174 | 0.072 | * | \u2212 0.091 | 0.086\n\n|  |\n\n\u2212 0.295 | 0.165\n\n|\n\nFemale partner accurately estimating male partner's WFC | \u2013 | \u2013\n\n|  |\n\n\u2013 | \u2013\n\n|  |\n\n\u2013 | \u2013\n\n|\n\nControls\n\n|  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |\n\nFemale partner's WFC | \u2212 0.202 | 0.035 | *** | \u2212 0.233 | 0.042 | *** | \u2212 0.357 | 0.080 | ***\n\nFemale partner's report of male partner's WFC | 0.000 | 0.044\n\n|  |\n\n\u2212 0.013 | 0.052\n\n|  |\n\n\u2212 0.169 | 0.101\n\n|\n\nFemale partner's age | \u2212 0.003 | 0.003\n\n|  |\n\n\u2212 0.007 | 0.003 | * | \u2212 0.011 | 0.006\n\n|\n\nFemale partner nonwhite | 0.019 | 0.070\n\n|  |\n\n\u2212 0.084 | 0.082\n\n|  |\n\n\u2212 0.011 | 0.160\n\n|\n\nFemale partner's relationship type\n\n|  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |\n\nFirst marriage | \u2013 | \u2013\n\n|  |\n\n\u2013 | \u2013\n\n|  |\n\n\u2013 | \u2013\n\n|\n\nRemarriage | 0.160 | 0.082\n\n|  |\n\n0.272 | 0.098 | ** | 0.498 | 0.190 | **\n\nCohabiting | \u2013 0.124 | 0.085\n\n|  |\n\n\u2013 0.190 | 0.102\n\n|  |\n\n\u2013 0.404 | 0.196 | *\n\nHave children < 18 (female partner's report) | \u2013 0.160 | 0.062 | * | \u2013 0.207 | 0.074 | ** | \u2013 0.568 | 0.142 | ***\n\nMale partner college educated | 0.063 | 0.069\n\n|  |\n\n0.110 | 0.081\n\n|  |\n\n\u2013 0.080 | 0.157\n\n|\n\nFemale partner college educated | 0.213 | 0.068 | ** | 0.106 | 0.080\n\n|  |\n\n0.365 | 0.155 | *\n\nMale partner self-employed | \u2013 0.021 | 0.082\n\n|  |\n\n\u2013 0.209 | 0.099 | * | \u2013 0.332 | 0.190\n\n|\n\nFemale partner self-employed | 0.027 | 0.085\n\n|  |\n\n\u2013 0.050 | 0.102\n\n|  |\n\n0.201 | 0.197\n\n|\n\nIntercept | 4.958 | 0.175 | *** | 5.082 | 0.207 | *** | 10.395 | 0.401 | ***\n\nR 2 | 0.133*** | 0.143*** | 0.149***\n\nN | 526 | 514 | 530\n\nPanel B. Male partner's reports of relationship quality\n\nFemale partner overestimating male partner's WFC | \u2212 0.029 | 0.057\n\n|  |\n\n\u2212 0.018 | 0.072\n\n|  |\n\n\u2212 0.101 | 0.145\n\n|\n\nFemale partner underestimating male partner's WFC | \u2212 0.038 | 0.059\n\n|  |\n\n\u2212 0.239 | 0.076 | ** | \u2212 0.193 | 0.150\n\n|\n\nFemale partner accurately estimating male partner's WFC | \u2013 | \u2013\n\n|  |\n\n\u2013 | \u2013\n\n|  |\n\n\u2013 | \u2013\n\n|\n\nControls\n\n|  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |\n\nMale partner's WFC | \u2212 0.065 | 0.032 | * | \u2212 0.084 | 0.041 | * | \u2212 0.211 | 0.081 | **\n\nMale partner's report of female partner's WFC | \u2212 0.122 | 0.025 | *** | \u2212 0.189 | 0.033 | *** | \u2212 0.268 | 0.065 | ***\n\nMale partner's age | \u2212 0.006 | 0.002 | ** | \u2212 0.005 | 0.003\n\n|  |\n\n\u2212 0.007 | 0.006\n\n|\n\nMale partner nonwhite | \u2212 0.007 | 0.052\n\n|  |\n\n\u2212 0.130 | 0.067\n\n|  |\n\n0.002 | 0.131\n\n|\n\nMale partner's relationship type\n\n|  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |\n\nFirst marriage | \u2013 | \u2013\n\n|  |\n\n\u2013 | \u2013\n\n|  |\n\n\u2013 | \u2013\n\n|\n\nRemarriage | \u2212 0.107 | 0.048 | * | \u2212 0.039 | 0.061\n\n|  |\n\n\u2212 0.115 | 0.122\n\n|\n\nCohabiting | 0.233 | 0.068 | *** | 0.242 | 0.088 | ** | 0.502 | 0.175 | **\n\nHave children < 18 at home (male partner's report) | \u2212 0.092 | 0.065\n\n|  |\n\n\u2212 0.103 | 0.084\n\n|  |\n\n\u2212 0.229 | 0.164\n\n|\n\nMale partner college educated | 0.078 | 0.055\n\n|  |\n\n0.008 | 0.069\n\n|  |\n\n0.104 | 0.138\n\n|\n\nFemale partner college educated | 0.040 | 0.053\n\n|  |\n\n0.176 | 0.068 | ** | 0.101 | 0.134\n\n|\n\nMale partner self-employed | \u2212 0.050 | 0.067\n\n|  |\n\n\u2212 0.188 | 0.086 | * | \u2212 0.202 | 0.171\n\n|\n\nFemale partner self-employed | 0.167 | 0.068 | * | 0.171 | 0.088\n\n|  |\n\n0.397 | 0.174 | *\n\nIntercept | 5.198 | 0.137 | *** | 5.155 | 0.175 | *** | 10.172 | 0.349 | ***\n\nR 2 | 0.132*** | 0.181*** | 0.116***\n\nN | 526 | 516 | 531\n\n*p < 0.05; ** p < 0.01; *** p < 0.001;\n\n## 9.4 Discussion\n\n### 9.4.1 Do Men and Women Differ in Inaccurately Estimating Their Partners' Work\u2013Family Conflict?\n\nWith increasing complexities and insecurities related to work and family life, and blurring boundaries between these spheres, knowing a partner's work\u2013family conflicts may be fraught with difficulty. How much do American spouses know about their \"other half,\" particularly their wives' or husbands' level of felt work\u2013family conflict? The findings from The Married and Cohabiting Couples 2010 Study discussed in this chapter suggest that more than half of partners are at least somewhat inaccurate in their estimates of their partners' work\u2013family conflict. It is not an easy or even \"normal\" process to see things exactly as a partner does, especially when one realm (the partner's workplace) is most often outside of the purview of the other's vision. Consistent with the predictions of a gap between gendered cultural scripts and reality in men's and women's work\u2013family conflict, our findings indicate that male partners are more likely to overestimate than underestimate their female partners' work\u2013family conflict and, although to a smaller degree, female partners are more likely to underestimate than overestimate their male partners' conflict. We are cautious in our conclusions, however, because we recognize that one third of male partners and less than one third of female partners show these patterns. A majority of couples' reports do not reflect the patterns that the thesis about a gap between cultural scripts and reality suggests. Of this group, most agree with each other, but there were also some who are inaccurate but in the direction opposite from predictions. Investigation of these patterns is warranted in future research.\n\n### 9.4.2 Do Inaccuracies Matter for Relationship Quality?\n\nOur evidence suggests that partners' over- or under-estimating the others' work\u2013family conflict level is related to couples' relationship quality (and notably, higher levels of one's own actual work\u2013family conflicts are detrimental to relationship quality too). Although future research should address how over- and under-estimating relate to relationship qualities with more refined measures, we provide some speculative interpretations. Male partners' overestimates of female partners' work\u2013family conflict seems to be related to their own perceptions of better relationship quality. It may be that when male partners see their female partner as quite torn between work and family responsibilities, they may see her as trying to fulfill as many home responsibilities as she can, as cultural lore suggests, giving her the benefit of the doubt in home investment level. In these cases, male partners report better relationship quality, perhaps signaling their appreciation for what the woman does. On the flip side, female partners' underestimates of male partners' work\u2013family conflict relates to their own and male partners' reports of poorer relationship quality . In essence, when a female sees her partner in the traditional light of breadwinning masculinity , believing that he is less conflicted between work and family worlds than he really is, both the female and her partner feel worse about their relationship. Our findings are consistent with the findings of prior research, which show that a sense of fairness in the division of labor , a partner's empathy, and a greater sense of being understood by a partner on difficult issues, are related to higher relationship satisfaction (Wilkie et al. 1998).\n\n### 9.4.3 Future Directions\n\nThe Married and Cohabiting Couples 2010 Study offered insight into understanding inaccuracies of couples ' perceptions of each other's work\u2013family conflict and their implications for relationship quality. Yet, there are several questions that we were unable to examine with this data set that future research should address. First, we examined the global measure of work\u2013family conflict that does not distinguish differences between work-to-family conflict and family-to-work conflict. As such, future research using more detailed measures of the bidirectional nature of such conflict is warranted. Second, The Married and Cohabiting Couples 2010 Study did not include detailed information about conditions of paid work, such as hours of employment, job autonomy, and workplace flexibility, which are related to work\u2013family conflict (Bakker and Guerts 2004; Schieman and Young 2010). Third, this data was cross-sectional and therefore precluded causal assessments of the associations between partners' inaccuracies in each other's work\u2013family conflict and relationship quality . Although we argue that being inaccurate in underestimating difficulty about a partner's work\u2013family conflict can lead to worse relationship quality, it is also possible that having a poorer relationship at the outset makes one less aware of the partner's (difficult) subjective experience across work\u2013family domains. Likewise, having better relationship quality could influence male partners to misestimates that skew, in a sense, in a \"positive\" way; perhaps male partners who are more empathetic and loving are more aware of the employed women's \"plight\" and thus believe their partners have it harder than they do in reality. While the current data preclude adjudication among these possibilities, we hope to propel future research to address such nuanced questions about couples' work\u2013family conflicts and the meanings attached to gender, work, and family.\n\n## 9.5 Conclusion\n\nThe landscape of work\u2013family conflict among dual-earner couples is changing\u2014in many ways. Work worlds may be becoming more complex, as globalization and technology may make some workers' time and space more fluid, and boundaries as to when work ends and when \"family life\" begins are in flux. Gender spheres, too, are changing, as the cultural landscape regarding what men and women, husbands and wives, fathers and mothers \"should do\" responds to and challenges workplace policies and practices, and may create new exigencies for future generations. Assessing a partner's level of work\u2013family conflict, and what it means for relationship quality, may be even more complex in such a future. Research in this nascent area is warranted as gender schemas shift, and as dual-earner couples attempt to negotiate their work and family lives in a complex and changing societal context.\n\n## Appendix: Methodological Notes on The Married and Cohabiting Couples 2010 study\n\n### Data and Sample\n\nThe Married and Cohabiting Couples 2010 Study (MCC2010) is a web-based household survey that was obtained through a collaboration between the National Center for Family & Marriage Research (NCFMR) at Bowling Green State University and Knowledge Networks (KN). KN maintains a national panel of potential respondents, called KnowledgePanel (KP), who were selected by using random digit dialing sampling and address-based sampling methodology. Among the KN, individuals who do not already have Internet access are provided free Internet access and a laptop computer. Those who already have Internet access are given points redeemable for cash as incentives for their participation. KP consists of about 50,000 adult members (ages 18 and older) and includes persons living in cell phone only households as well as persons who have a landline phone. The KP members completed a demographic profile that determined eligibility for inclusion in specific studies. When selected, members receive a notification email letting them know there is a new survey available for them to take (Knowledge Networks 2010).\n\nFor the MCC2010 study, a nationally representative sample of US heterosexual married and cohabiting adults aged 18\u201364 was selected from active KP members with a supplement of cohabiting adults aged 18\u201364 from an opt-in panel (n = 1075). The survey was conducted from July to October 2010. The data and a field report that describes the sampling design are publicly available through the Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research (ICPSR 2013). For this chapter, we selected dual-earner couples (N = 545), including 391 married and 154 cohabiting couples. Using household ID numbers and gender of respondents, we created couple-level data. KN provides study-specific post-stratification weights to adjust the data to the distributions provided by the Current Population Survey for male partners and female partners respectively. We used these weights in our statistical analyses. Appendix Table 9.4 shows sample characteristics.\n\n### Measures of Relationship Quality\n\nEmotional support was an average of four questions (\u03b1 = 0.85): (a) \"My spouse\/partner shows love and affection toward me\"; (b) My spouse\/partner encourages me to do things that are important to me\"; (c) \"My spouse\/partner will not cheat on me\"; and (d) \"My spouse\/partner listens when I need someone to talk to\" (1 = strongly disagree to 5 = strongly agree).\n\nEnchantment was a scale created using 11 items of \"marital disillusionment scale\" (Huston et al. 2001) (\u03b1 = 0.95): (a) \"My marriage\/relationship hasn't gone quite as perfectly as I thought it might\"; (b) \"I'm beginning to see my spouse\/partner in a somewhat more negative light\"; (c) \"I'm beginning to see my marriage\/relationship in a somewhat more negative light\"; (d) \"Marriage\/Life together is not as enjoyable as I had expected it to be\"; (e) \"Our relationship has changed for the worse\"; (f) \"I no longer really like my spouse\/partner as a person\"; (g) \"My marriage\/relationship is no longer as important to me as it used to be\"; (h) \"I am very disappointed in my marriage\/relationship\";(i) I feel tricked, cheated, or deceived by love\"; (j) \"I feel no longer quite as positively about my spouse\/partner as I once did\"; and (k) \"If I could go back in time, I would not marry my spouse\/live with my partner again\" (1 = strongly agree to 5 = strongly disagree). Each item was reverse-coded and we averaged the scores of 11 items to create an enchantment scale.\n\nGlobal relationship happiness was measured by one question, \"Taking all things together, how satisfied are you with your relationship with your spouse or partner?\" (1 = very dissatisfied to 5 = very satisfied).\n\n### Controls\n\nIn our analyses of the associations between inaccuracies in partners' perceptions of each other's work\u2013family conflict and relationship quality, we took demographic and socioeconomic characteristics into account, such as age , race\/ethnicity (white vs. nonwhite), education (whether they have a college degree or not), self-employment , relationship status (first marriage, remarriage, or cohabiting), and parental status (whether they had at least one child under age 18 living in the household), because these characteristics are related to gender ideology (Thornton and Young-DeMarco 2001), work\u2013family conflict (Milkie and Peltola 1999; Schieman et al. 2009), and relationship quality (Amato et al. 2003). We also accounted for the effects of the levels of partners' own work\u2013family conflict and their perceptions of the other partner's work\u2013family conflict while we focus on how discrepancies between partners' perceptions are related to relationship quality. These characteristics were included as controls in regression models (see Tables 9.2, 9.3).\n\nTable 9.4\n\nMeans (SD) or % distributions for variables for dual-earner couples in The Marriage and Cohabiting Couples 2010 Study (N = 545) | Male partners | Female partners\n\n---|---|---\n\nAge (M) | 42.7 | (10.7) | 42.2 | (11.1)\n\nNonwhite (%) | 28.1 | 23.0\n\nRelationship status (%)\n\n|  |  |  |\n\nFirst marriage | 69.5 | 69.3\n\nRemarriage | 13.8 | 15.3\n\nCohabiting | 16.6 | 15.3\n\nHave children < 18 (%) | 45.1 | 41.4\n\nCollege education (%) | 33.6 | 39.1\n\nSelf-employed (%) | 13.9 | 13.4\n\nWork\u2013family conflict (WFC) (M, range: 1\u20135)\n\n|  |\n\nSelf | 2.3 | (0.9) | 2.2 | (0.9)\n\nPartner | 2.4 | (0.9) | 2.2 | (0.9)\n\nRelationship Quality (M):\n\n|  |  |  |\n\nEmotional support (1\u20135) | 4.5 | (0.5) | 4.4 | (0.7)\n\nEnchantment (1\u20135) | 4.2 | (0.8) | 4.2 | (0.8)\n\nRelationship happiness (1\u201310) | 8.7 | (1.3) | 8.6 | (1.5)\n\nData are weighted\n\nReferences\n\nAmato, P. R., Johnson, R., D., R., Booth, A., & Rogers, S. J. (2003). Continuity and change in marital quality between 1980 and 2000. Journal of Marriage and Family, 65, 1\u201322.CrossRef\n\nBakker, A. B., & Geurts, S. A. E. (2004). Toward a dual-process model of work-home interference. Work and Occupations, 31, 345\u2013366.CrossRef\n\nBecker, P. E., & Moen, P. (1999). Scaling back: Dual-earner couples' work-family conflict. Journal of Marriage and the Family, 61, 995\u20131007.CrossRef\n\nBernard, J. (1972). The future of marriage. New York: Bantam.\n\nBellavia, G. M., & Frone, M. R. (2005). Work-family conflict. In J. Barling, E. K. Kelloway, & M. R. Frone (Eds.), Handbook of work stress (pp. 113\u2013147). Thousand Oaks: Sage.CrossRef\n\nBianchi, S. M., & Milkie, M. A. (2010). Work and family research in the first decade of the 21st century. Journal of Marriage and Family, 72, 705\u2013725.CrossRef\n\nBianchi, S. M., Robinson, J. P., & Milkie, M. A. (2006). Changing rhythms of American family life. New York: Russell Sage.\n\nBlair-Loy, M. (2003). Competing devotions. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.\n\nBooth, A., Johnson, D. R., White, L. K., & Edwards, J. N. (1985). Predicting divorce and permanent separation. Journal of Family Issues, 6, 331\u2013346.PubMedCrossRef\n\nBradbury, T. N., Fincham, F. D., & Beach, S. R. H. (2000). Research on the nature and determinants of marital satisfaction: A decade in review. Journal of Marriage and the Family, 62, 964\u2013980.CrossRef\n\nCorrell, S. J., Benard, S., & Paik, I. (2007). Getting a job: Is there a motherhood penalty? American Journal of Sociology, 112, 1297\u20131338.CrossRef\n\nCotter, D., Hermsen, J. M., & Vanneman, R. (2011). The end of the gender revolution? Gender role attitudes from 1977 to 2008. American Journal of Sociology, 117, 259\u2013289.CrossRef\n\nCoverman, S. (1989). Role overload, role conflict, and stress: Addressing consequences of multiple role demands. Social Forces, 67, 965\u2013982.CrossRef\n\nDemerouti, E., Bakker, A. B., & Schaufeli, W. B. (2005). Spillover and crossover of exhaustion and life satisfaction among dual-earner parents. Journal of Vocational Behavior, 67, 266\u2013298.CrossRef\n\nDoucet, A. (2006). Do men mother? Toronto: University of Toronto Press.\n\nFrisco, M. L., & Williams, K. (2003). Perceived housework equity, marital happiness, and divorce in dual-earner household. Journal of Family Issues, 24, 51\u201373.CrossRef\n\nFrone, M. R., Barnes, G. M., & Farrell, M. P. (1994). Relationship of work-family conflict to substance use among employed mothers: The role of negative affect. Journal of Marriage and the Family, 56, 1019\u20131030.CrossRef\n\nGrzywacz, J. G., & Marks, N. F. (2000). Reconceptualizing the work-family interface: An ecological perspective on the correlates of positive and negative spillover between work and family. Journal of Occupational Health Psychology, 5, 111\u2013126.PubMedCrossRef\n\nGutek, B. A., Searle, S., & Klepa, L. (1991). Rational versus gender role explanations for work-family conflict. Journal of Applied Psychology, 76, 560\u2013568.CrossRef\n\nHays, S. (1996). The cultural contradictions of motherhood. New Haven: Yale University Press.\n\nHochschild, A. R. (1989). The second shift. New York: Quill.\n\nHuston, T. L., Caughlim, J. P., Houts, R. M., Smith, S. E., & George, L. J. (2001). The connubial crucible: Newlywed years and predictors of marital delight, distress, and divorce. Journal Personality and Social Psychology, 80, 237\u2013252.CrossRef\n\nICPSR. (2013). Study no. 31322. Retrieved from http:\/\/\u200bwww.\u200bicpsr.\u200bumich.\u200bedu\/\u200bicpsrweb\/\u200bDSDR\/\u200bstudies\/\u200b31322\/\u200bversion\/\u200b1. Accessed 17 March 2012.\n\nKnowledge Networks. (2010). Knowledge panel design summary. Retrieved from http:\/\/\u200bwww.\u200bknowledgenetwork\u200bs.\u200bcom\/\u200bknpanel\/\u200bdocs\/\u200bKnowledgePanel(R)-Design-Summary-Description.pdf. Accessed 29 June 2011.\n\nMilkie, M. A. (1999). Social comparisons, reflected appraisals and mass media: The impact of pervasive beauty images on black and white girls' self-concepts. Social Psychology Quarterly, 62, 190\u2013210.CrossRef\n\nMilkie, M. A. (2010). The stress process: Some family-level considerations. In W. R. Avison, C. S. Aneshensel, S. Schieman, & B. Wheaton (Eds.), Advances in the conceptualization of the stress process: Essays in honor of Leonard I. Pearlin (pp. 93\u2013108). New York: Springer.\n\nMilkie, M. A., & Peltola, P. (1999). Playing all the roles: Gender and the work-family balancing act. Journal of Marriage and the Family, 61, 476\u2013490.CrossRef\n\nMoen, P., & Wethington, E. (1992). The concept of family adaptive strategies. Annual Review of Sociology, 18, 233\u2013251.CrossRef\n\nNomaguchi, K. M. (2009). Change in work-family conflict among employed parents between 1977 and 1997. Journal of Marriage and Family, 71, 15\u201332.CrossRef\n\nPearlin, L. (1983). Role strains and personal stress. In H. B. Kaplan (Ed.), Psychosocial stress: Trends in theory and research (pp. 3\u201332). New York: Academic.CrossRef\n\nPearlin, L. I., & McCall, M. E. (1990). Occupational stress and marital support: A description of microprocesses. In J. Eckenrode & S. Gore (Eds.), Stress between work and family (pp. 39\u201360). New York: Plenum.CrossRef\n\nRidgeway, C. L. (2011). Framed by gender. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRef\n\nSchieman, S., & Young, M. (2010). The demands of creative work: Implications for the stress in the work-family interface. Social Science Research, 39, 246\u2013259.CrossRef\n\nSchieman, S., Milkie, M. A., & Glavin, P. (2009). When work interferes with life: The social distribution of work-nonwork interference and the influence of work-related demands and resources. American Sociological Review, 74, 966\u2013988.CrossRef\n\nStone, P. (2007). Opting out? Why women really quit careers and head home. Berkeley: University of California Press.\n\nStreich, M., Caspter, W. J., & Salvaggio, A. N. (2008). Examining couple agreement about -family conflict. Journal of Managerial Psychology, 23, 252\u2013272.CrossRef\n\nThompson, L. (1991). Family work: Women's sense of fairness. Journal of Family Issues, 12, 181\u2013196.CrossRef\n\nThornton, A., & Young-DeMarco, L. (2001). Four decades of trends in attitudes toward family issues in the United States: The 1960s through the 1990s. Journal of Marriage and Family, 63, 1009\u20131037.CrossRef\n\nTownsend, N. W. (2002). The package deal: Marriage, work, and fatherhood in men's lives. Philadelphia: Temple University Press.\n\nWilkie, J. R., Ferree, M. M., & Ratcliff, K. S. (1998). Gender and fairness: Marital satisfaction in two-earner couples. Journal of Marriage and the Family, 60, 577\u2013594.CrossRef\n\nYoung, M., Schieman, S., & Milkie, M. A. (2014). Spouse's work-to-family conflict, family stressors, and mental health among dual-earner mothers and fathers. Society and Mental Health, 4, 1\u201320.CrossRef\n\u00a9 Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2015\n\nMaura J. Mills (ed.)Gender and the Work-Family Experience10.1007\/978-3-319-08891-4_10\n\n# 10. Work\u2013Life Equality: The Importance of a Level Playing Field at Home\n\nJeanette N. Cleveland1  , Gwenith G. Fisher2  and Katina B. Sawyer3\n\n(1)\n\nDepartment of Psychology, Colorado State University, 225 Behavioral Sciences Building, 1876 Campus Delivery, 80523 Fort Collins, CO, USA\n\n(2)\n\nDepartment of Psychology, Colorado State University, 228 Behavioral Sciences Building, 1876 Campus Delivery, 80523 Fort Collins, CO, USA\n\n(3)\n\nDepartment of Psychology, Villanova University, St. Mary's Hall, Suite 119, 800 Lancaster Avenue, 19085 Villanova, PA, USA\n\nJeanette N. Cleveland (Corresponding author)\n\nEmail: jeanette.cleveland@colostate.edu\n\nGwenith G. Fisher\n\nEmail: gwen.fisher@colostate.edu\n\nKatina B. Sawyer\n\nEmail: katina.sawyer@villanova.edu\n\nKeywords\n\nGenderEqualityWork\u2013familyHouseworkWorkforce participationDivision of laborSecond shift\n\n## 10.1 Introduction\n\nMen and women increasingly participate at similar rates in the workforce (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics 2012a), with women holding half of managerial and professional jobs . Yet little appears to have changed at home in the USA as women continue to perform more housework than men. The division of household labor is important as women's participation in the workforce continues to increase, with 53.6 % of women in the USA working in 2010 (U.S. Current Population Survey 2011). The division of household chores is one of the greatest sources of conflict and dissatisfaction among married couples (Kluwer et al. 1996, 2000; Kluwer 1998). For example, almost a quarter of women and men report the division of household chores as a key factor in divorce; currently, nearly double the percentage reported in the 1950s and 1960s (de Graaf and Kalmijn 2006). Importantly, the gender gap in the reporting of division of labor problems has increased, with women reporting greater problems than men (de Graaf and Kalmijn 2006). Therefore, whether paid or unpaid, both inside and outside of the home, the division of housework has important implications for working couples.\n\nThe goal of this chapter is to demonstrate the way in which couples divide paid work and housework is significantly guided by gender norms . Further, the division of paid work and housework has significant implications for the upward mobility of women in the workforce while placing tension on and jeopardizing the health and well-being of individuals and families. First, we highlight the importance of housework as an important work\/life issue and describe it in the context of extant work\/life research. Second, the methodological issues complicating this research area are identified, including construct deficiency and measurement bias . Next, we discuss gender specialization and describe various theories related to household division of labor . Finally, we conclude the chapter with a discussion of individual-, couple-, and organizational- level strategies that can level the playing field at home as well as suggestions for future research.\n\n## 10.2 Work\/Life Conflict\n\nAt the heart of the issue of work\/life equality is the issue of work\/life conflict, or interference between work and nonwork roles (Greenhaus and Beutell 1985). Work\/life conflict is important for both individuals and organizations because there are many negative attitudinal, behavioral, and other outcomes of work\/life conflict including lower-levels of job satisfaction and organizational commitment (Ernst Kossek and Ozeki 1998), \u00adhigher levels of absenteeism and turnover and lower levels of job performance, higher levels of stress and burnout (Anderson et al. 2002; Wayne et al. 2004), lower levels of marital satisfaction , poor physical health (Allen et al. 2000), and cognitive problems including poor concentration and low alertness (MacEwen and Barling 1994).\n\n### 10.2.1 Work\/Life Criterion Deficiency\n\nThe construct of work\/life conflict, as currently measured, may be deficient in a number of ways. The vast majority of research that has examined work and nonwork roles has (1) focused on family in the nonwork domain, and (2) examined conflict between these roles. Although the notion of family is unquestioningly important to most workers, the topic of household labor in the nonwork domain extends the construct domain beyond caregiving roles. Although the work\/life literature has contributed a great deal to our understanding of work and family issues, as well as the role of gender in determining participation in work and family spheres, Tetrick and Buffardi (2006) highlighted a number of measurement problems within the work\u2013family domain. One issue in particular is that work\/life conflict has focused heavily on family within the nonwork domain, without considering the potential nonfamily related conflicts which may arise within the more general life sphere. Fisher et al. (2009) developed a measure of work\/nonwork interference based on the notion that, although family is important, traditional work\/family measures may be too narrow for measuring the interface between work and nonwork roles. To more accurately understand the impact of work on nonwork roles and vice-versa, important aspects of life at home may be missed or ignored if too much emphasis is placed on only family roles (e.g., with child care being predominant). Additional research is needed to articulate more specific nonfamily roles in the nonwork domain to improve our understanding of how work relates to nonwork roles in a more thorough manner.\n\nWhile this chapter will primarily focus on the ways in which couples divide housework, including child care, it is also possible that the burden may fall on women to perform a variety of life-related (but not family-related) tasks as well. For example, women may be expected to purchase gifts for friends, keep track of social schedules , or participate more heavily in exercise and grooming activities. As such, future research should examine the impact of gender on the division of life-related activities outside of the family sphere.\n\n## 10.3 Importance of Housework and Workforce Participation\n\nAlthough historically, the division of housework was of little academic interest outside the field of home economics (Ehrenreich and English 1978), the dramatic increase in working women especially among married, divorced, and separated women has brought this issue into more prominent view. For example, in 2010, 53.6 % of women and 63.7 % of men overall were working (Current Population Survey 2011). The proportion of working women is even higher among women who are married (57.4 %), divorced (61.1 %), or separated (56.5 %). This is a dramatic increase compared to previous generations; in 1970, only 40.8 % of women were employed (Current Population Survey 2011). In addition, women continue to work largely in gendered jobs with lower salary , benefits, and flexibility. For example, women are more likely than men to work in nonmanagement positions (26.9 % women vs 17.9 % men), service occupations (21.3 % women vs 14.5 % men), and in education and health services (36 % women vs 11 % men; Current Population Survey 2011). Of the only 17 % of board positions in Fortune 500 companies, fewer than 25 are Fortune 500 CEOs, and only 18 % have been elected to senior legislative positions (Catalyst 2012) . Further, more women hold multiple jobs than men do (5.4 % vs 4.5 %) (Current Population Survey 2010) and since 1970, women on average have increased their contributions to the family income from 2.6 % to 37.1 % (Current Population Survey 2011). Finally, during the last 20 years, the proportion of wives who earn more than their husbands (among dual-earner couples) has increased from 17.8 % in 1987 to 28.9 % in 2009 (Current Population Survey 2011).\n\n### 10.3.1 Why Focus on Housework?\n\nIn spite of the changes in recent decades, men are typically the breadwinners. Women's time spent doing housework is related to paid work involvement (Bianchi et al. 2000). The popular press , including recent books such as Lean In (Sandberg 2013) have also highlighted continued gender gaps at work and home in spite of the narrowed gap between men and women in labor force participation rates. Gender equality theorists argue that these differences in gender roles underlie inequality, placing women at a distinct disadvantage at home and at work (Budig 2004). Even though both women and men report that they want to spend more time with their children, women are the ones who are more likely to actually scale back on their work time to prioritize family (Becker and Moen 1999). Women are then penalized for this prioritization of family over work, evidenced by lower earnings and having primary responsibility for the bulk of tasks related to child rearing (Budig and England 2001). For example, only 9 % of working mothers between the ages of 25 and 44 spend more than 50 hours per week at work (Williams 2013). Although this increases to 13.9 % when only considering those with at least a college degree, this is still a small percentage overall (Williams 2013). Ely and Padavic (2013) indicated that the low proportion of women at the highest levels is due to the long hours required of such jobs and that many women (mothers) are unwilling to work in jobs that require such long hours. An alternative explanation is that women are willing to work in jobs with long hours yet cannot when they disproportionately bear the burden of housework responsibility .\n\n#### 10.3.1.1 Childcare and Division of Labor\n\nWhile it is important to compare men and women overall when discussing household labor division, it is also important to focus directly on those with children. The presence of children adds to the level of necessary housework , particularly laundry, cleaning, and meal preparation (Jacobs and Gerson 2004). Two trends have emerged regarding time in relation to parental caregiving responsibilities . First, the amount of parents' primary childcare time has increased since 1965 among western industrialized countries (Jacobs and Gerson 2004). Second, gender variations in parental care have narrowed. Specifically, fathers' time spent attending to childcare responsibilities has increased significantly, with proportionately smaller increases among mothers' childcare time (Bianchi et al. 2006; Sayer et al. 2004). Fathers have shifted some of their time from sleep and leisure to spend more time with their children while mothers have reduced some of their housework time and increased time spent attending to childcare responsibilities (Gauthier et al. 2004; Sayer 2005).\n\nThis is an encouraging pattern due to the increase in time spent on childcare overall. Yet the increased participation of men in the childcare domain may not make significant changes in the amount of time women are spending in childcare related activities. For this reason, it is important to consider the increased time commitments to the home domain experienced by parents (and particularly mothers, who are also more likely to be responsible for the bulk of home duties) in comparison with those who do not have childcare responsibilities.\n\n## 10.4 Housework: Actual and Perceived Division of Labor\n\nWomen continue to do more housework or household labor than men (Liss 2013). Even when employed full-time outside of the home, women continue to spend more hours doing housework than their husbands (Blair and Lichter 1991). Further, in addition to this 'double shift' of housework and paid employment, women spend more time on tedious house tasks in addition to bearing the bulk of hours spent in child rearing. Although since 1965, the proportion of time that women contribute to housework has declined while men's has increased (Bianchi et al. 2000), women continue to do more regardless of how the division of household labor is measured.\n\nIn order to properly understand the nuances associated with the division of household labor, it is important to understand how these constructs are determined and assessed methodologically, as well as how they are perceived by those individuals completing the tasks. In this section, we briefly review the types of tasks which are performed in the household and by whom, methodological issues regarding how the division of housework is assessed, including perceptions of hours spent in household labor, and the role of fairness in housework labor division.\n\n### 10.4.1 Measuring Household Work\n\nA number of studies have sought to quantify the amount of housework performed by men vs. women. Interview studies suggest that women work 15 hours more than men each week when paid and unpaid work is combined (Hochschild and Machung 1989). More recent diary studies show that when paid and unpaid labor are combined, men and women work equal number of hours (Sayer et al. 2009). Employed mothers with young children, however, work more total hours than men do. Using time diaries where people report what they are doing with their time, generally women report less leisure time per day than men (Mattingly and Liana 2006), averaging approximately 30 minutes less. On the other hand, when researchers actually followed dual-earner couples who worked more than 30 hours per week, they found that men spent significantly more time engaged in leisure activities than women and women spent significantly more time on housework (Saxbe et al. 2011). These results highlight important differences in methodologies used to measure household work.\n\nThere are two key methodological issues regarding the measurement of housework and division of housework within couples. The first issue involves defining the construct: what exactly is the domain of housework tasks? Some research has highlighted the blurry boundaries between routine and leisure activities (Coltrane 2000). As indicated previously, although women perform more housework than men, the degree of imbalance among such work varies by the type of housework tasks (Blair and Lichter 1991). According to Twiggs et al. (1999), housework tasks are gendered and there is a hierarchy within the gender-typed tasks. For example, women are largely responsible for routine and repetitive tasks such as laundry or washing dishes. These tasks take up the majority of housework time. Further, although both laundry and washing dishes are considered routine female housework activities, men are less likely to do the laundry than the dishes. Housework assessments then reflect not only the amount of time spent but also responsibility for a given (historically, often gendered) task and is measured either through estimates of the actual time spent or as a report on who is more frequently responsible for the task.\n\nThe second issue pertains to quantifying the amount of time spent performing housework . For example, while individuals may engage in one task at a time, they may also multitask by performing two or more tasks at once (e.g., laundry and picking up around the house), making the reporting of time spent in household labor difficult to estimate. Relatedly, there is the potential for recollection problems for participants as housework is so routine to daily life that they may not be as salient as nonroutine events. In other words, participants may not be consciously aware of or be able to accurately recall how much time they actually spent doing these tasks.\n\nThree approaches to measuring housework and division of domestic labor have been compared by Juster et al. (2003) and Lee and Waite (2005). The most frequently used measure is respondents' retrospective reports of housework. Specifically, either one or both partners are asked to report time spent on total housework over a specific time period (e.g., last week, month, etc.) or about the time spent on one specific activity. The measure is easily implemented and therefore popular. However, combining housework time across all tasks into one overall measure may not capture the nuanced differences in the types of housework completed or in linking the completion of specific types of housework tasks to assessments of well-being. The second measurement method is use of a \"time diary\" in which respondents are asked to record their actual time use for all activities (usually measured with reference to the previous day). Such measures are viewed as more accurate than retrospective report survey questions, yet they are also more time-consuming and expensive to implement. In addition, the time diary approach assumes that the previous day is an accurate representation of how participants usually spend their time. Results using both survey questions and time diary measures do correlate closely especially when tasks are those that are performed regularly and are externally structured (Juster et al. 2003).\n\nA third measure related to the time diary approach is the experience sampling method (ESM; Lee and Waite 2005). In ESM, respondents report their primary and secondary activities eight times a day, often at random intervals when prompted to do so by a device. Compared to survey measures, ESM-based measures produce lower housework time estimates. Further, the gender gap between husbands and wives reports of activities is smallest based on ESM estimates (for primary activities only) and largest based on wives' retrospective survey reports (Lee and Waite 2005). Thus, it is important to examine the extent to which gender discrepancies exist as a function of the measurement tool used to capture housework hours.\n\n### 10.4.2 Gender Discrepancies in Reporting Housework\n\nMost research on housework relies on retrospective survey-based measures or diary studies in which only one person reports about the division of housework . When information is collected from both partners, there is often a discrepancy (Coltrane 2000). Although both men and women in the USA tend to inflate their reports of time spent, men do so more than women (Coltrane 1996, 2000; Press and Townsley 1998). There are a number of reasons for reporting differences. First, social desirability may influence the reporting depending upon the extent to which the task may be considered more gendered. Men may overestimate their contribution in order to reflect a more supportive husband or due to lack of information on how much the partner is contributing (Kamo 2000). Finally, wives' and husbands' differences in reporting may reflect domestic harmony or disharmony or couple marital conflict. In other words, differences in reporting may be more apparent when members of a couple do not agree on how work is being done or should be done.\n\n### 10.4.3 Fairness Perceptions\n\nFairness perceptions are important because they have implications for a range of emotions and well-being and, additionally, whether one feels that they are being fair (or unfair) to their partner (Lively et al. 2008). However, fairness is a subjective experience and differs from reports of equal division of labor . Men report that division of housework is fair if they contribute 36 % or more, while women perceive housework as fair if they do 66 % or less (Lennon and Rosenfield 1994). Women are more likely to feel that the division of housework is unfair to them while men are more likely to report the distribution of tasks as fair (DeMaris and Longmore 1996).\n\n## 10.5 Gender Specialization: The Role of Separate Spheres\n\nTraditional gender stereotypes create circumstances in which women are expected to perform nearly all of the household duties, while men are expected to perform most of the paid work. Thus, when women contribute little to the household in terms of income, it may be an indicator of traditional gender roles operating within the family unit (Bittman et al. 2003; Brines 1994; Greenstein 2000; Prince-Cooke 2006). While \"gender specialization\" is decreasing in prevalence, it was viewed historically as beneficial to both men and women, because it resulted in mutual dependence within couples (Prince-Cooke 2006). Specifically, when women specialize in the home domain and men specialize in the work domain, both partners depend upon each another because neither partner is able to perform the necessary tasks and duties required for success in the opposite domain. This gendered division of labor has been labeled the two \"separate spheres,\" one of work (which is male) and one of the home (which is female) (Lundberg and Pollak 1993). When husbands and wives are responsible for separate and distinct sets of work activities (Lundberg and Pollak 1996), they no longer must coordinate or compromise with one another. This arrangement is assumed to create optimal conditions for both husbands and wives, because each individual is able to complete their activities independently and without negotiation.\n\nHowever, the viability of gendered division of labor appears to be diminishing significantly within our current economy . Demographic data suggest that traditional gendered arrangements occur less frequently today because both men and women increasingly participate in the labor force (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics 2012b) . As a result, women and men participate in both work and family spheres. As such, couples increasingly need to negotiate with one another about the extent to which they participate in the work domain versus the nonwork domain, creating a new set of circumstances for them to consider when navigating the work\u2013life interface. Further, research shows that when either member of a couple perceives unfairness in arrangements either inside or outside of the home, greater levels of marital conflict and lower marital satisfaction are reported, and may contribute to divorce (Lavee and Katz 2002; Prince-Cooke 2006). Thus, a key factor to maintain healthy relationships is for couples to successfully negotiate or communicate with each other to arrive at a consensus regarding their work and family arrangements.\n\nWhile it is important to investigate perceptions of and measurements related to the amount of paid work and family labor completed by males and females, it is also necessary to examine the underlying theoretical frameworks which may be driving these perceptions and their related antecedents and consequences. Further, we review a sampling of theories which help to shed light on the mechanisms through which work and family negotiations may occur. While this is not an exhaustive review, the theories outlined below are particularly relevant when considering how paid work and family labor are split among partners, allowing for a closer examination of the role of gender and household politics in determining levels of work\u2013life conflict within couples . As such, we review a sample of theories that highlight the key drivers of work\u2013life negotiations between partners, both at home and at work.\n\n## 10.6 Theoretical Approaches to Household Division of Labor\n\n### 10.6.1 Exchange Theory: The Division of Paid Work and Housework\n\nOne underlying explanation for gender specialization is exchange theory (Bittman et al. 2003; Molm and Cook 1995). According to this theory, one partner (e.g., economically dependent) within a couple contributes to the relationship by providing nonmonetary goods (e.g., household labor, child care) and, in return, receives monetary goods (e.g., income, property) from the economically independent partner. The dependent partner relies on the independent partner for economic resources and thus, is unlikely to leave the relationship as a result. Further, because the dependent partner is financially tied to the relationship, the independent partner has little reason to contribute additional nonmonetary resources in exchange for their contributions. Given that women often make smaller economic contributions in relationships compared to men (as evidenced by the gender pay gap and the lower representation of women in high powered positions in the workplace, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics 2012a, b) , women are more likely to occupy the dependent partner role. Further, because the independent partner does not feel the need to increase their contributions to the relationship, women may feel pressured to contribute increasingly to the household domain, while receiving static levels of assistance in exchange.\n\n### 10.6.2 Bargaining Theory: The Division of Paid Work and Housework\n\nA related theoretical perspective regarding family and work negotiation is bargaining theory. Bargaining theory describes the exchanges between partners as primarily based around \"threat points\" (Bittman et al. 2003; McElroy 1990) . A threat point is determined by the resources that each individual in the relationship independently acquires and can use at his\/her discretion in the event that the relationship ends. Thus, threat points are constantly balancing in a relationship, in anticipation of a potential divorce. For example, if a woman does not contribute monetarily to a relationship, yet her partner does, then (in terms of resources) her partner does not need to fear that the relationship might end. He would, in essence, have more bargaining power over his partner, and therefore, more power to create the conditions in the marriage that are more favorable to him. In this way, the \"threat point\" is used to exert power over the more dependent member of a relationship because the dependent member lacks personal resources available for use in the event of a divorce. Again, because the less economically powerful person in a relationship is more likely to be a woman (as measured by income differentials and power differentials in the workplace; U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics 2012a, b) , women are at greater risk for potential oppression and power misuse than men. However, when a woman is employed in paid work, she assumes a better exchange\/bargaining position with her husband. Thus, there is an incentive for women to join the labor force: to gain valuable resources, and maintain threat point balance .\n\n### 10.6.3 Understanding Equitable Exchanges\n\nThe challenges associated with the division of paid and household work may become easier as partners view each other as either contributing wholly to one sphere (work or the home) or as equal contributors to the paid work sphere (spending similar hours and\/or earning similar salaries in the paid workforce). Research shows that women who work fewer hours than their partner outside of the home are likely to do more household work (Brines 1994; Greenstein 2000) and also report greater fairness in the distribution of household labor (Lennon and Rosenfield 1994). Women who perform all of the housework while their husband performs all of the work outside of the home report the highest levels of fairness (Lennon and Rosenfield 1994). These women may perceive the gender specialization of tasks (Bittman et al. 2003) as fair (e.g., husband takes care of work outside of the home, while wife takes care of work inside of the home). Thus, perceptions of fairness, in this case, are not based on actual hours worked in the home, but rather how these hours are perceived in light of the overall contribution of both partners to the marriage. However, there is evidence that as couples increasingly equally share the division of paid work, they begin to divide the household labor more equally as well (Bittman et al. 2003; Brines 1994; Greenstein 2000; Prince-Cooke 2006). This implies that as partners begin to contribute equally in terms of income and hours worked outside of the home, these equitable practices are also maintained inside the home.\n\nTo this end, equity theory , which states that unfair exchanges decrease satisfaction for both parties (Klumb et al. 2006), is a theoretical framework which enables us to better understand the psychological undercurrents between partners when they perceive that they are completing either more or less than their equitable share. Similar to exchange and bargaining theories, equity theory focuses on the exchange of or bargaining for paid labor versus household labor between partners. Yet, equity theory diverges from exchange and bargaining theories and predicts that neither person in the relationship will be happy when exchanges are inequitable, regardless of the amount of power one holds.\n\nEqually sharing work, on the other hand, may be associated with lower distress for both parties. While exchange and bargaining theories revolve around the maintenance of power within relationships, the elimination of this power struggle may alleviate tension for couples engaged in this struggle. In fact, according to exchange, bargaining, and equity theories, equality between individuals may be beneficial for both partners' well-being , particularly because it is associated with a lower risk of divorce (Prince-Cooke 2006). Further, perceptions of unfairness in the division of household labor are linked with marital conflict and marital dissatisfaction (Lavee and Katz 2002).\n\n### 10.6.4 Gender Role Attitudes: The Effects of Traditional and Nontraditional Attitudes on the Division of Labor\n\nWhile equity theory may serve to better understand outcomes associated with the division of housework, there may be limits to its usefulness in prediction. When members of a couple strongly subscribe to traditional gender roles, tenets of bargaining and exchange theories may be more valid. Research demonstrates that among couples , adherence to traditional gender roles is associated with a more traditional division of labor inside the home (Lu et al. 2000). Further, traditional gender ideology has been found to predict the unequal distribution of labor in the home to a greater degree than the wife's nonparticipation in the paid workforce (Pina and Bengston 1993). Husbands' gender ideology also has been shown to be a predictor of the division of household labor, with wives completing a greater percentage of housework when husbands adhered to traditional norms (Pyke and Coltrane 1996). In conjunction, women with traditional gender ideologies report greater role clarity both inside and outside of the home because they feel that well-developed roles (lack of participation in paid labor, high levels of participation in household labor) are available to them (Buunk et al. 2000).\n\nFurther, the ways in which women or men identify themselves outside home can influence the division of household labor . For example, husbands and wives that consider themselves \"co-breadwinners\" are more likely to share labor in the household (Deutsch 2001). On the other hand, couples who identified more strongly with traditional masculine and feminine traits continued to maintain traditional gender identities by reporting that the male was the breadwinner (Deutsch and Saxon 1998) even though they actually had nontraditional work arrangements. The women who reported employment in paid work due solely to financial pressure continued to report that being a mother was their primary role (Deutsch and Saxon 1998). Therefore, gender ideology influences the ways in which individuals divide and also perceive their labor contributions within a couple, even if objective information about income and hours worked indicates that they are equally sharing paid labor.\n\n### 10.6.5 Gender Deviance Neutralization and the Division of Household Labor\n\nIncorporating the influence of gender ideology, Brines (1994) and Greenstein (2000) proposed two related theories: gender display theory and deviance neutralization theory, respectively, as explanations for the ways that couples divide household labor. According to these theories, couples divide routine household activities consistent with their adherence to gender norms . For example, among couples with more traditional gender views and similar relative employment hours, husbands spend less time doing female sex-typed household tasks, such as laundry or washing dishes (Atkinson and Huston 1984). Similarly, the opposite pattern would be found for those with less traditional gender norms. Therefore, Brines (1994) and Greenstein (2000) assert that gender ideology may be one guiding mechanism behind the division of household labor . The context of their research focused upon couples in which the women were the primary breadwinners (e.g., either the sole income or earning a higher income than her spouse). Within such couples (woman as breadwinner), the predictions based on equity theory , bargaining theory , and exchange theory do not appear to be supported.\n\nAccording to equity theory, when the wife is the primary economic contributor, the husband should perform more housework . However, the evidence shows the opposite pattern (Perry-Jenkins and Folk 1994; Van Willigen and Drentea 2001). Specifically, husbands with wives who work full-time do no more housework than husbands with wives who are full-time homemakers. Men's work inside the home increases as the relative proportion of hours worked outside the home decreases, until it reaches equity with their partner. This finding is consistent with equity theory predictions. However, as men's paid work hours continue to become proportionately less than their wives', men's participation in the household also decreases. Therefore, when the number of hours spent in the labor force by a woman proportionally exceeds that of a male, the increase in paid work hours and income by females are associated with lower levels of help from males in the household.\n\nOther research (Hochshild and Machung 1989) showed that one-fifth of husbands who earn more than their wives share the housework (although husbands were more likely to do male sex-typed chores, such as mowing the lawn, car maintenance, and cleaning the garage). Within couples where the husband and wife earn the same amount, one third of the husbands shared the housework. However, in couples where husbands earn less than their wives, none of the husbands performed the majority of housework. Brines (1994) suggested that this finding among female breadwinner couples is associated with men's unwillingness to be further feminized by participating in housework when they are not the major economic provider. Further, with wives complicit in the process, women and men may attempt to neutralize the nontraditional gender behaviors that occur outside of the home (e.g., wife as breadwinner) by engaging in more traditional gendered behaviors within the home and through housework (Greenstein 2000). In addition to their responsibility as the primary provider outside the home, female breadwinners with traditional gender ideologies are expected to and likely perform the majority of household tasks. This pattern predicts an increased risk for role and stress overload for female breadwinners. Additionally, the finding is inconsistent with the predictions of exchange theory or bargaining theory because, according to these theories, the female breadwinner should have greater resources and greater bargaining power, and therefore, a greater opportunity to negotiate preferable household arrangements. Yet, these women (who work more hours and\/or are paid more than their husbands) contribute more hours to housework than their husbands.\n\nWhile exchange, bargaining, or equity theories cannot fully account for these findings, the role of gender norms may explain the phenomenon which occurs within female breadwinner couples (Brines 1994; Greenstein 2000). As women increase hours spent in the workforce relative to their husbands, traditional gender roles may be threatened. Because the notion of a female breadwinner does not fit with traditional gender stereotypes , women and men who hold more traditional gender views may feel that they must counteract the perceived violation of traditional gender norms outside of the home. This \"gender deviance neutralization\" (Bittman et al. 2003) predicts that women will perform the majority of housework in order to feel as though they are, in a sense, still fulfilling their \"womanly duties.\" Similarly, husbands of female breadwinners may believe that they have violated or failed in their masculine role by not being the primary economic provider. Thus, if husbands of female breadwinners do not believe they are adequately fulfilling their masculine role outside the home, they may preserve their masculinity by opting out of household duties, thereby diffusing feelings of gender deviance.\n\nOverall, exchange , equity , and bargaining theory can explain instances where traditional gender roles are enacted or the situation is gender neutral. However, when gender roles are violated, gender deviance neutralization appears to provide a more complete or nuanced explanation (Bittman et al. 2003; Brines 1994; Greenstein 2000) for the division of household labor . Neutralizing gender deviance does not necessarily account for the potential negative effects that female breadwinners may experience as a result of completing more than their fair share of housework , as well as working long hours outside of the home. The finding that female breadwinners often shoulder the bulk of the labor, both inside and outside of the home, is indicative of the influence that traditional gender roles may have on the division of paid and household labor (Weber 1998). Taken together, these theories help to better explain the outcomes associated with the division of labor between partners, as well as the effects of traditional gender roles on the interplay between males' and females' participation in the paid and household labor domains. Thus, it is important to consider the role of traditional gender norms in determining which spheres partners have historically specialized in, the exchanges and bargains which may exist to hold these spheres in place, and the outcomes related with violations of these norms, which may have serious implications for burdens placed on working women. These competing pressures may add to work\u2013family conflict for women in the workforce, compared to their male counterparts, which we discuss in greater detail below.\n\n## 10.7 Addressing Perceptions and Leveling the Playing Field\n\nIn 1996, the National Committee on Pay Equity established Equal Pay Day in order to emphasize the fact that women must work more than 15 months in order to earn the same salary that a man earns in 1 year (York 2013). As this chapter and other chapters in this book attest, the correlates or causes of this gender gap in pay are many, including differences in occupational distribution (with women clustered in lower paying occupations), differences in the human capital accumulation, and both intentional and unintentional gender discrimination. In work organizations, there have been significant legal and organizational changes that have begun to level the field of work among women and men. These changes have been crucial and necessary, yet they are not sufficient. We continue to find that women do not rise to the top of organizations nor seek or secure significant leadership positions. Most often these findings are attributed to women themselves, as either due to their lack of qualifications, motivation, or interest in such positions, or because these positions require long hours. However, even if all of these work issues were eliminated or managed, women (and men) would still face at least one societal or cultural issue that significantly affects male\u2013female differences in work experiences and outcomes\u2014i.e., that women spend a greater number of hours doing household (and caregiving) work, which in turn decreases the time and energy they can devote to work for pay (York 2013).\n\nSimilar to the workplace changes that resulted in greater diversity awareness and inclusion, enduring and pervasive changes in the 'private' sphere of home and housework must be implemented at multiple levels (e.g., individual, critical pairs or groups, organizations, communities) and in formal as well as informal ways (e.g., observable task changes, norms, power sharing, etc.) to provide a truly more level playing field for men and women at work and home. As we have noted throughout this chapter, work\u2013life tension and scarce time and economic resources are at the heart of work and nonwork gender bias and discrimination. Drawing from this literature, and extending it to the domain of household labor , there are a number of ways that work\u2013life conflict or interference might be addressed via the division of household labor. Using a framework of target and\/or source of change and formality of change (e.g., 3 \u00d7 2), we describe some suggestions for formal and informal changes at a number of levels.\n\n### 10.7.1 Individual-Level Changes\n\nIn order to begin to engage in the process of improving the gendered nature of work and family participation levels, we believe that it is important to focus on potential formal as well as informal changes at the individual level. We will discuss the implications of both of these individual-level changes below.\n\n#### 10.7.1.1 Informal Changes\n\nMost of us are guided by societal norms , including gender norms, interpreted and conveyed to us by our families and social context. However, both women and men as individuals must consciously examine and re-examine the relevance and usefulness of specific norms as they apply to themselves and within their evolving couple or family structures. Both women and men benefit by making clear choices and identifying what beliefs guide their behavior solely or largely by tradition or gender norms\/stereotypes , and whether or not they feel comfortable continuing to engage in those behaviors or, alternatively, changing these norms. For example, men are still socialized into breadwinner roles and women into caretaker roles. If a child or an elderly parent becomes ill and someone needs to take a day off from work, the gendered assumption is that the woman will make this sacrifice, as opposed to the man. For some individuals, this might work very well, but it is certainly worthwhile for both men and women to consider whether this is the best way for them individually to handle this situation.\n\nWe assert that the process of examining gender norms and expectations begins with individual self-awareness, and this process can be initiated well before formally entering the workplace full-time (e.g., during high school and college, if not before). This, of course, begs the question: Does this fall within the domain of work psychologists? We believe that it is absolutely a workplace psychology issue, and can be accomplished through assessments of vocational interests and assumptions, career counseling and self-assessments and self-awareness exercises. Work psychologists are well-positioned to design and develop tools to assist individuals in understanding the nature and the implications of their beliefs, assumptions, and norms regarding the roles of men and women at work and at home.\n\n#### 10.7.1.2 Formal Changes\n\nAt a more systemic level, there would be real and immediate benefits that could be realized by training women and men in effective decision-making , setting priorities, time management, and negotiation and conflict management, as they apply in work and nonwork settings. For example, it would be useful for both men and women to develop individual skills to navigate household labor , community service, and other roles, and to develop the ability to translate or apply work skills to the home domain. In particular, women and men can be trained to listen, depersonalize a situation, and step back (or empathize) to identify and address the important and unimportant household tasks and potential configurations for the division of these tasks. It would be useful to train men and women on how to develop methods and divide up tasks based on skill level, liking\/enjoyment, and avoiding the assignment of repetitive, time consuming tasks to one person (for example, by rotating these tasks or delegating them to a third party) . Men and women will also benefit from developing the perspective that household work division will not be a fixed phenomenon, but rather is likely to change as work or life situations change. For example, the demands on men's and women's time and energy will vary depending on developmental stages of children, or changes in the frequency of certain tasks (e.g., less laundry, more eating out, etc.).\n\n### 10.7.2 Couple-Level Changes\n\nIn addition to individual-level changes, there are a variety of informal and formal changes at the couple-level that can contribute to a more even distribution of work and nonwork responsibilities. We outline these couple-level changes below.\n\n#### 10.7.2.1 Informal Changes\n\nPrior to engaging in a formal relationship, couples can benefit substantially by discussing the division of tasks in a gender neutral way, particularly if the members of a couple have interests or preferences that might be accommodated by divisions of responsibility that are not strictly traditional (e.g., many men like to cook, but this is often stereotyped as a female activity). Couples can benefit by developing superordinate goals together which consider the division of paid and unpaid work as contributions to the well-being of the pair, and eventually the family, with the presence of children or expanded family needs. As children or elder care needs increase, couples can revisit the division of household labor ; gender roles often firmly reassert themselves once children (or elderly parents) arrive.\n\nIn considering how to develop more equitable roles for women, it is important to recognize that this sort of change creates special challenges for men, particularly if they have been socialized to cultures that emphasize rigid gender norms. A critical issue to negotiate is the best way to mitigate men's feelings of loss of a favored gender role (i.e., the more powerful role).\n\nIt is very useful to identify the tasks that can be completed with flexibility in terms of time and place (paying bills, etc.), to identify nonessential tasks, and to lengthen time between task completion (bi-weekly house cleaning vs weekly; weekly market shopping vs daily or thrice weekly, etc.). It also helps to identify core times that all family adults meet to divide or delegate household work. Secondly, it is also very useful for men and women to communicate openly and clearly about task roles and responsibilities, rather than making assumptions regarding what one or the other will do or is expected to do especially if these assumptions are based on traditional gender stereotypes.\n\n#### 10.7.2.2 Formal Changes\n\nDrawing from work\u2013life interventions in organizations, skills developed in paid work can be applied to navigating nonwork domains as well, especially in terms of seeking support and collaboration from one's spouse during potentially stressful times, much in the same way one might do with a supervisor at work. Supervisory support as well as coworker support are critical facets in mitigating work\/life conflicts and strains (Cleveland et al. 2006). It is important to develop skills to identify when one needs spousal support in managing housework and how to effectively obtain this support, as well as planning a course of action and a timeframe for accomplishing tasks.\n\n### 10.7.3 Work and Organization-Level Changes\n\nChanges at both the formal and informal level in organizations can complement individual- and couple-level changes to provide a balanced workplace. If we begin to address the systemic issues related to gender, work, family, and community, we can create a society which is more equitable for men and for women alike.\n\n#### 10.7.3.1 Informal Changes\n\nWork group members have beliefs and assumptions about work and family roles that can substantially influence the success or failure of attempts to create an equitable balance. It is important to recognize that these beliefs and assumptions are likely to vary, and that no one set of beliefs is necessarily right or correct. Coworkers can be a surprising source of resistance to efforts to change the balance of work and nonwork responsibilities. For example, suppose a husband increases his nonwork responsibilities and is not able to be present or engaged at work quite as often as in the past. Coworkers, particularly those who are socialized to more traditional work role expectations , might resent this and feel that they will have to pick up the slack. It is important for men and women who are trying to make changes in their relative responsibilities to recognize that their coworkers' concerns are not necessarily unreasonable, and to address them in realistic and respectful ways. Much in the same ways that the members of a couple often have to negotiate roles and responsibilities, members of work groups are likely to benefit from explicit and honest discussions of how changes in one person's workload might affect others he or she works with, and how challenges that might arise from these changes can be mitigated.\n\n#### 10.7.3.2 Formal Changes\n\nOrganizations are increasingly confronted with requests for flexibility. A great deal of empirical research has demonstrated that flexible work practices (e.g., offering flexibility in when and\/or where one works) offer many benefits (Baltes et al. 1999; Halpern 2005). Yet the simple implementation of flextime may lead to unintended consequences such as perceptions of inequity or complications in negotiating work vs. nonwork roles. For example, technological advances, increases in flexible work policies, and increases in telecommuting have culminated in the blurring of boundaries between work and home life. This is relevant to the division of labor in the household as gender role expectations may interact with time and location of work. Individuals who work at home may encounter situations in which \"being\" physically in their home for work results in their spouse or partner expecting that they will perform more domestic labor. In addition, among dual-career couples , the individual with a more flexible schedule may experience more family interference with work, because it is assumed that this member will have more time to complete household tasks. It is often the case that an individual with more flexibility is more likely to miss work and stay home to deal with family demands (e.g., a sick child). Hammer et al. (2005) conducted a longitudinal study to examine the role of using family-friendly workplace supports in relation to work and family outcomes. Their results indicated that women's use of workplace supports was related to higher levels of family-to-work conflict. Therefore, we suggest that although flexible work arrangements can be beneficial, they can also have a disproportionately negative effect in some situations.\n\nAnother limitation of flexible work arrangements is that they are only available to a minority of the workforce (Bulger and Fisher 2012; Golden 2001). Golden (2001) indicated that availability of flexible work practices varies in important ways by demographic, work, and job characteristics. Individuals in lower-level jobs, who are more likely to be women and ethnic minorities and less likely to be educated, are less likely to have flexibility. Men and women in higher level professional jobs may have more flexibility, but with higher level jobs come longer work hours and\/or have higher levels of responsibility such that it may be more difficult to use benefits.\n\nPart-time work would seem to offer a good solution to many of the problems of balancing work and nonwork responsibilities. It seems intuitive that working fewer hours should be associated with lower levels of work-to-family conflict and that one potential solution is to reduce work hours. However, organizations, particularly in the United States, do not offer many part-time options, particularly for professional occupations. Further, Barnett and Gareis (2002) suggest that \"success\" of part-time work in improving marital quality depends on the amount of control one has over nonwork tasks. Thus, part-time jobs may only help to deflate work\u2013family conflict if one has more control within the family sphere.\n\nSupporting the idea that work and family domains may be dependent on one another in terms of overall time spent and the outcomes associated with time spent in either domain, Duxbury and Higgins (1991) found that the hours an individual works are not just those recorded on a time sheet, but rather reflect a range of responsibilities at the individual and family levels. Unfortunately, the demands of individuals, couples, families and organizations are not always in sync. At work, there are teams, committees, and departments with coworkers and others who depend on individual employees (and upon whom the individual employee depends as well). Therefore, there are times when \"face-time\" (being physically present at work) is simply essential, and other times where it is a norm or more subtle expectation but not a genuine requirement. Similarly, in nonwork settings some activities may be put off or shared with other family members, but other activites must be completed by a given family member at a given point in time (e.g., mothers engaging in breastfeeding).\n\nOne of the best ways to approach potential conflicts between the demands of different spheres is with frequent, tempered and informed communication. Many conflicts can be defused by working through questions of whether the circumstances that drive conflict come about because of what is essential vs. what is customary. For example, suppose staff meetings have always been held at 3 pm. If some workers take on responsibility for school-age children, this can be a source of time-based conflict, because it coincides with the time many children are dismissed from school. If this meeting time is customary, but another can be reasonably found, it might be possible to reduce or even eliminate the conflict by changing the meeting time. However, it is worth recognizing that asking people to change, even when there is little real cost to making a change, may feel like an imposition. Thus, these feelings should be recognized and respected.\n\n## 10.8 Future Research\n\nBased on the issues and empirical research described in this chapter, we offer a few recommendations for additional research . First, we issue a call for more work-life research to investigate nonwork roles and responsibilities in addition to family caregiving. Much of the extant research has focused on family roles, but seems criterion deficient in understanding the true scope of the impact of work on workers' nonwork lives, as well as how nonfamily-related issues may interfere with work. It may be helpful to understand the specific household tasks or chores in which work is more likely to interfere, or that may be more likely to interfere with work .\n\nSecondly, additional research is needed among workers in nonmanagerial and professional occupations. This is due to the fact that a preponderance of work\/family research focuses on workers in managerial and professional occupations. Workers in hourly and nonprofessional settings are likely to have less flexibility in time and location of work, which may serve to exacerbate problems navigating the division of household labor . Although some work-life research has studied workers in nonprofessional jobs (e.g., Grzywacz et al. 2002, who found higher rates of conflict among workers in service jobs; Grzywacz et al. 2006, who studied work-family issues among Mexican migrant farmworkers; and Grandey et al. 2007, who studied male blue-collar hourly workers), additional work is needed .\n\nNext, the majority of work\/life research has focused on individuals. In the past decade, work\/family research has expanded a great deal to study couples or dyads (e.g., spillover from one spouse to another; Westman 2001; Westman and Etzion 2005). The issues of work and the household division of labor point to a critical need to study households as a unit. Therefore, it is important to consider multiple units or levels of analysis when posing our research questions.\n\nAs previously described, empirical evidence points to the efficacy of flexible work arrangements as being beneficial to help individuals manage work and life demands. However, workers with more flexibility may end up managing more domestic and caregiving responsibilities . Additional research is needed to increase our understanding about boundary conditions regarding when flexibility helps vs. hinders. The meta-analysis by Baltes et al. (1999) indicated that too much flexibility about flexible work practices is associated with more negative outcomes than more rigid or structured flexible work arrangements. Additional research is needed to examine the impact of flexible work arrangements within the home and, specifically, with the division of household responsibilities. Systematic evaluation of organizational interventions designed to reduce work-to-life conflict and life-to-work conflict are needed. The issues discussed in this chapter point to the need for attention to more than just family caregiving roles, but household tasks as well .\n\nFinally, additional research should be conducted to identify individual differences and processes that are related to successfully managing and negotiating household division of labor. What are the factors that make for equality and peace on the home front? Learning this may be fruitful for helping to offer additional recommendations on narrowing the gender gap at home .\n\n## 10.9 Conclusion\n\nIs the glass half full (progress) or half empty (gender inequalities and disparities)? Although we have begun to level the playing field between men and women with regard to educational attainment and labor force participation, research still highlights inequality on the home front. Women are more likely than men to spend more time caring for other family members, in addition to performing more household tasks. The trend is moving in a positive direction toward more balance or equity between men and women, but there is still a great deal of room for improvement. Time is a finite resource. As long as women have more caregiving responsibilities and spend more time involved in domestic work than men, it is unlikely that the gender discrepancies will disappear.\n\nReferences\n\nAllen, T. D., Herst, D. L., Bruck, C. S., & Sutton, M. (2000). Consequences associated with work-to-family conflict: A review and agenda for future research. Journal of Occupational Health Psychology, 5, 278\u2013308.PubMedCrossRef\n\nAnderson, S. E., Coffey, B. S., & Byerly, R. T. (2002). Formal organizational initiatives and informal workplace practices: Links to work-family conflict and job-related outcomes. Journal of Management, 28, 787\u2013810.\n\nAtkinson, J., & Huston, T. L. (1984). Sex role orientation and division of labor early in marriage. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 46, 330\u2013345.CrossRef\n\nBaltes, B. B., Briggs, T. E., Huff, J. W., Wright, J. A., & Neuman, G. A. (1999). Flexible and compressed workweek schedules: A meta-analysis of their effects on work-related criteria. Journal of Applied Psychology, 84, 496\u2013513.CrossRef\n\nBarnett, R. C., & Gareis, K. C. (2002). Full-time and reduced-hours work schedules and marital quality: A study of female physicians with young children. Work and Occupations, 29, 364\u2013379.CrossRef\n\nBecker, P. E., & Moen, P. (1999). Scaling back: Dual-earner couples work-family strategies. Journal of Marriage and the Family, 61, 995\u20131007.CrossRef\n\nBianchi, S. M., Milkie, M., Sayer, L. C., & Robinson, J. (2000). Is anyone doing the housework? Trends in the gender division of household labor. Social Forces, 79, 191\u2013228.CrossRef\n\nBianchi, S. M., Robinson, J. P., & Milkie, M. A. (2006). Changing rhythms of American life. New York: Russell Sage.\n\nBittman, M., England, P., Sayer, L., Folbre, N., & Matheson, G. (2003). When does gender trump money? Bargaining and time in household work. American Journal of Sociology, 109, 186\u2013214.CrossRef\n\nBlair, S. L., & Lichter, D. (1991). Measuring the division of household labor: Gender segregation of housework among American couples. Journal of Family Issues, 12, 91\u2013113.CrossRef\n\nBrines, J. (1994). Economic dependency, gender, and the division of labor at home. The American Journal of Sociology, 100, 652\u2013688.CrossRef\n\nBudig, M. (2004). Feminism and the family. In J. Scott, J. Treas, & M. Richards (Eds.), The Blackwell companion to the sociology of families (pp. 416\u2013434). Oxford: Blackwell.\n\nBudig, M., & England, P. (2001). The wage penalty for motherhood. American Sociological Review, 66, 204\u2013224.CrossRef\n\nBulger, C. A., & Fisher, G. G. (2012). Ethical imperatives of work-life balance. In N. P. Reilly, M. J. Sirgy, & C. A. Gorman (Eds.), Work and quality of life: Ethical practices in organizations (pp. 181\u2013200). New York: Springer.CrossRef\n\nBuunk, B. P., Kluwer, E. S., Schuurman, M. K., & Siero, F. W. (2000). The division of labor among egalitarian and traditional women: Differences in discontent, social comparison, and false consensus. Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 30, 759\u2013779.CrossRef\n\nCatalyst. (2012). 2012 Catalyst census: Fortune 500 women board directors. http:\/\/\u200bwww.\u200bcatalyst.\u200borg\/\u200bknowledge\/\u200b2012-catalyst-census-fortune-500. Accessed 4 Jan 2014.\n\nCleveland, J. N., McCarthy, A., & Jones, A. (September 2006). The influence of managerial support and family structure on work-family outcomes. Presented at the Irish Academy of Management conference, Cork, Ireland.\n\nColtrane, S. (1996). Family man: Fatherhood, housework and gender equity. Oxford: Oxford University.\n\nColtrane, S. (2000). Research on household labor: Modeling and measuring the social embeddedness of routine family work. Journal of Marriage and the Family, 62, 1208\u20131233.CrossRef\n\nCurrent Population Survey. (2011). Laborforce statistics from the currently population survey. http:\/\/\u200bwww.\u200bbls.\u200bgov\/\u200bcps\/\u200b. Accessed 15 Dec 2013.\n\nde Graaf, P. M., & Kalmijn, M. (2006). Divorce motives in a period of rising divorce: Evidence from a Dutch life-history survey. Journal of Family Issues, 27, 487\u2013505.CrossRef\n\nDeMaris, A., & Longmore, M. A. (1996). Ideology, power, and equity: Testing competing explanations for the perceptions of fairness in household labor. Social Forces, 74, 1043\u20131071.CrossRef\n\nDeutsch, F. M. (2001). Equally shared parenting. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 10, 25\u201328.CrossRef\n\nDeutsch, F. M., & Saxon, S. E. (1998). Traditional ideologies, nontraditional lives. Sex Roles, 38, 331\u2013362.CrossRef\n\nDuxbury, L. E., & Higgins, C. A. (1991). Gender differences in work-family conflict. Journal of Applied Psychology, 76, 60\u201374. doi:10.1037\/0021-9010.76.1.60.CrossRef\n\nEhrenreich, B., & English, D. (1978). For her own good: Two centuries of the experts' advice to women. New York: Random House.\n\nEly, R., & Padavic, I. (2013). Work-family conflict is not the problem: Overwork is. Blog for The Huffington Post and Stanford University's Michelle R. Clayman Institute for gender research in conjunction with the latter's redesigning, redefining work summit (November, 7). http:\/\/\u200bgender.\u200bstanford.\u200bedu\/\u200bnews\/\u200b2013\/\u200bwork-family-conflict-not-problem-overwork.\n\nErnst Kossek, E., & Ozeki, C. (1998). Work-family conflict, policies, and the job-life satisfaction relationship: A review and directions for organizational behavior-human resources research. Journal of Applied Psychology, 83, 139\u2013149.CrossRef\n\nFisher, G. G., Bulger, C. A., & Smith, C. S. (2009). Beyond work and family: A measure of work\/non-work interference and enhancement. Journal of Occupational Health Psychology, 14, 441\u2013456.PubMedCrossRef\n\nGauthier, A. H., Smeeding, T. M., & Furstenberg, F. F. (2004). Are parents investing less time in children? Trends in selected industrialized countries. Population and Development Review, 30, 647\u2013671.CrossRef\n\nGolden, L. (2001). Flexible work schedules: Which workers get them? American Behavioral Scientist, 44, 1157\u20131178.CrossRef\n\nGrandey, A. A., Cordeiro, B. L., & Michael, J. H. (2007). Work-family supportiveness organizational perceptions: Important for the well-being of male blue-collar hourly workers?. Journal of Vocational Behavior, 71, 460\u2013478.CrossRef\n\nGreenhaus, J. H., & Beutell, N. J. (1985). Sources and conflict between work and family roles. Academy of Management Review, 10, 76\u201388.\n\nGreenstein, T. N. (2000). Economic dependence, gender, and the division of labor in the home: A replication and extension. Journal of Marriage and the Family, 62, 322\u2013335.CrossRef\n\nGrzywacz, J. G., Almeida, D. M., & McDonald, D. A. (2002). Work-family spillover and daily reports of work and family stress in the adult labor force. Family Relations, 51, 28\u201336.CrossRef\n\nGrzywacz, J. G., Quandt, S. A., Early, J., Tapia, J., Graham, C. N., & Arcury, T. A. (2006). Leaving family for work: Ambivalence and mental health among Mexican migrant farmworker men. Journal of Immigrant and Minority Health, 8, 85\u201397.PubMedCrossRef\n\nHalpern, D. F. (2005). How time-flexible work policies can reduce stress, improve health, and save money. Stress and Health, 21, 157\u2013168.CrossRef\n\nHammer, L. B., Neal, M. B., Newsom, J., Brockwood, K. J., & Colton, C. (2005). A longitudinal study of the effects of dual-earner couples' utilization of family-friendly workplace support on work and family outcomes. Journal of Applied Psychology, 90, 799\u2013810.PubMedCrossRef\n\nHochschild, A. R., & Machung, A. (1989). The second shift: Working parents and the revolution at home. New York: Penguin.\n\nJacobs, J. A., & Gerson, K. (2004). The time divide: Work, family, and gender equality. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.\n\nJuster, F. T., Ono, H., & Stafford, F. P. (2003). An assessment of alternative measures of time use. Sociological Methodology, 33, 19\u201354.CrossRef\n\nKamo, Y. (2000). \"He said, she said\": Assessing discrepancies in husbands' and wives' reports on the division of household labor. Social Science Research, 29, 459\u2013476.CrossRef\n\nKlumb, P., Hoppmann, C., & Staats, M. (2006). Division of labor in German dual-earner families: Testing equity theoretical hypotheses. Journal of Marriage and the Family, 68, 870\u2013882.CrossRef\n\nKluwer, E. S. (1998). Responses to gender inequality in the division of family work: The status quo effect. Social Justice Research, 11, 337\u2013357.CrossRef\n\nKluwer, E. S., Heesink, J. A. M., & Van de Vliert, E. (1996). Marital conflict about the division of household labor and paid work. Journal of Marriage and the Family, 58, 958\u2013969.CrossRef\n\nKluwer, E. S., Heesink, J. A. M., & Van de Vliert, E. (2000). The division of labor in close relationships: An asymmetrical conflict issue. Personal Relationships, 7, 263\u2013282.CrossRef\n\nLavee, Y., & Katz, R. (2002). Division of labor, perceived fairness, and marital quality: The effect of gender ideology. Journal of Marriage and the Family, 64, 27\u201339.CrossRef\n\nLee, Y., & Waite, L. J., (2005). Husbands' and wives' time spent in housework: A comparison of measures. Journal of Marriage and the Family, 67, 328\u2013336.CrossRef\n\nLennon, M. C., & Rosenfield, S. (1994). Relative fairness and the division of housework: The important of options. American Journal of Sociology, 100, 506\u2013531.CrossRef\n\nLiss, M. (2013). Inequality in the division of household labor and child care: Cause, consequences, and how to change. In M. A. Paludi (Ed.), Psychology for business success: Juggling, balancing, and integrating work and family roles and responsibilities (pp. 19\u201342). Denver: Praeger.\n\nLively, K. J., Powell, B., Geist, C., & Steelman, L. C. (2008). Equity among intimates: Applying equity theory to the family. Advances in group processes, 25, 87\u2013115.CrossRef25005-8)\n\nLu, Z., Maume, D. J., & Bellas, M. L. (2000). Chinese husbands' participation in household labor. Journal of Comparative Family Studies, 31, 191\u2013215.\n\nLundberg, S., & Pollak, R. A. (1993). Separate spheres bargaining and the marriage market. The Journal of Political Economy, 101, 988\u20131010.CrossRef\n\nLundberg, S., & Pollak, R. A. (1996). Bargaining and distribution in marriage. Journal of Economic Perspectives, 10, 139\u2013158.CrossRef\n\nMacEwen, K. E., & Barling, J. (1994). Daily consequences of work interference with family and family interference with work. Work & Stress, 8, 244\u2013254.CrossRef\n\nMattingly, M., & Liana, C. S. (2006). Under pressure: Gender difference in the relationship between free time and feeling rushed. Journal of Marriage and the Family, 68, 205\u2013221.CrossRef\n\nMcElroy, M. (1990). The empirical content of Nash-bargained household behavior. Journal of Human Resources, 25, 559\u2013583.CrossRef\n\nMolm, L., & Cook, K. (1995). Social exchange and exchange networks. In K. Cook, G. Fine, & J. House (Eds.), Sociological perspectives on social psychology (pp. 209\u2013235). Needham Heights: Allyn & Bacon.\n\nPerry-Jenkins, M., & Folk, K. (1994). Class, couples, and conflict: Effects of the division of labor on assessments of marriage in dual-earner families. Journal of Marriage and the Family, 56, 165\u2013180.CrossRef\n\nPina, D. L., & Bengston, V. L. (1993). The division of household labor and wives' happiness: Ideology, employment, and perceptions of support. Journal of Marriage and the Family, 55, 901\u2013912.CrossRef\n\nPress, J., & Townsley, E. (1998). Wives' and husbands' housework reporting: Gender, class, and social desirability. Gender and Society, 12, 188\u2013218.CrossRef\n\nPrince-Cooke, L. (2006). \"Doing\" gender in context: Household bargaining and risk of divorce in Germany and the United States. American Journal of Sociology, 112, 442\u2013472.CrossRef\n\nPyke, K., & Coltrane, S. (1996). Entitlement, obligation, and gratitude in family work. Journal of Family Issues, 17, 60\u201382.CrossRef\n\nSandberg, S. (2013). Lean in: Women, work, and the will to lead. New York: Random House.\n\nSaxbe, D. E., Repetti, R., & Graesch, A. (2011). Time spent in housework and leisure: Links with parent's physiological recovery from work. Journal of Family Psychology, 25, 271\u2013282.PubMedCrossRef\n\nSayer, L. C. (2005). Gender, time and inequality: Trends in women's and men's paid work, unpaid work and free time. Social Forces, 84, 289\u2013303.CrossRef\n\nSayer, L. C., Bianchi, S. M., & Robinson, J. P. (2004). Are parents investing less in children? Trends in mothers' and fathers' time with children. American Journal of Sociology, 110, 1\u201343.CrossRef\n\nSayer, L. C., England, P, Bittman, M., & Bianchi, S. M. (2009). How long is the second (plus first) shift? Gender differences in paid, unpaid, and total work time in Australia and the United States. Journal of Comparative Family Studies, 40, 523\u2013545.\n\nTetrick, L. E., & Buffardi, L. C. (2006). Measurement issues in research on the work-home interface. In F. Jones, R. J. Burke, M. Westman (Eds.), Work-life balance: A psychological perspective (pp. 90\u2013114). New York: Psychology Press.\n\nTwiggs, J. E., McQuillan, J., & Ferree, M. M. (1999). Meaning and measurement: Reconceptualizing measure of the division of household labor. Journal of Marriage and the Family, 61, 712\u2013724.CrossRef\n\nU.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. (2012a). http:\/\/\u200bwww.\u200bbls.\u200bgov\/\u200bopub\/\u200bted\/\u200b2012\/\u200bted_\u200b20120110.\u200bhtm. Accessed 30 Dec 2013.\n\nU.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. (2012b). http:\/\/\u200bwww.\u200bbls.\u200bgov\/\u200bopub\/\u200bted\/\u200b2009\/\u200bted_\u200b20090807.\u200bhtm. Accessed 30 Dec 2013.\n\nVan Willigen, M., & Drentea, P. (2001). Benefits of equitable relationships: The impact of sense and fairness, household division of labor, and decision making power on perceived social support. Sex Roles, 44, 571\u2013597.CrossRef\n\nWayne, J., Musisca, N., & Fleeson, W. (2004). Considering the role of personality in the work-family experience: Relationships of the big five to work-family conflict and facilitation. Journal of Vocational Behavior, 64, 108\u2013130.CrossRef00035-6)\n\nWeber, L. (1998). A conceptual framework for understanding race, class, gender, and sexuality. Psychology of Women Quarterly, 22, 13\u201332.CrossRef\n\nWestman, M. (2001). Stress and strain crossover. Human Relations, 54, 717\u2013751.CrossRef\n\nWestman, M., & Etzion, D. (2005). The crossover of work-family conflict from one spouse to the other. Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 35, 1936\u20131957.CrossRef\n\nWilliams, J. C. (2013). Why men work so many hours. Harvard Business Review. HBR Blog Network. http:\/\/\u200bhbrorg\/\u200b2013\/\u200b05\/\u200bwhy-men-work-so-many-hours\/\u200b. Accessed 4 Jan 2014.\n\nYork, A. (2013). Why men should share equally in housework. Special to CNN. http:\/\/\u200bwww.\u200bcnn.\u200bcom\/\u200b2013\/\u200b04\/\u200b08\/\u200bopinion\/\u200byork-equal-housework\/\u200b\n\u00a9 Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2015\n\nMaura J. Mills (ed.)Gender and the Work-Family Experience10.1007\/978-3-319-08891-4_11\n\n# 11. On-Demand: When Work Intrudes upon Employees' Personal Time\u2014Does Gender Matter?\n\nAngela R. Grotto1\n\n(1)\n\nDepartment of Management and Marketing, Manhattan College, De La Salle Hall 507, 4513 Manhattan College Parkway, 10471 Riverdale, NY, USA\n\nAngela R. Grotto\n\nEmail: angela.grotto@manhattan.edu\n\nKeywords\n\nGenderWork\u2013familyOn-demand workExecutivesManagementProfessionalTechnologyCommunicative technologiesBoundary managementRole identity\n\n## 11.1 Introduction\n\nExecutive, managerial, and professional jobs (EMPs) are often accompanied by high earnings, job autonomy , and responsibility. Not surprisingly, the average weekly work hours for EMPs exceeds that of other employees. According to the Current Populations Survey (CPS) (2012), the average weekly work hours for both men and women in managerial and professional occupations was the highest compared to all other occupations, at 45 and 42 hours per week, respectively. Not only do EMPs work the most weekly hours, but they also have excessive work hours, that is, 49 plus hours per week (Jacobs and Gerson 2004; Kuhn and Lozano 2008). In fact, the 2012 CPS shows that 21 % of men and 14 % of women in managerial and professional jobs worked 49 plus hours per week, compared to just 14 % for men and 7 % for women in all other occupations. Furthermore, when comparing 2012 CPS data to 2010 CPS data (2010), the weekly work hours of both male and female EMPs have increased over the past 10 years.\n\nThe high level of responsibility associated with these occupations certainly requires long work hours, but that alone cannot account for such excessive levels. Are EMPs choosing to work long hours? If so, what motivates them and allows them to do so? Or is the changing nature of their work forcing them to work more? What other external conditions might be to blame? Many companies encourage a culture of \"face-time\" \u2014an organizational norm for visibility in the workplace with employees' physical presence indicating their true level of commitment or contribution to organizations (Bailyn 1993; Perlow 1995). Employees working for these time-demanding companies may feel pressure to put in long hours at the office. However, EMP work is no longer limited to the physical workplace (i.e., the office). Radical advancements in communicative technologies (CT; e.g., smartphones) have dramatically increased the flexibility of jobs but also allow work to intrude on employees' personal time, making face-time far less relevant. EMPs who use technology on a daily basis essentially work \"boundaryless\" jobs (Voydanoff 2009) with no limits, which can lead to excessive work hours.\n\nA study conducted by the Center for Creative Leadership (CCL) revealed that managers and professionals who use CT extend their work beyond normal work hours (Deal 2013). Managers and professionals who carry smartphones reported interacting with work 13.5 hours each work day and 72 hours per week (Deal 2013). Among managers and professionals working 50 plus hours per week with their smartphones, 15 % reported working 7 days a week, with just over half of men (52 %) and 42 % of women working on weekends (Deal 2013).\n\nDespite the fact that flexible jobs may help employees balance their work roles with their various personal roles (e.g., parent, spouse, friend, community member; e.g., Kossek et al. 2009), the CCL survey results clearly demonstrate that job flexibility can be quite dysfunctional (Clark 2000). Smartphones allow for relentless \"boundary violations\" at home, as work constantly breaches the boundaries surrounding employees' personal lives (Kreiner et al. 2009). The use of CT in jobs that are already very flexible exacerbates organizational norms for EMPs to work long hours, morphing face-time into something far worse. Presently, EMPs are working in \"on-demand\" jobs\u2014jobs that require employees to be constantly available and accessible to their employers and clients during nonwork hours via technology . Visibility at the office seems no longer sufficient for EMPs to demonstrate their loyalty and thus advance and be rewarded. On-demand is the new face-time.\n\nThe current chapter dissects the factors giving rise to on-demand jobs and whether these factors differ for men and women in EMP jobs. The focus is placed on EMPs because of the demanding nature of their work and their excessive work hours. Other employees experience work intrusions during their personal time via technology, but the pressure to respond to these intrusions is not nearly as great as that of EMPs. Also discussed are the consequences of being on-demand and whether there are gender differences. On-demand jobs can be likened to being on-call. Regardless of whether the employee is actually called in or not, the mere possibility of being disturbed by work-related matters during personal time has been linked with negative consequences such as negative moods (Bamberg et al. 2012). Similarly, when work calls and e-mails intrude on evenings and weekends, it may significantly undermine employees' personal lives (e.g., emotional exhaustion) and work lives (e.g., decreased productivity) . This chapter argues that the strains of on-demand jobs transcend gender, and so both men and women suffer the consequences. As individuals can only do so much to manage their on-demands jobs, companies must intervene to help ease the pressure.\n\n## 11.2 The Weakening of Borders Surrounding Work and Personal life\n\nThe changing boundaries surrounding the worlds of work and nonwork play a critical role in the rise of on-demand jobs. Three different types of boundaries exist around work (Ashforth et al. 2000; Clark 2000; Nippert-Eng 1996). Spatial boundaries define where work behavior takes place (e.g., work duties are performed at the office). Temporal boundaries define when the work role is performed (e.g., jobs are performed between 9:00 a.m. and 5:00 p.m.). Psychological boundaries dictate when and where work thoughts, behaviors, and emotions are appropriate (e.g., assertiveness is appropriate at the office but not at home).\n\nThe flexibility and permeability of a work boundary determines its strength. Flexible work boundaries allow jobs to be to be carried out in various settings at various times, while inflexible boundaries constrain when and where work can be performed (e.g., Beach 1989; Ritchter 1992). For instance, most nurses perform their jobs within the boundaries of hospitals, and manufacturing workers perform their jobs within factories. Permeable borders surrounding various nonwork domains allow an individual to be involved in the work role while physically located in a nonwork domain (e.g., the home; Ashforth et al. 2000; Nippert-Eng 1996). For instance, a permeable home boundary allows an individual to receive job-related phone calls or e-mails while at home. Together, flexible and permeable (i.e., weak) boundaries allows work to permeate other life domains.\n\nEconomic, organizational, and job-related changes are responsible for the weakening of employees' work and nonwork boundaries. First, the flexible nature of jobs coupled with sophisticated CT give employees the ability to be on-demand. Second, EMPs who are heavily invested in their jobs are willing to use CT to be on-demand. Lastly, economic instability, employers' high expectations, and intense work pressures compel EMPs to be on-demand. I argue that the on-demand experiences of men and women in EMP roles are more similar than different. Not only are both male and female EMPs equally exposed to economic, organizational, and job-related pressures, but they also tend to hold egalitarian attitudes toward gender roles, use CT as part of their jobs, and highly value their jobs. These attributes make EMPs more willing and able to be on-demand, regardless of their gender.\n\n## 11.3 On-Demand Jobs: Willing and Able\n\n### 11.3.1 The Ability to be On-Demand\n\nTwo key aspects of work have weakened job borders and thereby give EMPs the ability to be on-demand. Job flexibility (i.e., control over where and when one works) and advanced CT and have made EMP jobs substantially more flexible. EMPs have always had a considerable amount of autonomy over how they get their jobs done (Voydanoff 1988, 2004). But many EMPs have newer forms of autonomy: place autonomy (control over work locations) and time autonomy (control over work scheduling; Kossek et al. 2006). Place and time autonomy give EMPs the ability to work in various settings (e.g., home, car, outdoors) and at various times (e.g., evenings, weekends, during vacation). Changes in the nature of work and CT are largely responsible for these newer forms of autonomy.\n\nMany jobs are now knowledge-based, requiring complex mental skills (Kelloway and Barling 2000). Jobs that require the use of equipment or materials at the worksite (e.g., manufacturing jobs) and work that involves the use of technical or manual skills in addition to mental skills (e.g., health care) are typically restricted to the workplace (Finegold and Frenkel 2006). However, work that primarily involves cognitive skills can easily be performed outside of the workplace and beyond normal work hours (Ezzedeen and Swiercz 2007). The work of EMPs tends to be highly knowledge-intensive. For instance, the strategic nature of executive jobs requires very complex mental proficiencies, such as the ability to forecast. Professionals possess high-levels of cognitive skills in specialized areas of knowledge, such as information systems data analysts. These skills can be used anywhere and at any time. Since knowledge work is not restricted to the workplace, EMPs can be involved in their work while in other life domains (e.g., home) during nonwork hours (e.g., evenings). For instance, the information systems data analyst can use his laptop to perform his job while sitting on the couch with his family during movie night.\n\nMajor advancements in CT have radically enhanced the flexibility of EMP jobs (e.g., Jackson 2002). For example, while at home, EMPs can connect to a virtual network to access work files. Also, most EMPs today have smartphones that allow them to be constantly connected to their work e-mail accounts. So CT makes jobs mobile, allowing employees to perform their work in various nonwork locations (e.g., home, cars, airplanes, gyms, restaurants, hotels, etc.) during any hour of the day (e.g., early mornings, late nights, weekends; e.g., Wikstrom et al. 1998). Indeed, 60 % of EMPs who use a smartphone for business work between 13.5 and 18.5 hours per day, while only 29 % of those who do not use a smartphone are connected with work that many hours on average (Deal 2013). This significant job flexibility also means that EMPs can be on-demand to their employers and clients via CT. In summary, the growth of knowledge work and advancements in CT have drastically increased the flexibility of EMP jobs, thereby creating on-demand EMP jobs.\n\n### 11.3.2 Gender Differences in On-Demand Abilities\n\nWhen considering employees at all job levels, men report more job autonomy than women (Day et al. 2012; Park and Jex 2011). But are there gender differences at the highest ranks? Given that common job features impinge on the lives of both men and women in similar ways (Jacobs and Gerson 2004), female EMPs should possess the same level of job autonomy as their male counterparts. Indeed, past research has shown that male and female EMPs have the ability to work long hours beyond the workplace (e.g., Mennino et al. 2005; Schieman and Reid 2008). These findings suggest that men and women in EMP jobs have similar levels of autonomy that give them the ability to be on-demand.\n\nSimilarly, CT gives all EMPs the ability to push the limits of their work roles , regardless of their gender. Although there is evidence suggesting that men are more likely to use job-related CT while at home (e.g., Day et al. 2012; Park and Jex 2011), none of the extant research has focused on EMPs exclusively. Given the broad responsibilities and high demands of EMP jobs, men and women may be equally likely to use CT to perform their EMP roles beyond the workplace. In fact, the results of a CCL survey of managers and professionals showed no gender differences in job-related smartphone use (Deal 2013). Together, extensive job autonomy and frequent CT use during off-hours enable both male and female EMPs to be on-demand.\n\nSome may argue that despite technology and job flexibility, the demands that women face at home may prevent them from being on-demand to their jobs. However, employment tends to be associated with egalitarian attitudes toward gender roles at home among women (Fan and Marini 2000). In fact, employed women who are highly paid and well-educated are more likely to equally share household labor with their partners, as they have more power in their personal relationships (Cunningham 2007; Mannino and Deutsch 2007; Parkman 2004). So, rather than being the primary caretaker, these women are more likely to equally share their domestic roles with their partners. When both partners are unwilling to follow gender-normed behavior, it is even more likely that housework and child care duties are shared (Donald and Linington 2008). This team-based approach at home means that female EMPs can devote time and energy to their valued work roles during nonwork hours, which includes responding to work-related phone calls and e-mails. Nevertheless, although male and female EMPs are both able to be on-demand, their willingness to do so may vary, based on personal preferences (Park et al. 2011).\n\n### 11.3.3 The Willingness to be On-Demand: Role Identities\n\nAs work is able to exceedingly intrude on personal life, employees must decide whether to allow these intrusions or not. Some employees make conscious efforts to keep work separated from nonwork through the creation and maintenance of boundaries (e.g., Lambert 1990). For example, an accountant who prefers to keep her work separated from her home life might choose to turn off her e-mail notifications during the weekends. She may also have a personal rule that she is always home by 6:00 p.m. on work days. She might even avoid thinking about work while at home (a psychological boundary). This active maintenance of boundaries can help employees uphold order in their interdependent work and nonwork lives (e.g., Weick 1979).\n\nWho might keep work separated from their personal life? Based on an individual's beliefs and values about what roles do and do not belong in a particular domain, one may idiosyncratically construct boundaries (Douglas 1975). For instance, individuals who highly value their time with family may believe that work does not belong at home and therefore devise strategies to prevent job contacts while at home. For example, these individuals might leave their company-provided smartphones at the office over the weekend, or they might send messages to their coworkers letting them know that they will be unavailable over the weekend. Indeed, a recent study showed that employees who preferred to keep their work lives separated from their home lives were more likely to psychologically detach from their work roles during off-hours compared to those who preferred to integrate their roles (Hahn and Dormann 2013).\n\nConversely, individuals who prefer to integrate work with their personal lives do not tie their jobs to the workplace (Ashforth et al. 2000; Nippert-Eng 1996). Instead, these individuals may consider it acceptable for work to interrupt their personal time and thus are quite willing to be on-demand during evenings and weekends. Who might prefer to integrate work and nonwork roles? Individuals who strongly identify with their work roles choose to be highly involved in their work, meaning they are cognitively preoccupied with, engaged in, and concerned with their jobs (Paullay et al. 1994). These individuals are internally motivated to extend their workdays by spending more effort on work-related activities and working longer hours (Fenner and Renn 2004). In fact, research has shown that employees who are highly involved in their jobs were more likely to use CT after work hours to perform work-related activities and allow work intrusions at home (Hecht and Allen 2009; Major et al. 2002), and they allowed work to permeate into other areas of their lives (Olson-Buchanan and Boswell 2006). Given the high-status of their work roles and their investments in their careers, EMPs should highly identify with their work roles, making them very willing to use CT during nonwork hours and be involved in their jobs at all hours of the day.\n\n### 11.3.4 Gender Differences in Work Role Identity Among EMPs\n\nAre there gender differences in the extent to which male and female EMPs identify with their high-status work roles? Women have historically prioritized family over work, while men often prioritized their jobs over others aspects of their lives (Blair-Loy 2009; Kelly et al. 2010; Moen and Roehling 2005) . Many women today still assume the role of primary caretaker, whether for children or the elderly, even if they are working full-time (Milkie et al. 2002). This perspective suggests that men are more willing to be available to work during their personal time than women. Yet, individuals in high-status careers, regardless of gender, tend to highly identify with their work roles, suggesting that female EMPs are just as willing as male EMPs to be on-demand. Research in this area is contradictory, with some studies showing that women prefer to integrate roles more than men (Kossek et al. 2009) and others showing women with a greater desire for role segmentation (Rothbard et al. 2005). But no studies have focused on EMPs, so it is not clear whether men and women in high-status positions differ in their role identities and thus their willingness to integrate work and nonwork roles.\n\nGender roles may be more relevant than gender when considering the relationship between role identity and on-demand behavior among EMPs. Egalitarian individuals tend to believe that men and women should identify equally with their work and personal life roles, which includes devoting equal time to paid work and housework (Hochschild 1989). As employed women are likely to hold egalitarian attitudes toward gender roles, particularly those who are highly paid and highly educated, it is plausible that female EMPs are just as willing as male EMPs to engage in on-demand behavior during nonwork hours.\n\n### 11.3.5 The Willingness to be On-Demand: Organization-Based Self-Esteem\n\nExecutives, managers, and professionals may be willing to be on-demand during nonwork hours based on their individual needs. Organization-based self-esteem (OBSE) is a specific form of self-esteem that considers employees' self-evaluations specifically within the context of work . Employees with high OBSE believe that they can satisfy their needs by participating in roles within the organization (Pierce et al. 1989), and they also believe in their self-worth and competence as organizational members (Bowling 2010). Individuals in high-status positions at work may have higher levels of OBSE than others. Given the autonomy , complexity, and challenge of EMP jobs, these individuals are likely to believe that they are competent, valuable, and capable members of their organizations (Pierce et al. 1989). The work roles of EMPs not only fulfill basic needs (e.g., my work role serves an economic need), but satisfy higher-level needs (e.g., being a psychologist is fulfilling; Ashforth et al. 2000). As the work role serves as a source of esteem and fulfills higher-level needs, EMPs with high OBSE may be willing to invest a lot of their personal time into their jobs.\n\nCompensation may be another source of OBSE for EMPs, as it can communicate to an individual his\/her worth or value to the organization (Thierry 2001). Moreover, pay-level might influence an employee's beliefs about his\/her worthiness as an organizational member. In a study that took into account employees' length of company tenure and changes in pay, pay-level was significantly related to OBSE (Gardner et al. 2004). EMPs are at a higher pay-level than most other employees, and these high pay-levels might trigger feelings of self-worth that motivate them to invest personal time in their work roles.\n\nOn-demand behavior can be very reinforcing for EMPs. After-hour job contacts can make them feel needed, engendering feelings of self-worth (Bowling 2010). Each time an EMP is contacted after-hours for help, his\/her self-esteem gets a boost and thus she\/he is further motivated to invest in the work role. Also, in a recent study, employees who perceived intruding work matters as important reported high-levels of OBSE (Grotto 2013). When EMPs attend to important work matters after-hours, the interactions may boost their self-esteem (Bowling 2010), further reinforcing the on-demand behavior.\n\n### 11.3.6 Gender Differences in OBSE Among EMPs\n\nDo male EMPs have stronger beliefs in their self-worth and competence compared to their female counterparts? If so, then men in EMP roles may be more willing to fulfill their work-related needs through on-demand behavior. But gender differences in self-esteem seem to diminish with age (Reitzes and Mutran 1994). Rather than gender, commitment to various life roles (e.g., worker, parent, and spouse) has been related to self-esteem for employed men and women. Additionally, income, education , and occupational status have positive effects on self-esteem for both men and women. This research suggests that aspects of the work role are more important for self-esteem than gender. There is an abundance of evidence indicating no gender differences in OBSE levels (e.g., Bowling 2010; Grotto 2013; Lapointe et al. 2011). Perhaps the prestige associated with high-status positions within organizations helps women overcome any doubts in their self-worth or competence. If so, then both men and women in EMP roles are expected to have high-levels of OBSE and thus will want to expend great effort in their work roles. Being on-demand is one way that they can demonstrate their efforts and contribute to their organizations. Therefore, gender may be less of a factor when looking at employees specifically in the upper-ranks of organizations.\n\n### 11.3.7 The Willingness to be On-Demand: Perceptions of On-Demand Work\n\nThe perceived legitimacy of the work that intrudes on personal time is another underlying factor that may influence someone's willingness to be on-demand. Illegitimate work tasks are not part of an individual's core work role requirements and thus constitute \"identity stressors\" that violate one's professional identity (Thoits 1991). Given someone's role within an organization (e.g., director of finance), there are certain tasks that one may expected to do (e.g., approve budgets) and tasks that one may not be expected to fulfill (e.g., write the budget). Being asked to perform a work task that an individual considers to be incompatible with his\/her work role may be perceived as an identity-threatening stressor and an \"offense to the self\" (Semmer et al. 2007). Although EMP employees are very eager to be on-demand for reasons discussed earlier, they may not be willing to perform work tasks during nonwork hours that threaten their identity rather than boost their self-esteem . Furthermore, EMPs may not be willing to take on illegitimate work tasks in an effort to conserve their time and energy for more legitimate work matters during off-hours.\n\nWork tasks that are considered unreasonable or unnecessary may also be perceived as illegitimate (Semmer et al. 2010). Unreasonable tasks are beyond the scope of someone's responsibility, such as when an expert is asked to perform a task that is far below his\/her ability level, or when a leader is asked to perform a task that is not commensurate with his\/her rank. Likewise, EMPs may not be willing to perform unreasonable tasks during their personal time. For example, a senior software engineer may consider checking someone else's code as beneath her ability and think her time is better spent developing new code. A director of finance who approves departmental budgets may consider drafting the budget an unreasonable task for himself.\n\nAn unnecessary task is one that does not have to be performed. EMPs may also not be willing to perform unnecessary tasks during their personal time. For instance, if a CEO calls her director of human resources (HR) at 8:00 p.m. on a Thursday night asking him to join an 11:00 p.m. call with the China team, but the HR director does not believe his attendance on the call is necessary given the agenda, he may not be willing to participate.\n\nNot all work tasks are of equal value, and employees may consider some work tasks a \"waste of time\" or low-value work (Galinsky et al. 2004). Employees want to do work that will make a difference, especially when it is on their personal time. Low-value work may not be perceived as urgent or important enough to expend limited personal resources during their nonwork time, so individuals may be less willing to perform this type of work during nonwork hours. Similar to the perceived legitimacy of the work tasks, the use of scare personal resources during one's personal time must be well-justified, especially for EMPs whose time is quite scarce due to their demanding jobs.\n\n### 11.3.8 Gender Differences in Perceptions of On-Demand Work\n\nThere is little prior research on gender differences in the perceptions of work tasks. In a study of Swedish government sector managerial workers, women reported more illegitimate work tasks than men (Bj\u00f6rk et al. 2013). However, it is unclear whether this relationship would hold for employees working in private companies, which are not as bureaucratic as government agencies. One study that examined employees at different job levels from various companies and industries did not find any gender differences in the perceived importance, urgency, or necessity of work intrusions during personal time (Grotto 2013).\n\nThis is clearly a promising area for future research . The time of EMPs is very valuable, regardless of their gender. EMPs embedded within very time-demanding organizations must be very selective about how much of their scare time, energy , and attention is expended on work-related tasks during their precious nonwork hours. It is highly expected that both men and women in EMP roles would not be willing to take the time to respond to work e-mails or telephone calls during their off-hours if it involves illegitimate, unnecessary, or low-value work. Therefore, the nature of the work that is intruding into the personal lives of EMPs may affect their willingness to be on-demand. But there are other factors to consider. Perhaps there are certain clients who are known for intruding on a manager's personal time with unnecessary questions and illegitimate requests, and so the manager purposely does not make herself available to this client. Conversely, the manager's boss might frequently contact her during the evenings with pressing questions about urgent client deliverables, and in this case the manager is willing to accept these interruptions. When taking into consideration the nature of the intruding work task, we start moving away from factors that are under the individual's control to external circumstances that may create expectations for EMPs to be on-demand to their employers and clients 24\/7.\n\n## 11.4 The Pressure to be On-Demand\n\nDespite most managers and professionals showing appreciation for the flexibility a smartphone affords them (Deal 2013), certain aspects of their jobs pressure them to be available during nonwork hours and respond to technological work intrusions. Within a global service economy , intense jobs are embedded in high-performing companies that are constantly restructuring, making employees feel incredibly insecure about their jobs. Thus, several workplace conditions may pressure employees to be on-demand.\n\n### 11.4.1 Workplace Structures, Culture, and Rewards\n\nThe global service economy has grown tremendously over the past few decades, spurring intense competition for customers. In response to the need to provide 24\/7 service to clients, many companies have shifted to global structures with global job roles (Presser 2003, 2005). Global roles increase time pressures for employees by changing the temporal nature of their work (Kanter 1999). Traditional 9:00 to 5:00 work schedules used to dictate when employees were expected to work. But EMPs with global roles must work in different time zones and manage multiple clocks, depending on where their team members and clients are located (Moen et al. 2013). They frequently work during evenings and weekends to manage global teams, be available to global clients, participate in global meetings, and meet deadlines in other time zones. Accordingly, global EMPs must now decide when they are not working (Goodrick and Reay 2011; Moen et al. 2013). This \"always on\" mentality requires EMPs to be continually connected to work outside of normal work hours, regardless of their willingness to do so.\n\nThe economic recession has forced companies to cut costs. Many employees have had first-hand or vicarious experiences with downsizing , which can create concerns about their future with a company (Sverke et al. 2002). Perceived or anticipated layoffs have been linked with feelings of job insecurity (Kalimo et al. 2003; Sverke and Hellgren 2002; Taris et al. 2006). In fact, during a past economic recession, 25 % of workers in the USA have reported at least \"moderate\" risk for job loss because of company actions to manage finances in the economic downturn (Probst et al. 2002).\n\nJob insecurity is a source of stress (Ashford et al. 1989; Sverke et al. 2002) that can engender low-levels of work effort and withdrawal behaviors such as turnover (e.g., low-levels of organizational commitment , employee absences, and employee turnover; Cheng and Chan 2008; Sverke et al. 2002). However, the relationship of job insecurity with actual employee behaviors is complex within the present economic context. When employees perceive few alternative job opportunities, this creates an economic need to work (e.g., Brockner et al. 1992). So employees who feel at risk for job loss may actually work more in an effort to avoid job loss (Brandes et al. 2008; Brockner et al. 1992). These work efforts might extend beyond the workplace to on-demand behavior.\n\nEven employees who have survived layoffs may feel insecure about their jobs. Layoff survivors tend to feel that their work roles are threatened (Brockner et al. 1992; Sverke and Hellgren 2002). In fact, a 2008 study found that, following a layoff, employees perceived their work environments as insecure, which was related to increased work efforts among employees (Brandes et al. 2008). Thus, the threat of job loss may compel employees to stay connected to work via CT during their personal time, to show their commitment and dedication. This is especially expected among managers who may be concerned about whether layers of management will be eliminated as a result of downsizing.\n\nDownsizing also has widened job scopes and increased responsibilities for many employees (Presser 2003, 2005), contributing to work extensification , or work that is highly demanding, fast paced, and requires long hours (Currie and Eveline 2011; Jarvis and Pratt 2006; Lu 2009). Many workers accept the extensification of work as status quo (Moen et al. 2013), perhaps because they see it as the only way to keep pace with their heavy workloads and avoid falling behind in their careers. Being on-demand to their jobs is one way for EMPs to persevere.\n\nCertain aspects of a company's culture may also pressurize employees to be on-demand. In Slaughter's (Slaughter 2012) popular article in The Atlantic, \"Why Women Still Can't Have It All,\" she blames the persistence of a time-demanding culture on the relentless competition to work harder in a global and unstable economy , which translates into working earlier, later, and longer. Indeed, organizational expectations to work long hours tend to result in long work hours (Kossek and Ozeki 1999; Thompson et al. 1999). This type of workplace culture takes advantage of EMPs whose additional work hours do not cost additional wages for employers. Essentially, companies have little incentive to limit the work hours of EMPs (Jacobs and Gerson 2004), but plenty of reasons to overwork them (e.g., stay ahead of the competition).\n\nEmployees are most likely to be subjected to an \"always on\" culture when embedded within a high-commitment culture. Based on the ideas of social exchange theory (Blau 1964), there is an inherent psychological contract in high-commitment workplaces. Employees are given a great deal of job autonomy , and in return are expected to demonstrate commitment by making work a central part of their lives (Moen et al. 2013). So the perks of job autonomy and flexibility signal to employees that their employers are invested in them, compelling them to prioritize work over personal life and work long hours (Bailyn 1993; Blair-Loy and Wharton 2002, 2004; Schor 1991). Thus, there is a growing lack of clarity on what is considered \"normal working hours\" (Moen et al. 2013). Employees working in these environments may feel as though they owe it to their employers be on-demand 24\/7.\n\nHigh-commitment workplaces further enable an \"always on\" culture by providing employees with smartphones, which not only creates pressure to respond to work interruptions during nonwork hours, but to respond immediately (Dikkers et al. 2007). In return for their high-status, job flexibility, and autonomy , EMPs working in high-commitment workplaces may feel particularly driven to show their commitment by being on-demand. So although high-commitment workplaces give EMPs considerable flexibility, the perks come with a price.\n\nEvidence suggests that the extension of acceptable work hours is often viewed unfavorably by workers (Harrison et al. 2004). Yet many employees still succumb to the pressure because they are motivated by the anticipated rewards (Lobel 1991) as well as fear of negative consequences (Thompson et al. 1999). For instance, EMPs may respond to work interruptions after-hours because of incentives such as career advancement (e.g., promotions) and financial rewards (e.g., bonuses; Jacobs and Gerson 2004). In high-commitment companies, the exchange of long work hours and high-work efforts for advancement and compensation reinforces the belief that employees are appreciated by their employers (Osterman 2000; Konrad and Mangel 2000). As most EMPs are typically generously rewarded for their experience, expertise, and dedication, they may be more willing than others to invest their personal time in their jobs. Basically, EMPs believe that if they are accessible via CT during their personal time, then they will have even more opportunities to contribute to their organizations, thereby further increasing their rewards .\n\nFor individuals who do not give in to on-demand pressures, there is a fear of being left behind. Two decades ago when face-time served as the primary indicator of an employee's commitment, research showed that a lack of time spent at the office did indeed lead to being passed over for promotions (Schor 1991). Another study showed that advancement in management was in fact associated with working long hours (Judge et al. 1995). Employees may not want to risk ignoring e-mails or job-related phone calls during the evenings or weekends, as it might lessen their chances of being promoted or translate into smaller bonus payments. The repercussions for deviating from the norm to be on-demand may be strongest for EMPs (e.g., Blair-Loy 2003; Stone 2007; Xie and Shauman 2003). With incredibly flexible jobs and company smartphones that allow them to be on-demand, EMPs may strive to differentiate themselves from those who simply put in their time only when at the office.\n\n### 11.4.2 The \"Stress of Higher Status\" Perspective\n\nThe nature of EMP work itself creates on-demand expectations. According to the \"stress of higher status\" perspective (Schieman et al. 2009), the autonomous nature of EMP jobs increases the permeability of the borders surrounding personal life. So the great degree of schedule control afforded to these individuals may be both a blessing and a curse. Although job control allows EMPs to work whenever they want, it also engenders expectations of undivided dedication to one's career and organization (Blair-Loy 2003; Schieman et al. 2009). The time-demanding nature of EMP work is not limited to the physical workplace, but spills over to other life domains via CT. To prove their commitment, EMPs may feel pressure to prioritize work over their personal responsibilities and be available 24\/7. Ample evidence suggests that the nature of EMP work creates expectations to be on-demand, as job authority, excessive work pressures, schedule control, and decision-making latitude have all been linked with blurring of work and nonwork roles (Schieman et al. 2009).\n\n### 11.4.3 Gender Differences in Workplace and Job Pressures\n\nAre men or women more likely to find themselves in time-demanding organizations and intense jobs? In general, males report higher workloads , more feelings of work overload , and higher expectations to be available during their personal time (Day et al. 2012). But are there differences among men and women in EMP positions with respect to the demands of their organizations and the intensity of their jobs?\n\nGiven that job features encroach equally on men and women (Jacobs and Gerson 2004), the pressures of a high-commitment workplace and the stress of high status are likely to affect men and women in similar ways. Female EMPs in high-commitment workplaces are likely to confront the same excessive time demands and pressures as their male counterparts. Likewise, male EMPs are just as likely as female EMPs to work in fast paced, demanding jobs with long work hours. It is the nature of their high-ranking and specialized positions that engenders on-demand behavior. Research does suggest that the corporate work conditions and intense job demands associated with high-commitment workplaces and high-status jobs make it difficult for EMPs of both genders to lead balanced lives (Blair-Loy and Wharton 2004; Wharton and Blair-Loy 2006).\n\nYet gender may be a factor when taking into consideration the lack of women in leadership positions (Cha 2013). In companies with fewer women in the higher ranks, there tends to be a lack of support for work\u2013life balance. A study by Wharton and Blair-Loy (2006) showed that women reported higher-levels of work-to-family conflict within global financial service firms, which have some of the lowest percentages of females in the C-suite . Also, women in companies that value overwork are more likely to leave their jobs than men (Stone 2007). Parental status may compound the situation in male-dominated industries that do not support work\u2013life balance. In fact, mothers in male-dominated industries were more likely to leave their jobs and the labor force when they experienced conflicting time demands between work and family (Cha 2013). So it is important to consider the responsibilities of men and women beyond their intense jobs.\n\nEven though many EMP men and women may have selected themselves into highly demanding companies and jobs and may even thrive in these environments, responsibilities outside of work can complicate matters. In particular, the job of being a parent is 24\/7. So whether the EMP is a man or a woman, the extent of involvement in the parental role may influence their on-demand behavior. Combining such an intense and time-demanding personal life role with an intense and time-demanding work role may push some employees to their limits.\n\n## 11.5 The Consequences of On-Demand Jobs\n\nResearch suggests that employees who are constantly connected to work during their nonwork hours are vulnerable to a number of health consequences. Much of this prior research has focused on the consequences of blurring the work role with other life roles and a lack of psychological detachment (i.e., mental distance) from work during nonwork hours. By remaining psychologically attached to the work role during their personal time, employees drain their personal resources (e.g., energy; Edwards and Rothbard 2000) and do not give themselves a chance to recover from their work day demands (Meijman and Mulder 1998). If employees remain on-demand for long periods of time, psychological health problems such as chronic stress could develop (Geurts and Sonnentag 2006). If recovery remains insufficient for an extended period of time, psychological health problems can develop into serious physical health risks, such as increased risk of cardiovascular problems (von Thiele et al. 2006).\n\nIndeed, a number of psychological health problems have been reported by employees who have not had the chance to fully recover from their work day demands. Emotional exhaustion is commonly reported by employees who blur their work and nonwork roles and inadequately detach from work during nonwork hours (de Jonge et al. 2012). Employee interviews revealed that specific episodes of work intruding on personal time (e.g., an unexpected phone call from a boss during the weekend) engendered negative feelings, such as anger (Grotto 2013). A potential psychological outcome of on-demand jobs are feelings of work interfering with other life roles (e.g., Schieman and Young 2013). Employees who reported demands to use CT and persistently used CT during nonwork hours also reported poor psychological well-being (Chesley 2005) and feelings of strain, stress, and job burnout (Day et al. 2012). On-demand employees may also be at risk for poor physical health. When specific work events conflicted with family, employees have reported subsequent increases in heart rate (Shockley and Allen 2013). Also, employees who reported work intrusions or a lack of detachment from work also reported physical health complaints (de Jonge et al. 2012; Schieman and Young 2013), psychosomatic complaints (e.g., feelings of dizziness and fatigue; Sonnentag et al. 2010), and a need for recovery (e.g., feeling too tired to for personal activities; Sonnentag et al. 2010).\n\nAll of these health consequences can negatively impact work behavior and attitudes. For instance, employees who used CT during nonwork hours and then reported feelings of work interfering with personal life also reported lower-levels of work satisfaction (Diaz et al. 2012). Also, continual lack of recovery can eventually lead to less effort at work and poor job performance (Fritz and Sonnentag 2006; Sonnentag et al. 2010). Yet some individuals still choose to be on-demand to their jobs, perhaps for personal reasons that were discussed earlier or because they are rewarded for this behavior. However, given the potential for negative consequences, there may be a limit to how much one can and should be on-demand. Perhaps attachment to the work role during nonwork hours is beneficial to individuals, but only up to a certain point, regardless of personal preferences or how the intrusions are perceived (e.g., important or not).\n\nIndeed, the sheer number of work intrusions reported during nonwork time was linked with self-reported negative health complaints, despite many of the intrusions being perceived as important by individuals (Grotto 2013). So although employees may believe that prioritizing work over other life roles leads to a successful career (Moen and Roehling 2005), it may be a very unhealthy approach to work. Given the ample evidence suggesting how on-demand employees may suffer, success at work may come at the expense of a healthy personal life (Amichai-Hamburger 2009). Even the benefits of intrinsic personal rewards (e.g., feelings of accomplishment) and extrinsic work rewards (e.g., promotions) that result from employees' endless involvement in work may have its limits once it takes a toll on physical and mental health .\n\n### 11.5.1 Gender Differences in the Consequences of On-Demand Jobs\n\nWhen a 24\/7 job is integrated with other demanding life roles, the health consequences may be severe. Who has more demanding roles at home\u2014men or women? The 24\/7 job of being a parent still primarily falls on the shoulders of women, as men's careers continue to take precedence (Milkie et al. 2002). But over time, men, particularly those with egalitarian attitudes, are sharing the burden of unpaid work at home with their partners (Bulanda 2004; Cunningham 2007). Also, women in EMP roles tend to more equally divide household labor with their partners (Cunningham 2007; Mannino and Deutsch 2007). It seems that dual-earner couples veer away from gender-normed behavior (Donald and Linington 2008) and work as a team at home (Marks 2006). So gender may be somewhat irrelevant when deciding on the share of household labor. This approach can be advantageous for on-demand employees who are either willing or feel pressured to invest much of their personal time in work-related activities.\n\nEven employees who share domestic responsibilities with their partners may suffer from on-demand work . EMPs of both genders who are exposed to high-work expectations and intense time demands have reported feeling imbalanced or conflicted in life (Blair-Loy and Wharton 2004; Schieman et al. 2006; Wharton and Blair-Loy 2006). Moreover, those who combine such intense and demanding work roles with demanding personal roles (e.g., parent) may be pushed to their limits, even if the negative effects are not realized immediately. For instance, among employees with children living at home, high-job demands and an inability to withdraw from work during their personal time were associated with fatigue six months later (von Thiele 2011).\n\nEMPs are a unique group. Given their high-status at work and their high-commitment to their workplaces, these individuals are very likely to be on-demand to their employees and clients, making them vulnerable to a number of health consequences. Their egalitarian approach to household labor might help buffer some of these negative effects. However, if these employees have children, the situation is more complicated. Since the parent role is very time-demanding, even EMPs who are willing to be on-demand may eventually see their health suffer.\n\n## 11.6 Conclusions and Recommendations\n\nThere is much reason to believe that increasingly flexible jobs and readily available CT are responsible for the rise of on-demand jobs. However, the intense manner in which EMPs are working and the way they are using CT are the real underlying issues, and these issues similarly affect men and women. There is a strong need to limit how much the job and CT dictate how employees live their lives (Jacobs and Gerson 2004). Employees in high-commitment workplaces are given abundant freedom to work when and where they want with the aid of CT and are rewarded for their on-demand behavior. But they clearly lack a different type of control.\n\nBased on the job demands-control model (Karasek and Theorell 1990), it is not the level of job demands that create stress or strain, but whether employees feel they can exert control over the demands they confront. EMPs do have considerable control over their jobs, but they have less control over the intense conditions of their work (Allvin et al. 2011). So even though EMPs are willing and able to invest their personal time in their work roles, most lack control over the work demands that are constantly intruding into their personal lives via technology. How much EMPs work during their personal time is heavily affected by what is happening at work (e.g., client deadlines, crises, needy clients, demanding bosses). Although EMPs can decide whether or not to respond to work interruptions during nonwork hours, they have much less control over the interruptions themselves. Even if one has the authority to ignore a work e-mail during nonwork hours, lacking control over the intrusion can still be problematic. In support of this, a recent study found that the more frequently work intruded into employees' personal time, the more they reported poor physical health complaints (Grotto 2013). Therefore, communicative technologies, time-demanding employers and clients, and intense jobs give EMPs very little power over when and how often their work demands invade their personal life.\n\nRealistically, we will never return to the old ways of work, with the job being left at the office once the employee leaves for the day, especially for EMPs. Perhaps intertwined work and nonwork roles would be somewhat manageable if the world still operated with traditional gender roles, with men as the primary wage earners and wives dedicated to domestic work. Then men could continue to focus on their work roles even while at home. But many households today are comprised of dual-earner couples , with men and women participating in multiple life roles, some of which can be very demanding (e.g., parent). Yet, many corporate cultures continue to operate as if employees have no commitments outside of work (Moen et al. 2013; Thompson et al. 2006).\n\nSome may argue that employees are at fault . Many workers seem to accept unreasonable demands for their time because they value the rewards they get in return, including job perks (e.g., onsite child care, free gym memberships), career advancement opportunities, and pay raises. But these rewards may not matter if employees burn out, under-perform, or leave. As companies continue to encroach on employees' personal time in an effort to keep up with competitors in the short-term, they may be hurting long-term performance . Corporations are slowly chipping away at their most highly valued workers. So what can be done about it?\n\nGiven the potential for negative impacts on employee and organizational health, on-demand work is a very public issue, yet companies expect employees to manage it on their own (Cha 2013). Accordingly, many individuals have devised their own strategies. Some scholars claim that individuals act as active agents, setting their own boundaries around their personal life (Allvin et al. 2011). The maintenance of these boundaries can be beneficial for employees' psychological feelings of role interference (Park et al. 2011). For example, employees who keep their work roles separated from other life domains are able to psychologically detach from their work role (Park et al. 2011), which contributes to their well-being (Hahn and Dormann 2013). But this is not always realistic, especially for EMPs.\n\nGiven the lack of control that today's employees have over their work demands , employee are actually active reactors who are forced to respond to and manage their work demands rather than actively controlling or preventing them (Moen et al. 2013). These strategies involve making personal efforts to allow or not allow a particular work intrusion during nonwork time (Flaherty 2003). However, employees using these strategies have only so much control, as the structural conditions of their jobs and the temporal norms of their companies constrain their options. Thus, the burden is ultimately on employees to react and adjust to their on-demand jobs. This approach does not necessarily give employees control over their job demands. These employees rarely have the chance to fully detach from their work roles and recover from the day's work demands . For example, EMPs might block 2 hours during the evening to focus on family time, but this timeframe is only a temporary break from work (Moen et al. 2013).\n\nIndividual strategies may not be sufficient to mitigate the negative effects of on-demand work (Butler et al. 2009). Corporations need to pitch in as well. Some time-demanding companies help employees maintain a sense of work\u2013life balance by providing benefits at the worksite, such as onsite childcare . But only the employees who are fortunate enough to work for these supportive companies have access to these resources. There are no national mandates to provide work\u2013life resources to all employees. Also, resources and support provided by companies or the government do not address the root issue\u2014intense time-demands. It is apparently not healthy for employees to work 24\/7, which warrants company and national policies that dictate acceptable work hours for EMPs.\n\nThere are many benefits to giving employees time to psychologically detach from work, such as positive effects on health and creativity (de Jonge et al. 2012). So high-commitment companies need to reevaluate their cultures and strongly consider reshaping their norms to encourage mental disengagement from work during off-hours, including interventions training employees on how to do so. But broad organizational policies may not be practical for some EMPs. In these cases, employers should reconsider the legitimacy of the on-demand work , as the cognitive appraisal of a work task can be a strong factor in how employees are impacted by work intrusions (Lazarus and Folkman 1984). An event is stressful when the demands of the environment are perceived as exceeding one's resources and thus endangering one's well-being. When work intrudes on personal time, employees assess their relative job demands and the availability of their resources (e.g., time, energy) . If the job demands exceed their available resources, then on-demand work may negatively impact them. If employers can minimize illegitimate work during employees' personal time, then employees would have more time to keep up with the most important work matters (Galinsky et al. 2004). For instance, when a boss sends an e-mail, she can be clear how important or urgent the work issue is so that the receiver can decide whether to protect his\/her personal time or not.\n\nIt is critical to re-examine the need for on-demand jobs, as a lack of recovery from work during personal time may not only negatively impact employees' personal lives and health, but also their task performance, personal initiative, and work effort; so organizational performance can suffer as well. Individual strategies and organizational policies and interventions can help address these issues, and future exploration of the causes and consequences of on-demand work will be important for employees' quality of life and organizational health.\n\nReferences\n\nAmichai-Hamburger, Y. (2009). Technology and well-being: Designing the future. In Y. Amichai-Hamburger (Ed.), Technology and psychological well-being (pp. 260\u2013278). New York: Cambridge University Press.\n\nAllvin, M., Aronsson, G., Hagstrom, T., Johansson, G., & Lundberg, U. (2011). Work without boundaries: Psychological perspectives on the new working life. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell.\n\nAshford, S. J., Lee, C., & Bobko, P. (1989). Content, causes, and consequences of job insecurity: A theory-based measure and substantive test. Academy of Management Journal, 32, 803\u2013829.\n\nAshforth, B. E., Kreiner, G. E., & Fugate, M. (2000). All in a day's work: Boundaries and micro role transitions. Academy of Management Review, 25, 472\u2013491.\n\nBamberg, E., Dettmers, J., Funck, H., Kr\u00e4he, B., & Vahle-Hinz, T. (2012). Effects of on-call work on well-being: Results of a daily survey. Applied Psychology: Health and Well-Being, 4, 299\u2013320.\n\nBailyn, L. (1993). Breaking the mold: Women, men, and time in the new corporate world. New York: Free Press.\n\nBeach, B. (1989). Integrating work and family life. Albany: State University of New York Press.\n\nBj\u00f6rk, L., Bejerot, E., Jacobshagen, N., & H\u00e4renstam, A. (2013). I shouldn't have to do this: Illegitimate tasks as a stressor in relation to organizational control and resource deficits. Work & Stress, 27, 262\u2013277.\n\nBlair-Loy, M. (2003). Competing devotions. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.\n\nBlair-Loy, M. (2009). Work without end? Scheduling flexibility and work-to-family conflict among stockbrokers. Work and Occupations, 36, 279\u2013317.\n\nBlair-Loy, M., & Wharton, A. S. (2002). Employees' use of work-family policies and the workplace social context. Social Forces, 80, 813\u2013846.\n\nBlau, P. (1964). Exchanges and power in social life. New York: Wiley.\n\nBlair-Loy, M., & Wharton, A. S. (2004). Organizational commitment and constraints on work-family policy use: Corporate flexibility policies in a global firm. Sociological Perspectives, 47, 243\u2013267.\n\nBowling, N. A. (2010). Effects of job satisfaction and conscientiousness on extra-role behaviors. Journal of Business and Psychology, 25, 119\u2013130.\n\nBrandes, P., Castro, S. L., James, M. S. L., Martinez, A. D., Matherly, T. A., Ferris, G. R., & Hochwarter, W. A. (2008). The interactive effects of job insecurity and organizational cynicism on work effort following a layoff. Journal of Leadership & Organizational Studies, 14, 233\u2013247.\n\nBrockner, J., Grover, S., Reed, T. F., & DeWitt, R. L. (1992). Layoffs, job insecurity, and survivors' work effort: Evidence of an inverted-U relationship. Academy of Management Journal, 35, 413\u2013425.\n\nBulanda, R. E. (2004). Paternal involvement with children: The influence of gender ideologies. Journal of Marriage and Family, 66, 40\u201345.\n\nButler, A. B., Bass, B. L., & Grzywacz, J. G. (2009). Job demands, spousal support, and work-family balance: A daily analysis of the work-family interface. In D. R. Crane & E. J. Hill (Eds.), Handbook of families and work (pp. 9\u201330). Lanham: University Press of America.\n\nCha, Y. (2013). Overwork and the persistence of gender segregation in occupations. Gender & Society, 27, 158\u2013184.\n\nCheng, G. H., & Chan, D. K. (2008). Who suffers more from job insecurity? A meta-analytic review. Applied Psychology: An International Review, 57, 272\u2013303.\n\nChesley, N. (2005). Blurring boundaries? Linking technology use, spillover, individual distress, and family satisfaction. Journal of Marriage and Family, 67, 1237\u20131248.\n\nClark, S. C. (2000). Work\/family border theory: A new theory of work\/family balance. Human Relations, 53, 747\u2013770.\n\nCunningham, M. (2007). Influences of women's employment on the gendered division of household labor over the life course: Evidence from a 31-year panel study. Journal of Family Issues, 28, 422\u2013444.PubMedCentralPubMed\n\nCurrent Populations Survey. (2010). U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, unpublished data. http:\/\/\u200bwww.\u200bbls.\u200bgov\/\u200bcps\/\u200baa2010\/\u200baat23.\u200btxt. Accessed 17 Dec 2013.\n\nCurrent Populations Survey (CPS). (2012). U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, unpublished data. http:\/\/\u200bwww.\u200bbls.\u200bgov\/\u200bcps\/\u200baa2012\/\u200bcpsaat23.\u200bhtm. Accessed 20 Dec 2013.\n\nCurrie, J., & Eveline, J. (2011). E-technology and work\/life balance for academics with young children. Higher Education, 62, 533\u2013550.\n\nDay, A., Paquet, S., Scott, N., & Hambley, L. (2012). Perceived information and communication technology (ICT) demands on employee outcomes: The moderating effect of organizational ICT support. Journal of Occupational Health Psychology, 17, 473\u2013491.PubMed\n\nde Jonge, J., Spoor, E., Sonnentag, S., Dormann, C., & van den Tooren, M. (2012). \"Take a break?!\" off-job recovery, job demands, and job resources as predictors of health, active learning, and creativity. European Journal of Work and Organizational Psychology, 21, 321\u2013348.\n\nDeal, J. J. (2013). Always on, never done? Don't blame the smartphone. http:\/\/\u200bwww.\u200bccl.\u200borg\/\u200bleadership\/\u200bpdf\/\u200bresearch\/\u200bAlwaysOn.\u200bpdf. Accessed 16 Dec 2013.\n\nDiaz, I., Chiaburu, D. S., Zimmerman, R. D., & Boswell, W. R. (2012). Communication technology: Pros and cons of constant connection to work. Journal of Vocational Behavior, 80, 500\u2013508.\n\nDikkers, J. S., Geurts, S. A., Den Dulk, L., Peper, B., Taris, T. W., & Kompier, M. A. (2007). Dimensions of work-home culture and their relations with the use of work-home arrangements and work-home interaction. Work & Stress, 21, 155\u2013172.\n\nDonald, F., & Linington, J. (2008). Work\/family border theory and gender role orientation in male managers. South African Journal of Psychology, 38, 659\u2013671.\n\nDouglas, M. (1975). Implicit meanings: Essays in anthropology. London: Routledge and Paul.\n\nEdwards, J. R., & Rothbard, N. P. (2000). Mechanisms linking work and family: Clarifying the relationship between work and family constructs. Academy of Management Review, 25, 178\u2013199.\n\nEzzedeen, S. R., & Swiercz, P. M. (2007). Development and initial validation of a cognitive-based work-nonwork conflict scale. Psychological Reports, 100, 979\u2013999.PubMed\n\nFan, P. L., & Marini, M. M. (2000). Influences on gender-role attitudes during the transition to adulthood. Social Science Research, 29, 258\u2013283.\n\nFenner, G. H., & Renn, R. W. (2004). Technology-assisted supplemental work: Construct definition and a research framework. Human Resource Management, 43, 179\u2013200.\n\nFinegold, D., & Frenkel, S. (2006). Managing people where people really matter: The management of human resources in biotech companies. International Journal of Human Resource Management, 17, 1\u201324.\n\nFlaherty, M. G. (2003). Time work: Customizing temporal experience. Social Psychology Quarterly, 66, 17\u201333.\n\nFritz, C., & Sonnentag, S. (2006). Recovery, well-being, and performance-related outcomes: The role of workload and vacation experiences. Journal of Applied Psychology, 91, 936\u2013945.PubMed\n\nGalinsky, E., Bond, J. T., Kim, S. S., Backon, L., Brownfield, E., & Sakai, K. (2004). Overwork in America: When the way we work becomes too much. http:\/\/\u200bfamiliesandwork.\u200borg\/\u200bsite\/\u200bresearch\/\u200breports\/\u200bOverWorkInAmeric\u200ba.\u200bpdf. Accessed 17 Dec 2013.\n\nGardner, D. G., Van Dyne, L., & Pierce, J. L. (2004). The effects of pay level on organization-based self-esteem and performance: A field study. Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology, 77, 307\u2013322.\n\nGoodrick, E., & Reay, T. (2011). Constellations of institutional logics: Changes in the professional work of pharmacists. Work and Occupations, 38, 372\u2013416.\n\nGrotto, A. R. (2013). Unexpected work intrusions into employees' personal lives: Investigation, measure development, and exploration of causes and consequences. Unpublished doctoral dissertation. Baruch College and the Graduate Center at the City University of New York, NY: New York.\n\nGeurts, S., & Sonnentag, S. (2006). Recovery as an explanatory mechanism in the relation between acute stress reactions and chronic health impairment. Scandinavian Journal of Work, Environment & Health, 32, 482\u2013492.\n\nHahn, V. C., & Dormann, C. (2013). The role of partners and children for employees' psychological detachment from work and well-being. Journal of Applied Psychology, 98, 26\u201336.PubMed\n\nHarrison, A., Wheeler, P., & Whitehead, C. (2004). The distributed workplace. London: Spon Press.\n\nHecht, T. D., & Allen, N. J. (2009). A longitudinal examination of the work-nonwork boundary strength construct. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 30, 839\u2013862.\n\nHochschild, A. R. (1989). The second shift: Working parents and the revolution at home. New York: Viking Penguin.\n\nJacobs, J. A., & Gerson, K. (2004). The time divide: Work, family, and gender inequality. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.\n\nJackson, M. (2002). What's happening to home? Balancing work, life and refuge in the information age. Notre Dame: Sorin Books.\n\nJarvis, H., & Pratt, A. C. (2006). Bringing it all back home: The extensification and 'overflowing' of work, the case of San Francisco's new media households. Geoforum, 37, 331\u2013339.\n\nJudge, T. A., Cable, D. M., Boudreau, J. W., & Bretz, R. D. (1995). An empirical investigation of the predictors of executive career success. Personnel Psychology, 48, 485.\n\nKalimo, R., Taris, T. W., & Schaufeli, W. B. (2003). The effects of past and anticipated future downsizing on survivor well-being: An equity perspective. Journal of Occupational Health Psychology, 8, 91\u2013109.PubMed\n\nKanter, R. M. (1999). Change is everyone's job: Managing the extended enterprise in a globally connected world. Organizational Dynamics, 28, 7\u201323.\n\nKarasek, R. A., & Theorell, T. (1990). Healthy work. New York: Basic Books.\n\nKelloway, E. K., & Barling, J. (2000). Knowledge work as organizational behavior. International Journal of Management Reviews, 2, 287\u2013304.\n\nKelly, E., Ammons, S., Chermack, K., & Moen, P. (2010). Gendered challenge, gendered response: Confronting the ideal worker norm in a white-collar organization. Gender & Society, 24, 281\u2013303.\n\nKonrad, A., & Mangel, R. (2000). The impact of work-life programs on firm productivity. Strategic Management Journal, 21, 1225\u20131237.\n\nKossek, E. E., & Ozeki, C. (1999). Bridging the work-family policy and productivity gap: A literature review. Community, Work & Family, 2, 7\u201332.\n\nKossek, E. E., Lautsch, B. A., & Eaton, S. C. (2006). Telecommuting, control, and boundary management: Correlates of policy use and practice, job control, and work-family effectiveness. Journal of Vocational Behavior, 68, 347\u2013367.\n\nKossek, E. E., Lautsch, B. A., & Eaton, S. C. (2009). \"Good teleworking\": Under what conditions does teleworking enhance employees' well-being? In Y. Amichai-Hamburger (Ed.), Technology and psychological well-being (pp. 148\u2013173). New York: Cambridge University Press\n\nKreiner, G. E., Hollensbe, E. C., & Sheep, M. L. (2009). Balancing borders and bridges: Negotiating the work-home interface via boundary work tactics. Academy of Management Journal, 52, 704\u2013730.\n\nKuhn, P., & Lozano, F. (2008). The expanding workweek? Understanding trends in long work hours among U.S. men, 1979\u20132006. Journal of Labor Economics, 26, 311\u201343.\n\nLambert, S. J. (1990). Processes linking work and family: A critical review and research agenda. Human Relations, 43, 239\u2013257.\n\nLapointe, E., Vandenberghe, C., & Panaccio, A. (2011). Organizational commitment, organization-based self-esteem, emotional exhaustion and turnover: A conservation of resources perspective. Human Relations, 64, 1609\u20131631.\n\nLazarus, R. S., & Folkman, S. (1984). Stress, appraisal, and coping. New York: Springer.\n\nLobel, S. A. (1991). Allocation of investment in work and family roles: Alternative theories and implications for research. Academy of Management Review, 16, 507\u2013521.\n\nLu, J. L. (2009). Effect of work intensification and work extensification on women's health in the globalized labour market. Journal of International Women's Studies, 10, 111\u2013126.\n\nMajor, V. S., Klein, K. J., & Ehrhard, M. G. (2002). Work time, work interference with family, and psychological distress. Journal of Applied Psychology, 87, 427\u2013436.PubMed\n\nMannino, C. A., & Deutsch, F. M. (2007). Changing the division of household labor: A negotiated process between partners. Sex Roles, 56, 309\u2013324.\n\nMarks, S. R. (2006). Understanding diversity of families in the 21st century and its impact on the work-family area of study. In M. Pitt-Catsouphes, E. E. Kossek, & S. Sweet (Eds.), The work and family handbook: Multi-disciplinary perspectives and approaches (pp. 41\u201365). Mahwah: Lawrence Erlbaum.\n\nMeijman, T. F., & Mulder, G. (1998). Psychological aspects of workload. In P. J. D. Drenth, H. Thierry, & C. J. de Wolff (Eds.), Handbook of work and organizational, Vol. 2: Work psychology (pp. 5\u201333). Hove: Psychology Press.\n\nMennino, S. F., Rubin, B. A., & Brayfield, A. (2005). Home-to-job and job-to-home spillover: The impact of company policies and workplace culture. Sociological Quarterly, 46, 107\u2013135.\n\nMilkie, M. A., Bianchi, S. M., Mattingly, M. J., & Robinson, J. P. (2002). Gendered division of childrearing: Ideals, realities, and the relationship to parental well-being. Sex Roles, 47, 21\u201338.\n\nMoen, P., & Roehling, P. (2005). The career mystique: Cracks in the American dream. Boulder: Rowman & Littlefield.\n\nMoen, P., Lam, J., Ammons, S., & Kelly, E. L. (2013). Time work by overworked professionals: Strategies in response to the stress of higher status. Work and Occupations, 40, 79\u2013114PubMedCentralPubMed\n\nNippert-Eng, C. (1996). Calendars and keys: The classification of 'home' and 'work'. Sociological Forum, 11, 563\u2013582.\n\nOlson-Buchanan, J. B., & Boswell, W. R. (2006). Blurring boundaries: Correlates of integration and segmentation between work and nonwork. Journal of Vocational Behavior, 68, 432\u2013445.\n\nOsterman, P. (2000). Work reorganization in an era of restructuring: Trends in diffusion and effects on employee welfare. Industrial and Labor Relations Review, 53, 179\u2013196.\n\nPark, Y., & Jex, S. M. (2011). Work-home boundary management using communication and information technology. International Journal of Stress Management, 18, 133\u2013152.\n\nPark, Y., Fritz, C., & Jex, S. M. (2011). Relationships between work-home segmentation and psychological detachment from work: The role of communication technology use at home. Journal of Occupational Health Psychology, 16, 457\u2013467.PubMed\n\nParkman, A. M. (2004). Bargaining over housework: The frustrating situation of secondary wage earners. American Journal of Economics and Sociology, 63, 765\u2013794.\n\nPaullay, I. M., Alliger, G. M., & Stone-Romero, E. F. (1994). Construct validation of two instruments designed to measure job involvement and work centrality. Journal of Applied Psychology, 79, 224\u2013228.\n\nPerlow, L. A. (1995). Putting the work back into work\/family. Group & Organization Management, 20, 227\u2013239.\n\nPierce, J. L., Gardner, D. G., Cummings, L. L., & Dunham, R. B. (1989). Organization-based self-esteem: Construct definition, measurement, and validation. Academy of Management Journal, 32, 622\u2013648.\n\nPresser, H. B. (2003). Working in a 24\/7 economy. New York: Russell Sage.\n\nPresser, H. B. (2005). Embracing complexity: Work schedules and family life in a 24\/7 economy. In S. M. Bianchi, L. M. Casper, & B. R. King (Eds.), Work, family, health, and well-being (pp. 43\u201348). Mahwah: Lawrence Erlbaum.\n\nProbst, T. M., Brett, J. M., & Drasgow, F. (2002). The impact of job insecurity on employee work attitudes, job adaptation, and organizational withdrawal behaviors. In J. M. Brett & F. Drasgow (Eds.), The psychology of work: Theoretically based empirical research (pp. 141\u2013168). Mahwah: Lawrence Erlbaum.\n\nReitzes, D. C., & Mutran, E. J. (1994). Multiple roles and identities: Factors influencing self-esteem among middle-aged working men and women. Social Psychology Quarterly, 57, 313\u2013325.\n\nRitchter, J. (1992). Balancing work and family in Israel. In S. Zedeck (Ed.), Work, families, and organizations. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.\n\nRothbard, N. P., Phillips, K. W., & Dumas, T. L. (2005). Managing multiple roles: Work-family policies and individuals' desires for segmentation. Organization Science, 16, 243\u2013258.\n\nSchieman, S., & Reid, S. (2008). Job authority and interpersonal conflict in the workplace. Work and Occupations, 35, 296\u2013326.\n\nSchieman, S., & Young, M. C. (2013). Are communications about work outside regular working hours associated with work-to-family conflict, psychological distress and sleep problems? Work & Stress, 27, 244\u2013261.\n\nSchieman, S., Whitestone, Y., & Van Gundy, K. (2006). The nature of work and the stress of higher status. Journal of Health and Social Behavior, 47, 242\u2013257.PubMed\n\nSchieman, S., Milkie, M. A., & Glavin, P. (2009). When work interferes with life: Work-nonwork interference and the influence of work-related demands and resources. American Sociological Review, 74, 966\u2013988.\n\nSchor, J. B. (1991). The overworked American: The unexpected decline of leisure. New York: Basic Books.\n\nSemmer, N. K., Jacobshagen, N., Meier, L. L., & Elfering, A. (2007). Occupational stress research: The \"Stress-As-Offense-to-Self\" perspective. In J. Houdmont & S. McIntyre (Eds.), Occupational health psychology: European perspectives on research, education and practice (pp. 43\u201360). Maia: ISMAI Publishing.\n\nSemmer, N. K., Tschan, F., Meier, L. L., Facchin, S., & Jacobshagen, N. (2010). Illegitimate tasks and counterproductive work behavior. Applied Psychology: An International Review, 59, 70\u201396.\n\nShockley, K. M., & Allen, T. D. (2013). Episodic work-family conflict, cardiovascular indicators, and social support: An experience sampling approach. Journal of Occupational Health Psychology, 18, 262\u2013275.PubMed\n\nSlaughter, A. M. (2012). Why women still can't have it all. The Atlantic. http:\/\/\u200bwww.\u200btheatlantic.\u200bcom\/\u200bmagazine\/\u200barchive\/\u200b2012\/\u200b07\/\u200bwhy-women-still-cant-have-it-all\/\u200b309020\/\u200b. Accessed 20 Dec 2013.\n\nSonnentag, S., Kuttler, I., & Fritz, C. (2010). Job stressors, emotional exhaustion, and need for recovery: A multi-source study on the benefits of psychological detachment. Journal of Vocational Behavior, 76, 355\u2013365.\n\nStone, P. (2007). Opting out?: Why women really quit careers and head home. Berkeley: University of California Press.\n\nSverke, M., & Hellgren, J. (2002). The nature of job insecurity: Understanding employment uncertainty on the brink of a new millennium. Applied Psychology: An International Review, 51, 23\u201342.\n\nSverke, M., Hellgren, J., & Naswall, K. (2002). No security: A meta-analysis and review of job insecurity and its consequences. Journal of Occupational Health Psychology, 7, 242\u2013264.PubMed\n\nTaris, T. W., Beckers, D. G. J., Verhoeven, L. C., Geurts, S., Kompier, M., & van der Linden, D. (2006). Recovery opportunities, work-home interference, and well-being among managers. European Journal of Work and Organizational Psychology, 15, 139\u2013157.\n\nThierry, H. (2001). The reflection theory on compensation. In M. Erez, U. Kleinbeck, & H. Thierry (Eds.), Work motivation in the context of a globalizing economy (pp. 149\u2013166). Mahwah: Lawrence Erlbaum.\n\nThoits, P. A. (1991). On merging identity theory and stress research. Social Psychology Quarterly, 54, 101\u2013112.\n\nThompson, C. A., Beauvais, L. L., & Lyness, K. S. (1999). When work-family benefits are not enough: The influences of work-family culture on benefit utilization, organizational attachment, and work-family conflict. Journal of Vocational Behavior, 54, 392\u2013415.\n\nThompson, C. A., Beauvais, L. L. & Allen, T. D. (2006). Work and family from an industrial\/organizational psychology perspective. In M. Pitt-Catsouphes, E. E. Kossek, & S. Sweet (Eds.), The work and family handbook: Multi-disciplinary perspectives and approaches (pp. 283\u2013307). Mahwah: Lawrence Erlbaum.\n\nWeick, K. E. (1979). The social psychology of organizing (2nd ed.). Reading: Addison-Wesley.\n\nWharton, A. S., & Blair-Loy, M. (2006). Long work hours and family life: A cross-national study of employees' concerns. Journal of Family Issues, 27, 415\u2013436.\n\nWikstrom, T., Palm Linden, K., & Michelson, M. (1998). Hub of events or splendid isolation: Teleworkers and the home. Stockholm: Swedish Transport and Communications Research Board.\n\nvon Thiele, U. (2011). Inability to withdraw from work as related to poor next-day recovery and fatigue among women. Applied Psychology: An International Review, 60, 377\u2013396.\n\nvon Thiele, U., Lindfors, P., & Lundberg, U. (2006). Self-rated recovery from work stress and allostatic load in women. Journal of Psychosomatic Research, 61, 237\u2013242.\n\nVoydanoff, P. (1988). Work role characteristics, family structure demands, and work\/family conflict. Journal of Marriage & the Family, 50, 749\u2013761.\n\nVoydanoff, P. (2004). The effects of work demands and resources on work-to-family conflict and facilitation. Journal of Marriage & Family, 66, 398\u2013412.\n\nVoydanoff, P. (2009). The interaction of work and family demands and resources: Linking mechanisms and boundary-spanning strategies. In D. R. Crane & E. J. Hill (Eds.), Handbook of families and work (pp. 141\u2013171). Lanham: University Press of America.\n\nXie, Y., & Shauman, K. A. (2003). Women in science: Career processes and outcomes. Cambridge: Harvard University Press\n\n# Part III  \nCAREER & ORGANIZATIONAL CONSIDERATIONS\n\u00a9 Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2015\n\nMaura J. Mills (ed.)Gender and the Work-Family Experience10.1007\/978-3-319-08891-4_12\n\n# 12. Family-Friendly Organizational Policies, Practices, and Benefits through the Gender Lens\n\nJustin M. Sprung1  , Tatiana H. Toumbeva2  and Russell A. Matthews2\n\n(1)\n\nDepartment of Psychology, Luther College, 700 College Drive, 52101 Decorah, IA, USA\n\n(2)\n\nDepartment of Psychology, Bowling Green State University, 43403 Bowling Green, OH, USA\n\nJustin M. Sprung (Corresponding author)\n\nEmail: spruju01@luther.edu\n\nTatiana H. Toumbeva\n\nEmail: ttoumbe@bgsu.edu\n\nRussell A. Matthews\n\nEmail: ramatth@bgsu.edu\n\nKeywords\n\nWork\u2013familyGenderPracticesPoliciesBenefitsOrganizational cultureStigmaSupervisor support\n\n## 12.1 Introduction\n\nConcern for employees' family and leisure time is by no means a new point of interest. Recently, however, with almost 80 % of workers reporting an increased desire for workplace flexibility (Galinsky et al. 2004), organizational leaders are increasingly realizing the need for providing appealing and effective family-friendly benefits. This amplified interest in work\u2013family issues has been brought about, in part, due to the increase in numbers of full-time working women and dual-earner couples in the past few decades (Hammer and Zimmerman 2011). Although the percentages of working men and women in the USA today are roughly equal, with women comprising 46.9 % of the workforce (Bureau of Labor Statistics 2013) , gender still seems to influence a variety of factors within the work environment. One of the most publicized and contentious gender differences in the workplace concerns perceptions and usage of family-friendly benefits. In fact, the Journal of Social Issues recently dedicated an entire special issue to this topic\u2014\"The Flexibility Stigma\" (Williams et al. 2013)\u2014exploring how gender and social class contribute to the stigma surrounding flexible work arrangements. Therefore, although traditional gender norms are thought to be fading, they still appear to actively influence today's workforce, especially when it comes to the use of, and access to, family-friendly benefits.\n\nOur goal in the present chapter is to summarize how gender contributes to the overall efficacy of family-friendly benefits by focusing on two primary aims. First, we review the literature on gender differences in employee utilization and awareness of available family-friendly benefits, followed by a discussion of why these discrepancies may exist. Second, we briefly summarize the literature on the general effectiveness of benefit availability and utilization for improving important employee outcomes. Given the major role that the supervisor plays in the lives of workers (Kossek and Distelberg 2009), our main focus in this section centers around the interplay between supervisor gender and perceived supervisor supportiveness of employee family life. To help further contextualize the effect of gender, we consistently address underlying individual characteristics that may contribute to the existence of gender differences within our two areas of focus. We conclude the chapter by documenting several areas for future inquiry.\n\n## 12.2 Family-Friendly Benefits\n\nAlthough there are a variety of family-friendly benefits offered within the USA, the 1993 Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) represents the only legal obligation that US employers have regarding work\u2013family issues . The FMLA stipulates that employers with 50 or more employees must provide up to 12 weeks of unpaid leave employees in order for them to deal with a family or medical issue, as long as the employee has worked at the organization for a minimum of 1250 hours (United States Department of Labor 2013) . Because of the limited amount of federal legislation in this area, the majority of family-related benefits are typically provided at the employer's discretion and generally considered a component of an organization's plan for implementing strategic human resource (HR) practices (Bloom et al. 2011).\n\nOutside of the FMLA, the amount and types of discretionary family-friendly benefits vary across organizations, but typically include some form of flexible work arrangements and\/or dependent care support. Flexible work arrangements (FWA) come in a variety of forms, but share the common objective of allowing employees to have enhanced control over when and where they complete their work (Major and Germano 2006). Commonly recognized FWAs include telecommuting , flextime , a compressed work week , part-time schedules, and job sharing (for an in-depth review of different types of FWAs, see Kossek and Michel 2011). Whereas FWAs provide flexibility in work scheduling, dependent care support programs offer financial and\/or instrumental assistance (e.g., on-site childcare, caregiving referrals, paid leave) to employees for their childcare or eldercare responsibilities (Major and Germano 2006). Both FWAs and dependent care support programs are tools intended to assist employees in balancing their work and family lives. These discretionary benefits are often viewed as a sign of the organization's commitment toward creating a family-friendly workplace (Grzywacz and Butler 2008).\n\nAccording to a recent study conducted by the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) , 57 % of organizations offer some form of telecommuting (either part- or full-time) whereas 53 % offer flextime opportunities. In addition, 17 % of organizations provide childcare referral services and 10 % offer eldercare referral services (SHRM 2012). Although family-friendly benefits have become increasingly common in the USA, the actual use of these benefits has lagged behind (Galinsky et al. 2008). Multiple studies demonstrate that employees may not perceive these benefits as a viable option due to informal regulations and\/or a fear of negative consequences as a result of their use (e.g., Eaton 2003; Thompson et al. 1999). In addition, even though these benefits are expected to promote gender equality and workplace inclusion, there is mixed evidence as to whether they are achieving that goal. In fact, some scholars have even suggested that the availability and usage of these benefits may be exacerbating the very problems they were expected to prevent (e.g., Ryan and Kossek 2008; Rudman and Mescher 2013). We can gain a better understanding of how and why these benefits may be having counterintuitive effects by examining their associated gender differences.\n\n## 12.3 Benefit Usage\n\nDespite the increased availability of family-friendly benefits, simply offering these benefits does not necessarily result in their use . For example, in 2012, only 16 % of all employees who were eligible for FMLA leave actually took it (Klerman et al. 2013). Similarly, several studies examining discretionary family-friendly benefits reveal rather low overall usage rates, regardless of their increased availability (e.g., Blair-Loy and Wharton 2002; Galinsky et al. 2008). For both the FMLA and discretionary family-friendly benefits, gender has been a primary point of interest regarding usage rates of available benefits .\n\nSince the origin of the FMLA in 1993, men have consistently taken leave less often and tend to take significantly shorter leaves than women (Armenia and Gerstel 2006; Gerstel and Armenia 2009; Waldfogel 2001). According to the most recent FMLA survey conducted by the Department of Labor , women (21 %) were significantly more likely than men (16 %) to take parental leave within the past 18 months. Although the gender gap in leave-taking still exists, it has slightly decreased over time (7 % in 1995 to 5 % in 2012; Klerman et al. 2013), suggesting that slow progress is being made toward gender equality in the prevalence of leave-taking. In addition, there is preliminary evidence to suggest that although men are less likely than women to take leaves for newborns, men are nearly as likely as women to take leaves for seriously ill children or parents, and just as likely to take leave to care for a sick spouse (Armenia and Gerstel 2006). However, more research is necessary to make any firm conclusions regarding gender equality (and the closing of the gender usage gap). Even if men and women are approaching a similar prevalence rate in leave-taking, women still tend to take significantly longer leaves regardless of the reason for leave (Klerman et al. 2013). Thus, there is a consistent gender gap in leave-taking and leave length , especially when the reason for leave is childbirth .\n\nThese discrepancies (i.e., leave-taking and leave length) may be partially due to the fact that women on maternity leave are more likely to receive some form of replacement pay than men on paternity leave (Galinsky et al. 2008; Matos and Galinsky 2012). At the same time, however, the opportunity for at least some form of pay during parental leave has remained rather low for both men and women in the USA over the past 20 years (Van Giezen 2013). As such, other forces are likely influencing this discrepancy. Men's lower use may also be due to traditional gender norms , as there seems to be a larger social stigma associated with men taking paternity leave than there is for women taking maternity leave (Berdahl and Moon 2013), an issue we will discuss later in the chapter. In addition, economic factors may come into play. Specifically, excluding cases of adoption or surrogacy, women must take at least some time off in order to physically have the child. If the husband also takes leave, the likelihood of there being any money coming in for that family is, based on the data available, low. Thus, regardless of any social stigma , this economic reality can have a large impact on the decisions that people make and should not be ignored by researchers examining this issue .\n\nAs for gender differences in usage rates of discretionary family-friendly benefits, the evidence is even less clear. Consistent with popular perception, the majority of studies provide evidence suggesting that women use flexible schedules, work from home, and make use of childcare referral more often than men (e.g., Galinsky et al. 2004; Hammer et al. 2005; Hill et al. 2003; Singley and Hynes 2005). However, recent findings suggest that there may be no clear gender difference in the usage of discretionary family-friendly benefits as a whole. According to McMenamin (2007), men and women use flexible benefits equally, with the percentage of men and women using flexible schedules remaining comparable over the past 20 years. The difference between men and women may, however, lie in the type of flexibility that they prefer .\n\nFor example, a recent popular press article suggested that men and women do not differ in usage of flexible work options that permit face time within the organization (i.e., flexible arrival and departure times), but women tend to be more likely to telecommute than men (Fondas 2013). Thus, women may be more willing to use benefits in which they would sacrifice face time, while men are less willing to do so. This is congruent with empirical research suggesting that telecommuting is an arrangement that is preferred by women (e.g., Raghuram et al. 2003; Singh et al. 2013). This is also consistent with traditional gender roles regarding work and family responsibilities which, in turn, may help to contribute to the career penalties that women face as a result of using family-friendly benefits .\n\nIt should be noted, however, that the majority of research on family-friendly benefits focuses on perceptions about the availability and perceived outcomes of these benefits rather than gender differences in their actual use. Accordingly, it is difficult to draw firm conclusions regarding gender differences in the usage of discretionary family-friendly benefits. Due to the mixed findings, and paired with the fact that usage rates tend to be low for both men and women, further research would be beneficial to form a clear picture regarding the actual usage of discretionary family-friendly benefits and whether men and women prefer different forms of benefits. Another specific area for future research may be to examine potential gender differences in eldercare assistance given the growing number of employees with both child and eldercare responsibilities .\n\n## 12.4 Benefit Awareness\n\nOne of the most proximal barriers to employee utilization is employees' awareness (or lack thereof) of available benefits . The FMLA , in particular, suffers from ignorance of its provisions. According to the Department of Labor , only 66.2 % of employees have heard of FMLA in 2012, which is only 7 % higher than the year 2000 (Klerman et al. 2013). Given that men tend to use FMLA benefits significantly less than women do, it should come as no surprise that men are also less aware of the benefits available to them. In fact, gender has been suggested as one of the strongest predictors of employees' knowledge and awareness of FMLA regulations, with women purported as being 3\u20136 times more likely than men to be aware of their eligibility for FMLA parental leave (Kramer 2008). Similarly, evidence based on a nationally representative sample indicated that among eligible employees, men were significantly less likely than women (72 % compared to 91 %, respectively) to report that they had access to FMLA parental leave regardless of various sociodemographic factors (i.e., race, marital status, children, firm size, and authority level; Baird and Reynolds 2004). Consequently, this lack of awareness among male workers may contribute to the gender discrepancy in the usage of FMLA leave .\n\nRegarding discretionary family-friendly benefits, although the evidence is mixed in terms of gender differences in actual utilization, studies assessing employee awareness consistently provide similar findings to results within the FMLA literature. Specifically, multiple studies demonstrate that women are more likely to have knowledge and awareness of discretionary family-friendly benefits offered by their employers (e.g., Martenengo et al. 2010; Prottas et al. 2007; Villablanca et al. 2011). Therefore, a clear gender gap emerges from the available evidence with men being less aware of both legal and discretionary family-friendly benefit options .\n\nThis lack of awareness may be a contributing factor to why a large majority of people do not use the benefits available to them. A promising area for future research may be an identification of effective strategies for increasing benefit awareness among employees. Klerman et al. (2013) state that the most common sources of knowledge for the FMLA are posters and communication from the HR department; however, no evidence is presented as to whether certain strategies are utilized to a greater extent\u2014or more effective\u2014for men compared to women. It would be interesting to examine whether HR professionals put forth more effort in advertising benefits to female employees, and whether these strategies are actually (possibly unintentionally) contributing to the gender discrepancy in awareness. Regardless of gender differences, raising employee awareness would likely be beneficial for all eligible employees .\n\n### 12.4.1 Intentions of Using Benefits\n\nMen's general lack of awareness of family-friendly benefits, compared to women, seems to suggest that improved awareness might lead to increased usage of the available benefits. Multiple studies assessing intentions to seek out and\/or use family-friendly benefits, however, suggest that this may not be the case. For example, Gerstel and McGonagle (1999) found that women (25 %) were more likely than men (16 %) to report that they need to take a leave from a job for reasons covered by the FMLA , regardless of whether they actually took the leave. Similarly, Klerman et al. (2013) reported that women were nearly twice as likely as men to report a need for FMLA-related leave that was unmet . Therefore, even though men tend to be using leaves less often, evidence from the FMLA literature suggests that men may still be having their needs met more-so than women. As such, men may be less aware of the FMLA simply because they do not seek out family friendly-benefits as often.\n\nOn a related note, a recent survey of college students indicated that although men and women placed equal value on work flexibility and work\u2013life balance, men were significantly less likely to seek flexible arrangements upon entering the workforce, primarily due to traditional gender stereotypes (Vandello et al. 2013). This is congruent with Butler et al.'s (2004) findings demonstrating that even when men report that they have positive work outcome expectancies associated with family-friendly benefits, this does not increase their intentions of using them. Thus, although both men and women are motivated to achieve work\u2013life balance, men seem reluctant to use family-friendly benefits to achieve that goal. Therefore, factors other than awareness (i.e., gender norms) may be more important to consider regarding the gap between policy availability and utilization for both men and women.\n\n## 12.5 Benefit Accessibility\n\nSome have proposed that gender, in and of itself, contributes to the accessibility of family-friendly benefits, yet, empirical evidence is mixed . Some findings indicate that women have greater access to FWAs (e.g., Glauber 2011; McNamara et al. 2012) whereas others suggest that men have greater access (e.g., Golden 2009; McCrate 2005). Taking the previous literature together as a whole, accessibility to discretionary family-friendly benefits seems much closer to \"gender neutral\" than benefit awareness. For example, even though Glauber (2011) reported that men are less likely to have access to formal flexible work scheduling than women overall, the discrepancy (52 % compared to 56 %) was not very large and may be due to other factors (i.e., size of organization). Moreover, a factor that makes this research less straightforward than the awareness literature is the fact that some studies examined formal flexibility policies alone, whereas other studies include informal flexibility offered on a case-by-case basis .\n\nTaking into account the \"formality\" of FWAs, there is more consensus regarding gender differences. For example, although Golden (2009) and Glauber's (2011) overall conclusions regarding gender and access to FWAs contrast, both acknowledge that women may be more likely to have access to formal FWAs offered by the organization while men tend to be more likely to benefit from informal flexibility given on a case-by-case basis. Therefore, many organizations may selectively implement FWAs as a function of formalized discretion of managers to grant or deny requests based on a case-by-case system rather than a universal policy (Kelly and Kalev 2006). Due to this gender discrepancy between formal versus informal accessibility, it has been suggested that implementation of more formal programs\u2014rather than the case-by-case system\u2014would likely promote more gender equity in access to family-friendly benefits (Golden 2009). To this end, we discuss the importance of the supervisor in the perceived availability, implementation, and effectiveness of family-friendly benefits later in this chapter given the integral role supervisors play in this process .\n\nAlthough the evidence regarding who has greater access to family-friendly benefits is mixed, some workers may be at a clear disadvantage when it comes to accessing these benefits regardless of gender. For example, employees that are less privileged (i.e., lower wages, lower education levels, and hourly work) have restricted access to family-friendly benefits compared to their more privileged counterparts (Galinsky et al. 2011; Swanberg et al. 2005). In addition, men and women who are married, have children, and work in managerial positions appear to have somewhat greater access to flexibility in work scheduling (Golden 2009). There has also been speculation that race plays a role, with white employees proposed as having greater access to family-friendly benefits than African\u2013Americans (e.g., Golden 2008, 2009). Though a full review of this area is beyond the scope of this chapter, it is important to note that many factors other than gender are likely to play a critical role in the perceived accessibility and subsequent usage of family-friendly benefits .\n\n### 12.5.1 Organizational Gender Composition\n\nA seemingly common assumption is that jobs with a greater composition of women employees offer more family-friendly benefits. This assumption is supported by many studies (e.g., Davis and Kalleberg 2006; Gerstel and Aremenia 2009; Lowen and Sicilian 2009). Recent evidence on this topic, however, is not so clear cut. For example, Glauber (2011) suggests that gender-integrated occupations (40\u201360 % female) have the greatest access to flexible scheduling, with male-dominated occupations (greater than 70 % male) having the least access and female-dominated occupations (greater than 70 % female) falling between the two. Furthermore, in the 2012 National Study of Employers , Matos and Galinsky (2012) suggested that employers that were larger, nonprofit, and have more women and racial\/ethnic minorities in top positions were more likely to offer flexibility and dependent care assistance to their employees. Therefore, access may not necessarily be dependent on the gender composition of the organization as a whole but the size of the organization and gender composition of the employees who are in a position of power .\n\nInterestingly, organizational size may have a differential impact on men and women. Glauber (2011) found that men tend to have the greatest access to flexible scheduling when they work in small organizations whereas women have the greatest access when they work in large organizations. This may be due to women's access to formal benefits in larger organizations and men's access to informal benefits in smaller organizations (Glauber 2011). This is consistent with a previous study suggesting that women may have greater access to formal benefits whereas men may have greater access to informal benefits (Golden 2009), and further illustrates the importance of supervisors allowing all employees the same opportunity for FWAs regardless of whether the benefits are formally or informally offered.\n\n## 12.6 Gender Norms and the Flexibility Stigma\n\nPerhaps the most important influence on whether or not employees view family-friendly benefits as a viable resource is the perceived accessibility and usefulness of these resources. Although it is debatable whether firm conclusions can be made regarding gender differences in actual accessibility and usage of family-friendly benefits, it is clear that the overall usage rates of family-friendly benefits are low, compared to their availability, regardless of gender (Galinsky et al. 2008, 2011). Whereas awareness and formal accessibility may influence actual usage of available benefits, many informal and unspoken norms play a large role as well. One of the most powerful contributors to perceived accessibility is traditional gender norms .\n\nAlthough gender equality has become an overarching societal goal, gender stereotypes continue to serve as a powerful influence on human behavior (Prentice and Carranza 2002). For example, traditional gender norms and expectations (i.e., male as provider, female as housekeeper) are still often prescribed today; men are commonly expected to be dominant, career-focused, and independent while women are often perceived as more caring, interdependent, and modest than men. When men or women do not conform to these stereotypes, they often suffer from social and professional consequences (e.g., Moss-Racusin et al. 2010; Rudman and Phelan 2008). Experiencing \"backlash\" as a result of gender norm-breaking reinforces typical gender norms. In turn, both men and women may be prevented from breaking these norms, thereby maintaining the gender status quo (Rudman and Fairchild 2004). This maintenance of the gender status quo appears to be playing a key role in employees' perceptions and usage of family-friendly benefits.\n\nEven though formal benefits may recognize the growing needs of today's families, there are many informal regulations and processes that determine the extent to which these benefits are perceived as available to the employees (Eaton 2003). In fact, these informal practices may, knowingly or unknowingly, stigmatize workers who take advantage of family-friendly benefits. This is referred to as the flexibility stigma , and is often based on typical gender stereotypes (Bornstein 2013). Both men and women can suffer from stigmatization associated with perceptions and usage of family-friendly benefits, albeit in different ways. As described below, the flexibility stigma for men is based on gender non-conforming behavior whereas the stigma for women stems from gender-conforming behavior (Williams et al. 2013).\n\n### 12.6.1 Stigma for Women\n\nMultiple studies highlight the negative outcomes that working women with children encounter. It has been well established that working mothers face a \"maternal wall\" when it comes to various workplace decisions. The reason for this may be that female employees, especially low-wage workers, are penalized for motherhood through perceived incompetence and reduced consideration for promotions regardless of their actual work qualifications (e.g., Crosby et al. 2004; Heilman and Okimoto 2008; Dodson 2013). This stigmatization of mothers stems from the ideal worker norm, which states that ideal workers place more emphasis on work obligations than unpaid family responsibilities (Kelly et al. 2010). As a result, mothers are probably more likely to be seen as a \"risk\" for making use of a family-related benefit due to the stereotypical gender expectation that they will be preoccupied with family care responsibilities. Although the option of family-friendly benefits may be available to help women balance work and family, Williams et al. (2013) suggest that making use of a family-friendly benefit may be interpreted by other professionals, as well as the individual employee herself, as a form of moral violation for not living up to one's work demands and expectations. As a result, because women are traditionally thought of as the primary caregiver, their careers may be negatively impacted when they have to fulfill family responsibilities.\n\nWomen may be discounted not only within the workplace but outside of it as well. Working women may be viewed as less effective parents than non-working mothers (e.g., Eataugh and Folger 1998; Gorman and Fritzsche 2002), especially when working in a stereotypically male-gendered occupation (Berdahl and Moon 2013; Okimoto and Heilman 2012). Therefore, although women may suffer career penalties for being a mother, they are also likely to suffer social consequences (i.e., being viewed as a bad mother) if they are not the primary caregiver. Herein lies the conundrum for women: if they have children or family responsibilities, they are expected to take leave and\/or use available benefits, for which their careers are penalized. At the same time, if they choose to focus on their careers by avoiding the use of family-friendly benefits, they may be ostracized for not conforming to what a woman \"should\" do. In terms of using family-friendly benefits, women seem to potentially be at a disadvantage either way.\n\n### 12.6.2 Stigma for Men\n\nOn the other hand, it has also been well established that men who are seen as less masculine are respected less and suffer more negative consequences than men judged as more masculine (e.g., Funk and Werhun 2011; Heilman and Wallen 2010; Judge et al. 2012). Thus, although simply having family responsibilities does not result in as many negative consequences for men as it does for women (Fuegen et al. 2004), the act of caring for children and\/or publicizing their family responsibilities may result in stigmatization. For men, requesting a family leave or some form of flexibility to care for a dependent is violating their traditional gender norm of placing work as their primary priority, and may be seen as a sign of weakness or low status. Multiple studies suggest that men experience more negative reactions from others than women when asking for a family leave (e.g., Allen and Russell 1999; Wayne and Codeiro 2003), experiencing family conflict (Butler and Skattebo 2004), and working fewer hours in order to balance family responsibilities (Vinkenburg et al. 2012). Unlike women who get penalized for conforming to their gender role, men get penalized for not conforming to their traditional gender role. Thus, though the mechanism is different, both men and women's careers may be penalized for making use of available benefits.\n\nSimilar to women, men are also socially stigmatized for breaking gender norms , as demonstrated in two recent studies. Berdahl and Moon (2013) found that men who were more involved in domestic-related tasks and caregiving for their children experienced more harassment (i.e., being seen as \"not man enough\") than men who spent less time caring for their children. Similarly, Rudman and Mescher (2013, p. 325) demonstrated that male employees who request family leave suffer from a femininity stigma and are punished for \"acting like a woman.\" Interestingly, both men and women were equally likely to feminize male leave requesters, viewing them as weaker than men who did not ask for leave. This finding is congruent with previous research suggesting that men who act modestly (rather than dominantly) tend to suffer more prejudice from both men and women due to a perceived violation of their gender-prescribed behavior (Moss-Racusin et al. 2010). Therefore, even though women tend to report more acceptance of gender norm-breaking (e.g., Coleman and Franiuk 2011; Goldberg et al. 2012), men who utilize family-friendly benefits are not only subjected to harassment by other men but women as well. As such, traditional gender norms regarding benefit use are being perpetuated by both men and women.\n\n### 12.6.3 Gender Norm Summary\n\nAs can be seen, both men and women suffer career and social consequences, albeit in different ways, as a result of the flexibility stigma . In fact, Berdahl and Moon (2013) suggest that gender performance may drive workplace mistreatment more than work performance . Unfortunately, being perceived as a lesser man and\/or a lesser worker for using family-friendly benefits or violating gender norms is not all that uncommon (cf., Bornstein 2013; Stone and Hernandez 2013). These stereotypes , in turn, may undermine worker's use of available benefits: men may be less likely to use benefits to maintain their status of masculinity whereas women may be hesitant to utilize benefits for fear of being stigmatized as less competent (Correll et al. 2007). Therefore, the potential for improving work\u2013life balance among all employees continues to be limited by persisting traditional gender norms.\n\nAlthough there is some evidence that gendered perceptions regarding the flexibility stigma may be changing for the better among young adults (e.g., Coleman and Franiuk 2011), other evidence suggests that perceptions regarding gender roles and work\u2013family responsibilities has remained fairly constant since the 1980s (Goldberg et al. 2012). Poelmans (2012) notes that these norms are deeply rooted in several layers of socio-cultural values (i.e., dyadic, organizational, societal, and cultural), and will take a tremendous amount of time and effort to change. Given that we know gender stereotyping and traditional gender norms still persist when it comes to family-friendly benefits, future research should examine how to potentially reduce the negative perceptions associated with breaking gender norms and will likely result in a better understanding of how to encourage utilization of family-friendly benefits.\n\n## 12.7 Outcomes Associated with Family-Friendly Benefits\n\nThe negative career and social penalties, the flexibility stigma , and the perpetuation of traditional gender norms represent some of the unintended negative consequences associated with family-friendly benefits. It has been well established that both men and women may forego utilizing family-friendly benefits for fear of negative career consequences and\/or due to financial necessity (e.g., Klerman et al. 2013). However, the overarching goal of these benefits is to help employees balance work and family responsibilities and to improve worker satisfaction. In this section, we will provide a brief overview of the effectiveness of family-friendly benefits at promoting positive outcomes , and whether benefit effectiveness differs between men and women. Given the importance of the supervisor in determining employee outcomes\u2014as well as the fact that supervisor support may serve as an important family-friendly benefit in and of itself\u2014the majority of this section focuses on the worker-supervisor interaction in contributing to positive employee outcomes.\n\n### 12.7.1 General Effectiveness\n\nOne of the most immediate effects of offering family-friendly benefits concerns the attractiveness of the organization for potential and current employees. Both men and women value work-life balance (Vandello et al. 2013). Not surprisingly, organizations that offer family-friendly benefits are often perceived as more supportive and desirable among job applicants of both genders (e.g., Bourhis and Mekkaoui 2010; Wayne and Casper 2012). Therefore, the organization's reputation concerning family-friendly policy availability serves as a beneficial recruiting tool, irrespective of gender.\n\nIn terms of positive individual and organizational consequences, family-supportive benefits have been shown to be associated with a variety of favorable outcomes for employees and the organization as a whole. For example, multiple studies have demonstrated that the availability and use of family-friendly benefits tends to be associated with positive work attitudes (i.e., commitment, job satisfaction , and intentions to stay in the organization; e.g., Allen 2001; Breaugh and Frye 2007; Casper and Harris 2008), increased performance (e.g., Bloom et al. 2011; Jones and Murrell 2001), and reduced conflict between the work and family domains (e.g., Butts et al. 2013; Kossek et al. 2011; Thompson et al. 1999). Although not all studies find beneficial effects associated with family-friendly benefits (e.g., De Menezes and Kelliher 2011), a review of the literature suggests that family-friendly benefits can, and often do, benefit employees.\n\nStudies that have examined gender differences, however, suggest that the magnitude of these positive effects may not be universal. For example, Butts et al. (2013) report in their meta-analysis that in samples with more women, the relation between policy availability and job satisfaction, as well as the relation between policy use and work\u2013family conflict (i.e., a form of inter-role conflict characterized by incompatibility between the work and family domains; Greenhaus and Beutell 1985), were weaker compared to samples with more men. The authors speculated that available benefits may be more beneficial to men because they have fewer caregiving responsibilities whereas women's needs are less likely to be met due to their greater caregiving workload . However, Carlson et al. (2010) found that women benefit more from using flexible schedules than men, as women experienced less work\u2013family conflict. Still, Hammer et al. (2005) found that usage of family-friendly benefits may not reduce work\u2013family conflict and may actually lead to increased conflict for women, reasoning that women's usage may lead to the expectation of taking on even more family responsibilities.\n\nIn addition, there is evidence suggesting that men and women may possibly judge the utility of family-friendly benefits based on different criteria. For example, Sharpe et al. (2002) found that women were more likely to use FWAs to reduce work\u2013family conflict whereas men were more likely to report using the benefits to enhance personal productivity (i.e., structure and routine in work and personal life). This implies that men may be more likely to judge the effectiveness of FWAs based on their job performance whereas women may be more likely to judge their effectiveness based on the ability to reduce work\u2013family conflict. Future research would be beneficial in determining whether this is indeed the case.\n\nThe majority of recent studies on the effectiveness of family-friendly benefits mention supervisor support as a crucial factor in whether these benefits will be effective and\/or perceived as useful. For example, Breaugh and Farabee (2012) noted that telecommuting and other FWAs are not quick fixes, and require supervisor support to be effective. In terms of performance , although Bloom et al. (2011) found that family-friendly benefits were positively related to organizational performance, this relation disappeared once the authors controlled for the quality of management practices. In fact, some have even questioned whether work\u2013life balance is actually a matter of choice for the employee. Gregory and Milner (2009) suggest that work\u2013life balance may be constrained by the culture created within the organization due to the enabling of traditional gender roles; in turn, the organizational culture may limit the employees' perceptions of what benefits they can actually use. Accordingly, to better understand the effectiveness of family-friendly benefits for producing positive employee outcomes , it is important to also understand the supervisors' role in the process of administering these benefits.\n\n## 12.8 Importance of Supervisor\n\nIn an attempt to enhance employees' ability to manage the work\u2013family interface, many organizational initiatives involve the development and maintenance of a family-supportive workplace. Thomas and Ganster (1995) identify family-supportive supervision as one of the two components comprising a family-supportive workplace environment, with the other component being family-friendly benefits. Despite the importance of offering formal workplace supports such as competitive family-friendly benefits, informal supports (i.e., direct supervisor support) are perhaps even more critical to the overall success of family-supportive workplace initiatives. For example, Behson (2005) demonstrated that supportive supervision explained more variance in job satisfaction , work\u2013family conflict, and turnover intentions than formal support . Furthermore, unsupportive supervisors can act to undermine the effect of family-friendly benefits and offset any potential positive impact of benefit utilization (Kossek 2005). Despite the importance of supervisor support , the role of family-friendly benefits should not be downplayed. Foley et al. (2006) found that family-supportive organizations are a boundary condition under which family-supportive supervision can occur. In other words, supervisors are less likely to provide family-specific support to employees in the absence of a family-supportive organizational culture , as evidenced by formal family-friendly benefits.\n\nAs already noted, scholars have offered multiple explanations for the counterintuitive evidence surrounding organizational family-friendly benefits, such as underutilization due to lack of awareness about what is available and concerns about possible negative repercussions associated with their use (e.g., Kossek 2005; Neal and Hammer 2007). Consistently, however, the role of direct supervision has been presented as a critical determinant of benefit usage and efficacy. Immediate supervisors are in a unique position to facilitate employees' management of work and family roles, especially given that the simple presence of family-friendly benefits is not sufficient to alleviate the experience of work\u2013family conflict (Allen 2001; Kossek 2005).\n\nA great deal of evidence exists that links supervisor support and the experience of work\u2013family conflict (e.g., Byron 2005; Hammer et al. 2007), and the negative impact of work\u2013family conflict has been demonstrated on an array of individual and organizational outcomes (e.g., job and family satisfaction , job performance, turnover intentions , organizational commitment , physical and mental health ; Allen 2001; Allen et al. 2000; Ford et al. 2007; Grzywacz and Bass 2003; Hammer et al. 2005). Employees who perceive their supervisors as being supportive of personal work\u2013family management needs are likely to experience reduced levels of work\u2013family conflict (cf., Kossek et al. 2011). Family-supportive supervisors engage in behaviors such as provision of emotional support (e.g., listening, empathizing), instrumental support (e.g., accommodating flexible work schedules) , role modeling, and brainstorming creative work\u2013family management strategies with employees to help them manage work and non-work demands (Hammer et al. 2009). Supervisors who exhibit such family-supportive supervisor behaviors (FSSB) tend to be perceived as more accommodating of employees' non-work responsibilities than supervisors who do not exhibit these behaviors. In a recent study, Matthews et al. (2014) provided preliminary evidence that FSSB explain incremental variance in employee work engagement above and beyond perceptions of general managerial effectiveness and organizational support. In addition, work engagement was found to mediate the relationship between employee perceptions of FSSB and subjective wellbeing.\n\nWays in which family-supportive supervisors can help employees reduce the experience of work\u2013family conflict include: fostering a high-quality exchange relationship with their subordinates (Liden and Graen 1980), demonstrating family-supportive behaviors (Hammer et al. 2009), championing the use of family-friendly benefits (Hammer et al. 2007), and helping create or maintain a family-friendly organizational culture (Thompson et al. 1999). Supervisors are typically viewed as representatives of organizational practices and top leadership , and as such, they can influence employee attitudes and outcomes (e.g., wellbeing, affective organizational commitment , turnover intentions , work\u2013family conflict; Allen 2001; Major and Lauzun 2010; Thompson et al. 1999). As such, the power of the supervisors should be harnessed to enhance the utilization and efficacy of family-friendly benefits. For an expanded discussion on the role of supervisor support in the management of the work\u2013family interface, see Matthews et al. (2013).\n\n### 12.8.1 Supervisor Support and Gender Differences\n\nGiven the importance of supervisor support in helping employees manage the work\u2013family interface, it is surprising that the supervisor\u2013employee dyad has not been examined in greater depth in the literature. Specifically, as it pertains to benefit utilization, supervisor gender is a key contextual factor that can help further explain why family-friendly benefits do not always have the intended positive results.\n\nTo address this gap in the literature, researchers have begun to examine the issue of supervisor gender as it relates to work\u2013family management. Anecdotally, female supervisors are typically considered as more supportive of work\u2013family management needs than male supervisors. Research seems to support this general belief (Hopkins 2002; Parker and Allen 2002). For example, supervisors often provide differential support to employees based on gender, with female supervisors offering higher levels of family-specific support (i.e., making referrals to employee assistance programs) to female employees (Gerstein et al. 1993). Perhaps one reason for this comes from research by Foley et al. (2006) who found that employees feel more comfortable requesting family-related help from same-gender, compared to cross-gender supervisors. Interestingly, Foley et al. noted this gender effect did not weaken in the presence of a highly family-supportive organizational culture. Although the gender effect they found explained less variance in family-supportive supervision and family-supportive culture, gender differences present a critical issue that should not be overlooked in future research .\n\nConsistent with Foley et al.'s (2006) findings, Hopkins (2002) showed that female employees are more likely to seek assistance for family and personal problems from same-gender supervisors. Hopkins also provided support for the interaction between employee and supervisor gender with respect to important family- and work-related outcomes. Specifically, female supervisors were more likely to provide formal support referrals to male employees. Interestingly, however, Hopkins also noted that female employees perceived their male supervisor to be more supportive (i.e., understanding and flexible) than did female employees with female supervisors. A potential caveat that could help explain this seemingly contradictory finding is the gender composition of the organization. Specifically, in organizations where female employees are underrepresented relative to male employees, female employees perceive their female supervisor as less supportive than their male supervisors (Ryan et al. 2012). This finding is inconsistent with most anecdotal and scholarly evidence, and highlights the need to always consider important contextual and organizational environments within which supervisor\u2013employee dyads are nested.\n\nFurther highlighting the role that supervisor gender plays in widening the gender gap associated with supervisory support, recent findings by Raghuram et al. (2012) demonstrated that the difference in stress levels for male versus female immigrants was twice as large when the supervisor was perceived as unsupportive. Taking a more granular approach, Winfield and Rushing (2005) examined whether gender influenced the type of support provided and found that when the direct supervisor was of the same gender, employees were likely to receive interactional but not instrumental support.\n\nLi and Bagger (2011) extended the issue of supervisor\u2013employee dyad similarity to encompass similarity in not only gender but also childcare responsibilities. Specifically, the authors suggested that within cross-gender dyads, provision of family-specific support was dependent on the amount of supervisor childcare responsibilities such that supervisors with higher levels of childcare responsibilities relative to their employees provided higher levels of family-supportive supervision. These effects, however, were not supported for same-gender supervisor\u2013employee dyads, perhaps due to the unconditional provision of support within same-gendered dyads regardless of any differences (or similarities) in childcare responsibilities. As such, in addition to consideration of gender, dependent care responsibilities should be examined as another factor that may play a role in perpetuating the gender gap.\n\nThese findings indicate that supervisors may in fact be key perpetrators of the development and maintenance of a gender gap as it pertains to utilization and efficacy of family-friendly benefits. Well-known social psychology phenomena such as favoritism, interpersonal attraction, and similarity bias may be the primary culprits for this gender-driven differential provision of support (Foley et al. 2006). Future research should continue to devote efforts to further delineate how supervisor demographic characteristics such as gender can act to facilitate or impede the success of family-friendly benefits and employees' ability to effectively manage the work\u2013family interface.\n\n### 12.8.2 I-Deals and the Gender Gap\n\nIdiosyncratic deals (i.e., i-deals) have been widely promoted as a best practice in strategic management (e.g., Hornung et al. 2008). Major and Lauzun (2010) extended the i-deal framework to the work\u2013family context by drawing on previous qualitative research demonstrating that many of the work\u2013life needs and requests employees make of supervisors were highly idiosyncratic in nature (e.g., childcare, eldercare , flextime ; Morganson et al. 2007). The work\u2013family i-deal is defined as a \"voluntary, personalized agreement in which an aspect or aspects of the employment arrangement are negotiated between an individual employee and the employer expressly for the mutual benefit derived from reduced work\u2013family conflict\" (Major and Lauzun 2009, p. 6). Major and Lauzun argue that when supervisors foster high-quality leader-member exchange (i.e., LMX; unique relationships ranging from low to high-quality based on exchange of resources; Liden and Graen 1980) with their employees, they are more likely to engage in constructive negotiation of the work\u2013family i-deal that would address specific employee work\u2013family needs.\n\nEncouraging supervisors to negotiate i-deals with each of their employees is one way to reduce the gender gap that occurs with respect to utilization and effectiveness of family-friendly benefits. Furthermore, and in light of Kossek et al.'s (2011) meta-analytic findings suggesting that perceptions of family-supportive supervision are more important in helping to alleviate employee work\u2013family conflict compared to perceptions of generally supportive supervision, i-deals could be harnessed to match the type of provided supervisor support to the unique employee work\u2013family situation, irrespective of gender. A \"one-size-fits-all\" approach in the provision of family-specific supervision should be discouraged as it is considered ineffective work\u2013family management (Major et al. 2008). As such, and extending previous recommendations for supervisor training programs (e.g., Major and Lauzun 2009), future intervention work should aim to educate supervisors on how to effectively negotiate i-deals with both male and female employees. Specifically, supervisors should become aware of relevant gender differences, biases, and stereotypes and learn how to overcome them, and as a result, become well-equipped to recognize the idiosyncrasies specific to each individual employee.\n\n### 12.8.3 Importance of Supervisor Summary\n\nThere is irrefutable evidence that supervisors are crucial to the success of family-friendly benefits and the employees' ability to effectively manage the work\u2013family interface. Although studies on the supervisor\u2013employee dyad are limited, empirical and theoretical support exists for the effect of supervisor\u2013employee gender similarity on the experience of supportive supervision and various employee outcomes. Given that supervisors can serve as a communication channel connecting various levels within an organization, they should be encouraged to champion family-friendly benefits and provide fair and idiosyncratic family-specific support that is free of gender biases and stereotypes.\n\n## 12.9 Future Directions\n\nBecause gender plays a large role in the utilization and effectiveness of family-friendly benefits, we can greatly benefit from future research on the subject. Although the intersection of gender and family-friendly benefits has been widely researched of late, there are many areas for future inquiry. First of all, further examination of employer practices regarding advertisement of family-friendly benefits is warranted. In particular, we suggest exploration into whether certain practices are advertised on a gendered basis, i.e., are some benefits advertised more to women than men, and vice versa. Second, assessing potential gender differences in strategies to obtain work\u2013life balance is another valuable avenue to investigate. For example, as previously noted, the evidence concerning gender preferences for particular benefits is mixed. Researchers should aim to examine whether men and women use these benefits for different reasons, and whether men and women differ in their tendency to seek out formal versus informal benefits . Due to the stigmatization associated with these benefits, employees may be covert in seeking out support for their family life.\n\nSimilarly, it would be constructive to examine whether men and women judge the effectiveness of family friendly-benefits based on different criteria. As Sharpe et al. (2002) noted, men and women may put more emphasis on performance and work\u2013family conflict, respectively. Is this indeed the case, or are men and women simply reporting in a way that is congruent with traditional gender stereotypes? This leads to perhaps the most significant area for future investigation\u2014how to reduce the negative perceptions associated with breaking gender norms . There is a desperate need for future research in this area, as gendered stigmatization is evident for both men and women. Finally, a topic that can work in concert with that mentioned previously is future investigation into the supervisor\u2013employee dyad. Preliminary evidence suggests the importance of considering gender as a large contributor to employee perceptions and supervisor decisions related to family-friendly benefits. Given that supervisors may reinforce traditional gender norms (Kelly 2010)\u2014thereby discouraging some employees from utilizing benefits while possibly encouraging others\u2014future research should continue to explore this dynamic.\n\n## 12.10 Conclusion\n\nGender norms and expectations are still alive and well in the workplace today, particularly when it comes to family-friendly benefits. As a result, both men and women are at risk for social and professional stigmatization. Although many organizational benefits and procedures advertise gender equality, these claims appear to be superficial due to the persistent ideals of how men and women \"should\" act in their work and family domains. Until employees, supervisors, and organizations put forth a genuine effort to enforce gender equality by overcoming traditional gendered expectations, in both formal and informal procedures, family-friendly benefits will continue to show a mix of positive and negative outcomes. It is hoped that this chapter will stimulate interest in the topic and therefore encourage progress toward the goal of gender equality.\n\nReferences\n\nAllen, T. D. (2001). Family-supportive work environments: The role of organizational perceptions. Journal of Vocational Behavior, 58, 414\u2013435.\n\nAllen, T. D., & Russell, J. E. (1999). Parental leave of absence: Some not so family-friendly implications. Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 29, 166\u2013191.\n\nAllen, T. D., Herst, D. E. L., Bruck, C. S., & Sutton, M. (2000). Consequences associated with work-to-family conflict: A review and agenda for future research. Journal of Occupational Health Psychology, 5, 278\u2013308.PubMed\n\nArmenia, A., & Gerstel, N. (2006). Family leaves, the FMLA, and gender neutrality: The intersection of race and gender. Social Science Research, 35, 871\u2013891.\n\nBaird, C. L., & Reynolds, J. R. (2004). Employee awareness of family leave benefits: The effects of family, work, and gender. Sociological Quarterly, 45, 325\u2013353.\n\nBehson, S. J. (2005). The relative contribution of formal and informal organizational work-family support. Journal of Vocational Behavior, 66, 487\u2013500.\n\nBerdahl, J. L., & Moon, S. H. (2013). Workplace mistreatment of middle class workers based on sex, parenthood, and caregiving. Journal of Social Issues, 69, 341\u2013366.\n\nBlair-Loy, M., & Wharton, A. S. (2002). Employees' use of work-family policies and the workplace social context. Social Forces, 80, 813\u2013845.\n\nBloom, N., Kretschmer, T., & Van Reenen, J. (2011). Are family-friendly workplace practices a valuable firm resource? Strategic Management Journal, 32, 343\u2013367.\n\nBornstein, S. (2013). The legal and policy implications of the \"flexibility stigma\". Journal of Social Issues, 69, 389\u2013405.\n\nBourhis, M., & Mekkaoui, R. (2010). Beyond work-family balance: Are family-friendly organizations more attractive? Industrial Relations, 65, 98\u2013117.\n\nBreaugh, J. A., & Farabee, A. M. (2012). Telecommuting and flexible work hours: Alternative work arrangements that can improve the quality of work life. In N. P. Reilly, M. J. Sirgy, & C. A. Gorman (Eds.), Work and quality life: Ethical practices in organizations (pp. 251\u2013274). New York: Springer.\n\nBreaugh, J. A., & Frye, N. K. (2007). An examination of the antecedents and consequences of the use of family-friendly benefits. Journal of Managerial Issues, 19, 35\u201352.\n\nByron, K. (2005). A meta-analytic review of work-family conflict and its antecedents. Journal of Vocational Behavior, 67, 169\u2013198.\n\nBureau of Labor Statistics. (2013). Labor force statistics from the Current Population Survey. Annual average data. Retrieved from http:\/\/\u200bwww.\u200bbls.\u200bgov\/\u200bcps\/\u200btables.\u200bhtm.\n\nButler, A., Gasser, M., & Smart, L. (2004). A social-cognitive perspective on using family-friendly benefits. Journal of Vocational Behavior, 65, 57\u201370.\n\nButler, A., & Skattebo, A. (2004). What is acceptable for women may not be for men: The effect of family conflicts with work on job-performance ratings. Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology, 77, 553\u2013564.\n\nButts, M. M., Casper, W. J., & Yang, T. S. (2013). How important are work-family support policies? A meta-analytic investigation of their effects on employee outcomes. Journal of Applied Psychology, 98, 1\u201325.PubMed\n\nCarlson, D. S., Grzywacz, J. G., & Kacmar, K. M. (2010). The relationship of schedule flexibility and outcomes via the work-family interface. Journal of Managerial Psychology, 25, 330\u2013355.\n\nCasper, W. J., & Harris, C. M. (2008). Work-life benefits and organizational attachment: Self-interest utility and signaling theory models. Journal of Vocational Behavior, 72, 95\u2013109.\n\nColeman, J. M., & Franiuk, R. (2011). Perceptions of mothers and fathers who take temporary leave. Sex Roles, 64, 311\u2013323.\n\nCorrell, S. J., Benard, S., & Paik, I. (2007). Getting a job: Is there a motherhood penalty? American Journal of Sociology, 112, 1297\u20131339.\n\nCrosby, F. J., Williams, J. C., & Biernat, M. (2004). The maternal wall. Journal of Social Issues, 60, 675\u2013682.\n\nDavis, A. E., & Kalleberg, A. L. (2006). Family-friendly organizations? Work and family programs in the 1990s. Work and Occupations, 33, 191\u2013223.\n\nDe Menezes, L. M., & Kelliher, C. (2011). Flexible working and performance: A systematic review of the evidence for a business case. International Journal of Management Reviews, 13, 452\u2013474.\n\nDodson, L. (2013). Stereotyping low-wage mothers who have work and family conflicts. Journal of Social Issues, 69, 257\u2013278.\n\nEataugh, C., & Folger, D. (1998). Perceptions of parents whose work and parenting behaviors deviate from role expectations. Sex Roles, 39, 215\u2013223.\n\nEaton, S. C. (2003). If you can use them: Flexibility policies, organizational commitment, and perceived performance. Industrial Relations: A Journal of Economy and Society, 42, 145\u2013167.\n\nFoley, S., Linnehan, F., Greenhaus, J. H., & Weer, C. H. (2006). The impact of gender similarity, racial similarity, and work culture on family-supportive supervision. Group & Organization Management, 31, 420\u2013442.\n\nFondas, N. (2013). How women and men use flexible work policies. The Atlantic. Retrieved from http:\/\/\u200bwww.\u200btheatlantic.\u200bcom\/\u200bsexes\/\u200barchive\/\u200b2013\/\u200b07\/\u200bhow-women-and-men-use-flexible-work-policies-differently\/\u200b277954\/\u200b.\n\nFord, M. T., Heinen, B. A., & Langkamer, K. L. (2007). Work and family satisfaction and conflict: A meta-analysis of cross-domain relations. Journal of Applied Psychology, 92, 57\u201380.PubMed\n\nFuegen, K., Biernat, M., Haines, E., & Deaux, K. (2004). Mothers and fathers in the workplace: How gender and parental status influence judgements of job-related competence. Journal of Social Issues, 60, 737\u2013754.\n\nFunk, L. C., & Werhun, C. D. (2011). \"You're such a girl!\" The psychological drain of the gender-role harassment of men. Sex Roles, 65, 13\u201322.\n\nGalinsky, E., Bond, J. T., & Hill, E. J. (2004). A status report on workplace flexibility: Who has it? Who wants it? What difference does it make? New York: Families and Work Institute.\n\nGalinsky, E., Bond, J. T., & Sakai, K. (2008). 2008 national study of employers. New York: Families and Work Institute.\n\nGalinsky, E., Sakai, K., & Wigton, T. (2011). Workplace flexibility: From research to action. The Future of Children, 21, 141\u2013161.PubMed\n\nGerstein, L., Moore, D., Duffy, K., & Daina, C. (1993). The effects of biological sex and ethnicity on EAP utilization and referrals. Consulting Psychology Journal, 45, 23\u201327.\n\nGerstel, N., & Armenia, A. (2009). Giving and taking family leaves: Right or privilege? Yale Journal of Law & Feminism, 21, 161\u2013184.\n\nGerstel, N., & McGonagle, K. (1999). Job leaves and the limits of the Family and Medical Leave Act: The effects of gender, race, and family. Work and Occupations, 26, 510\u2013534.\n\nGlauber, R. (2011). Limited access: Gender, occupational composition, and flexible work scheduling. The Sociological Quarterly, 52, 472\u2013494.PubMed\n\nGoldberg, W. A., Kelly, E., Matthews, N. L., Kang, H., Li, W., & Sumaroka, M. (2012). The more things change, the more they stay the same: Gender, culture, and college students' views about work and family. Journal of Social Issues, 68, 814\u2013837.\n\nGolden, L. (2008). Limited access: Disparities in flexible work schedules and work-at-home. Journal of Economic Issues, 29, 86\u2013109.\n\nGolden, L. (2009). Flexible daily work schedules in U.S. jobs: Formal introductions needed? Industrial Relations: A Journal of Economy and Society, 48, 27\u201354.\n\nGorman, K. A., & Fritzsche, B. A. (2002). The good-mother stereotype: Stay at home (or wish that you did!). Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 32, 2190\u20132201.\n\nGreenhaus, J. H., & Beutell, N. J. (1985). Sources of conflict between work and family roles. Academy of Management Review, 10, 76\u201388.\n\nGregory, A., & Milner, S. (2009). Work-life balance: A matter of choice? Gender, Work, and Organization, 16, 1\u201313.\n\nGrzywacz, J. G., & Bass, B. L. (2003). Work, family, and mental health: Testing different models of work-family fit. Journal of Marriage & Family, 65, 248\u2013261.\n\nGrzywacz, J. G., & Butler, A. B. (2008). Work-family conflict. In J. Barling & C. L. Cooper (Eds.), The Sage handbook of organizational behavior (pp. 451\u2013468). Los Angeles: Sage.\n\nHammer, L. B., Kossek, E. E., Yragui, N. L., Bodner, T. E., & Hanson, G. C. (2009). Development and validation of a multidimensional measure of family supportive supervisor behaviors (FSSB). Journal of Management, 35, 837\u2013856.PubMedCentralPubMed\n\nHammer, L. B., Kossek, E. E., Zimmerman, K., & Daniels, R. (2007). Clarifying the construct of family-supportive supervisory behaviors (FSSB): A multilevel perspective. In P. L. Perrew\u00e9, D. C. Ganster, P. L. Perrew\u00e9, & D. C. Ganster (Eds.), Exploring the work and non-work interface (pp. 165\u2013204). Bingley: Emerald.\n\nHammer, L. B., Neal, M. B., Newsom, J. T., Brockwood, K. J., & Colton, C. L. (2005). A longitudinal study of the effects of dual-earner couples' utilization of family-friendly workplace supports on work and family outcomes. Journal of Applied Psychology, 90, 799\u2013810.PubMed\n\nHammer, L. B., & Zimmerman, K. L. (2011). Quality of work life. In S. Zedeck (Ed.), American Psychological Association handbook of industrial and organizational psychology (pp. 391\u2013431). Washington, DC.: American Psychological Association.\n\nHeilman, M. E., & Okimoto, T. G. (2008). Motherhood: A potential source of bias in employment decisions. Journal of Applied Psychology, 93, 189\u2013198.PubMed\n\nHeilman, M. E., & Wallen, A. S. (2010). Wimpy and undeserving of respect: Penalties for men's gender-inconsistent success. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 46, 664\u2013667.\n\nHill, E. J., Hawkins, A. J., Martinson, V., & Ferris, M. (2003). Studying \"working fathers\": Comparing fathers' and mothers' work-family conflict, fit, and adaptive strategies in a global high-tech company. Men's Studies Press, 1, 239\u2013261.\n\nHopkins, K. M. (2002). Interactions of gender and race in workers' help seeking for personal\/family problems: Perceptions of supervisor support and intervention. Journal of Applied Behavioral Science, 38, 156\u2013176.\n\nHornung, S., Rousseau, D. M., & Glaser, J. (2008). Creating flexible work arrangements through idiosyncratic deals. Journal of Applied Psychology, 93, 655\u2013664.PubMed\n\nJones, R., & Murrell, A. J. (2001). Signaling positive corporate social performance. An event study of family-friendly firms. Business & Society, 40, 59\u201378.\n\nJudge, T. A., Livingston, B. A., & Hurst, C. (2012). Do nice guys-and gals-really finish last? The joint effects of sex and agreeableness on income. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 102, 390\u2013407.PubMed\n\nKelly, E. L. (2010). Failure to update: An institutional perspective on noncompliance with the Family and Medical Leave Act. Law & Society Review, 44, 33\u201366.\n\nKelly, E. L., Ammons, S. K., Chermack, K., & Moen, P. (2010). Gendered challenge, gendered response: Confronting the ideal worker norm in a white-collar organization. Gender & Society, 24, 281\u2013303.\n\nKelly, E. L., & Kalev, A. (2006). Managing flexible work arrangements in US organizations: Formalized discretion or 'a right to ask'. Socio-Economic Review, 4, 379\u2013416.\n\nKlerman, J. A., Daley, K., & Pozniak, A. (2013). Family and medical leave in 2012: Technical report. Washington, D.C.: Abt Associates.\n\nKossek, E. (2005). Workplace policies and practices to support work and families. In S. Bianchi, L. Casper, & R. King (Eds.), Work, family, health & well-being (pp. 97\u2013116). Mahwah: LEA Press.\n\nKossek, E. E., & Distelberg, B. (2009). Work and family employment policy for a transformed work force: Trends and themes. In N. Crouter & A. Booth (Eds.), Work-life policies (pp. 1\u201351). Washington, D.C.: Urban Institute Press.\n\nKossek, E. E., & Michel, J. S. (2011). Flexible work schedules. In S. Zedeck (Ed.), American Psychological Association handbook of industrial organizational psychology (pp. 535\u2013572). Washington, D.C.: American Psychological Association.\n\nKossek, E. E., Pichler, S., Bodner, T., & Hammer, L. B. (2011). Workplace social support and work-family conflict: A meta-analysis clarifying the influence of general and work-family-specific supervisor and organizational support. Personnel Psychology, 64, 289\u2013313.PubMedCentralPubMed\n\nKramer, A. (2008). Unions as facilitators of employment rights: An analysis of individuals' awareness of parental leave in the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth. Industrial Relations, 47, 651\u2013658.\n\nLi, A., & Bagger, J. (2011). Walking in your shoes: Interactive effects of child care responsibility difference and gender similarity on supervisory family support and work-related outcomes. Group & Organizational Management, 36, 659\u2013691.\n\nLiden, R. C., & Graen, G. B. (1980). Generalizability of the vertical dyad linkage model of leadership. Academy of Management Journal, 23, 451\u2013465.\n\nLowen, A., & Sicilian, P. (2009). \"Family friendly\" fringe benefits and the gender wage gap. Journal of Labor Research, 30, 101\u2013119.\n\nMajor, D. A., Fletcher, T. D., Davis, D. D., & Germano, L. M. (2008). The influence of work-family culture and workplace relationships on work interference with family: A multilevel model. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 29, 881\u2013897.\n\nMajor, D. A., & Germano, L. M. (2006). The changing nature of work and its impact on the work-home interface. In F. Jones, R. Burke, & M. Westman (Eds.), Work-life balance: A psychological perspective (pp. 13\u201338). London: Psychology Press.\n\nMajor, D. A., & Lauzun, H. M. (July 2009). An i-deals approach to coping with work-family conflict: Antecedents and consequences. Paper presented at the III international conference of work and family, Barcelona, Spain.\n\nMajor, D. A., & Lauzun, H. M. (2010). Equipping managers to assist employees in addressing work-family conflict: Applying the research literature toward innovative practice. The Psychologist-Manager Journal, 13, 69\u201385.\n\nMartenengo, G., Jacob, J., & Hill, E. (2010). Gender and the work-family interface: Exploring differences across the family life course. Journal of Family Issues, 31, 1363\u20131390.\n\nMatos, K., & Galinsky, E. (2012). 2012 national study of employers. New York: Families and Work Institute.\n\nMatthews, R. A., Bulger, C. A., & Booth, S. M. (2013). Managing the work-family interface to the benefit of both subordinates and supervisors: Looking beyond supervisor support and focusing on leadership behaviors. In M. Paludi (Ed.), Psychology for business success: Juggling, balancing, and integrating work and family roles and responsibilities (pp. 153\u2013170). Santa Barbara: Praeger.\n\nMatthews, R. A., Mills, M. J., Trout, R. C., & English, L. (2014). Family-supportive supervisor, behaviors, work, engagement, and subjective, well-being: A contextually dependent mediated process. Journal of Occupational Health Psychology, 19, 168\u2013181.PubMed\n\nMcCrate, E. (2005). Flexible hours, workplace authority, and compensating wage differentials in the US. Feminist Economics, 11, 11\u201339.\n\nMcMenamin, T. M. (2007). Time to work: Recent trends in shift work and flexible schedules. Monthly Labor Review, 130, 3\u201315.\n\nMcNamara, T. K., Pitt-Catsouphes, M., Brown, M., & Matz-Costa, C. (2012). Access to and utilization of flexible work options. Industrial Relations: A Journal of Economy and Society, 51, 936\u2013965.\n\nMorganson, V. J., Major, D. A., & Green, A. P. (Aug 2007). Seeking work-life balance: Employees' requests and managers' responses. Poster presented at the annual convention of the American Psychological Association, San Francisco, CA, USA.\n\nMoss-Racusin, C. A., Phelan, J. E., & Rudman, L. A. (2010). When men break the gender rules: Status incongruity and backlash against modest men. Psychology of Men and Masculinity, 11, 140\u2013151.\n\nNeal, M. B., & Hammer, L. B. (2007). Working couples caring for children and aging parents: Effects on work and well-being. Mahwah: Erlbaum.\n\nOkimoto, T. G., & Heilman, M. E. (2012). The \"bad parent\" assumption: How gender stereotypes affect reactions to working mothers. Journal of Social Issues, 68, 704\u2013724.\n\nParker, L. B., & Allen, T. D. (April 2002). Factors related to supervisor work\/family sensitivity and flexibility. Paper presented at the Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology Conference, Toronto, Canada.\n\nPoelmans, S. (2012). The \"triple N\" model: Changing normative beliefs about parenting and career success. Journal of Social Issues, 68, 838\u2013847.\n\nPrentice, D. A., & Carranza, E. (2002). What women and men should be, shouldn't be, are allowed to be, and don't have to be. The contents of prescriptive gender stereotypes. Psychology of Women Quarterly, 26, 269\u2013281.\n\nProttas, D. J., Thompson, C. A., Kopelman, R. E., & Jahn, E. W. (2007). Work-family programs: Factors affecting employee knowledge and accuracy. Personnel Review, 36, 163\u2013189.\n\nRaghuram, S., Weisenfeld, B., & Garud, R. (2003). Technology enabled work: The role of self-efficacy in determining telecommuter adjustment and structuring behavior. Journal of Vocational Behavior, 63, 180\u2013198.\n\nRaghuram, A., Luksyte, A., Avery, D. R., & Macoukji, F. (2012). Does your supervisor stress you out? How support influences sex differences in stress among immigrants. Journal of Career Development, 39, 99\u2013117.\n\nRudman, L. A., & Fairchild, K. (2004). Reactions to counterstereotypic behavior: The role of backlash in cultural stereotype maintenance. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 87, 157\u2013176.PubMed\n\nRudman, L. A., & Mescher, K. (2013). Penalizing men who request a family leave: Is flexibility stigma a femininity stigma? Journal of Social Issues, 69, 322\u2013340.\n\nRudman, L. A., & Phelan, J. E. (2008). Backlash effect for disconfirming gender stereotypes in organizations. Research in Organizational Behavior, 28, 61\u201379.\n\nRyan, K. M., King, E. B., Adis, C., Gulick, L. M. V., Peddie, C., & Hargraves, R. (2012). Exploring the asymmetrical effects of gender tokenism on supervisor-subordinate relationships. Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 42, E56\u2013E102.\n\nRyan, A. M., & Kossek, E. E. (2008). Work-life policy implementation: Breaking down or creating barriers to inclusiveness? Human Resource Management, 47, 295\u2013310.\n\nSharpe, D. L., Hermsen, J. M., & Billings, J. (2002). Gender differences in use of alternative full-time work arrangements by married workers. Family and Consumer Sciences Research Journal, 31, 78\u2013111.\n\nSingh, P., Paleti, R., Jenkins, S., & Bhat, C. R. (2013). On modelling telecommuting behavior: Option, choice, and frequency. Transportation, 40, 373\u2013396.\n\nSingley, S. G., & Hynes, K. (2005). Transitions to parenthood: Work-family policies, gender, and the couple context. Gender & Society, 19, 376\u2013397.\n\nSociety for Human Resource Management (SHRM). (2012). 2012 Employee benefits: The employee benefits landscape in a recovering economy. Retrieved from http:\/\/\u200bwww.\u200bshrm.\u200borg\/\u200bResearch\/\u200bSurveyFindings\/\u200bArticles\/\u200bDocuments\/\u200b2012_\u200bEmpBenefits_\u200bReport.\u200bpdf.\n\nStone, P., & Hernandez, L. A. (2013). The all-or-nothing workplace: Flexibility stigma and \"opting out\" among professional-managerial women. Journal of Social Issues, 69, 235\u2013256.\n\nSwanberg, J. E., Pitt-Catsouphes, M., & Drescher-Burke, K. (2005). A question of justice: Disparities in employees' access to flexible schedule arrangements. Journal of Family Issues, 26, 866\u2013895.\n\nThomas, L. T., & Ganster, D. C. (1995). Impact of family-supportive work variables on work-family conflict and strain: A control perspective. Journal of Applied Psychology, 80, 6\u201315.\n\nThompson, C. A., Beauvais, L. L., & Lyness, K. S. (1999). When work-family benefits are not enough: The influence of work-family culture on benefit utilization, organizational attachment, and work-family conflict. Journal of Vocational Behavior, 54, 392\u2013415.\n\nUnited States Department of Labor. (2013). Family and Medical Leave Act: Overview. Retrieved from http:\/\/\u200bwww.\u200bdol.\u200bgov\/\u200bwhd\/\u200bfmla\/\u200b.\n\nVandello, J. A., Hettinger, V. E., Bosson, J. K., & Siddiqi, J. (2013). When equal really isn't equal: The masculine dilemma of seeking work flexibility. Journal of Social Issues, 69, 303\u2013321.\n\nVan Giezen, R. W. (2013). Paid leave in private industry over the past 20 years. Pay and benefits, 2, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Retrieved from http:\/\/\u200bwww.\u200bbls.\u200bgov\/\u200bopub\/\u200bbtn\/\u200bvolume-2\/\u200bpaid-leave-in-private-industry-over-the-past-20-years.\u200bhtm.\n\nVillablanca, A. C., Beckett, L., Nettiksimmons, J., & Howell, L. P. (2011). Career flexibility and family-friendly policies: An NIH-funded study to enhance women's careers in biomedical sciences. Journal of Women's Health, 20, 1485\u20131496.PubMedCentralPubMed\n\nVinkenburg, C. J., van Engen, M. L., Coffeng, J., & Dikkers, J. S. E. (2012). Bias in employment decisions about mothers and fathers: The (dis)advantages of sharing care responsibilities. Journal of Social Issues, 68, 725\u2013741.\n\nWaldfogel, J. (2001). Family and medical leave: Evidence from the 2000 surveys. Monthly Labor Review, 124, 17\u201323.\n\nWayne, J. H., & Casper, W. J. (2012). Why does firm reputation in human resource policies influence college students? The mechanisms underlying job pursuit intentions. Human Resource Management, 51, 121\u2013142.\n\nWayne, J. H., & Codeiro, B. L. (2003). Who is a good organizational citizen? Social perception of male and female employees who use family leave. Sex Roles, 49, 233\u2013246.\n\nWilliams, J. C., Blair-Loy, M., & Berdahl, J. L. (2013). Cultural schemas, social class, and the flexibility stigma. Journal of Social Issues, 69, 209\u2013234.\n\nWinfield, I., & Rushing, B. (2005). Bridging the border between work and family: The effects of supervisor-employee similarity. Sociological Inquiry, 75, 55\u201380.\n\u00a9 Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2015\n\nMaura J. Mills (ed.)Gender and the Work-Family Experience10.1007\/978-3-319-08891-4_13\n\n# 13. Shiftwork as Gendered and Its Impact on Work\u2013Family Balance\n\nMaura J. Mills2  and Ryan M. Rosiello1\n\n(1)\n\nDepartment of Psychology, Hofstra University, 135 Hofstra University, 11549 Hempstead, NY, USA\n\n(2)\n\nDepartments of Psychology and Management, Hofstra University, 135 Hofstra University, 11549 Hempstead, NY, USA\n\nMaura J. Mills (Corresponding author)\n\nEmail: maura.mills@hofstra.edu\n\nRyan M. Rosiello\n\nEmail: rrosie3@pride.hofstra.edu\n\nKeywords\n\nWork\u2013familyGenderGendered occupationsShiftworkWork scheduleFlexibilityFatigueHealth\n\n## 13.1 The Shift to Shiftwork\n\n### 13.1.1 Standard and Nonstandard Shifts\n\nThroughout history, the most common representation of a work shift has been the fixed day shift in which employees' work hours fall between the hours of 8:00 am and 5:00 pm, Monday through Friday (Perrucci et al. 2007; Presser 2006) . Since this shift has been most common throughout history, it is often referred to as a 'standard' shift or schedule (Presser 2006). Although the standard shift has traditionally been the most common, there also exist other types of shifts worth exploring. In fact, it is because of these other shift types that the common fixed day schedule is considered to be a work shift and not just a typical work day. Any shift that operates outside of standard work hours or days is defined as a nonstandard shift (Albertsen et al. 2008; Barthe et al. 2011; Perrucci et al. 2007; Presser 2003; Wittmer and Martin 2010). Some types of work that are representative of nonstandard work schedules are part-time work , contract work, and self\u2013employment (Presser 2003). Furthermore, nonstandard schedules are more likely to occur in service sector occupations such as protective community services or health care than in nonservice sectors with more predictable and less time-sensitive demands (Tuttle and Garr 2012). For employees in the former fields, likely subjected to shiftwork, the 40-hour (or more) work week is undoubtedly still manageable, but how it is managed by the employee and facilitated by the organization can make all the difference .\n\nUnlike standard shifts, which are characterized by one type of work schedule, nonstandard shifts can take several different forms . One type of nonstandard shift is fixed evening schedules, which involve working most days between 4:00 pm and midnight (Presser 2006). Another type is the fixed night schedule which involves working most days between midnight and 8:00 am (Presser 2006). In contrast to fixed schedules\u2014and perhaps more problematically in terms of work\u2013family needs\u2014there is another type of nonstandard shift, the rotating shift , in which an employee's work hours change periodically from evenings or nights to days, and\/or the employee has rotating days off between pay periods (Barthe et al. 2011; Perrucci et al. 2007; Presser 2006). Other types of nonstandard shifts include early-morning, late-evening, split-workday, and weekend work (Barthe et al. 2011).\n\nResearch has found that a substantial\u2014and growing\u2014percentage of Americans are working nonstandard shifts. Colligan et al. (1979) wrote that 26 % of the American workforce was involved in shiftwork at that time, and Fenwick and Tausig (2001) noted that by the early 1990s this number had risen to 30 %. A more recent estimation by Williams (2010) indicated that the number of people involved in shiftwork had further increased to 40 %. More specifically, Wittmer and Martin (2010) noted that 36 % of Americans are required to work weekends at least occasionally . Understandably, there is a higher incidence of shiftwork in some industries than in others, as well as in blue-collar work versus white-collar work, thereby potentially creating socioeconomic and\/or racial considerations insofar as shiftwork's effect on work\u2013family conflict.1 For instance, Root and Wooten (2008) noted that 50 % of employees working nonstandard hours work in restaurants and bars, while 25 % work in hospitals and manufacturing .\n\n### 13.1.2 The Forces Behind Shiftwork\n\nThere are some major forces behind the increasing number of employees working nonstandard schedules , including industry, demographic, and technological considerations (Presser 2006; Wittmer and Martin 2010). First, the recent shift in the industrial and economic landscape has influenced this. The economy in the 1960s appeared much different than it does today in a variety of ways, including that at that time many jobs were in large manufacturing organizations (Presser 2006; Wittmer and Martin 2010). Such jobs provided employees with greater job security and a more rigid, standard work schedule. Gradually, however, as new types of businesses started to emerge over time, the job market in the US started to shift from a primarily manufacturing economy to a more service-based economy. As opposed to manufacturing-based industries which are focused on making products for consumers, the service-based industries are more focused on providing services. Consequently, some of these services are required at all times of the day and night, such as medical care and transportation. Therefore, in order to meet the increasing demands of consumers and to effectively compete with other companies, organizations have been forced to provide services at all hours in what has been labeled as the 24\/7 economy . In order to accommodate this, organizations implemented varied shifts to staff all needed days and hours while not overburdening individual employees' quantity of work hours (Perrons et al. 2006; Presser 2006).\n\nAnother major force behind employees working nonstandard schedules is a change in workplace demographics . Over the past 50 years, there has been an enormous increase in the number of women who have entered the workforce (Barthe et al. 2011; Presser 2006; Rapoport et al. 2002). One of the reasons for this is the increasing availability of service-based jobs as a result of the changing economy (Perrons et al. 2006). Many of these jobs are subject to nonstandard scheduling since such services are needed either continuously or unpredictably. As such, with women spending an increasingly substantial proportion of their time working outside the home, the number of hours they have in the home to complete daily housework has declined. As a result, there is an increased need for services in order to help with daily in-home tasks, such as pre-made meals and household cleaning services. Some of these services may be required at nonstandard times, in turn further increasing the demand for jobs with nonstandard work schedules (Presser 2006).\n\nLastly, the increase in quality and quantity of readily-available technology is yet another major force behind employees working nonstandard schedules. The technology has made it possible for consumers to reach services they need at any time. For instance, smartphones and other mobile technologies have provided people with the opportunity to order goods or services online or over the phone at almost any hour throughout the day or night (Presser 2006). For those who work in a standard day shift, having the opportunity to obtain access to such services during the evening may be very convenient and therefore boost revenue for the providing service organization. As a result, the number of jobs requiring nonstandard hours has increased in order to meet this need.\n\n### 13.1.3 The Impact of Shiftwork\n\nThe type of shift that an employee works can have a major impact on their life, including exacerbating typical work stressors as well as introducing new ones. Employees who work nontraditional and\/or inconsistent shifts may experience a variety of negative outcomes, as explicated below.\n\n#### 13.1.3.1 Shiftwork and the Family\n\nOne of the major negative outcomes experienced by those working nonstandard shifts is increased work\u2013family conflict (Akanni 2011; Haines et al. 2008).2 For instance, employees working nonstandard night and evening shifts may be on opposite sleep\/wake schedules , thereby augmenting time-based work\u2013family conflict. Additionally, their schedules are likely to cause fatigue and potentially resultin moodiness and\/or stress (\u01feamil et al. 2013), which may lead to increased strain-based conflict (Haines et al. 2008). Indeed, various researchers have found that employees who work night, split, and rotating shifts report higher levels of work\u2013family conflict than those who work day shifts (e.g., Liu et al. 2011; Staines and Pleck 1984). Also, employees may be more likely to experience work\u2013family conflict when they have to unexpectedly cover alternate shifts at short notice (Estryn-B\u00e9har and Van der Heijden 2012). Interestingly, some initial research has found that it is not so much one's actual shift hours that lead to work\u2013family conflict so much as it is one's perception of the fit between work and family that influences how shifts are related to outcomes (Tuttle and Garr 2012). It has also been found that shiftwork negatively impacts how employees balance their work and family roles. For instance, some initial research has suggested that employees' work\u2013family balance may be more negatively affected by night and evening work than by rotating shifts (Albertsen et al. 2008). However, this is increasingly debated as rotating shifts are recognized as less predictable, and therefore more of a hindrance to day-to-day family planning considerations as well as employees' effective establishment of a consistent sleep routine . For example, Bambra et al. (2008) indicated that realignment to a new shift schedule can take between 8 and 12 days to adjust effectively, therefore leading to challenges when shifts are constantly rotating without consideration for such adjustment periods.\n\nIn addition to work\u2013family conflict overall, shiftwork can also have serious negative repercussions on family relationships specifically. One of the major ways shiftwork can impact the family is by decreasing the degree of satisfaction a couple may feel in their marriage3 (Perrons et al. 2006; Tuttle and Garr 2012). When partners work competing shifts, they may have little waking time to spend together. Therefore, spouses may no longer have time to partake in the activities that they would normally do together, such as eating meals together or participating in family or leisure activities with one another. Over time, this can cause partners to lose touch with one another and therefore feel more dissatisfied with their marriage (Albertsen et al. 2008; Presser 2006; Williams 2010).\n\nAnother way shiftwork can impact the family is by affecting parents' relationships with their children. Since shifts can occur at many different times, it may be possible for parents to adjust their schedules so that one parent cares for the child while the other is at work\u2014often referred to as tag-teaming (Williams 2010). Tag-teaming can lead to some financial benefits and may make it easier for families to cope with their work and family responsibilities (Estryn-B\u00e9har and Van der Heijden 2012; Lewis 2009; Williams 1999). Also, families may view this strategy as a way to avoid the cost and\/or perceived risk of placing their children in daycare (Williams 2010). However, despite these benefits there may also be negative effects from a relationship standpoint. For instance, when children are passed from one parent to the other, they only get to experience being with one parent at a time. Therefore, the child does not obtain the same family experience that they would if both parents and the child were all together at the same time (Lewis 2009). Furthermore, when parents work late afternoon and early evening shifts they often miss many of their children's extracurricular activities, which often take place during this time period (Presser 2006; Root and Wooten 2008). Notably, not only are they likely to miss the events themselves but they are correspondingly likely to miss opportunities to share their children's emotions immediately before and after the event. As a result, parents and children may feel less connected to each other and the quality of their relationship may decline. Lastly, when parents work different shifts, children may experience various mental and emotional issues. Some studies have shown that when parents work shifts, children are more likely to have poorer cognitive stimulation and increased odds of suffering from behavioral and emotional issues (Albertsen et al. 2008). However, although shiftwork may have a negative influence on children in the short term, a longitudinal study by White and Keith (1990) suggests that shiftwork may decrease child-related problems over time.\n\nBeyond marital and parental roles, shiftwork can also have a major impact on the family dynamic as a whole. For instance, La Valle et al. (2002) found that when family members worked nonstandard shifts they had less time to spend together sharing evening meals, family holidays, and other family activities. These activities are similar to team-building in that they help to build and reinforce a sense of unity and togetherness (Presser 2006). Also, other negative implications of shiftwork on the employee (e.g., energy depletion, lack of quality and\/or duration of sleep, moodiness) are likely to spillover to negatively affect the overall family dynamic. Such considerations have been supported by Grosswald (2003), who found that employees working nonstandard shifts tend to be less satisfied with their family lives than are employees working standard shifts.\n\nFinally, while a step removed from family relationships, an employee's general social life and nonfamilial relationships are also likely to be compromised by shiftwork. That is, such an atypical work schedule is likely to present a challenge for employees in trying to find a common time to commiserate with friends, the majority of whom are statistically likely to work more standard schedules. As such, the shift worker's ability to participate in various social activities is threatened, therefore limiting time spent with friends and, often consequently, serving as detrimental to both the number and the quality of friendships. For instance, working nonstandard hours may make it more difficult for individuals to attend important life events such as weddings, baby showers, funerals, graduations, and the like (Fenwick and Tausig 2001). As a result, shift workers may experience compromised satisfaction with their social relationships in general, both within as well as outside of the nuclear family.\n\n#### 13.1.3.2 Shiftwork and the Experience of Work\n\nAlthough shiftwork can have a major impact on an employee's familial and other social relationships, it can also have a major impact on the employee's day-to-day experience at work. For instance, such employees may have difficulty utilizing standard work\u2013family policies or benefits, as they are typically framed with the traditional worker in mind. Furthermore, nonstandard schedules have been linked to decreased job satisfaction (Barthe et al. 2011) as well as to increased job-related burnout (Estryn-B\u00e9har and Van der Heijden 2012). Moreover, those working rotating shifts may continually work with different people depending on the shift, which may prevent them from developing strong relationships at work and may impact their perceived (and actual) levels of coworker support , particularly during times of need or change, thereby negatively affecting the degree to which their needs for relatedness and affiliation are satisfied. Moreover, employees working the late night or \"graveyard\" shift, even on a consistent basis, may experience little customer interaction, again negatively affecting the satisfaction of their relatedness need in the workplace context.\n\nLinked to this idea of the quality of employees' experiences at work is shiftwork's possible impact on absenteeism , although the research has been mixed in this regard depending on shift type. For instance, Colligan et al. (1979) found that nurses who worked the night shift took more sick leaves than those who worked afternoon shifts. Similarly, Sergean and Brierly (1968) found that British metal processers working the night shift were more likely to get sick than those working day and afternoon shifts. In contrast, Thiis-Evensen (1958), while dated, performed a longitudinal study of Danish employees over a 10-year period and found that fixed day shift workers were absent from work more frequently than those who worked in nonstandard hours. Other studies have found that while employees with rotating schedules get sick more often and develop more serious health problems, they generally take fewer sick leaves than those who work in fixed shifts, regardless of whether those shifts are day or night (Colligan et al. 1979; Costa 1996).\n\n#### 13.1.3.3 Shiftwork and Health\n\nAs implied above, shiftwork can impact the quality of employees' lives through its negative impact on both physical and mental health (Estryn-B\u00e9har and Van der Heijden 2012; Fenwick and Tausig 2001; Wittmer and Martin 2010). Perhaps most obviously is shiftwork's detrimental impact on sleep . Indeed, major health issues can occur as a result of the employee sleeping during the day or on a variable schedule (Costa 1996; Fenwick and Tausig 2001). Evolutionarily, it is often suggested (e.g., Costa 1996) that humans have historically been conditioned to sleep during the nighttime (e.g., hunting was harder during darkness) and be awake during the daytime (e.g., without manufactured light, the natural light of daytime provided more opportunities for hunting, gathering, social interaction, etc.). Further, when we sleep at irregular times, we disrupt the production of melatonin, the hormone that regulates sleep cycles and strengthens the immune system. Consequently, when we force ourselves to sleep at such times, we do not sleep as long or as soundly (Costa 1996). Indeed, \u01feyane et al. (2013) found nighttime shift workers to be significantly more likely to suffer both insomnia and fatigue than employees working in traditional shifts, a finding also suggested by Estryn-B\u00e9har and Van der Heijden (2012). In addition, sleeping during the daytime is subject to more disturbances from typical daytime noises (e.g., telephone, doorbell, traffic, household noises, etc; Costa 1996). To compound these sleep problems, it is not unusual for shift workers to purposefully deprive themselves of sleep in order to spend more time with others who are normally awake during daytime hours (Presser 2006). Furthermore, when workers sleep at irregular or inconsistent times, they disturb their circadian rhythms and this can have many negative effects on their bodies (Albertsen et al. 2008; Costa 1996; Fenwick and Tausig 2001), a problem particularly relevant for employees working in biologically-insensitive shift rotation schemes. Some of the sleep-related symptoms that employees may suffer from working in these types of schedules include fatigue, insomnia, lethargy, poorer agility, decreased reaction time, and compromised productivity, performance, and safety-related behaviors (Costa 1996; Fenwick and Tausig 2001; Lindsey 2007; Pierce and Dunham 1992).\n\nBeyond the sleep challenges that are perhaps the most obvious physical symptom associated with shiftwork, employees with nonstandard work hours may also experience gastrointestinal disorders resulting from variable eating habits and their bodies' difficulties adjusting to that inconsistency (Bambra et al. 2008; Costa 1996; Fenwick and Tausig 2001). Shift workers may have to eat in a hurry or away from home, and unless they plan and prepare healthy meals ahead of time, the types of food available at later hours is often of lower quality (e.g. fast food) (Costa 1996). These gastrointestinal challenges may be particularly pertinent for employees with rotating shifts , as Wyatt and Marriot (1953) found, with results indicating that both appetite and digestion were greatly disrupted when employees changed shifts from days to nights and vice versa (Colligan et al. 1979).\n\nAnother major health issue that employees working nonstandard schedules may experience is cardiovascular disorders, including heart attacks (Wilson 2002). In fact, Fenwick and Tausig (2001) found that the likelihood of coronary heart disease increased more than 200 % after 6 years of working a rotating night shift. It is thought that one of the reasons for this is the increased stress that shiftwork often causes (Lewis 2009; Williams 1999, 2010). That is, shiftwork\u2014particularly rotating shifts\u2014may make it difficult for employees to plan ahead from week to week, resulting in undue stress linked to perceived inability to successfully manage typical mundane chores and plans. For instance, an employee may experience increased stress if he or she schedules a doctor's appointment 6 months in advance only to find out that he or she is unable to keep the appointment due to work conflicts\u2014a not uncommon situation that is further complicated by appointment cancellation fees as well as by the difficulty in trying to reschedule appointments with limited notice. This serves as only one example of why shiftwork can lead to increased stress, and others can be found throughout this chapter, in particular throughout the discussion of work\u2013family challenges in particular.\n\nMoreover, research has further suggested that shift workers are also likely to be at an increased risk for other physical health issues , although the evidence for these is less conclusive. For instance, a study by the World Health Organization (2007) found that an increased incidence of cancer might be linked to night shift work, and Fenwick and Tausig (2001) suggested that the same may be true for diabetes, elevated levels of uric acid, and high cholesterol. Most recently, Zhang et al. (2014) found that extended or inconsistent wakefulness may even lead to brain damage, as was evident in their study that subjected rats to inconsistent sleep schedules mirroring those of shift workers. Specifically, even after periods of recovery sleep , cognitive functioning and alertness remained compromised on a long-term basis, indicating damage to the area of the brain responsible for these functions\u2014the locus coeruleus\u2014via neuron loss that persists over time and, Zhang et al suggested, is likely irreversible. While this recent research obviously needs to be replicated with humans for more generalizable findings, Zhang et al.'s initial findings suggest that the overall health effects of shiftwork could be even more detrimental than previously believed.\n\n## 13.2 Shiftwork and Gender\n\nThe literature presents some mixed results in regard to the proportions of men and women participating in shiftwork. According to Beers (2000) and Presser (2003), men are more likely to work in nonstandard shifts than women because the former generally choose occupations where shiftwork is found more frequently. Beers further notes that men are more likely to work nonstandard shifts than women, even when members of both sexes are working the same job type. In contrast, Tuttle and Garr (2012) more recently noted that shiftwork has risen in lower-paying service sector jobs that tend to be female-dominated, thereby yielding more shiftwork to women. Overall, however, the majority of the literature supports the notion that shiftwork tends to remain dominated by males, even if the pendulum is beginning to shift slightly to decrease that gap.\n\nOne of the major ways that men and women may differ in regard to shiftwork is the type of shift each gender is more likely to perform. Although in general, men are slightly more likely to work in nonstandard hours than women (Presser 2006), Estryn-B\u00e9har and Van der Heijden (2012) found that female nurses generally work extended shifts more so than do men, while slightly more male nurses worked overtime than did female nurses. Other research (Presser 2006) has found that higher proportions of men work rotating hours and fixed nights schedules than women. Moreover, although few employees, regardless of gender, work exclusively weekend shifts, men are more likely than women to work weekend hours in addition to their weekly shifts. Women, on the other hand, are more likely to work only in weekdays but less than 5 days a week. Barthe et al. (2011) found that all women with heavier responsibilities reported childcare being a major reason for their choice of shift, with two-thirds of women choosing their shift to accommodate familial responsibilities and homecare duties.\n\nMen and women may also differ in their perceptions of gendered shiftwork. Marsh (1979) found some interesting results in how women and men view shiftwork and how others view them doing shiftwork; women were generally not in favor of working in the more committed types of shiftwork such as double-day shifts or weekend work. One of the reasons they tended to reject the notion of shiftwork is that they felt their lives were too complicated already and shiftwork would only make them more complicated and less manageable. In regard to how others view women working in nonstandard hours, Marsh noted that a majority of respondents in the study generally believed that women should have the opportunity to work evening shifts and overtime , especially if they are single. However, interestingly, a large majority of respondents believed that married women should not work night shifts, while a majority of male respondents saw no problem with working nonstandard schedules . Overall, Marsh noted, respondents indicated that male employees in particular should work as much as they desired, and that any issues arising from that decision are simply problems to be resolved within their respective families.\n\n## 13.3 Gender and Work\u2013Family Conflict\n\nDespite growing similarities, there remain some important distinctions between how men and women may experience work\u2013family tensions. For instance, women may arguably experience more work\u2013family conflict as a result of their increased participation in the paid workforce. That is, there is reason to believe that in the past, when women spent most of their time solely looking after household and family responsibilities, they had fewer time constraints in accomplishing those duties. However, once women started to enter the paid workforce at increasing rates, they acquired extra work responsibilities in addition to their existing familial and household responsibilities. Compounding this problem is the consideration that despite women's increasing involvement in the paid work sphere, and despite men's increase in household involvement, the two have not increased at the same rate, with women still bearing the burden of the majority of the housework (Lewis 2009). This has kept women's workload in the family sphere at a very high level despite the additional burden of external employment, thereby increasing the likelihood and severity of felt work\u2013family conflict.\n\nAlthough research suggests that women tend to experience high levels of work\u2013family conflict, there is also a research to suggest that men are also experiencing such conflict at increasing rates. Gerson (2009) reported that the amount of work\u2013family conflict that men experience has risen by over 10 % since 1977, and when considering only men in dual-earner relationships , this increases to over 25 %. Nevertheless, although men are experiencing high levels of work\u2013family conflict, they are also likely to experience such conflict somewhat differently than do women. In the past, when work and family-care responsibilities were separated by gender, being able to provide economically for the family, or breadwinning , defined males' identity insofar as their familial role. However, as more women entered the workforce and as cultural values shifted, men started to place a higher stake on their involvement in the home sphere in addition to their preexisting provider role.\n\nIndeed, Root and Wooten (2008) reported that fathers have gone from spending about 30 to 45 % as much time with their children as did mothers in the 1970s and 1980s to about 65 % as much time on the weekdays and 87 % as much time on the weekends in more recent years. Interestingly, Gottz\u00e9n and Kremer-Sadlik (2012) suggested that many fathers may prefer to be involved in their children's lives in ways that are different than mothers. While mothers generally become involved in their children's lives through general childcare, many fathers may prefer to be involved with their children's youth sports. This allows fathers to become more involved with their family without performing traditionally feminine activities, therefore not compromising their stereotypically masculine identity. However it is worth noting, as Gottz\u00e9n and Kremer-Sadlik (2012) did, that since many after-school activities such as sports tend to occur in the afternoon or early evening, work obligations may often prevent fathers from being able to attend their child's sporting events, thereby threatening fathers' ability to care for their children and elevating their work\u2013family conflict. This is certainly a consideration relevant to the varied temporal requirements of shiftwork, in addition to speaking to the necessity of gender-blind work\u2013family policies available to allow for diminished conflict.\n\n### 13.3.1 The Threat of Career Penalties\n\nOne of the major factors contributing to gender differences in work\u2013family conflict is workplace policies and procedures. Such policies, such as parental leave and flexible scheduling, are typically designed to allow employees more control over how they balance their work and family lives with the idea of reducing work\u2013family conflict (Gerson 2009; Lewis 2009). However, instead of increasing balance, many times such policies may be ineffective because they are often associated with substantial career penalties. That is, when an employee has less of a presence at work (either physically, mentally, or both) they may appear less committed than other employees who are regularly seen by key organizational members, a physical benefit commonly referred to as 'face-time.' Therefore, management may be less inclined to offer workplace benefits or career advancement opportunities\u2014such as raises and promotions \u2014to employees who are less visible within the organization. Gerson (2009) wrote that although all employees may be subject to these types of career penalties, women may be more likely to accept them\u2014voluntarily or otherwise\u2014for the sake of their family. Thus, women may experience lower levels of job satisfaction as a result of being less likely to reach their desired career goals. Furthermore, even though men may be less likely to accept career penalties, they may still experience substantial work\u2013family conflict since they miss out on using flexible policies which would help them spend more time with their family and on other nonwork commitments.\n\n### 13.3.2 The Influence of Gender Norms\n\nAnother major reason why these policies may be ineffective is that there are often strong tacit norms against men using these policies. Williams (2010) writes that there is a stigma attached to men who make known their involvement in family care. Men who take time off for family purposes risk being viewed by others in the workplace as lacking in commitment, they may be openly ridiculed, and their 'manliness' may even be questioned (Levine and Pittinsky 1997; Williams 2010). Men who take even short family leaves may be penalized with both fewer rewards and lower performance ratings, as noted above. In addition, fathers who opt to serve as stay-at-home parents for any period of time are often viewed more negatively than fathers who are employed outside of the home. As a result, men are less likely to acknowledge and speak out about their need for work\u2013family accommodations. It has even been reported that men are more likely than women to be fired because they had major work-life conflicts and were reluctant to seek employer help in managing them (Williams 2010). To cope with their reluctance toward utilizing official work\u2013family policies, men often use a combination of vacation and sick leave to meet family demands (Levine and Pittinsky 1997). However, such reluctance can also lead to women experiencing heightened work\u2013family conflict, since the more time men feel compelled to spend at work, the less availability they have to assist with home- and childcare responsibilities.\n\n## 13.4 Gender, Shiftwork, and Work\u2013Family Conflict\n\nCompounding the various aforementioned research indications warrants consideration of how shiftwork may differentially impact each gender's perceptions and\/or reality of work\u2013family conflict. Indeed, there is evidence to suggest that there may be differential effects of work\u2013family conflict for individuals working nonstandard schedules depending on gender.\n\n### 13.4.1 Women, Shiftwork, and Work\u2013Family Conflict\n\nSeveral studies suggest that women who work nonstandard shifts experience greater work\u2013family conflict than do men working such shifts (Fenwick and Tausig 2001; Haines et al. 2008; Tuttle and Garr 2012). Likewise, supplemental evidence supports the consideration that mothers' time is more affected by nonstandard hours than is fathers' time (Barnes et al. 2006; Craig and Powell 2011). One potential reason for this differential sense of conflict rests upon the fact that women are generally expected to shoulder more of the family responsibilities, therefore the same work complication (e.g., shift) may cause greater conflict with home roles for women than for men (Fenwick and Tausig 2001; Presser 2003). Furthermore, women are more likely to revolve their shift scheduling around their husband's shift, whereas the reverse is less likely (Presser 2003). Therefore, more women may get 'stuck' working shifts that they might perceive as conflicting with their family life because they have adopted such shifts based upon their husband's work schedule rather as opposed to their own preference.\n\nWomen may also experience greater health problems when they work nonstandard hours in comparison to men. Costa (1996) noted that women may experience greater stress due to time pressures that occur when they work at irregular times. Also, when women who are married and have children work nonstandard hours, they generally experience poorer quality sleep and more fatigue than do men (Costa 1996). Lastly, numerous studies have reported that problems of the female reproductive system\u2014including increased menstrual cycle problems and miscarriages\u2014can also be exacerbated by working nonstandard shifts (Axelsson et al. 1989; Barthe et al. 2011; Costa 1996).\n\nHowever, although research suggests that women who work nonstandard hours generally experience higher work\u2013family conflict than men working such shifts, when in the right situation, women may also experience greater work\u2013family benefits. For example, Scheller (2011) noted that a bus driving profession allowed mothers to be home with their children at the times when their children needed them the most. However, this too rests primarily on the assumption that women may inherently feel (or be societally expected to feel) more responsibility to the home- and childcare domains of family life than do men, which is certainly a broad statement that fails to consider individual differences and other such contextual considerations.\n\n### 13.4.2 Men, Shiftwork, and Work\u2013Family Conflict\n\nAlthough women may be experiencing greater work\u2013family conflict than men as a result of working nonstandard schedules, men working such shifts may nonetheless experience relatively high levels of conflict . Perhaps one of the reasons it is reported that women experience higher levels of work\u2013family conflict is that women are often more vocal about the conflicts they are experiencing, and those conflicts are more societally accepted from a woman than from a man. In fact, when Levine and Pittinsky (1997) interviewed men about their work and family conflicts, they found that men were experiencing more conflict than people thought but were reluctant to speak about it. One of the forces pressuring men to be more private and reserved about their work\u2013family issues might be the negative, informal repercussions discussed earlier from using organizational policies to improve work\u2013family balance .\n\nRegardless of how open men are about their work\u2013family issues, one of the reasons that they experience high levels of work\u2013family conflict when working in nonstandard schedules is that many have expanding parenting responsibilities and these responsibilities may be more difficult to handle with a nonstandard work schedule. For instance, it was mentioned earlier that men often experience work\u2013family conflict as a result of not being able to be involved in their children's lives to the extent that they would like. Since many fathers may prefer to be involved in their children's lives through their extracurricular activities, which often occur in the late afternoon or early evening, they may experience increased work\u2013family conflict when they are assigned a shift during this time period. Moreover, men's responsibilities within the home are broadening as compared to past decades, so this alone is likely to yield such conflict, which is then exacerbated by the lack of societal acceptance of such responsibilities.\n\n## 13.5 Recommendations for Improving Work\u2013Family Balance for Shift Workers\n\n### 13.5.1 Methods of Improvement\n\nIn summary, both men and women are likely to experience heightened work\u2013family conflict as a result of working nonstandard shifts . However, there are some administratively controllable methods by which organizations can facilitate a reduction in such conflict for their employees. In particular, increasing the amount of flexibility and control that employees have over their hours, ensuring workers receive the support they need, and developing policies to support those who work nonstandard hours are all effective steps that organizations can take toward facilitating employees' improved work\u2013family balance in the face of shiftwork.\n\n### 13.5.2 Flexible Work Hours\n\nOne of the ways that organizations can help both men and women working nonstandard hours to improve their work-life balance is by offering them greater flexibility over when and how they perform their shifts. Both Levine and Pittinsky (1997) and more recently Gerson (2009) have suggested that allowing employees greater flexibility over their work hours may be an effective strategy for reducing work\u2013family conflict. In fact, Williams (1999) noted that flexible work policies were some of the most preferred workplace benefits. There is also some evidence that mothers who have flexible work hours are significantly less likely to voluntarily turnover from their jobs. Lastly, Gerson (2009) suggests that flexibility is absolutely essential with nonstandard shifts because it helps families overcome interpersonal and economic uncertainties. Vila et al. (2002) discussed the importance of employee involvement in shift scheduling in relation to law enforcement officers in particular, a highly male-dominated shiftwork position. Vila et al. determined that excluding officers from scheduling and shift assignment decisions can trigger a vicious cycle that contributes toward employees' feelings of powerlessness in some of the most important aspects of their lives, as well as exacerbating the various other effects discussed herein, including fatigue, stress, and performance decrements.\n\nRegardless of the extent to which employees are involved in scheduling decisions, if some flexibility is offered in work hours, employees can alternatively have control over how they utilize such options. Although some nonstandard shifts involve either fixed or rotating hours in the evening or at night, the employees may be allowed to use flexibility in order to vary their start and end times by an hour or two (Lewis 2009; Williams 1999). This may be especially helpful to those working in nonstandard shifts as it may allow them to take care of an errand, attend an event, or care for another when needed. Another way in which employees can utilize flexibility in their nonstandard hours is by telecommuting , which allows them to perform some or all of their work at home, although such an option is highly job-dependent. Some employees may alternately prefer to use flexibility to compress their work schedules , whereby they work for only 3 or 4 days a week but for longer-than-usual hours. Job sharing is another flexible work method whereby two part-time employees split the hours and the responsibilities of one full-time job. It is recommended that, to the extent possible, organizations allow employees one or more of these flexibility options to tailor to their needs, which will inevitably vary both within-person (over time), as well as between-person (wherein different employees will have different flexibility needs).\n\nAlthough shiftwork may be viewed by some as a flexible work option in itself, the flexibility we are suggesting here is different in that it allows for some degree of employee control over the work demands , thereby reducing the sense of helplessness that can often exacerbate work\u2013family conflict (Barthe et al. 2011; Fenwick and Tausig 2001; Gerson 2009). In fact, Lewis (2009) proposes that flexibility is only beneficial for nonstandard shift workers when the employee has some level of control over their hours. This is because employees who work in nonstandard shifts are often assigned to their shifts on short notice, therefore inhibiting the ability to attend preplanned appointments and events without using vacation time to do so. Thereby, having more control may be instrumental in helping parents who work in nonstandard shifts to be more consistently involved in their children's lives (Levine and Pittinsky 1997). For example, if a father who works a fixed, late afternoon shift can adjust his hours, he will have more ability to attend his child's extracurricular activity when his attendance is most desired (e.g., a game, recital, etc.). In addition, having more control over the scheduling of their nonstandard shift may help to reduce the anxiety that both mothers and fathers may feel over getting their child to and from daycare or other commitments (Levine and Pittinsky 1997). Having control over work hours would also help parents who opt not to use daycare: As Lewis (2009) notes, this is particularly likely to be the case for parents who are unable to afford the sharply rising and extremely high cost of full-time (or even part-time) daycare, an issue often pertinent to shift workers since nontraditional shifts tend to be more prevalent in lower-paying jobs.\n\nAs one might imagine, there exist differing viewpoints about how providing employees with flexibility options may differentially affect men versus women. Williams (1999) noted that there is evidence of flexibility options being utilized more by female employees than by male employees. Specifically, she suggests that because women may request flexibility more so than do men, flexible hours may reinforce the negative stereotype of women and caregiving. This stereotype may in turn make it more difficult for women to achieve work success if they are utilizing such flexibility options. In addition, Perrons et al. (2006) noted that flexible scheduling allows women to be able to better manage work and family responsibilities since they are the ones using the policies. However, this does not necessarily result in improved work\u2013family balance for women because the responsibilities are not necessarily being shared with their spouses. Therefore, women are left with the same extent of nonwork responsibilities, they just have more control over when they can attend to them. In opposition to the idea that men do not make use of flexibility over their work hours when available, Levine and Pittinsky (1997) suggest that men may be more likely to use flexible schedules than other types of accommodations because such flexibility does not necessarily compromise family income, as opposed to other policies such as paternity leaves , which typically go unpaid. A third opinion suggests that giving both male and female employees the ability to have more flexible work schedules will allow them to coordinate their schedules so that they can better share household responsibilities. As a result, we firmly suggest that if increased schedule control is offered to employees, efforts must be made not only to make such policies available to both men and women, but also to encourage their usage equally amongst employees of both sexes.\n\nAlthough organizations may view incorporating flexibility into shift workers' schedules with some skepticism as to its effects on organizational outcomes, there is some evidence to suggest that organizations may actually benefit from doing so (Lewis 2009; Williams 1999). Specifically, this added flexibility can allow employers to operate for longer hours without having to hire additional employees. For instance, if employees vary their start and\/or end times by a few hours outside of normal business hours, it allows the organization to stay open longer without having to create new shifts, staffed by additional employees, to operate those hours. Lastly\u2014but perhaps most importantly for long-term organizational success\u2014flexibility (and its perceived usability) has been found to facilitate employee loyalty and commitment, as well as to enhance safety-related behaviors (via decreased fatigue and increased cognitive alertness) and overall performance (Eaton 2003; Kelliher and Anderson 2010; Ng et al. 2006).\n\n### 13.5.3 Support of Employees\n\nAnother way that organizations can help shift workers to improve their work\u2013family balance is by fostering an environment in which they are highly supported. Supportive environments can help employees because they can provide them with extra resources such as someone to cover a shift, help with extra work, or comfort them emotionally. These extra resources may compensate for those lost in working a nonstandard shift. Estryn-B\u00e9har and Van der Heijden (2012) suggest that one of the ways that organizations can improve the support they offer to employees is to organize work schedules in a way that allows for social support from employees with similar familial responsibilities. A more revolutionary way that organizations can develop a more supportive environment is by fostering informal caretaking networks in which other employees can help each other with childcare responsibilities. These networks may allow employees who have different shifts to cover some childcare activities at times when other employees are working (Gerson 2009). Yet another strategy that organizations can employ to be supportive of employees' childcare needs is to provide on-site childcare which operates 24\/7 so that employees working at all hours of the day are provided with a legitimate childcare option (Barthe et al. 2011).\n\nOn a much broader scale, organizations can also help to foster informal coworker support networks. As noted by Root and Wooten (2008), coworkers can serve as an extended kinship network to help provide each other with emotional support and instrumental assistance in coping with work responsibilities and family needs. For instance, coworkers can help to accomplish certain tasks when one employee needs to leave early to take care of a family responsibility. Of course, this type of support would have to be developed with reciprocity in mind so that employees do not take advantage of each other or create unnecessary interpersonal conflict within the organization.\n\nA third type of support that organizations can foster is supervisor support, increasingly recognized in the literature as family-supportive supervisor behaviors (FSSB) . Supervisors have a substantial influence over their subordinates in that they often serve as a gatekeeper to effective work\u2013family management. Supervisors may choose to be extremely accommodating to an employee's desire for flexibility, or they can be very restrictive. As such, a lack of supervisor support can effectively render the aforementioned coworker support systems inoperable if they refuse to facilitate or allow for such work modifications. In addition to gatekeeping responsibilities, supervisors can also serve as an important source of emotional support for employees. As a result, organizations can foster supportive environments (and perceptions) a great deal though their supervisors, who serve as the 'front-line' contact for employees to organizational culture and policy.\n\nThere is some evidence to suggest that providing support as a work\u2013family improvement may have differential effects dependent upon employee gender. For instance, some research has suggested that women may experience greater benefits from social and emotional support than men (Forbes and Roger 1999; van der Pompe and Heus 1993). However, other research has suggested that while women may receive more social support from nonwork sources than do men, they may not necessarily obtain more support from work sources (van der Pompe and Heus 1993). Hopkins (2002) suggested that a reason for this is that both men and women tend to have male supervisors, possibly leading female employees to feel less comfortable confiding in them than would male employees, who may enjoy more of a gender-fueled camaraderie, although this is certainly arguable. As a result, organizations would do well to consider gender in establishing and bolstering their social support programs so that both male and female employees are more likely to reap the benefits equally.\n\n### 13.5.4 Strengthening Improvements Through Policies\n\nRegardless of how organizations decide to facilitate work\u2013family balance for employees working nonstandard shifts , it is imperative that they ground such improvements within formal organizational policies. Such formal policies facilitate employees' understanding of organizational culture and accepted accommodations. However, policies alone are grossly insufficient. As seen throughout this chapter, both men and women are often reluctant to utilize organizational policies in support of work\u2013family balance for fear of negative perceptions and\/or career implications. Therefore, it is crucial that any formal organizational policies be supported by upper management, that such support is evidenced through the trickle-down effect to middle- and lower-level managers who reinforce such a culture , and that employees are freely given the necessary information and encouragement to utilize such policies when necessary.\n\nOne of the most effective ways to assure employees of a supportive culture beyond formal policies is likely to be through the aforementioned FSSBs. Comprised of four different dimensions \u2013 emotional support , role modeling, instrumental support , and creative work\u2013family management (Hammer et al. 2013)- FSSBs are expected to positively impact employees of both genders insofar as their comfort level in using work\u2013family policies when they are available. In addition FSSB has been shown to have a variety of positive effects on work\u2013family outcomes, thereby enhancing the likelihood that such accommodations would enhance employees' work\u2013family balance (Hammer et al. 2011; Odle-Dusseau et al. 2012).\n\n## 13.6 Conclusion\n\nIn sum, the intersection between gender and the work\u2013family domains, while intriguing, is widely complex, with a variety of supplemental issues affecting how the interplay between these domains presents itself in a variety of situations and contexts. Insofar as work structures go, the presence or absence\u2014and the extent\u2014of shiftwork for males versus females is one such contextual factor. This chapter has explored the various considerations underlying shiftwork's influence in this regard, with a hope toward sparking more extensive applied considerations of this work constraint and how it can best be managed in order to facilitate a more fulfilling experience of work\u2013family balance for both male and female employees alike.\n\nReferences\n\nAkanni, A. (2011). Shiftwork, job satisfaction and family life: An empirical study among nurses in Osun State Nigeria. Lambert: Academic.\n\nAlbertsen, K., Rafnsd\u00f3ttir, G., Grimsmo, A., T\u00f3mas-son, K., & Kauppinen, K. (2008). Workhours and worklife balance. SJWEH Supplements, 5, 14\u201321.\n\nAxelsson, G., Rylander, R., & Molin, I. (1989). Outcome of pregnancy in relation to irregular and incovenient work schedules. British Journal of Industrial Medicine, 46, 393\u2013398.PubMedCentralPubMed\n\nBambra, C., Whitehead, M., Sowden, A., Akers, J., & Petticrew, M. (2008). A hard day's night? The effects of compressed working week interventions on the health and worklife balance of shift workers: A systematic review. Journal of Epidemiology & Community Health, 62, 764\u2013777.CrossRef\n\nBarnes, M., Bryson, C., & Smith R. (2006). Working atypical hours: What happens to family life? London: National Centre for Social Research.PubMedCentralPubMedCrossRef\n\nBarthe, B., Messing, K., & Abbas, L. (2011). Strategies used by women workers to reconcile family responsibilities with atypical work schedules in the service sector. Work, 40, S47\u2013S58.PubMed\n\nBeers, T. M. (2000). Flexible schedules and shift work: replacing the '9-to-5' workday? Monthly Labor Review, 123, 33\u201340.\n\nColligan, M. J., Frockt, J. I., & Tasto, D. L. (1979). Frequency of sickness absence and worksite clinic visits among nurses as a function of shift. Applied Ergonomics, 10, 79\u201385.PubMedCrossRef90058-9)\n\nCosta, G. (1996). The impact of shift and night work on health. Applied Ergonomics, 27, 9\u201316.PubMedCrossRef00047-X)\n\nCraig, L., & Powell, A. (2011). Non-standard work schedules, work-family balance and the gendered division of childcare. Work Employment Society, 25, 274\u2013291.CrossRef\n\nEaton, S. C. (2003). If you can use them: Flexibility policies, organizational commitment, and perceived performance. Industrial Relations: A Journal of Economy & Society, 42, 145\u2013167.\n\nEstryn-B\u00e9har, M., & Van der Heijden, B. M. (2012). Effects of extended work shifts on employee fatigue, health, satisfaction, work\/family balance, and patient safety. Work, 41, 4283\u20134290.PubMed\n\nFenwick, R., & Tausig, M. (2001). Scheduling stress: Family and health outcomes of shift work and schedule control. American Behavioral Scientist, 44, 1179\u20131198.CrossRef\n\nForbes, A., & Roger, D. (1999). Stress, social support and fear. British Journal of Health Psychology, 4, 165\u2013180.CrossRef\n\nGerson, K. (2009). The unfinished revolution: Coming of age in a new era of gender, work, and family. New York: Oxford University Press.\n\nGottz\u00e9n, L., & Kremer-Sadlik, T. (2012). Fatherhood and youth sports: A balancing act between care and expectations. Gender & Society, 26, 639\u2013664.CrossRef\n\nGrosswald, B. (2003). Shift work and negative work-to-family spillover. Journal of Sociology and Social Welfare, 4, 31\u201356.\n\nHaines, V. Y., Marchand, A., Rousseau, V., & Demers, A. (2008). The mediating role of work-to-family conflict in the relationship between. Work & Stress, 22, 341\u2013356.CrossRef\n\nHammer, L. B., Kossek, E. E., Anger, W. K., Bodner, T., & Zimmerman, K. L. (2011). Clarifying work-family intervention processes: The roles of work-family conflict and family-supportive supervisor behaviors. Journal of Applied Psychology, 96, 134\u2013150.PubMedCentralPubMedCrossRef\n\nHammer, L. B., Kossek, E. E., Bodner, T., & Crain, T. (2013). Measurement development and validation of the family supportive supervisor behavior short-form (FSSB-SF). Journal of Occupational Health Psychology, 18, 285\u2013296.PubMedCrossRef\n\nHopkins, K. M. (2002). Interactions of gender and race in workers' help seeking for personal\/family problems: Perceptions of supervisor support and intervention. Journal of Applied Behavioral Science, 38, 156\u2013176.CrossRef\n\nKelliher, C., & Anderson, D. (2010). Doing more with less? Flexible working practices and the intensification of work. Human Relations, 63, 83\u2013106.CrossRef\n\nLa Valle, I., Arthur, S., Millward, C., Scott, J., & Clayden, M. (2002). Happy families? Atypical work and its influence on family life. Bristol: Policy Press\n\nLevine, J. A., & Pittinsky, T. L. (1997). Working fathers: New strategies for balancing work and family. Reading: Addison-Wesley.\n\nLewis, J. (2009). Work-family balance, gender and policy. Northampton: Edward Elgar.CrossRef\n\nLindsey, D. (2007). Police fatigue. FBI Law Enforcement Bulletin, 76, 1\u20138.\n\nLiu, H., Wang, Q., Keesler, V., & Schneider, B. (2011). Non-standard work schedules, work-family conflict and parental. Social Science Research, 40, 473\u2013484.CrossRef\n\nMarsh, A. (1979). Women and shiftwork: The protective legislation survey carried out for the Equal Opportunities Commission. Office of Population Censuses and Surveys: Social Survey Division.CrossRef\n\nNg, T. H., Butts, M. M., Vandenberg, R. J., DeJoy, D. M., & Wilson, M. G. (2006). Effects of management communication, opportunity for learning, and work schedule flexibility on organizational commitment. Journal of Vocational Behavior, 68, 474\u2013489.CrossRef\n\n\u01feyane, N. M. F., Pallesen, S., Moen, B. E., \u00c5kerstedt, T., & Bjorvatn, B. (2013). Associations between night work and anxiety, depression, insomnia, sleepiness and fatigue in a sample of Norwegian nurses. PLoS ONE, 8 (8), 1\u20137.\n\nOdle-Dusseau, H. N., Britt, T. W., & Greene-Shortridge, T. M. (2012). Organizational work-family resources as predictors of job performance and attitudes: The process of work-family conflict and enrichment. Journal of Occupational Health Psychology, 17, 28\u201340.PubMedCrossRef\n\nPerrons, D., Fagan, C., McDowell, L., Ray, K., & Ward, K. (2006). Gender divisions and working time in the new economy: Changing patterns of work, care, and public policy in Europe and North America. Northampton: Edward Elgar.CrossRef\n\nPerrucci, R., MacDermid, S., King, E., Tang, C., Brimeyer, T., Ramadoss, K., et al. (2007). The significance of shift work: Current status and future directions. Journal of Family and Economic Issues, 28(4), 600\u2013617. doi:10.1007\/s10834-007-9078-3.CrossRef\n\nPierce, J. L., & Dunham, R. B. (1992). The 12-hour work day: A 48-hour, eight-day week. Academy of Management Journal, 35, 1086\u20131098.CrossRef\n\nPresser, H. B. (2003). Race-ethnic and gender differences in nonstandard work shifts. Work and Occupations, 30, 412\u2013439.CrossRef\n\nPresser, H. B. (2006). Employment in a 24\/7 economy: challenges for the family. In Perrons, D., Fagan, C., McDowell, L., Ray, K., & Ward, K. (Eds.)Gender divisions and working time in the new economy: Changing patterns of work, care, and public policy in Europe and North America. (pp. 35\u201357). Cheltenham, UK: Edward Elgar Publishing.PubMed\n\nRapoport, R., Bailyn, L., Fletcher, J. K., & Pruitt, B. H. (2002). Beyond work-family balance: Advancing gender equity and workplace performance. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.\n\nRoot, L. S., & Wooten, L. P. (2008). Time out for family: Shift work, fathers, and sports. Human Resource Management, 47, 481\u2013499.CrossRef\n\nScheller, L. (2011). How important is the liaison between professional work and family work? The case of women bus drivers. Work, 40, S5\u2013S14.PubMed\n\nSergean, R., & Brierly, J. (1968). Absence and attendance under non-continuous three-shift systems of work. Nature, 219, 536.PubMedCrossRef\n\nStaines, G. L., & Pleck, J. H. (1984). Nonstandard work schedules and family life. Journal of Applied Psychology, 69, 515\u2013523.CrossRef\n\nThiis-Evensen, E. (1958). Shift work and health. Industrial Medicine and Surgery, 27, 493\u2013497.PubMed\n\nTuttle, R., & Garr, M. (2012). Shift work and work to family fit: Does schedule control matter? Journal of Family and Economic Issues, 33, 261\u2013271.CrossRef\n\nvan der Pompe, G., & de Heus, P. (1993). Work stress, social support, and strains among male and female managers. Anxiety, Stress & Coping: An International Journal, 6, 215\u2013229.CrossRef\n\nVila, B., Morrisson, G. B., & Kenney, D. J. (2002). Improving shift schedule and work-hour policies and practices to increase police officer performance, health, and safety. Police Quarterly, 5, 4\u201323.CrossRef\n\nWhite, L., & Keith, B. (1990). The effect of shift work on the quality and stability of marital relations. Journal of Marriage and the Family, 52, 453\u2013462.CrossRef\n\nWilliams, J. (1999). Unbending gender: Why family and work conflict and what to do about it. New York: Oxford University Press.\n\nWilliams, J. (2010). Reshaping the work-family debate: Why men and class matter. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.\n\nWillis, T. A., O'Connor, D. B., & Smith, L. (2008). Investigating effort-reward imbalance and work-family conflict in relation to morningness-eveningness and shift work. Work & Stress, 22, 125\u2013137.CrossRef\n\nWilson, J. L. (2002). The impact of shift patterns on healthcare professionals. Journal of Nursing Management, 10, 211\u2013219.PubMedCrossRef\n\nWittmer, J. L., & Martin, J. E. (2010). Emotional exhaustion among employees without social or client contact: The key role of nonstandard work schedules. Journal of Business and Psychology, 25, 607\u2013623.CrossRef\n\nWorld Health Organization. (2007). Carcinogenicity of shift-work, painting, and fire-fighting. The Lancet Oncology, 8, 1065\u20131066.CrossRef70373-X)\n\nWyatt, S., & Marriott, R. (1953). Night work and shift changes. British Journal of Industrial Medicine, 10, 164\u2013172.PubMedCentralPubMed\n\nFootnotes\n\n1\n\nFor a more detailed discussion of socioeconomic and racial considerations in regard to work\u2013family conflict, see chapters 3 and 4, respectively.\n\n2\n\nIt should be noted, however, that any such negative effects that nontraditional shiftwork may have on work\u2013family balance are likely to be affected by the employee's degree of 'morningness' or 'eveningness', as found by Willis et al. (2008).\n\n3\n\nFor a more detailed discussion of the impact of work\u2013family conflict on marital relationship quality, see chapter 9.\n\u00a9 Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2015\n\nMaura J. Mills (ed.)Gender and the Work-Family Experience10.1007\/978-3-319-08891-4_14\n\n# 14. Gender Roles in a Masculine Occupation: Military Men and Women's Differential Negotiation of the Work\u2013Family Interface\n\nAnn H. Huffman1  , Satoris S. Culbertson2  and Joseph Barbour3\n\n(1)\n\nDepartment of Psychological Sciences and WA Franke College of Businesss, Northern Arizona University, P.O. Box 15106, 86011 Flagstaff, AZ, USA\n\n(2)\n\nDepartment of Management, Kansas State University, 110 Calvin Hall, 66506 Manhattan, KS, USA\n\n(3)\n\nDepartment of Psychological Sciences, Northern Arizona University, 5 East McConnell Drive, P.O. Box 15106, 86011 Flagstaff, AZ, USA\n\nAnn H. Huffman (Corresponding author)\n\nEmail: ann.huffman@nau.edu\n\nSatoris S. Culbertson\n\nEmail: satoris@ksu.edu\n\nJoseph Barbour\n\nEmail: jeb57@nau.edu\n\nKeywords\n\nWork\u2013familyGenderMilitaryMasculineGendered occupationGender normsStigmaHomosexualityCombat\n\n## 14.1 Introduction\n\nGender plays a key role in the attitudes and behaviors exhibited by individuals in both their work and family domains. Just as individuals can lie anywhere on a continuum from masculine to feminine, occupations can be similarly gender typed. For example, some occupations, such as construction, mining, and forestry, are often seen as highly masculine in nature, while others, such as nursing, early childhood education, and cosmetology are seen as highly feminine in nature, in part due to the sheer prevalence of men and women in the respective occupations. We argue that norms related to masculinity (vs. femininity) can influence one's self-selection into an occupation as well as one's work attitudes and behaviors once associated with an occupation. Since men and women associated with masculine occupations have unique work and family expectations, they also experience and negotiate the work\u2013family interface differently than do individuals in more gender-neutral organizations.\n\nIn this chapter, we use the military as an example of a gendered (masculine) occupation. We provide a theoretical framework to guide an understanding of how the gender of employees in a gendered occupation can beget a unique set of work and family norms. We first provide a summary of the research on gendered occupations and the work\u2013family interface, followed by a theoretical overview of the proposed framework. We then provide a brief discussion of special populations (e.g., lesbian, gay, and bisexual [LGB] individuals) that may have diverse experiences within a gendered organization. Finally, we close with a section on application, emerging issues, and areas for future research.\n\n## 14.2 Gendered Occupations\n\nThe term \"Gendered Occupation\" typically refers to an occupation that, for one reason or another, is comprised almost entirely of individuals of the same sex or individuals who self-identify as the same gender (Blackburn and Jarman 2006). Although gender (i.e., socially constructed) and sex (i.e., biological) are not synonymous in meaning or concept, a \"gendered occupation\" may be referring to either one depending on the specific context. An occupation might be considered gendered if it is comprised of a certain percentage of male or female employees, but it might also be considered gendered based on the degree of masculinity or femininity that society associates with it. Sex and gender are inevitably intertwined, and any attempt to completely tease them apart for the purposes of this chapter will surely prove futile. Because, however, the intent here is to eventually discuss work\u2013family issues surrounding these gendered occupations, occupational segregation by sex (rather than gender) will be the primary focus. As such, \"gendered occupations\" in this chapter will be measured primarily by their percentage of biologically male and female employees.\n\nInfantry soldiers in the United States military, for example, would certainly be considered an occupation segregated by sex, because women are not, as of now, permitted to hold this job, thus making the occupation 100 % male1. Similarly, it would probably be safe to refer to medical transcriptionists as a gendered occupation, as 98 % of the jobs are held by women (Bureau of Labor Statistics 2012). The case is slightly less clear, however, for many jobs. For example, detectives and criminal investigators are primarily male, with 75.2 % of jobs held by men (Bureau of Labor Statistics 2012) . This last example highlights the ambiguous lower limit for what might be considered a gendered occupation when measured by percent male and female. Currently, there does not seem to be a unanimously agreed-upon threshold for determining gendered occupations on the basis of sex prevalence.\n\n### 14.2.1 Gendered Occupations: Theoretical Perspectives\n\nWhy is it that certain occupations are comprised almost entirely of one gender? Do men prefer different kinds of work than women? Do societal expectations for employment differ between the sexes? Do people, at some stage of development, learn that certain occupations are for men or women only (or primarily)? The following section will address these and other questions by discussing some of the leading theories on why gendered occupations exist, and how they have changed over time.\n\nResearch investigating the potential sources of gendered occupations has focused heavily on gender role socialization and theories concerning learned social roles and norms (Aziz and Kamal 2012; DiDonato and Strough 2013; Feliciano and Rumbaut 2005; Jiang et al. 2010; Schuette et al. 2012; Vervecken et al. 2013; Wilbourn and Kee 2010; Wootton 1997). Nevertheless, there is certainly not a consensus on the issue. Multiple additional theories have been proposed that attempt to shed light on exactly why certain types of employment are so profoundly gendered; most notably, preference theory (Hakim 2000), social dominance theory (Sidanius and Pratto 1999), ascriptive inequality or biased hiring (Reskin 2003), professional role confidence and\/or assessment of abilities (Cech et al. 2011), and workplace climate (i.e., certain workplaces seeming cold or unwelcoming toward either males or females; Sandler et al. 1996).\n\nIt is perhaps not surprising that such a large portion of the existing research and literature available on the subject is focused on gender role socialization. After all, from a very young age , males and females are treated differently by those around them, including parents, siblings, friends, and teachers. They are dressed differently, given different toys with which to play, introduced into different sports, and perhaps even spoken to differently (Thorne 1993). Moreover, children are capable, from a very early age, of picking up on the gender roles assumed by their parents. Children who observe their parents practicing an egalitarian division of labor are less likely to gravitate toward heavily gendered occupations than gender-neutral ones. Children who observe a more traditional and\/or gendered division of labor are more likely to equate certain occupations and household duties with gender, and thus, choose their life course accordingly (Aziz and Kamal 2012). It is probably safe to state that the gender stereotypes to which a person is exposed, and the gender roles that they observe and assume in their youth, play a part in their vocational trajectory ; the question is how much of a part do they play?\n\nAlong with children of all ages being exposed to certain stereotyped gender roles and expectations, many additional factors contribute to the segregation of occupations by sex. Preference theory (Hakim 2000) stresses, from a historical perspective, that women are faced with having to make very practical decisions regarding work and family, and that individual preference in those areas will largely determine the type and extent of work that a woman chooses to pursue. Social dominance theory (Sidanius and Pratto 1999), in this context, is referring to the notion that society at large is shaped by the gender stereotypes that we have created, and that subtle messages or wording in advertisements and job descriptions can be gender biased (Gaucher et al. 2011). Reskin's (2003) ascriptive inequality model posits that those in hiring positions within organizations may bias their decisions due to their own beliefs of performance and ability based on gender or the expectations of their profession.\n\nProfessional role confidence refers to the propensity of members of a particular gender to gravitate toward occupations in which they feel confident in their abilities to perform duties adequately (Cech et al. 2011). Historically, this source of occupational segregation by gender has been evident in the science , technology, engineering , and math (STEM) fields, where women have avoided employment largely based on their lack of confidence in their ability to perform in those jobs (Cech et al. 2011). Of course, any lack of confidence that they may have is at least in part the result of either gender role socialization or social dominance, not to mention the chilly climate experienced by women often associated with those traditionally male-held occupations. Development of an unwelcome or intolerant organizational climate , the last potential cause for gendered occupations that will be discussed here, refers to gendered segregation in occupations due a feeling on the part of one gender that they are unwelcome (Schneider et al. 2013). Each of these theories and possible explanations represent a piece to the puzzle that is occupational segregation by sex, and each must be considered when attempting to determine why a particular area of employment has evolved to become dominated by one sex or the other.\n\n### 14.2.2 Masculine Occupations Gender Role Model\n\nNow that the \"what\" and \"why\" of gendered occupations have been introduced, two new questions must be addressed: How do gendered occupational environments differentially affect the men and women who work in them, and how might these environments influence the work\u2013family interface for women and men? In the following section we propose a comprehensive model to explain the gender disparity related to the work\u2013family interface for occupations in which women represent the extreme minority. This Masculine Occupations Gender Role Model (see Fig. 14.1) provides an illustration of the cyclical nature of gender role influences within the masculine organization, beginning and ending with the high prevalence of men. This male prevalence not only affects organizational culture , but is also fueled by the consequences related to the organizational culture. The model suggests that certain, already existing, facets of masculine organizations combine to create a masculine culture. Further, the details of that culture encourage attitudes, beliefs, and experiences, such as perceived and actual work\u2013family conflict, that are different for women than they are for men. Finally, these factors subsequently influence attitudes and behaviors such as organizational commitment, work performance , advancement, and retention. The Masculine Occupations Gender Role Model is explained in four distinct phases, and each is elaborated upon thoroughly in the following sections.\n\nFig. 14.1\n\nMasculine occupations gender role model\n\nPhase I\u2014Prevalence of Gender\n\nBy definition, a masculine occupation is traditionally comprised of men. We propose two reasons why masculine organizations have a high prevalence of men, and are slow to change to more gender-neutral organizations. First, according to social role theory (Eagly 1987), men and women develop different skills, behaviors, and traits associated with their paid work roles. These skills , behaviors, and traits become the norm for the gender, and are adopted by society as indicative of what men and women are expected to do. These societal expectations perpetuate the presumptions that men play a more important role than women in masculine organizations. As such, men are more likely than women to join and stay with masculine organizations. Second, although change in gender prevalence is possible, change is slow due to the strength of attitudes that can affect organizational change. Attitudes toward social groups are key components in the development of discrimination (Fiske 1998; Glick and Fiske 2007). Whereas attitudes can indirectly influence group membership through factors such as an unsupportive supervisor, discrimination is an actual behavior (e.g., passing over for promotion, not allowing admittance to a specific job) that can directly affect the prevalence of a particular gender within a group. Unfortunately, \"the power of gender stereotypes derives from their pervasiveness\" (Eagly and Sczesny 2009, p. 24), with one of the most robust signaling cues for classification being simply whether someone is male or female.\n\nThe prevalence of one gender in an organization, of course, is not unique to a specific industry or occupation (Cabrera et al. 2009). In fact, noted researchers Carli and Eagly (1999) proposed that historical norms of women in domestic labor and men in paid work explain currently held gender stereotypes. The resulting consequence of this pattern of norms is gender typing , or the development of attitudes, behaviors, and interests that correspond to stereotypical masculine and feminine social roles (Liben and Bigler 2002). Gender typing is affected by both the prevalence of one particular gender in an occupation or job, and by the gender norms related to the tasks associated with the job (Lyness and Heilman 2006). Gender typing is the crux of gendered organizations, and can have effects on the minority sex through widespread organizational beliefs such as the organization's culture.\n\nPhase II\u2014Organizational Culture\n\nA high prevalence of men in an organization can create a general organizational culture not always conducive to the professional or personal needs and desires of female employees (and vice versa, although the focus here is on women en masse). According to Schein (1990), organizational culture is \"(a) a pattern of basic assumptions, (b) invented, discovered, or developed by a given group, (c) as it learns to cope with its problems of external adaptation and internal integration , (d) that has worked well enough to be considered valid and, therefore (e) is to be taught to new members as the (f) correct way to perceive, think, and feel in relation to those problems\" (p. 111). As evidenced by this definition, organizational culture encompasses all aspects of an organization and is a major influencer on organizational and employee behavior. The possibility should be noted that, because of the magnitude of effects of a majority male occupation, this culture is not one that is likely to adapt to make itself truly gender neutral, despite any expressed intentions to do so (Rothrauff et al. 2004). This is partly due to the fact that cultural beliefs are deeply ingrained (O'Reilly 1989), and therefore difficult to change (Haas and Hwang 2007).\n\nResearch has suggested that a high prevalence of one gender (in this case male) in an organization can affect the culture of the organization. Gender is a substructure of an organization's culture (Acker 1998), considered to be a foundational element of the organization's working structure. Research has shown that men and women value different qualities associated with an ideal organizational culture (Wicks and Bradshaw 1999), with women finding characteristics such as acceptance, emphasis on relationships, and cooperation as valued components of a healthy organizational culture. Conversely, men value objectivity, rationality, and problem-solving, and place less emphasis on friendliness and acceptance of authority in the workplace (Wicks and Bradshaw 1999). Based on social role theory (Eagly 1987), if people's views are not congruent with (fit) the organization's culture, then they are more likely to experience negative work outcomes. With conflicting values determining the culture, this is very likely the case for women in masculine organizations.\n\nPhase III\u2014Work\u2013Family Conflict\n\nOne negative work outcome that is common to employees is work\u2013family conflict (Morgan and Milliken 1992). Work\u2013family conflict is \"a form of inter-role conflict in which the role pressures from work and family domains are mutually incompatible in some respect\" (Greenhaus and Beutell 1985, p. 77). Work\u2013family conflict is bidirectional, meaning that the work domain can interfere with the family domain and the family domain can interfere with the work domain (Greenhaus and Beutell 1985).\n\nHaas and Hwang (2007) suggest that an organization's gendered substructure affects the degree to which an organization values the employee's family life, thus affecting the work\u2013family interface. They introduce two related ideologies that help explain why organizational culture might affect fathers differentially than mothers. We put forth that this can be extended to understanding why organizational culture can be related to work\u2013family conflict. The first ideology is the concept of separate spheres , which is based on the idea that work and family are two independent domains of influence. This assumption allows work organizations to run their businesses without concern for the role that organizations might have on the well-being of employees' families. Additionally, it devalues the skills and behaviors that are used in the family sphere, an area that is more likely to be filled by women. The second ideology is masculine hegemony , which is the idea that men should be in the primary position of power at work. Masculine hegemony helps to maintain the \"maleness\" in masculine organizations (Billing 2000), and sustains the ideas associated with the separate spheres ideology.\n\nThe existence of the ideologies of separate spheres and masculine hegemony manifests itself in the experiences of the minority sex, which can lead to work\u2013family conflict. For example, because masculine organizations are less likely to adapt to meet female needs, women must make the choice of whether family or work will take priority in their lives. Some, of course, will choose work and some will choose family according to their individual needs and desires, and the result, inevitably, will be some degree of work\u2013family conflict.\n\nWith regard to the work\u2013family experiences for the minority gender in gendered occupations, there has been a fair amount of literature dedicated to the topic. The general consensus is that the minority gender will experience greater work\u2013family conflict than their majority gender counterpart in their own workplace, and greater work\u2013family conflict than they would if they worked in a gender-neutral setting (Cook and Minnotte 2008). With women in particular, striving for work\u2013family balance in male-dominated professions is quite challenging, and can cause high attrition of the already few women in these jobs, as well as deter new women from seeking jobs within the organization (Glass and Estes 1997). Male-dominated professions are less likely to adjust their work schedules and expectation to fit the unique needs of females. This may be even more the case for women who are pregnant, nursing, or bearing the majority of the household labor burden, as male-dominated occupations have, over the years, demanded of their employees longer work hours and less time off, forcing women to either delay or forego childbearing in order to stay in their career, or leave for a more female-friendly work environment (Harris and Giuffre 2010). A particularly interesting and pertinent finding from Maume and Houston (2001) showed that longer work hours and tokenism (i.e., the perception that one is only present to fill a quota or represent some required or expected demographic criterion) for women in a male-dominated white collar profession were each positively associated with increased perceptions of work\u2013family conflict.\n\nPhase IV\u2014Work and Family Outcomes\n\nOne of the main concerns associated with work\u2013family conflict is that it has been associated with many negative work and family outcomes (Allen et al. 2000). This relationship can be explained using the conservation of resources theory (Hobfoll 1989), which puts forth that \"people strive to obtain, retain, foster and protect\" (Hobfoll 2011, p. 117) those things in life that are valued most by them. These \"resources,\" which can be personal, material, social, or energy resources , provide the foundation of support that both bolsters a person's positive affective state and sense of well-being and protects against negative psychological and health outcomes (Hobfoll 1989). The amassing of these resources will have positive outcomes for a person, while the loss of resources carries the potential for a cascade of negative outcomes ranging from depression to declined physical health and functioning. Moreover, resource loss spirals (Hobfoll et al. 2012) can occur, such that the pool of resources and support on which a person could normally rely to help reverse such a downslide is depleted, which of course is the cause of the downslide in the first place. Increased occupational stress alone can act as a catalyst for slow or possibly even rapid loss of resources, but when combined with additional sources of stress (e.g., marital conflict, parental needs, family time management issues) the potential for rapid resource loss is exponentially increased (Hobfoll et al. 2012)\n\nWomen in masculine occupations who experience increased work\u2013family conflict can experience distress in the work domain, the family domain, or both. When the conflict in either or both domain builds to a certain point, the result is often the slow or rapid loss of centrally valued resources, which in turn may cause a mental or physical regression in either or both domains. This \"breakdown\" can vary widely in severity and may come in the form of increased depression and anxiety (Voydanoff and Donnelly 1989), often accompanied by decreased organizational commitment and increased turnover intentions (Jones and Butler 1980; Kelley et al. 1994).\n\nThe cyclical nature of the Masculine Occupations Gender Role Model culminates with the diminished performance , retention, confidence , and attitudes of distressed female employees, feeding back into the first phase and perpetuating the cycle. Recall that the cycle started with an organization built on a foundation of traditionalist views and gender roles and consisting of nearly all males. This primary phase is further exasperated by negative work and family outcomes, while the primary phase also feeds into subsequent phases. It does not appear advantageous to stay in an organization that makes it so difficult to manage one's work\u2013family conflict. In the military , for example, the percentage of females in the military grows, yet grows very slowly (Mackenzie 2012). This slow growth of female service members can be attributed, in part, to the combined effects of resource loss outcomes and the cascade of obstacles deriving from the attitude and behaviors of male service members in a male-dominated profession. Additionally, the sense of military tradition as an all-male force, and the conscious or unconscious belief that women will not prosper in this setting (McSally 2011), is perpetuated as males in uniform notice the difficulty women experience trying to manage work\u2013family conflict, and the wide-spreading ripple effects of this difficulty.\n\nIn the following section we build on the military example. First, we provide a context for the military organization as a gendered occupation. We then use the Masculine Occupations Gender Role Model to explain how employees in one specific masculine occupation (the military) deal with the challenges and demands associated with the work\u2013family interface.\n\n## 14.3 The Military as a Gendered Occupation\n\nThe US military organization provides an obvious example of a gendered occupation. As of 2011, women comprise roughly 15 % of the armed forces of the United States (Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines, and Coast Guard2), with 214,098 women in active duty components, 118,781 women in reserve components, and 72,790 women in the National Guard (Military Women in Service for America Foundation 2011). The fact, however, that over 80 % of the current military is male only partially explains the gendered nature of military service. In order to fully grasp the heavily masculine, male-dominated culture that is the military, one must consider the military's historic and contemporary goals and how it has evolved over time, both in general and with regard to gender. Only then can the depth of the military as a gendered occupation be fully appreciated.\n\nWith the US armed forces being only 15 % women, one could consider this as constituting occupational segregation by sex. Certainly a woman entering such an occupation cannot ignore the obvious demographic minority of which she has become a part. More important than the current numbers, however, is the lingering sense of tradition and gender expectations experienced by women in an institution that once allowed no females whatsoever (McSally 2011). Although women have aided the armed forces in varying capacities since the American Revolution, only since the turn of the twentieth century have they been allowed to serve in uniform; and then only in very limited occupations already deemed socially acceptable for women (McSally 2011).\n\nThe military is grounded in a sense of tradition, history, and pride. This sense is intentionally fostered by leaders who know that tradition strengthens morale during times of trial and tribulation and that, should tradition give way to pragmatism in the minds of service members, the ranks will falter (Schading 2007). Although some traditions have been identified as unfair, immoral, or unjust, the process of correcting certain immoral traditions while keeping all others intact while keeping moral high is a delicate issue. Hence, since 1901, when women were first allowed to serve in the Army and Navy Nurse Corps, women in uniform have been forced to work in a culture of tradition that seems disparagingly dominated by male-based pride and prejudice (McSally 2011). The rules have changed, and continue to change, but the climate remains arguably chilly for women.\n\nThough the precise mission and scope of the military and its branches has changed and evolved over the course of the USA's history, the purpose of its very existence remains the same. The US military exists, first and foremost, as a fighting force, meant to defend the freedom and safety of its citizens. And whereas most jobs in the military are not of a combatant nature, they all exist to support the elements of the force created to make war (Schading 2007). Women are, at the moment, still not able to hold many of the more combat-related occupations within the military (Schading 2007). This point, in and of itself, highlights the gender inequality that must be perceived by most females in the military , regardless of whether or not they agree with the reasoning behind it. To be allowed to serve in the military in a support capacity, but not in the manner for which the military is, at its core, intended, may very likely promote perceptions of unwantedness or tokenism .\n\nVirtually independent of the traditional atmosphere and subsequent gender-typed attitudes instilled in many young male service members is the strong possibility of an already existing overrepresentation of gender-biased males in the military (Young and Nauta 2013). Recall that gender role socialization in childhood and adolescence is theorized to be among the leading causes of occupational segregation by sex (Aziz and Kamal 2012; DiDonato and Strough 2013; Feliciano and Rumbaut 2005; Jiang et al. 2010; Schuette et al. 2012; Vervecken et al. 2013; Wilbourn and Kee 2010; Wootton 1997). The military , as an occupation, is likely more attractive to those who have been raised to believe that men should work in certain settings and women in others (Matthews et al. 2009; Young and Nauta 2013). The result is a force comprised largely of service members who believe that certain jobs are socially acceptable for women, and that the military is not one of them. Compounding that problem, of course, is the fact that, though they may be ever-so-slowly opening new doors for women, the military does not exactly discourage this traditional sex role manner of thinking. Rather, subtle and blatant forms of encouragement for this type of thinking and behaving are abundant, and evidence of social dominance theory can be found throughout the military (McSally 2011).\n\n### 14.3.1 Work\u2013Family Issues of Military Personnel\n\nOf the nearly 2.2 million service members in the US military, roughly 53 % have dependents; a much higher percentage than service members in the past or current civilians in the same age brackets (Blaisure et al. 2012). Having a family (of creation, rather than a family of origin), as defined by the military, can mean one of several situations, and according to 2009 statistics regarding active military personnel, the precise familial breakdown is as follows: dual-military with children (2.8 %), dual-military without children (3.8 %), single with children (5.3 %), married to civilian [no children] (13.7 %), married to civilian [with children] (35.6 %), single [no children] (38.8 %) (Blaisure et al. 2012). The percentage breakdown for the reserve and National Guard components do not differ substantially from these figures and, for all components of the military, the majority of personnel comprising the single [no children] category fall in the junior enlisted (E-1 to E-4) and junior officer (O-1 to O-3) ranks (Blaisure et al. 2012).\n\nBoth men and women in the military commonly experience work\u2013family conflict (Adams et al. 2006) since meeting the needs of the military as well as the needs of the family is quite challenging, particularly given the unrelenting \"greediness\" of both (Segal 1986). The military, being more of a lifestyle than an occupation, can be particularly unforgiving toward outside competitors for a service member's time, energy , focus, and dedication. The family, as in most cases regardless of occupation type, demands much time and devotion. The military has made, and continues to make, huge steps in the direction of a family-friendly force (e.g., family time, paternity leave; Adams et al. 2006), especially considering the core reasons for the very existence of these occupations. What has not changed throughout history, and likely never will, is that in the military the mission comes first meaning nothing supersedes the duties and obligations that these men and women have to their occupations (Adams et al. 2006). When it comes to properly caring for a spouse or family, this mentality affects men and women in uniform in ways large and small, long term and short term.\n\nWork\u2013family conflict in the military can potentially differ from work\u2013family conflict in the civilian world in several key ways, not the least of which is the moderating role of the gender of military personnel. Other principal contributors to this difference include, but are not limited to, extreme lack of flexibility and\/or predictability in work schedule; the possibility of being called into work at random and inconvenient times; frequent moves that may be inconvenient, stressful, or traumatic for service members, spouses, and children; hazardous duty assignments and unaccompanied tours of duty; long lengths of time away from family due to training or combat deployments; and the work-related stress that often accompanies both garrison life and combat (Adams et al. 2006; Blaisure et al. 2012). These represent some of the more pronounced influences on work\u2013family conflict that the military can provide, and they are experienced by men and women alike.\n\nExactly how is work\u2013family conflict influenced by these military-specific antecedents? Unfortunately there is no simple answer to this question due to the incredibly diverse nature of military work, the rank structure, and countless other variables which blur the picture. It can be stated with certainty, though, that the aforementioned points are largely absent from civilian occupations, and are present in most military family situations (Adams et al. 2006; Blaisure et al. 2012). There are certain special circumstances in which a service member might not experience some or any of these added stressors, but, generally speaking, they are part of life for most members.\n\nSo is work\u2013family conflict actually different for women in the military than it is for men? After a thorough review of all of the pertinent literature (not military specific), Frone (2003) concluded that gender was not a significant (statistically or otherwise) moderator in the work\u2013family interface. Indeed, this may be the case when the full spectrum of occupations is taken into account. Nevertheless, when the focus is on a gendered occupation, particularly one as deeply rooted in traditional sex roles as the military, work\u2013family differences by gender become apparent. Would a stay-at-home wife and a husband as the sole breadwinner create the same sort of resentment , sexual confusion, or tension? Would having a second child have been as difficult? Would a male have needed to worry about his career by discussing his family with his chain of command? Would he have felt the need to discuss it? Only in 2008 was the first woman in the history of the US military promoted to the rank of General (Military Women in Service for America Foundation 2011). Advancement for women in the military has been and continues to be a hard-fought battle, and it is precisely the advancement dilemma that exacerbates the already present work\u2013family conflict issue for women. As illustrated in the Masculine Occupations Gender Role Model, these increases in the potential for work\u2013family conflict for women, as the minority gender, are directly and indirectly driving work and family distress, decreased functioning and performance, low retention, and the perpetuation of a male-centric organization.\n\n## 14.4 Emerging Issues in the Gendered Military\n\nOur discussion thus far of the Masculine Occupations Gender Role Model and the military as a gendered occupation has been tailored toward traditional familial situations, and has intentionally disregarded any subpopulations. In the following section we introduce some emerging issues and unique populations that require special attention. Many of these issues (e.g., LGB marriage in the military ; women in combat) are related to policies that are currently, or have very recently been passed, and we do not know yet the unintended consequences (both positive and negative) associated with these changes. We do believe that it is beneficial, however, for future researchers to investigate work\u2013family conflict with regard to these emerging issues, and the relationship that the military, as a gendered occupation, has with them.\n\n### 14.4.1 Lesbian, Gay, and Bisexual (LGB) Populations\n\nWith approximately 4\u201317 % LGB employees in the civilian workforce (4\u201317 %, Gonsiorek and Weinrich 1991; 10\u201314 %, Powers 1996), one can estimate that the military has a similar prevalence of LGB military personnel. These numbers are difficult to confirm with the military's longstanding policy of Don't Ask Don't Tell (DADT) , which essentially forced LGB soldiers into the closet. In late 2010, DADT was repealed (Rich et al. 2012), and LGB service members were, for the first time ever, allowed to serve openly in the US armed forces. Even more recently, the government has taken steps to ensure that the spouses of homosexual and bisexual service members are eligible for full benefits, as is the case with any other military marriage (Secretary of Defense 2013). These are clearly large steps for occupational equality with regard to sex and gender, and the stamping out of discrimination in the armed forces.\n\nTo fully understand how work and family outcomes of LGB military personnel are affected by the gendered military organization, we need to examine processes related to the Masculine Occupations Gender Role Model. We noted earlier that a strong masculine culture leads to less acceptance of nontraditional gender identities. We propose that this masculine culture can stigmatize an LGB service member. A stigma is a very powerful phenomenon that has two dimensions\u2014concealability and perceived controllability (Crocker et al. 1998). Individuals with concealable stigmas (such as LGB individuals) have to make a conscious decision regarding the degree of identity disclosure. Individuals with stigmas that are perceived to be controllability (such as being LGB3) can experience negative reactions if others believe it is their choice to have the stigmatized characteristics (in this case LGB status; Goffman 1963).\n\nIndividuals who have a stigma are also potentially exposed to minority stress (Meyer 2003). LGB individuals usually live and work among non-LGB individuals (Waldo 1999), especially in the military environment. The LGB military personnel will experience the typical stressors that all military personnel might experience (e.g., separation from family, deployments), but will also experience additional stressors that are unique to their minority status (e.g., fear of being \"outed\", Ragins et al. 2007; discrimination, Kerrigan, 2012; identity management, Kerrigan, 2012) . This accumulation of stress can affect both mental and physical health (Hobfoll, 1989), and could further exacerbate the consequences of work\u2013family conflict (King et al. 2013).\n\nFuture researchers should consider two points when delving into work\u2013family conflict in the military for LGB populations. The first is that recent research is showing evidence that the repeal of DADT is having an opposite effect on some service members, in that rather than allowing them the opportunity to serve openly, it has forced them further into the closet, and in some instances increased the level of workplace stress and anxiety with which they live (Rich et al. 2012). Researchers need to further probe this issue to understand why this effect might be occurring, and what the military can do to offset this unintended consequence. The second point worthy of consideration is the finding that LGB-specific social support can decrease negative work outcomes for employees (Huffman et al. 2008). The military organization (and other masculine organizations) might want to develop training programs that will teach supervisors how to provide support for this group. This is especially important since it is only recently that the military has formally recognized LGB personnel.\n\n### 14.4.2 Women in Combat\n\nIn 2013, the Department of Defense announced that women would, for the first time in the history of the US armed forces, be allowed to serve in combat-related (combat arms) occupations (e.g., infantry, artillery, cavalry; Roulo 2013) . Although the policy change has already been announced, the change itself will not take effect until 2016 at the earliest, due to the time it will take to reorganize the force to allow for such a drastic alteration to its established operating system. How will it change the nature of the military as a gendered occupation? And how will the inclusion of women in all jobs in the Army (and eventually every branch of the military) influence work\u2013family conflict? To address these questions we can first return to our model. Although women make up approximately 14.4 % of military personnel, currently and historically, they have been entirely absent from combat arms jobs (Department of Defense 2011) . This exclusion likely reinforces stereotypical views, such as beliefs that women are weak and are ill-suited for combat jobs (Young and Nauta 2013). Furthermore, men who are in combat arms jobs are less likely to have daily exposure to women, particularly within the workplace. As such, there are likely fewer opportunities for these stereotypes to be changed. Yet with the impending changes in rules concerning women in combat arms, some of these stereotypes may lessen. Pettigrew and Tropp (2011) suggest that intergroup contact by itself can decrease stereotypes. With the inclusion of women in combat arms jobs, the prevalence of women in the armed forces might increase overall, thereby allowing for more intergroup contact. This heightened contact could decrease stereotypes, and, with time, change the culture of combat arms units and the military as a whole.\n\nYet, we also have to examine the introduction of women into combat in the context of potential additional stressors for women, which could lead to work\u2013family conflict and the resultant negative job outcomes. Although prevalence of women might introduce a more healthy culture, the exposure to combat could increase the likelihood of additional job stressors. To understand how women in combat might affect work\u2013family conflict issues, we can extrapolate from research on military personnel in combat and its effect on such conflict . Vinokur et al. (2011), for example, provide some insight into the role that combat plays on work\u2013family conflict. They assessed the exposure to war on military personnel's well-being. Their results showed that exposure to combat was related to increased conflict between work and family domains. Similarly, Hobfoll et al. (2012) examined exposure to trauma (which could occur for both combat arms and noncombat arms jobs) and work\u2013family conflict as a source of stress and found that, together, these stressors led to lost resources, which led to outcomes such as posttraumatic stress disorder and perceived health outcomes. When taken together, the aforementioned theories would seem to predict a different, but not necessarily improved work\u2013family conflict scenario for women in these combat arms occupations. The overall gendered culture of the military will have likely changed for the better, which, in theory, would create a decrease in work\u2013family conflict for women within the military. However, for those women specifically in these combat arms professions, work\u2013family conflict may not change, or may even increase, due to the ultra-male environment and more extreme gender-based beliefs of those who often work there .\n\n### 14.4.3 Gender Stigmas for Injured Military Personnel\n\nThe subject of gender stigmas with regard to injury is particularly germane to today's military because of the recent wars and sheer number of physical and psychological injuries that have resulted from them (Fisher 2013). Although men are more likely to suffer combat-related injuries, women are significantly more likely to be injured in training , and both genders sustain injuries while off duty that then may impact their ability to perform their occupational duties and\/or their readiness to deploy to combat (Tiesman et al. 2007). Additionally, research has suggested that women are more susceptible to the nonvisible wounds of battle (e.g., PTSD) than are men (Lutwak 2012). Recent research investigating the roots of this gender disparity in PTSD prevalence has identified combat related stressors, prior interpersonal victimization, and predeployment concerns about life and family disruptions during deployment as being differentially associated with PTSD for men and women (Polusny et al. 2014). Kline et al. (2013) further contributes that lower scores for women on predeployment military preparedness (i.e., lack of combat-specific training) and unit cohesion also predict the postdeployment PTSD gender disparity . Whether the injuries sustained are physical or psychological, the question then is whether these combat and noncombat-related injuries affect military men and women in the same way, and whether any differential treatment and\/or expectations exist between the genders based on the gendered nature of military service.\n\nDespite a growing body of literature exploring the individual and societal implications of traumatic brain injury , PTSD, and various other mental and physical injuries commonly found in those returning from deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan (Morissette et al. 2011), very little research has attempted to explore these issues through the lens of gender expectations. Given what is known regarding the gender-typed thinking in the military, it is perhaps not unreasonable to assume that those women who suffer physical and psychological injuries in the military do not feel comfortable talking about or displaying them in a manner that might otherwise be acceptable, for fear of being seen as weak or unsuitable for military work (Young and Nauta 2013). This places injured women in a rather precarious position because, while it is traditional \"male\" behavior to downplay the severity of physical and psychological hardship, as noted by Glick and Fiske (2001), when women in male-dominated occupations do not conform to traditional sex gender roles they may encounter various forms of resistance and negative attitudes form their male colleagues. Dealing with an injury in a masculine or feminine manner, it would appear, may bring additional distress to a female service member. This is an important area to consider and further explore when considering the implications, work\u2013family related and otherwise, of work in a gendered occupation.\n\n## 14.5 Conclusion\n\nThe United States military is simply one illustrative example of a male-gendered occupation. In every gendered occupation, the minority gender may face challenges that are unique to that specific occupation or organization (e.g., deploying to combat as a female), or challenges that are common to all occupations that are segregated by sex (e.g., tokenism) . As such, some of the antecedents of work\u2013family conflict mentioned in our example of the military as a gendered occupation may be more or less generalizable to other male-dominated professions. The same would be true if any other gendered occupation had been used as an example. We explicitly note this so that little doubt is left as to our intention with this chapter: to provide general knowledge concerning the potential for increased work\u2013family conflict for those in the minority gender of a gendered occupation, and to provide specific examples from one of the most glaringly gendered organizations.\n\nWe proposed a model that can be applied to the military , or any other male-gendered profession, to help explain the cycle of gender segregation and the propensity for increased work\u2013family conflict for women as the minority gender. In order to lay the groundwork for our model, a theoretical basis for the very existence of gendered professions was established to help bring to the forefront the reality of biological and social phenomena combining to form less than perfectly equitable occupational environments . Our model revealed how and why an occupation such as the military can be so heavily dominated by males (Phase I). Specifically, this was done by emphasizing the very facts and theory that provide support to the points that make certain occupations male-gendered. This prevalence of men create an occupational culture that is, both consciously and unconsciously, both actively and passively, supportive of the personal and professional needs of one sex (men), but neglectful to the needs of the other (women; Phase II). The translation of an unsupportive culture to the needs of women leads to the potential for increased work\u2013family conflict (Phase III). Finally, conservation of resources theory highlights how increased work\u2013family conflict for women in these male-dominated professions can instigate adverse psychological and physiological repercussions which, in turn, bring negative outcomes to both the work and family spheres (Phase IV). The cyclical nature of the model culminates, perpetuating the military, or any other male-gendered profession, to be dominated by men.\n\nStress or distress from the work domain spilling into and adversely affecting the family domain, and vice versa, is a possibility for any professional, of any gender, in any organization or industry. It is important to recognize, however, that certain groups and categories of people working in certain occupations may be naturally disadvantaged in this regard. Although women, as a minority group in the male-dominated military, provided an example of this phenomenon here, men could also experience minority status in another occupation (e.g., nursing). Remaining cognizant of the potential for inequitable conditions in and around work\u2013family conflict should be a priority for researchers and employers alike.\n\nReferences\n\nAcker, J. (1998). The future of \"gender and organizations\". Gender, Work and Organization, 5, 195\u2013206.CrossRef\n\nAdams, G. A., Jex, S. M., & Cunningham, C. J. L. (2006). Work\u2013family conflict among military personnel. In C. A. Castro, A. B. Adler, & T. W. Britt (Eds.), Military life: The psychology of serving in peace and combat (pp. 169\u2013192). Westport: Praeger.\n\nAllen, T. D., Herst, D. E. L., Bruck, C. S., & Sutton, M. (2000). Consequences associated with work-to-family conflict: A review and agenda for future research. Journal of Occupational Health Psychology, 5, 278\u2013308.PubMedCrossRef\n\nAziz, S., & Kamal, A. (2012). Gender role attitudes and occupational aspirations of Pakistani adolescents. FWU Journal of Social Sciences, 6, 89\u201398.\n\nBilling, Y. (2000). Organizational cultures, families and careers in Scandinavia. In L. Haas, P. Hwang, & G. Russell (Eds.), Organizational change and gender equity. Thousand Oaks: Sage.\n\nBlackburn, R. M., & Jarman, J. (2006). Gendered occupations. International Sociology, 21, 289\u2013315.CrossRef\n\nBlaisure, K. R., Saathoff-Wells, T., Pereira, A., MacDermid Wadsworth, S., & Dombro, A. L. (2012). Serving military families in the 21st century. New York: Routledge.\n\nBureau of Labor Statistics. (2012). Employed persons by detailed occupation, sex, race, and Hispanic or Latino ethnicity. http:\/\/\u200bwww.\u200bbls.\u200bgov\/\u200bcps\/\u200bcpsaat11.\u200bpdf. Accessed 1 Sep 2013.\n\nCabrera, S. F., Sauer, S. J., & Thomas-Hunt, M. (2009). The evolving manager stereotype: The effects of industry gender typing on performance expectations for leaders and their teams. Psychology of Women Quarterly, 33, 419\u2013428.CrossRef\n\nCarli, L. L., & Eagly, A. H. (1999). Gender effects on social influence and emergent leadership. In G. N. Powell (Ed.), Handbook of gender and work (pp. 203\u2013222). Thousand Oaks: Sage.CrossRef\n\nCech, E., Rubineau, B., Silbey, S., & Seron, C. (2011). Professional role confidence and gendered persistence in engineering. American Sociological Review, 76, 641\u2013666.CrossRef\n\nCook, A., & Minnotte, K. (2008). Occupational and industry sex segregation and the work\u2013family interface. Sex Roles, 59, 800\u2013813.CrossRef\n\nCrocker, J., Major, B., & Steele, C. (1998). Social stigma. In D. Gilbert, S. T. Fiske, & G. Lindzey (Eds.), Handbook of social psychology (pp. 504\u2013553). Boston: McGraw-Hill.\n\nDepartment of Defense. (2011). Profile of the military community: 2010 Demographics. Washington, D.C.: Office of the Deputy Under Secretary of Defense (Military Community and Family Policy).\n\nDiDonato, L., & Strough, J. (2013). Do college students' gender-typed attitudes about occupations predict their real-world decisions? Sex Roles, 68, 536\u2013549.CrossRef\n\nEagly, A. H. (1987). Sex differences in social behavior: A social-role interpretation. Hillsdale: Erlbaum.\n\nEagly, A. H., & Sczesny, S. (2009). Stereotypes about women, men, and leaders: Have times changed? In M. Barreto, M. K. Ryan, & M. T. Schmitt (Eds.), The glass ceiling in the 21st century: Understanding barriers to gender equality (pp. 21\u201347). Washington, D.C.: American Psychological Association.CrossRef\n\nFeliciano, C., & Rumbaut, R. G. (2005). Gendered paths: Educational and occupational expectations and outcomes among adult children of immigrants. Ethnic & Racial Studies, 28, 1087\u20131118.CrossRef\n\nFiske, S. T. (1998). Stereotyping, prejudice, and discrimination. In D. T. Gilbert, S. T. Fiske, & G. Lindzey (Eds.), Handbook of social psychology (pp. 357\u2013411). New York: McGraw-Hill.\n\nFrone, M. R. (2003). Work\u2013family balance. In J. C. Quick & L. E. Tetrick (Eds.), Handbook of occupational health psychology (pp. 143\u2013162). Washington, D.C.: American Psychological Association.CrossRef\n\nGaucher, D., Friesen, J., & Kay, A. C. (2011). Evidence that gendered wording in job advertisements exists and sustains gender inequality. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 101, 109\u2013128.PubMedCrossRef\n\nGlass, J. L., & Estes, S. B. (1997). The family responsive workplace. Annual Review of Sociology, 23, 289\u2013313.CrossRef\n\nGlick, P., & Fiske, S. (2001). Ambivalent sexism. In M. P. Zanna (Ed.), Advances in experimental social psychology (pp. 115\u2013188). Thousand Oaks: Academic.\n\nGlick, P., & Fiske, S. T. (2007). Sex discrimination: The psychological approach. In F. J. Crosby, M. S. Stockdale, & S. A. Ropp (Eds.). Sex discrimination in the workplace: Multidisciplinary approaches (pp. 155\u2013188). Malden: Blackwell.\n\nGoffman, E. (1963). Stigma: Notes on the management of spoiled identity. Englewood Cliffs: Prentice Hall.\n\nGonsiorek, J. C., & Weinrich, J. D. (1991). The definition and scope of sexual orientation. In J. C. Gonsiorek & J. D. Weinich (Eds.), Homosexuality: Research implications for public policy (pp. 1\u201312). Newbury Park: Sage.CrossRef\n\nGreenhaus, J. H., Beutell, N. J. (1985). Sources of conflict between work and family roles. Academy of Management Review, 10, 76\u201388.\n\nHaas, L., & Hwang, C. P. (2007). Gender and organizational culture. Gender & Society, 21, 52\u201379.CrossRef\n\nHakim, C. (2000). Work-lifestyle choices in the 21st century: Preference theory. Oxford: Oxford University Press.\n\nHarris, D., & Giuffre, P. (2010). \"The price you pay\": How female professional chefs negotiate work and family. Gender Issues, 27, 27\u201352.CrossRef\n\nHobfoll, S. E. (1989). Conservation of resources: A new attempt at conceptualizing stress. American Psychologist, 44, 513\u2013524.PubMedCrossRef\n\nHobfoll, S. E. (2011). Conservation of resource caravans and engaged settings. Journal of Occupational & Organizational Psychology, 84, 116\u2013122.CrossRef\n\nHobfoll, S. E., Vinokur, A. D., Pierce, P. F., & Lewandowski-Romps, L. (2012). The combined stress of family life, work, and war in Air Force men and women: A test of conservation of resources theory. International Journal of Stress Management, 19, 217\u2013237.CrossRef\n\nHuffman, A. H., Watrous-Rodriguez, K., & King, E. (2008). Supporting a diverse workforce: What type of support is most meaningful for lesbian and gay employees? Human Resource Management, 4, 237\u2013253.CrossRef\n\nJiang, X., Wang, P., & Wang, M. (2010). Relationship between college students' gender, gender-role identity and occupation-sex stereotype. Chinese Journal of Clinical Psychology, 18, 366\u2013368.\n\nJones, A. P., & Butler, M. (1980). A role transition approach to the stresses of organizationally induced family role disruption. Journal of Marriage and the Family, 42, 367\u2013376.CrossRef\n\nKelley, M. L., Herzog-Simmer, P. A., & Harris, M. A. (1994). Effects of military-induced separation on the parenting stress and family functioning of deploying mothers. Military Psychology, 6, 125\u2013138.CrossRef\n\nKerrigan, M. F. (2012). Transgender discrimination in the military: The new don't ask, don't tell. Psychology, Public Policy, and Law, 18, 500\u2013518.CrossRef\n\nKing, E., Huffman, A., & Peddie, C. (2013). LGBT parents and the workplace. In A. E. Goldberg & K. R. Allen (Eds.), LGBT-parent families: Possibilities for new research and implications for practice (pp. 225\u2013237). New York: Springer.CrossRef\n\nKline, A., Ciccone, D. S., Weiner, M., Interian, A., St. Hill, L., Falca-Dodson, M., Black, C. M., & Losonczy, M. (2013). Gender differences in the risk and protective factors associated with PTSD: A prospective study of National Guard troops deployed to Iraq. Psychiatry: Interpersonal & Biological Processes, 76, 256\u2013272.\n\nLiben, L. S., & Bigler, R. S. (2002). The developmental course of gender differentiation: Conceptualizing, measuring, and evaluating constructs and pathways. Monographs of the Society for Research in Child Development, 67, vii\u2013147.\n\nLutwak, N. (2012). The negative effects of MST and combat injuries among female soldiers: A major concern. Journal of Psychiatric Research, 46, 691\u2013723.PubMedCrossRef\n\nLyness, K. S., & Heilman, M. E. (2006). When fit is fundamental: Performance evaluations and promotions of upper-level female and male managers. Journal of Applied Psychology, 91, 777\u2013785.PubMedCrossRef\n\nMackenzie, M. H. (2012). Let women fight. Foreign Affairs, 91, 32\u201342.\n\nMatthews, M. D., Ender, M. G., Laurence, J. H., & Rohall, D. E. (2009). Role of group affiliation and gender on attitudes toward women in the military. Military Psychology, 21, 241\u2013251.CrossRef\n\nMaume, D. J., & Houston, P. (2001). Job segregation and gender differences in work\u2013family spillover among white-collar workers. Journal of Family and Economic Issues, 22, 171\u2013189.CrossRef\n\nMcSally, M. E. (2011). Defending America in mixed company: Gender in the U. S. armed forces. Daedalus, 140, 148\u2013164.CrossRef\n\nMeyer, I. H. (2003). Prejudice, social stress, and mental health in lesbian, gay, and bisexual populations: Conceptual issues and research evidence. Psychological Bulletin, 129, 674\u2013697.PubMedCentralPubMedCrossRef\n\nMilitary Women in Service for America Foundation. (2011). Statistics on women in the military. http:\/\/\u200bwww.\u200bwomensmemorial.\u200borg\/\u200bPDFs\/\u200bStatsonWIM.\u200bpdf. Accessed 1 Sep 2013.\n\nMorgan, H., & Milliken, F. (1992). Keys to action. Human Resource Management, 31, 227\u2013248.CrossRef\n\nMorissette, S. B., Woodward, M., Kimbrel, N. A., Meyer, E. C., Kruse, M. I., Dolan, S., & Gulliver, S. B. (2011). Deployment-related TBI, persistent postconcussive symptoms, PTSD, and depression in OEF\/OIF veterans. Rehabilitation Psychology, 56, 340\u2013350.PubMedCrossRef\n\nO'Reilly, C. (1989). Corporations, culture, and commitment: Motivation and social control in organizations. California Management Review, 31, 9\u201325.\n\nPettigrew, T. F., & Tropp, L. R. (2011). When groups meet: The dynamics of intergroup contact. New York: Psychology Press.\n\nPolusny, M. A., Kumpula, M. J., Meis, L. A., Erbes, C. R., Arbisi, P. A., Murdoch, M., Thuras, P., Kehle-Forbes, S., & Johnson, A. K. (2014). Gender differences in the effects of deployment-related stressors and pre-deployment risk factors on the development of PTSD symptoms in National Guard soldiers deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan. Journal of Psychiatric Research, 49, 1\u20139.PubMedCrossRef\n\nPowers, B. (1996). The impact of gay, lesbian, and bisexual workplace issues on productivity. In A. Ellis & E. Riggle (Eds.), Sexual identity on the job: Issues and services. New York: Haworth.\n\nRagins, B. R., Singh, R., & Cornwell, J. M. (2007). Making the invisible visible: Fear and disclosure of sexual orientation at work. Journal of Applied Psychology, 92, 1103\u20131118.PubMedCrossRef\n\nReskin, B. F. (2003). Including mechanisms in our models of ascriptive inequality. American Sociological Review, 68, 1\u201321.CrossRef\n\nRich, C., Schutten, J. K., & Rogers, R. A. (2012). \"Don't drop the soap\": Organizing sexualities in the repeal of the U.S. military's 'don't ask, don't tell' policy. Communication Monographs, 79, 269\u2013291.CrossRef\n\nRothrauff, T., Cable, S. M., & Coleman, M. (2004). All that you can be: Negotiating work and family demands in the military. Journal of Teaching in Marriage & Family, 4, 1\u201325.CrossRef\n\nRoulo, C. (2013). Defense department expands women's combat role. U.S. Department of Defense News. www.\u200bdefense.\u200bgov\/\u200bNews\/\u200bNewsArticle.\u200baspx. Accessed 1 Sep 2013.\n\nSandler, B. R., Silverberg, L. A., & Hall, R. M. (1996). The chilly classroom climate: A guide to improve the education of women. Washington, D.C.: The National Association for Women in Education.\n\nSchading, B. (2007). A civilian's guide to the U.S. military: A comprehensive reference to the customs, language and structure of the armed forces. Cincinnati: Writer's Digest Books.\n\nSchein, E. H. (1990). Organizational culture. American Psychologist, 45, 109\u2013119.CrossRef\n\nSchneider, B., Ehrhart, M. G., & Macey, W. H. (2013). Organizational climate and culture. Annual Review of Psychology, 64, 361\u2013388.PubMedCrossRef\n\nSchuette, C. T., Ponton, M. K., & Charlton, M. L. (2012). Middle school children's career aspirations: Relationship to adult occupations and gender. Career Development Quarterly, 60, 36\u201346.CrossRef\n\nSecretary of Defense. (2013). Extending benefits to same sex domestic partners of military members. http:\/\/\u200bwww.\u200bdefense.\u200bgov\/\u200bnews\/\u200bsame-sexbenefitsmemo.\u200bpdf. Accessed 1 Sep 2013.\n\nSegal, M. (1986). The military and the family as greedy institutions. Armed Forces & Society, 13, 9\u201338.CrossRef\n\nSidanius, J., & Pratto, F. (1999). Social dominance: An intergroup theory of social hierarchy and oppression. New York: Cambridge University Press.CrossRef\n\nThorne, B. (1993). Gender play: Girls and boys in school. Piscataway: Rutgers University Press.\n\nTiesman, H. M., Peek-Asa, C., Zwerling, C. S., Sprince, N. L., & Amoroso, P. J. (2007). Occupational and non-occupational injuries in the United States Army: Focus on gender. American Journal of Preventive Medicine, 33, 464\u2013470.PubMedCrossRef\n\nVervecken, D., Hannover, B., & Wolter, I. (2013). Changing (s)expectations: How gender fair job descriptions impact children's perceptions and interest regarding traditionally male occupations. Journal of Vocational Behavior, 82, 208\u2013220.CrossRef\n\nVinokur, A. D., Pierce, P. F., Lewandowski-Romps, L., Hobfoll, S. E., & Galea, S. (2011). Effects of war exposure on air force personnel's mental health, job burnout and other organizational related outcomes. Journal of Occupational Health Psychology, 16, 3\u201317.PubMedCentralPubMedCrossRef\n\nVoydanoff, P., & Donnelly, B. W. (1989). Work and family roles and psychological distress. Journal of Marriage & Family, 51, 923\u2013932.CrossRef\n\nWaldo, C. R. (1999). Working in a majority context: A structural model of heterosexism as minority stress in the workplace. Journal of Counseling Psychology, 46, 218\u2013232.CrossRef\n\nWicks, D., & Bradshaw, P. (1999). Gendered organizational cultures in Canadian work organizations: Implications for creating an equitable workforce. Management Decision, 37, 372\u2013383.CrossRef\n\nWilbourn, M., & Kee, D. (2010). Henry the nurse is a doctor too: Implicitly examining children's gender stereotypes for male and female occupational roles. Sex Roles, 62, 670\u2013683.CrossRef\n\nWootton, B. H. (1997). Gender differences in occupational employment. Monthly Labor Review, 120, 15\u201324.\n\nYoung, L. M., & Nauta, M. M. (2013). Sexism as a predictor of attitudes toward women in the military and in combat. Military Psychology, 25, 166\u2013171.CrossRef\n\nFootnotes\n\n1\n\nThis exclusion of women in combat jobs is changing in 2016 with new Department of Defense policies that will allow women to hold combat positions.\n\n2\n\nStatistics on the Coast Guard were included in this discussion of the military, though they are no longer a branch of the Department of Defense.\n\n3\n\nWe are not saying here that being LGB is a choice. We are merely noting that some individuals may see it as such, and therefore stigmatize LGB individuals accordingly.\n\u00a9 Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2015\n\nMaura J. Mills (ed.)Gender and the Work-Family Experience10.1007\/978-3-319-08891-4_15\n\n# 15. Women in STEM: Family-Related Challenges and Initiatives\n\nVanessa A. Jean1  , Stephanie C. Payne1  and Rebecca J. Thompson2\n\n(1)\n\nDepartment of Psychology, Texas A&M University, 77843 College Station, TX, USA\n\n(2)\n\nUniversity of Baltimore, Baltimore, 21201, Maryland, MD, USA\n\nVanessa A. Jean (Corresponding author)\n\nEmail: vjean@tamu.edu\n\nStephanie C. Payne\n\nEmail: scp@tamu.edu\n\nRebecca J. Thompson\n\nEmail: rthompson@ubalt.edu\n\nKeywords\n\nSTEMScienceTechnologyEngineeringMathAcademiaWork\u2013familyUnderrepresentationBiological clockOrganizational climateMotherhood penalty\n\nThe authors express their appreciation to Jos\u00e9 Berm\u00fadez and Nate Keiser for their assistance with the childcare data and to Mindy Bergman, Laura Lomeli, Kathi Miner, Xiaohong (Violet) Xu, and Carla Zimmerman for their feedback on earlier versions of the chapter. This chapter is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under NSF Cooperative Agreement No. HRD-1008385.\n\n## 15.1 The Problem\n\nWomen represent more than 50 % of the population and capacity for innovation in the USA, but they earn less than 25 % of the doctoral degrees in engineering, computer science, and physics, and are underrepresented in almost all science technology, engineering, and math (STEM) careers (National Science Foundation 2013). Despite relatively equal proportions of boys and girls enrolled in STEM courses during grade school, women are significantly underrepresented in STEM degrees and occupations around the world (Hill et al. 2010). Advances in STEM are critical to our health and security, and diversification of the STEM workforce is believed to enhance creativity, innovation, and quality of STEM contributions (Burke 2007).\n\nIt is important to increase the representation of women in STEM for various reasons. First, women have relevant knowledge and skills to contribute which has the potential to extend our accomplishments in these areas. Second, women offer additional perspectives, which can facilitate problem solving and generation of solutions. More perspectives tend to challenge preexisting assumptions, thereby leading to innovation. Third, having more women in STEM creates more role models and mentors for future generations of STEM workers.\n\nExtensive research has been conducted on sex differences focusing particularly on the underrepresentation of women in STEM (for a review see Ceci and Williams 2007). This research examines genetic differences, environmental influences throughout the lifespan beginning even before birth (i.e., prenatal), and the combination of the two. Although relatively equal proportions of boys and girls enroll in STEM courses during grade school, the distribution is not equal thereafter. The phrase \"leaky pipeline\" has been used to describe statistical trends concerning women in STEM reflecting a \"sex-based filter that removes one sex from the stream and leaves the other to arrive at the end of the pipeline\" (Blickenstaff 2005, p. 369).\n\nIn the current chapter, we highlight the influence that family-related challenges have on STEM academic and nonacademic careers. The objectives of this chapter are fourfold: (1) briefly review gender-related theories used to explain underrepresentation of women in STEM, (2) summarize some of the empirical evidence of work\u2013family challenges that STEM women in academia and industry experience, (3) present some new data about the importance of childcare to STEM women's careers, and (4) identify various initiatives, including family-friendly policies and practices, that have been implemented to alleviate work\u2013family challenges and in turn retain women in STEM.\n\n## 15.2 Theories About Underrepresentation of Women in STEM\n\nThere are a number of theories that have been offered to explain why women are underrepresented in STEM. We briefly review gender-related theories, focusing particularly on the theories that explain why women disproportionally experience family-related challenges. These include social role theory (Eagly 1987; Eagly et al. 2000), role congruity theory (Eagly and Karau 2002), stereotype threat (Steele and Aronson 1995), and implicit bias (Greenwald and Banaji 1995).\n\nOne theory proposed to explain the underrepresentation of women in STEM is social role theory (Eagly 1987; Eagly et al. 2000). Gender roles are common beliefs about what men and women tend to do (descriptive norms) as well as what men and women are supposed to do (injunctive norms; Eagly 1987). Historically, men have been the breadwinners, providing financial support for the family, while women have been cooks, homemakers, and the caretakers of the children and the elderly. Further, STEM fields are historically male-dominated (Kanter 1977). Thus, history and tradition contribute to gender-based stereotypes about who should be scientists, technology professionals, engineers, and mathematicians.\n\nThese normative expectations influence boys and girls from the day they are born\u2014through the toys people give them to play with and the reactions people had when they expressed their preferred interests and career-aspirations. These stereotypes continue to have an impact on men and women well beyond their developmental years, as stereotypes influence many people who play important roles in their lives. For example, family members frequently expect women to adopt caretaking roles and responsibilities in the home. Organizational decision makers may be more inclined to hire men for STEM positions (e.g., Steinpres et al. 1999) and give men more developmental opportunities, raises, and promotions than women. Students may take gender roles into consideration when evaluating professors in the classroom (Bennett 1982).\n\nGender roles not only influence how people perceive others, but they also influence how people perceive themselves. Correspondingly, gender roles can influence women's identity and the decisions they make concerning both their personal and professional lives. Beyond the decision to pursue a career in STEM, gender roles can influence decision making about taking a break from one's career, bearing children, and prioritization of a partner's career.\n\nA related theory concerning women's perceptions of themselves, decisions that they make, and their performance is stereotype threat, or a fear of confirming stereotypes about one's groups (e.g., \"girls aren't good at math\"; Steele and Aronson 1995). This theory has been used to explain lower levels of performance on math tests by women than men (e.g., Spencer et al. 1999).\n\nA third theory that has been used to explain sex differences in STEM is role congruity theory . This theory extends social role theory to explain what happens when women (or men) violate gender roles (Eagly and Karau 2002) or when there is an incongruity between characteristics of an individual and the requirements of another role they are taking on. It is tempting to discount traditional gender roles as old-fashioned and question how much they still exist today. Unfortunately, a number of recent studies suggest that such views are still perpetuated in the media (e.g., Collins 2011) and in work-related decisions (e.g., Correll et al. 2007). For example, researchers at Ohio State University recently manipulated the authors listed next to abstracts of scientific studies and asked graduate students to rate the quality of the study. Sadly, the abstracts of studies with male authors were rated as higher quality than identical abstracts of studies with female authors (Knobloch-Westerwick et al. 2013).\n\nSome people react negatively to violations of gender roles (Eagly and Karau 2002) especially if those people have developed a bias, implicit or explicit , in favor of people conforming to traditional gender roles. Implicit biases are unconscious and automatic preferences that people make based on stereotypes (Greenwald and Banaji 1995). Implicit bias is not the same as explicit bias , which is likely to be manifested in more blatant discrimination. Implicit bias is much more subtle, unintentional, and unconscious. It influences how we perceive people and the decisions that we make.\n\nAt first, implicit biases may not seem to make much of a difference, but scientists argue that subtle slights accumulate over time and result in larger disparities (i.e., a multiplier effect) : As Valian (1999) noted, \"Mountains are molehills piled one on top of the other\" (p. 4). This is evidenced by the relatively small number of women who achieve some of the highest ranks within STEM within education, academia , and industry. While implicit biases are unconscious, they still have negative consequences. For example, implicit biases have been revealed in hiring recommendations based on gender stereotypes conveyed in letters of recommendation (Madera et al. 2009; Trix and Psenka 2003). Disadvantages accrue and have a major impact on salary, promotion , prestige, and advancement (Martel et al. 1996).\n\n## 15.3 Work\u2013Family Challenges in STEM Occupations\n\nMany interventions designed to increase the percentages of women in STEM fields focus on supporting and educating undergraduate women on the virtues of these majors. There have been some increases in women in these majors, the number of women in STEM occupations has not increased correspondingly (Fouad et al. 2011; Preston 2004). While women and men are earning undergraduate degrees in STEM fields at similar rates, consistent with others (e.g., Preston 2004), we posit that family-related challenges pose significant hurdles for STEM women's careers. Fundamentally, the more roles people take on, the more opportunities there are for role conflict. Work\u2013family conflict (WFC) is broadly defined as the interrole conflict that occurs when strains from the work and family domains are in some way mutually incompatible, making involvement in each role more challenging as a result of the other (Greenhaus and Beutell 1985). The following section describes six family-related challenges faced by many women in STEM: (1) overlap of biological clock and the timeline for career advancement , (2) pregnancy and childbirth, (3) quality childcare , (4) eldercare challenges, (5) dual-career couple challenges, and (6) balancing critical career experiences with family demands.\n\n### 15.3.1 Overlap of Biological Clock with the Timeline for Career Advancement\n\nOne family-related challenge to a STEM career is overlap of the biological clock with the timeline for career advancement. A woman's biological clock conveys the time period in which it is biologically optimal for her to conceive and reproduce. During this time she is fertile\u2014regularly releasing eggs and also physically capable of bearing children. For American women, this time period is between the ages of 15 and 44, with the most babies in the USA born to women between 20 and 24 years of age in both 2007 and 2009 (Sutton et al. 2011). This timeframe directly overlaps with the critical timeframe for career advancement.\n\nIn academic occupations, the timeline for career advancement is somewhat prescribed. Postsecondary teachers or college\/university professors are typically required to have a doctorate (Bureau of Labor Statistics 2012) . A 4-year degree must be obtained prior to an approximately 6-year doctorate. Thus, a direct path to an academic career means most tenure-track professors start the tenure track around 28, which is already beyond the most common age range for human reproduction in the USA (20\u201324 years; Sutton et al. 2011). Tenure can take up to 7 years to obtain, making most women 35 by the time they achieve tenure. If they deviate from a direct path, they could be well into their 40s by the time they achieve the milestone of tenure. In fact for many STEM-related fields, earning a doctorate is followed by a postdoctoral position that lasts anywhere from 1 to 7 years and sometimes longer, further extending time devoted to training for one's career.\n\nThe tenure clock schedule coincides with the biological clock of a woman, such that a woman who chooses to not have a child because she is striving for tenure may not be able to physically have a child after completion of the tenure process due to risk factors associated with age . Although the age when fertility begins to decline is different for each woman, the chance of conceiving drops considerably after age 35 and even more prominently after age 40 (National Center for Biotechnology Information 2013). The rates of miscarriage and fetal chromosomal abnormalities increase with maternal age after 35 years, as do the risks of developing complications during pregnancy , such as gestational diabetes (Cleary-Goldman et al. 2005).\n\nWhile most women working in nonacademic STEM careers do not face the specified career goal of tenure, their career advancement frequently overlaps with family demands (e.g., new projects, promotions). In a US study of women in mid-level information technology (IT) occupations, nearly one-third of women reported delaying their career goals in order to have children (Simard et al. 2008). Additionally, mid-level women in IT reported being more likely than their male colleagues to sacrifice marriage\/partnership and\/or having children altogether in order to accomplish their career goals. While this group was in the minority, these career pressures were also coupled with stress-related health issues (Simard et al. 2008), revealing additional difficulties experienced by women in STEM occupations when trying to have a family.\n\nMany STEM organizations are either unaware or uninterested in the extent to which family demands hinder career advancement. In a study of German IT firms, Menez et al. (2001) found that roughly 60 % of the firms interviewed did not identify obstacles to the professional advancement of women, despite the fact that only 27 % of the employees in IT firms were women. \"Temporary interruptions of the career because of family obligations are the most important obstacle\" for women in IT fields (Menez et al. 2001, p. 8). The authors attributed these findings to the domain-specific knowledge which often evolves quite rapidly in STEM fields, making any leave, however short, particularly difficult on an individual's career (Menez et al. 2001). In other words, when women take leaves to have children, they are often penalized simply by the constantly progressing nature of the work of which they are a part. Additionally, because of the manner in which STEM professionals are trained, many have few alternative career options if and when they choose (or are forced) to leave.\n\n### 15.3.2 Pregnancy and Childbirth\n\nA second family-related challenge to a STEM career is pregnancy and childbirth . Working in some STEM disciplines can be dangerous, and this may be problematic for women who are planning to conceive in the near future, women who are pregnant, or women who are breastfeeding a newborn. As an example, chemists and chemical engineers could be exposed to toxic chemicals and substances that could be detrimental to a pregnancy or a newborn via breast-feeding. Further, some fields, like anthropology, are physically demanding, requiring women to crawl around in tight spaces or endure miles of outdoor hiking for fieldwork. Thus, some women may not be able to do all of their job-related tasks when they are pregnant. In addition, physicians may impose additional restrictions (e.g., bed rest) during the pregnancy due to the pregnancy being classified as \"high risk\" or because of other medical complications. These job requirements and restrictions could interfere with the woman's ability to make adequate progress in her career during the pregnancy. Further, independent of other medical complications, travel is usually prohibited in the late stages of pregnancy.\n\nIn order to maximize their time with their newborns, women may feel compelled to try to time their deliveries around peak times in their annual work schedules . In fact, \"May babies\" are common enough among female faculty to have warranted this label (Armenti 2004). Some female professors intentionally attempt to schedule their pregnancies such that they can give birth to a child in the month of May allowing them to recuperate and care for their newborn child over the summer, or even hide their pregnancy from others if they are pretenure (Armenti 2004). Unfortunately, women have valid reasons for believing that they may be discriminated against if they disclose their pregnancy to others in the workplace. For example, in a recent study investigating discrimination toward pregnant women, researchers found that pregnant job applicants in the USA experienced more interpersonal hostility compared to nonpregnant applicants and this was attributed to stereotypic beliefs about their commitment to the job and flexibility (Morgan et al. 2013).\n\nHaving May babies typically provides female faculty with a reprieve from their teaching load following the birth or adoption of a child because classes are out for the summer, although it is common for professors to conduct research during the summer months (Armenti 2004). In universities nationwide, academics can be found mentoring graduate students, attending meetings, conducting research, and sometimes teaching classes during the summer months. Thus, a professor's workload during the summer months is not likely to change dramatically from the traditional school year. A lack of participation in these activities due to childbirth and childcare would be noticed because summer is often about catching up rather than resting.\n\n### 15.3.3 Quality Childcare\n\nA third family-related challenge to a STEM career is obtaining quality childcare. Reliable and affordable childcare is essential to any working parent, as the ability to manage and focus on work demands is greatly hindered when childcare is unavailable and\/or inadequate. This is particularly salient for female faculty, who have a short window of time to prove themselves to the academic community. Female STEM faculty may be further disadvantaged by the university's geographical location. It is common for top tier research universities to be located in rural areas of the country and for faculty members to relocate to the university town. As a result, faculty may live far from their families and have less support for childcare than those in other fields. Further, childcare options are not always optimal or convenient to faculty in rural areas.\n\nIn order to determine how childcare issues affect STEM women in academia , we recently conducted a brief childcare needs analysis of all faculty at a large, southern US university. We asked the following open-ended question: \"In what ways have good, reliable childcare facilitated your career and\/or in what ways have inadequate, unreliable childcare interfered with your career?\" A number of themes emerged in the 93 responses received to this question from STEM female faculty1 and were systematically coded into one or more of the categories that emerged. Most respondents reported more than one theme in their narrative answer. Three themes emerged the most frequently: (1) childcare is critical to one's career, (2) childcare permits peace of mind\/psychological focus on work, and (3) childcare is difficult to find\/insufficient childcare options available. It is interesting to note that although our sample consisted of only STEM women in academia (faculty), none of these themes appear to be unique to academic careers. The frequency with which these themes were mentioned and an example quote for each of them is displayed in Table 15.1.\n\nTable 15.1\n\nThree most common responses by STEM women faculty as to how childcare has impacted their career\n\nFrequency | Type of impact on career | Description\/definition | Example respondent quotes\n\n---|---|---|---\n\n44 | Inadequate\/difficult to find | Childcare reported to be inadequate in terms of convenience, quality, or availability | I was on the waitlist for (the campus childcare center) for 1 year. I struggled to find good daycare in the town, but that information was difficult to obtain (i.e., there are no lists of recommended daycare providers). The daycare resulted in added time commuting. In addition, the daycare days of operation were not always consistent with the university schedule\n\n30 | Critical to career | Affordable, adequate childcare is a key element to have successful career | If my kids are not properly taken care, work cannot be done.\n\nI could not have gone back to work\u2014period\u2014without good, reliable childcare as I do not have family anywhere in [this state]. So having a reliable, good daycare has been critical\n\n9 | Psychological focus\/peace of mind | Childcare provides peace of mind and freedom from worry, allowing for focus on job tasks | High quality, reliable childcare allows me to concentrate on my job when I am at work so that I am not distracted worrying about my child.\n\nIt is clear that the STEM female faculty in our sample experienced considerable challenges locating childcare options. This theme emerged in the responses from STEM women faculty more than any other theme. The comments coded for this theme included concerns related to the unavailability of infant care, after hours care, and care for sick children. There were also comments pertaining to the difficulty they experienced trying to find convenient childcare . Additionally, STEM women faculty reported that reliable, adequate childcare is critical to their careers, with some noting that they are unable to work if it is not attainable. Comments classified under this theme indicated that childcare is a career necessity, not an optional benefit. Lastly, many STEM women faculty reported that having adequate childcare allows them to focus on their work, freeing them from worrying extensively about their children during their work time. As highlighted in our brief needs analysis, affordable, convenient, quality childcare is imperative to the careers of female faculty in STEM fields. Future research should directly examine the influence of childcare challenges on the leaky pipeline to both academic and nonacademic careers.\n\nOngoing family obligations have been frequently identified as an obstacle for women in nonacademic STEM careers as well (Preston 2004). In a recent national study examining why women in the US leave engineering, Fouad and Singh (2011) identified that one quarter of women left their engineering career because they wanted more time with family. Caretaking obligations, particularly for children, are consistent concerns for STEM women in nonacademic careers (Fouad et al. 2011). \"Predictably, women with childcare responsibilities experienced greater interference between their work and nonwork roles than those without such responsibilities\" (Fouad and Singh 2011, p. 42). It appears that the lack of adequate childcare is a considerable obstacle to the advancement and retention of women in STEM careers.\n\n### 15.3.4 Eldercare Challenges\n\nA fourth family-related challenge to a STEM career is eldercare. Due to the aging population of baby-boomers, eldercare presents a challenge for many employed caregivers. The number of persons older than 85 years of age in the USA will grow to more than 18 million by 2050 (U.S. Census Bureau 2009). Further, some employees serve as caregivers to both children and elders, a cohort of individuals sometimes referred to as the \"sandwich generation\" (Hammer and Neal 2008). Women caring for elders could be perceived as being less committed to their work than their male counterparts if the caregiving interferes with work (Morgan and Milliken 1993) .\n\nAdditionally, according to a recent report from the Sloan Center on Aging and Work that examined nine US workplaces as part of their Age & Generations study (Pitt-Catsouphes et al. 2009), the experiences of women with eldercare responsibilities differed significantly from those with other dependent care responsibilities, such as childcare. Specifically, women who provided care to an elder reported having less access to flexible work options, receiving less support from their supervisors, and having less job security than did those who provided childcare or dependent care other than eldercare. Although there are similarities between childcare and eldercare and both present challenges, eldercare has several differences that lead to unique effects in the workplace. As noted by Wagner (1991), childcare is more predictable than eldercare, mainly because the intensity and duration of eldercare needs vary. Eldercare-giving may result in more work interruptions because sudden medical issues such as strokes, heart attacks, or other episodic conditions are more prevalent in older adults than young children. To our knowledge, no research has systematically examined the influence of eldercare responsibilities or how supportive STEM organizations are of these challenging responsibilities on STEM women's careers. Future research is needed on this differential responsibility to determine the extent to which eldercare contributes to the leaky pipeline .\n\n### 15.3.5 Dual-Career Couple Challenges and Benefits\n\nA fifth family-related challenge to a STEM career is dual-career considerations. There is an upward trend of dual-earner couples in the USA such that in 2010, 58 % of married-couple families with children under 18 years of age were classified as dual-earner status (Bureau of Labor Statistics 2010) . It has been estimated that 83 % of female scientists in academia in the USA are partnered with another scientist in academia (Schiebinger et al. 2008). Likewise, women in nonacademic STEM occupations experience similar partnership dynamics. For example, a study of midlevel IT employees in the USA found that nearly 70 % of women who have full- or part-time working partners have partners working in IT. In contrast only one third of men had partners in the same field (Simard et al. 2008).\n\nDual-career couples have the unique challenge of finding equally satisfying positions in the same geographical location, which has been referred to as the \"two-body problem\" (Li 2009) and the \"co-location problem\" (Wolf-Wendel et al. 2004). The dual-career situation often leads to a compromise, with one partner putting his\/her career on hold or settling for a less prestigious position for the benefit of the other's career. According to the Cornell Couples and Careers study, 12 % of men and 39 % of women regard their spouses' career as more important than their own (Moen et al. 1999). In fact, a study of 13 leading research universities in the USA found that 40 % of academic women refused outside offers due to their partner not receiving an adequate offer in the area, making it the top reason why women refused, compared to only 27 % of academic men (Schiebinger et al. 2008). Based on these findings, STEM women faculty who are married or partnered to STEM men may be more inclined to sacrifice their careers for their spouse or partner, which further contributes to the leaky pipeline effect.\n\nIn a study investigating the \"two-body problem\" at one university in the USA, researchers found support for their hypothesis that joint hire faculty members (both the primary hire and partner) in STEM fields are just as statistically productive than their colleagues, if not more so, thus alleviating concerns about the productivity of joint hires in STEM (Woolstenhulme et al. 2012). This hypothesis was based on the premise that couples in academia will likely accept positions at less prestigious universities in order to be in the same location together. Additionally, joint hires in STEM were found to be 22 % more likely than their colleagues to obtain a grant, and the joint hire in STEM produced on average 0.73 more publications than their mean nonjoint hire colleague (Woolstenhulme et al. 2012).\n\nAlthough women in STEM fields with families face numerous challenges when juggling work and family, there are many benefits associated with having a supportive family. For instance, one study in the western USA found that female university employees with supportive spouses or partners experienced significantly less WFC than unmarried or unpartnered employees, and this effect was five times larger for women than men (Elliott 2003). This WFC should lead to women staying in STEM fields as opposed to leaking from the pipeline. Additionally, married faculty members have the benefit of similar yearly work schedules, which makes planning vacations and sabbaticals less complicated.\n\nIn another study of dual-career academic couples in the USA, the couples reported they were \"more successful\" due to their partner and cited several reasons for their increased success (Schiebinger et al. 2008). Fifty-eight percent of the dual-career academic couples in the sample said that they benefit from shared professional networks, colleagues, and friends, compared to only 25 % or less of the faculty members with spouses employed elsewhere or stay-at-home spouses. Interestingly, 35 % of the faculty in the sample with spouses who were nonacademic or stay-at-home reported gains in research productivity due to their partner, whereas 44 % of the dual-academic career faculty reported research gains due to their partner (Schiebinger et al. 2008).\n\n### 15.3.6 Balancing Critical Career Experiences with Family Demands\n\nA sixth family-related challenge to a STEM career is simultaneously managing critical career experiences and family demands. Attending conferences is important for professors to disseminate their research and establish their reputations in their fields. It fosters networking with colleagues with similar interests who could become collaborators on research projects and grant applications and facilitates new relationships with potential students and postdoctoral candidates as well as senior colleagues who may serve as external reviewers of tenure packages. Similarly, attending conferences and professional development workshops is advantageous for individuals in nonacademic STEM careers in order to learn about up-to-date knowledge and best practices in their field as well as to facilitate networking opportunities with potential clients and\/or business associates.\n\nA potential effect of having children and breastfeeding on women in STEM is the reduced availability and comfort with extended conference travel , particularly international travel. In a study of presenters at the European Society for Evolutionary Biology (ESEB) Congress 2011, female scientists declined invitations to speak half of the time, compared to only about a quarter of the time for men (Schroeder et al. 2013). Women were significantly underrepresented as presenters at the symposia (15 %), as well as among the oral presenters (41 %), plenary speakers (25 %), and all presenters (46 %), although all abstracts submitted were accepted. The authors of this study surmised that this disparity is due to a number of reasons, including childcare responsibilities (Chesley and Moen 2006; Schroeder et al. 2013). Taken together, these findings demonstrate that further research should examine the possibility that family and childcare responsibilities preclude women from having the availability to travel to speak at conferences and other important networking opportunities. Presenting at and attending conferences is essential, particularly during the first few years of career establishment, and this lack of availability could stymie the success of women in STEM fields.\n\nA recent study by Casadevall and Handelsman (2014) examined symposia at two meetings held by the American Society for Microbiology and found that having at least one woman on the convening team was associated with reduced likelihood of having an all-male presentation by approximately 70 %. When organized by all men (who were perhaps influenced by gender roles), an average of 30 % of the sessions were held by all-male speakers, compared to an average of only 8.9 % when organized by a team that included at least one woman. Although this study is correlational and does not identify the cause of these findings, it nonetheless supports the importance of having women on STEM conference committees as a way to promote the inclusion of women on conference programs.\n\nAlong those lines, grants are extremely important and necessary in STEM fields as evidenced by some university policies that require evidence of a history of extramural funding prior to consideration for hire and when awarding tenure. Not attending conferences may also result in lack of access to funding opportunities that are imperative to employment at a research university or national laboratory. A recent study found that among married tenure-track faculty with young children, women are 21 % less likely than men to have their work partially or entirely funded by federal grants or contracts (Goulden et al. 2009). Additionally, among married tenure-track women, those with young children were found to be 26 % less likely than those without young children to have their work funded partially or completely by federal grants or contracts. These small setbacks early on can accumulate to form a larger disadvantage that lingers for the length of the career.\n\n## 15.4 Organizational Barriers to the Success of STEM Women with Family Demands\n\nSeveral organizational barriers can also impede STEM women's success. Specifically, contextual factors such as an unsupportive or \"chilly\" climate, historical underrepresentation of women in STEM careers, long-term career consequences for those who choose to have children, and a lack of successful female role models who effectively manage work and family demands have all been linked to the lack of women in STEM careers. These barriers are discussed in the next section.\n\n### 15.4.1 Chilly Organizational Climates\n\nAnother fundamental explanation for the leaky pipeline is believed to be the lack of work\u2013family support for individuals in these job domains (Fouad and Singh 2011) . As these occupations have been historically male, the culture surrounding STEM careers has developed in a manner that is not conducive to the careers of individuals also managing extensive family-demands. As a result, STEM organizations offer fewer programs and policies that enable schedule control or the ability to take breaks in one's career trajectory than non-STEM organizations (Fouad and Singh 2011). Similarly, the culture that has evolved is one in which attending to family obligations (or even considering this) is not supported or encouraged. Fouad and Singh (2011) found that women engineers in the USA with high levels of work-demands working in environments with negative climates for women experienced high-levels of WFC. Finally, some STEM occupations (e.g., IT) require employees to be available during nontraditional work hours as well as have unpredictable schedules (Major et al. 2003). While STEM careers have become renowned for innovation in numerous arenas, due to the stagnation of family-supportive leadership, as well as lack of initiatives to enable employees to manage competing role demands, women frequently leave STEM careers .\n\nA recent meta-analysis of family-friendly policies examined how the availability of policies and family-supportive organizational perceptions (FSOP; Allen 2001) influence work attitudes and found that FSOP yielded stronger relationships with positive job attitudes and a stronger negative relationship with work-to-family conflict than the availability of policies (Butts et al. 2013). This study indicates that perceptions of family-supportiveness matter, and simply having family-friendly policies does not guarantee their effectiveness at improving employee attitudes and decreasing work\u2013family conflict .\n\nFurther, a recent study of faculty members at a Tier I research institution in the USA found that women reported significantly less FSOP than men (Jean et al. 2014). In addition, both male and female STEM faculty reported less FSOP compared to non-STEM faculty. These results showed that STEM departments were lagging behind non-STEM departments in family-friendliness, which may contribute to women being less attracted to or ultimately leaving positions in STEM fields. Some researchers have pointed to the \"old-boy network\" defined as \"managers' preference to interact with other managers of similar status rather than with line employees, and intentional exclusion by managers who have negative stereotypes about women's and minorities' abilities, motivation , and job preferences\" (Noe 2013, p. 437) as a possible explanation for the \"chilly climate\" experienced in STEM departments.\n\nSome researchers argue that initiatives designed to increase the family supportiveness of work cultures may ultimately be of limited effectiveness, as work cultures do not reduce the family demands women experience due to their primary caregiver role (Fouad and Singh 2011). Programs that provide women with the ability to successfully manage family demands around work demands and vice versa may be more effective at increasing the retention of women in the STEM workforce. For many women with resources, this means outsourcing some household chores including cleaning, laundry, and cooking .\n\n### 15.4.2 Motherhood Penalty\n\nData from the Perceptions of Women in Academic Science study demonstrate that US female scientists have fewer children than desired compared to their male counterparts, and they are more likely to attribute having fewer children than desired to their careers as scientists (Ecklund and Lincoln 2011). A number of researchers have speculated about the effects of parenting on careers. Unfortunately, researchers have consistently demonstrated a \"motherhood penalty\" in which women experience more negative effects of parenting than men and sometimes men actually benefit (Correll et al. 2007). This has been demonstrated when examining salaries, hierarchical positions within academia (non-tenure track vs. tenure track and associate vs. full), and retention in academia with even stronger effects for women in STEM (Mason et al. 2013). The motherhood penalty also occurs outside of academia. For example, Budig and England (2001) found a 5 % wage penalty per child after controlling for job experience in a longitudinal study of a US sample of 5000 women employed in a wide range of occupations. In addition, women in nonacademic STEM careers describe experiencing a \"motherhood penalty\" or \"family penalty\" as an important obstacle to their career success (Simard et al. 2008) .\n\n### 15.4.3 Underrepresentation of STEM Women in Leadership Positions\n\nFamily-related challenges discouraging women from remaining in STEM careers have led to a dearth of women in STEM leadership positions. Since Valian's (1999) influential work examining gender inequities in various occupations, little has changed with regard to the underrepresentation of women in executive leadership roles in organizations, particularly STEM companies. Although gender schemas have begun to change, STEM careers and organizations have been particularly slow to accept women's roles in management as well as recognize how family supportive organizational culture can influence the attraction and retention of capable female employees (Soe and Yakura 2008).\n\nAs STEM domains have been historically male-dominated (Kanter 1977), the culture of STEM workplaces has been heavily defined by issues of gender inequality and sexism (Fouad et al. 2011). STEM job domains and organizations have remained predominantly populated by men and thus sustained cultural norms and expectations of what is an \"ideal\" STEM employee. Because the need to balance career and family remains a primary factor pushing women out of STEM careers, relatively few women have attained senior or leadership positions in STEM careers (Rossler and Taylor 2009). Sociological examinations of the culture of engineering have identified that stereotypically \"masculine\" characteristics of technical obsession, territorialism, and aggressive self-promotion were distinguishing features of engineering cultures (Fouad et al. 2011; Robinson and McIlwee 1991). While both men and women associate characteristics of their own sex as relating to managerial ability, men do not identify female traits with managerial characteristics (whereas women classify traits from both sexes as managerial characteristics; Schein and Mueller 1992). Thus, leadership in STEM fields has perpetuated a schema of masculine characteristics associated with leadership (Eagly and Karau 2002). Correspondingly, the individuals who are most likely to succeed are those who display traits typically associated with maleness, leading to the marginalization and underrepresentation of women in STEM leadership roles. As a result, women in STEM careers have relatively few examples to look toward when trying to navigate their career paths while simultaneously maintaining family obligations.\n\nThese findings suggest that a lack of women in organizational leadership , particularly in STEM industries, has led to the perception that the best model of leadership is the male model. While many STEM leaders have families, this model suggests that in order to succeed, one cannot be the primary caregiver. As a result, relatively few examples of executive women leaders exist, and even fewer who have managed to effectively balance work and family demands. Therefore, a lack of female role models in STEM industries appears to be an additional barrier facing women seeking successful careers in STEM. While both career and psycho-social (i.e., social support) mentorship have been associated with career mobility in the USA (Scandura 1992), relatively few studies have examined how psychosocial mentorship or specifically having a mentor provide guidance on how to manage work and family demands can benefit women, particularly women in STEM careers. Thus, more research is needed examining the ways in which organizations can provide guidance for women regarding how to be successful in managing a STEM career and family demands.\n\n## 15.5 Initiatives to Facilitate the Promotion and Retention of Women in STEM Careers\n\nDespite the upsetting trends in STEM academic and nonacademic jobs, many promising initiatives have recently launched in order to assess the underlying causes of the leaky pipeline effect and implement programs to help women overcome the obstacles to success in these fields. These initiatives are targeted at women of all age groups, including young children. Trends supported by federal government research grants alongside organizational efforts suggest that women in STEM disciplines and careers will have brighter futures.\n\nCompanies have begun actively attempting to change the perceptions of what STEM fields look like by encouraging girls and young women to become and remain interested in STEM careers (Starnes 2013). One particularly exciting effort to facilitate the increase of interests in STEM in young girls is by a company called Goldie Blox based in the USA. These construction sets are designed to increase girls' interest in STEM subjects. The goal behind these and similar efforts is to engage girls in STEM at an early age , potentially mitigating the societal gender expectations of these career interests. Another noteworthy partnership began in 2010 between the Fortune 500 company 3M and the University of Minnesota's STEM Education Center to train elementary and secondary school teachers to successfully integrate STEM subjects into their courses in order to increase students' interest in STEM disciplines and careers (University of Minnesota 2013). Through these efforts, the University of Minnesota has trained thousands of graduates to go on to work at 3M. Numerous similar efforts are underway across the country, many of them funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF) and by corporations. In fact, each year Catalyst , a leading nonprofit organization with a mission to expand opportunities for women and business, gives the Catalyst Award to one or more companies that demonstrate innovative organizational approaches to the recruitment and advancement of women (Catalyst.org).\n\nThe NSF's ADVANCE-IT program provides funding to academic institutions with the goal of promoting research and interventions to improve outcomes of STEM women faculty members and to better understand the unique issues they face (National Science Foundation n.d.). The NSF has awarded over $ 130 million to over 100 institutions in support of proposed research and initiatives aimed at increasing and retaining faculty in STEM disciplines. As a result, research and programs developed by these institutions have shed light on the experiences of women in STEM fields and the factors that lead to the leaky pipeline effect. Additionally, many tools have been developed that can be utilized to support similar objectives in other academic and nonacademic settings. For example, Rice University developed a career workshop for postdocs and late stage PhD students from underrepresented minority groups in STEM disciplines to help prepare them for academic careers (Rice University n.d.). Another notable ADVANCE initiative is Michigan's Strategies and Tactics for Recruiting to Improve Diversity and Excellence (STRIDE) training for recruitment and retention (University of Michigan 2013). The NSF also has a career-life balance initiative and the National Institute of Health (NIH) has a number of family-friendly initiatives including parental leave stipends, developmental supplements following time off to attend to family, and the requirement to identify childcare resources when hosting a conference funded by NIH.\n\nAlthough women in STEM careers have relatively few examples to look toward when trying to navigate their career paths, there are some resources available that may help them succeed in leadership roles while meeting family demands. For example, a recent book describes the experiences and success of 10 women US university presidents, 9 of whom have children (Madsen 2008). Additionally, a book of personal narratives was recently published that focuses on the ways in which female scientists can be successful in both their careers and motherhood, and underscores the need for organizations to assist with and adapt to the needs of scientists with children (Monsson 2008). Likewise, other compilations of success strategies for STEM women have been published as well (e.g., Pritchard 2006).\n\nRecognizing the overlap between the biological and tenure clocks, universities have attempted to accommodate by allowing faculty members to take extension(s) on their tenure clock in order to provide care for a newborn. Flexible tenure clock policies, also referred to as \"stop clock policies,\" are defined as policies that provide tenure-track faculty with the option of postponing their tenure review if events occur that are likely to negatively impact their research productivity . Extensions are usually granted in increments of 1 year (Manchester et al. 2013) and were originally adopted to attract women to academia , to develop equity, and to facilitate work\u2013family balance (Manchester et al. 2010). For these reasons, tenure clock extensions are common, particularly amongst female faculty for the purpose of childbirth or childcare. Nonetheless, some recent research revealed a wage penalty associated with extending the tenure clock for family reasons as opposed to nonfamily reasons (Manchester et al. 2010). This finding highlights the persistent disadvantage associated with the alignment of tenure and biological clocks for women. Certainly some female faculty choose to have children before earning tenure and given the ticking biological clock, one can certainly appreciate why.\n\nIn addition to fostering a family-supportive climate, there are specific work\u2013family support policies which are aimed at providing employees the ability to balance work and nonwork role demands that are being adopted with increasing prevalence (e.g., tenure clock extensions, flextime ; Matos and Galinsky 2012). Work\u2013family support policies are defined broadly as policies organizations implement that are designed to reduce WFC (Butts et al. 2013). While at least some work\u2013family support policies exist at most universities and organizations, the climate at each university\/organization, and even within each department, may not support their use, thereby rendering them less useful to employees. Therefore, it is important to have both a supportive climate and formal policies in place.\n\nWorkplace flexibility has been cited as an organizational tool enabling employees to navigate between work and family roles while meeting the needs of employers and clients (Kossek et al. 2014). In a study of best practices of IT supervisors in the USA, Major et al. (2003) identified that high-performing supervisors offered some form of flexible scheduling to their employees due to the highly demanding nature of IT work schedules, despite the fact that the policies were often informal and on case-by-case bases. Correspondingly, because of the detrimental role that WFC plays in STEM women's careers (Fouad and Singh 2011), researchers have identified the importance of family-friendly policies for the retention of women in STEM (Villablanca et al. 2011).\n\nIn support of these trends, in 2009, President Obama signed an Executive Order establishing the White House Council of Women and Girls to identify and confront issues of inequality and resulting challenges for women of all ages (whitehouse.gov n.d.). In response, many STEM companies, groups, and agencies have initiated efforts to actively recognize examples of women in STEM careers as well as target and address issues that lead girls and women to drop out of the STEM pipeline. The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) launched the Women@NASA website, celebrating the success of women throughout NASA's history through a collection of 64 videos and essays describing the many roles that women play across the agency (NASA 2013). In addition, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) supports work\u2013life balance by providing grantee institutions with policies and practices to support family-friendly environments (NIH n.d.). Similarly, the NSF launched the Career-Life Balance Initiative to promote family-friendly policies with the goal of clearing the path for women in STEM from graduate education to careers in STEM (White House 2011).\n\n## 15.6 Conclusion\n\nIn summary, there are a number of family-related challenges that likely contribute to underrepresentation of women in STEM, especially at the higher ranks. Overall, there is considerable overlap between the time periods in which critical career-related development and experiences are expected and required to occur (e.g., academic tenure) and when women are at the optimal age to conceive and bare children. Additional challenges include dependent care (both child and elder) and dual-career considerations. Theoretically, many of these challenges come about because traditional gender roles and stereotypes result in (implicitly) biased decision making by women themselves as well as many important others. Fortunately, there are many national and organizational\/university initiatives directed at repairing the leaky pipeline , as well as individual strategies. Continued efforts to educate key decision makers and alleviate these challenges will hopefully result in fewer disparities between men and women in STEM careers.\n\nReferences\n\nAllen, T. D. (2001). Family-supportive work environments: The role of organizational perceptions. Journal of Vocational Behavior, 58, 414\u2013435.CrossRef\n\nArmenti, C. (2004). May babies and posttenure babies: Maternal decisions of women professors. The Review of Higher Education, 27, 211\u2013231.CrossRef\n\nBennett, S. K. (1982). Student perceptions of and expectations for male and female instructors: Evidence relating to the question of gender bias in teaching evaluation. Journal of Educational Psychology, 74, 170\u2013179.CrossRef\n\nBlickenstaff, J. C. (2005). Women and science careers: Leaky pipeline or gender filter? Gender and Education, 17, 369\u2013386.CrossRef\n\nBudig, M. J., & England, P. (2001). The wage penalty for motherhood. American Sociological Review, 66, 204\u2013225.CrossRef\n\nBureau of Labor Statistics. (2010). Employment characteristics of families. http:\/\/\u200bwww.\u200bbls.\u200bgov\/\u200bnews.\u200brelease\/\u200barchives\/\u200bfamee_\u200b03242011.\u200bpdf. Accessed 1 April 2014.\n\nBureau of Labor Statistics. (2012). Postsecondary teachers. http:\/\/\u200bwww.\u200bbls.\u200bgov.\u200booh\/\u200beducation-training-and-library\/\u200bpostsecondary-teachers.\u200bhtm. Accessed 1 April 2014.\n\nBurke, R. J. (2007). Women and minorities in STEM: A primer. In R. J. Burke & M. C. Mattis (Eds.), Women and minorities in science, technology, engineering and mathematics: Upping the numbers (pp. 3\u201327). Northampton: Edward Elgar.CrossRef\n\nButts, M. M., Casper, W. J., & Yang, T. S. (2013). How important are work-family support policies? A meta-analytic investigation of their effects on employee outcomes. Journal of Applied Psychology, 98, 1\u201325.PubMedCrossRef\n\nCasadevall, A., & Handelsman, J. (2014). The presence of female conveners correlates with a higher proportion of female speakers at scientific symposia. mBio, 5, 1\u20134.CrossRef\n\nCeci, S. J., & Williams, W. M. (2007). Why aren't more women in science? Top researchers debate the evidence. Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.CrossRef\n\nChesley, N., & Moen, P. (2006). When workers care: Dual-earner couples' caregiving strategies, benefit use, and psychological well-being. American Behavioral Scientist, 49, 1248\u20131269.CrossRef\n\nCleary-Goldman, J., Malone, F. D., Vidaver, J., Ball, R. H., Nyberg, D. A., Comstock, C. H. et al. (2005). Impact of maternal age on obstetric outcomes. Obstetrics & Gynecology, 105, 983\u2013990.CrossRef\n\nCollins, R. L. (2011). Content analysis of gender roles in media: Where are we now and where should we go? Sex Roles, 64, 290\u2013298.CrossRef\n\nCorrell, S. J., Benard, S., & Paik, I. (2007). Getting a job: Is there a motherhood penalty? American Journal of Sociology, 112, 1297\u20131338.CrossRef\n\nEagly, A. H. (1987). Sex differences in social behavior: A social-role interpretation. Hillsdale: Erlbaum.\n\nEagly, A. H., & Karau, S. J. (2002). Role congruity theory of prejudice toward female leaders. Psychological Review, 109, 573\u2013598.PubMedCrossRef\n\nEagly, A. H., Wood, W., & Diekman, A. B. (2000). Social role theory of sex differences and similarities: A current appraisal. In: T. Eckes & H. M. Trautner (Eds.), The developmental social psychology of gender (pp. 123\u2013174). Mahwah: Erlbaum.\n\nEcklund, E. H., & Lincoln, A. E. (2011). Scientists want more children. PLoS One, 6(8), e22590.PubMedCentralPubMedCrossRef\n\nElliott, M. (2003). Work and family role strain among university employees. Journal of Family and Economic Issues, 24, 157\u2013181.CrossRef\n\nFouad, N. A., & Singh, R. (2011). Retention and attrition: The impact of workplace climate on women in the engineering field. Marine Technology, 48, 9\u201311.\n\nFouad, N., Fitzpatrick, M., & Liu, J. (2011). Persistence of women in engineering careers: A qualitative study of current and former female engineers. Journal of Women and Minorities in Science and Engineering, 17, 69\u201396.CrossRef\n\nGoldie Blox. (n.d.). http:\/\/\u200bwww.\u200bgoldieblox.\u200bcom\/\u200b. Accessed 1 April 2014.\n\nGoulden, M., Frasch, K., & Mason, M. A. (2009). Staying competitive: Patching America's leaky pipeline in the sciences. Berkeley: Berkeley Center on Health, Economic, & Family Security and the Center for American Progress.\n\nGreenhaus, J. H., & Beutell, N. J. (1985). Sources of conflict between work and family roles. Academy of Management Review, 10, 76\u201388.\n\nGreenwald, A. G., & Banaji, M. R. (1995). Implicit social cognition: Attitudes, self-esteem, and stereotypes. Psychological Review, 102, 4\u201327.PubMedCrossRef\n\nHammer, L. B., & Neal, M. B. (2008). Working sandwiched-generation caregivers: Prevalence, characteristics, and outcomes. The Psychologist-Manager Journal, 11, 93\u2013112.CrossRef\n\nHill, C., Corbett, C., & St. Rose, A. (2010). Why so few? Women in science, technology, engineering, and math. Washington, DC: AAUW.\n\nJean, V. A., & Payne, S. C., & Thompson, R. J. (June 2014 ). Are STEM departments family-supportive work environments? Paper presented at the work family researchers network conference. New York, USA.\n\nKanter, R. M. (1977). Men and women of the corporation. New York: Basic Books.\n\nKnobloch-Westerwick, S., Glynn, C. J., & Huge, M. (2013). The Matilda effect in science communication: An experiment on gender bias in publication quality perceptions and collaboration interest. Science Communication, 35, 603\u2013625.CrossRef\n\nKossek, E., Hammer, L., Thompson, R., & Burke, L. 2014. Leveraging workplace flexibility: Fostering engagement and productivity. Alexandria: SHRM Foundation report.\n\nLi, J. (2009). Academic couples and the economics of the co-location problem (Unpublished doctoral dissertation). University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, Minnesota.\n\nMadera, J. M., Hebl, M. R., & Martin, R. C. (2009). Gender and letters of recommendation for academia: Agentic and communal differences. Journal of Applied Psychology, 94, 1591\u20131599.PubMedCrossRef\n\nMadsen, S. R. (2008). On becoming a woman leader: Learning from the experiences of university presidents. San Francisco: Wiley.\n\nMajor, D. A., Davis, D. D., Germano, L. M., Fletcher, T. D., Sanchez-Hucles, J., & Mann, J. (2003). Managing human resources in information technology: Best practices of high performing supervisors. Human Resource Management, 46, 411\u2013427.CrossRef\n\nManchester, C. F., Leslie, L. M., & Kramer, A. (2010). Stop the clock policies and career success in academia. American Economic Review, 100, 219\u2013223.CrossRef\n\nManchester, C. F., Leslie, L. M., & Kramer, A. (2013). Is the clock still ticking? An evaluation of the consequences of stopping the tenure clock. ILR Review, 66, 3\u201331.\n\nMartel, R., Lane, D. M., & Willis, C. (1996). Male-female differences: A computer simulation. American Psychologist, 51, 157\u2013158.CrossRef\n\nMason, M. A., Wolflinger, N. H., & Goulden, M. (2013). Do babies matter? Gender and family in the ivory tower. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press.\n\nMatos, K., & Galinsky, E. (2012). 2012 National study of employers. New York: Families and Work Institute. http:\/\/\u200bfamiliesandwork.\u200borg\/\u200bsite\/\u200bresearch\/\u200breports\/\u200bNSE_\u200b2012.\u200bpdf. Accessed 1 April 2014.\n\nMenez, R., Munder, I., & T\u00f6psch, K. (2001). Personnel recruitment and qualification in the IT \u00adsector\u2013first results of the on-line study BIT-S. In Proceedings of the conference \u00abInnovations for an e-society: challenges for technology assessment, ITAS Karlsruhe.\n\nMoen, P., Harris-Abbott, D., Lee, S., & Roehling, P. V. (1999). The Cornell couples and careers study. Cornell Employment and Family Careers Institute.\n\nMonsson, E. (2008). Motherhood, the elephant in the laboratory: Women scientists speak out. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.\n\nMorgan, H., & Milliken, F. J. (1993). Keys to action: Understanding differences in organizations' responsiveness to work-and-family issues. Human Resource Management, 31, 227\u2013248.CrossRef\n\nMorgan, W. B., Walker, S. S., Hebl, M. R., & King, E. B. (2013). A field experiment: Reducing interpersonal discrimination toward pregnant job applicants. Journal of Applied Psychology, 98, 799\u2013809.PubMedCrossRef\n\nNASA. (2013, November). Women and girls initiative. http:\/\/\u200bwomen.\u200bnasa.\u200bgov\/\u200b. Accessed 1 April 2014.\n\nNational Center for Biotechnology Information. (2013). Infertility: Inability to conceive; Unable to get pregnant. http:\/\/\u200bwww.\u200bncbi.\u200bnlm.\u200bnih.\u200bgov\/\u200bpubmedhealth\/\u200bPMH0002173\/\u200b. Accessed 1 April 2014.\n\nNational Institute of Health. (n.d.). NIH family-friendly initiatives. http:\/\/\u200bgrants.\u200bnih.\u200bgov\/\u200bgrants\/\u200bfamily_\u200bfriendly.\u200bhtm. Accessed 1 April 2014.\n\nNational Science Foundation. (n.d.). ADVANCE at a glance. http:\/\/\u200bwww.\u200bnsf.\u200bgov\/\u200bcrssprgm\/\u200badvance\/\u200b. Accessed 1 April 2014.\n\nNational Science Foundation, National Center for Science and Engineering Statistics. (2013). Women, minorities, and persons with disabilities in science and engineering: 2013. Special Report NSF 13-304. Arlington, VA. http:\/\/\u200bwww.\u200bnsf.\u200bgov\/\u200bstatistics\/\u200bwmpd\/\u200b. Accessed 1 April 2014.\n\nNoe, R. A. (2013). Employee training and development. New York: McGraw Hill.\n\nPitt-Catsouphes, M., Matz-Costa, C., & Besen, E. (2009). Age and generations: Understanding experiences at the workplace (Research Highlight 6). Chestnut Hill: The Sloan Center on Aging and Work at Boston College.\n\nPreston, A. E. (2004). Leaving science: Occupational exit from scientific careers. New York: Russell Sage.\n\nPritchard, P. A. (Ed.). (2006). Success strategies for women in science: A portable mentor. Boston: Elsevier.\n\nRice University. (n.d.). Rice University's future faculty workshop. http:\/\/\u200badvance.\u200brice.\u200bedu\/\u200bfuturefacultywor\u200bkshop\/\u200b. Accessed 1 April 2014.\n\nRobinson, J. G., & McIlwee, J. S. (1991). Men, women, and the culture of engineering. The Sociological Quarterly, 32, 403\u2013421.CrossRef\n\nRossler, S. V., & Taylor, M. Z. (2009). Why are we still worried about women in science? Academe. American Association of University Professors. http:\/\/\u200bwww.\u200baaup.\u200borg\/\u200barticle\/\u200bwhy-are-we-still-worried-about-women-science#.\u200bUvjq7vldXzg. Accessed 1 April 2014.\n\nScandura, T. A. (1992). Mentorship and career mobility: An empirical investigation. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 13, 169\u2013174.CrossRef\n\nSchein, V. E., & Mueller, R. (1992). Sex-role stereotyping and requisite management characteristics: A cross-cultural look. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 13, 439\u2013447.CrossRef\n\nSchiebinger L., Henderson, A. D., & Gilmartin, S. K. (2008). Dual-career academic couples: What universities need to know. Stanford: The Michelle R. Clayman Institute for Gender Research.\n\nSchroeder, J., Dugdale, H. L., Radersma, R., Hinsch, M., Buehler, D. M., Saul, J., et al. (2013). Fewer invited talks by women in evolutionary biology symposia. Journal of Evolutionary Biology, 26, 2063\u20132069.PubMedCrossRef\n\nSimard, C., Henderson, A. D., Gilmartin, S. K., Schiebinger, L., & Whitney, T. (2008). Climbing the technical ladder: Obstacles and solutions for mid-level women in technology. Michelle R. Clayman Institute for Gender Research, Stanford University, Anita Borg Institute for Women and Technology, Stanford, CA.\n\nSoe, L., & Yakura, E. K. (2008). What's wrong with the pipeline? Assumptions about gender and culture in IT work. Women's Studies, 37, 176\u2013201.CrossRef\n\nSpencer, S. J., Steele, C. M., & Quinn, D. (1999). Stereotype threat and women's math performance. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 35, 4\u201328.CrossRef\n\nStarnes, A. (2013, Jun). Eight organizations promote women in STEM. http:\/\/\u200bstemwire.\u200borg\/\u200b2013\/\u200b06\/\u200b04\/\u200beight-organizations-promote-women-in-stem\/\u200b. Accessed 1 April 2014.\n\nSteele, C. M., & Aronson, J. (1995). Stereotype threat and the intellectual test performance of African-Americans. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 69, 797\u2013811.PubMedCrossRef\n\nSteinpres, R. E., Anders, K. A., & Ritzke, D. (1999). The impact of gender on the review of the curricula vitae of job applicants and tenure candidates: A national empirical study. Sex Roles, 41, 509\u2013528.CrossRef\n\nSutton, P. D., Hamilton, B. E., & Mathews, T. J. (2011). Recent decline in births in the United States, 2007\u20132009 (NCHS data brief, no. 60). Hyattsville: National Center for Health Statistics.\n\nTrix, F., & Psenka, C. (2003). Exploring the color of glass: Letters of recommendation for female and male medical faculty. Discourse and Society, 14, 191\u2013220.CrossRef\n\nUniversity of Michigan. (2013). Committee on strategies and tactics for recruiting to improve diversity and excellence (STRIDE). http:\/\/\u200bsitemaker.\u200bumich.\u200bedu\/\u200badvance\/\u200bSTRIDE_\u200bCommittee. Accessed 1 April 2014.\n\nUniversity of Minnesota. (2013, October). Future STEM innovators. Discover. http:\/\/\u200bdiscover.\u200bumn.\u200bedu\/\u200bnews\/\u200bteaching-education\/\u200b3m-supports-us-stem-education-efforts-prepare-future-leaders. Accessed 1 April 2014.\n\nU.S. Census Bureau. (2009). Projections of the population by selected age groups and sex for the United States: 2010 to 2050. Washington, DC: U.S. Census Bureau, Population Division.\n\nValian, V. (1999). Why so slow? The advancement of women. Cambridge: MIT Press.\n\nVillablanca, A. C., Beckett, L., Nettiksimmons, J, & Howell, L. P. (2011). Career flexibility and family friendly policies: An NIH funded study to enhance women's careers in biomedical sciences. Journal of Women's Health, 20, 1485\u20131496.PubMedCentralPubMedCrossRef\n\nWagner, D. L. (1991). Eldercare: A workplace issue. In B.B. Hess & E.W. Markson (Eds.), Growing old in America (pp. 377\u2013387). Piscataway: Transaction Publishers.\n\nWhite House (2011). The White House and National Science Foundation announce new workplace flexibility policies to support America's scientists and their families. Retrieved August 5,2014 from: http:\/\/\u200bwww.\u200bwhitehouse.\u200bgov\/\u200bthepress-office\/\u200b2011\/\u200b09\/\u200b26\/\u200bwhite-house-and-national-science-foundation-announce-new-workplace-flexi. Accessed 1 April 2014.\n\nWolf-Wendel, L., Twombly, S. B., & Rice, S. (2004). The two-body problem: Dual-career-couple hiring practices in higher education. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.\n\nWoolstenhulme, J. L., Cowan, B. W., McCluskey, J. J., & Byington, T. C. (2012). Evaluating the two-body problem: Measuring joint hire productivity with a university. Unpublished manuscript.\n\nFootnotes\n\n1\n\nIn order to keep the assessment brief, respondents were asked to indicate their college but not their department. As such, STEM classification was determined by college rather than department. Because two of the colleges include both STEM and non-STEM departments as defined by the National Science Foundation, our STEM classification is likely over-inclusive, containing some responses from faculty belonging to non-STEM departments.\n\u00a9 Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2015\n\nMaura J. Mills (ed.)Gender and the Work-Family Experience10.1007\/978-3-319-08891-4_16\n\n# 16. Examining the Work\u2013Family Experience of Female Workaholics\n\nMalissa A. Clark1  , Angela A. Beiler2  and Lauren M. Zimmerman2\n\n(1)\n\nDepartment of Psychology and Institute for Women's Studies, University of Georgia, Psychology Building, 30602 Athens, GA, USA\n\n(2)\n\nDepartment of Psychology, University of Georgia, 30602-3013 Athens, GA, USA\n\nMalissa A. Clark (Corresponding author)\n\nEmail: clarkm@uga.edu\n\nAngela A. Beiler\n\nEmail: aabeiler@uga.edu\n\nLauren M. Zimmerman\n\nEmail: lzimm@uga.edu\n\nKeywords\n\nWorkaholismWork\u2013familyWomenOvertimeOverloadWorkloadWork demands\n\n## 16.1 Introduction\n\nEvidence from a variety of sources suggests that employees in the USA are working increasingly long hours, both in terms of annual hours worked (Murphy and Sauter 2003; Schor 2003) and average hours worked per week (Brett and Stroh 2003; Kuhn and Lozano 2008). Several factors may be contributing to these trends, including advances in technology (e.g., smart phones) which have the potential to blur the boundaries between work and home (Wajcman et al. 2008) and facilitate working outside the traditional 9\u20135 workday. Furthermore, there have been steady increases in women's participation in the workforce over time (Jacobs and Gerson 2004; U.S. Department of Commerce 2011), the percentage of dual-earner households (Galinsky et al. 2009), and the number of households where mothers are the sole or primary provider (Wang et al. 2013). These trends have caught the attention of researchers, leading to a number of studies examining the impact of increased work involvement on work\u2013family conflict.\n\nWork\u2013family conflict is a form of interrole conflict that occurs when role pressures from the work and home domains are mutually incompatible in some respect (Greenhaus and Beutell 1985). This conflict can be bidirectional in that one's work may interfere with one's family or home (work-to-family conflict; WFC) and one's family or home may interfere with one's work (family-to-work conflict; FWC) . This interference may manifest in a number of forms, including time-based (when time spent in one domain makes it difficult to fulfill responsibilities in the other domain), strain-based (when strain experienced in one domain hinders performance in the other domain), or behavior-based (when behaviors performed in one domain are incompatible with behaviors in the other domain). Examinations of overall work\u2013family conflict have strongly supported a relationship between work hours and increased work\u2013family conflict (Adkins and Premeaux 2012; Hughes and Parkes 2007; Matthews et al. 2012). For example, Adkins and Premeaux (2012) examined the relationship between work hours and both WFC and FWC at a variety of organizational levels, as well as examining potential moderators . They found a positive linear relationship between hours worked and WFC, and a curvilinear relationship between hours worked and FWC. These findings suggest an ability to adjust family roles to minimize interference with work after conflict exceeds a certain point, although that same flexibility does not exist in the opposite direction for work roles. Additionally, the study found that number of children moderates this relationship, such that individuals with more children experience greater levels of WFC, yet families with fewer children experience a stronger relationship between the number of hours worked and levels of WFC. Hughes and Parkes (2007) also found a positive relationship between work hours and work\u2013family conflict, as well as support for the moderating role of work-time control. Individuals with higher work-time control experienced lower levels of conflict, which in turn was negatively related to family satisfaction outcomes.\n\nAlthough the relationship between work hours and work\u2013family conflict has been examined in a number of contexts, conspicuously absent from the work\u2013family literature is an examination of the role of workaholism (a dispositional form of heavy work investment; see Snir and Harpaz 2012). Given that a key characteristic of workaholics is that they often spend excessive time at work or thinking about work (Scott et al. 1997), it is not surprising that research has found that workaholics tend to experience a variety of negative outcomes, such as greater work\u2013family conflict (e.g., Bakker et al. 2009) and poorer psychological and physical well-being (Andreassen et al. 2007; Taris et al. 2005). While workaholism may yield negative outcomes overall, the basic premise of this chapter is that workaholic women may experience a greater number of negative work\u2013family outcomes compared to their male counterparts, due to such factors as societal pressures suggesting that women should be more heavily invested in their families (Blair-Loy 2001) and the fact that women typically have more family responsibilities than men (Carli and Eagly 2012).\n\nIn this chapter, we first review the concept of workaholism, as well as its relationship with work\u2013family conflict. Next, we review the literature on gender roles and societal norms , and how these will uniquely impact work\u2013family outcomes of workaholism for women. Specifically, we propose that workaholic women face extra pressures compared to workaholic men, and may in fact suffer even greater negative consequences as a result of their workaholic behavior. These extra pressures are largely due to the conflict that women experience between their inner drive to work and traditional gender role expectations, which expect women to be primarily devoted to their families. We then present empirical data which tests some possible emotional mediators in the relationship between workaholism and work\u2013family conflict for working women. Finally, we discuss overall conclusions and an agenda for future research .\n\n## 16.2 Workaholism\n\nWorkaholism can be defined as \"an internal drive to work, in which an individual is consumed with thoughts and feelings about work, and he\/she spends excessive time working and\/or thinking about work (even when it is not required of them) to the exclusion of other important life roles\" (Clark et al. 2014). Workaholics are driven to work because of internal factors such as an obsession with working or feelings that one \"should\" be working (Oates 1971; Schaufeli et al. 2008a), rather than external factors such as organizational requirements or financial needs (Sussman 2012). Contrary to what is often discussed in the popular press , workaholics are not driven to work because of an internal passion or love of working (Clark et al. 2014; Mudrack 2006). That particular group of individuals is more appropriately called engaged workers (Schaufeli et al. 2008b) or devoted workers (Snir and Harpaz 2012). Instead, we (and others) argue that it is more appropriate to conceptualize workaholics as individuals who are essentially addicted to work, and that are consumed by feelings of guilt that one \"should\" be working as opposed to working because of a love or passion for work (Clark et al. 2014; McMillan and O'Driscoll 2006; Schaufeli et al. 2008b). Workaholics often continue working even when their behavior leads to negative outcomes (Sussman and Sussman 2011). They often miss family events, work evenings, and blur the lines between work and home by bringing their work home with them or choosing recreational activities that advance or complement their work (Bonebright et al. 2000; Ng et al. 2007) .\n\nGiven that workaholics tend to spend an exorbitant amount of time at work at the expense of their family obligations (Scott et al. 1997; Sussman and Sussman 2011), it is not surprising that workaholism has been linked to greater work\u2013family conflict. This relationship between workaholism and work\u2013family conflict can be explained by both resource drain theory as well as spillover theory (see Edwards and Rothbard 2000). Resource drain theory suggests that when individuals expend personal resources (e.g., time, energy) in one domain (e.g., work), this depletes the available resources in another domain (e.g., family). Thus, workaholics may be more likely to experience WFC because they are expending a large amount of personal resources at their job. For example, a workaholic parent who spends a large amount of cognitive resources focusing on work tasks and projects during the day may be too exhausted to help their children complete their homework in the evening. Spillover theory, on the other hand, suggests that one's mood, skills , values , and behaviors experienced in one domain may spill over and impact (either positively or negatively) one's functioning in the other domain. Thus, negative emotions felt at home (e.g., guilt felt by workaholics when they are not working) may spill over and negatively affect them at work . Conversely, negative emotions felt at work (e.g., anxiety due to a workaholic's compulsive nature) may spill over and negatively affect them at home. Several studies have supported these ideas that workaholism is related to greater work\u2013family conflict (e.g., Aziz et al. 2010; Bonebright et al. 2000; Taris et al. 2005). Furthermore, the positive relationship between workaholism and work\u2013family conflict has been found in many different countries which have varied cultural norms and expectations toward work, including the USA (Aziz et al. 2010), Norway (Andreassen et al. 2013), the Netherlands (Bakker et al. 2009), Spain (del Libano et al. 2012), Italy (Guglielmi et al. 2012), and Japan (Shimazu et al. 2011) .\n\nWorkaholism has also been shown to negatively affect the family unit. Specifically, research has shown that workaholism results in work\u2013family crossover, where stress experienced by one individual crosses over to his or her spouse (Westman 2001). For example, Bakker et al. (2009) found that partners of workaholics reported receiving less social support, which in turn was related to lower partner relationship satisfaction. Additionally, a recent meta-analysis found that workaholism is related to lower family satisfaction and functioning and greater marital estrangement (Clark et al. 2014). Taken together, these studies suggest that not only does the workaholic individual suffer negative consequences, but the family of the workaholic also suffers.\n\nRecent meta-analytic evidence (Clark et al. 2014) as well as primary studies (Burke 1999; Graves et al. 2012) have found little to no evidence for gender differences in self-reported workaholism. In other words, men and women may be equally likely to be workaholics. However, it is interesting to note that gender has been found to moderate the relationship between age and workaholism , suggesting that men and women may have different lifespan trajectories of workaholic behaviors (Clark et al. 2014). Specifically, using meta-analytic data and assessing gender as the proportion of women in the sample, Clark et al. found that in samples with the highest proportions of women, there was a positive correlation between age and workaholism , whereas in samples containing the largest proportions of men, there was a negative relationship between age and workaholism. This suggests that for men, workaholic behavior may decrease over one's lifespan, while for women, workaholic behavior may increase over one's lifespan. However, a direct test of this has not been conducted to date. Unfortunately, there has been little research on gender differences in workaholism , and no known studies have examined the relationship between gender role and workaholism.\n\nIn the next section, we propose that because of existing societal pressures suggesting that women should be more heavily invested in their families (Blair-Loy 2001), coupled with the fact that women typically have more family responsibilities than men (Carli and Eagly 2012), women will experience more negative work\u2013family outcomes from their workaholic behavior than will men. We now turn to theory supporting this proposition .\n\n## 16.3 Gender Roles and Societal Norms\n\nTo date, studies of workaholism have focused primarily on how someone's workaholic nature impacts various outcomes (e.g., personal, family, work). However, a basic premise of this chapter is that men's and women's experiences as a workaholic may differ in consequential ways. Specifically in regard to work\u2013family conflict, we argue that the research to date has focused exclusively on how the noticeable characteristics of workaholism (e.g., the excessive number of hours worked or the persistent compulsion to work) influence work\u2013family conflict. To our knowledge, one factor that has not been considered to date in the workaholism and work\u2013family literature is whether a workaholic's perceptions and experiences of work\u2013family conflict may be due to pressures from gender role expectations (Blair-Loy 2001).\n\nAccording to traditional gender role expectations, men are responsible for acting as the main financial contributors for the family, allowing for a greater amount of attention to be paid directly to the work role rather than splitting time and resources between work and family roles. For men, being largely devoted to work may be viewed as an expected behavior and part of the \"good provider\" role, wherein men work to provide a stable income for the family (Bernard 1981). Because paid work has been traditionally viewed as men's main contribution to the family unit, a high investment in work is not likely to be viewed by men as having a strong impact on their perceived levels of work\u2013family conflict (Gutek et al. 1991). Women, on the other hand, face unique struggles as they strive to balance their inner drive to be heavily involved in work, while also conforming to traditional gender role expectations that women should be intensely committed to their families. Further support for these differing gender expectations has been offered by Groysberg and Abrahams (2014), whose surveys of executives found that\u2014regardless of gender\u2014these employees felt that the responsibility of handling tensions between work and home to be primarily a women's problem. In addition to the internal struggle between their devotion to work and the pressures of gender role expectations , women may also be chastised by family, friends, and individuals in the community for their heavy involvement in work at the expense of their families (Gutek et al. 1991; Ridgeway 2011). All of these factors combined may lead to higher perceived levels of work\u2013family conflict for women.\n\nIn her book, Competing Devotions: Career and Family among Women Executives, sociologist Mary Blair-Loy (2003) presents a fascinating description of the struggles faced by executive women, framing their struggles in terms of a clash between cultural work and family devotion schemas. According to Blair-Loy, cultural work and family devotion schemas are frameworks that individuals utilize to view, filter, understand, and appraise the present reality. Through time, schemas are developed by societies and become internalized within individuals to shape their personal goals, identities, and desires. In addition to fostering individual aspirations, cultural schemas are collectively shared to shape social structures within organizations and families. Specifically, Blair-Loy's (2001) work and family devotion schemas represent \"ideal types\" of individuals that influence how individuals spend their time, energy , and passion, that is particular either to their work or family.\n\nThe devotion to work schema emerged during the twentieth century when the pressure of capitalism encouraged men to immerse themselves in their professional careers, in order to secure a good income that allowed their wives to stay home and devote themselves to caring for the family. In addition to providing financial rewards , the work devotion schema promised individuals a sense of competence, identity, belonging, and meaning from their work (Blair-Loy 2003). On the other hand, the family devotion schema ascribes women to care for the home and family, while demanding complete allegiance to the role of being a mother. Additionally, this schema mandates a heterosexual marriage in which wives rely on their husbands for social status and financial sustenance, while husbands rely on their wives for physical and emotional support for themselves and their children (Blair-Loy 2001). In return for complying with these mandates, the family devotion schema provides women with a sense of fulfillment, meaning, creativity, and intimacy from raising their children. At the work and family devotion schemas' inception, these schemas were complementary; they prescribed husbands to care for the family financially through an intense devotion to their work, which allowed women to embrace the family devotion schema by staying at home with the children, and since women cared for the home and children, it also enabled husbands to fully embrace the work devotion schema (Blair-Loy 2003). However as more women embrace the work devotion schema by dedicating themselves to their work, the work and family devotion schemas have shifted from complementary devotion schemas to competing devotion schemas (Blair-Loy 2003).\n\nAs the number of dual-earner (Jacobs and Gerson 2004) and female-as-breadwinner (Wang et al. 2013) households continue to steadily increase, women are increasingly likely to experience competing work and family devotions. Specifically, competition between the work and family devotion schemas arises when women embrace the traditionally masculine work devotion schema to pursue professional careers, which is in opposition to the traditionally feminine family devotion schema that women are expected to embrace. This illustrates a violation of Eagly's (1987) social role theory of sex differences, which asserts that individuals tend to engage in activities that align with their culturally defined gender roles, due to external social pressures and individual internalized cultural gender expectations that intrinsically motivate individuals to engage in gender role congruent behaviors. However, when women immerse themselves in their work, they are engaging in behaviors that are incongruent with traditional gender role behaviors requiring women to devote all their time to their children in order to be \"good\" mothers.\n\nOne implication of women investing heavily in the work devotion schema is that they will likely experience higher levels of both WFC and FWC due to expectations that they are active and perform effectively in both work and family roles. Their male counterparts, however, may not experience the same pressure to take on responsibilities in the family domain, allowing them to invest more heavily in their work role. From a gender role perspective, women's experience of work\u2013family conflict can be conceptualized at a deeper moral level as the conflict between what it means to be a good employee and what it means to be a good parent (Blair-Loy 2003). Specifically, WFC is likely to arise when workaholic women first have child(ren), which evokes the family devotion schema to fully devote oneself to caring for the home and child(ren), even though they have previously embraced the work devotion schema due to their inner drive to work (Ridgeway 2011). However, men who are workaholics are not as likely to experience the same level of WFC as women because upon the arrival of children, the masculine work devotion schema of providing financially for the family is reemphasized, which mandates a contribution to the family by working as opposed to physically caring for the children (Ridgeway 2011). Accordingly, studies have shown that men tend to work more hours upon the arrival of children, while women tend to work fewer hours once they have children (Paull 2008). Therefore, as workaholic women juggle competing work and family demands, their long work hours and persistent inner drive to work may not allow them to fulfill all of their responsibilities in their family roles, resulting in WFC.\n\nIn addition to experiencing higher levels of WFC in comparison to men, workaholic women are also likely to experience increased levels of FWC. As noted by Ridgeway (2011), working women encounter \"the maternal wall\" in the workplace when they have children and are no longer viewed by the organization as the \"ideal\" worker who is agentic and assertive. Instead, they are now identified also as a mother who is communal and sensitive, which clashes with the \"ideal\" worker. One result of the \"mother\" image in the workplace is that working mothers tend to be viewed by organizations as lower-status, less valued, and less competent employees, due to the demands of motherhood impeding their effort to perform at work. Therefore, women experience inner conflict between conforming to the ideal worker, who is fully committed to and available for work, and the ideal mother, who is completely dedicated to and always there for her family and children. At the same time, women are also being held to higher standards by organizations to prove their ability and commitment to their work, since they are undermined as working mothers (Ridgeway 2011). Once again, men who are workaholics are not subject to opposition in the ideal worker and father roles, because the father role prescribes men to care financially for the family by working (Ridgeway 2011). Collectively, these experiences that women encounter, particularly the higher commitment and ability standards set by organizations, may hinder workaholic women's abilities to fulfill all of their responsibilities in their work roles since they have to work harder to meet the higher standards, leading to greater FWC.\n\nAn additional contributing factor to workaholic women's heightened experiences of WFC and FWC in comparison to men emanates from the increasing prevalence of organizations' \"gendered\" cultures (Cahusac and Kanji 2014; Lovejoy and Stone 2011). As more organizations promote the traditional linear career model by encouraging continuous work and upward mobility, organizational cultures are becoming more gendered with greater advantages for men. Specifically, men typically ascribe to the traditional linear career model due to their stable devotion to work, even upon the arrival of children. This consistency provides men with greater power in the organization in comparison to women, who may forgo the traditional linear career model by taking a break from employment to have children. Men's greater organizational power is reflected in increased opportunities for advancement, expansive social networks, and up-to-date skills due to their continual work, while women who have taken employment breaks (e.g., due to children) may have fewer advancement opportunities, smaller social networks, and greater skill deterioration, contributing to this deficit in power (Cahusac and Kanji 2014). Furthermore, as organizations encourage their employees to adopt the traditional linear career model that emphasizes long work hours to attain success, women experience conflict between the organization's push to work countless hours and the gender role expectation for women to devote time to the family. Therefore, women experience greater WFC and FWC due to the push and pull between work and family expectations as organizations promote the traditional career model that discourages women's employment breaks and results in diminished organizational power as women seek to return to work.\n\nIn addition to the inner conflict that workaholic women experience from their own competing work and family devotion schemas, these women are also likely to experience opposition from family, friends, and individuals in the community for their devotion to work at the (perceived) expense of their families. These external pressures arise when other individuals hold gender beliefs that are incongruent with the employee's gender beliefs and they express their disapproval (Ridgeway 2011). For example, even when someone has a supportive partner, individuals outside of the immediate family unit may still hold traditional work and family devotion schemas (Blair-Loy 2001), which prescribe men to care for the family by working and women to care for the family by managing the home and raising the children. Therefore, if a workaholic woman leaves her husband in charge of caring for the children in the evening so that she can complete a project for work, individuals outside of the immediate family unit may chastise her (whether confrontationally or more subtly) because it violates traditional work and family devotion schemas. Thus, workaholic women not only experience pressure and conflict from their internal struggles with work and family roles, but they also experience external pressure from other individuals.\n\nWorkaholic women face general societal norms that encourage greater participation in the home rather than work domain, potential inner conflict regarding their role as a \"good parent\" versus a \"good employee\", and possible outside pressure from individuals who do not agree with their decision to immerse themselves in the work environment . For these reasons, we propose that workaholic women will experience higher levels of negative outcomes than workaholic men, including greater work\u2013family conflict. These negative outcomes may include both self-inflicted outcomes (via guilt) and negative outcomes inflicted by others (including guilt, societal pressures, etc.). In order to further understand the emotional experiences of workaholic women, we conducted an empirical study exploring the discrete emotions experienced by women both at work and at home, and how these discrete emotions mediate the relationship between workaholism and work\u2013family conflict.\n\n## 16.4 An Empirical Examination of Mood Spillover for Workaholic Women\n\nRecall that work\u2013family mood spillover theory (see Edwards and Rothbard 2000) suggests that the negative emotions that individuals experience at work or home may spill over and negatively impact functioning in the other domain. For example, after a frustrating day at work, this negative mood may influence one's mood at home and in turn negatively affect one's ability to interact in a positive and fulfilling way with one's spouse or children. In addition to traditional sources of negative moods at work or home (e.g., job demands, angry customers, family demands, conflict with spouse), we propose that workaholic women may experience additional stressors (e.g., pressure from her family members to devote more of her time and energy to family, self-imposed expectations of conforming to societal expectations of what it means to be a good mother), which may trigger a variety of negative emotions that her male counterparts may not experience to the same degree. For example, a woman who is a workaholic may experience a great amount of guilt and anxiety while she is at work because she is choosing not to adhere to the family devotion schema (Blair-Loy 2003). Men, on the other hand, are encouraged to contribute to the family via financial support. Therefore, they may not experience these same emotions when they are working.\n\nTo test these ideas, we conducted an empirical study involving 215 working women that explores the mediating role of negative emotions in the relationship between workaholism and work\u2013family conflict. Specifically, we tested a model which examines whether negative emotions (i.e., guilt, anxiety, anger, and disappointment) at work and home mediate the relationship between workaholism and WFC\/FWC.\n\nThe women involved in this study had an average age of 45 years (SD = 10.1) and worked an average of 37.7 hours (SD = 8.1) per week. Ninety-two percent of the women were married or in a serious committed relationship and 84 % had at least one child. Turning to the results of the two models, we first discuss the WFC model in which women's experience of negative emotions at work (i.e., guilt, anxiety, anger , and disappointment) mediate the relationship between workaholism and WFC (Fig. 16.1). Overall, this model fit the data very well [\u03c7\u00b2 (9) = 14.30, p = 0.11; CFI = 0.99; TLI = 0.96; RMSEA = 0.05; SRMR = 0.03] and accounted for a significant amount of the variance in WFC (R 2 = 0.38, p < 0.001).\n\nFig. 16.1\n\nMultiple-mediation model of workaholism on work-to-family conflict through negative emotions at work\n\nNext, we discuss the specific relationships between workaholism, negative emotions at work, and WFC. First, there was a positive relationship between women's workaholic behaviors and WFC (\u03b2 = 0.23, p < 0.001). Therefore, women with higher levels of workaholism experienced higher levels of WFC as compared to women with lower levels of workaholism. Next, we examined the mediating role of women's negative emotions experienced at work in the relationship between workaholism and WFC. Mediation results revealed that workaholism was positively related to work guilt (\u03b2 = 0.17, p < 0.05), work anxiety (\u03b2 = 0.31, p < 0.001), and work disappointment (\u03b2 = 0.30, p < 0.001); however, the relationship between workaholism and anger experienced at work was not significant (\u03b2 = 0.13, p = 0.07). Only work anxiety (\u03b2 = 0.23, p < 0.001) was positively related to WFC. Additionally, specific indirect effect analyses indicated that work anxiety (indirect effect = 0.08, CI0.95 = 0.03, 0.13) mediated the relationship between workaholism and WFC. Therefore, women's experience of anxiety at work is one mechanism through which workaholism can spill over and negatively impact women's functioning at home.\n\nMoving on, we now discuss results from the FWC model, in which women's experiences of negative emotions at home (i.e., guilt, anxiety, anger, and disappointment) mediate the relationship between workaholism and FWC (Fig. 16.2). In general, this model fit the data well [\u03c7\u00b2 (9) = 20.65, p < 0.05; CFI = 0.97; TLI = 0.91; RMSEA = 0.08; SRMR = 0.04] and accounted for a significant amount of the variance in FWC (R 2 = 0.29, p < 0.001). There was a positive relationship between workaholism and FWC (\u03b2 = 0.27, p = 0.001), which suggests that women exhibiting higher levels of workaholism experience higher levels of FWC, compared to women exhibiting lower levels of workaholism.\n\nFig. 16.2\n\nMultiple-mediation model of workaholism on family-to-work conflict through negative emotions at home\n\nWe next examined the possible mediating effects of negative emotions in the relationship between workaholism and FWC. Results show that workaholism was positively related to home anxiety (\u03b2 = 0.17, p = 0.05), home anger (\u03b2 = 0.18, p = 0.01), and home disappointment (\u03b2 = 0.16, p = 0.01); however, workaholism was not significantly related to home guilt (\u03b2 = 0.12, p = 0.14). Only home anger (\u03b2 = 0.21, p < 0.05) was positively related to FWC, indicating that the greater a woman's anger at home, the higher her levels of FWC. However, the indirect effect for home anger was not significant (indirect effect = 0.04, CI0.95 = \u22120.01, 0.09).\n\nCollectively, these results provide important insights into the relationships between workaholism, negative emotions experienced at work and home, and work\u2013family conflict. In regard to the work-to-family model, women's workaholism exhibits a direct and positive relationship with WFC. Furthermore, when examining women's experiences of negative emotions at work as an underlying mechanism of this relationship, women's anxiety is an important mediator. Therefore, as women engage in more workaholic behaviors they tend to experience more anxiety at work, which in turn relates to greater amounts of WFC, possibly through mood spillover. Specifically, negative moods experienced in one domain can spill over and negatively influence performance and produce negative moods in another domain (Edwards and Rothbard 2000). Women may feel anxiety while at work because they are not adhering to the family devotion schema (Blair-Loy 2003). However, because we assessed anxiety at work in general, rather than anxiety specifically about being at work and not at home, future research is needed to further understand this relationship.\n\nSimilarly, results from the family-to-work model indicated a direct and positive relationship between women's workaholism and FWC, while the inclusion of women's experience of negative emotions at home also served as a mechanism underlying this relationship. Specifically, as women display higher levels of workaholism they tend to experience more anger at home, which then relates to higher levels of FWC. One reason for our findings regarding anger at home could be that workaholic women are more severely impacted by resource drain than their male counterparts, due to the fact that women have more responsibilities in the home than men (Carli and Eagly 2012). This in turn may lead to resentment and anger , possibly toward one's spouse, who does not have as many family obligations, or anger about societal expectations that the majority of family responsibilities falls firmly on the woman's shoulders. Again, future research is needed in order to further examine this finding. One surprising finding from the family-to-work model is that women's workaholism was not significantly related to their experience of guilt at home, which is a prominent characteristic of workaholism (Ng, Sorenson, and Feldman 2007). However, it is important to note that the model examined the role of each mediator in the context of the other mediators in the model. Examinations on the bivariate level revealed that workaholism was significantly related to higher levels of guilt experienced at home (r = 0.15, p < 0.05), which suggests that it is still important to consider the role of guilt when investigating the emotional experiences of workaholic women .\n\n## 16.5 Conclusion\n\nIn this chapter, we have proposed that workaholic women experience specific and unique work\u2013family outcomes as compared to workaholic men. Specifically, we argue that workaholic women face extra pressures and may in fact suffer from even greater negative consequences as compared to workaholic men, due to the conflict between their inner drive to work and traditional gender role expectations . Men, on the other hand, are expected to be devoted to work and the providers for their families based on traditional gender role expectations. Thus, a man's experience as a workaholic is likely to be very different than a woman's experience. The current empirical study examined the relationships between workaholism , discrete emotions, and work\u2013family conflict with a sample of women. Our findings provide evidence that workaholism directly impacts work\u2013family conflict, and that this relationship is mediated by anxiety at work and, to some extent, anger at home. Additionally, this is the first known study to specifically examine the emotional mechanisms through which workaholism influences work\u2013family conflict specifically for women. However, additional research is needed to fully understand the internal and external factors underlying these negative emotions. In a society where working hours are extending and dual-earner family dynamics are becoming more prevalent, it is important for future research to more closely examine these relationships to minimize the unique negative impact felt by workaholic women.\n\nThere are a number of future research directions that could aid in the study of workaholic women. More specifically, qualitative studies or experience sampling (ESM) studies specifically targeting the experiences of women who are workaholics could allow for much greater insight into their perceptions and experiences by examining the dynamic nature of their experiences over time. Additional research could parse out specific examples of self-inflicted (e.g., personal guilt) and other-inflicted (e.g., gender and societal norms) pressures to see how the type of pressure influences the manner in which workaholic women experience negative emotions.\n\nIn addition to pursuing future research on the unique experiences of workaholic women, it is vital to address the ways in which these women may cope with their workaholic behaviors, especially in regard to reducing work\u2013family conflict. From a general managerial perspective, Haas (1991) urged managers to assist their employees in altering their workaholic behaviors by referring them to employee assistance or recovery programs for treatment, which includes encouraging workaholics to delegate their work and take scheduled breaks from work. As workaholic women endure the tug-of-war between work and family demands, as well as gender role and societal pressures, we encourage women to seek out support groups for women balancing work and family. These specialized groups for women should expand beyond Workaholics Anonymous groups (e.g., www.workaholics-anonymous.org) by providing women with a network of support that targets the unique pressures women experience as they strive to balance their work and family. Another avenue that workaholic women may pursue to reduce work\u2013family conflict is family involvement and counseling, to determine if family life is contributing to their workaholic behaviors (Burke 2000). Furthermore, family initiatives may enhance satisfaction with time spent with the family, thus reducing work\u2013family conflict.\n\nIn sum, more research is needed in order to understand the relationship between workaholism and work\u2013family conflict, particularly research that focuses on the unique experiences of workaholic women. Research on workaholic women and their experiences of work\u2013family conflict is particularly important given that both work hours and levels of work\u2013family conflict are on the rise (e.g., Brett and Stroh 2003; Siegel et al. 2005), coupled with the increase in dual-earner households and households with women as the sole or primary provider (Galinsky et al. 2009; Wang et al. 2013). We encourage researchers to apply some of the sociological theories discussed in this chapter to the study of work and family, including (although certainly not limited to) thinking about work\u2013family conflict as a moral dilemma involving competing work and family devotions (see Blair-Loy 2003). This alternative conceptualization of work\u2013family conflict is relevant not only to understanding the specific experiences of workaholic women, but also to understanding the experiences of any working woman.\n\nReferences\n\nAdkins, C. L., & Premeaux, S. F. (2012). Spending time: The impact of hours worked on work family conflict. Journal of Vocational Behavior, 80, 380\u2013389.CrossRef\n\nAndreassen, C. S., Ursin, H., & Eriksen, H. R. (2007). The relationship between strong motivation to work, \"workaholism\", and health. Psychology and Health, 22, 615\u2013629.CrossRef\n\nAndreassen, C. S., Hetland, J., & Pallesen, S. (2013). Workaholism and work\u2013family spillover in a cross-occupational sample. European Journal of Work and Organizational Psychology, 22, 78\u201387.CrossRef\n\nAziz, S., Adkins, C.T., Walker, A.G., & Wuensch, K.L. (2010). Workaholism and work\u2013life imbalance: Does cultural origin influence the relationship? International Journal of Psychology, 41, 72\u201379.CrossRef\n\nBakker, A. B., Demerouti, E., & Burke, R. (2009). Workaholism and relationship quality: A spillover-crossover perspective. Journal of Occupational Health Psychology, 14, 23\u201333.PubMedCrossRef\n\nBernard, J. (1981). The good-provider role: Its rise and fall. American Psychologist, 36, 1\u201312.CrossRef\n\nBlair-Loy, M. (2001). Cultural constructions of family schemas: The case of women finance executives. Gender and Society, 15, 687\u2013709.CrossRef\n\nBlair-Loy, M. (2003). Competing devotions: Career and family among women executives. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.\n\nBonebright, C. A., Clay, D. L., & Ankenmann, R. D. (2000). The relationship of workaholism with work\u2013life conflict, life satisfaction, and purpose in life. Journal of Counseling Psychology, 47, 469\u2013477.CrossRef\n\nBrett, J. M., & Stroh, L. K. (2003). Working 61 plus hours a week: Why do managers do it? Journal of Applied Psychology, 88, 67\u201378.PubMedCrossRef\n\nBurke, R. J. (1999). Workaholism in organizations: Gender differences. Sex Roles, 41, 333\u2013345.CrossRef\n\nBurke, R.J. (2000). Workaholism among women managers: Personal and workplace correlates. Journal of Managerial Psychology, 15, 520\u2013530.CrossRef\n\nCahusac, E., & Kanji, S. (2014). Giving up: How gendered organizational cultures push mothers out. Gender, Work, and Organization, 21, 57\u201370.CrossRef\n\nCarli, L. L., & Eagly, A. H. (2012). Leadership and gender. In J. Antonakis & D. Day (Eds.), The nature of leadership (2nd ed., pp. 417\u2013476). Thousand Oaks: Sage.\n\nClark, M. A., Michel, J. S., Zhadnova, L., Pui, S., & Baltes, B. B. (2014). All work and no play? A meta-analytic examination of the correlates and outcomes of workaholism. Journal of Management. Advance online publication. doi: 10.1177\/0149206314522301\n\ndel Libano, M., Llorens, S., Salanova, M., & Schaufeli, W. B. (2012). About the dark and bright sides of self-efficacy: Workaholism and work engagement. The Spanish Journal of Psychology, 15, 688\u2013701.PubMedCrossRef\n\nEagly, A.H. (1987). Sex differences in social behavior: A social-role interpretation. Hillsdale: Erlbaum.\n\nEdwards, J. R., & Rothbard, N. P. (2000). Mechanisms linking work and family: Clarifying the relationship between work and family constructs. Academy of Management Review, 25, 178\u2013199.\n\nGalinsky, E., Aumann, K., & Bond, J. T. (2009). Times are changing: Gender and generation at work and at home. New York: Families and Work Institute.\n\nGraves, L. M., Ruderman, M. N., Ohlott, P. J., & Weber, T. J. (2012). Driven to work and enjoyment of work: Effects of managers' outcomes. Journal of Management, 38, 1655\u20131680.CrossRef\n\nGreenhaus, J. H., & Beutell, N. J. (1985). Sources of conflict between work and family roles. Academy of Management Review, 10, 76\u201388.\n\nGroysberg, B., & Abrahams, R. (2014). Manage your work, manage your life: Zero in on what really matters. Harvard Business Review, 92(3), 58\u201366.\n\nGuglielmi, D., Simbula, S., Schaufeli, W. B., & Depolo, M. (2012). Self-efficacy and workaholism as indicators of the job demands-resources model. Career Development International, 17, 375\u2013389.CrossRef\n\nGutek, B. A., Searle, S., & Klepa, L. (1991). Rational versus gender role explanations for work\u2013family conflict. Journal of Applied Psychology, 76, 560\u2013568.CrossRef\n\nHaas, R. (1991). Strategies to cope with a cultural phenomenon\u2014workaholism. Business and Health, 36, 4.\n\nHughes, E. L., & Parkes, K. R. (2007). Work hours and well-being: The roles of work-time control and work family interference. Work & Stress, 21, 264\u2013278.CrossRef\n\nJacobs, J. A., & Gerson, K. (2004). The time divide: Work, family, and gender inequality. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.\n\nKuhn, P., & Lozano, F. (2008). The expanding workweek? Understanding trends in long workhours among U.S. men, 1979\u20132006. Journal of Labor Economics, 26, 311\u2013343.CrossRef\n\nLovejoy, M., & Stone, P. (2011). Opting back in: The influence of time at home on professional women's career redirection after opting out. Gender, Work, and Organization, 19, 631\u2013653.CrossRef\n\nMatthews, R. A., Swody, C. A., & Barnes-Farrell, J. L. (2012). Work hours and work\u2013family conflict: The double-edged sword of involvement in work and family. Stress and Health, 28, 234\u2013247.PubMedCrossRef\n\nMcMillan, L. H. W., & O'Driscoll, M. P. (2006). Exploring new frontiers to generate an integrated definition of workaholism. In R. J. Burke (Ed.), Research companion to working time and work addiction (pp. 89\u2013107). Northampton: Edward Elgar.\n\nMudrack, P. E. (2006). Understanding workaholism: The case for behavioral tendencies. In R. J. Burke (Ed.), Research companion to working time and work addiction (pp. 108\u2013128). Northampton: Edward Elgar.\n\nMurphy, L. R., & Sauter, S. L. (2003). The USA perspective: Current issues and trends in the management of work stress. Australian Psychologist, 38, 151\u2013157.CrossRef\n\nNg, T.W.H., Sorensen, K.L., & Feldman, D.C. (2007). Dimensions, antecedents, and consequences of workaholism: A conceptual integration and extension. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 28, 111\u2013136.CrossRef\n\nOates, W. E. (1971). Confessions of a workaholic: The facts about work addiction. New York: World Publishing.\n\nPaull, G. (2008). Children and women's hours of work. The Economic Journal, 118, F8\u2013F27.\n\nRidgeway, C.L. (2011). Framed by gender. New York: Oxford University Press.CrossRef\n\nSchaufeli, W. B., Taris, T. W., & Bakker, A. B. (2008a). It takes two to tango: Workaholism is working excessively and working compulsively. In R. J. Burke & C. L. Cooper (Eds.), The long work hours culture: Causes, consequences and choices (pp. 203\u2013225). Bingley: Emerald.\n\nSchaufeli, W. B., Taris, T. W., & van Rhenen, W. (2008b). Workaholism, burnout, and work engagement: Three of a kind or three different kinds of employee well-being? Applied Psychology: An International Review, 57, 173\u2013203.CrossRef\n\nSchor, J. (2003). The (even more) overworked American. In de Graaf, J. (Ed.), Take back your time: Fighting overwork and time poverty in America (pp. 6\u201311). San Francisco: Berrett-Koehler.\n\nScott, K. S., Moore, K. S., & Miceli, M. P. (1997). An exploration of the meaning and consequences of workaholism. Human Relations, 50, 287\u2013314.CrossRef\n\nShimazu, A., Demerouti, E., Bakker, A. B., Shimada, K., & Kawakami, N. (2011). Workaholism and well-being among Japanese dual-earner couples: A spillover-crossover perspective. Social Science & Medicine, 73, 399\u2013409.CrossRef\n\nSiegel, P. A., Post, C., Brockner, J., Fishman, A. Y., & Garden, C. (2005). The moderating influence of procedural fairness on the relationship between work\u2013life conflict and organizational commitment. Journal of Applied Psychology, 90, 13\u201324.PubMedCrossRef\n\nSnir, R., & Harpaz, I. (2012). Beyond workaholism: Towards a general model of heavy work investment. Human Resource Management Review, 22, 232\u2013243.CrossRef\n\nSussman, S. (2012). Workaholism: A review. Journal of Addiction Research and Therapy, S6, 4120.\n\nSussman, S., & Sussman, A. N. (2011). Considering the definition of addiction. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 8, 4025\u20134038.PubMedCentralPubMedCrossRef\n\nTaris, T. W., Schaufeli, W. B., & Verhoeven, L. C. (2005). Workaholism in the Netherlands: Measurement and implications for job strain and work\u2013nonwork conflict. Applied Psychology: An International Review, 54, 37\u201360.CrossRef\n\nU.S. Department of Commerce (2011). Women in America: Indicators of social and economic well-being. Prepared by the U.S. Department of Commerce Economics and Statistics Administration, for White House Council on Women and Girls.\n\nWajcman, J., Bittman, M., & Brown, J. E. (2008). Families without borders: Mobile phones, connectedness and work\u2013home divisions. Sociology, 42, 635\u2013652.CrossRef\n\nWang, W., Parker, K., & Taylor, P. (2013). Breadwinner Moms. Pew Research Center. http:\/\/\u200bwww.\u200bpewsocialtrends.\u200borg\/\u200b2013\/\u200b05\/\u200b29\/\u200bbreadwinner-moms\/\u200b.\n\nWestman, M. (2001). Stress and strain crossover. Human Relations, 54, 717\u2013751.CrossRef\n\u00a9 Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2015\n\nMaura J. Mills (ed.)Gender and the Work-Family Experience10.1007\/978-3-319-08891-4_17\n\n# 17. Family Life on the Fast Track? Gender and Work\u2013Family Trade offs Among Highly Educated Professionals: A Cross-Cultural Exploration\n\nMaria Stanfors1\n\n(1)\n\nCentre for Economic Demography, Lund University, P. O. Box 7083, 220 07 Lund, Sweden\n\nMaria Stanfors\n\nEmail: maria.stanfors@ekh.lu.se\n\nKeywords\n\nFast-track professionsGenderWork\u2013family conflictFertilityFlexibility\n\n## 17.1 Introduction\n\nDuring recent decades, the progress women have made in education and the labor market has been comprehensive throughout most industrialized nations . Not least does this apply to their inroads into the professions. Today, both men and women are attaining high-status degrees and entering fast-track professions such as law, medicine, and academia. This has changed the conditions for both family formation and pursuing a career. Generally, high levels of education and career orientation among women are associated with delayed and reduced involvement in family life , indicating that professional gains may be offset by familial losses (cf. Bertrand et al. 2010). One reason for this is that higher education, getting a degree, and starting a career takes time. Also, childbearing and career breaks are considered costly for the highly educated. Perhaps more important; however, is that while women have made substantial inroads into the professions, the career paths of some jobs have changed little. They are still inflexible and are arguably therefore largely incompatible with having a family, especially for women who tend to take on more caregiving responsibilities than men do.\n\nAlthough there is an extensive literature documenting the negative relationship between education and fertility, there is evidence of change. A recent study on the case in Sweden showed that couples where both partners were highly educated professionals were more likely to continue childbearing and less likely to separate than were other couples (Dribe and Stanfors 2010). Sweden has been in the forefront internationally when it comes to gender equity and work\u2013family policies targeting men as well as women, so there are clearly more opportunities to combine career and family in Sweden than in many other countries. However, there is also evidence from the USA indicating that highly educated women nowadays have more children (Shang and Weinberg 2013). This does not extend to the same degree to all the highly educated (Herr and Wolfram 2011; Wolfinger et al. 2010), and reports that have attracted a lot of media attention have suggested that highly educated women are \"opting out\" due to work\u2013family conflicts, choosing family over career (Belkin 2003; Stone 2008; Story 2005).1\n\nThe current chapter focuses on how fast-track professionals fare with respect to family life (more specifically continued childbearing). Given the long-term increasing trends in women's education and labor force participation, fast-track professionals are highly relevant to study from a work\u2013family perspective since they put work\u2013family support systems to the test. The career structures of many fast-track jobs were designed for men with stay-at-home wives and few family responsibilities, but these have not changed much over time. It should be noted that the work\u2013family issues that men and women in fast-track professions face are different from those faced by men and women in other jobs. For many fast-trackers, family formation coincides with defining moments on the job with respect to career growth, so the question arising is whether and how to build a family. As parents, the work\u2013family conflicts facing this group relate to scheduling and shortage of time rather than money. It is also relevant to document whether gender has an impact on family life among fast-trackers, because it puts into perspective the investments in education and career that women make nowadays. The demands of a professional career, the asymmetries of male\u2013female relationships, and the difficulties of conceiving later in life are supposed to undermine the combination of career and family for women but not for men. In this chapter, evidence from Sweden is explored and contrasted with the experiences from the USA. Sweden has been a precursor in terms of various aspects of gender equality, partly through its longstanding, strong orientation toward work\u2013family policies that target men as well as women. While Sweden has introduced extensive policies alleviating parents from work\u2013family conflicts, such policies are limited in the USA. If there is a certain pattern emerging in the combination of career and family among highly educated professionals, Sweden is one of the places where this should be noticed first, while indicating what might be emerging elsewhere.\n\n## 17.2 Background\n\n### 17.2.1 Women's Changing Economic Roles\n\nDuring the twentieth century, women became increasingly engaged in labor market activities, with the most dramatic increase in maternal employment taking place during the 1970s (Goldin 1990; Stanfors 2003). Today the dual-earner household model has overtaken the traditional male breadwinner model in Europe as well as in the USA (Bianchi and Raley 2005 on the USA; Drew et al. 1998 on Europe). Although female employment rates and the time spent by women, especially mothers, in paid work have increased substantially, it has been argued that their time in unpaid work has not declined enough to compensate for this (Bianchi 2000; Gauthier et al. 2004). Men have increased their time in unpaid activities, but this has also failed to compensate for the changing employment status of women since this increase over time has been small and has started from a very low level (Coltrane 2000; Gershuny and Robinson 1988). Quite commonly, it is argued, women are doing a \"second shift\" of unpaid work and they are more often short of time and have less of it to devote to leisure than do men (Berk 1985; Hochschild 1989; Sayer 2005). Another view has challenged the second shift, claiming that men's and women's work patterns have converged over the past 40 years, with women now performing more paid work and less unpaid work than before, and men performing more unpaid work and less paid work (Bianchi et al. 2006; Gershuny 2000). These changes have been facilitated by household technology and various services that have reduced unpaid domestic activities. The proponents of convergence have argued that the gender revolution set off in the 1970s has not stalled at all. Quite contrary, change will, according to this view, go on because younger men and women, especially those with a higher education, are likely to adopt more gender-equal ideals and adapt to a less traditional division of labor . The predictions as to whether experiences of work\u2013family conflict will extend to men are, however, not clear.\n\n### 17.2.2 Work\u2013Family Conflict\n\nAlthough many men and women had experienced conflicts between work and family life before 1970, the rise in dual-earner households at this time sparked substantial interest in this question, both academically and politically, putting work\u2013family issues on both the research and political agendas in many countries. That work interferes more with family commitments than vice versa may reflect the idea of the \"ideal worker,\" who prioritizes work over family (cf. Acker 1990; Hochschild 1997; Williams 2000). The image of the ideal worker stems from the era of the male breadwinner model but still lives on in the minds and visions of employers and a variety of organizational features and practices sustains the notion that work should trump other commitments (Ely and Meyerson 2000). It also lives on in the minds of many workers, especially in the fast-track professions where career structure rigidity and work demands such as long working hours compete with home demands. Having a fast-track career and a family is thus often seen as incompatible, not least for women.\n\nWork\u2013family conflicts occur when both work and family demand commitment, time, and energy . Quite commonly, periods when demands are the strongest in each domain\u2014peaks of family formation and career growth\u2014may coincide. Reconciling the demands of work and home is thus a challenge for many, but experiences of work\u2013family conflict are certainly most common among men and women belonging to dual-earner couples with (young) children at home (Bellavia and Frone 2005; Moen and Yu 1999). Parenthood is often considered a major cause behind gender differences in time allocation, especially between paid work and housework (Bianchi 2000; Sayer 2005 on the USA; Hallberg and Klevmarken 2003 on Sweden). The extent to which men's and women's time allocation is affected by parenthood varies according to individual, household, and contextual factors (Craig and Mullan 2010; Neilson and Stanfors 2014).\n\nWork\u2013family conflict mainly occurs in three respects stemming from time demands , scheduling demands , and work\u2013family spillover (Greenhaus and Powell 2003). To a certain extent work\u2013family conflict apply to all workers, but in some respects more to fast-track professionals than to others. Many workers feel stressed when they try to accommodate the demands of both work and family. A common strategy for solving this problem among women is to limit work demands by, for example, working part-time. Part-time work is, however, seldom compatible with having a career. Moreover, time shortage does not only occur as a result of work demands; people also face time demands at home because the basic upkeep of the household and the maintaining of personal relationships demand time.\n\nScheduling is another problem, which arises when a worker needs to be in two places at the same time. Late meetings or overtime when the child care center is closed are such examples, but activities relating to children, household maintenance, and personal care that occur during standard working hours also create a conflict. Lack of control over work schedules is a source of stress among working parents, especially mothers, and for this reason they seek flexible work schedules (Barnett and Rivers 1996; Goldin and Katz 2013). Scheduling demands are also the result of inflexible child care arrangements (Hofferth 1999).\n\nOne way of reconciling work and family demands is to bring work home. This has become more prevalent with the erosion of the male breadwinner model. In the heyday of the male breadwinner model, men were responsible for earnings and women were responsible for the family and home, and the concerns of each domain tended to stay separate. Today, both men and women have responsibilities in both the work and family domains. Advances in information technology have increased the ability of some workers to work from home, providing them with the flexibility to accommodate child care schedules. While many professionals find this option an advantage (Epstein et al. 1999), especially when they are parents with young children at home, it is double-edged in that it has increased the pressure on them to be constantly available outside the office (Glass 2000; Hochschild 1997; Hymowitz and Silverman 2001).\n\n### 17.2.3 Responses to Work\u2013Family Conflict\n\nCombining work and family is a pertinent issue. There is considerable variation across countries in terms of policies and institutions that affect the opportunities of combining work and family. When it comes to policy, attempts to resolve work\u2013family conflicts tend to center on the practical problems of combining work and family, particularly child care. More recently there have been attempts through collective agreements and the provision of technical services to facilitate flexibility and work at home for many groups of workers. Institutions differ between countries when it comes to parental leave schemes, income replacement, the working conditions of parents, the provision and pricing of child care, and whether families or individuals are the subjects of benefits and taxation. All these components are important, but most likely it is the combined effect of all these factors taken together that determines the degree of work\u2013family compatibility.\n\nAlmost every country provides its own specific set of solutions for the issue of combining work and family. In many countries policies only deal with the reconciliation of women's double roles, whereas in other countries, like Sweden, institutional arrangements have a broader scope and address gender equality issues alongside the work\u2013family balance for all parents (Kimball 1999; McDonald 2000). Sweden is often seen as a forerunner when it comes to family and work-related policies (Ruhm and Teague 1997). Part of the reason why countries differ in their responses to work\u2013family conflict is ideological.\n\nIn Sweden and the other Nordic countries, work\u2013family reconciliation is a public concern. There is a strong belief that society bears the responsibility for family well-being in that it will gain from investing in the next generation. At the other ideological endpoint, in the USA, work\u2013family reconciliation is a private concern; the responsibility for family well-being and finding ways to accommodate both work and family roles has first and foremost fallen on individuals. Thus Nordic policies are universalistic and general, and are in contrast to the USA where government-sponsored programs are rare and minimalistic and employer-sponsored programs only apply for some groups of employees, which does not solve work\u2013family conflict for most workers. Despite the fact that managers and professionals are among those privileged workers who most commonly have access to family benefits, assistance with child care, and flexible scheduling, they seem to have more problems combining work and family than do their Nordic counterparts (Jacobs and Fanning Madden 2004). Due to its universalistic and general design, all workers potentially benefit from the Swedish welfare state and its opportunities to combine work and family. In reality, however, the combination of work and family is a result of choices concerning both career and childbearing that have been made at the individual and couple level. For example, highly educated couples are more likely to make use of publicly provided child care and other services provided by the welfare state than are other couples (Stanfors 2003). This may be explained by their stronger work orientation, better information, and the fact that highly educated individuals have more gender-equal attitudes (Bernhardt and Goldscheider 2006). Parental leave, child benefits, and subsidized child care reduce the negative price effect of parents' and especially of women's wages on fertility, making it independent of education, and instead boost the income effect. In Sweden, public child care is of a high quality and fees are greatly subsidized, especially for high income earners.2 Higher income also enables people to buy goods and services in order to cope with both career and family (cars, housing, home services, etc.).\n\n## 17.3 Work\u2013Family Tradeoffs among Highly Educated Professionals\n\n### 17.3.1 Education and Fertility\n\nMuch interest has been devoted to the association between education and fertility, especially educational attainment and fertility (see Brand and Davis 2011, for a review). Typically, a negative relationship between education and fertility has been assumed. This assumption is based on standard human capital theory, which predicts that better-educated women will have their first births later in life and ultimately fewer children compared to less educated women. Women with a higher education postpone family formation because enrollment in education and earning a degree is demanding and not compatible with childbearing . After finishing their degrees, women with a higher education face higher opportunity costs of childbearing than do women with a lower education because they usually have better jobs, career prospects, and wages (Becker 1991; Mincer 1963). They are also, and more often than is the case with women with less education, in occupations with steeper earnings profiles and potentially faster depreciation rates (Polachek 1981). High opportunity costs in both real economic and career terms depress fertility among highly educated women, especially among those in fast-track professions. Whereas the opportunity cost of childbearing is supposed to outweigh the income effect of earnings potential among women, this is not the case among men. As long as fathers are not expected to give up the same amount of their working time for child care as mothers are, men's education and professional careers will not conflict with childbearing to the same extent as women's; instead they are expected to be positively rather than negatively related to fertility.\n\nWhereas several studies have shown that women's educational attainment has a negative effect on various childbearing outcomes, others have more recently found positive relationships between educational attainment and fertility after first birth (e.g., Dribe and Stanfors 2010; Joshi 2002; Kravdal 2001, 2007; Kreyenfeld 2002). This challenges the idea that opportunity costs outweigh a positive income effect among highly educated women. The emergent positive association between education and fertility may be explained by a strengthening of the income effect in more gender-equal contexts, where childbearing and employment are made more compatible, women are not primarily caregivers but workers, and highly educated women contribute substantially to household income. The income effect may be reinforced by assortative mating based on education. A positive association between education and higher order births may also be a result of self-selection when modeling birth intervals separately (Kravdal 2001).\n\n### 17.3.2 Occupation and Fertility\n\nIt has been shown that educational orientation may be an even more important determinant of fertility than educational level (Hoem et al. 2006; Lappeg\u00e5rd and R\u00f6nsen 2005; Stanfors 2003; Van Bavel 2010). Educational orientation works through occupational choice since these are closely related, especially for the professions. Should there be systematic differences when it comes to career tracks, work demands , and perceived work\u2013family conflict between occupations, the investment in different kinds of higher education will not only determine professional life but also choices with respect to personal life.\n\nFew studies have considered how career choice affects fertility. Existing studies deal mainly with the USA. Examples are studies of gender differences in childbearing among academics (Mason and Goulden 2004) and doctors (Boulis 2004) that conclude that women in the professions analyzed are less likely to have children than are other women or their male peers. Cooney and Uhlenberg (1989) analyzed the situation in 1980 for women only, finding that doctors felt more of a family commitment and were more likely to have children than were lawyers and post-secondary teachers. Wolfinger et al. (2010) built on Cooney and Uhlenberg by using data from the 2000 Census for both men and women. They confirmed that physicians had the highest rate of birth events, followed by attorneys, and academics. Men had, within each profession, more birth events than did women. The factors that explain fertility variation by profession for men (i.e., marital status, income, and spousal employment) only partially account for differences by profession for women. This may be related to the more complex relationship between family and career for women as documented by many (e.g., Avellar and Smock 2003; Budig 2003; Goldin and Katz 2008; Hewlett 2002; Noonan and Corcoran 2004).\n\n### 17.3.3 Career and Family Compatibility\n\nThe reason why a career and family may be seen as incompatible, at least for women, is because they both demand commitment, time, and energy , thereby inherently implying a tradeoff. Although women have increased their education and labor force participation, they have largely retained responsibility for child care and domestic work. For women on the fast track, family formation is often associated with taking up a second career as \"supermom\" and assuming the main responsibility of housework . For men, on the other hand, both paid and family work is usually less influenced by their role as fathers. However, during the last decades the effects of parenthood on time allocation in Scandinavia have started to converge between men and women (Dribe and Stanfors 2009). As seen above, there exists considerable variation across countries when it comes to policies and institutions which may affect the combination of work and family. On an aggregate level, it seems as if the institutional arrangements in Sweden, and its Scandinavian neighbors, are most favorable for dual-earner households (Blossfeld and Drobnic 2001) and are more supportive of combining employment and childbearing (e.g., Billari and Kohler 2004) than are conservative and liberal models with more traditional approaches to family and gender roles. In a universalistic and general welfare state, like Sweden, all parents potentially benefit from the opportunities to combine work and family. Parental leave, child benefits, and subsidized quality child care reduce the negative price effect of parents'\u2014especially women's\u2014wages on fertility , making it independent of education, and instead they boost the income effect. Once parenthood and employment are no longer alternatives at odds with one other but are instead possible to combine, the negative effects of women's education, labor force participation, and wages are expected to be greatly reduced, and even reversed, to produce a positive income effect. Thus, women's as well as men's education and earnings may impact positively on continued childbearing, although perhaps not equally across the professions.\n\nIn some occupations the career structure is rigid and the job inflexible (cf. Goldin and Katz 2011). In these the workload is high, hours are long, and production in a given number of (early career) years is most important. Moreover, skill depreciation is more of a problem in some occupations than in others. Expertise, firm-specific, and technological skills tend to depreciate faster than general skills, and this aggravates career interruptions . In some occupations the career structure is less rigid and working conditions are more flexible. This implies that those who work longer hours and produce more will be promoted at a faster pace than others, but it is possible to adjust the workload and reduce hours through part-time work , or even stop the \"career-clock\" in order to take time off for caring. Public sector work is generally more flexible than private sector employment and provides greater employment security. Steeper earnings profiles among private sector employees exacerbate the negative effects of career breaks on lifetime earnings in relation to the public sector. Thus, in order to cope, (potential) parents may choose occupations and careers that accommodate family responsibilities and reduce earnings punishment (cf. Polachek 1981).\n\nCareer structure rigidity and work inflexibility are likely to affect men and women in the professions differently. They are the legacies of organizational norms that were developed in times when men, married to full-time homemakers, were the only ones to be fast-track professionals. The norms that establish which time in life specific career goals should be achieved rest upon expectations about work-related productivity applying to a worker who does not have the responsibility to care for a home and a family. If different social norms and practices apply for men and women with respect to parenting, putting more pressure on women to be primary caregivers, and to take on more responsibility for housework than men, women will face more difficulties in combining a career and family.\n\n### 17.3.4 Differences Between Professions\n\nThe current chapter contrasts the patterns of continued childbearing among lawyers with those of medical doctors and PhDs working as post-secondary teachers and researchers in academia (i.e., higher education institutions). They are all high-status professions that demand higher education, specific degrees, and long training programs. By tradition, these professions have been male-dominated but are now becoming increasingly feminized. They are, to varying degrees, examples of a career model that is not conducive to childbearing if that implies assuming more childrearing responsibilities and greater involvement in parenting. There is thus the anticipation that occupational differences in childbearing will be stronger for women than for men. Primary evidence from Sweden is explored and contrasted with experiences from the USA, as documented by Wolfinger et al. (2010). While Sweden has launched extensive policies alleviating parents from work\u2013family conflicts, these are limited in the USA. There is thus the anticipation that occupational differences in childbearing will be more articulated in the USA than in Sweden.\n\nA few words are warranted here regarding the professional development of lawyers, doctors, and academics, and the extent to which there are differences between the professions and between Sweden and the USA.\n\nIn Sweden, law school is a 4-year program and medical school comprises 5 years. Entry into these vocational programs is highly restricted. After graduation, an essentially compulsory 2-year training period as a clerk or an intern follows. It is often seen as a defining moment in terms of career opportunities as to when and where this internship takes place. The majority of law and medical school graduates are in the age range of 25\u201329, the average age being slightly higher for men than for women, which means that they are around 30 when they finish as clerks or interns.\n\nA law graduate has several career options, one being to join a law firm and spend 5\u201310 years to make partner, which is challenging. It implies a less secure position in the company hierarchy. Failure to make partner implies a significantly slower career development and perhaps a change of law firms. Not all law graduates aspire to such a career, choosing instead alternatives routes such as to work in administration elsewhere. One alternative is the career track in the national courts administration with the aim of becoming a district attorney or judge. This is competitive, as are all professional careers, but different in character because of a more bureaucratic and standardized schedule for promotions long-standing in the public sector. There is no up-or-out decision. It is possible to slow down or stop one's career for a period of time when, for instance, caregiving demands are pressing. This means that mothers and fathers may become district attorneys and judges at a later point in life than colleagues that do not have similar family responsibilities, but they are not excluded from the competition. There are, however, wage differences that follow with the career choices , with law practitioners in the private sector earning considerably more than those working in the public sector.\n\nMedical school graduates who finish their internships may follow additional specialist training or work as internists. All doctors\u2014even interns\u2014are regularly employed during their residencies, the overwhelming majority being in publicly run hospitals or health care centers. Wages improve with each step up the hierarchical ladder. Due to the limited supply of doctors and a high demand for their competence, medical graduates can expect to rank among the top earning professional groups, not only among those employed in the public sector but also more generally. Medical school graduates achieve a fairly secure position with respect to both career and income at around age 30, which is conducive to childbearing . Job stability is good, although terms of contracts may vary. Irregular hours and night calls may be demanding, especially for parents with young children, but are solved partly through the provision of child care that is available for parents who work at odd hours of the day.3\n\nBecoming an academic is different from the other professional tracks. Doctoral-level education follows bachelor's and Masters degrees,4 which means that PhDs are older than lawyers and doctors when they graduate. PhD candidates are formally employed on fixed-term contracts. After receiving a PhD, they may either stay in academia (commonly on fixed-term contracts) or seek work elsewhere. Since the Swedish academic system has no tenure track, there is great variability among academic careers, and the challenge to publish or perish within a limited time period does not apply to all (cf. Wolfinger et al. 2010). It may take time until a PhD is in a position that is conducive to childbearing. For many, graduate school seems to be a better time to have children than the post-doctoral period, given work load and income stability . Academics receive, on average, less pay than lawyers and doctors. On the other hand, academics enjoy more flexibility when it comes to working hours and the opportunity to work at home than the other professions do. Like other public sector employees, there is no up-or-out decision with respect to an academic career in Sweden.\n\nThe most obvious differences between the professions studied in Sweden and the USA relate to academics. The career structure of academia in the USA offers no good time for childbearing . Academics who want to reduce working hours get reduced pay and generally resort to lower status jobs. Only a few universities offer employer-sponsored programs with a beneficial scheme for prospective parents. It seems that in the USA both medicine and law offer more opportunities for flexibility than academia (Goldin and Katz 2011, 2013; Wolfinger et al. 2010). Another obvious difference between Sweden and the USA is that many more fast-trackers are in public sector employment in Sweden, and generally this sector offers more family-friendly working conditions than does the private sector.\n\nBased on differences in working conditions, career structures, and professional demands between the professions, doctors are expected to be the most likely to have a second or a third birth once they have started childbearing, irrespective of gender. In Sweden, they are expected to be followed by academics and law practitioners in the national courts system (i.e., public sector employees). Lawyers working in the private sector are expected to be the least likely to continue childbearing, especially if they are women. Differences with respect to type of profession are expected to be stronger among women than among men, especially in professions where the career structure is unpredictable and not very flexible, and where there is more likely to be an \"up-or-out\" decision than in other professions. Differences according to profession and gender are thus expected to be fewer among medical doctors and greater among lawyers.\n\n## 17.4 Continued Childbearing Among Highly Educated Professionals\n\nIn order to establish whether there are differences by profession in continued childbearing among highly educated men and women, multivariate analyses have been performed. The focus is set on what happens after the birth of the first child among individuals who, already at the time of their first birth, have a degree and have started a career in medicine, law, or academia.5 The analysis is thus conditional on having a career and on the partnerships formed whereby at least one child has been born. The fast-track professionals studied have all made considerable career investments, yet follow professional routes that are not equally compatible with family life. The scope of the analyses is to determine which fast-track professions facilitate higher order childbearing for men and women.6\n\n### 17.4.1 Data\n\nThe data analyzed comes from the Swedish population registers maintained by Statistics Sweden.7 From a dataset consisting of all the individuals in the birth cohorts 1942\u20131989 who resided in Sweden at any time from 1961 onwards, individuals in heterosexual couples (married or cohabiting without being formally married) who were in their first partnership have been selected and followed from the birth of the first child, beginning in 1989 and up to the time of either the woman reaching the age of 45, the dissolution of the partnership, emigration, or the end of the study period in 2009. The analytical sample is limited to include individuals in couples who were in their first partnership and wherein either the man or the woman belonged to one of the professions studied. The sample is also truncated at 8 years since the previous birth. The analytical sample consists of 13,334 focal persons (7,428 men and 5,906 women).\n\nThe professions of interest are identified using a combination of educational and occupational codes (highest educational level attained the field of that education and branch of employment). Profession is a variable divided into lawyer working in a private law firm, law practitioner employed in the national courts and taxation system, medical doctor; and PhD in academia (e.g., post-secondary teacher and\/or researcher belonging to any academic field).\n\nThe dependent variable in all analyses is a higher order (more specifically a second and third) birth event. Independent variables are used to explain the relationship between profession and a higher order birth. Although the register data cover the entire population and are very reliable, they mostly include crude measures of demographic and economic indicators, few social and job-related indicators, and do not include any attitudinal variables. Independent variables used here include age, union status, partner's educational status and professional orientation, income,8 duration since last birth, age of woman at first birth, cohort, country of birth, and urbanicity.\n\nMore than half of the men and women studied were medical doctors. It is more common for men to be PhDs employed in academia. Among law professionals, men are equally distributed between private law and the national courts and taxation system, while women are to a larger extent employed in the courts administration than in private law firms.\n\nAs for the empirical analysis, logit models are estimated separately for men and women at each birth interval (i.e., second and third births). The results from the multivariate analysis are reported as odds ratios and displayed graphically, net of controls, for an intuitive yet statistically correct interpretation.9 It should be noted that there is a very strong two-child norm in Sweden, which is reflected in the data where a large majority of the births studied are second births.\n\n### 17.4.2 Empirical Findings\n\nEmpirical results displayed in Fig. 17.1 establish that doctors have the highest chances of having a higher order birth in relation to the other professional groups. This is true for both second and third births, and for women as well as for men. The patterning of second or third births by profession is stable for both men and women, yet there is a difference in pattern by profession and gender. Among women, lawyers in private law firms are the least likely to experience a second and third birth. For women in law, employment in the public sector seems to be more conducive to continued childbearing , all else equal. This is not the case for men who work as law professionals. Women in academia also have less chance of continued childbearing, having almost equally low odds ratios as women working in private law firms. Men, too, who work in academia have lower odds ratios of experiencing a second or a third birth as compared to both doctors as well as to lawyers in the private sector. The members of the group of \"job changers\", which consists of professionals who belonged to one of the four professional categories at the time of their first birth but have since then changed professional status, have quite consistently medium-low odds of experiencing a birth at both intervals, among men as well as among women. There is generally more variation according to profession among women than among men, but the main result is that doctors as a group stand out in relation to the other professional groups.10 The pattern by profession observed for second births is attenuated, particularly among women, for third births.\n\nFig. 17.1\n\nThe patterning of experiencing a second or third birth among fast-track professionals in Sweden 1991\u20132009, by gender. Odds ratios from logit estimates are indicated on the y-axis (1 = reference category). a Men. b Women. (Note: regressions control for own profession, partners education and professional orientation, own age, partner's age, their square terms, age of woman at first birth, couple income and its square term, woman's share of couple's income, time since last birth, cohort, country of birth for both partners, civil status, and place of residence; Source: Statistics Sweden, see text)\n\nOne interesting finding to note is that the relationship between professional orientation and continued childbearing is not driven by income. This is made visible in Fig. 17.2. Should the impact of professional status be felt through income; i.e., the fact that physicians as a group are more likely to have a second and a third birth because they earn more money, and thus can afford more children, then the exclusion of the income controls would make the impact of own profession a stronger one. The results indicate that virtually no differences in continued childbearing among fast-track professionals relate to income. When the odds ratios for second and third births of two separate models (one including income controls and one without such controls) are compared, there is only a slight change in odds ratios for academics and lawyers working in the national courts administration. This is understandable since academics and lawyers in the public sector earn on average less than medical doctors. Accordingly, they have somewhat lower chances of experiencing a second and a third birth than do physicians. The patterns are highly robust, so the main explanation for the observed patterns according to (1) profession and (2) profession and gender combined seems to come from underlying differences between the professions regarding, for example, career structures and flexibility\n\nFig. 17.2\n\nModel comparisons of the patterning of experiencing a second or third birth among fast-track professionals in Sweden, 1991\u20132009. Odds ratios from logit estimates of experiencing a birth, with and without controlling for couple income and woman's share of couple income. (1 = reference category). a Men, Second births. b Men, Third births. c Women, Second births. d Women, Third births. (Note: Based on model estimates controlling for all other variables, cf. Fig. 17.1; Source: See Fig. 17.1)\n\nThese results may be compared with results reported for the USA by Wolfinger et al. (2010), who use data from the 2000 Census to examine the likelihood of a birth event (defined as having a child younger than 2 years in the household) for men and women belonging to the same professions as studied above. In the USA too, doctors have the highest rate of birth events, followed by lawyers and academics. The patterning is similar for men and women, but within each profession men have more birth events than do women. Although the patterning of childbearing among fast-track professionals in Sweden and the USA is similar, there are interesting differences relating to couple characteristics. While doctors in Sweden are very likely to belong to a dual-earner household, not seldom consisting of two medical doctors, male doctors in the USA more often have spouses who are out of the labor force. They therefore have higher fertility in part because they have wives who see to child care and domestic work. Male professionals whose wives are academics do not have higher fertility, which is an indication that the low fertility among female academics can affect the fertility of men in these professions.\n\n## 17.5 Concluding Discussion\n\nThere are obvious differences with respect to continued childbearing within the group of highly educated professionals, not only in Sweden, but also in a contrasting context such as that in the USA. Doctors emerge as being more likely to go on to having a second or third child once they have started a family compared to law professionals and academics. Doctors are clearly different compared to the rest, a result that holds for both men and women. There are, however, differences in the variation across professions by gender, indicating that public sector employment is conducive to Swedish women's continued childbearing. Moreover, the tendency among the other professional groups to be less likely to go on to a second birth compared to doctors is attenuated when it comes to third births, especially among women.\n\nThe evidence at hand gives general support to the hypothesis that differences in the working conditions, career structures, and professional development that follow upon occupational choice generate differences in continued childbearing within the professions studied. In line with expectations, those who are in a rigid fast-track hierarchy, with the constant pressure of producing measurable results and output, obviously face more difficulties combining work and having more than one child than do those who work in organizations where it is possible to step out of the rat race temporarily, and who enjoy greater job protection and fewer career penalties. In line with this reasoning, it is found that, in the case of women, lawyers working in the private sector are the least likely to have either a second or a third birth once they have started childbearing , when compared to doctors. Women in academia are, however, not very different from lawyers working in the private sector when it comes to their chances of continued childbearing, whereas women working in the courts administration are somewhat more likely to experience higher order births than are the two aforementioned groups. Yet they are all less likely to continue childbearing in relation to physicians, all else equal.\n\nIt is perhaps not surprising that the results indicate a sharper tradeoff between career and continued childbearing for women working in private law firms than for women working as doctors and in the national courts system, but it is somewhat more challenging to understand why academics have similarly low chances of experiencing a second and third birth in relation to physicians. In the light of the career structure rigidity and work demands that are important in all fast-track professions, the lower chances of continued childbearing among academics could be understood in the sense that, even though there is no formal tenure track in Swedish academia , PhDs have invested to a high extent in their careers through undergoing a lengthy training period and facing a competitive environment after graduating. This is especially the case if they are research-oriented and aim for an academic career and not just a teaching position. There is a de facto tenure track for the career-oriented that puts pressure on Swedish academics to perform in a way similar to the US system (cf. Mason and Goulden 2004; Wolfinger et al. 2010). There is also a long-standing shortage of academic positions, in stark contrast to the great demand for physicians, which adds to the competitive pressure. This puts academics in a relatively disadvantaged position compared to other professional groups, not least doctors. When it comes to family building, these disadvantages seems to net out the advantages of flexibility that the academic profession is characterized by.\n\nAnother explanation could be that academics systematically have different preferences regarding family building as compared to doctors; i.e., that there is occupational selectivity with respect to personality, meaning that career-oriented individuals choose certain professions such as academia and law, whereas more family-oriented individuals choose other professions such as medicine. If there is a selection of individuals into different professions due to different work\u2013family orientations, the result will be more of continued childbearing among those in professions that are more compatible with childrearing . If there is a selection of individuals at risk of having a second and a third child, those who have started childbearing will have already revealed a preference for having children, which may make them more willing to have an additional child. Individuals in professions where it is more difficult to combine parenthood and caregiving responsibilities with a career, who nevertheless did become parents, might be a select group with strong family preferences. The result then would mean lower bound estimates of differences according to profession.\n\nWith this in mind, the results indicate that continued childbearing is facilitated among doctors who corroborate selection into profession. The results also indicate that continued childbearing is facilitated among public sector employees, confirming selection into family-friendly public sector employment of which Sweden is well-known. Yet continued childbearing is not facilitated to the same extent across the professions, not even in Sweden. Since a similar pattern is observed for both men and women, selectivity with respect to personality and career-family orientation seems to be gender-neutral, although this is not indicated by other labor market outcomes.\n\nThe pattern observed also indicates that medical doctors are different compared to other professionals irrespective of gender and country context. Physicians are more likely to continue childbearing in both Sweden and the USA, although the countries offer very different employment conditions and work\u2013family support systems. Overall the opportunities to combine work and family are good in Sweden compared to elsewhere, particularly the USA. Parents have statutory rights to take time off on parental leave for more than a year, to work part-time until the child is 12, and they receive generous compensation during their parental leave, even if they belong to the upper tail of the earnings distribution. Quality child care services are available at low cost through government subsidies, which facilitates the combination of work and family for all parents. Yet, despite its many pros, the Swedish model has limitations in some respects, especially for fast-track professionals who may need more flexible solutions in order to accommodate work demands . The lack of alternatives may be more of a compatibility issue in the Swedish context, especially for fast-track professionals, and so may be the lack of home care services that make people devote more time and energy to housework and maintenance on a do-it-yourself basis and thereby spend less time and effort on market work and careers. Lately, there has been a tendency among private companies to accommodate workers who are also parents with family-friendly policies and flexible solutions. This does not, however, eliminate the fact that fast-track jobs in rigid hierarchies are inflexible; the volume of work produced is still vital for achieving promotion , and the common response to this is longer work hours. There are norms regarding the time in life when certain career goals should be achieved, and these are designed not around the primary caregiver but rather around the full-time breadwinner with support from within the home. All else equal, workers who spend more hours on the job and devote more effort to their careers will produce more, while mothers (and fathers) who have family responsibilities, and perhaps also a partner who has a demanding profession, will be disadvantaged.\n\nCompatibility issues are found in the workplace and the career structure of the professions investigated in this study, but in many senses the degree of career-family compatibility also depends on the relationship between partners. Contrary to other contexts, couples in Sweden where both partners have a higher education are more likely to continue childbearing compared to couples where one partner has a lower education. In line with this, and in contrast to the US experience, it is also the case that couples where both partners belong to one of the professional groups studied here are more likely to continue childbearing compared to others. It thus seems as if the assumed disadvantages and pressures of pursuing a professional career are mediated by shared interests and networks and a mutual understanding of each other's situation. The higher rate of continued childbearing among professional couples can probably also be explained by more egalitarian attitudes and practices toward the household division of labor made by these couples. In dual-career households, in which both spouses have a high level of career involvement, both partners have access to economic resources that serve as a basis for negotiation and therefore mutual goals can be achieved. Moreover, competing preferences and stress can be mediated through having a higher degree of understanding for each other's workload , and this may facilitate work\u2013family issues, especially for women. When it comes to childrearing , couples with higher educational status and skills share more of the total parental leave benefits than do those with lower educational status and skills, and they make more use of public child care.\n\nTo conclude, in the current chapter it has been made clear that continued childbearing varies by profession and also by profession and gender. These differences are smaller in Sweden than in the USA, but cannot be explained by income and the fact that some professionals, including doctors earn more than others, such as academics. Rather, the results indicate that working conditions and career structure contribute to making it easier for some groups than for others to combine a professional career and children. The patterns that emerge for men and women reflect the facts that they are not equally involved in childbearing and are not equally sensitive to career structure, especially not those hierarchies presenting them with up-or-out decisions implying a tradeoff between career and children at an early stage in their career. The results presented indicate that the way professional careers are structured and how flexible jobs are matter a great deal for the combination of work and family. Among fast-track professions, there still exist differences as to whether jobs are flexible (at least temporarily during childbearing years) , even in a supposedly family-friendly country like Sweden where the same rights to leave schemes and part-time work apply to all workers. These differences make the combination of work and family more difficult for some workers than others. On the other hand, flexibility on the job often comes with sacrifices in regard to both salary and career advancement\u2014prices that, up until now, more women than men have been willing to pay. This puts policies promoting work\u2013family compatibility for all into perspective, especially as increasingly many women and men are opting for higher education and careers and when the prestigious professions are feminizing.\n\nReferences\n\nAcker, J. (1990). Hierarchies, jobs, bodies: A theory of gendered organizations. Gender & Society, 4, 139\u2013158.CrossRef\n\nAvellar S., & Smock, P. J. (2003). Has the price of motherhood declined over time? A cross-cohort comparison of the motherhood wage penalty. Journal of Marriage and Family, 65, 597\u2013607.CrossRef\n\nBarnett, R. C., & Rivers, C. (1996). She works\/he works: How two-income families are happier, healthier, and better off. New York: Harper Collins.\n\nBecker, G. S. (1991). A treatise on the family. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.\n\nBelkin, L. (October 26 2003). The opt-out revolution. New York Times Magazine, p. 42.\n\nBellavia, G., & Frone, M. (2005). Work-family conflict. In J. Barling, E. K. Kelloway, & M. R. Frone (Eds.), Handbook of work stress (pp. 113\u2013147). Thousand Oaks: Sage.\n\nBerk, S. F. (1985). The gender factory: The appointment of work in American households. New York: Plenum.CrossRef\n\nBernhardt, E., & Goldscheider, F. (2006). Gender equality, parenthood attitudes, and first births in Sweden. In Vienna yearbook of population research (pp. 19\u201339). Vienna: Vienna Institute of Demography.\n\nBertrand, M., Goldin, C., & Katz, L. F. (2010). Dynamics of the gender gap for young professionals in the financial and corporate sectors. American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, 2, 228\u2013255.\n\nBianchi, S. (2000). Maternal employment and time with children: Dramatic change or surprising continuity? Demography, 37, 410\u2013414.CrossRef\n\nBianchi, S. M., & Raley, S. (2005). Time allocation in working families. In S. M. Bianchi, L. M. Casper, & R. B. King (Eds.), Work, family, health, and well-being (pp. 21\u201342). Mahwah: Lawrence Erlbaum.\n\nBianchi, S. M., Robinson, J. P., & Milkie, M. A. (2006). Changing rhythms of American family life. New York: Russell Sage.\n\nBillari, F. C., & Kohler, H.P. (2004). Patterns of low and lowest-low fertility in Europe. Population Studies, 58, 161\u2013176.CrossRef\n\nBlossfeld, H. P., & Drobnic, S. (Eds.), (2001). Careers of couples in contemporary societies: From male breadwinner to dual earner families. Oxford: Oxford University Press.\n\nBoulis, A. (2004). The evolution of gender and motherhood in contemporary medicine. Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 596, 172\u2013206.CrossRef\n\nBrand, J. E., & Davis, D. (2011). The impact of college education on fertility: Evidence of heterogeneous effects. Demography, 48, 863\u2013887.PubMedCentralPubMedCrossRef\n\nBudig, M. (2003). Are women's employment and fertility histories interdependent? An examination of causal order using event history analysis. Social Science Research, 32, 376\u2013401.CrossRef00012-7)\n\nColtrane, S. (2000). Research on household labor: Modeling and measuring the social embeddedness of routine family work. Journal of Marriage and the Family, 62, 1208\u20131233.CrossRef\n\nCooney, T., & Uhlenberg, P. (1989). Family-building patterns of women professionals: A comparison of lawyers, physicians, and post-secondary teachers. Journal of Marriage and the Family, 51, 749\u2013758.CrossRef\n\nCraig, L., & Mullan, K. (2010). Parenthood, gender and work-family time in USA, Australia, Italy, France and Denmark. Journal of Marriage and Family, 72, 1344\u20131361.CrossRef\n\nDrew, E., Emerek, R., & Mahon, E. (1998). Women, work and the family in Europe. London: Routledge.CrossRef\n\nDribe, M., & Stanfors, M. (2009). Does parenthood strengthen a traditional household division of labor? Evidence from Sweden. Journal of Marriage and Family, 71, 33\u201345.CrossRef\n\nDribe, M., & Stanfors, M. (2010). Family life in power couples: Continued childbearing and union stability among the educational elite in Sweden, 1991\u20132005. Demographic Research, 23, 847\u2013878.CrossRef\n\nEly, R. J., & Meyerson, D. E. (2000). Theories of gender in organizations: A new approach to organizational analysis and change. In A. Brief & B. M. Staw (Eds.), Research in organizational behavior (pp. 103\u2013151). New York: Elsevier.\n\nEpstein, C. F., Seron, C., Oglensky, B., & Saut\u00e9, R. (1999). The part-time paradox: Time norms, professional lives, family, and gender. New York: Routledge.\n\nGauthier, A., Smeeding, T., & Furstenberg, F. (2004). Are parents investing less time in children: Trends in selected industrialized countries. Population and Development Review, 30, 647\u2013671.CrossRef\n\nGershuny, J. (2000). Changing times: Work and leisure in post-industrial societies. Oxford: Oxford University Press.\n\nGershuny, J., & Robinson, J. P. (1988). Historical changes in the household division of labor. Demography, 25, 537\u2013552.PubMedCrossRef\n\nGlass, J. (2000). Envisioning the integration of family and work. Contemporary Sociology, 29, 129\u2013143.CrossRef\n\nGoldin, C. (1990). Understanding the gender gap: An economic history of American women. New York: Oxford University Press.\n\nGoldin, C. (15 March 2006). Working it out. New York Times, p. A27.\n\nGoldin, C., & Katz, L. (2008). Transitions: career and family life cycles of the educational elite. American Economic Review: Papers and Proceedings, 98, 363\u2013369.CrossRef\n\nGoldin, C., & Katz, L. F. (2011). The cost of workplace flexibility for high-powered professionals. Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 638, 45\u201367.CrossRef\n\nGoldin, C., & Katz, L. F. (2013). The most egalitarian of all professions: Pharmacy and the evolution of a family-friendly occupation. NBER Working Paper No 18410.\n\nGreenhaus, J. H., & Powell, G. N. (2003). When work and family collide: Deciding between competing role demands. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 90, 291\u2013303.CrossRef00519-8)\n\nHallberg, D., & Klevmarken, A. (2003). Time for children: A study of parents' time allocation. Journal of Population Economics, 16, 205\u2013226.CrossRef\n\nHerr, J. L., & Wolfram, C. (2011). Work environment and \"opt-out\" rates at motherhood across high education career paths. NBER Working Paper No 14717.\n\nHewlett, S. A. (2002). Executive women and the myth of having it all. Harvard Business Review, 80, 66\u201373.PubMed\n\nHochschild, A. R. (1989). The second shift: Working parents and the revolution at home. New York: Penguin.\n\nHochschild, A. R. (1997). The time bind: When work becomes home and home becomes work. New York: Metropolitan Books.\n\nHoem, J. M., Neyer, G., & Andersson, G. (2006). Educational attainment and ultimate fertility among Swedish women born in 1955\u201359. Demographic Research, 14, 381\u2013403.CrossRef\n\nHofferth, S. (1999). Child care, maternal employment, and public policy. The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 563, 20\u201338.CrossRef\n\nHymowitz, C., & Silverman, R. E. (16 January 2001). Can work stress get worse? Wall Street Journal, p. B1.\n\nJacobs, J. A., & Fanning Madden, J. (2004). Mommies and daddies on the fast track: Success of parents in demanding professions. Special issue of The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 596.\n\nJoshi, H. (2002). Production, reproduction and education: Women, children and work in a British perspective. Population and Development Review, 28, 445\u2013474.CrossRef\n\nKimball, G. (1999). 21st century families. Chico: Equality.\n\nKravdal, \u00d8. (2001). The high fertility of college educated women in Norway: An artefact of the separate modelling of each parity transition. Demographic Research, 5, 187\u2013216.CrossRef\n\nKravdal, \u00d8. (2007). Effects of current education on second- and third-birth rates among Norwegian women and men born in 1964: Substantive interpretations and methodological issues. Demographic Research, 17, 211\u2013246.CrossRef\n\nKreyenfeld, M. (2002). Time-squeeze, partner effect or self-selection? An investigation into the positive effects of women's education on second birth risks in West Germany. Demographic Research, 7, 15\u201348.CrossRef\n\nLappeg\u00e5rd, T., & R\u00f6nsen, M. (2005). The multifaceted impact of education on entry into motherhood. European Journal of Population, 21, 31\u201349.CrossRef\n\nMason, M. A., & Goulden, M. (2004). Marriage and baby blues: Redefining gender equity in the Academy. Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 596, 86\u2013103.CrossRef\n\nMcDonald, P. (2000). Gender equity in theories of fertility transition. Population and Development Review, 26, 427\u2013439.CrossRef\n\nMincer, J. (1963). Market prices, opportunity costs, and income effects. In Christ, E., et al. (Eds.), Measurement in economics. Stanford: Stanford University Press.\n\nMoen, P., & Yu, Y. (1999). Having it all: Overall work\/life success in two-earner families. In T. Parcel (Ed.), Research in the sociology of work (pp. 107\u2013137). Greenwich: JAI.\n\nNeilson, J., & Stanfors, M. (2014). It's about time! Gender, parenthood and household divisions of labor under different welfare regimes. Journal of Family Issues, 35, 1066\u20131088.\n\nNoonan, M. C., & Corcoran, M. E. (2004). The Mommy track and partnership: Temporary delay or dead end? Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 596, 130\u2013150.CrossRef\n\nPolachek, S. W. (1981). Occupational self-selection: A human capital approach to sex differences in occupational structure. Review of Economics and Statistics, 63, 60\u201369.CrossRef\n\nRuhm, C., & Teague, J. L. (1997). Parental leave policies in Europe and North America. In F. D. Blau & R. G. Ehrenberg (Eds.), Gender and family issues in the work place (pp. 133\u2013156). New York: Russell Sage.\n\nSayer, L. (2005). Trends in women's and men's paid work, unpaid work and free time. Social Forces, 84, 285\u2013303.CrossRef\n\nShang, Q., & Weinberg, B. A. (2013). Opting for families: Recent trends in the fertility of highly educated women. Journal of Population Economics, 26, 5\u201332.CrossRef\n\nStanfors, M. (2003). Education, labor force participation and changing fertility patterns. A study of women and socioeconomic change in twentieth century Sweden. Stockholm: Almqvist and Wiksell International.\n\nStone, P. (2008). Opting out? Why women really quit careers and head home. Los Angeles: University of California Press.\n\nStory, L. (20 September 2005). Many women at elite colleges set career path to motherhood. New York Times, pp. A1, A18.\n\nVan Bavel, J. (2010). Choice of study discipline and the postponement of motherhood in Europe: The impact of expected earnings, gender composition and family attitudes. Demography, 47, 439\u2013458.PubMedCrossRef\n\nWilliams, J. (2000). Unbending gender: Why family and work conflict and what to do about it. New York: Oxford University Press.\n\nWolfinger, N. H., Mason, M. A., & Goulden, M. (2010). Alone in the ivory tower. Journal of Family Issues, 31, 1652\u20131670.CrossRef\n\nFootnotes\n\n1\n\nThese reports have; however, been contested by scholars like Goldin (2006), who claims that facts speak against the \"opting out\" story and that greater fractions of college-educated women today are combining family and career than ever before.\n\n2\n\nChild care fees are based on the total gross income of the household in which the child resides. Fees are only income-dependent up to the equivalent of a gross monthly income of 42,000 SEK (in 2009; equivalent to 5,250 USD at the time in question). After that, the same fee applies to all households, irrespective of income, which is especially beneficial for high income earners. Coverage is extensive\u2014about 85 % of all children aged 1\u20136 were in public day care in 2005\u2014and therefore dual-career couples are able to spend more of their income on other goods and services that may help them combine career and family.\n\n3\n\nMen and women who opt for a PhD are generally 25\u201329 years old. Only about 10 % of all PhDs in Sweden are awarded to people under 30. In 2007, 41 % of all male PhD recipients and 37 % of all female PhD recipients were in the age range of 30\u201334.\n\n4\n\nThus there is per definition not much of a problem of reverse causality.\n\n5\n\nThe analyses do not allow for any strictly causal inferences and do not deal with selection, whether this be into professions based on family orientation or into larger family sizes.\n\n6\n\nThe data derive from the multigenerational register ( Flergenerationsregistret), which contains information on biological and adopted children to all index persons in the sampling frame (all individuals in birth cohorts 1942\u20131989 who resided in Sweden at some point in time after 1960). Due to frequent cases of missing information on adoption dates, only biological children are included in the analysis.\n\n7\n\nTotal income includes wages for employees and self-employed and benefits paid in connection to work (i.e., parental leave, pensions, unemployment benefits, and payment from sickness insurance). To enable comparisons over time, annual income is related to the so called price base amount (hereafter simply called base amount) of the year. The base amount is set for each year on the basis of changes in the consumer price index (CPI). Its main purpose is to adjust different kinds of public benefits (pensions, student aid, sickness insurance, etc.) to account for inflation. A variable measuring the income share earned by the woman proxies her relative position in the partnership.\n\n8\n\nAn odds ratio is a measure of effect size. It describes the strength of association between data values (for example x and y). If the odds ratio is greater than 1, then there is an association in the sense that having some properties, such as x) (relative to not having x) increases the odds of having y. It should be made clear that we are talking about associations since the causal link has not necessarily been established.\n\n9\n\nThis is corroborated by sensitivity tests where the model is estimated with different professions as reference categories.\n\n10\n\nThe results hold up for a number of sensitivity tests including stepwise modeling with a gradual inclusion of independent variables, and the estimation of logit models of the probability of having a second or a third birth within 5 years, to see if the results are driven by a subgroup with a specific temporal fertility behavior. Also, logit models where the covariates refer to the situation at the time of the previous birth are estimated in order to obtain a counterfactual that renders similar results. Since the original analysis is based on a select group consisting of men and women who have attained their professional status and started their careers at the time of their first birth, logit models are estimated for individuals who ever attain the professional status in question. None of these sensitivity checks alters the pattern observed.\nIndex\n\nSymbols\n\n3M\n\n24\/7 economy\n\nA\n\nAbsenteeism\n\nAcademia\n\nAcculturation\n\nAdvancement See Promotion\n\nAffect\n\nnegative affectivity (NA)\n\npositive affectivity (PA)\n\nAffective Events Theory (AET)\n\nAffirmative action\n\nAge\n\nAggression\n\nAllocentrism\n\nAnger\n\nAnxiety\n\nApplicant behavior\n\njob search techniques\n\nAppraisal\n\naffective\n\ncognitive\n\ncoping behaviors\n\ninfluences on\n\nprimary\n\nreappraisal\n\nsecondary\n\nArchival data\n\nAscriptive inequality\n\nAttitudes\n\ncontemporary\n\ncoworkers\n\nliberalization\n\nplateau\n\nreversal\n\ntraditional\n\nAttrition See Turnover\n\nAutonomy\n\nB\n\nBaby panic\n\nBargaining theory\n\nBehaviour\n\nsocial\n\nBenefits\n\naccessibility\n\nawareness\n\nbeneficiaries\n\neffectiveness\n\nformal\n\ngendered\n\ninformal\n\nLGB-friendly\n\noffered\n\norganizational\n\noutcomes\n\nperceptions of\n\nsatisfaction with\n\nusage\n\nBias\n\nexplicit\n\nimplicit\n\nBiological\n\nclock\n\nsex\n\nBio-psychological equivalence\n\nBisexual\n\nBlame\n\nBlue-collar\n\nBoundaries\n\nflexibility of\n\nmanagement of\n\npermeability of\n\npsychological\n\nspatial\n\ntemporal\n\nviolation of\n\nBreadwinning\n\nBreastfeeding\n\nBuffer\n\nBureau of Labor Statistics (BLS; U.S.)\n\nBurnout\n\nC\n\nCapitalization\n\nCareer advancement\n\nCareer choices\n\nnontraditional\n\ntraditional\n\nCareer clock\n\nCareer interruptions\n\nCareer ladder See Promotion\n\nCareer orientation\n\nCaregiving responsibilities\n\nCatalyst\n\nCensus\n\nCenter for Creative Leadership (CCL)\n\nChanging family structures\n\nChild developmental outcomes\n\nChildbearing\n\nChildbirth\n\nChildcare\n\nChildless employees\n\nChildrearing\n\nCivil Rights Act\n\ntitle VII\n\nCivil War (U.S.)\n\nCognition\n\nCollectivism\n\nCo-location problem See Two-body problem\n\nCombat\n\nwomen in\n\nComing out\n\nbehavior\/self-policing\n\nbenefit availability\n\ndisclosure disconnect\n\ndiscrimination\n\nDon't Ask Don't Tell (DADT)\n\nfear of disclosure\n\nharassment\n\nhostile work environment\n\nidentity management\n\nimplications for conflict\n\noutness\n\nrepercussions\n\nseparation of work and family\n\nCommunicative technologies (CT)\n\nCompetence See Performance\n\nConfidence\n\nConservation of Resources Theory\n\nContext\n\nControl See Autonomy\n\nCoping\n\nCounterfeiting\n\nCouples\n\nCross-cultural studies See Cross-national studies\n\nCross-domain effect\n\nCross-national studies\n\nCulture\n\nD\n\nDaycare See Childcare\n\nDecision-making\n\nDelegation\n\nDemand\n\nnonwork\n\nscheduling\n\ntime\n\nwork\n\nDemographics\n\nDepartment of Defense\n\nDepartment of Labor\n\nDepression\n\nDetachment\n\nDisability\n\nDisappointment\n\nDiscrimination\n\nDispositions See Individual differences\n\nDiversity\n\ntraining\n\nDivision of labor\n\nDomestic violence\n\nDouble advantage\n\nDouble jeopardy\n\nDouble shift See Second shift\n\nDouble standards\n\nDownsizing See Layoffs\n\nDual Labor Market Segmentation Theory\n\nand gendered occupations\n\ncriticisms\n\nprimary sector\n\nsecondary sector\n\nDual-career See Dual earner\n\nDual-earner\n\nE\n\nEconomic hardship See Poverty\n\nEconomic status See Wage level\n\nEconomy\n\nEducation\n\nEgalitarianism\n\nEldercare\n\nchallenges\n\nEmotion See Affect\n\nEmotional exhaustion\n\nEmotional labor\n\nEnergy\n\nEngagement\n\nEngineering See STEM\n\nEnvironment\n\nEqual Employment Opportunity Commission\n\nEqual Pay Day\n\nEquity theory\n\nEthnicity\n\nExchange theory\n\nExecutive jobs\n\nExpectations\n\nfamily\n\nwork\n\nExtensification See Workload\n\nExtracurricular\n\nF\n\nFace-time\n\nFairness\n\npreceptions\n\nFamilies of choice\n\nFamily and Medical Insurance Leave Act (FAMILY Act)\n\nFamily and Medical Leave Act (FMLA)\n\nFamily satisfaction\n\nFamily-interference-with-work (FIW)\n\nFamily-supportive organizational perceptions (FSOP)\n\nFamily-supportive supervisor behaviors (FSSB)\n\nFamily-supportive work environments (FSWE)\n\nFast-track professions See Professional jobs\n\nFatigue\n\nsleep\n\nFault\n\nFeedback\n\nFemale employment\n\npercentage\n\nFemininity\n\nFertility See Biological clock\n\nFit\n\nFlexibility\n\nCompressed work week (CWW)\n\nflexibility stigma\n\nFlexible Work Arrangements (FWA)\n\nflextime\n\njob sharing\n\ntelecommuting\n\nFortune 500\n\nFuture research\n\nopportunities for\n\nG\n\nGender deviance neutralization\n\nGender disparity\n\nGender display theory\n\nGender divide\n\nGender equality\n\nineqality\n\ninequality\n\nGender gap\n\neducation\n\nworkplace\n\nGender ideology\n\nGender role ideology (GRI) See Gender ideology\n\nGender role theory See Role Thoery\n\nGender roles\n\norientation\n\nsocialization\n\nGender specialization\n\nGender typing\n\nGendered assumptions\n\nGendered behavior\n\nGendered employment pattern\n\nGendered occupations\n\nfemale-intensive\n\nmale-intensive\n\nwage differentials\n\nGeneration\n\nGlass ceiling\n\nGlobalization\n\nglobal roles\n\nglobal service economy\n\nGoal commitment\n\nGoldie Blox\n\nGovernment policies See Public programs\n\nGuilt\n\nantecedents\n\nconsequences\n\nFamily interference with work guilt (FIWG)\n\ngender differences\n\nGuilty\n\ncultural differences\n\nsources of\n\nwork interference with family guilt (WIFG)\n\nH\n\nHarassment\n\nHealth\n\nmental\n\nphysical\n\nHealth insurance\n\nHeteronormativity\n\nHeterosexual\n\nbias\n\nHigh-powered occupations See Professional jobs\n\nHigh-status professions See Professional jobs\n\nHiring See Selection\n\nHomosexual\n\nHousehold labor\n\nHousework\n\nHuman capital\n\nI\n\nIdeal worker\n\nIdentity\n\ncentrality\/salience\n\nconflict\n\nmanagement\n\nmultiple\n\nrole\n\nsexual\n\nsocial\n\nIdiocentrism\n\nIdiosyncratic deals (i-deals)\n\nIllegal activities\n\nImmigration\n\nIncome See Wage level\n\nIndividual differences\n\nIndividualism\n\nIndustrialized nations\n\nInitiatives See Policies\n\nInjury\n\nIntegration\n\nInternational studies See Cross-national studies\n\nInterruptions\n\nIntersectionality Theory\n\nIntrusions See Interruptions\n\nInvolvement\n\nfamily\n\nwork\n\nJ\n\nJob (in)security\n\nJob Demands-Resources (JD-R) Model\n\nJob satisfaction\n\nJoint hire\n\nL\n\nLabor force\n\nLabor force attachment See Work-role salience\n\nLabor market\n\nLayoffs\n\nLeader-member exchange (LMX)\n\nLeadership\n\nLeaky pipeline\n\nLeave\n\nand gender equality\n\ncross-nationally\n\nFAMILY act\n\nFMLA\n\nleave-taking\n\nlength\n\nmaternity leave\n\npaid\n\npaternity leave\n\nunpaid\n\nLegal protection\n\nlaws\n\nlegally-protected class\n\nLeisure\n\nLesbian, gay, and bisexual (LGB)\n\nLesbian, Gay, Bisexual, or Transgender (LGBT)\n\nLife satisfaction\n\nLimitations\n\nLinear career model\n\nLongitudinal studies\n\nLow-wage jobs\n\nM\n\nMale-dominated fields See Gendered occupations\n\nManagerial positions\n\nManufacturing\n\nMarital satisfaction\n\nMarital status See Relationship status\n\nMasculine hegemony\n\nMasculinity\n\nMaternal employment\n\nconsequences\n\nMaternal wall\n\nMath See STEM\n\nMay babies\n\nMeasurement\n\nbias\n\ncontamination\n\ndeficiency\n\ndifferential item interpretation\n\ndimensions\n\ndiscrepancy\n\nequivalence\n\nexperience sampling method\n\nnarratives\n\nscales\/surveys\n\nsocial desirability\n\nMedia\n\nMediators\n\nMentor\n\nMilitary\n\nMinorities\n\nsexual\n\nModels\n\nModerators\n\nMommy track\n\nMorality\n\nMotherhood penalty\n\nMotivation\n\nMultiple identities\n\nMultiplier effect\n\nMultitask\n\nN\n\nNational Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA)\n\nNational Committee on Pay Equity\n\nNational Institute of Health (NIH)\n\nNational Science Foundation (NSF)\n\nADVANCE\n\ncareer-life balance initiative\n\nSTRIDE\n\nNational Study of Employers\n\nNeuroticism\n\nNorms\n\ngender\n\ntraditional\n\nNumber of children\n\nO\n\nOccupational distribution See Gendered occupations\n\nOn-demand work\n\nOrganizational climate\n\nchilly\n\nOrganizational commitment\n\nOrganizational culture\n\nOrganizational hierarchy\n\nOrganizational norms\n\nOrganization-based self-esteem (OBSE)\n\nOverload\n\nOverload See also workload\n\nOvertime\n\nOvertime See also Workload\n\nP\n\nPartner\n\nPart-time work\n\nPay level See Wage level\n\nPerception See Appraisal\n\nPerceptions of Women in Academic Science study\n\nPerformance\n\nactual\n\nevaluations\n\nPolicies See Benefits\n\nPopular press\n\nPost-Fordist era\n\nPost-traditional family\n\nPosttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)\n\nPoverty\n\ncorrelates\n\ncross-nationally\n\nfeminization of poverty\n\ngender-poverty disparity\n\nrisk\n\nPower\n\ndistance\n\nPreference theory\n\nPregnancy\n\nPrejudice\n\nPressure\n\nPrivilege\n\nProductivity\n\nProfessional jobs\n\nC-suite\n\nEMPs\n\nProject 3535\n\nPromotion\n\nPsychological contract\n\nPsychological well-being See Health, Mental\n\nPublic programs\n\ncross-nationally\n\nemployment opportunities\n\nstate support\n\nfinancial\n\nQ\n\nQuality of life\n\nQuota\n\nR\n\nRace\n\nRacism\n\nRational viewpoint\n\nRecession\n\nRecovery\n\nRelationship quality\n\nRelationship satisfaction See Marital\/family satisfaction\n\nRelationship status\n\nRelationships\n\nRelative deprivation theory\n\nReligion\n\nReligiosity See Religion\n\nResentment\n\nResilience\n\nresource drain theory\n\nResources\n\nallocation\/distribution\n\ndepletion\n\neconomic\/financial\n\nenergy\n\nexchange\n\ngender differences in access to\n\nloss spirals\n\nnoneconomic\/nonfinancial\n\nnonwork\n\npersonal\n\nwork\n\nResponsibility\n\nRetention See Turnover\n\nRewards\n\nRole Accumulation Theory\n\nRole commitment\n\nfamily\n\nwork\n\nRole congruity theory\n\nRole expansion\n\nRole expectations\n\nRole model\n\nRole Theory\n\nfor males\n\nmaternal work history\n\nobservation\n\nsame-sex parent\n\nRumination\n\nS\n\nSalary See Wage level\n\nSandwich generation\n\nSavoring\n\nScarcity hypothesis\n\nSchedules\n\nSchema\n\nScience technology, engineering, and math (STEM)\n\neducation center\n\nScience See STEM\n\nSecond shift\n\nSegmentation\n\nSelection\n\njob assignments\n\nletters of recommendation\n\nSelf\n\nself-selection\n\nSelf-employment\n\nSelf-esteem\n\nSeparate spheres\n\nService sector\n\nSexism\n\nSex-segregated occupations See Gendered occupations\n\nSexual orientation\n\nSexuality\n\nShiftwork\n\nnonstandard\n\nrotating\n\nstandard\n\nSingle parent\n\nsingle father\n\nsingle mother\n\nSkill\n\nSleep\n\nSocial changes\n\nSocial dominance theory\n\nSocial exchange theory\n\nSocial role theory\n\nSocietal norms\n\nSociety for Human Resource Management (SHRM)\n\nSocioeconomic status\n\nSpillover\n\naffective\n\nmodel\n\nnegative\n\npositive\n\nSpillover theory\n\nSpillover See also work\u2013family conflict\/enrichment\n\nSpouse See Partner\n\nStay-at-home parents\n\nfathers\n\nmothers\n\nStereotypes\n\nStigma\n\nStress\n\nSuperdad\n\nSupermom\n\nSuport\n\nsocioemotional\n\nSupport\n\nbarriers\n\nby income status\n\nchildcare\n\ncoworker\n\nemotional\n\nfinancial\n\nformal\n\ninformal\n\ninstrumental\n\norganizational\n\nperceived\n\nsocial\n\nspousal\n\nsupervisor\n\nT\n\nTag-teaming\n\nTechnology\n\nTenure\n\nstop clock policies\n\nTheory of Planned Behavior\n\nTheory of Reasoned Action\n\nThreat\n\nTiming of parenthood\n\nTokenism\n\nTraditional family\n\nTraining\n\nTraits See Individual differences\n\nTransactional model of emotion\n\nTransgender\n\nTravel\n\nTurnover\n\nactual\n\nintensions\n\nTwo-body problem\n\nU\n\nUncertainty avoidance\n\nUnderrepresented groups\n\nUnderstudied populations\n\nUnemployment\n\nUnited Nations Gender Development Index\n\nUnpaid work\n\nUrbanization\n\nV\n\nVacation time\n\nValues\n\nVocational trajectory\n\nW\n\nWage gap\/inequality\n\nWage level\n\nWage penalty See Motherhood penalty\n\nWelfare\n\nWell-being\n\nWhite-collar\n\nWhite House Council of Women and Girls\n\nWithdrawal\n\nWomen's movement\n\nWorkaholism\n\nage\n\nconsequences\n\ncultural\n\nexperiences\n\ngender differences\n\nWorkaholics Anonymous\n\nWork competence of mothers\n\nWork-family balance\n\nWork\u2013family conflict (WFC)\n\nantecedents\n\nbehavior-based\n\nconsequences\n\nfamily-to-work conflict (FWC)\n\nLGB WFC\n\nstrain-based\n\ntime-based\n\nWork\u2013family enrichment (WFE)\n\nantecedents\n\nbehavioral\n\nconsequences\n\nenergy-based\n\npsychological\n\ntime-based\n\nWorkforce participation\n\nWork-interference-with-family (WIF)\n\nWork-life\n\nWorkload\n\nWork orientation, See Work-role sailence\n\nWork-Role Salience\n\nWork values\n\nWorld Health Organization (WHO)\n\nZ\n\nZero-drag worker\n","meta":{"redpajama_set_name":"RedPajamaBook"}}
+{"text":" \n**Books by Richard Leviton**\n\n_Seven Steps to Better Vision_\n\n_The Imagination of Pentecost: Rudolf Steiner and Contemporary Spirituality_\n\n_Brain Builders_\n\n_Weddings by Design_\n\n_Looking for Arthur: A Once and Future Travelogue_\n\n_Physician: Medicine and the Unsuspected_\n\n_Battle for Human Freedom_\n\nCopyright \u00a9 2001\n\nby Richard Leviton\n\nAll rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this work in any form whatsoever, without permission in writing from the publisher, except for brief passages in connection with a review.\n\nCover design by Steve Amarillo\n\nCover art by Index Stock Imagery\n\nFor information write:\n\nHampton Roads Publishing Company, Inc.\n\n1125 Stoney Ridge Road\n\nCharlottesville, VA 22902\n\n434-296-2772\n\nfax: 434-296-5096\n\ne-mail: hrpc@hrpub.com\n\nwww.hrpub.com\n\nIf you are unable to order this book from your local bookseller, you may order directly from the publisher.\n\nCall 1-800-766-8009, toll-free.\n\nLibrary of Congress Catalog Card Number: 00-105253\n\nISBN 1-57174-209-3\n\n10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1\n\nPrinted on acid-free paper in Canada\n\nwww.redwheelweiser.com\n\nwww.redwheelweiser.com\/newsletter\n\n# _Dedication_\n\n**_To Judith A. Lewis\u2014  \nvisionary artist, sculptor,   \nhealer, and partner._**\n\n# _Table of Contents_\n\n**Acknowledgments**\n\n**The 70 Healthy Living Space Detoxifiers at a Glance**\n\n**Notes on Products, Services, and Organizations**\n\n**Introduction**\n\nWhy Toxicity Should Concern Us\n\n**P ART ONE The Health Perils of the Toxic Body and Home**\n\n**C HAPTER 1 Toxicity and Illness**:\n\n**_How Your Body and Home Became Toxic_**\n\n250 Chemical Contaminants in Every Human Body \u2022 Healthy Living Space Detoxifier #1: Fill Out Your Toxicity Self-Assessment Questionnaire \u2022 How Unrelieved Toxicity Can Compromise Your Health \u2022 Being Slowly Poisoned Throughout a Lifetime \u2022 Healthy Living Space Detoxifier #2: Maintain a Household Toxic Exposure Inventory \u2022 How Toxic Is Our Living Space, Both Body and World? \u2022 Drinking Water Contaminated with Pesticides and Toxic Residues \u2022 When Prozac, Viagra, and Sunscreen Flow through Your Kitchen Tap \u2022 Air Pollution-Trigger for Allergies, Asthma, and Respiratory Symptoms \u2022 Organochlorines\u2014Toxic Chlorine Blankets the Planet \u2022 A Radioactive Cloud Enshrouds an Entire Generation \u2022 Tainted Food\u2014Glutamates, Additives, Antibiotics, and POPs \u2022 The Toxic Living Space and You\u2014What It All Means\n\n**C HAPTER 2 Why You Need to Detoxify**:\n\n**_Augmenting the Body's Natural Detoxification System_**\n\nThe Body's Burden\u2014Total Toxic Load and Toxic Stress \u2022 The Oxidation-Reduction Cycle at the Heart of Detoxification \u2022 The Body's Two-Phase Natural Process of Detoxification \u2022 Immunotoxicity and How the Detoxification Pathways Get Blocked \u2022 Neurological and Endocrinal Damage from Environmental Toxins \u2022 Damaging Synergistic Effects Extending into the Next Generation \u2022 Previewing the Scope and Advantages of Deliberate Detoxification \u2022 The Spiritual and Global Implications of Detoxification\n\n**P ART TWO Creating the Healthy _Body_ Living Space**\n\n**C HAPTER 3 How Toxic Are You?**\n\n**_Testing for Toxicity and Detoxification Ability_**\n\nThe Healthy Living Space Expert Interview: Peter Holyk, M.D., Contemporary Health Innovations \u2022 Healthy Living Space Detoxifier #3: Get a Clear Idea of Your Nutritional Status \u2022 Healthy Living Space Detoxifier #4: Assess Your System's Ability to Detoxify \u2022 Healthy Living Space Detoxifier #5: Determine Your Body's Total Toxic Load \u2022 Healthy Living Space Detoxifier #6: Find Out if You're Suffering from Hidden Food Allergies\n\n**C HAPTER 4 Detoxification Preliminaries**:\n\n**_Start Your Internal Cleansing with Dietary Changes and by Minimizing Your Exposure_**\n\nHealthy Living Space Detoxifier #7: Rehydrate Your Body with Nature's Best Detoxifying Substance \u2022 Healthy Living Space Detoxifier #8: Get the Chlorine Out of Your Drinking and Shower Water \u2022 Healthy Living Space Detoxifier #9: Don't Fluoridate Your Teeth\u2014Your Body Doesn't Need Fluorides \u2022 Healthy Living Space Detoxifier #10: Cleanse Your Produce of Toxic Chemicals \u2022 Healthy Living Space Detoxifier #11: Whenever Possible, Eat Organic Foods \u2022 Healthy Living Space Detoxifier #12: Minimize Your Consumption of Foods Containing Trans-fatty Acids \u2022 Healthy Living Space Detoxifier #13: Do a 3-Day Water or Juice Fast to Rest and Regenerate Your Cells \u2022 Healthy Living Space Detoxifier #14: Do a Media\/Image Fast to Cleanse Your Mind and Energy Field \u2022 Healthy Living Space Detoxifier #15: Make a Lifestyle Out of Nonstop Stress Reduction with Healing Hot Water Soaks \u2022 Healthy Living Space Detoxifier #16: Enhance Your Relaxation by Floating in 800 Pounds of Epsom Salt \u2022 Healthy Living Space Detoxifier #17: Use Music Therapy to Deepen Your Sense of Melting Relaxation\n\n**C HAPTER 5 Safe and Effective Cleansing Programs for the Liver and Intestines**\n\nThe Healthy Living Space Expert Interview: Jacob Farin, N.D., Naturopathic Physician \u2022 Healthy Living Space Detoxifier #18: Do a One-Week Elimination Diet and Liver Cleansing Program \u2022 Healthy Living Space Detoxifier #19: Use Natural Foods and Herbs to Aid Your Liver in Cleansing Itself \u2022 Healthy Living Space Detoxifier #20: Do a Natural Liver Flush to Improve Your Internal \"Plumbing\" \u2022 Intestinal Cleansing: Emptying Out a Storage Space the Size of a Tennis Court \u2022 Healthy Living Space Detoxifier #21: Use Six Natural Substances to Help Cleanse Your Intestines \u2022 Healthy Living Space Detoxifier #22: Remove the 50+ Feet of False Mucoid Lining from Your Intestines \u2022 Healthy Living Space Detoxifier #23: Purge the Parasites from Your Intestines \u2022 Healthy Living Space Detoxifier #24: Get Proactive with Probiotics\u2014Plant Food for the Intestines \u2022 Healthy Living Space Detoxifier #25: Fertilize Your Bifidobacteria with Prebiotics\n\n**C HAPTER 6 Whole\u2014Body Cleansing Routines**:\n\n**_Extending the Detoxification into Everyday Activities_**\n\nHealthy Living Space Detoxifier #26: Bounce on a Trampoline to Improve Your Lymphatic Drainage \u2022 Healthy Living Space Detoxifier #27: Dry Skin Brushing\u2014Tone Up Your Body's Largest Elimination Organ \u2022 Healthy Living Space Detoxifier #28: Exercise Regularly to Enhance Blood Circulation and Toxin Removal \u2022 Healthy Living Space Detoxifier #29: Sauna Detox: How Heat Therapy Can Help Your Body Release Toxins \u2022 Healthy Living Space Detoxifier #30: A Purifying Bath: Whole-Body Detoxifying Soaks in Herbs, Salts, Oils, and Other Natural Substances\n\n**C HAPTER 7 The Poisons in Your Mouth**:\n\n**_Specialized Dental Detoxification Programs_**\n\nA Gallery of Possible Toxic Consequences of Modern Dentistry \u2022 Healthy Living Space Detoxifier #31: Make Your Mouth a Mercury-Free Zone by Having Your Mercury Fillings Correctly Replaced \u2022 Healthy Living Space Detoxifier #32: Have Your Cavitations Cleaned Out and Reduce Possible Jawbone Infections \u2022 Healthy Living Space Detoxifier #33: Think Twice before Digging Another Root Canal in Your Mouth \u2022 Healthy Living Space Detoxifier #34: Determine Your Biocompatibility with Dental Materials before Putting Any More in Your Mouth\n\n**C HAPTER 8 Guidelines for Emotional Detoxification**:\n\n**_Unresolved Emotional Issues Can Become Toxic to the Body_**\n\nHow Unresolved Emotions Can Contribute to Illness \u2022 The Healthy Living Space Expert Interview: Patricia Kaminski, Flower Essence Practitioner \u2022 Healthy Living Space Detoxifier #35: Remedying the Four Basic States of Emotional Toxicity with Flower Essences\n\n**C HAPTER 9 Guidelines for Spiritual Detoxification**:\n\n**_Cleansing the Space around the Body_**\n\nPoisons in Our Invisible Atmosphere \u2022 The Outer and Inner Aura in Disease \u2022 Healthy Living Space Detoxifier #36: Salting Your Energy Centers \u2022 Charting the Subconscious Mind in the Aura \u2022 Healthy Living Space Detoxifier #37: Request a Cleansing from Above \u2022 The Healthy Living Space Expert Interview: Rev. Leon S. LeGant, Psychic Healer \u2022 Healthy Living Space Detoxifier #38: Do a 30-Minute Spirit-Detoxifying Bath \u2022 Healthy Living Space Detoxifier #39: Shake Yourself Free of Toxic Energies \u2022 Healthy Living Space Detoxifier #40: Scrub Your Aura Clean with a Golden Sponge \u2022 Healthy Living Space Detoxifier #41: Turn Your Body into Transparent Glass \u2022 Healthy Living Space Detoxifier #42: Cutting the Cords and Ties That Bind\u2014Psychic Plumbing \u2022 Healthy Living Space Detoxifier #43: Ground Yourself to the Center of the Earth \u2022 Healthy Living Space Detoxifier #44: Protect Your Space by Connecting to a Higher Source \u2022 Healthy Living Space Detoxifier #45: Cleanse and Protect Your Aura with Pomanders and \"Air Conditioners\" \u2022 Spiritual Detoxification Is a Lifelong Activity\n\n**P ART THREE Creating the Healthy _Home_ Living Space**\n\n**C HAPTER 10 Cleaning Up the Home's Indoor Environment**:\n\n**_Overcoming the Effects of Sick Building Syndrome_**\n\nSick Building Syndrome: The Disease of Modern Architecture \u2022 Indoor Pollutants\u2014A Matter of \"Genuine Concern\" \u2022 The Healthy Living Space Expert Interview: Michael Riversong, Design Ecologist and Environmental Assessor \u2022 Healthy Living Space Detoxifier #46: Get the Electropollution Out of Your Home \u2022 Healthy Living Space Detoxifier #47: Benefits of Nontoxic Carpets\u2014Don't Let Your Carpets Kill You Softly \u2022 The Trouble with Indoor Air\u2014Worse Pollution Indoors than Out \u2022 Healthy Living Space Detoxifier #48: Filter Your Home's Indoor Air to Remove Toxins and Allergens \u2022 Healthy Living Space Detoxifier #49: Install an \"Indoor Waterfall\" to Add Negative Ions to Your Air \u2022 Healthy Living Space Detoxifier #50: Use Houseplants to Filter Out Toxins from Your Indoor Air \u2022 Healthy Living Space Detoxifier #51: Get the Radon Out of Your Basement \u2022 Healthy Living Space Detoxifier #52: Take the SADness Out of Your Indoor Space with Full Spectrum Lighting \u2022 Healthy Living Space Detoxifier #53: Go Green with Your Household Products\n\n**C HAPTER 11 The Feng Shui of a Healthy Home**:\n\n**_Detoxifying the Energy Aspects of Your Living Space_**\n\nCharting the Movement of Life Force Energy \u2022 Healthy Living Space Detoxifier #54: Evaluate the Energy Flow in Your Home with the _Ba-Gua_ \u2022 The Healthy Living Space Expert Interview: Stanley Aaga Bartlett, Feng Shui Master \u2022 Healthy Living Space Detoxifier #55: Tidy Up All the Cluttered Areas in Your Home \u2022 Healthy Living Space Detoxifier #56: Repaint All the Interior Walls with Your Color of Happiness \u2022 Healthy Living Space Detoxifier #57: Clear Your Space of All Predecessor Energy \u2022 Healthy Living Space Detoxifier #58: The Health Benefits of Ghost-Busting \u2022 Healthy Living Space Detoxifier #59: Eliminate Poison Arrows and Cutting _Qi_ \u2022 Healthy Living Space Detoxifier #60: Pacify Your Neighborhood with Feng Shui Mirrors \u2022 Healthy Living Space Detoxifier #61: Optimizing the Mouth of _Qi_ at Your Front Door \u2022 Healthy Living Space Detoxifier #62: Setting Up a Feng Shui-Friendly Bedroom \u2022 Healthy Living Space Detoxifier #63: Setting Up a Feng Shui-Friendly Bathroom \u2022 The Health Costs of Having an Energy-Imbalanced Home\n\n**C HAPTER 12 Cleansing the Home's Exterior Environment**:\n\n**_Neutralizing the Effects of Geopathic Stress_**\n\nDisease Can Be a Problem of Location \u2022 Healthy Living Space Detoxifier #64: When Nothing Else Heals, Try Moving Your Bed \u2022 Healthy Living Space Detoxifier #65: Scan YourHome and Environment for Signs of Geopathic Stress \u2022 The Healthy Living Space Expert Interview: Patrick MacManaway, M.D., Ch.B., Geomancer \u2022 Healthy Living Space Detoxifier #66: Take Your Energy Body Out of the Curry-Hartmann Grid \u2022 Healthy Living Space Detoxifier #67: Five Simple Techniques for Detoxifying a Room or Environment \u2022 Healthy Living Space Detoxifier #68: Put in an Energy Drainage Pipe from Your House to the Center of the Earth \u2022 Healthy Living Space Detoxifier #69: How to Take the Stress Out of a Geopathic Zone \u2022 Healthy Living Space Detoxifier #70: Selecting Energy Wells in a Geography of Enlightenment\n\n**Afterword**\n\nLife in Healthy Living Space\n\n**Endnotes**\n\n**Index**\n\n# _Acknowledgments_\n\nThe author wishes to thank the generous contribution of time, insights, and protocols from the following experts in detoxification: Peter Holyk, M.D., Jacob Falin, N.D., Patricia Kaminski, Rev. Leon S. LeGant, Michael Riversong, Stanley Aaga Bartlett, and Patrick MacManaway, M.D. Thanks to Stephanie Marohn for her excellent editing.\n\n# The 70 Healty Living Space Detoxifiers at a Glance\n\n**_1_** Fill Out Your Toxicity Self-Assessment Questionnaire\n\n**_2_** Maintain a Household Toxic Exposure Inventory\n\n**_3_** Get a Clear Idea of Your Nutritional Status\n\n**_4_** Assess Your System's Ability to Detoxify\n\n**_5_** Determine Your Body's Total Toxic Load\n\n**_6_** Find Out if You're Suffering from Hidden Food Allergies\n\n**_7_** Rehydrate Your Body with Nature's Best Detoxifying Substance\n\n**_8_** Get the Chlorine Out of Your Drinking and Shower Water\n\n**_9_** Don't Fluoridate Your Teeth\u2014Your Body Doesn't Need Fluorides\n\n**_10_** Cleanse Your Produce of Toxic Chemicals\n\n**_11_** Whenever Possible, Eat Organic Foods\n\n**_12_** Minimize Your Consumption of Foods Containing Trans-fatty Acids\n\n**_13_** Do a 3-Day Water or Juice Fast to Rest and Regenerate Your Cells\n\n**_14_** Do a Media\/Image Fast to Cleanse Your Mind and Energy Field\n\n**_15_** Make a Lifestyle Out of Nonstop Stress Reduction with Healing Hot Water Soask\n\n**_16_** Enhance Your Relaxation by Floating in 800 Pounds of Epsom Salt\n\n**_17_** Use Music Therapy to Deepen Your Sense of Melting Relaxation\n\n**_18_** Do a One-Week Elimination Diet and Liver Cleansing Program\n\n**_19_** Use Natural Foods and Herbs to Aid Your Liver in Cleansing Itself\n\n**_20_** Do a Natural Liver Flush to Improve Your Internal \"Plumbing\"\n\n**_21_** Use Six Natural Substances to Help Cleanse Your Intestines\n\n**_22_** Remove the 50+ Feet of False Mucoid Lining from Your Intestines\n\n**_23_** Purge the Parasites from Your Intestines\n\n**_24_** Get Proactive with Probiotics\u2014Plant Food for the Intestines\n\n**_25_** Fertilize Your Bifidobacteria with Prebiotics\n\n**_26_** Bounce on a Trampoline to Improve Your Lymphatic Drainage\n\n**_27_** Dry Skin Brushing\u2014Tone Up Your Body's Largest Elimination Organ\n\n**_28_** Exercise Regularly to Enhance Blood Circulation and Toxin Removal\n\n**_29_** Sauna Detox: How Heat Therapy Can Help Your Body Release Toxins\n\n**_30_** A Purifying Bath: Whole-Body Detoxifying Soaks in Herbs, Salts, Oils, and Other Natural Substances\n\n**_31_** Make Your Mouth a Mercury-Free Zone by Having Your Mercury Fillings Correctly Replaced\n\n**_32_** Have Your Cavitations Cleaned Out and Reduce Possible Jawbone Infections\n\n**_33_** Think Twice before Digging Another Root Canal in Your Mouth\n\n**_34_** Determine Your Biocompatibility with Dental Materials before Putting Any More in Your Mouth\n\n**_35_** Remedying the Four Basic States of Emotional Toxicity with Flower Essences\n\n**_36_** Salting Your Energy Centers\n\n**_37_** Request a Cleansing from Above\n\n**_38_** Do a 30-Minute Spirit-Detoxifying Bath\n\n**_39_** Shake Yourself Free of Toxic Energies\n\n**_40_** Scrub Your Aura Clean with a Golden Sponge\n\n**_41_** Turn Your Body into Transparent Glass\n\n**_42_** Cutting the Cords and Ties That Bind\u2014Psychic Plumbing\n\n**_43_** Ground Yourself to the Center of the Earth\n\n**_44_** Protect Your Space by Connecting to a Higher Source\n\n**_45_** Cleanse and Protect Your Aura with Pomanders and \"Air Conditioners\"\n\n**_46_** Get the Electropollution Out of Your Home\n\n**_47_** Benefits of Nontoxic Carpets\u2014Don't Let Your Carpets Kill You Softly\n\n**_48_** Filter Your Home's Indoor Air to Remove Toxins and Allergens\n\n**_49_** Install an \"Indoor Waterfall\" to Add Negative Ions to Your Air\n\n**_50_** Use Houseplants to Filter Out Toxins from Your Indoor Air\n\n**_51_** Get the Radon Out of Your Basement\n\n**_52_** Take the SADness Out of Your Indoor Space with Full Spectrum Lighting\n\n**_53_** Go Green with Your Household Products\n\n**_54_** Evaluate the Energy Flow in Your Home with the _Ba-Gua_\n\n**_55_** Tidy Up All the Cluttered Areas in Your Home\n\n**_56_** Repaint All the Interior Walls with Your Color of Happiness\n\n**_57_** Clear Your Space of All Predecessor Energy\n\n**_58_** The Health Benefits of Ghost-Busting\n\n**_59_** Eliminate Poison Arrows and Cutting _Qi_\n\n**_60_** Pacify Your Neighborhood with Feng Shui Mirrors\n\n**_61_** Optimizing the Mouth of _Qi_ at Your Front Door\n\n**_62_** Setting up a Feng Shui-Friendly Bedroom\n\n**_63_** Setting up a Feng Shui-Friendly Bathroom\n\n**_64_** When Nothing Else Heals, Try Moving Your Bed\n\n**_65_** Scan Your Home and Environment for Signs of Geopathic Stress\n\n**_66_** Take Your Energy Body Out of the Curry-Hartmann Grid\n\n**_67_** Five Simple Techniques for Detoxifying a Room or Environment\n\n**_68_** Put in an Energy Drainage Pipe from Your House to the Center of the Earth\n\n**_69_** How to Take the Stress Out of a Geopathic Zone\n\n**_70_** Selecting Energy Wells in a Geography of Enlightenment\n\n# _**Note on Products, Services, and Organizations**_\n\nThere are many products, services, and organizations listed in this book. Their inclusion in the text does not constitute an endorsement by the author. In some cases, the author has personally tested or used the products or services, but in other cases, not. Further, the author has no financial or business connections with any of the products, services, or organizations listed.\n\nThe inclusion of this information is meant solely to help the reader find a point of orientation in what is perhaps a new and overly large field. References to specific products, such as water or air filters, for example, are only meant to serve as a starting point from which readers can launch their own more extended research and vetting. They are not meant to be the result of exhaustive research into these specific categories; rather, they are the results of a preliminary and provisional research of the field, principally through the Internet.\n\nAll health information in this book is based on sound medical and scientific research and\/or the clinical protocols of credentialed health care practitioners. However, this is no substitute for qualified medical guidance and advice if there is any question about the appropriateness or applicability of any recommendation in this book to individual readers and their unique health conditions. Readers concerned about the suitability of specific techniques or substances to their specific health condition should consult a qualifed health care practitioner before undertaking any of the detoxification steps.\n\n# _INTRODUCTION_\n\n**_Why Toxicity Should Concern Us_**\n\nEver since Rachel Carson's shocking indictment of industrial pollution in _Silent Spring_ , the concept of poisons in the environment has been with us. Carson gave us the basic idea: too many toxic substances in the environment sicken, even kill, wildlife and natural systems, and they eventually make us sick too. As a society we haven't forgotten the concept of toxicity introduced by her book in 1962, yet to a large measure it has remained a concept and not a living reality, not something we know to be true in our own lives.\n\nIn other words, we don't quite see how toxicity is the order of the day for most of the world, in terms both of the landscape and the body, the planet and the home. Yet as this book will show, toxicity\u2014the long-term health impact of long-term exposure to toxic substances\u2014has crept up on us and now to a large extent _defines_ our physical reality.\n\nWhat is our physical reality? One way to describe it is to call it a living space. We, as conscious human beings, live in a body and in a home, be it studio apartment, condominium, house, or mansion. The body _and_ home are our living space. Both should be considered together in any discussion of health, toxicity, or illness because they exist in a remarkable feedback system; both can make us well and both can sicken us. If we want to be healthy, we need to concern ourselves with both. A healthy living space is a body and home free of toxins.\n\nBut most of us don't have a healthy living space. We live in a toxic world, and it is steadily sickening us; in fact, so pervasive is its toxic effect that we almost don't see it. Yet scientific studies now show that nearly every corner of the planet is toxic and every human being carries residues of dozens of toxic chemicals in their cells. Every element of our physical world\u2014air, water, earth\u2014carries a toxic burden, is poisoned, and is poisoning us.\n\nAs we well know, the incidence of chronic and degenerative diseases, including cancer, is ever increasing. Toxicity is slowly draining th e life out of us, yet so pervasive and effective is this systematic poisoning that we are barely, if at all, aware of it in our everyday living. We think the way we feel is \"normal,\" the way a human is supposed to feel, even though we may suspect we're a little off.\n\nWe may not personally feel \"sick\" and we may not have been officially diagnosed as having a \"condition,\" but we vaguely sense a degree of dysfunction in our body. We don't quite have the energy we used to; we get colds more often than before; allergies seem more prevalent; we're bothered by various minor symptoms that come and go but never really leave; our sense of vitality and immunity seem off, a bit compromised.\n\nIncreasingly, our homes have become toxic too. This is a sad and shocking idea to contemplate: the home is supposed to be the heart of our domestic life, a refuge, a haven\u2014how can such a place designed to nourish life make us sick? Yet it does. Scientific studies show that most of our modern building and home furnishing materials\u2014paints, plywood, glues, varnishes, carpets, upholstery, household cleaning products, bedding materials, even our clothes-are laced with toxic chemicals that are slowly released from the products into the indoor air of our increasingly airtight or inadequately ventilated homes. Headaches, rashes, allergies, respiratory problems, frequent colds, irritability, depression, immune system problems\u2014these are among the numerous documented symptoms attributed to the effect of our exposure to toxic building materials in our homes.\n\nSo how do you get a healthy living space? You detoxify. Detoxification is a term generally understood in reference to substance abuse treatment programs, but it actually refers to a much more generalized process of ridding the body of all toxic substances, not just freeing it from dependency on alcohol or other addictive substances. Detoxification is a natural, routine activity of the body, carried out every day by the liver, lymphatic system, kidneys, and intestines. The body can handle a fair degree of toxic materials and survive, and in fact remain healthy.\n\nBut there is a limit, and for many of us, we reached that limit, and surpassed it, years ago. Now our natural detoxification processes are hindered; they don't work at full capacity; they have a tremendous backlog of toxic substances to process, and without our help at this point, they may never catch up. Not catching up with its detoxification load means the body will start to get poisoned by its ever-increasing reservoir of unprocessed toxins, and it will start to show signs of impaired health.\n\nIn many traditional societies, regular detoxification was part of the lifestyle. Once or twice a year, individuals would deliber ately take steps to help their body rid itself of the toxic burden of the preceding months. People would fast, drink copious amounts of water, do a sweatlodge, take special herbs, practice specific exercises, and give their bodies a chance to cleanse themselves.\n\nEven in healthy times, when people lived in a relatively toxic-free environment, it was a good idea to periodically give the body a break from the endless routine of eating, digesting, assimilating, and eliminating, and let it fully catch up and \"clean house.\" With a clean house\u2014a healthy living space\u2014people felt better in themselves; their emotions were clearer, their minds were more unfettered, and they felt more attuned with the world.\n\nIn our day, with the environment and the body intensely polluted, the need for regular detoxification is acute. The only way to survive and _flourish_ in such an environment is to undertake a comprehensive program of internal _and_ external cleansing. The abiding assumption in this book is that detoxification, the basis of true and lasting health, must address both aspects of one's living environment\u2014the body and the home. Body and home are reflections of each other and must be addressed simultaneously.\n\nIt is essential that we detoxify _both_ expressions of our living space at the same time: our body and our home. If you cleanse your body but live in a toxic living space, your home will eventually sicken you; if you detoxify your home but do nothing to purge your body of its toxic burden, the healthy home will not prevent the health consequences of bodily toxicity. Your internal toxins will gradually sicken you.\n\nA clean (detoxified) house and a clean (detoxified) body complement each other, leading to a state of harmony, balance, and deep health. The goal is a healthy body and home\u2014a healthy living space\u2014and the means to get there are the seventy practical steps presented in this book. _The Healthy Living Space_ provides instructions on how to regain a healthy body and home based on safe, proven, nontoxic, noninvasive methods from the field of alternative medicine.\n\nThis is a how-to book on alternative medicine applications for better health through systematic detoxification, or cleansing, of both our internal and external living environments. The essence of this book is self-care: you can do it yourself. All of the procedures recommended in the book can be done by the average nonmedically trained person, although in some cases professional consultation is recommended as a complement to one's own informed initiative.\n\nThe procedures\u2014I call them Healthy Living Space Detoxifiers\u2014are supported by scientific research and the clinical experience of numerous physicians, health-care practitioners, and detoxification experts, seven of whom I interviewed specifically for this book. For each of the seventy Detoxifiers, I explain the reason for doing them\u2014that is, the nature of the toxicity addressed\u2014and the steps to follow to do them. In many cases, information about practitioners, and sources of products, services, or more information are provided to help you get started on detoxification.\n\nDo you need to do all seventy steps? Yes, if you want a thorough detoxification of body and home. No, if you're willing to settle for less. Regarding the detoxification of the body, as a minimum it is advisable to do the steps that address the liver and intestines, in the order they're presented in Chapter 5. But the steps described in chapters 4 and  complement the approach that focuses on the liver and intestines, as a kind of before and after framework.\n\nYou not only want to purge your body of its accumulation of toxic substances (Chapter 5), but you should reduce as much as possible your further intake of toxic substances through food, air, water, and your exposure to toxic products and environments (chapters 4 and ). If you don't change some of the aspects of your lifestyle that put you in contact with toxic substances, you may end up replenishing the supply of poisons, even though you removed them from your body with liver and intestinal detoxification.\n\nAt a bare minimum, you should seriously consider trying the steps in Chapter 10 which address the sources of toxicity in your physical indoor environment. But as this book emphasizes, toxicity is a broad spectrum of pollution. It affects not only the body and our physical living space, but our emotions, mind, and energy field\u2014all the aspects of being human.\n\nSimilarly, toxicity in the home can affect it, as a living space, in all aspects, which in turn affects your experience of the space\u2014how it feels to be in it, what its energy is like. You will see that, remarkably, placing your bed in the wrong spot in your bedroom can be just as toxic to you as breathing the outgassed fumes from a new synthetic carpet. It poisons you on a different level.\n\nThe 70 Healthy Living Space Detoxifiers work from the more obvious physical aspects of our individual being and living environment into the more interior aspects (emotions and thoughts) and beyond this into the energy field in which our body and home reside. Ultimately, the _healthy_ living space is one that is healthy for consciousness, for our lives as awake, aware human beings living in a body that dwells in an indoor living space set in a living external environment.\n\nWe don't know what it feels like to be truly healthy; our great grandparents might have, but we don't. How much of our view of the world and ourselves is conditioned by being filled with toxic substances from our industrialized world? It's a question we can answer only from the inside, after we have detoxified and taken a fresh look around at things, at our body, home, and world-a prospect that might serve as an inducement to start detoxifying.\n\nDetoxification is not merely a medical issue, a route to better health. It isn't something to do only if you're \"into\" being healthy. Whether we are toxic or nontoxic defines every aspect of our physical existence, our feelings, thoughts, how our body works, how we see the world, how consciousness lives in matter. Toxicity deals with the foundations of our life, with how every cell, molecule, and organ functions, or dysfunctions. With how we think, or don't think; how we feel, or don't feel. With how our thinking and feeling are distorted or compromised or not fully available to us. A great deal is at stake.\n\nThe extent of toxicity in our environment today\u2014body, home, and world\u2013is shocking and distressing, but the situation is not hopeless. There is _much_ an individual person can do to reverse this, both at home and in the world. Individual actions and choices count; they have an impact globally. If you start detoxifying and change your consumer habits, this starts to send little shock waves through the marketplace. You start thinking, feeling, and acting differently; you no longer are conditioned or weighed down by toxicity, and you see your responsibility in the world in a new light, or perhaps for the first time. Life after detoxification can be refreshing, even liberating.\n\nHere is a brief survey of the ground we'll be covering in _The Healthy Living Space_ , a roadmap for the way to detoxification. The book is divided into three parts. Part one, \"The Health Perils of the Toxic Body and Home,\" discusses the nature of toxicity, defining a wide range of toxins from chemicals to energy influences (Chapter 1). It documents the injurious biological effect of toxins, their prevalence in the world, and how they compromise immunity and produce illness. The biochemical processes of detoxification (through the liver, kidneys, and intestines) are explained in Chapter 2, showing how you can work with your internal detoxification system.\n\nThe toxins discussed range from estrogen-mimicking industrial chemicals and irradiated and genetically modified foods to radon, stagnant life force energy, electromagnetic pollution, and harmful energies from the Earth itself, among many others. The book also explores the effects of two levels of toxins not ordinarily considered in this kind of discussion: unresolved emotional toxicity and auric toxicity, which means deleterious energies in the field surrounding the human body (the aura).\n\nPart two, \"Creating the Healthy _Body_ Living Space,\" addresses the safe, systematic detoxification of the body using natural remedies and alternative medicine practices. First, nineteen laboratory tests are outlined in Chapter 3, each of which provides essential (and low-cost) information about your specific level of toxicity and biochemical ability to withstand toxicity and disease.\n\nNext, in Chapter 4, we look at practices and lifestyle changes for internal cleansing, such as dietary modifications, the need for pure water, the avoidance of contaminated foods and beverages, and the benefits of short-term fasting, among others. It isn't all avoidance. There are some positive things to do, such as taking healing baths to reduce stress, using music to melt your tension, bouncing on a trampoline to move your lymph, or sitting in a sauna, as explained in chapters 4 and . These are the before and after aspects of detoxification, how to prepare for it, how to sustain the benefits.\n\nIn Chapter 5, you'll get detailed instructions on how to detoxify your liver, kidneys, lymphatic system, and intestines, and information on why you should regard your teeth (and what dentists have done to them) as potential sources of toxicity. Chapter 7 will tell you how to address and resolve that dental toxicity.\n\nTraumatic emotional experiences act as toxins when left unresolved in the system and have been shown by medical research to significantly contribute, to illness. So in Chapter 8, the effective role of flower remedies is discussed in conjunction with a leading practitioner. In a similar manner, unsuspected injurious energies and presences in the energy field, or aura, surrounding the human act as toxins, contributing to states of ill health and numerous physical and mental symptoms. In chapter 9, you'll find techniques for diagnosing and removing auric pollution, as well as a fascinating explanation of where it comes from.\n\nPart three, \"Creating the Healthy _Home_ Living Space,\" looks at the layers of toxicity in the typical indoor living environment, and how to remove them or minimize their negative health effects. Chapter 10 discusses what is called \"sick building syndrome,\" a field of research that documents the numerous ways in which structures and contents of a house or apartment contribute to ill health. The emerging discipline of Baubiologie (the \"biological, living house\") is detailed, along with its many practical tips on detoxifying the physical aspects of one's home. Some of the tips include the use of pollution-absorbing houseplants, negative ionization, nontoxic cleaning products, air filtration, and full spectrum lighting.\n\nBuilding on this, the book moves to the next level of household toxicity, the realm described by feng shui, the increasingly popular Chinese art of placement. The shapes of rooms, the orientation of a house, the placement of furniture in a room, and many other similar factors affect the flow of energy through the house. This flow, in turn, either supports or hinders the health of the occupants. In Chapter 11, feng shui experts provide numerous practical tips for improving energy flow and removing the places of stagnation or energy toxicity in the house that contribute to ill health.\n\nIn Chapter 12, we look at how harmful energies from the Earth itself or the land around the house can permeate your home and make you toxic. Such energies include aberrant electromagnetic fields, deriving from electrical power lines and\/or underground water currents.\n\n_The Healthy Living Space_ will show you how your body and home form a living system in constant interaction, feedback, and communication. Lasting health can be had when you consider both in the health equation and when you address the toxic burden of both at the same time. You live in two places: your body and your home. Both can be toxic, both can be healthy, but given the current state of the world, neither are likely to be healthy without your active participation. You already know what a toxic living space feels like; all of us in the Western industrialized part of the world know this today. But what might a detoxified living space feel like?\n\n# _Part One_\n\n# _The Health Perils of the Toxic Body and Home_\n\n# CHAPTER 1\n\n# _Toxicity and Illness: How Your Body and Home Became Toxic_\n\nIt is an unfortunate fact that most of us living in the industrialized world today are toxic. We have been poisoned by the chemicals in our environment, and our bodies have become a limited toxic waste dump, a contaminated landfill, a biohazard zone. This is not an exaggeration to make a point: _it is_ the point, and there is sufficient data now available to substantiate what might otherwise be viewed as a hysterical assertion.\n\nOur bodies are overfull of poisons, not the kind that immediately make you ill, but the slow-acting kind, the ones that sicken, and even kill, you over time. They have a cumulative effect such that the more you amass in your body and the older you get without removing them, the more likely it is they will interfere with your health. Allergies, frequent colds and flus, unexplained headaches and muscle cramps, immune system disorders, hyperactivity, attention deficit disorder, chronic fatigue, environmental illness, multiple chemical sensitivities, asthma, infertility, arthritis, Alzheimer's, multiple sclerosis, heart disease, cancer\u2014all can be attributed in large measure to unrelieved toxicity. Many more health conditions could be added to this list of toxin-generated discomfort and disease.\n\nIn fact, the spectrum of health effects ranges from chronic minor problems, such as allergies, to persistent major problems, degenerative disease, cancer, and shortened life span. The alarming fact is that there is a near certainty that right now both your body and your home are toxic. Your body is loaded with toxic substances, and your home and its furnishings, from carpets to cleaning agents, acts as a source for your continuous toxic exposure.\n\n**_They're called xenobiotics\u2014industrially produced foreign chemicals, synhetic organic chemicals that are not native to our natural environment, either within our bodies or in nature, hence the appropriate term, \"xeno.\" As foreign substances in our natural ecosystems, most xenobiotics confound the ability of nature orour bodies to get rid of them, or even to neutralize them_**.\n\n### 250 Chemical Contaminants in Every Human Body\n\nThey're called xenobiotics\u2014industrially produced foreign chemicals, synthetic organic chemicals that are not native to our natural environment, either within our bodies or in nature, hence the appropriate term, \"xeno.\" Think of plastics, pesticides, preservatives, aluminum, and thousands of other modern substances and products you take for granted, or don't even know about. That's where you'll find xenobiotics. They're in your foods and in your home. As foreign substances in our natural ecosystems, most xenobiotics confound the ability of nature or our bodies to get rid of them, or even to neutralize them.\n\nThough they may seem to make our world run more efficiently, their hidden cost is that they unfailingly make us sick. And this buildup of toxins in our external and bodily environment has been steadily expanding since about 1800 and the onset of the Industrial Revolution.\n\nXenobiotics do not observe national borders. It is not only Americans or Canadians who are growing steadily more toxic. Toxicity is global. \"Virtually anyone willing to put up the $2,000 for the tests will find at least 250 chemical contaminants in his or her body fat, regardless of whether he or she lives in Gary, Indiana, or on a remote island in the South Pacific.\"\n\nThis sweeping\u2014and alarming\u2014statement was made only a few years ago by Theo Colborn and her colleagues in _Our Stolen Future_ , a startling documentation of our toxic environment and its ramifications for worldwide health. Synthetic chemicals are everywhere and you cannot escape them, Colborn concludes. They are in the Arctic and Polynesia, the Swiss Alps and mother's milk. In just six months of breast-feeding, an infant in the United States or Europe gets \"the maximum recommended lifetime dose of dioxin,\" one of the world's most toxic substances, a byproduct of pesticides. This killer chemical \"rides through the food web\" from plants to animals to humans and can end up anywhere on the planet.\n\nIn fact, the Arctic, says Colborn, may be the most polluted environment on the planet in terms of its concentration of volatile persistent chemicals, such as PCBs, or polychlorinated biphenyls. Canadian researchers found that residents on a remote Arctic island had the highest observed levels of PCBs of any human population excepting those specifically exposed through an industrial accident. PCBs, created as coolants and insulators for electrical equipment, are world travelers, migrating through ecosystems and over great distances, lodging in the fat cells of all kinds of living organisms, Colborn observes.\n\nPersistent chemicals such as PCBs are characterized by \"extreme stability, volatility, and a particular affinity for fat.\" That means they persist, do not easily decay or biodegrade into nontoxic forms, are easily excited or activated and vaporized, and tend to lodge in fat cells of living biological organisms (such as humans) from which they are hard to remove. Because they lodge in fat cells, they are almost exempt from the body's natural detoxification system, which requires toxins to be water-soluble, and cannot easily deal with fat-soluble toxins.\n\nIntroduced in 1929, PCBs were banned in the United States in 1976, but by then an estimated 3.4 billion pounds of PCBs had been produced worldwide and released into the global environment. And they're still there, in the body fat of almost every living creature in the world, states Colborn. PCBs are only one class of _many_ synthetic organic chemicals produced and unleashed into the global environment during the period from 1900 to 2000, which in retrospect surely ought to be called the toxic century.\n\nOne name for this global family of industrial synthetic chemicals is POPs, persistent organic pollutants. These are carbonbased chemical compounds\u2014such as PCBs, DDT, chlordane, dieldrin, HCB, aldrin, dioxins\u2014that persist in the environment (resisting degradation), are semi-volatile (evaporating easily), and have a low water solubility (preferring fat cells). As POPs move up the food chain, from fish to human, their concentrations can increase by factors of thousands or even millions.\n\nHere's another rivetting example. You would think living mostly outdoors and close to nature in ultra-rural Greenland amidst vast amounts of snow and no industry would be a healthy lifestyle. The opposite is true. Researchers at a major hospital in Quebec City, Quebec, found that the Inuits of Greenland (a people native to the country) had the world's highest body burden of organochlorines (toxic chlorine-derived compounds) due to environmental exposure. The Inuits depend largely on sea mammal fat for their food supply; unfortunately, the sea mammals are intensely polluted with fat-loving POPs. The researchers found evidence of twenty-five different pesticides and POPs in the fatty tissues of the Inuits examined, and they found that the native Greenlanders had concentrations that were three to thirty-four times higher than found in a population in urban, industrialized Quebec City,\n\nAlthough neither Greenland nor the Arctic are still pristine, surely the rarefied peaks of high mountain ranges, such as the Swiss Alps must still be relatively toxin free. Not so, says Roland Psenner, a professor at Innsbruck University in Innsbruck, Austria. Ironically, the Alps act as a magnet for toxic pollutants in the atmosphere, Psenner reports. In lakes above the tree line (typically at 8,000 feet) the fish are contaminated with DDT applied in the tropics against malaria. \"We found that fish in the most contaminated lakes have 1,000 times more DDT than lower-lying lakes,\" Psenner states.\n\nHow can toxins used in the tropics end up on an alpine snow peak? Ecologists call it global distillation, to denote a kind of \"chemical nomadism.\" The subzero temperatures around peaks in the Alps cause atmospheric DDT, collected over Africa and India as evaporation, to humidify and fall as precipitation on the peaks. Chemicals used in Southeast Asian rice paddies vaporize and drift across the planet and condense on the bark of Arctic trees. Global distillation explains why \"the bodies of seals in Siberia's Lake Baikal\u2014the world's oldest and deepest lake\u2014contain the same two contaminants as the alpine soil of New Hampshire's Mount Moosilauke.\"\n\n\"There is no safe, uncontaminated place,\" Colborn concludes. Our body, home, neighborhood, state, nation, planet\u2014all have become toxic, an unhealthy living space. All are contaminated with numerous xenobiotics that are capable of making us sick, and are in the process of doing so.\n\nThe concept of global distillation gives us an image of the planet uniformly blanketed in poisons\u2014globally toxified. Organochlorines do not observe national boundaries; hydrocarbons do not stay put; pesticides hunger for the entire world. The use of a single toxic substance has planetary repercussions. When you spray dandelions in your front yard with a convenient pesticide dispenser you bought at the hardware store, you are potentially sending toxics to the far ends of the planet: You could be poisoning polar bears at the North Pole.\n\nBut once you _get_ the relationship between local and global toxics, you get something bigger, better. When you realize that your actions have global effects, you start thinking globally. It may be a shocking moment when you see the reciprocity, the mirroring, that exists between you and the planet\u2014both overflowing with toxins. You see that you and your home are embedded in the planet's own body, its life, which we call its ecosystem. The load of toxins you and the planet share is the negative aspect; the positive aspect is that your willingness to detoxify also has world consequences. You can start saving the polar bears from your garage. If you can't tolerate dandelions in your lawn, it is a global act to reach for the weeding spade instead of the herbicide.\n\nThe volume of toxic substances regularly added to the world environment is staggering to contemplate. In one year alone: 550 million pounds of industrial chemicals were dumped into public sewage; 1 billion pounds of chemicals were released into the ground; 188 million pounds of chemicals were discharged into surface waters; 2.4 billion pounds of particulates were sent into the air. The estimated total of toxic chemical pollutants released into the environment in one year (1989) was 5.7 billion pounds. \"That is enough to fill a line of semi-trailers parked bumper to bumper, and having a cargo capacity of 45,000 pounds each, stretching from downtown Los Angeles to Des Moines, Iowa.\"\n\nThe purpose of this chapter is not to scare, however, but to inform and motivate. It is necessary to fully grasp the _fact_ of toxicity and the degree to which it has permeated our environment, our bodies and home living spaces, not to mention the planet's ecosystem itself. It is vital to understand what unchecked toxicity is doing to our bodies and our world. But this alarming knowledge should become the _foundation_ upon which we build practical, effective steps to detoxify ourselves, to deliberately remove the myriad toxins from our bodies and homes, and eventually, from the world as well.\n\nWhen we start detoxifying, we inevitably become more aware\u2014grippingly so, usually\u2014of the state of the global body, our planetary living space. We see how it, too, is toxic. We become aware of what we're buying, using, consuming, ingesting, and, with shock, realize we have been steadily, if unknowingly, poisoning ourselves\u2014and the environment\u2014for years. As our consumer choices change, as our lifestyle puts a premium on health, and as our political priorities shift as a result, our personal commitment to detoxification starts to have global ramifications. But first, let's get a visceral sense of what being toxic feels like. Are we toxic and don't know it?\n\n## HEALTHY LIVING SPACE DETOXIFIER #1 Fill Out Your Toxicity Self-Assessment Questionnaire\n\nUnless we are obviously, uncomfortably sick, ill to the extent that we are conspicuously disabled, it seems unlikely\u2014even illogical\u2014to think we might be toxic. If I'm so toxic, why aren't all these terrible poisons making me really ill, laying me low with a serious health problem, we reason. While it may seem logical, the reasoning is flawed.\n\nThe truth is that we are all being slowly poisoned, because although the toxins are potent, we are rarely exposed to a lethal or even sublethal, but dangerous, dose. We are instead _routinely_ exposed to very small doses of many toxic chemicals, which together overwhelm our body's natural detoxification system. Notice the key words here: routinely, small doses, many. It's the _frequent_ exposure to _microdoses_ of _multiple_ toxic chemicals that sickens us slowly. Very few of us are seriously poisoned through a single toxic exposure to a large amount of one chemical.\n\nOver time, these many toxic chemicals to which we are routinely exposed in the _normal_ course of living sicken us, at first generating dozens of \"hidden\" symptoms, then creating serious debilitating illnesses that conventional medical analysis does not link to a lifetime of toxic exposure. The symptoms are \"hidden\" only because we are not trained to look for them. Once you know what they are, toxicity becomes fairly easy to spot. Various laboratory tests, detailed in Chapter 3, can confirm presumed toxicity and document its extent and nature. It may seem overwhelming to open this Pandora's box, but the guidelines presented throughout the rest of the book will show you how to deal with this toxicity effectively on your own.\n\nYou don't have to be a physician to deal with detoxification; in fact, don't expect your doctor necessarily to be on the same page as you once you wake up to the toxicity factor. Conventional doctors are still resistant to this concept and are often not even especially well educated in its intricacies and seemingly indirect causal links. On the other hand, practitioners of alternative medicine, who base diagnosis on a careful observation of the whole person, on all the body's systems and their interactions, are much more likely to credit unrelieved systemic toxicity as a prime contributing factor in numerous health conditions.\n\n**_Practitioners of altematiue medicine, who base diagnosis on a careful observation of the whole person, on all the body's systems and their interactions, are much more likely to credit unrelieved systemic toxicity as a prime contributing factor in numerous health conditions._**\n\n\"Most people who think they are tired are actually toxic,\" observes Sherry Rogers, M.D., a physician based in Syracuse, New York, who for several decades has been an outspoken and well-informed advocate of the systemic toxicity hypothesis of illness. An alarming number of people, says Dr. Rogers, are \"not functioning with all oars in the water.\"\n\nThey pass their annual physicals yet cannot deny they feel \"dreadful\" a fair amount of the time. They have lots of vague symptoms and never feel quite well, but it's not enough to constitute a diagnostic category, so they're dismissed as hypochondriacs. They do not wake up energized and vivacious in the morning. They rely on stimulants or relaxants to suppress the strange, persistent signals coming from their body, as if the body, in its own baffling language, is _insisting_ that something is not quite right.\n\n\"Because environmental illnesses are apparently characterized by patterns of multiple symptoms in many parts of the body, including the central nervous system, it is understandable that such patients have often received diagnoses of neurasthenia, hysteria, somatization disorder, and various other psychosomatic disorders,\" explains Iris Bell, M.D., a psychiatrist at the University of California-San Francisco School of Medicine, and author of _Clinical Ecology: A New Approach to Environmental Illness?_ 8\n\nBut there is no such thing as a hypochondriac, asserts Dr. Rogers. When a doctor fails to understand that the clinical picture presented by a patient with multiple, vague, or ill-defined symptoms adds up to systemic toxicity, it teaches the patient to ignore or tune out the various body symptoms until they become much worse, unbearable, or even dangerous, says Dr. Rogers. Yet these same persistent, wide-ranging, \"soft, subtle symptoms\" have a biological function: they're meant to serve as \"early warnings of worse symptoms to come if we ignore or mask (cover them up) them with medications.\"\n\nConsider then how many of the following soft, subtle symptoms you have experienced in the last thirty to sixty days, listed according to the particular body system or organ involved. If you get any of these symptoms at a rate between occasionally and frequently, it will be worth your while to start thinking about your health in terms of possible toxicity:\n\n  * _Brain_ : Headaches, faintness, dizziness, insomnia.\n  * _Digestive Tract_ : Nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, constipation, indigestion, bad breath, bloated after eating, belching, passing gas, heartburn, intestinal or stomach pain, unusually smelly stools, offensive smelling urine.\n  * _Eyes_ : Itchy, bloodshot, or watery eyes, swollen, reddened, or sticky eyelids, dark circles or bags under the eyes, blurred or tunnel vision, poor night vision, inflamed or swollen eyelids.\n  * _Muscles and Joints_ : Aches and pains in the joints, arthritis, stiffness, movement limitations, muscle aches and pains, sense of weakness or tiredness, tight or stiff neck, backaches, joints sore upon waking, joint pain after minor exertion or after eating certain foods, numbness or tingling.\n  * _Ears_ : Itchiness, infections or aches, drainage, ringing, hearing loss.\n  * _Nose_ : Sinus congestion, stuffmess, hay fever, sneezing attacks, unusual amount of mucus, runny nose.\n  * _Weight_ : Overweight, underweight, anorexia, food cravings, compulsive or binge eating, water retention.\n  * _Mouth and Throat_ : Persistent coughing; frequent need to clear the throat; sore throat; hoarseness; voice loss; discoloration or swelling in tongue, lips, and gums; canker sores; swollen lymph glands; diminished sense of taste; tongue with a grayish-white, yellow, or thick film; or tongue that is shiny, swollen, or shrunken.\n  * _Skin_ : Acne; dry skin; scaly skin; boils; rashes; hives; hair loss; flushing; unusual amount of perspiration; bruise easily; slow or incomplete wound healing; pale, sallow, greyish, or slightly yellow skin color; loose or flabby skin; skin with a sharp, sour odor; facial blemishes; too many wrinkles or too much skin sagging for your age.\n  * _Heart_ : Irregular, rapid, missed, or pounding heartbeat; circulatory deficits; angina pectoris or other forms of chest pain.\n  * _Lungs_ : Shortness of breath, chest congestion, asthma, bronchitis, wheezing.\n  * _Mind_ : Memory deficits, confusion, poor comprehension, difficulty concentrating, learning disabilities, slurred speech, stuttering, stammering, indecisiveness, mental fogginess, unusually slow or fuzzy mental processes.\n  * _Energy Level_ : Fatigue (persistent or extreme), sluggish feeling, apathy or lethargy, hyperactivity, restlessness, sleepiness, exhausted after ordinary activities, tired after a long night's sleep, feeling hung-over without having consumed alcohol.\n  * _Emotions_ : Sudden, uncontrollable mood swings, unaccountable anger, irritability, aggressiveness, nervousness, fear, anxiety, or depression, persistent negativity in outlook.\n  * _Other Problems_ : Frequent or urgent urination; frequent colds, flus, and other short-term illnesses; a generalized itchiness; pronounced environmental sensitivity (unpleasant reaction to substances around you); unrelieved, intense allergies; immune weakness; unaccountable fever or chills; strange mucus discharges from eyes, ears, nose, and\/or throat; general feeling of congestion, even long after a cold or flu is over; tendency to get a cold or flu when the seasons change.\n\nYou can also assess your possible toxicity level by evaluating your lifestyle for evidence of certain traits or behaviors known to lead to toxicity:\n\n  * _Medical Care_ : Do you have a history of antibiotic use? Do you frequently or continuously use prescription medicines? Take pain-killers and\/or anti-inflammatory drugs such as aspirin, cortisone, and ibuprofen? Do you rely on allergy shots to get through allergy season? Do you have a dozen or more mercury-silver amalgam dental fillings? Several root-canalled teeth?\n  * _Dietary_ : Do you drink more than two strong cups of caffeinated coffee per day? More than one glass of wine, beer, or spirits per day? Smoke cigarettes or get routinely exposed to secondhand tobacco smoke? Consume very little fresh fruits and vegetables or whole grains? Eat a lot of fried, fast, junk, or processed foods? Depend on sugary, high-fat, high-calorie foods? Eat irradiated foods?\n  * _Environment_ : Do you work or live in a brand new facility with poor indoor air circulation and windows that do not open? Are you exposed to new synthetic carpets or wood products that contain formaldehyde? Do you routinely apply garden pesticides or indoor insect fumigants? Do you work or live under conventional fluorescent lights? Do you drink chlorinated, fluoridated water? Do you live or work near high-tension electrical utility poles?\n\nIf any of these lifestyle practices (among the many that could be listed and which are discussed later in the book) characterize your situation, this may indicate that you are toxic to some degree. What kinds of effects can unchecked chronic toxicity have on us? That's the next subject we need to examine.\n\n### How Unrelieved Toxicity Can Compromise Your Health\n\nThe shocking fact is that toxicity may already be interfering with the health of millions. A University of California study in 1996 reported that an estimated 100 million Americans have a chronic illness or disability. Of this vast number, only a few (1.5 million) were sufficiently sick to require treatment in a nursing home or personal care facility. That means the other 98.5 million were among those \"not functioning with all oars in the water,\" as Dr. Rogers pithily commented above. They are in the world, per haps working, perhaps taking a lot of time off, not well, but not acutely sick either, suffering from a condition that does not get better or heal, but which persists and gradually worsens-the definition of chronic.\n\nThe study further documented that the 100 million chronically ill\u2014this is more than one-third of the U.S. population\u2014took eighty-three percent of the prescriptions written and comprised eighty percent of the hospitalizations recommended, sixty-six percent of consultations with doctors, fifty-five percent of emergency room calls, and ninety-six percent of professional home care. It's not just elderly men and women who have chronic illnesses. The study demonstrated that twenty-five percent of men and women under eighteen have at least one chronic health complaint, while thirty-three percent of those between eighteen and forty-four and sixty-six percent of those between Iorty-five and sixty-four have a chronic condition. In other words, the elderly account for only about one-quarter of the number of people with chronic health conditions, while the non-elderly (those aged eighteen to sixty-four and presumed to be in the prime of their lives) represent sixty percent of the cases.\n\nWhen you say chronic illness, you might as well say chronic toxicity. The links between the two are becoming increasingly obvious and empirically documented in the field of alternative medicine where this kind of etiology is understood and expected. One of the prime long-term results of unrelieved toxicity is the formation of a debilitating or degenerative condition. Not only is the link between chronic exposure to toxic substances and the incidence of chronic and degenerative disease becoming ever more evident, but in many respects the typical symptom picture for these illnesses match the list of symptoms associated with chronic toxicity. Perhaps there is only one disease, at the root of all others, and that disease is toxicity.\n\nFor instance, some alternative medicine physicians now speak in terms of \"toxic triggers\" for common and serious health problems. Along these lines: Alzheimer's can be triggered by aluminum, lead, and pesticides; allergies by formaldehyde and various common foods; anemia by lead poisoning and alcohol consumption; arthritis by allergenic foods; asthma by lead, milk products, allergenic foods (foods that produce allergic reactions), and exposure to mildew; autoimmune disease by mercury and silicone breast implants; cancer by pesticides, radiation, and low-frequency electromagnetic fields; cataracts by steroids and industrial pollutants; fibromyalgia (chronic muscle pain) by pesticides; headaches by mercury and allergenic foods; hypertension by lead, cadmium, and mercury; Parkinson's by pesticides and tobacco smoke.\n\nFurther, in a well-regarded book on cancer and alternative medicine treatments, of the thirty-three documented contributing causes to all cancers listed by the two physician authors, about half were directly related to toxicity.\n\nMany toxic substances are more than toxic; they are carcinogens, capable of starting a cancer process in a human body.\n\nThe term carcinogen is an important one in any discussion of toxicity. A carcinogen is something you should avoid whenever possible. Due to the ubiquity of toxic substances in our contemporary environment, you will probably never succeed in avoiding exposure to all carcinogens; your goal should be rigorous minimization of your contact. A fair number of carcinogens have been studied and characterized by health authorities, including the U.S. government, but a larger number remain unstudied and at large in the environment.\n\nAs part of the National Toxicology Program, the Environmental Health Information Service (EHIS, part of the United States Department of Health and Human Services) pub lished \"Substance Profiles\" for forty-one \"agents, substances, mixtures, or exposure circwnstances known to be human car cinogens\" in their _9th Report on Carcinogens, 2000._ On this list you will find aflatoxins, asbestos, benzene, dyes, environmental tobacco smoke, radon, tamoxifen, vinyl chloride, and other substances you may have heard of. The EHIS also profiled 146 substances (or categories of substances) \"reasonably anticipated\" to be carcinogenic. Among these poisons you will find chloroform, diesel exhaust particles, formaldehyde, urethane, and a great number of other unfamiliar agents with long, chemical names.\n\nThat's 187 chemical substances you should avoid, which is not as easy as it sounds, because these agents and mixtures are used throughout the industrial world in thousands of products. And 187 toxic substances represent only a fraction of the poisons out there\u2014what about the hundreds that remain unstudied, not yet officially tagged as carcinogens?\n\nIt's estimated that eighty percent (or 48,000) of the 60,000 industrial chemicals in use have been untested for their carcinogenicity, or their ability to damage the immune or central nervous system (CNS). As a variation on this statistic, another report says only ten percent of 70,000 commercially used chemicals have been tested for their toxic effects on the nervous system. Further, at least 50,000 deaths per year are due to toxic exposures in the workplace, while another 350,000 new cases of illness occur as a result of workplace-related exposures every year.\n\nThese deaths and illnesses include lung cancers from asbestos; bladder cancer from dye exposure; leukemia and lymphoma in workers exposed to benzene and ionizing radiation; chronic bronchitis from dust exposure; numerous CNS disorders from exposure to pesticides and solvents; and cardiovascular disease from carbon monoxide exposure. Bear in mind, these are conservative figures, based on 1992 data, so you can safely assume the numbers are now higher.\n\nYou can make the case for the health-damaging effects of long-term unchecked toxicity by looking at the change in morbidity (disease prevalence) and mortality statistics since 1980. Between 1980 and 1992, the United States death rate due to infectious diseases increased by fifty-eight percent. A fair amount of this was due to AiDS-related deaths, but there was also a measured increase in the death rate from respiratory infections (up twenty percent) and from blood poisoning (septicemia, up eighty-three percent); and mortality from infections increased by twenty-five percent among the elderly (sixty-five and older). In 1980, death by infectious disease was not even in the list of the top four killers, but by 1992, it had become number three. Why?\n\nConventional doctors point to the failure of standard antibiotics to kill the old germs, now known as antibiotic-resistant microbes. Perhaps. But the more astute medical researchers are pointing to sustained damage to the human immune system due to our constant exposure to toxic chemicals. For example, cases of asthma increased by fifty-eight percent between 1970 and 1992, a trend that led the National Academy of Sciences to state that the various known common air pollutants (nitrogen dioxide and ozone) \"interact with allergens to increase the frequency and severity of asthma attacks.\"\n\nIn other words, pollutants plus a predisposition to allergenicity equals more asthma. Once you damage or compromise the function of the immune system, you become vulnerable to more illness, more infectious disease. When the immune system is damaged by chemical exposure, this can result in heightened allergic reactions to specific or, in many cases, to any chemicals.\n\nThe more pronounced chronic illnesses, such as chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS), environmental illness (El), and multiple chemical sensitivities (MCS), point acutely, even dramatically, to the way unrelieved toxicity can generate a host of unpleasant, debilitating, _seemingly_ unrelated symptoms sufficient to seriously incapacitate a person. But the symptoms _are_ related: they are the \"fruit\" of unchecked toxicity. But this is, without qualification, poisoned fruit.\n\nOf these three major conditions, EI and MCS tend to be ignored, denied, misdiagnosed, or willfully marginalized by conventional physicians. At the same time, worldwide membership in MCS support groups increases at an average of 132% per year, while a 1995 survey by the Chemical Injury Information Network of White Sulpher Springs, Montana, revealed that MCS is reported (by patients) as a health problem in 36 countries, including France, South Africa, Brazil, and Croatia.\n\nOne recent study showed that sixty-seven percent of patients diagnosed with CFS and fibromyalgia (chronic muscle pain) also had MCS; while medical professionals estimate 0.5% to 1% of the total population suffers from MCS, MCS support groups place that figure higher, at 10% to 15%. Among the top three chemical offenders most commonly listed in MCS cases are pesticides, formaldehyde, and solvents. (For more on MCS, see Chapter 10.)\n\nConsider the typical or composite symptom list for a person suffering from environmental illness (EI). The symptoms run the gamut of neurologic, immunologic, respiratory, endocrine, cardiovascular, and genitourinary dysfunction. EI symptomatology is staggering (see figure 1-1).\n\nIt doesn't take too much imagination to see that the symptom picture of EI (or CFS, MCS, or even, to some extent, fibromyalgia) is highly similar to the standard list for toxicity symptoms. The symptom lists for chronic fatigue, multiple chemical sensitivities, and fibromyalgia are also suggestively similar. In these intensely debilitating conditions, you can see the body-wide effects of unchecked toxicity.\n\n**Figure 1-1. The Staggering List of Symptoms for Environmental Illness**\n\nThe body's natural detoxification systems\u2014liver, kidneys, intestines, and lymph and immune system\u2014are ouerwhelmed by the toxic load. They are so swamped by the poisons they can barely function and the body falls apart, system by system, leaving the person vulnerable and reactive to nearly everything. For good reason, the popular press has dubbed environmental illness \"20th century disease,\" and characterized its sufferers as being \"allergic to the 20th century.\"\n\n**_The body's natural detoxification systems\u2014liver, kidneys, intestines, and lymph and immune system\u2014are overwhelmed by the toxic load. They are so swamped by the poisons they can barely function and the body falls apart, system by system, leaving the person vulnerabie and reactive to nearly everything._**\n\n### Being Slowly Poisoned Throughout a Lifetime\n\nSome people are so toxic they are \"an entire organic chemistry lab\" in themselves, says William J. Rea, M.D., president of the Environmental Health Center in Dallas, Texas, which he founded in 1974 as a facility to detoxify patients of chemical toxicity. Like Dr. Rogers, Dr. Rea is one of the leading medical authorities in forwarding this new understanding of systemic toxicity and its relationship to chronic illness.\n\nEarly on, Dr. Rea's research showed that our industrial chemical pharmacy is evident even in the newborn. When he analyzed the blood of new mothers, and the chemical composition of the umbilical cord blood of their infants, he found numerous chemicals present in both, including toxins such as acetone, benzene, styrene, carbon tetrachloride, and methopropylketone. Often the levels were higher in the babies than in their mothers, suggesting \"bioconcentration in the newborn.\"\n\nIn another study, Rea tested the blood levels of pesticides in 200 chemically sensitive patients. Among the highest concentrations of chemicals, Rea found DDT and DDE in sixty-two percent of the samples, Hexachlorobenzene in fifty-seven percent, Heptachlor epoxide in fifty-four percent, Beta-BHC in thirty-four percent, and Endosulfan 1 in twenty-four percent. In another study of volatile organic chemicals in 114 patients, Rea found tetrachloroethylene in eighty-three percent, toluene in sixty-three percent, xylene in fifty-nine percent, and six other major chemicals in a range of twenty-two to fifty percent of patients tested. Rea next tested for aliphatic hydrocarbon solvents (found in glue, cement, adhesives, paint thinner, plastics, gasoline) in eighty-five chemically sensitive patients. He also discovered seventy-two patients had detectable blood levels of solvents, and eighty-five percent had at least three solvents present.\n\nIn a different test of 200 patients Rea found that ninety-nine percent had residues at or above 0.05 parts per billion of chlorinated hydrocarbon pesticides, while the mean was 3.4 pesticides per patient. \"These data suggest that chlorinated hydrocarbon pesticides are extremely common in the patient population investigated ... (any) of which may be capable of inducing a variety of biochemical changes at low levels.\"\n\nNot only can multiple toxic chemicals present in the body produce numerous physiologically based symptoms, they can also generate many of the symptoms normally associated with \"mental illness.\" In a clinical study of forty-two subjects under a month's treatment for hypersensitivities and allergies, Rea found that a variety of psychological states\u2014depression, mental blankness, anger, a sense of physical detachment, anxiety, psychotic behavior, emotional disruption, fatigue, and concentration deficits\u2014have been linked to allergic exposures to chemical substances, fumes, and industrial products.\n\nHe also proved the case in reverse. When these chemically toxic patients were detoxified, they showed \"a significant measure of relief from such states as depression, alienation, suspiciousness, and misspent emotional\/physical energy, and an increase in effortful cognitive processing.\" They also had \"substantial gains in essentially all spheres of activity.\" Depression is one of the cardinal signs of an adverse reaction to environmental toxins, Rea stated.\n\nSometimes it's easier to understand how long-term, low-dose toxicity works and what effects it has on the body by considering what happens when a person has an acute reaction to a larger than typical exposure to common toxic elements such as paint or drycleaning materials. Study a case of pronounced, short-term clinical toxicity and you'll see a condensed version of what it's like to be slowly poisoned throughout a lifetime. It's the slowness that makes us often miss the body's indications that a toxic state exists.\n\n\"Most persons 'enjoy' good health, and have a tendency to dismiss 'minor' symptoms, attributing them to a 'cold,' the 'flu,' or some temporary inconvenience,\" observes Janette D. Sherman, M.D., a physician based in Alexandria, Virginia, who specializes in toxicology. Because of this masking and misinter-pretation of body symptoms, illness gets established and is often far advanced before a person typically seeks medical help.\n\nMost people, says Dr. Sherman, ignore the early symptoms\u2014a change in bowel, sexual, or bladder function; shortness of breath during mild exercise; confusion and memory loss\u2014but when their inconvenient symptoms become too significant to discount, _then_ they seek a physician. If they're lucky, they might find one who understands the links between toxicity and symptoms. Here are some cases from Dr. Sherman's practice that illustrate these links:\n\n  * **Case: Toxicity from Paint Exposure.** A man worked in the paint industry as a mixer for almost thirty years. He routinely handled heavy leaky bags of pigments and was exposed to ure thane acid and vinyl paints; he also handled various toxic chemicals such as toluene, benzene, and others, and said his shoes and socks were often soaked from having absorbed the floor spills of these chemicals. When he was fifty-two, he reported chest pain and soon after developed cancer. In the next three years, he became so short of breath he had to use an oxygen mask when he slept. By the time he was fifty-five, he was \"permanently and totally disabled,\" says Dr. Sherman. Thirty years of daily toxic exposure had nearly killed him, and what life was left him he would spend as a cripple.\n  * **Case: Toxicity from Dry-Cleaning Solvent Exposure.** A teenager worked in a dry-cleaning shop. One day she had to mop up some thirty gallons of dry-cleaning solvent that had leaked all over the floor. Two days later she was in the hospital, complaining of headache, shortness of breath, and dizziness. Five days after this, she was back in the emergency room reporting chills, fever, and nausea. A year later, she was still having headaches, as well as vision problems, memory deficits, and a lack of interest in socializing. An examination revealed other neurological problems, including lack of muscle coordination, emotional disturbances, and mental deterioration. She was so sick that at eighteen, she was unable to remain in school. Her exposure to the dry-cleaning solvent\u2014most likely 1, 1, 1-trichloroethane, says Dr. Sherman\u2014produced \"undoubtedly irreversible\" brain damage.\n  * **Case: Toxicity from Coffee Filter Exposure.** This case involved a man who worked in a factory that made paper coffee filters. One day he went to his doctor complaining of headaches over his right eye and ghost images; he said he'd been suffering daily with the ghost images for six months, but from the headaches for two years. Various clinical tests (X-rays, CAT scans, and others) were performed, but the results came back normal. Over the next few years, as his symptoms did not abate, the man was put on a roster of different drugs, and received more tests and procedures. After five years of headaches, by then age forty-five, he was no better, and he was given even stronger drugs. Within the next year, he sustained three heart attacks and was sicker than ever.\n\nThis unfortunate man became \"a walking pharmacopoeia and suffered an irreversible side effect from his medication, while the _cause_ of his illness went unquestioned and unrecognized,\" comments Dr. Sherman. The medical mystery of this man's case was that no doctor had thought to ask him about his work history and possible exposure to toxic substances. Instead, they chased after his symptoms with various medical \"magic bullets,\" failing to help him because they never understood the cause of his sickness. It turned out the coffee filters were permeated with a resin containing formaldehyde, the vapors of which were released in the process. The man inhaled this gas every day. Formaldehyde is a well-known and widely documented toxic substance, capable of producing a great number of symptoms.\n\n  * **Case: Toxic Effects on the Central Nervous System**. A healthy, vigorous woman, sixty-eight, worked part-time doing lawn maintenance, a seemingly innocuous employment: One day she mowed the lawn, raked the clippings, and bagged them, as she usually did. About ten days later, she had a persistent headache and a prickly sensation in her legs. Two weeks later, her legs had become so weak she couldn't climb the stairs in her house, and she tended to lose her balance and fall backwards. Two months after the original incident, she was unable to work at all. She was experiencing intense pain and numbness in her legs and had a chronic rash on her upper torso. A clinical evaluation showed she had an acute case of nerve toxicity.\n\nIt turned out the lawn she had been maintaining had been sprayed with herbicides to kill the weeds. The specific chemicals in the pesticide formula have been linked with neurotoxicity, cancer, skin disorders, and birth defects. In mowing, raking, and bagging the grass clippings, the woman inhaled a strong dose of these killer chemicals.\n\n  * **Case: Toxic Effects on the Respiratory System.** A man, aged thirty-three, was in good health and physically fit. One weekend a pesticide was sprayed inside the office building where he worked, but during its application, the ventilation system was not running, which meant the pesticide fumes remained inside the building. When he reported to work on Monday, the man detected an offensive odor in the building, and soon noticed dizziness and burning sensation in his chest. He began to feel listless. In a few days, he ended up in the hospital with a respiratory infection and remained there for almost two weeks. Nine months later, the office building was sprayed again. This time, within three hours of being exposed to its indoor air, the man developed cold symptoms; a few days later at work, he got nausea and chills, then fainted. He lost six weeks of work from a chest obstruction; when he returned to work, he got sick immediately, with the same symptoms.\n\nHis was a case of acute pesticide toxicity, says Dr. Sherman. The specific pesticide used (a semisynthetic pyrethroid mixed with aromatic hydrocarbons) is known to be an allergenic chemical. It is also known that once you are exposed to it and manifest allergic symptoms, the next time it will take a much smaller dose to produce the same, or worse, reaction. You may also start reacting to products chemically similar to the original offending substance.\n\nThese cases represent a problem of increasing prevalence, says Dr. Sherman; she calls it \"chemical assault.\" A healthy, previously nonreactive person is exposed to a toxic pesticide or other chemical agent without his or her knowledge or consent, and sickens immediately. Worse, a previous ability to tolerate some degree of toxic exposure is now removed. Once the chemical sensitivity has been induced, the person becomes \"symptomatic after exposure to levels of agents that previously would not have bothered him.\" The chemical assaults are often not minor or temporary, Dr. Sherman adds. They can result in \"lifelong adverse effects.\"\n\nThe discerning reader may query: But most of us are never exposed to such high or prolonged doses, so how can this be relevant? These cases of acute toxicity are a kind of time-lapse photograph of the toxic process. It's true, their effects are exaggerated in terms of what most people are likely to experience, but the symptoms and consequences are right on point for what unrelieved toxicity will eventually produce in anyone over a lifetime, or sooner. These people were sickened fairly quickly and noticeably; the rest of us just have weaker doses of the same poisons, so we will grow ill more slowly. But the life-long adverse effects and induced chemical sensitivity are still the outcome, and they are what we must contend with as a result of merely living in the industrialized world today.\n\n## _HEALTHY LIVING SPACE DETOXIFIER #2 Maintain a Household Toxic Exposure Inventory_\n\nThe life of the typical North American routinely exposes one to a stunning variety of toxic substances (in the guise of familiar, presumed \"safe\" consumer products) that can slowly poison us. But we assume their safety at our peril. Among the familiar consumer products that we must now regard as potentially toxic are: solvents for cleaning carpets, furniture, and clothing; caustic cleaning agents for the bathroom and kitchen; household or garden pesticides; aerosol spray cans (they can leak other chemicals besides the intended ones, such as the chemicals used to pressurize the cans); cosmetics (hair sprays, dyes, shampoos, nail polish); detergent soaps; and plastic food and prescription drug containers.\n\nConsider the matter of household pesticides. It is estimated that eighty percent of U.S. homes have an average of three to four pesticide products in use, such as pest strips, bug bombs, bait boxes, flea collars, pesticidal pet shampoos, and others. It is further estimated that about 70 million U.S. households perform 4 billion pesticide applications per year\u2014in other words, putting on a new flea collar, applying anti-cockroach material, or spraying bugs directly. This averages out to fifty-seven pesticide applications annually per household.\n\nSeen from a different angle, the non-agricultural use of pesticides is burgeoning and, with it, the release of ever more toxic substances into the environment and human body. The global market for home and garden pesticides is worth $7 billion annually, and is growing by four percent a year, with U.S. householders accounting for forty percent of the market for household pesticides. To get the full picture, you have to add to this staggering data the amount of pesticides used as \"turf care,\" for lawns and golf courses. In 1999, for example, 125 new golf courses were created in Europe and 40 in Japan; Japanese golf courses now account for about 33% of all commercially applied non-agricultural pesticides in the world.\n\nThe United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) reports that about thirty-nine percent of households use insecticides because bugs are a major problem, but thirty-seven percent of households use them even when there is no major infestation other than perhaps a few ants strolling through the kitchen. There are lots of consumer choices when it comes to household pesticides: about 20,000 different pesticide products for the homeowner, bearing 300 active ingredients and 1,700 inert ingredients (these are not listed on the labels nor are they regulated). Are the inert ingredients worth worrying about? Yes, according to the EPA, which stated in 1991 that 300 inert ingredients were \"generally recognized as safe,\" 68 were \"potentially toxic,\" 56 were definitely toxic, and as to the possible toxicity of another 1,300, they didn't know.\n\nGiven the fact that the majority of conventional physicians still do not recognize\u2014or understand, perhaps\u2014the link between toxic exposure and symptom manifestation, Dr. Sherman recommends that individuals keep a log of their toxic exposures. In effect, she says, pretend you are an industrial worker in your own home and wherever you go, and maintain a daily inventory of toxic substances you are exposed to, including all household items (as indicated in the partial list cited above) with which you are routinely in contact. Dr. Sherman calls it a Consumer Product Use Record.\n\nHere's how to do it. In one column, record the name of the product, including its manufacturer; for example, dog flea powder, irethane pillows, hair spray, carbon paper. In the middle column, record the date you used it. If you can't remember the day and month, at least record the year. In the third column, on the right, keep a log of any symptoms observed as a result of using the product.\n\nFor example, under oven cleaner, which you use monthly, you might be recording coughing in user and wheezing in young child who observed the oven cleaning; or for vinyl paint to which you were exposed ten years ago, you remember you got skin and eye redness soon after using the product; or after using carbon paper over a period of four years as part of a job, you developed itching on your face and hands; or the diarrhea and wheezing that came on after you used that insect spray.\n\nAs you gain in knowledge regarding the great number of potentially toxic substances, you will find yourself adding more items to your list, such as prepared foods, nonorganic foods (ones produced with synthetic fertilizers and sprayed with pesticides), synthetic clothing, furniture, fluorescent lights (non-full-spectrum)\u2014indeed, _many_ things you always took for granted to be harmless.\n\nThe inventory of toxic exposures should include substances you are exposed to on the job as well as in your home, or in any public facility you might visit. There are several benefits to this simple task. First, as you record your own reactions to familiar products you realize how slow-acting, low-dose poisons actually affect your system. Your cough, headache, mild little skin rash\u2014suddenly they have a traceable cause. Second, if you develop anomalous symptoms (such as allergies, headaches, rashes, aches and pains) for which your conventional doctor cannot find a satisfactory cause, you can present this list as evidence of prolonged, low-dose toxic exposure.\n\nThird, as you maintain the list on a daily basis, you become more _aware_ of the consumer products with which you surround yourself, and you begin to realize that maybe some substitutions with less toxic products might be a good idea. You begin to gradually lessen your exposure to toxic substances. This is a very important element of detoxification: reduce your exposure, and minimize your toxic dose.\n\nFourth, you become a more discerning, ecologically sensitive, \"green\" consumer, less easily swayed by the claims of advertising and custom. Convenience often has a toxic price\u2014your health. Green always has a consumer benefit\u2014your health. \"A bland acceptance of advertising and failure to appreciate the ramifications of chemical manufacture, use, and disposal allow unecological and unhealthy practices to be promoted and to flourish without critical assessment,\" comments Dr. Sherman.\n\n### How Toxic Is Our Living Space, Both Body and World?\n\nThe answer is straightforward: intensely toxic. In 1986, the Environmental Protection Agency gave the scientific world a preliminary glimpse at the degree to which xenobiotics had infiltrated the tissues of most Americans. As part of their National Human Adipose Tissue Survey launched in 1976, EPA studied human tissue samples for residues of fifty-four different environmental chemical toxins, or xenobiotics.\n\nThey found that 5 of these were present in 100% of the samples, 9 ranged between 91% and 98% percent of samples, and 6 were present in between 76% and 89% of samples. Not only were a wide range of industrial chemicals present in human tissue, but their concentrations in those tissue cells were high, sufficient to give every person a total toxic burden of between 57.4 to 6,350ng (ng = 1 nanogram) of toxins per gram of fat. Benzene, a widely used industrial solvent, was present in ninety-six percent of samples; toluene, a chemical used widely in industrial processes, was found in ninety-one percent of sampl es; PCBs in eighty-three percent. In total, twenty different toxic compounds were detected in seventy-six percent of human tissue cells tested. Further, seventy-six percent of the people tested carried 25,704ng of total toxic compounds per gram of fat.\n\nAnother U.S. government study from the late 1980s examined 5,994 people aged 12-74 for toxic residues and found that 99.5% had blood levels of p, p-DDE (derived from a pesticide) equal to or greater than 1 part per billion (ppb), with a range of 1 ppb to 379 ppb. Autopsies of deceased elderly Texas residents showed traces of five pesticides or pesticide breakdown products in 100% of the tissue samples studied. Another study of Michigan school children aged four showed that seventy percent had residues of DDT, fifty percent of PCBs, and twenty-one percent of PBBs. \"These ongoing assessments have shown quite clearly it is not a question of if we are carrying a burden of toxic xenobiotic compounds; it is a question of how much and how they affect our health.\n\nOften contamination comes from common, everyday products we take most for granted, such as cosmetics, solvents, detergents, plastics, lubricating oils, and wood finichses. Scientists at the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) and Prevention's National Center for Environmental Health examined urine samples of 289 adults, aged 20-60 years, for traces of metabolites of seven toxic substances called phthalates. This chemical family represents yet another toxic substance commonly contaminating humans at this time.\n\nThese are chemicals commonly used in the products mentioned above (although mainly as plasticizers in PVC products); as a result, they are described as \"ubiquitous industrial chemicals\" with \"multiple exposure routes\" for humans, according to the scientists at CDC. Humans may be exposed to these chemicals orally, through the skin, through breathing, or intravenously. When these substances are broken down in the body, their presence can be traced by way of their metabolites, the new chemical form in which they exist and can exert toxic effects inside the body.\n\nAll seven of the phthalates have a wide range of chemical and toxic characteristics, the CDC scientists noted. They are suspected to be cancer-causing and they are associated with reproductive disorders based on animal studies. Not only were all the test subjects found to be contaminated with residues of these chemical substances, but the levels detected of each of the seven were high. The highest levels of exposure were to diethyl phthalate, dibutyl phthalate, and benzyl butyl phthalate, ranging from 137 to 3,750 parts per billion.\n\nMore troubling still was the discovery that women of childbearing age (20-40) had \"significantly higher levels\" of monobutyl phthalate, known to be a reproductive toxicant to laboratory rodents. The levels of this chemical in women of this age were higher than in any other age or gender group. Further, most of the highest exposure levels to monobutyl phthalate were found in women of the twenty to forty age group, portending possible future damage to their reproductive capacities.\n\nThe release of toxic chemicals into the world environment has certainly not abated since the 1980s. So we can reasonably expect the general level of toxicity, in terms of toxic compound residues detectable in human fat cells, to be most likely higher today. In many respects, our bodies and the planet's ecosystem have been forced to deal with many toxic substances not formerly present in either context.\n\nThousands of new, synthesized organic chemicals\u2014hydrocarbons (from petroleum), chlorine-based chemicals, and other potentially injurious substances such as heavy metals (mercury, aluminum, cadmium)\u2014have been applied in every aspect of our world and its industries.\n\nWe also have to contend with nuclear radiation residues in our air and soil, left over from atomic blasts in the 1950s, and in our foods irradiated without our consent for longer supermarket shelf life. Our municipal water supplies are laced with chlorine and fluorine, both of which have toxic resumes, and our air and soil are contaminated with multiple toxic agents. The toxic world is too much with us; we have ingested it; its poisons live within us.\n\nThe _fact_ of pollution is so deeply entrenched in public awareness that we almost screen it out, figuring our body will deal with it somehow. It does deal with it, as best it can, and for as long as it can. But eventually, our body's detoxification system gets overwhelmed, perhaps a little at first, then gradually more so, until the load of toxins outstrips our body's ability to eliminate them.\n\n\"One reason that so many people are walking toxic dumps is that we humans are at the top of the food chain,\" comments one physician. Toxins bioaccumulate in the food chain, from plants, to animals, to humans. Eat a plant and you may get pesticides and synthetic fertilizer residues; eat a chicken that ate the plant and that has also been fed hormones, antibiotics, and other additives, and you get all these toxins as well in your herbgrilled chicken breast.\n\n### Drinking Water Contaminated with Pesticides and Toxic Residues\n\nConsider the matter of pesticide and herbicide residues potentially found in fruits and vegetables in the United States. In terms of sales, pesticides are a $30 billion industry, with 62% of sales in the United States so it's not the kind of toxic substance you can easily legislate off the market.\n\nCurrently about 400 pesticides are licensed for use on America's agricultural crops, and in 1995, 1.2 billion pounds were applied to farm lands, forests, lawns, and fields\u2014a 100 million pound increase from 1993. It is estimated that about half of pesticide use is for nonagricultural purposes\u2014on golf courses, as previously discussed, but also in parks, on roadsides, on school grounds and in the buildings, along railroad tracks and under utility lines, in airplanes, in hospitals, in mass transit areas, in swimming pools and hot tubs, in hotels, in paper mills, and in building materials and food containers.\n\nHere is a graphic way to conceive of the enormous volume of pesticides released into the world environment every year, which is estimated to be one billion pounds. \"If put in 100-pound sacks and laid end to end, they would encircle the planet.\" Further consider the fact that since the 1940s, approximately 15,000 different chemical compounds and 35,000 different chemical formulations have been used as pesticides. Add to this the fact that there are about 630 active ingredients present in pesticides, but that these can be combined with other chemicals present in the formulas\u2014the inert ingredients\u2014to make several thousand more toxic formulations.\n\nThe Environmental Protection Agency has not tested all the pesticides in commercial use to determine their safety levels and maximum exposure recommendations for humans. Many may have been discontinued but their residues are long-lived and remain in the environment and possibly in human fat cells. Just because a seriously toxic pesticide such as DDT is banned in the United States does not mean another country will not use it on vegetables, fruits, and even coffee it ships to U.S. markets.\n\nWhen it comes to pesticides, as California goes, so goes the nation, except in this case the trend is to increasing application of toxic pesticides. California agriculture accounts for twenty-five percent of total U.S. pesticide use (and five percent of world use) such that 6.5 pounds of pesticides are used per person each year in California, about double the national rate of 3.1 pounds per capita. And total pesticide application in California is rising, up 31% between 1991 and 1995 to 212 million pounds; pesticides used only for agriculture increased by 37% during this same period.\n\nFurther, the use of the most toxic pesticides, ones known to produce cancer, increased by 129%, so that this type of supertoxic pesticide accounts for 11% of California agricultural pesticide use. Use of pesticides known to be acute toxic nerve poisons increased by fifty-two percent, and use of supposedly restricted pesticides climbed by thirty-four percent. It was as if there was a frenzy to use ever more toxic sprays to insure the California crops. \"The total volume of carcinogens, reproductive hazards, endocrine disruptors, Category I highly acute systemic poisons, Category II nerve toxins, and restricted use pesticides increased 32% between 1991 and 1995, and now comprise 72 million pounds, or 34% of total reported pesticide use in the state.\"\n\nIt's not that Californian farmers are planting more acreage; acres devoted to agriculture remained constant during this period, but the amount of pesticides dumped on each acre grew by thirty-five percent, from eighteen to twenty-five pounds per acre. Which California crops got the biggest dose of poison? Strawberries and grapes.\n\nIn 1995 alone, 59 million pounds of pesticides were sprayed on California grapes, while their strawberries were doused with 300 pounds of pesticide per acre. California fruits and nuts are dosed with seven times the amount of pesticides per acre as other crops; vegetables and melons get four times the pesticide per acre as other crops; and carrots are the seventh most heavily treated crop, receiving a disproportionately high amount of total pesticides as well as some of the most toxic. Also high on the pesticide list are tomatoes (fresh and for processing), almonds, oranges, dates, pears, lemons, and cabbage.\n\nSo if you're buying \"fresh\" fruits and vegetables in the winter, you might wish to keep these figures in mind because every grape, strawberry, and most vegetables will enter your kitchen bearing residues of this vast volume of pesticides. From the toxic fields of California to your overworked liver.\n\nIf you live in California, your potential toxic exposure to pesticides is even greater. Consider first the ramifications of \"pesticide drift.\" When a pesticide is applied to a field, a certain portion of it drifts off in the air currents and is blown elsewhere. But something else happens, and that is even more troublesome. After application, pesticides emit a large amount of gas. This is a reactive organic gas, the components of which are known collectively as volatile organic chemicals, or VOCs, and which contribute to smog. These VOCs can cause cancer, birth defects, and damage to the nerves, heart, and kidneys. Pesticide use\u2014and drift\u2014in California represents \"the tip of a 100-million pound iceberg of hazardous chemicals emitted statewide each year,\" according to the Environmental Working Group (EWG), an ecological advocacy group in Washington, D.C.\n\nDuring a two-year period, from 1996 to 1998, EWG collected 100 air samples from eight agricultural counties in central California. About two thirds of the samples contained toxic pesticides. In another test of fifty-five air samples, EWG found that fifty-three percent tested positive for traces of carcinogenic pesticides or ones known to produce birth defects and\/or damage the brain. In a test of thirty-nine air samples, eighty percent had traces of methyl bromide, a fumigant that causes nerve damage. EWG estimated that statewide about 98.9 million pounds of VOCs are emitted from pesticides applied for agricultural land in California. In the San Joaquin Valley, one of the state's prime farming regions, 34 million pounds of VOCs are emitted each year from pesticides, representing 13% of VOCs from all possible sources in that region.\n\nConsider the data published by the World Resources Institute in 1996 on the public health risks of pesticides and their effects on the human immune system. \"Hundreds of millions of people are significantly exposed to pesticides every day, either directly in farm and garden use or in residues in water, air, and food.\" Children in rural areas and breastfeeding infants whose mothers have been exposed can receive \"substantial doses\" of pesticides. Insofar as pesticides can suppress the immune system, the risk is greatest with infants and children, as well as the elderly or those chronically ill or malnourished.\n\nIn fact, the Institute reported that based on studies from Canada and Russia, children and adults exposed to pesticides \"suffer similar immune system alterations and higher rates of infectious disease\" than the general population. A study in Moldova showed that eighty percent of children living in agricultural districts, where pesticide application was heavy, had suppressed immunity as a result of pesticide toxicity. They were also three times more likely to have an infectious disease of the digestive tract, and two to five times more likely to be ill with a respiratory illness than children living in non-farming districts. Even more striking was the data from India showing that Indian factory workers chronically exposed to pesticides registered a sixty-six percent decline in white blood cell counts; after three months' vacation away from the offending factory, their white blood cell counts returned to a normal level.\n\nExposure to pesticides is now being linked to Parkinson's disease, according to a new study from Stanford University's School of Medicine. Researchers interviewed 496 patients diagnosed with Parkinson's regarding their pesticide exposure (through home and garden pesticide use). They found that people exposed to in-home insecticides were seventy percent more likely to develop Parkinson's than those who had not been exposed. The average amount of time for exposure was about seventy-seven days. The study concluded that exposure to garden insecticides brought a fifty percent increased risk of developing Parkinson's. The amount of time people spent using pesticides was directly related to their disease risk. People who handle herbicides for up to thirty days (total exposure) had a 40% increased risk; people who were exposed for 160 days, had a 70% heightened risk.\n\nYet another source of toxicity through agriculture is the practice of incorporating industrial toxic waste materials into fertilizer used by farmers. Among the most prevalent toxic substances found in hazardous-waste-derived fertilizers are lead, cadmium, chromium, nickel, zinc, copper, sulfuric acid, and dioxin. According EWG, each year millions of pounds of toxic waste materials are used to make agricultural fertilizers. The toxic sludge is typically laden with metal and chemical impurities, steelmill smokestack ash, air pollution scrubber brine, and other industrial byproducts. These byproducts become basic materials for \"a substantial portion\" of all fertilizers used in U.S. agriculture.\n\nEWG states that more than 600 companies in 44 states shipped 270 million pounds of toxic wastes to farms and fertilizer companies between 1990 and 1995. California was in the top three both for states that shipped hazardous wastes and for those that received them for fertilizer material.\n\nAlthough, in _theory_ , says EWG, fertilizers are subject to federal toxic chemical contamination standards, in _practice_ \"there is almost no monitoring of fertilizer or soil contamination levels\" and they may be \"much higher\" than the allowable limits. The implications are obvious and upsetting: the toxic substances get absorbed by the plants, which get consumed by either people or animals.\n\nFurther, one of the chief hazards of this intense and widespread use of pesticides and herbicides is that invariably some portion of the volume applied runs off into public water supplies. World Resources Institute states that eighty-five percent to ninety percent of agriculturally applied pesticides get dispersed into the air, soil, and water, and not on the intended plants, thereby guaranteeing environmental pollution.\n\nFor example, municipal and private well water sources in farming states tend to have high levels of pesticide residues. Traces of at least one pesticide were detected in forty percent of wells tested in Minnesota; twenty-eight out of seventy wells had one or more pesticides in Iowa; and in northeast Iowa alone, at least seventy percent of the wells tested had pesticide contamination. In thirty-eight states, traces of as many as seventy-four different agricultural pesticides were detected sources.\n\n**_One of the chief hazards of this intense and widespread use of pesticides and herbicides is that invariably some portion of the volume applied runs off into public water supplies._**\n\nIn California alone, researchers found evidence of fifty different pesticides in the groundwater. As of late 1999, more than one million residents of the state's Central Valley (where much ofthe agriculture happens) were consuming water contaminated with DBCP, a pesticide regarded as one of the most potent carcinogens (it produces testicular cancer) presently available. DBCP contaminates were found in the tap water of 38 communities in nine counties and at amounts far above the recommended safety level. In 19 communities, bottle-fed babies, by the time they turned one year old, had already received a lifetime's \"safe\" dose of DBCP through the infant formula mixed with tap water. The fact that DBCP was banned nationwide in 1979 has not stopped the toxic substance from showing up in the tap water of California's Central Valley twenty years later.\n\nIn the farming-intensive American Midwest, one of the most toxic pesticides, atrazine, is now showing up in the tap water of nearly 800 communities. Approximately 10.5 million people are affected by this atrazine-polluted tap water. \"Some tap water is so contaminated that infants get their lifetime limit of atrazine before they are four months old,\" and in forty midwestern towns, they get it by their first birthdays.\n\nEPA data indicates that 34 million Americans in 6,900 communities drink tap water contaminated with arsenic at levels that pose a health risk. Several national surveys found arsenic traces in three percent to thirty-nine percent of all drinking water samples studied, with concentrations averaging 10 ppb (parts per billion) or less. What's a safe level for arsenic? The World Health Organization (WHO) says 10 ppb, EPA says 50 ppb, but the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) says it should be only 3 ppb. NRDC is contemplating a lawsuit against EPA to force the agency to revise the 58-year-old arsenic standard. A different study conducted by the U.S. Geological Survey showed that 10% of the 18,850 samples tested (private wells and public water supplies) had arsenic at levels that exceeded WHO's safety standards of 10 ppb.\n\nSo what happens if you drink arsenic-tainted water for a fair bit of time? You could get heart disease or prostate cancer, and\/or die sooner than expected. Researchers for the EPA studied the relationship between various arsenic levels in public and private drinking water (wells) in towns in one county in Utah. The arsenic levels ranged from 14 to 166 ppb\u2014in other words, from well under the EPA's safety limit to more than three times it. EPA researchers found that sustained arsenic ingestion led to a higher rate of deaths from heart disease, prostate cancer, and kidney inflammation in men; in women, more died from all forms of heart disease.\n\nFinnish researchers found that even very low exposure levels of arsenic were associated with an increase in bladder and kidney cancer. They studied the water consumption patterns of 275 subjects over a 14-year period as well as 61 cases of bladder cancer and 49 cases of kidney cancer. The lesson here is that _low_ exposures to a _single_ toxic substance _sustained_ over time can still produce serious health consequences.\n\nToxic substances also enter public drinking water sources from nonagricultural sources, such as heavy industry. In May 2000, the EPA reported that U.S. total toxic pollution was three times worse than previously estimated. The EPA stated that in 1998, 7.3 billion pounds of toxic materials were dumped into the environment, an amount three times higher than the previous measure, obtained a few years earlier. According to the EPA, sixty-three percent of the increase in toxics comes from the mining and electric utility industries. The mining industry alone dumped 3.5 billion pounds of toxics in 1998, mostly in the form of heavy metals and caustic materials applied to ores to leech out minerals. U.S. electric utilities dumped 1.1 billion pounds of toxic substances (including hydrochloric acid, sulfuric acid, and hydrogen fluoride, all emitted as airborne pollutants) into the U.S. environment in 1998. Bear in mind, this data describes toxic releases for only one year from only two sources of pollution.\n\nWhen you talk about contaminated water, inevitably the subject of chlorine comes up. If you are a public health official, your attitude about chlorine is that it's a chemical hero; but if you're versed in nutrition, biochemistry, and toxicology, you think of chlorine as a substance to avoid. Ever since 1908 when the first public water supply was chlorinated (in Boonton, New Jersey), Americans have been drinking, cooking with, showering, and bathing in chlorinated water such that today the water of seventy percent of Americans is chlorinated. The subject of chlorinated water and how to minimize your exposure to it is discussed in detail in Chapter 4, but there is an interesting observation to make here.\n\nYou would logically think drinking chlorinated tap water, versus bathing or showering in it, would be the less healthy of the two activities. But it's not. \"The simple, relaxing act of taking a bath turns out to be a significant route of exposure to volatile organics,' as Sandra Steingraber commented in _Living Dournstream:\"_ 52 Volatile organics are carbon-based compounds that vaporize more readily than water. Chlorine is one. A recent study showed that elevated levels of volatile organic compounds, including chlorine, can be detected in the exhaled breath of people who have just showered. From the shower spout to your cells, as it were.\n\nTaking a ten-minute shower or thirty-minute bath can give you a higher internal dose of volatile compounds (including chlorine) than drinking a half-gallon of chlorinated tap water. One reason a bath chlorinates you more fully than a glass of tap water is that the latter goes essentially from your mouth to your liver, where it is broken down (metabolized) before its components enter the bloodstream. But when you shower or bathe, your skin is enveloped in the subtle chlorinated fumes, your lungs get a direct infusion through your inhalations, and still more volatile-compounded water may enter your system through your body's orifices.\n\nConsider this strange yet revealing example. A 1984 study in Illinois showed that 150 private wells and one municipal well were intensely polluted with volatile organochlorine solvents. Five years later, a follow-up study ofthe indoor air quality of the homes serviced or affected by those same toxic wells found elevated levels of the organochlorines in the blood of the residents. However, their blood levels were more in accord with the organochlorine level found in the indoor air rather than in the contaminated water.\n\nResearchers found that the air levels were more or less matched with \"shower run times\"\u2014how long the residents ran a shower. These studies \"support the notion that inhalation contributes more significantly to overall body burden of volatile organic compounds than drinking\u2014even when water contamination is dramatic,\" said Steingraber.\n\n### When Prozac, Viagra, and Sunscreen Flow through Your Kitchen Tap\n\nThere is another reason to be circumspect about wells and public water supplies. Evidence is increasingly accumulating that groundwater and municipal water supplies may be contaminated with a new class of pollutants: residues of pharmaceutical drugs given to humans and animals. Traces of substances such as antibiotics, hormones, pain killers, tranquilizers, and even chemotherapy agents are being measured in drinking water. German researchers announced in 1998 that they had discerned thirty to sixty drugs in a typical water sample, some of which were at concentrations comparable to the level at which pesticides are found in water (parts per billion).\n\nThe German researchers specifically detected clofibric acid, a drug used to reduce blood cholesterol levels. It wasn't only German water that was polluted with this prescription drug. It turns out the entire North Sea contains a measurable quantity of this drug, specifically, one to two parts per trillion (ppt). It doesn't sound like much until you calculate that this means the sea contains forty-eight to ninety-six tons of clofibric acid. Tap water in Berlin was found to have 165 ppt, and both the Danube and Po Rivers had traces of the drug.\n\nHow did all this cholesterol-reducing drug get into the public water? Through human excretion, then seepage into the groundwater through sewage sludge. It seems that for humans and animals, anywhere from fifty percent to ninety percent of most drugs are excreted without any chemical change.\n\nThe danger of clofibric water pollution is just one example out of many that could be cited. It's more instructive to take the larger view. Two scientists\u2014Christian G. Daughton, an environmental chemist with EPA, and Thomas A. Ternes, an environ mental chemist with the ESWE-Institute for Water Research and Water Technology in Wiesbaden-Schierstein, Germany\u2014provided just such a view in a landmark article in _Environmental Health Perspectives_ in 1999.\n\nFirst, they state that the quantity of pharmaceuticals (prescription drugs, diagnostic agents) and personal care products (fragrances, sunscreen agents, and others) entering the environment each year is about equal to the amount of pesticides used in a year. A large portion of a given drug and residues of the personal care products enter the environment unused or unmetabolized (not chemically broken down and neutralized) by the human body. More crucially, they continuously enter the environment; there is no seasonality to their discharge, as with agricultural pollutants.\n\nThey get excreted through the urine or feces, enter the sewage system, and eventually find their way into the waterways, and still later, into the bodies of animals and people drinking that water. Or they might get collected in toxic sludge used for fertilizer and eventually be absorbed by plants fed to animals or humans.\n\nThe trouble is that the biochemical action of these substances is at best only poorly understood at this point. What happens when they combine unnaturally by virtue of their proximity in a given water source is unknown. Further, most drugs and personal care products were never tested for their environmental impact, only for their effects on the human user. This is highly risky because the number of pharmaceuticals and personal care products is escalating, \"adding exponentially to the already large array of chemical classes\" that can potentially pollute the environment.\n\nDaughton and Ternes list sixty-six classes of pharmaceuticals (which include 200 ofthe most popular prescription drugs), all of which are designed to have powerful, deep-set biological effects on living organisms. In fact, the drugs are designed to change the functioning of the immune, endocrine, or nerve signalling systems in the body. That is acceptable if you are the intended receiver\u2014it's your prescription. But with the presence of these pharmaceuticals in our environment, most of us are ingesting samplers from an \"enormous array\" of prescription drugs that were not meant for us.\n\nSo consider this, state Daughton and Ternes. \"A major unaddressed issue regarding human health is the long-term effects of ingesting via potable waters very low subtherapeutic doses of numerous pharmaceuticals multiple times a day for many decades.\" Put differently, when you pour a glass of water from the tap for your young children, you could be feeding them low levels of birth control pills, athlete's foot remedies, sunburn creams, Viagra, Prozac, Valium, and any of dozens more prescription drugs or personal care product residues. Bear in mind that low and very low do not mean inactive. For almost all of these substances, a very low dose is all that's needed to produce the intended result.\n\nThe residues of the drugs and products remain in the water for a long time, as most of them are highly persistent and resistant to breakdown. The profound danger here is not necessarily obvious, however. There is a high possibility of \"continual but undetectable or unnoticed effects\" on the various life forms living in the water, and the effects produced could \"accumulate so slowly that major change goes undetected\" until suddenly it starts to \"cascade to irreversible damage.\" This damage can include human disease, even genetic mutation. You can't get much more toxic than that.\n\nEven that is not the end of the problem. It is likely to get worse. The \"enormous array\" of pharmaceuticals will continue to diversify and grow as the human genetic blueprint (the human genome) is completed, observe Daughton and Ternes. Currently, prescription drugs work because they are targeted at some 500 distinct biochemical receptors, but as the human genome is mapped, many more receptors will be identified, such that the total number could grow by twenty times, yielding 3,000 to 10,000 drug targets. This means of course that hundreds of more drugs will be available to potentially pollute the environment and toxify animal and plant life and humans.\n\n### Air Pollution\u2014Trigger for Allergies, Asthma, and Respiratory Symptoms\n\nAir pollution is a matter so often discussed as to be almost taken for granted or accepted as an inconvenience of modern urban life in especially toxic air zones such as Los Angeles and Mexico City. We've heard the term \"smog\" so often we tend to become oblivious to its meaning. Yet it remains a vital concern and is a source of heavy toxicity.\n\nBy now, each of the six major air pollutants (primarily released from automotive emissions) has its own well-researched toxic resume. The six are ozone, lead, carbon monoxide, sulfur dioxide, nitrogen dioxide, and particulate matter.\n\nOzone is a respiratory irritant and allergen and can produce coughing, shortness of breath, chest tightness, mucus membrane irritation, allergies, asthma, and respiratory infections. Lead can cause behavioral problems and lowered IQ in children. Carbon monoxide reduces the blood's ability to transport oxygen to the body's cells, thereby affecting breathing, producing dizziness and headaches, and causing strokes or heart attacks. The two dioxides seriously irritate the lungs, producing coughs, chest tightness, respiratory illness, or even respiratory paralysis in high doses.\n\nParticulate matter, found in smog, gets inhaled into the deepest part of the lungs where it produces lung problems. With the exception of lead, all of these air pollutants interfere with oxygen delivery. If a person is already asthmatic, exposure to any of these pollutants will worsen the condition, making them a serious health risk.\n\nLet's be sure we understand what smog is. It is defined as a sickening photochemical mixture produced in the lower atmosphere when sunlight strikes various pollutants in the air, most notably, industrial pollutants and particulates from automotive exhaust. The largest component of smog is ground-level ozone (a form of oxygen). Compounds called nitrogen oxides (produced when fuels are burned) mix with volatile organic compounds (VOCs, including organochlorines, released when liquid solvents, fuels, and organic chemicals evaporate) in the atmosphere. As most people who have been to Los Angeles know, smog is at its worst on hot, sunny summer days because smog formation is dependent on temperature and sunlight. Just about any kind of combustion-driven vehicle contributes to smog, from motor scooters to jumbo jets.\n\nSmog is bad news because it is a strong and irritating pollutant\u2014irritating to the mucus membranes of the respiratory tract, especially the lungs. Ironically, on a high smog day, if you're out exercising, thinking you're doing your mind and body some good by stretching the muscles and inhaling deeper, you may get these benefits, but at the cost of an increased ingestion of smog pollutants. Typical symptoms of smog toxicity include aching lungs, wheezing, eye irritation, shortness of breath, nausea, coughing, and headache.\n\nPublic health estimates state that about 15 million residents of the South Coast Basin, a 12,000-square-mile area that includes Los Angeles and three neighboring counties\u2014it's the nation's second most populous urban area\u2014inhale dirty air about 33% of the time. And when the smog index is high, it's not unusual to find hospital admissions higher than usual. Researchers at the Rancho Los Amigos National Rehabilitation Center in Downey, California, found that between the years 1992 and 1995, regardless of type of patient (such as age or ethnic group, excepting those older than sixty-five), atmospheric stagnation with a high degree of air pollution increased the risk and incidence of hospitalization for lung and heart problems (see figure 1-2).\n\nEven if you don't experience the obvious symptoms of the \"smog complex,\" as it's called, you may still have smog residues in your body. Medical researchers at the University of Southern California examined the bodies of 152 deceased young people aged fifteen to twenty-five who had died from accidents or homicide. In lung autopsies of 100 of these subjects, seventy-five percent had a slight degree of lung inflammation while twenty-seven percent had signs of severe lung tissue damage. All of the bodies autopsied showed some degree of airway inflammation, thirty-nine percent had severe illness lodged in the bronchial glands, and twenty-nine percent had disease in the bronchial linings. In all, fifty-four percent of the youths\u2014more than half of a group of young people randomly examined\u2014had signs of at least one severe lung illness.\n\n**Figure 1-2. The 33 Top Toxic Substances Found in Urban Air**\n\nParticulate matter, which in large cities is comprised of thirty-five percent to eighty percent diesel exhaust particulates, may be a trigger for allergies. Japanese scientists noted that allergic diseases are more prevalent in polluted areas and speculated this higher incidence must be due to environmental factors. They found that exposure to diesel exhaust particulates in the air produces allergic reactions in the immune system such that they felt confident in attributing some of the increase in allergies and allergic diseases to this air pollutant. It gets even stranger because the airborne pollutants can make natural allergenic materials, such as plant pollens, even more irritating to the human nervous system and lungs, producing a greater degree of inflammation.\n\nFurther, if you already have asthma, exposure to air pollution is likely to make your symptoms worse. A study of almost 4,000 Southern California school children (fourth to tenth grade) from twelve different communities showed that children with asthma were more likely to develop \"persistent\" lower respiratory tract symptoms (including bronchitis) when exposed to air pollution. Among the rest of the children, exposure to air pollution resulted in a significant increase in phlegm production (mucus in the nose and throat). Among the air pollutants, exposure to nitrogen dioxide produced the greatest number of respiratory symptoms.\n\n**_Particulate matter, which in large cities is comprised of thirty-five to eighty percent diesel exhaust particulates, may be a trigger for allergies. Japanese scientists noted that allergic diseases are more prevalent in polluted areas and speculated this higher incidence must be due to environmental factors._**\n\nResearchers in the former East Germany obtained similar results when they studied the respiratory health of 2,470 school children, aged 5 to 14. Some had lived in one of two industrially polluted counties (from mining and smelting), and others came from a neighboring county without any sources of industrial pollution. The health differences were striking. Children in the polluted county had a fifty percent increased lifetime prevalence for developing allergies, eczema, and bronchitis, and fifty percent more respiratory symptoms, such as wheezing, shortness of breath, and coughing than those in the pollution-free county. Further, children from the toxic counties had a lifetime higher rate of sensitization (a chronic allergic response, such that you react to increasingly smaller doses of an allergen) and respiratory disorders.\n\nVery young children seem to be especially sensitive to airborne pollutants, especially particulate matter. A study of medical visits by children to physicians in Santiago, Chile, over a two-year period showed that as the particulate concentration in the air increased, so did the doctor visits. For children under two, respiratory symptoms requiring medical visits increased by four percent to twelve percent as the air pollution increased, and for children three to fifteen years old, the rate of respiratory tract symptoms rose by three percent to nine percent.\n\nAir polluted with fine particulate matter may shorten a person's lifespan. A sixteen-year study conducted by scientists at Harvard University involving 8,111 residents of six U.S. cities showed that air pollution (specifically particulate matter content) was strongly associated with an unusual number of deaths from lung cancer and heart disease, even in people who did not smoke. The researchers also concluded that sustained exposure to particulate air pollution can reduce your lifespan by two years. Incidentally, all six cities had air pollution levels _lower_ than the federal health permissible standard\u2014in other words, the air pollution was at a supposedly safe level.\n\nA study from Central Europe found similar results, namely, more deaths as the air pollution index rose. German researchers studied mortality rates in a highly polluted region of the Czech Republic for the years 1982 to 1994. They found a 3.8% increase in the number of deaths in association with measurable increases in particulate air pollution. They also found that for each day the particulate matter concentration increased by 100 micrograms per cubic meter (l\u03bcg = 0.00000lg), there was a 9.8% rise in deaths. However, the researchers found \"no evidence for an association\" between the number of deaths and particulate air pollution in the rural nonindustrialized area in Germany near the Czech border used for a comparison.\n\n### Organochlorines\u2014Toxic Chlorine Blankets the Planet\n\nAir pollution and its toxic effects are increasingly a global health concern, as numerous scientific studies show. We could also focus on a single family of chemicals to deepen our impression of the extent of environmental pollution: organochlorines.\n\nThese are synthetic compounds composed of chlorine and organic substances\u2014chlorinated organic substances, to put it simply. According to Joe Thornton, a biologist at Columbia University's Center for Environmental Research and Conservation in New York City, and author of the landmark study, _Pandora's Poison_ : _Chlorine, Health, and a New Environmental Strategy_ , \"Everyone on Earth now eats, drinks, and breathes a constantly changing and poorly characterized soup of organochlorines, including dozens of compounds that cause severe health damage at low doses.\"\n\nThey're found everywhere, but in plastics especially; anytime you bum some plastic, you release chlorine gas that can form new organochlorines. In fact, disposing of plastic waste without producing organochlorines is regarded as nearly impossible. Ever since the large-scale manufacture of plastics began in the 1940s, \"a witch's brew of toxic, persistent pollutants has come to blanket the entire planet, from suburban backyards to the deep oceans, from our own bodies to snow at the North Pole.\"\n\nWe have reached the state of universal exposure, says Thornton. Laboratory analysis of samples of human fat cells, blood, breath, semen, urine, and mother's milk all bear traces of organochlorines; you don't have to have been living near a site of conspicuous contamination to be organochlorinated. Anywhere you check in the Northern Hemisphere, according to Thornton, you will find the air contains a baseline concentration of 200 parts per trillion of trichloroethane, an organochlorine.\n\nThe term organochlorines refers to a chemical family with some 11,000 different forms now commercially produced, not to mention the thousands more formed as byproducts. When chlorine gas produced by the chemical industry meets organic matter in industrial processes it forms an organochlorine. When chlorine gas is employed in the manufacture of plastics, paper, pesticides, solvents, bleach, sewage disinfectants, and numerous industrial chemicals, or in the treatment of water, the combination generates organochlorines, such as dioxins, PCBs, and thousands of other lesser-known though seriously toxic substances. You will find organochlorines in chlorinated public water, in solvents and dry-cleaning solutions, PVC plastics, and bleached paper, among many other items.\n\nThe trouble is that almost none of the 11,000 organochlorines are native to the natural world. It is true that nature produces a small number\u2014estimates vary from several hundreds to one thousand\u2014mainly through algae, fungi, sponges, coral, and microorganisms. But no organochlorines are known to occur naturally in animal and human tissue as a result of this generation; they don't get deposited in the fat cells of living organisms. Organochlorines, says Thornton, appear to be \"completely foreign\" to all vertebrates, including humans, mammals, birds, reptiles, and amphibians.\n\nOrganochlorines may have excellent chemical and industrial properties, but these same qualities make them toxic to the environment and all living organisms. Chlorine gas is highly reactive, combining quickly, indiscriminately, even _randomly_ , with any organic matter it encounters, leading to numerous _incidental_ byproducts of unknown but presumed toxicity. For example, chlorinating public water supplies leads to at least seventy identified organochlorine byproducts, a fair number of which are known carcinogens. This number, says Thornton, represents only twenty-five percent to fifty percent of all the organochlorines present in the water; the rest simply have not been characterized yet.\n\nOrganochlorines are highly stable, which means they persist in the environment for a long time, in some cases for centuries, it is speculated. Nearly all of the world's persistent organic pollutants (POPs, discussed previously) are organochlorines. Thus their concentration in the air, water, and soil progressively accumulates over time.\n\nIndustry likes organochlorines because they enable organic chemicals to dissolve in oil, but this same trait makes organochlorines favor the fatty tissues of biological organisms, including people. Fat-soluble toxic substances are much harder for the body's natural detoxification mechanisms to flush out than those that dissolve readily in water. Further, organochlorines, as they move up the food chain to humans, can reach tissue concentrations \"many millions of times greater\" than those found in the outside environment, says Thornton. A 1990 Japanese study showed that striped dolphins had PCB levels 13 million times higher than the levels found in their ambient environment, the North Pacific Ocean, and DDT residues 37 million times higher.\n\nIn the 1990s, several hundred organochlorines were finally subjected to toxicology studies and were found to have serious health effects on almost every aspect of human biological functioning, including disruption of the endocrine system with effects across the generations. Even more alarming, some of these chemicals can produce effects at extremely tiny doses, in the parts per trillion range. How small a dose is this? It's a ratio \"equivalent to one drop in a train of railroad tank cars ten miles long,\" says Thornton.\n\nAt least 190 different organochlorines (including dioxins, PCBs, and DDT) have been detected in the fatty tissues (as well as mother's milk, blood, breath, semen, saliva, and urine) of people living in the United States and Canada, and now comprise a considerable portion of their total toxic load. \"Absolutely everyone\" now carries a toxic body burden of these 190 organochlorines, says Thornton; since humans are at the top of the food chain, \"our own bodies have become the ultimate dumps\" for the products of the chlorine chemistry industry. Ironically, one way of getting some of these organochlorines out of the body is through breast milk.\n\nThe breast milk of women in the United States and Canada has been found to contain sixteen different pesticides, eighteen dioxins and furans, sixty-five types of PCBs, and thirty other toxic, industrially derived substances. The obvious consequence is that nursing infants are exposed to excessive amounts of toxic substances virtually at birth and, in many cases, even before birth as many of these substances are known to cross the placental barrier. In the case of dioxin, for example, one study showed that in one year an infant was likely to receive a dose of dioxin representing a lifetime cancer risk 187 times above the government's \"acceptable\" level.\n\nAt least 100 organochlorines are carcinogens, and many others are believed to be mutagenic, that is, capable of causing DNA to mutate.\n\nOrganochlorines are known to suppress the immune system, reduce sperm count, produce infertility, contribute to cancer, create learning disabilities in children, and cause many other serious conditions. They are regarded as neurotoxins (poisons to nerve and brain cells) and reproductive toxicants (poisons to the male and female reproductive systems).\n\nFor example, chlorinated hydrocarbons (CHCs) may be responsible for some miscarriages. Researchers found that twenty percent of eighty-nine women who had sustained repeated miscarriages had traces of at least one CHC in their blood at a range that exceeded the acceptable level. As another example of reproductive poisoning, exposure to dioxins may contribute to endometriosis in women. When scientists examined the blood of forty-four women with endometriosis (a menstrual disorder in which monthly bleeding occurs from multiple sites outside the uterus), they found they were eight times more likely to have measurable levels of dioxin than women of the same age without endometriosis.\n\nOrganochlorines disrupt the basic mechanisms by which the body regulates itself, making them \"incompatible with basic physiological functions,\" says Thornton. For example, the level of dioxin the average human bears in his fatty tissues (clinically called the average body burden) already is enough to generate reproductive, developmental, and immunological problems in laboratory animals. In many cases, it's proven to be enough to produce those problems in people, too.\n\nSo pervasive and toxic are organochlorines that Thornton likens chlorine chemistry, the industrial process that spawned the entire class of chlorine-based chemicals, to splitting the atom. Like nuclear power, chlorine chemistry is \"an inherently dangerous technology of great power,\" an unprecedented \"human intervention in the structure of matter,\" he says, warning that we may harness it, but we will never be able to completely control it. In fact, organochlorines may be a major contributing factor to the \"global toxic pollution\" under way, which is contributing to \"a slow, worldwide erosion\" of human health, Thornton concludes.\n\n### A Radioactive Cloud Enshrouds an Entire Generation\n\nAnother toxic element that is so widespread in North America as to be judged ubiquitous is nuclear radiation. You can be exposed by living near a nuclear reactor or through contact with the residual fallout from atomic testing in the 1950s in the continental United States. Of the 3,053 counties in the United States, 1,321 (or more than 33%) are nuclear counties. This means the residents in those counties live within 100 miles of a reactor and are regularly exposed to radiation through the air and water.\n\nResearch by Jay Gould, a former EPA scientist and author of _The Enemy Within_ , indicates that the 1,321 nuclear counties account for fifty percent of all deaths from breast cancer; that four more women per 100,000 die of breast cancer in nuclear counties than in non-nuclear ones; and that in the 14 U.S. counties that house the seven oldest reactors, there was a 37% increase in breast cancer deaths between 1950 and 1989 compared to a 1% rise everywhere else.\n\nNearly all of the continental United States has been irradiated with nuclear fallout. Bear in mind, 184 atomic bombs have been exploded in the air over Nevada since 1945, and their fallout drifted east across the country. In fact, the combined fallout from all nuclear testing performed above ground by the United States and former Soviet Union is equivalent to 40,000 Hiroshima bombs. It doesn't matter where you live in the United States. Your soil has been visited by toxic nuclear fallout in the last fifty years.\n\nThe radioactive clouds from the earliest atomic blasts in Nevada in 1951 were tracked as they drifted across the United States, heading out over the Atlantic Ocean after passing over New England. In some instances, due to the speed with which the radioactive clouds were blown by the prevailing easterly winds, various northeastern cities \"reported levels of radioactivity as high as those reported close to the test site,\" observes Gould. As everyone knows, many radioactive isotopes take a very long time to decay; their half-lives are reckoned in the thousands of years.\n\n**_The Baby Boomers are the first U.S. population group to have been uniformly poisoned with nuclear radiation, uniformly exposed_ in utero _to strontium-90 (a radioactive isotope generated by nuclear weapons testing) in the atmosphere making them toxic even before birth._**\n\nMedical research shows that radiation tends to affect the immune system and the activity of the thyroid gland, an important endocrine gland in the neck. Nuclear radiation is also linked to low birth weights in newborns as well as breast cancer. In fact, depressed thyroid gland function, fairly widespread already in the general adult population, is now showing up more in newborns.\n\nAccording to Gould's research, in fifteen states (accounting for forty-four percent of the U.S. population), the number of hypothyroid live births (babies born with underactive thyroid glands) increased by seven percent from 1986 to 1992. This was linked with releases of radioactive iodine and strontium into the environment during that time (such as by the Chernobyl nuclear reactor accident in 1986). \"Hypothyroidism among newborns indicates damage to the fetal thyroid from radioactive iodine (I-131) ingested by the mother,\" says Gould. Between 1986 and 1987 (the year after Chernobyl), the incidence of people having underactive thyroid function rose by 8.4% in 31 states.\n\nSeen in another way, an entire generation\u2014the Baby Boomers, bom between 1945 and 1964\u2014are the first U.S. population group to have been uniformly poisoned with nuclear radiation. Baby Boomers were uniformly exposed _in utero_ to strontium-90 (a radioactive isotope generated by nuclear weapons testing) in the atmosphere making them toxic even before birth. During that twenty-year span, says Gould, atmospheric levels of strontium-90 increased fiftyfold; at the same time, there was a fifty percent increase in the percentage of underweight newborns.\n\nGould observes that the true cost of victory in World War II\u2014achieved by the atomic blasts in Japan\u2014was \"an uncontrollable epidemic rise in radiation-induced illnesses.\" In fact, Gould contends that Baby Boomers reaching the age of forty-five in 1995, were \"contracting and dying of both breast and prostate cancer at rates unprecedented in medical records going back to 1935.\" Among the major reasons for this increase in cancer rates, Gould says, were the toxic effects of the Three Mile Island (1979) and Chernobyl (1986) nuclear disasters, compounded by continuing radioactive emissions from the numerous nuclear power reactors online throughout the United States.\n\nEvidence supportive of this last supposition was provided in a recent study. Between 1987 and 1998, twelve nuclear power reactors in the United States were closed down. One of them was at Rancho Seco, a densely populated area near Sacramento, California. After the reactor ceased operations, public health officials observed \"significant decreases\" in mortality and cancer incidence in fetuses, infants, and small children. This data contrasted with the worsening of infant health after the Rancho Seco plant opened in 1974 and started releasing low levels of radionuclides into the local environment.\n\n\"The data suggest that a relationship between nuclear emissions and adverse health effects exists, especially since fetuses and newborns are most sensitive to radiation,\" concluded Joseph J. Mangano, director of the Radiation and Public Health Project in Brooklyn, New York, and author of the study. The plant's closing reduced local levels of dietary radioactivity, as measured in the local pasteurized milk supply, added Mangano.\n\nGould also provides evidence to support the point. Why are cancer rates so high in the Hamptons, the tony eastern end of Long Island, New York? Rates for breast and prostate cancer were twenty percent higher from 1978 to 1987 in the Hamptons than in the rest of Long Island, according to the New York Cancer Registry. The reason, says Gould, is probably that for fifty years that end of Long Island has received sustained toxic doses of both pesticides from agriculture and strontium-90 from nuclear reactors (one on Long Island, and three in Connecticut, a few miles across the Long Island Sound), both of which made their way into the public water and food supply. In particular, cancer rates in five towns, just south of the four nuclear reactors, had cancer rates thirty percent higher than the county average (sixty-two towns in total).\n\n### Tainted Food\u2014Glutamates, Additives, Antibiotics, and POPs\n\nYou will encounter yet another family of toxic substances in foods. Not foods as they originate in nature, but as they have been processed by the food industry. This family is known as excitotoxins, and includes the food additives MSG (monosodium glutamate, often added to Chinese food to amplify its flavor), hydrolyzed vegetable protein (HVP, concentrated soybean protein, both an additive and a processed food), and aspartame (the artificial sweetener found in NutraSweet), all of which have been called into question in recent years. These three substances are everywhere in our prepared food system, present in almost all processed foods: as natural flavorings, flavor enhancers, spices, yeast extracts, textured protein, soy protein extracts, and in soups, gravies, and diet soft drinks.\n\nAccording to neurosurgeon Russell L. Blaylock, M.D., these excitotoxins are best avoided. Ingested in prepared foods or beverages, they stimulate a body's neurons. More specifically, they excite nerve and brain cells (neurons) because of their chemical similarity to neurotransmitters, whose job is to excite (or inhibit) neuronal cell activity. But this neural stimulation by a foreign substance is not a desirable occurrence. Excitotoxins, present in the brain at unnaturally and therefore dangerously high concentrations are \"neurological time bombs,\" says Blaylock.\n\nResearch suggests excitotoxins can play a critical role in the development of neurological disorders including migraines, strokes, seizures, hypoglycemia, infections, abnormal neural development, learning disorders, Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, and possibly another eight serious health conditions.\n\nPart of the problem has to do with glutamate, a natural amino acid. It is the glutamate in monosodium glutamate and other excitotoxins that is the toxic substance. This at first seems strange since glutamate is a naturally occurring amino acid (a protein building block) found in many foods. In whole foods, glutamate is not dangerous at all; but when it becomes free\u2014isolated from its natural context\u2014and used on its own as a chemical substance, then it becomes a risk. When bound in foods, it is slowly digested and absorbed by the tissues, especially muscles, before it can build up to a toxic concentration. But when you take it straight, in MSG, HVP, or any of the other excitotoxin forms, its effects are more pronounced and it becomes toxic.\n\nNormally, glutamate is found in large but appropriate concentrations in the human brain. In fact, it is the most commonly used brain neurotransmitter, but it exists in the extracellular fluid in very small concentrations. When the body takes in additional\u2014or excessive\u2014amounts of glutamate through food additives and taste enhancers, the brain's natural and correct balance of neurochemicals that excite and inhibit activity is disturbed. In effect, the brain gets overstimulated, or too excited\u2014toxically so. When the brain's concentration of glutamate rises above a certain specific level, brain cells start to fire abnormally. The brain cells start a process of slow, delayed death called excitotoxicity\u2014they are excited (overstimulated) to death. Excitotoxins entering the body through prepared foods thus set in motion \"a cascade of destruction\" that leads to \"serious distortions\" of the nervous system.\n\nThe effects of excitotoxicity are not always immediate or obvious, but play out over time, and can easily be missed or misdiagnosed by clinicians, or attributed to other causes. While excitotoxins may not _cause_ neurodegenerative conditions such as Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, and ALS (amyotrophic lateral sclerosis), they are believed to _precipitate_ these disorders and probably _worsen_ their pathology, says Blaylock. As mentioned earlier in this chapter, they can serve as triggers. Exposure to excitotoxins in prepared foods might be what it takes to push a person with a propensity to develop a neurodegenerative disease into progressing to a full-blown disorder.\n\nThe problem of glutamates and excitotoxins is actually a subset of a much larger problem, namely, that of food additives in general. Additives and their potential dangers have been topics of discussion since the 1970s in some circles in the United States, but today, additives and processed foods are virtually a fact of life that we've come to take for granted. While the natural foods and organic agriculture industry continue to grow, the bulk of the American food supply is still adulterated with some 3,000 additives and other chemical substances added to foods for various reasons.\n\nWhat is a food additive? Think sulfites, nitrates, nitrites, salicylates, food colors and dyes, monoglycerides and diglycerides, sugar substitutes (aspartame, acesulfame K, saccharin), BHA, BHT, polysorbate 60, olestra, emulsifiers, thickening agents, calcium (or sodium) propionate, citric acid, EDTA, and many more.\n\nNearly all food additives have a toxic resume to some degree. For example, the yellow dye known as tartrazine and the preservative benzoate are known to cause hives in people of all ages, and hyperactivity and abnormal behavior in children. On its own, tartrazine can generate symptoms within ninety minutes of ingestion, including asthma, generalized swelling, headaches, and behavioral changes. Nitrites (in the form of sodium salts, used as preservatives) can combine with amino acids in the body and produce nitrosamines, which are potentially carcinogenic. Olestra, the notorious \"fake fat\" introduced into the U.S. food supply in the mid-1990s, can cause diarrhea and loose stools, abdominal cramps, and flatulence. Cochineal extract (or carmine dye), a colorant derived from insects and used in fruit drinks, candy, yogurt, and other foods, can produce life-threatening allergic reactions, from mild hives and itchy skin to dangerous anaphylaxis (toxic allergic shock).\n\nNutritionist and food researcher Carol Simontacchi takes the subject of neurotoxins and toxic food additives a step further, declaring that our modern Western diet of prepared and processed foods is \"quite literally, driving us crazy.\" They are \"crazy makers,\" she explains in a new book of the same title, destroying our brains and the neurochemical foundations of our intelligence. The bulk of the foods most Americans regularly eat are devoid of essential nutrients and loaded with too many toxic chemicals, notably pesticides, says Simontacchi. They have too few of the essential organ-building nutrients and too many of the organ-damaging industrial chemicals.\n\nThe result is a near epidemic of nutrition-related illnesses such as anorexia nervosa, bulimia, deficient cognition, depression, panic and anxiety attacks, mood imbalances, various forms of mental dysfunction or illness, and antisocial, even violent behavior, among others. Our host of new, manufactured foods, Simontacchi argues, have changed our bodies and brains, altered the brain's ability to think, and even altered the structure and function of the brain itself. \"When the brain malfunctions, sending bizarre messages to our mouths or limbs, we never wonder if the toxic thought is the product of a toxic lunch.\"\n\nForget proper nutrition; forget even poor nutrition. Simontacchi says our dietary approach is an expression of \"antinutrition.\" Through our ill-advised food choices\u2014either nutrient-deficient or neurotoxic\u2014we accelerate the damage to our brains and nervous systems with the \"very foods (or nonfoods) that we are stuffing into our mouths.\" We dig our graves with our forks, she says. We poison ourselves with nearly every mouthful.\n\nSimontacchi argues that infants, adolescents, and adults alike consume diets that lead directly to diminished brain capacity because the necessary brain-building nutrients are lacking and toxic additional elements are present. For example, she reports that ninety percent of children under age five are routinely exposed to thirteen different neurotoxic insecticides in their food; that for infants aged six to twelve months, commercial baby food is the primary source of unsafe levels of organophosphates; and that laboratory tests of eight brands of baby food (in 1995) showed residues of sixteen different pesticides. This is no way to build a healthy, optimally functioning young brain, says Simontacchi.\n\nOne class of food additives that we should be especially concerned about are antibiotics given to \"factory farm\" animals. These are cattle, chicken, and pigs raised in large lots and intended for human ingestion. Some 750 different drug products are approved for use in food animals, and fifty percent of the total antibiotic use in the United States is on food animals. The farm animals who receive this infusion of antibiotics are not necessarily sick. In many cases, \"farmers feed livestock a low-level diet of antibiotics to attack bacteria that might require the animals' body to expend energy to kill off.\" Farmers would rather the animals use that energy to fatten up quickly.\n\nThe farmers may make their quick profit return, but the rest of us pay the price. The antibiotic residues are passed on to humans who consume the animals; aside from the additional toxicity this presents to the human liver, antibiotic drug use in food animals actually contributes to the development of multiple drug-resistant bacteria and thereby a failure of antibiotics to work when administered to humans. In fact, the connection between factory farm antibiotic use and the failure of antibiotics to work in humans is becoming increasingly evident.\n\nIn 1974, an antibiotic called Virginiamycin was approved for livestock use. In 1999, a closely related antibiotic called Synercid was approved for human use. Soon after, researchers started to find bacteria that were resistant to Virginiamycin (it didn't kill them anymore) in fifty percent of chicken, turkey, and pork found in the supermarket. Since the two antibiotics are closely related, concern was raised that the effectiveness of Synercid might now be seriously diminished.\n\nThe Synercid-Virginiamycin example is only one among many. A medical report published in May 1999 stated that infections by antibiotic-resistant bacteria increased eightfold between 1992 and 1997. Further, the resistance of one strain of the bacteria salmonella (a microorganism that produces food poisoning) to five different antibiotics grew by thirty-four percent between 1980 and 1996. In other words, in about one third of the cases, five different antibiotics will have no effect against this bacteria. Chickens are a prime source for two types of food poisoning bacteria: an estimated twenty percent of U.S. broiler chickens are contaminated with salmonella and eighty percent with campylobacter.\n\nIt's all insidious: you eat some supermarket-bought chicken (laced with antibiotics); some months later you develop a serious respiratory infection and are given antibiotics to save your life, and they don't\u2014because they can't. Ironically, the antibiotics, when overused, also become less effective on the farm animals. As one commentator quipped, \"Low doses don't kill bacteria\u2014they just make them mad.\"\n\nFurther, the introduction of yet more antibiotics into the human system (most people have antibiotic residues in their cells and intestines from various medical treatments earlier in their life) gives the liver, the body's prime detoxifying organ, yet more work, and it disrupts the delicate balance of microflora in the intestines, tipping the scale towards the toxic microorganisms. This in turn provides a \"seed bed\" for the development of numerous forms of bodily discomfort and disease.\n\nFactory-farmed food animals are also laced with hormones (six are approved for use), growth hormone (bovine somatotropin growth hormone, BGH), and other toxic substances that make their way into the human body when we consume the meat, eggs, or dairy products from these animals.\n\nEarlier in this chapter, I mentioned the term persistent organic pollutants, or POPs, the toxic \"family\" of industrial chemicals found almost everywhere in the modern environment, including our foods. In fact, \"the major route of exposure to POPs in humans is through consumption of food,\" most notably, high-fat foods such as meat, fish, and dairy products, although POPs are also found in vegetables, fruits, and cereals. Ironically, once POPs enter the human intestinal tract, ninety percent of them are absorbed, which is a rate higher than a fair number of other nutrients and natural foodstuffs. Further, with infants, absorption is \"nearly complete.\"\n\nThe United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) conducted an analysis of 155 various common foods found in the U.S. marketplace during the years 1991 to 1997 for traces of the top twelve POPs. The so-called \"Dirty Dozen\" include eight insecticides (aldrin, chlordane, DDT, dieldrin, endrin, heptachlor, toxaphene, and mirex), one fungicide (hexachlorobenzene), two byproducts of organochlorine production (dioxins and furans), and PCBs.\n\nOf the twelve POPs, FDA found evidence of seven of them in the various foods tested. They found DDT residues in 136 food items, dieldrin in 100, and 14 to 34 foods contaminated with chlordane, heptachlor, hexachlorobenzene, or toxaphene. Consider this carefully: 136 out of 155 foods were contaminated with DDT (remember, this was banned in the United States years ago), and 100 with dieldrin. This means that about eight out of ten foods you are likely to buy in the supermarket will have traces of DDT, and six out of ten will be contaminated with dieldrin.\n\nA Greenpeace study on POPs in our food supply revealed that the average daily dietary intake (ADI) of organochlorines in the United States is as follows, based on 1990 statistics: 1.56 Ug\/person\/day of DDTs; 0.12 \u03bcg of HCH (hexachlorocyclohexane); 0.1 \u03bcg of dieldrin. It's worse in other countries, such as China. There the ADI is 20.47 \u03bcg for DDTs and 5.04 \u03bcg for HCH. Vietnam is pretty toxic too: intake of DDTs is 19 \u03bcg and for HCH, 5.4 \u03bcg. India has by far the worst intake averages, with ADI of 48 \u03bcg for DDTs, 155 \u03bcg for HCH, and 19 \u03bcg for aldrin and dieldrin.\n\nResearch by the FDA and the United States Department of Agriculture also showed that pregnant and nursing women tend to eat \"many\" more POP-contaminated foods than men. For example: both butter and pickles have been found to contain chlordane residues; DDT has been found in butter, American and cheddar cheese, sour cream, hamburger, peanut butter, and milk; dieldrin in dill pickles, pumpkin pie, butter, peanut butter, and American and cheddar cheese; heptachlor in plain bagels and cracked wheat bread. Further, according to the Environmental Working Group (EWG), which presented the government data on their website, a pregnant or nursing woman tends to eat sixteen of the fifty most POP-contaminated foods, a rate much higher than for the typical U.S. male. Among the top sixteen most POP-toxic foods, EWG lists: American cheese, butter, cheddar cheese, cheeseburgers, dill pickles, hamburgers, lasagna with meat, peanut butter, peanuts, pepper-oni pizza, potato chips, pumpkin pie, raisins, sour cream, vanilla ice cream, and whole milk.\n\nYet another term used to describe these ubiquitous environment chemicals is PBTs, or persistent, bioaccumulative, and toxic pollutants, according to a report released by the EPA in September 2000. With all of these terms\u2014VOCs, POPs, PBTs\u2014there is a fair amount of overlap, but at the same time, they provide confirmation and public\u2014in this case, governmental\u2014recognition that toxic substances in the environment are a serious human health problem. Chief among the PBTs, according to the EPA, are methylmercury (mainly from tainted fish and hospital waste incineration), polychlorinated biphenyls, or PCBs, and dioxin (from pesticides).\n\nIn a report on their new initiatives to control and reduce levels of PBTs in the environment, the EPA acknowledged that PBTs concentrate in the food chain to toxic levels, and have an uncanny ability to travel long distances and to linger for generations in people and the environment. They noted that dioxin levels have now reached the level associated with adverse non-cancer effects, which is probably one-step away from being a widespread carcinogen; and that twenty-five percent of children and nine percent of adults in the United States are exposed to unacceptable levels of methylmercuiy. Levels of PBTs in the Arctic are expected to rise significantly due to the distribution phenomenon called global distillation (described previously) as a result of \"increased local and southeast Asian industrialization.\"\n\n### The Toxic Living Space and You\u2014What It All Means\n\nIt is not the intent of this chapter to provide complete documentation of every source of environmental pollution and bodily toxicity. To do this subject justice would take a book in itself. It is more important here to gain an understanding of the extent of pollution and its health consequences. You have gotten a sense of the players\u2014POPs, VOCs, PBTs, pesticides, phthalates, organochlorines, nuclear radiation, excitotoxins, \"crazy-maker\" foods\u2014and how they permeate our bodies and the modern environment. And you have come to see that to some extent everyone has toxic substances within their fatty tissues and that every corner of the planet carries toxics in its soil, water, plant, and animal life.\n\nThis knowledge can seem at first overwhelming, intimidating, even depressing. Part of the reason it might seem too much to know is that, as a culture, we have known so little, and have never been encouraged to ask. So it is shocking to suddenly expand our awareness, to start digesting the awesome details of global toxicity and its permeation of our living space, both body and home. But what else would motivate us to take the needed steps to start detoxifying ourselves and to start petitioning for ecological awareness and pollution reform in society? Taking a long hard look at the extent of the damage, and the risk of still more damage, is sobering, but it gives us a sound information base upon which to build a practical program of detoxification and minimization of further exposure to toxic substances.\n\nAs discussed throughout this chapter, many of the persistent organic pollutants are very stable, very persistent, and very deeply entrenched in human flesh. It is unlikely that even the most comprehensive detoxification program will flush them all out of your system. It is also unlikely that you will be able to live in such a way that you avoid all contact with toxic sources.\n\nWhat is likely and therefore prudent is to _reduce_ your exposure, _minimize_ your contact, and _maximize_ your body's excretion of the toxic substances you can't avoid. The goal of this book is to show you how (and why) to adopt many practical ways of helping your body detoxify itself of as much of its toxic load as it can and at the same time to build up your body's natural resistance to toxic substances.\n\nOne of the chief tools you need in this effort to clean up your living space is awareness. Pollutants are so prevalent, so taken for granted, so invisible in our world today that it is very easy to get exposed many times during a single day without being aware of it. Here are a few examples:\n\nI visited some friends in another state recently. One of their neighbors was an avid gardener, and had an acre devoted to a lovely flower garden, with statuary, fountains, a fish pond, contemplation benches, and many flowering bushes and plants. On the day of my visit, she was using a small bottle with a pump to spray pesticide on dandelions growing by the roadside at the edge of her garden. The device hardly made a sound, and the liquid looked like water, but it was a poison and it was emitting little molecular clouds of toxins. I stepped back so as not to breathe these pesticide fumes, but my friend showed no such concern.\n\n**_What is likely and therefore prudent is to reduce your exposure, minimize your contact, and maximize your body's excretion of the toxic substances you can't avoid._**\n\nAnother friend works in an art gallery and reported this incident to me. The gallery is a small, rectangular space with no cross ventilation from front door to back door. An artist supervising the installation of his show asked if anyone on the staff\u2014there were five people present\u2014minded if he sprayed a \"fairly nasty paint\" on the wall behind his sculptures. Nobody minded, except my friend, who opened the front door and stood outside while the toxic paint was sprayed on the walls. Everyone else regarded the paint as if it were as routine as secondhand tobacco smoke, and therefore to be viewed as benign (an erroneous conclusion in both cases).\n\nA third friend made a routine shopping visit to a small mall in a medium-size college town. When she arrived in the parking lot, she noticed a few police blocking entry of traffic at the far end, while others ran around, shouting and waving things. She parked, walked a few paces, and was about to enter a store when she smelled the foulest chemical odor she had ever experienced. She had no idea what it was, but noticed that already some of her throat muscles felt stiff, as if they had turned to wood. She left the mall and drove home.\n\nWhen she called one of the stores in the mall, she was told a medical waste truck had leaked diesel and this had combined with recent acid rain to produce the smell. She was also told that officials from the Environmental Protection Agency had been called in. No diesel she had ever encountered had smelled like that, so she didn't believe the story. It took a day for her neck to feel normal again, and for all numbness to go away. But as to the health effects on all the store personnel and shoppers who were exposed to those obviously toxic fumes all that day and who were not kept from the mall one can only guess.\n\nYou can see from these three simple examples\u2014presented to me in the space of five days\u2014how crucial is awareness, being alert to when you are about to get a low-dose toxic exposure and avoiding it or minimizing your exposure time.\n\nSome of the toxic agents mentioned in this chapter will be discussed in greater detail in later chapters, along with practical steps for detoxification and lifestyle arrangement to help you avoid or minimize further exposure to them. In the next chapter, we look at the body's natural detoxification system and see what happens when it gets overwhelmed by environmental toxins and can no longer rid the body of toxic substances.\n\n# CHAPTER 2\n\n# _Why You Need to Detoxify: Augmenting the Body's Natural Detoxification System_\n\nThe essential point in this chapter is that while your body has innate detoxification mechanisms, the degree to which the average person is now toxic often limits the ability of these systems to work. In other words, your body may be so overloaded with toxins that it cannot do its naturally appointed job of toxin removal, of detoxification. This failure leaves you less than optimally fit, sluggish, tired, allergic, aching, sore, subject to any of dozens of symptoms, and eventually suffering a chronic health problem, or worse, a degenerative condition, such as cancer.\n\nWhile the solution is straightforward\u2014deliberately, responsibly detoxifying to unclog and catalyze the body's own internal cleansing systems\u2014the question that must be answered is this: why is the body's natural detoxification system ineffective? What are the consequences of being toxic and unable to fully detoxify ourselves of poisons we get from our environment? How should the detoxification system work if it is in top condition? Why should we strive to return it to optimal efficiency? These are the questions we'll consider in this chapter.\n\n### The Body's Burden\u2014Total Toxic Load and Toxic Stress\n\nPhysicians who are alerted to the necessities of healthy detoxification often speak of the body in terms of toxic overload. They may use clinical terms such as total toxic burden, total toxic load, and toxic stress to indicate a condition of dysfunctional, inefficient, even incompetent detoxification. In nonmedical, layperson's terms, this is like a drain that is so clogged with debris it lets only ten percent of the grey water flow down, trapping the other ninety percent and creating a stagnant pool of toxic water.\n\nNaturopaths Peter Bennett, N.D., and Stephen Barrie, N.D., have come up with an amusing yet accurate term for our life under the influence of toxins: we are in- _toxin_ -cated, they declare. It's like being inebriated, except it isn't alcohol we consumed, but a long list of toxins from substances in our environment; even worse, we don't even remember the \"party\" at which we imbibed the poisons. Drs. Bennett and Barrie, like many alternative-minded practitioners sensitive to the importance of detoxification, use the image of an overflowing barrel\u2014a perhaps more apt analogy than the clogged drain.\n\n**_Think of your body and its organs and systems as a barrel into which there is a slow, steady drip of toxic water. Eventually, unless you drain the barrel (detoxify), the barrel will overflow, and toxic water will spill over everything, will permeate parts of your body ill-equipped to handle the deluge._**\n\nThink of your body and its organs and systems as a barrel into which there is a slow, steady drip of toxic water. Eventually, unless you drain the barrel (detoxify), the barrel will overflow, and toxic water will spill over everything, will permeate parts of your body ill-equipped to handle the deluge. \"That toxic overflow is the beginning of disease and disability,\" explain Bennett and Barrie. They add that if your detoxification system (your liver, kidneys, intestines, and immune and lymphatic systems) is overworked (which includes being nutritionally depleted or deficient, as explained below), any new exposure to toxins from foods or environmental substances and products is even harder to handle and creates an even greater toxic problem for the components of that system\u2014your liver, intestines, and immune system. In other words, if your \"barrel\" is full, even a minimal toxic exposure can have the health impact of a large one.\n\nWhere does the excess toxicity go when it overflows into other parts of your body? A great deal of it accumulates in the spaces between the cells, in a place called the extracellular connective tissue matrix. \"It is, in a sense, a living matrix\u2014a place where many systems intersect and are coordinated,\" explains Rudolf Ballentine, M.D., in _Radical Healing._ This space between the cells is the background, the field or ground supporting the major organs; for this reason, conventional medicine tends to overlook this area as a focal point for toxicity, says Dr. Ballentine. But they shouldn't. It is crucial to the body's functioning.\n\nThis matrix is an all-purpose dump site and part of the drainage system within the body. It takes cellular and lymphatic system waste and holds it in temporary storage. The fluids in this space can get saturated with toxins and start to leak the excess into neighboring connective tissue. When the storage capacity of this extracellular space is exceeded and leakage occurs, you begin to develop signs of toxicity. For example, you may feel stiffness or pain in the body; these symptoms result from the irritation produced by these deposits in the connective tissues.\n\nThe extracellular matrix also comprises \"an intricate communications network\" running alongside that of the nervous and endocrine system. But if the matrix is overburdened with toxic storage, the communications don't work properly and the energy channels get compromised. At that point, you will start feeling ill, with symptoms such as general tiredness, dullness of the mind and senses, bad breath, heaviness, lack of strength, indigestion, constipation, coated tongue, and foul-smelling urine and\/or feces, says Dr. Ballentine. Then you start moving \"from congestion to disease.\"\n\nHere is another analogy by which to appreciate an overburdened detoxification system. Think of your immune system as a kettle, suggests Kenneth Bock, M.D., an alternative-minded physician who directs the Rhinebeck Health Center in New York State. Like a barrel, a kettle can hold only a finite amount of toxins. But there are many categories of toxins that can get into our immune system kettle, explains Dr. Bock.\n\nThese include psychosocial factors (such as emotional stress); environmental pollution (toxins and heavy metals out in the world); tobacco smoke; radiation and electromagnetic field exposure; prescription and recreational drugs; hormonal imbalances; infectious agents (microorganisms); allergies and other sensitivities (to chemicals, foods, plant substances); dietary stresses (excesses or deficiencies in nutrients, too many synthetic chemicals); and our genetic blueprint, which is to say, the balance of strengths and weaknesses and our general predisposition to certain types of health problems.\n\n\"Any one part of our immune system load can put us 'over the top' of the kettle if our accumulated burden is high,\" says Dr. Bock. In other words, we can tolerate perhaps six categories of toxins or toxic loads, but the seventh will make the immune system kettle overflow, and we get sick from the spillage. (Note that individual tolerance varies; some people might experience overflow at four, or even fewer, toxic categories.)\n\nHere is a vivid example provided by Dr. Bock, citing a case originally described in _The Wall Street Journal_. A man who was vigorous and athletic mowed his lawn and collected the grass clippings, then almost fell down dead. He got dizzy, nauseous, and developed a terrible headache. Ten days later he was just as sick, and getting worse, and five months later, he got testicular cancer. As the years passed, he had seizures, walking difficulties, and other health deficits. What had happened?\n\nThe man was poisoned by a lawn pesticide sprayed on his grass; he inhaled the fumes and they sickened him. His liver was unable to detoxify the chemical because it was already burdened with detoxifying the components of Tagamet, a drug for peptic ulcers, on top of the environmental pollutants to which we are all exposed. The constant demand to detoxify the Tagamet left him vulnerable to carcinogens and defenseless against their effects once they entered his body.\n\n\"How many of us have toxins accumulating in our bodies?\" queries Dr. Bock. \"The scary truth is, we all do.\" Many of us, shockingly, are \"walking toxic dumps,\" he adds. It is almost impossible for anyone in the Western world today (and perhaps anywhere in the world at all now) to avoid building up some degree of immune toxic load, Dr. Bock explains, but he adds that the problem is also the doorway to the solution. Anyone can purposefully lower their immune load\u2014drain the kettle\u2014by a careful program of detoxification.\n\n### The Oxidation-Reduction Cycle at the Heart of Detoxification\n\nBefore we look at how we can clear our detoxification system\u2014empty the kettle or at least pour out some of the water\u2014it's important to get a picture of the biochemical struggle constantly under way in the human body, and meet its players: the toxins, called free radicals; and the anti-toxins, called antioxidants.\n\nFirst, there are two types of toxins, or free radicals. _Exotoxins_ are those that enter the body from the environment, from products, substances, medicines, additives, foods, the air and water we consume. _Endotoxins_ are produced inside us, as natural byproducts of digestive activity or through illness. Sources of free radicals include pesticides, industrial pollutants, smoking, alcohol, viruses, most infections, allergies, stress, even certain foods and excessive exercise. Toxins of either type can bioaccumulate by being stored in the body's fatty tissues, including cell membranes; once the toxins are fat-soluble (as opposed to water-soluble), it is harder for the body to detoxify them.\n\nSecond, there is a natural chemical process that takes place continuously inside the body that is the key to the toxicity-detoxification situation. It's called oxidation and refers to the way oxygen combines with a substance to release energy. A fire is \"fueled\" or driven by oxidation, and so are the body's digestive and metabolic processes. The body uses oxygen, drawn from the outer environment, to \"burn\" fats and carbohydrates from ingested foods to generate energy to run a myriad of cellular processes. The body generates energy for itself by oxidizing the foods we consume in a controlled way. That's why we eat food in the first place: to provide this cellular fuel released by the chemical processes known as metabolism.\n\nHowever, this process of cellular oxidation has some natural byproducts\u2014smoke, so to speak, if this were wood we were burning\u2014including carbon dioxide and water, which are harmless, and free radicals, which are harmful, highly reactive molecules\u2014\"molecular marauders,\" says Dr. Bock. All chemical reactions in the body involve the transfer of electrons, as a kind of \"currency\" exchange. In this case, the exchange is for energy to run the body. The metabolism of food, or oxidation, removes electrons one by one from the foods. Think of oxidation as a controlled fire that releases energy but also sends off sparks. In this analogy, the sparks are free radicals, or unpaired, unstable, chemically reactive electrons.\n\nA free radical is a toxic molecule of oxygen with an unpaired electron. A free radical tries to remedy its instability by stealing an electron from another molecule; when it does, a new free radical is produced, and this leads to a chain reaction of ever multiplying free radicals and unstable molecules. In a sense, it's the instability\u2014the unpairedness\u2014that creates all the damage. The proliferation of free radicals as a result of oxidation is called oxidative stress. The degree of oxidative stress can be taken as a measure of the body's capacity, or incapacity, to handle toxins and perform its own detoxification (see Chapter 3).\n\nFree radicals are formed when molecules within cells react with oxygen (oxidize) as part of normal metabolic processes. Free radicals then begin to break down cells, especially the cell membranes, often in a matter of minutes to an hour. A single free radical can destroy a cell. Their work is enhanced if there are not enough free-radical quenching nutrients, such as vitamins C and E, which are normally present in the cell. A free radical attacks the cell's membranes, eventually rupturing it; this allows the egress of bacteria, viruses, and other pathogenic microorganisms into the cell and the leakage of essential nutrients out of the cell.\n\nOnce inside the cells, free radicals can change the cell's physical structure, making it rigid and inflexible. Free radicals harmfully alter important molecules, such as proteins, enzymes, fats, even DNA. They can commandeer the cell's genetic apparatus, as it were, rewriting or destroying essential genetic programming. This in turn can lead to cellular mutations, which is only one step away from cancer.\n\nFat cells (the unsaturated lipid molecules, specifically) are especially vulnerable to free radical disturbance. When the fat components of cells are damaged by free radicals, lipid peroxides result. The quantity of lipid peroxides in your blood can be taken as an index of your risk for what's called oxygen free radical pathology and the chance of developing a degenerative disease as a result of widespread and continuous cell damage. High blood levels of lipid peroxides mean your system has _already_ been damaged by free radicals.\n\nFree radical pathology in many ways is the cornerstone of the model that explains how toxins make you sick. The means by which other toxic substances or procedures, such as irradiation, heavy metals, solvents, pesticides, and prescription drugs, produce pathology is by generating free radicals in the body. As free radicals can potentially damage every aspect of cell function including the integrity of its membrane, a long list of degenerative illnesses can be set in motion once free radicals start damaging your cells.\n\nSo central to the dynamics of health is the concept of free radical damage that practitioners of alternative medicine now speak in terms of free radical pathology as \"a unified cause of chronic illness.\" The term mentioned above, oxidative stress, is pivotal to this discussion of toxicity and illness. A person's degree of oxidative stress depends on the balance between the rate at which free radicals produce damage and antioxidants repair it, or the rate at which free radicals proliferate and the antioxidants quench them. If free radicals predominate, the degree of oxidative stress increases, and eventually you get sick, and still later, start to develop degenerative disease.\n\n\"Unfortunately, many people run an abnormally high level of oxidative stress that could increase their probability of early incidence of age-related diseases,\" states a consumer information booklet from Genox Corporation, a clinical laboratory in Baltimore, Maryland, that tests for oxidative stress. Evidence now suggests that even individuals who seem healthy may have a much higher than average (and therefore undesirable) level of oxidative stress and may already be \"well on their way towards developing an oxidative stress-related disease,\" states Genox.\n\nAccording to Genox, oxidative-stress-induced dysfunctions and diseases are many but can include accelerated aging processes; heart disease (stroke, heart attack); disorders in the gastrointestinal tract (including diabetes and pancreatitis); macular degeneration, cataracts, and other eye problems; kidney and skin disorders; nervous system problems (Parkinson's, Alzheimer's, muscular dystrophy, multiple sclerosis); lung cancer and emphysema; and serious problems with red blood cells, the liver, and immune system (rheumatoid arthritis). As early as 1988, scientists were prepared to attribute at least sixty disorders to free radical damage, and one expert in the field declared that few people reach their maximum life span but rather die prematurely from diseases, the vast majority of which are free-radical-related diseases.\n\nThe theory connecting free radical toxicity with aging and disease was formulated in 1954, however, and one of its leading proponents since then has been Denham Harman, M.D., of the University of Nebraska College of Medicine in Omaha. After age twenty-eight, says Dr. Harman, \"the inborn aging process\" is the major risk factor for disease and death; this inborn aging process is strongly (but not exclusively) determined by free radical reactions in the body and the body's ability to neutralize them. Such free radical reactions, a growing consensus maintains, \"are a major cause of aging, possibly the only one,\" states Dr. Harman. He adds that average life expectancy at birth can be increased by five to ten years and a \"healthy active life span\" obtained \"by nutritious low caloric diets supplemented with one or more free radical reaction inhibitors [antioxidants].\"\n\n**_Early detection of high levels of oxidative stress gives you the chance to stop the progression of oxidative stress to disease. The earlier you can find out if you are oxidatively stressed, the sooner you can take corrective action in the form of a carefully planned detoxification program and antioxidant supplementation._**\n\nHarman's research makes it clear that _early_ detection of high levels of oxidative stress (through laboratory testing, as explained in Chapter 3) gives you the chance to stop the progression of oxidative stress to disease. The earlier you can find out if you are oxidatively stressed, the sooner you can take corrective action in the form of a carefully planned detoxification program and antioxidant supplementation.\n\nOn the other side of the toxicity picture are the antioxidants, the natural elements that work against oxidative free radicals. An antioxidant (meaning \"against oxidation\") is a natural biochemical substance that protects living cells against damage from harmful free radicals. Antioxidants work against the process of oxidation\u2014the robbing of electrons from substances. Antioxidants in the body react readily with oxygen breakdown products and free radicals, and neutralize them before they can damage the body. Dr. Bock uses the analogy of an indoor fireplace spewing sparks that could ignite the carpet; the sparks are free radicals, and the screen that you place preventively before the burning logs comprises the antioxidants.\n\nThe antioxidants render free radicals harmless by a process known as reduction: they add back the missing electron by giving up a molecule from themselves to the unpaired electron in the free radical. Thus oxidation and reduction form a system (sometimes referred to by the abbreviation \"redox\"). In oxidation, an electron is lost, producing a free radical; in reduction, the electron is given back by an antioxidant; even simpler: oxi-dation=electron loss; reduction=electron gain. When the redox system runs in balance, you stay healthy because your natural detoxification system works efficiently; when it runs in a state of imbalance, you get toxic and eventually, you get sick.\n\nAdequate nutrient intake is vital to your body having the biochemicals it needs to run the antioxidant-reduction pole of the redox cycle. Antioxidant nutrients include vitamins A, C, and E, beta carotene, selenium, coenzyme Q10, pycnogenol (pine bark extract), L-glutathione, superoxide dismutase, and bioflavonoids. Plant antioxidants include _Ginkgo biloba_ and garlic. When antioxidants are taken in combination, the effect is stronger than when they are used individually.\n\n### The Body's Two-Phase Natural Process of Detoxification\n\nThe human body is well equipped to handle a normal load of toxins and to neutralize and remove them from its interior. Of course in this discussion, the key term is \"normal load\" because, as discussed in Chapter 1 and earlier in this chapter, most of us no longer carry a normal toxic burden, able to be handled by the body's innate detoxification system. Rather, many of us have far too many toxins in our bodies, a situation that tends to compromise and limit the body's natural ability to detoxify itself.\n\nIn effect, many of us are too toxic for our bodies' detoxification mechanisms to work properly, and we end up depositing toxins in various fatty tissues as \"seeds\" for imminent health problems. To understand how our natural detoxification pathways get blocked and dysfunctional, let's first study how the healthy body is meant to deal with toxicity through what physiologists call the liver's two phases of detoxification.\n\nThe liver is the prime receptacle of and processing center for all the toxins our body ingests or produces internally as part of its standard biological processes. As noted earlier, the kidneys and intestines are the other principal players in detoxification, but only about twenty-five percent takes place in the intestines; the rest happens in the liver. In brief, in Phase I detoxification various toxic biochemicals are modified to make them an easier mark for the detoxification enzymes that will neutralize them in Phase II. The key concept is that liver-mobilized enzymes neutralize toxic chemicals so the body can excrete them, and this process depends on adequate body reserves of key nutrients.\n\n### Phase I Detoxification\n\nThe goal of this phase, which scientists label \"biotransformation,\" is to chemically alter in the liver any substances the liver identifies as toxins (\"xenobiotics,\" or foreign life) and to change them into an intermediate form. You might say this is like taking the stinger out of the bee without killing it.\n\nGenerally speaking, the liver has to deal with toxins that have a preference for fat (lipophilic, or \"fat-loving\") and that are not water soluble, that is, they don't mix with or dissolve in water. These fat-soluble toxins also are nonpolar, which means they have no electrical charge. Phase I detoxification will make them water-soluble and electrically charged, both of which changes favor easier excretion from the body. This biotransformation is accomplished in part by the addition of an atom (or several) to the toxin, such that it loses electrons (oxidation) or gains electrons (reduction), and the removal of a specific component of its makeup, such as taking away a group of sulfur or halogen molecules.\n\nThe toxins can include pollutants that enter the body through the air, water, and foods we consume, or through medicines and drugs. They also include toxic chemicals produced naturally\u2014that is, for a biological reason\u2014but which, if allowed to build up internally, are toxic to the body. These include various hormones and inflammatory chemicals such as histamine, involved in the allergic reaction.\n\nVarious enzymes are required to perform Phase I detoxification, and these are known as mixed function oxidative enzymes, collectively called cytochrome P450. It's estimated that about 50-100 enzymes comprise this group. But let's stop for a moment: What is an enzyme?\n\nAn enzyme is a specialized living protein fundamental to all living processes in the body, necessary for every chemical reaction and the normal activity of our organs, tissues, fluids, and cells. Enzymes, of which there are hundreds of thousands, are essential for the production of energy required to run all the functions of cells. Enzymes enable the body to digest and assimilate food. There are special enzymes for digesting proteins, carbohydrates, fats, and plant fibers. Enzymes also assist in clearing the body of toxins and cellular debris, in addition to assisting the liver in its detoxification processes.\n\nThe competence of the cytochrome P450 system can vary considerably among individuals, due apparently to genetics, one's level of toxic exposure, and one's nutritional status. For example, it is known that, to work optimally, cytochrome P450 requires vitamins C, B2, B3, B6, and B12; copper; magnesium; zinc; folic acid; and flavonoids. If your diet has been nutritionally inadequate and you are exposed to a high degree of toxins\u2014say air pollution in a big city such as Los Angeles\u2014your detoxification capabilities are already set a notch or two lower than ideal. An Italian study of chemical plant factory workers, for example, showed that those with an underactive cytochrome P450 system were more vulnerable to carcinogens (substances known or suspected to contribute to the emergence and spread of cancer).\n\nWhat happens when the liver's enzyme team encounters a xenobiotic, or toxin? It tries to 1) change the substance into a less toxic form; 2) neutralize it by rendering it water-soluble so it can be easily excreted in the urine; or 3) convert it to a more chemically active form, making it an easier target for the Phase II detoxification (this process is called bioactivation). It is ironic that the very process of changing, neutralizing, and converting toxins itself produces free radicals, which also must be neutralized or removed from the system. Every time a foreign toxin is metabolized (chemically acted upon\u2014\"digested\" in a sense), a free radical results. Each new free radical generated during detoxification can in turn harm the liver and compromise its continuing detoxification abilities. Incidentally, eating foods to which we have allergies also produces free radicals as well as the histamine and other inflammatory products related to an allergic reaction. All of these further strains the liver's detoxifying capacity.\n\nNormally, the liver is able to handle the temporary increase in free radicals via its highly competent antioxidant protein, glutathione, which comes into play in Phase II detoxification. However, if the liver is flooded with toxins in Phase I and has to work overtime to neutralize the free radicals, this uses up the glutathione reserves, leaving none for Phase II. This highlights a tricky part of Phase I. In converting toxins to make them easier targets for Phase II, the new forms, known as \"activated intermediates,\" can be much more toxic than the originals.\n\nThe goal is to get these activated intermediates dealt with as quickly as possible in Phase II and removed from the body. In a balanced detoxification process, the activated intermediates are generated at a rate that Phase II can keep up with; in an unbalanced process, Phase II gets overloaded with the activated intermediates and your detoxification ends up being pathological, itself producing poisons. People with this problem are known clinically as \"pathological detoxifiers,\" and they tend to be excessively reactive to externally contacted poisons because their total toxic burden has already been reached and their Phase II abilities are dangerously compromised.\n\nBiologists have discovered that certain foods, herbs, nutrients, and industrial or human-made substances can activate Phase I while others can inhibit its action. Among those that can trigger Phase I are alcohol, nicotine (tobacco smoke), phenobarbital, steroids, niacin, riboflavin, vitamin C, sassafras, caraway and dill seeds, oranges, tangerines, cabbage, broccoli, Brussels sprouts, and charcoal-broiled meats.\n\nIn a complementary way, specific nutrients can help the Phase I process: choline, fatty acids, lecithin, methionine (an amino acid), milk thistle (an herb), beta-carotene (a vitamin A precursor), vitamin Bl, vitamins C and E, copper, iron, magnesium, manganese, molybdenum, sulfur, and zinc.\n\nThe practical aspect of this information is immediate: if you are deficient in any of these nutrients, your Phase I detoxification may be hindered; if you are undergoing a deliberate detoxification program and you supplement with these nutrients, the process may proceed at a far better rate of competence than otherwise.\n\nBut there is an equally long list of substances that can block Phase I from getting started, and these include various antidepressants, antihistamines, and other drugs; chemicals found in grapefruit juice; turmeric; red chili pepper; and clove oil. Scientists found that naringenin, a substance naturally occurring in grapefruit juice, can decrease your levels of cytochrome P450 by thirty percent.\n\n### Phase II Detoxification\n\nChemically speaking, what happens in this second part of your body's natural detoxification process is called conjugation. This means various liver enzymes affix chemicals to the toxin, which has been oxidized or partially changed from Phase I activity, either to neutralize it or to make it easily excreted through the urine or bile. The goal is to prepare (alter) the toxic substance so it can be excreted from the body. There are six pathways in Phase II, each involving specific ways of neutralizing toxins; we might say that each of these six detoxification pathways specializes in dealing with a certain family or type of toxin.\n\nOne of the main pathways is glutathione conjugation. A liver enzyme called glutathione S-transferase (glutathione is made of three amino acids, the building blocks of proteins) combines (or conjugates) sulfur with the toxic substance making it water soluble and easily excreted. Glutathione is the body's main defense against free radicals and a key neutralizer of the free radicals generated during Phase I. \"The combination of detoxification and free radical protection results in glutathione being one of the most important anticarcinogens and antioxidants in our cells, which means that a deficiency is devastating,\" comments naturopathic educator and physician Joseph Pizzorno, N.D., former president of Bastyr University in Seattle, Washington.\n\nThe glutathione detoxification (or conjugation) pathway generates up to sixty percent of the toxins that get excreted in the bile. These include industrial toxins such as PCBs and a fair number of carcinogenic substances. Glutathione is also a potent antioxidant, collecting and neutralizing free radicals in the blood. The trouble is if your system gets overloaded by deadly toxins\u2014by an intense one-time or prolonged exposure to toxins, such as in a chemical plant or nuclear power plant\u2014your glutathione reserves get used up and you become essentially defenseless against the powerful free radicals. You then become more susceptible to serious illnesses including cancer because your immune defenses have been dangerously weakened.\n\nAnother important detoxification pathway is called amino acid conjugation, which involves five amino acids that combine with and neutralize specific targeted poisons. These poisons include at least four classes of drugs and five types of xenobi-otics, or foreign toxic chemicals. Let's stop for a moment to be sure we understand the essential term, amino acid.\n\nAmino acids are the basic building blocks of the 40,000 different proteins in the body, including enzymes, hormones, and the key brain chemical messenger molecules called neurotransmitters. Eight amino acids cannot be made by the body and must be obtained through the diet; others are produced in the body but not always in sufficient amounts. The body's main \"amino acid pool\" consists of: alanine, arginine, aspargine, aspartic acid, carnitine, citrulline, cysteine, cystine, GABA, glutamic acid, glutamine, glycine, histidine, isoleucine, leucine, lysine, methionine, ornithine, phenylalanine, proline, serine, taurine, threonine, tryptophan, tyrosine, and valine. The amino acids involved in amino acid conjugation are glycine, taurine, glutamine, arginine, and ornithine.\n\nHere is an interesting fact about one aspect of the amino acid conjugation pathway. If you consume a lot of soft drinks (sodas) that contain benzoates, this substance binds with your body's reserve of glycine, one of the five conjugation amino acids, and makes it unavailable to the body. This then makes it hard for your system to detoxifiy toluene, an organic solvent found in many industrial products and substances one encounters on an almost daily basis. Similarly, aspirin can grab up glycine reserves in the liver, thereby slowing down the glycine detoxification pathway. These limitations in glycine detoxification are of course reversible by supplementing with glycine, along with the other amino acids.\n\nAnother Phase II detoxification pathway is called glucuronidation, which entails the binding of glucuronic acid with foreign toxins. This pathway is responsible for neutralizing at least fifteen known types of prescription drugs, five xenobiotics, and various substances of dietary origin (free radicals naturally generated in the body during the metabolism of foods).\n\nSulfation, still another detoxification pathway, is often defective in people due to inadequate intake of dietary sulfate. This means if you are exposed to toxins that are supposed to be detoxified by the sulfation pathway and you are deficient in sulfate, your system will be unable to neutralize these substances and they remain free to produce illness and various health problems such as Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, autism, rheumatoid arthritis, food sensitivity, and multiple chemical sensitivity, among others.\n\nWhen it's working optimally, the sulfation pathway will use sulfur-containing compounds to handle the neutralization of neurotransmitters, steroid hormones (including excess thyroid and estrogen), drugs, industrial chemicals, various compounds derived from benzene (as used in plastics, disinfectants, and drugs), and toxins from the environment and our own intestines. According to naturopathic educators Peter Bennett, N.D., and Stephen Barrie, N.D., this is often \"the weakest pathway in most people, from a dietary standpoint.\"\n\nThe preceding examples make it clear how important satisfactory nutrition is to successful and efficient detoxification, and show what happens when you are deficient in only one element, such as glutathione or sulfate. These facts also make a strong case for undergoing some kind of diagnostic screening and testing, as described in the next chapter, to document your actual biochemical status and degree of detoxification competency.\n\nAfter the liver finishes its two-phase detoxification process, the bile carries the toxic metabolites (the neutralized residues or converted substances) to the intestines for excretion. The liver produces about one quart of bile every day as a carrier for toxins to be excreted from the intestines (to which it is sent), but also as a way of emulsifying fats and fat-soluble vitamins in the intestines, and as the primary excretion pathway for cholesterol and unneeded calcium.\n\nAs with Phase I, this second aspect of the liver's detoxification process requires sufficient internal levels of key nutrients or can be enhanced by the ingestion of specific substances, including cysteine, glycine, and taurine, garlic, L-glutathione, N-acetyl-cysteine (NAC, a cysteine precursor), folic acid, vitamins B 1, 2, 3, 5, 6, and 12, germanium, magnesium, manganese, molybdenum, selenium, sulfur, and zinc.\n\n### Immunotoxicity and How the Detoxification Pathways Get Blocked\n\nWe have just reviewed the liver's two-phase detoxification system as it is meant to work, but for many people, this optimum operation is only a physiological ideal and not a bodily reality. For many, certain elements of the detoxification pathway are blocked, compromised, or dysfunctional, leading to a state of chronic internal stagnation and immunotoxicity.\n\nWhen the detoxification pathways in the liver are blocked or inefficient, the toxic products build up in the bloodstream and intestines, producing an extra load of \"foreign\" substances the immune system must deal with. The immune system may get overloaded and overstimulated; it will start to show signs of this condition in allergies, headaches, chronic sinus conditions, inflammatory states (muscle soreness and intestinal irritation), infections (colds and flus) that keep coming back, swollen lymph glands, and from here on to more serious disorders. In other words, through your system's inability to completely detoxify itself, you are slowly but definitely \"growing\" illness from within. Eventually, assuming you do not actively detoxify, the toxicity will have \"sprouted\" some noxious growth inside your body and you will be sick in one form or another.\n\n**_Through your system's inability to completely detoxify itself, you are slowly but definitely \"growing\" illness from within. Eventually, assuming you do not actively detoxify, the toxicity will have \"sprouted\" some noxious growth inside your body and you will be sick in one form or another_**.\n\nIn addition to considering the state of the liver's detoxification pathways, we must also pay attention to the intestines. While the issue of chronic constipation and colon cleansing is discussed thoroughly in Chapter 4, a quick overview is worthwhile here. You must appreciate the astonishing fact that the human intestines, large and small, comprise a twenty-six-foot-long internal organ. That leaves a lot of room for storage; daily bowel motions do not indicate that a person is not chronically constipated. Most people are, because the intestines are so, literally, accommodating. Early signs of intestinal toxicity include headaches, sinus problems, allergies, sluggishness, mental torpor, irritation, mood swings, concentration problems, weight gain, and others.\n\nIf unrelieved, these symptoms provide a platform for the next layer of complications to arise. The intestinal wall might start to \"leak,\" producing a symptom physicians call \"leaky gut syndrome\" or intestinal permeability. Intestinal toxins migrate out of the intestines into the bloodstream and into general systemic circulation. This is not desirable. The immune system goes on alert and soon will become hyperstimulated. It tags all the toxins floating in the blood as foreign proteins and has to work overtime to deal with them.\n\nThe immune system treats these foreign substances or antigens as invaders, causing antibodies to form and couple with them. This antigen and antibody combination is known as a circulating immune complex, or CIC. In a healthy person, CICs are neutralized, but in someone with a compromised immune system, they tend to accumulate in the blood where they burden the detoxification pathways or initiate an allergic reaction. If too many CICs accumulate, the kidneys cannot excrete enough of them through the urine. The CICs are then stored in soft tissues, causing inflammation and bringing stress to the immune system. The overload can lead to a variety of chronic health conditions, including autoimmune disorders and cancer.\n\nWhen environmental pollutants and our own internally generated free radicals are not neutralized and removed from the body, they start having serious adverse effects inside us. They become toxic to the immune system\u2014hence, immunotoxins. Numerous symptoms can result, but among those related to unrelieved toxicity is the strange cluster of symptoms that began to show up in people in the 1990s. This cluster was subsequently labeled environmental illness. In a sense, environmental illness represents the exaggerated, almost surreal result of unrelieved toxicity, demonstrating how it affects numerous body functions, throws out multiple symptoms, and generally baffles conventional medical thinking. However, the thinking in the world of alternative, natural medicine is that conditions like El are the result of aggravated systemic toxicity.\n\nAs discussed in Chapter 1, El is similar in many respects to multiple chemical sensitivity (detailed in chapter 10) and chronic fatigue syndrome. It is a multispectrum dysfunctional state believed to be produced by excessive exposure to environmental pollutants and a corresponding inability of the body to detoxify them. Dismissed as an imaginary illness and given other pejorative labels by conventional medicine, El found confirmation initially among the ranks of practitioners of environmental medicine, formerly called clinical ecology.\n\nIn fact, it was in the late 1940s when pioneering clinical ecologist Theron Randolph, M.D., first identified the health deteriorating effect of environmental toxins and promulgated the medical understanding that many conditions, such as allergies and other chronic problems, could be produced by the glut of unprocessed toxins in the human body.\n\nDr. Randolph had been building on earlier work that linked food allergies with chronic diseases of unknown origin (rheumatoid arthritis, ulcerative colitis, migraines) and common symptoms (headache, fatigue, hyperactivity, depression). He proposed that synthetic environmental chemicals (particularly in air pollution) could cause the same allergic symptoms as did reactions to food. Randolph reported 1,000 cases of patients who showed psychotic behavior directly related to exposures to specific toxic substances.\n\nThe prime \"cause\" of this growing list of illnesses was the \"relatively new chemical environment,\" Dr. Randolph claimed. This environment itself is ill, he said, and the aim of clinical ecology is to \"identify, minimize, or neutralize the impingement of specific environmental exposures.\" In the 1980s, other progressive physicians, such as William J. Rea, M.D., of the Environmental Health Center, in Dallas, Texas, extended and further documented Randolph's model of toxicity-mediated illness and developed clinical protocols for detoxifying patients who were dangerously toxic. Today his center is one of the nation's prime detoxification facilities, offering a pollution-free environment in which chemically toxic patients can flush the poisons out of their systems under medical supervision.\n\nAmong its other contributions, Dr. Rea's ongoing research has dissolved the dismissive label of \"hypochondriasis\" from the complaints of numerous patients that they have been poisoned by their environment. It's not in their minds; they are not making it up, says Dr. Rea. \"Susceptibility to environmental inciters such as air, food and water components is becoming an increasingly recognized health problem,\" he observed in 1991. The adverse reactions patients sustain can include \"a spectrum of symptoms\" that affect the smooth muscles, mucus membranes, and collagen in various body systems to do with breathing, digesting, and excreting. Their sensitivities and allergic reactions are \"actually due to reactions to foods and chemicals found in the patient's home and work environments,\" says Dr. Rea. (See Chapter 10 for more details.)\n\nDr. Rea based this conclusion on solid laboratory work. He took fifty patients aged twenty-one to sixty-one who reported chemical sensitivities and who had various symptoms including asthma and arthritis, and partially detoxified\u2014that is, desensitized\u2014them in a less chemically polluted indoor environment. They went on a partial fast for three to four days, staying clear of all suspected allergens. Then Dr. Rea tested them, challenging their systems with small doses of inhaled toxic chemicals to see if they produced the same toxic symptoms again. They did. He used phenol, petroleum-derived ethyl alcohol, formaldehyde, chlorine, and a pesticide in doses they were likely to encounter in the outside environment. This study demonstrated that chemical sensitivity \"clearly does exist\" and may be blamed for a considerable number of symptoms.\n\nAs the discipline of clinical ecology, or environmental medicine, developed in North America, its essential principles became clarified. The first is the concept of total environmental load, or total toxic burden, as mentioned previously. This states that the sum of all toxic exposures\u2014all potential stressors, such as food intolerances, inhalant allergies, and psychosocial stress, all of which are cross-reactive\u2014is predictive of health. Second, chronic low-level exposure produces damage to the immune system and initiates flawed physiological adaptation. Third, because many toxic chemicals are lipophilic (fat-soluble and stored in body fat) and remain in the body for decades, low-level chemical exposures have a cumulative effect.\n\nAnother prominent physician practicing environmental medicine in the spirit of Randolph and Rea is Sherry Rogers, M.D., a Diplomate of the American Academy of Environmental Medicine, the author of ten patient-centered medical books linking toxicity to health conditions, and director of the Northeast Center for Environmental Medicine in Syracuse, New York. Since 1977, she has specialized in otherwise baffling medical conditions like environmental illness and has written extensively about the blocked detoxification pathways involved in conditions like El. Her own debilitating bout with chemical sensitivity\u2014for years she had arthritis-like chronic back pain due to unrelieved chemical exposure, including formaldehyde; she called herself \"a severe universal reactor\"\u2014led her to investigate the biochemistry of detoxification and the factors that blocked it.\n\nAs we learned above, there are complex biochemical processes in the human organism whereby, under conditions of good health, foreign toxic substances are filtered out, neutralized, and removed from the body. El patients, for example, do not operate under conditions of normal health; their detoxification pathways are blocked. El patients of course are the extreme example of faulty detoxification, but the extremity of this dysfunction helps us understand how problems in detoxification can affect us at lesser levels of blockage and how these blockages can become major problems.\n\nDue to toxic overload or nutritional deficit, or both, many people have \"a maladaptation of the detoxification system,\" explains Dr. Rogers. We are the first generation to be exposed to a tremendous number of toxic chemicals, and the process by which the body tries to detoxify our contact with these pollutants produces enormous stress and nutrient deficiencies. The maladaptation of the detoxification system that results helps generate numerous chronic and serious health problems, explains Dr. Rogers.\n\nTo illustrate the concept of maladaptation, let's look at the aldehyde detoxification pathway. Aldehydes (the basis of formaldehyde) are extremely toxic to humans; if the aldehyde pathway is bottlenecked, aldehydes accumulate dangerously in the system. The blocked aldehyde detoxification pathway can explain the whole \"spreading phenomenon\" of chemical sensitivity (the expanding web of interlinked, multiple symptoms, in which symptoms multiply and everything worsens) including \"toxic brain syndrome.\"\n\nWhen chemicals like aldehydes can't be degraded, they get metabolized into chloral hydrate in the brain. Chloral hydrate was once infamous as the prime ingredient in the \"Mickey Finn\" knockout drops used by gangsters wanting to dispatch uncooperative colleagues. When somebody slipped you a Mickey, you were out for hours. In the brain, chloral hydrate produces \"bizarre fluctuating cerebral symptoms\u2014feeling spacey, dopey, dizzy, an inability to concentrate, mood swings, irritability, exhaustion, numbness, depression,\" says Dr. Rogers. The average physician could easily misdiagnose multiple chemical sensitivity as mental illness at this point.\n\nWhat worsens the impact of the environmentally overloaded detoxification system is nutritional deficiency. Most people aren't detoxifying with \"a full deck\" of nutrients, says Rogers. Nutritionally poor diets and depleted agricultural soil fail to provide adequate supplies; meanwhile, the detoxification process itself depletes vital stores of minerals and vitamins (notably, glutathione). Even healthconscious adults may be nutrient-deficient. Magnesium, for example, is a component of over 300 enzymes and metabolic pathways, present in nearly every phase of the detoxification pathways; it is also the focus of the most under-recognized electrolyte disorder in the United States, claims Dr. Rogers.\n\n  **_The Healthy Living Space_ Info Tip**\n\nFor Sherry Rogers, M.D., contact:\n\nNortheast Center for\n\nEnvironmental Medicine,\n\nP.O. Box 2716\n\n2800 West Genessee Street,\n\nSyracuse, NY 13220;\n\ntel: 315-488-2856.\n\nFor her books and a medically referenced monthly newsletter, _Total Wellness_ , contact:\n\nPrestige Publishing,\n\nP.O. Box 3068,\n\nSyracuse, NY 13220;\n\ntel: 800-846-6687 or 315-455-7862.\n\nFor William J. Rea., M.D.:\n\nEnvironmental Health Center\u2014Dallas,\n\n8345 Walnut Hill Lane, Suite 220, Dallas, TX 75231;\n\ntel: 214-368-4132;\n\nfax: 214-691-8432;\n\nwebsite: www.ehcd.com.\n\nFor Walter J. Crinnion, N.D.,\n\n13401 NE Bel-Red Road, #A4, Suite A-4, Bellevue, WA 98005;\n\ntel: 206-747-9200;\n\nfax: 206-747-7567.\n\nUnrelieved toxicity may proceed to other categories of symptoms besides allergies, environmental illness, and multiple chemical sensitivity. Immuno-toxicity can lead to autoimmune disease and cancer. First, the capacity of your immune system to withstand infections and the constant creation of individual cancer cells (which happens even in healthy individuals) diminishes. At the same time, your sensitivity (or reactivity) to allergens (substances producing allergies) intensifies, and you react to a greater number of substances than ever before. You may eventually develop autoimmunity, in which your immune system reacts against itself\u2014against your body\u2014somehow now perceiving it as foreign. Various autoimmune diseases such as rheumatoid arthritis and lupus erythematosus may result.\n\nThe documentation of immune damage produced by the pesticide DDT is extensive. Even though it was banned in the United States decades ago, it is present in the environment in residual amounts and in agricultural products deriving from countries in which the poison has not been banned. DDT toxicity was linked with numerous functional changes in the immune system and its key cells, and in damaging changes in various immune-related organs such as the spleen, thymus, and lymph glands. Serious health effects of a similar nature have been noted with human exposure to chlordanes (once used in termite pesticides, then banned, but still found in certain crops and seed treatment) and HCBs (hexachlorobenzene, a chlorinated pesticide, found in fungicides and dry-cleaning solvents).\n\nStudies conducted at Dr. Rea's Environmental Health Center showed that people with two or more OCCs (organochlorine compounds) in their blood have some degree of immuno-toxicity. As naturopath and detoxification expert Walter J. Crinnion, N.D., of Bellevue, Washington, comments, we are now struggling under a burden of multiple environmental toxins. \"Some individuals appear to be less able to clear the daily chemical exposure from the body than others, leading to a total load of toxins that exceeds the ability of the body to adapt.\"\n\nWhen this happens, the organ systems typically affected are the immune, neurological, and endocrine systems, Dr. Crinnion says. Further, the resulting immunotoxicity may be the prime cause of the increasing incidence of asthma, allergies, cancers, and chronic viral infections. A great number of symptoms can result from this toxic residue, including mood and cognitive disorders as well as problems with reproduction, libido, menstruation, metabolism, and the ability to cope with stress. Dr. Crinnion cites research in which blood analysis revealed at least four major immune cell imbalances in 298 patients who had been exposed to industrial chemicals.\n\nChronic fatigue syndrome (CFS), like environmental illness and multiple chemical sensitivity, is a baffling illness that starts to make sense when you figure environmental toxicity as a probable contributing cause, says Dr. Crinnion. In 1998, he tested this idea by taking a group of people with CFS through a detoxification program, \"designed to reduce their body burden of environmental toxins.\" Ninety-three reported \"good or great improvement\" as a result of the program.\n\nIt is becoming more apparent that a variety of industrial chemicals can produce many of the chief CFS symptoms, adds Dr. Crinnion. Exposure to any one of at least sixty-six different chemical compounds can produce fatigue, and trichloroethylene, a common airborne solvent found in urban air, can produce excessive fatigue. Chlorinated pesticides, lead toxicity, and tissue residues of DDE (the breakdown product of DDT), hexa-chlorobenzene, and organophosphates have been associated with CFS. In fact, organophosphates cause \"an identical set\" of symptoms to that of CFS, as well as similar disturbances in the nervous and endocrine systems, says Dr. Crinnion.\n\nThe correlation of unrelieved toxicity and the presence of specific carcinogens with the onset of cancer is well-documented. For example, women with breast cancer have been shown to have elevated levels of OCCs compared to women who are free of cancer. Among the specific chemicals found in the fatty tissue of the breast cancer patients were traces of DDT, DDE, PCBs, and lindane (also known as HCH or BHC, used to kill lice). Further, levels of these chemicals were found to be higher in the malignant tissues than elsewhere in the cancer patient's body. Researchers reporting in the _Journal of the National Cancer Institute_ estimated that higher than average levels of DDE and PCB in the blood can represent a _fourfold_ increase in the risk of breast cancer.\n\nCorrelations have also been reported between exposure to toxic chemicals found in household pesticide products and the onset of childhood cancers, such as brain cancer. Specifically, these products included pesticide \"bombs,\" treatments for termites, flea collars for pets, and various pesticide sprays for the garden. Other common household pesticide products or weed killers have been associated with soft tissue sarcomas (a form of cancer) and leukemia in children, while among adults, the use of 2, 4-D herbicides have been linked to higher rates of lung and stomach cancer, leukemia, and both Hodgkin's lymphoma and non-Hodgkin's lymphoma. The risk of developing soft tissue sarcomas due to exposure to 2,4-D can be as much as five to seven times higher, and even, according to one study, forty times higher.\n\nExposure to polyvinyl chloride (PVC) has also been linked with the development of a form of testicular cancer. In a study of 148 cases of cancer of the testicles and 314 healthy men, scientists at the Orebro Medical Center in Sweden correlated the patients' work history and lifetime toxic exposure. They found a sixfold increase in the risk for seminoma, a type of testicular cancer, among workers in the plastics industry who were exposed to PVC.\n\n### Neurological and Endocrinal Damage from Environmental Toxins\n\nThe neurological effects of toxicity are evident in a rising incidence of childhood behavior and cognitive function disorders as well as development delays. A report by the Greater Boston Physicians for Social Responsibility published in May 2000 put the matter of childhood and toxic effects in bold relief. The intent was to study the various toxic environmental threats to child development, specifically in the areas of learning, behavioral, and developmental disabilities.\n\nThe report, entitled _In Harm's Way: Toxic Threats to Child Development_ , documents the \"epidemic\" of developmental, learning, and behavioral disabilities now evident in the United States. For example, seventeen percent of children under age eighteen suffer from one of these above-mentioned problems; attention deficit hyperactivity disorder affects an estimated three percent to six percent of schoolchildren, but the percentage may be as high as seventeen percent; learning disabilities affect five percent to ten percent of children in school; between 1977 and 1994, the number of children in special education programs for learning disabilities increased by 191%; autism exists in 2 out of 1,000 children, with a doubling of its prevalence from 1966 to 1997.\n\nNext, the report demonstrates the proven relationship between exposures and body levels of certain toxic substances and cognitive defects. These toxic chemicals include lead, mercury, manganese, nicotine, dioxins, PCBs, pesticides, and solvents. The scientific research now available makes a strong case for a link between exposure to each of these substances (or categories of substances) and specific developmental or learning disabilities, including hyperactivity; impaired stamina, coordination, and memory; reduced IQ; impulsive behavior; decreased social adaptability; attention deficits; impaired speech and language skills; mental retardation; gait and visual disturbances; aggression and delinquent behavior, and others.\n\nConsider what lead can do to a child. A 1998 estimate proposed that nearly one million American children younger than age five are believed to suffer from low-level lead poisoning, derived mostly from leaded gasoline residues (as a fine toxic dust in the soil and air) and lead paint in old buildings (which also flakes, peels, and disintegrates into a fine powder). Low-level lead toxicity can cause permanent cognitive problems, such as learning disabilities, hyperactivity, reduced IQ, poor motor coordination, hearing loss, and diminished stature (failure to grow). Lead-toxic children may also have a hard time paying attention and controlling their impulses, and in some cases, may be prone to delinquency and violence.\n\n**_Lead is rightly blamed for the \"dumbing down\" of schoolchildren. A 1993 study concluded that lead exposure diminishes a child's mental abilities and that the relationship between lead levels and IQ deficits was \"remarkably consistent\"_**\n\nThese negative results have been observed from exposures to lead considerably below the so-called \"acceptable\" exposure level put forth by the U.S. government. The developing nervous system of a child is especially vulnerable to lead toxicity, even at the \"low\" and \"acceptable\" exposure (or ingestion) rate of ten micrograms (mcg\/dL) per day. There is so much lead in the environment today\u2014an estimated 10 million metric tonnes were introduced into the environment during the twentieth century\u2014that there is now \"an almost unbelievably large 'sink' of toxic powder available in soil and in house dust, waiting to cause brain damage in toddlers.\" Even more alarming is the estimate by the National Research Council in 1993 that the average American has a typical body burden of lead 300 to 500 times higher than that found in our prehistoric ancestors.\n\nLead is rightly blamed for the \"dumbing down\" of school-children. A 1993 analysis by the American Academy of Pediatrics of eighteen medical studies on lead toxicity concluded that lead exposure diminishes a child's mental abilities and that the relationship between lead levels and IQ deficits was \"remarkably consistent.\" They further reported that for every increase in blood lead levels of 10 mcg\/dL there was an average lowering of IQ in children by 4 to 7 points. The effect of losing five IQ points means that fifty percent more children fall into the IQ 80 category, which is barely in the realm of normal intelligence.\n\nLead may also be a key factor in the outbreak of violence among children and adolescents, reveals research from Dartmouth College. According to the \"neurotoxicity hypothesis of violent crime,\" lead and manganese toxicity can result in loss of control over impulsive, antisocial, and\/or violent, aggressive behavior. It is believed these elements can alter brain chemistry (their inevitable action as neurotoxins) in such a way that there is a breakdown in the \"inhibition mechanism\" that normally holds us back from becoming assaultive.\n\nA 1996 report from the University of Pittsburgh showed that young boys\u2014the study examined 301 males, aged 7 and 11\u2014with more lead in their bones than the expected average \"consistently\" had more incidents of aggressive and delinquent behavior. The leaded boys exhibited ever more aggressive, delinquent behavior as they moved through adolescence. Studies linking lead and aggressive behavior have been appearing since the 1970s such that the case against lead is very persuasive.\n\nRoger D. Masters, who headed the Dartmouth College research, also showed a correlation between high lead rates, criminal behavior, and the use of silicofluoride to fluoridate public water supplies. He noted that there was a doubling of the crime rate in areas where silicofluoride was in the water. This substance appears to increase the amount of toxins that enter the bloodstream from the intestines. In places where the public water contained silicofluoride, five times as many children had high lead levels compared to other communities. One clear effect is that toxic chemicals can destroy inhibitory systems and cause violence, Masters stated.\n\nThis is only a pr\u00e9cis of a small portion of the available research on lead toxicity and child development. Similar documented cases can be made against numerous other toxic industrial chemicals regarding their injurious effect on intelligence, development, and other aspects of growing up.\n\nThis makes it clear why substances such as lead and the others cited above are labeled \"developmental neurotoxicants,\" according to the authors of _In Harm's Way._ They use this term to indicate how the toxic chemicals poison the nerve cells to such an extent that they impair the normal growth processes in a child. \"These chemicals, which the child ingests through foods, environmental exposures, and in utero from the mother, may be directly toxic to cells or interfere with hormones (endocrine disrupters), neurotransmitters, or other growth factors.\" The authors further state that our scientific understanding of the effect on humans of toxic exposures is not advanced enough to \"accurately predict the impact of toxicants\" and thereby protect children from unhealthy exposures and their long-term effects.\n\nThe most chilling consequence of toxicity\u2014acting as it does deep within the body's core life systems and even spanning generations\u2014is the way it disrupts the endocrine system. Evidence now exists that chemicals can disturb the endocrine system on both a short- and long-term basis (see figure 2-1).\n\nHere is a review of some aspects of the short-term side of endocrine disruption due to environmental chemicals. According to Dr. Walter Crinnion, there are five principal ways in which toxins can damage the endocrine system. This system consists of the various endocrine glands: the testicles, ovaries, pancreas, adrenals, thyroid, parathyroid, and pituitary. All of these glands and their hormones are central to the regulation and normalization of the body's complex, interconnected systems, from metabolism and heat production to spermatogenesis and uterine preparations for pregnancy.\n\nThe endocrine glands accomplish these important functions by virtue of the numerous critical but highly sensitive hormones they secrete. Hormones\u2014at least 100 different ones have been identified\u2014are the chemical messengers of the endocrine system that impose order through an intricate communication system among the body's estimated 50 trillion cells. Central among the body's hormones are the \"male\" sex hormone (testosterone), the \"female\" sex hormones (estrogen and progesterone), melatonin (produced by the pineal gland), growth hormone (by the pituitary gland), thyroxin (by the thyroid gland), and DHEA (by the adrenal glands).\n\nToxic damage to the endocrine system, says Dr. Crinnion, shows up in sleep disturbances, shifts in energy level or mood; changes in weight, appetite, or intestinal function; a change in sexual interest and function, and for women, in menstrual changes; alterations in how we sense temperature and the degree to which we flush or perspire; and unaccountable changes in skin texture and hair growth. These symptoms, with the exception of the reproductive ones, typically manifest after problems in the immune and neurological systems are already evident, Dr. Crinnion says.\n\nOne endocrine organ that is especially sensitive to toxicity is the thyroid gland, located in the front of the neck. It is not surprising to find that a growing number of North Americans have imbalanced thyroids, being either underactive (hypothyroidism, the more common problem) or overactive (hyperthyroidism). At least seven industrial chemicals, including calcium-channel blockers, steroids, and chlorinated hydrocarbons, have been shown to reduce the secretion of a key thyroid hormone called T4.\n\n**Figure 2-1. The Endocrine System**\n\nIn a laboratory experiment, when rats were exposed to soil, dust, and air extracts taken from a toxic landfill known to harbor at least three dangerous pollutants including PCBs, their levels of thyroid hormone dropped; and when laboratory animals were fed fish harvested from the toxic, polluted Great Lakes, their thyroid's ability to regulate body functions became compromised. Thyroid function is also weakened when the system is exposed to lead, carbon disulfide, and polybrominated biphenyls, or PBBs (used as fire retardants, in plastic parts subject to heating, and in equipment such as televisions, radios, business machines, and hand tools). Research published in 1994 showed that exposure to even very low levels of PCBs and dioxin could damage thyroid function in the mother and her developing fetus and result in neurological damage to the child, producing learning disabilities, hyperactivity, and problems with attention.\n\nPolychlorinated biphenyls, or PCBs, a toxic compound related to PBBs, are structurally similar to a thyroid hormone (an example of the hormone mimicking effect of environmental toxins). PCBs are used for insulating and cooling electrical equipment, in hydraulic fluids, as plasticizers, and in inks, dyes, adhesives, and certain pesticides. Because they mimic a thyroid hormone, once inside the human body, PCBs can either help or hinder thyroid regulation and thus all the body processes that the thyroid controls, which include body temperature and metabolism. They can further damage the way a thyroid hormone (in this case, T3) is moved through the bloodstream and how it is produced within the cells. If an infant is exposed to PCBs, \"this can have a devastating effect on neurological and anatomical development,\" observes Dr. Crinnion.\n\nThe long-term endocrine disruption is especially accomplished by what are known as environmental estrogens. These are industrial, human-made chemicals (often petrochemicals, made with a petroleum base) that are widely distributed throughout the environment, having permeated the water and plant and animal foods. They enter the human system from the environment as pollutants; once inside the body, they mimic estrogen, naturally present in both women and men, and overload the system with this one hormone.\n\nIt is alarming to realize that the body, so competent and well-designed, can be overwhelmed by environmental chemicals and _mistake_ a human-made chemical for a natural, essential hormone. It also highlights how serious the matters of environmental pollution and human physiological toxicity have become. Not only can the body no longer keep up with the toxic burden, it can no longer distinguish, in some instances, an unwanted toxin from a desired hormone.\n\nLet's have a closer look at this subject. Environmental estrogens, also called xenoestrogens, are present primarily in \"greenhouse gases,\" herbicides, and pesticides such as DDT, and industrial byproducts from the manufacture of plastics and paper, as well as from the incineration of hazardous wastes.\n\nEnvironmental estrogens often cause an imbalance of estrogen relative to progesterone, another key \"female\" hormone. When a woman's body has too much estrogen (a condition called estrogen dominance), a variety of health problems can result, including breast cancer, fibroids, and endometriosis. According to some researchers, environmental estrogens also affect men, and may contribute to testicular cancer, urinary tract disorders, and low sperm count, or infertility.\n\nResearchers in the past decade have been studying links between environmental estrogens and prostate and testicular cancer, reduced sperm counts and sperm volume, undescended testes in newborn males, urinary tract abnormalities, a 400% increase in ectopic pregnancies (the fetus forms outside the uterus), and a serious rise in breast cancer. Hormone-disrupting chemicals are also linked with miscarriages and endometriosis. One type of breast cancer that is on the rise is occurring in women past the age of menopause in the form of estrogen-responsive tumors. This means the cancerous tissue in the breast is rich in estrogen receptors and will grow when exposed to additional estrogen.\n\nResearch now supports the theory that exposure to estrogenic organochlorines (found in pesticides) may increase the risk and incidence of breast cancer. Tissue samples from 240 women who developed breast cancer between 1976 and 1993 were studied along with samples from 477 cancer-free controls. Scientists found that one organochlorine in particular, dieldrin\u2014they also looked for traces of DDT and polychlorinated biphenyls\u2014was associated with a \"significantly increased dose-related risk\" of breast cancer, meaning, the more dieldrin the woman was exposed to, the greater the chances she had breast cancer.\n\nEndocrine-disrupting chemicals may have a special preference for women, new research suggests. It is often noted that women are more prone to autoimmune diseases, such as lupus erythematosus and rheumatoid arthritis. Why is that? One theory, backed by preliminary research, is that estrogens promote autoimmune diseases mediated by certain immune cells. Male sex hormones, called androgens, tend to inhibit the onset of these conditions. In other words, it seems that estrogens regulate autoimmunity, so if women have more than their fair share of toxic exposure to environmental estrogens, they will be more prone to develop estrogen-related health problems.\n\nToxic exposures can also upset other hormone-dependent processes. Here is an example, substantiated by scientific research, of what pesticide residues can do to sexual maturation in children. Scientists at the University of Granada School of Medicine in Spain took tissue fat samples from children living in farm areas in southeastern Spain. They found traces of 14 pesticides, and of the 113 samples studied, 43 had traces of at least one pesticide, such as lindane, heptachlor, aldrin, or diel-drin. Some of the chemicals have estrogenic activity. The scientists also found a correlation between exposure to estrogenic chemicals in pesticides and sexual maturation problems in boys, specifically, a failure for testicles to descend in some cases.\n\nGiven the fact that estrogenic chemicals are found not only in pesticides, but are used in the food industry, in plasticizers, and in dental sealants, \"concerns are warranted.\" Even more so because \"the number of new substances that mimic the action of endogenous [within the body] estrogens is increasing rapidly.\"\n\n\"Unequivocal evidence\" now exists, state researchers at Brunel University in Uxbridge, England, that the waters of the world contain a wide variety of endocrine-disrupting chemicals. So extensive is this pollution and so unknown the results that \"this makes predicting possible effects difficult.\" Scientists do know that strange sexual changes and other \"adverse effects\" are happening to marine life living in the chemically polluted waters: female mollusks are becoming masculinized, and male fish are getting feminized. In other words, basic gender differentiation is starting to blur in marine life under the influence of environmental estrogens.\n\nAnother alarming fact about hormone-disrupting chemicals is how little it takes to produce biological damage. Hormones are powerful, which means the body deals with them in very small, even infinitesimal, doses. Estrogen is biologically active even at only a few parts per trillion. While most environmental estrogens are less powerful than the hormone estrogen, they tend to be present in body tissues in concentrations of several parts per billion, or million\u2014in other words, they are more pervasive in the body than natural estrogen.\n\nFurther, synthetic estrogens may be much more active in the body than natural estrogen because they do not bind to proteins as carrier molecules and are therefore more mobile. The result is that because the human body is used to dealing with only tiny amounts of hormones, high doses of synthetic estrogen \"can swamp the receptors and actually shut down any response.\"\n\nThere is yet another factor showing how environmental estrogens can easily damage the body and disrupt its endocrine system, especially during fetal and infant development. There are \"windows of extreme susceptibility\" during the development of the fetus or baby. Get exposed to a synthetic estrogen during these small windows and your system is in serious trouble. For example, only those girls who as fetuses were exposed to the toxin DES during the first sixteen weeks of gestation developed clear cell cancer. Girls exposed to DES after the sixteenth week did not develop this disease.\n\nOne toxin can do a lot of damage to the endocrine system, but we are rarely exposed to only one environmental estrogen. Since 1991, fifty different synthetic industrial chemicals capable of disrupting the human endocrine system have been identified; they can also interfere with hormonal activities in birds, fish, mammals, and other species. These hormone-disrupting chemicals are found in common, frequently encountered products, such as plastics, detergents, and pesticides. Dr. Crinnion notes that when you factor the _combined_ estrogenic effect of the organochlorines we are likely to be exposed to, it _increases_ our exposure rate by a factor of 1,600 times. This has been demonstrated in the case of exposure to two or three common pesticides at low levels.\n\n**_One toxin can do a lot of damage to the endocrine system, But we are rarely exposed to only one environmental estrogen. Since 1991, fifty different synthetic industriai chemicals capable of disrupting the human endocrine system have been identified._**\n\nFurther, estrogenicity (the state in which nonestrogen chemicals act _as_ estrogen, thereby multiplying the body's reserves of this one hormone) can activate other compounds, not normally acting like estrogens, to become estrogenic, thereby adding to the total. It produces a synergistic effect, yielding toxic results greater than the sum of individual chemical actions. Chlordane, which on its own does not disrupt human hormones, greatly enhances the estrogenic effect of other chemicals already present, thus magnifying the total hormone disruption.\n\n### Damaging Synergistic Effects Extending into the Next Generation\n\nTo say that fifty chemicals have been identified as estrogenic, or hormonally disruptive, must be measured against the staggering number of chemicals now in use: 70,000, plus the 1,000 or so new ones introduced every year. Most of these haven't been tested to see if they interfere with hormonal activity, so the consequences of our routine or occasional exposure is unknown. However, based on the evidence accumulating for the first fifty, the chance that many of these chemicals are hormone-disrupters is high.\n\nBut that's only part of the picture. To accurately assess their potential effect, you would have to test what happens when any number of these chemicals are combined in a human physiology; the number of possible permutations is sufficient to stagger the statistical imagination. If you wanted to test the 1,000 most common toxic chemicals in unique combinations of three, this would take 166 million different experiments; if each experiment took an hour and 100 laboratories worked 24\/7, it would take 180 years to finish the work. Meanwhile, millions more men, women, and children are being slowly poisoned by exposure to toxic environmental chemicals, the health impacts of which have never been adequately tested.\n\nThis is especially unfortunate because children are particularly sensitive to pesticide exposure and are routinely exposed to them in their school environment, both indoors and outdoors. Given their smaller size, a single exposure to pesticides results in a larger dose of toxins than for adults. Children's internal organs, still developing, are more vulnerable to toxins, and their systems generally are less competent at detoxifying than an adult system is. \"Low levels of pesticide exposure can adversely affect a child's neurological, respiratory, immune, and endocrine system,\" noted Kagan Owens and Jay Feldman in a comprehensive review article on the problem, \"The Schooling of State Pesticide Laws,\" in 1998.\n\nThey report that chloropyrifos (brand name: Dursban) is one of the insecticides most widely used in schools. It \"poisons\" children by diminishing the body's output of cholinesterase, an enzyme needed to transmit nerve impulses. This enzyme deficit in turn produces various symptoms including nausea, dizziness, headaches, aching joints, disorientation, and concentration problems, state Owens and Feldman. Another widely used class of insecticide, synthetic pyrethroids, overstimulates nerves producing hypersensitivity and asthma; still others are known to negatively affect the immune system, resulting in an increased incidence of allergies, asthma, hypersensitivity to chemicals, and a generally reduced immune defense against infections and cancer. While about thirty states have taken some action to limit pesticide exposure of children while at school, the combined regulatory (and preventative) action is still \"limited.\"\n\nOf considerable concern in this matter is the way environmental estrogens present in a mother can be transferred to and produce health damage in her offspring. According to the World Resources Institute of Washington, D.C., an advocacy group that monitors environmental toxins and their health impact, these chemicals interfere with the development of babies before (prenatally) or soon after birth. \"Estrogen mimics are extremely potent in part because unlike most natural estrogen, they cross the placental barrier, exposing the fetus to greater than normal levels of hormone.\" These exposures in turn can disturb the fetus' hormonal balances, thereby throwing potentially everything biological in its young life into jeopardy, \"from fertility to gender itself.\"\n\nResearch shows that in most cases the effects of environmental estrogen exposure are more pronounced in the offspring than in the exposed parents, although the extent of the effects on the latter should not be minimized by any means. In other words, if you, as a female, are toxic with environmental estrogens and do not detoxify before pregnancy, you may be inadvertently passing these poisons on to your baby in the womb. You may also transmit them through your milk if you breastfeed your infant. It has further been noted that the effects of exposure in many cases are delayed in the next generation, such that they do not fully manifest until the offspring is an adult.\n\nIt is not only the fact that hormone-disrupting chemicals have a long-term, multi-generational impact. They interfere with deep-set, essential life processes, with the way chemical messages are transmitted throughout the body. In many respects, this is more serious than the fact that they are carcinogens as well, capable of initiating a cancer process. According to Theo Colborn and her co-authors in _Our Stolen Future_ , an excellent review of the health consequences of environmental estrogens, hormonally active synthetic chemicals are \"thugs on the biological information highway that sabotage vital communication.\"\n\nThey jam and scramble the messages; they spread biochemical disinformation; they seriously damage the endocrine system at its critical level of development, says Colborn, including sexual differentiation and brain organization. It is a \"toxic assault\" that reaches into the unborn generation and poisons its members even before they're born. Colborn also says that hormone-disrupting chemicals, when they affect the fetus, \"can diminish individuals without making them sick,\" producing \"impaired function\" but not necessarily overt disease.\n\nDevelopment can be derailed; cognitive unfolding can be stunted; and the toxic etiology can be hard to trace using conventional medical models. For example, says Colborn, a boy who gets exposed to toxic estrogenic chemicals in utero (from his mother) could have health problems throughout his life. As a child his testicles do not descend; at puberty, he has a low sperm count; at middle age, he gets cancer of the testicles. The fact of \"hand-me-down\" poisons means potentially three generations receive the negative health impact of environmental estrogens, says Colborn. In other words, the grandchildren of a toxic grandmother can also be poisoned by her toxic exposures, transmitted across two generations.\n\n### Previewing the Scope and Advantages of Deliberate Detoxification\n\nA great deal more evidence could be marshaled to make the case for an alarming degree of widespread toxicity among humans in our time. But the facts and extrapolations reviewed here should be enough to motivate us to think about detoxification, that is, voluntarily assisting our internal detoxification system to catch up on processing its toxic burden and ridding our bodies of a lifetime accumulation of toxins. Getting yourself involved in a carefully planned and responsibly staged detoxification program could be one of the smartest things you ever do for your health and well-being.\n\nA chemical detoxification program capable of ridding the body of its toxic burden must address five key physiological functions of the body, states Stephen B. Edelson, M.D., director of the Edelson Center for Environmental and Preventive Medicine in Atlanta, Georgia. Dr. Edelson has for many years been a leading proponent of and expert in the means of chemical detoxification as a way of treating numerous serious health conditions, including cancer. He has formulated a multidisciplinary medical approach he calls clinical molecular medicine as an effective way of treating and preventing disease.\n\nDr. Edelson says you must correct the functioning of the liver (help its two phases to work optimally); the blood circulation (it must be \"free flowing\" so it can carry and adequate oxygen supply to the cells); the adrenal and thyroid glands (their hormones influence enzyme activities and metabolism); the kidneys (so they can flush out toxins through the urine); and the intestines (accelerated \"transit time\" so that old and new fecal matter as well as neutralized toxins and bile are excreted frequently). So how do you do this?\n\nAccording to Dr. Edelson, a detoxification program should include a reduction in your body's burden of environmental chemicals and toxins, a lowering of its overall stress, and an enhancement of its antioxidant mechanisms. Some of the ways these goals can be accomplished include eating a wholesome nontoxic diet, normalizing your nutritional status, exercising, \"upregulating\" liver detoxification (giving the liver all it needs to run its two-phased detoxification), and using sauna and\/or heat treatment to sweat toxins through the skin.\n\nFor cases of serious heavy metal toxicity, a process called biodetoxification is required, says Dr. Edelson; here a chelating (binding- up) substance is infused intravenously into the patient's blood to gather up heavy metals such as mercury from within the body and enable the system to excrete it through the urine. In another process called heat depuration, you get into a sauna that can produce an indoor temperature of 150\u00b0F, a level of heat judged necessary to mobilize chemicals stored deep in body tissues. For biodetoxification and heat depuration you need to resort to a clinic (Edelson offers a Biodetoxification Center as part of his medical offices), but the recommendations cited above can be undertaken at home or on your own. These will be taken up in practical detail in various chapters in this book.\n\nDetoxification is a medical term that refers to a wide range of practices, from the simple to the complex. \"Anything that supports our elimination can be said to help us detoxify,\" comments detoxification authority Elson M. Haas, M.D., director of the Preventive Medical Center of Marin in San Rafael, California. \"Doing nothing more than drinking an extra quart of water a day will usually help us eliminate more toxins.\"\n\nAs a therapy, Dr. Haas regards detoxification (including fasting and internal cleansing) as \"one of the most powerful\" healing approaches he has encountered in his more than twenty-five years of medical practice. In fact, detoxification is \"the missing link in Western medicine and a key to the health and vitality of our civilization,\" he states. The detoxification program reduces your body's intake of toxins and enhances its removal of those already present. A detoxification program, says Dr. Haas, should help the body's five cleansing systems to work better: these are the respiratory (lungs, throat, sinuses, nose), gastrointestinal (liver, gallbladder, colon), urinary (kidneys, bladder), skin (sweat and tear glands), and lymphatic (the lymph glands, channels, and organs, such as the spleen).\n\nDr. Haas also defines toxins broadly. They include any substance that \"creates irritating and\/or harmful effects\" in the body such that these effects undermine our health or put stress on our biochemical processes. As such, toxins can include the obvious physical poisons from our environment, but they can also include more subtle influences. \"Negative 'ethers,' psychic and spiritual influences, thought patterns, and negative emotions, all can be toxins as well, both as stressors and by changing the normal physiology of the body and possibly producing specific symptoms.\" (See Chapter 9 for more information about these subtler toxins.)\n\nAs to _why_ we should detoxify, Dr. Haas groups the answers into two categories. First, in terms of disease prevention and treatment, internal cleansing can reduce symptoms, treat existing disease, help the internal organs rest, purify, and rejuvenate all the body's systems, facilitate weight loss, improve skin quality, slow the aging process, improve flexibility, and enhance fertility. Second, in terms of gaining new benefits, detoxification can help us become more organized, creative, motivated, relaxed, energized, clear in the head, inwardly focused, environmentally attuned, and can generally fine-tune the senses, says Dr. Haas.\n\nThese last two benefits of detoxification tend to be underacknowledged by most medical practitioners but should be given much more attention. Once the body is relatively purified and freed to conduct its physiological processes of digestion, assimilation, detoxification, and elimination _unimpeded_ by a toxic overload, it can actually support our awareness. It can support our state of mind, our processes of consciousness, even the degree to which we are conscious, or shall we say, freely aware of our inner and outer environment.\n\n### The Spiritual and Global Implications of Detoxification\n\nLet's put it simply: detoxification can enable us to have more _sustained awareness_ at our disposal. Dr. Haas explains that during detoxification, clarity of mind, emotional cleansing, and profound spiritual awareness may result. \"We are more sensitive to subtle vibrations of people, situations, emotions, and nature.\"\n\n**_The processes of detoxification, including the three levels of physiology, emotions, and energy field can teach us a lot about ourselves. All we have to do is observe. Detoxification is an excellent way to gain self-knowledge._**\n\nThe processes of detoxification, including the three levels of physiology, emotions, and energy field (the realm of Dr. Haas' \"psychic and spiritual influences\") can teach us a lot about ourselves. All we have to do is observe. Detoxification is an excellent way to gain self-knowledge.\n\nWe can see, for example, the effect of a lifetime of dietary neglect, inattention, or abuse as we purge our intestines and liver. We may find ourselves saying: Who would have ever thought my colon could hold that much old matter and in such a toxic state? We may observe with a small measure of awe as we unravel buried emotional patterns, untie very old emotional knots, and see our physical and psychological symptoms start to ease up and go away. Again we may marvel to ourselves: I never would have thought my childhood or adolescent feelings (or whatever: you fill in the appropriate time period and content) could have had that kind of powerful effect on my body.\n\nFinally, as we discern the effects of subtle psychic and spiritual influences on our bodies and energy fields (or auras), derived from other people, toxic environments, and energy imbalances in our homes or work spaces, we may step back and reflect. How could I have gone these many years oblivious to this realm of influence, when now I can see what a mess it can make of my mind, emotions, and body? \"I cleanse because it makes me feel more vital, creative, and open to emotional and spiritual energies,\" comments Dr. Haas.\n\nIn an unexpected but tangible sense, detoxification is a spiritual activity. Certainly it can produce numerous physical benefits, such as increased energy, reduced allergies and congestion, and a cessation of many negative health symptoms, and it can lead to heightened mental focus, sharpness, and performance as well as emotional clarity and stability. But there is more.\n\nDetoxification enables you to get into a new, wakeful, conscious relationship with your body, your prime living space in the material world. Most of the time we take our physical bodies for granted; in fact, we take our existence for granted\u2014the fact of our existence, the fact that we are awake and aware inside biological human forms. Illness can rivet our attention, for a while, on this sheer physical fact, but most of the time we try to avoid this awareness.\n\nDuring detoxification, you can _watch_ the changes in how you feel, think, and feel as you live in your body, as you purify your bodily living space. You realize\u2014you see the irrefutable proof\u2014that what you eat affects how your body runs, how it is, how you are. You come to understand that healthy, organic, wholesome foods and substances produce one kind of biological result, and fast foods, junk foods, and processed, toxic foods and substances produce another, and that this other kind of result is unpleasant, undesirable, and sickening.\n\nYou come to see that where you live, what you surround yourself with, in terms of furnishings and architectural shapes and energies, also have marked effects on all aspects of your body, mind, and spirit. You begin to see your body and home as one environment, as one extended living space that is either healthy or toxic. You begin to consciously inhabit your body and home and to appreciate how both are nested in the larger world. Even better, you see that it's your choice whether you reside in a healthy or a toxic living space.\n\nHere is the practical payoff from this growing environmental awareness. If you choose to have a healthy living space, start a detoxification program, and develop a lifelong detoxification awareness, all of your consumer choices start to shift. Coming to terms with the elements in your diet and home that either support or destroy your health, you form a new relationship to your body, your home, and to the world\u2014to the planet itself, as the ultimate source of nutrients and furnishings. You see your body and home as a single living space, as a place for you as a conscious being to reside in, but which is dependent on the \"outside\" world for supplies.\n\nAs you eliminate the toxic substances and reach for organic, wholesome, \"green\" products, your choices have an effect in the marketplace. They have _global_ implications because through your consumer choices in service of your detoxification (itself in service of your desire to have a healthy living space, both body and home), you are energizing the nontoxic world economy and removing your support from the toxic world economy.\n\nConsider one example. Say you choose to buy only organically grown soybeans and soybean products as part of your detoxification dietary change. What are the global implications of this single consumer choice?\n\nFirst, you are saying no to the input of numerous pesticides routinely sprayed on soybeans, which are absorbed to an extent by the beans themselves and which eventually enter the human food chain.\n\nSecond, you are saying no to the use of genetically modified (GM) soybeans with their resident pesticide and to the interests of world agribusiness concerns that want to convert the world to GM foods using seed stocks they own.\n\nThird, you are saying no to the standard use of synthetic agricultural fertilizers, which deplete the soil and run off into public water systems, residues of which eventually enter the body through municipal water.\n\nFourth, you are saying no to the soil-depleting practices of monocropping or the single crop rotation farming cycle of soybeans and corn, a process that in part has reduced the total number of farms and farmers and concentrated food production in the hands of agribusiness.\n\nFifth, you are saying no to the use of soybeans as a food additive in the form of concentrates, isolates, and hydrolyzed vegetable protein, products widely found in processed, fast, and junk foods that contribute to toxicity and intestinal stagnation.\n\nSixth, you are saying no to the mass distribution of processed foods through conventional supermarkets that lack ecological awareness and support the interests of world agribusiness and its steady despoliation of the environment.\n\nSeventh, you are saying no to the use of hormones and antibiotics in the meat industry (which get into human bodies through ingestion of the animal) and to the squandering of plant resources in raising animal protein versus consuming plant proteins directly.\n\nThese are some of the global implications of your decision to buy only organically raised soybeans. What are the implications of saying yes to only organically grown beans?\n\nFirst, you are affirming the ecologically sound practices of organic agriculture, with its emphasis on soil husbandry and abstention from pesticides and synthetic fertilizers.\n\nSecond, you are saying yes to all the green initiatives under way around the planet, in support of the environment and its responsible stewards.\n\nThird, you are saying yes to the decentralization of food production, to the resurgence of regional and community agriculture, and to the preservation of natural seed stocks and the natural delineation between species. (Genetically modified foods mix genes from different species.)\n\nFourth, you are saying yes to foods that are relatively easy to digest and which, due to their purity, can contribute to a calmer, clearer state of mind.\n\nFifth, you are contributing to a rise in the general level of awareness about the relationship between health, food, consciousness, and the environment\u2014expressed in part by the Green movement. Spread across the Western industrialized nations, this awareness could eventually produce a radical shift in culture and industry.\n\nSixth, you are saying yes to a nutritionally based, dietary approach to health maintenance, symptom reduction, and, in some cases, to disease treatment. This in turn has ramifications for drug-based conventional medicine and its health-care infrastructure.\n\nSeventh, you are assisting in reducing global warming insofar as it is due in part to deforestation, especially in the rain forests, clearcut for grazing of cattle required by the world animal protein market.\n\nAll of this may seem far removed from the benefits you reasonably expect from a few days of colon cleansing, liver flushing, and a couple of hours sweating in a sauna. Yet it is true and will probably become evident to you upon reflection, especially _after_ you have detoxified. In any event, now that we have identified the numerous toxins in our environment, seen what they can do to our health, and appreciated the need to deliberately support the body's natural but probably overburdened detoxification system, the next step is to assess your individual level of toxicity. The best and most reliable way to do this is through a laboratory test of your blood, urine, feces, saliva, or breath, a topic we explore in the next chapter.\n\n# _Part Two_\n\n# _Creating the Healthy_ Body _Living Space_\n\n# CHAPTER 3\n\n# _How Toxic Are You?: Testing for Toxicity and Detoxification Ability_\n\nAt this point, we are sufficiently alerted to the possibility of toxicity in our bodies and homes and what it can do to our health. But how can we tell if we are toxic, if our bodies actually harbor a fair share of the toxic residues known to exist\u2014unnaturally\u2014in the human body in the twenty-first century. Being sick is one kind of feedback, though not an ideal one. Having a chronic problem, such as frequent colds, susceptibility to the flu, or chronic fatigue, multiple chemical sensitivity, or environmental illness, is another indication, but still imprecise.\n\nThe most reliable way to find out if your body is unduly toxic, meaning so toxic your body can no longer naturally cope with the toxic load, is to have one or more laboratory tests on your blood, urine, stool, or hair, looking for _traces_ of toxic materials, such as heavy metals, and looking for _absences_ of key nutrients necessary for the body's natural detoxification processes. You will observe here a definite interactive system: the more toxins your body carries, the less likely it is to have the detoxification nutrients required to purify itself, _and_ the more deficient your system is in detoxification nutrients, the easier it is for toxins to accumulate and place an almost unbearable toxic burden on the body.\n\nGradually, as real and true medical knowledge of the human system develops, more health-care practitioners are including laboratory testing of patients for toxic burden and nutrient status as a routine part of their initial diagnosis and case workup. I say \"real and true\" because in recent decades conventional medicine's dependence on powerful drugs and procedures that mask, suppress, or eradicate symptoms has tended to eclipse an accurate understanding of the real complexity of human physiology.\n\n**_But before you detoxify, in many cases it is helpful to have a clear idea of what toxins you're dealing with and what the body's detoxification capabilities are._**\n\nThe concept of broadscale toxicity as a primary causative factor for many states of illness is not a new idea, only one Western medicine has forgotten. Toxicity has always been the conceptual foundation of all natural medical practices, especially naturopathy, which developed and flourished in the nineteenth century and is experiencing a resurgence today\u2014for the same reason it was successful when it first appeared on the medical scene. It understands the role of toxicity and it knows how to remove it. But before you detoxify, in many cases it is helpful to have a clear idea of what toxins you're dealing with and what the body's detoxification capabilities are. This is where laboratory tests come into the picture, the focus of the present chapter.\n\n### The Healthy Living Space Expert Interview: Peter Holyk, M.D., Contemporary Health Innovations\n\nA good example of the new trend to focus on general toxicity as a primary factor in illness is the medical practice of Peter Holyk, M.D., a board certified ophthamologist and founder of Contemporary Health Innovations, P.A., in Sebastian, Florida. Founded in 1997, Dr. Holyk's clinic offers a variety of toxicity-oriented services including testing for heavy metals, toxins, and micronutrient status; nutritional supplementation programs; allergy elimination techniques; diet and lifestyle counseling; hormonal rebalancing; and EDTA chelation.\n\nDr. Holyk, originally trained in conventional medicine, was \"converted\" to the more broadly focused toxicity-conscious viewpoint by direct experience. His wife got very sick; in fact, so did he. In dealing with both illnesses and finding ways to reverse them, Dr. Holyk came to appreciate the importance of toxicity in health and illness.\n\nHis illness was about as bad as it gets: brain cancer. When he was thirty-five, his physician discovered a tumor in his brain the size of a baseball. Forecasts of lifelong quadriplegia were handed him; doubts were cast on whether he would even survive the brain surgery. In other words, he got the usual \"doom and gloom\" world view of conventional medicine in the face of an extreme example of unchecked toxicity. Surgery was successful in reducing the size of the tumor to that of a thimble. Since chemotherapy and radiation were offered him with only limited hope of success after surgery, he refused them. Dr. Holyk got his life back, but as the months passed, he began to suspect \"something was missing\" from the medical world view in which he been trained and treated.\n\nHow come conventional medicine had had so few options to offer him for the cancer, he wondered. And what had produced the cancer in the first place? \" _Now_ I've figured out why that problem occurred,\" says Dr. Holyk, fifteen years later. \"I didn't get a brain tumor because the sun was on the wrong side of the moon. I got a tumor because I was exposed to enough toxins and did not have the right micronutrients to help support my immune system to keep the cancer at bay.\"\n\nEvery day, every person has at least one cancer cell arise in their body in the natural course of cell division, but in most people, the immune system is alert and strong enough to neutralize these rogue cells before they can do any damage. \"This is why 100% of the population does not get terminal cancer\u2014because their body is strong enough to kill the cancer cells.\"\n\nNow Dr. Holyk knows that what makes this immune vigilance possible is a high essential nutrient status, yet this nutrition-supported immune vitality is decreasingly present in Westerners, says Dr. Holyk. One of the key immune agents that deals with cancer as well as other \"foreign\" proteins and materials in the body is a group of cells called natural killer cells. Unfortunately, research suggests that across the general population, natural killer cell function is declining at \"an alarming rate\" because \"we don't have the nutrition to support it.\" Dr. Holyk adds, \"You may be exposed to the same level of toxins as the next person who doesn't get sick, but you do. That's because if you're deficient in your immune defenses, you are going to get more sick.\"\n\nAs we saw in Chapter 2, toxicity is not only prevalent, it is ubiquitous, around us and inside us. The average person in a Western industrialized nation is now routinely exposed to potentially 70,000 different chemicals every day, and the average person carries trace amounts in their body of an estimated 500 different toxins at one time, explains Dr. Holyk. \"If your immune defenses aren't good, you're in deep trouble.\" Further, the average person is typically deficient in vital micronutrients, certain trace elements such as vanadium or lithium, among others, whose presence, however minute, is essential for other biochemical processes necessary to health.\n\nBut Dr. Holyk didn't appreciate this all at once. The picture of toxicity, immune response, and nutrient status emerged over a period of years as he delved into the subject. In fact, for many years, despite his experience with the brain tumor, he remained in a state of \"absolute skepticism\" about the role of toxicity and nutrition, as he admits today. \"I was so busy being a doctor that I didn't pay attention to the facts in front of me.\" He would read reports and scientific studies attesting to the interplay of toxins and nutrients, but discard it as \"nonsense.\" \"I dismissed a lot of it, but then, all of a sudden, I couldn't dismiss it anymore. I had to start paying attention to it.\"\n\nHis wife's long illness\u2014gallbladder removal followed by chronic fatigue\u2014shook him out of his skepticism. First she had her gallbladder removed when she was only in her late twenties, an unusually young age to develop a dysfunctional gallbladder. Then she developed chronic fatigue syndrome, such that she was unable to get out of bed at all on some days. Eventually the possibility of severe toxicity became apparent to Dr. Holyk, and his wife underwent laboratory testing for heavy metals. They were specifically looking for mercury and lead, two of the most prevalent toxic heavy metals to show up in the human body.\n\nTheir hunch was sound because it turned out she had severe lead and mercury poisoning and that these toxic metals were contributing mightily to her chronic illness. Where did the lead and mercury come from? Toxic residues of lead are almost ubiquitous in the modern environment, from old water pipes and lead-based paint to leaded gasoline residues in the dirt by the roadsides. The chief source of mercury, besides contaminated fish and pesticides, is dental amalgam fillings in which mercury typically comprises about fifty percent of the different components of the filling.\n\nA growing body of research shows that not only can mercury leach from a dental filling, but it can migrate throughout the body, producing (or contributing to) a long list of mild to serious health problems, including chronic fatigue. Mercury is released from the fillings as a vapor that is absorbed through the nasal cavity and then lungs, then transported through the bloodstream to be deposited in fatty tissues, including in the brain and nervous system, says Dr. Holyk.\n\nIn both cases, lead and mercury toxicity can be a cumulative development; you usually don't have a single, intense exposure to a heavy metal with resulting obvious signs of poisoning. Rather, you get poisoned slowly, in tiny doses that steadily accrete within your system, continuously polluting your internal environment and contributing to its dysfunction. In his wife's case, carefully removing the mercury and lead from her system (in that order) helped restore her to health and productivity. It also counselled Dr. Holyk in the vital importance of screening patients for toxicity, such as in the following case history he offers from his medical files.\n\nA woman in her mid-forties, named Penelope, developed sudden blindness in one eye. Her conventional physician forecast that she might develop multiple sclerosis (MS), as this kind of seemingly inexplicable blindness is a precursor of MS in twenty percent of cases. Penelope easily could have slipped into the MS diagnosis had she not had the good fortune to contact Dr. Holyk. In taking Penelope's health history, he learned that three weeks before the sudden onset of blindness, she had sustained a major break in one of her mercury-based dental fillings. Instead of having the tooth capped, she had the amalgam filling replaced.\n\nThis dental procedure actually doubled her mercury exposure: first, the broken mercury filling meant that mercury vapors and tiny particles of the metal were free to enter her bloodstream; second, removing the broken tooth (without specialized dental precautions required for _safe_ mercury removal) further mobilized free mercury so it could enter her system; then installing another mercury filling introduced more mercury that could potentially leach into her blood, along with that amount steadily liberated from the other numerous mercury-based fillings in Penelope's mouth.\n\nRegrettably, it is still the case that the majority of American physicians and dentists do not make this well-proven connection between mercury fillings and mercury toxicity\u2014to their patients' peril. Ironically, \"studies performed on dentists who have occupational exposure to mercury have shown diminished fine motor coordination and slowed response time to various stimuli,\" states Dr. Holyk.\n\nDr. Holyk, with good evidential grounds for suspecting mercury toxicity as the prime cause of Penelope's blindness, had her go through two simple medical tests: a hair analysis, which has a good reputation for revealing heavy metal toxicity (described below), and a DMPS challenge. This latter procedure involves the introduction by injection of a nontoxic substance (DMPS) that binds up mercury in the system, which is then excreted in the urine; the urine is then evaluated for mercury levels. Both tests confirmed that Penelope had a high level of mercury toxicity.\n\nBased on this accurate medical information, Dr. Holyk next laid out a treatment program. He prescribed an intensive two-week supplemental program of nutrients and micronutrients (minerals needed in minute or trace levels) and he arranged to have Penelope's mercury-based dental fillings removed by a _qualified_ dentist. Qualified here means that the dentist understands the extreme need to protect the patient from mercury mobilization and migration once the fillings are in the process of being removed. (See Chapter 7 for more on mercury toxicity and safe amalgam removal.)\n\nIf done inexpertly, a person can end up far sicker after amalgam removal than before, because the procedure itself liberates a comparatively vast amount of mercury into the bloodstream, compared to the much smaller, though toxic, amounts slowly released with the fillings in place. \"It's very dangerous to take out amalgams if you don't know how to do it correctly,\" comments Dr. Holyk. \"I've had people walk into my office after an amalgam removal with partial paralysis, partial blindness\u2014you name it. So beware.\"\n\nPenelope had her mercury amalgams removed under carefully controlled conditions and Dr. Holyk continued to boost her nutritional status for several weeks. She also received DMPS (by injection) to clear free mercury from her bloodstream, enabling it to pass out of her body in her urine. Her visual acuity now became a kind of daily feedback report on the ongoing state of detoxification. In the troubled eye, her eyesight had diminished from an original 20\/20 to 20\/60, and from there to perceiving only light, but no detail or color in that eye. Yet twenty-four hours after receiving a DMPS injection, that eye registered 20\/25, the abatement of symptoms showing the dramatic effect of mercury removal.\n\nOver the next weeks, Penelope's visual acuity fluctuated a bit, dropping off to 20\/40, then coming back to 20\/25 with another DMPS injection, says Dr. Holyk. While Penelope continued with the nutrients and DMPS detoxification, her eyesight stayed at around 20\/25 for a year; after a while, she let some of the elements slide, and her eyesight dropped back to around 20\/70. These fluctuations reflected ongoing detoxification. The amount of time it takes for complete mercury removal and health improvement can vary considerably among patients. \"Sometimes we see improvement in patients right away; other patients have so much mercury in their system that we're still pulling out large amounts after a year of treatment,\" says Dr. Holyk.\n\n\"Mercury toxicity is one of the very biggest problems that I encounter, followed by lead,\" says Dr. Holyk. But that's only the start of the list. Generally, Dr. Holyk tests for fifteen toxins, following a startling report by the Environmental Protection Agency in the 1980s stating that five heavy metals (mercury, cadmium, lead, antimony, and beryllium) showed up in 100% of the human fat samples tested in the study. \"I can tell you if you routinely tested _all_ patients for heavy metals, you would find almost everyone has a problem,\" confides Dr. Holyk.\n\nWhen he says \"all\" patients, Dr. Holyk doesn't mean only those who crawl into a medical practice chronically ill, fatigued, or hypersensitive to numerous chemicals, but also people who are not obviously sick, who may not even suspect toxicity, yet who perhaps notice a vague sense of sluggishness or compromised function or ability. The thing about toxicity is that there is only a quantitative difference between \"a vague sense\" and fullblown toxicity.\n\nThis is why for Dr. Holyk two matters come immediately to mind in assessing a new patient's symptoms: micronutrient status and toxicity. Is this person deficient in key vitamins or minerals necessary for normal detoxification processes, and is this patient carrying a toxic burden of cumulative heavy metal, solvent, or pesticide poisoning?\n\nThe relationship between mercury toxicity and nutrient status is even more interwoven, says Dr. Holyk. There are two ways of making this point. First, certain substances such as mercury can be mistaken for magnesium by the body. \"If you don't have enough magnesium in your body, your body will suck in a molecule of mercury to take its place.\" With the magnesium slots filled with the impostor, mercury, there is now no room for real magnesium, and you become magnesium deficient. The toxin now blocks your system from absorbing the required real nutrient, explains Dr. Holyk. You may want to fortify yourself nutritionally, but your body cannot absorb the desired nutrients because mercury molecules are taking their rightful place in your cell chemistry. That's the first complication.\n\n**_For Dr. Holyk two matters come immediately to mind in assessing a new patient's symptoms: micronutrient status and toxicity. Is this person deficient in key vitamins or minerals necessary for normal detoxification processes, and is this patient carrying a toxic burden of cumulative heavy metal, solvent, or pesticide poisoning?_**\n\nThe second problem is that with all this mercury now in place in the cells, the body's natural detoxification processes are compromised, even blocked. As discussed in Chapter 2, the liver has a two-phase detoxification procedure. Phase I involves a group of enzymes called cytochrome P450, a key to successful liver detoxification. \"Yet if you get mercury in your system, it will bind to specific sites of the cytochrome P450 system and shut it down. This phase of the liver's detoxification will not work. Your liver cannot detoxify because mercury has shut down your detoxification system.\" It doesn't end there, either, adds Dr. Holyk.\n\nCytochrome P450 is crucial to the formation of hormones, such as testosterone and progesterone, the male and female \"sex\" hormones, respectively. \"If mercury binds into the cytochrome P450 system, you cannot make your own hormones any more. You have a real problem. You can see when one toxin binds one specific chemical how much biochemical havoc it creates. What about the effects of all the other toxins we're exposed to? We're lucky we function as well as we do considering the degree to which I find toxic levels and deficient micronutrient status in patients.\"\n\nAt this point in the evolution of enlightened medical practice in the United States, there are many inexpensive but reliable testing options available to both physician and patient. Many of them do not require a physician's prescription other than for the initial drawing of a blood sample. When it comes to tests for toxicity, Dr. Holyk tends to rely on hair analyses, the DMPS challenge for mercury levels, certain specialized forms of blood assays, and kinesiological muscle testing.\n\n\"The best way in my opinion to find out about micronutrients is to look for intracellular nutrients,\" explains Dr. Holyk. By \"intracellular\" he means nutrients found inside blood cells. For this information, he relies on a blood test called a packed red blood cell intracellular analysis. It's a bit complicated, but the idea is this: normally, a blood sample is spun in a centrifuge and the serum (the watery portion of the blood) is examined for a specific nutrient, say magnesium. But magnesium exists mostly _inside_ the cells\u2014it's an _intra_ cellular nutrient. Since the plug of red blood cells was discarded in the centrifuge, the test will not indicate the true level of magnesium in this patient, explains Dr. Holyk. The packed red blood cell intracellular analysis looks at what's inside the cells and therefore provides a more accurate result, he adds.\n\nAs for kinesiological muscle testing, Dr. Holyk asserts that he has found its results to be comparable and consistent with those obtained from blood assays and another diagnostic approach called electrodermal screening (EDS). Chiropractors, for example, often use kinesiological muscle testing to determine if a person is allergic to a substance, will respond well or poorly to a proposed substance, and ask other medical questions necessary to form a clear diagnosis. The principle behind muscle testing is simple: a muscle's strength noticeably wanes in the presence of a toxic or nondesired substance.\n\nIn the case of electrodermal screening, specific surface points on the hands and feet (associated with acupuncture meridians) are probed with a device hooked up to a computer; a single patient can be tested for the suitability of hundreds of substances in a short time using this approach. Specific toxins can be ascertained along with the appropriateness, or not, of proposed remedies.\n\nDr. Holyk also reports good results from a testing method called Biological Terrain Assessment, another computer-assisted evaluation of a patient's cellular environment. It studies the biochemical condition of the blood, urine, and\/or saliva in terms of pH (the ratio of acidity to alkalinity, a general indication of chemical balance or unbalance), oxidation-reduction potential (how much \"oxidation stress\" the body is carrying, a measure of cellular toxicity), and resistivity (a tissue's resistance to the flow of electrical current).\n\nInsofar as food and substance allergies play a large role in toxicity, Dr. Holyk often uses Nambudripad Allergy Elimination Technique (NAET), a system of both diagnosis and treatment that uses acupressure, acupuncture, and allergy desensitization techniques to neutralize the allergenic effect of numerous substances. \"I've almost not found a person who did not have a toxic problem or did not have an allergy problem, or both,\" he states. \"To some degree they may be interdependent, although I think they actually are two independent variables\u2014but they are both extremely common.\"\n\nThe essential point, Dr. Holyk emphasizes, is to _know_ your patient's nutritional status, immune defense capabilities, and level of toxicity. Then you can unravel their health problems, initiate a successful detoxification program, and start rebuilding, or maintaining, optimal health. In other words, reliable nutritional and physiological _information_ is the key to successful detoxification and creating a healthy living space. Reliable diagnostic information about your biochemical and physiological status provides answers not only as to why you may be already sick, but it can also highlight vulnerable areas and tendencies toward developing future illnesses or imbalances. Even better, diagnostic tests such as these can equip you with enough advance information to _prevent_ most future health problems and in effect to treat disease before it ever happens.\n\n  **_The Healthy Living Space_ Info Tip**\n\nTo contact Peter Holyk, M.D.: Contemporary Health Innovations, PA, 600 Schumann Drive, Sebastian, FL 32958;\n\ntel: 561-388-555H;\n\nfax: 561-388-2H10;\n\nwebsite: www.chimed.com.\n\nWhile you most likely will not need to do all of the laboratory tests outlined in this chapter (see figure 3-1), a selection may illuminate certain otherwise baffling aspects of your health condition. Some tests you can order on your own; others require a physician's prescription; and most yield their best results if you work with a qualified health-care practitioner who can interpret the data.\n\n**Figure 3-1. 19 Reliable Tests to Measure Your Possible Toxicity**\n\n## _HEALTHY LIVING SPACE DETOXIFIER #3: Get a Clear Idea of Your Nutritional Status_\n\nAs Dr. Holyk explains, your nutritional status\u2014the levels of specific major nutrients and micronutrients in your body, especially those involved in detoxification\u2014is a key element to both your health and your system's ability to detoxify and mount a strong immune defense.\n\nYou may think you have good, satisfactory, or even excellent nutritional status, yet it is often the case that a person is deficient, or even seriously lacking in a few key elements. It's only when you get sick that this unchecked deficiency reveals itself and hinders your recovery process. The _only_ way to know in advance if you are lacking in a few or many essential elements is to have good testing (such as urine, stool, and hair, described below) before you get sick, or at the start of a deliberate detoxification program. Below are brief overviews of a number of well-known and widely used laboratory tests to determine nutrient status.\n\n### _Packed Blood Cell Elements Profile_\n\nThis is the test referred to by Dr. Holyk above as \"packed red blood cell intracellular analysis.\" Offered by Doctor's Data, an independent reference laboratory that specializes in tests to measure levels of toxic and essential elements in the blood and urine, this test assesses the status of nutrients inside blood cells or in blood cell membranes. According to Doctor's Data, this test is \"an excellent diagnostic tool\" to measure antiinflammatory processes (your body's ability to withstand inflammations, especially internal ones that could lead to arthritis or fibromyalgia), immune function, and problems associated with zinc deficiency (such as poor wound healing and attention deficit disorder).\n\nSpecifically, this test looks for levels of thirteen nutrients, major players such as calcium, magnesium, potassium, phosphorus, zinc, and iron; and several key micronutrients such as vanadium, molybdenum, and boron. It contrasts the results against an established reference range\u2014levels generally considered optimal for health and statistically prevalent in healthy people.\n\nFor example, in a sample laboratory report, a male, aged thirty-five, had calcium at 13 \u03bcg\/g (which means parts per million); the reference range for calcium is 8-31 \u03bcg\/g, which means he was at the very low end of \"acceptable,\" and probably on the verge of being deficient. His iron came in at 968 \u03bcg\/g compared to the reference range for iron of 745-1050 \u03bcg\/g, placing him well within the acceptable, well-fortified range for this nutrient. The test also measures blood levels for five toxic elements: antimony, arsenic, cadmium, lead, and mercury. This man tested 0.076 \u03bcg\/g for mercury compared to the reference range of less than 0.01 \u03bcg\/g; this meant that he had some mercury toxicity in his system as his numbers for mercury were higher than the acceptable range.\n\n### _Whole Blood Elements Profile_\n\nThis is also offered by Doctor's Data and is designed to measure circulating blood levels of toxic and nutrient elements. It is particularly recommended by Doctor's Data to be used before and during a detoxification treatment, and is well suited to identify dietary inadequacies (in terms of nutrient intake) and the function of the gastrointestinal, endocrine, and kidney systems. The test measures levels of twelve nutrients (many of the same nutrients measured in the Packed Blood Cell Elements Profile) and six toxic elements (including bismuth, nickel, and uranium) based on their levels in the whole blood (the watery portion, or plasma, plus the red blood cells). The results are not necessarily the same as in the previous test because the test measures nutrient and toxic status in a larger, more diffuse volume than only packed red blood cells.\n\n### _CellMate Blood Test Report_\n\nThe manufacturer of this test describes it as an \"extension\" to standard blood tests because it compares a person's blood chemistry to a database of medical research. The results for concentrations of individual nutrients are presented in terms of a percent status, that is, how much above or below the normal range they deviate. The report also matches results against tabulated symptom correlations for numerous illnesses; this is called disease pattern matching and enables the physician to make quick recognition of similar patterns. For example, a person may have five results that give them an eighty-three percent match for the blood conditions typically observed in someone with hypersplenism (overactive spleen).\n\nThe Basic Status Report presents your lows and highs in over fifty categories (including key immune cells) as a bar graph, making it easy to see at a glance where your nutrient excesses and deficiencies lie. And the test indicates nutrients that would be useful to take as supplements, drugs and drug interactions to avoid, and supplements to avoid based on your specific biochemistry. The value of this test is that it puts the biochemical information in the context of normal ranges for excesses and deficiencies and with respect to known matching disease patterns.\n\n### _Individualized Optimal Nutrition (ION)_\n\nThe ION test measures your specific nutritional status and provides a specific supplemental program to restore deficiencies. The test studies blood and\/or urine samples to uncover nutritional status and \"metabolic trends,\" by which MetaMetrix, ION's provider, means how well your body processes foods to extract the necessary nutrients.\n\nA blood or urine test, says MetaMetrix, is like taking a \"snapshot in time\" of your nutrient status, showing the effects of what you have been eating, the degree of stress your system has been under (which can result from nutrient deficiencies), and the impact of supplementation. It is very hard to know if you have optimal nutritional status without a test. You may assume you are healthy, or you may feel normal or \"okay,\" but you may still have a suboptimal nutritional state.\n\nThe ION program has five subprofiles including amino acid, B-vitamin\/mineral, antioxidant, fatty acid, and disease risk status. Let's look at each of these and see why this knowledge is valuable for a detoxification program.\n\nAmino acids, which are the building blocks of proteins, have to do with energy, endurance, concentration, mood, and alertness, and play key roles in brain function, immune system operation, tissue repair, regulation of blood sugar levels, and general energy levels. If your diet lacks sufficient amino acids, any of these vital functions may be impaired, providing the foundation for toxicity and the body's inability to detoxify, as well as the development of dysfunction and eventual illness.\n\nSimilarly, B-vitamins and minerals are essential for numerous bodily functions and are, in the words of MetaMetrix, \"the spark plugs necessary for your metabolic engine.\" For example, the mineral magnesium is required for at least 300 different enzyme reactions in the body, but studies show that in fifty percent of hospitalized patients, magnesium levels are low, which suggests the magnesium deficiency might be linked to numerous health problems that lead to hospitalization.\n\nAs discussed in Chapter 2, antioxidants are specific nutrients (such as vitamins A, C, and E) that protect your system against toxins (free radicals) that can lead to disease. As MetaMetrix puts it: \"Normal biological processes and environmental pollutants produce unstable molecules called free radicals that wreak havoc on tissues by setting tiny 'fires' of oxidation.\"\n\nThe unbalanced state of oxidative stress (see below, for another test) can lead to many physiological problems; in this analogy, antioxidants are the \"indispensable molecular fire extinguishers.\" When free radicals damage the fat (lipid) portion of cell membranes, toxic products called lipid peroxides are formed. These are associated with the development of numerous physical problems including heart disease, arthritis, liver disorders, allergic inflammation, and others. Therefore, this component of the ION test measures your level of free radical activity (and oxidative stress) and the defense status of selected antioxidants.\n\nCertain fatty acids\u2014the test measures levels of twenty-five\u2014are essential to optimal body function because, among other things, they are a source of essential hormones and regulate inflammation, which, if unchecked, can lead to arthritis and chronic muscle pain, among other conditions. Typically, we get too many of the wrong kinds of fats from our diet (hydrogenated and trans-fatty acids), which contribute to cellular degeneration and illness, and too little of the \"good\" fats, such as those found in fish, flaxseed, and various oils from vegetables and nuts. An imbalanced fat intake is directly linked with many serious illnesses, including stroke, heart attack, and cancer. If you are deficient in any of the essential fatty acids, various metabolic mechanisms that require them may no longer work properly.\n\nThe last component of the ION test screens the various organs (especially the liver and kidneys) for risk of developing disease, based on levels of certain biochemicals interpreted as disease risk indicators.\n\n### Functional Intracellular Analysis (FIA)\n\nThis test of nutrient status is based on examining a sample of the person's white blood cells, called lymphocytes. The test looks inside your white blood cells to see how well nineteen nutrients and antioxidant systems are functioning based on their level of cell growth. According to SpectraCell Laboratories, providers of the test, the FIA uncovers deficiencies usually missed by serum-based tests.\n\nFIA is called \"functional\" for a good reason. White blood cells are isolated and removed from the blood sample, then grown in culture media, being given the optimal nutrients for cell growth. Then specific nutrients are removed, one at a time from the media, requiring the white blood cells to replenish these nutrients from their own reserves. \"If there are no deficiencies in a particular vitamin, the cells will still grow adequately,\" explains SpectraCell. \"If, however, the cells do not grow adequately, it represents a deficiency of that vitamin.\" In other words, you get an accurate report on your body's functional nutritional status, on how well it performs its job for _your_ system specifically based on the nutrients and nutrient levels available to it.\n\n### _Total Antioxidant Status_\n\nThis test measures levels of all the antioxidants present in a blood sample according to their ability to stop a particular oxidation reaction, which is to say, a targeted free-radical-initiated activity. The test, developed by King James Medical Laboratory, looks at three antioxidant defense systems: primary antioxidants (superoxide dismutase, glutathione peroxidase, and metal-binding proteins), which prevent new free radical groups from arising; secondary antioxidants (vitamins E and C, beta-carotene, uric acid, bilirubin, and albumin), which collect free radicals, preventing them from working together to produce toxic chain reactions; and third-level antioxidants (DNA repair enzymes), which repair \"biomolecules\" that have been damaged by free radicals.\n\n### _Pantox Profile_\n\nPantox Laboratories provides a blood test called the Pantox Profile, which \"interprets the biochemical defense system\" by measuring the blood concentration of twenty-five substances central to the body's antioxidant response and compares these results with values obtained from other people of the same gender and age. Each substance analyzed for a given person is then plotted as a percentile, expressed as a vertical bar graph for easy comprehension. When the blood concentrations of these twenty-five substances are interpreted, they serve as \"very early indicators\" of potential health problems. The test results don't show the presence of disease; rather they demonstrate your ability to resist it.\n\nThe key point here is that early recognition of nutritional deficiencies or imbalances known to be associated with various illnesses leads to correction and prevention. This is why Pantox recommends this test as a \"regular biochemical checkup.\" Pantox emphasizes that aging and age-dependent degenerative disease (which encompasses a great number of illnesses) are the \"byproducts of normal metabolism.\"\n\nTechnically, \"normal\" metabolism involves the production of free radicals; it should also include their deactivation by antioxidants, but when this doesn't happen, your imbalanced metabolism slowly sickens you. A test of this type is useful in terms when a person needs to know if their nutritional defense systems are in optimal shape.\n\n### _Biological Terrain Assessment_\n\nThis test provides an in-depth view of the elements of an individual's chemistry and the underlying causes of an imbalance, thereby enabling the practitioner to determine an individualized program for the patient. The test looks at biochemical conditions within the cells, specifically in three categories. These are pH (the balance between acidity and alkalinity), oxidative stress (oxidation-reduction potential, or redox, indicating electron potential and enzymatic activity), and resistivity (molecular ion movement and gross mineral concentration).\n\n**_The key point here is that early recognition of nutritional deficiencies or imbalances known to be associated with various illnesses leads to correction and prevention. This is why Pantox likes to recommend this test as a \"regular biochemical checkup.\"_**\n\nThese three factors largely determine what is now being called the cell's internal environment, milieu, or terrain\u2014its overall quality of (cellular) life. You could even think of it as the \"soil\" of the cell; just as in gardening, healthy soil with the right balance of microorganisms and nutrients produces the healthiest, most nourishing vegetables. The \"vegetables\" in this analogy are the biochemical activities of cell life and function. The idea of terrain actually originated with the early nineteenth century physiologist, Claude Bernard, who stated that the cell's environment determines its function and integrity, and thereby the vitality of the entire body.\n\nBiological terrain is assessed with the help of a computerized device called the BTA S-2000, which displays the results\u2014information on \"the body's internal biochemical markers,\" explains the manufacturer\u2014in various charts and graphs on a computer screen, based on its analysis of a sample of the patient's blood, urine, and saliva. \"Many patients who initially undergo Biological Terrain Assessment come into their practitioner's office with reports of 'normal' laboratory values and yet display illness both objectively and subjectively,\" explains Robert C. Greenberg, M.D., the inventor of the BTA S-2000. \"After analyzing their bodily fluids for pH, redox, and resistivity, important data begins to emerge.\"\n\nDr. Greenberg explains that \"often very subtle yet potent influences\" are under way in a person's biochemistry, but are not necessarily detected by standard laboratory tests. Some of these toxic influences can include parasites, viruses, fungi, pollutants, free radicals, nutritional deficiencies, oxygen depletion, and the body's inability to excrete carbon dioxide. If standard tests cannot measure these factors, many patients may remain toxic or sick and their doctors confused as to the true medical condition.\n\n  **_The Healthy Living Space_ Info Tip**\n\nFor Packed Blood Cell Elements Profile,\n\nWhole Blood Elements Profile:\n\nDoctor's Data,\n\nP.O. Box 111,\n\nWest Chicago, IL 60186;\n\ntel: 800-323-2784 or 630-377-8139;\n\nfax: 630-587-7860;\n\ne-mail: inquiries@doctorsdata.com;\n\nwebsite: www.doctorsdata.com (see website for sample laboratory reports for these tests).\n\nFor CellMate Blood Test Report:\n\nCarbon Based Corporation,\n\nP.O. Box 4549,\n\nIncline Village, NV 89450;\n\ntel: 775-832-8485 or 800-908-0000;\n\nfax: 775-832-8488;\n\nwebsite: www.carbonbased.com.\n\nFor ION: MetaMetrix Clinical Laboratory, Inc.,\n\n5000 Peachtree Industrial Boulevard,\n\nNorcross, GA 30071;\n\ntel: 800-221-4640;\n\nfax: 770-441-2237;\n\ne-mail: nutrition@metametrix.com;\n\nwebsite: www.metametrix.com.\n\nFor FIA: SpectraCell Laboratories, Inc.,\n\n515 Post Oak Boulevard, Suite 830,\n\nHouston, TX 77027;\n\ntel: 800-227-5227;\n\nwebsite: www.spectracell.com.\n\nFor Total Antioxidant Status: King James\n\nMedical Laboratory, Inc., 24700 Center Ridge\n\nRoad, Cleveland, OH 44145;\n\ntel: 800-437-1404;\n\nfax: 440-835-2177;\n\ne-mail: CustomerService@kingjamesomegatech-lab.com;\n\nwebsite: www.kingjamesomegatech-lab.com.\n\n## HEALTHY LIVING SPACE DETOXIFIER #4: Assess Your System's Ability to Detoxify\n\nThe preceding tests will give you a clear idea about your system's nutrient levels and its overall ability to provide the nutritional elements essential for a strong immune defense. Now you need to find out how capable your natural detoxification system is and to what degree its detoxification ability may be already compromised by an excess of toxins.\n\n### _Oxidative Protection Screen_\n\nThis test is offered as a functional assessment of oxidative protection, according to its provider, AAL Reference Laboratories. It looks at the extent of oxidative damage (from free radicals) and your body's ability to protect itself against free radical onslaughts. Free radicals not only come from substances brought into the body, but they are the natural byproducts of metabolic processes and the liver's own detoxification program. As explained in Chapter 2, if your liver detoxifies the body too quickly (as in Phase I) or has blocked pathways for toxin elimination (Phase II), free radicals accumulate. Oxidative stress therefore is a reliable measure of how well your body can handle the stress of free radical oxidation\u2014too many poisons in the system.\n\nThe test generates a Total Oxidative Protection (TOP) Index for each client, which is a measure of your system's total antioxidant ability\u2014in other words, it tells you how well protected you are. The higher the TOP Index, the stronger your immune defense is.\n\n  **_The Healthy Living Space_ Info Tip**\n\nFor Pantox Profile:\n\nPantox Laboratories,\n\n4622 Santa Fe Street,\n\nSan Diego, CA 92109;\n\ntel: 888-PANTOX-8, or 888-726-8698,\n\nor 858-272-3885;\n\nfax: 858-272-1621;\n\nwebsite: www.pantox.com.\n\nFor Biological Terrain Assessment:\n\nBiological Technologies International,\n\nInc., P.O. Box 560, Payson, AZ 85547;\n\ntel: 520-474-4181;\n\nfax: 520-474-1501;\n\nwebsite: www.bioterrain.com.\n\nThe test also measures levels of lipid peroxides, which indicate the degree to which your system is suffering oxidative stress, or the overall impact of too many free radicals, especially those acting on the fatty acids in cells. According to AAL Reference Laboratories, the higher the lipid peroxide levels, the greater the degree your system has been negatively affected by free radicals, or toxins. A healthy individual will have very low levels of lipid peroxides. Therefore, this assay provides information on your level of toxicity.\n\nThe two results\u2014TOP Index and lipid peroxides levels\u2014are correlated and interpreted together. For example, if the test indicates you have normal lipid peroxides but low TOP Index, it means you are losing your antioxidant protection reserve. If unchecked, this may progress to a loss of oxidative protection. If the test indicates you have high lipid peroxides and normal TOP Index, this means your system is producing free radicals faster than your antioxidant system can cope with. This may be happening because of excess tobacco smoke inhalation, too much exercise, being obese, or having a diet with too many polyunsaturated fats or oils. If you have increased lipid peroxides levels and a low TOP Index, this indicates a state of poor oxidative protection.\n\n### _Oxidative Stress Profile_\n\nGenox Corporation of Baltimore, Maryland, offers an analysis of oxidative stress with four components. The test measures the rate of generation of free radicals; the levels of antioxidants (\"scavengers of reactive oxygen species\") and the rate at which lipid peroxides are reduced; the level of oxidative damage already sustained by the person; and the rate at which oxidative repair is accomplished and the rate of removal of free radicals. Genox obtains these measures by assaying a sample of blood, urine, or breath, although in special cases, a tissue or cell sample from the mouth or bladder may be used.\n\n  **_The Healthy Living Space_ Info Tip**\n\nFor Oxidative Protection Screen:\n\nAAL Reference Laboratories, Inc.,\n\n1715 E. Wilshire, #715,\n\nSanta Ana, CA 92705;\n\ntel: 714-972-9979 or 800-522-2611;\n\nfax: 714-543-2034;\n\ne-mail: inquire@aalrl.com;\n\nwebsite: www.antibodyassay.com.\n\nFor Oxidative Stress Profile:\n\nGenox Corporation,\n\nl4l4 Key Highway,\n\nBaltimore, MD 21230;\n\ntel: 410-347-7616 or 800-810-5450;\n\nlab: 410-347-7637;\n\nfax: 410-347-7617;\n\ne-mail: info@genox.com;\n\nwebsite: www.genox.com.\n\nFor Detoxification Profile:\n\nGreat Smokies Diagnostic Laboratory,\n\n63 Zillicoa Street,\n\nAsheville, NC 28801;\n\ntel: 800-522-4762;\n\nfax: 828-252-9303;\n\ne-mail: cs@gsdl.com;\n\nwebsite: www.gsdl.com.\n\n### _Detoxification Profile_\n\nIn this test, certain \"challenge\" substances, such as caffeine, acetaminophen, and salicylate (aspirin), are given in tablet form to see how well the body performs each stage of the detoxification process related to these substances. In other words, the test studies how well your body can \"clear\" these substances, passing them out through the urine. The results, as analyzed in the urine and saliva, and sometimes blood, shed light on your system's detoxification ability, in both its Phase I and Phase II stages. As explained in Chapter 2, in liver detoxification, the body's enzymes collect and \"activate\" (alter or neutralize) toxic substances, such that other enzymes can convert these toxins into water-soluble forms that can be eliminated through the urine and stool.\n\nIn effect, this test highlights your liver's ability to detoxify. The test studies the metabolites (organic compounds produced by breaking down the challenge substances), the byproducts of detoxification (such as glutathione, a key detoxifying substance found in the liver), and the toxins (in various changed forms) one would expect to be excreted during a detoxification, such as lipid peroxides. The information provided by this test is valuable because both Phase I and Phase II of your liver's detoxification system must function adequately so that toxins can be neutralized and excreted, and because the two phases must work in balance with each other.\n\n## _HEALTHY LIVING SPACE DETOXIFIER #5: Determine Your Body's Total Toxic Load_\n\nThe preceding set of tests provides information on the functional status of your liver and its two-phase detoxification system. Now it's time to get specific: what is your total toxic load? Which toxic substances is your body storing? Do you have heavy metal toxicity, intestinal imbalances, or parasites? The matter of intestinal balances and parasitic infestation will be discussed at greater length later in the book (Chapter 5), but both are the focus of important laboratory tests. Imbalances in the microbial population of the intestines can result from prolonged, unrelieved toxicity and they also further contribute to this toxicity. Parasites (living microscopic organisms such as various species of worms that don't belong in the human body) can enter the intestines through our food and water and contribute to intestinal imbalance, rob us of crucial nutrients, and generally sicken us.\n\nSimple laboratory tests involving samples of hair, urine, and\/or stool can provide clinically valuable information on your toxic load and possible intestinal imbalances or parasitic involvement.\n\n### _Hair Analysis_\n\nAlthough hair analysis got its start in the 1930s, progressive physicians have turned increasingly to it in recent decades. In fact, over 1,500 peer-reviewed scientific papers have been published on hair analysis. An analysis of a patient's hair sample is considered a reliable window into the level of toxicity present, specifically, heavy metals. A hair analysis typically evaluates the amount (parts per million) in the body of twenty-two elements such as aluminum, mercury, cobalt, cadmium, arsenic, nickel, and others.\n\nThe hair seems to have a remarkable ability to register the concentration of various metals in the body. Typically about one gram of hair is selected, or about two teaspoons, taken from the first one and one-half inches of hair closest to the scalp at the nape of the neck. In fact, the deposition of metals in strands of hair is somewhat like tree rings, which form in accordance with growth spurts. In the case of hair, as a strand grows, its biochemical composition reflects the various metals the individual has been exposed to or ingested. In fact, in the case of some toxic metals, \"hair more closely reflects the body's mineral stores than blood or urine,\" states King James Medical Laboratory, which offers the Omegatech Hair Analysis.\n\nThe Laboratory further explains that \"the hair becomes a stable time record of the exposure and circulation of metals. The metal content of the hair varies along its length relative to the type and amount of each metal the hair cells are exposed to during their growth.\"\n\nIf for example you submitted a hair sample today and compared the analysis results with one you obtained a year earlier, the results could be quite different. They would depend on which metals you were exposed to during the time that hair strand was growing. If you worked around lead paint or had a mercury filling replaced (perhaps not expertly) a year ago but since then had stayed away entirely from all paints and never seen a dentist, your hair analysis would yield different results for lead and mercury.\n\nDoctor's Data, which offers a Hair Elemental Profile, explains that the hair analysis offers a \"temporal record of metabolism\"\u2014how well your digestion and absorption of nutrients are going right now\u2014as well as an exposure index to various toxic metals. The company emphasizes that this test is useful for the early detection of \"elemental aberrations, because deviations often appear in hair prior to overt symptoms.\" Not only do you get information about possible heavy metal toxicity, but you can potentially get this information early enough to serve as an advance warning of possible future (or imminent) health problems.\n\nAccording to Trace Mineral Systems, a testing company in Alexandria, Virginia, which also offers a hair analysis, hair is \"the ideal biopsy material\" and hair analysis is now \"an extremely precise analytical test.\" A blood mineral analysis will show which substances are circulating extracellularly (outside and between the cells), and a urine test will tell you which elements have been excreted, but a hair analysis will highlight a person's individualized mineral absorption during a specified time period, explains Trace Mineral Systems.\n\n### Urine Elements Profiles\u2014Essentials and Toxics\n\nThe value of the hair analysis is that it provides an initial mineral screening of your system. If it indicates significant metal toxicity, you might need a more comprehensive test called a urine analysis to give diagnostic information about various heavy metals based on their presence in the urine. The better urine analyses will collect a patient's urine from a 24-hour period, with samples taken at regular intervals. This gives a more balanced and thereby accurate picture of urine composition, as its contents may vary by the hour according to circadian hormonal secretions, dietary intake, and fluctuating stress levels.\n\nA urine test reveals information about elements both essential to the body's operation and those regarded as toxic. For example, a typical urine test will assess the levels of eighteen \"expected elements\" such as sodium, potassium, calcium, magnesium, and various other key nutrients, and compare their excretion levels against optimal norms and reference ranges. Then a twenty-four-hour urine toxic metals test can show the amounts present of at least fifteen undesirable toxic metals, including mercury, tin, uranium, cadmium, and others, again, comparing them against reference ranges.\n\nFor example, in a sample urine toxic metals test report supplied by Doctor's Data (available on their website) a male, aged 65, tested with 4.7 \u03bcg\/g (parts per million) of cadmium, a toxic metal found in tobacco smoke. The reference range (the safe level) for cadmium is less than 2 \u03bcg\/g, meaning this man had cadmium toxicity. He also had high levels of mercury at 2.4 \u03bcg\/g (reference range: 3.0 \u03bcg\/g) and lead at 13 \u03bcg\/g (reference range: 15 \u03bcg\/g). His levels for mercury and lead may not have exceeded the reference range, but they were close, indicating an excess of both metals in his system and a potential for heavy-metal-mediated illness.\n\nThis same patient had notable imbalances in his essential elements, namely, in calcium, magnesium, sulfur, zinc, and iron, all of which considerably exceeded the reference range. Recall Dr. Peter Holyk's observation, cited earlier, that mercury can be mistaken for magnesium by the body. \"If you don't have enough magnesium in your body, your body will suck in a molecule of mercury to take its place,\" he commented. This patient had significant mercury in his urine and a magnesium level of 261 \u03bcg\/g, compared to the reference range for magnesium of 46-200 \u03bcg\/g.\n\nWas there a magnesium-mercury feedback loop happening in this man? A health-care practitioner, skilled in interpreting this data and understanding that heavy metal toxicity can lead to essential nutrient imbalances, and vice versa, could assemble a useful diagnostic picture of this client, using the data from both aspects of the urine test.\n\n### _Special Provocative Mercury Test_\n\nThe situation may arise in which you or your physician may wish to gather more specific data on suspected high mercury levels in your system. The man referred to above, whose mercury was 2.4 \u03bcg\/g as against the reference range of 3.0 \u03bcg\/g, is a good example of someone who would probably want to quantify his mercury load more precisely.\n\nUsing a metal chelator called DMSA (2,3-dimercaptosuccinic acid), the body is challenged to release some of its mercury store through the urine; DMSA, as a chelator, binds up the mercury stored in tissues and removes it from the body. The DMSA challenge also measures urine levels of lead, cadmium, arsenic, and nickel. You take a 500-mg capsule of DMSA, then collect all your urine during the next six hours, after which you mail the specimen to the laboratory. Analysis of the mercury in the urine gives an indication of the \"mercury burden\" of the body. As a substance, DMSA is an FDA-approved drug used for the treatment of lead toxicity in children, and is widely regarded as a capable binding agent (chelator) for removing mercury from the body, even from the brain.\n\nThere is some disagreement among practitioners on the utility of this test, however. \"According to Dr. David Quegg of Doctor's Data,\" says Dr. Holyk, \"DMSA is a very poor way to do a mercury challenge. I only use (and he only suggests using) DMPS.\"\n\n### _Oral Toxicity Testing_\n\nMercury is not the only toxic element associated with your teeth. Various standard dental procedures, such as root canals and extractions, can generate toxic products over time that gradually sicken the individual and generally remain undetected because physicians aren't looking in the right place for them. This test seeks to identify these somewhat hidden toxins by analyzing what the layperson would regard as saliva samples. As you will learn in Chapter 7, dental toxicity from mercury fillings, root canals, and cavitations, is potentially as major a factor in total toxic body load as that produced by the intestines. \"According to some authorities, it is even worse,\" notes Dr. Holyk.\n\n\"Studies have shown that pathogenic [disease-producing] oral bacteria produce extremely high levels of toxins at sites of active infection,\" states Affinity Labeling Technologies of Lexington, Kentucky, a biotechnology company founded by Boyd Haley, Ph.D., chairman of the chemistry department at the University of Kentucky, and Curt Pendergrass, Ph.D. Their test is called the ALT, Inc., Four Part in Vitro Toxicity Testing of Oral Samples.\n\nThe test analyzes extracts from a patient's oral samples including gingival crevicular fluid, extracted teeth (such as those that bear root canals), and materials from cavitations (\"cavities\" in the jawbones, located underneath the areas where extracted teeth were once set in the jaw) for the presence of bacterial toxins, human inflammatory proteins (such as antibodies and serum albumin), and other undesired toxic elements.\n\nThe company also offers a seven-minute chairside test called TOPAS (Toxicity Prescreening Assay), which dentists can perform (painlessly) on patients during a dental checkup. For this, a specially treated swab is placed against a given tooth at the gumline, and it turns one color or another, depending on the degree of periodontal toxicity present. The test measures levels of protein in the gingival fluid, based on the understanding that dental bacterial infection increases these levels.\n\n### Comprehensive Digestive Stool Analysis\n\nA diagnostic tool whose use is steadily becoming more widespread is the stool analysis, or the biochemical evaluation of a sample of the patient's feces. This test shows how well (or poorly) your digestive system handles the foods you eat, how well the wastes and toxins are eliminated in the stool, and the general state of intestinal microbial balance or imbalance. The technical term for this latter state is intestinal dysbiosis.\n\n**_\"The human gut has been described as a continuous flow microbial growth chamber,\" explains Richard S. Lord, Ph.D., of MetaMetrix Clinical Laboratory, adding that a healthy intesting hatches about three pounds of viable microorganisms every day._**\n\nThe human intestines form an ecosystem with temperature, food source, and moisture at near ideal conditions for the growth of simple life forms, explains Richard S. Lord, Ph.D., of MetaMetrix Clinical Laboratory. \"The human gut has been described as a continuous flow microbial growth chamber,\" he says, adding that a healthy intestine hatches about three pounds of viable microorganisms every day. In other words, _many_ microorganisms are _supposed_ to be resident in the intestinal tract; most are benign and beneficial, but a few are not. Even so, in a healthy person, there is a balanced ecology in which the beneficial and undesirable organisms live together in a specific balance or ratio. When this balance is disturbed, intestinal dysbiosis results, and this sets the stage for numerous gastrointestinal-mediated illnesses and health problems.\n\nDysbiosis leads to an excess of bacterial toxins which in turn irritate the mucosal tissues of the gastrointestinal tract; if their buildup is excessive, they may \"leak\" into the bloodstream and put a significant burden on the liver and immune system. Intestinal dysbiosis favors the overgrowth of yeast, specifically _Candida albicans_ , which causes numerous health problems, including allergies. Dysbiosis also favors (or can be the result of) parasitic infestation\u2014the prevalence of tiny worms and other parasitic organisms in the gastrointestinal tract that leach nutrients and disturb digestive processes.\n\nAccording to Great Smokies Diagnostic Laboratory, which provides the Comprehensive Digestive Stool Analysis (CDSA), this noninvasive tool for analyzing the digestive tract \"helps pinpoint imbalances, provides clues about current symptoms, and warns of potential problems should the imbalances progress.\" The CDSA can identify \"critical imbalances previously unsuspected,\" as well as hidden yeast or bacterial infections, intestinal flora balance, dietary fiber intake, and intestinal immune function. It does this by studying the levels of various marker substances including certain fats (triglycerides), vegetable and meat fibers, various fatty acids, and others (twenty-five markers in all).\n\nDoctor's Data offers a Fecal Metals test to assess the levels of thirteen toxic heavy metals. In a sample report (available at their website) on a woman, aged forty-six, it was shown that many of her heavy metal levels exceeded the reference range. For example, her mercury was high at 0.321 mg\/kg, compared to a reference range of less than 0.05 (for someone without dental amalgams); her antimony was 0.254 mg\/kg against a reference range of less than 0.08; lead was 1.26 mg\/kg (reference range: less than 0.5 mg\/kg); tungsten 0.185 mg\/kg (reference range: less than 0.09 mg\/kg); copper was 90 mg\/kg (reference range: 60 mg\/kg); and bismuth was 0.417 mg\/kg (reference range: less than 0.05 mg\/kg).\n\nBasically, this woman was seriously high in about half the toxic metals tested, and she had significant levels of the other heavy metals. Her overall health status (or presenting symptoms) was not provided with the sample report, but one can assume she had (or will soon have) some significant health problems given this level of heavy metal toxicity. \"For several toxic elements such as mercury, cadmium, lead, antimony, and uranium, biliary excretion of metals into the feces is the primary natural route of elimination from the body,\" says Doctor's Data.\n\n### _Comprehensive Parasitology Profile_\n\nMention parasites in the intestines and most people assume you have to travel in exotic lands before this is something to worry about. However, the medical reality is far different. Many people get infested with gastrointestinal parasites merely from the foods they consume while living in North America. We also get exposed to parasites through raw and undercooked food, treated and untreated water, insects, and household pets, as well as through contact with people who have poor hygiene. Microscopic parasites\u2014protozoa, roundworms, pinworms, hookworms, tapeworms, and flukes\u2014can get transmitted through fecally contaminated foods, water, or other materials.\n\nUndetected, intestinal parasites begin destabilizing the microfloral ecology of the intestines, an imbalance that then leads to numerous other health problems, including generalized toxicity. A parasite growing inside your body, leaching all your nutrients and energy, can weaken your immune system and leave you vulnerable to many diseases. Further, a long-term parasitic infection can alter the mucosal lining of the intestines, leading to \"leaky gut\" or intestinal permeability. Toxins leak through the gut wall into the blood and get distributed throughout the body, producing, at a minimum, allergies and digestive problems. If parasites are present, your body's ability to detoxify its toxic burden is further compromised, and environmental toxins can gain a deeper foothold on your body's systems.\n\nHere's a vivid example of how this works, as related by Gary Kaplan, D.O., an osteopath practicing in Arlington, Virginia. Dr. Kaplan explains that he has observed in a number of patients that parasitic infestation produces symptoms of arthritis and fibromyalgia, or generalized muscle pain, and sometimes asthma. The parasites trigger the immune system, which dispatches antibodies (specialized immune cells that neutralize specific toxins) to deal with the foreign protein in its midst.\n\n  **_Healthy Living Space_ Info Tip**\n\nFor Omegatech Hair Analysis, Special\n\nProvocative Mercury Test:\n\nKing James Medical Laboratory, Inc.,\n\n24700 Center Ridge Road,\n\nCleveland, OH 44145;\n\ntel: 800-437-1404;\n\nfax: 440-835-2177;\n\ne-mail: CustomerService@kingjamesomegatech-lab.com;\n\nwebsite: www.kingjamesomegatech-lab.com.\n\nFor Hair Elemental Profile, Urine Elements Profiles\u2014Essentials and Toxics, Fecal Metals:\n\nDoctor's Data,\n\nP.O. Box 111,\n\nWest Chicago, IL 60186;\n\ntel: 800-323-2784 or 630-377-8139;\n\nfax: 630-587-7860;\n\ne-mail: inquiries@doctorsdata.com;\n\nwebsite: www.doctorsdata.com.\n\nSee also:\n\nTrace Mineral Systems, LC,\n\n127 South Fairfax Street, Suite 141,\n\nAlexandria, VA 22314;\n\ntel: 703-299-9306;\n\ne-mail: info@tracemineralsys.com;\n\nwebsite: www.tracemineralsys.com.\n\nThe parasites generate an \"antigenic reaction,\" which is not unlike an intense allergic attack, only in this case, it's prolonged. An antigen is a foreign protein or particle that does not belong in the body and which is tagged as a toxin by the immune system, and to which an antibody is assigned. It is often the case that as the parasitic infestation proceeds without medical resolution, the person's digestion suffers. One of Dr. Kaplan's patients developed asthma after being infected with a strain of _Giardia lamblia_ , a microscopic organism. Not only did this indicate an antigenic reaction, \"the antigenic reaction manifested as asthma,\" says Dr. Kaplan. After he treated the patient for _Giardia_ infestation, all the asthma symptoms cleared up.\n\nTesting for parasites is often indicated when other more obvious sources and sites for toxicity are not forthcoming in terms of explaining a chronic health problem. The more overt symptoms of parasite infestation are diarrhea and abdominal pain, but many other symptoms have been noted: nausea, vomiting, gas, bloating, foul-smelling stools, anorexia or weight loss, gastritis, fever, chills, headache, constipation, and fatigue. Add to this list other, seemingly unrelated problems including joint and muscle aches, anemia, allergies, chronic fatigue, sleep disturbances, and depression, according to Great Smokies Diagnostic Laboratory.\n\nTheir Comprehensive Parasitology Profile examines stool specimens for a wide range of protozoal parasites, including amoebae, flagellates, ciliates, coccidia, and microsporidia. If parasites are identified, this makes it easier for a qualified health-care practitioner to put together an effective parasite detoxification program.\n\n## _HEALTHY LIVING SPACE DETOXIFIER #6: Find Out if You're Suffering from Hidden Food Allergies_\n\n  **_The Healthy Living Space_ Info Tip**\n\nFor Oral Toxicity Testing:\n\nAffinity Labelling Technologies, Inc.,\n\n235 Bolivar Street,\n\nLexington, KY 40508;\n\ntel: 606-388-9445 or 606-388-9345;\n\nfax: 606-388-9645;\n\ne-mail: info@altcorp.com;\n\nwebsite: www.altcorp.com.\n\nFor Comprehensive Digestive\n\nStool Analysis, Comprehensive Parasitology Profile:\n\nGreat Smokies Diagnostic\n\nLaboratory,\n\n63 Zillicoa Street,\n\nAsheville, NC 28801;\n\ntel: 800-522-4762;\n\nfax: 828-252-9303;\n\ne-mail: cs@gsdl.com;\n\nwebsite: www.gsdl.com.\n\nWhen people think of allergies, more often than not it's in terms of pollen and substance allergies and their characteristic symptoms of stuffy nose; itchy, red, and teary eyes; sneezing; face reddening; and the rest. However, just as serious and widespread a health problem is the matter of food allergies, most commonly to wheat, corn, dairy products, eggs, and chocolate. However, the list of possible allergenic foods\u2014that is, foods that trigger an allergic reaction\u2014is enormous, and given the ubiquity of the five substances just mentioned within the hundreds of processed foods available in North America, your chances of encountering a food to which you are allergic are very high.\n\nAccording to James Braly, M.D., an expert in allergies and allergy testing and medical director of Immuno Laboratories in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, a recent poll of 722 U.S. physicians quoted them as estimating that between 8% and 19% of the general population and 8.8% and 21% of infants have food allergies. Dr. Braly contends those numbers, in reality, are probably higher. In fact, he says that along with undernutrition, undiagnosed, or hidden, food allergies are a major health problem in the United States today. For many people, the continuous exposure to environmental toxins either creates or worsens their allergies. The allergies in turn, in the way they provoke the immune system into a state of perpetual alert, add to the body's toxic load and eventually weaken the immune system.\n\nHow can you tell if you have a hidden food allergy? There are many symptoms that typically occur in one who is chronically reactive, and these can be taken as reliable indicators of probable food allergies, according to a questionnaire developed by Immuno Laboratories. Consider whether you have any of the following symptoms: digestive (diarrhea, constipation, bloating, gas, belching); joints and muscles (pain, aches, weakness, stiffness); mouth and throat (coughing, clearing throat, sore throat, canker sores); weight (cravings, binge eating, water retention); energy levels (fatigue, apathy, hyperactivity); ears (itchiness, aches, infections, ringing, draining); eyes (watery, itchy, swollen, blurred vision); emotions (mood swings, anxiety, irritability, depression); mental (confusion, impaired memory and concentration); head (headaches, dizziness); hives, rashes, hair loss, shortness of breath, irregular heartbeat, and many others.\n\nThe problem in identifying food allergies is that in most cases they involve a _delayed_ reaction, taking several days\u2014up to seventy-two hours\u2014for symptoms to appear, whereas substance and pollen allergies typically produce immediate reactions with obvious, characteristic signs appearing within a few hours after contact or ingestion. Not only can food allergies produce delayed reactions, but the symptoms that manifest are not necessarily obviously related to foods.\n\nIt all has to do with immunoglobulins, which are activated as part of the allergic reaction. An immunoglobulin is one of a class of five specially designed antibody proteins produced in the spleen, bone marrow, or lymph tissue and involved in the immune system's defense response to foreign substances. The main types of immunoglobulins, grouped according to their concentration in the blood, are: IgG (80%), IgA (10-15%), IgM (5-10%), IgD (less than 0.1%), and IgE (less than 0.01%).\n\nFood allergies that produce immediate reactions are mediated through IgE, but those that are delayed pertain to IgG, and in some cases, IgA, explains Dr. Braly. Usually with an IgE allergic reaction, only one food is involved, but with delayed IgG-mediated allergies, there can be multiple foods involved, even as many as ten. \"Up to 80 medical conditions\u2014from arthritis, asthma, and autism to insomnia, psoriasis, and insulindependent diabetes\u2014have been clinically associated with IgG food allergy reactions,\" says Dr. Braly. Ironically often the foods that produce the most serious food allergies are those we are most drawn to or for which we feel the strongest craving\u2014the one to which we are addicted, if you will.\n\n### _Immuno 1 Bloodprint_\n\nThe diagnostic problem lies in the fact that the standard blood test or skin prick test for food allergies will not indicate a delayed food sensitivity, or one working through IgG. You have to test a person for IgG activity to accurately pinpoint a delayed food allergy, says Dr. Braly. That is why his company, Immuno Laboratories, developed the Immuno 1 Bloodprint to monitor for levels of IgG antibodies that get activated after a person ingests any of 102 suspected allergenic foods. If these antibodies are detected in the blood, it means the immune system is reacting to food allergens, regarding them as hostile to the body's internal environment.\n\n**_\"Up to 80 medical conditions\u2014-from arthritis, asthma, and autism to insomnia, psoriasis, and insufin-dependent diabetes\u2014have been clinically associated with IgG food allergy reactions,\" says 'Dr. Braly._**\n\nIn fact, this test looks for evidence of antibodies to IgG's subsets, which include IgGl, IgG2, IgG3, and IgG4. Testing for this degree of specificity is important, Dr. Braly stresses, because fifty percent of IgG-mediated food allergies work through IgGl, but forty percent come through IgG4, while ten percent are with IgG2 and IgG3. Unless you test for all these variations, you may still miss a delayed food sensitivity. By not screening for all the subclasses of the IgG immunoglobulin, the resulting allergy treatment could be only sixty percent effective, says Dr. Braly.\n\nIt pays to be specific when it comes to the top five allergenic foods, too. For example, the prime allergen in wheat is gluten, but the component that drives that allergenicity is a protein called gliadin; scientific studies have identified at least eighteen medical conditions directly linked to gliadin sensitivity. In other words wheat (and eggs and dairy protein) have \"subfractions\" that can produce equal, if not worse, allergic reactions than the whole food. This means that to accurately pinpoint food allergies, you need to test the whole and subfractions of the prime allergenic foods, according to Dr. Braly. Dairy milk has twenty-five different proteins, of which five have been consistently linked with allergies.\n\nThe Immuno 1 Bloodprint exposes a sample of the patient's drawn blood to a series of vials containing one of 102 test allergens, reactions are observed, and delayed food allergies are identified. The following are results from a sample report. This patient tested reactive (allergic) to fourteen foods: banana, barley, cheese, clam, egg, oats, oyster, pineapple, rice, rye, sugar cane, wheat, baker's yeast, and brewer's yeast. Of these, she had the strongest reactions to rye, wheat, and baker's yeast (registering a \"three\" out of possible \"four,\" which is the most severe allergic reaction).\n\nBased on the test results, the next step is dietary change, such as only eating the offending foods once every four days (or never, not for a long while, or not for one to four weeks) to reduce the body's \"habit\" of reacting to them as allergens and to give it time to clear out the allergy \"products\" from its system.\n\nDr. Braly cites another case history, this time involving a woman, aged thirty-nine, who was always bloated and cramped and endured other intestinal misery after every meal, even simple ones. This had been her lot for many years. She also had chronic sinus and ear problems, pain in her joints and muscles, mood swings, and hyperactivity, and just before seeing Dr. Braly and immediately after taking some cold medicine with orange juice, she developed rectal bleeding and esophageal reflux (severe heartburn).\n\nThe Immuno 1 Bloodprint showed that she was allergic to 17 foods, or 16.6% of the items on the test list; it also demonstrated she had a serious overgrowth of the yeast-like fungus _Candida albicans_ in her intestines. With the allergens identified, the woman stayed away from the seventeen allergenic foods and all foods containing yeasts, so as not to support further growth of the _Candida._ After implementing these steps, she regained her health in the next few months, even losing twenty-two pounds.\n\n### _Nambudripad Allergy Elimination Technique (NAET)_\n\nWhile the Immuno 1 Bloodprint can identify the various types of hidden food allergies, the standard food allergy treatment essentially involves avoiding the offending foods for a long time, then gradually rotating them with foods better tolerated.\n\nHowever, back in 1984, a California chiropractor named Devi S. Nambudripad, D.C., figured out a way to use acupuncture, chiropractic, and kinesiology to not only diagnose food and substance allergies, but to eliminate them as well. She then publicized her results in a popular book called _Say Goodbye to Illness._ Today Dr. Nambudripad's success is attested to by the fact that there is now a nationwide network of 3,000 NAET-trained physicians and health-care practitioners offering it to their patients (see her website for practitioner referrals).\n\nUsing kinesiology (muscle testing), the NAET practitioner is able to first ascertain if the patient is allergic to a specific substance. Allergens weaken the muscles, which makes it fairly easy to judge allergenicity by using a test muscle, such as the arm. The list of possible allergenic substances is surprising, even bizarre, revealing that you can potentially be allergic to almost anything: cotton underpants, fenugreek tea, leather belts, piano keys, saliva, sewing needles, diamond rings, tap water, and computer keyboards. One woman was allergic to her husband.\n\nThe gist of the technique is that the specific allergenic substance is held by the patient close to one of the acupuncture meridians; the practitioner applies acupressure to a specific acupuncture meridian at the same time; then the substance is avoided entirely for twenty-five hours, slightly longer than the time it takes for energy in the body to cycle through all the meridians. Somehow, the nervous system is desensitized through the acupuncture meridians to no longer react allergically to the substance. The brain is taught to reinterpret its contact with the substance, now regarding it as a neutral, acceptable thing and not a poison. Dr. Nambudripad claims that often only one session is required to \"permanently eliminate an allergy\" and to put the person in a situation in which he or she can actually resume contact with or ingestion of the previously allergenic substance.\n\n  **_The Healthy Living Space_ Info Tip**\n\nFor Immuno 1 Bloodprint:\n\nImmuno Laboratories,\n\n1620 West Oakland Park Boulevard,\n\nFort Lauderdale, FL 33311;\n\ntel: 800-231-9197;\n\ne-mail: pcssales@immuno.com;\n\nwebsite: www.immunolabs.com.\n\nFor NAET:\n\nDevi Nambudripad, D.C.,\n\nPain Clinic,\n\n6714 Beach Boulevard,\n\nBuena Park, CA 90621;\n\ntel: 714-523-3068 or 714-523-0800\n\nor 71H-523-8900;\n\ne-mail: naet@earthlink.net;\n\nwebsite: www.naet.com or www.allergy-naet.com.\n\nWith the laboratory testing of your blood, urine, stool, saliva, muscles, teeth, and other physiological indicators detailed in this chapter, you can get a clear, quantified picture of your nutritional and immune status and degree of toxicity. Armed with this information, you can now move confidently into the next phase of creating the healthy living body space: practical detoxification protocols that work to clear the intestines, liver, kidneys, and lymph of this residue of toxins and rebuild your cellular health and reestablish proper nutrient levels\u2014the subject of the next four chapters.\n\n# CHAPTER 4\n\n# _Detoxification Preliminaries: Start Your Internal Cleansing with Dietary Changes and by Minimizing Your Exposure_\n\nAs groundwork for the more organ-focused stages of detoxification, you will need to reconsider your many dietary choices, even staples as basic as water. The U.S. food supply today is considerably adulterated, either deliberately in the course of its manufacture, with additives and preservatives, or inadvertently, in the course of its preparation or packaging.\n\nOne of the simplest and most effective steps you can take as a preliminary to colon and liver cleansing is to drastically reduce your intake of toxic substances through your food and water. This in itself is a detoxification step of profound physiological impact, but it is one that will require of you a fair measure of attention and vigilance to what constitutes your daily diet.\n\nAs a complement to reducing your toxic intake, you may find it beneficial to help your mind and nervous system calm down, to step back a bit from the daily onslaught of toxic or stressful energies, thoughts, and emotions. Detoxification itself brings deep relaxation and ease to all the cells of the body. Purposefully relaxing yourself supports the detoxification effort. This chapter incudes a review of a few relaxation techniques.\n\n## _HEALTHY LIVING SPACE DETOXIFIER #7: Rehydrate Your Body with Nature's Best Detoxifying Substance_\n\nOne of the most basic recommendations for detoxification is to drink a great deal of pure water, probably double the amount you presently drink. At least thirty-two ounces daily is a good start, consumed directly as water, which disqualifies the water content of teas, coffee, and other beverages. In fact, naturopathic physicians recommend that during the more advanced stages of detoxification (see Chapter 5) you increase your water intake to sixty-four ounces daily, consuming it in small but regular amounts throughout the day. Some say you should drink that much routinely, even if you're not doing a detoxification regimen.\n\nIt may surprise many people to learn they might be functionally dehydrated. Even though we consume a fair amount of liquid during the day\u2014tea, coffee, sodas, beers, soups\u2014we may still be depriving our bodies and cells of even a minimal water supply. Take coffee, for example.\n\nYou would think that the more coffee you drink in a day, the more water enters your body, thereby fulfilling your body's daily need for fresh water. It's not the case. Naturopathic educators Peter Bennett, N.D., and Stephen Barrie, N.D., observe that dehydration is \"especially prevalent\" in heavy coffee drinkers because coffee is a strong diuretic, which means its chemical action is to flush water out of the body (which you will experience as increased urination), more than the amount contained in each cup of coffee consumed.\n\nChronic low-grade dehydration allows wastes to accumulate in the blood and overtaxes the kidneys, which need adequate water to mix with toxins to excrete them from the body in the urine. In fact, our bodies may be \"crying out\" for water and we are entirely missing the call, according to F. Batmanghelidj, M.D., a physician who practices in Falls Church, Virginia, and who, for the past eighteen years, has made the issue of unsuspected chronic low-grade dehydration the basis of a medical theory and practice. Dr. Batmanghelidj claims that a great many ailments, from indigestion to arthritis, high blood pressure to diabetes, and back pain to depression are actually due, in small or large part, to the body's unsatisfied demands for adequate water intake, that they are \"dehydration-produced disorders.\" This also means that the \"water cure,\" as he calls it, may be effective in reversing a number of otherwise difficult health conditions, such as angina, migraines, colitis, asthma, and high blood cholesterol, as well as the ones mentioned above.\n\nMost bodies live in a condition of water-deprivation stress. You are not sick\u2014you are thirsty, which is why you don't need to treat thirst with medications, but with copious amounts of fresh, pure water, Dr. Batmanghelidj says.\n\nThe simple truth, he states in his book, _Your Body's Many Cries for Water_ , is that \"dehydration can cause disease.\" Every function of the body is dependent on adequate water and the continuous flow of fresh water into the body. It is important to remember that it is not dehydration alone that is the problem. Copious amounts of water are needed every day by the body to flush out toxins from the cells and to complete the body's multifaceted detoxification process. Water is needed for each step of the process. If you are dehydrated, your detoxification processes may be stalled, or certainly compromised, and toxins accumulate in the tissues, leading to disease. Like Drs. Bennett and Barrie, Dr. Batmanghelidj points out that tea, coffee, alcohol, and prepared beverages (sodas, fruit drinks) are counterproductive in terms of hydrating the body. They contain dehydrating agents (and diuretics), so depending on them to satisfy the body's daily needs for water is \"an elementary but catastrophic mistake.\"\n\nComplicating matters is the fact that your body will not necessarily manifest a dry mouth symptom to let you know it is stressed for lack of water, says Dr. Batmanghelidj. This signal, when it occurs, \"is the _last_ outward sign of _extreme_ dehydration.\" The damage occurs, he says, \"at a level of persistent dehydration that does not necessarily demonstrate a 'dry mouth' signal.\"\n\nConsider what restoring adequate water intake can do for a case of dyspepsia\u2014indigestion based in the stomach. Dyspeptic pain (which is experienced mainly as heartburn, duodenitis, or gastritis) is the most important thirst signal the body produces, denoting dehydration, says Dr. Batmanghelidj. The sole treatment for this condition should be increased water intake, he says. He has successfully treated 3,000 cases in this way. \"They all responded to an increase in their water intake, and their clinical problems associated with the pain disappeared.\"\n\nHe cites a dramatic case in which a patient had such severe stomach pain he had to be carried by others into Dr. Batmanghelidj's clinic. The patient experienced relief after he had consumed three glasses (twenty-four ounces) of water. On the average, says Dr. Batmanghelidj, it takes eight minutes to achieve total pain relief from dyspepsia by drinking water. \"A well-regulated and constantly alert attention to daily water intake will prevent the emergence of most of the major diseases,\" he states.\n\nHow much water is enough to satisfy the body and prevent disease? This would be an \"absolute minimum\" of forty-eight to sixty-four ounces daily of fresh, pure water, says Dr. Batmanghelidj. The best times to drink water are thirty minutes before eating, and two and one-half hours after eating, and before going to bed. Another \"water cure\" advocate, Terry Grossman, M.D., who practices in Denver, Colorado, advises six to ten glasses of water daily, which is forty-eight to eighty ounces. His \"water prescription\" is that \"every day you should drink that amount of water in ounces to equal one-half of your body weight in pounds.\" That means, if you weigh 110 pounds, you drink 55 ounces; if you weigh 200 pounds, you drink 100 ounces. Dr. Grossman says it is best to drink the water away from mealtimes so as not to dilute the digestive juices required to digest your meals.\n\n**_How much water is enough to satisfy the body and prevent disease? This would be an \"absolute minimum\" of forty-eight to sixty-four ounces daily of fresh, pure water, says (Dr. Batmanghelidj. The best times to drink water are thirty minutes before eating, two and one-half hours after eating, and before going to bed._**\n\nOne way to monitor your intake is to examine the color and consistency of your urine. If it is dark yellow, dense or strong smelling, or even slightly orange in color, it means your body is dehydrated, says Dr. Batmanghelidj, and your kidneys are stressed. Dark yellow urine is concentrated urine, dense with toxic excretions. Ideally, if you are healthy, urine from a well-hydrated body should be almost colorless to light yellow, he says. This is something you can observe during the day in relationship to both your food and water intake.\n\n## _HEALTHY LIVING SPACE DETOXIFIER #8: Get the Chlorine Out of Your Drinking and Shower Water_\n\nA compelling reason to filter your drinking water is that your body depends on a substantial supply of fresh, pure water to accomplish its continual detoxification. In fact, water itself is an excellent detoxifying substance, flushing out toxins from cells and carrying them out of the body through the urine. During a deliberate detoxification regimen, you will most likely be at least doubling your water intake.\n\n**_It's important to remember that the_ cumulative _effect is the key: the more you ingest a toxic substance, the greater the chance it will have a toxic effect one day. In the same way, unilateral_ reduction _of toxic intake is the order of the day in the field of self-care detoxification._**\n\nIt is excellent advice to drink _lots_ more water, but the trouble with this recommendation is that nearly all tap water is contaminated with trace amounts of pesticides, industrial pollutants, and chlorine byproducts. If you use chlorinated water with all its toxic baggage as your prime water source (especially in a detoxification program), you are continually introducing more toxic substances even though you are trying to flush others out of your body. You won't make as much progress in cleansing your cells as you will if you do not introduce more chlorinated byproducts.\n\nIt's important to remember that the _cumulative_ effect is the key: the more you ingest a toxic substance, the greater the chance it will have a toxic effect one day. In the same way, unilateral _reduction_ of toxic intake is the order of the day in the field of self-care detoxification. Ingest fewer toxic substances of any kind\u2014this is one of the most practical steps you can take.\n\nSo, before you double your water intake, you need to reexamine your source of drinking water and look into nonchlorinated alternatives, such as bottled water and home filtration. First, let's look more closely at the problems with chlorinated water.\n\nChlorination of municipal drinking water has been a fact of life that most people have accepted routinely and uncritically for nearly the entire twentieth century, since 1908 when municipalities began adding chlorine to drinking water to disinfect it. Even though chlorine does a good job at disinfecting water, unfortunately it produces other toxic substances that, in terms of public health issues, may produce worse conditions than the original organic toxicants (mostly bacteria) found in water sources.\n\nThe problem is that chlorine produces toxic \"disinfection byproducts.\" When chlorine is added to water, it naturally reacts with organic matter such as humic and fulvic acids, which are present in the untreated, \"raw\" water. This reaction creates a new category of chlorinated chemicals jointly known as tri-halomethanes (THMs). It was only in the 1970s, some seventy years after water chlorination began on a large scale, that scientists discovered these toxic disinfection byproducts, and that chloroform produced cancer in laboratory rats.\n\nThere are potentially many different kinds of THMs produced when water is chlorinated, but public health officials tend to focus on only four: chloroform, bromoform, bromodichloromethane, and chlorodibromomethane. Technically, for it to be deemed \"acceptable,\" municipal water servicing more than 10,000 people is not supposed to have any of these four THMs at levels greater than 100 parts per billion.\n\nUnfortunately, THMs are not the only pollutants likely to be found in your drinking water and which are not removed or affected by chlorination. These others include pesticides, poly-cyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, volatile hydrocarbons (also known as VOCs, volatile organic chemicals), and phenols. Researchers identified seventy VOCs (notably hydrocarbons\u2014see figure 4-1) that were formed during municipal treatment of drinking water; most of the hydrocarbons passed through the entire water treatment process with \"little change in concentration\"\u2014meaning they were available full strength at the typical kitchen faucet.\n\nLet's look at this more closely. What are we likely to find in our tap water if it is municipally treated, or perhaps regardless of its source? Here is a partial list: trace metals (lead, aluminum, cadmium, chromium), VOCs, THMs, organisms (coliform bacteria, worms, parasites, or protozoa, such as _Cryptosporidium_ and _Giardia 7)_, and numerous chemical contaminants\u2014at least fifty-nine identified contaminants in all. Seen from another angle, these are fifty-nine reasons to consider installing a competent water filter in your kitchen.\n\n**Figure 4-1. Toxic Contaminants Typically Found in Tapwater\u2014A Partial List**\n\n\"There is widespread potential for human exposure to disinfection byproducts (DBPs) in drinking water because everyone drinks, bathes, cooks, and cleans with water,\" stated G.A. Boorman of the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences of Research Triangle Park in North Carolina in a 1999 review of THMs. Add to this flushing the toilet and washing clothes and dishes\u2014these activities can also introduce THMs into the indoor air of your home. It doesn't stop there either.\n\nIn fact, drinking chlorinated water is not necessarily the prime route for exposure to THMs. Taiwanese researchers measured the inhalation exposure for THMs of household residents during a day. They found that the people inhaled 26.4 mcg\/day during the shower, 1.56 meg during pre- and post-cooking activities, and 3.29 meg during cooking itself. This exposure is in addition to whatever amount the people directly ingested by drinking tap water, which the researchers estimated to be about the same amount, \"indicating that inhalation is an important pathway for THM exposure from drinking water.\"\n\nYou must additionally factor in the chlorine and chlorination disinfection products found in all the commercial beverages you drink, cups of tea or coffee you enjoy in restaurants, and the water used in hundreds of commercially prepared foods. Even though you may be filtering out the chlorine and its byproducts from your home drinking water supply (explained below), it doesn't mean the rest of the world is.\n\nThe principle becomes one of minimization; you probably will not be able to completely avoid chlorine and its byproducts in all the food and water situations you encounter, but you probably can _reduce_ your exposure by a great deal. As with many slow-acting toxic substances to which we are routinely exposed at low but constant doses, they have a cumulative effect. If you cut way back on the amount regularly entering your body, you greatly improve your chances that your body's own detoxification system will be able to handle this amount. You will get even better results if you help your liver out with specific liver-cleansing herbs (see Chapter 5).\n\nThere are several reasons why you should to try to minimize or eliminate your exposure to chlorinated water through drinking and from inhaling the fumes when you shower. Chlorine itself is believed to destroy polyunsaturated fatty acids and vitamin E in the body; it gets stored in the body's fatty tisues where it is slow to degrade; and it can also destroy beneficial intestinal bacteria that aid in digestion and in defense against pathogenic microorganisms. Regarding trihalomethanes, there are far more than four THMs, and they are for the most part unstudied, their toxicity unknown. At least six other THMs have been identified. It is known, however, that THMs can contribute to reproductive disorders, including miscarriage, birth defects, and various types of cancer, such as bladder and colon cancer.\n\n### _Reproductive Effects_\n\nLet's look at miscarriages first. California researchers announced in 1998 that they had developed strong evidence linking the consumption of chlorinated water with an increased risk of miscarriage or spontaneous abortion, based on a study of 5,144 pregnant women drawn from three counties and serviced by 78 municipal water companies. The women, whose average age was twenty-eight, reported their water consumption patterns during their first trimester some years earlier.\n\nWomen who drank at least five cups daily of cold chlorinated tap water with more than 75 ppm of THMs had miscarriages at a rate 15.7% higher (nearly double) the national average. Women who drank less than this amount or whose tap water had less than 75 ppm of THMs had miscarriages at the rate of 9.5% higher. The study also showed that eighteen percent of the women drank tap water with much higher THM levels, up to 157 ppm. In summary, women with a high THM exposure had a likelihood of spontaneous abortion 1.8 times higher than among women with a low exposure.\n\nThe results of this study reinforced conclusions published six years earlier in another evaluation of chlorination and women's health in California. In 1992, scientists at the California Department of Health Services studied 5,000 women in a single county (one of the three counties in the 1998 study). These women had a ten percent to fifty percent higher risk of spontaneous abortion than should be expected if they drank more tap water than bottled water during their first eight weeks of pregnancy. Women who drank at least six cups of chlorinated tap water per day had an average 2.17 times higher risk of miscarriage (the range of risk was 1.1 to 3.9).\n\nThree other studies published that same year (1992) confirmed the results, placing the miscarriage rate at twelve percent to fourteen percent from a four-cup daily consumption of chlorinated tap water. Researchers at the University of California at San Francisco studied pregnancies from 1980 to 1985 in four areas of one California county and found that among women who consumed no chlorinated tap water during their pregnancies (relying on bottled water), no birth defects were noted in 263 births, but for women who drank tap water, 4% of 908 births had defects. The scientists also found \"an overall excess\" of spontaneous abortions among women drinking chlorinated tap water during their first trimester.\n\nThe California Department of Health Services concluded in 1992 that results from four out of five studies of pregnancy outcomes and water consumption patterns \"suggest that women abstaining from tap water or [those] drinking bottled water during the first trimester of pregnancy may be at reduced risk of spontaneous abortion.\"\n\nFurther correlations were demonstrated by researchers at the School of Public Health at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 1998. They looked at the records of 1,893 live births in Colorado between 1990 and 1993; all the women had consumed water containing THMs during their pregnancies. The scientists found \"a weak association\" between THM exposure during the third trimester and low birth weight and \"a large increase in risk\" for low birth weight at the highest rate of THM exposure. The data was sufficient to indicate \"a potentially important relation\" between a pregnant woman drinking THM-contaminated tap water and the chances of birthing a baby with some kind of defect as a result of \"retarded fetal growth.\"\n\nA similar retrospective study in Halifax, Nova Scotia, revealed that women were 1.66 times more likely to experience stillbirths if their average THM exposure level during pregnancy was 100 mcg\/liter or greater compared to women who ingested only 0-49 mcg\/1 during the same time. The researchers, who studied birth records from 1988 to 1995, found little evidence for birth defects, but they did note \"chromosomal abnormalities,\" which is to say, defects in the infants' DNA. When toxic effects start showing up in chromosomes and genes, you are at the molecular level where cancer (and many other serious health disorders) begins (see page 148).\n\nOther recent research shows a connection between serious birth defects, such as neural tube defects (spina bifida, in which the spinal cord is not properly enclosed by bone), and total THMs consumed in tap water. The research, conducted in New Jersey, reported a doubled risk of neural tube defects among women with the highest THM exposure from drinking water.\n\nA study three years earlier in New Jersey showed the chance of neural tube defects was increased threefold when the pregnant woman was exposed to THMs at rates higher than 80 ppb. These researchers, part of the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry in the United States Department of Health and Human Services, looked at 80,938 live births and 594 fetal deaths during the period 1985-1988. They were able to tentatively link specific THMs with different birth defects.\n\nFor example, total THM ingestion was linked with infants born small for their gestational age, and with central nervous system and cardiac defects. Carbon tetrachloride intake was associated with low birth weight and various defects in the nervous system, heart, and mouth; benzene was linked to neural tube and cardiac defects. It is possible that chloroform (one of the four main THMs) disrupts the fetus' uptake of vitamin B12, which has been linked to neural tube defects.\n\nNorwegian researchers looked at three aspects of \"reproductive toxicity\" with respect to pregnant women ingesting chlorinated tap water. They found that out of 141,077 births in a two-year period (1993-1995), 1.8% of infants (2,608) were born with birth defects and there was a strong likelihood these birth defects were due in part to THMs. The scientists reported that women with a high chlorination exposure were 1.4 times more at risk of having a baby delivered with some kind of malformation, 1.26 times more likely to birth a baby with a neural tube defect, and 1.99 times more likely to birth an infant with urinary tract defects.\n\n\"This study provides further evidence of the role of chlorination of humic water [raw water containing organic matter] as a potential cause of birth defects, in a country with relatively low levels of chlorination byproducts,\" the researchers noted. In other words, because Norway is not so heavily chlorinated as other industrialized countries, the results are more meaningful, because the average person is routinely exposed to fewer THMs there than elsewhere.\n\nAmong the THMs, bromodichloromethane (BDCM) and chloroform are considered the two most prominent. In rat studies, both produced noticeable damage to the liver and kidneys twenty-four hours after ingestion. After forty-eight hours, BDCM produced \"more persistent liver toxicity\" than chloroform and was \"slightly more toxic\" to the kidneys as well. Bear in mind that the liver and kidneys are two of the body's prime detoxification, filtration, and toxin excretion organs, so if THMs make these organs toxic, their ability to remove other toxic substances from the body is impaired.\n\n### _Carcinogenic Effects_\n\nThe scientific research linking cancer and sustained THM intake through drinking chlorinated tap water is equally strong. In fact, evidence suggesting a link between THMs and cancer was suspected as early as 1974; since that time, at least eighteen studies have appeared strengthening the link between carcinogens in chlorinated drinking water and the onset of various types of cancer, especially bladder and colon cancer.\n\nA study by the National Cancer Institute in 1987 examined the water consumption habits of 2,805 men and women with bladder cancer and 5,258 cancer-free men and women drawn from ten different areas of the United States. They found that people who drank eight cups of chlorinated tap water for forty to fifty-nine years had a forty percent higher risk of getting bladder cancer than those who consumed less than this, or who drank unchlorinated water. Among those in the study, men and women who drank the highest volume of chlorinated tap water for sixty years had an eighty percent increased risk.\n\nBy some strange biochemical twist, nonsmokers had a far higher risk than smokers, even though tobacco smoke on its own can cause bladder cancer; nonsmokers drinking chlorinated tap water for 60 years had a 310% increased risk of bladder cancer. The researchers estimated that of the people studied, twelve percent of the bladder cancer cases could be blamed on chlorinated water; among the nonsmokers in the group, that number was twenty-seven percent.\n\n  * In 1982, researchers acknowledged that studies have \"clearly shown\" that most, possibly all, U.S. drinking water contains chemicals that have mutagenic or carcinogenic activity, meaning they can make healthy human cells change (mutate) or become poisoned (by carcinogens), initiating a cancer.\n  * In 1982, scientists studied cancer deaths in women from twenty-eight Wisconsin counties during the years 1972-1977 and found that colon cancer appeared to be \"related significantly\" to THM levels in drinking water, increasing the risk of colon cancer by 2.8 times.\n  * In 1987, scientists injected laboratory mice regularly for two years with bromodichloromethane, a THM found in chlorinated water. There was \"clear evidence\" of a cancer process in both males and females after two years, particularly in the kidneys and colon of both sexes and ovarian abcesses in the females. Of the four primary THMs, bromodichloromethane caused the \"widest spectrum\" of cancers in rodents, researchers stated.\n  * In 1993, researchers at the National Institutes of Health reported the results of their two-year study with laboratory rodents that had received daily amounts of three THMs, chlorine, and chloramine. They found that the THMs were carcinogenic to the liver, kidneys, and intestines of the rodents studied. They concluded that these are \"the chemicals of greatest concern\" in determining whether chlorinated drinking water is cancer causing.\n  * In 1995, researchers at the Department of Family and Community Medicine at the Medical College of Wisconsin at Milwaukee stated that the byproducts of water chlorination \"possibly\" account for 5,000 cases of bladder cancer and 8,000 cases of rectal cancer each year in the United States.\n  * In 1996, scientists at the Department of Community Health and Epidemiology at Queen's University in Kingston, Ontario, studied 696 cases of bladder cancer and correlated them with the patient's drinking water patterns over a thiry-five-year period. They found that those who drank chlorinated tap water regularly for thirty-five years or more had \"an increased risk\" of bladder cancer compared to those who consumed it for ten years or less. They also reported that those who had a THM intake of 50 mcg\/liter or more for 35 years had an increased risk as well. In other words, \"the risk of bladder cancer increases with both duration and concentration of exposure to chlorination byproducts.\" The general risk to the population of bladder cancer was thereby increased by fourteen percent to sixteen percent, making THMs \"a potentially important risk factor.\"\n  * In 1997, researchers at the School of Public Health at the University of Minnesota at Minneapolis announced the results of their study of 28,237 women from Iowa. Women who drank chlorinated tap water had an increased risk of colon and all types of cancers compared to women who did not drink chlorinated water.\n  * In 1998, researchers at the National Cancer Institute found that among 1,123 cases of bladder cancer compared to 1,983 controls (people without cancer but of the same age and gender) there was an \"overall association\" between chlorinated water intake and the risk of bladder cancer. Specifically, among men, if they were smokers and drank chlorinated tap water, this \"mutually enhanced\" their risk of getting bladder cancer.\n  * In 1998, other scientists at the National Cancer Institute studied 685 cases of colon cancer and 655 cases of rectal cancer, compared to 2,434 controls. They found an association between drinking chlorinated water over a sixty-year period and the incidence of rectal cancer, but not of colon cancer. However, they found that subjects who drank chlorinated water and had a low dietary fiber intake over a period of 40 years increased their risk of rectal cancer by 2.4 times compared to 0.9 times for those who had a high fiber intake and did not drink chlorinated water.\n  * In 1999, ingesting chlorination byproducts was positively linked with brain cancer. A study of 375 brain cancer cases in Iowa and the patients' lifetime water consumption patterns showed an increased risk of brain cancer with exposure to THMs.\n\nThe preceding brief review of some of the available scientific evidence makes it clear that it would be prudent to think about radically reducing your exposure to THMs found in chlorinated tap water. There are two practical steps you can take in your home: install a water filter for your drinking and cooking water; and install a shower and bath-faucet filter.\n\nObviously, using high quality bottled water is a viable solution to contaminated drinking water, an effective remedy that's easy to implement. There is a financial factor, however. Using bottled water for drinking purposes (not cooking) for a year in a two-person household (including the rental or amortized purchase of the dispenser) will cost you about the same as the onetime purchase of a mid-level water purifier for about $500. Using bottled water for cooking purposes adds to the expense. The only subsequent costs of a water purifier are cartridge replacements. In year two, you will start saving a significant amount of money on your water purification.\n\nAt any rate, since the option of using bottled water is already generally well known, there is no need to pursue it further here. Instead, we will focus on home water filtration units.\n\nAs elsewhere in this book, discussion of a specific product is not meant as an endorsement, nor is the listing of one or more products meant to be a definitive listing of what is available, or a ranking as to quality, or even an assurance of quality. Rather, specific products are mentioned to give you an idea of what is available, and a few places to begin your investigation of items best suited to your needs.\n\n### _Water Filters to Remove Chlorine_\n\nThere are many options here, from the inexpensive counter-top activated charcoal filter approach to expensive under-the-counter reverse osmosis units. You can spend $50 or $3000, depending on how thoroughly you want to remove tap water contaminants. Let's look at a few examples:\n\nINEXPENSIVE FILTRATION. The P\u016br line of water purifiers offers a series of pitcher, countertop, or under-sink filtration units in a modest price range, from about $25 to $100. The pitcher unit holds two gallons. The filter lasts about two months (forty gallons), and the unit removes _Giardia_ and _Cryptosporidium_ , and reduces the levels of lead, chlorine, copper, zinc, and asbestos. The faucet mounts reduce levels of some THMs, a broader list of VOC chemicals, and the microorganisms cited above. The countertop\/under-sink units remove the same substances, but have a longer filter life (200 gallons).\n\nCHARCOAL FILTRATION. An inexpensive countertop approach uses a charcoal (carbon) block filter and a separate spout to channel purified water. An example of this method is the TerraFlo CBLX, which uses a solid carbon cartridge (under-the-counter models are available, too) to filter out selected agricultural pollutants and reduce THMs, VOCs (forty-one different ones are cited by the manufacturer), mercury, lead, chlorine, and the levels of certain parasites. The filter lasts for 400 gallons, and the units sell for $100 or less.\n\nMICROFILTRATION. The Seagull IV X-l series of \"microfiltration\" water purifiers made by General Ecology of Exton, Pennsylvania, are countertop models (although they can be installed under the counter) that are effective against three types of water contaminants, according to the manufacturer. These include parasitic cysts, specific chemicals such as pesticides and VOCs, hazardous waste from various industries (such as iron), and THMs.\n\nThe systems employ the Structured Matrix technology that removes viruses, bacteria, protozoa, and many organic and inorganic chemicals at \"the highest 'purification' micron level (0.4 microns absolute),\" says the manufacturer. However, the unit does not remove fluoride (see below for a discussion of why fluoride should be filtered out of drinking water), which is a salt and part of a family not considered contaminants.\n\nThe unit accomplishes its purification through an ultrafine submicron filtration device that collects contaminants as small as 0.1 microns; the cartridge (which does not contain charcoal) needs to be replaced annually, or sooner, depending on use, but generally can handle from 1,000 to 6,000 gallons. The different Seagull models process from one to six gallons of water per minute, and weigh from four to twenty-four pounds. You can install them without a plumber, and they generally cost between $500 and $1000.\n\nAccording to the company's technical reports, the Seagull units are able to remove (to the level of being not detectable) seventeen out of twenty pesticide residues, THMs, and VOCs; and drastically reduce the levels of the other three pesticides. Out of thirteen listed microbiological water contaminants (mostly bacteria), the unit reduces levels of all to nondetectable amounts; it also significantly reduces the iron, cadmium, mercury, and lead content in the finished water.\n\nAnother water purification system that uses filtration is the Everpure line, which consists of eleven different units to choose from. Two\u2014S-200 and QC4-VOC\u2014remove or reduce the levels of many volatile organic chemicals (such as benzene and toluene) and many THMs as well as lead, chlorine, chloramines, molds and algae, _Giardia_ and _Cryptosporidium_ cysts, asbestos fibers, oxidized iron, manganese, and sulfides, as well as 99.9% of all particles 0.5 microns and larger (which the other 9 units do also). The S-200 has a water flow rate of 0.5 gallons per minute and a cartridge life of 300 gallons, while the QC4-VOC has the same flow rate but a cartridge life of 500 gallons; both units are installed under the counter.\n\nREVERSE OSMOSIS. This approach employs a semipermeable membrane that removes particles, salts, and dissolved contaminants, as if molecule by molecule, from raw tap water. In reverse osmosis (RO), water first passes through a 5-micron particle prefilter that takes out large particles of dirt and debris; then the water is squeezed under great pressure through microscopic pores to eliminate about ninety-nine percent of its impurities; finally, any remaining odors or objectionable tastes are removed by a carbon post filter.\n\nOne example of an RO device is the PPW Home Reverse Osmosis System, made by Pure-Pro Water Corporation in Mokena, Illinois. According to the manufacturer, this unit removes ninety-five percent to ninety-nine percent of all dissolved mineral and chemical contaminants from raw tap water. Specifically, the unit can remove ninety percent of the fluoride, ninety-seven percent of detergents, ninety-seven percent of herbicides, insecticides, PCBs, lead, and strontium (a radiation product), among others, including ninety-eight percent of THMs (especially chloroform) and other organic toxic chemicals. The unit can produce about fifty to seventy gallons of RO water per day, and holds three to four gallons at a time in a special tank.\n\nThe RO approach has advantages and disadvantages: it removes salts (the technology was originally designed by the U.S. Navy to remove salt from ocean water to make it drinkable) which means it catches fluoride (undesirable, see below), but also calcium, sodium, and potassium (essential nutrients); it is not always well suited to remove biological pathogens, but it is well equipped to filter out VOCs. If the RO membrane is _small_ enough\u2014that is, smaller than bacteria, viruses, or various parasites\u2014it will remove most pathogenic microorganisms from the water it treats.\n\nOther advantages of RO are daily volume capacity and the thoroughness with which it removes finely dissolved contaminants from the water. According to the manufacturer, once maintenance and water costs are factored in, the unit produces pure water for about five cents a gallon. However, there is a certain degree of water waste with RO. To purify one gallon of water, it will flush it with several gallons (as many as six) of raw water, and these extra gallons get sent back down the drain. So you are paying for water that gets recycled down the drain.\n\nULTRAVIOLET PURIFICATION. In this approach, an ultraviolet (UV) lamp sterilizes tap water and removes or reduces the levels of chlorine, THMs, VOCs, microorganisms, and selected chemicals. For example, the Sun-Pure Water Purifier uses a five-step program to clean the water: carbon block filters remove chlorine and many THMs and VOCs; a lead sorbent matrix mixed with the carbon block filter removes heavy metals; activated tricalcium phosphate removes fluorides; granular activated carbon removes bad tastes and odors as well as chemicals; and the ultraviolet sterilization chamber deactivates the various microbial life forms that could cause disease. The filter cartridges last for 1,300 gallons, and the UV lamp needs replacement annually. The system delivers water at the rate of 30 gallons\/hour (or 0.5 gallons\/minute), and at a cost of $0.05\/gallon daily (about $400 for the unit), according to the manufacturer.\n\n  **_The Healthy Living Space_ Info Tip**\n\nFor P r units:\n\nP r Recovery Engineering, Inc.,\n\n9300 North 75th Avenue,\n\nMinneapolis, MN 55428;\n\ntel: 800-787-5463;\n\nwebsite: www.purwater.com.\n\nFor TerraFlo CBLX:\n\nGlobal Environmental\n\nTechnologies, Inc.,\n\nP.O. Box 8839,\n\n1001-1003 S. 10th Street,\n\nAllentown, PA 18105;\n\ntel: 610-821-4901;\n\nfax: 610-821-5507;\n\nemail: getwater@terraflo.com;\n\nwebsite: www.terraflo.com.\n\nOr from Real Goods,\n\n200 Clara Street,\n\nUkiah, CA 95482;\n\ntel: 800-762-7325;\n\nwebsite: www.realgoods.com.\n\nFor more information about\n\nSeagull IV X-l series, contact:\n\nGeneral Ecology, Inc.,\n\n151 Sheree Blvd.,\n\nExton, PA 19341;\n\ntel: 800-441-8166 or 610-363-7900;\n\nfax: 610-363-0412;\n\ne-mail: info@generalecology.com;\n\nwebsite: www.general-ecology.com.\n\nAlso available from:\n\nNirvana Safe Haven,\n\n3441 Golden Rain Road, Suite 3,\n\nWalnut Creek, CA 94595;\n\ntel: 800-968-9355 or 925-472-8868;\n\nfax: 925-938-9019;\n\ne-mail: dailya@nontoxic.com;\n\nwebsite: www.nontoxic.com.\n\n### _Shower Filters to Remove Chlorine_\n\nThe idea behind a shower filter is to remove a fair amount of chlorine and selected heavy metals, and sometimes radon and certain bacteria (such as _Cryptosporidium_ ) from the incoming water, usually by way of an activated charcoal filter. The device is installed in place of the conventional shower faucet. Shower filters do not remove THMs, only chlorine. Let's briefly review a few typical products:\n\nThe Shower Filter from Paragon Water Systems, for example, uses a five-stage filtration system, including activated carbon and a KDF filter. The KDF uses an electrochemical process to reduce the water content of various organic and inorganic elements that affect the water's taste, including some pesticides, organic chemicals, and hydrogen sulfide. Water passes through very fine micron filters before coming out as a spray.\n\nAnother version of the same approach is called the Aqua-Stream Shower Filter. Using a combination of a charcoal filter and a KDF filter, this unit processes 2.2 gallons of water per minute; its cartridge lasts up to two years; and the device weighs four pounds and sells for $150 or less.\n\nA third version, offered by Nirvana Safe Haven, is called the KDF Chlorine-free Shower Unit. The company states that one filter will filter about 45,000 gallons of water (or last about eighteen months), and will remove chlorine (converting it to nontoxic zinc chloride), eradicate algae and fungi, control bacterial growth, and reduce hydrogen sulfide and factors contributing to water hardness.\n\nThe Sprite Slim-Line Shower Filter from Ace Pump Corporation uses a noncarbon-based filtration media (called Chlorgon, specifically designed for the needs of the shower, says the company) to remove both free and combined (bonded with other elements) chlorine, as well as odors, heavy metals, dirt, and sediment from shower water. The cartridge needs to be replaced about every six months.\n\n  **_The Healthy Living Space_ Info Tip**\n\nFor Everpure S-200 and QC4-VOC:\n\nEverpure, Inc.,\n\n660 Blackhawk Drive,\n\nWestmont, IL 60559;\n\ntel: 630-654-4000;\n\nfax: 630-654-1115;\n\ncustomer service: 800-942-1153;\n\nwebsite: www.everpure.com.\n\nFor PPW Home Reverse\n\nOsmosis System:\n\nPure-Pro USA Corporation,\n\n19425 Everett Lane,\n\nMokena, IL 60448;\n\ntel: 800-993-2933;\n\ne-mail: info@purepro.net;\n\nwebsite: www.purepro.net.\n\nFor Sun-Pure Water Purifier: see Real Goods info on page 154.\n\n### _Get the Chlorine Out of Your Swimming Pool_\n\nRoutine or long-term exposure to chlorinated water in swimming pools can be hazardous to your health. Competitive swimmers have been shown to absorb toxic levels of chlorine and THMs during their training; similar chlorine absorption patterns have been observed in recreational swimming, especially among children. \"This exposure comes from breathing chloroform-laden air near the water's surface and absorbing this and other compounds through the skin.\"\n\nIf you own a swimming pool and want an alternative to chlorine to keep the microorganisms out of your water, a device called the Floatron may be the solution. Using solar ionization, this is a small, floatable device that employs solar power to generate a low electric current; the mineral ions produced (and introduced into the water) effectively stop the growth of algae and bacteria in your swimming water. Essentially, the unit produces mineral water as a way of controlling microbial growth, and it cuts the need for any chlorine by eighty percent. The remaining twenty percent of the normal chlorine (or other oxidizers such as bromine or hydrogen peroxide) amount is required to control water clouding due to suntan lotion, body fluids, and dust accumulation in the water. The Floatron can handle pool volumes of up to 40,000 gallons and sells for about $300.\n\n  **_The Healthy Living Space_ Info Tip**\n\nFor more information about Shower Filter, see:\n\nPara\u01f5on Water Systems,\n\n14001 63rd Way North,\n\nClearwater, FL 33760;\n\ntel: 800-288-9708 or 727-538-4704;\n\nwebsite: www.paragonwater.com;\n\nalso: www.resourcewater.com.\n\nFor Sprite Slim-Line Shower Filter:\n\nAce Pump Corporation,\n\n57 West 21st Street,\n\nNew York, NY 10010;\n\ntel: 888-242-4500; fax: 212-989-2260;\n\nwebsite: www.acepump.com.\n\nFor Aqua-Stream Shower Filter:\n\nNatural Solutions Environmental, Inc.,\n\n4238 North Arlington Heights Road, #113,\n\nArlington Heights, IL 60004;\n\ntel: 847-577-7000 or 847-675-9200;\n\nwebsite: www.naturalsolutionsl.com.\n\nFor KDF Chlorine-free Shower Unit:\n\nNirvana Safe Haven,\n\n3441 Golden Rain Road,\n\nSuite 3, Walnut Creek, CA 94595;\n\ntel: 800-968-9355 or 925-472-8868;\n\nfax: 925-938-9019;\n\ne-mail: dailya@nontoxic.com;\n\nwebsite: www.nontoxic.com.\n\nThere are at least three other nonchlorine alternatives for cleansing your swimming pool water. These include ozonation (injecting ozone gas [a form of oxygen] into pool water; a small amount of chlorine will still be needed); ultraviolet light (supplemented with a small dose of chlorine); and biguanide, or polyhexamethylene biguanide (Baquacil), a safe and nontoxic chemical disinfectant.\n\n## _HEALTHY LIVING SPACE DETOXIFIER #9: Don't Fluoridate Your Teeth_ \u2014 _Your Body Doesn't Need Fluorides_\n\nWe find another water-related toxicity issue with fluorides. The matter of adding fluoride to municipal water supplies is charged with the same controversy and lack of understanding of the biological consequences as is the chlorination issue. Water fluoridation has been touted for decades as beneficial in preventing dental caries (cavities) in children, but the research supporting this claim is spotty and not definitive. Further, a fair amount of evidence that fluoridation produces minor health consequences such as dental fluorosis (see below) and contributes to serious health disorders such as osteoporosis and cancer has received insufficient attention from medical and water authorities, and is not widely known among the public.\n\nThe recommendation here is straightforward: if possible, reduce or eliminate your intake of fluoridated tap water and fluoridated toothpaste. There is good reason to regard fluoride in the same way as chlorine\u2014a toxic substance best avoided.\n\nToday an estimated 250 million people worldwide and some 130 million Americans in 9,600 communities (or almost fifty percent of the U.S. population) drink fluoridated water, including residents of 41 of the country's fifty largest cities. According to the Centers for Disease Prevention and Control (CDC), 62% of the U.S. population (as of 1996) received fluoridated water, with a target of seventy-five percent set for the year 2000; the CDC planned to achieve this increase of another 30 million fluoridated Americans by way of \"substantial public education and advocacy\" primarily focused on the dental benefits. Fluoridation is an American obsession, as only two percent of Europeans are forced to drink fluoridated water, and most of that takes place in England (ten percent of the population) and Ireland (sixty-six percent).\n\n  **_The Healthy Living Space_ Info Tip**\n\nFor Floatron:\n\nReal Goods,\n\n200 Clara Street,\n\nUkiah, CA 95482;\n\ntel: 800-762-7325;\n\nwebsite: www.realgoods.com.\n\nOr:\n\nFloatron Factory Sales and Service,\n\nP.O. Box 51000,\n\nPhoenix, AZ 85076;\n\ne-mail: info@floatron.com;\n\nwebsite: www.floatron.com.\n\nFor a source of nonchlorine pool filtration (and shower filters and water filters):\n\nThe Cutting Edge Catalog,\n\nBefit Enterprises, Ltd.,\n\nP.O. Box 5034,\n\nSouthampton, NY 11969;\n\ntel: 800-497-9516 or 631-287-3813;\n\nfax: 631-287-3112;\n\ne-mail: cutcat@cutcat.com;\n\nwebsite: www.cutcat.com.\n\nSome states and communities in the United States still do not routinely fluoridate their public water, so if you live in such a place, count yourself lucky. The trend, however, is to fluoridate all water sources in the United States, typically at the rate of 1 part fluoride per million parts water, or 1 ppm, although up to 4 ppm is allowed. Why such an urgency to fluoridate?\n\nWater fluoridation in the United States began in 1945 in Grand Rapids, Michigan, when manufacturers of phosphate fertilizer and aluminum found a new place to dump their abundant supplies of their hazardous byproduct: fluoride. Even though a fifteen-year scientific study had been set in place to determine the safety (or not) of fluoridated water, it was suspended after only eighteen months so that widespread fluoridation could begin.\n\nPreviously, fluoride stores had been disposed of in small amounts as components in insecticides and rat poison; then scientists came up with evidence that fluoride ingestion may be related to a lower incidence of dental cavities. The first proposal that the nation's water be fluoridated (1939) came not from a dentist, however, but from a scientist employed by the aluminum industry. \"Now instead of paying for the expense of disposing of their toxic waste products, companies could make money by selling them to municipal water authorities, turning the public into a highly cost-effective toxic waste dump for industry's excess fluoride.\"\n\nAside from the human health impact of consuming fluoridated water, there is a negative environmental impact. To fluoridate water for 100 million people, you need to dump about 20,000 tons of fluoride into municipal water supplies each year. The human body stores about fifty percent of its fluoride intake from fluoridated water in the teeth and bones. Each year, the remaining 10,000 tons of fluoride gets flushed down the toilet, and eventually enters the environment as yet another source of toxic pollution. It is quite likely we get some of this excreted fluoride back (and into our bodies again) when we drink tap water and eat conventionally raised produce and prepared foods. This recycling of fluoride was known as early as 1964, when a study of the fluoride levels in the sewage of fifty-six California cities showed levels equal to or higher than the permissible levels in fluoridated water.\n\n**_The recommendation here is straightforward; if possible, reduce or eliminate your intake of fluoridated tap water and fluoridated toothpaste. There is good reason to regard fluoride in the same way as chlorine\u2014a toxic substance Best avoided._**\n\nIs there evidence supporting the claim that fluoridated water reduces cavities in children? Yes, to some extent, the research supports in a limited sense the basic claim, but other research contradicts it and, as we will see below, other health risks associated with fluoride may far outweigh the modest benefits.\n\nIt is instructive that when fluoridation stops, dental health does not necessarily plummet. A town in Finland stopped fluoridating its water after doing so for 33 years. Scientists found, after examining the dental status of 1,325 children (age 3 to 9) before and after cessation of fluoridation, that there was no increase in dental cavities three years after cessation. In Durham, North Carolina, fluoridation was halted for eleven months in 1990, enabling scientists to assess the effect of fluoride on children's teeth. Examining the dental records of 1,696 children (kindergarten to grade five), researchers found the temporary cessation of fluroidation \"had little effect on caries\"\u2014in other words, there was no measurable increase in cavities.\n\nIn 1990, public health officials in La Salud, Cuba, studied the effects on children's teeth of no longer fluoridating public water (at 0.8 ppm). Seven years after cessation, the level of dental caries for children six to nine was low, and had not risen; for ten to eleven year olds, the numbers had decreased; and in twelve to thirteen year olds, there was a \"significant decrease,\" and the percentage of children this age who were free of cavities had increased from thirty-three percent (during fluoridation) to fifty-five percent, under no fluoridation. However, researchers concluded the fact that schoolchildren did a fluoride-based mouth rinse fifteen times a year at school might have contributed to the improved dental status.\n\n### _Fluoride Can Produce Dental Fluorosis_\n\nThe evidence that ingesting fluoridated water leads to dental fluorosis is compelling. In the early stages of this condition, the enamel on teeth gets mottled, opaque, and sometimes stained. Later on, the teeth pit and get brittle, and they may chip, and develop a yellow, brown, or even black appearance.\n\nThe incidence of fluorosis increases when the concentration of fluoride in public water supplies exceeds 2 ppm; when it reaches 8 ppm, systemic fluorosis can start to appear, involving a bony overgrowth, neurological problems, and even arthritis. Researchers at the College of Dentistry at the University of Iowa concluded in 1999, \"Several studies indicate that primary-tooth fluorosis can be prevalent and severe in areas of very high water fluoride concentrations.\" Typically, the fluorosis happens on primary molars (premolars), but it can also affect incisors.\n\nMore specifically, a study by the School of Public Health at the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor found that fluoride was able to reduce dental cavities best at levels of up to 0.7 ppm, but that at these levels, 13% to 21% of schoolchildren developed dental fluorosis as a result. At fluoridation levels higher than 0.7 ppm, the incidence of dental fluorosis soared to between 29% and 41% (at 1.2 ppm fluoride). Another study showed that children and teenagers (8-16 years old) who consumed fluoridated water containing from 0.3 ppm (considered a low level) to 1 ppm (considered optimal) of fluoride had fluorosis on an average of 15% of their teeth surfaces.\n\nResearchers at Harvard School of Dental Medicine in Boston, Massachusetts, found that in children aged one to seven who had been routinely exposed to fluoridated water, sixty-nine percent had at least \"very mild fluorosis\" while thirteen percent had \"moderate to severe\" fluorosis. In a study of 233 \"optimally fluoridated\" children, aged 10-14, researchers at the University of Connecticut Health Center at Farmington found a \"strong association\" between the use of fluoride toothpaste, fluoride supplement, and powdered infant formula (containing fluoridated water) and mild to moderate fluorosis. Norwegian scientists reported that fourteen percent of children aged five to eighteen who had been lifelong consumers of fluoridated water at a low level had dental fluorosis, while seventy-eight of those who had fluoride at a moderate to high level had the problem.\n\nThe age at which the body is subjected to fluoridated water is important to the onset of fluorosis, researchers at the University of Chile at Santiago found. Children under sixteen months of age who had fluoridated water by way of powdered milk formula were twenty times more likely to develop fluorosis than those who were exposed later; children aged sixteen to twenty-four months were four times more likely. Norwegian researchers came to the same conclusion, stating that \"early mineralizing teeth (central incisors and first molars) are highly susceptible to dental fluorosis if exposed to fluoride\" in the earliest months of life, from birth to twelve months. The fluoride apparently interferes with mineral absorption and utilization needed to produce strong enamel on the teeth.\n\n### _Fluoride Can Contribute to Cancer_\n\nEvidence continues to accumulate linking fluoride ingestion (through tap water, toothpaste, and supplements) with bone, skin, joint, kidney, mouth, and uterine cancer. According to one estimate, fluoride may be linked to as many as 10,000 cancer deaths annually in the United States, but a former chemist with the National Cancer Institute estimated that fluoride caused 61,000 cases of cancer in 1995 and will cause 90,000 cases annually by the year 2015. Researchers at the School of Medicine at the University of the Ryukyus in Okinawa, Japan, reported that, based on their study of twenty fluoridated municipalities, \"a significant positive correlation\" was observed between fluoride concentration in the drinking water and uterine cancer among women drinking it.\n\nEven at supposedly \"safe\" and \"acceptable\" doses of 1 ppm, fluoride can initiate a cancer process (as demonstrated in laboratory mice, whose tumor growth rate increased by twenty-five percent), and it can synergistically increase the carcinogenicity of other toxic substances. One study of cancer rates over a thirty-year period as seen in ten fluoridated cities versus ten nonfluoridated cities showed that after seventeen years of fluoridation, the cancer rate grew by ten percent, mostly in people over age forty-five. At least eight other scientific studies present evidence linking fluoridated water with the onset of bone cancer.\n\n### _Other Health Problems Associated with Fluoride_\n\nFluoride exposure can disrupt the production of collagen in bones and lead to the breakdown of collagen in bones, muscles, skin, cartilage, the lungs, kidney, and trachea. Fluoride depletes the energy supplies of white blood cells, key immune system agents needed to destroy foreign cells; it can also cause premature body aging. Fluoride can also confuse the immune system and cause it to \"attack\" the body's own tissues. Further, it has been shown to depress the activity of the thyroid gland in the neck, an endocrine gland that regulates metabolism and the body's internal temperature.\n\nFluoride consumption may also contribute to the risk of bone fractures in males and females of all ages, and to hip fracture in the elderly, even though, paradoxically, it seems to promote bone density. An English study of 914 cases of hip fracture among the elderly found some degree of risk associated with lifelong fluoridated water intake, at levels ranging from 0.15 to 1.79 ppm.\n\nSince 1986, eight peer-reviewed medical studies have confirmed an increase in the cases of hip fractures in fluoridated communities, ranging from 40% to 100%, depending on the age of the subjects and the fluoride concentration in their water. One study reported that for women seventy-five and older consuming fluoridated water, the risk was double that of women in nonfluoridated communities. Another study stated that the risk of hip fracture increases as the fluoride level climbs above 0.11 ppm.\n\nScientists at the University of Technology in Sydney, Australia, stated in 1997 that their review of the scientific data \"reveals a consistent pattern of evidence\u2014hip fractures, skeletal fluorosis, the effect of fluoride on bone structure, fluoride levels in bones and osteosarcomas [bone cancers]\u2014pointing to the existence of causal mechanisms by which fluoride damages bones.\" These scientists further pointed out that research supports the view that ingesting fluoride, by drinking fluoridated water, has \"negligible\" benefit; what benefit does accrue to the teeth comes from using fluoride lozenges and mouth rinses in which the chemical has direct contact with the teeth.\n\nSustained fluoride ingestion can cause widespread toxicity. Laboratory rats were fed differing amounts of sodium fluoride over a period of ninety-nine weeks. Scientists observed a thirty percent drop in weight and found evidence of fluoride toxicity in the teeth, bones, and stomach; the incidence and severity of these symptoms were directly related to the dose and duration of exposure.\n\nFluoride appears to have deleterious effects on the brain. One critic of fluoridation, referring to the fact that many children use fluoridated toothpaste, queried: \"Brushing your brain with fluoride?\" Evidence now links fluoride with IQ deficiencies in children, and suggests fluoride may produce nerve cell and brain damage _in utero_ , as the mother passes the fluoride on to the fetus when she consumes fluoridated water. Children living in a low-fluoride area had higher IQs than comparable children in a high-fluoride area. Further, low levels of fluoride given to test animals produced damages to brain tissue similar to those changes seen in the brains of humans with Alzheimer's and other forms of dementia.\n\nIn fact, a study with rats showed that the presence of fluoride in the body made aluminum (in the tissues already) more available and more capable of entering the brain. Similarly, fluoride makes lead more \"bioavailable\" in the body, and scientists have demonstrated that children drinking fluoridated water have elevated lead levels in their blood.\n\nVarying levels of fluoride in drinking water (3-11 ppm) can affect the central nervous system and brain without producing noticeable physical malformations. Instead, it can affect functioning, producing symptoms such as attention deficit disorder when ingestion was 100 ppm from sublingual drops. This may seem like a high exposure, but it isn't an unlikely one, because toothpastes often contain 1000-1500 ppm of fluoride, and mouth rinses 230-900 ppm.\n\nAccording to toxicologist Phyllis Mullenix, Ph.D., of the Forsyth Research Institute in Boston, Massachusetts, fluoride accumulates in brain tissues. The central nervous system is \"vulnerable\" to fluoride, and the effects on behavior depend on what age you are when exposed. In other words, not only can fluoride negatively affect mineralizing tissues (as in dental fluorosis in very young people), but it seems to negatively affect the developing brain as well.\n\nDr. Mullenix found evidence of a \"generic behavioral pattern disruption\" in rats dosed with fluoride, and that these disruptions were indicators of likely muscle and coordination problems, IQ deficits, and learning disabilities in humans due to fluoride intake. Dr. Mullenix also reported that the severity of the effect fluoride had on the brain depended on the section of the brain in which it was concentrated. Should we be surprised? Sodium fluoride, which is routinely added to water supplies across the United States, is listed with the Environmental Protection Agency as a rat poison.\n\nAll you have to do is brush your teeth in fluoridated water with a fluoridated toothpaste and rinse your mouth with a fluoridated mouthwash and you will get the high exposure\u2014every day. Plus you need to add to this fluoride ingestion from ambient sources, such as air pollution. At least 155,000 tons of industrial fluoride are released into the atmosphere every year by factories (from production of or involving iron, steel, aluminum, copper, lead, and zinc), and the level of emissions of fluoride into lakes, oceans, and rivers has been placed at 500,00 tons annually. In 1991, the United States Public Health Service estimated that a 110-pound adult living in an \"optimally fluoridated\" city had a total daily fluoride intake, from all sources, as high as 6.6 milligrams. In 1997, the Environmental Protection Agency estimated that the typical American consumed five times more fluoride in that year than in 1971, and this was from foods and beverages only, not fluoridated tap water.\n\nSTEAM DISTILLATION. One technology known to effectively remove fluoride from tap water is called steam distillation. Two others that also perform this function are reverse osmosis and deionization. According to Waterwise, a company that manufactures three types of steam water distillers, the units also remove various heavy metals, selected THMs and VOCs, radon, selected microorganisms including viruses, and most minerals.\n\nThe process is simple to describe: Water is heated in a chamber where it turns to steam; this vapor rises, leaving impurities (dissolved solids, salts, heavy metals) behind in the boiling chamber. The vapor then condenses into water in another chamber, percolating through a coconut shell carbon filter, where more of the VOCs are removed.\n\n  **_The Healthy Living Space_ Info Tip**\n\nFor information about Steam\n\nDistillation Models 4000, 7000, and 9000:\n\nWaterwise, Inc.,\n\nP.O. Box 494000,\n\nLeesburg, FL 34749;\n\ntel: 800-874-9028 or 352-787-5008;\n\nfax: 352-787-8123;\n\nwebsite: www.waterwise.com.\n\nFor Fluoride-X:\n\nNirvana Safe Haven,\n\n344l Golden Rain Road, Suite 3,\n\nWalnut Creek, CA 94595;\n\ntel: 800-968-9355;\n\nfax: 925-938-9019;\n\ne-mail: daliya@nontoxic.com;\n\nwebsite: www.nontoxic.com.\n\nSee also: Environmental\n\nManagement, Inc. (Fluoride-X's manufacturer),\n\n8680 Miralani Drive, Suite 121,\n\nSan Diego, CA 92126;\n\ntel: 858-566-4522;\n\nfax: 858-566-9521.\n\nSteam distillation is a much slower process of preparing high-quality drinking water; it takes about four hours to produce one gallon (Model 9000) at a cost of about $0.25 per gallon, or 24 hours to make 9 gallons (Model 7000). Obviously, this approach will be suitable only if you want a limited amount of high-quality drinking water, and don't plan to use it for cooking as well.\n\nSPECIALTY FLUORIDE FILTER. A special filter called Fluoride-X can be attached to your present drinking water inflow or can be used in conjunction with a water filter. The Fluoride-X (which sells for about $100) is a specialty cartridge containing the ABA2000 series of aluminum oxides that remove fluoride salts from the point-of-use water. According to the unit's distributor, the filter lasts for about two years' worth of household water filtration.\n\n## HEALTHY LIVING SPACE DETOXIFIER #10: Cleanse Your Produce of Toxic Chemicals\n\nAs profoundly important and as rich with impact as your choice in water consumption is your choice of food. As a consumer, you have the option, every time you buy a food, of selecting one that is conventionally produced or one that is organic and\/or natural or, if a prepared food, contains organically produced ingredients. Either way, your choice makes a powerful difference, both to your physical health and to the well-being of the planet. Thinking green is good for your cells as well as for the planet's ecosystem.\n\nIf you cannot find organic produce (or cannot afford it\u2014admittedly, it costs more to get chemically clean foods), yet wish to eat fresh, _clean_ fruits and vegetables, there are some simple measures you can take to cleanse your produce of some of their agricultural pollutants before you consume them. Even if your foods are organic, there is no assurance that tap water will be sufficient to cleanse them of any chemical contaminants they might carry on their surface, picked up in transit from organic field to your kitchen. For this reason, cleaning your produce is a good practice.\n\nConceptually, using a produce rinse is like washing your hands before eating. Further, the rinse can remove germs (pathogenic bacteria, fungal spores, molds, parasites, pinworms) introduced to the produce during processing and handling, as well as chemical contaminants. Washing produce with water alone, or soap and water alone, is not sufficient to remove pesticide residues; this is largely because many pesticides are not water soluble. You need something stronger.\n\n**_If you cannot find organic produce (or cannot afford it_ \u2014 _admittedly, it costs more to get chemicatfy clean foods), yet unsh to eat fresh_ , clean _fruits and vegetables, there are some simple measures you can take to cleanse your produce of some of their agricultural pollutants before you consume them._**\n\nBe careful, however. The availability of nontoxic rinses to cleanse pesticides and residues from produce (thereby making it relatively easy to de-pollute fruits and vegetables) should not reduce our consumer pressure to have the use of pesticides in agriculture curtailed as much as possible.\n\n### _Bleach Your Produce_\n\nIt may surprise you, but an effective method for ridding produce of most of its surface layer of pesticide residue is washing it with conventional bleach, available as Clorox. This approach was originally publicized by Hazel Parcells, N.D., D.C., Ph.D., a natural healing expert who lived to 106 by following her own health protocols, including this one.\n\nAccording to Dr. Parcells, bleach is \"the most effective food cleanser.\" However, household bleach does not mean chlorine; it contains no more free chlorine than table salt (sodium chloride) does. The sodium hypochlorite in Clorox (present in a 5.25% solution) acts as a natural oxygenator, capable of neutralizing fungi and bacteria and removing industrial chemicals. Dr. Parcells called her approach the Parcells Oxygen Soak, and she (and her many patients) used it successfully for forty years to cleanse and even revitalize produce.\n\nAdd one tablespoon of original Clorox bleach to a gallon of nonfluoridated and nonchlorinated water. Separate your foods into different groups, as each group will get a soak of a different length. If you have just returned from shopping, this would be a convenient time to process your produce. Immerse leafy vegetables in the Clorox bleach solution for five to ten minutes; root and heavy fiber vegetables and thick-skinned fruits get ten to fifteen minutes; thin-skinned berries, five minutes; mediumskinned fruits, ten minutes; citrus and bananas, fifteen; eggs, twenty to thirty minutes; thawed meats, ten minutes\/pound; frozen meats, fifteen to twenty minutes\/pound. After the Clorox rinse, place the produce or food item in a fresh water rinse for five to ten minutes; then dry and prepare for storage in the refrigerator, says Dr. Parcells. This last water rinse oxygenates the produce, giving them a new burst of vitality and color.\n\n### _Organiclean Fruit and Vegetable Wash_\n\nThis is a nonsoap spray that comes in an eight-ounce plastic bottle and is made from natural ingredients including coconuts, bilberry, sugar cane, maple sugar, and oranges, lemons, and other citrus fruits. Using other natural cleaning agents (called \"biosurfactants\"), the product \"creates a slippery surface and 'lifting action' for better removal of surface pesticides, chemicals, dirt, and other inorganic pollutants,\" says its manufacturer. All you have to do is spray and rinse off.\n\n### _Fit_\n\nThis is a widely advertised natural rinse solution that contains purified water, vegetable-derived oleic acid and glycerol, ethyl alcohol (from corn), potassium hydrate (from minerals), baking soda, citric acid (from corn starch and molasses), and distilled grapefruit oil. With Fit, you can either soak (broccoli, cauliflower, grapes, lettuce, snow peas) or spray (fruits, carrots, cucumbers, corn, onions, tomatoes) your produce. If you spray, you need to rub the produce for about twenty seconds, or if the produce is hard to rub, let it sit with the Fit spray on its surface for a few minutes; in either case, then rinse with fresh water. According to the manufacturer (Procter & Gamble), there is no aftertaste or smell on the cleansed produce.\n\n### _Mom's Veggiewash_\n\nThe product manufacturer does not provide a list of ingredients, but assures consumers it is made of safe, inert, nontoxic, biodegradable liquid surfactants that contain no animal products or petroleum derivatives. It is based on natural vegetable oils instead. According to Earth Partnership, the manufacturer, Mom's Veggiewash can remove ninety-four percent of oil-based chlorinated hydrocarbon pesticide residues, such as the organochlorines from Endosulfan. Endosulfan is found on \"practically every vegetable and fruit\" in the United States, according to company information sheets.\n\nResearch first published in 1965 demonstrates how washing produce with a \"surfactant\" can drastically reduce the pesticide residue content. Untreated green beans had 31 ppm of toxaphene; after being washed with water, the level was 24.9 ppm; after being washed with 0.1% polyether alcohol, it had dropped to 13 ppm; and after being washed in a 1% nonionic surfactant solution (functionally similar to Mom's Veggiewash, which uses a 5% nonionic surfactant solution from plant sources), the pesticide level was down to 12 ppm, or almost 2.5 times reduced. The results were even more striking with mustard greens. They started off having 233 ppm of toxaphene, then after water washing, 100 ppm; after the alcohol, 23 ppm; and after the surfactant, 20 ppm.\n\nWith this product, place the produce in a colander and spray. It is recommended to treat even those fruits and vegetables which have skins you will not be eating, such as citrus, bananas, watermelon, cantaloupe, and the like, as the contaminants found on their skin can get into your body through peeling the fruit, followed by eating it without washing the hands again. After spraying, let the produce sit for a few minutes, then rinse with clean water.\n\nSome produce may be waxed (such as cucumbers, apples, peppers, tomatoes). In that case, douse the produce in warm water, spray with Veggiewash, brush briskly with a vegetable brush, and rinse. If you see a dusty powder or scale form on the produce, this is a wax residue, and you need to repeat the cleansing.\n\n  **_The Healthy Living Space_ Info Tip**\n\nFor Organiclean Fruit and Vegetable Wash, contact:\n\nOrganiclean E-Commerce Division,\n\n10877 Wilshire Blvd., Suite 1200,\n\nLos Angeles, CA 90024;\n\ntel: 888-VEGWASH;\n\ne-mail: cservice@organiclean.com;\n\nwebsite: www.organiclean.com.\n\nFor Fit, see:\n\nwebsite: www.cleanproduce.com.\n\nFor Mom's Veggiewash:\n\nEarth Partnership, Inc.,\n\nP.O. Box 31,\n\nOrange City, IA 51041;\n\ntel: 800-259-7006;\n\nfax: 712-737-3714;\n\ne-mail: info@veggiewash.com;\n\nwebsite: www.veggiewash.com.\n\n## _HEALTHY LIVING SPACE DETOXIFIER #11: Whenever Possible, Eat Organic Foods_\n\nChapter 1 acquainted you with the perils of conventionally grown food in terms of pesticide residues, industrial pollutants, processing additives, and other contaminants (see the section entitled \"Tainted Food\u2014Glutamates, Additives, Antibiotics, and POPs\"). Avoiding further exposure to these toxic substances through your foods alone is sufficient reason to consider eating only organically produced foods.\n\nHowever, there are three additional, perhaps even more persuasive reasons, for going organic: genetically modified foods; irradiated foods; and bovine growth hormone (BGH) in dairy products. In most cases, foods containing these substances are not labeled as such.\n\nThus, at present, only if you use foods that are certified and labeled organic can you avoid the health hazards of these three obnoxious, adulterative processes, which are now routinely done to foods in the American marketplace with the endorsement of U.S. government \"health\" authorities. By some bizarre inversion of its public health protection mandate, the FDA does not require food manufacturers (or growers) to label foods or products with the information that they contain genetically modified organisms, have been irradiated, or have traces of bovine growth hormone.\n\n### _Why You Should Avoid Genetically Modified Foods_\n\nThe matter of genetically engineered or modified crops and foods is one of the most intense public information scams of our time. It is as if the government, the food industry, and nearly all the media do not want the public to be aware of what is going on, or to know the health hazards posed by creating transgenic foods.\n\nGenetically modified organisms (GMO) are plants, vegetables, fruits, and animals in which genes from other species have been inserted to improve or alter various targeted characteristics. This is not the same as plant breeding, or manipulating gene patterns within a single species. It is called transgenic because genes (genic) are moved across (trans) species in ways that most critics of GMOs emphatically state nature never intended to have happen. Some people call them \"genfoods,\" but others call them \"frankenfoods.\"\n\n**Figure 4-2. Crops Containing Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs)**\n\nScientists now regard the gene pool of many species of plants and animals as a kind of smorgasbord of genetic possibilities and desired traits. The once sacrosanct and uncrossable boundaries between species have now been broached, with experimental abandon. For examples, soybeans are crossbred with petunias; tomatoes are interlaced with genes from viruses; and corn, potatoes, soybeans, and cotton now bear pest-resistant genetic material.\n\nThe transgenic combinations are strange: antifreeze genes from flounder have been inserted in tomatoes to protect them from frost damage; chicken genes have been inserted into potatoes to bolster disease resistance; Chinese hamster genes are now in tobacco plants to increase sterol production; and human genes have been inserted in pigs, salmon, trout, and rice. Almost forty common vegetables, dairy products, and hundreds of processed foods now contain genes from all over the place: from viruses, bacteria, flowers, insects, and animals (see figure 4-2). An estimated 3,000 varieties of plants and animals now contain genes from other species, and transgenic experimentation is a burgeoning field.\n\nBeware of potatoes. Monsanto, a major player in GMOs, recently released its New Leaf potato under the oxymoronic \"NatureMark\" label. This potato bears a gene intended to ward off insects. In 1997, nine million U.S. acres were planted to potatoes, corn, and cotton with seed carrying a gene from _Bacillus thuringiensis_ , a synthetic version of a natural insecticide. As of 1998, GMO-based seeds accounted for twelve percent of U.S. com acreage, thirty percent of soybeans, and forty percent of cotton.\n\nWatch out for soybeans, especially if you like soy foods such as tofu. Traces of a major pesticide used on corn and soybeans called Roundup have now been genetically inserted into the soybean seed itself, enabling the resultant plant to tolerate higher dosages of Roundup and other pesticides applied to the fields. The new GMO soybean is called Roundup Ready, and in 1997, it represented ten percent of the U.S. soybean crop. So unless your tofu or tempeh is made from certified organically grown soybeans, you have just added a little pesticide to your vegetarian stir-fry every time you use tofu.\n\nIt's not just GMO-based tofu you should be concerned about. The same problem holds with soymilk and soy-based infant formula. In fact, an estimated sixty percent of prepared, packaged foods contain GMOs, especially if there is a corn or soybean ingredient. A company called Genetic ID Inc., of Fairfield, Iowa, offers a DNA of food items to determine if GMOs are present. \"With soy foods, such as tofu, soymilk, and infant formula, if it is not made from organically raised soybeans, almost always it is contaminated with genetically engineered soy,\" states molecular biologist John B. Fagan, who developed Genetic-ID's test. Dr. Fagan tested the top five brands of soy-based infant formula and found that four (Carnation Alsoy, Similac Neocare, Isomil, and Enfamil Prosobee; Edensoy had no GMOs) had \"measurable levels\" of GMOs, and that three had \"very high levels.\"\n\nThe reasonable person, upon hearing this for the first time, will probably say, yes, it sounds a bit adventurous, if not out of control, but are there any health hazards? This is the shocking part: nobody knows because no long-term studies have been done or were apparently even required. The American public is the experimental subject in this safety test, but the results won't be in for a few years, or a generation. Genetic effects from consuming GMO-based foods could well be on the order of the multigenerational damage produced by endocrine-disrupting hormones (discussed in Chapter 2).\n\nSay you have food allergies and you are carefully avoiding your known allergens, one of which is Brazil nuts. Now you consume a product that contains a Pioneer Hi-Bred GMO soybean, which contains Brazil nut genes. Suddenly you get a food reaction from a food on your nonallergenic list. This scenario is not a supposition, but a summary of a situation that actually happened. In 1996, eight individuals consuming these soybeans developed serious, potentially deadly allergic attacks because of the hidden Brazil nut genes. They reacted to the miniscule amount of Brazil nut in each soybean as if they were eating only Brazil nuts. We can only await news of further outbreaks of unsuspected allergic reactions to other GMOs.\n\nAccording to the Council for Responsible Genetics, a nonprofit organization of scientists and public health advocates concerned with biotechnology and based in Cambridge, Massachusetts, GMOs \"may cause unintended side effects that make foods hazardous for human consumption. Unpredictable gene expression may result in unanticipated toxic effects or allergies.\" In other words, the Brazil nut allergy outbreak may have been only the proverbial \"shot across the bow\" presaging a much more traumatic outbreak of health problems resulting from GMOs.\n\nNot only is the risk of sustaining surprise food allergies heightened by the advent of GMOs, but it is making it harder to guarantee that organically produced crops are truly organic, which is to say, free of GMOs. The problem is now being called transgenic pollution: pollen from a GMO crop blows across the field to an organic crop, cross-pollinating it, making it de facto another GMO crop. A small producer of tortilla chips made from organically produced grains had to throw out 87,000 bags of corn chips worth $147,000 in 1999 when a test revealed their corn contained GMOs. There was no deception involved because the organic farmer was certified, but his neighbor, who planted GMO corn, wasn't. The GMO corn cross-pollinated the organic corn. This same news report stated that GMO crops now occupy 90 million U.S. acres, or about 25% of the country's total croplands.\n\nThere are at least three other identified health hazards with GMOs. That is to say, a few progressive scientists have identified potential problems, but have no idea how to extrapolate these into real-time scenarios. They just know the hazards portend serious trouble.\n\nThe first has to do with DNA uptake by human cells. At least two scientists propose that the viruses used in various GMO foods could be the most dangerous aspect of the genetic modification process itself. Typically, the virus used for gene implantation comes from the cauliflower mosaic virus (CMV), found naturally and harmlessly in many common vegetables. CMV in nature cannot enter human cells because it is biochemically specific to plants, but when it is used as the source for GMO virus genes, its protein coat is removed (which normally alerts mammalian immune systems that it is a foreign protein). This creates \"naked DNA\" enabling the virus to be taken into human and animal cells (because it's no longer recognized as foreign), there to become part of the organism's DNA structure.\n\nThe naked viral DNA is more infectious and thereby more dangerous than intact virus. Nobody knows what this might produce, but the speculations run to the grim type of scenario. Other research has shown that viral DNA resists digestion and can enter the bloodstream and white blood cells, the immune system's key defense agents. \"Because these viruses are capable of recombining and jumping species, we must be aware that we cannot rule out the possibility of their triggering a vast range of public health disasters.\" Because the cauliflower mosaic virus (or viral promoter) is found in almost all GMO-foods, the inclusion could be setting off bizarre, unknown, and\/or hazardous biochemical reactions in the body.\n\nThe second health hazard pertains to the GMO-allergen problem, but at a deeper level. It seems GMOs produce a new allergen called the anti-idiotope allergen. When the body produces an antibody (an immune defense protein) against an allergen (a foreign protein), it also produces an antibody against this antibody, and this is called an anti-idiotope antibody. Now most GMOs contain a gene to resist the action of antibiotics, and these genes produce an enzyme that is similar to an antibiotic and is also an allergen. In other words, antibodies that are allergens get produced, which means most GMOs \"are likely to be allergenic to people sensitive to antibiotics.\" If you are already allergic to antibiotics, you will probably also be allergeric to GMOs.\n\nThe possibilities for new forms of allergic reactions to supposedly common\u2014in truth, GMO-ed\u2014foods could be staggering, and possibly innumerable. \"The allergenic potential of these newly introduced microbial proteins is uncertain, unpredictable, and untestable,\" stated Marion Nestle, Ph.D., in an editorial in the _New England Journal of Medicine._ 75\n\nThe third problem has to do with antibiotic resistance. All GMO-based foods contain antibiotic-resistant marker genes enabling them to resist getting destroyed by antibiotics. It seems that these genes survive the genetic manipulation process and remain intact and functional in the digestive tracts of mammals. They transfer horizontally from the GMO-foods to the bacteria in the digestive track of animals and humans consuming them. The result is that the consumers may be \"incubating ever more virulent pathogens\" as their natural defense systems are compromised. Their systems may be more resistant to the effect of antibiotics given for medical reasons, and it is possible that the antibiotic resistance may be passed also to other dangerous microbes, further worsening the problem of antibiotic-resistant infections.\n\nThere is no indication that the public, to the degree it is aware of this development to include GMOs in many foods, is in favor of it. Nearly all polls since 1995, when public awareness of GMOs began (about a year after their introduction) both in the United States and internationally, register strong majority opposition to GMOs. A _Time_ magazine ongoing Internet poll, which began in October 1999, revealed that by February 2000, of the 154,000 respondents who had logged in to the questionnaire, 55% were \"very concerned\" they were consuming GMO-based foods. An MSNBC poll in January 2000 showed that eighty-one percent of Americans want GMO-foods to be labeled as such and that eighty-nine percent think the U.S. government should require premarket safety testing of GMOs. Twelve other U.S. polls registered an overwhelming majority in favor of GMO restrictions, as did most polls conducted in Europe, Australia, and New Zealand.\n\n**Figure 4-3. What Is Organically Grown Produce?**\n\nIn the meantime, U.S. consumers who wish to avoid or minimize their consumption of GMO-foods must exercise extreme market vigilance and should use certified organic foods when possible (see figure 4-3). According to BioDemocracy and Organic Consumers Association, a public advocacy group based in Little Marais, Minnesota, there are fifteen companies producing GMOs, which they dub the \"Frankenfoods Fifteen\": Kellogg's, Campbell Soup Company, Safeway, Nabisco, McDonald's, Frito-Lay, Nestle, Heinz Foods, Quaker Oats, General Mills, Kraft, Hershey's, Coca-Cola, Starbucks, Procter & Gamble. The inference is that if you want to avoid GMOs, don't use any food products from any of these fifteen food companies (see figure 4-4).\n\nThere are upwards of 30,000 prepared foods now on the market that contain GMOs and must be avoided by the GMO-banning consumer. For example, consider how many products, such as sodas and beverages, including health food versions, contain corn syrup or fructose, both now made from GMO corn. Corn syrup and fructose are also found in yogurt, aspirin, and most sweet products. Then consider these GMO-rich corn-based products: nonorganic corn oil, cornstarch, cornmeal, baking soda, baking powder, and glycose syrup.\n\nYou will need to avoid soy protein in all its forms (unless it is certified organic): soy flour in baked goods, pizza, cookies, and pasta; meat product fillers; vegetarian meat substitutes (tofu hot dogs); soymilk infant formula; diet and protein shakes; protein bars; chocolate and candy bars; margarine; ice cream; soy oil in salad dressings and snack chips; lecithin.\n\n**Figure 4-4. Commercially Prepared Foods Known to Contain GMOs*** :\n\n**_In the meantime, U.S. consumers who wish to avoid or minimize their consumption of GMO-foods must exercise extreme market vigilance. There are upwards of 30, 000 prepared foods now on the market that contain GMOs and must be avoided by the GMO-banning consumer._**\n\nAspartame, found in the artificial sweeteners Equal or NutraSweet, contains a GMO as do most nonorganic cheeses. Food additives such as lactase, catalase, and amylase contain GMOs; most livestock and commercially raised seafood are fed GMO-based feeds. Without argument, the list is dizzying in scope. You can easily end up spending a great deal of your time merely trying to avoid getting poisoned by what you eat and drink.\n\n### _Why You Should Be Wary of Nonorganic Dairy Products_\n\nThe problem with conventionally produced dairy products is that there is a good chance they contain another GMO in the form of a hormone. Specifically, it is called the bovine growth hormone (BGH), or recombinant bovine somatotrophin hormone, in its more technical guise. The result is that standard dairy milk and dairy products may no longer be healthy foods.\n\nAgain, thanks to the FDA in concert with Monsanto, the hormone's manufacturer, there is almost no way to tell which dairy products contain the hormone unless they are certified organic. Not only does the FDA not require dairy products to carry a BGH label, for a while, Monsanto was suing any dairy product manufacturers who labeled their products as BGH-free. Since 1993, BGH has been administered to dairy cows to increase their milk yield, but evidence is already available suggesting it might cause cancer in humans.\n\nBGH contains a hormone called IGF-1 (insulin-like growth factor), found in both cows and people (in the saliva and blood). It causes cells to divide and grow, and this is how the hormone increases cows' milk yield. However, the hormone's penchant for stimulating cell proliferation in cows is what makes it a possible carcinogen in humans.\n\nResearch shows that pasteurization does not destroy BGH and that the human stomach does not break down BGH when it comes into the body in a dairy product; instead, the large intestine absorbs it because it already has receptor sites for IGF-1. Pasteurization actually increases the IGF-1 content of milk as does BGH itself, so when you drink BGH-produced milk, you consume higher than usual levels of this hormone.\n\n  **_The Healthy Living Space_ Info Tip**\n\nFor a source of copious information and public action\/advocacy guidelines:\n\nBioDemocracy and Organic\n\nConsumers Association,\n\n6144 Highway 61,\n\nLittle Marais, MN 55614;\n\ntel: 218-226-4164;\n\nfax: 218-226-4157;\n\ne-mail: campaign@organic-consumers.org;\n\nwebsite: www.purefood.org.\n\nFor another advocacy\/public action source:\n\nGenetically Engineered Food Alert,\n\n1200 18th Street, NW,\n\n5th Floor, Washington, D.C., 20036;\n\ntel: 800-390-3373;\n\nfax: 800-390-4751;\n\ne-mail: gefoodalert@emediacy.org;\n\nwebsite: www.gefoodalert.org.\n\nThis organization is a coalition of seven other advocacy groups committed to the testing and labelling of GMOs. For more information about detecting the presence of GMOs in foods:\n\nGenetic ID Inc.,\n\n1760 Observatory Drive,\n\nFairfield, IA 52566;\n\ntel: 515-472-9979;\n\nfax: 515-472-9198;\n\ne-mail: info@genetic-id.com;\n\nwebsite: www.genetic-id.com.\n\nAccording to research published by Samuel Epstein, M.D., chairman of the Cancer Prevention Coalition and professor at the University of Illinois Medical Center, both in Chicago, Illinois, IGF-1 promotes the transformation of normal breast tissue into cancerous tissue and the proliferation of cancer cells in the breast. \"All women will now be exposed to an _additional_ breast cancer risk due to milk from cows treated with recombinant growth hormone,\" he states.\n\nDr. Epstein states that IGF-1 levels in BGH-produced milk can be up to ten times the levels in nontreated milk, and ten times as potent because its chemical form has been truncated. This is especially risky for infants and small children, he adds. European research showed that the amount of excreted IGF-1 in milk may be increased over non-BGH-treated milk by twenty-five to seventy percent.\n\nResearch published in _The Lancet_ in 1998 attributed a sevenfold increase in breast cancer risk among premenopausal women to IGF-1 content of milk. Blood from 32,826 nurses was collected and analyzed (in 1989) for IGF-1 levels; of these women, 397 eventually developed breast cancer. All of these 397 women had elevated IGF-1 levels when they were \"healthy\" and after they developed the cancer. The risk of breast cancer for women under fifty-one with the highest IGF-1 levels was seven times higher than women with lower levels. On this basis, the scientists stated there is \"substantial indirect evidence of a relation\" between IGF-1 levels and breast cancer.\n\nAnother study, this one in _Science_ , linked prostate cancer and IGF-1 in a study involving 152 men with prostate cancer. The researchers found \"a strong positive association\" between IGF-1 levels and prostate cancer risk. Specifically, they found that men with elevated but \"normal\" levels of IGF-1 levels were four times more likely to get prostate cancer. Among men sixty and older, if their IGF-1 levels were high, they were eight times more likely to get prostate cancer than men with the lowest levels of this hormone. The results were sufficiently vivid to \"raise concern,\" the researchers stated, that sustained intake of IGF-1 through BGH-treated milk could increase the risk of prostate cancer. In fact, they suggested that elevated IGF-1 levels in the blood might well be used as an indicator of prostate and breast cancer risk, an early warning signal, if you like.\n\nThe true extent of the health hazard of BGH-treated milk is not known. Yet. Consider it an experiment still in progress. \"With the active complicity of the FDA,\" stated Dr. Epstein, \"the entire nation is currently being subjected to an experiment involving large-scale adulteration of an age-old dietary staple by a poorly characterized and unlabeled biotechnology product.\" The experiment \"poses major potential health risks for the entire U.S. population.\"\n\nAs with GMOs, a majority of consumers aware of the issue are demanding dairy products be clearly labeled if they contain BGH. Of 1,900 polled, ninety-four percent said BGH-milk should be labeled. Another study showed that already ten percent of consumers are taking evasive or preventive action by deliberately buying dairy products from nontreated cows, while seventy-four percent of consumers state they are concerned about the possible\u2014eventual\u2014discovery of negative long-term health consequences of consuming BGH-based dairy products.\n\nUntil more is known about the long-term health impact of increased IGF-1 intake and blood levels in humans from consuming dairy products, it would be prudent for those wishing to minimize their intake of toxic substances to avoid consuming all dairy products not labeled organic (see figure 4-3). For the present, a label of organic on a dairy product is the only guarantee that the milk was not produced with BGH. Sheep or goat's milk products are exempt because BGH cannot be used on them; therefore, goat's and sheep milk products by definition (at present) are BGH-free. Also, certain imported cheeses are BGH-free, specifically from the countries that have banned BGH including Canada, France, Italy, Ireland, Great Britain, the Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg, Spain, Portugal, Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Norway, Sweden, Finland, Denmark, Greece, New Zealand, and Australia.\n\n  **_The Healthy Living Space_ Info Tip**\n\nFor a list of organic and BGH-free dairy products, see:\n\n\"The Shopper's Campaign\/Mothers' Milk List,\" at:\n\nwww.igc.apc.org\/mothers\/fieldwork\/mo_field_milklist.html.\n\nPrepared by: Mothers & Others\n\nfor a Livable Planet,\n\n40 West 20th Street,\n\nNew York, NY 10011;\n\ntel: 212-242-0010;\n\ne-mail: corevalues@mothers.org.\n\nFor more information and public advocacy action against BGH and other food contamination issues, see:\n\nThe Center for Food Safety,\n\n666 Pennsylvania Avenue, SE, Suite 302, Washington, D.C. 20003;\n\ntel: 202-547-9359;\n\nfax: 202-547-9429;\n\ne-mail: office@centerforfoodsafety.org;\n\nwebsite: www.centerforfoodsafety.org.\n\nFor information about organic standards (and complete document \"International Certification Standards, March 2000\") for agriculture:\n\nOrganic Crop Improvement Association (OCIA),\n\n1001 Y Street, Suite B,\n\nLincoln, NE 68508;\n\ntel: 402-477-2323;\n\nfax: 402-477-4325;\n\ne-mail: info@ocia.org;\n\nwebsite: www.ocia.org.\n\n### _Good Reasons to Avoid Irradiated Foods_\n\nThe irradiation of agricultural produce and animal products poses another health threat for the toxic-substance-conscious consumer. As with GMOs and BGH, food irradiation represents another ill-founded toxic adulteration of our food supply.\n\nThe FDA began approving selective use of irradiation procedures on U.S. foods in the 1960s, starting with wheat, wheat flour, and potatoes; in the 1980s, pork, spices, herb teas, fruits, vegetables, and poultry were added to the list; and in 1997, meat started being irradiated before it reached the supermarket shelves. New foods likely to be approved for irradiation include deli meats, frozen foods, prepared fresh foods, fresh juices, seeds, and sprouts. Presently, thirty-five countries irradiate their foods.\n\nThe ostensible reason for food irradiation has been food safety, because it was believed that the radiation killed pathogenic organisms that might cause produce and meats to sicken consumers or spoil. However, the means to accomplish this goal are toxic. One of three energy sources is typically used: gamma rays from cobalt-60 or cesium-137 (which are radioactive waste products from the nuclear industry); X-rays; or high-energy electron beams.\n\nWhen food irradiation received FDA support in 1987, the agency required all irradiated foods to be labeled as such, but in recent years, that requirement has been considerably relaxed. In 1997, Congress passed legislation allowing food packagers to reduce the label size (the words \"treated with radiation\" accompanied by a specific graphic design) and to exclude the identifying label if all the components of a food product had not been irradiated. In other words, if a product contains fifteen ingredients, and twelve have been irradiated, and three have not, the product does not have to say \"treated with radiation.\" If the irradiated food will be used in a restaurant, deli, salad bar, hotel, airline, hospital, or school food service, labeling is not required.\n\nYou must now be on guard, too, for semantic trickery in labels. The food industry is lobbying FDA to allow deceptive labeling such as \"electronic pasteurization,\" \"cold pasteurization,\" and \"pasteurization with X rays\" to disarm public disapproval (and awareness of) food irradiation.\n\nWhat's wrong with radiation in foods? First, evidence suggests it reduces the nutritional content of foods. Vitamin C levels can be reduced by five to ten percent and vitamin E by twenty-five percent; thiamin, and vitamins A and K are especially susceptible to radiation damage. Some place the range of nutrient depletion between five percent and eighty percent, depending on how the produce is stored. Other research documents a ninety-five percent depletion of vitamin A in irradiated chicken, an eighty-six percent drop in vitamin B in irradiated oats, and a seventy percent depletion of vitamin C in irradiated fruit juices.\n\nEven though irradiation destroys ninety-five percent of all bacteria (including beneficial ones), it also deactivates many essential digestive enzymes found in the produce, requiring the human system to work harder to process the foods.\n\nAlso, because radiation kills all bacteria, you can't smell a food to see if it's spoiled, even if it has, and botulinum, the toxic agent that produces botulism, is not affected by irradiation. This means your risk of unknowingly consuming tainted food is higher with irradiated foods. In addition, radiation is likely to have a mutagenic effect on bacteria and viruses present in the meat or produce, causing them to mutate into radiation-resistant strains. In fact, scientists have already developed a radiation-resistant strain of salmonella, one of the chief pathogens in animal products.\n\nSo you start off with your \"fresh\" vegetables being functionally and nutritionally already cooked. Insofar as most consumers cook their vegetables and thereby leach out further nutrients, nutrient loss due to irradiation adds to the nutritional depletion of our food supply and can contribute over time to selective or chronic nutrient deficiency or even subacute malnutrition.\n\nSecond, the so-called standard safe doses permitted for irradiation are shockingly high when compared to their equivalent in terms of X-ray exposures. For meat, the FDA permits the equivalent exposure of 22.5 million X-rays per piece; for poultry, 15 million X-rays; for spices, 150 million; fruits and vegetables, 5 million. That is an extraordinary number of X-rays.\n\nExtensive research by nuclear radiation experts such as John W. Gofman, Ph.D., M.D., director of the Committee for Nuclear Responsibility, former professor of molecular biology at the University of California at Berkeley, and author of several important books on radiation exposure and cancer, indicates that far less exposure to X-rays can be carcinogenic. In fact, Dr. Gofman states that, over the course of a lifetime, X-ray exposure (including from mammograms) can account for seventy-five percent of all cases of breast cancer. Dr. Gofman found that the longer you are exposed to radiation, the weaker the dose it takes to produce damaging effects. When it comes to X-rays, less is very much more.\n\nAn X-ray is a type of ionizing radiation, which means its high energy waves can rip electrons away from stable molecules. The principal means by which it is believed X-rays and thus all radiation produce biological damage is through the creation of free radicals, unstable molecules that destroy cells (see Chapter 2). Overlooked in the FDA's \"safety\" standards is the fact that \"food irradiation produces 'radiomimetic' foods\u2014they _mimic_ the effects of actual radiation when eaten.\"\n\nThird, even though, technically, irradiated foods are not radioactive as such, studies show that eating irradiated foods is still hazardous because they contain \"radiolytic products,\" other toxic forms or byproducts of nuclear radiation. These byproducts have been associated with cancers, gene damage, birth defects, and other biological abnormalities. The radiolytic products also involve toxic chemicals found in foods, such as benzene, formaldehyde, formic acid, and quinines. In layperson's terms, the bombardment of the radiation shakes everything up in a food item, producing unstable molecules (free radicals) and new, bizarre, probably toxic products containing well-known toxic substances, such as benzene, formaldehyde, and the others.\n\nInsofar as the \"unique radiolytic products\" are new to the food technology world, never seen before food irradiation, nobody can say for sure that they are harmless and that a diet of irradiated foods is safe. Like the long-term effects of GMO-based foods, it is entirely unknown to science what food irradiation will do to us. However, suspicions have been raised as to probable health effects, and they are distressing.\n\nAccording to one estimate, for every 7.5 ounces of irradiated meat you consume, you are ingesting 2,560 potentially carcinogenic or mutagenic radiolytic product (RP) molecules that can affect liver cells. \"Over a long period of time, the RP assault on the liver combined with fewer antioxidants in the diet [irradiation depletes antioxidant levels] will create a 'fertile field for the ultimate growth of cancer cells' and 'almost certainly evolve' to produce liver cancer.\"\n\nThe ramifications of this calculation are that even at one-tenth the concentration of radiolytic products known by the FDA to be formed by food irradiation, \"irradiation of foods in the human diet represents predictably unacceptable risks to the public's health.\" In other words, this one aspect of food irradiation may produce serious health consequences even if your exposure is only ten percent of the \"safety\" level established by the FDA.\n\nCritics of food irradiation state that the technology has never been adequately tested for long-term safety and public health effects. In fact, the FDA approved food irradiation on the basis of only 5 out of 413 animal feeding trials under way at the time in 1982, and the key trial lasted only fifteen weeks. In the FDA's own review in 1982, it admitted that of these 413 studies, 344 were either inconclusive or inadequate and could not demonstrate or refute irradiation safety; 32 showed adverse effects; 37 appeared to support the procedure's safety; only 5 studies (1% of all studies reviewed) \"appeared to support safety.\"\n\nThere is strong evidence of health hazards from food irradiation. For example, in 1979, the Hungarian Academy of Sciences looked at all the available scientific studies on food irradiation. They found that the literature revealed food irradiation was responsible for 7, 191 neutral effects, 185 beneficial effects, and 1,414 negative outcomes. The latter included tumor formation, damage to genes (including chromosomal polyploidy, or extra chromosomes in the genes), kidney and heart disease, and birth defects.\n\nEvidence linking gene damage to consuming irradiated foods was developed as early as 1973 in India. There scientists found that rats and mice fed irradiated wheat had increased levels of cells with abnormalities in their bone marrow chromosomes (called polyploid cells). Monkeys and undernourished children also developed abnormalities in their white blood cells after eating irradiated wheat. The cells became abnormal after only four weeks of the children's feeding program; it took twenty-six weeks for the abnormalities to dissipate after the program stopped. An increased number of polyploid cells is often associated with either rapidly regenerating tissues or rapidly growing malignant tumors, observed the researchers in presenting their data to the United States Congress in 1987.\n\nOpposition to food irradiation continues to mount as consumers become more aware of its potential health risks. The Center for Food Safety, a public advocacy group in Washington, D.C., states that \"the use of food irradiation poses significant human and environmental impacts.\" Another political advocacy group called Public Citizen, also in Washington, D.C., summarizes the negative health effects of food irradiation for which supporting research already exists:\n\n  * Increased chromosomal damage in animals and humans\n  * Formation of unique radiolytic products in the foods\n  * Increased frequency of cell mutations\n  * Formation of mutant bacteria\n  * Decreased nutritional content of foods\n  * Increased levels of carcinogens and other toxins in foods\n  * Increased frequency of tumors, reduced survival rate, and other health problems in animals\n  * Corrupted flavor and texture of foods.\n\n  **_The Healthy Living Space_ Info Tip**\n\nFor more on the health hazards of X-rays and ionizing radiation and the work of Dr. John Gofman:\n\nThe Committee for Nuclear Responsibility,\n\nP.O. Box 421993,\n\nSan Francisco, CA 94142;\n\ntel & fax: 415-776-8299;\n\nwebsite:\n\n<http:\/\/radical.org\/radiation\/CNR>.\n\nFor information and advocacy\/action positions on food irradiation: Public Citizen,\n\n1600 20th Street, NW,\n\nWashington, DC, 20009;\n\ntel: 202-588-1000;\n\nwebsite: www.citizen.org.\n\nPublic Citizen was founded by\n\nRalph Nader in 1971 to represent consumers' interests.\n\nAs with GMOs and BGH-treated dairy products, the U.S. public is overwhelmingly _not_ behind food irradiation. A Louis Harris poll in 1986 reported that seventy-six percent of Americans considered irradiated foods to be a hazard. In 1997, a CBS News poll indicated that seventy-three percent of the public opposes food irradiation and that seventy-seven percent would not knowingly eat irradiated foods. An April 1999 survey found that eighty-eight percent of consumers support the labeling of irradiated foods.\n\n## HEALTHY LIVING SPACE DETOXIFIER #12: Minimize Your Consumption of Foods Containing Trans-fatty Acids\n\nIn many respects, this next category of food adulteration is easier to pinpoint and to avoid than GMOs, BGH-dairy products, and irradiated foods. It pertains to the fats found in prepared foods, specifically, what are called saturated hydrogenated fats, or trans-fatty acids. Hydrogenated is a chemical term that refers to a fat in a semisolid state, such as margarine.\n\nThe recommendation here is simple: avoid consumption of all foods containing trans-fatty acids, or at least minimize your consumption. Trans-fatty acids are linked to heart disease, depression, and other long-term degenerative health conditions. You will have to read product labels carefully, looking for the words \"hydrogenated fats\" or \"partially hydrogenated fats,\" and avoiding certain categories of prepared foods. But to understand why this is so important, we need to briefly review the chemical facts of fats.\n\nFats and oils are made of basic building blocks called fatty acids. A fatty acid is a chain of carbon atoms with a hydrogen atom at the end. The chains can have anywhere from two to thirty carbon atoms. When a fatty acid has all the hydrogen atoms it can hold in its configuration, it is saturated. Examples of this are animal fats and other fats that are solid at room temperature. If the fatty acid doesn't have all its hydrogen spots filled, it is unsaturated; examples of these are most vegetable oils, which are liquid at room temperature. Unsaturated fats are preferable in the diet and are called essential fatty acids; these include omega-6 oils, such as linoleic acid, and omega-3 oils, such as linolenic acid, all derived from natural plant sources.\n\nA trans-fatty acid is an industrial alteration of the natural shape of oils. Although trans-fatty acids exist in small amounts in nature, that is nothing compared to the scale on which they have entered the food supply The manufacturing process changes the way the hydrogen atoms bond to the carbon atoms in a fat. Hydrogenated fats or trans-fatty acids were originally synthesized and introduced into foods in 1910 (with a big push coming in the 1950s) to extend the shelf life of oil-based consumer foods. The oils were hardened or hydrogenated to prevent rancidity. This change in chemical configuration gives margarines a butter-like consistency and makes shortenings fluffy. However, from the viewpoint of some nutritionists, the introduction of trans-fatty acids into the food supply was not a good idea.\n\n**_\"The production of trans-fatty acids for human consumption is the most devastating, nutritional_ mistake _ever made,\" claims (Patricia Kane, (Ph.D., a nutritional biochemist practicing in Millville, New Jersey._**\n\n\"The production of trans-fatty acids for human consumption is the most devastating, nutritional _mistake_ ever made,\" claims Patricia Kane, Ph.D., a nutritional biochemist practicing in Millville, New Jersey. It's a mistake because all traces of essential fatty acids are \"obliterated\" from processed foods, says Dr. Kane, and trans-fatty acids or hydrogenated oils take their place.\n\nThe result of this substitution of hydrogenated oils for essential fatty acids is first a deficiency of the healthful oils in your body and a corresponding excess of unhealthful hydrogenated fats. This in turn has been identified as a contributing factor in obesity and heart disease. Fats are needed to produce cholesterol in the body, which in turn is needed to produce \"a cascade of crucial hormones,\" explains Dr. Kane. All cholesterol is not \"bad\"; you actually need some to run your body properly.\n\nFatty acids have many key functions: they comprise sixty percent of the brain itself; they contribute to cell membrane fluidity, allowing biochemical \"traffic\" into and out of each cell; they help maintain the integrity of the gastrointestinal tract, enabling it to protect the body against pathogens. Disturbances in the energy activities associated with fatty acids, says Dr. Kane, \"are reflected in every system of the body and can result in many physical and mental disorders, including depression.\" In fact, she states that in the difference between trans-fatty and essential fatty acids you have both the cause and the cure of depression. With a diet based on hydrogenated fats, \"Prozac is only a few more wrong meals away.\"\n\nFatty acid chains are said to be like \"tails\": the tails of essential fatty acids vibrate fast and move quickly, a sign of molecular health, but trans-fatty acid tails are rigid and have no movement, says Dr. Kane. \"A trans-fatty acid sits like a heavy blob inside you, shutting down the fatty acid metabolism within the immune, endocrine, and central nervous systems, and replacing the good, necessary fats (omega-3s and omega-6s) with something harmful to health.\"\n\nYour body burns the trans-fatty acid for calories but can't absorb nutrients from it. The accumulation of trans-fatty acids in the body acts like a systemic poison and generates an abnormal biochemistry within you, Dr. Kane says. She recommends avoiding trans-fatty acids altogether to protect the integrity of your immune, endocrine (hormonal), and central nervous systems.\n\nResearch on trans-fatty acids has started to highlight their health hazards. As early as 1990, Dutch scientists showed that margarine consumption, thought to be healthy because it was not cholesterol-rich like dairy butter, actually increased the risk of coronary heart disease. Now new research links trans-fatty acids with elevated levels of LDL, the so-called \"bad\" cholesterol (HDL being the \"good\" kind). Scientists at Tufts University in Boston studied the effects on thirty-six men and women over the age of fifty of diets in which thirty percent of the calories came from fats. For the study, two-thirds of their fat came from soybean oil, semiliquid margarine, soft margarine, shortening, stick margarine, or butter.\n\nThe best results in terms of lowering LDL-cholesterol levels were obtained with soybean oil and semiliquid margarine (minimally hydrogenated) diets. It is interesting to note that for the most part the levels of trans-fatty acids used in the foods in this experiment were lower than what a typical American consumer is likely to get on a daily basis. For example, the soybean oil shortening contained 9.9 g of trans-fatty acids per 100 g of fat compared to 35-50 g of trans-fatty acids per 100 g of fat found in most commercially produced cakes, cookies, crackers, and doughnuts. The stick margarines used contained 20 g per 100 g of fat compared to 30 g typically found in popular stick margarines.\n\nThose consuming only soybean oil had their LDL-cholesterol levels drop by twelve percent from pre-diet levels. They also found that trans-fatty acids raised the cholesterol levels more than saturated fats did. On the basis of their results, the researchers concluded that the general public and those with high blood cholesterol \"should be encouraged to use vegetable oil in its natural state or after minimal hydrogenation.\" This is especially so since, as mentioned above, many people may consume trans-fatty acids at higher levels than those used as a basis in the study.\n\nHere is a summary of some of the research supporting the undesirability of consuming trans-fatty acids:\n\n  * Lowers levels of desirable HDL cholesterol, and raises levels of undesirable LDL cholesterol.\n  * Reduces the amount of \"cream\" or volume in the breast milk of nursing mothers.\n  * Increases blood levels of insulin, increasing the risk of diabetes.\n  * Decreases the response of red blood cells to insulin, potentially complicating the blood sugar balance in diabetics.\n  * Lowers immune response by affecting how the immune system's B cells respond.\n  * Causes unfavorable changes in the activities of enzymes that deal with carcinogens as part of the liver's detoxification process.\n  * Alters the functional properties of cell membranes such as transport and fluidity.\n  * Decreases levels of the male sex hormone testosterone, increases the level of abnormal sperm, and interferes with gestation in women.\n\nOn a practical level, if you wish to minimize your intake of trans-fatty acids, you will need to avoid the following: fast-food burgers, french fries, and hash browns, as they will probably have been fried in hydrogenated fats; commercially baked cakes, cookies, muffins, doughnuts, corn chips, and pastries, as they probably contain hydrogenated fats; soft-tub and stick margarines and shortenings. French fries are the biggest offenders here, with four ounces containing 2.4 to 3.4 g of trans-fatty acids; doughnuts are close behind with a one ounce serving containing 3.19 g. As healthful alternatives, look for and consume products containing olive, canola, or other unsaturated vegetable oils.\n\nYou will probably find that a great many foods you are accustomed to eating come under the trans-fatty acid ban. The average consumption of trans-fatty acids in grams per day for the United States is estimated to be between 11.4 and 12.1, comprising, respectively, 7.3% to 7.8% of total fat intake. However, for adults aged 20-65, that level is 14. 9 g\/day or 8% of total daily fat intake, and for female teenagers, it is 30 g\/day representing 28% of total fat intake. By comparison, Sweden is much lower at 5 g\/day, Germany is 4.5 to 6.5, Canada is 9.1, England is 12, and the Netherlands is 17.\n\nWhere does all this leave you in terms of what to eat? Essentially, if your sole guideline is to eat only organically produced food this in itself dictates a diet. By definition, an organic diet will eliminate a great deal of the nutritionally inferior, high-fat, sugar-based, additive-laden, preservative-rich, processed and prepared foods that are the carriers of many of the toxic substances you are trying to eliminate from your body. Beyond this, determining the most appropriate diet for an individual is one of the hardest tasks of medicine (and living) because everyone's physiology is specialized to some extent, unique to the individual, or at least uniquely idiosyncratic. You will need to give this matter considerable thought and further research to find the approach that works best to keep you nutritionally fit and minimally toxic.\n\n## HEALTHY LIVING SPACE DETOXIFIER #13: Do a 3-Day Water or Juice Fast to Rest and Regenerate Your Cells\n\nBy this time, you may be so dismayed with the state of the American food supply and the toxic burden it imposes on your body that the idea of fasting, that is, abstaining from solid foods for a limited period, may seem logical if not irresistible. The fact is, even if the food supply (and our air and water) were not so stunningly tainted, brief, recurrent abstention from foods is an old, well-proven remedy for improving one's health. Fasting has been practiced around the world in many traditions of medicine and spirituality.\n\nWhy fast? Think of it as a vacation for your digestive system and its \"support staff,\" a break from business as usual for the gastrointestinal tract. Say you are a forty-year old man or woman and have never fasted. That means your digestive system has been running flat out for 14,600 days without stopping. It is almost impossible for your body to be entirely current with its digestive affairs; in most people, there will be a backlog of unfinished, incomplete, or even abandoned digestion.\n\nAs you will learn in Chapter 5, the intestines, comprising about twenty-six feet of internal organ space, is a remarkably competent _storage_ vessel for incompletely processed foods. Fasting for even a few days gives your intestines a chance to start getting caught up with its unending elimination demands. And it gives all the cells in your body, but especially those in the liver and kidneys, a chance for some rest and regeneration.\n\nAs a benefit of this respite from the ceaseless demands to process, assimilate, and eliminate foods, your body will have a chance to speed up its collection and excretion of toxins, from the colon, liver, kidneys, lymph nodes, bladder, lungs, even the skin. Your mind, too, will reap benefits from this brief abstention from food intake. It is quite likely you will emerge from a brief fast with enhanced clarity, focus, concentration, uplifted spirits, a general calmness, and a sense of heightened energy and vitality.\n\nFor the purposes of the detoxification recommendations offered in this book, the three-day water or juice fast can be undertaken as a preliminary to the more comprehensive intestinal, liver, kidney, and lymph cleansing regimens described in later chapters. You can do the three-day fast several times a year as a kind of routine internal housecleaning, if you wish.\n\nThere are a few precautions to observe regarding your limited fast:\n\nFirst, do _not_ do the fast if you have hypoglycemia (chronic low blood sugar), diabetes, weakened immunity, heart problems (such as low blood pressure), cancer, stomach ulcers, if you are pregnant, lactating, suffering from nutrient deficiencies or generally malnourished, excessively thin or anorexic, or under heavy medication for a serious illness. Or undertake it _only_ under the supervision of a qualified health-care practitioner.\n\nSecond, don't start it tomorrow. Prepare your body for the drastic reduction in food intake it will experience. Over the course of a few days\u2014a week perhaps\u2014gradually reduce your food consumption to one light meal daily. Naturopathic physician Bruce Fife, N.D., author of _The Detox Book_ , recommends following a natural foods diet for three to four weeks before starting the fast if you have been accustomed to a diet of fast, prepared, and convenience foods as that are notoriously deficient in nutrients. The preparatory health foods diet will fortify you nutritionally so that your system can function well during the fast. The natural foods diet Dr. Fife recommends includes only organically produced fruits, vegetables, and protein sources (in limited amounts), whole grains, and no prepared or packaged foods.\n\nThird, try the fast for one day to see how it feels. Then wait a week and, following the same preparation steps, try it for two or three days.\n\nFourth, expect a few transient symptoms to arise during the fast, such as headaches, mild muscle aches and pains, irritability, and old emotions or thoughts.\n\nFifth, after your three days of fasting, do not immediately return to a full-fledged solid foods diet. Build up to it gradually for three days, reversing your preparatory steps from before the fast. For example, you might continue with some of the juices, and add salads or steamed vegetables, followed the next day with well-cooked brown rice or millet.\n\nSixth, when you resume your regular diet, observe if any foods produce allergic reactions. Because your system has somewhat cleared itself of old debris and digestive backlog, hidden food allergies may now become apparent and you may find that wheat, eggs, chocolate, or corn, for example, produce allergic symptoms. If so, reduce or discontinue your intake of the specific food for a few weeks, then reintroduce at perhaps twenty-five percent of the previous intake rate.\n\nDuring the fast you stop consuming solid foods and increase your intake of pure liquids, either in the form of water or juices. These liquids should not include stimulants such as coffee, tea, or alcohol; or milks, such as cow, goat, sheep, soy, rice, almond, or any other. Basically, consume small amounts of the selected beverage frequently throughout the day, perhaps hourly. Don't overtax your kidneys by drinking too much at one time, such as more than eight ounces. There are many options to choose from regarding what your liquid intake will consist of, and we'll review a few of these below.\n\nSome detoxification experts, such as Elson Haas, M.D., director of the Preventive Medical Center of Marin in San Rafael, California, recommends a twice yearly fast, corresponding with the changes in season from winter to spring and summer to autumn. For example, as a general protocol, Dr. Haas advises consuming two to three quarts of liquids daily on the limited fast; these liquids can be fresh, pure water or specially blended vegetable juices.\n\n### _Juices for Seasonal Cleanses_\n\nFor the spring cleanse, Dr. Haas suggests drinking eight to twelve glasses daily of a blend of fresh lemon or lime juice (two tablespoons), maple syrup (one tablespoon), cayenne pepper (one-tenth of a teaspoon), and eight ounces of pure water. This can be supplemented with peppermint or chamomile tea, consumed at different times. For the autumn cleanse, the blend includes pure water (three cups), chopped, blended ginger root (one tablespoon), soybean miso (one to two tablespoons), chopped, blended green onion (one to two stalks), cilantro (a few pinches), cayenne pepper (a few pinches), olive oil (two teaspoons), and lemon juice (from one-half a lemon). Simmer the ginger root for ten minutes in water, stir in the miso, turn off the burner, and add the remaining ingredients; steep for ten minutes, then consume.\n\n### _Cleansing Juices from Fruits and Vegetables_\n\nAmong the fruit juices that can be helpful during the three-day fast are watermelon, grape, papaya, pineapple, lemon, apple, pear, black cherry, and citrus. You can experiment with finding the blend that is most pleasing, but it is prudent to mix no more than three at one time. According to Dr. Haas, you can also make a juice of any of a number of vegetables that are beneficial for cleansing during a fast, including potatoes, radish, dark leafy greens, spinach, parsley, wheat grass, cabbage, beet greens, watercress, comfrey, carrots, beets, celery, cucumber, Jerusalem artichokes, garlic, or radish. Again, don't mix more than three or four vegetables together at one time.\n\nUnless you have a juice bar in your neighborhood (which is possible if you live near a good natural foods store and it has a fresh juice bar), you will have to blend the fruits and vegetables yourself in a juicer. Remember to cleanse them of pesticides and bacteria, as described above in Healthy Living Space Detoxifier #10. Don't use canned, frozen, or bottled juices, as their enzymes will probably be weakened if not destroyed, and you need the living enzymes to spark digestion during the fast. Even though bottled juices from a natural foods company are still wholesome, they may be not fresh enough to best serve your detoxifying purposes.\n\n### _Vegetable Juices, Herb Teas, and Potato Broth_\n\nHere is a tested variation provided by health journalist Lewis Harrison, author of _30-Day Body Purification._ During the three to four days before the fast, reduce your food intake to fresh fruits and vegetables and eight ounces of plain yogurt or buttermilk. Then during the fast, drink freshly pressed vegetable juices, especially those from beets and green leafy vegetables at the rate of one quart daily. Supplement this with an herbal cleansing tea, such as red clover or ginger, at the rate of twenty-four ounces daily and with sixteen ounces of an alkaline potassium broth. This broth can be prepared from potatoes, green beans, celery, and zucchini, says Harrison. Cook them in pure or distilled water, then blend the mixture. Other beneficial herbal teas to consume during the fast are peppermint, chamomile, or rose hips.\n\n### _Detoxifying Green Drink_\n\nPart of your daily liquids intake might include a few glasses of this detoxifying blend of herbs and vegetables, says Jacquelin Krohn, M.D., a practitioner in environmental medicine based in Los Alamos, New Mexico. Dr. Krohn suggests adding any of the following to a liquid base of fresh pineapple juice in a blender: celery, radish tops, comfrey leaves, burdock root, parsley, Swiss chard, plantain, dandelion, sprouts, carrot tops, wheat grass, or raspberry leaves.\n\nDr. Krohn also describes a \"basic vegetable broth fasting drink\" consisting of red potatoes (two large ones with skins intact), celery (three stalks), beets (three), carrots (four), plus small amounts of cabbage, turnip, onions, or beet tops. Chop up the vegetables, boil, simmer for forty-five minutes, then blend into a puree; consume in small amounts throughout the fast.\n\n### _Special Lemonade for a Water Fast_\n\nIf you choose to undertake the water fast for three days, abstaining even from fruit and vegetable juices, here is a recommendation from Dr. Fife. \"Fasting is the primary mechanism nature has given us for cleansing and detoxification,\" he comments. If you are fasting for longer than three days or if you are planning to consume only water during your three day fast, this dilute form of lemonade can be beneficial, advises Dr. Fife. Mix fresh lemon or lime juice (two tablespoons), raw honey or unprocessed maple syrup (one tablespoon), and filtered or distilled water (eight ounces).\n\nConsume this lemonade regularly during your fast as part of your overall liquid intake, which Dr. Fife advises should be at least six glasses daily, or forty-eight ounces. The lemon is \"a good cleanser and astringent that rids tissues of toxins,\" he says, and it stimulates liver detoxification. The honey or maple syrup provides minimal simple carbohydrates to provide energy to the body.\n\n## _HEALTHY LIVING SPACE DETOXIFIER #14: Do a Media\/Image Fast to Cleanse Your Mind and Energy Field_\n\nA character in John Updike's novel _Rabbit Redux_ comments on the oppressive clutter in her mind: \"The things I have in my mind, Hassy, it reminds me of when they clean out a drain. All that hair and sludge mixed up with a rubber comb somebody went and dropped down years ago. Sixty years ago in my case.\"\n\nThis is an excellent description of the mental sludge that builds up in our mind and energy fields over the months and years of being continuously subjected to a barrage of images, words, slogans, and sounds. Thus is our lot as participants in a media-intensive, highly literate, advertising-based society. Consider the sources of daily input: magazines, radio, television, Internet, billboards, books, newspapers, conversations, movies, commercials, advertisements, slogans, and signs, among others.\n\nThe nervous system, mind, and the body itself are bombarded by this array of insistent images and words. If the source is commercial in nature, be assured it is structured to influence you, to persuade you to do something, think something, get something. If the source is intellectual in nature, it is still designed, though at a more subtle level, to have a particular effect on you, such as giving you a certain slant on history or current affairs. Your consciousness, even your sense of self, are perpetually assaulted by a myriad of influences, each vying for your attention and their chance to produce a shift in allegiance in its favor in your thinking and way of being.\n\nSome forms of media, such as television and movies seen in a theater, have an energetic effect on you, even to the extent that sensitives, or psychics, can observe energy residues in the aura surrounding the body of a person who has just watched television or sat through a movie. Like swirling reflections in a soap bubble, images from the television show or movie are still observable in your aura for at least an hour, sometimes longer, following your immersion in the energy field of that media. Everyone is familiar, too, with the queer sensation of lyrics and melodies repeating themselves, unbidden, in our minds, like a radio that cannot be easily shut off. Or perhaps you catch yourself about to automatically repeat something someone else said, perhaps a news commentator, or a salesman for a product advertised on television.\n\nAll of these sensory inputs have an impact on your mind and energy body. Like undigested (or hard to digest) food in the intestines, these media inputs can, if left unprocessed, act like toxins in your system and eventually contribute to an illness process. But we can take this further. What if the inputs are deliberate distortions of the truth, or prejudiced spins on the facts, or mean-spirited commentaries, or lies cast to protect special interests?\n\nUntruths can be toxic substances, too. Our parents, grandparents, siblings, and friends tell us who we are, and this telling can become a mask we wear over our true identities. If we never strip off the mask\u2014 _their_ mask imposed on us\u2014we never know who we are. There are some who say what we take for history is a lie, a fabrication, a fantasy; others point out that what we take as our family history or the nature of our family interactions may be a tissue of untruths; indeed, perhaps much of what we tell ourselves in our interior mental monologues is similarly misleading. From a certain angle of observation, we could say that the total of media\/image input acts as a straitjacket on human consciousness, forcing it into a groove (a rut) in which only one-way movement is possible. Put more simply, we live in a trance state induced by someone else when we weren't looking.\n\n**_Consensus reality, like untruth, is unnatural and can Be a toxic substance._**\n\nSome call this consensus reality, and some say consensus reality is a toxic substance for consciousness. It has guidelines for behavior, perception, self-definition, for how reality works, including what produces illness (germs) and what accomplishes healing (drugs and doctors). As children, we become entranced by the prevailing mode of cultural consensus reality. We develop what Charles Tart, Ph.D., calls '\"consensus consciousness' to reflect the fact that our so-called ordinary state of consciousness, or 'normal consciousness' (which is a culturally relative term of course) means we have actually constructed the habits of our thinking and feeling and perceiving to reflect the consensus of what our culture thinks is important and good.\" Consensus reality is not what consciousness is really like; it is \"a semi-arbitrary construction.\"\n\nConsensus reality, like untruth, is unnatural and can be a toxic substance.\n\n_Recommendation_ : Devote a week, perhaps in conjunction with the food fast and\/or with the relaxation baths as described in the next section, and abstain entirely from media\/image inputs. Don't read anything: books, newspapers, product labels, billboards, signs. Listen to as little as possible: radio, music with words, television, other people's gossip or conversations, your own interior monologue. Stop absorbing other people's view of the world, your family's definitions of roles and identities, even your own constantly reiterated identity statements. Allow your mind to cohere, to collect itself, to facilitate self-awareness, selfobservation: _who are you_? Even if you think you know, even if you have spent years unpeeling the family and societal masks, you may be surprised by what emerges when you turn off the cultural tap.\n\nLet your mind and energy body relax deeply, divesting themselves of a lifetime of media\/image sludge. Consider meditating once daily, just sitting quietly in a comfortable position for a period of time, paying attention only to your breathing, and not chasing after any thoughts that come to mind. Perhaps you would like to go off for a week to a meditation retreat to make this withdrawal from input easier to sustain.\n\nOr imagine that before you, a few feet away from your body, stands a very large red rose with absorbent petals; in fact, it has hundreds of petals, capable of surrounding you. This rose has a root system so deep it goes straight to the center of the Earth. Instruct the rose to absorb from you the energy residues of all the media\/image input you have had in your lifetime. When the rose seems to have absorbed all it can, pluck it from the imaginary ground in which it grows and throw it away. You may need to imagine another rose\u2014and probably many more\u2014and do the same thing when it gets clogged with your energy effluent.\n\nAlternatively, you could picture a large pipe connecting your body to the center of the Earth; it is a drainage pipe perhaps three feet in diameter, specifically suited to your body and energy field. Instruct your body to release the energy residues of all the images, words, songs, ideas, pictures, and other media\/image input you have received in your lifetime. You may experience this as a kind of dark water or mucus flowing out of your body into the drainage pipe; or you may simply feel lighter, calmer, clearer, and see nothing.\n\nYou may wish to perform the meditation, rose, or drainage pipe exercises several times daily during your weeklong media\/image fast. Just as your physical body can start to catch up on unfinished digestive business during the food fast, so can your mind and energy body catch up on processing a lifetime of energized media\/image inputs. The process will free up a lot of your energy that was trapped or held hostage in the gravitational field of these inputs.\n\nOne of the benefits of this media\/image fast is that you may find yourself opening up to new possibilities, to taste, perhaps, an infusion of what is often called the new paradigm, planetary transformation, or evolutionary global change under way. \"Perhaps the most significant event in our lifetimes is the one that is taking place in our consciousness: Our collective view of reality, rooted in millennia of historical experience, is being shattered completely,\" stated the editors of _Cogenesis Journal_ , an online magazine. \"Our foundation of consensus reality is simply being swept away . . . _everything is changing_ ,\"\n\nOur human understanding of how the world works, where we fit in the scheme of creation, our historical framework, our traditional cosmology\u2014\"all are being blown apart,\" add the editors. So the voluntary media\/image fast could put you in synchrony with vaster changes in progress.\n\n## _HEALTHY LIVING SPACE DETOXIFIER #15: Make a Lifestyle Out of Nonstop Stress Reduction with Healing Hot Water Soaks_\n\nIt is important to appreciate that stress is a global\u2014that is, completely body-wide\u2014experience. If your cells are stressed with toxins, it is likely your mind and emotions are stressed as well. If you are not relaxed, it is difficult for your tissues, muscles, and cells to be at ease. Remember, stress is a toxic substance, too. Let's take another tack to make the same point: when was the last time you felt so relaxed you felt you were melting into your chair or bed?\n\n**_If you can achieve that delicious state of meltingness, you are well on your way to relieving your system of stress. Once you have the sense of how to melt, on cue, as it were, you can make stress reduction a continuous part of your general detoxification program._**\n\nIf you can achieve that delicious state of meltingness, you are well on your way to relieving your system of stress. Once you have the sense of how to melt, on cue, as it were, you can make stress reduction a continuous part of your general detoxification program. For the present, here are several practical approaches that may ease you into meltingness.\n\n### _Epsom Salt-Aromatherapy Relaxing Baths_\n\nEpsom salt is a 100% dissolvable salt that when added to warm bath water can relax your muscles, helping them to release accumulated stress, tension, aches, or discomforts. At the same time, your nearly full-body immersion (up to the chin, ideally) in an Epsom-salt-saturated bath can be excellently relaxing for your mind and emotions as well. Epsom salt, which is primarily magnesium sulphate (MgS04), is widely available in supermarkets and pharmacies; it is inexpensive (less than three dollars for a four-pound container of dry salts) and entirely safe. Pour two to four pounds of dry Epsom salt mixture into a tub of hot water and stir until it is fully dissolved.\n\nAromatherapy is a term that refers to essential oils prepared from herbs and plants that are used topically (diluted, applied on the skin as a massage oil), mixed with water in baths, or diffused in the air via special burners. For the most part, the effective therapeutic action of the oil comes from your inhaling its aroma. There are aromatherapy oils, or blends (available in most natural foods stores), for almost any minor physical or mental condition, including anxiety and stress. Add these after the Epsom salt to your hot water bath.\n\n### Relieving Anxiety\n\nThe following essential oils can help relieve general anxiety: clary sage, rose otto, frankincense, bergamot, mandarin, sandalwood, lavender, juniper, patchouli, vetiver, cedarwood, melissa, and Roman chamomile. However, you don't want to use all of these at once; generally, it's preferable to use no more than three different essential oils at one time.\n\nLet's say you have muscle pain, your body feels tense, with aches and soreness. The essential oils helpful for this condition are sandalwood, lavender, clary sage, Roman chamomile, and patchouli. Or perhaps you are feeling a restless anxiety; you have been overactive, you're sweating, perhaps dizzy, and your stomach is upset. Here vetiver, cedarwood, juniper, Roman chamomile, or frankincense might help you. Suppose you are feeling on edge, are irritable, cannot concentrate or sleep well, and you feel exhausted most of the time. The oils to address this type of anxiety include bergamot, melissa, neroli, cedarwood, sandalwood, and rose otto. Or finally, your anxiety is marked by a feeling of apprehension; you're worrying, filled with unease, a sense of foreboding, even paranoia. Try some of these oils: bergamot, lavender, neroli, rose otto, melissa, or geranium.\n\nFor each type of anxiety, choose one to three oils, then use a total of thirty drops of all oils, dividing them into ten drops each, or one at five drops, one at ten, one at fifteen. Don't use any more than thirty drops at first; these oils are strong, both topically and in terms of the emotional response they can provoke. (For some people, thirty drops may be too rich a mixture; start lower, at ten drops total, then gradually increase drops over a few weeks as you get used to their effects.) Dribble the drops into an empty plastic container (such as a quart yogurt container), fill with hot bath water coming out of the tap, then slowly dribble the water plus oils into the down-flowing stream of hot bath water from the tap. This helps disperse the oil droplets into the general bath water.\n\n### _Relieving Stress_\n\nIf your primary sense of discomfort is better labelled \"stress,\" then any of the following ten essential plant oils can help relieve some of it: mandarin, geranium, clary sage, ormenis flower, eucalyptus citriodora, Roman chamomile, sandalwood, ylang ylang, petitgrain, or lavender.\n\nAs with anxiety, there are different types of stress, each requiring a different blend of aromatherapy oils. In _The Fragrant Mind_ , aromatherapy educator and practitioner Valerie Ann Worwood states that there are three basic types of stress. In type one, you feel tired, irritable, achy, and sometimes depressed. To get some relief from this kind of stress, Worwood recommends eucalyptus citriodora, geranium, and lavender, or mandarin, ylang ylang, and petitgrain, a total of thirty drops for all three oils in either formula.\n\nThe second type of stress is characterized by anxiety or depression, food allergies, persistent infections, or chronic background discomfort. Here Worwood advises clary sage, Roman chamomile, lavender, and geranium, or ormenis flower, ylang ylang, petitgrain, and sandalwood. Again, use no more than thirty drops total for all four oils in either formula. If your stress is considerable, marked by stomach pain, suicidal tendencies, fear, despair, or a general retreat from social interactions, Worwood suggests Roman chamomile, clary sage, and ormenis flower, or geranium, eucalyptus citriodora, and mandarin.\n\n### _Progressive Body Relaxation_\n\nWhile immersed in your Epsom salt-aromatherapy-infused tub, why not practice a simple relaxation exercise borrowed (and somewhat adapted) from hatha yoga. Start with your toes, and visualize (or imagine) that all the stress is being released from all the tissues, bones, cells, molecules, and atoms of your ten toes, and that the stress (or toxins) is flowing like effluent into the bath water from your toes. Next do your ankles, then legs, knees, thighs, hips, pelvis, and on, progressively, up to your head, continually releasing tension from each body area.\n\n### _Improve the Ambience_\n\nWhy not infuse the air of your bathroom with some pleasing aromatherapy scents that will contribute to the growing mood of relaxation? British aromatherapist Chrissie Wildwood recommends using one of the four following mixtures in an aromatherapy burner or diffuser (usually sold where aromatherapy oils are found) or water-based electric vaporizer. Dribble three drops of neroli, eight drops mandarin, and three of ylang ylang into a small amount of water; or Roman chamomile (three drops), rose otto (two), and bergamot (ten); or frankincense (three), lemon (six), and juniper (four); or galbanum (one), lavender (six), and petitgrain (six). Within ten minutes or so, the bathroom, and adjacent rooms to an extent, will be suffused with the relaxation-inducing scents of these essential oils.\n\nUse only one blend of aromatherapy oils per bath. Stay in the tub at least twenty minutes, and forty-five minutes if you can. Immerse yourself to your chin, if that's comfortable. When you leave the tub, don't towel off, but lie down immediately on your bed (on a dry towel) and air dry for at least thirty minutes. A fair measure of the relaxation effect of the Epsom salt-aromatherapy oils bath occurs during this critical air-drying time. You may even fall asleep during this time. Arrange beforehand not to be disturbed during this time. As a general stress-relieving technique, you might wish to do this bath once a week, at least; if you have a high stress life, then consider doing it two to three times every week. If you have the time, there is no reason not to do it every day.\n\n  **_The Healthy Living Space_ Info Tip**\n\nFor a source of aromatherapy oils and diffusers, as well as a gateway to an aromatherapy web ring (a series of related, interconnected websites called The Aromatic Life Web Ring that will connect you with many more sources of products and information), contact: Bassett Aromatherapy,\n\nP.O. Box 176,\n\nCardiff-by-the-Sea, CA 92007;\n\ntel: 800-738-8678;\n\ne-mail: joanne@aromaworld.com;\n\nwebsite: www.aromaworld.com.\n\n## HEALTHY LIVING SPACE DETOXIFIER #16: Enhance Your Relaxation by Floating in 800 Pounds of Epsom Salt\n\nIf you enjoy the Epsom soak in your bathtub, you may relish this next suggestion. For a profound introduction to relaxation, try an hour in a float tank. Flotation REST (Restricted Environmental Stimulation Therapy), originally developed in the 1950s, has you floating in very high salt concentration water inside an enclosed chamber (like a spa-sized fiberglass bathtub with a canopy) so that all your sensory input is minimized and your relaxation is optimized.\n\nApproximately 700-800 pounds of Epsom salt are added to 170 gallons of water, which are kept heated to 93.5\u00b0 F, or skin temperature. Your body experiences (no doubt unique in its experience) a gravity-free condition because the huge amount of salt keeps you effortlessly suspended on top of about ten inches of water. So you float and relax on a \"bed\" of salt water and in a darkened atmosphere of calm and warmth, free of outside stimulation or distraction.\n\nThe flotation tank shields the body and mind from external environmental stimulation, thereby reducing the body's workload by an estimated ninety percent. This in turn conserves a great deal of energy, both mental and physiological, which can be constructively directed inwards. The result is what medical science recognizes as the \"relaxation response,\" or more technically, the parasympathetic response, one pole of the central nervous system easing into relaxation. \"Tension and stress wear down our bodies, lower our resistance to illness and injury, upset our emotional balance, reduce our ability to think clearly, and even make us more accident prone,\" states a floatation tank manufacturer. \"Flotation releases deep muscular tension (often unconsciously 'locked' into the body) starting a chain-reaction that spreads throughout the body to every organ, tissue, and cell.\"\n\nPsychologists Roderick A. Borrie and Thomas H. Fine (director of the International REST Investigators Society in Toledo, Ohio) concluded that flotation REST \"serves as a powerful relaxation inducer and has clinical potential in working with patients who have stress-related disorders.\" Borrie and Fine measured the changes in key stress-indicating biochemicals in the blood of subjects using the salt flotation tanks. Subjects spent thirty to forty minutes in the tank every third day for a total number of four to twenty sessions. Levels of hormones associated with stress, such as cortisol, ACTH, and epinephrine, decreased during REST sessions, as did hormones associated with the adrenal glands (the \"stress\" organs), such as aldosterone and renin.\n\nFurther, they found that the lower levels of cortisol (a key stress-associated hormone) as well as blood pressure did not immediately reset to normal when the REST session was over, but that there was a significant carry-over effect of the benefits obtained during the immersion in the flotation tank. The researchers also studied the \"subjective\" responses of over 1,000 REST experiencers and found that by their own reports, ninety percent of the subjects found the immersion \"deeply relaxing,\" and that they had experienced an increase in positive emotions (joy, elation, happiness, contentedness) and a corresponding decrease in negative emotions.\n\nOn the basis of this data and that developed by other researchers, Borrie and Fine report that REST has merit as a medical treatment for high blood pressure, muscle tension, headache, anxiety disorders, chronic pain, insomnia, PMS, and rheumatoid arthritis. It can also work as a \"mood elevator\" for cases of depression. \"Uniquely, Flotation REST provides an effortless introduction to deep mental and physical relaxation.\"\n\nThe therapeutic benefits of floating are numerous, and include an increased release of endorphins, the pain-killing brain chemicals that make you feel good. According to research, floatation lowers blood pressure and heart rate, reduces oxygen consumption (an index of cell metabolism); increases concentration, motivation, and energy levels; improves skin quality; helps the body remove harmful stress-related biochemicals such as cortisol from the bloodstream; stimulates an increase in T-cells (key immune cells); and allows every muscle in the body to relax, surely an experience hard to come by under any other circumstances.\n\nAs the mind drifts into a deep state of relaxation, its two hemispheres start to balance out and synchronize, research suggests; creativity and problem-solving abilities can be enhanced. In the words of one manufacturer, floating users report \"a tranquil, carefree, super-relaxed feeling, a light, happy exuberance, attended by deep calmness and a sense of wholeness.\"\n\nOther benefits include fatigue reduction, alleviation of mental and physical stress, improvement in mental clarity, intensification of acuteness of all the senses; further, floating diminishes fear, depression, and anxiety; it speeds up rehabilitation and recovery from illness; it accentuates any attempt at self-hypnosis or auto-suggestion; and generally rejuvenates and revitalizes.\n\n  **_The Healthy Living Space_ Info Tip**\n\nFor more information about flotation tanks:\n\nOasis Relaxation System, Biofeedback Instrument Corporation,\n\n255 W. 98th Street,\n\nNew York, NY 10025;\n\ntel: 212-222-5665;\n\nfax: 212-222-5667;\n\ne-mail: ac@inx.net;\n\nwebsite: www.biof.com\/oasis;\n\nSamadhi Tank Company,\n\nP.O. Box 2119,\n\nNevada City, CA 95959;\n\ntel: 530-477-1319;\n\nfax: 530-477-1953;\n\ne-mail: float@samadhitank.com;\n\nwebsite: www.samadhitank.com.\n\nAlso see: PathFinder, by ThinkTank International (Singapore) at www.thinktank.com.sg; and Floatworks (London, England) at www.floatworks.com.\n\nFor a partial list of flotation spas and places where you can float, see: www.floatation.com.\n\nAccording to another manufacturer, the flotation tank is designed to keep outside stimulation away, so that you can float in an enclosed, darkened environment with as little sensory input as possible. \"Sight, sound, temperature, gravity, and the presence of other people are minimized. This is the environment to examine your own responses, free of external input.\"\n\nWhy is there so much Epsom salt involved, and why Epsom in the first place? The quantity used is to ensure maximum, effortless buoyancy. The concentration of Epsom salt in the water is so dense it makes the user's body comparatively light, so it floats on top like a cork. Epsom salt (pharmaceutical grade magnesium sulphate) has a strong affinity for carbon and carbon compounds, and can absorb and nullify carbon in the form of harmful bodily waste products. The magnesium in the Epsom salt has the power to draw out various carbon-based wastes (toxic substances) from bodily tissues where they are stored, thereby enabling the body to excrete them through the skin.\n\nFlotation tanks are often available in gyms, spas, health resorts, fitness and sports centers, and can be purchased from several different manufacturers for around $5000. The salt is not changed after every use, but it can be regularly sanitized by hydrogen peroxide, ultraviolet light, or ozone with the result that there can be fewer bacteria remaining in the salt water than in the typical tap water.\n\n## _HEALTHY LIVING SPACE DETOXIFIER #17: Use Music Therapy to Deepen Your Sense of Melting Relaxation_\n\nAll music has an effect on us, on our emotions, nervous system, and state of mind, but some music has been deliberately composed to heighten certain effects, specifically the beneficial effect of relaxation. The focused use of music to produce beneficial physiological and psychological effects is called music therapy, and while it is a large and well-researched discipline, it offers us a practical application in terms of producing deep, effortless relaxation.\n\nOne of the prime innovators in the use of specially composed music for heightening relaxation is Steven Halpern. One day in 1969, while meditating in a redwood grove in Santa Cruz, California, Halpern heard music in his head, fully realized, floating, ethereal, nonrhythmic music with sustained harmonies, overtones, and long pauses between phrases. \"It was the most beautiful, soothing, and comforting music I had ever heard,\" he commented afterward.\n\nThis \"aural vision\" answered all of Halpern's questions about what healing music might sound like. \"It was as if I had tapped into an ongoing concert, a wavelength that was broadcasting 'Music of the Spheres.' That was my quantum leap, a peak experience that changed my life.\" It also launched a very successful career as a composer of a genre of music Halpern variously calls Inner Peace Music, Inner Directed, Anti-Frantic, and Music Rx.\n\nAs a composer with a Ph.D. in music, Halpern deliberately keeps elements out of his music that will provoke a listener into thinking, anticipating, or looking ahead. These activities obstruct the relaxation response. Halpern's compositional strategy is to induce relaxation and inner harmony as fast as possible, \"to go right to the desired outcome without going through the angst and tension build-up\" that characterizes Western music. His \"music of being, not doing\" hovers around a steady tonal center so that the listener feels \"always at home\" and in the present moment, without the need to go somewhere, following a melodic theme to its future unfoldment.\n\n\"People in general not only do not know how it feels to be relaxed, but mistake bodily stimulus and intellectual entertainment as relaxing,\" says Halpern. \"At its most basic, relaxation involves slowing down the heartbeat and breathing rate, as well as shifting from the everyday beta brainwave activity to the more tranquil alpha brainwaves. When practiced regularly, relaxation can help prevent many stress-related diseases such as heart attack, insomnia, migraine, and hypertension.\"\n\nMost music, from Bach to rock, was not composed with the intent to relax its listeners, Halpern comments, but music can be composed that produces \"predictable, positive results\" of relaxation, or what he variously calls \"push button serenity\u2014as close as your CD player\" or \"stress relief at the speed of sound.\" The music creates a \"background ambience\" that in effect surrounds your body, envelops the nervous system and brain, and entrains them to a more relaxed mode of operation.\n\n**_Halpern composes music that produces \"push button serenity\u2014as close as your CD player\" or \"stress relief at the speed of sound.\" The music creates a \"background ambience\" that surrounds your body, envelops the nervous system and brain, and entrains them to a more relaxed mode of operation._**\n\nFor example, in _Higher Ground_ , Halpern creates a \"sonic entrainment matrix\" that quickly induces brain waves into states of relaxation, ease, euphoria, even harmonic resonance with the 7.83 hz electromagnetic field of the Earth itself. As a first-time listener to Halpern, I confess this CD was so richly relaxing, so luxuriously calming, that I felt as if my bones melted, as if my entire skeletal system sighed and dissolved. The mind-body, after all, has an inherent self-healing mechanism; it just needs a little boost. Halpern's intention is to bring a listener into a state of deep relaxation as a foundation for psychological insight, healing, meditative states, and spiritual illumination. \"The body heals itself most effectively in a state of deep relaxation.\"\n\n\"My sense of the true function of art is to bring us back in touch with the divine, with our true Self,\" states Halpern. When we relax, we start hearing with our whole body; one of the reasons we feel so good is that we are tapping into the wholeness of our being, linking up \"with a greater pattern of perfection that has been there all along,\" Halpern says. Halpern's music will relax a listener even if it's played as background, but focused listening is recommended. Then it becomes entrainment, not entertainment. More recent CDs by Halpern continue this focus on deliberately-induced relaxation, such as _Comfort Zone_ , _Sleep Soundly_ , _Serenity Suite_ , and _Music for Sound Healing._\n\nBear in mind that while Halpern may be one of the pioneers in this field, many other musicians have recorded music designed to heighten the relaxation response such that you will have a rich variety to choose from. You can easily get oriented to what is available by doing a web search under \"relaxation CDs.\"\n\n_Recommendation_ : Listen to a relaxation CD while in the Epsom salt-aromatherapy bath, or while air-drying afterwards; or listen to it while lying down in a comfortable place in an environment free from distraction or interruption. Do not listen to music of this type while driving a car or doing anything requiring focused, linear concentration. Remember, the reason you are using music in your detoxification program is to help you deeply relax. Tension and stress impede the detoxification process; in fact, they are toxins in their own right. So as you \"melt\" to the music and Epsom salt, know that your cells are being freed of the energy grip of stress and tension, and are now a little more free to do their detoxifying jobs.\n\n  **_The Healthy Living Space_ Info Tip**\n\nFor more information, contact:\n\nSteven Halpern's Inner Peace Music,\n\nP.O. Box 2644,\n\nSan Anselmo, CA 94979;\n\ntel: 800-909-0707 or 415-485-0511;\n\ne-mail:\n\ninnerpeacemusic@innerpeacemusic.com;\n\nwebsite: www.stevenhalpern.com.\n\nThis completes our groundwork for detoxification. Now that you have a sense of the role of dietary change and stress reduction in the detoxification process, we can move on to more focused strategies for helping the body purge itself of a lifetime of toxins, starting with the liver and intestines.\n\n# CHAPTER 5\n\n# _Safe and Effective Cleansing Programs for the Liver and Intestines_\n\nYou are now in a position to start a deliberate, planned, and supervised detoxification program, focusing on the liver and intestines. These three qualifiers are carefully chosen to emphasize the key elements in a detoxification program.\n\nYou can make the changes in food and water suggested in Chapter 4 without any complications and with almost guaranteed benefit. But when it comes to relieving the liver and intestines of their toxic burden, it is well advised by detoxification authorities to do so prudently, with good advice, and in a sequential way. While there are many helpful components to a detoxification program, discussed below, they should be used in the context of a medically grounded internal cleansing program. That is, one that has solid clinical and evidential support, and one that you undertake with the supervision of, or at least consultation with, a qualified health-care practitioner.\n\n### _The Healthy Living Space Expert Interview: Jacob Farin, N.D., Naturopathic Physician_\n\nWhen it comes to finding a medically authoritative internal cleansing program, there is perhaps no better source than naturopathy. In this well-established natural medicine discipline, relieving the body of its store of toxins is paramount, and developing ever more effective natural means to do so has occupied the medical attention of naturopathic practitioners and researchers for well over a century. One such practitioner is Jacob Farin, N.D., associate physician at the Center for Traditional Medicine in Lake Oswego, Oregon.\n\nWhen Dr. Farin recommends a one- or two-week detoxification program to a client, he emphasizes that it must be centered around helping the liver, the body's prime detoxification organ. \"You must talk about the liver because the liver is the main organ that detoxifies toxic substances in the body. There are other organs that support the detoxification process, such as the intestines, kidneys, skin, and lungs, and they all help expel toxins, but everything that enters the body needs to pass through the liver, so that is the main organ to support.\"\n\n**_There are several conditions under which a person is likely to ask Dr. Farin for recommendations on detoxification. A person may want to feel better, to optimize their physiological functions. A person may be ill and suspect (or is told by a health-care practitioner) that detoxification may help. Or, more commonly, \"they get stuck.\"_**\n\nThere are several conditions under which a person is likely to ask Dr. Farin for recommendations on a detoxification program, he explains. A person may want to feel better, to optimize their physiological functions. A person may be ill and suspect (or is told by a health-care practitioner) that detoxification may help. Or, more commonly, \"they get stuck.\"\n\nSomething doesn't work for them anymore, or a well-recommended health-care regimen fails to produce the expected results. \"A lot of times with certain protocols we get stuck, and the treatment plan goes nowhere. So I use the detoxification process as a way either to jump-start my protocols or as a way to help patients make necessary lifestyle changes.\" Dr. Farin mentions that detoxification can be particularly helpful to someone who is trying to make lifestyle changes and can't. \"I've noticed that those who initiated a detoxification program had better results and had an increased ability to _sustain_ the lifestyle changes I recommended.\"\n\nWhat kind of lifestyle changes? Mainly food issues, says Dr. Farin. People eat too much, or are too dependent on sugar-based foods, coffee and other sources of caffeine, stimulants, or cigarettes. A detoxification program helps them see what their food issues are and how they use food cravings, dependencies, and indulgences to cover up emotional issues needing attention, says Dr. Farin. \"During the detoxification program, I restrict the types of foods a person eats for a week or two,\" he explains. \"When you restrict a person's foods, you take away their comfort foods, which is to say, their means of coping with stress. And when you take away that coping mechanism, they have to deal with those emotional issues head on. They discover they have been using food as a way to palliate their emotions.\" Thus an effective detoxification program has both physiological and psychoemotional benefits and, in either case, cleansing and supporting the liver holds the key to health.\n\n\"I think everyone has some degree of toxicity in their liver today,\" states Dr. Farin. Given the excessive degree of environmental and bodily pollution documented in the earlier chapters of this book, perhaps Dr. Farin's bold declaration will not strike readers as without foundation. A great number of our contemporary illnesses are the result of toxic overload, Dr. Farin explains, and central to toxic overload is a liver that is so burdened with the demands of detoxification that it becomes unable to keep up.\n\nLike clogged plumbing, the liver develops a backlog of undetoxified substances. An unwholesome feedback loop develops between the liver and intestines, like a sink drain backing up into the sink itself. For example, in most people today you can find colon-derived bacteria in the portal vein, which is a large vein that leads to the liver, Dr. Farin notes. Somehow bacteria leak through the intestinal walls and get picked up by mesenteric veins, then are passed on to the larger portal vein and transported to the liver. This isn't the way toxic substances are supposed to move in the body. But what is more abnormal, he says, is that often the liver's key immune defense agents, called Kupffer cells, are unable to engulf the incoming pathogenic bacteria and keep up with detoxifying the backflow. The condition of colonic backflow, medically referred to as intestinal permeability, \"plays a big role in liver toxic overload,\" says Dr. Farin.\n\nWhy does the liver get backlogged? Nutritional deficiencies account for some of it, and these in turn derive from malabsorption of nutrients, faulty diet (lacking the correct nutrients in their proper amounts and ratios), or from unsatisfied increased nutritional demands, as happens during a chronic illness or sustained athletic exertion. Emotional and psychological stress can also deplete the body of liver-focused nutrients, adds Dr. Farin. These stresses initiate hormonal changes in the body, requiring the body to adapt to the new, unhealthy, or unbalanced conditions. \"If you don't have the nutritional support to produce these hormones to process them, then you put considerable additional strain on the liver.\"\n\nAs a general recommendation, Dr. Farin advises doing the following one-week liver and intestinal cleansing program once a year as a kind of preventive internal housecleaning. On the other hand, if you are pregnant or suffering from an acute or serious illness, the program is not recommended. He further advises doing a detoxification program under the medical attention of a trained health-care practitioner, at least to the extent that you have someone expert on hand to call if problems or uncertainties arise. \"I would definitely consult a physician before initiating a detoxification program to rule out any conditions that would not warrant detoxifying,\" Dr. Farin notes.\n\nWhile cleansing programs that specifically focus on the intestines have merit (and are discussed in detail later in this chapter), Dr. Farin emphasizes the importance of dealing with the liver first. An intestinal cleanse without liver support, or undertaken before the liver has been cleansed and supported, can further flood the liver with toxins and potentially be counterproductive.\n\nThe benefits of a liver cleanse are impressive and easily quantified, Dr. Farin states. \"People have more energy. They feel better. They are happier. They can do more things without getting tired. They are not so fatigued in the afternoon. They find they can live without sugar and coffee, and they have a sense of empowerment that they can quit using these foods.\" Often a person emerges from the one- or two-week detoxification program with the sense of having clarified emotional issues, such as issues to do with anger, jealousy, and sadness, and having touched on uplifting ones such as happiness, radiance, and joy.\n\n## _HEALTHY LIVING SPACE DETOXIFIER #18: Do a One-Week Elimination Diet and Liver Cleansing Program_\n\nDr. Farm's one-week liver cleansing program has three components. There is a dietary, a supplemental, and a self-care introspective element. Here are the procedural steps for each component.\n\n### _Dietary Restrictions_\n\nStart by eliminating from your diet for a week the five top food allergens: glutinous grains, corn, potatoes, eggs, and dairy products. These may comprise your favorite \"comfort\" foods, but they are also well-documented allergenic foods, capable of regularly producing food allergy reactions and symptoms. These allergic reactions in turn burden your liver and intestines with additional toxic substances or incompletely digested food components.\n\nFor the week, you should also curtail your consumption of all members of the nightshade family (eggplants, tomatoes, peppers) because they can, for many people, quietly but persistently aggravate the digestive system. Other foods eliminated during the detoxification program include oranges, strawberries, sugars, red meats, coffee, caffeinated teas, and peanuts.\n\nThere is a sound reason for curtailing allergenic foods for a week. \"Long-term allergies, to foods and substances, can be addressed through a detoxification program,\" explains Dr. Farin. \"These allergies will invariably set someone up or predispose them for illness later. A detoxification program is a great way to clear those allergens from the body.\" To determine if a patient has unsuspected food allergies, Dr. Farin typically submits a patient's blood sample to an immunoglobulin analysis, specifically for IgG and IgE, which are indicators of allergic reactions to foods (see Chapter 3 for more on this).\n\nThus the positive term for a diet that eliminates allergenic foods is \"hypoallergenic diet\"\u2014that is, a diet comprising foods known to produce no allergic reactions. Once you stop the ingestion of irritating foods, then you add liver-supporting ones. These might include vegetables medically known to help liver function, such as the cruciferous vegetables\u2014beets, broccoli, bok choy, Brussels sprouts, cabbage, cauliflower, swiss chard, and collard greens. Dr. Farin recommends eating four cups of fresh vegetables daily.\n\nIronically, for many people, these vegetables are guaranteed producers of intestinal gas and bloating. However, if these symptoms arise, it means the person would benefit from digestive enzymes and perhaps supplementary hydrochloric acid (HC1, the stomach's main digestive \"juice\"), says Dr. Farin. A gaseous reaction to eating cruciferous vegetables generally means the body cannot digest the sulfur found in these vegetables, so enzyme support for the digestive process is indicated.\n\nAs another part of this one-week program, Dr. Farin limits carbohydrate intake although he makes sure his patients get a sufficient intake of protein. In the modified elimination diet, he allows or recommends some meat products such as lamb, chicken, turkey, and fish, but in the vegan hypoallergenic diet (a stricter variation on this approach), he disallows all animal products during the detoxification program. Instead, soybean tofu is relied upon for a protein source.\n\n### _Nutritional and Dietary Supplements_\n\nThe second component of the one-week program calls for specific nutritional support in the form of supplements and specialized nutrient formulas to provide support for the liver. Here Dr. Farin relies on two commercially prepared products: UltraClear and Phyto-Pro, both requiring a health-care practitioner's prescription. They are not drugs or medicines as such; rather, they are powerful formulas precisely designed for use in a detoxification program supervised by a health-care practitioner. Dr. Farin notes that both are free of cascara sagrada, a powerful herb often found in other liver and\/or intestinal cleansing programs. This herb is widely recommended for detoxification, but its irritating effect on the intestines can sometimes be too unpleasant for users.\n\nUltraClear is a \"low-allergy potential nutritionally fortified food-based beverage mix\" designed for use by patients who have food allergies or are environmentally sensitive, according to its manufacturer, Metagenics of Gig Harbor, Washington. \"It can be used as part of a comprehensive elimination or rotation diet program as well as nutritional support for patients undergoing metabolic clearing or detoxification programs,\" says the company.\n\nA blend of rice syrup solids and rice protein concentrates provides forty-four percent of its calories from carbohydrates. It is low calorie, containing only 170 calories per 44g serving. It also offers high levels of various antioxidants needed to help the body reduce its toxic load (oxidative stress) and nutrients to support the liver's two phases of detoxification. Remember that during Phase I, the liver converts toxic compounds into intermediate toxins. In Phase II, the liver converts these intermediate toxins into substances that can be eliminated from the body, delivering them to the colon (through the gallbladder) or bladder for excretion. (For more on the liver's detoxification process, see Chapter 2.)\n\nSpecifically, among the liver-supportive nutrients is L-glutathione. This amino acid is a crucial detoxifier of foreign substances and is found naturally in the liver, but it may be deficient in a condition of toxic overload. Other liver-supportive nutrients found in UltraClear include N-acetylcysteine (an amino acid that helps make L-glutathione), L-cysteine (an amino acid), molybdenum and selenium (both trace minerals, which with cysteine help support the liver's Phase I activities), and vitamins A, C, E, and beta-carotene (all antioxidants). The product also contains numerous other vitamins, minerals, and amino acids needed for detoxification.\n\nPhyto-Pro is a natural vegetarian herb-based (\"phytonutrient\") protein powder complex that contains organic grasses, chlorella, spirulina, beneficial microflora, amino acids, adaptogens (specialized herbs that exert a nonspecific effect on the entire body by increasing resistance to stress and toxins and promoting a balancing or normalizing condition), antioxidants, and \"cleansing botanicals,\" according to NF Formulas, its manufacturer.\n\nDue to its high content of organic grasses and blue-green algae components (chlorella and spirulina), NF Formulas calls this a \"green drink,\" noting it is high in vitamin B12 and protein, and is suitable for providing nutritional support \"for those stressed by toxins in the environment and food.\" They also make a variant in capsule form called Phyto-Pro II; this contains soy sprouts and lecithin, green tea polyphenols, and the other ingredients from Phyto-Pro. Neither version contains gluten, yeast, refined sugar, or eggs.\n\nWhether you use UltraClear or Phyto-Pro, Dr. Farin typically recommends two to three doses per day for the one-week elimination diet program.\n\nIf the patient declines using UltraClear or Phyto-Pro, then Dr. Farin urges them to try an old naturopathic recipe called Bieler's Broth. You can also drink this to ensure an adequate intake of detoxifying vegetables. Bieler's Broth is a special vegetable broth made at home to increase one's nutritional status. \"It's a way to get nutrients into the body in a gentle way and so they are not so hard to digest,\" he comments. Use any or all of these vegetables: celery, zucchini, broccoli, parsley, beets, and cabbage. Chop up two cups of them and steam in two cups of filtered, pure water until they get soft. Then puree vegetables and broth in a blender. This is like a vegetable juice, but even better because you get the juice and the fiber, says Dr. Farin, who advises drinking one batch of this daily.\n\nAs an additional support for the liver during its intensified period of detoxification, Dr. Farin advises a lemon-based liver cleanse. Take the juice of half a lemon and mix with eight ounces of pure water; add, if desired, one teaspoon of flaxseed oil or olive oil, and one clove of crushed garlic (optional). Drink the beverage once daily, preferably first thing in the morning during the days of the detoxification program. The lemon supports the Phase I aspects of the liver's detoxification activities; the oils provide essential fatty acids to the body; and the garlic kills bacteria. Further, Dr. Farin encourages detoxifiers to drink at least thirty-two ounces of pure water daily, and preferably more.\n\n### _Self-Care\/Introspective Activities_\n\nIn this third component of the detoxification program, Dr. Farin recommends journal writing, hatha yoga, regular walks, meditation, prayer, letter writing, and a media fast. \"I ask people to refrain from television, radio, magazines, newspapers, and if possible, to avoid toxic people and toxic relationships.\" (See Healthy Living Space Detoxifier #14 in Chapter 4.) \"This phase helps bring a person's awareness to their emotions and to find appropriate ways to manage their emotional stress.\"\n\n### _Variation: Two-Week Modified Fast and Liver Cleanse_\n\nThis is a more intensive detoxification program, best undertaken after you have first gone through the one-week program and allowed a few months to elapse. For the first week, you follow the same procedures as described in the one-week program. In the second week, you begin a modified fast and take UltraClear or Phyto-Pro five times daily, says Dr. Farin. For three days, your entire intake is only the five doses of either formula, so that during the three days you take a total of fifteen doses, he says.\n\n\"This way, you give the liver all the support it needs. You really get the liver cleansing going by restricting the amount of toxins entering the body.\" In other words, no foods ingested equals no toxins ingested. \"You do not get the same effect from the dietary changes alone unless you are ultra-careful about the foods you consume. Even with organic foods, they can still come in contact with environmental pollutants.\"\n\nThis is different from a juice or water fast, comments Dr. Farin. \"With a juice fast, you get the high carbohydrate intake, but there is no protein ingested to support the liver, and the liver relies heavily on enzymes, which are specialized proteins. With the water fast, you get neither the carbohydrates for energy production nor the protein.\"\n\n### _Typical Results to Expect_\n\nDuring the two-week modified fast, about eighty percent of people experience a headache, ranging in discomfort from mild to severe, says Dr. Farin. There are usually three factors that contribute to the onset of these detoxification headaches: low blood sugar due to the limited calorie intake; caffeine withdrawal from going off coffee, teas, and sodas; and food allergy withdrawal symptoms, from going off allergenic foods such as wheat or com.\n\nAs a palliative, Dr. Farin advises consuming small amounts of nuts or a piece of fruit to raise the blood sugar level, and a few cups of green tea, an herbal tea with a small caffeine content but additional antioxidants to help the liver. For coping with the symptoms of withdrawal from wheat and glutinous grains, Dr. Farin advises increasing your intake of pure water.\n\nOn the positive side, you can expect to move your bowels more often. If you have not been regular, expect to become regular during the program, Dr. Farin explains. \"It's partly because I've increased the amount of vegetables in their diet to four cups daily. For many people, that is a significant increase. If they are experiencing constipation, they will start going more often due to this increased fiber intake. What also occurs due to the increased fiber consumption is that their system binds onto bile more readily. The bile passes into the intestines from the liver and has a beneficial irritating effect. So a person, if they are constipated, will start going more because of the increased presence of bile in the intestines.\"\n\n  **_The Healthy Living Space_ Info Tip**\n\nFor Jacob Farin, N.D.,\n\nCenter for Traditional Medicine,\n\n560 First Street, Suite 204,\n\nLake Oswego, OR 97034;\n\ntel: 503-636-2734;\n\nfax: 503-636-3250;\n\ne-mail: DrFarin@JacobFarin.com;\n\nwww.JacobFarin.com.\n\nFor UltraClear: Metagenics,\n\nP.O. Box 1729,\n\nGig Harbor, WA 98335;\n\ntel: 800-843-9660 or 253-851-3843;\n\nwww.metagenics.com.\n\nFor Phyto-Pro and Phyto-Pro II:\n\nNF Formulas,\n\n9775 SW Commerce Circle, Suite C5,\n\nWilsonville, OR 97070;\n\ntel: 800-547-4891 or 503-682-9755;\n\nfax: 503-682-9529;\n\ne-mail: info@nfformulas.com;\n\nwww.nfformulas.com.\n\n## _HEALTHY LIVING SPACE DETOXIFIER #19: Use Natural Foods and Herbs to Aid Your Liver in Cleansing Itself_\n\nDr. Farin's detoxification programs call for a one-or two-week commitment, but there are dietary changes you can make that will provide detoxifying benefits all year round. Or you can use them as a follow-up to an intensive liver cleansing program. Here are a few recommendations culled from various health authorities and researchers. The idea here is simple: try to find ways to consume many or all of these foods and herbs on a regular basis to make detoxification and liver support a year-round activity.\n\n### _Liver Cleansing Foods_\n\nTry to incorporate some or all of these liver-cleansing foods into your regular diet: dandelion greens, watercress, and mustard greens. These bitter greens are known to stimulate bile flow and therefore to aid digestion and liver cleansing. They are also high in chlorophyll, which nutritionists believe has a cleansing and revitalizing effect on the whole body, but especially for the intestines and liver.\n\nOther whole foods with generalized liver-supporting benefits include carrots, beets, endive, grapefruit, lemons, limes, parsley, and romaine. A salad of bitter greens every day supplemented with a dose of herbal bitters formula (available in natural foods stores) is recommended by some nutritionists as a way to reduce indigestion.\n\nBurdock _(Arciium lappa_ ) is an especially helpful vegetable for the liver, enjoyed as cooked fresh root or as an herbal tea or tincture. Besides its high nutrient content, burdock root \"helps to cleanse the blood through its action on the liver, and its gentle diuretic properties promote the elimination of toxins through increased kidney function.\" It also stimulates the immune system and the production of digestive juices. Burdock seeds contain volatile oils that aid in neutralizing and eliminating toxins from the liver and body. Herbalists regard this plant as nature's best blood purifier; herbalists traditionally used burdock concoctions to treat snakebite. Burdock also stimulates bile flow, is a gentle laxative, and helps cleanse the blood by stimulating the body as a whole to improve its efficiency in removing waste products. Herbalists generally recommend three to four cups of fresh burdock root tea per day.\n\nGinger root _(Zingiber officianale')_ is also highly recommended as a liver-supporting vegetable. According to medical research, fresh ginger root can prevent the liver from destroying (metabolizing) other medicinal herbs, allowing them to remain in the bloodstream to complete their detoxifying activities. Ginger is also noted for its ability to aid the intestine in its absorption of herbs and to move their medicinal elements into the blood. Ginger root can be enjoyed fresh, grated or sliced in salads or cooked vegetable dishes; as a component in a blended vegetable juice; or as an herbal tea. Ginger is regarded as a classic tonic and stimulant for the digestive system; it also keeps the intestinal muscles toned, which in turn makes the movement of substances through the intestinal tract easier and less prone to produce irritation of the intestine's mucosal lining.\n\n**_'Burdock_ (Arciium lappa) _is an especially helpful vegetable for the liver, enjoyed as cooked fresh root or as an herbal tea or tincture. 'Besides its high nutrient content, burdock root \"helps to cleanse the blood through its action on the liver, and its gentle diuretic properties promote the elimination of toxins through increased kidney function.\"_**\n\n### _The Detoxifying Benefits of Beets_\n\nBeets are an excellent fiber source and can thereby work as a natural laxative, helping to stimulate peristalsis and purge the intestines of old fecal matter. According to traditional Chinese medicine, beets can purify the blood, benefit the liver, and moisten the intestines; they can also treat liver stagnancy and liver problems in general and relieve constipation, especially the type that results from fluid dryness. One way to enjoy beets is to mix fresh beet juice with equal amounts of carrot or apple juice; another way is to slice and saut\u00e9 them in a wok. When they are fully cooked, you can season them with soy sauce, Dijon mustard, and nutritional yeast.\n\n### _Hot Lemon Juice Cleanser_\n\nMany experts in natural healing extol the benefits of freshly squeezed lemon juice for helping the system detoxify. Rejuvenation and detoxification expert Helene Silver recommends drinking an eight-ounce glass of hot lemon juice first thing every morning during the detoxification program. Mix the juice of one-half of a squeezed lemon with eight ounces of pure _warm_ water, and add a pinch of cayenne pepper (up to one-eighth of a teaspoon is permissible) or one drop of cayenne tincture, she suggests. \"Lemon juice helps to break up and dislodge the sticky mucus deposits that tend to clog up the system,\" she states.\n\n### _Liver Cleansing Herbs_\n\nHerbalists recommend teas or herbal tinctures made from any of the following liver-cleansing herbs: gentian, barberry, yellow dock, Oregon grape, sarsaparilla, dandelion root, burdock, or milk thistle. As with the bitter greens, it is the bitterness itself that produces the beneficial effects. When the digestive system encounters the striking bitter taste of the greens or herbs, it stimulates digestive secretions throughout the gastrointestinal system, including bile flow in the liver. Anything that sparks increased bile flow benefits the liver.\n\nMilk thistle _(Silybum marianum_ ) and its active constituent, silymarin, is considered by many herbalists \"nature's offering for optimal liver protection.\" In fact, this herb is prominent among effective treatments for chronic liver disease produced by alcoholism and hepatitis. \"It is also emerging as an important supplement for those desiring to optimize liver function and maximize the detoxifying potential of this important organ,\" explains naturopathic physician Donald J. Brown, N.D.\n\nAccording to Dr. Brown, milk thistle extract protects liver cells and even helps regenerate them. Specifically, silymarin acts as an antioxidant (a fighter against free radical damage from toxic substances), helping liver cells produce glutathione (increasing its levels by up to fifty percent), a key agent in liver detoxification. Given milk thistle's multifaceted support for liver function, Dr. Brown states it benefits people exposed to toxins at work or who already have multiple chemical sensitivities. Milk thistle, Dr. Brown says, can provide \"critical support\" for the liver during a detoxification program. In general, he recommends an 8-week course of 420 mg of silymarin in three divided doses per day; after 8 weeks, reduce the dose to 280 mg daily for preventive purposes.\n\nNutrition researcher Laurel Vukovic recommends a strong, dark herbal tea (called an herbal decoction) made of the roots of dandelion and Oregon grape. To two tablespoons each of fresh sliced dandelion and Oregon grape root, Vukovic adds one teaspoon each of ginger and licorice root, simmered in three cups of water for about fifteen minutes. As part of a gentle and generalized detoxification program lasting three to six weeks, Vukovic suggests consuming three cups daily of this \"robust\" tea in between meals.\n\nNumerous liver-cleansing herbs are now available as teabags. For example, you can get roasted dandelion root in convenient teabags at most natural foods stores. Simply steep the teabag for at least three minutes in freshly boiled water then enjoy the strong roasted-grain-like beverage. Try having at least three cups per week as a general liver-supporting activity. Dandelion _(Taraxacum officinale_ ) is specifically recommended for liver conditions. Herbalists regard it as an effective blood and liver purifier. Clinical research shows that it helps the body recover from liver disease including hepatitis, as well as liver congestion.\n\nEven more impressive is the fact that it can increase bile secretion by fifty percent; liver conditions in which insufficient bile secretion is the hallmark are particularly benefited by dandelion. Further, inflammation of the bile duct and\/or gallbladder, obstruction of the bile duct, and jaundice of the liver are all relieved by dandelion. The herb can also alleviate indigestion, encourage the free flow of urine, and improve the functioning of the pancreas, spleen, liver, bladder, and kidneys. It is \"completely free\" of any toxic side effects.\n\n### _Herbal Liver Tonic_\n\nMaster herbalist David Hoffmann recommends a general liver tonic, to be consumed as a tea after each meal. Mix dandelion root (two parts), meadowsweet (two parts), fringetree bark (one part), and goldenseal (one part). Hoffmann recommends using these herbs in their whole, fresh form. Boil the herbs in water, simmer, and then strain to make the tea. Hoffmann states that the liver and entire digestive system will benefit from the use of herbal bitters, especially gentian, goldenseal, and\/or wormwood. These will have a decongestant action on the liver. While taking these bitter herbs (including dandelion root, \"the simplest and most widely applicable one,\" Hoffmann says), take some meadowsweet tincture to help the stomach.\n\n### _Bile Lubricants_\n\nAccording to naturopathic physicians Peter Bennett, N.D., and Stephen Barrie, N.D., four herbs, one vegetable, and one naturally derived substance are excellent bile lubricants. This means they stimulate and enhance the flow of bile from the liver. The herbs include dandelion root, turmeric, milk thistle, and chelidonium; the vegetable is artichoke; and the naturally derived substance is lecithin from soybeans.\n\nRegarding specific recommendations, Drs. Bennett and Barrie suggest dandelion root at the rate of 1 teaspoon of solid extract three times daily or 8 g taken as tea; 4 capsules of tumeric after each meal or 1 teaspoon of extract with water after each meal; and 500 mg of lecithin three times daily. They warn that taking too much lecithin at one time can overstimulate bile flow, producing headaches and pain in the gallbladder.\n\n### _Detoxification Support Nutrients_\n\nA carefully chosen short list of nutrients in supplement form is often recommended for a detoxification program. Bear in mind that during detoxification, your nutrient requirements are higher than usual. If you are deficient in essential nutrients, this can block key biochemical pathways and possibly make you more toxic since your body can't finish its cleanup of toxic substances. Below are a few critical nutrients with intake recommendations by Drs. Bennett and Barrie.\n\n  * _Antioxidants._ These nutrients work against free radicals, the unstable molecules created by toxic substances that damage cells. Chief among the antioxidants is vitamin C, sometimes called a \"universal antitoxin.\" Recommended general dosage: 4,000 to 20,000 mg daily (in divided doses) during detoxification. Ultimate dosage is determined by bowel tolerance; this is the dosage after which (usually within three hours) you spontaneously have one movement of diarrhea. This means your body cannot handle any more vitamin C for a while; wait about twelve hours then resume intake but at a reduced dosage.\n\nThere are two other helpful detoxification support antioxidant nutrients. Vitamin E helps protect cell membranes from damage by lipid peroxides, free radicals sometimes produced by detoxification itself. Recommended general dosage: 200 to 1,200 IU daily. Alpha-lipoic acid is both an antioxidant and a rich source of B vitamins. It helps cells generate energy and it protects the body and liver against poisoning from toxic substances such as heavy metals. Recommended general dosage: 600 mg, twice daily.\n\n  * _Amino Acids._ These are protein building blocks, and they are capable of bonding with toxins in the system and removing them from circulation. N-acetyl-cysteine (NAC) is a precursor to glutathione, a critical liver detoxification nutrient. NAC helps to maintain adequate levels of glutathione, thereby enabling the liver to complete its two phases of detoxification. Taking NAC is considered more effective than taking glutathione. Recommended general dosage: 500 mg, three times daily. Even though glutathione is the major player, Drs. Bennett and Barrie do not recommend taking it as a supplement; rather they contend that ingesting it through foods is preferable, notably fresh fruits and vegetables.\n\nGlycine is another amino acid involved in the liver's detoxification pathways. Like NAC, it is a building block in the production of glutathione. Recommended general dosage: 1,500 to 3,000 mg daily, taken between meals.\n\nMethionine helps remove fat from the liver and contribute essential molecules to the detoxification pathway. Recommended general dosage: 1,000 mg two or three times daily.\n\n  * _Oxystat._ This is a commercially prepared formula (it requires a doctor's prescription) comprising twenty-two natural substances (including the ones listed above) needed to support both phases of the liver's detoxification.\n\n## _HEALTHY LIVING SPACE DETOXIFIER #20: Do a Natural Liver Flush to Improve Your Internal \"Plumbing\"_\n\nOne protocol many naturopaths, herbalists, and acupuncturists often recommend as part of a detoxification program is a liver flush using natural substances to stimulate the liver to flush itself clean of its toxic overload. Generally, the flush takes a few days, and there are a number of variations on the basic theme, which we will review below. The goal is to help your liver unburden itself of excess toxins and thereby enhance its natural ability to detoxify the body. The strategy behind the flush is that when you ingest the substance on an empty stomach, your liver gets stimulated (without the obstruction of other foods) to release stored toxins into the bile so they can be excreted from the body.\n\n**_The strategy behind the flush is that when you ingest the substance on an empty stomach, your liver gets stimulated (without the obstruction of other foods) to release stored toxins into the bile so they can be excreted from the body_**.\n\nWhile several different liver flush protocols are reviewed below, it is prudent to select one and follow _only one_ protocol during your detoxification program. At a future date, try another of the variations.\n\nHowever, all natural health practitioners who recommend or describe liver flushes strongly advise undertaking a flush _only_ under the supervision of a trained health-care expert. While it is a safe, self-care procedure, complications or physiological symptoms may arise, requiring qualified review. For example, the flush may inadvertently dislodge gallstones from the gallbladder; this is a good thing, but it can be painful for a short period as the stones pass through the common bile duct to the stomach. More likely is the possibility of experiencing some odd or transiently uncomfortable symptoms, so having a practitioner on call to explain them can be psychologically reassuring.\n\n### _Garlic and Cayenne Pepper Flush_\n\nNoted author, herbalist, and expert in Chinese medicine Michael Tierra, L.Ac., O.M.D., A.H.G., suggests a four-day flush, optimally undertaken in the spring or summer. It is based on drinking eight ounces of distilled water with eight ounces of apple juice blended with one to four cloves of garlic, a small piece of fresh ginger, and one to four tablespoons of olive oil. This is to be consumed every morning on an empty stomach for four days. Dr. Tierra advises following this immediately with a cup of herbal tea made from dandelion root and fennel seed.\n\nDr. Tierra further recommends eating a generous amount of green vegetables or going on a warm apple juice fast during this four-day period; add a teaspoon of agar flakes to the juice. Take two capsules of cayenne pepper, or one-half teaspoon cayenne powder mixed in a small amount of water, three times daily, he adds. Cayenne pepper (its major component is called capsaicin) elevates the activities of at least two liver enzymes and stimulates the mobilization of lipids from fat tissue, a necessary step in detoxification.\n\n  **_The Healthy Living Space_ Info Tip**\n\nFor Oxystat, see:\n\nNF Formulas,\n\n9775 SW Commerce Circle, Suite C5,\n\nWilsonville, OR 97070;\n\ntel: 800-547-4891 or 503-682-9755;\n\nfax: 503-682-9529;\n\ne-mail: info@nfformulas.com;\n\nwebsite: www.nfformulas.com.\n\nFor Bupleurum Liver Cleanse and Turmeric Extract Full Spectrum: Planetary Formulas and Planetary Herbology,\n\nP.O. Box 275,\n\nBen Lomond, CA 95005;\n\ntel: 800-717-5010;\n\nfax: 831-336-4548;\n\ne-mail:\n\nherbcourse@planetherbs.com;\n\nwebsite: www.planetherbs.com.\n\nFinally, Dr. Tierra advises taking two liver-supporting commercially prepared supplements during the four-day flush: Bupleurum Liver Cleanse (containing thirteen herbs such as wild yam root, dandelion root extract, ginger root, and milk thistle) and Turmeric Extract Full Spectrum at a dose of two tablets of each formula three times daily. The liver flush, says Dr. Tierra, \"is invaluable for dredging and removing stored toxins and fat accumulated from a sluggish liver and stored throughout the body.\"\n\n### _Organic Apple Liver Flush_\n\nHerbalist and rejuvenation expert Helene Silver recommends this liver-flushing beverage\u2014based on the juice of organic apples\u2014as part of a detoxification program. The malic acid in the apples helps to cleanse the intestines and heal inflammation of its mucus membranes, says Silver, while the other components stimulate the liver to dump toxins. Combine freshly squeezed organic apple juice (one cup), freshly squeezed lemon juice (from two lemons), grated fresh ginger root (one teaspoon), crushed garlic cloves (one to three), cold-pressed saf-flower oil (one tablespoon), cold-pressed olive oil (one tablespoon), and cayenne pepper (a pinch) or cayenne tincture (one drop).\n\nOnce the ingredients are combined, consume the beverage in the morning, and do not eat any foods for two hours afterwards. However, Silver recommends drinking one or two cups of a specially prepared Herbal Purification Tea, consisting of fennel seeds (one-fourth cup), fenugreek seeds (one-fourth cup), licorice root (one-fourth cup), flaxseed (one-half cup), and peppermint leaves (one-half cup). Mix four teaspoons of this dry blend in four cups of pure water, boil, simmer and steep for ten minutes each; strain out the herbs and drink.\n\n### _Citrus and Olive Oil Flush_\n\nAcupuncturist-herbalist Christopher Hobbs, L.Ac., offers this variation on the liver flush, noting, \"I have taken liver flushes for many years now and can heartily recommend them.\" In general, Dr. Hobbs recommends doing this flush in the morning, preceded by some gentle exercise, such as stretching and breathing exercises (hatha yoga, for example). It is best to eat nothing for an hour after taking the flush mixture, he says.\n\nProduce one cup of fresh juice by squeezing fresh lemons or limes, then dilute the juice slightly with some distilled or pure spring water. Add to this the juice of garlic (one to two cloves, freshly pressed) and ginger (freshly grated and squeezed in a garlic press for the juice). Then add one tablespoon of extra virgin olive oil to the citrus, ginger, and garlic juice. Blend or shake the ingredients until all are mixed together, then drink the mixture, says Dr. Hobbs. An hour later, drink two cups of Polari Tea, an herbal blend containing dry portions of fennel (one part), flax (one part), burdock (one-fourth part), licorice (one-fourth part), fenugreek (one part), and peppermint (one part). Simmer all the herbs except the peppermint for twenty minutes, then add the peppermint and steep the entire mixture for ten minutes; then consume, says Dr. Hobbs.\n\nContinue with the liver flush for ten days, taking the flush mixture once every morning, followed, an hour later, by the herb tea, he says. He recommends taking a three-day break, then resuming the flush for another ten days. He further advises doing the flush twice a year, preferably in the spring and fall, two cycles each time.\n\n### _Castor Oil Compress_\n\nMany natural medicine practitioners recommend the use of a compress of castor oil (also known as ricinus oil) applied to the liver during the liver cleansing program. The therapeutic benefits of castor oil compresses were first introduced to Western medicine by Virginia psychic Edgar Cayce in the 1930s, and the practice has been taken up by many people ever since, often for relief of menstrual cramps or pain in the joints.\n\nTo prepare a castor oil pack, lightly heat enough castor oil to thoroughly wet, but not soak, a ten-by-twelve-inch flannel cloth. Immerse the flannel in the hot oil, then fold to make three to four layers and place against the skin over the liver (at the bottom of the rib cage on the right side). The oil helps to draw out toxins, release tension, and improve blood circulation, especially in the lower abdomen. Wrap a heating pad or hot water bottle in a towel and place this over the pack, then cover pack and bottle with another towel to retain heat. Keep in place for one to two hours. After you remove the compress, spend five to ten minutes gently rubbing small amounts of extra virgin olive oil into the skin over the liver. Following the treatment, you can wrap the oil-soaked flannel in plastic and store it in the refrigerator for later use. After the flannel has been used twenty times, discard it.\n\nIt is generally recommended that you apply the castor oil pack three times per week for about three months, but for women, not during menstruation. The therapeutic action behind the castor oil pack is that the oil is absorbed through the skin and stimulates blood flow and thereby produces improvements in sluggish liver (even cirrhosis), gallbladder inflammation, constipation, and numerous other conditions. Cayce stated that the technique would also stimulate lymph circulation, facilitating the drainage of toxic substances collected by the lymph system.\n\n### Intestinal Cleansing: Emptying Out a Storage Space the Size of a Tennis Court\n\nOur intestines are not something we routinely, or perhaps ever, think about, yet when it comes to detoxification, they are crucially important. Here is a fact that may help spark a different attitude about your small intestine. If you were to stretch out smooth and flat the inner convoluted surface of the small intestine, which is about twenty-one feet long in an adult, it would cover the size of a tennis court. Think about your small intestine in this way for a moment: think about a lifetime of food choices, of digestion, assimilation, and elimination, or of indigestion, constipation, gas, cramps, or infrequent elimination. What have you put into your tennis court? Is what you put in still there?\n\nThe small intestine, one inch in diameter and stuffed in coils into a small space in your abdomen, absorbs about ninety-five percent of your dietary fats and ninety percent of the amino acids from your foods. Its inner surface, due to a remarkable design concept, is expanded about 600 times by being folded into millions of villi. These are finger-shaped projections and creases, little corners and in-tuckings, called crypts. Each villus has special cells for nutrient absorption and a minute lymph vessel called a lacteal. Each villus is made of thousands of smaller units, called microvilli. These act like a microscopic brush border, facilitating absorption at the molecular level. The purpose of all this intricate design is to multiply the area available for nutrient absorption. Food typically remains in the small intestines from two to six hours in a healthy individual (see figure 5-1).\n\n**Figure 5.1. Large and Small Intestines**\n\nThe large intestine, or colon, is five feet long and two and one-half inches in diameter. There is less of it and it is more ponderous, forming a kind of fence or border around the small intestine. The large intestine is responsible for reabsorbing water from digested foods, that is, foods processed and moved on by the small intestine. The large intestine organizes the various undigestible cellulose fibers as well as some of the \"friendly\" bacteria (resident in the colon and responsible for maintaining intestinal health) for eventual elimination as feces.\n\nAverage transit time in the colon is about twelve hours. This means the amount of time it takes for food\u2014say yesterday's lunch\u2014to pass through the entire gastrointestinal tract, from the mouth though the twenty-six feet of the small and large intestines, and be excreted as feces. Slow transit time is the same as constipation, a problem that concerns many today, especially the elderly. A normal, or healthy, transit time is less than twenty-four hours, although due to the low-grade toxic condition of many people today, this norm is not widely found any more. Slow transit time means that toxic substances present in the feces\u2014for example, growth hormones and pesticides from animal products\u2014remain longer in the intestines where they can begin working as carcinogens. Fast transit time means they don't have the chance to do any harm. Remember, in a constipated person, the transit time for both intestines can be more like thirty to fifty-five hours, according to medical studies.\n\nSlow transit time means more than constipation, even unnoticed or uncomfortable. It means immune system stagnation. That is because both the large and small intestines are functional parts of the body's immune system. In fact, \"the intestinal mucosa and some of its sub-mucosal structures constitute the largest immunological system of the body,\" explains Serafina Corsello, M.D., an expert in intestinal detoxification and director of the Corsello Centers for Nutritional-Complementary Medicine in Huntington, New York. The mucus layers of the intestines collect cellular debris and pathogenic material as the active, defense front of the immune system.\n\nAside from the skin, the intestines constitute the body's largest organ, thereby being an excellent place to mount a major immune system initiative. According to medical estimates, the intestines account for some eighty percent of the body's immune and lymphatic resources. They are one of the body's first \"screening systems\" against the daily intake of toxic substances, such as bacteria, viruses, and parasites (discussed later in the chapter), that if not dealt with, would move deeper into the body's blood and tissues, creating illness.\n\n\"A healthy intestine is immunologically _vigilant_ against undesirable pathogens and toxins,\" says Dr. Corsello, but one that is \"overburdened and compromised\" cannot be an immune defensive front. Toxic intestines can thereby contribute seeds of illness to the body. When the intestine's immune vigilance falters or is dysfunctional, then our health is in trouble.\n\nThe crucial relationship between intestinal health and overall physical well-being has been recognized for a long time. Almost a century ago, a prominent natural healer named John Harvey Kellogg, M.D., founder of the Battle Creek Sanitarium in Michigan (and the cereal empire named after him), declared that ninety percent of the diseases of civilization are the result of \"improper functioning of the colon.\" In a sense, it's all due to transit time.\n\nAbout one century ago, most Americans had a short intestinal transit time, of about fifteen to twenty hours, but today, it is much more likely to be fifty to seventy hours. That means that today's lunch will sit inside your body, unprocessed, or being _slowly_ processed, for the next three days, or longer. This means there is more time for the stool to putrefy, to spoil inside you, and thereby for harmful intestinal bacteria to flourish and for toxins to develop and enter the bloodstream, taxing the liver. It is a bit like having meat going bad inside your small intestine; in fact, if you are a meat eater and have slow transit time, that is essentially what happens. If you eat low-fiber, high-fat, high-calorie, processed, prepared, or fast foods, especially ones high in mucus (dairy and flour), your transit time is slowed down even more.\n\nSlow transit time and colonic stagnation are the foundation for what physicians call a toxic bowel, and this is the seedbed for numerous illnesses. These can include chronic headaches, allergies, skin blemishes and acne, infections, various autoimmune disorders, in which a confused immune system starts attacking the body's own tissues, and cancer, among many others.\n\nThe colon-cancer connection is scientifically well established, ever since a key study of 88,751 women was published in 1990. Women, aged thirty-four to fifty-nine, without a history of cancer or intestinal pathology, were interviewed in 1980. In 1986, they were interviewed again, and this time, 150 cases of colon cancer were noted. The researchers were able to \"positively\" associate the intake of animal fat and the heightened risk and incidence of colon cancer. In fact, the risk of getting colon cancer was 2.5 times higher among women who ate beef, pork, or lamb as a main protein dish every day. Consumption of processed meats and liver was also \"significantly associated\" with increased colon cancer risk. In contrast, skinless chicken and fish were related to a decreased risk.\n\nThe scientists further noted a correlation between low fiber intake from fruits and vegetables and the risk of colon cancer. \"These prospective data provide evidence for the hypothesis that a high intake of animal fat increases the risk of colon cancer,\" the researchers concluded.\n\nThe essential point for our purposes here is not only the conclusion that animal products in themselves may act as carcinogens (based on their injurious chemical content of hormones, pesticides, and other contaminants), but that they take longer to digest (due to their low fiber content), may be incompletely digested, and are more likely to contribute to delayed transit time.\n\nIn 1990 researchers provided proof that high-fiber diets may help prevent colon cancer. Researchers at the Fox Chase Cancer Center in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, studied the evidence from thirty-seven studies on the relationship of diet, fiber, and cancer. They reported that the majority of the cases \"gave support for a protective effect associated with fiber-rich diets.\" A related study in Majorca, Spain, of 286 cases of colorectal cancer (compared to 295 cancer-free subjects) showed that not only was an increased risk of colon cancer associated with the consumption of fresh meats, but a high intake of cruciferous vegetables \"afforded protection\" against the onset of cancer.\n\nOnce slowly or incompletely digesting foods, such as animal fats and protein, start to spoil in the intestines, free radicals are produced. These unstable toxic substances are created by the body's metabolism or brought into the body from toxic materials in the environment, including foods. Once produced and distributed, free radicals start to damage and destroy cells; they are also regarded to be carcinogenic.\n\nResearchers at the Biomedical Engineering Center at Purdue University in West Lafayette, Indiana, studied the production of free radicals from bacterial metabolism inside the colon and were amazed to find it corresponded to that which would be produced by over 10,000 rads of gamma radiation per day. They noted a connection between the high free radical levels and high iron concentrations in the feces; the iron interacts with bile pigments to support free radical generation from resident bacteria.\n\n\"Such free radical generation in feces could provide a missing link in our understanding of the etiology of colon cancer,\" the scientists concluded. It also helps explain why most gastrointestinal tract cancer occurs in the rectum and colon, and why a higher incidence of colon cancer is observed in red meat eaters. It is because red meat increases the iron content of the feces, and the excessive animal fat increases the fecal content of bile pigments and \"procarcinogens.\" These are substances (in this case, bacteria) that, once oxidized (by free radicals), can become full-fledged carcinogens. The presence of animal fats in the colon provides the ideal conditions for this.\n\n**_Remember the basic equation: high fiber means faster transit time, which means less chance of fecal stagnation and toxicity, which means less chance of free radical production, which, in turn, means less chance of toxicity-related diseases (such as cancer) developing._**\n\nRemember the basic equation: high fiber means faster transit time, which means less chance of fecal stagnation and toxicity, which means less chance of free radical production, which, in turn, means less chance of toxicity-related diseases (such as cancer) developing.\n\nA toxic bowel almost always means a body-wide state of toxicity exists, in which toxins \"leak\" out of the dysfunctional intestines into the bloodstream, the liver, lymph, and other body tissues. Your body now exists in a state of \"intestinal toxemia and autointoxication.\" Your body is absorbing its own toxic waste products, like a drain or garbage disposal backing up into the sink. \"It is the root cause of many of today's disorders and illnesses,\" explains Bernard Jensen, N.D., a naturopathic educator, author, and detoxification expert. Death begins in the colon, he states.\n\nThe bowel holds on to waste material much longer than people suspect, says Dr. Jensen. He cites the case of an autopsy that revealed a stagnant colon weighing forty pounds; in other words, that body had accumulated nearly forty pounds of uneliminated fecal matter over a lifetime. Dr. Jensen also describes a distended colon that was nine inches in diameter but had only a pencil-width open passage for the movement of feces. The rest of the nine inches was taken up with multiple layers of encrusted mucus and rubber-like feces.\n\n**Figure 5-2. Typical Symptoms and Results of Intestinal Stagnation and Toxicity**\n\nHealth-care practitioners at the Angel Healing Center, a colonics and detoxification center in Las Vegas, Nevada, amplify Dr. Jensen's observation. \"The average American male colon today carries within it about five pounds of putrid, half-digested red meat, plus another five to ten pounds of foul toxic waste impacted for years in the folds of the colon with mucus.\" They also cite Dr. Kellogg as having made this remark: \"Of the 22,000 operations I have personally performed, I have never found a single normal colon.\" What would Dr. Kellogg say one hundred years later about the state of the North American colon?\n\nFollowing Dr. Kellogg's original research, Dr. Jensen claims that if you have only one bowel movement per day, the large intestine will hold the residue of six previous meals; if it holds nine or more meals, you have chronic constipation. Your intestines are healthy, he says, if you eliminate the residue of a given meal fifteen to eighteen hours after consuming it (see figure 5-1).\n\nConstipation is only one of many signs of intestinal toxemia, states Dr. Jensen. According to his research, at least seventy-four different medical conditions can be attributed to improperly functioning intestines, including depression, drowsiness, concentration difficulties, indecision, dry eyes, nausea, bad breath, body odor, insomnia, arthritis, high blood pressure, ovarian cysts, boils, clammy skin, muscle twitches and inflammations, and bladder infections. Intestinal toxemia generally shows up in any of sixteen major symptom categories (see figure 5-2), says Dr. Jensen, who adds, \"All of these conditions have responded to therapy for intestinal toxemia.\"\n\nThere are many effective therapies for purging the intestines of its possibly lifelong backlog of uneliminated fecal matter. Many natural medicine practitioners recommend some form of colon hydrotherapy, more popularly known as colonics. These procedures involve flushing the large intestines with filtered and temperature-regulated pure water to soften the hard, impacted feces; the water is introduced through the rectum with a sanitary plastic tube. The intestines are stimulated to pass a fair amount of the stored waste matter. Sometimes herbs, ozone, and other natural substances are used in the colonics program as well. Colonics require a trained practitioner, which means you will need to visit a facility to have the procedure. It is painless and almost always effective.\n\nWhile colonics is a viable option for intestinal cleansing, it does not necessarily provide a thorough cleanse of the full twenty-six feet of both small and large intestines, and it is not something you can do on your own. The next section reviews six substances you can take on your own as part of a gentle, home-based, self-care detoxification program with modest cost and no risk.\n\n## _HEALTHY LIVING SPACE DETOXIFIER #21: Use Six Natural Substances to Help Cleanse Your Intestines_\n\nJust as herbs, nutrients, and natural substances can be used to stimulate and support liver decongestion, so are there natural substances perfectly suited to get your intestines into a cleansing mode. In large measure, cleansing has a laxative effect. When you stimulate your intestines to cleanse, they will increase their evacuation of old fecal matter. So from an experiential viewpoint, using any of the substances described below will seem as if you have taken a remarkably effective laxative.\n\nHowever, do not use all six substances at the same time. You may wish to try a few at one time, but it is probably most prudent to use _only one_ at a time, depending on the desired effect you wish; there are exceptions to this, which are reviewed at the end of this section. Some can be used for an extended period of time (such as bentonite clay, which might be used productively for a month), but others are meant only for a short time (charcoal and psyllium husks, which shouldn't be used much more than seven to ten days).\n\n### _Activated Charcoal_\n\nActivated charcoal, a reliable and very effective poison absorber, is a traditional remedy with a long history of use in many cultures. The charcoal is prepared by carbonizing organic matter such as wood or peat in a kiln, then activating it with oxidizing gases (steam or air) at high temperatures. One typical source of the carbon matter is coconut shells heated in the absence of air; then the partially burned shells are granulated to a size that maximizes their optimal absorption capacity. The high steam (applied at 800\u00b0 C for 12-24 hours) opens up and enlarges the pores of the charcoal, thereby creating an enormous internal surface area, estimated to be 800 square meters per one gram of charcoal.\n\nIf you suspect food poisoning from tainted restaurant food, taking two to four charcoal tablets (easily obtained at drugstores and natural foods outlets) can help reduce the toxic effect on your intestines and hasten the removal of these toxins from your body. The charcoal absorbs the poisons in the small intestines along with chemicals secreted in the bile, thereby preventing their re-uptake into the liver and blood circulation. It is even more effective when combined with two to four drops of oil of oregano. Charcoal is also effective against flatulence and excessive intestinal gas.\n\nAs a general aid for detoxification, activated charcoal is often recommended to help in the systemic clearance of drugs and intoxicants and is regarded as a \"universal antidote\" to the ingestion of poisonous substances. Activated charcoal helps detoxify the body in several ways: it purifies the six to eight liters of various digestive fluids secreted daily in the body; it absorbs noxious chemicals (both the poisons and their breakdown products, called metabolites) from the bile duct; it absorbs ingested drugs that would otherwise diffuse back into the stomach and small intestine; and it reduces the liver's detoxification burden. Further, charcoal can absorb a fair amount of the toxins produced by a systemic yeast overgrowth of _Candida albicans_ , preventing these toxins from being reabsorbed into the bloodstream. Charcoal is also said to counteract decomposition products from ingested foods (such as beans) that would otherwise produce flatulence, diarrhea, or odorous stools.\n\nIn fact, according to one authority, \"activated charcoal is the best single supplement for enhancing detoxification . . . [understood to be] an ongoing biological process that prevents toxins (from infectious agents, food, air, water, and substances that contact the skin) from destroying health.\" Richard C. Kaufman, Ph.D., recommends twenty to thirty-five grams of activated charcoal as a daily detoxification protocol, divided into two or three doses (morning, midday, and before bed\u2014on an empty stomach in all cases), taken on two consecutive days for one week. For intestinal complaints, he recommends 4-10 g taken twice daily; for _Candida albicans_ , 20-35 g daily until the problem is cleared.\n\nHowever, charcoal also removes nutrients from the intestines, so it should not be used routinely, or if employed during the detoxification program, it should not be used regularly afterwards. Charcoal can produce short-term constipation and, of course, black-gray stools.\n\n### _Bentonite, or Liquid Clay_\n\nThe term bentonite refers to a natural clay deposit found in cretaceous rocks, notably in Fort Benton, Wyoming, and throughout the Great Plains region of the United States, but also in France. In France, the active mineral in bentonite is called montmorillonite and is found in weathered volcanic ash that has become clay over time. A third term, smectite, is sometimes used to describe this same therapeutically active natural substance. Essentially, all three terms are interchangeable.\n\nFor our purposes, the key information is that bentonite or liquid clay\u2014the clay is hydrated with water into the consistency of a very thick milkshake or tasteless pale grey gel\u2014contains minerals that can absorb toxins from and deliver nutrients to the gastrointestinal tract. Since liquid clay is inert (not biologically active), its effects are physical, not chemical, and it passes undigested through the system, bearing its toxic load out of the body through the stool.\n\nLike charcoal, bentonite has an extensive adsorptive surface area. So vast is this area, that one manufacturer claims a quart bottle represents 960 square yards of surface area, or about the size of twelve American football fields. Once inside the body, bentonite adsorbs toxins such as heavy metals, pesticides, and free radicals by attracting them to its generous surface area; then it gathers the poisons up for excretion in a way that has been compared to how a magnet draws filings to it.\n\nThe research supporting the beneficial detoxifying claims for bentonite is solid and impressive. Bentonite expands like a super-absorbent sponge and can adsorb selected pathogenic viruses (reovirus type 3 and a bacteria, coliphage Tl, both common to sewage, aquatic, and land environments), according to a study involving soils and sediments. The study showed that bentonite has a \"specificity\" to adsorbing \"mixed populations\" of these microorganisms. Another study suggested that bentonite clay solids had some ability to collect poliovirus microorganisms from tap water. A Russian study showed that bentonite can effectively adsorb selected species of poliomyelitis type II viruses, monkey disease rotavirus, Coxsackie B1 and B6, and Picornaviridae and Reoviridae.\n\nIt also has been observed to specifically bind up the herbicides Paraquat and Roundup as well as aflatoxin (a toxic mold that infests grains and nuts). A poultry study involving 528 chickens showed that bentonite \"partially neutralizes\" the toxic effects of aflatoxin, a potent developmental poison for animals. Comparable results were shown in a rat study; rats were fed an aflatoxin-infected diet, then given bentonite and another binding substance. None showed any developmental defects, indicating the bentonite and second substance had adsorbed or neutralized the aflatoxin. A pig study showed bentonite added to aflatoxin-contaminated corn feed led to the partial restoration of liver performance and function, again indicating the clay's ability to collect and deactivate the toxins. A cow study showed that bentonite could remove a toxin (lantana, a dairy poison) as effectively (but not as quickly) as activated charcoal, thereby showing \"promise as a cheap alternative\" to activated charcoal for lantana poisoning.\n\nAccording to Ran Knishinsky, a bentonite enthusiast and author of _The Clay Cure_ , the benefits of using bentonite for only two to four weeks are numerous and impressive. They include improved regularity in intestinal evacuation; relief from chronic constipation, diarrhea, indigestion, and ulcers; an increase in physical energy; improved complexion; greater mental alertness; uplifted emotional mood; and increased resistance to infection. In other words, with liquid clay you get a lot of the general benefits expected from detoxification.\n\nKnishinsky contends that taking one to three tablespoons of liquid clay daily, in divided doses, can help eliminate intestinal parasites, provide relief from allergies and hay fever, clear up acne, and turn around anemia (because of its high iron content). Liquid clay manufacturers state that the substance shines as a general internal cleansing agent, because it scrapes and cleans the lining of the intestines at the same time as feeding it with essential and trace nutrients.\n\nOne liquid clay product (Mineral-Rich by Earth Essentials\/ White Rock) offers seventy-one trace and ultra-trace minerals, which the body needs to be able to absorb the bigger nutrients like vitamins. It works as both a mineral supplement and an internal body cleanser. According to this manufacturer, the bentonite begins adsorbing toxic substances as soon as it reaches the stomach (in this case, excess stomach bile); then it moves into the small intestine where its large surface area adsorbs toxins and releases minerals. Users of this product report that a variety of symptoms have abated, including hair loss, acne, insomnia, brittle nails, allergies, joint problems, spastic colon, digestive problems, and low energy.\n\nSeveral brands of liquid clay are available in natural foods stores. A general usage recommendation is to start with one tablespoon daily mixed with juice or water and observe the results for a week. Gradually increase your intake to up to four tablespoons daily, in two divided doses, morning and evening. As part of an intensive detoxification program, manufacturers suggest a _short-term_ dose of one tablespoon per hour through the day. You will probably notice a gentle laxative effect in the range of about a twenty-five percent increase in daily intestinal elimination. Use the bentonite for up to a month, then take a month off, and repeat, if you wish. It is important that you drink extra amounts (at least double your normal intake) of pure water during the time you take liquid clay.\n\n### _Chlorella_\n\nThis single-celled freshwater green algae _(Chlorella pyrenoidosa_ ) is noted for its ability to eliminate toxins from the body through the feces. Chlorella binds to toxic metals and chemicals, thereby facilitating their removal. The substance also has antibacterial and antiviral properties and is believed to stimulate the immune system. According to Earthrise, a chlorella manufacturer in Petaluma, California, the hard cellulose cell wall of chlorella helps to remove impurities from the body, and it may be involved in absorbing toxins from the intestines. Earthrise further states that chlorella \"may have the ability to improve bowel function and stimulate the growth of beneficial [intestinal] bacteria.\"\n\n  **_The Healthy Living Space_ Info Tip**\n\nFor Mineral-Rich:\n\nEarth Essentials,\n\nP.O. Box 910,\n\nSpringville, UT 84663;\n\ntel: 888-328-2529;\n\nfax: 801-489-3175;\n\ne-mail: support@earthessentials.net;\n\nwebsite: www.earthessentials.net.\n\nFor Great Plains Bentonite:\n\nYerba Prima, Inc.,\n\n740 Jefferson Avenue,\n\nAshland, OR 97520;\n\ntel: 800-488-4339 or 541-488-2228;\n\nfax: 541-488-2443;\n\ne-mail: yerba@yerba.com;\n\nwebsite: www.yerbaprima.com.\n\nFor Chlorella:\n\nEarthrise Nutritionals, Inc.,\n\n424 Payran Street,\n\nPetaluma, CA 94952;\n\ntel: 800-949-7473;\n\nfax: 707-778-9028;\n\ne-mail: info@earthrise.com;\n\nwebsite: www.earthrise.com.\n\nFor Triphala Internal Cleanser:\n\nPlanetary Formulas\/Planet Herbs, P.O. Box 275,\n\nBen Lomond, CA 95005;\n\ntel: 800-717-5010;\n\nfax: 831-336-4548;\n\ne-mail: herbcourse@planetherbs.com;\n\nwebsite: www.planetherbs.com.\n\nFor Ultimate Cleanse:\n\nOmni Nutraceuticals,\n\n5310 Beethoven Street,\n\nLos Angeles, CA 90066;\n\ntel: 800-841-8448; fax: 310-306-1790;\n\nproduct information: 888-297-3273;\n\nwebsite: www.naturessecret.com.\n\nChlorella, with a higher chlorophyll content per gram than any other plant and a complete array of essential amino acids, is known as the \"unpoisoner\" because it can detoxify the body of cadmium, lead, and the effects of uranium radiation. One way chlorella might do this is through its antioxidant effects on albumin.\n\nAlbumin, a substance continuously secreted by the liver and the most abundant protein found in human blood, is a major antioxidant. It appears both to transport vital nutrients and remove toxins from cells in the body's connective tissue. Perhaps because of albumin's detoxifying effect, high blood levels of albumin have been linked with longevity, which is to say, low levels of albumin are associated with increased states of toxicity. One estimate has it that chlorella supplementation can raise albumin levels by sixteen percent to twenty-one percent.\n\nA Japanese study demonstrated that chlorella is a first-rate detoxifying agent capable of removing alcohol from the liver. The study showed that taking four to six grams of chlorella before consuming alcohol prevented hangovers in ninety-six percent of cases, even following a night of heavy drinking. Numerous studies demonstrate that chlorella is effective in use against tumors and in reducing the negative effects of chemotherapy and radiation treatments (and against gamma rays in particular). Another chlorella manufacturer states, \"Numerous research projects in the United States and Europe have indicated chlorella can also aid the body in the breakdown of persistent hydrocarbon and metallic toxins such as DDT, PCB, mercury, cadmium, and lead, as well as strengthening the immune system response.\"\n\n**_A Japanese study demonstrated that chlorella is afirst-rate detoxifying agent) capable of remouing alcohol from the liver. The study showed that taking four to six grams of chlorella before consuming alcohol prevented hangovers in ninety-six percent of cases, even following a night of heavy drinking._**\n\nRandal Merchant, M.D., of the Department of Neurosurgery at the Medical College of Virginia provides support for this last claim. Dr. Merchant is conducting clinical trials on chlorella and has summarized much of the key research on chlorella's health and detoxification benefits on a health-related website. Dr. Merchant states that a physician at Kitakyushu City Institute for Environmental Pollution Research in Japan gave thirty patients with PCB exposure daily chlorella doses of 4-6 g for one year, after which time, the key symptoms of PCB toxicity\u2014exhaustion, poor digestion, abnormal bowel movements\u2014had all improved. From his own research he reports that twenty patients with brain tumors took chlorella (20 g in tablet form, and 150 ml in liquid form) during their cancer treatment and experienced fewer than expected respiratory infections and flu-like illnesses. They stated the chlorella helped them maintain their strength and resist common colds and infections prevalent among cancer patients.\n\nChlorella seems to be effective in reducing symptoms in many conditions that involve toxicity. A study at the School of Medicine of West Virginia University showed that chlorella, given to rats, increases the rate of detoxification of a harmful pesticide called chlordecone. Chlorella was shown to remove the toxin from the body twice as fast as the control substance; it reduced the half-life of the toxin from forty to nineteen days. Chlorella is also competent at enhancing the excretion of the heavy metal cadmium in people suffering from cadmium poisoning. Once chlorella binds with cadmium, it does not re-release it to the body while still in the intestinal tract, but removes it definitively from the body.\n\nChlorella given daily to patients with fibromyalgia (chronic, often body-wide, muscle pain) for two months (at a dosage of 10 g of a dry powder and 100 ml of liquid form) produced a twenty-two percent reduction in pain intensity. In a similar study (conducted by Dr. Merchant), 34 fibromyalgia patients took 50 tablets of chlorella and 100 ml of liquid chlorella every day for three months, after which they reported a fourfold decrease in pain and a 25% reduction in anxiety.\n\nAccording to Dr. Merchant, chlorella achieves its detoxifying effects through at least three mechanisms (in addition to the albumin explanation above). First, it stimulates the body's immune system to produce more macrophages, immune cells that \"eat\" toxic substances. Macrophages \"actively clean the blood, body fluids, and cavities of harmful substances,\" explains Dr. Merchant. Second, in the intestines, chlorella stimulates the growth of beneficial microflora, specifically the \"good\" intestinal bacteria called Lactobacillus; this family of bacteria help to destroy foreign and toxic substances and keep the ecology of the numerous microorganisms present in balance. Third, chlorella's thick cell wall adsorbs toxins in the intestine, and in so doing, reduces stool odor.\n\nUnlike activated charcoal, bentonite, and psyllium (discussed below), chlorella can be taken both during the intensive phase of a detoxification program and regularly as a supplement. During the detoxification program, you might wish to take more chlorella than during routine times, due to the increased mobilization of toxins in the body as a result of the various herbs and fibers you are taking to stimulate cleansing and evacuation.\n\n### _Triphala, an Ayurvedic Herbal Cleanser_\n\nTriphala, an Ayurvedic herbal medicine, is the most popular herbal formula in India. Ayurveda, which is India's classical and ancient medical system\u2014still practiced today there and around the world, including to a limited extent in the United States\u2014holds that Triphala is an effective but gentle laxative, capable of supporting the body's strength.\n\nThe name means \"three fruits,\" and refers to the three Indian herbs used in it: _Haritaki (Terminalia chebula), Amalaki (Emblica officinalis)_ , and _Bhibhitaki (Terminalia belerica)._ Each of these herbs is said to rejuvenate one of the three constitutional categories (called _doshas)_ described in Ayurveda, namely, _vata, pitta_ , and _kapha._ Haritaki balances the air element (vata) and the large intestine; Amalaki balances the fire element (pitta) and the liver; and Bhibitaki balances the water element (kapha) and reduces mucus and fats in the circulatory system. \"Triphala uniquely cleanses and detoxifies at the deepest organic levels without depleting the body's reserves,\" explains Michael Tierra, L.Ac., O.M.D. \"This makes it one of the most valuable herbal preparations in the world.\"\n\nDr. Tierra makes an interesting observation about intestinal cleansing herbs and formulas that work as laxatives, explaining that there are two basic types. One type is called purgative; strong bitter herbs, such as senna, cascara, and others stimulate the intestine's peristaltic action by promoting bile secretion by the liver. Triphala is primarily a purgative. The other type is a lubricating bulk laxative, typified by herbs such as psyllium and flaxseed; this approach does not directly affect the liver or bile secretion, but works as an \"intestinal broom\" or sponge, absorbing fluids, says Dr. Tierra. He notes that people who require purgatives have a bowel irregularity caused by congestion in the liver and gallbladder along with some blood toxicity. People who need lubricating bulk laxatives tend to have intestinal dryness caused by metabolic imbalances (including nutritional deficiency).\n\nNotwithstanding these distinctions, Triphala is effective for all types of constipation except those caused by a lack of vital energy, Dr. Tierra states. While Triphala will gently help move the bowels, it will also effectively purify the blood, stimulate bile secretion, promote liver detoxification, clear up stagnation, enhance digestion and nutrient assimilation, and significantly reduce blood levels of cholesterol and fats throughout the body. Indians believe that Triphala is \"able to care for the internal organs of the body as a mother cares for her children,\" says Dr. Tierra.\n\nHe notes that one of his patients who was forty pounds overweight was able to lose twenty pounds in only a month by taking Triphala, without making any major dietary changes. Dr. Tierra also relates the arresting story about a yogic master he once met in California. The man was in his late eighties but could outwalk anyone in terms of speed or distance. His secret: regular meditation, kicharee (mung beans, rice, ghee, and spices), and a daily dose of Triphala.\n\nTriphala is now available in prepared pill form from several manufacturers, although Ayurvedic physicians recommend preparing it from scratch, using the dry herbs. One practitioner suggests pouring boiling water into a cup in which you have put one teaspoonful of Triphala herbs; let it stand overnight; in the morning, strain it, then drink. The taste is \"bitter, sour, pungent, astringent, and, at the end, thankfully, slightly sweet.\" As with chlorella, you can take Triphala routinely to promote regularity and detoxification without causing any weakness or deficiency during your detoxification program. Planetary Formulas, one of the makers of Triphala, recommends taking it once weekly on the same day on a continuing basis, or one to three times daily for \"balanced detoxification.\"\n\n### _Psyllium Husks and Seeds_\n\nNot only do we need to remove intestinal toxins, we need to evacuate the bowels more often and more thoroughly. One of the easiest ways to do this is through increasing our intake of fiber or roughage. Of course this can be accomplished routinely by increasing the vegetable and whole grain content of our diet, but during a deliberate detoxification program, one method frequently recommended by natural health practitioners is the temporary use of psyllium husks _(Plantago ovata_ ).\n\nThink of it as a natural laxative. But it is actually more than that. As a bulking agent, psyllium husks and seeds (taken in powder form) help \"eliminate toxins and xenobiotics [foreign substances] by binding them in the feces so they are not absorbed back into the bloodstream,\" explains one detoxification expert. Psyllium consists of about seventy-five percent to eighty percent dietary fiber, of which sixty-five percent is water soluble and ten percent to fifteen percent is insoluble (meaning it is not digested or absorbed, but passes through the system intact).\n\nOne of the main benefits of taking psyllium is that it speeds up intestinal transit time. A study involving men and women, age sixty-five and older, all of whom suffered from chronic constipation, showed that by taking psyllium daily for one month (at the rate of 24 g per day), transit time was nearly cut in half, from 53.9 hours to 30 hours. The patients also experienced an increase in bowel movements, from 0.8 per day to 1.3, again almost double. \"Fiber supplementation appeared to benefit constipated older patients clinically, and it improved colonic transit time,\" the researchers concluded.\n\nA similar study looked at the effects of giving twelve subjects various daily fiber supplements containing wheat bran, psyllium gum, and\/or a combination of both for two weeks. Fiber supplementation reduced transit time and increased the frequency of bowel movements. While wheat bran reduced transit time the most, psyllium had a greater effect on the amount of water in the stools, which means they were less hard and compacted, and therefore less painful or difficult to pass. One of the causes of constipation is dryness in the stools; they get tight, dense, and compacted, and thus hard for the intestine's innate rhythmic pulsing to move; it's like trying to push a boulder with a whisk broom. In this study, patients who had no fiber supplement said fifty percent of their stools were \"hard,\" whereas those taking fiber said only ten percent of their stools were hard.\n\nA third study further supported these conclusions. This study involved twenty patients, all of whom suffered from chronic constipation and half of whom also had irritable bowel syndrome (which is a kind of spasticity of the colon, leading to frequent, unpleasant bursts of evacuation of irregular consistency and accompanied by abdominal pain). Patients took psyllium daily for one month, after which their weekly rate of bowel motions had increased from an average of two to eight, a fourfold increase, and their transit time was reduced from forty-eight to eighteen hours. Even better, no \"side effects\" or adverse effects such as flatulence were observed.\n\nA fourth study involving twenty-two subjects with chronic constipation reported pronounced improvement after the subjects took psyllium daily for two months. Their stool frequency increased from 2.9 to 3.8 stools per week, stool consistency improved (meaning higher water content and thus easier movement), pain on defecation decreased, and the weight of the average stool increased from 405 to 665 g per motion, which means they had a more thorough elimination.\n\nLest all this sound unpleasantly clinical or too biologically intimate, it's important to see in these numbers and medical reports the nature of chronic constipation. Ideally, the healthy human is meant to have a bowel motion two to three times daily, based on food intake; in the study just summarized, the people had barely three bowel movements a week, and with pain. The mere addition of psyllium was able, over a few weeks, to almost double the output.\n\nPsyllium has another beneficial effect, namely, an ability to reduce cholesterol levels and thereby help regulate a condition called hypercholesterolemia, which means, excess cholesterol. This benefit was demonstrated in a study involving forty-four men and women with this medical condition. They took a psyllium-enriched cereal daily for seven weeks; at the end of this time, they all showed \"significantly lower\" levels of blood cholesterol and low-density lipoprotein (LDL) cholesterol. LDL is regarded as the undesirable form of cholesterol, in contrast to the \"good\" kind, called high-density lipoprotein (HDL) When study subjects took a blend of psyllium husks, pectin, guar, and locust bean gums (various sources of water-soluble dietary fiber) for only four weeks, they had an 8.3% reduction in total cholesterol and a 12.4% decrease in LDL cholesterol.\n\nAgain, you can clearly see the vital importance of intestinal cleansing and purging for health. Merely by increasing the intestine's ability to eliminate fecal matter, you reduce your chances of heart disease from high cholesterol. On the other hand, living with a stagnant colon in which excess dietary cholesterol is not regularly or effectively removed can lead to various life-threatening medical conditions. Either way, you are improving your health by reducing your body's toxic load.\n\nThere are now numerous commercial intestinal cleansing formulas containing psyllium available at natural foods stores or websites. Psyllium is available on its own in a dry powder, or in blends with other detoxifying herbs. In some people, psyllium can produce flatulence, abdominal distension (bloating), and\/or pain. These symptoms are generally transient, but if they persist, it is advisable to use a different bulking agent. While taking psyllium, it is essential to drink generous amounts of pure water.\n\nDosages will vary with the product, but the following is a general recommendation. According to Yerba Prima, a provider of psyllium based in Ashland, Oregon, adults and children over twelve should take one rounded teaspoon of dry psyllium husks one to three times daily. Children between six and twelve should take one-half to one level teaspoon, one to three times a day. Take the psyllium a half-hour before or one hour after eating.\n\nPlan on taking the psyllium once or twice daily\u2014no more than three times in one day\u2014for ten to fourteen days. There is a buildup phase of perhaps four to six days depending on your state of long-term constipation and intestinal stagnation. To an extent, most adults in Western industrialized countries have stagnation in the intestines, so don't worry that you are an exception to the healthy norm. The healthy norm is rarely observed anymore. For perhaps the first two days, you may actually not move your bowels at all, and you may feel bloated, even uncomfortably so. The psyllium is building up a head of steam, so to speak, moving slowly through the intestines, seeping into all the cracks and fissures. Around the third or fourth day, you will start evacuating much more than usual.\n\nYou will probably feel transient symptoms of discomfort, such as headaches, flu-like symptoms, congestion, a sore throat, aches and pains, or a slight fever. These will last for perhaps two days and are called the Herxheimer reaction. When you mobilize toxins in the body\u2014that is, identify and collect them\u2014there is a short-term heightening of toxicity in the system. This is sometimes call the \"die-off' phase of detoxification; toxic substances are neutralized but temporarily remain, like corpses, within the system, making it feel deeply poisoned. It's like sweeping a very dusty floor; at first, there is dust everywhere, and the place seems far messier than before you contemplated cleaning it. Ultimately, the floor will be much cleaner, as will your intestines. The arrival of Herxheimer symptoms is your body telling you that the intestinal cleanse is working. After a few days, your Herxheimer reaction will dissipate.\n\nOne way to palliate feelings of extreme toxicity\u2014you may feel dreadful for an hour now and then\u2014is to take a high dose of vitamin C, something on the order of 3000-6000 mg, perhaps in two divided doses, over a two-hour period. Vitamin C used this way acts the way aspirin does for a headache. Be sure to drink at least sixteen ounces of fresh water with the vitamin C intake any time you feel the Herxheimer effect.\n\nBy the peak of the cleanse, perhaps days six to nine, you may be passing three to four times your normal amount; six or seven evacuations per day for a few days is not unusual if this is the first time you have done an intestinal cleanse. This may not appeal to you, but you will notice (if you look) that around the time of the peak elimination, the bowel movements are strangely shaped, like twisted, moldy old rope. This is the \"old stuff,\" finally being dredged up out of the immense storage space of your intestines for elimination. To a large measure, this is why you are taking psyllium in the first place: to get this old stuff moving and out of your body.\n\n**_One way to palliate feelings of extreme toxicity\u2014you may feel dreadful for an hour now and then_ \u2014 _is to take a high dose of vitamin C, something on the order of 3000-6000 mg, perhaps in two divided doses, over a two-hour period. Vitamin C used this way acts the way aspirin does for a headache._**\n\nBear in mind that taking psyllium should not be a lifestyle, a way of coping with the high-fat, high-sugar, low-fiber fast foods diet that many rely on; rather, it should be a component in an occasional (as in twice yearly) detoxification program. In other words, it is not advisable to take psyllium (or any other high-fiber supplement) routinely and continuously; it will make your intestines lazy and may irritate their mucosal linings as well. A high-fiber, whole-food diet consisting of fresh, organic, living foods is the preferred way to keep a steady intake of roughage. That is all your intestines need to do their nature-appointed task of frequent and thorough elimination of unwanted, toxic matter.\n\n### _Cascara Sagrada_\n\nIn the same family as buckthorn, this herb was once known to Native Americans as \"sacred bark,\" as reflected in the Spanish name given to it by European explorers (botanical name: _Rhamnus purshianus_ ). Used in its dry bark form, it has been, on its own or in combination with other herbs, a popular and successful natural laxative for many years. Its chemical components are effective in stimulating intestinal peristalsis. A particular component (an anthracene derivative) gives cascara its distinctive laxative effect by increasing the motility of the colon. That means it stimulates it to move\u2014to enhance its peristaltic motions. Thus, the feces move faster through the colon and absorb less water.\n\nCascara is perhaps \"the best researched\" of the laxative herbs, notes Daniel B. Mowrey, Ph.D., in _Herbal Tonic Therapies._ Its mildness and nonhabituating qualities are widely noted. In other words, your intestines will not become dependent on its presence for continued bowel motions once you stop taking the herb. It does not lose its effectiveness with use, and you do not have to take increasingly larger doses to get the same laxative results. Cascara is an intestinal tonic, which means it can \"nurture, soothe, stimulate, and condition\" the intestines, says Dr. Mowrey. Cascara can be used in small doses to \"restore and maintain tone\" in the colon and it can be used daily in small doses \"to enhance the health of the liver and other organs.\" However, long-term use can lead to a loss of electrolytes (key minerals).\n\nAlthough cascara sagrada can be taken on its own at the rate of 50-100 mg per dose, depending on the degree of constipation, it is more common to use it in prepared herbal detoxification formulas where it is combined with other detoxifying herbs. It is often the major player in detoxification formulas.\n\nThere are many such detoxification-laxative formulas, but one that has received considerable attention and garnered favorable public and medical opinion is called Ultimate Cleanse, originally designed by a naturopath-nutritionist and produced by Nature's Secret, now a subsidiary of Omni Nutraceuticals of Los Angeles, California. This formula consists of twenty-nine cleansing herbs and thirteen sources of fiber and is designed to cleanse and tone all channels of elimination, including the bowel, kidneys, lungs, skin, and lymphatic system, according to its manufacturer. This formula also includes Siberian ginseng, included for \"extra energy and support against stress while cleansing.\" The program is meant for daily use, in the morning and evening, for about two weeks.\n\nIn closing this section, here are some general usage recommendations for the six substances just reviewed.\n\n  * Activated charcoal: use on its own\n  * Bentonite: use with chlorella, triphala, and psyllium or cascara sagrada (not both)\n  * Chlorella: use with bentonite, triphala, psyllium or cascara sagrada (not both)\n  * Triphala: use with chlorella or bentonite\n  * Psyllium: use with chlorella or bentonite; take at different times\n  * Cascara sagrada: use with chlorella or bentonite; take at different times\n\nIn many respects, it is better to use each substance on its own to gauge its effects. Later, you might consider using several at the same time.\n\n## _HEALTHY LIVING SPACE DETOXIFIER #22: Remove the 50+ Feet of False Mucoid Lining from Your Intestines_\n\nThe use of any of the above-described natural substances will definitely stimulate your intestines to purge a fair amount of their stored waste matter. But there is a more biologically arcane level of old intestinal matter that these herbs will not address. It is called mucoid plaque or false mucoid lining. It \"bizarrely resembles hardened blackish-green truck tire rubber or an old piece of dried rawhide,\" observes naturopathic practitioner and detoxification expert, Richard Anderson, N.D., N.M.D., of Mount Shasta, California.\n\nIn 1986, Dr. Anderson developed (and started to market) a four-phase, four-week, all natural colon cleansing program (called Arise & Shine and the Cleanse Thyself program) that dredges out this mucoid plaque. When the mucoid plaque comes out in an intensive intestinal cleansing program, it is characterized by \"ropelike twists, striations, overlaps, folds, creases\u2014the shape and texture of the intestinal wall,\" says Dr. Anderson.\n\nIt can be hard and brittle; firm and thick; tough, wet, and rubbery; soft, thick, and mucoid; or soft, transparent, and thin; and its color can range from light brown, black, or greenish-black to yellow or grey, and it usually stinks. Even more stunning is the fact that it is not unusual to pass thirty-five to forty-five feet of mucoid plaque during a four-week intestinal cleanse program; some pass more than sixty feet, and at least one of Dr. Anderson's clients passed a record single length that was fifteen feet long.\n\nSo what is mucoid plaque? The term is one of Dr. Anderson's devising. He uses it to indicate a film of mucus, different from the intestine's natural mucosal lining, which is the result of the unhealthy accumulation over time of abnormal mucus matter on the intestinal walls. Medicine knows this plaque as a natural layering of mucin or glycoproteins (comprising twenty amino acids and fifty percent carbohydrates); it is natural in that the intestines secrete it as a protection against acids, salt, heavy metals, parasites, and numerous other toxic substances. In fact, mucoid plaque starts out as mucin, or a layering of glycoproteins, then just about everything else in the intestines gets added: water, electrolytes, epithelial cells (that line the intestinal walls), bacteria, bacterial metabolities and toxins, digested food, blood proteins, bile salts, enzymes from the pancreas, drug residues, antigen-antibody complexes (from allergies), and toxins produced by bacteria, yeasts, and parasites.\n\nMucoid plaque appears to develop in the presence of acids, or in acid pH conditions in the intestines; a large measure of this requisite acidity is provided by the standard American diet, which is acid-producing, says Dr. Anderson. So this \"gel-like, viscous and slimy mucus\" gets deposited in successive layers over the inner lining of the intestines.\n\nWhen the diet is unbalanced and biochemically toxic to the intestines, additional amounts of mucoid plaque are formed, says Dr. Anderson. Even though it is a natural protective mechanism, if you were healthy, your intestine wouldn't need to protect itself with mucoid plaque in the first place, comments Dr. Anderson.\n\nMucoid plaque does not routinely get excreted. Rather, it collects in the folds and crevices of the large intestine, and can remain there in storage for years, even for a lifetime. \"Over time, the mucoid plaque grows thicker, firmer, and more widespread\u2014colonizing, as it were, the tennis court-sized interior of the small intestine,\" says Dr. Anderson. Newly created feces adhere to it and the plaque grows, slowing down peristalsis and harboring intestinal pathogens; it thereby adds to bowel toxicity, emitting toxins continuously into the bloodstream and creating a favorable atmosphere for disease.\n\nThe plaque accumulation weakens overall intestinal function, interferes with nerve meridians, acts as a barrier to nutrient absorption, and may cause protein and carbohydrate intolerance (food allergies). Further, Dr. Anderson explains that prescription antibiotics and an unhealthy or unbalanced diet, comprising sugar, soft drinks, wheat products (allergenic for many people), rancid or spoiled foods, salt, and animal products containing hormones and antibiotics, can help negatively alter and transform the mucoid plaque into a toxic substance and the seedbed for \"various disease states.\" \"The hundreds of testimonies I have received clearly indicate that mucoid plaque contributes towards a high percentage of pathological problems, as well as premature death,\" says Dr. Anderson.\n\nAt the other end of the spectrum, completion of Dr. Anderson's four-week self-care cleansing program yields impressive results, an undoing of numerous latent and full-blown pathological problems. A woman, age fifty-five, had suffered from a skin rash for thirty-five years. No medical treatment had been able to reverse this condition. After the four-week program, ninety-five percent of her rash had disappeared. Another woman, age forty-two, had chronic bronchitis and could not exercise or climb stairs without wheezing. All these problems cleared up after the cleanse. Yet another woman, forty-seven, had suffered with hip pain for seven years and needed a cane for walking. X-rays showed that her hip nerves were pinched and the cartilage of the femur (the tip of the thigh bone that connects to the hip bone) was actually worn off. On the second day of the four-week program, fifty percent of her pain disappeared; on the third day, she could stretch and exercise gently; and over the next several months, her pain continued to diminish.\n\nOther benefits reported by users, says Dr. Anderson, include emotional release and cessation of problems such as menstrual pain, migraines, joint pain, skin problems, colds, sinus congestion, fibrocystic breasts, overweight, and poor concentration. Dr. Anderson explains that often old, unprocessed, negative emotions, states of consciousness, and thinking patterns are held in the body-mind system in association with old fecal matter. As you purge the intestines, you inadvertently purge the emotions. \"I estimate that about 70% of those doing the intensive colon cleanse will experience long-forgotten memories and buried emotions,\" says Dr. Anderson.\n\nIn fact, often emotions surface \"with all their original charge\" and this is followed by a discharge of a section of mucoid plaque, he says. It's as if somehow the old fecal matter held\u2014bound up\u2014the old emotions in place. Dr. Anderson further proposes that, at an energy level, a negative state of consciousness born of these held emotions and thoughts is often at the root of the particular physical problem we have. (See Chapter 8 for more on emotional detoxification.)\n\nThe Arise & Shine Cleanse Thyself program consists of a series of herbal preparations and natural substances taken in specific order over a period of four weeks. The program provides herbal laxatives (including cascara sagrada), herbal nutrition, bentonite, psyllium, probiotics (\"friendly\" bacteria, discussed below), electrolytes, and antioxidants. As you take the various preparations, you alter your diet, and during the intense phase, you severely restrict it to enable the natural substances to produce the maximum benefit.\n\nEach successive stage of the program calls for stricter dietary controls, offers a higher degree of nutrient supplements, and produces a deeper level of cleansing. Usually, it takes three to four weeks to complete the Pre-Cleanse phase of the program. This is followed by the Cleanse phase, which lasts one week. Typically, the mucoid lining comes out in the Cleanse phase, although some may start being eliminated a little sooner.\n\nBecause the last week of the program can be intense\u2014involving the frequent intake of program substances, mostly in the form of \"shakes,\" and no food intake\u2014it might be prudent to schedule this as a vacation period unless you work at home where it is easier to handle the requirements of the Cleanse.\n\nThe mucoid plaque removal program is best undertaken after you have tried some of the gentler intestinal cleansing steps outlined in Healthy Living Space Detoxifier #21. This is especially true if this is the first time you have ever done anything to detoxify your intestines. The steps in #21 will _ease_ you into the practice and experience of detoxification. Although the mucoid plaque removal phase, as presented by Arise & Shine, is a complete program requiring no previous experience or preparation, it can be intense, which is why I recommend some preparatory detoxification before trying it. After completing some of the steps in #21, wait a month or two, then start the mucoid plaque removal program.\n\n  **_The Healthy Living Space_ Info Tip**\n\nFor Arise & Shine Cleanse Thyself: Arise & Shine Herbal Products,\n\nP.O. Box 1439,\n\nMt. Shasta, CA 96067;\n\ntel: 800-688-2444;\n\nfax (orders): 530-926-8866 or\n\n(main office) 530-926-0891;\n\nuser support: 530-926-8867;\n\nwebsite: www.ariseandshine.com.\n\n## _HEALTHY LIVING SPACE DETOXIFIER #23: Purge the Parasites from Your Intestines_\n\nMucoid plaque is not the only unsuspected and undesirable resident in the twenty-six feet of your intestines. Increasingly, Westerners have been beset by a variety of unwholesome intestinal parasites. Parasites are microorganisms that do not belong in the human intestines, but once there, disrupt the delicate balance of microflora, deplete the body nutritionally, and help to generate numerous symptoms and illnesses.\n\nIt was once thought that a Westerner needed to travel in exotic lands and be subjected to unsanitary conditions, notably food and water, before parasites became a worry. This is no longer the case. In 1993, for example, hundreds of thousands of residents of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, were parasitized by an outbreak of _Cryptosporidium parvum_ through their muncipal tap water. The parasite produced diarrhea in many of those who drank the water. Also, it used to be the case that when someone mentioned the word \"parasite,\" people would think of a tapeworm. This is a gross example of the problem, but it is now no longer the sole or even typical expression of intestinal parasitosis, as parasitic infection is clinically known.\n\nParasitic infestation does not have to be biologically dramatic, producing terrible symptoms and scores of deaths. In most cases, once inside the body, parasites act as silent invaders and relentless sickeners. Because conventional Western physicians still discount the growing prevalence of intestinal parasites in otherwise seemingly healthy individuals who have no record of travel to countries where parasitic infestation is likely, the problem tends to get overlooked. Fortunately, alternative medicine practitioners are starting to become aware of the problem and to develop effective protocols against parasites. To many laypersons, the idea of parasites in the intestines is bizarre, troubling, or unbelievable, but once you understand _how_ they can get in, it begins to make more sense.\n\n**_Parasitic infestation does not have to be biologically dramatic, producing terrible symptoms and scores of deaths. In most cases, once inside the body, parasites act as silent invaders and relentless sickeners._**\n\nThe key idea that makes sense of parasitic infestation in the human intestines is a medical term called intestinal dysbiosis. This term refers to an imbalance in the microflora that populate the intestines. Here the community of living microorganisms\u2014the natural ecology, the _bios_ \u2014is abnormal, disrupted, disturbed, or unfavorable ( _dys)._ Microscopic life in the intestines has become disordered\u2014hence, disordered intestinal life. When a condition of intestinal dysbiosis exists, the healthy ratio between friendly and unfriendly, benign and pathogenic, microorganisms has shifted.\n\nBear in mind that the human body contains an estimated several trillion beneficial bacteria comprising over 400 species; all of these are necessary for health, nutrient assimilation, waste processing, and numerous other essential biological functions. In a healthy person, these friendly microorganisms (such as _Lactobacillus acidophilus_ and _Bifidobacterium bifidum_ ) and unfriendly microorganisms ( _Escherichia coli_ and _Clostridium perfringens_ ) exist in an ecological balance in which the friendly ones predominate.\n\nHowever, a number of factors arising from the typical Western lifestyle are shifting the balance the other way. Among these are overly acidic body conditions, chronic constipation or diarrhea, insufficient stomach acid, diminished output of pancreatic digestive enzymes, dietary\/nutrient imbalances, the excessive use of antibiotics or consumption of animal products containing antibiotics and hormones, poor digestive function, and suboptimal immune function. In a sense, it is a two-way situatipn biologically: intestinal dysbiosis creates conditions favorable for parasites, and parasitic infestation (such as from contaminated tap water) can create intestinal dysbiosis.\n\nIn dysbiosis, the unfriendly or pathogenic bacteria dominate the intestine's beneficial microflora population. In the United States, the most common parasites, apart from head lice, are microscopic protozoans. These include _Giardia lambia_ , a virulent form found in the contaminated waters of lakes, streams, and oceans, and a common cause of traveler's diarrhea; _Entamoeba histolytica_ , which can cause dysentery and injure the liver and lungs; _Blastocystis hominus_ , which is increasingly linked to acute and chronic illnesses; _Dientamoeba fragilis_ , associated with diarrhea, abdominal pain, anal itching, and loose stools; and _Cryptosporidia_ , which is particularly dangerous to those with compromised immune function.\n\nArthropod parasites include mites, fleas, and ticks. These in turn can carry smaller parasites that are also infectious to humans including, for example, the microorganism responsible for Lyme disease. Larger parasites, often referred to as \"worms,\" include pinworms, tapeworms, roundworms, hookworms, filaria (thread-like worms that inhabit the blood and tissue), and flukes (which invade the liver). It is estimated that more than 300 kinds of parasites can live in the human body, where often they reside as what microbiologists call the \"great masqueraders.\"\n\nParasites live off the life and nutrients of another living organism, usually to the host's detriment. Certain types can cause malabsorption of certain nutrients, such as iron, and vitamins A, B12, and beta-carotene. They begin a fermentation process, producing toxic byproducts, such as ammonia, amines, nitrosamines, phenols, cresols, indole, and skatole, which interfere with the normal elimination cycle. While they tend to stay in the intestines, parasites can also migrate elsewhere in the body\u2014the blood, lymph, heart, liver, gallbladder, pancreas, spleen, eyes, and brain. They begin to eat us from the inside out, robbing our systems of nutrients and energy.\n\nThey generate numerous symptoms that are usually, and mistakenly, associated with other illnesses and never with a parasitic infestation. For example, if you have parasites, you may have headaches, back pain, energy loss, spaciness, vomiting, weight loss, colitis, gas, uncontrolled appetite, acne, bloating, diarrhea, constipation, irritable bowel syndrome, aches in the muscles and joints, anemia, allergies, depression, yeast infestations _(Candida albicans_ ), skin problems, sleep disturbances, chronic fatigue, and a weakening of the immune system response.\n\nDysbiosis is also considered a primary cause or major cofactor in the development of many health problems, such as PMS, rheumatoid arthritis, and cancer. You could easily be set to wandering through a labyrinth of unsuccessful treatments for each of the symptoms because the attending physicians never suspect\u2014and therefore never treat\u2014a parasite infestation. On the other hand, those practitioners aware of the principles and practices of natural medicine often report impressive clinical results when they accord the possibility of parasitic infestation some reality. \"Over the years, I have seen a multitude of patients with symptoms of chronic fatigue, hypoglycemia, food allergy, spastic colon, and respiratory disorders get well when parasites were eradicated from their systems,\" states nutritionist Ann Louise Gittleman.\n\nHow can you tell if you have parasites somewhere in your body and if they are slowly but steadily compromising your health? If you suspect contamination, a Comprehensive Digestive Stool Analysis and parasitology profile (explained in Chapter 3) can be very helpful in confirming (or refuting) intestinal parasitosis and in identifying the species. However, sometimes a consideration of one's symptoms helps to clarify the situation.\n\nIn the course of presenting six case studies involving parasites, naturopathic physicians Silena Heron, N.D., and Eric Yamell, N.D., both based in Sedona, Arizona, highlight some of the key presenting symptoms reported by their patients. One woman said she had a heavy feeling at the top of her stomach (where the esophagus empties into it), occasional aching there, and fatigue; a man had sporadic lightheadedness, vertigo, and hemorrhoidal irritation and pain that was worse for poor food choices; a woman had chronic constipation; a man had low energy, nausea, bloating, pain in his stomach and upper abdomen, and night sweats; a woman had lethargy, heat and light sensitivity, diarrhea, and occasional nausea; and a man had allergic rhinitis that was worse during certain seasons, flatulence, bloating, and abdominal pain. Only two of these individuals had been to an \"exotic\" land (India) where parasite infestation might have been expected.\n\nAmong the parasites identified in the preceding case histories were _Cryptosporidium_ species, _Giardia lamblia, B. hominis, D. fragilis_ , and _E. nana._ Also of interest was the discovery that in several of the patients there were low levels of secretory IgA. This is an immunoglobulin, one of the immune system's five such defensive and protective substances. \"In our experience, decreased gut IgA levels are common in patients who are infected with _Cryptosporidium_ and may allow the organism to survive in such patients\u2014this can happen despite normal systemic immune function,\" state Drs. Heron and Yarnell. They further state that low levels of this substance, which is supposed to protect the body against parasites, \"have been shown to predispose people to contacting giardial _[Giardia lamblia]_ infection.\"\n\nHow common is the problem of parasite infection? Shockingly common, according to medical research. One New York physician found that out of 197 consecutively seen patients who complained of gastrointestinal symptoms, 95 of them (almost fifty percent) had giardiasis (an infestation of the parasite _Giardia lamblia_ ), and ninety-eight percent of these reported improvement of their complaints after completing a parasite elimination program. This same physician discovered giardiasis in 61 of 218 patients who sought treatment for chronic fatigue; 42 of these patients experienced partial to complete recovery from their symptoms when treated for parasites. Further, parasites were detected in 20% of 200,000 stool samples analyzed; most notable among the invaders were _Giardia lamblia_ (in 7.2% of samples), _Entamoeba coli_ and _Endolimax nana_ (each 4.2%), _Blastocystis hominis_ (2.6%), hookworm (1.5%), _Trichuris trichura_ (1.2%), _Entamoeba histolytica_ (0.9%), _Ascaris lumbricoides_ (0.8%), and lesser amounts of other parasites.\n\nAdditional evidence supports the conclusion that parasite infestation is a problem that affects all age groups and is both prevalent in but not limited to people living in Third World or developing countries. For example, stool samples were analyzed from 112 physically handicapped residents at a medical institution in Korea. In forty-two percent of the samples, evidence of at least two different parasites was found; three cases of _Trichuris trichiura_ and one case of _Enterobius vermicularis_ infection were found. Further, researchers found that 25% of the adults tested had an infection with _Entameoba coli_ , 21% with _Endolimax nana_ , 1.8% with either _E. histolytica_ or _Iodameoba butschlii_ , and 0.9% with _Giardia lamblia._ It's important to note that these men and women were institutionalized due to their physical handicap, not because of a reported or inexplicable gastrointestinal complaint; the discovery of the various parasites resident in their colons was a surprise to the doctors.\n\nHow parasitized is the Third World? Korean researchers analyzed stool samples from sixty-four children and adolescents in Legaspi City in the Philippines. The overall parasitic infection rate among these children was seventy-eight percent; for those of this group living in rural areas it was ninety-two percent and for those living in cities, fifty-six percent. The most prevalent protozoan cysts were _Trichuris trichiura_ (51%), _Ascaris lumbricoides_ (40%), hookworm (23%), _Iodamoeba butschlii_ (15%), _Endolimax nana_ (14%), _Entamoeba coli_ (9.4%), and _Giardia lamblia_ (7.8%). Among the children, more than half (thirty-three) had multiple parasitic infections, and fifteen children had evidence of three or more parasites.\n\nResearchers at Yarmouk University in Irbid, Jordan, analyzed stool samples from 265 children under age five suffering from acute diarrhea. They found parasites in sixty-six percent of the children, one of which was common to fifty percent of the cases; fifteen percent of the children had multiple pathogens. Most notable among the pathogens (bacteria, viruses, and parasites) found were rotavirus (in 32% of cases), three types of _Escherichia coli_ (5.7% to 12.8%), _Shigella spp._ and _Entamoeba histolytica_ (4.9%), and Salmonella (4.5%). In three provinces of Morocco, stool samples were studied from 1682 individuals representative of the urban and rural population. About sixty-six percent of samples from those living in rural areas and fifty percent of those from urban areas had parasites. Further examples such as these can be found by the dozens.\n\nNaturopathic physician Joseph Pizzomo, N.D., emphasizes that often parasitic infestations can be asymptomatic\u2014you will not necessarily notice any overt or obvious symptoms of their presence. Such an infestation is most easily confirmed by seeing an actual worm of some kind on the stool or when \"chronic inexplicable symptoms\" develop after visiting a Third World country or being in close contact with someone who has, he says.\n\nDr. Pizzorno cites the case of a man who every month for ten years had a two- to three-day bout of an unexplained fever combined with a worsening of his existing symptoms of chronic fatigue and intestinal upset. He had spent over $10,000, fruitlessly, in consulting various specialists for an effective diagnosis and treatment. It turned out he had two kinds of parasites, and the periodicity of his symptoms was due to the reproductive cycle of these parasites, explains Dr. Pizzorno. When they reproduced\u2014once every month during a two- to three-day period, the patient's symptoms were at their worst, exacerbated by the parasitic activities.\n\nIn a related way, a person infested with parasites may seem to be asymptomatic only because the parasites are producing symptoms in an unexpected and therefore unexamined area, namely, personality changes. Researchers at Charles University in Prague in the Czech Republic found that among 230 women who had been diagnosed with acute toxoplasmosis (from the parasite _Toxoplasma gondii_ ) during the preceding 14 years, noticeable and quantifiable personality changes could be documented according to standard personality profile tests. In a related review of fifty-five younger women with latent toxoplasmosis, the scientists correlated various psychological factors with the length of the infection. \"We suggest that the parasite induced the changes in personality profiles of the women because of our observation of an increasingly different personality profile over time between women with latent infection and controls.\"\n\n### _Berberine_\n\nDr. Pizzorno stresses that generally parasites should not be self-treated and their removal requires expert medical care; however, in mild cases or as a preventative, he recommends goldenseal (1,500 mg, three times daily), whose constituent, berberine, can stop the growth of several types of common parasites. There are a few other berberine-containing plants that are helpful against parasites: barberry, Oregon grape, and goldthread. When using these herbs, the dosage should be based on the berberine content at the recommended level of 25-50 mg, three times daily for adults, and for children, 5-10 mg of berberine per kilogram of body weight.\n\nBerberine has been shown to be effective in treating seven different types of parasites in children. In one study, 65 children (younger than 5) were given berberine tannate (25 mg every six hours) for relief of acute diarrhea caused by five different parasites; they responded better than children given conventional antibiotics. In another study with 40 children (ages one to 10) infested with _Giardia_ , the children received either berberine (5 mg per kilogram of body weight each day), the standard drug metronidazole (called Flagyl commercially, at the rate of 10 mg per kilogram of body weight each day), or a placebo of vitamin B.\n\nSix days later, forty-eight percent of the children who took berberine were free of parasitic symptoms, and sixty-eight percent of these were free of all signs of _Giardia_ , based on their stool samples. Thirty-three percent of the children who took the standard drug were free of symptoms, and the stools of all were free of _Giardia._ Berberine was more effective in relieving symptoms at half the dose of metronidazole, but was less effective than it in removing the parasites from the body, the scientists concluded. In a third study involving 200 adults with acute diarrhea, those who had berberine with antibiotics recovered more quickly than those who had the antibiotic treatment alone.\n\n### _Parasite Purge Formula_\n\nBased on their extensive review of the scientific data supporting the herbal constituents involved, Drs. Heron and Yarnell recommend this liquid herbal blend for treatment of parasites. (While their protocol can be done on one's own, it is prudent to do it under the supervision of a qualified health-care practitioner.) Drs. Heron and Yamell suggest mixing two parts each of worm-seed (Epazote), Jamaican guassia, and Sweet Annie with one and one-half parts of gentian; one part each of garlic, black walnut, Oregon grape, ginger, male fern, tansy, and wormwood; and one-half parts each of greater celandine, anise, and Turkey rhubarb.\n\nThey recommend taking one teaspoonful of the mixture three times daily until the problem has cleared up. In addition, they advise taking grapefruit seed extract (ten drops three times daily, mixed in water); the commercially prepared antiparasite herbal tannate formulas Tanalbit (six capsules, three times daily) or Viracin (two capsules, three times daily), and garlic (four fresh cloves, two to three times daily, or extract at the rate of 5,000 mcg of allicin per capsule and eight capsules, two to three times daily).\n\nThe active ingredients of Tanalbit are plant tannins, astringent natural substances that attach themselves to the cells of fungi, yeasts, and bacteria and prevent them from metabolizing and colonizing, and ultimately cause them to die. Viracin is similar but a different strength, and contains extracts of Norwegian maple fruit, Babul bark, and wild rhubarb. Grapefruit Seed Extract (commercially available as Citricidal and made from the bioflavonoids [vitamin C helpers] found in grapefruit seed and pulp) is regarded to be effective against a broad spectrum of pathogenic microorganisms. It is also regaled as a general purpose disinfectant, dental rinse, and skin cleanser.\n\nOver the course of two to four weeks, slowly build the daily dose of these substances to the amount above, Drs. Heron and Yarnell recommend. Then continue with these doses (regarded as the maximum) for about two months, they say. The substances should not be taken with food, and if diarrhea develops or the Herxheimer reaction sets in (due to parasitic die-off inside the body), take one level teaspoon of bentonite once daily. Drs. Heron and Yarnell also suggest that during and after the program you should take some form of probiotics, or \"friendly\" bacteria, such as _Lactobacillus acidophilus_ , discussed below, as a way of replenishing beneficial bacteria in the intestines.\n\n### _Bitter Melon_\n\nThis is a bitter-tasting cucumber-like green vegetable _(Momordica charantia_ ) common to Asian cooking and Ayurvedic and Chinese medicine that can be used as a gentle food-based vermifuge, or agent against intestinal parasites. The fruit is best described as an oblong warty-looking gourd, although it tastes better than it looks. Traditionally, the food is used as, among many other things, a treatment for worms and parasites; in Western herbal medicine, bitter melon is increasingly used in the treatment of diabetes, hypoglycemia, colds, flus, HIV and other viruses, and psoriasis.\n\nScientific research is beginning to substantiate the folk claims for the antihelmintic (worm-killing) actions of this fruit. An herbal preparation made from bitter melon was more effective in treating infestations of _Ascaridia galli_ worms in birds than the conventional drug. Bitter melon is also effective against infectious diseases transmitted by microorganisms. Bolivian researchers reported that extracts of bitter melon were \"moderately active\" against an antibiotic-resistant strain of malaria. Puerto Rican scientists found that out of fifty plants tested for activity against tuberculosis-producing microorganisms _(Mycobacterium smegmatis_ ), bitter melon was one of six that possessed \"inhibitory capacity.\"\n\nBitter melon has also been shown to improve factors necessary for liver detoxification, namely, significantly increasing the levels of glutathione and acid-soluble sulfhydryl, two substances crucial to the liver's two-phase detoxification pathways (see Chapter 2). Finally, Italian researchers have determined that bitter melon, in addition to other herbs used in Ayurveda, contains \"antioxidant principles that can explain and justify their use in traditional medicine in the past as well as the present.\" This would suggest bitter melon is effective against free radicals, such as the metabolites or toxic byproducts of parasites or the intestines' action against them.\n\n  **_The Healthy Living Space_ Info Tip**\n\nFor Tanalbit and Viracin, contact:\n\nScientific Consulting Service,\n\n1972 Republic,\n\nSan Leandro, CA 94577;\n\ntel: 800-333-7414 or 510-632-2370;\n\nfax: 510-632-8561;\n\ne-mail: intensivenutrition@pacbell.net;\n\nwebsite: www.intensivenutrition.com.\n\nFor Citricidal:\n\nNutriteam,\n\nP.O. Box 71,\n\nRipton, VT 05766;\n\ntel: 800-785-9791 or 802-388-0661;\n\nfax: 815-377-2198;\n\ne-mail: support@gfex.com;\n\nwebsite: www.nutriteam.com.\n\nOne general antiparasite recommendation is to eat two bitter melons (cooked) daily for about ten days. Bitter melon is available in Asian food stores and in dry form as an herbal capsule.\n\n### _Pumpkin Seeds_\n\nAnother vermifuge folk remedy that is gaining scientific acceptance is the ingestion of pumpkin seeds, derived from autumn and crook-neck squash and the Canada pumpkin. This treatment is believed to rid the body of intestinal parasites, especially roundworms and tapeworms. A typical regimen is three doses of 20-150 grams of seeds; other research shows that chewing twelve pumpkin seeds (sometimes in combination with Rangoon creeper fruit seeds, _Quisqualis indicae_ ) in the morning on an empty stomach for two weeks can help the intestines purge themselves of parasites. The treatment is believed to paralyze the parasites, causing them to loosen their grasp within the intestines and enabling their elimination from the body. An amino acid called cucurbitin, found in pumpkin seeds, is believed responsible for the worm-expelling effects.\n\n## _HEALTHY LIVING SPACE DETOXIFIER #24: Get Proactive with Probiotics_ \u2014 _Plant Food for the Intestines_\n\nProbiotics is a term used earlier in this chapter to denote the friendly, beneficial bacteria, or microflora, that inhabit\u2014or ought to inhabit\u2014your intestines. They are _pro_ biotics in that they support and enhance the natural life functions performed by the intestines on behalf of the life of the body.\n\nAmong the two most prominent (and researched) probiotics are _Lactobacillus acidophilus_ and _Bifidobacterium bifidum._ Others include _B. longum_ , a primary resident of the large intestine, where it protects this organ from invading yeasts and bacteria, detoxifies the bile, and helps make B vitamins; _B. infantis_ , the most prevalent probiotic in the intestines of infants; and _Streptococcus thermophilus_ and _L. bulgaricus_ , which are commonly found in yogurt and, although only transiently present in the intestines, produce lactic acid\u2014encouraging the growth of other probiotics\u2014and bacteriocins, natural antibiotic-like substances that kill pathogens. Other probiotics include _L. casei, L. plantarum, L. sporogenes, L. brevis_ , and _Saccharomyces boulardii._\n\nOverly acidic bodily conditions, chronic constipation or diarrhea, dietary imbalances, consumption of highly processed foods, and the excessive use of antibiotics and hormonal drugs can interfere with probiotic function and even reduce the number of these microbes, setting up conditions for illness. One of the factors contributing to slow transit time is a deficiency of friendly bacteria which otherwise stimulate peristalsis.\n\nAt the same time, if you do a deliberate intestinal cleansing program, you must replenish your intestines' supply of friendly bacteria. Some inadvertently get flushed out of the system; others get used up in the struggle to restore proper intestinal microfloral balance; and some you may have been deficient in for a long time due to untreated toxicity.\n\nRecolonizing your intestines with a new population of probiotics is a bit like giving your lawn plant food to make the grass grow better. Introducing probiotics into the intestines enables them to perform their functions better, to counteract long-term antibiotic damage, and retune their immune activities. Think of recolonizing the intestines as a preventive measure against possible future illness. The body of scientific evidence supporting the benefits of _L. acidophilus_ is large and irrefutable, as this brief overview will show.\n\n**_If you do a deliberate intestinal cleansing program, you must replenish your intestines' supply of friendly bacteria. Some inadvertently get flushed out of the system; others get used up in the struggle to restore proper intestinal microfloral balance; and some you may have been deficient in for a long time due to untreated tonicity._**\n\n_L. acidophilus_ is effective in inhibiting the growth of _Helicobacter pylori_ , a pathogen believed to be the cause of acid-peptic disease of the stomach. In fact, it stopped the growth of seven different strains of _C. pylori_ recovered from human gastrointestinal tracts. Several strains of acidophilus had a \"bacteriostatic\" (bacteria-killing or suppressing) effect against the spoilage pathogen _Listeria monocytogenes_ in dairy milk.\n\nRelated to this benefit is the proven ability of _L. acidophilus_ to act as a powerful antioxidant. It can inhibit the peroxidation of linoleic acid (the process by which this essential fatty acid is made into a damaging free radical) by twenty-eight percent to forty-eight percent; it can scavenge between twenty-one percent and fifty-two percent of three dangerous free radicals present in cells; and it has a \"high inhibitory effect\" against a particular cell-killing chemical, reducing its activities by fifty percent. Even better, _Bifidobacterium longum_ demonstrated all these abilities, but was able to curtail ninety percent of the activity of the cell-killing chemical.\n\n_L. acidophilus_ can also inhibit the growth of coliform bacteria (such as _Escherichia coli_ , the food-borne pathogen) and reduce their existing populations, which makes it highly serviceable clinically for people suffering from gastrointestinal distress caused by coliforms. A review of forty-nine studies on probiotics showed consistently that _L. acidophilus_ intake can shorten the duration of diarrhea produced by rotavirus infection by one day. _Lactobacillus_ also exerts a protective effect against induced colon tumors (in rats), reducing the incidence by ten percent to twenty-five percent (depending on the strain of _Lactobacillus_ ), and reducing the tumor mass (or general size of the cancer that emerged).\n\nGiving infants pure cultures of _L. acidophilus_ prevents \"dysbacteriosis\" (intestinal dysbiosis, or the state of being overrun by pathogenic bacteria, notably _Staphylococcus aureus_ ), thereby reducing the incidence of disease in very young children (in their first year) and improving the overall health and immune vitality of the gastrointestinal tract; acidophilus supplementation may contribute to resistance to potential food allergens in later life. In a trial, _L. acidophilus_ given to sixty infants (orally and dabbed in the nose), resulted in sixty percent of the infants leaving the maternity home with \"normally formed intestinal microflora\"; additionally, eighty percent had normally formed nasal microflora and seventy percent normal skin microflora, attesting to the bacteria's ability to reduce opportunistic pathogens in the three areas. Dietary supplementation with three strains of _Lactobacillus_ (in a mice study) also led to an enhancement of several key elements of natural and acquired immunity, such as the activity of white blood cells and the generation of immune cells by the spleen.\n\nIt is also impressive to note that many of the friendly bacteria produce viable natural antibiotics in the colon, all of which have been studied by scientists. For example, _Bifidobacterium bifidum_ produces bifidin; _L. acidophilus_ produces acidolin, acidophilin, lactobacillin, and lactocidin; _L. brevis_ makes lactobrevin; _L. bulgaricus_ produces bulgarican; and _Streptococcus lactis_ makes nisin. Once produced, these natural antibiotics do not so much destroy harmful bacteria, but make it impossible for them to flourish in the colon. Inhibition is better than destruction because the latter would leave toxic debris in the colon, thereby contributing to toxicity. Bulgarican and acidophilin are \"exceedingly active against a wide variety of organisms,\" including pathogens, researchers have reported.\n\nSo the case for taking _L. acidophilus_ and related strains of friendly bacteria is strong, but how best to ingest it? You would think fresh unsugared yogurt would be ideal, but it actually is not because in most instances it primarily contains _L. bulgaricus_ and _S. thermophilus_ , friendly bacteria that only _temporarily_ inhabit the intestines. This means their populations will die off after a short time in the colon. Another problem to overcome is the stomach. You need to get the friendly bacteria alive, active, and intact into your intestines, past the stomach's powerful digestive apparatus. The best way to ensure this is to use enteric-coated _L. acidophilus_ capsules, which means they will not be digested until they reach the intestines.\n\nIt's advisable to take a probiotic supplement during the active detoxification program, as a complement to the liver and intestinal cleansing. But it is better to take it _after_ the intestinal cleansing substances\u2014that is, when you have finished that phase of the detoxification program. The regular intake of friendly bacteria after the program is also a good idea, at least for a month or so, because it offers broad-spectrum protection and disease prevention in the same way as vitamin C.\n\nIn times of illness or medical treatment, taking _L. acidophilus_ can be beneficial, especially if you are taking antibiotics or have recently done so. It can also be beneficial if you use birth control pills or steroids (as these deplete intestinal probiotics); if you have chronic constipation, a yeast infection, or bacterial vaginitis; if you have a gastrointestinal infection or inflammation; or if you are lactose intolerant (cannot digest milk sugar). As a regular dosage, 3 to 7 billion organisms (primarily L. _acidophilus_ and _B. bifidus_ ) daily\u2014most brands of probiotics specify their estimated organism count\u2014is advised.\n\nThere are many brands and formulations of friendly bacteria now on the market, giving consumers many choices. To give you an idea of what is out there, here are two offerings that exhibit interesting features. First, Culturelle, according to its manufacturer, contains 20 billion live and active cells ( _L. acidophilus_ ) per capsule, and it's the same strain as appears in the human intestines, making it the \"ideal probiotic.\" It is capable of surviving stomach and small intestine digestion to arrive in the colon where it implants itself on the cell walls and starts colonizing. Second, Jarro-Dophilus combines six species of friendly bacteria, including four species of _Lactobacillus_ and two of _Bifidobacteria._ According to the manufacturer, each of the species colonizes its \"own separate regional niche\" in the colon, based on appropriate biochemical factors. Each capsule contains an estimated 3.36 billion organisms of the six species specified.\n\n## _HEALTHY LIVING SPACE DETOXIFIER #25: Fertilize Your Bifidobacteria with Prebiotics_\n\nThe idea of prebiotics was developed in Japan in the 1980s around the concept of introducing nutrients that directly feed the friendly bacteria already in place in the intestines, mostly _Bifidobacteria_ and _Lactobacilli._ In effect, prebiotics supply the essential building blocks\u2014the nutrient foreground, if you will\u2014for beneficial intestinal bacteria.\n\nForemost among the prebiotics are natural carbohydrates called fructo-oligosaccharides, or FOS for short. FOS occurs naturally in foods such as garlic, honey, Jerusalem artichokes, soybeans, burdock, chicory root, asparagus, banana, rye, barley, tomato, onions, and triticale, but in minute amounts, too minimal to be of much use therapeutically. In fact, you would have to eat an estimated 429 garlic cloves to derive the same FOS as you get from FOS in supplement form. Made by fermenting sucrose with a fungus called _Aspergillus niger_ , FOS (called neosugar) is now found in over 500 commercial foods in Japan as a beneficial, slightly sweet nutritional additive.\n\nIt's interesting to note that in the infant gastrointestinal tract, _Bifidobacteria_ represent an estimated ninety-five percent to ninety-nine percent of all friendly bacteria, but this amount declines with age. Once introduced into the intestines, FOS, available as a white powder, acts as a kind of fertilizer that selectively feeds and nurtures the friendly bacteria so that their numbers will increase. FOS also helps lower the intestinal pH (the ratio of acidity and alkalinity) to a slightly more acidic condition so that the friendly bacteria will thrive, and the pathogenic bacteria will not.\n\nAccording to information provided by the primary manufacturer, GTC Nutrition Company, FOS has been shown to increase the total count of beneficial bacteria by five to ten times after supplementation for two to four weeks. Other benefits attributed to FOS include relief from diarrhea and constipation, the promotion of bowel regularity, lowering of cholesterol and blood pressure, control of blood sugar levels, enhancement of immune function, improved B-vitamin synthesis and calcium absorption, better digestion of dairy milk proteins, and an easing of the liver's toxic burden.\n\nGTC Nutrition puts forward at least fifteen scientific studies supporting the major claims that FOS (and friendly bacteria in general) assists and protects the immune system, protects the body against the encroachment of pathogenic and putrefactive bacteria such as _E. coli_ and _Clostridium_ that would otherwise produce diarrhea and other intestinal disturbances, and promotes better health. A University of Illinois study showed that fermentable fiber\u2014the study used NutraFlora as a food source\u2014promotes the growth of beneficial intestinal organisms that retard the colonization by the pathogen _Clostridium difficile._ In fact, the scientists could find \"no culturable counts\" of _C. difficile_ after the intestines had been \"modified\" by the introduction of FOS. Another study examined the effect on twelve healthy adults of supplementing the diet for 42 days with 4 g of FOS daily. They found that the FOS altered the fecal microflora in a beneficial way by decreasing the (undesirable) activities of certain enzymes by seventy-five percent to ninety percent, thereby protecting the colon.\n\n  **_The Healthy Living Space_ Info Tip**\n\nFor Culturelle:\n\nVitamin Research Products,\n\n3579 Highway 50 East,\n\nCarson City, NV 89701;\n\ntel: 800-877-2442 or 775-884-1300;\n\nfax: 800-877-3292 or 775-884-1331;\n\nwebsite: www.vrp.com.\n\nFor Jarro-Dophilus:\n\nJarrow Formulas,\n\n1824 S. Robertson Blvd.,\n\nLos Angeles, CA 90035;\n\ntel: 800-726-0886 or 310-204-6936;\n\nfax: 800-890-8955 or 310-204-2520;\n\ne-mail: info@jarrow.com;\n\nwebsite: www.jarrow.com.\n\nFor a source of FOS:\n\nNutraFlora,\n\nGTC Nutrition Company,\n\n1400 W. 122nd Avenue, Suite 110,\n\nWestminster, CO 80234;\n\ntel: 800-522-4682 or 303-254-8012;\n\nfax: 303-254-8201;\n\ne-mail:\n\ngeneralinfo@gtcnutrition.com;\n\nwebsite: www.nutraflora.com.\n\nFOS is not without its critics, however. It is not digestible in the mouth or small intestine, but only in the colon, where it could alter that organ's metabolic function; it can stimulate the growth of a few unfriendly microorganisms, such as _Klebsiella_ ; it is specific to probiotic strain and species, not to all beneficial bacteria; and if you have a yeast infection _(Candida albicans_ ), as a sugar, it will undesirably feed the yeast.\n\n# CHAPTER 6\n\n# Whole-Body Cleansing Routines: Extending the Detoxification into Everyday Activities\n\nCleansing the liver and intestines represents the intensive phase of self-care detoxification. It is something you need do only once or twice yearly. But during the rest of the year, there are gentler but equally beneficial detoxification activities you can pursue to reinforce, and even deepen, the positive effects you obtained from the liver and intestinal cleansing.\n\nThese additional, regular cleansing routines tend to provide detoxification benefits for the entire body. It's not that liver and intestinal cleanses only benefit those organs; of course their effect is body-wide, but their application is organ specific. In the exercises outlined in this chapter, the application itself encompasses the entire body. For example, in this chapter we'll review the whole-body benefits of stimulating the lymphatic system by bouncing on a trampoline, dry skin brushing, getting regular exercise, taking a sauna, or enjoying an herbal detoxification bath. You may easily engage in any or all of these activities throughout the year as part of a continuing detoxification program\u2014as new components of an evolving healthy lifestyle.\n\n## _HEALTHY LIVING SPACE DETOXIFIER #26: Bounce on a Trampoline to Improve Your Lymphatic Drainage_\n\nThe human body has another detoxification system of equal importance to the liver and intestines in effecting removal of toxic substances. It's called the lymphatic system, but it doesn't get the attention it deserves from conventional medicine, and even in some areas of alternative medicine, it is a whole-body cleansing system that is underemphasized.\n\nThe lymphatic system consists of lymph fluid and the structures such as vessels, ducts, and nodes involved in transporting it from tissues to the bloodstream. Lymph fluid occupies the space between the body's cells and contains plasma proteins, foreign particles, and cellular waste. Lymph nodes are clusters of immune tissue that work as filters or \"inspection stations\" for detecting and removing foreign and potentially harmful substances in the lymph fluid (see figure 6-1).\n\nWhile the body has hundreds of lymph nodes (more than 500), they are mostly clustered in the neck, armpits, chest, groin, and abdomen. The lymph nodes contain different types of scavenger cells that destroy toxic substances. The tonsils, for example, are part of the lymphatic system; so are the adenoids, the thymus gland (behind the sternum in the chest), the spleen (at the bottom of the left rib cage), the appendix, and Peyer's patches in the small intestine. The familiar sensation of having \"swollen glands\" in the throat refers to congested lymph nodes in that area of the body. Regrettably, conventional medicine regards the tonsils, adenoids, and appendix as largely expendable (surgically removable without physiological consequence), not understanding that these structures are key players in the body's lymphatic drainage system.\n\n**Figure 6-1. The Lymphatic System**\n\nThe essential function of the lymphatic system (see figure 6-1) is twofold: to provide immune defense, and to maintain the fluid balance in the intracellular environment. For example, if the system didn't collect this interstitial fluid (the fluid between cells which leaks out of capillaries), the body's tissues would swell up dangerously. The lymphatic system is the body's master drain, collecting and filtering the lymph fluid and conveying it to the bloodstream, thereby clearing waste products and cellular debris from the tissues. But it also delivers food nutrients and oxygen to the cells, fulfilling its unique role as a connecting medium between the body's cells and tissues and the arteries, veins, and capillaries of the cardiovascular system.\n\nAs a fluid, lymph consists of water, inorganic mineral salts, and white blood cells (lymphocytes). Among its many cleansing, immunological, and defense activities, the lymph removes excess proteins resulting from a number of sources (such as dead cells and complexes of antigens and antibodies that form in an allergic reaction); collects protein wastes from the fluids in the regions between cells; removes foreign material and environmental toxins from the tissues; and maintains the fluid balance in body's web of connective tissue.\n\n**_As with the intestines_ , _if the lymphatic system does not work optimally, not only does it help create a condition of vulnerability to disease, it impedes your body's ability to heal itself from the disease._**\n\nLymph system activity increases during illness (such as the flu) when the nodes (particularly at the throat) visibly swell with collected waste products. Some doctors have likened the lymphatic system to the \"metabolic garbage can\" of the body. The nodes and fluid collect the body's dead cells, metabolic wastes, pathogenic bacteria, toxins, and other foreign or injurious substances and remove them from circulation. It is a parallel and complementary detoxification track to the liver-intestines.\n\nOn the other hand, the lymphatic system, if it is clogged, dysfunctional, or sluggish, can be a health problem, participating in and slowly contributing to a condition of body-wide toxicity. As with the intestines, if the lymphatic system does not work optimally, not only does it help create a condition of vulnerability to disease, it impedes your body's ability to heal itself from the disease. Inadequate lymph flow, or a generally stagnated lymphatic system, has been correlated with numerous health problems, such as bursitis in the shoulders, joint stiffness, bunions, spasms in the soft tissues, bad breath, body odor, skin that is dry and flaky, lethargy, depression, and cancer. When the lymphatic system is egregiously blocked, you get the disfiguring disability called lymphedema, in which certain lymph nodes and channels get blocked and filled with water and literally balloon out to grotesque proportions.\n\nIn effect, the lymphatic system is the beginning and end of all disease, of aging, and _premature_ aging, and of general toxicity or toxemia. Typically, as people age, they exercise less; one of the results is that lymph circulation slows down. Proteins and debris do not get flushed out by regular exercise and tend to accumulate in the nodes. The lymph, which should be clear, becomes cloudy and thick, changing its consistency from that of milk to yogurt then cottage cheese, and it begins to stagnate.\n\nThickened, stagnant lymph saturated with toxic wastes is an ideal setup for many illnesses, including cancer. \"When the collecting terminals [lymph nodes] become blocked, it's like a bottleneck: lymph starts backing up in the system creating a toxic, oxygen-deprived environment conducive to degeneration.\" The lymphatic system can store stagnant, toxic lymph fluid just as the intestines store old fecal matter; but just because storage is possible does not mean it's physiologically desirable. It's not.\n\nTo fulfill its function as a detoxification system, the lymphatic system needs a little help from the \"user.\" It does not have a pump\u2014like the heart in the circulating system or peristalsis in the intestines\u2014to move the fluid. The fluid does flow on its own, at the average slow rate of 125 ml\/hour, but this is mostly uphill, that is, against gravity. The natural slow movement of lymph is facilitated by breathing and skeletal muscle contractions.\n\nThere are three manual ways to get the lymph moving faster from the tissues into the blood: muscular contraction from movement and exercise; gravitational pressure; and internal massage of the lymph ducts. Lymph fluid movement is dependent on the body as a whole moving; in practical terms, that means when we exercise\u2014run, walk, jump, swim, or move about with some degree of vigor\u2014then the lymphatic system is primed and starts moving. One of the best ways (and one that is well-researched medically) to decongest the lymph nodes and move the lymph is to jump, and one of the easiest ways to jump is on a trampoline.\n\nYou don't need a gymnasium-grade trampoline to move the lymph. Smaller versions called mini-trampolines or rebounders are available and deliver the same results with less danger of injury from falling off. Typically, a rebounder is about three feet in diameter and about six to eight inches off the floor. Rebounding changes the gravitational forces affecting the body\u2014at the height of the bounce you are for a moment free of gravity; when you land, you hit the trampoline with twice the force of gravity\u2014thereby facilitating greater blood flow.\n\nIn fact, researchers have found that this twice-gravity bounce affects every muscle and cell in the body. It delivers gravitational pressure and an internal massage to the valves of the lymph ducts, enhancing their function. Rebounding also provides a gentle massage of the spinal column through its low-impact bouncing. This in turn enhances the amount of waste products flushed out of cells into the lymph and the movement of the lymph itself to its penultimate destination in the intestines and final excretion. Somehow exercise makes the lymph nodes expand and the flow of lymph becomes active; when you are not exercising, or remain physically inactive for a long time, the lymph flow becomes sluggish.\n\nRebounding is quintessentially a lymphatic exercise, and it satisfies all three physical requirements cited above needed to move the lymph. \"The bouncing motion effectively moves and recycles the lymph and the entire blood supply through the circulatory system many times during the course of the rebounding session.\"\n\nMedical research suggests that during vigorous exercise, such as rebounding, lymph flow rate can increase by as much as fourteen times the resting state. Further, if a 150-pound man exercised for one hour on a rebounder, he would burn 410 calories compared to only 355 calories if he spent that hour running approximately five miles. In fact, for similar levels of oxygen intake and heart rate, the \"magnitude of the biomechanical stimulation is greater with jumping on a trampoline than with running,\" researchers concluded in 1980 based on a study of eight exercising males. The key point is that by increasing your lymph flow, you are moving toxins out of your body that much faster.\n\nMedical research shows that rebounding has numerous health benefits, extending beyond the biomechanical stimulation of lymphatic flow. Rebounding benefits the heart and blood circulation, it can slow the effects of aging, revitalize vision, reduce stress, and help children with cystic fibrosis and learning disabilities. One medical authority has cited thirty health benefits. Rebounding increases the capacity for respiration (oxygen intake); reduces arterial pressure during exertion; reduces the time blood pressure remains abnormal after extreme exertion; strengthens the red bone marrow's ability to produce red blood cells; promotes body growth and repair; stimulates metabolism; enhances digestion and the elimination processes; affords deeper relaxation and easier sleep; and produces better mental performance and keener learning abilities.\n\nIf a practice has therapeutic benefits in helping to reduce or reverse a health problem, it is logical to assume it may produce positive gains in people who don't have those problems. In other words, if rebounding helps those with cognitive deficits, it may enhance the brain function of those who are more or less healthy and normal. For example, researchers writing in the medical journal _Rehabilitation_ reported that trampoline therapy \"is a useful part\" in rehabilitating brain-injured children and adolescents (especially with partial brain paralysis, or hemiparesis) and that it improves standing balance and movement coordination.\n\n  **_The Healthy Living Space_ Info Tip**\n\nFor more information about rebounding and information about the ReboundAIR rebounder, contact: American Institute of Reboundology, 1240 East 800 North,\n\nOrem, UT 84097;\n\ntel: 888-464-5867 or 801-377-0570;\n\nfax: 801-377-0655;\n\nwebsite: www.healthbounce.com.\n\nFor Needak Soft-Bounce rebounder:\n\nNeedak Manufacturing,\n\nP.O. Box 776,\n\nO'Neill, NE 68763;\n\ntel: 800-232-5762 or 402-336-4083;\n\nfax: 402-336-4941;\n\ne-mail: needak@inetnebr.com;\n\nwebsite: www.needakmfg.com.\n\nA Norwegian study showed that exercising on a rebounder for almost two hours weekly for two months produced positive improvements for children with cystic fibrosis. In this disease, the ducts in the pancreas, sweat glands, and lungs get clogged with thick mucus and cannot work properly. Two children in this study with the most serious lung congestion were able to significantly increase their oxygen intake as a result of rebounding.\n\nThe recommendation for rebounding is simple: _bounce often._ How long? The American Institute of Reboundology in Orem, Utah, recommends a forty-minute moderate workout at least three times weekly. Rebounders for home use are available in the price range of $200 to $300.\n\n## HEALTHY LIVING SPACE DETOXIFIER #27: Dry Skin Brushing\u2014Tone Up Your Body's Largest Elimination Organ\n\nIt sounds a bit peculiar, but brushing your skin with a dry brush can help move the lymph and aid the body in detoxifying through the skin. Don't overlook the benefits of perspiration, or heavy sweating. Throughout a day the skin can eliminate an estimated pound of wastes and toxic products in the form of perspiration through the skin, the body's largest eliminative organ, sometimes dubbed the third kidney. As discussed in Chapter 2, the skin can also absorb substances from the environment\u2014helpful substances such as vitamin D, and toxic ones such as chlorine.\n\nDry skin brushing appears to work partly through gently massaging many of acupuncture's treatment nodes across the body's surface. These nodes are little areas of heightened vital energy (or _qi)_ along the numerous energy channels, or meridians. These nodes are believed to correspond, by way of subtle energy connections, with various organs and organ systems throughout the body.\n\nSo by applying friction to these points (with a brush against the skin), energy is stimulated to move from the node to the organ in question, be it the liver, intestines, or lymphatic system. In its most elementary sense, dry skin brushing opens the skin's many pores, allowing it to \"breathe,\" but it also increases blood flow. This helps to draw out stored wastes and toxic substances that otherwise result in a buildup of cellulite (fat deposits close to the skin surface, especially prevalent in the legs, thighs, and buttocks).\n\nDry skin brushing also encourages lymph fluid to move through the channels to the central place in the chest where it dumps into the blood circulation system, thereby dumping its collected toxins and waste products. Other benefits include the following: nerve endings are stimulated, thereby rejuvenating the entire nervous system; the skin is better toned so it can more efficiently purge itself of toxins; blood circulation improves, facilitating better toxic substance collection and removal; stress is reduced; tissue metabolism is improved, reducing fatigue; the amount of cellulite (toxic material stored in the body's fat cells) is reduced; dead layers of the skin are removed, opening pores.\n\n_Recommendation_ : Use a soft natural vegetable fiber bristle brush with a wooden handle and _gently_ brush all the surfaces of your body for about five to ten minutes daily, until the skin appears rosy. Some doctors suggest brushing the skin daily for three months then cutting back to twice weekly as a standard ongoing detoxification routine. Make sure your skin is dry, which means, do the exercise before your morning shower, not after. Begin at your feet and brush vigorously in a circular fashion, moving slowly up the front of your body to the lower neck, then proceed down the back side to the feet again. Try to brush _toward_ the sternum throughout the exercise. Brush from the hands up the arms to the shoulders. Wash and sanitize the brush every several weeks, because it will accumulate dead material from the skin. You might do the dry skin brushing immediately before a hot shower or a bath.\n\n### _Scrubbing with Sea Salt_\n\nThis complementary, whole-body cleansing scrub is recommended by detoxification expert Helene Silver. Silver says to put four to five handfuls of 100% sea salt in a plastic container; into another container, pour a quart of very hot water. Stand or sit in an empty bathtub and, using a sponge in one hand, daub parts of your body, such as your arm, your leg, and your abdomen with the hot water. Then use your other hand to apply the dry sea salt to those lightly moistened areas, rubbing it in with circular motions.\n\nThe goal is cover your entire body with the salt (avoid the genitals, as the salt will sting and irritate the urethra). Then take the dry skin brush and gently massage the salt into the skin. Relax for ten minutes with the salt in place until your skin begins to tingle. \"As the salt dries, it is drawing the toxins out of your skin,\" says Silver. Finally, rinse off all the salt under the shower, using first hot then cold water.\n\n### _Epsom Salt and Cider Vinegar Scrub_\n\nThis variation is part dry skin brushing and part detoxification bath, as suggested by iridologist-physician Farida Sharan, M.D. Add one tablespoon of an organic vegetable oil to one cup of dry Epsom salts in a plastic container. Rub the salt-oil mixture all over your skin while you stand in the bathtub. In this instance, the tub should already be filled with hot bath water, to which you've added one cup of apple cider vinegar.\n\nThe salt-oil rubbing helps the skin shed its old dead cells and the toxins they carry, leaving the skin smooth and soft, says Dr. Sharan. As you scrub, the salt will fall off your body into the tub. When you have finished the rub, lie down in the hot water and soak for thirty minutes; apply cold washcloths to your forehead if you get too hot. Complete the detoxification routine with a three-minute cold shower. Dr. Sharan adds that it is useful to drink herbal teas that encourage perspiration, such as yarrow, sage, catnip, pleurisy root, peppermint, or spearmint\u2014ideally about thirty minutes before your bath.\n\n## HEALTHY LIVING SPACE DETOXIFIER #28: Exercise Regularly to Enhance Blood Circulation and Toxin Removal\n\nSeemingly all health authorities are constantly urging us to move, to be physically active, to exercise. Usually the reason given is better heart performance, longevity, prevention of muscular stagnation, even the joy of movement. All of these reasons are medically valid, yet there is an additional benefit to regular exercise. It is one of the easiest but most comprehensive forms of body-wide detoxification you can perform. The means are simple: walk, run, swim, play tennis, climb, ski, paddle, roller blade, ice skate, jump rope, bicycle, row, dance, bounce on a trampoline, stride on a treadmill.\n\nPersonally, I like to walk. Writers tend to sit around a lot, and sometimes, when the ideas and words are flowing well, it is easy to convince yourself not to move at all. So I walk two miles a day perhaps five to six days a week. Nothing too athletic, just a brisk, comfortable pace in which I feel muscles get stretched and the lungs work a little harder. In the summer, I supplement this with swimming in a nearby lake; again, nothing too fancy or professionally athletic here, just some informal laps with whatever swimming stroke I feel like or remember. What is important is not so much the vigor with which you exercise or even the duration (although research suggests that you need a minimum of twenty minutes), but the _regularity_ with which you provide this benefit to your body.\n\nWhen exercising, you breathe more oxygen, expand your lungs, stretch and work your muscles, and get your blood moving and your heart rate elevated, and here is the detoxification key. When you move your body during exercise, it stimulates the blood and lymph circulation to flow better, more vigorously, to catch up on unfinished or postponed business, to finally dump those protein wastes or collect the byproducts of those toxins you ingested last week, or last year, or deliver more life-supporting oxygen to the cells so they can continue detoxifying themselves.\n\n**_When you move your body during exercise, it stimulates the blood and lymph circulation to flow better, more vigorously, to catch up on unfinished or postponed business, to finally dump those protein wastes or collect the byproducts of those toxins you ingested last weefa or last year, or deliver more life-supporting oxygen to the cells so they can continue detoxifying themselves_**.\n\nExercising enhances your body's circulation of vital nutrients and the flushing out and elimination of stored toxins from the cells. It also stimulates the peristaltic rhythm in your intestines, encouraging this organ to move its contents along more quickly, thereby reducing bowel transit time and potential constipation. Further, some pathogenic organisms are anaerobic, which means they don't use oxygen to survive and can't exist in an oxygen-rich environment. Breathing more means oxygenating your cells, which in turn means suffocating the non-oxygen-breathing microorganisms. And don't overlook the obvious here: when you exercise you are likely to perspire, and the sweat itself carries toxins out with it through the skin.\n\nThese considerations are of vital importance during the intensive detoxification phase outlined in Chapter 5, when your cells are dumping, collecting, and eliminating toxins at a rate far beyond normal. Exercise and physical movement will greatly facilitate toxin removal at a time when your body most needs it. Also, the exercise helps clear your head; during detoxification, old emotions and stray, scattered, or simply weird thoughts arise like vapors in your mind, and physical movement, even as simple as walking, helps blow the obnoxious mists out of your head.\n\nThe other obvious benefit to regular exercise is weight reduction or ideal weight maintenance. The exercise stimulates the removal or utilization of excess body fat stored in the fatty tissues. Remember that the body's fat reserves are its primary storage site for toxins, so if you start reducing body fat, you are also dumping toxins. If you are in your forties, you may have noticed that your weight is now much more sensitive to excesses or deficiencies in your diet or to the proportion of time during which you are luxuriously sedentary. In other words, if you are of this age, or older, you can't get away with overeating, indulging, or lounging about the way you used to. You will probably start putting on weight and your metabolic, digestive, and eliminative processes may start slowing down noticeably.\n\nScientific studies have shown that even though strenuous aerobic exercise in a person new to this kind of exertion can produce free radical activity and possible muscle injury as a result of this oxidative damage, the same exercise strengthens your body's ability to withstand free radical activity Exercise fortifies your body's antioxidant defense system; you can gain even more benefits from this natural positive activity by taking vitamins C and E as daily supplements. These are both antioxidants (free radical fighters). Studies show that both these vitamins counteract whatever free radicals are produced during exercise, and that they have other specific benefits for the immune system and its specialized defense cells.\n\nThe good news about the \"exercise paradox,\" as fitness experts call it, is that when your body reaches the plateau of being used to the exercise you are doing, you will be able to exercise even more, or perform more strenuous work, without a corresponding rise in oxidative damage. Once you reach this plateau, you can actually get ahead on the paradox, and generate more antioxidants than free radicals. This is why scientists at the West Los Angeles Veterans Administration Medical Center in Los Angeles, California, concluded, after studying the effects of exercise on twenty patients, that \"physical exercise training can reduce potential chronic health effects associated with daily activities by contributing to an overall reduction in exercise-induced free radical production.\"\n\nIf you are among the \"elderly\"\u2014let's say seventy and older\u2014the relationship between the free radicals generated by exercise and the antioxidant strengthening that exercise also produces is more of a crucial factor, and there is a greater risk that too much exercise can tip the scale towards a predominance of oxidative damage. However, all that this means, in practical terms, is that it is essential to keep your antioxidant nutrient intake at an optimal level, and the easiest way to do this is through vitamin and mineral supplements. With this balance in place, the benefits to the elderly of regular exercise are numerous. It reduces age-related lean body mass loss and the concomitant risk for various chronic diseases such as coronary artery disease, high blood pressure, diabetes (non insulin dependent), anxiety, depression, functional decline, and frailty.\n\nOnce you see what the game is and are aware of its stakes, you will probably be inclined to get moving. \"Motion is life. Stagnation is death,\" comments naturopathic physician Bruce Fife, N.D. \"Without movement we deteriorate and head toward disease and death. Physical activity is the closest thing we have to the fountain of youth.\"\n\n_Recommendation_ : Most health experts advise exercising for twenty to thirty minutes per session, preferably every day. If you sweat a lot or sweat easily when you exercise, be sure to replenish your electrolytes\u2014these are essential minerals that are sweated out of your body\u2014by drinking some form of electrolyte-enriched water immediately after exercising. However, try to avoid the sugar-loaded kinds (such as fructose-sweetened drinks and\/or those containing artificial colors and flavors), because these will bring yet _more_ toxins into your system.\n\n## HEALTHY LIVING SPACE DETOXIFIER #29: Sauna Detox: How Heat Therapy Can Help Your Body Release Toxins\n\nA logical activity to take up after your exercise is basking in a dry heat sauna. First, you tax your muscles and cardiovascular system and work up a healthy sweat, then you relax in a hot, dry space. This sequence is logical from the viewpoint of the detoxification process, too.\n\nSitting in a dry or radiant heat sauna produces hyperthermia, or \"heat stress,\" which is an effective way of getting your cells to release fat-stored toxins; it also induces profuse sweating which, as we understood above, is an excellent, natural way for your body to excrete toxins through the skin. Saunas are no longer exotic, \"something Scandinavians do,\" or even hard to find. Many fitness facilities, public gyms, health clubs, and upscale hotels now offer saunas, and relatively inexpensive home sauna units are available as well (see below).\n\nThe therapeutic function underlying heat stress is temporarily to raise the body's internal temperature to 101-103\u00b0F, in effect, to produce a transient fever. Heat stress is actually a fundamental premise of natural medicine, harking back some two thousand years to Hippocrates, the reputed progenitor of Western medicine, who said, in effect: Give me the power to create a fever and I shall cure any disease.\n\n**_Sitting in a dry or radiant heat sauna produces hyperthermia, or \"heat stress,\" which is an effective way of getting your cells to release fat-stored toxins; it also induces profuse sweating, which is an excellent, natural way for your body to excrete toxins through the skin._**\n\nOnce this internal heat has been generated, the cleansing process can begin. The artificial fever, or hyperthermia, works as an immune system stimulant by accelerating the output of white blood cells. There is some discussion among fitness experts and researchers whether you get the most efficient internal heating through a dry or wet sauna approach. Exponents of the wet or moist heat approach (we'll consider an example called aromaSpa below) say the high ambient humidity keeps the perspiration coming out on your skin from evaporating; further, ambient moisture condenses on the skin and acts as a heat insulator, making your body hotter. In dry heat conditions, your perspiration evaporates and you lose body heat and you may have to spend longer in the sauna until you reach the desired internal temperature.\n\nScandinavian researchers were able to measure the actual changes in various physiological aspects in people taking regular saunas for a week. The researchers studied the changes in heart function and metabolism in ten healthy males who were exposed to the dry heat (80\u00b0C and higher) of a Finnish sauna for one hour twice daily for seven days. They found that after each session in the sauna the body temperature of the men rose by almost one degree and the body weight dropped by almost one kilogram.\n\nWhile one aspect of the blood pressure (systolic, when the heart contracts) did not change, the other (diastolic) decreased noticeably; the pulse rate rose from an average of 75-80 to 106116 beats per minute, indicating increased heart rate, although this change was less noticeable after the third day; and metabolic rate increased by twenty-five percent to thirty-three percent after the first day. The researchers noted that the men tended to have lower levels of certain minerals such as potassium, sodium, and iron after the third day, indicating the need to supplement sauna use with electrolyte intake.\n\nGenerally, sauna use is well tolerated and safe for people of all ages, from infancy to old age, and it does not pose any undue risk for people with heart problems such as a history of heart attacks or high blood pressure. As a rule of thumb, many doctors recommend that if you can walk into the sauna, you can walk out of it, and you will derive a measure of its cardiovascular benefits. \"The normal sauna bath, with moderate cool-off phases, increases the cardiac workload about as much as a brisk walk.\" Even patients who have recovered from acute heart attacks (myocardial infarctions) \"can enjoy the sauna without incurring any harmful cardiovascular effects.\"\n\nAnything that enhances cardiac output facilitates detoxification, but even more specific research establishes the sauna's role in chemical detoxification. Scientists in the Ukraine found good reason for advocating the use of a sauna as a means of detoxifying chemical industry workers. \"[The] sauna increased excretion with sweat of toxic substances (lead, thiuram, captax, sulphenamide C) that penetrated the body during work.\" Researchers at the Institute of Physiology in Moscow, Russia, concluded that the sauna is effective for alleviating psycho-emotional stress due to its relaxation effect; this is produced by the alternation of heating and cooling phases and its regulatory effect on the body's autonomic nervous system.\n\n### _Health Mate_ \u00ae _Sauna_\n\nThis is a prefabricated, portable dry heat sauna made of cedar ready to plug into an electrical socket wherever you situate it in your house. According to the manufacturer, PLH Products of City of Industry, California, this unit uses infrared thermal heat, which is felt by the body to be similar to direct sunlight and its heat. Its source in this case is radiant energy, which works directly on the body's tissues rather than having to heat the air around the body (an approach called convection).\n\nThe air temperature in the unit is thus much lower than in a conventional sauna, typically 110\u00b0-130\u00b0F compared to 180\u00b0-235\u00b0F, and as a radiant heat, it tends to penetrate the body by an inch or more, producing two to three times more perspiration than other types of saunas.\n\nOne of the intriguing benefits put forward for this sauna is that spending thirty minutes in its dry heat envelope is an equivalent cardiovascular workout to running six to nine miles. According to medical research, a moderately conditioned person can sweat off 500 g in the sauna, burning 300 calories. Regular use of the sauna \"may be as effective\" as the cardiovascular conditioning and calorie bum-off expected from running or other forms of vigorous exercise. Here's how it works: the body absorbs heat from the sauna then strives to cool itself by sending blood to the skin (the body's periphery); this action raises cardiovascular activity and speeds up metabolism.\n\nAccording to the manufacturer, you will burn about 300 calories if you run 1.5 to 3 miles, but you will bum 900 calories if you spend thirty minutes in the sauna. The unit costs about $4000 for a two-seater. It is not recommended for people with adrenal suppression, lupus, multiple sclerosis, or hemophiliacs, for people prone to hemorrhage, or for women during pregnancy.\n\n### _Finlandia Sauna_\n\nAccording to folk wisdom, the Finnish use of the sauna, which means \"bathhouse,\" goes back about two thousand years to when the Finns invented it. There is an amusing Finnish bromide extolling the benefits of the sauna: \"If the sauna, vodka, or pine tar can't cure your ills, nothing will.\" In the various sauna models made to order per customer specification by Finlandia Sauna in Portland, Oregon, the inside temperature is typically 180\u00b0F (with a range of 175\u00b0 to 195\u00b0F) and the humidity a low twenty-five percent. The Finlandia has rocks placed around and over the heater so as to filter the heat (the sauna user dribbles water over the stones to produce some steam to induce sweating), and the walls are made of soft wood (cedar, redwood, or hemlock) so as to absorb the humidity produced and to keep the interior atmosphere relatively dry.\n\nAccording to Finlandia, the soft heat and low humidity soothe and relax tired muscles, relieve stress, and promote a generally \"wonderful\" feeling of satisfaction. One way the sauna may do this is by stimulating the brain to release additional levels of its own natural pain-killing biochemicals, such as beta-endorphins and norepinephrine. Further benefits to spending a half-hour in the sauna include increasing the rates of blood circulation, respiration (the inhale-exhale cycle), and pulse rate (indicating the cardiovascular system is working a little harder, in this case, usefully so).\n\n**_As the skin pores open up under the influence of the hot steam, the body accelerates its excretion of cellular zvaste products through the skin. In fact, it has been observed that heavy smokers will excrete tobacco toxins through the skin, often leaving a visible yellow stain on white towels used to pat dry the skin._**\n\n### _Aromatherapy Spa_\n\nThis home unit, called the aromaSpa, is a free-standing, plug-in steam heat therapy unit (alternatively called an Aromatic Steam Capsule by its manufacturer) for one user. The unit weighs about seventy pounds, stands sixty-six inches tall, and has one chair inside. It has transparent walls of polycarbonate, the same window substance used in airplanes. It is portable and costs about $1500. The aromaSpa has a steam generator (which circulates one quart of distilled water during a forty-minute session) and an aromatherapy diffuser designed to infuse the aromas of hundreds of essential plant oils (the basis of aromatherapy) into the misty enclosed air.\n\nThis way you get both the heat therapy benefit and an olfactory one by breathing aromatherapy oils chosen for their focused therapeutic benefits, such as relaxation, invigoration, detoxification, mental clarity, and other purposes.\n\nIndependent scientific studies on the unit have shown that it can increase vascular flow (which enhances oxygen, nutrient, and lymph exchange at the cellular level), increase muscle flexibility, decrease the risk of everyday and athletic injuries, improve blood flow and oxygen delivery to the cells, and heighten immune response by stimulating white blood cell production. Moist heat therapy in the aromaSpa can also relieve the symptoms of allergies, hay fever, and sinusitis, according to the product's manufacturer. Research also suggests that the steam bath or moist heat chamber can remove toxic chemicals such as DDE (a byproduct of the pesticide DDT), PCBs, and dioxin (a pesticide breakdown product) from fat cells.\n\nSitting in the aromaSpa for twenty to forty minutes can reduce lactic acid buildup in the muscles following exercise and thereby prevent post-exercise muscle soreness; it may also be able to reduce cellulite deposits (lumpy fat areas in the skin), especially if you use the following aromatherapy oils during the session: rosemary, sandalwood, juniper, geranium, and\/or lemon essential oils. The manufacturer states that these oils, diffused into the enclosed chamber, can produce detoxifying and water-draining effects in only ten minutes.\n\n  **_The Healthy Living Space_ Info Tip**\n\nFor Health Mate Sauna:\n\nPLH products, 16000 Phoenix Drive,\n\nCity of Industry, CA 91745;\n\ntel: 800-946-6001;\n\nfax: 626-968-0444;\n\nwebsite:\n\nwww.healthmatesauna.com.\n\nFor Finlandia Sauna:\n\nFinlandia Sauna,\n\n14010-B.S.W. 72nd Avenue,\n\nPortland, OR 97224;\n\ntel: 800-354-3342 or 503-684-8289;\n\nfax: 503-684-1120;\n\ne-mail:\n\nfinlandiasauna@worldnet.att.net;\n\nwebsite: www.finlandiasauna.com.\n\nFor aromaSpa:\n\nVariel Health International,\n\n618 Variel Avenue,\n\nChatsworth, CA 91311;\n\ntel: 800-800-7222;\n\nfax: 818-407-0738;\n\ne-mail: info@aromaspa.com;\n\nwebsite: www.aromaspa.com.\n\nAccording to the manufacturer, Variel Health International, the unit can help induce muscle relaxation and detoxification, stimulate the immune system, ease fatigue, revitalize the skin, and generally rejuvenate your system.\n\nAs the skin pores open up under the influence of the hot steam, the body accelerates its excretion of cellular waste products through the skin. In fact, it has been observed that heavy smokers will excrete tobacco toxins through the skin, often leaving a visible yellow stain on white towels used to pat dry the skin. During a forty-minute session (the manufacturer's recommended standard length), the inside temperature of the unit can reach 115\u00b0-120\u00b0F, and temporarily elevate the body temperature from 101\u00b0-103\u00b0F.\n\n_Recommendation_ : Exercise for twenty minutes then spend thirty minutes (or less, if the heat is too intense for you) in a sauna or steam bath. Thoroughly wash yourself in a hot shower afterward to remove toxins that may have come out through the skin. If you can get someone to give you a good rubdown or professional massage following the shower, this is another excellent complement to sauna therapy. If no massage or rubdown is forthcoming, try to rest for twenty minutes after showering, so your body can assimilate the relaxation benefits of the sauna.\n\n## HEALTHY LIVING SPACE DETOXIFIER #30: A Purifying Bath: Whole-Body Detoxifying Soaks in Herbs, Salts, Oils, and Other Natural Substances\n\nOne of the easiest and surely among the most inexpensive ways to detoxify through the skin is through whole-body soaks in special natural substances known for their cleansing effects, such as Epsom salt, seaweed, essential plant oils, apple cider vinegar, and mustard. This section will highlight several whole-body purifying soaks out of the range of possibilities.\n\n### _Seaweed and Eucalyptus_\n\nFor this bath, you need Epsom salts (one cup), baking soda (one cup), powdered kelp (one-half cup; you may have to pulverize it in your blender), eucalyptus essential oil (five to ten drops), and witch hazel (one teaspoon). According to herbalist Laurel Vukovic, eucalyptus oil has an antiseptic effect, and is also a capable respiratory system tonic and stimulant if you suspect a cold or flu coming. Vukovic suggests mixing the eucalyptus oil with the witch hazel and adding it to your bath after the tub is full to prevent it from evaporating under the hot running water. You can add the other ingredients earlier. It's important to stay in the bath at least twenty minutes, and you might try visualizing toxins seeping out of your body as you soak and perspire.\n\n### _Specialized Detoxification Baths_\n\nNoted naturopathic physician and educator Hazel Parcells, N.D., who took her own health advice to live to be 109, recommended using any of four therapeutic bathing formulas, depending on one's suspected toxicity.\n\nFor all four baths, Dr. Parcells recommended not showering or washing off for four hours after the soak; she also suggested doing the soaks just before going to bed at night.\n\nFor exposure to X-rays or environmental radiation: sea salt (one pound) and baking soda (one pound) dissolved in a tub of hot water; drink a mixture of rock salt (one-half teaspoon), baking soda (one-half teaspoon), and warm water while you are having this soak.\n\nFor exposure to heavy metals, carbon monoxide, or pesticides: regular-brand Clorox bleach (one cup) to a tub of very hot water.\n\nFor exposure to low grade radioactive materials in the food or in irradiated foods: baking soda (two pounds) dissolved in a tub of hot water; drink a mixture of baking soda (one-half teaspoon) and warm water while soaking.\n\nDr. Parcells also described a general detoxifier, especially useful for building immunity when you feel you're getting sick, or if you have fatigue, muscle aches and pains, or emotional and mental stress: pure apple cider vinegar (two cups) mixed into the hot water in the bathtub.\n\n### _Bentonite Bath_\n\nIn Chapter 5, we learned about the detoxifying benefits of bentonite clay. Bentonite can also be used as a bath ingredient. Put two to four pounds of bentonite in the water and allow it to sit overnight to mix with the water. Then add another two pounds of bentonite to your bath water and soak in it for one hour, or add four pounds and soak for thirty minutes. The more bentonite you use, the faster the detoxifying effect. Don't use a commercially prepared bentonite because it will be too dilute and you will have to use a great deal (at considerable cost) to get the same effect.\n\n### _Pore-Opening Ginger_\n\nAdd one cup of Epsom salts (or more, as you like, up to four pounds if you're feeling extravagant) and two tablespoons of fresh grated ginger to your bath water. Stay in the tub up to thirty minutes, but no longer. The ginger should make you sweat fairly vigorously after a while, thereby facilitating the release of toxins through the skin. The combination of Epsom salts and ginger helps open skin pores to excrete toxins, and it also helps eliminate pain throughout the body.\n\n### _Mustard Bath_\n\nThis is a traditional detoxifying soak in many parts of the world. Mustard is believed to increase blood circulation, open skin pores, stimulate the sweat glands, and generally draw out impurities and toxins through the skin. Mustard powder (about two large tablespoons per bath) may be supplemented with essential oils of wintergreen, eucalyptus, rosemary, and thyme (three drops each), for their antiseptic, cooling, skin toning, or stimulant effects. Stay in the bath at least twenty minutes.\n\n### _Liquid Needle Soak_\n\nThis bath, based on a commercial product called Liquid Needle\u00ae Rebalancer acts as a kind of liquid acupuncture needle on the body and provides the system with an energy rebalancing, according to its manufacturer, BioPhotanicals. The product is based on a blending of light (photons) and plant energies (botanicals).\n\nBioPhotanicals claims that while you are soaking in a Liquid Needle Body Soak, \"every pore and every acupoint on the skin is stimulated with the highly charged light-activated molecules.\" The pores and some 1,300 acupoints are stimulated simultaneously by \"charged light signals\" in the Liquid Needle mixture to collect and release toxic substances from inside the body. According to BioPhotanicals, reduced energy and energy blockages (addressed by Liquid Needle) are almost always the result of long-term toxic buildup as well as the presence of external or internal scar tissue. The company also states that each of their Body Soaks carries a photonic charge of 170-250 millivolts, which gives them considerable traction in addressing energy blockages or imbalances.\n\n  **_The Healthy Living Space_ Info Tip**\n\nFor Liquid Needle Body Soaks:\n\nDNR (Developmental Natural Resources), 4193 Englewood Drive,\n\nIndianapolis, IN 46226;\n\ntel: 800-886-6222 or 317-543-4886;\n\nfax: 317-543-4880;\n\ne-mail: main@dnrinc.com;\n\nwebsite: www.dnrinc.com.\n\nThe company offers five types of Liquid Needle Body Soaks: Clear (to maintain vital energy balance affected by emotional stress); Gold (for maximum detoxifying effects); Blue (to gain a sense of increased energy and vitality); Amber (for those severely out of balance due to pain, inflammation, and stress); and Foot Soak (for those who can't use a bathtub).\n\n# CHAPTER 7\n\n# The Poisons in Your Mouth: Specialized Dental Detoxification Programs\n\nThe subject of this chapter takes up relatively little space in your body, yet it can make your entire body sick, even seriously so, if left unattended. I am referring to your teeth and gums. In recent years, increasing attention has been accorded the teeth in the field of alternative and natural medicine. Physicians from various disciplines are starting to realize that the condition of a patient's teeth\u2014more specifically, the nature of the dental materials used in dental work and how they interact with the body's physiology\u2014have a great deal to do with many health conditions.\n\nEvidence continues to mount in support of contention that many so-called standard dental procedures and substances\u2014using mercury-based fillings, root canals, placing crowns, extracting teeth improperly\u2014have toxic consequences, affecting the entire body. This chapter identifies the major toxic factors in modern dentistry and indicates effective ways to eliminate this toxicity from your system.\n\nThis is a crucial element of the detoxification picture. You may faithfully and successfully do all the other detoxifying steps described in this book, and not progress very much _if_ your teeth are toxic themselves. It is by no means a sure thing that they are; the teeth of many people are in satisfactory condition and are not a major source of toxicity for the body. Either your immune system is strong enough to handle whatever toxins are released by the materials or conditions in your mouth, or, providentially, not too many are released. It is probably prudent to assume that some dental toxins are being released all the time, but they may or may not be seriously contributing to body-wide toxicity. One possible indication that your teeth are interfering with your body's ability to purge itself of its toxic burden is if you do not feel healthier and less toxic after performing the detoxifying steps in this book.\n\nUnlike most of the other Healthy Living Space Detoxifier recommendations in this book, the action outlined below requires the services of a qualified biological dentist, namely, one who is trained in the natural medicine protocols of what one dentist has termed \"whole-body dentistry.\" This term refers to the many ways in which events and conditions in your mouth can affect any or all systems elsewhere in your body. Your action input is to _choose_ to do something health promoting about the possible (some experts would say probable) dental poisons in your mouth. But how will you know if a dental matter is the cause of a seemingly remote, unconnected medical problem?\n\nOne way is to examine your symptoms and consider whether they seem to be treatment-resistant. In other words, despite wellindicated treatment, either conventional or alternative, your health problem has not improved. The reason might be your teeth. In 1996, a group called the Toxic Element Research Foundation in Colorado Springs, Colorado, interviewed 1,320 dental patients to seek correlations between dental procedures and substances and reported health symptoms. The subjects had received all kinds of standard dental work, such as root canals, dental restorations, dental implants, mercury fillings, orthodonture, and periodonture.\n\nThe researchers found that the people showed symptoms associated with thirty different diseases across a range of physical, mental, and emotional difficulties. For example, seventythree percent reported unexplained irritability; seventy-two percent constant or frequent periods of depression; sixty-seven percent numbness and tingling in their extremities; sixty-four percent frequent urination; sixty-three percent unexplained chronic fatigue; sixty-two percent cold hands and feet even under conditions of external warmth; sixty percent constant bloating; fifty-eight percent memory deficits; fifty-five percent sudden, inexplicable anger; fifty-four percent regular constipation. Other frequently occurring symptoms in this group of 1,320 patients were tremors, twitches, leg cramps, shortness of breath, recurrent heartburn, itching, skin irritations, jitteriness, metallic taste in the mouth, suicidal tendencies, insomnia, chest pains, joint pain, irregular heart beat, headaches after eating, and more.\n\nHealth-care practitioners who are aware of the dental link realize now that in most cases the connections are not obvious, direct, or even validated by conventional Western medicine. After all, how can something happening in your mouth-say a minor gum infection, a broken mercury amalgam filling, a poorly done root canal-have any effect on other systems in the body?\n\n### A Gallery of Possible Toxic Consequences of Modern Dentistry\n\nThe question is certainly a valid one, but to respond that they can have no effect because conventional medicine has no way of accounting for such a physiological causal chain or any mode of interdependent interaction, is not valid. You just need a broader, more comprehensive model of the body and how it works. This is to say, you need a medical model based on energy relationships in the human organism, and you find such a system primarily in acupuncture, or traditional Chinese medicine.\n\nIn this empirical way of viewing the body, based on many centuries of trained clinical observation, various energy channels running down the body connect the teeth to various organs and organ systems, such as the liver and the digestive system, resp ectively. If you have toxins in your mouth clustered around an upp er back molar, this state of toxicity (which is also an energy imbalance) can get translated (or transported, as it were) to somewhere else in your body and start producing a disease or pathology. Cancer is the most extreme example, but it certainly makes the case vividly.\n\nSwiss physician Thomas Rau, M.D., medical director of the Paracelsus Clinic in Lustmuhle, Switzerland, reports that both breast and prostate cancer can be caused by unaddressed dental problems. The relationship is called a dental focus: as it were, the toxicity in the tooth focuses itself on another part of the body. In fact, Dr. Rau is on record stating that in about ninety percent of breast cancer cases he has treated there is a dental factor. The breast lies on the energy channel acupuncturists call the Stomach meridian. So if you have a dental problem, such as a faulty root canal or a jaw infection (called a cavitation) in a tooth on this meridian, the flow of vital energy (called _qi_ by acupuncturists) through this meridian will be blocked and lead to degeneration further down the energy channel.\n\nIn a sense, brushing your teeth faithfully has very little to do with any of this. A German study showed that only five patients out of sixty examined had sterile, germ-free teeth; fifty-five of those examined had various species of aerobic and nonaerobic bacteria present in their mouth. Each of these fifty-five patients had at least one tooth with a dental focus, that is, so infected with bacteria that it was transmitting toxicity energy signals to other parts of the body. In this particular case, the sixty subjects were tested because they were not responding favorably (or at all) to well-indicated treatments. The conclusion was that the dental foci or energetic disturbances were blocking their bodies' receptivity to the therapeutic efforts.\n\nDr. Rau treated a man, age fifty-five, with prostate cancer. Even though the man's prostate organ had been removed, he still had cancer. A dental X-ray revealed that the man had a halfformed tooth impacted in his upper jaw, above the incisor. This extra tooth was affecting the patient's kidney and bladder energy channels and disrupting its energy flow through the groin, including the prostate. This imbalance was involved in the inception of the man's prostate cancer, concluded Dr. Rau, who promptly extracted the half-formed tooth. After the patient received various alternative medical therapies for his cancer, he regained his health and was cancer free.\n\nDr. Rau also treated a woman, forty-five, who had recently had part of her breast removed due to breast cancer, and she was about to begin chemotherapy. Dr. Rau, in examining the woman's teeth, discovered that one of her upper jaw incisors, which had received a root canal fifteen years earlier, was situated with respect to her kidney and bladder energy channels. A neighboring tooth, also on this channel, was poorly developed. Dr. Rau learned that prior to developing breast cancer, the woman had sustained an ovarian cyst (a noncancerous fluid-filled sac that forms in the ovaries) and had had it surgically removed. It was likely, said Dr. Rau, that the dental problem had initially focused itself in the ovaries, creating the cyst, which appeared two years after the root canal was performed. Again, removal of the two offending teeth, in conjunction with other medical treatments, helped reverse her health problems.\n\nNot only can toxic energies be transmitted through the body, but physical toxins can move outwards from the mouth, too. Dental toxins that leach from the mouth and migrate to other parts ofthe body are now associated with numerous health problems, including immune dysfunction, coma, multiple sclerosis, and leukemia. In the United States, one of the pioneering dentists to promote this concept is Hal Huggins, D.D.S., M.S., who is based in Colorado Springs, Colorado.\n\nHere's how a dental problem can precipitate leukemia, a potentially fatal cancer of the blood-forming cells in bone marrow. A healthy young man of eighteen received two mercury amalgam dental fillings. Two days later he developed a high fever of 105\u00b0F, and the next day he was hospitalized with a diagnosis of leukemia, says Dr. Huggins. Within twenty-four hours of having the two mercury fillings removed, all signs of the boy's dis ease disappeared. Since Dr. Huggins caught the problem very early, it was easily reversible because he understood the true causal connection.\n\nThe mercury, which is a lethal poison on its own and regarded by the Environmental Protection Agency as an environmental hazard, somehow leached from the man's fillings in sufficient levels to destabilize his immune system and white blood cell count and precipitate a catastrophic decline into leukemia. It is ironic\u2014and shocking\u2014that a toxic substance the EPA calls a waste disposal hazard, something a dentist cannot throw out, bury in the ground, or dump in a landfill, is okay to put in a person's mouth. It is even more unbelievable that den tists who decline to do this and instead discuss the dangers of mercury with their patients are subject to professional reprisals, harassment, and legal action by medical authorities.\n\nSometimes it is harder to completely undo dental-caused leukemiaifthe problem has been developing for some time, as in this next example. A dentist, age forty-two, came to Dr. Huggins, after having been exposed daily to mercury amalgam materials for many years in the course of his dental practice. One day the man was exposed to yet another dose of mercury: in helping his father, a farmer, clean out a grain silo, he came into contact with a puddle of liquid mercury on the floor of the grain silo where the toxic heavy metal was used to keep the rats out. Within a week, the man was seriously ill and received a leukemia diagnosis.\n\nOne of the first treatment steps he took was to have all his mercury amalgam fillings removed; otherwise they would continue to slowlybut steadily contaminate his system with mercury vapors and emissions. However, he was resistant to discontinuing his dental use of mercury as fillings for his patients. As a result, his recovery from leukemia was not complete, although it was satisfactory and enabled him to resume his life.\n\nThinking about having your teeth cleaned? Of course it's good for your gums and may prevent periodontal disease, but there is also the risk that it can scratch free some mercury from old fillings and allow a toxic dose to migrate through your body, states Dr. Huggins, who saw it happen. A young woman of twenty-nine who was in good health had a routine teeth cleaning by her dentist. The next day she detected a metallic taste in her mouth; her gums, lips, and mouth started tingling, then went numb; and her ears were ringing. Then things got much worse. She started to have seizures, lost her ability to speak, and slid into a state of near coma, oblivious ofher surroundings. Her doctors expected her to die in a few days, and they had no idea what her medical problem was.\n\nAccording to Dr. Huggins, \"As a result of having her teeth cleaned, Sabina now had a higher level of mercury leaching from her twelve mercury-based fillings because the protective corrosion had been cleaned off.\" Her immune system could not handle this extra load of toxic mercury, and collapsed. It was a tough and delicate operation, but Dr. Huggins and his team removed all of the woman's mercury fillings while she was almost comatose. After the first day, she showed signs of alertness and three days later she was able to speak again; after a week or so, she was back on her feet, well again. This is a startling example of acute mercury toxicity and while, one hopes, relatively rare in occurrence, it shows the awesome health-debilitating effect mercury can have when it manages to seep out of a dental filling and migrate through the body.\n\nHere are two more patient studies that make a compelling case for systemic toxicity caused by mercury dental fillings. The first comes from an acupuncturist named David J. Nickel, O.M.D., L.Ac., of Santa Monica, California. A man, age thirty-two, came to him with a list of debilitating symptoms: fatigue, anger, low blood sugar, prematurely greying hair, back problems, ringing in his ears, nervousness, and problems with concentration. At twenty-eight, he had had a nervous breakdown, and at the age of fifteen, he had developed anxiety and severe fatigue immediately following a root canal procedure.\n\nDr. Nickel did a mercury vapor analysis on the patient's mouth. He discovered that the man's teeth were outgassing mercury vapor from six teeth at levels forty-two times higher than the maximum allowable limit set by the Environmental Protection Agency had ruled. Dr. Nickel did a hair analysis on the patient and found high levels of other heavy metals (aluminum and copper; he also got confirmation of the presence of systemic mercury) and a dangerously slow rate of metabolism. Dr. Nickel advised the patient to have the six mercury fillings and the root-canalled tooth removed, and he put him on a nutritional supplement program to address his low metabolism and blood sugar imbalance.\n\nA month after the corrective dentistry, the man reported his energy levels had returned to the high levels he had enjoyed seventeen years earlier. All his other symptoms had gone away as well, and he said he felt himself now in excellent health. There was no clinical doubt, as far as Dr. Nickel was concerned, that the mercury fillings and root-canalled tooth had produced the multiplicity of symptoms.\n\n\"Of the 90% of my patients with amalgam dental fillings, most have a mercury-induced copper toxicity, high calcium levels, and reduced thyroid and adrenal function,\" he states, outlining some of the secondary problems mercury produces, such as the dangerous link with copper, another toxic heavy metal. Dr. Nickel adds that mercury is linked with 258 different medical symptoms, and copper with at least 100. \"Almost all my patients who have had their mercury-based fillings removed show moderate to dramatic improvement in their heath in usually less than one month.\"\n\nHere is another case from an acupuncturist. This time, a male patient, age thirty-seven, had suffered from seven years of unremitting fatigue. He also complained of swelling in his lymph nodes, headaches, light-headedness, irritability, and pain in his chest and muscles. M.M. van Benschoten, O.M.D., a doctor of Oriental medicine practicing in Reseda, California, found traces of viruses and bacteria in the patient's system at sufficient levels to contribute to the chronic fatigue; but he also detected mercury toxicity from dental fillings at such levels as to suggest it was the \"fundamental underlying cause\" of the health problems.\n\nDr. Benschoten explains that in acupuncture theory, a toxic metal such as mercury interferes with the circulation of vital energy, or _qi_ , through the energy channels of the body (meridians). Dr. Benschoten gave the patient a series of Chinese herbs to help deal with the viral, bacterial, and heavy metal toxicity, and he advised the man to have all fourteen of his mercury amalgams removed, which he did three months later. However, the dentist this patient employed for the mercury removal did not perform the procedure correctly, and the patient's body-wide mercury levels actually increased. This of course is the risk of mercury filling removal. If it isn't done right, it can enable dental mercury to be released into the body, increasing the body's total mercury load. In this case, Dr. Benschoten gave the patient a second round of Chinese herbs to round up the free mercury in the body, and after a few months, the man was symptom free.\n\nAnother potent source of hidden dental infection comes from an incompletely performed tooth extraction, often of a wisdom tooth or an abscessed tooth. This type of dental focus is called a cavitation. A cavitation is an area in the jaw where a tooth has been removed, and the resulting bone lesion or tissue wound becomes infected and inflamed. When the bone of the extraction site is unable to heal properly, it cavitates, or forms a mushy depression (cavity) subject to infection and the eventual death of bone tissue. The dead bone can produce nerve pain, usually in the head, face, neck, or shoulders, but can sometimes create problems elsewhere in the body, such as the lower back, legs, or intestines.\n\nChristopher Hussar, D.D.S., D.O., a dentist-osteopath who practices in Reno, Nevada, relates the case of a woman, fifty-five, who had suffered from severe facial pain for fifteen years. Nobody could figure out what was causing it, and she had consulted an estimated fifty doctors prior to seeing Dr. Hussar. Her dental focus was a deep chronic infection inher lower jaw where the infection had wrapped itself around the major nerve trunk in that area of her mouth, explains Dr. Hussar.\n\nThe problem most likely originated years earlier following a faulty wisdom tooth extraction in which the dentist had failed to thoroughly debride (clean out) all the unhealthy tissue and dead bone from the extraction site. This set in motion the chronic infection and in turn the referred pain, that is, _facial_ pain rather than strictly locatable _dental_ pain. As a secondary dental focus, the woman had a localized, but festering, jaw infection around the site of a root-canalled tooth. Dr. Hussar cleaned out the site of infection in her mouth and irrigated the area with disinfectants; following the two-hour procedure, the woman had no post-operative pain and her facial pain did not return.\n\nDr. Hussar notes that the inside of these dental lesions or cavitations can be quite gross. \"Inside these jawbone cavities you may also encounter viruses, bacteria, yeasts, and parasites, all of which contribute to the harmful dental focal disturbance. The mouth is the filthiest place in the body.\" Dr. Hussar has seen direct clinical evidence linking untreated cavitations with irregular heartbeat, orbital pseudo-tumor, or pain around the eyes, headaches, blindness, hearing disorders, arthritic pain, rheumatological problems, \"and all manner of unexplained pain disorders.\" All of these conditions were reversed when the hidden dental infection was treated correctly, says Dr. Hussar.\n\nWith these examples as a conceptual starting point, let's examine in greater detail the potential toxic contribution of mercury amalgam fillings, root canals, and cavitations, and consider grounds for undergoing corrective dentistry to eliminate these sources of toxicity from the body.\n\n## HEALTHY LIVING SPACE DETOXIFIER #31 Make Your Mouth a Mercury-Free Zone by Having Your Mercury Fillings Correctly Replaced\n\nThe matter of mercury amalgam fillings and their effect on the body is a controversial and politically charged one. Most dentists in the United States are still resistant to the concept that mercury fillings might be hazardous to the patient's health. Many dentists claim they are unfamiliar with the argument, or have never seen evidence supporting the claim, or that the evidence is unsubstantial.\n\nHowever, as a health-care consumer, you must see through the ignorance and duplicity of modern dentistry and consider the facts and theories on your own. Other countries have actually banned the use of mercury amalgam fillings, regarding the substance as too toxic for human contact, while the United States remains highly resistant to not only taking this action or openly discussing the evidence, but even to informing dental patients that such evidence exists.\n\nIt certainly doesn't help matters that in many cases state licensing boards come after dentists and basically punish (legally and fmancially) those who break away from conventional attitudes about dental mercury and start informing their patients that mercury is a hazard and ought to be removed from their teeth at the earliest opportunity. Let's establish the basic facts first.\n\nMercury fillings, or amalgams, have been used in dentistry since the 1820s, and today an estimated ninety-two percent of dentists routinely place them in their patients' mouths. Today's amalgam typically contains an alloy of several metals including mercury (fifty percent), silver (thirty-five percent), tin (nine percent), copper (six percent), and a trace of zinc. An estimated 150 million are placed in mouths every year, representing seventy-five tons of amalgam alloy. Dentists say they like mercury fillings because they are durable, easy to manipulate and install, and don't cost much. However, the disadvantages far outweigh the benefits. Mercury is a toxic heavy metal, a noted carcinogen, an immune system damager, and generally a heavy-duty poison best avoided or handled with extreme caution in all other circumstances other than in your mouth.\n\nMercury as a heavy metal is also a potent free radical, capable of destroying cells and ruining cell membrane integrity, and even affecting DNA processes and producing cell death. Further, mercury interferes with the energy producing function of the cells by causing the mitochondria, the cell's energy \"factories,\" to become dysfunctional. Not only does it increase the number of free radicals in the system, but it reduces the body's defense system, the antioxidants.\n\nAs a free radical, mercury can block the body's detoxification pathways by blocking the action of key enzymes. Specifically, it can have \"devastating effects\" on the glutathione content of the body, which in turn facilitates the increased retention by the body of other environmental toxins. Glutathione is one of the liver's key detoxification substances, so if its levels are diminished, so is the liver's detoxification capability.\n\nIt was not until 1988 that the routine use of mercury raised serious enough questions for the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to declare scrap dental amalgam a hazardous waste. Dentists have to dispose of dental mercury with the same care as they would extend for any other highly toxic, lethal hazardous waste. Yet they routinely keep putting it in the mouths of millions of patients. It takes only a modicum of intelligence to ask why if this substance is an EPA-designated hazardous waste it is ever considered safe to store in the human mouth in teeth? Is the mouth a strange new kind of unregulated hazardous waste site?\n\nThe traditional answer has been that once in the amalgam composite fillingthe mercury is fixed fast and will not leach out of the dental filling, and if it did, it would not go anywhere in the body and thereby create a health problem. Medical research is refuting both of these assumptions, showing them to be danger ously incorrect. Mercury does leach and it does migrate through the body.\n\nMercury vapors from the fillings are continuously being out gassed in the mouth, entering the body through the blood or inhaled mouth air. Chewing or grinding your teeth contribute to this steady release of minute amounts of mercury vapor in the form of what chemists call elemental mercury. You don't have to be chewing or grinding your teeth to still be absorbing outgassed mercury vapors; in fact, sometimes just drinking a hot beverage such as coffee can increase the vapor release from the fillings. Scientists estimate that eighty percent of mercury vapor absorption from the teeth happens in the lungs, after which the mercury vapor rapidly enters the bloodstream; once in the body's tissues, it has a preference for lodging in the central nervous system and the kidneys.\n\nPotentially, your dental fillings can outgas mercury twenty four hours a day, every day of your life. How much gets released in a single day? A Norwegian study involving 147 patients (meas uring mercury release in the blood, urine, and exhaled air) found that people with more than 36 restored dental surfaces (36 mercury fillings, even if some were on the same tooth) absorb 10-12 mcg\/l of mercury every day. In 1985, the World Health World Health 17 mcg of mercury every day.\n\nOther studies estimate the daily release to be from 20-150 mcg per filling, although the ultramodern high-copper amalgams can release fifty times more mercury vapor than conventional mercury amalgams. The key point here is that the exact amount of mercury emission is not yet known, though the observed range has been documented, and this alone should concern us-that it is leaking from teeth continuously. A Swiss study showed that the greatest volume of mercury released into the body was during the first 24 hours after the filling was installed, ranging from 17.4 mcg\/l to 34.5 mcg\/l. After the fillings \"annealed\" (hardened and solidilled over time) for two years, the daily mercury emission rate (for eight fillings, as used in the study) was 1.5 meg.\n\nSo while the amounts said to be absorbed vary according to the study, there seems to be agreement that some mercury is definitely absorbed.\n\nA Danish dentist, H. Lichtenberg, D.D.S., undertook his own research to find out how bad the mercury emissions were from teeth. He studied oral mercury vapor emissions from the teeth of 103 patients, whose average age was 47. He noted that each of his patients in this study already had at least fourteen symptoms representative of mercury toxicity; each patient also had an average of twenty-two mercury fillings. The mercury emissions from a single mouth varied from 3 mcg to 329 mcg per cubic meter of air, with an average of 54 mcg, Dr. Lichtenberg reported. He found that people who had twenty-six or more mercury fillings tended to have emissions above fifty, and those who had less than twenty mercury fillings had levels below fifty.\n\nThe number fifty is important here because in Denmark levels above 50 mcg in a workplace are judged unsafe by the government. This means many of Dr. Lichtenberg's patients had oral mercury levels exceeding the legal safe limit for industrial workplaces. Put differently, they had a mercury exposure equivalent to a workplace exposure of 168 hours a week (twenty-four hours a day) _indefinitely_. How do Denmark's mercury exposure standards stack up compared to other countries? In Russia, only 10 mcg are allowed; in the United States, 100 mcg; in Canada, 1 mcg for a person weighing 150 pounds was recently judged a Tolerable Daily Intake. Dr. Lichtenberg's patients were getting a daily mercury exposure fifty times higher than this safety norm.\n\nSo mercury is being released from fillings\u2014is this a lot? According to one study, it takes only one microgram (mcg) of mercury to damage nerve tissue. Further, \"the bad thing about mercury release is that it is cumulative,\" explains Hal Huggins, D.D.S., M.S., an outspoken opponent of mercury amalgams and author of _Uninformed Consent._\n\n\"In the fastest elimination mode, if one microgram is absorbed, it will take 70 days to several months to eliminate half of it.\" The next day you absorb another microgram, then perhaps you get another mercury-based filling, and still another one cracks, doubling the outgassing volume. The math suggests that unless you take major action to detoxify yourself of mercury, you will never get it all out of your body on your own by depending on natural internal detoxifIcation processes. \"You will still increase your total body burden of mercury daily\".\n\nInhalation of mercury vapor from the teeth and its absorption by the lungs is only one of three possible routes by which mercury can pass from your fillings into your body. Once in the intestines, soluble mercury compounds break down into mercuric ions that are easily absorbed and transported from the intestines throughout the body along with nourishing fluids. A third route is through the mouth itself. Mercury outgassed from the fillings can be absorbed by the nerves and tissues beneath the fillings and possibly also in root canals.\n\nOnce in the bloodstream, bacteria convert mercury to methylmercury, the organic form of mercury that is one hundred times more toxic than the form of mercury that starts out in your dental filling. The methylmercury form of the heavy metal is capable of crossing the blood-brain barrier, usually a physiologi cally sacrosanct threshold that keeps toxic substances out of the brain. Methylmercury is also distributed throughout the body. The blood readily absorbs it because it mixes easily with fat molecules; it can potentially be distributed to every cell in the body.\n\nCroatian scientists studied the migration of mercury from amalgams in rats over a two-month period. Rats were exposed to either four mercury amalgams or were fed powdered amalgam in their diet. After two months, the kidneys and brains had \"significantly higher\" concentrations of mercury than other organs for both groups compared to the controls, which had no mercury exposure. Rats with actual amalgams had mercury levels eight times higher than controls and two times higher than those fed the amalgam powder, and they had kidney concentrations of mercury five times that of the control group.\n\nEvidence now shows that mercury amalgams are the major source of mercury exposure for the general public, six times higher than mercury exposure from fish and seafood. A study of the effect of abrasion (chewing) on amalgam surfaces (using real teeth with mercury amalgam fillings but in an artificial mouth to simulate chewing) showed that the \"steady-state\" release of mercury every day from a _single_ filling is 0.03 mcg. Again, you can see the range of estimated levels of emission.\n\nA Danish study of a random sample of 100 men and 100 women showedthat increased blood mercury levels were related to the presence of more than four amalgam fillings in the teeth. As Dr. Morton Walker concludes in _Elements of Danger_ , an indictment of the toxic practices of modern dentistry, \"In my opinion, anyone who allows dental amalgam fillings to remain as part of his or her oral cavity has elected to commit slow but steady suicide by mercury poisoning.\"\n\nMercury toxicity has been shown to have destructive contributory effects on kidney and immunologic function and in cardiovascular disease, neuropsychological dysfunction, reproductive disorders, and birth defects, to name a few. Symptoms of or diseases resulting from mercury toxicity make a very long list: anorexia, depression, fatigue, insomnia, arthritis, Alzheimer's, moodiness, Parkinson's, Lou Gehrig's disease, periodontal disease, irritability, memory loss, nausea, diarrhea, gum disease, swollen glands, headaches, multiple sclerosis, antibiotic resistance, and many more.\n\nResearchers have found that hair analysis of multiple sclerosis (MS) patients reveals significantly higher mercury levels than those found in non-MS patients. They also found that MS patients with mercury amalgams have thirty-three percent more MS exacerbations (flare-ups of debilitating symptoms) in a twelve-month period than MS patients without mercury fillings.\n\nResearchers have also established that MS patients with mercury fillings tend to have a poorer mental health status than those patients with no mercury fillings. When forty-seven MS patients with mercury fillings were polled using standard psychological questionnaires, scientists found that they had higher rates of depression, anger, hostility, psychosis, and symptoms of obsessive-compulsive disorder compared to MS patients with no mercury fillings. Further, MS patients with mercury amalgams had forty-three percent more MS symptoms over a twelve month period. The researchers concluded that the lowered psychological health profile of MS patients may be due to mercury toxicity from dental fillings.\n\nA 1993 study of 1,569 patients drawn from the United States, Denmark, Sweden, and Canada tabulated the correlation of numerous health problems with mercury amalgams. They found that 705 patients reported fatigue, 531 headaches, 347 depression, 343 dizziness, 270 concentration problems, 265 memory loss, 260 metallic taste in the mouth, 231 intestinal problems, 221 allergies, and the list continued.\n\nThe study also correlated improvement in reported symptoms with mercury amalgam removal: eighty-six percent with fatigue reported a cure or improvement in this problem after amalgam removal; eighty-seven percent of those with headaches, ninety-one percent with depression, eighty-eight percent with dizziness, eighty percent with concentration deficits, seventy-three percent with memory loss, ninety-five percent with metallic taste, eighty-three percent with intestinal problems, and eighty-nine percent with allergies. In other words, the causal connection between systemic mercury poisoning produced by mercury amalgams and numerous minor to serious health conditions was well established in this study. The report further showed the dramatic improvement in health conditions with the removal of the mercury fillings.\n\nIn 1991, a large group of dentists submitted themselves to a study on the effects of systemic mercury toxicity resulting from their prolonged professional contact with the heavy metal. At the annual meeting ofthe American Dental Association, 1,502 dentists had their urine analyzed for mercury levels. Of this group, 2%, or 29 dentists, had levels of 29 \u03bcg\/l(micrograms\/liter) and were clas sified as \"exposed.\" Their mercury levels exceeded the safety level of 19 \u03bcg\/l, and it was seven times higher than the mean level measured in dentists. The \"exposed\" dentists placed 50% more mercury fillings per week than nonexposed dentists; they had worked an average of 19 years in the same office, and averaged 2.3 mercury spills in their offices compared to only 0.1 for nonexposed dentists. This data suggested clearly that mercury toxicity is related both to duration of exposure and degree of regular contact.\n\nNext, the dentists volunteered to take a behavior test based on sixty-five different mood descriptors to register mental and emotional function. The results were \"very significantly linked\" to urine mercury levels, the researchers found. The strongest associations between mood and mercury were found in the areas of tension, fatigue, and confusion, as well as reduction in vitality and increased depression. Correlations were also noted between mercury exposure and poor mental concentration, emotional lability (mood fluctuation), and nervous system irritation. The study found \"some evidence of adverse preclinical effects at mercury doses averaging 36 \u03bcg\/l in urine.\" The report suggested the World Health Organization safety standard of 50 \u03bcg\/l should be critically reevaluated, and observed that \"this is the first U.S. dental study to detect potential behavioral deficits at such a low level of exposure.\"\n\nAnother study demonstrated the mood-altering effects of mercury toxicity. Researchers interviewed twenty-five women with mercury amalgams and twenty-five without, using various standard psychological inventories employed by psychologists to gauge and quantify emotional states. They found that women with mercury fillings had higher scores overall (higher meant they were more reactive), with more symptoms of fatigue and insomnia. They had a greater tendency to express anger without provocation; to experience more intense angry feelings and a greater level of general anxiety; to feel less pleasant, satisfied, happy, secure, or steady; and to have a harder time making decisions. Women without mercury in their mouths had an easier time controlling their anger. On this basis, the researchers concluded that mercury toxicity may be a causative factor in states of depression, excessive anger, and anxiety.\n\nA study of the teeth of military personnel showed that the more fillings in the mouth, the greater the body load of leached mercury. Researchers at the National Institute of Dental Research examined the teeth of 1,127 adult male military personnel, average age 52, with an average of 19.9 mercury amalgam fillings (surfaces of the teeth exposed to mercury fillings, meaning one tooth might have multiple fillings). The total and inorganic mercury concentrations in the urine were 3.09 mcg\/l and 2.88 mcg\/l, respectively, while the average blood level for both were 2.55 mcg\/l and 0.54 mcg\/l.\n\nNot only did this study show conclusively that mercury from amalgams leaches and migrates into the body, but the researchers concluded that \"on average, each ten surface increase in amalgam exposure is associated with an increase of 1 mcgll of mercury in urine concentration.\" In other words, for every new filling you can count on there being _at least_ one more microgram of toxic mercury released into your system. One microgram of mercury may be excreted in the urine, but how many micrograms remain in the body? \"Mercury is more effective as a killer of cells (cytotoxicity) than many cancer chemotherapies,\" comments Dr. Walker. \"There is _no_ harmless level of mercury vapor exposure.?\"\n\nFor prospective parents, there is yet another cause for concern for mercury fillings. Research shows that women can pass on mercury to their fetuses in the womb, as mercury can cross the placenta from mother to fetus. Studies have shown that the fetus can store eight times more mercury than the mother's own tissues, where it tends to store in the breasts and get passed on to infants through breast milk.\n\nSummarizing the scientific research and clinical evidence, Dr. Huggins says mercury \"can express its toxicity\" in ten ways (see figure 7-1). It can:\n\n  1. 1) Alter cell membrane permeability. Mercury binds to the cell membranes, affecting how the cell discriminates between \"good\" and \"bad\" substances to let cross its border.\n  2. 2) Change the shape of molecules, affecting their ability to bond with other molecules.\n  3. 3) Alter enzyme function. Mercury binds to sites on enzymes, slowing down their reaction time and ability to react.\n  4. 4) Interfere with nerve impulses. Mercury blocks the synaptic gap between nerve cells, hindering transmission.\n  5. 5) Affect the genetic code. Mercury cleaves DNA, producing genetic defects in fetuses.\n  6. 6) Inhibit DNA repair mechanisms.\n  7. 7) Disrupt endocrine gland activity. One atom of mercury can deactivate an entire hormone molecule.\n  8. 8) Contribute to autoimmune illnesses. Mercury, attached to cells, distorts their shape and confuses the immune system, which judges it to be a foreign and not a host cell.\n  9. 9) Change digestion and absorption functions.\n  10. 10) Contribute to antibiotic resistance. Mercury causes some bacteria to alter their shape, inadvertently enabling them to resist conventional antibiotics.\n\nOn this last point, researchers at the University of Georgia at Athens reported that mercury exposure through dental fillings can produce antibiotic resistant bacteria in the intestinal flora of otherwise healthy and nonmedicated subjects. They studied 640 people, of whom 356 had not had a recent exposure to antibiotics, and found that those with a high prevalence of mercury resistance in their intestinal flora (the \"friendly\" bacteria resident in the intestines) were also likely to resist the action of at least two standard antibiotics. In other words, the mercury changed the internal bacteria (mostly oral _Streptococcus_ organisms) in such a way that they became resistant to the effect of antibiotics designed to kill them.\n\n**Figure 7-1. 10 Ways Mercury Can Interfere with Vital Body Systems**\n\n\"Mercury amalgams are as close as you can get to the center of the illness universe,\" comments Bruce Shelton, M.D., M.D.(H), DLHom., a physician specializing in homeopathy and natural medicine based in Phoenix, Arizona, where he runs The Allergy Center. \"Their use in dentistry has set us up for most of the health problems we see today.\"\n\nFor example, there is a \"domino effect\" that starts with mercury toxicity, explains Dr. Shelton. The overwhelming majority (ninety percent) of the patients he sees who report allergies have an overgrowth of the yeast _Candida albicans_ , and they often have this yeast infestation because of heavy metal toxicity in the body, notably of mercury. Candida is an effective, natural absorber of mercury, so in a perverse but logical move, the body attracts the yeast to it so it will absorb the toxic mercury. The logic is that of a tradeoff: the yeast overgrowth will be less toxic overall than unguarded free IILercury, so the body opts for a _Candida_ _albicans_ infestation to contain the mercury\u2014chronic allergies instead of multiple sclerosis, as it were.\n\nHowever, it's really a bad trade-off, because the yeast overgrowth sets the stage for intestinal permeability, or what's popularly known as leaky gut syndrome. This is a kind of backwash into the blood from clogged, dysfunctional intestines. Food allergies develop and soon the person is allergic to everything; the next step from here is multiple chemical sensitivity, environmental illness, or chronic fatigue syndrome, says Dr. Shelton. \"Environmental illness is then the end-product of a string of health problems that stem from mercury and build, one upon the other.\"\n\n_Candida albicans_ is not the only thing in the body that has an affinity for mercury. Research now shows that nerve endings in the peripheral nervous system voluntarily absorb mercury (that has leached from teeth and migrated into the body at large) even though it is a neurotoxin\u2014toxic to nerve cells. According to Dietrich Klinghardt, M.D., Ph.D., an innovative physician who practices in Seattle, Washington, these nerve cells absorb mercury \"out of curiosity,\" transporting it up the spinal column. It is their natural function to scan their environment continuously and inspect all foreign substances for their threat potential.\n\nThe trouble is that when mercury moves up the spinal column, it destroys a crucial substance called tubulin, which is necessary for moving substances in the nerves. In effect, the mere presence of mercury destroys the nerves and their transport mechanisms, so it is a one-way and deadly \"visit.\" The intent of the peripheral nervous system in examining the mercury, explains Dr. Klinghardt, is to make an antineurotoxin against it to neutralize and eliminate it from the body. But the mercury is too deadly and overpowers the nerve cells.\n\nDr. Klinghardt states that scientific studies establish that within twenty-four hours after injecting a tiny dose of mercury into a muscle anywhere in the body (in this study, it was monkeys), it is detectable in the spinal cord and brain, as well as kidneys, lungs, blood, connective tissue, and adrenal and other endocrine glands. It is also now known that mercury prefers the brain's hypothalamus gland nervous system) and the believed to be the organic seat of the emotions).\n\nThese affinities help explain the range of physical and emotional symptoms attributed to mercury toxicity. \"As soon as anybody has any type of medical illness or symptom, whether medical or emotional, the amalgam fillings should be removed and the mercury residues should be eliminated from the body, especially the brain,\" states Dr. Klinghardt.\n\nBut let's say you don't have an overt or manifest illness at the moment. Should you have your mercury fillings removed? How can you tell if you have mercury in your system at levels beyond what your immune system can handle? In Chapter 3, we reviewed five different laboratory tests that can give you an answer about your body's mercury load. These tests include hair analysis for heavy metals, a urine elements profile, a fecal metals stool analysis, an oral toxicity test called ALT, and the DMSA mercury provocation test.\n\nThe recommendation here is before you have your mercury fillings replaced, find out if you have too much mercury in your body, and do this by employing one or more of the tests just cited and described in detail in Chapter 3. As a complement, get a reading on the vitality of your immune system and your general nutrient status; fmd out if you are nutritionally and immunologically equipped to handle whatever toxic load your teeth may be putting on your body. Intelligent, focused nutrient fortification may enable your system to handle the mercury load for a while longer until you decide what permanent course of action to take, orifyou elect to have a few fillings replaced at a time over a twoyear period, for example.\n\nThe reason for the conservative approach here is that not only is mercury amalgam replacement expensive and not necessarily reimbursed (if at all) by dental insurance plans, it is potentially dangerous if not done correctly. Minute mercury particles can be swallowed and minute amounts of mercury vapor inhaled during the procedure, and you can end up with more mercury in your system than before. If your immune system is already on the edge, at its limit of being able to handle your body's toxic load, this additional toxic input may be too much, and you may get sick as a result, even _very_ sick.\n\nAt a minimum, for safe mercury amalgam removal, your dentist must use a rubber dam (a rubber latex sheet or dental dam) in your mouth to prevent you from swallowing mercury. Your dentist should also use strong air suction to collect vapors, and frequent water suctioning and washing out of the mouth. The patient must be draped so no mercury chips get carried home; ideally, the patient breathes oxygen through a nosepiece during the procedure rather than through the mouth or nose to avoid any possible inhalation of mercury vapors.\n\nPerhaps the following data will help clarify your thinking. A researcher polled sixty patients who had undergone replacement of their mercury fillings, followed up with a nutritional program and heavy metal detoxification using DMPS (see below). Of these people, seventy-eight percent said they were either satisfied or very satisfied with the results. In terms of the patient's own assessment of their medical problems before having the fillings replaced, the most common complaints were memory and concentration deficits; pain in the muscles and joints; anxiety; insomnia; problems in the stomach, intestines, and bladder; depression; food or chemical sensitivities; numbness; tingling; or eye problems, in that order. Of the symptoms that bothered them the most, the patients cited headaches, backaches, fatigue, and memory and concentration problems.\n\nEvidence exists that even with these precautions, \"significant\" new deposits of mercury in the body (lungs, kidneys, endocrine organs, liver, and heart) can occur. This means you need an effective way to bind up (chelate) existing mercury in the body so as to effectively escort it out of the body.\n\n### _Cilantro_\n\nResearch conducted by Chinese acupuncturists found that cilantro _(Coriandum sativum)_ can effectively collect and bind up mercury and other heavy metals in the brain and central nervous system. Another mobilization agent, such as chlorella, is then needed to facilitate the excretion of these toxic substances from the body.\n\nFor patients who were having their dental amalgams replaced, the acupuncturists prescribed cilantro, also known as Chinese parsley, at the oral dose of 100 mg four times daily (in conjunction with other \"drug-uptake enhancement methods,\" e.g., the essential fatty acids EPA and DHA) to collect and remove the mercury from the body, including the new deposits that resulted from the amalgam removal. They recommended taking cilantro before the amalgam removal, and then for another two to three weeks afterwards.\n\nThe Chinese researchers also found that cilantro worked synergistically with antibiotics and natural antiviral agents (EPA and DHA) against several otherwise intractable infectious organisms that had been unresponsive to the antibiotics alone. When cilantro was given in tandem with these other treatments, it \"rapidly reduced the generalized symptom and infection.\" Cilantro \"accelerates\" the excretion of mercury and ead from the body through the urine, they reported. They postulated that the infectious microorganisms used the heavy metals in the body (lead and mercury) to protect themselves from the antibiotics.\n\nCilantro of course is available without a prescription, and you can also take it as a cooked herb (stalks), at the rate of one to two teaspoons daily. Dragon River Herbals offers a blend of cilantro and yellow dock to be taken at the rate of 5-15 drops 2 times daily for the first 5 days; stop for 2 days, then resume at this dosage for 30-120 days.\n\n### _DMSA_\n\nThis substance\u2014dimercaptosuccinic acid\u2014was mentioned above (and in Chapter 3) as a provocative agent to reveal mercury load in the body as measured in the urine. A nontoxic, watersoluble substance, DMSA chelates mercury and excretes it out of the body, giving the physician an indication of the body's mercury burden. But it can also be used as the official chelation agent to remove mercury following mercury amalgam replacement.\n\nDMSA, administered orally, has been used since the 1950s as an antidote to heavy metal toxicity such that today, according to some experts in the field of alternative medicine, it is considered \"the premier metal chelation compound.\" As an example of its \"premier\" abilities, nine children were exposed to vapors of metallic mercury from an external source (not teeth). Their initial urinary mercury levels ranged from 61 to 1,213 mcg\/g, with an average of 214 meg. Immediately after DMSA treatment, the urinary mercury average soared by 268% to 573 mcg\/g, then after six weeks, leveled out to an average of 102 mcg\/g, or only fifty percent of the average level originally detected after the exposure. None of the children experienced any adverse side effects.\n\nSwedish researchers found that when they gave oral DMSA to twenty dental patients (suspected to have mercury toxicity from their fillings) for 14 days at the rate of 20 mg\/kg of body weight, it resulted in an average increase in urinary mercury excretion of 65%. The DMSA also reduced blood mercury levels by 0.04 mcg\/l\/day, The mercury kept coming out of their bodies for three months even though the DMSA was only given for two weeks. The patients also experienced a decrease in their levels of reported fatigue and inertia.\n\nResearchers at Odensk University in Denmark gave fifty patients with environmental-illness-type medical complaints a program of DMSA (30 rug\/kg body weight) for five days. These patients had elevated levels of overall distress, obsessivecompulsive tendencies, depression, anxiety, reduced extroversion, and greater emotional volatility, according to standard psychological profiling. Six weeks later, when they were queried again, the patients said most of their distress symptoms had \"improved considerably.\" The tests showed they had excreted a great deal of mercury and lead in their urine during that time.\n\n### _DMPS_\n\n2, 3-dimercaptopropane-1-sulfonic acid is another favored chelating agent for increasing the removal of elemental mercury from the human body. It can be given orally, intravenously, or intramuscularly, and is useful for people who have been exposed to mercury amalgam through their dental fillings, or for those who show evidence or suspicion of heavy metal toxicity from other sources. DMPS has been used with a good safety record for many years in Russia (since the 1960s) and Germany (since 1978) and is used by some progressive physicians in the United States as part of a post-mercury-amalgam-removal protocol.\n\nLike DMSA, it can also be given as a challenge to see how much mercury the body is carrying. For example, twenty-eight dental personnel (dentists, dental technicians, and office staff) were given DMPS, after which their urinary excretion of mercury was eighty-eight times higher (for the technicians who formulate amalgams), forty-nine times higher (dentists), and thirty-five times greater (office staff).\n\nAmerican researchers found that giving dental patients an oral DMPS dose of 300 mg increased their excretion of mercury through the urine from 0.70 to 17.2 mcg among patients with mercury amalgams and from 0.27 to 5.1 mcg for those without mercury amalgams in only nine hours. The scientists gauged that two-thirds of the excreted urinary mercury in the patients with amalgams came from vapor released by those fillings, the rest from environmental sources of mercury contamination, such as air pollution and fish.\n\nIn Mexico, scientists monitored the urinary excretion of mercury from dental technicians, dentists, and office personnel who had taken DMPS. They compared the rate before DMPSwas given and six hours afterwards. For the technicians, before DMPS, they excreted 4.84 mcg of mercury, but after, 424 meg; for dentists, 3.28 mcg before, and 162 after; and for office staff, 0.7 mcg before and 27 mcg after. The researchers concluded that it is more meaningful to determine how much mercury the kidney is burdened with based on the excretion rate after DMPS is given.\n\nDMPS may be somewhat more effective than DMSA in removing mercury from the kidneys. Researchers at the Mercer University School of Medicine in Macon, Georgia, used both chelating substances to monitor mercury removal from the kidneys of rats. Both substances increased the rate of mercury elimination from the body during the first twenty-four hours after administration, but DMPS was more effective at reducing the \"renal burden\" (the amount of mercury stored in the kidneys).\n\nAt the National Institute of Public Health in Prague in the Czech Republic, researchers studied the effect of DMPS on three groups of subjects: industrial workers exposed to workplace mercury, dentists, and rats injected with mercury. Two doses of DMPS were given, spaced one day apart. After two days, the urinary mercury excretion rate in the workers was 1513 mcg; in the dentists, 132 mcg; and in human controls, 3.78 mcg. Two doses of DMPS decreased the kidney content of mercury in the rats by thirty percent when given orally and fifty percent when injected into the muscles. The scientists found that in the human subjects, two doses of DMPS reduced their kidney mercury content by seventeen to twenty percent (oral dose) and twenty-five to thirty percent (injection) in only forty-eight hours.\n\n### _Alginate_\n\nThis substance derives from the Fucales seaweed, _Ascophyllum nodosum_ , and is accumulating a good track record for its ability to bind up heavy metals and radioactive solutions in the body. The body is not able to break down or digest alginate, so the substance passes through intact, bearing its heavy metal burden. Alginate is commercially available without a prescription under the brand name ProAlgen (from Nordic Naturals), which is comprised of _Ascophyllum nodosum_ and Fucus and Laminaria algae (containing 40 minerals and trace elements) in 600 rugcapsules. You can use alginate following mercury amalgam removal, or even after every meal, to collect any mercury that might have been released into your system through chewing.\n\n  **_The Healthy Living Space_ Info Tip**\n\nFor cilantro:\n\nDragon River Herbals,\n\nP.O. Box 74,\n\nOjo Caliente, NM 87549;\n\ntel: 505-583-2348 or 800-813-2118;\n\nfax: 505-583-2339;\n\nwebsite: www.dragonriverherbals.com.\n\nFor ProAlgen, Alginate Detox Supplement: Nordic Naturals,\n\n3040 Valencia Ave., #2,\n\nAptos, CA 95003;\n\ntel: 800-662-2544 or 831-662-2852;\n\nfax: 831-662-0382;\n\nwebsite: www.nordicnaturals.com.\n\nFor information about\n\nbiological dentistry:\n\nHal Huggins, D.D.S., M.S.,\n\nP.O. Box 49145,\n\nColorado Springs, CO 80949;\n\ntel: 888-843-5832 or 719-522-0566;\n\nfax: 719-548-8220;\n\nwebsite: www.hugnet.com.\n\nFor nutritional and homeopathic protocols for mercury detoxification:\n\nDaniel F. Royal, D.O.,\n\nThe Royal Center of Advanced Medicine, 2501 N. Green Valley Parkway, Suite D-132, Henderson, NV 89014;\n\ntel: 888-DANROYAl or 702-433-8800;\n\nfax: 702-433-8823;\n\ne-mail: royal@drroyal.com;\n\nwebsite: www.drroyal.com.\n\n  **_The Healthy Living_ space Info Tip**\n\nFor information for dentists contemplating biological dentistry (protocols and standards): International Academy of Oral Medicine and Toxicology,\n\nMichael E. Ziff, Executive Director,\n\nP.O. Box 628531,\n\nOrlando, FL 32860;\n\ntel: 407-298-2450;\n\ne-mail: mziff@iaomt.org;\n\nwebsite: www.iaomt.org.\n\nFor patients to get referrals for\n\nbiological dentists:\n\nHolistic Dental Association,\n\nP.O. Box 5007,\n\nDurango, CO 81301;\n\ntel: 970-259-1091;\n\ne-mail: had@frontier.net;\n\nwebsite: www.holisticdental.org.\n\nFor more information about biological dentistry, conferences, and research:\n\nAmerican Academy of Biological Dentistry,\n\nP.O. Box 856,\n\nCarmel Valley, CA 93924;\n\ntel: 831-659-5385;\n\nfax: 831-659-2417.\n\nFor information about healthy treatment options for periodontal disease:\n\nInternational Dental Health Foundation,\n\n2414 Black Cap Lane, Suite L-l,\n\nReston, VA 20191;\n\ntel: 703-860-9244 or 800-368-3396;\n\nfax: 703-860-9245;\n\nwebsite: <http:\/\/members.aol.com\/idhf>.\n\n### _Timing Your Amalgam Removals_\n\nIf you decide to have your mercury fillings removed, Dr. Huggins has a tip about finding the best time to do so. Apparently your immune system has a cycle in which it replenishes its supplies of white blood cells or lymphocytes. You don't want to hit that low time with a big challenge to the immune system generated by removing your mercury fillings.\n\nDr. Huggins reports that about seven days after an immune challenge\u2014mercury exposure during amalgam replacement, having an immunization shot, a bad case of the flu, serious emotional trauma from death or accidents\u2014your body's defenses are weakened. The lymphocytes are in the process of being replaced, so there are several hours on day seven when your immune defenses are down and vulnerable. On day fourteen, the lymphocytes are again regrouping, regenerating, and you are immunologically vulnerable. So \"if there is an additional [immune] challenge on day 7, 14, or especially 21, then your genetic weak link is apt to be stretched, and you may become ill,\" says Dr. Huggins.\n\nIn other words, don't have any mercury amalgam work done on days seven, fourteen, or twenty-one. He advises not having dental appointments on the same day of the week during a two-month period, and don't have dental work two days in a row, or procedures that last longer than two hours. In practical terms, he suggests having dental appointments on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday of one week, then Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday the next week. It is immunologically preferable to have all the amalgams removed in a thirty-day period, if possible.\n\n### _Nutritional Support for Amalgam Removal_\n\nIn conjunction with having your amalgams replaced, and especially as an immediate follow-up, many alternative medicine physicians recommend a targeted nutritional program to help your body cope with the mobilization and removal of mercury.\n\n  **_The Healthy Living Space_ Info Tip**\n\nFor detailed information on mercury hazards and mercury-free dentistry:\n\nDAMS (Dental Amalgam Mercury Syndrome),\n\nP.O. Box 64397,\n\nVirginia Beach, VA 23467;\n\ntel: 800-311-6265;\n\nwebsite: www.amalgam.org.\n\nDaniel F. Royal, D.O., an osteopath who practices in Henderson, Nevada, recommends the following: chlorella (1-3 capsules daily); L-glutathione (150 mg daily); kyolic garlic (1 capsule with meals, three times daily); silymarin (1 capsule, twice daily); vitamin C (2,000-8,000 mg daily, depending on tolerance, in divided doses); vitamin B complex ( 25-100 mg daily); DHEA (an adrenal hormone precursor, 5 mg for men, 2.5 mg for women, daily); pregnenolone (a steroid building block made from cholesterol; 10 mg for men, 30 mg for women, once daily); _Mercurius solubilis_ 30C (a homeopathic remedy; thirty drops, 2-3 times weekly, for a few weeks); selenium (50 meg, three times daily); and _Lactobacillus acidophilus_ (one teaspoon daily). Dr. Royal also recommends time in a sauna to sweat out mercury and other toxins through the skin (see Chapter 6).\n\n## HEALTHY LIVING SPACE DETOXIFIER #32: Have Your Cavitations Cleaned Out and Reduce Possible Jawbone Infections\n\nAs explained above, a cavitation is a formal term from dentistry to describe a hole in the upper or lower jawbone following a tooth extraction in which an infectious process is occurring, usually unbeknownst to the person. The cavitation typically is the same size as the tooth that was removed from that site. It is a problem because it is a site of incomplete healing.\n\nWhen a tooth is root-canalled and then later removed, often a little bit is left behind, called the periodontal ligament, half of whose fibers come from the jaw, the other half from the tooth. When the tooth is removed but the ligament is left in place, it starts to release neurotoxic chemicals that slowly seep into the body; these chemicals were originally produced by the harmful bacteria in the root of the decayed, dying tooth.\n\nNow if the root-eanalled tooth is extracted and the ligament left there, a small cap of bone forms over the socket \"leaving a cesspool of these chemicals lining the hole, and sealed within the bone,\" explains Dr. Huggins. The cavitation then serves as a breeding ground for bacteria and the toxic substances they excrete. It also creates osteonecrosis, or bone death, through the progressive impairment of blood circulation through that part of the jawbone. Biological dentists also postulate that the toxic cavitations can block the flow of _qi_ through the acupuncture meridians that pass through the mouth and also transmit the energy signal of toxicity to other organs and organ systems in the body through this same network of energy channels. There is some evidence that cavitations can act as reservoirs for leeched amalgam mercury.\n\nUnfortunately, this setup is not easily detectable with X-rays, so many dentists can overlook it. On close examination of the X-ray, the cavitation may appear like the shadow of a tooth, or a phantom tooth. \"Almost always, this is indicative of a cavitation,\" states Mark A. Breiner, D.D.S., in _Whole-Body Dentistry._ Dr. Breiner notes that the most common site for a cavitation to form is at the extraction site of a wisdom tooth, and the second most common site is a root-eanalled tooth extraction site.\n\nDr. Huggins reports that cavitation in dental patients is \"an _extremely_ common finding.\" The third molars, or wisdom teeth, are the most prevalent site, such that out of 354 extraction sites examined, 88% had cavitations. The second molars had a seventy percent incidence of cavitations, and in the first molars, eighty-two percent had cavitations. For all molars examined, eighty-five percent had cavitations (441 sites out of 517 examined). In nonmolar sites, the incidence of cavitations was much lower, at fifty-five percent. This is a shockingly high incidence of a dental condition (and source of dental toxicity) still largely unrecognized by most dentists.\n\nInsofar as the wisdom teeth have energy correlations through the acupuncture meridians with many of the body's important organs, including the heart, a cavitation at this point\u2014also known as a focal infection, as mentioned earlier\u2014is highly undesirable and a potentially serious health threat. Dr. Breiner recounts how his own episode of an irregular heartbeat was traced to a cavitation in the wisdom tooth area of his jaw. Surgical debridement (cleaning toxins and dead bone material out of the cavitation) resolved the arrhythmia in a few days, he reports. Cavitations can also produce chronic facial pain (trigeminal neuralgia), as well as some headaches and phantom toothaches. Dr. Breiner calls cavitations SICO, for Sickness Inducing Cavitational Osteonecrosis (dead bone material) to highlight their ability to negatively affect many aspects of a person's health.\n\nIn support of Dr. Breiner's sweeping indictment of cavitations is evidence developed by Boyd Hailey, Ph.D., a prominent dental researcher at the University of Kentucky. His research shows that all cavitation tissue samples tested contain toxins that are able to significantly block the activity of one or more of five critical body enzymes involved in the production of energy. The toxins produce health problems both localized (in the jawbone) and systemic (throughout the body).\n\nThere also is a succession of bacterial species in the cavitation. Swiss dentists reported that in advanced root caries ninety percent of the microflora found were bacteria, and of these, in the early stage of tooth infection, _Actinomyces naeslundii_ was significantly higher than other species. In the advanced stage of decay, the predominant bacteria was _Streptococcus mutans._ In other words, there was a succession of bacterial populations observed during the \"destruction process\" of a single tooth.\n\nAs noted earlier in this chapter, Dr. Christopher Hussar has remarked that the mouth is a dirty place. He was not exaggerating. Over 300 different species of bacteria exist in the mouth, creating a population estimated to be several hundred billion. In an insufficiently cleaned mouth, that number can be a thousand billion. These billions of bacteria create their own ecological niches inside the human mouth, reproduce, metabolize, and thereby threaten oral and systemic health.\n\nScientists know the action of these bacteria is associated with the incidence of rheumatoid arthritis, dermatitis, nephritis (bacteria-induced kidney inflammation), bacterial pneumonia, pregnancy troubles, blood circulation problems, and coronary heart disease. Periodontal disease can also lead to bacteremia (bacteria in the blood), diabetes, respiratory disease, prosthetic device infection, and atherosclerosis. Periodontal disease is seven times more likely to be linked with a preterm delivery of a low birth weight infant than other factors, including the mother's age and tobacco and alcohol use.\n\nInfections in the gum and jawbone have been linked to 150350 different anaerobic bacterial species, depending on the type of periodontitis; dental treatment and tooth extraction can cause these toxic microorganisms to move into the bloodstream where they are free to circulate around the body. If a person has a preexisting heart problem (such as an ineffective heart valve or a vascular disease), the circulation of these bacterial species can lead to serious problems, including heart attacks.\n\nIn an odd way, brushing your teeth is potentially bad for your heart. English researchers studied the effect on 150 children of tooth brushing, professional cleaning, and scaling on the release of bacteria into the body. They found that all three methods of cleaning the teeth released at least three species of bacteria implicated in the development of bacterial endocarditis (inflammation of the membrane lining the heart). In other words, the average mouth has these toxic bacteria in residence, and cleaning the teeth mobilizes them and gets them moving through the body.\n\nThe connection between oral focal infections and\/or periodontitis (inflammation and degeneration of the supporting structures of the teeth) and the heart is well established in scientific research. Finnish researchers examined the microbial population in the mouths of fifty patients (average age sixty-five) about to have abdominal aortic surgery. They found that eighty-two percent had evidence of oral infection. On average, most of the patients had only nine teeth, and twenty-one percent of these were potential focal infection sites; further, twenty-six percent of the patients had oral candidiasis (an infection caused by _Candida albicans_ ). \"Oral infectious foci occur frequently in patients needing aortic surgery,\" said the researchers, adding that untreated focal infections may contribute to heart infection.\n\nWhen 261 patients with suspected focal-infection-produced diseases were examined for chronic inflammatory problems in their mouths, researchers found that 83% had periodontal problems, such as dead tissue and inflammation. These oral problems are frequently detected as factors in chronic cardiac disorders, eye problems (uveitis), and skin diseases, the researchers said. It is also possible for oral bacteria to first start a systemic infection, like endocarditis, then indirectly stimulate a brain abscess. Various oral bacteria (including Streptococci species) can cause sinusitis, either acute or chronic.\n\nThese are examples of how an oral focal infection\u2014the human mouth as a focus of infection\u2014can produce a range of specific and systemic diseases throughout the body. This is a medical insight at least one hundred years old, but largely ignored until recently. The term focal infection can encompass many problems in the mouth: cavitations, cavities, extraction sites, infected teeth and pulps. While periodontitis is not the same as a cavitation, it is a potent source of oral focal infection that can exist alongside or in conjunction with a cavitation, adding to the total toxicity present in the mouth.\n\nThe crucial point to keep in mind is that bacterial and viral microorganisms or their toxic products can enter the body tissues through the mouth and thereby produce health problems. Arthritis is a good example. In one study, an antigen (foreign protein) was injected to the mouth and soon after produced a knee inflammation, leading scientists to postulate that a dental focal infection may be involved in arthritis of the knee and arthritis in general.\n\nShould you, if you have extraction sites in your mouth, automatically have your cavitations debrided? Not necessarily, says Dr. Huggins. If you feel well, enjoy good health, and have normal laboratory profiles for nutrient and antioxidant defense status, it probably means the toxins are stable, staying in place in the jawbone, and that your immune system is coping. But if you get sick or develop a chronic problem, then you should consider investigating the possibility that you have cavitations acting as focal infections, and get them treated.\n\n\"Cavitations can progress over time, with more and more adjacent jawbone dying,\" says Dr. Huggins. You may not have a problem this year, but perhaps in five or ten years, you might. As J.H. Meurmann, a dental researcher at the Institute of Dentistry at the University of Helsinki in Finland remarks, \"Chronic dental infections may worsen the conditions of medically compromised patients.\" Dr. Meurmann adds that if a person is acutely or chronically ill, frequent dental checkups to determine possible focal infections in the mouth are highly advised.\n\nWhen a biological dentist cleans the cavitation, the walls of the jawbone socket must be cut out with a dental burr, then the toxic material is scraped out. Since some of the toxic material then enters the lymphatic system as part of the body's natural (and now freed up) detoxification pathway, the patient may feel sick for a few days while the body processes the toxins, Dr. Huggins says.\n\n## HEALTHY LIVING SPACE DETOXIFIER #33: Think Twice before Digging Another Root Canal in Your Mouth\n\nHaving a root canal \"dug\" in one of your teeth is generally regarded as a highly unpleasant experience by most people. It may be a miserable experience, but in 1996, an estimated 25 million were installed in American mouths, and for 2000, the dental industry predicted 30 million.\n\nMost dental patients and dentists regard it as preferable to having the tooth extracted because, depending on the location, this can destabilize the jaw and lead to other dental problems later. In the root canal procedure, the dental pulp, dying (or dead) and infected, is removed and replaced with a wax material called gutta percha. Technically the tooth is now dead, but as biological dentists have known for decades, dead does not mean inactive. In this case, the activity is bacterial, and it is not good for you.\n\nYou may think the dental infection is terminated once the gutta percha is laid into the tooth and the painful abscess goes away, but research suggests it isn't. In fact, serious health consequences may result from a hidden, deep-set infection beneath the root-canalled tooth. According to George Meinig, D.D.S., author of Root Canal Cover-up, \"root canal treated teeth have side effects that cause many disorders.\" He made this statement on the foundation of forty-seven years of clinical practice as a root canal clinician and dentist.\n\nIt is almost impossible for a dentist to clean out all the infection from a decayed root canal; so pockets of infection remain when the canal is sealed up. The result is that bacteria get trapped within the estimated three miles of microscopic dentin tubules inside a single root-canalled tooth. The cementum (the outermost hard surface of the tooth) prevents the bacteria from migrating from the tooth into the bloodstream, but not the toxins produced by these bacteria.\n\nOver the years, these pockets of infection can start spreading their process throughout the body, without the person suspecting it, at least directly. As toxins leak from the root-canalled tooth, they chronically trigger the immune system to react, and eventually the immunological defense system gets weary of the engagement. Infections under root canals are focal infections, which means they continuously disseminate toxins into the body, contributing, undetected, to a myriad of problems throughout the body.\n\nAs early as 1925, the connection between bacterially contaminating root canals and systemic health problems was known to professionals who read the scientific literature. Weston A. Price, D.D.S., reported that many degenerative diseases result from root canals, including endocarditis and other heart ailments, disorders of the kidneys and bladder, rheumatism, arthritis, lung problems, complications of pregnancy, bacterial infections, and even mental illness. Dr. Price demonstrated his point vividly when he implanted actual root-canalled teeth (from human subjects suffering from various diseases) under the skin of rabbits. The rabbits developed the same diseases as the humans whose teeth they were.\n\nDr. Price discovered many changes in blood chemistry as a result of root-canalled teeth. The white blood cell count (lymphocytes) goes up considerably; in rabbits, it increased fifty-eight percent following the implantation of the human teeth. But at the same time, another kind of white blood cell (polymorphonuclear leukocytes) decreased by thirty-three percent in rabbits. These changes indicated both a mobilization of the immune response and a diminution of one of its prime components.\n\nHow can you tell if a root-canalled tooth is acting as a focal infection in your body? Consider undergoing the oral toxicity test developed by Boyd Haley, Ph.D., of Affinity Labeling Technologies in Lexington, Kentucky, as discussed in Chapter 3. In conjunction with this, have your immune vitality tested based on a blood and urine sample, again, as described in chapter 3.\n\nWhether a root-canalled tooth is making you sick depends a great deal on the vitality of your immune system. \"If your immune system is strong, your body may be able to quarantine the toxins by 'walling off' the area [around the tooth],\" says Dr. Breiner. This area might appear as a \"more radiolucent\" area suggestive of an abscess on a dental X-ray, he adds. The radiolucent sign is a good one, indicating the successful immunological containment of toxins. Sometimes, Dr. Breiner adds, a \"drain\" will open up under the root canal tooth and the toxins will slowly, almost imperceptibly drain out into the mouth over time.\n\n### _Gutta Percha Alternative: BioCalex_\n\nOne of the problems with gutta percha, explains Dr. Breiner, is that it contracts over time, creating a gap between itself and the tooth's remaining dentin. This allows bacteria from the bloodstream to enter and exacerbate the infectious process already under way.\n\nAn alternative substance from France, newly introduced among biological dentists (1994), is called BioCalex, made from calcium and zinc oxide. Used in France since 1979, BioCalex seals the root canals more effectively than gutta percha, creating a tight bond and preventing bacterial ingress; it has been shown to penetrate into the most inaccessible of the tiny canals and tubules inside the tooth.\n\nIt is also alkaline (nonacidic), which creates an unfavorable environment for bacteria. This was demonstrated by Australian researchers who studied the changes in root dentin pH (the ratio of acidity to alkalinity on a scale of 0.1-14, with 7 being neutral) over a four-week period after they had been treated with calcium hydroxide. In the inner part of the dentin, the pH peaked at a high alkaline reading of between 9.7 and 10.8; after 2-3 weeks, the outer dentin reached a pH of 9.0 to 9.3. Although the pH change took longer to obtain in the outer dentin of the root, the study showed that calcium hydroxide could diffuse throughout the tooth and change its chemical nature.\n\nIn fact, the calcium oxide composition of BioCalex is very effective at destroying anaerobic bacteria found in teeth, according to BioProbe, its U.S. marketer. Greek researchers tested calcium hydroxide alongside a standard disinfectant (paramono-chlorophenol, PMCP) against anaerobic bacteria isolated from infected root canals, and observed results at time intervals of five, fifteen, thirty, and sixty minutes.\n\nThey found that calcium hydroxide was \"significantly more effective\" than PMCP against the total bacterial population. Further, it was \"quickly and highly effective\" against several microorganisms (B. melaninogenicus, P. gin-givalis, and Actinomyces species) associated with severe clinical symptoms. Preliminary tests show a considerably reduced level of toxicity associated with BioCalex used in root-canalled teeth compared to those treated with gutta percha.\n\nFurther, when calcium oxide combines with water, it forms calcium hydroxide, and this is one of the most biocompatible dental materials available. Biocompatibility will be discussed below, but it means the substance is nonallergenic and nontoxic to the human body; it will not produce overt or hidden allergic or immunological reactions when it comes in contact with human tissue, such as in the mouth.\n\n  **_The Healthy Living Space_ Info Tip**\n\nFor information about BioCalex, BioProbe Newsletter, and scientific documentation about mercury hazards, and for dentists wishing to obtain BioCalex:\n\nBioProbe, Inc.,\n\nP.O. Box 608010,\n\nOrlando, FL 32860;\n\ntel: 800-282-9670 or 407-290-9670;\n\nfax: 407-299-4149;\n\nwebsite: www.bioprobe.com.\n\n## HEALTHY LIVING SPACE DETOXIFIER #34: Determine Your Biocompatibility with Dental Materials before Putting Any More in Your Mouth\n\nMention was made above about biocompatibility of dental materials. This is an important issue with regard to toxicity and allergic reactions to substances, yet it is not discussed enough in medical circles. Dentists routinely place many substances in our mouths\u2014mercury, silver, and tin (in amalgams), gutta percha (in root canals), sealants, gold or chrome (in crowns), porcelain and plastic (bridges), nickel (orthodontic braces), titanium or ceramic (implants)\u2014but who is to say a given dental patient is not allergic, or will not develop an allergy over time to these strange substances not meant by nature to be in the human body. Who is to say (who has tested them?) they are compatible with the immune system?\n\n\"Not too many dental materials are free from toxins,\" comments Dr. Huggins. \"Unfortunately, the stronger materials are the most toxic,\" he adds. This is why he recommends compatibility testing for dental products to assess in advance the potential or likely allergenicity _to you_ of any dental substance that might be placed in your mouth. Bear in mind that, to an extent, allergic reactions are individual, based on your total biochemistry and immune status; this means that if a given substance is said not to produce allergic reactions generally, it may still generate symptoms in you because of your biochemical specificity.\n\nFor example, scientists now know that toxic substances can be leaked from composite dental resins used instead of mercury amalgams and that these \"exudations\" into the mouth can be estrogenic\u2014act like the hormone estrogen. Researchers at the University of Granada in Spain applied a dental sealant based on a substance called bisphenol-A diglycidylether methacrylate (found in dental resins) to the molars of eighteen dental patients. Saliva samples were tested one hour before this application and one hour after it.\n\nAnywhere from 90 to 131 meg of bisphenol-A were detected after the sealant had been applied. Further, the researchers found that certain biochemical changes typical of estrogenic activity were noted in these patients, and on that basis they made this conclusion: \"The use of bis-GMA-based resins in dentistry, and particularly the use of sealants in children, appears to contribute to human exposure to xenoestrogens.\" As you may recall from Chapter 2, a xenoestrogen is a foreign estrogen; it is a synthetic chemical that acts _like_ estrogen in the body, thereby upsetting the hormonal balance.\n\nAnother study showed that formaldehyde can be released by dental composites in your teeth. Researchers at the NIOM-Scandinavian Institute of Dental Materials in Haslum, Norway, found that nine different types of commercially used dental composites released formaldehyde into the mouth. \"A continuous release of formaldehyde was evident during the first ten days [after placement],\" they stated. Then it declined, but was still detectable after 115 days.\n\nThese two examples of estrogenic dental factors are included here to give an introductory idea about biocompatibility. Obviously, estrogenic chemicals and formaldehyde from dental materials are not compatible with the human system and will contribute to body-wide toxicity and a heightening (and eventually a fatiguing) of the immune response.\n\nA test called the Clifford Materials Reactivity Testing (CMRT) is now available to monitor dental biocompatibility. The purpose of the test, according to its provider, Clifford Consulting and Research of Colorado Springs, Colorado, is to screen a patient for sensitivities to chemical groups and compounds, to identify dental materials that can be used with that patient with the greatest degree of safety and least amount of risk, and to help the dentist put together a biocompatible treatment plan.\n\nThe test looks for specific antibody formation in response to various dental materials, and interprets this response as a gauge for biocompatibility. (When the body encounters a foreign or suspect substance in the bloodstream, it produces antibodies, or immune defense proteins, to tag and neutralize the intruding substance.) The test looks for antigens to various chemical groups such as acrylates, urethanes, toluenes, nickel, aluminum, and mercury. The testers take a small amount of blood and give it a \"challenge\" of the dental material (the antigen) to see whether antibodies are formed in response.\n\nThe test is recommended for people with existing sensitivity problems such as environmental illness or multiple chemical sensitivity, those who already have a compromised physiology (an illness or chronic condition), or those who have a prior history of reacting negatively to dental materials. It's also helpful if you are planning major dental restorative work, including dental implants, crowns, bridges, or mercury amalgam replacement. The results are cross-referenced with a list of over 1,900 dental and medical trade-named products so that the dentist can select materials of minimal reactivity for individual patients.\n\nThe test looks at how the patient will react not only to newly placed dental materials, but the corrosion byproducts of dental materials already in the patient's mouth. In other words, say you had a gold crown put on a molar five years ago; whatever trace amounts of metals or byproducts of the corrosion process have been generated and released by this crown will be accounted for in the test. For example, according to Clifford Consulting and Research, testing of more than 12,800 patients shows that 1% do not handle gold in the mouth well, and that twenty-five percent have problems with silver. In other words, \"no single material is 100% suited to all patients.\"\n\n  **_The Healthy Living Space_ Info Tip**\n\nFor Clifford Materials Reactivity Testing:\n\nClifford Consulting and Research, Inc., P.O. Box 17597,\n\nColorado Springs, CO 80935;\n\ntel: 719-550-0008;\n\nfax: 719-550-0009;\n\ne-mail: wjclifford@ccrlab.com;\n\nwebsite: www.ccrlab.com.\n\nResolution of long-standing dental problems may turn around many chronic symptoms-that you had previously never suspected were associated with events in your mouth. You may find that certain emotional states that came upon you now and then start to lift; you may have thought depression or anxiety were \"just who you were,\" but now that your mercury amalgams are gone, so is your depression.\n\nNow that you have removed a fair amount of physical toxicity from your system, from the protocols in chapters 4\u2014 encompassing your liver, intestines, kidneys, lymphatic system, and teeth, you have sufficient momentum to move a layer deeper into yourself\u2014into the realm of emotions. Emotions, too, can be toxic; certain strongly held but unexpressed emotions can act like toxins if they are left to fester. So our next phase of detoxification in Chapter 8 moves into the emotional life and offers ways to start resolving buried, repressed, or neglected emotional issues.\n\n# CHAPTER 8\n\n# Guidelines for Emotional Detoxification: Unresolved Emotional Issues Can Become Toxic to the Body\n\nIn the course of following the detoxification suggestions in this book you have undoubtedly come up against some old, perhaps painful or intractable emotions. You may have been surprised by their existence, or by the energy with which they reminded you of their existence. It is highly common for people cleansing the colon to reexperience charged emotional material from many years back, as if they had unknowingly walked into some unsuspected personalized museum of hurts and trauma.\n\nIn many respects, physical detoxification makes it possible to get to the emotions, buried, as it were, under layers of physical toxins and dysfunctional physiological states. Internal organ cleansing often helps you identify this next level of toxicity.\n\nLike the intestines, the body is a remarkable storage device for unprocessed thoughts and feelings. Most people spend a lifetime depositing unresolved emotional issues throughout the body; in fact, it is not only painful experiences that are stored; all sorts of memories get lodged in the body's tissues. In her book, _Being-in-Dreaming_ , Florinda Donner, an anthropologist and compatriot of Carlos Castaneda in the mysteries of Toltec shamanism, explains how she uses a little wooden mallet to tap her body for memories. She systematically taps every inch of her body, noting that everyday events tend to get stored in the chest, back, and abdomen, while dream content tends to go into the legs and hips.\n\n\"All that concerns you now is that remembering dreams has to do with physical pressure on the specific spot where that vision is stored,\" she says, adding that events experienced in dreams are hard to remember \"because the body stores them in different places.\" I used to think this was a fascinating but unsubstantiated idea until in the course of giving a friend a backrub and probing the left shoulder blade, she suddenly remembered being chased by a large turtle in a dry riverbed when she was eight years old. She had stored the actual daytime experience\u2014like a home movie, vivid with the fright, surprise, adrenaline rush\u2014at the bottom of her left shoulder blade.\n\n**_In many respects, physical detoxification makes it possible to get to the emotions, buried, as it were, under layers of physical toxins and dysfunctional physiological states. Internal organ cleansing often helps you identify this next level of toxicity_**.\n\nWhile the body is almost endlessly accommodating in this coping strategy, eventually it runs out of space, or the load in one place is too big a burden. Then the price comes due for your longterm emotional storage: your unresolved, stored emotions become toxic to the body and will start to make you sick. In this chapter, then, we will explore the contribution of unresolved emotional issues to body-wide toxicity, and suggest a strategy for clarifying and dissolving this subtler level of toxicity. But first let's consider some more examples of the consequences of using the body as an emotional storage depot.\n\n## How Unresolved Emotions Can Contribute to Illness\n\nEmotional issues carry a powerful charge capable of affecting your biology in profound and often undesirable ways. For example, unresolved emotional issues are often associated with gynecological problems, such as uterine fibroids, ovarian cysts, and excessive menstrual bleeding, because the body must express itself, explains John Diamond, M.D., a homeopathic physician who practices in Reno, Nevada.\n\nDr. Diamond, who was educated in South Africa, cites a saying in that country that \"If you don't cry above, you'll cry below.\" The crying below refers to the uterus, whose \"tears\" are menstrual blood. Dr. Diamond explains that he frequently sees strong emotions, if left unaddressed, manifesting as body symptoms, such as excessive menstrual bleeding.\n\nThe body is always metaphorical, he says. \"It always _listens_ to the psyche of the individual and responds accordingly, in its own way, translating withheld tears into copious menstrual flow.\" The emotional issue is an energy that _has_ to go somewhere, _has_ to be expressed physiologically, says Dr. Diamond.\n\nA uterine fibroid (a noncancerous fibrous mass that grows on the inside wall of the uterus) often is about emotional suppression relating to either sexuality or relationships with men; the heavy bleeding it occasions is often associated with prolonged internalized sadness and withheld emotions; and an ovarian cyst (a noncancerous fluid-filled sac on an ovary) can be correlated with a history of sexual abuse, according to Dr. Diamond.\n\nHe cites the case of Flora, a thirty-eight-year-old woman with heavy, painful menstrual bleeding occasioned by multiple uterine fibroids. The woman, a mother of four, related that her heavy menstruation started two years earlier when her husband talked about divorcing her. Even though the marriage remained \"intact,\" Flora was anxious, unsettled, and fearful about the prospect of a divorce, and \"stuffed\" the emotions and sadness into her body, says Dr. Diamond. Why her uterus?\n\nHere we see the role of individual constitutional weakness and genetic predisposition. Her mother at her age had had the identical uterine problem, and both had started menstruating at a late age (fifteen), which can be indicative of later reproductive system problems, says Dr. Diamond. Flora's uterus was the designated weak point in her body, so if she had strong emotional content to store (suppress) somewhere, it would go there, and when the body could no longer cope with the continuous toxic presence of these emotions, it would discharge them through this same weak point: the uterus. Metaphorically, the fibroid was saying to Flora that her \"ugly secret\" was out: she could no longer hide her emotional pain and the way she tried to bury it in a hard shell.\n\nAfter a comprehensive treatment program involving homeopathic remedies and herbs, Flora regained her health and did not need a hysterectomy (surgical removal of the uterus). The homeopathic remedies helped bring her emotions to the surface for clarification and expression. Then she resolved her emotional problems with her husband and started having normal periods again.\n\nA hysterectomy, which conventional medicine routinely recommends for fibroids and related uterine problems, would not have corrected the deep-set cause of the imbalance, says Dr. Diamond. It would not have addressed \"the true pathology of the internalized emotional fear and anger she had harbored for so long.\" It could have driven these emotions even deeper into her body, producing a more serious health problem such as cancer or mental illness.\n\nUnexpressed, stuffed emotions can also contribute to the emergence of rheumatoid arthritis, according to board-certified rheumatologist Norman Levin, M.D., who practices in Aldie, Virginia. He cites the case of Tara, thirty-six, who came to him suffering from rheumatoid arthritis. In addition to addressing the physiological and biochemical aspects of her medical problem, Dr. Levin encouraged Tara to ask herself _why_ she was having arthritis now. Nobody gets a serious illness out of the blue, as if you accidentally walk through an illness ray and emerge sick, he says. There are always emotional and psychological factors involved in the development of an illness, he says.\n\n\"Patients need to be encouraged to find the meaning in their health crisis,\" Dr. Levin notes. Echoing Dr. Diamond's observation, he adds: \"The body speaks its own language, and often illnesses affecting different parts of the body are associated with certain emotional states.\" For example, Dr. Levin often finds that unexpressed anger or resentment underlie the emergence of arthritis; the arthritis is a physical manifestation or expression of those emotions, he says.\n\nIn Tara's case, she had been a successful realtor who was suddenly relocated to an unfamiliar territory, having to abandon the market area she knew very well. It _felt_ to her like she was being fired. At the same time she was uprooted from the safe and familiar routines of her job and environment, a romantic relationship was breaking up. So the job change and termination of a relationship gave Tara a double hit of emotional trauma, acting as _precipitating_ factors for her arthritis, which began soon afterwards, says Dr. Levin.\n\nIn the case of Michelle, thirty-nine, her fibromyalgia was emotionally linked to a feeling of carrying the weight of the world on her shoulders. Fibromyalgia is a highly painful and debilitating illness in which numerous muscles throughout the body are chronically inflamed and painful, severely limiting movement. Ironically, Michelle had been an aerobics instructor before her muscles refused to let her move without extreme pain, spasm, and fatigue. \"She was the kind of person who tried to do and be everything for everybody,\" comments Dr. Levin. \"As we discovered, this attitude was at the core of her muscle aches.\"\n\nAbout four weeks into her treatment program (a comprehensive alternative medicine approach), Michelle had enough freedom from pain to start to examine her psychoemotional state to see why she had fibromyalgia. She saw that she was a superachiever, a woman who always sought to be the best in every situation, be it motherhood, teaching aerobics, being a wife. She cared so much for everyone else she forgot to care for herself. She saw how everybody in her life _leaned_ on her for support, that she could never say no to _carrying_ their burdens.\n\nThe words say it all: the burden she was carrying for others was too much for her muscles. She was like not the mythic Atlas, capable of carrying the entire world on his Titan shoulders; she was a human woman with limits. Following its own innate intelligence, her body manifested fibromyalgia\u2014muscle gridlock, so to speak\u2014to force her to realize her approach to life was toxic. Michelle realized she could say no, turn down another plea for help, and ask for help herself. This understanding was the final turn of the key in the lock of her recovery.\n\nNot everyone with fibromyalgia has this exact state of mind, says Dr. Levin, but it is fairly representative of the broad strokes. \"A person feels burdened and overwhelmed, as if everybody is _leaning_ on their body, as if they are _carrying_ the world's weight on their shoulders.\" Eventually, the body translates this metaphorical self-assessment into biological reality, and the psychological weight gets shifted to the actual muscles, and they ache, spasm, and refuse to carry it.\n\nThe longer a condition like this persists without the person understanding\u2014and undoing\u2014the emotional etiology, the more entrenched the translation into biology becomes. In other words, the emotional state may be a prime precipitating factor, but because of its charge and power, it starts to rearrange the body's structure, physiology, and biochemistry\u2014only the tip of the illness iceberg, the part that conventional medicine tends to focus on\u2014in accordance with its view of reality If I feel like I'm carrying the weight of the world on my shoulders, my shoulders will start to believe it, and hurt accordingly.\n\nThink of it this way: the unexpressed or unresolved anger, fear, resentment, or whatever the emotionally charged issue might be, act as free radicals in the body, as toxic agents capable of destabilizing physiological structures and processes just as powerfully and effectively as mercury, an organochlorine, or any other toxic substance described in this book. This is no judgment on emotions; it is not saying some are good and some bad. Rather, the point here is that when they get _stuck_ , emotions become a physiological problem for the body. When stuck, their powerful energy charge starts to work negatively on the body.\n\nAll emotions are healthy because they are what tie the mind and body together, explains Candace Pert, Ph.D., in _Molecules of Emotion._ But they need to be expressed and let go of so they don't fester, build, or escalate uncontrollably. When they are not expressed, and instead are repressed, this sets up a \"dis-integrity\" within the body, causing it to act at cross-purposes with being a unified whole organism. This repression generates stress that leads to blockages and an insufficient flow of \"peptide signals to maintain function at the cellular level.\" This blocked flow creates the conditions of weakened function and immunity that can precipitate disease, says Dr. Pert.\n\nThe peptide signals are modes of communication between the biochemicals of emotion, Dr. Pert explains. Emotional biochemistry consists of neuropeptides (key brain chemicals that translate thoughts and feelings into biochemical and physiological responses) and their receptors. Dr. Pert's research has established that emotions are equal players in the health or illness of the body, as considerable in their influence as chemicals, toxic substances, or other material biological substances. The neuropeptides are the \"substrates of emotion,\" in continuous communication with the immune system and its cells. Emotions have a \"cellular signal\" that is involved in translating emotional and mental information into physical reality, \"literally transforming mind into matter.\"\n\nIn fact, Dr. Pert says our brains are not really just in our skulls; they are _mobile_ brains, with communication networks throughout the body. Intelligent information travels throughout the network, which includes the hormonal, gastrointestinal, immune, and central nervous systems. According to this model, as we think and feel, so do our molecules act. Emotions are part of our cellular consciousness, because every cell has receptors that are conduits for emotional energy. First the emotions happen, then the neuropeptides are released. The fact that information flows throughout the mobile brain network demonstrates that \"the body is the actual outward manifestation, in physical space, of the mind.\"\n\nBut what about the stuck emotions you are unaware of, the ones you have buried deep and cannot retrieve or even remember that they exist? Sometimes clinical hypnotherapy can be helpful in aiding your dive into the subconscious to retrieve them, according to Joseph Riccioli, M.D., N.D., a physician and naturopath practicing in Clifton, New Jersey, who uses clinical hypnosis to help patients get over depression, cancer, and other serious health problems.\n\nMedical science has established that our thoughts and emotions \"talk\" to our cells. Ever since the 1970s, scientists (including Dr. Pert) have been building a case for this and calling it psychoneuroimmunology, or PNI. PNI says the mind and emotions (psyche) communicate with the nervous (neuro) and immune (immunology) systems, both to their detriment or advantage, depending on whether it is consciously or unconsciously directed, and depending on the content of that communication.\n\nUnfortunately, most of the time this dialogue is unconscious, says Dr. Riccioli. We get the results (the health problem) without understanding the causes (the emotional content), or we may be aware of a part of the picture, but missing the other pieces to make it comprehensible. Below are a few vivid examples from Dr. Riccioli's clinical casebook that make the point.\n\nGrace, thirty-six, had an embarrassing problem: she chronically pulled her hair out the way other people bite their fingernails. Her scalp was a mess of patchy, straggly hair and great gaps where she had ripped the hair out. In the course of working with Grace, Dr. Riccioli learned that she was using the hair-pulling as a way to discharge stress and tension associated with two traumatic events earlier in her life, in the thrall of which emotions she was still gripped. As a child, she had been publicly humiliated in school, and in early adulthood, her husband became an active alcoholic and deserted their marriage.\n\n**_Psychoneuroimmunology says the mind and emotions (psyche) communicate with the nervous (neuro) and immune (immunology) systems, both to their detriment or advantage, depending on whether it is consciously or unconsciously directed, and depending on the content of that communication._**\n\nGrace thought these two events happened because of her and therefore she deserved to be punished for them, even though she couldn't figure out why. Her pent-up, conflicted anger was expressed through her hair-pulling; because she couldn't find rest or resolution with respect to these two intense experiences, she was transiting back and forth continuously from her present age and those earlier times. Once she understood the connection and remembered the earlier experiences clearly and in full, she was able to discharge the old emotions and stop pulling her hair, says Dr. Riccioli.\n\nVera, forty-two, was a woman with angry ovaries. She had a serious case of ovarian cancer and was about to undergo surgery. Dr. Riccioli learned Vera had endured a highly abusive marital relationship, such that she at times had to lock herself in a room to protect herself from her husband. She knew she had a lot of anger towards him, but had stuffed it away inside herself and never dealt with it. \"Vera never dealt with her anger and it eventually turned into guilt,\" and she assumed she must have done something wrong to provoke her husband, notes Dr. Riccioli.\n\nAccording to mind-body logic, if she had been wrong, guilty of bad behavior, she must be punished, and what better biological punishment than ovarian cancer, in one of the key organs of her femininity? \"Just as her husband literally beat her up, so she symbolically transferred the beating to her ovaries,\" says Dr. Riccioli. \"You might say Vera stored the energy of the abuse, and perhaps the unexpressed anger, too, in her ovaries.\" During the course of several hypnotherapy sessions, Vera understood the connections and interactions between her relationship with her husband, her emotions, and her bodily symptoms.\n\nThe preceding examples illustrate the meaning of a useful term coined by noted women's doctor and health educator, Christiane Northrup, M.D. She calls them \"toxic emotions.\" Toxic emotions are powerful, strongly held, and typically unconscious beliefs and emotions that act as precipitators, catalysts, or seeds for a variety of illnesses, from mild to mortal. Belief becomes biology when it remains unaddressed, undischarged, or even unidentified, says Dr. Northrup. When emotions are unexpressed, they stay _in_ the body \"like small ticking time bombs\u2014they are illnesses in incubation.\" She relates a vivid case to make her point.\n\nA forty-one-year-old business executive was suffering from hot flashes. This is early to have the first signs of menopause, but because she had had a hysterectomy with removal of both ovaries a few years earlier, the surgery probably speeded up the hormonal timetable a bit, edging her, if prematurely, into perimenopause. She was under stress at work, taking four times the normal dose of estrogen for women with hot flashes, and not getting any relief. Two years into her treatment with Dr. Northrup, the woman finally revealed she had been sexually molested at age six by an adult male. She had felt frozen, numb, unable to speak at the time. Later she felt ashamed and told nobody about the incident, thinking that somehow she must have done something wrong to warrant this kind of punishment.\n\nThe hysterectomy, which was done as a result of years of unremitting uterine pain, says Dr. Northrup, was actually a step in the right direction, not so much medically, as emotionally. It was her body's way of focusing the woman's attention on the \"scene of the crime,\" in this case, literally. Even deeper, the woman felt oppressed by \"the original sin of being female,\" and tried to compensate for this felt inferiority by overworking. She overworked to prove herself in the workplace and to avoid contact with the deep emotional pain she bore in her uterus and the shame that made her feel unworthy and bad, explains Dr. Northrup.\n\nShe adds that the \"seeds\" for the woman's physical problems were planted by the emotional trauma of sexual abuse. It did not necessarily create it in a linear chain of causality, but this early abuse \"set a pattern of discomfort in her body-mind,\" and her body-mind expressed the pain continually at the place of the original trauma. Undoing the lifelong effects of this toxic seed meant going back in herself to experience and \"expiate it, exorcise it\" from her cellular memory bank.\n\nDr. Northrup calls this process of feeling, expressing, and releasing old repressed emotions \"emotional incision and drainage.\" Buried emotions, festering and toxic, are like abscesses that a doctor needs to lance and drain. Similarly, emotions, walled off and generating pain, must be \"lanced\" and \"drained\" so healthy new tissues (metaphorically, self-attitudes and behaviors) can form.\n\nAs Carolyn Myss, Ph.D., the highly popular advocate of the seamless mind-body model, remarks, the first principle of illness is that biography becomes biology. All our thoughts and feelings first enter our biological system as energy. \"Every thought you have had has traveled through your biological system and activated a physiological response,\" she says. Some have dropped depth charges, causing physiological reactions throughout the body. \"In this way our biographies are woven into our biological systems, gradually, slowly, every day.\"\n\nMost of us carry destructive beliefs and feelings around with us, and these steadily undermine our health, gradually converting our biology to be in accordance with our definition of reality. For example, if you are continuously \"pissed off' at somebody or a situation, your body may translate this into chronic urinary tract infections in which your \"piss\" acidifies under the influence of this strongly held, undischarged emotion. Until you discharge the emotion, you may be subject to recurrent bouts of urinary tract infection.\n\nVarious emotions, such as low self-esteem or self-worth, have been associated with the development of cancer, and these toxic emotions can have a powerful influence on the course of the disease and the inability of well-indicated therapies to stop it. \"Many cancer patients cannot recover from their cancer until these memories are discovered and treated.\"\n\nIt sounds counter to common sense, but what you _don't_ know can hurt you, \"because the repressed memory of trauma is traumatic,\" explains Arthur Janov, M.D., in _Why You Get Sick and How You Get Well._ Dr. Janov is the well-known founder of the primal scream technique, which he introduced in the 1970s. It is our repressed memory of a painful or deprived or abusive childhood that is itself traumatic, exerting a continuous debilitating effect on our body, says Dr. Janov.\n\nNeurosis, the state of carrying unresolved, conflicted emotion and states of mind, is the foundation of illness, he says. There is nothing more healing than to actually _feel_ and fully experience the memories and emotions\u2014our \"internal reality\"\u2014from earlier in life that have been repressed or shunted out of our awareness. Childhood pain is like a psychological big bang that can set the course for the rest of our life, until we deal with it. We may spend a lifetime trying to repress the painful memory, but \"all that energy and activation has to find its way into some kind of disease,\" says Dr. Janov.\n\nDr. Janov relates the case of a woman, twenty-nine, who had been bulimic for eleven years. After working with Dr. Janov and his primal therapy approach, she realized her bulimia was a coping mechanism traceable to her difficult birth. During her birthing, she got stuck in the birth canal and went into a frenzy\u2014angry, afraid, and fighting for her life. She couldn't breathe and her body went into convulsions. In her adult life, during a crisis, she would stuff herself with food and then vomit. She realized her bulimia was mimicking the trauma of her birth. Throwing up was her way of disgorging the stress of not being able to breathe, and therefore of discharging the tension of the crisis.\n\n\"I seemed to have recreated the airlessness of my birth through the throwing up of my bulimia,\" she told Dr. Janov. When she had a crisis as an adult and felt her breathing start to constrict, she _had_ to vomit; this was how her body learned to deal with crises. Once she understood this energy equation, she was able to free herself from the bulimia. \"We have learned that what makes people sick is the key to making them well again,\" comments Dr. Janov. But to \"fully respond to traumatic aspects of their childhood for the first time,\" people have to bring the content from out of unconscious storage back into consciousness.\n\n### The Healthy Living Space Expert Interview: Patricia Kaminski, Flower Essence Practitioner\n\nThere are many ways to access, express, and release buried emotions, but the one we will focus on in this chapter is called flower essence therapy. It is a gentle but deep practice originally developed in the 1930s by a British bacteriologist, Edward Bach, M.D. He found a way to use the subtle energies of plant blossoms to highlight, clarify, and resolve human emotions.\n\nDr. Bach created a series of thirty-eight formulas, now called the Bach Flower Remedies, in which an infusion of flower blossoms into distilled water\u2014when taken orally as drops over a period of weeks\u2014could produce profound clarifications in specific emotions such as grief, sadness, fear, anxiety, and others. His idea was to use these flower essences to address emotional, psychological, even spiritual issues underlying physical and medical problems.\n\nIn the late 1970s, Patricia Kaminski joined with Richard Katz to extend Dr. Bach's principles of emotional healing through flower essences to develop remedies based on plants grown in North America. Their assumption was that, it being fifty years later and another continent, the remedies might be more effectively produced from indigenous plants and encompass a broader range of emotional nuance. Humans are emotionally more complex today than in Dr. Bach's time, and the American psyche may need homegrown flower energies, botanical essences more in resonance with the landscape in which the end users live.\n\nToday, their line of flower essences number more than 100 (based on the freshly harvested and infused blossoms of plants, bushes, and trees) and through their Flower Essence Society, based in Nevada City, California, they have an active network of colleagues, students, and practitioners throughout the world.\n\nImplicit in the model of flower essences, whether they come from Bach or Katz and Kaminski, is the startling idea that somehow the energy of plant blossoms has a relationship with the spectrum of human emotions. Flower essence practitioners suggest that the plant kingdom, through its blossoms, embodies in a pure, almost abstract form, the essence of human emotions. The purity of this expression enables the plant blossoms, when prepared in the right way, to have a clarifying effect on human emotions\u2014clarifying in the sense of the impact an archetype (a pure emotion) can have on its manifestation (a pure emotion expressed, distorted, or blocked by a human psyche).\n\nFlower essence practitioners also postulate that the human energy field, or aura (discussed in more detail in Chapter 9), has a basic affinity with the plant kingdom. It is even suggested that in some manner the human energy field embodies the full spectrum of the plant kingdom and, analogically speaking, the myriad blossoms occurring in the plant world are like little stars, or points of pure consciousness, in the human energy field. Whatever the theoretical explanation, flower essence practitioners operate on the assumption\u2014one backed by decades of empirical results and clinical observation of clients\u2014that a flower essence can help a person experience, clarify, and resolve distorted emotions.\n\nFlower essences _\"encourage_ rather than _compel_ change, working by vibrational resonance rather than by biochemical intervention,\" explains Kaminski. They evoke and stimulate \"an inner dialogue with hidden aspects of the Self, awakening profound psychological archetypes, and giving us access to their message.\" Through this kind of inner dialogue, Kaminski says, flower essences can catalyze \"deep emotional and mental changes\" powerful enough to in turn spark physiological alterations, reversals of symptoms, and often healings.\n\n**_How do we know if we're toxic, either physically or emotionally? \"I think we should assume that we all are,\" says Kaminski. \"The question is this: do we have ways of efficiently recycling that toxicity, processing it the way the liver handles toxins? What kind of soul apparatus do we have that helps us deal with toxicity?\"_**\n\nAs Kaminski sees it, flower essences \"unite the human soul with the soul of nature\" and \"rekindle a vital connection\" between these two expressions of soul. Flower essences \"massage\" the sensibilities of the soul, Kaminski explains. \"They reinstill our capacity to receive living forces from nature, qualities that allow our souls to be permeable rather than hardened,\" as well as vital instead of mechanical.\n\nIn flower essence thinking, the term \"soul\" has a vital, real role, and would still have this quality even if matters of the soul were not now a nationally validated topic in publishing and teaching, ever since Thomas More's best-selling _Care of the Soul_ was published in 1992. The soul is the substrate of our emotions and sense of self, the deep, pure feeling state within, the inner, permanent self. In her book _Flowers That Heal_ , Kaminski says using flower essences dredges unpleasant emotions to the surface of our awareness. \"As we witness these parts of ourselves, we have the opportunity to understand, to redeem and to cleanse these emotions.\" With flower essences, we heal from the inside out.\n\nHow do we know if we're toxic, either physically or emotionally? \"I think we should assume that we all are,\" says Kaminski. \"The question is this: do we have ways of efficiently recycling that toxicity, processing it the way the liver handles toxins? What kind of soul apparatus do we have that helps us deal with toxicity? You can't medicate away the pain of the soul with psychiatric drugs. We need to be involved in creating in the soul those structures and processes analogous to the liver that enable us to process emotional toxicity. With flower essences, you actually flood the body with a positive 'medicine,' with positive emotional archetypes that shift the cellular structure in a different direction.\"\n\nIn other words, says Kaminski, toxicity is a condition we are bound to encounter on the emotional level, so we need to develop ways to _process_ it. Even better, we need to process it in such a way that in the end we have gained in consciousness. We are more aware of ourselves, of our emotional totality. This way, Kaminski says, emotional detoxification through flower remedies can lead to more consciousness. She adds that flower essence therapy is \"a cutting edge, vanguard 'medicine' that is trying to build a bridge between psyche and soma, or the body.\"\n\nHere's an example from Kaminski's case files that illustrates these points. She consulted with a fifty-eight-year-old business executive who had sustained a heart attack. He had tremendous stress in his life and it seemed his primary way of relating to the world was through hostility. He was in advertising, a highly competitive industry, and his job description was virtually to walk all over everybody else, to triumph, win the client, do the best, make the most amount of money, and the usual ultra-Type A personality behaviors. Naturally, he had high blood pressure as well as a weakened heart after the \"attack.\"\n\nWhen he came to Kaminski, he had already started a nutritional therapy regimen and meditation. She started him on four flower essences specific to his condition of stress, hostility, and a rigidified heart, using Impatiens, Zinnia, Borage, and Holly.\n\nIn terms of its effect on human emotions, the flower Impatiens is aptly named: it dissolves impatience. This man was always snapping his fingers, tapping his fingers, expressing his impatience, says Kaminski. \"The impatience was everywhere in him: the need to drive fast, to be somewhere in a hurry, to get things done in a hurry.\"\n\nIndividuals who need Impatiens \"find it difficult to be within the flow of time; their tendency is to rush ahead of experience,\" comments Kaminski in her masterwork on flower essence prescribing, _Flower Essence Repertory_ (cowritten with husband Richard Katz). They have too much fiery force, and this flares up easily into irritation, impatience, intolerance, and anger. Impatiens as a flower essence actually imparts the opposite qualities: patience, acceptance, and the ability to flow with the pace of life and others, explains Kaminski.\n\nKaminski gave the man Zinnia flower essence because much of his joy of life was gone. He had lost his sense of humor and ability to easily laugh; he took himself too seriously. He had developed an overly somber sense of self, a dullness and over-seriousness, explains Kaminski. Zinnia would help reverse that by evoking \"childlike humor and playfulness,\" a lightheartedness, an inner joyfulness, and a sense of detached perspective on oneself. It would help him appreciate the possibility that playfulness and laughter could have a role in a responsible life, says Kaminski.\n\nThe third flower essence prescribed was Borage. The emotional issues to do with Borage were to a large degree at the \"heart\" of the man's heart condition, says Kaminski. The patterns of imbalance that indicate the need for Borage are heavy-heartedness and a lack of confidence in facing difficult circumstances, Kaminski explains. Borage instills a sense of courage and buoyancy that helps one rise above difficulties. \"Borage is often at the core of outer hostility because underneath this is grief and vulnerability that emotionally weigh down the heart and prevent the heart from expressing its own real emotion. Borage helps the heart to experience this ebullience and lightness, filling the soul with fresh forces of optimism and enthusiasm.\"\n\nFinally, Holly was indicated to address this man's sense of feeling cut off from love, and of being filled with jealousy, suspicion, anger, and envy. On the positive side, Holly would help evoke the feeling of love and the ability to extend it to others, an open heart and a sense of compassion, says Kaminski. This remedy helps restore a person's \"ability to feel unity and wholeness,\" she notes.\n\nAfter a few weeks of taking the four remedies\u2014he took them several times daily as drops\u2014the man began to see changes in his emotional nature. Previously, when his young daughter walked into a room, he would be impatient for her to leave, talking to her briefly, feeling increasingly irritated. But now he found himself \"fascinated\" by what she had to say; he felt inclined to play with her as opposed to having to order himself to do so out of fatherly duty. He started to see he didn't have to \"jump all the time into reality,\" but that he could sit back and allow it to unfold before him, says Kaminski. He didn't have to control everything any more.\n\n\"Learning to trust the world is the antidote for hostility,\" Kaminski notes. This man had not been trusting of the world, and eventually his body mimicked his core emotional stance and attacked him just as he was chronically attacking the world through his hostility. A key element in easing hostility is teaching a person to trust the world again, to let the heart relax its vigilance, she adds.\n\n\"Through the flower essences, he gained enough of an edge on himself that he could start to _witness_ life rather than _react_ to it all of the time. He has had remarkable changes in his heart condition since then. All of the physiological indicators for heart health are now very favorable for him.\" Through the flower essences and the way they worked to clarify his emotional knots and give him a position of detached awareness about them\u2014what Kaminski calls the \"witness\" stance\u2014he was able to dissolve much of his emotional toxicity and thereby relieve its steady, sickening pressure on his physical heart. He became able to have vulnerability and emotional space with himself in the context of his family, and this was intensely healing for him, says Kaminski. He no longer was \"incredibly actively hostile\" at work: he didn't _need_ to exhibit that kind of behavior any more.\n\n\"For me, the question with emotional toxicity is not that we get the 'poison' out of the body, but that we learn how to handle the daily flow of it, that we learn how emotional toxicity originates. So the goal is not so much a cleansing of emotional toxicity but an active change in how we _deal_ with it,\" Kaminski explains. Ideally, through flower essences, we can deal with it with more consciousness, more awareness of its true message.\n\n## HEALTHY LIVING SPACE DETOXIFIER #35 Remedying the Four Basic States of Emotional Toxicity with Flower Essences\n\nBased on more than twenty years of clinical consultation with hundreds of clients, Kaminski describes four basic states of emotional toxicity. Using these four categories, she says it is possible for a person to categorize oneself and thereby select appropriate remedies to start the process of emotional clarification. The four basic categories are hostility, depression, stress\/tension, and anxiety\/fear, all of which are presented in more detail below. The strategy is simple: a group of compatible remedies will undo the emotional knots that produce the overall style of reactivity, such as hostility or depression.\n\nThe idea is simple: examine your typical style of emotional reaction when you are pressed up against the wall. What is your usual response when \"push comes to shove\"? Do you get mad, depressed, stressed out, or afraid? From this small act of self-observation, you can see which of the four categories you fit into, says Kaminski. Then within the chosen category, decide again which of the nuances of that basic emotional state best describes your emotional style, and select one flower essence and use it for a month or two (see figure 8-1).\n\nThese are not absolute categories, by the way. They are meant only as provisional definitions of emotional experience, says Kaminski\u2014general, perhaps broad, guideposts to help orient you to your emotional reality. Further, the flower remedies are not first aid conveniences, like aspirin, producing a quick resolution of the problem. They work slowly, deeply, organically, from within you; generally you should allow a month or two for lasting results, she notes.\n\n**Figure 8-1. The Four Basic States of Emotional Toxicity and Their Appropriate Flower Essences**\n\nIt is useful to compare the action of flower remedies to intestinal cleansers. A kind of dredging work is started by taking either. In the case of intestinal cleansers, odd, uncomfortable, but transient mental and physical states are experienced as the intestines get cleansed. Similarly, while taking flower remedies you can expect an upwelling of strange, unfamiliar, or deeply familiar emotions; the process may make you feel unsettled, but then, it's supposed to. You can't expect to clarify and resolve emotions without some confusion and seeming emotional chaos during the process. But remember: it is a _process_ , and one with an eventual positive and beneficial conclusion. So it is worth it to stick out the ups and downs of the emotional process flower remedies can precipitate.\n\n### _Hostility_\n\nThis first categoiy includes feelings of hostility and lack of trust. As we saw in the case study above, it especially afflicts the heart, both physically and as the center of our affective life. This affliction then gets projected aggressively outwards onto the world in overly assertive, aggressive, even potentially violent, behavior. It is about a loss of trust by the heart and a lack of open space for the heart, for a sense of vulnerability and emotional exposure. Borrowing a term from traditional Chinese medicine, Kaminski calls this state _yang_ , meaning, fiery, intense, strong, hard, active, outward-tending. But it is a state of emotional imbalance.\n\nFlower essences recommended for this emotional state to help curb the overly _yang_ disposition of the heart:\n\n_Holly_ : Holly helps one develop an equanimity and sense of spaciousness in the soul, says Kaminski, freeing one up from the felt need to react hard against the world. It helps one be more inclusive and expansive, to feel less isolated from others, to experience love in connection with other people.\n\n_Oregon Grape_ : This is indicated if a person feels paranoid or self-protective or expects hostility from others even when this expectation is not warranted by the facts. The person tends to feel they are likely to be attacked, from anywhere. In contrast, taking the remedy will help generate a sense of loving inclusion of others, the expectation of good will coming from others, and the ability to trust in the goodness of other people.\n\n_Willow_ : This remedy is needed when one feels resentful, irritable, bitter, or that life is unfair and has cast one as a victim, or when one has too many hard edges to the personality. Willow will help produce a feeling of acceptance, forgiveness, a flowingness with life, the ability to yield and bend with circumstances, to stop rigidly holding on to negative emotions or some old, unnecessary part of oneself, and the willingness to take responsibility for one's life. Willow helps to decongest dammed up, internalized emotions that can lead to\u2014as it were, congeal into\u2014painful, stiff joints and muscles, even arthritis.\n\n_Beech_ : Beech is needed if you feel critical, judgmental, intolerant, and have perfectionist expectations of others; also if you have an oversensitivity to your social and physical environment. You project your inner sense of inferiority, imperfection, and insecurity onto others, and seek to feel safe by condemning others. Beech helps undo this by generating feelings of tolerance and acceptance of the differences and imperfections of others.\n\n_Zinnia_ : As described earlier, Zinnia helps evoke feelings of childlike playfulness, humor, amusement, and laughter as a counterbalance to the tendency to be heavy and hard-hearted.\n\nFlower essences recommended to help heal the underlying lack of emotional vulnerability that accompanies hostility:\n\n_Borage_ : Borage also helps undo the heaviness of the heart and opens up the hidden areas of grief in the heart. Borage instills courage, upliftment, a sense of light-filled buoyancy, and \"fresh forces of optimism and enthusiasm.\"\n\n_Bleeding Heart_ : This essence is indicated if you form relationships based on fear or possessiveness or emotional codependence, or if you have poured great amounts of love into a relationship that subsequently failed (or the person died or moved away), leaving you wounded and heartbroken. The remedy helps one rebuild heart forces from within, generating a capacity to love unconditionally with an open heart, and to forgive those who have hurt you.\n\n_Golden Ear Drops_ : You can benefit from this flower essence if there are suppressed toxic memories of childhood or feelings of pain and unexpiated trauma from earlier events that produce emotional instability. Look for evidence of emotional amnesia and the \"unconscious residue of traumatic memories,\" says Kaminski. This remedy will help cleanse the heart and may literally produce tears as a form of emotional discharge, she adds. It helps you reconnect with your childhood and see it as a source of emotional well-being, not toxicity.\n\n_Calendula_ : A person can benefit from this remedy if one tends to use sharp, cutting, argumentative words as a psychological defense in communication with others. Calendula brings warmth to the spoken word, so that it generates good will and understanding and not division and hurt. It also helps to calm down the adrenal glands, which can be revved up in a state of chronic argumentativeness and verbal aggressiveness.\n\n### _Depression_\n\nAs the second category of emotional toxicity, depression is in many respects the opposite of hostility It is a _yin_ condition, a turning inward, a cold, damp, passive, soft, yielding, sinking quality. There is no fire here, and the person retreats from the world and, in effect, from active expressions of self and will. Cancer is typical of this state of emotional toxicity, says Kaminski. It would be mistaken to think of depression purely in biochemical terms, as only a brain-bound condition, she says.\n\nIt is also about whether our will has fire in it, and enthusiasm for life and taking action. A person with this condition is liable to develop alcohol dependency, but alcohol is poison for depressives, says Kaminski. \"Alcohol has so much fire in it that it drowns out our own fire.\" Depression is often \"a loss of connection (especially in the will) with the spiritual world and a loss of hope in that connection; one becomes submerged in the narrowness of the personality (the opposite of the hostile person who inflames their sense of self).\"\n\nSometimes the person's sense of self is so uninflamed\u2014so passive and watery, so to speak, so lacking in inner will\u2014that one is easily overcome by foreign disease agents, such as cancerous cells, or even parasitic energy organisms, thoughts, and feelings from the outer world, Kaminski notes. \"At its worst, one can become overcome and possessed by entities because one's ego is not strong enough to ward off these negative disease-producing influences.\" (For more on this subject, see Chapter 9.)\n\nFlower essences recommended to help heal the deep underlying wounds of depression include:\n\n_St. John's Wort_ : A need for this remedy is indicated by physical and psychic vulnerability, the lack of rootedness in the world leading to an overexposure to the light. Such people have a tendency to get sunburned and develop allergies as part of their oversensitivity, and they have a very active psychic life, but an ungrounded one, leading them to loose their connection to the physical body, says Kaminski. \"This weak association to the body results in a propensity for invasion or attack from negative elemental forces or other entities, especially during sleep.\" This remedy helps a person _circulate_ the light throughout the physical body and undo psychic blockages that drain off one's vital energy.\n\n_California Wild Rose_ : Here the condition is apathy, resignation, and the inability to organize and spark the forces of will through the heart so that one can take hold of one's responsibilities and life tasks. People needing this remedy find it hard to take emotional risks, need to insulate themselves against wounding, and may even be alienated from the social world. The remedy instills a feeling of love for the Earth and human life, and an enthusiasm to serve others. This flower gives one the courage to love, to love life, and even to wear the \"crown of thorns\" life inevitably gives you.\n\n**_Sometimes the person's sense of self is so uninflamed\u2014so passive and watery, so to speak, so lacking in inner will\u2014that one is easily overcome by foreign disease agents, such as cancerous cells, or even parasitic energy organisms, thoughts, and feelings from the outer world._**\n\n_Scotch Broom_ : This remedy is indicated when a person feels weighed down and depressed, overcome with despair or pessimistic views, especially with regard to one's relationship to large social events. The soul feels burdened with negative scenarios of great social upheaval and travail, and this unrelieved weight leads to resignation, paralysis of the will, and depression. Scotch Broom sparks feelings of optimism about being able to affect the world positively; it imparts a sense of caring, encouragement, hope, and purposefulness.\n\n_Mustard_ : Feelings of melancholy, gloom, despair, and depression without obvious cause suggest this remedy. The soul feels darkness and is overwhelmed by it, especially as its onset seems inexplicable. Mustard helps one gain emotional equanimity and joy, and identify forgotten or suppressed events that may have triggered or sustained the depression.\n\n_Gentian_ : If you feel doubt or discouragement after a setback, Gentian can help. Gentian helps build resilience in the face of impediments and obstacles, and it provides encouragement to see these setbacks as opportunities to learn more about oneself by shifting one's perspective on life and identity. Skepticism and doubt get transformed into faith and confidence.\n\n_Sweet Chestnut_ : This remedy is helpful when you feel strong despair and anguish and something akin to what is traditionally called \"the Dark Night of the Soul.\" If you need this you are probably suffering acutely, seemingly being tested to the breaking point. You probably feel deeply alone, possibly suicidal. Sweet Chestnut helps instill a deep sense of courage and faith that comes from trusting the spiritual world to not let you down and to help you out of the \"rock bottom\" of your depression.\n\n_Love-Lies-Bleeding_ : In this case, a person feels an intensification of pain and suffering due to isolation. The suffering can be intense, either bodily or psychological in nature, and it pushes one's awareness deeply inward; such a person is \"truly deep-pressed,\" comments Kaminski. This remedy does not so much provide immediate relief from this state as it helps the person move consciousness outward from the over-personal identification and isolation into something more transpersonal. It is a shift in perspective and meaning from the inside to the outside, from the personal to something beyond it; it provides a context that thereby eases the suffering because suffering now has a role and purpose.\n\n_Yerba Santa_ : This remedy is recommended when you feel emotionally constricted, especially in the chest; when you have internalized grief and melancholy; or have deeply repressed emotions stored away, as it were, in the deepest recesses of the heart. Typically, your breathing is disturbed and congested, and you are liable to respiratory diseases as the soul wastes away within, consumed by the intense energies of unrelieved sadness or grief. Yerba Santa helps free up the flow of emotions so that feeling and breathing may be harmonized.\n\n### Stress\/Tension\n\nThese two conditions tend to go together. As a strong sense of pressure, stress\/tension is \"the younger brother of hostility and afflicts many,\" notes Kaminski. \"Such persons are not as overtly hostile or aggressive, but they still are predominantly _yang_ in their soul orientation. They need to develop more inner space, a quality of soul spaciousness. Such persons find it hard to be at rest; they always need to be doing something; they feel hurried and pressured; and they set up situations in their life in which they will be hurried and pressured.\"\n\nKaminski notes that in some respects, this condition is \"a strong imprint or overlay from Western culture itself and may not be part of a person's true temperament. Many people are profoundly influenced by the overall speeded-up quality of the urban environment in which everything rushes by intensely; people end up unconsciously copying this energy pattern in their own life. Such persons could be called adrenaline junkies, because they thrive on tension, pressure, deadlines, and performance expectations, all of which tend to over-stimulate the adrenal glands. The faster something is, the more impatient they are to make it go even faster. They will switch TV channels constantly or upgrade their computer every year.\"\n\nTwo essences specifically deal with the overall quality of pressure, tension, and stress imparted by Western culture to all of us:\n\n_Yarrow Special Formula_ : This formula focuses on enhancing the integrity of our energy body, the flow of physical and subtle energies through our physical body and aura. It also helps undo the toxic influence of noxious environmental energies such as radiation, pollution, geopathic stress (harmful energies from the Earth itself\u2014see Chapter 12 for more details), and even computer stress. This remedy combines yarrow and sea salt to strengthen the human energy field with pure formative forces from the plant and mineral kingdoms so that we can withstand and resist the tension\/pressure and noxious influences from the environment.\n\n_Five Flower Formula_ : This is an all-purpose first-aid remedy (also known as Rescue Remedy) combining five flower essences (Cherry Plum, Clematis, Impatiens, Rock Rose, and Star of Bethlehem). It is especially useful in cases of sudden, acute shock or trauma. \"It is also a good overall balancer for tension, stress, emergencies, life in the fast lane, some cases of insomnia, subliminal levels of panic, and general _dis_ -ease,\" comments Kaminski. It instills calmness and stability in the face of physical or emotional emergencies, high stress, sudden panic, disorientation, or loss of consciousness. It helps the soul stay connected with the body, and in cases of nonemergency, it can be used in the early stages of inner work as a way of stabilizing the self so that it can calmly contact the soul within.\n\nOther essences helpful for easing the pattern of stress\/tension:\n\n_Impatiens_ : As already mentioned, Impatiens can alleviate the sense of impatience, irritation, urgency, and tension, and allow instead a sense of patient acceptance of the flow of events and the movement of time.\n\n_Canyon Dudleya_ : This remedy is particularly indicated for people who have distorted psychic experiences, who are preoccupied with mediumism, or who need more order and less self-inflation in their soul lives. Canyon Dudleya will help catalyze a healthy, balanced, grounded spiritual opening.\n\n_Yarrow._ People who experience extreme vulnerability to others and to their environment, who are easily depleted energetically, or who too easily absorb negative influences and psychic toxicity from around them will benefit from Yarrow. This flower essence instills a sense of inner radiance and auric strength, a sensitivity that is not vulnerable to constant permeation by outside influences. Persons who have allergies, environmental sensitivities, and psychosomatic diseases will benefit from Yarrow.\n\n_Scleranthus_ : Scleranthus deals with hesitation, confusion, indecision, and conditions of unresolved duality in the quest for inner wholeness. People for whom this remedy is indicated tend to vacillate when they need to make decisions; this chronic uncertainty can get translated into bodily symptoms, especially ones that continually shift, come and go, increase and decrease in intensity. Scleranthus can help produce inner resolve and decisiveness.\n\n_Indian Pink_ : The person requiring this flower essence tends to have their psychic forces easily shattered by overactivity and find it hard to remain centered and grounded during this intense activity. Indian Pink people tend to try to do too many things at once, and they spin out of control and out of focus. They can be emotionally volatile and appear haggard or depleted. Indian Pink helps such a person stay centered and focused even during times of stress.\n\n_Star Tulip_ : The Star Tulip person tends to feel hardened, cut off, unable to feel attuned to things or any sense of quiet inner presence as is needed to pray or meditate. The remedy helps one listen within, to become aware of the subtle influences perpetually at work within and around them; it enhances one's ability to pray, dream, meditate, or feel connected to the spiritual worlds.\n\n### _Anxiety\/Fear_\n\nThis fourth basic state of emotional toxicity includes loss of confidence and low self-esteem in the context of low-grade chronic fear and anxiety. \"This is the lesser sister of depression,\" says Kaminski. \"It works predominantly in a _yin_ way in the soul. These are persons who under-perform, who do not push or pressure themselves with respect to externals though they may carry a huge amount of pressure or anxiety that churns them up from within. Such persons hold in too much psychic force especially in the abdomen or solar plexus area of the body. They tend to cave in, give way to fear and limiting notions of self. They need courage and strength, more _yang_ force.\"\n\nThese are the flower remedies recommended to help undo this condition of chronic anxiety and fear:\n\n_Mimulus_ : This essence is helpful for easing the effects of known, everyday fears, for people who are hypersensitive to small ordinary fears. The solar plexus churns with agitation and unease at all these unrelieved fears. Mimulus restores courage to the soul to face these fears and life challenges with confidence and inner light, and it helps highlight the deeper, more basic fear underlying the multitude of surface panics: \"the fear of the physical body, or of physical life itself,\" sometimes traceable to the moment of birth, says Kaminski.\n\n_Scarlet Monkeyflower_ : The person needing this flower essence tends to fear intense feelings and represses all strong emotions, leaving them unable to resolve issues of anger and powerlessness. The person is afraid of their shadow-self emotions, the ones they believe originate from the unconscious. Scarlet Monkeyflower helps instill emotional honesty and helps integrate the shadow feelings.\n\n_Sticky Monkeyflower._ This one deals with repressed sexual feelings or acting out in inappropriate sexual behavior. It is also concerned with a person's inability to experience human warmth during sexual relations; in a sense, it is about a deep fear of sex and intimacy, says Kaminski, and even more, it is about a fear of exposure of one's essential self during moments of physical intimacy. Sticky Monkeyflower thereby helps a person integrate sexual urges with human warmth and intimacy.\n\n_Buttercup_ : Buttercup is indicated when one feels low selfworth and high self-doubt, and when one is unable to acknowledge one's own inner light and uniqueness especially when measured against conventional external standards. Buttercup, in keeping with its bright, almost glistening yellowness, helps one radiate an inner light so as to become free of the need for outer recognition. Buttercup helps you honor your own value from within and bring this quality out into the world.\n\n**_\"This is exactly what flower essence therapy is intended to achieve: not to mask outer symptoms but to help the soul find the right balance with regard to these basic soul dispositions.\" The toxicity comes when these soul aspects aren't being attended to in a conscious way._**\n\n_Sunflower._ The Sunflower person has a distorted sense of self, either tending to self-inflation or self-diminishment, to arrogance or low self-esteem. There is often an imbalance in their relationship to the masculine (or Father archetype), even if the person is a male. Sunflower evokes a balanced sense of ego or self-identity, neither too much nor too little, marked by light, warmth, and compassion.\n\n_Penstemon_ : Here one feels sorry for oneself and self-pity is the order of the day. One is also unable to bear the difficulties of one's circumstances (such as a handicap or disability from birth or an accident) and succumbs to a sense of persecution. Hence, Penstemon instills a feeling of inner fortitude, an ability to persevere despite the heavy challenges facing one.\n\n_Mountain Pride_ : The Mountain Pride person often vacillates and even withdraws in the face of a hard challenge, lacking assertiveness and the inner nerve to stand up for one's convictions. This is for people who confuse peace with passivity. Mountain Pride evokes a sense of \"forthright masculine energy, a warrior-like spirituality that confronts and transforms,\" explains Kaminski.\n\n_California Wild Rose_ : See the Depression category for a description of this essence.\n\n_Blackberry._ Here a person has a hard time translating goals and ideals into actual action in the world. It is as if the will cannot link itself with the world; there is a significant gap between aims and achievements. Appropriately, the person's metabolism is sluggish, mirroring the sluggishness of the will. Blackberry helps one develop a sense of \"exuberant manifestation\" in which one can clearly, directly channel one's will forces into concrete action.\n\nAs mentioned earlier, these categories and their subdivisions are not cast in stone. \"As the emphasis here is emotional toxicity, I refer to the dysfunctional qualities we often see when these four temperaments are out of balance,\" comments Kaminski. \"There is usually one we gravitate towards more than others, but certainly these are not mutually exclusive categories. In fact, we can switch into different basic responses as we go through different life cycles. Even the seasons can affect our responses.\" For example, there is a normal disposition to \"depression\" in the winter months when there is the least amount of sunlight.\n\nWriters such as James Hillman, in _The Soul's Code_ , wisely counsel us to cultivate this depression in the winter, to take time to go into our depths. If we did, he argues, we would see more depth in our culture, more ability to deal with grief and loss, and less need to medicate. \"This is exactly what flower essence therapy is intended to achieve,\" notes Kaminski. \"Not to mask outer symptoms, but to help the soul find the right balance with regard to these basic soul dispositions.\"\n\nThe toxicity comes when these soul aspects aren't being attended to in a conscious way, she explains. \"I use the analogy of a river that flows harmoniously without being impeded, dammed, or otherwise regulated from without. This river (our emotional life) is able to cleanse itself of toxic waste effectively, even to regenerate itself from rather extreme states of toxicity if given the opportunity to come back into dynamic balance.\"\n\nAs Patricia Kaminski makes clear, flower essences can highlight, clarify, and help resolve emotional knots in the psyche. It can bring light into the dark regions of our emotional life and help us see where we have been tied up, repressed, or otherwise blocked by stuck or buried emotions. Flower essences, especially St. John's Wort, discussed above, can also make us aware of psychic blockages or even parasitic elements in our overall energy field. Sometimes these blockages or the presence of foreign energies in our aura can compromise us to a degree beyond which flower essence therapy can be therapeutic. That is because such blockages or presences operate beyond our emotional sphere, in the sphere of energy and psychic or spiritual influences, and require a different approach. This is the subject of the next chapter.\n\n  **_The Healthy Living Space_ Info Tip**\n\nFor information about flower\n\nessences mentioned in this chapter:\n\nPatricia Kaminski,\n\nFlower Essence Society,\n\nP.O. Box 459,\n\nNevada City, CA 95959;\n\ntel: 800-736-9222 or 530-265-9163;\n\nfax: 530-265-0584;\n\ne-mail: mail@flowersociety.org;\n\nwebsite: www.flowersociety.org.\n\n# CHAPTER 9\n\n# Guidelines for Spiritual Detoxification: Cleansing the Space around the Body\n\nCall to mind, if you will, the last time you walked into a room and felt accosted by the strange, unpleasant, possibly obnoxious energy in that space. It may not have been anything you heard, anyone in particular you observed, or even an odor you detected. But nonetheless you _felt_ something, an almost baleful atmosphere emanating from the room\u2014or movie theater, restaurant, store, basement, potentially any public or domestic space you find yourself in. Perhaps you felt a prickling at the back of your neck; maybe your skin went clammy, your breathing tightened, you felt panicked or anxious, or noticed anomalous aches or pains suddenly emerging in your body.\n\nWhat's happened? Using senses common to humans, though ones not generally acknowledged, you have _sensed_ the spiritual quality of a living space\u2014\"spiritual\" in the literal sense of spirit, meaning not physically embodied but immaterial, an energy essence or influence, a vibration. The part of you that did the sensing is often called the aura, and this is the subtle energy field\u2014a kind of sixth sense\u2014said to envelop the body of every human being and to resemble a luminous egg, according to the reports of psychics. The aura can see where we can't with our ordinary eyes, and it can register subtle influences, both healthy and unwholesome, that can affect our minds and bodies. It is another aspect of our overall _living space_ and like the other aspects, our physical body and our home, it can either support or hinder our well-being.\n\n### Poisons in Our Invisible Atmosphere\n\nWhile the direct perception of the aura (and thus confirmation of its existence to skeptics) depends on one having psychic abilities, the inference that there is an invisible energy envelope around the human body is much easier to support. After all, you have just inferred its existence when you felt the unpleasant vibrations upon entering that room.\n\nThe matter of auric influences has been a topic of discussion for many centuries in both Western and Eastern cultures. The sixteenth century German philosopher Henry Cornelius Agrippa advised his readers against associating with people who were evil-minded because \"their souls are filled with harmful radiations which will infect your surroundings in an unhealthy way.\" Agrippa recommended that his contemporaries interested in preserving their health associate with \"good and fortunate people, for these can help us greatly by being near to us.\"\n\nMore recently, in 1934, a German physician named Dr. Friedrich Markus Huebner noted that \"one can be poisoned\" not only by unwholesome foods, gases, and microbes, but by \"unwholesome people.\" Dr. Huebner explained that \"our invisible atmosphere\" is the part of us that first senses the subtle poison, and it becomes \"negatively charged by contact with harmful radiations.\" These radiations then exert unhealthy influences on the mind and body, eventually contributing to the emergence of symptoms of dysfunction and disease.\n\nDr. Heubner further noted that it was not uncommon for a person, upon coming in contact with a man or woman with a \"malignant aura,\" to get sudden giddiness, stomach pains, perspiration, or a fit of nervous laughter. \"Our organism is hard put to throw off an intoxication that menaces it or already seems to be active,\" he stated. According to these experts, it is the energy field or aura around the body that registers, and holds, these influences, and it is from the aura, as if it were a staging ground, that these external energies work their way into the physical body.\n\nSo what does the aura look like? One way to conceptualize it is to think of it in terms of heat radiations seen over a flat landscape or over an empty tarred parking lot on a hot summer day. You can actually see the heat rising from the surface, even though normally \"heat\" is not visible. Another way is to think of an egg. The consensus among psychics describing the human aura is that it resembles a translucent white egg extending perhaps one to three feet away from the physical body on all sides. Others have called it a \"radiant luminous cloud.\" Either way, every human has a \"personal radiation field through which we touch our environment.\" Clairvoyants report that in a state of vibrant health, a human standing in his aura resembles a figure inside a sun, as the brilliant aura radiates light in all directions.\n\nHowever, the aura is a fragile energy field, subject to injury and compromise, according to psychic healer Ruth Berger. In her handbook on aura cleansing, _The Secret is in the Rainbow: Aura Interrelationships_ , she notes that the aura can be ripped, torn, and penetrated. It can sustain cuts, slashes, gaps, slits, and openings, Berger reports. \"Picture a piece of cloth or other material dotted with cuts, slits, tears, cigarette burns, and frayed edges, and you will be able to imagine what it would take to repair such an aura.\"\n\nHow does the aura get damaged? Powerful emotional events, focused insults, psychic and verbal abuse, accidents, violence, bad thoughts directed at you from other people, drunkenness, and substance abuse\u2014there are numerous ways in which the delicate energy field around the human body can be polluted, soiled, or injured. All of us are subject to these auric influences, and the older we get, the more likely it is that our auric field matches Berger's description.\n\nThe cumulative effect of many energy insults to the aura is eventually tangible, physical symptoms, Berger explains. The aura develops splotches, dirty, murky, grayish areas like stains on blotting paper; it may also bear circles, checks, squares, lines, squares, or other strange unnatural-looking shapes, each of which is a kind of seed for an illness. In fact, psychic healers often report that observation of these abnormalities in the energy field is a valuable diagnostic tool, enabling them to see a health problem before it manifests physically.\n\nFor example, say somebody shouts at you and abuses you verbally and, in your view, quite unfairly. The abuse makes you feel bad, probably depressed, and it remains in your aura as a kind of repetitive thought, a harmful echo, a constant bruising influence, and thus a seed of illness. It weakens your aura and in turn makes your physical organism vulnerable, a little off balance. \"This could result in colds, headaches, and general ill health,\" says Berger. \"You must be aware of how negative thoughts can implant themselves in the body in order to take up the proper defense.\"\n\n**_According to psychic healers who work regularly with patients who have compromised auras, the energy field of the typical person bears hundreds of negative \"seeds\" of possible future illness left over from insults, abuses, traumas, strong emotional experiences, bad thoughts, and the rest._**\n\nAccording to psychic healers who work regularly with patients who have compromised auras, the energy field of the typical person bears hundreds of negative \"seeds\" of possible future illness left over from insults, abuses, traumas, strong emotional experiences, bad thoughts, and the rest. In fact, not only have \"seeds\" been observed, but numerous anomalous and frankly bizarre energy aberrations and \"devices\" have been noted. In fact, some have reported the presence of foreign sentient beings in the aura, even the spectral presence\u2014auric ghosts, if you will\u2014of deceased family members, relatives, or generational forebears.\n\nAs long as these \"seeds\" remain in the aura, they continue to exert an influence as \"spiritual toxins.\" Metaphorically, they are another kind of free radical, less tangible than the molecular kind but equally capable of producing illness. Your aura is part of your overall living space and thereby is subject to toxic influences. Over time these spiritual toxins can contribute to a general weakening of the immune system and the body's physical integrity and to the emergence of numerous mental and physical symptoms, even degenerative disease\u2014 _unless_ they are expunged. This chapter provides practical techniques to accomplish this.\n\n### The Outer and Inner Aura in Disease\n\nThe link between unseen influences in the energy field around the body and the emergence of mental and physical symptoms has occupied progressive researchers and physicians for the past one hundred years. Similarly, devising workable methods for auric detoxification has been the concern of psychic healers for a long time. Among scientific researchers, the effort of course has been to somehow quantify, even to make visible, the auric field and to use it as a diagnostic tool in assessing a patient's health and predisposition to illness.\n\nWhile the aura and its \"contents\" have been discussed for millennia by healers, spiritual leaders, and psychics, in 1908, the scientific world took a major step forward in demonstrating the existence of the aura. Dr. Walter Kilner, a physician at London's St. Thomas' Hospital, developed a photographic process called the Kilner Screen that made the human aura relatively visible, thereby offering doctors a remarkable diagnostic potential.\n\nThe aura is triple-layered, transiently disfigured in infections but permanently distorted in pathological conditions, Dr. Kilner reported. With the Kilner Screen a physician could now see aspects of the human auric field, a perception that formerly had been available only to medical clairvoyants. In fact, Dr. Kilner devoted many pages to medical descriptions of the aura in disease, drawing correlations between observed energy anomalies in the aura and diagnosed medical conditions or pathologies in the physical bodies of patients. In Dr. Kilner's view, the connection between auric status and physical health was unassailable. \"It is extremely difficult to imagine any departure from health that can occur without in some manner influencing one or more of the auric forces, and in consequence the aura itself.\"\n\nThe human raiment of light received further clarification through the more recent work of John C. Pierrakos, M.D., a physician and practicing clairvoyant. Dr. Pierrakos described the \"thrilling phenomenon\" of the cloudlike auric envelope and its precise chromatic pulsations relative to body metabolism, breathing rate, emotional state, humidity, and air ionization. According to his own observations, the aura, which appears nearly perfectly oval, pulsates in a continual expansion-contraction rhythm at the rate of fifteen to twenty-five times per minute in a person who is in a wakeful state.\n\n\"The auric envelope viewed as a whole is blue-gray to sky blue, and it illuminates the periphery of the body in the way the rays of the rising sun light up the profile of dark mountains.\" Dr. Pierrakos postulates that the aura springs from a \"longitudinal core of energy\" in the physical body (possibly connected with the central nervous system) that radiates outward through the skin to activate the immediate atmosphere and form the aura. For those who can see the aura, it provides information about \"the systemic implications of an illness, whether the primary symptoms surface in physical disabilities, emotional imbalances, or warped thinking.\"\n\nThe practical, diagnostic correlations of the subtle human anatomy (energy features that work in complement with organic ones) with medicine were advanced in 1967 by neuropsychiatrist Shafica Karagulla, M.D., when she investigated the applications of clairvoyance for aura diagnosis. Dr. Karagulla worked with a team of psychics, matching their psychic perceptions of internal organs, auric colors, and the functional integrity of the chakras with known physical pathologies. For Dr. Karagulla's sensitives, the healthy energy field is a matrix of light frequencies penetrating the body like a \"sparkling web of light beams.\"\n\nThis energy web can be tightly or loosely woven around the person; it can appear coarse or fine, dull or bright, she said. The auric web of unhealthy people, however, shows gaps, breaks in the pattern, holes, minute energy whirlpools that have separated from the normal energy stream, and a jumble of lines of force whose texture is like scar tissue. The essential point is that \"the energy web or body showed the condition clearly many months before it became apparent in the physical body,\" commented Dr. Karagulla.\n\nDr. Karagulla described the case of \"SA\" in whose thyroid gland (in the throat) a nodule had been found and excised. The energy field of SA's throat was dull, ranging from gray and blue to a darker shade of gray. The energy level of the thyroid gland was \"flabby, extremely low, as though dead,\" said Dr. Karagulla. Describing the overall impression made by SA's aura, she noted: \"There was an unusual granular, sandlike appearance of the etheric energy distributed over the surface of the whole etheric field [another name for the auric energy field], which dipped deep into the physical body as well.\" In other words, Dr. Karagulla saw confirmations of SA's poor health in the low energy state of and deformations in her aura.\n\nDr. Karagulla described the abdominal region of another patient. The solar plexus energy region of this person was \"wilted\" and \"broken into fragments,\" especially around the belly button, while the energy outside that area, but still in the abdomen, moved at a faster rate and was brighter, all of which indicated an energy imbalance in the abdomen. The medical diagnosis was that this person had a blocked colon in the part near the spleen (on the left side).\n\nDr. Karagulla further reported that within the auric envelope are a series of whirling wheels of color, known anciently in both the East and West as chakras. These energy centers are arranged vertically with reference to the spinal column and in association with the endocrine glands. The chakras are \"spiral cones of whirling energy,\" reported Dr. Karagulla in _Breakthrough to Creativity._ Breaks or disturbances in these spiral cones indicate an imbalance in the function of the physical body in that area, Dr. Karagulla explained. \"If any of these major vortices show a dullness or irregularity or 'leak' in this central point or core, we look for some serious pathology in the physical body in the area.\"\n\n**Figure 9-1. Locations of the Chakras.**\n\n## HEALTHY LIVING SPACE DETOXIFIER #36 Salting Your Energy Centers\n\nBecause the focus of this book is pragmatic rather than theoretical, it's time to try a technique that will both produce noticeable immediate benefits and demonstrate the reality of the aura and its influence on the mind and body.\n\nYou can use this technique as a once-weekly mind-body detoxifier, as an emergency auric detoxification method (for moments in which you feel \"polluted\"), as an occasional auric toner for improved well-being, or every morning (or evening) before your shower or bath. In this exercise, you use a heavy saltwater solution to anoint different, parts of your body to cleanse your energy centers, or chakras, thereby cleansing them of auric pollution. It is generally agreed that there are seven major centers along the spine from groin to head, but there are also numerous minor centers (some say as many as seventy-two) arrayed across the rest of the body; both major and minor energy centers are addressed in this detoxification technique (see figure 9-1).\n\nBefore you begin this exercise, notice your state of mind and body: How do you _feel?_ What is your emotional state? Are you irritable or calm? Does your body feel comfortable or tense? Do you feel sluggish or alert? Do you have a headache? Is your breathing loose or tight? What kinds of thoughts are occupying your attention?\n\n_Directions_ : Fill a plastic quart container (such as a yogurt container) with one-half pound of food-grade salt, then add warm water to the top. Stir to mix the salt with the water. Take your clothes off and step into a shower stall; pull the shower curtain to keep the salt water from splattering your bathroom. Put your hand into the salt water (make sure the salt is thoroughly mixed in) so that a small amount of the thick salty water remains on your palm when you remove your hand. Daub the top of your head in a circular motion with this salt water in your hand.\n\nYou may wish to make a statement as you apply the salt water; one such statement is: \"In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, may these centers be clear and full of light.\" You can say anything you wish; the principle is that by making a statement it helps to focus the physical action. Make the statement each time you daub an energy center.\n\nThere are many energy centers on the head. After you daub the crown, daub your brow, then both sides of your nose, behind both ears, the temples, at the top back of the head, the back of the neck, the front of the neck. Next do your upper chest, then your solar plexus, pubic area, and groin. Be careful (especially men) not to get salt water directly on your genitals; it can irritate the urethra. With each energy center (chakra), take a fresh portion of salt water from the container. Finally, do the soles of your feet.\n\nNow return to the top portion of your torso and do the armpits, insides of the elbows, the wrists, and the palms. Next, anoint your liver (lower front right side), spleen (lower front left side), both kidneys (same place, but in the back), the two shoulder blades, the inguinal lymph node area at the tops of the thighs (a few inches down from the groin on each leg), the front and back of the knees, the ankles, and the soles of the feet again.\n\nIf there is any salt water remaining, daub it any place where you sense it is needed and empty the rest over your head. One clue to where else may need salting is that during the anointing you may find you shiver or shake as you apply the salt to certain areas. Commonly, the back of the neck and the solar plexus (upper abdomen) reflect a great deal of auric pollution; the contact of the salt water with these sites can produce temporary physical sensations. Often the occurrence of shakes, shivers, sighs, groans, or even shouts as you apply the salt can be interpreted as a kind of feedback, confirming the appropriateness of the salt-based detoxification technique. In other words, getting a reaction of this type tells you there was in fact some auric pollution there; however, not reacting in these ways does not mean your aura was clear. People react differently to energy clearings.\n\nRemain standing with the salt all over your body for about ten seconds, then shower off all the salt. Take another inventory of your state of mind and body. Do you notice any differences? I am certain you will feel better. The more you use this technique and the closer you observe your starting and finishing mind-body state, the more you will come to appreciate the cleansing effect of the salt water. Also, the more acute the sense of auric pollution\u2014recall that contaminated room we imagined entering at the start of this chapter\u2014the more immediate and unarguable the psychic and physical relief you will probably experience after salting your energy centers.\n\nThis technique is not curative, in the sense of permanently removing deeply embedded influences from your aura, but it is definitely palliative. You will feel better after doing it and can preempt the influence of unwholesome auric energies upon your thoughts, feelings, and actions. You will probably come to realize that sometimes that spike of irritation, that surge of anger, that flare-up of pique, is not _you;_ it does not come authentically from you but from a transiently resident energy influence, in a sense, something you picked up at the mall.\n\n_Variations_ : Should you be so fortunate as to live near the ocean, a daily swim, float, or simple immersion in the salt water will accomplish the same effect as the anointing of your energy centers in the shower stall. If you own or have access to a flotation tank, thirty to sixty minutes in this salt-rich enclosed water environment will produce excellent results. Not only will your energy centers have a cleansing, but your whole body will feel astonishingly relaxed, rested, and clean.\n\n### Charting the Subconscious Mind in the Aura\n\nThe medical applications of auric diagnosis have taken a great leap forward with the innovative work of Shakuntala Modi, a board-certified psychiatrist based in Wheeling, West Virginia, who has successfully used hypnotherapy to help relieve patients of numerous physical and psychological symptoms due to spiritual toxins. Dr. Modi's approach is to hypnotize patients, then interview them while they are in a light trance state to ascertain the subconscious factors underlying their health problems, both physiological and psychological in nature.\n\nBased on her research with hypnotized patients, conducted over more than fifteen years, Dr. Modi is confident in correlating numerous health conditions, such as stammering, panic disorder, headaches, weight gain, allergies, schizophrenia, uterine disorders, and others, with various types of unresolved energy field disturbances. What Dr. Modi refers to as a person's \"soul history\" is arrayed in the aura. She explains that this energy field can get \"polluted\" with unhealthy thoughts and influences just as the physical body gets overburdened with toxins.\n\nResearch conducted among her patient base showed that 77 out of 100 patients reported having foreign \"beings\" in their aura (they described them as \"demons\") who were responsible for the psychological and physical symptoms for which they were seeking help, reports Dr. Modi. These inimical energies were described as being black, red, or gray blobs in various shapes, \"ranging from tiny dots to giant-sized creatures,\" as \"black and gray pebbles all over the body,\" or a \"piece of coal,\" but they could also assume shapes more like animals, gargoyles, devils, or monsters; while in hypnotic trance, some people said their bodies seemed to be infested with \"freckles,\" which they understood to be the foreign energies; still others said they perceived these bizarre external energies to exist in many layers in the aura.\n\nThese toxic energies can make patients \"convulse, shake, jerk, froth at the mouth, spit, hiss, growl,\" and to feel other strong, negative emotions, says Dr. Modi. Her research demonstrated that these foreign energy beings are \"the most common cause for depression\" and \"the single leading cause for psychiatric problems in general, directly or indirectly.\" In one case, persistent shooting nerve pain in the heel was due to gray and dark foreign energies \"packed in multiple layers\" in the patient's heel; in another case, a man had chronic back pain due to a similar layering of toxic energies; while still other patients reported \"black blobs\" in their stomach, bladder, shoulders, jaw, eyes, hands, or head, producing chronic pain and discomfort in those areas (see figure 9-2).\n\n**Figure 9-2. Picture of Body Showing Energy Interferences.**\n\nOf equal strangeness is Dr. Modi's report that many patients, under hypnosis, discovered that various foreign \"devices\" were lodged in their auras. These devices act as spiritual toxins, draining the body of energy or inducing symptoms and the energy conditions for physical illness. For example, Dr. Modi found that some patients had \"energy absorbers,\" which interfered with nerve impulses. Their effect is to absorb a person's energy, \"making them chronically fatigued, sluggish, and sleepy,\" and they can interfere with memory and brain functions as well. One patient reported detecting a \"yellow-green slime\" in the digestive tract. This had the physical effect of interfering with digestion and nutrient absorption, and produced stomach pain, comments Dr. Modi.\n\n**_The crucial point is that once this realm of toxic influence is acknowledged\u2014once you accept that it is possible such things can exist\u2014the deep roots of a great deal of toxicity, illness, and disease have been identified._**\n\nThere are a multitude of cases showing the deleterious effects of spiritual toxins in the aura from the casebooks of Dr. Modi and other \"spirit releasement\" practitioners, whether psychics or psychiatrists. The crucial point is that once this realm of toxic influence is acknowledged\u2014once you accept that it is possible such things can exist\u2014the deep roots of a great deal of toxicity, illness, and disease have been identified. Not to remove these bad energy influences is to ensure their continuing negative impact on our health and well-being and to relegate many people to _unnecessary_ (because it is treatable) discomfort and suffering.\n\nWhen these foreign presences and devices were removed from the patients' auras through a process called spirit releasement, says Dr. Modi, the acute symptoms \"often cleared up immediately,\" relieving patients of their long-term discomfort.\n\nIt's not always spirit attachment per se that creates the problem, sometimes it is only a matter of proximity. According to the late British psychiatrist, Arthur Guirdham, M.D., many common illnesses can be attributed to the aura registering contact with evil entities or discarnate beings or with the onset of \"far memory,\" otherwise known as recall of past lives. In this model, the body's reaction is to channel the mind's suppression of this information into certain illness categories, including migraines, epilepsy, asthma, childhood tics, intestinal distress, Meniere's disease, shingles, and later in life, obsessional neurosis, heart problems, and in some instances, cancer.\n\nDr. Guirdham, a psychic himself, recognized the psychic side of many illness conditions, both physical and mental. The illness results from the body recoiling from the inimical contact or from the force of the psyche's repression of the awareness of the contact, Dr. Guirdham says. He reminds us that epilepsy was once called the \"sacred disease,\" and was associated with psychic abilities and contact with discarnate presences. It remains so today in most instances, even if it is not medically recognized as such. \"In such cases, the individual is escaping in _petit mal_ from what he is afraid to receive in full consciousness.\" Epilepsy is a defensive response, both crude and immediate, to the encroaching presence of \"invading entities,\" and as the child grows older it is often succeeded by migraines and asthma. Asthma in a child, says Dr. Guirdham, is often \"a straight response to night terrors,\" the semi-conscious perception of astral entities or discarnate beings, usually of an unwholesome valence.\n\nIncreasingly, practitioners from diverse fields, such as psychology and medicine, are beginning to acknowledge this energy factor in disease. In fact, the matter of infestation by entities has a distinguished past, being one of the eight sections of classical Ayurveda, the traditional medical-mystical science of India. In Ayurveda, _bhuta-vidya_ is the science of entities and considers the effect of bhutas, or entities, on human health and sanity, and the ways one can eliminate these noxious presences. One _bhuta-vidya_ practitioner is Parisian-trained physician Samuel Sagan, M.D., who directs the Clairvision School in Sydney, Australia. A significant portion of his work involves clearing entities and \"perverse energies\" from the auras of clients.\n\n\"Entity\" is an all-purpose term denoting a nonphysical being or presence that gets attached to a human being and there acts as an energy parasite. Entities drain life force energy; they inspire perverse or inappropriate behavior; and they contribute to various types of ill health and disease, says Dr. Sagan. What do they look like? Patients have described them as blobs, clouds, amorphous black shapes, amoeba, octopus-like, spider-like, and other \"monstrous\" shapes.\n\nIn Dr. Sagan's view, for the most part, entities derive from human beings, specifically, from shattered fragments of the astral body after one has died. These float around like miniature persons, but with a singular, if not fixated, focus, usually upon a single desire for revenge, pleasure, or other strongly charged emotional condition. The entities get attached to humans in moments of stress, shock, or trauma; during electroshock therapy; during serious illness (involving fluid loss, hemorrhaging, or extreme energy depletion); under anesthesia or recreational drug use; _in utero_ and during birth; and in other situations when the aura opens up or is vulnerable and when its natural defense system collapses.\n\nIn fact, Dr. Sagan advises having a \"systematic entity checkup\" with a qualified practitioner after undergoing high-risk situations, such as abortions, miscarriage, delivery, or the death of a close relative. Each of these is a condition in which one's natural defense system is vulnerable to entity penetration.\n\nEntities are experts at camouflage, and are intent on not being detected by their hosts. Their goal is to decrease the person's mental acuity, to make the awareness blurry and confused, so as to enable them to elude detection. The last thing an entity wants is for the host to wake up to the fact they are being \"tricked and manipulated by something foreign,\" says Dr. Sagan.\n\nEntities in a human's energy field act like toxic substances, and are capable of producing numerous health problems, such as, for example, depression. Dr. Sagan relates a case in which a man, age twenty-six, a former heroin addict, was heavily depressed. During treatment (in which the patient is put into a kind of light trance enabling one to see the intruders in their energy body), he saw a black cloud around his heart. The primary emotion associated with this black cloud was fear of death. He understood it had entered his auric space when he began using heroin at age twelve, and been reawakened by a recent car accident.\n\nThe entity's purpose was to make the man suffer, to harm him, to make him take drugs. \"It lives in people's minds like a headache,\" he told Dr. Sagan. \"If you need a headache, it will come to you and give you one.\" The man further understood that the entity was creating his depression. \"It secretes the depression like a dark cloud into my heart.\" Removal of the entity produced complete relief from depression in two days, says Dr. Sagan.\n\nHere is another eye-opening case. In this one, a dead step-father returned to haunt his stepdaughter's womb and produce a fibroid, a noncancerous but medically dangerous fibrous growth in the uterus. In this woman, age forty-two, her fibroid had grown very large\u2014uncomfortably so\u2014and was producing increased menstrual bleeding. The stepfather had raped the woman when she was ten; when he died by suicide, the woman (as a girl) was unable to process her emotions and went through a \"time of madness\"; his despair and rage revisited the woman at this time of vulnerability and lodged in her uterus like a fetus. The fibroid started to shrink once the stepfather's presence was removed from it, says Dr. Sagan.\n\nHere is a third case, this time involving entities and migraines. A woman, age forty-eight, had excruciating migraines that would take eight days to subside. She discovered that dug in around her skull was \"a big insect,\" like a crayfish, with legs dug in around her occiput and eyebrows. The insect had a tube inserted into the woman's head and it was feeding off her brain's energy and her anger like a tick, she reported. Its purpose was to confuse her, to keep her from thinking clearly. \"The migraine comes out of the tick like a poison,\" she said. It came out of its belly and was injected under her skin, producing terrible pain. Once Dr. Sagan removed the astral entity, the migraines stopped immediately.\n\nBased on his clinical experience, Dr. Sagan concludes that \"the work on entities has proved a remarkably quick and efficient way of improving the health and well-being of a number of clients.\" He adds that when you discover and clear the entity behind\u2014that is to say, responsible for\u2014a physical illness, the results can be \"spectacular.\" The earlier you can do this, the better, before the body has translated a functional disorder, produced by an entity, into an entrenched, crystallized disease.\n\nEntities do not necessarily produce all illnesses, and sometimes they stop short at energy drainage or psychological interference, such as producing emotional outbursts, sugar cravings, and alcohol or drug abuse. Their preferred \"food\" is strong human emotion, especially of a negative kind, such as anger, dismay, frustration, emotional pain, melancholy, sadness, or depression, as well as sensual enjoyment, says Dr. Sagan. The most common bodily locations for entities are the large intestine (especially the left iliac region), the vagina, uterus, and ovaries, mainly because, from their viewpoint, these are commodious, cavelike environments, suitable for staying resident and hidden.\n\nMany\u2014perhaps most\u2014people still regard the concept of entities in the aura as something close to preposterous, yet Dr. Sagan reports that \"hundreds\" of clients who had never even heard of the possibility, much less dismissed it as being impossible, had, during a heightened state of perception, become aware of a foreign, parasitic presence attached to their energy body.\n\nIn most cases, a person doesn't have just one entity attached, but usually many, states William J. Baldwin, D.D.S., Ph.D., one of the country's preeminent educators and practitioners in the field of what he calls spirit releasement therapy. Dr. Baldwin is the author of _Spirit Releasement Therapy: A Technique Manual_ , an accomplished remover of attached entities, and the director of the Center for Human Relations in Enterprise, Florida.\n\n\"A living person can have dozens, even hundreds, of attached spirits as they occupy no physical space,\" states Dr. Baldwin. Parts of the body that have a physical weakness tend to attract parasitic energy forms, especially discarnate but earth-bound human spirits; the physical weakness matches an ailment or disability they had while alive. \"The discarnate entity retains the psychic energy pattern of its own ailments following death and can produce in the host any mental aberration or emotional disturbance and any symptom of physical illness,\" explains Dr. Baldwin.\n\nSimilarly, any symptom, both mental and physical, or strong emotion (especially repressed strong feelings such as unexpressed grief or rage) can \"act like a magnet\" and attract a discarnate being or other energy form with similar emotions, conditions, needs, or feelings. He calls this situation in which a foreign energy is present in the aura and exerting a powerful but unsuspected influence on the host \"spirit possession syndrome.\"\n\nFor those initially skeptical of the possibility that essentially invisible and inimical energy entities reside in their auras, Dr. Baldwin suggests considering the following list of symptoms, odd sensations, and inexplicable feelings typically reported by people who later discovered such entities present around them: feelings of being blocked or sabotaged, especially when things seem favorable; hearing intrusive thoughts and voices; the sense that some of your behaviors or statements are inconsistent with your sense of yourself; recurrent dreams or nightmares; addictions; sexual or relationship problems; feelings of abandonment or of not being alone in your body; the sense of being followed or stalked; irrational fears, anger, sadness, guilt, or other negative emotional states; chronic unhappiness as if over eveiything and anything. Any, some, or all of these symptoms can indicate an attached negative\u2014that is to say, toxic\u2014entity in your energy space, says Dr. Baldwin.\n\n  **_The Healthy Living Space_ Info Tip**\n\nDr. Modi specializes in spirit releasement work using hypnotherapy in her clinical practice.\n\nTo contact:\n\nShakuntala Modi, M.D.,\n\n1025 Main Street,\n\n416 Holly Building,\n\nWheeling, WV 26003;\n\ntel: 304-233-7246.\n\nSamuel Sagan, M.D., offers courses in training sensitivity to perceive foreign energies in the aura and techniques for removing them.\n\nClairvision, P.O. Box 33,\n\nRoseville, 2069 Australia;\n\ntel: 61-2-9888-1999;\n\ne-mail: info@c1airvision.org;\n\nwebsite: www.clairvlslon.org.\n\nWilliam J. Baldwin, D.D.D., Ph.D.,\n\nCenter for Human Relations,\n\nP.O. Box 4061,\n\nEnterprise, FL 32725;\n\ne-mail: doctorbill@aol.com;\n\nwebsite: www.spiritreleasement.org.\n\nThere are also many empirical signs that are suggestive of entity attachment, says Dr. Baldwin. All it takes is a little extra measure of self-awareness and a comparison of present and earlier mental and emotional states, a kind of identity baseline, if you will. Dr. Baldwin explains that \"a newly formed spirit attachment\" can generate any of these symptoms: the sudden onset of drug dependency; speech or behavior that is out of character in terms of affect or content; unfamiliar, uncharacteristic reactions to otherwise familiar situations; bodily movements, especially repetitive ones, that seem out of your control; a sense of having lost one's normal sense of oneself; conspicuous but inexplicable personality changes; sudden change in beliefs, dietary preferences, or taste in clothing, or even subtle changes in facial features.\n\n## HEALTHY LIVING SPACE DETOXIFIER #37 Request a Cleansing from Above\n\nHow does Dr. Modi remove these harmful energies? As with physical detoxification, a deep cleansing is involved, but this one has a twist. Here again, most of us need to make a leap of faith, but if we accept one end of the subtle world of invisible energies, namely, the role of negative auric entities, we may as well accept the other, positive pole; cleansers from above, so to speak.\n\n\"I routinely ask the angels to cleanse and heal the person by scrubbing every part and every organ of the patient's body, removing all the negative entities, energies, and devices, and any leftover residue,\" states Dr. Modi unabashedly. Next, Dr. Modi asks the angelic helpers to fill the person with light and to shield the body with light and \"spiritual mirrors and rays of blinding hot white Light.\" Dr. Modi also advises clients to visualize a bright violet flame burning around their bodies, incinerating impurities and infusing the energy field with a strong protective quality.\n\nNo special ability is required to request this kind of otherworldly cleansing, only the intent to be rid of the foreign energies and a belief that seemingly invisible help can accomplish this important task. Merely _asking_ for assistance from above is a powerful technique in starting to clear the aura of pollutants. The power of asking is an open secret, and a paradoxical one. It works, but you have to believe in something you probably can't see. You will not necessarily be aware of anything during the subtle cleansing, but almost surely you will feel some easing of your symptoms shortly afterwards, probably within a day.\n\n_Directions_ : While sitting in a quiet place, request a cleansing from above. If you are comfortable with the concept of invisible benign helpers, then ask that beings of light, friendly spirits, angels, your higher self, inner self, guardian angel, a saint, or God\u2014whatever form the numinous takes in your belief system\u2014to remove any negative entities, energies, and devices from your aura. Ask that they then put a protective bubble or shield of spiritual light around your aura and reflective mirrors on the outside to keep away further contaminating energies. Visualize a column of brilliant pure white light coming from the highest divine source above you and entering your body through your head, filling all of your body down to your toes, cleansing every aspect of your physical body and surrounding aura. Finally, ask that you be protected from this point forward from any further inimical influence.\n\n### The Healthy Living Space Expert Interview: Rev. Leon S. LeGant, Psychic Healer\n\nTo an extent, once we grant the possibility that the energy field surrounding our physical body can contain injurious energies and presences, it is possible to take steps on our own to rid ourselves of these intruders. At the same time, it is a good idea to arrange a consultation with a qualified psychic healer to do a thorough job of cleansing your aura. The combination of self-help steps and professional treatment is generally advisable. After all, as we discussed in earlier chapters, there is much we can do to effect a cleansing of our digestive system, including liver, kidney, and intestinal detoxification, but a few acupuncture treatments, for example, can help a great deal in balancing the overall energy flow within the body and through these organs.\n\nSince 1994, Rev. Leon S. Legant, a self-described \"clairvoyant reader and spiritual healer\" practicing in San Rafael, California, has removed unsuspected spiritual toxins from the energy fields of some two thousand clients. Working with this world of subtle influence and effect every day for years has given LeGant an \"insider's\" view of the mechanics of spiritual toxicity.\n\nThe energy field is \"basically a storage unit,\" LeGant explains, containing information packed in layers on \"survival, our emotions, how the body runs its energy, how it drains it, our affinities, self-image, and much more.\" Foreign energy affects and tends to lodge in one of the layers of the aura, depending on its nature and the corresponding location it chooses in the aura. If it lodges in the auric storage area for survival issues, the foreign energy will stimulate thoughts, feelings, fears, even outer episodes to do with survival, explains LeGant. How does one know if there is something foreign in the aura? You will first notice the problem it is causing, says LeGant; you will not necessarily (unless you are trained in this kind of sensitivity) notice the energy itself.\n\n\"The first thing for people to realize as a step in their healing is to acknowledge that many of their problems are not produced by their own energy. What they are feeling isn't really who they are in many cases; there is something foreign causing these states of mind or feelings about themselves.\" Once the foreign energies are removed, you can then sense the difference in yourself made by their absence, LeGant adds. You will feel the change, and looking back to how you felt earlier, see the effect on you of the foreign energy and the degree to which you thought it was yourself.\n\nOur auras, like the skin on our physical bodies, are subject to bruises and penetrations every day, says LeGant. The difference is that we usually are unaware of when our energy field has been breached, leaving us vulnerable to harmful energy influences. \"When someone's aura is ripped or torn open, this is called a whack. A whack happens when someone or an experience contradicts a person and injures the aura.\" Harsh, insulting, demeaning words, or any kind of strong verbal abuse, can \"whack\" the aura, especially when they focus on the person's weak, sore, or painful spots. You may get over the words, but their effect still resonates in your aura; in a sense, the words are still lodged there.\n\nLeGant explains that \"sometimes the aura looks like someone fired buckshot at it, or there is a giant rip starting at the aura's outermost edge. Once there is a whack, the person's energy begins to drain out through that rip or opening in the aura, instead of flowing evenly through the aura.\" Once the aura's integrity has been violated, it increases our vulnerability to further pollution by inimical energies, says LeGant. The situation is similar to when your immune system is weakened by illness or an unbalanced lifestyle; this leaves your body open to the effect of opportunistic germs in your environment. In this case, the aura is your energetic immune system, and, once weakened by \"whacks,\" it can allow unwholesome energies to enter and attach themselves to our vulnerable spots.\n\n**_Those painful areas or points of vulnerability exist in the aura like pictures or condensed images of experiences, says LeGant. He calls these \"core pictures;\" and he says they are central to an understanding of how spiritual toxins work_**.\n\nThose painful areas or points of vulnerability exist in the aura like pictures or condensed images of experiences, says LeGant. He calls these \"core pictures,\" and he says they are central to an understanding of how spiritual toxins work. \"Because of the intense stimulation of an event, the body believes it is having an important experience, causing it to store all that information from the experience within the brain. From a clairvoyant perspective, that stored information looks like a mass of energy about the size of a softball, located in the limbic system but 'bleeding' into the brain's cortex.\"\n\nTypically, a person has thousands of core pictures, says LeGant, accumulated (and unprocessed) from this and other lifetimes. Each is a condensed, crystallized picture or residue of an emotional intensity, be it trauma, injury, insult, abuse, or humiliation. When something happens in our outer world that is similar to the content of a core picture, the core picture gets lit up, emphasized, and reactivated, and we see our reality through it. If it involved illness or dysfunction, these conditions too start to manifest. In essence, each core picture is an \"energetic block\" that acts like a toxin and detracts from our mental clarity, emotional well-being, and physical health.\n\n\"When a core picture becomes stuck in the brain, its influence is extreme. It wraps around our flame of consciousness. Our essence shines through the core picture and projects that past time experience into our mental body [our thoughts and mental processes construed as if they are a body on their own] and thus into our reality.\" For example, say a young girl has an abusive, alcoholic father. The girl stores her memories of her father's abusiveness in a \"solidified\" form as a core picture. This core picture then becomes a filter throughout her life for how she sees her reality and relationships with men.\n\n\"Now as your consciousness projects that core picture into your reality, you are in your fifth relationship with an alcoholic and abusive man. With each new relationship, you attracted someone like your father. It only takes one core picture to produce such devastating effects.\" But it gets still more complex for two reasons. First, most of our core pictures are not derived from our current life, which means it is unlikely we would ever suspect they are in play; and second, it is the core pictures that attract the spiritual toxins described above by Dr. Modi. \"Core pictures are like cheese on Ritz crackers for unwholesome energies and beings,\" says LeGant.\n\nCore pictures are \"anchor points\" allowing \"demons,\" discarnate earthbound entities, and other injurious energies to attach to the person's aura. LeGant uses the general term \"spirit guides\" to describe the range of beings that can occupy (or infest) our auric space\u2014\"beings without bodies, sources of influence.\" A spirit guide in this model is not necessarily a beneficial presence; in fact, it can be literally demonic.\n\nThe larger point is that spirit guides, whatever they are, claim \"seniority\" over the host's thoughts, feelings, actions, health\u2014life. They are parasites that have claimed a person's body as their own. \"Most people have many dozens, if not hundreds, of spirit guides in their auric space, and only a very small percentage of people have seniority to their spirit guides.\"\n\nThe combination of core pictures and attached entities often explains why people are not able to clear out the bad energy by themselves, notes LeGant. \"I first ask why the spiritual consciousness of the client has not or is not healing those blocks on their own. I believe everyone knows how to heal himself. But if they are not doing so, that usually means their consciousness is sitting in a core picture that is stuck in the system.\"\n\nOne of the central points in this book is that toxicity affects every aspect of our being, from the physical body to the energy field surrounding it. The combination of core picture and attached entity is similar to a situation observed on the molecular level and known as circulating immune complexes (CIC), a key issue in physiological toxicity (see Chapter 2, p. 74).\n\nTo review: foreign proteins \"leak\" into the blood system, usually from the intestines. The immune system tags these proteins as foreign invaders (antigens) and surrounds them with immune cells (antibodies); the antigen-antibody complex is known as a CIC.\n\nIn a healthy person, CICs are neutralized, but in someone with a compromised immune system, they tend to accumulate in the blood and burden the detoxification pathways or produce allergies. If too many CICs accumulate, the kidneys are usually unable to excrete them through the urine, and they get stored in the body's soft tissues where they produce inflammation and further stress on the immune system. The overload can lead to a variety of chronic health conditions.\n\nMeanwhile, the entity complexes, left unresolved in the auric space, produce numerous symptoms, conditions, and illnesses, just as a glut of free radicals and CICs do in the physical body. A \"spirit guide\" may lodge itself in an organ and start depriving the person of the full use of this organ, explains LeGant. Say it is the lungs, and the person is a smoker. The tobacco smoke is the entry point for a type of being. \"Once the beings get into the lungs, they start to lodge themselves in the cells and there becomes less room for the person's own energy in that organ and more of this foreign energy.\"\n\nLeGant explains that sometimes \"just the presence of that foreign energy in an organ for so long and not having your own healing energies running through the tissues can cause a health problem, even cancer.\" He further states that sometimes foreign energy beings can activate cancer genes and start a cancer process, or attract viruses to the host to produce serious illnesses, or provoke the host into taking self-destructive actions, such as neglecting their health or exposing themselves to infection.\n\n\"However, as a rule of thumb, the spiritual toxins come first and that attracts or produces the physical problems,\" says LeGant. \"You can clairvoyantly 'read' someone who has a cancer being in their body _before_ they have cancer, and you can remove that cancer being and enable the person to avoid developing cancer.\" This can be taken one step further, he adds. If you remove a fair amount of the spiritual toxins from a person's aura, that person tends to be less affected by or can better handle physical toxins they come across. \"You can reverse whatever physical manifestations are present if you remove enough of the foreign energy and are very thorough about this. A cancer can go into remission, a disease can go away.\"\n\nThe practical conclusion from this information is that it is advisable to undertake a physical detoxification program in conjunction with work that removes spiritual toxins as well, advises LeGant. \"It is prudent to deal with _both_ poles of toxicity, the physical and the spiritual sides.\" If you do a physical cleanse program and overlook possible auric toxicity, you have not removed the seeds of the physical toxicity. At the same time, the body always needs a helping hand when it comes to handling an extra load of detoxification, so if you remove spiritual toxins, be sure to undertake a complementary physical detoxification program because the auric shifts will provoke corresponding physiological ones.\n\nTypically, LeGant, using psychic methods, removes a layer of four or five core pictures and numerous attached entities, then watches his client's \"subconscious or spiritual self release the remaining anchor points throughout their body, aura, and energy centers. If they are not healing themselves at that point, I will remove another layer of core pictures and then another until they are successfully able to clear themselves.\"\n\nDuring a typical session, which may last from 30 to 120 minutes, LeGant \"erases\" core pictures and \"removes\" the attached beings according to what is most prominent in the client's aura. Current life experiences tend to \"light up\" specific core pictures, making them more noticeable and the client more uncomfortable under their influence, says LeGant, but it is the foreground core pictures to which he devotes his attention in a clearing session. If you schedule regular clearings at the rate of once monthly, the subconscious starts cooperating, shifting material towards the forefront of your awareness such that in the few days before a session, new core pictures and their attached beings become illuminated in the aura\u2014\"lit up,\" LeGant calls it. It is as if they start to queue for their forthcoming release.\n\nHow do you know if you have spiritual toxins in your aura? LeGant's estimation is that most people have them, but usually go about their lives oblivious of their presence, attributing their effects to other causes. One rule of thumb is that if you keep coming up against a brick wall in your life\u2014an attitude that won't shift, a destructive or self-limiting self-definition, an obstacle, opponent, or seeming enemy that won't go away\u2014then it is likely you have a foreign energy of some kind at work, invisible to you, in your space.\n\nAnother way to think of this is in a way parallel to how we view the intestines. Many people with regular eliminations would consider it ridiculous to suggest that nonetheless they might be chronically constipated and benefit from an intestinal cleansing. Yet many are, and many would. Similarly, it would surprise many Westerners to learn that they have intestinal dysbiosis and possibly some parasites, yet the trend in laboratory testing indicates that many do (see Chapter 3). Pollution in the intestines, pollution in the aura\u2014in essence they are the same.\n\n  **_The Healthy Living Space_ Info Tip**\n\nLeon S. LeGant does most of his spirit releasement and psychic healing work over the telephone, and works with clients across the United States. To contact:\n\nRev. Leon S. LeGant,\n\n27 Aquinas Drive,\n\nSan Rafael, CA 94901;\n\ntel: 888-459-4585.\n\nWe tend to become accustomed to our dysfunctions, and mask them or account for them in ways that enable us to keep living with a minimum of disruption. While this may seem pragmatic, it's not curative; we're still stuck with these invisible yet potent energies in our space that can often make our life a lot harder than it needs to be. The best confirmation that you need a psychic clearing of your aura comes afterwards, when you look back and wonder how you managed to function before all this negative energy was removed, just as, in the weeks after a colon cleanse, you wonder how your intestines ever functioned properly\u2014because now you can _feel_ the difference in yourself.\n\n## HEALTHY LIVING SPACE DETOXIFIER #38 Do a 30-Minute Spirit-Detoxifying Bath\n\nWhile you are likely to feel immediate relief from some mental or physical symptoms during or immediately after a session (LeGant calls it a \"reading\"), in the following one to two weeks, the physical body starts to deal with the ramifications of this major energy shift in its auric field. Also, if LeGant removes five beings, your auric space, now freed from the magnetizing core pictures, can release perhaps thirty more beings on its own, and possibly shatter a few pictures as well.\n\nThe way you experience this is similar to what we defined earlier in the book as the Herxheimer effect in terms of physical detoxification. In the physical case, the body temporarily feels more toxic as toxins are mobilized, neutralized, and released from the body. Similarly, in the auric case, your state of mind, emotions, and thoughts, and to an extent, your body as well, feel more toxic for a short while as the aura purges beings and energies and your physical body makes the corresponding adjustments.\n\nWhat experts in physical detoxification call the Herxheimer Effect, psychic healers like Leon LeGant call a \"growth period.\" Removing foreign energies, pictures, and beings from your auric space generates a profound shift in your mind-body constitution, says LeGant. In a sense, you have disturbed a long-term ecology, although it is an unbalanced ecology in which your body has learned to accommodate \"hostile demons, painful core pictures, and energy blocks\" in much the same way your liver and intestines learn to accommodate environmental toxins. \"As spirits, we can change our energy in the snap of a finger, but our bodies require a period of time to catch up and adjust to those changes.\"\n\nIn the weeks following a psychic clearing, you continue to heal yourself, bringing up and releasing physical, emotion, and mental pain, as well as more beings, says LeGant. \"As that energy releases, you may experience its effects, which include an edgy and uncomfortable sensation. You may feel that your life is falling apart, that chaos has broken loose in your mind, that you have lost all sense of your self, among other transient mind states.\" These pass, just as the Herxheimer reaction to detoxification subsides. Typically, the intense phase of the growth period lasts only one week. \"Once a person finishes releasing, they begin to recreate themselves and their environment. I have seen these kinds of transformations thousands of times; after removing demonic influences, a person has the freedom to change any and every element of their life they choose.\"\n\nIt is advisable to give your body some tangible support as it reorganizes itself now that it has been freed from the deleterious influence of negative energies. One practical way is to take specially formulated baths, and it is especially helpful to do this in the days _immediately_ following a psychic clearing, says LeGant. \"Epsom salts baths are very useful for clearing pain out of the body and for releasing beings, foreign energy, and stress,\" says LeGant.\n\n_Directions_ : You may have tried the Epsom salts bath following directions in Chapter 4 for the purposes of general stress relief. Now the focus is more refined\u2014to help your body release accumulated energetic toxins.\n\nFill a bathtub with very hot water, as hot as you are comfortable lying in. Add bubble bath and an aromatherapy essential oil to the water to provide bubbles, scent, and additional detoxifying agents. If you wish to relax deeply, use lavender or melissa essential oils; if you need to center, reintegrate, and reorganize yourself, use rosemary; if you need a cleansing, rejuvenating energy, use pine, juniper, or eucalyptus.\n\nHere is a tip about adding bubbles and oils: Measure the bubble bath into a plastic quart container; dribble in the aromatherapy oils, anywhere from five to thirty drops, understanding that more equals stronger. Then fill the container with hot water and dribble its contents into the stream of water coming out of the faucet. This improves the miscibility and dispersion of the bubble bath material and oils into the hot water.\n\nAdd two to four pounds of Epsom salts (magnesium sulfate) to the water, stirring well. As with the aromatherapy oils, more Epsom salts equals a deeper relaxation, but don't use more than four pounds per bath. Epsom salts typically come in a four-pound milk-carton-like package, costing between two and three dollars.\n\nAs additional support for your post-spirit-releasement detoxification bath, consider bringing a CD-player into the bathroom and playing your favorite music while you soak. It is advisable, however, to use a calming music, something that might evoke a meditative, relaxed state of mind, such as Chopin's _Etudes_ , or Steven Halpern's _Spectrum Suite_ (see Chapter 4 for more on music therapy for stress reduction). Also supportive of the detox mood is dim lighting, such as candlelight or indirect lighting from another room, while the bathroom itself is dark.\n\nSoak for at least twenty minutes, but thirty or longer is better. You may find yourself sighing, moaning, groaning, whimpering, shouting, or emitting other surprising vocal noises while you soak. You may also experience transient emotions, such as grief, anger, sadness, or despair\u2014any of the gamut of feelings. Do not be alarmed, but be amused if you wish: your body is doing its releasing work. In a sense, you are only becoming aware of what was already there in your emotional field.\n\nWhen you are finished soaking and climb out of the tub, do not towel dry. Lie on some dry towels on your bed and air dry over the next thirty to forty-five minutes. Your skin is still covered with a film of Epsom salts and aromatherapy oils, and these will continue working while you air dry. Often this phase of the detoxification bath is the most relaxing; don't be surprised if you fall asleep for a short time.\n\n  **_The Healthy Living Space_ Info Tip**\n\nFor a source of Dead Sea mineral salts (unprocessed, in their natural form):\n\nMasada Marketing Corp.,\n\nP.O. Box 4118,\n\nChatsworth, CA 91313-4118;\n\ntel: 800-368-8811 or 818-717-8300;\n\nfax: 818-717-8400;\n\nwebsite:\n\nwww.secondwave.net\/masadamarketing;\n\ne-mail: sam@masada-spa.com.\n\nAlso: Ashtar Natural Dead Sea Products,\n\nAmig Group,\n\nP.O. Box 53, A.l.E.\n\nAmman, Jordan 11512;\n\nfax: 962-6-5534562;\n\nwebsite: www.fjcc.com\/amig.\n\n_Variation_ : Try substituting Dead Sea mineral salts for the Epsom salts for a twenty- to thirty-minute growth-period soak. The mineral salts concentration of Dead Sea bath salts is 27-33% higher than the average ocean concentration of 3.4%. The specific salts include magnesium, potassium, sodium, and calcium chlorides. For presumably thousands of years, the Dead Sea has been the destination for millions seeking the therapeutic benefit of its mineral salts for muscle pain, muscle tension, arthritis, and other conditions. You can also mix Dead Sea bath salts with aromatherapy oils (such as citrus, eucalyptus, lavender, rose) for extra detoxifying benefits.\n\nHere is a general recommendation: add a full cup (250 g, or about 1\/2 pound) of Dead Sea bath salts to a tub of hot water; stay in the water fifteen to twenty minutes, but do not use any soap, then rinse off and rest in or on your bed for thirty minutes.\n\nAccording to one Dead Sea salts processor, the high mineral content of the salts \"stimulates blood and lymph circulation, an effect that helps drain out the trapped fluid in the joints, which causes arthritic pain, thus improving joint movement.\" Further, the salts \"exfoliate and revitalize the skin, eliminating toxins\" and they help relieve aches and pains, relax the muscles, and relieve neck and back tension and stiffness.\n\n## HEALTHY LIVING SPACE DETOXIFIER #39: Shake Yourself Free of Toxic Energies\n\nThink of a dog just out of the rain or from swimming in a lake: it shakes itself vigorously, sending water droplets every-where, perhaps on you. It's an effective drying technique, at least for the dog. In the same way, vigorously shaking your whole body is an effective way to scatter negative, heavy energies that have adhered to it, suggests psychic protection expert William Bloom. A leader of psychic protection workshops in Europe, author of several books on the subject, and a man especially \"sensitive to atmospheres\" since infancy, Bloom has developed a variety of practical techniques for clearing the energy field of obtrusive, foreign energies.\n\n\"Moving and shaking your body will free up your own frozen energy, as well as moving any that belongs to someone or something else,\" he explains. Energy, whether it comes from our own emotional reactions or the energy extrusions of others around us, can get stuck in the aura. It can get \"blocked or glued into you,\" Bloom says. When the energy doesn't move, it can start to stagnate in your energy field and eventually create symptoms, such as pains and aches, heaviness or weariness, distress, and illness.\n\n\"The quickest way to unload it is to move your body.\" Bloom suggests shaking, stretching, skipping, bouncing\u2014moving around vigorously, doing any kind of strong physical movement that gets your entire body moving and shaking. Make sure you move everything: elbows, hands, shoulders, head, torso, hips, legs, and feet. Wobble your body, even your cheeks and tongue. One simple way to produce the desired body-wide shaking is to use a rebounder or mini-trampoline, recommended in Chapter 6 with reference to stimulating the lymphatic system.\n\nIt might help to pretend you are that wet dog scattering water droplets in all directions. Think of the water droplets as \"molecules\" of toxic energy. This moving will loosen and release the stuck energy, Bloom states. Feel free to make noises, too, such as screams, gasps, and moans.\n\nOther activities of similar effectiveness include putting your hands under running water, taking a shower, standing in a windy place or before a fan, and changing your clothes and giving your worn ones a good shake and thumping to remove the energetic traces of the contaminants in question.\n\n## HEALTHY LIVING SPACE DETOXIFIER #40 Scrub Your Aura Clean with a Golden Sponge\n\nWhile it is hard to duplicate the masterful auric cleanse you get from a professional psychic healer, there are several practical steps you can take on your own to do a fair amount of auric scrubbing, says LeGant. The following is a self-help technique for removing energy imprints, influences, detritus, and residual after-effects of arguments, encounters, or excursions into unpleasant environments such as we pick up every day.\n\n_Directions_ : This is an exercise developed by LeGant, which you can do while soaking in an Epsom salts bath (Healthy Living Space Detoxifier #38), as you lie in bed waiting to fall asleep, or any time during the day when you feel aurically toxic. Visualize your aura as a big golden bubble extending a few feet out from your skin in all directions. Give it an electric blue fringe to help see where its edges are. Tell your aura, which might be extended further out, to retract to within two feet of your body.\n\nNext, visualize a golden sponge and instruct the sponge to move around inside your aura and energy centers (chakras) to collect (sponge up) all the \"pictures and energies that allow whacks in the aura to exist,\" says LeGant. Tell the golden sponge to absorb everything of this nature. If, for example, you have been obsessing about a topic\u2014an insult, abuse, argument, money, sex, an embarrassment, an unexpressed grievance\u2014specifically direct the sponge to absorb all the energy associated with it.\n\nWhen you feel the sponge is full and has absorbed all it can, put it in an imaginary container, seal the lid, throw the container away from you, and explode a bomb under it. Sometimes you may need to do several sponges in succession to collect all the negative energy. Be sure to blow up every sponge you use for this purpose. \"If you feel you want to keep clearing your aura, keep creating sponges, bringing them into your aura, sponging things up until you feel clear,\" says LeGant.\n\nIt's a good idea to consider the golden sponge technique a regular part of your detoxification routines, he adds. \"People get whacked aurically very easily and frequently during the course of a day or week, and the older whacks get reactivated, too, so you need to be constantly clearing out the effect of these whacks.\"\n\n## HEALTHY LIVING SPACE DETOXIFIER #41 Turn Your Body into Transparent Glass\n\nThis exercise, which I have modified from instructions provided by Leon LeGant, is appropriately performed while in the tub or a flotation tank. For some people, water acts as a psychic enhancer, making it easier to visualize the steps in the exercise. The goal of this exercise is to make your body neutral and transparent, thereby highlighting all the foreign, undesirable energy, enabling you to remove it.\n\n_Directions_ : Immerse yourself in a bathtub full of hot water with all the additions specified in Healthy Living Space Detoxifier #38. Wait ten to fifteen minutes in the water before starting this exercise. When you feel relaxed and focused, begin. Starting at your feet, visualize that your body is turning to transparent, colorless glass. In other words, first see your feet and ankles as clear glass. You will probably have some obstacles or opposition to this, but this is the point of the exercise\u2014to highlight the negative energies so you can remove them. As you try to see your body as transparent glass, all the foreign energies will become apparent; that's when you can remove them.\n\nYou may come up with a better way to do this, but try \"pushing\" the dark energies, when you see them, up through your body to drain out through the back of your neck. Why there? Because the back of the neck, a recognized energy center (chakra) is known as the psychic gate; it's like a swinging door for the entry and departure of psychic energies.\n\nPretend that you can open a valve in the back of your neck, and as you push the energies up from the feet, they start draining out from your neck. Also, visualize a large, highly absorbent sponge situated on the outside of your neck, capable of absorbing all the toxic energy that will be draining out of your neck. You might focus on the neck drain, seeing more and more \"liquid\" or dark energy flowing out, thereby enabling dark liquids lower down in your body to move towards the drain. Or you may need to more aggressively push the dark energies to the drain, somewhat like using a squeegee to move water across a surface. Sometimes, when I perceive there is a great deal of energy rubbish present in my body, I visualize using a shovel or even a tiny bulldozer to push it all to the neck drain.\n\nAs the energy rubbish moves toward the drain, see the parts of the body from which this energy has just departed as being clear as glass. By the time everything has drained out of your neck (and don't forget to drain your head), you should be able to see your whole body as glassine, if only for a moment. You may have to repeat this exercise two or three times before you can feel confident you have become transparent as glass. When you have completed one pass through the body, blow up the sponge; if you are repeating the exercise, install a new sponge at the neck drain, and destroy it once you have drained the body. Don't be alarmed if during the drainage, you find yourself twitching, shaking, moaning, groaning, or even shouting. It is your body registering the energy transaction, and is a transient, though sometimes to others in the house a somewhat amusing, occurrence.\n\n**_Your energy body, like your intestines once they get engaged in a detoxification program, has its own peristalsis, its own rhythm of pushing out foreign toxic energies. The more you can keep up with this natural energy rhythm, the better you will feel because you are always current with the latest batch of energy rubbish awaiting removal from your auric space._**\n\nIn the week following a psychic clearing, it is highly beneficial to do this exercise every day, even twice daily. Your energy body, like your intestines once they get engaged in a detoxification program, has its own peristalsis, its own rhythm of pushing out foreign toxic energies. The more you can keep up with this natural energy rhythm, the better you will feel because you are always current with the latest batch of energy rubbish awaiting removal from your auric space.\n\nYou may experience the energy rubbish in many different ways. For example, I have seen it as thick green sludge, as dark blackish tar, as caked, dried, sandy-colored mud, and as a sickly pale green vapor. Sometimes you might experience a particular accumulation in one body area, such as the groin, solar plexus, or neck, although it can be anywhere in the body. You may find that the flow of energy rubbish up from the feet to the neck gets slowed down, perhaps halted, at one spot. Don't fight it. Visualize another sponge and use this to absorb the toxic sludge in this particular area; then blow up the sponge and resume your full body drain. Once the localized energy obstacle has been removed, the overall drainage may proceed rapidly and without obstruction.\n\nThe experience of purging your body and space of the foreign energies by doing the glass body exercise may feel intense for a few moments; it certainly requires some concentration. When you have completed your glass body exercise, get out of the tub, lie down on a towel on your bed for about twenty to thirty minutes, and don't do anything else. This gives your mind and body time to relax and reorganize after the intensity of the toxic cleanup.\n\n## HEALTHY LIVING SPACE DETOXIFIER #42 Cutting the Cords and Ties That Bind\u2014Psychic Plumbing\n\nAccording to many psychic practitioners, one of the ways we receive a continuous stream of foreign and often toxic energy from other people, especially those emotionally close to us, is by way of psychic cords. These psychic cords, or energy connections, have also been described as \"hooks, nets, cables, tree trunks, and many other variations linking us inextricably to the other person,\" explains Judy Hall, an expert in psychic protection and energy work.\n\nEnergy cords are connections to people we have been close to (parents, siblings, relatives), are presently close to (spouses, partners, children, friends), or with whom we have some type of energetically charged relationship (employees, coworkers, neighbors, casual acquaintances, even strangers). Energy links are formed, connecting us to the person; perhaps we established the cord, perhaps they did\u2014either way, it functions as a kind of umbilical cord through which thoughts, feelings, attitudes, and other charged emotional states or conditions of negativity can continuously flow. The effect, potentially, is to keep us constantly toxic from this source, receiving energy input that is not always in our best interests and may in fact be psychically injurious.\n\nFor example, you can count on having energy cords connecting you to your parents, regardless of their status, dead or alive, close or estranged. It is not always this way, but it is often the case that energy cords to your parents can exist all over your body; you may in fact discover dozens, even hundreds of cables from your mother and father hooked into your body. They may appear to you as an inch wide or five or six inches in diameter. You may detect a large trunk line surrounded by a dozen smaller input cables. They tend to be organized around the body's major and minor chakras, arrayed along the spinal column and all over the head.\n\nPsychically attuned practitioners report that they can hear, sense, feel, or see emotional content flowing through these cables from their parents and other people. In some cases, these cables drain away our vital energy, as if a powerful suction device at the other end of the cable is steadily sucking our _qi_ out of us. Sometimes people unconsciously establish cords into high-energy individuals to siphon off\u2014some call it vampirize\u2014energy, leaving us unaccountably depleted until we figure out what has happened and remove the drainage cord.\n\nIn infancy and early childhood, cables from our parents were useful, even necessary for our survival; but as adults, they can be toxic artifacts, riveting us to old, inappropriate, or regressive modes of being derived from our parents and our earliest relationships with them. You may feel you cannot sever your dependency on your mother or father, or that you keep hearing or feeling their personalities or attitudes; in both cases, the presence is inappropriate, even oppressive at times.\n\nCutting a tie or energy cord to a loved one does not mean you are severing all links with that person; it just means you are unencumbering yourself of inappropriate old energy links. Your relationship may actually improve because it has been clarified and updated\u2014that is, brought into the present, out of the past where it had stagnated due to the energy cords. \"If you feel you owe someone something, you probably need more than most to cut the ties,\" advises Hall. \"Guilt is disempowering, and highly abusive on both sides.\"\n\nThe cords\u2014whether they carry guilt, parental \"shoulds\" and \"don'ts,\" or other forms of family invalidation\u2014provide the energy antecedents for unhealthy emotional states (as discussed in Chapter 8) and unbalanced physiological states (as discussed in chapter 5). Thus removing the cords can be a significant part of your detoxification program.\n\nTo cut energy cords, it first is necessary to see or at least sense them. Surprisingly, one doesn't have to be too psychic to accomplish this; the intent to discern these cords is often a sufficiently strong factor in making the existence of such cords apparent. One way that might be helpful is to look for the cords while you are having your detoxification bath. Name the person in question. You could say, for example: \"I wish to become aware of energy cords from my mother.\" Or whichever individual you suspect of being corded into. It is quite likely that your mind will project some form of image in response to this request; you may see cords hooked into a certain part of your body, or you may sense some discomfort, tingling, heaviness, or other sensation in a particular area.\n\n**_The cords\u2014whether they carry guilt, parental \"shoulds\" and \"don'ts,\" or other forms of family invalidation\u2014provide the energy antecedents for unhealthy emotional states and unbalanced physiological states. Thus removing the cords can be a significant part of your detoxification program._**\n\nOnce you see the cords, remove them from yourself and from the person to whom they are attached, Judy Hall says. How do you remove the cords? Hall recommends that you visualize cutting them with a pair of golden scissors, or slicing them with a sharp hoop of light. She also says it is effective to cut them with a visualized mental laser of light or to imagine yourself in a \"mental bonfire\" in which all energy ties named will be burned up, while leaving your own energies intact. You may wish to mentally tell the person to whom you are corded what you are doing and why. When you are finished with the exercise, pile the cords up like kindling for a bonfire and burn them so that no trace remains. You could also visualize tossing them into a swiftly flowing river. If you do not destroy the remains of the cords, Hall cautions, they can return to you or sprout and grow back again. She also advises sealing the part of the body from which the cords were removed with a healing light.\n\n\"In cutting the ties, the energy changes,\" Hall explains. Your life is likely to change for the better because cutting the ties that bind you to other people restores your autonomy and psychic energy. Hall recommends examining all your relationships to see if they are based on inappropriate cords. All relationships will benefit from cutting the energy cords, she notes. It makes good detoxification sense, she says, to \"regularly clear our ties.\"\n\nLeon LeGant also works with cord removals and offers a variant to Hall's approach. When you see the cords, unscrew them the way you open a tamper-proof bottle of pills, pushing down and turning; this frees the cords from your energy body. Then using the golden sponge image, instruct it to collect all the cords; then destroy the sponge by visualizing placing a bomb under it and blowing it up. Or put it in a large container and blow it up inside that. Somehow the psychic sponge handles the cord and collects its connections at the other end, says LeGant. It is advisable to work on one person at a time, allowing your body a few days to regroup to the new energy configuration, which is now free of a fair number of cords.\n\n## HEALTHY LIVING SPACE DETOXIFIER #43 Ground Yourself to the Center of the Earth\n\nPeople often talk about \"centering\" themselves, and although the concept is sound and helpful, often the practice used does not accomplish the task. One method that ensures real centering is a technique called the \"grounding cord,\" says LeGant. Not only does it provide deep centering\u2014rooting yourself to the imagined core of the planet itself\u2014but it acts as a kind of lightning rod, sending spiritual toxins straight through you (who remains unscathed) and into the Earth.\n\nYou can use this technique any time you find yourself in an unfriendly environment\u2014remember the toxic room we mentioned at the start of the chapter?\u2014or in a formal meeting, a charged situation among people, or every day as a regular part of your meditative or exercise routine.\n\n_Directions_ : Visualize a hollow energy tube extending from your waist to the center of the Earth. It might help to see yourself sitting on this tube as if it is a tree trunk (or a pillar) that comes out of the center of the planet. It is hollow like a chute, and you can throw things down it; it can be any color you choose, and it is about the width (plus a little) of your body. It starts around your waist and includes your groin (seat of the root chakra) and goes all the way down to the core of the Earth, in whatever way you can conceive this. Sometimes it helps to see the grounding cord anchored into a specific place, like a pylon in a rock face when climbing; you might for example see it as attached to a gold plate with your name on it on the subterranean rock.\n\nBy the way, don't worry about whether the center of the planet is molten lava or hollow, or that you don't feel you can even imagine what it might be. What is essential is that you purposefully connect yourself with the \"center\" of the planet and use this connection as a way of grounding foreign, hostile, or simply nonself energy, in the way a lightning rod functions on a house.\n\nForeign energy, which includes energy from those closest to you as well as from strangers and those who wish you (or everyone in sight) ill, now has a place to go upon hitting your aura. Without the grounding cord, hostile foreign energy lodges somewhere in your aura and works its way into your body; with the grounding cord, it can pass through you into the ground. You remain neutral to its influence. Generally, you will need to destroy your grounding cord every one to two weeks and generate a new one.\n\nOnce you become familiar with the workings of your grounding cord, you can extend its uses, says LeGant. \"You can allow your grounding cord to release energy out of your body and aura, along with all of the pain in your body or from a particular place that is experiencing pain.\" If you have a headache, or stomachache, or menstrual cramps, try establishing a minigrounding cord from that organ or body area to the center of the Earth and directing the cord to drain out the pain. Or perhaps you are feeling despair, apathy, or hopelessness; direct the cord to drain these negative states from your mind-body. Spend five to ten minutes focused on this draining.\n\nIf it helps your visualization of the grounding cord, imagine it has an on\/off switch, suggests LeGant. When you are ready to \"drain,\" flip the on switch; when you are finished, flip the off switch. Allow the natural gravity of the Earth to effortlessly suck out all the pain and negativity from your aura. You might view the pain as water circling a bathtub drain, flowing out of the tub (your body) down the pipe (grounding cord).\n\nOne final point on the grounding cord. Resistance is futile, says LeGant. If you come in contact with \"unfriendly\" energy or situations, resisting this undesired field of influence can be counterproductive, LeGant explains. It will actually draw the unwanted energy closer to you. \"If you start resisting it, it's going to stick right to you.\" Further, you have to learn to be aware of when you're in resistance. \"You have to learn to catch yourself doing it. The problem is if you go into resistance, you're actually going into fear. You're expecting it to attack or pollute you, and you are basically opening the door for that energy to slam into you and do exactly what you fear it will.\"\n\nThe best way to \"repel\" foreign, inimical energy is to go neutral to it; then you do not attract or repel it, but rather you act as if it didn't exist or that it had no ability to affect you. \"You can have your own conversation with it. 'I see you, but I'm neutral to you and I'm senior to you and you don't have to effect me.'\"\n\nThen you send the energy down the grounding cord, or if it is a situation, put a grounding cord under it\u2014the people, building, whatever the physical environment and its contents\u2014and allow the hostile energy to funnel down the cord to the center of the Earth. One of LeGant's colleagues once defused an armed bank robbery in progress by putting a grounding cord under the robbery principals; after a few minutes, they got flustered, confused, even frightened, and ran out of the bank, abandoning the robbery.\n\nAs a further precaution, LeGant recommends generating a protection symbol around your aura, such as an outward facing red rose, a six-pointed star, a cross, \"or whatever you're comfortable with.\" Place a clear mental image of this protection symbol on the electric blue edge of your aura, says LeGant. This is the energy equivalent of strengthening your immune system to protect your body against unwanted biological substances.\n\n## HEALTHY LIVING SPACE DETOXIFIER #44 Protect Your Space by Connecting to a Higher Source\n\nAt this level of detoxification and health maintenance, you need a kind of free-ranging spiritual antioxidant to protect your space against unwanted intruders and foreign energies, or in the language of Modi and LeGant, \"beings.\" LeGant recommends going to the highest source possible, what he recognizes as the Supreme Being. Call this highest source God, divinity, the Creator, Source, Goddess, Allah, Brahman, Ain Sof\u2014anything at all; the point is that you request spiritual assistance from the highest or most exalted or most evolved source you can conceive of and feel comfortable conceiving of, advises LeGant.\n\n_Directions_ : LeGant says to visualize a bright golden cord of light extending from the center of your head straight up to this highest source. You don't have to be a saint or mystic to do this; simply tell the golden cord to connect itself to this highest source, and it will do the right thing for you, says LeGant. \"If your _intention_ is to send the golden cord to the Supreme Being, that's where it will go. Hook yourself up and ask for healing, ask to have some of the foreign energy cleared out of your space.\"\n\nYou can also ask your higher source to guide you to information or experts to help you further detoxify your spiritual space. \"You can also talk directly, have an interactive relationship with the Supreme Being. Just say hello and listen for responses. You will hear them in your mind, and you may think they are your own thoughts.\" LeGant recommends that after saying \"hello\" and requesting assistance, try to still your thoughts, then wait and listen, even if it runs to a few days, even months.\n\n\"You might hear that 'hello' come back.\" Naturally, we all will feel cognitively wobbly at this point, for how can we be certain it is the Supreme Being responding? It may sound preposterous, but LeGant suggests you \"ask the Supreme Being to make itself real for you,\" however paradoxical, impossible, or wild that eventuality sounds. \"Keep asking the questions, keep noticing the answers, keep seeing that back-and-forth relationship\u2014then you will develop certainty about the dialog,\" says LeGant. This kind of connection surely is the ultimate immune defense.\n\nBear in mind that these approaches are palliative, not curative. In other words, they are effective short-term steps for spiritual detoxification and energy immune defense. Core pictures are deeply embedded in the auric space, however, and generally require a trained psychic practitioner to remove.\n\n## HEALTHY LIVING SPACE DETOXIFIER #45 Cleanse and Protect Your Aura with Pomanders and \"Air Conditioners\"\n\n  **_The Healthy Living Space_ Info Tip**\n\nFor audio tapes, classes, and instruction including tips and techniques for psychic clearing and protection as well as psychic clearing practitioner referrals:\n\nBerkeley Psychic Institute,\n\n2018 Allston Way,\n\nBerkeley, CA;\n\ntel: 510-548-8020, 510-644-1600, or 800-433-5288;\n\nwebsite: www.berkeleypsychic.com;\n\ne-mail: dejavu@dnai.com.\n\nAnother approach that clears auric energy blockages and balances the aura is called Noetic Field Therapy, based on original research by Dr. Robert D. Waterman _(Through the Eyes of Soul: Theory and Practice of Noetic Field Therapy_ , 1999). For information and referrals:\n\nJohn M. Browning,\n\ntel: 800-251-3354 or 703-532-7796;\n\ne-mail:\n\nenergytherapy@starpower.net;\n\nwebsite: energytherapy.net.\n\nWouldn't it be remarkably convenient if there was something natural but powerful you could spray into your aura that would help cleanse and protect it? It turns out there is, and it is known as a pomander. The term \"pomander\" is an old English word denoting a fragrant herbal bouquet once worn close to the body as an air freshener in a time when people didn't bathe very often or use deodorants. It might be comprised of small flower blossoms or small fruits flavored with spices. The pomander's intent was for protection, disinfection, or for clearing the local atmosphere (a few feet in radius) of psychic pollutants.\n\nIn recent years, British master color therapist Mike Booth has reintroduced and expanded the concept of pomanders. The fifteen Pomanders produced by his Aura-Soma Products company in Tetford, England, are capable of precise cleansing and protection of the aura. The application is simple: dribble three drops of the selected Pomander onto the left palm, rub the hands together, then drape the aura from head to foot with the delicious herbal scents, and gently inhale them through your cupped hands.\n\nThe Pomanders come in tiny crush-proof plastic bottles and in mister-sprayer dispensers, making them suitable for carrying with you during the day or while traveling. Each Pomander contains the essences of forty-nine herbs, essential oils, flowers, minerals, and crystals (preserved in a light alcohol base), in a special ratio enabling it to affect different aspects of one's emotional and psychic dimensions, explains Booth. Each is a different color as well. This makes sense because psychics describe the aura as a multicolored field surrounding the body, and that its colors and intensities change constantly in accordance with our moods and thoughts; so introducing the essences of colors to your aura is a way of reestablishing balance through resonance\u2014like balancing like, color for color.\n\n\"The Pomanders are created mostly for the protection of persons who are in the process of [psychically] opening up,\" says Booth. In practical terms, that would mean after (or during the time) you have tried some of the aura detoxifying exercises in this chapter. According to Booth, the Pomanders help balance the electromagnetic field of the user, providing protection against negative influences while allowing positive ones to enter the aura. \"By placing these naturally fragranced colored essences into your hands and moving them through the aura, the electromagnetic field that surrounds your body, like a gentle breeze you create a delicate web around yourself,\" explains Booth. \"This colored 'web' protects you from energies you do not want and allows the positive energies to enter. Kirlian photography [which photographs energy emissions from living organisms] has shown [that the Pomanders] create little valves within the electromagnetic field that allow the positive energies in and filter out energies that are less helpful.\"\n\nThe Pomanders can also change negative energy in rooms or houses. Here you apply the specific Pomander to your hand, as above, but then \"wave\" its fumes around the room in question, distributing the aromatic vapors to all corners. While doing this, it helps to visualize the fumes as sweeping away all negative energies in the room, says Booth. Especially helpful here are the mister-sprayer Pomander dispensers (suitable for spraying around the body) and the Air Conditioners, four-fluid-ounce spray bottles suitable for misting an indoor environment. \"These enable you to clear and condition your space with the energies of color,\" says Booth.\n\nWith this in mind, we can move on to the actual Pomanders that will be helpful for detoxification.\n\n### White Pomander\n\nThe predominant essential oils in this blend include Kajeput, California laurel, and laurel. The crystal energies are morganite, quartz, and selenite. This Pomander is recommended for protecting and balancing all seven chakras of the body, for protecting the whole electromagnetic field, for mitigating the energetic effects of radiation, and which may help to alleviate allergies caused by outside toxic substances and energies. Of the fifteen Pomanders produced by Aura-Soma, the White Pomander, the original one of the series, contains all forty-nine herbs in equal balance. \"It is suitable for cleansing, purifying, and protecting, and may be used in any space to cleanse the atmosphere, bring the light in, and renew energies,\" says Booth. \"It is also helpful during detoxification.\"\n\n### Deep Red Pomander\n\nThis one contains a predominance of cedar and laurel essential oils, as well as crystal energies of garnet, ruby, car-nelite, strawberry-quartz, hematite, and neptunite. It is especially helpful in dealing with stress, and of the entire line of Pomanders \"this is the one that grounds most intensively, energizes, and provides the most effective protection,\" says Booth. It is recommended for use after meditation and rituals. Further, \"it protects against negative influences from Earth energies and on the other hand, it sensitizes for Earth energies.\" (See \"geopathic stress\" in Chapter 12.)\n\nFor healers, the Deep Red Pomander is recommended for times when you feel your client is draining your energy. \"This one provides the strongest protection for energy zapping, as it is energizing and may restore physical energies after tiredness and fatigue or depletion through drugs.\" It also supports the intuition and removes fears regarding survival issues surrounding, for example, money or health. \"The Deep Red Pomander may help those in their teens who have poltergeist activity, and it may be used in house-clearing to neutralize the effects of psychic activity or when visiting sacred sites and power places that have very often been used in an incorrect manner,\" or whose energy aspects or water have become toxic, adds Booth. (Again, see Chapter 12.)\n\n### Serapis Bey Master Quintessence\n\nSerapis Bey is one of fifteen similar products made by AuraSoma called Master Quintessences. In general, they deal with more refined energies and states of awareness than the Pomanders. As with the Pomanders, they are color-differentiated, and contain herbs, essential oils, and crystal energies. The Serapis Bey Quintessence is a clear formula suitable for cleansing, says Booth. It is recommended for healers and therapists to use to \"clear\" a treatment room of ambient energies and energy toxins following a session and to help the practitioner to cleanse and rebalance his aura.\n\nIt is believed that this spicy and flowery Quintessence \"stretches\" the electromagnetic field of the user, enabling one to integrate one's recent healing experience or insight. \"Serapis Bey is good for detoxifying at all levels,\" Booth notes. As with the Pomanders, the Quintessence is available in a small plastic bottle or as a sprayer\/mister dispenser.\n\n  **_The Healthy Living Space_ Info Tip**\n\nFor Pomanders and Air Conditioners:\n\nAura-Soma USA Inc.,\n\nTrish and Will Hunter,\n\nP.O. Box 1688,\n\nCanyon Lake, TX 78130;\n\ntel: 830-935-2355;\n\nfax: 830-935-2508;\n\ne-mail: usa-info@aura-soma.net.\n\nFor information about color therapy, Aura-Soma training programs, lectures, and residential workshops, contact:\n\nAura-Soma International Academy of Colour Therapeutics,\n\nDev Aura, Little London, Tetford, Horncastle,\n\nLincolnshire LN9 6QL, England;\n\ntel: (44)-1507-533218;\n\nfax: (44) 1507-534025;\n\ne-mail: info@asiact.org.\n\nFor information concerning the products of Aura-Soma, contact: Aura-Soma Products, Ltd.\n\nSouth Road, Tetford Horncastle, Lincolnshire\n\nLN9 6QB England\n\ntel: (44) 1507-533581\n\nfax: (44) 1507-533412\n\ne-mail: info@aura-soma.co.uk\n\nwebsite: www.aura-soma.net.\n\nNote: \"Aura-Soma,\" the \"Prism and Rainbow\" device, and the \"Laurel\" device are registered trademarks of Aura-Soma, Ltd.\n\n### Spiritual Detoxification Is a Lifelong Activity\n\nOnce you begin to purge spiritual toxins from your system, you have started a process that can, if you wish it, transform your life and give you a focus for meditation and inner work for the rest of your life. Once you enter the field of the aura, and the larger, even subtler energy fields beyond it (yet still connected to you), you find auric space is remarkably _larger_ than you would have expected. In fact, some people, after doing spiritual detoxification work for a few years, are astonished at how vast is this auric space and how replete it is with beings and energies that can be purged.\n\nIt is not that we are phenomenally polluted, so contaminated that a life of constant detoxification is required to cleanse our space. Rather, the further you go with this level of detoxification, the more you enter the realm of basic spiritual growth and unfoldment. In so doing, you unavoidably enter the domain of the transpersonal\u2014that is, the realm of parts of yourself you didn't know you had, and that are not necessarily even from this time, this life, this body. Let me put this in perspective by an example from an old religious tradition.\n\nJainism is an ancient religion of India, older than Buddhism and possibly Hinduism as well. One of its tenets is spiritual cleansing, but Jainists take a very broad view of what this entails. Jainism says that the condition and color status of the aura is an index to the soul condition of the individual. Originally, and in our pure condition, our essential \"color\" is a noncolor of stainless, crystalline, transparent clarity, but through our life actions, thoughts, feelings, and the rest of everyday living, other colors can appear in the aura. How we live and what kind of cumulative effect our actions have determine (and attract) what colors appear in the aura. Jainism calls these colors _lesyas_ , and there are six of them: white, yellow (or rose), flaming red, dove-grey, dark blue, and black.\n\nOne of the chief goals of Jainist spiritual practice is to purify the aura and remove the colors ( _lesyas_ ) so that only the original crystalline purity remains. As the noted scholar of Indian religions, Heinrich Zimmer, stated, \"the advance of the individual toward perfection and emancipation is the result of an actual physical process of cleansing taking place in the sphere of subtle matter [our auric space]\u2014literally a cleansing of the crystallike life-monad.\"\n\nJainism proposes that when this life-monad (the original transparent clarity of our being) is purged of all the life-action colorings and contaminations, \"it literally shines with a transparent lucidity\" and that when it is completely cleansed, \"it is immediately capable of mirroring the highest truth of man and the universe, reflecting reality as it really is.\" Surely that's a benefit worth detoxifying for. But here is yet another way of framing the spiritual side of detoxification.\n\nAccording to British psychic Mona Rolfe, Ph.D., in _The Sacred Vessel_ , an essential element of the ancient tradition of initiation was preparation and purification. To understand more about one's deepest self and the cosmos, one had to purify the body and mind of all the aspects that weighted or darkened it. Candidates for initiation purified their bodies daily with fresh clean water and foods, what we would call \"kosher\" today.\n\nThe point of all this incessant detoxification was to enable the human form to contain more light, which is to say, more spiritual illumination. \"Buddha is an immense force of light, the greatest force of light in the world,\" explained Dr. Rolfe, but equally powerful was the light of the Christ. For anyone desiring to be touched by these sources of immense light, they must first be purified and prepared. Toxic substances actually impede the entry of light\u2014more consciousness, self-awareness, understanding, and insight\u2014into the mind and body.\n\n\"Your soul is guiding your personality through certain experiences on Earth in order that you may become purified, body, soul, and spirit, sufficiently so that the Buddhic force may touch you and hold you for all time,\" explains Dr. Rolfe. You needn't worry that spiritual detoxification will make a Buddhist of you; where Dr. Rolfe says \"Buddhic,\" substitute whatever description of spiritual energy you prefer, or simply psychological insight. The essential point is that spiritual detoxification can make it easier for you to embody more spiritual light, insight, compassion, even wisdom, if you wish. And it might make it easier for you to extend this understanding to your living space, the subject of the next several chapters.\n\n# Part Three\n\n# _Creating the Healthy_ Home _Living Space_\n\n# CHAPTER 10\n\n# Cleaning Up the Home's Indoor Environment: Overcoming the Effects of Sick Building Syndrome\n\nWhen we consider the home as a living space that has something to do with our health, we find the same factors at play as we did with the body. Toxins. Certain factors about the modem house\u2014specifically, its building materials, furnishings, and air quality and circulation\u2014can be toxic factors and thus harmful to our health.\n\nJust as we saw with toxicity at the physiological level of the body, it isn't always a question of a single poison negatively affecting our system. House-bome toxins often are multiple and together can produce a toxic, immune-system weakening effect. We may be able to tolerate one, or several, toxins in our home environment, but for each of us, there is a limit, a point at which our system can no longer accommodate the toxic load and we get sick. It may start as allergies, headaches, or irritability, but it may progress to a wide range of symptoms and baffling new health conditions including chronic fatigue syndrome, multiple chemical sensitivity, and environmental illness. Physicians are increasingly faced with a strange new kind of patient, the hypersensitive, one who is allergically reactive, seemingly to almost anything of modern manufacture.\n\nThe trouble is, with respect to toxins generated in our home living space, we are not yet sufficiently accustomed as a culture even to think of the home as a source of toxicity. Potentially, most of the structural elements of our inside living space, even many items we take for granted as part of everyday living, can be toxic: paints, lumber, carpets, sofas, furniture, household cleaning products, computers, overhead lights, appliances, the unfinished basement. It's a long list of potential suspects, potential toxic sources.\n\nIt's not that we should suddenly start to fear our living space as poisoned and out to hurt us, but the news that aspects of modem homes, schools, office buildings, and nearly all indoor living or work spaces may be hazardous to our health should counsel us to look carefully at the materials we surround ourselves with and to think about ways to neutralize their ill effects or replace them with nontoxic alternatives.\n\n**_Sick building syndrome refers to the negative health effect of a building on its occupants. More formally, according to the EPA, it refers to \"situations in which the building occupants experience acute health and comfort effects that appear to be linked to time spent in a building, but no specific illness or cause can be identified.\"_**\n\nSince the majority of Americans probably spend about ninety percent of their time in indoor environments, the importance of that inside living space being health-promoting becomes strikingly evident. Since the 1980s, medical attention has started to focus on this previously unsuspected field of toxicity such that the negative health relationship between an interior living space and the health of its occupants is now often referred to as \"sick building syndrome.\"\n\n### Sick Building Syndrome: The Disease of Modern Architecture\n\nOne of the dominant trends in late twentieth century Western architecture was to create increasingly self-sufficient internal environments, buildings whose inner space was almost completely sealed off from the outside world. To an extent, this trend gained emphasis in the wake of the 1973 oil embargo, which riveted attention on the need to conserve fuels and maximize their efficiency. The result was both office buildings and homes that were indeed more fuel efficient, but they achieved this savings at a hidden cost, one that is only now becoming clear. In effect, by saving heating fuel, we created a new illness, known as sick building syndrome (SBS).\n\nPut as simply as possible, SBS refers to the negative health effect of a building on its occupants. More formally, according to a statement by the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), sick building syndrome refers to \"situations in which the building occupants experience acute health and comfort effects that appear to be linked to time spent in a building, but no specific illness or cause can be identified.\" EPA also describes a similar condition called \"building-related illness\" (BRI) for situations in which \"symptoms of diagnosable illness are identified and can be attributed directly to airborne building contaminants.\" SBS symptoms can be generated by almost any type of modern indoor environment, such as office building, school, hospital, public assembly hall, or home, in potentially any country.\n\nFrom a layperson's viewpoint, there is not a great deal of difference between SBS and BRI: both describe how a building can make its occupants sick. Whether the exact individual causes can be identified, as in BRI, or cannot be pinpointed, as in SBS, is almost a moot point, because as we are instructed by alternative medicine, toxicity is a cumulative, additive influence. The body has a capacity to handle a certain amount of toxicity\u2014the toxic load or total toxic burden\u2014but when that capacity is reached, and exceeded, any additional toxic exposure will make us sick. So one specific factor in an interior environment may not sicken us, but when added to the toxic influence of several others, the end result may be illness.\n\nSBS symptoms tend to fall into a familiar cluster that includes headache; eye, nose, or throat irritation; sinus infections; dry cough; dry or itchy skin; dizziness; nausea, concentration difficulties; reduced memory; fatigue; drowsiness; whole body weakness; hoarseness or changed voice; skin reddening; stinging or smarting of the skin; runny nose or eyes; and odor sensitivity, according to the EPA. BRI symptoms include cough, chest tightness, fever, chills, and muscle aches (see figure 10-1).\n\nHow widespread is the problem? According to the prestigious British medical journal, _The Lancet_ , SBS is \"an increasingly common problem.\" The symptoms of SBS, said _The Lancet_ , can be \"uncomfortable, even disabling, and whole workplaces can be rendered non-functional\" as a result.\n\n**Figure 10-1. Typical Health Symptoms of Sick Building Syndrome and Building-Related Illness**\n\nAccording to a 1984 study by the World Health Organization, thirty percent of new and remodeled buildings worldwide may generate symptoms of SBS or BRI, mainly due to indoor air quality. The air circulation mechanics and quality of sealed in living spaces tend to be the prime carrier of a great deal of the sick building pollutants. A more recent estimate suggests that twenty percent of American office workers are affected by SBS. A study by Honeywell Techanalysis of 600 of its own office workers found that 24% said they felt (based on symptoms experienced) there were air quality problems in their office environment. Also, between seven percent and eleven percent of these same employees reported having a tired feeling, stuffed up nose, eye irritations, headaches, or labored breathing.\n\nResearchers at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, found that workers in poorly ventilated offices are twice as likely to complain of SBS symptoms as those in well-ventilated environments. The 1998 study looked at four multistory office buildings over a course of three consecutive days, measuring levels of thirty-six \"potential worker irritants,\" such as temperature, carbon monoxide and carbon dioxide levels, dust mass, carpet dust, light levels, airborne particulate counts, and nicotine and formaldehyde levels. The researchers collected over 1,500 questionnaires from workers in the four buildings concerning SBS-type symptoms.\n\nThe study results were instructive and clearly supported the SBS thesis. \"Both the workers with very few symptoms and those with more intense symptoms show a clear pattern of increased problems by the end of the day, suggesting that something is making the workers who are more sensitive feel sick,\" concluded head researcher Alan Hedge, director of the Human Factors Laboratory at Cornell's College of Human Ecology. The workers had a \"clear pattern\" of feeling worse at the end of each day.\n\nWhile no single \"culprit\" was identified as the \"cause\" of SBS symptoms, Hedge noted that small accumulations of carbon dioxide from human breathing (due to inadequate ventilation) had been noted in these environments and are related to SBS. He further explained that workers were much more likely to report SBS symptoms when indoor carbon dioxide levels were higher than 650 parts per million (ppm). A typical outdoor concentration of carbon dioxide is 325 ppm. \"This suggests that SBS symptoms may be associated with building ventilation performance.\" An earlier study (1993) by Hedge of 1,324 workers in nine buildings had linked SBS symptoms to \"the amount of man-made mineral fibers in settle office dust,\" again pointing to poor air circulation as the main problem in SBS.\n\nOther studies have established the connection between carbon dioxide concentration and the incidence of SBS symptoms. Finnish researchers at the Helsinki University of Technology reviewed the results of 41 studies involving 60,000 subjects and found that almost all the studies showed that poor ventilation rates were clearly linked with a worsening of SBS conditions. They also reported that about fifty percent of the studies showed that as indoor carbon dioxide concentrations dropped below 800 ppm, the rate of SBS symptoms also dropped \"significantly.\"\n\nOther studies, reported by Michael J. Hodgson, M.D., M.P.H., of the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, confirm and extend Hedge's conclusions. For example, Hodgson reported that in Germany, among 2,000 office workers with work-related symptoms, a fifty percent higher than average rate of upper respiratory tract infections was noted. These infections could be directly attributed to inadequate mechanically ventilated buildings\u2014in other words, buildings where you couldn't open a window to get fresh air, but had to breath continually recirculated indoor air.\n\nOne study reported by Hodgson showed that seventy percent of buildings already classified as sources of SBS symptoms had poor circulation of fresh outdoor air. This study also showed that fifty percent to seventy percent of these buildings had poor internal air distribution (meaning the air didn't move much at all); sixty percent had poor filtration of pollutants derived from outside the building; sixty percent had indoor standing water (capable of supporting unfavorable biological growths); and twenty percent had humidifiers that functioned poorly. The result of this array of toxic indoor air pollutants\u2014including toxic airborne compounds released from building materials, furniture, office machines, paints, glues, and other standard items found in the modern office or home\u2014is \"a complex mixture of very low levels of individual pollutants.\"\n\nA Danish study from 1987 examined the relationship of SBS-type symptoms and indoor air quality in 3,757 office workers and their environments in 14 different buildings. The researchers found that people working in the oldest buildings (and therefore not mechanically ventilated) had the least number of SBS symptoms; they also found the highest rates of certain symptoms (mucous membrane irritation, headache, fatigue, and lethargy) among workers who spent their time in buildings with mechanical ventilation, meaning, without the regular circulation of fresh outside air. The study also found that twenty-eight percent of the office workers said they had irritation in the mucous linings (nose, throat) and thirty-six percent had headache, unusual fatigue, or malaise (general poor feeling).\n\nA British study that same year examined the SBS incidence among 4,373 office workers in 42 different buildings and under 47 different ventilation conditions. The researchers found that eighty percent of the people had at least one work-related symptom and more than forty percent had SBS symptoms such as stuffy nose, dry throat, or headache. Women tended to have more SBS symptoms than men, and the typical range of symptoms per person in any of the forty-two different buildings was from one to five. In buildings in which the indoor air supply was cooled or humidified, the incidence of symptoms was much higher. The study further revealed that eighty percent had at least one work-related symptom, fifty-seven percent had lethargy, forty-seven percent a blocked nose, forty-six percent dry throat, forty-six percent headaches, nine percent chest tightness, and nine percent breathing difficulties.\n\nAnother study in Denmark had fifty-four \"air quality judges\" assess the indoor air quality in twenty randomly selected offices and public assembly halls. They found that air quality deteriorated more from indoor pollution sources (from the outgassing of building and furnishings materials, tobacco smoke, and the ventilation system) than from the effects of the occupants (such as carbon dioxide exhalation). Specifically, twenty percent of the assessed indoor air pollution was due to the building materials, forty-two percent to the ventilation systems, twenty-five percent to tobacco smoke, and only thirteen percent to the people in those spaces.\n\nGovernment researchers at the Institute of Environmental Epidemiology in Singapore found that 19% of 2,856 office workers from 56 randomly selected public and private sector buildings reported SBS symptoms. The same researchers, in studying a different group of 2,160 people in 67 offices in Singapore discovered that SBS symptoms are more prevalent among workers who report high levels of physical and mental stress; the study implied that stress makes one more susceptible to the toxic indoor influences that produce SBS symptoms.\n\nNot only can stress bring on susceptibility to SBS influences, but if you are already allergic, being in a \"sick building\" is likely to make your allergies worse, or produce SBS symptoms faster than in people who are not constantly allergic. Researchers at Kristianstad University in Sweden found that people with allergies (in this case, high school students) \"note discomfort earlier\" than people without allergies when exposed to sick building influences. A higher percentage of already allergic people suffered weekly symptoms than nonallergic people did, but even more interesting (or alarming) was the finding that only forty-five percent of the students in the Swedish high school studied were non-allergic, meaning fifty-five percent had regular allergies.\n\nElsewhere in Sweden, researchers at the Department of Lung Medicine and Asthma Research Center at Uppsala University found that 21% of a randomly selected group of 418 men and women, aged 20-45 years, reported experiencing one or more SBS symptoms on a weekly basis; these results led the researchers to conclude that \"sick building symptoms are common in the general population.\"\n\nA study from New Zealand came up with similar results. Researchers at Massey University in Palmerston North found that 80% of 360 office workers studied experienced some SBS symptoms, with forty percent of these reporting lethargy, stuffy noses, dry throat, and headaches. These researchers used a British questionnaire from a study of an English population, the statistical results of which were the same. \"Sick building syndrome was found to be sufficiently prevalent in both surveys to warrant concern.\"\n\nOften individuals suffering with SBS or BRI do not make the connection between their strange list of symptoms and where they spend the bulk of their time. Given the sealed-in nature of many modern homes and apartments, it is possible to be in a toxic living space twenty-four hours a day, on the job and at home. Similarly, most conventional physicians do not make the link between indoor environment and symptom picture, and often patients visit one doctor ten times or ten different doctors in search of a comprehensive diagnosis for their condition: not acutely sick, but not well either. You end up with what one SBS expert characterized as \"a basket of symptoms with no clear cause.\"\n\nFor some reason, women tend to have more SBS symptoms than men, according to a study at the University of Hamburg in Germany of 2,517 female employees. The women had a higher incidence than men in general bodily complaints and sensory irritations along with a \"more negative evaluation of the indoor climate\"\u2014which may be scientific jargon for saying they were both more aware of and sensitive to the quality of their workspace.\n\nIn especially sensitive individuals, typical SBS and BRI symptoms can progress to more long-term dysfunction and a constant state of allergic reaction, as in multiple chemical sensitivity, environmental illness, and chronic fatigue syndrome, which share overlapping symptoms. In these cases, one is hypersensitive to substances found in a typical indoor environment and is in effect unable to function in those environments.\n\n### Indoor Pollutants\u2014A Matter of \"Genuine Concern\"\n\nIf one's reaction to SBS is caught early on, generally the symptoms can be reversed quickly, by removing yourself from the toxic space and\/or neutralizing the toxic effect of various elements in that indoor living space. But if your exposure to SBS influences goes on unchecked for a longer period, it can start to produce deeper-set damage (to the liver and immune system, primarily), which though reversible, may take months to undo.\n\nBy way of illustration of the first situation\u2014quick reversal of symptoms by leaving the toxic environment\u2014here is a case history from Michael Hodgson, M.D., M.P.H. Dr. Hodgson describes a forty-year-old woman who started having headaches, dizziness, difficulty in concentrating, and runny nose soon after she started working in a \"hermetically sealed\" modem office building. Indoor carbon dioxide levels were 600-700 ppm, or about double, or more, than normal outdoor levels; there were also measurable amounts of formaldehyde and volatile organic compounds (outgasses of various equipment and building materials).\n\nVarious neuropsychological tests showed that this woman had symptoms of solvent neurotoxicity. This means the constant low-grade but poisonous gas emissions from various components of the office environment were affecting how her nervous system worked, to the extent that they were toxic to her neurons (nerve cells). When the woman stayed away from this unhealthy office for four weeks, working elsewhere, all of her test results returned to normal and the toxic effects went away. If she went back to the toxic office, her symptoms returned. According to Dr. Hodgson, when a formal study was made of the \"toxic\" building and its occupants, a definite relationship was shown between the level of \"respirable suspended particulates\" (airborne, breathable toxic substances) and the degree of symptoms in \"a large proportion\" of the people there.\n\nHere is a case that shows the long-term effects of not dealing with SBS symptoms when they first show up. Susan Lange, O.M.D., L.Ac., is a licensed acupuncturist, doctor of Oriental medicine, and cofounder of Meridian Center, an alternative medicine clinic in Santa Monica, California. It took her almost twelve years to figure out that the reason she had environmental illness was that she had endured exposure to numerous toxic substances much earlier in her life, and the effects were still active.\n\nSpecifically, Dr. Lange had sustained petrochemical toxicity, due to working in an office heated by kerosene gas stoves and with poor ventilation; later, she worked in a hospital whose building materials were contaminated with molds and fungus; then she worked in another \"health\" clinic in which the air conditioning filters were dirty such that they vented microbially contaminated air into the offices. Things got so bad for Dr. Lange that she even became allergic to her own house.\n\n**_The liver, as the body's prime detoxification organ, gets overloaded and becomes unable to do its normal detoxification, so the body gets overwhelmed by toxins and moves into a state of constant dysfunction and, paradoxically, hypersensitivity to new toxic influences._**\n\nThe combined effect of all the toxins she had been exposed to over the years made her \"incredibly ill,\" with numerous SBS symptoms including heart palpitations, concentration difficulties, and allergies to seventy percent of the foods and substances in her environment. She nearly fainted when she inhaled perfume or gas fumes, and \"when I walked into my own house, I felt like passing out.\" The story has a happy ending: Dr. Lange was able to undo the cumulative toxicity in her system through a carefully designed alternative medicine detoxification program.\n\nThat is the good news: despite the rising incidence of hypersensitive, highly reactive individuals, their condition is not permanent. With effective detoxification practices and alternative medicine-based restorative protocols, it can be reversed, enabling them to function once again in the modem world without getting sick every time they walk upon a new carpet or stand by a photocopier machine. As we learned in earlier chapters, in cases of hypersensitivity, often the liver is the key to both the problem and its solution. The liver, as the body's prime detoxification organ, gets overloaded and becomes unable to do its normal detoxification, so the body gets overwhelmed by toxins and moves into a state of constant dysfunction and, paradoxically, hypersensitivity to new toxic influences.\n\nEven though its unhealthy results can be reversed, that doesn't change the fact that the problem of SBS is clearly widespread and probably increasing as buildings become ever more \"modem\" and thus sealed off from the outside environment. The main toxic sources, according to the EPA, fall into four categories.\n\nFirst is inadequate ventilation. Before 1973, U.S. ventilation standards required that each building occupant have 15 cubic feet per minute (cfm) of outside air; after 1973, the amount was reduced by 66% to only 5 cfm.\n\nSecond are chemical contaminants from indoor sources, such as outgassing from carpets, adhesives, upholstery, manufactured wood products, photocopiers, pesticides, cleaning products, tobacco smoke, and unvented heating devices, all of which emit volatile organic compounds (VOCs).\n\nThird are chemical contaminants from outdoor sources that enter the building through the ventilation system. These can include motor vehicle exhaust, and airborne toxins from plumbing vents, and building exhausts.\n\nFourth are biological contaminants, such as bacteria, molds, pollen, and viruses that may, for example, breed and spread in stagnant water present in ducts, humidifiers, air conditioners, ceiling tiles, carpets, or insulation. Toxic microorganisms such as _Staphylococcus_ , _Streptococcus_ , and _Aspergillus_ can actually grow in a building's duct work and then get spread through the air through the building's ventilation system.\n\nManagers of office buildings and large indoor spaces are beginning to get the idea that these spaces might be harmful to the health of the people who work inside them. A trade publication called _Today's Facility Manager_ published a survey of an unspecified number of facility managers, which showed that 89% had heard of SBS and 100% considered it a \"genuine concern,\" especially given the high incidence of allergies; 69% said their facility had already been tested for SBS and poor indoor air quality, and of these, 55% said the testing occurred because of employee complaints, 31% because of insufficient air circulation or filtration in their building, and 17% as part of a preventive maintenance program.\n\nThe reader at this point might well ask: \"What have SBS-conditions reported in office buildings, schools, and other large indoor spaces to do with my home or apartment?\" The answer is that the data reported for SBS conditions in these larger modem indoor environments are highly relevant to the typical modem Western indoor living space. Many of the same toxic factors are at play in the home (and will be discussed later in this chapter, along with their practical remedies), and while perhaps many homes do not have photocopiers (that outgas toxic VOCs), many homes should be concerned with radon emissions (a toxic \"natural\" gas emission from the Earth) from their basements. The modem home can be just as much a source of SBS symptoms as the modem office building, school, or hospital (see figure 10-2).\n\n**Figure 10-2. 8 Major Indoor Pollutants and the Symptoms They Produce**\n\nOne of the ways the \"genuine concern\" of facility managers and the increasing research data on sick building syndrome is being translated into the domestic front is through a discipline called Bau-biologie. A German-based initiative, the term means the living or biological house. More specifically, Bau-biologie (pronounced BOW-bee-oh-low-gee) is \"the study of the impact of the building environment upon the health of people and the application of this knowledge to the construction of healthy homes and work places.\" It is also the science of the \"holistic interactions between life and the living environment,\" according to The Institute for Bau-biologie, the American branch of this innovative movement, based in Clearwater, Florida.\n\nThe Institute's prime purpose, it states, is to help people realize that health hazards may exist in their homes and workplaces even though they may not be aware of them, and that not knowing about these hazards can be harmful to one's health, even to the larger outdoor environment. Based on research developed since the 1970s, the Institute has trained and certified over seventy \"environmental inspectors\"\u2014architects, builders, electricians, medical practitioners, engineers, and others\u2014who can evaluate indoor living spaces for the numerous health hazards identified by Bau-biologie.\n\nOther individuals and groups are taking up the European cue as well. John and Lynn Marie Bower formed the Healthy House Institute in 1992 in Bloomington, Indiana, to spread practical knowledge about how to build nontoxic homes and how to detoxify already built ones. Through their books, workshops, and website, they provide information to homeowners, designers, architects, and contractors \"interested in making houses healthy places in which to live.\"\n\nBuilding a nonpolluting natural house requires considerable research and planning and, until recently, most people tended to think the issue involved whether to live in a city or the country, in an apartment or an A-frame in the woods. But it's not so much the structure of the new house that matters, as what it's built with, says Bower. Almost everything, formerly taken for granted as \"standard\" building materials and furnishings, must be rethought.\n\nParticle board and interior plywood walls, for example, can outgas formaldehyde from their glues; new synthetic carpets emit toxic fumes, can become havens for microorganisms, and generate synthetic dust in the indoor air; indoor paints, varnishes, and clear finishes can also release minute amounts of toxic fumes (VOCs). Tighter construction for increased energy efficiency (with less fresh air circulation) and the use of synthetic building materials (that outgas dozens of chemical pollutants or release particulates) both contribute to poor indoor air quality, which becomes a vehicle for distributing many other toxic elements in the indoor living space. Studies have shown that indoor air may contain concentrations of air pollutants 100 times higher than found in outside air. \"Your house is where you spend the most time, so it is important to build it so that it won't contribute to your ill health,\" comments John Bower.\n\nConsider the data on pesticide pollution inside the home, for example. According to a 1997 study conducted by the Special Education Department at the University of South Florida in Tampa, the majority of U.S. homes emit the pesticide chlordane into the living air space. How is this possible? For about thirty years, up until 1988 when it was banned, chlordane (a potent nerve toxin) was routinely used on building foundations to kill termites. Typically, 100-200 gallons of chlordane were applied underneath the home's concrete foundation. The pesticide may have been banned, but the regulation didn't ban the possibility of outgassing from the long-lived chemical residues.\n\nStudies now show that chlordane vapor is leaking upwards (through foundation cracks or around pipes that enter the home) and contaminating the indoor air. Researchers report that seventy-five percent of U.S. homes built before 1988 routinely contain air levels of chlordane; one study showed that thirty-four percent of homes built before 1982 had air chlordane levels beyond the safety limit. The University of South Florida research team estimated that 100-185 million U.S. residents \"are breathing questionable levels of chlordane in their homes daily,\" and that 10-20 million could be living in homes where the indoor air levels of chlordane are \"exceeding\" the recommended safe limits.\n\nWhat can chlordane do to you? It can have a negative impact on many parameters of mental function, as demonstrated in 1987 when 250 adults and children were exposed to a toxic dose of chlordane at an apartment complex. The building surfaces and grounds were sprayed with chlordane, and its fumes entered the apartments for years afterwards, outgassing from the wooden surfaces of the apartment complex. Seven years later, scientists at the University of Southern California School of Medicine at Los Angeles ran a battery of neurological tests on 216 of the former residents of this building to determine if they showed signs of neurotoxicity, which would indicate the pesticide was toxic to the nervous system. It was.\n\nSimple reaction time for the chlordane-exposed residents was thirty-four percent slower; memory recall was twenty percent diminished; digit symbol attention was nineteen percent slower; balance dysfunction was sixteen percent increased; vocabulary use was twelve percent slower; mood state\/tension was seventy percent elevated; mood state\/depression was seventy-four percent increased; mood state\/anger was sixty-nine percent more prevalent; vigor was twenty-seven percent reduced; fatigue was seventy-five percent elevated; and confusion increased by eleven percent. It wasn't just the brain that was affected. Other symptoms traced to chlordane toxicity included asthma, allergies, excess phlegm, chronic bronchitis, wheezing, shortness of breath, headaches, and indigestion.\n\nThe same researchers analyzed nine patients in depth in an attempt to profile \"chronic neurobehavioral impairment\" due to chlordane exposure. They administered various tests to the nine people and found abnormal balance with eyes closed in seven, abnormal color discrimination in six, verbal recall problems in five, and various other perceptual disorders in four patients. \"These observations suggest that chlordane causes protracted neurotoxicity,\" the scientists concluded.\n\n  **_The Healthy Living Space_ Info Tip**\n\nFor more information, including study materials, books, workshops, practitioner referrals, monitoring equipment, contact: Bau-biologie USA,\n\n1401A Cleveland Street,\n\nP.O. Box 387,\n\nClearwater FL, 33755;\n\ntel: 727-461-4371;\n\nfax: 727-441-4373;\n\ne-mail: baubiologie@earthlink.net;\n\nwebsite:\n\nwww.bau-biologieusa.com.\n\nAlso:\n\nThe Healthy House Institute,\n\n430 N. Sewell Road,\n\nBloomington, IN 47408;\n\ntel\/fax: 812-332-5073;\n\ne-mail:\n\nhealthy@bloomington.in.us;\n\nwebsite: www.hhinst.com.\n\nChlordane is only one of many toxic chemicals that are potentially inside our living space polluting our indoor air. Even the way we clean our indoor living space may actually contribute to its toxicity, explains Lynn Marie Bower, author of a 700-page guide to nontoxic home cleaning, _Creating a Healthy Household._ \"Many of the cleaners, polishes, and waxes you've been using could be making you and your family sick.\" Bower, who states she has been hypersensitive for twenty years, explains that children, the elderly, pregnant women, and those who are already sick, asthmatic, or allergic \"are especially at risk.\"\n\n## The Healthy Living Space Expert Interview: Michael Riversong, Design Ecologist and Environmental Assessor\n\nAs the years progress, healthy living space experts like the Browers are gaining more colleagues across the spectrum of disciplines and applications. One is Michael Riversong of Cheyenne, Wyoming, a multifaceted expert in creating healthy living spaces who calls his discipline Design Ecology.\n\nRiversong combines the principles of Bau-biologie, feng shui (the ancient Chinese art of placement and energy relationships, discussed in Chapter 11), and geobiology (the effect of Earth energies on humans, discussed in chapter 12). \"Design Ecology is the process of addressing the effect of design on the physical, mental, and spiritual health of people,\" he comments in his book, _Design Ecology_ (1996). His practice encompasses \"the integration of music, environmental education, and advanced technology to create improvements in the living environment.\"\n\nOne of Riversong's specialties is an \"environmental assessment,\" a thorough review of all aspects of a home or small business environment for the presence and influence of toxic elements, electromagnetic fields, radon, VOCs, and other toxins, followed by practical recommendations for eliminating these toxic factors. \"I measure a lot of things with various instruments, all the while looking at the design of the place to see if there are communications being made by the design that are contrary to the goals of the people using the building.\"\n\nFor \"communications\" substitute the term \"toxic factors\" and you get an idea of what Riversong looks at when he's called in to evaluate an indoor living space. When Riversong refers to \"various instruments,\" he is in part thinking of his handy threesome: a multifrequency gauss meter, a Geiger counter, and an electrostress meter. The gauss meter shows him the level of the magnetic fields present in an indoor environment, especially in the home's bedroom(s). Magnetic fields, says Riversong, can exert strong influences on humans, either healthy or toxic, depending on their type.\n\nRelying on Swedish standards, Riversong says that magnetic fields higher than 2.5 milligauss (mG) are harmful to adults, and above 1.0 are \"risky\" for children. The combination of the human body's relatively high iron content, the possible iron content in the bed (metal spring mattress, metal bed frame), and an existing magnetic field can produce toxic effects in the bedroom. Let's say his gauss meter gives him a 4.0 milligauss reading in the bedroom. Sometimes the problem might be as simple as a miswired electrical junction box. One wire is misconnected, creating a \"very heavy\" electromagnetic field, Riversong notes. The remedy is simple: have an electrician fix the faulty wiring.\n\nIn other cases, an appliance, such as a television, can produce the problem. Say the head of the bed is up against a wall, on the other side of which sits the back of a television. The magnetic field emanated by that television goes through the wall and affects the sleeper in the bed. \"The bed gets some electromagnetic interference from that television, especially as, even if the television is turned off, there is always current flowing through it.\" (For more on the subject of electropollution, see below.) \"Home surveys should always start in the bedroom. This is vital because we depend on our nightly sleep for renewal of all biological systems,\" and disturbances in the electromagnetic fields can upset this crucial self-renewal mechanism of the body.\n\nRiversong relies on another device for measuring electromagnetic disturbances\u2014a surprisingly simple, low-cost approach developed by his mentor, the late Vince Wiberg, a healthy house wizard who practiced his trade for thirty years in Los Angeles. Get a cheap transistor A.M. radio and tune it to a high frequency range, such as 1500-1600, and in between stations, so you get only static. Walk around a building, or inside it, and listen to the sounds. \"You can actually hear the electromagnetic disturbances,\" says Riversong. \"You'll hear a buzzing type of sound, and different kinds of buzzes with different kinds of interference.\" This only works with an A.M. radio, he stresses.\n\n**_Riversong takes the idea of preventive house design a step further and regularly consults with practitioners of alternative medicine. He encourages them to make it a standard procedure that an environmental assessment should be performed on the home of every new patient to see if whatever is bothering them has an environmental cause._**\n\nRiversong emphasizes that the homeowner will get the best results by having an environmental assessment before the house is built. Then the various disciplines that comprise Design Ecology can have a _preventive_ aspect\u2014you can use health-promoting or at least nontoxic building materials to prevent illness in those who live within the indoor environment they create. \"I encourage people to have me in on the planning stages of a remodeling job or new building construction, because if they do this, they will prevent so many problems later on.\" This is preventive medicine for a house; this is the way you produce a health house, says Riversong.\n\nIn fact, Riversong takes the idea of preventive house design a step further and regularly consults with practitioners of alternative medicine, such as naturopaths, acupuncturists, and chiropractors. He encourages them to make it a standard procedure that an environmental assessment should be performed on the home of every new patient to see if whatever is bothering them has an environmental cause. \"The ideal scenario is to check the house to find out what's wrong with the patient.\"\n\nHere are a few case studies from Riversong's practice that illustrate the point:\n\n  * The owner of a house with an attached office under construction was concerned with microwave contamination since his future home was near a large telephone and research installation. Riversong found a \"microwave beam\" in the owner's office (already completed); this beam was draining the man's energy and causing other health problems. Riversong had him redesign his office so that he was not sitting in the microwave beam, after which his health improved \"and he found a whole new store of personal energy.\"\n\nWhen Riversong found another microwave beam going through what was to be the master bedroom, he was able to counteract this by installing microwave-blocking film on the bedroom windows. \"A follow-up measurement after completion of the house showed microwave levels in the bedroom were very low, but right outside the window, levels were extremely high due to bouncing of the waves off the covering.\" The health of the occupants has been excellent since they moved in, says Riversong.\n\n  * Children who lived in a beach house were constantly coming down with colds and coughs. Riversong took a scraping of material from the bedroom carpet and examined it under the microscope. He found numerous insect parts, mostly from ultratiny creatures too small to be seen without a microscope. He recommended a thorough housecleaning (especially of the carpets, which harbor the numerous small insects found at the seashore) and a new air filtration system for the bedroom. The children's health began to improve after these changes were made.\n  * Residents of a home in Montana reported constant fatigue. Riversong notes that large parts of this state are underlain by high underground water tables, sometimes dangerously close to the surface. In this case, water regularly seeped into his clients' basement. Riversong, calling on his knowledge of dowsing and geobiology (see Chapter 12 for details on these subjects), installed a length of thick copper wire in the ground near the house; this neutralized the energy-draining effect of the standing water. \"The experiment worked, and they reported an immediate surge of personal energy.\"\n\n  **_The Healthy Living Space_ Info Tip**\n\nFor information about environmental assessments, music, books, devices, and other services, contact: Michael Riversong,\n\nP.O. Box 2775,\n\nCheyenne, WY 82003;\n\ntel: 307-635-0900 or 303-829-0774;\n\ne-mail: MRiversong@earthlink.net;\n\nwebsite: www.designecology.com.\n\n## HEALTHY LIVING SPACE DETOXIFIER #46 Get the Electropollution Out of Your Home\n\nOne of the pervasive features of modern technological society is the presence of electrical, magnetic, and electromagnetic fields produced by human-made instruments and devices. While these fields are natural in the sense that all of nature, including the human body, runs on or emits differing energy fields of these types, they can be harmful to our health when they are too strong, when there are too many, or when we live too close to them.\n\nThe negative health influence of these invisible fields is now referred to variously as electropollution, electrosmog, EMF stress, or electrical hypersensitivity, and it's one of the prime contributing factors in SBS-type symptoms. Electrical hypersensitivity (or its variant, electrical sensitivity) is used to indicate a form of environmental illness, \"specifically a chronic illness triggered by exposure to electromagnetic fields,\" according to Lucinda Grant, author of _The Electrical Sensitivity Handbook_.\n\nGrant says that being electrically sensitive means an illness you already have gets worse when you are near electrical appliances, power lines, or other significant sources of EMFs. Or you may experience symptoms _only_ when in the presence of EMFs. The electrically sensitive (ES) person reacts sooner and more strongly to otherwise \"normal\" EMF fields that do not produce negative reactions in other people. ES people experience a \"spreading\" effect with sensitivity, in that their vulnerability to weaker, shorter EMF inputs increases and they get the reactive symptoms faster.\n\n**Figure 10-3. Typical Field Strengths for Common Appliances and Household Devices 28**\n\nTypical ES symptoms include headache, nausea, fatigue, dizziness, tingling or prickling sensation on the skin, burning skin or eyes, memory loss, concentration difficulties, muscle or joint pain, fluctuations in heart rate, and sometimes paralysis, says Grant. \"Electrical sensitivity has the great potential for being a missing link that uncovers explanations for many noticeable, recurring health problems people currently have no medical answers for and no long-term relief,\" comments Grant.\n\nSources of ES\/EMF toxicity can include fields inside your house\u2014generated by appliances, lighting, wiring, power panels, heating devices\u2014or any electrical devices, or outside, such as the home's proximity to power lines.\n\nA given home may have strong or weak EMFs depending on the situation. For example, if you use an electric hair dryer, you are generating a short-term EMF; it dissipates when the device is turned off. But your electric power panel emits a steady EMF regardless of which household appliance or other electrical device is operating (see figure 10-3).\n\nNote that some household appliances, such as the electric can opener and hair dryer emit very high EMFs at close range. Unless one is already electrically hypersensitive, these shortterm exposures to relatively high EMFs will not produce much harm to the body because the time of exposure is of such short duration: with a can opener; perhaps twenty seconds; a hair dryer, less than five minutes. But the clothes washer and dryer, television, and fluorescent fixtures can be more damaging depending on their location. If any of these items is situated on the other side of a bedroom wall (specifically, against the wall that abuts the head of the bed), or in the case of the fluorescent lights, directly over the bed, then their effect can be cumulative, even though their actual EMF strength is not as strong as the can opener. These are often called electromagnetic hot spots.\n\nThe constancy of human exposure is what produces the damage. What kind of damage? While this is a subject still under intense discussion and research, evidence is mounting suggesting causal links between EMF exposure and immune dysfunction, depression, childhood leukemia, central nervous system cancer, melanoma, and breast cancer.\n\nFor example, researchers at Pacific Northwest Laboratory in Richland, Washington, concluded that exposure to extremely low-frequency electric or magnetic fields (generated by typical 60-Hertz alternating electrical current found in U.S. households) can contribute to the onset of depression and depression-related suicide. They postulated that these fields disrupt the body's normal day\/night rhythm (the circadian cycle) and the chemicals responsible for maintaining it, such as the neurotransmitter serotonin and the hormone melatonin. They further postulated that these low-frequency fields accomplished the disruption by negatively affecting the brain's pineal gland, which regulates the circadian rhythm and its chemicals.\n\nOther research since the mid-1980s has further substantiated the various negative health impacts of prolonged exposure to EMFs of varying strengths or duration. Documented effects include: alteration of brain waves from cell phone signals; increases in leukemia rates in adults and children; interference with hormone and intercell communication activity; a slowing of visual reaction time; impaired nervous system activity; changes in the brain's hippocampus; alterations in immune system function; significant reduction in REM sleep; decline in insulin levels; undesirable changes in the blood-brain barrier; changes in cell cycles and proliferation; decrease in appetite and ability to sleep; and tumor formation.\n\nWaveGuide, a public interest website that summarized medical data on EMFs from dozens of studies, noted that these studies \"indicate biological effects at exposure levels _far below_ what would be explained by 'thermal effects' and well within the range people are commonly exposed to every day.\" Most of the exposures studied, commented WaveGuide, \"lie _far below_ the current advisory exposure standards in the United States.\"\n\nHow does an EMF disturb human health? It may be harmful to human health in much the same way that free radicals upset physiology, suggests Michael Riversong. Electropollution consists of a high level of positive ions in an environment, and positive ions, despite their confusing name, are bad for your health. Riversong suggests thinking of positive ions and free radicals as essentially identical, certainly in regard their biological effects.\n\nA free radical, he explains, is \"simply a piece of a molecule that is missing electrons, so it wants to 'eat' any electrons in the vicinity, and it will take them from living cells.\" A positive ion is also \"hungry\" for more ions, and it will take them from negative ions (the healthy, uplifting ones), which are \"free\" or in excess as electrons. Both positive ions and free radicals have been documented to contribute to the formation of numerous illnesses and bodily dysfunctions.\n\n\"Positive ions in a house result from many things. Any formaldehyde in the air, for example, is a bit of a free radical. This is one of the reasons it is harmful; it outgasses from wood products as a type of positive ion. Another source of positive ions in the house is plain old dust and grit because in many cases it has degraded to the point where it has positive ions on its molecules. And when your house is sealed in, as many modem houses are, you get positive ions from the lack of fresh air circulation. People (and pets) take in all the electrons they can inside a house, so that few are left in the air. What is left are insect parts, dust, and chemicals.\" Riversong explains that houses situated near busy roads are subject to indoor air pollution from the nitrous oxides from automobile exhaust. These, too, he says, are \"essentially positive ions and will 'eat' electrons.\"\n\nHere are some real-life case studies that show the effects of chronic EMF (and thus heightened positive ion) exposure. The first is provided by Veronica Strong, a British health-care practitioner and director of Dowsing for Health in the Vale of Evesham, England. Strong consulted with a woman in her late forties who spent eighteen hours a day in bed, incapacitated. She had suffered from chronic fatigue for three years; she was unable to walk more than fifty yards without feeling exhausted; and she was getting worse every week. Strong determined that the woman's main problem was unrelieved electromagnetic stress. There was a television in her bedroom; its cable ran in the wall alongside her bed, and a TV booster was connected to it. Once these three factors were corrected and relocated, the woman started to recover rapidly, such that within only three weeks, she was able to go on long walks, and now puts in a twelve-hour workday.\n\nMichael Riversong relates a case involving the staff of a small newspaper office. Several staff members had intermittent health problems. They would have mysterious pains that came and went and followed no pattern; the doctors attending these people were unable to make a diagnosis. The newspaper editor said he didn't like being in his office, and was concerned about the high turnover rate in his business. Previous employees and editors had resigned for health problems, and one had died. Riversong measured high magnetic field levels of 10 mG at the editor's desk. Remember, the Swedish standard for \"acceptable\" EMF exposure is only 2.5 mG, so this was four times the safe level.\n\nThe probable reason for the high EMFs, Riversong found out, was that the newspaper office was next door to an appliance store; the EMFs from TVs and refrigerators on display (and thus always on) came through the wall. The editor relocated his office and tried to work as much in other locations as possible.\n\nIn a second case, Riversong consulted with a woman who had severe headaches when she came home from college. A gauss mater reading of the woman's bedroom showed normal EMFs except at the head of her bed where it registered between 5-11 mG. The baffling thing was that there was nothing in her room to account for the high EMF, but when Riversong examined the room immediately on the other side of the wall, he found an old motorized clock on a shelf directly in line with the woman's headboard. The remedy was simple: Riversong moved the clock and the woman's headaches stopped.\n\n\"Sometimes simply moving appliances will take care of problems. We're lucky when we can get off that easily,\" comments Riversong. In other situations, you may need to turn off electrical power at night, or have an electrician install a special relay so that you can turn off the power by a bedside remote switch. \"Many people have experienced sudden, dramatic improvements in health when taking control of their electrical environment in this way.\"\n\nHere are some practical, fairly low-cost devices a householder can employ to minimize or neutralize electromagnetic field exposure. This is not meant to be a definitive list (nor an endorsement of any products), but merely a quick look at some available options.\n\n### Measure Your EMF Exposure\n\nThe more you know about your indoor electromagnetic environment the better informed you are for making a smart choice about a neutralization technique. There are a number of handheld consumer-oriented EMF-measuring devices (in a price range of about $19 to $140) called gauss meters that can be used to get EMF readings in various rooms of your home.\n\n_E.L.F.-Zone Gauss Meter._ This unit has a minimum sensitivity of 0.25 mG, but reads EMFs from 20-20,000 Hz. Its three lights (red, yellow, green) are calibrated to come on when danger, caution, and safe thresholds, respectively, are reached in an environment.\n\n_Dr. Gauss_ : Called \"The EMF Detective,\" this battery-powered device can measure magnetic field radiation from power lines, computers, and kitchen appliances, and other hidden sources of EMF radiation. Its measurement range works on two scales, from 0-1 mG and 0-10 mG.\n\n_Trifield Meter_ : This unit can measure magnetic and electric fields, EMF, and radio\/microwave pollution across an \"extremely wide frequency response,\" according to the manufacturer. Specifically, its magnetic readings range from 0.2 mG to 3.0 mG and 1 mG to 100 mg; electric from 1 kV\/m-100 kV\/m; and RF\/microwave from 0.01 mVV\/cm2 to 1.0 mVV\/cm2.\n\n### Minimize or Neutralize Your Indoor EMF Exposure\n\nOnce you have identified the EMF \"hot spots\" in your home, you can take steps to reduce or eliminate their injurious effects on your health, using a variety of devices.\n\n_Magnetic Shielding Foil (\"MuMetal\")_ : This is an alloy of eighty percent nickel and fifteen percent iron (plus copper, molybdenum or chromium) used for years in industrial applications to shield delicate electronic components from EMFs. For consumer-household use, the material (in fifteen-inch-wide sheets) can be trimmed (in length) to fit the required size and form a magnetic barrier against emitters such as cell phones, microwave ovens, doorbell transformers, computer terminals, and buried wiring. According to the manufacturer, one thickness of the material (0.004 inches) draped over the offending object can shield its EMF emissions by seventy-five percent. Essentially, the MuMetal attracts and holds the magnetic field within its own molecular structure, preventing it from passing any further.\n\n_Mag-Stop Plates_ : These are thick magnetic alloy plates (made of MuMetal; twenty-four by thirty inches, weighing six pounds) used to shield EMF emissions from electric circuit boxes, side-by-side computer terminals (such as in an office), appliances on the other side of bedroom walls, or \"any situation where you need a flat shielding material on a wall, floor, or ceiling.\"\n\n  **_The Healthy Living Space_ Info Tip**\n\nFor information about gauss meters, shielding materials, and other EMF measuring devices, contact:\n\nLessEMF Inc.,\n\n26 Valley View Lane,\n\nGhent, NY 12075;\n\ntel: 888-LESS-EMF;\n\nfax: 518-392-1946;\n\ne-mail: lessemf@lessemf.com;\n\nwebsite: lessemf.com.\n\nFor Total Shield, see:\n\nThe Cutting Edge Catalog,\n\nBefit Enterprises, Ltd.,\n\nP.O. Box 5034,\n\nSouthampton, NY 11969;\n\ntel: 800-497-9516 or 516-287-3813;\n\ne-mail: cutcat@cutcat.com;\n\nwebsite: cutcat.com.\n\nFor QLink, see:\n\nClarus Products International, L.L.C.,\n\n1330 Lincoln Avenue, #210,\n\nSan Rafael, CA 94901;\n\ntel: 800-425-2787 or 415-459-3829;\n\nfax: 415-459-2230;\n\ne-mail: info@darus.com;\n\nwebsite: www.clarusproducts.com.\n\nFor more about flower essences, contact:\n\nFlower Essence Society,\n\nP.O. Box 459,\n\nNevada City, CA 95959;\n\ntel: 800-736-9222 or 530-265-9163;\n\nfax: 530-265-0584;\n\ne-mail: mail@flowersociety.org;\n\nwebsite: www.flowersociety.org.\n\n_Total Shield_ : This unit is designed to neutralize EMFs by producing a 7.83 Hz field capable of blanketing a 20,000 square foot area, according to its manufacturer. The 7.83 Hz field is considered beneficial because it is the Schumann Resonance, the \"pulse rate\" of the planet itself. By \"blanketing\" an indoor area with this frequency, the device is believed to overcome the negative effects of EMFs present.\n\n### Shield Your Body from EMF Exposure\n\nIt is now possible to enjoy EMF shielding in your personal body and auric space by portable devices, so that as you move around in your home, into different rooms, each with their own EMF problems, you are still protected.\n\n_QLink_ : One of the more popular of personal EMF shielding devices is called the QLink, a pendant made by Clarus Products, a company founded in 1992 and specializing in subtle energy devices based on a principle they call \"Sympathetic Resonance Technology.\" According to Clarus, the QLink works like a tuning fork or permanent resonator, and can \"mimic the harmonic energy range of a person who is balanced, in a state of well-being, and 'in the zone.'\" Clarus further explains that the QLink requires no battery, but instead is powered by the wearer's own electromagnetic and other bioenergies when it is worn.\n\nWearing the pendant (made from lightweight, biocompatible acrylic) enables the wearer's energy systems to readjust to this example of physiological and energetic balance, and to \"relax into\" it. Its protective field is placed at about eighteen inches around the body. Clarus reports that user benefits include increased mental focus and concentration, heightened stamina and energy during the day, greater emotional balance, reduced emotional reactivity, less jet lag, and less of a \"fried\" feeling after extended computer use. According to Clarus, one-third of users who report noticeable benefits say they observe these positive changes within a week of using the QLink; the rest say it takes a month or so to register significant benefits.\n\nClarus also provides the same protective technology in a ClearWave digital clock, which shields EMFs for up to thirty feet in all directions (or 113,000 cubic feet), including up and down; other models of the ClearWave shield EMFs up to forty and fifty feet in all directions. Clarus' Portable Ally is a battery-driven tabletop device (4 by 2 by 0.75 inches high) that provides EMF shielding for up to 40 feet.\n\n### How Flower Essences Can Reduce Your EMF Stress\n\nThe next time overhead fluorescent lights irritate you, try taking a flower remedy to calm yourself. Research has documented that taking two flower essence formulas can reduce your system's reaction to the intense environmental stimulation produced by fluorescent lights and their accompanying electromagnetic fields. California researcher Jeffrey R. Cram, Ph.D., studied the benefits of using Yarrow Special Formula and Five-Flower Formula, two brand-name mixtures of different flower essences to reduce systemic EMF stress. A flower essence is a highly dilute infusion of flower blossoms taken as liquid drops, and available at most natural foods stores.\n\nDr. Cram monitored the brain waves and their changes in twenty-four subjects who took one or the other remedy in response to. fluorescent light exposure. \"The two flower essences were found to reduce physiological activation and stress on the human organism,\" concluded Dr. Cram. He theorized that these flower essences were able to \"strengthen emotional equilibrium and equanimity in the face of stresses and environmental impacts, thus reducing the typical 'fight or flight' stress response.\" In other words, the flower essence formulas were able to address the person's physiological and emotional reaction to the stress of the electromagnetic fields of the lights.\n\n## HEALTHY LIVING SPACE DETOXIFIER #47 Benefits of Nontoxic Carpets\u2014Don't Let Your Carpets Kill You Softly\n\nOne common assumption is that if you keep an old carpet clean with regular vacuuming and occasional shampooing, you have eliminated the potential health hazards that rugs and carpets may bear. Another common assumption holds that a new carpet is the height of purity and cleanliness and surely a guarantee against the presence of germs and other possibly harmful residents of old carpets.\n\nNeither assumption is correct. Let's start with the truth about new carpets. The alarming fact is that the newer the carpet the more toxic it might be. New carpets, because they are treated with a great number of chemicals and preservatives, can actually outgas toxic fumes and not only slowly but consistently pollute the indoor air quality of a house, but also generate allergies or seriously irritate those already overburdened with allergens. It's a distressing thought: here you are comfortably sitting in your apartment living room, enjoying the brand new plush rug underfoot, and now you learn this same rug might be continuously releasing into your indoor air molecules containing substances that might eventually make you sick.\n\nOf the modern machine-made carpets made from synthetic fibers, ninety percent of these are tufted, with the tufts held in place by a latex substance. Further, the yam libers of such carpets tend to be treated to prevent stains and wear. The carpet's backing material often includes a vinyl coating or a layer of foam-cushioning made from a synthetic material. All of these materials are potential allergens and potentially toxic when outgassed into a room. More specifically, synthetic carpets may contain pesticides (antimicrobial substances), neurotoxic solvents (such as toluene and xylene), and benzene, a carcinogen.\n\nCarpet toxicity is an increasingly serious problem, due to the high degree of carpeted interiors in the United States. In 1993, for example, it was estimated that seventy percent of the floors in the United States had a carpet, that 1.5 billion square yards of carpeting had been purchased in that one year (equivalent to 5.5 square yards per American), and that from 1960 to 1993, carpet purchases had grown by 654% in the United States. So if carpets are a source of indoor toxic emission, a great number of households are potentially at risk, and the greater the amount of indoor carpeting in a home, the greater the chance that indoor air quality is polluted in every room.\n\nAccording to John Bower of the Healthy House Institute, in 1988 the United States Environmental Protection Agency had to remove 27,000 yards of new carpeting from EPA offices after they found that dozens of their employees (about ten percent in all) had become sick from being in contact with the new carpets. EPA research revealed that a carpet substance called 4-phenylcyclohexene (found in the latex backing, abbreviated as 4-PC) was the main toxic substance sickening their employees. The chemical that gives carpets the \"new carpet\" smell, 4-PC has been found in concentrations of 20 ppb in new carpets, although the levels decline to 1-2 ppb by about two months after installation. This toxic substance has been linked to numerous respiratory and mucous membrane problems and allergic reactions, as well as nausea, fatigue, and memory loss.\n\n**_New carpets, because they are treated with a great number of chemicals and preservatives, can actually outgas toxic fumes and not only slowly but consistently pollute the indoor air quality of a house, but also generate allergies or seriously irritate those already overburdened with allergens._**\n\nAt least the EPA figured out it was their new carpets that were sickening their employees, and in fact this led to considerable scientific investigation of carpet toxicity. Unfortunately, in far too many cases, office managers and householders fail to make the connection and remain highly allergic, if not chronically sick or seriously incapacitated, from unsuspected toxic carpet gas emissions.\n\nIn 1995, Rosalind Anderson, Ph.D., a researcher at Anderson Laboratories in Dedham, Massachusetts, reported on her analysis of gas emissions (outgassing) from over 300 different carpet samples obtained from commercial outlets, carpet mills, or patients' homes. None of the carpet samples were older than 40 years and most had been in use from one week to twelve years. Dr. Anderson performed 500 different laboratory tests to measure the effect of carpet outgassing on laboratory mice.\n\nHer results showed that the gas emissions from carpets decreased the breathing rate of mice immediately on contact, from a normal rate of 280 breaths\/minute to 235\/minute, after only 8 minutes of exposure. When Dr. Anderson removed the mice from contact with the gas emissions, their respiration quickly normalized. On further inspection of the mice, Dr. Anderson discovered that one or more exposures to the outgassing produced distress symptoms in the mice, including swelling of the face, bleeding beneath the skin surface, altered posture, balance problems, hyperactivity, tremors, convulsions, limb paralysis, and, in some cases, death.\n\nDr. Anderson next studied 125 carpet samples for neurotoxicity, that is, negative effects on the activity of nerve and brain cells. She found that ninety percent of these samples produced at least one toxic effect and that sixty percent produced three or more \"severe neurotoxic effects\" in at least twenty-five percent of the mice. In other words, nearly all of the carpet samples were able to sicken one-quarter of the mice population in the study.\n\nWhy are new carpets often killer carpets? Because over 200 different chemicals are now found in the typical modem carpet, and many of these chemicals are toxic to humans (and mice), capable of producing \"diverse toxic effects,\" says Dr. Anderson, such as flu-like symptoms, muscle pain, fatigue, headaches (lasting for months after the initial exposure), memory loss, and concentration difficulties, among others.\n\nEven before Dr. Anderson's published research in 1995, evidence had been coming out, in part from her, linking carpet outgassing with illness. In 1991, the New York State attorney general released a consumer alert advising people who smoked, had allergies, or suffered from respiratory disorders that they would be \"more prone to experiencing symptoms when exposed to new carpeting.\" The alert stated that the carpet chemicals were a serious risk for children and the fetuses of pregnant women. Notable symptoms produced by toxic emissions included flu-like feelings, rashes, asthma, respiratory conditions that worsen, and multiple chemical sensitivities. The consumer alert was prompted by the fact that the United States Consumer Product Safety Commission had by 1991 received some 500 consumer complaints about suspected carpet toxicity. Individuals had reported a variety of symptoms, such as chills, fever, burning eyes, nausea, dizziness, vision problems, memory deficits, cough, numbness, depression, nervousness, concentration problems, and others.\n\nConsumer advocate and health educator Debra Lynn Dadd relates a remarkable case study showing the health-damaging effects of new carpets on householders. A man installed seventy-nine yards of new synthetic carpeting in his home-based business and noticed that on the first day, not only was the indoor space filled with a pungent odor from the carpeting, but dozens of spiders had become immobilized on its surface. Formerly, they had been observed to crawl freely through the house. A few months later, the man and his family became sick, reporting headaches, nausea, concentration difficulties, unusual thirst, and mucous membrane burning, including of the eyes.\n\nSoon the symptoms worsened, to include depression, skin rashes, and insomnia. The carpets were removed, but even after almost a year away from them, the family remained hypersensitive to many substances. A laboratory analysis of the carpet showed that it was outgassing at least six toxic substances including formaldehyde, and that another thirty-five toxic substances had been used in the carpet's manufacture.\n\nOf considerable toxicity are styrene (a carcinogen) and 4-PC, found in the styrene butadiene latex backing used on about ninety-five percent of carpets (applied in liquid form at the carpet mill). An estimated two-thirds of the 2.7 billion pounds of carpet yarns sold in the United States as of the mid-1990s were nylon, while only 0.5% were wool. The glue that holds the synthetic carpet fibers together contains 4-PC, the toxic substance discussed earlier.\n\nResearchers writing in the British scientific journal _Nature_ recently reported yet another toxic factor in modern rugs. Carpets can trap benzene from car exhaust and outgas this into the home's indoor air. Carpets (as well as wood and linoleum) are absorbent and can trap airborne benzene, a documented carcinogen, and eventually release it into the air.\n\nBut it's not only new rugs that can trap airborne particles; in fact, old carpets can be troublesome as well. The carpet acts as a kind of floor-based air filter, collecting everything that's in the air, including, for example, hydrocarbons from car exhaust in the street or pesticides from a yard, tracked in by feet onto the rug. Airborne chemical compounds from sources other than carpets (such as paint fumes if a room is repainted while the rug is uncovered) can end up trapped inside the carpets to be released into the air later. Carpets also house dust mites (which leave highly allergenic excrement) and mold and mildew, allergens that can breed in damp carpets.\n\nThere is an additional problem with carpets and house dust. Dust and tracked-in soil accumulate in the carpets, then get released into the indoor air when people walk on them. Researchers examined the house dust collected from homes in North Carolina and found traces of fourteen pesticides and ten polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons. They further discovered that the smaller the particle of house dust, the greater the concentrations of any of these twenty-four indoor air pollutants.\n\nApparently it is possible to quietly sicken under the influence of toxic carpets without manifesting any overt symptoms for a long time, observes Cindy Duehring, research director for Environmental Access Research Network in Minot, North Dakota. \"Lack of acute reactions to toxic carpeting are common, but the chemicals may be causing serious damage nonetheless,\" Duehring comments. \"The lack of acute adverse reactions (e.g., headaches, breathing difficulties, seizures, etc.) does not mean that the chemicals coming off of the toxic carpet are not causing slow, silent damage.\" Duehring argues that carpeting can \"make a person much more susceptible to getting a chronic illness in the future\" and that sustained exposure to unhealthy carpets sets you up for future problems \"by dosing yourself with dangerous chemicals on a regular basis with carpeting.\"\n\nAs mentioned already, the main problem with synthetic carpets is their outgassing of toxic substances known as a group by the term volatile organic compounds, or VOCs. Technically, this group includes hundreds of organic compounds present in the Earth's atmosphere (containing hydrogen, carbon, and other elements); these compounds evaporate easily, hence the designation volatile. Outgassing refers to when VOCs evaporate or release gases from the substrate in which they are present (such as in the latex finish of carpet backings). Natural sources of VOCs include fossil fuel deposits, oil sands, volcanoes, trees, even bacteria. Human-made VOCs tend to be toxic, or more toxic than naturally emitted ones, and derive from motor vehicles, solvent use, industrial processes, and gasoline evaporation.\n\nMore specifically, toxic VOCs are found in\u2014or outgassed from\u2014carpets, photocopier machines, paints, solvents, varnishes, adhesives and glues, spray shoe polish, water repellents, dry-cleaning fluids and chemicals, underarm deodorants, and many others. Here are but a few examples of VOCs found in common household products: tetrachloroethylene (dry-cleaned clothes); chloroform (chlorinated water); benzene (tobacco smoke); formaldehyde (fabrics, pressed wood products, building insulation, even cosmetics); styrene (carpets, plastics); and para-dichlorobenzene (moth balls and deodorizers).\n\nGiven the nature of modern, tightly sealed homes and the lack of proper ventilation, it is not uncommon for a typical indoor air to contain VOC levels 100 to 1,000 times higher than outside air pollution levels. Put differently, the EPA reported that the average American home was likely to have VOC levels two to five times higher than outside, regardless of whether the homes were situated in a rural area or in cities. It is a shocking thought that the air outside the home may be less polluted than indoors. Further, in 1989, based on a study of indoor air quality in ten newly constructed public access buildings, the EPA reported that over 900 VOCs were identified in the ambient indoor air.\n\nAs discussed previously, one of the new, serious, and medically vexing conditions to emerge as a result of prolonged exposure and allergic reaction to VOCs is multiple chemical sensitivity syndrome (MCS). This condition has multiple symptoms, affects multiple body organs and senses, and has multiple causes, thereby making it impossible for conventional medicine to diagnose according to its standard single-causative agent approach.\n\nTypically, MCS produces many symptoms involving the neurological, immune, respiratory, skin, gastrointestinal, and\/or musculoskeletal systems. Medical studies show that about sixty-six percent of people suffering from chronic fatigue and fibromyalgia (chronic muscle pain) also have MCS. Studies report that typical symptoms include all of the ones reported above (in connection with carpets) as well as sleeping and breathing difficulties, memory loss, mood swings, mental confusion, sneezing, itching, drowsiness, wheezing, runny or stuffy nose, muscle and joint pain, vaginal burning, frequent urination, constipation or diarrhea, joint and limb swelling, migraines, stomach pain, impaired balance, and increased sensitivity to odors, loud noises, bright lights, touch, extremes of heat and cold, and EMFs.\n\nUsually, a person sustains an initial acute or chronic toxic exposure, which shocks the system and overloads the central nervous system and liver, then the initial sensitivity broadens or spreads to include reactivity to many more substances commonly found in the modern Western environment. It does not have to be a high dose once the system is overburdened with toxicity. Once the triggering sensitivity happens, low exposures to common chemicals can generate major allergic reactions, usually out of proportion to the dose of the exposure. Eventually, you become allergic (chemically sensitive) to seemingly everything chemical. Perhaps this is why some medical authorities think MCS would be better labeled Toxicant-Induced Loss of Tolerance to indicate a toxic exposure that leads to the loss of tolerance to widely encountered chemicals to which you would not expect a reaction.\n\nAccording to William J. Rea, M.D., director of the Environmental Health Center in Dallas, Texas, and for many years an expert in this field, chemical sensitivity is \"an adverse reaction to ambient doses of toxic chemicals in our air, food, and water at levels which are generally accepted as subtoxic.\" Another study (with mice) concluded: \"A detailed chemical and microbial evaluation of the carpets and carpet emissions showed volatile organic compounds, pesticide residues, and microbiological flora, but at insufficient quantities to result in acute toxicity.\"\n\nUnfortunately, what is nontoxic and tolerable, or of \"insufficient quantity\" to one individual, can be quite toxic, sufficient, and intolerable to another. The trouble here is you can't know until your system has already reacted; another problem is that toxicity is cumulative and may take a long time to produce \"acute\" effects; a third problem is that not every individual corresponds to whatever norm for toxicity toleration is used in scientific studies from which safety standards are determined.\n\nIn fact, yet another study confirmed this effect. Scientists at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, Georgia, measured VOCs in human blood, noting that they are found in the general population at the high parts-per-trillion range, \"but some people with much higher levels have apparently been exposed to VOC sources away from the workplace.\" Of especial significance here was the CDC's observation that while \"most of the internal dose of these compounds is quickly eliminated [once they're in the blood], there is a fraction that is only slowly removed, and these compounds may bioaccumulate.\"\n\n**_The MCS-afflicted person becomes in effect allergic and potentially reactive to almost anything synthetic. In fact, the growing body of statistics on MCS is sobering: 17% to 34% of Americans report symptoms of chemical sensitivity._**\n\nThe MCS-afflicted person becomes in effect allergic and potentially reactive to almost anything synthetic. In fact, the growing body of statistics on MCS is sobering: 17% to 34% of Americans report symptoms of chemical sensitivity; 6.3% of Californians have been given an MCS diagnosis; up to 80% of these also have chronic fatigue syndrome, 55% to 65% have fibromyalgia, and 50% have traditional allergies.\n\nIn fact, there is such a degree of symptom overlap among MCS, chronic fatigue, environmental illness, fibromyalgia, and acute allergic reactivity that one wonders if there are real distinguishing differences between these conditions or if they are simply a variation on the same theme of sustained chronic toxicity. A study of 100 new MCS cases showed that 88% also had the symptoms of chronic fatigue syndrome, 49% had fibromyalgia symptoms, and 47% had all three. \"These extensive overlaps highlight the need to screen patients for all three disorders whenever anyone is suspected,\" concluded Albert Donnay, executive director of MCS Referral & Resources in Baltimore, Maryland.\n\nWhatever the outcome of this question of overlapping disorders, the fact remains that, for the householder, uncorrected long-term exposure to toxic factors in the indoor living space can lead to any of these conditions in the extra-sensitive person or in one whose system is overburdened with toxicity from other sources. In fact, if you find yourself suffering from several of these conditions, it is worth considering that your house may be making you sick, that some element in your indoor living space is toxic.\n\nOne way to determine this possibility on a physiological basis is to have one of the many biochemical tests for toxicity detailed in Chapter 3. Then if you test positive for toxic contaminants in your system, it is prudent to consider a comprehensive physiological detoxification program (see chapters 4\u2014) to flush the poisons out of your body and to help your liver regain its natural ability to detoxify your body. In the meantime, here are some practical steps to reduce your exposure to potentially toxic carpets.\n\n  **_The Healthy Living Space_ Info Tip**\n\nFor information about product emissions testing, contact: Anderson Laboratories,\n\nP.O. Box 323,\n\n773 West Hartford Main Street,\n\nWest Hartford, VT 05084;\n\ntel: 802-295-7344;\n\nfax: 802-295-7648;\n\nwebsite:\n\nwww.andersonlaboratories.com.\n\nFor Nature's Carpet:\n\nColin Campbell & Sons Ltd.,\n\n1428 West 7th Avenue,\n\nVancouver, BC, V6H 1C1, Canada,\n\ntel: 800-667-5001 or 604-734-2758;\n\nfax: 604-734-1512;\n\nwebsite: www.colcam.com.\n\nFor Hendricksen Nat\u00fcrlich, contact:\n\nNatural Home,\n\nP.O. Box 1677,\n\nSebastopol, CA 95473;\n\ntel: 707-824-0914;\n\nfax: 800-329-9398;\n\ne-mail: nathome@monitor.net;\n\nwebsite:\n\nwww.naturalhomeproducts.com.\n\n### Test Your Carpet for Toxicity\n\nIf you suspect your carpets are making you sick, you can have a professional toxicology laboratory test a sample to confirm or refute your suspicions. The same laboratory that produced the startling research by Rosalind Anderson in 1995 now offers product emissions testing of a range of items including carpets, mattresses, diapers, wallpaper, paint, adhesives, mothballs, insulation, air fresheners, perfumes, boots, even telephones.\n\nA client sent in her telephone because she believed somehow it was making her sick. She was right: Anderson Laboratories found a cotton pad saturated with pesticide inside the mouth piece. The lab also reported that a survey of the first one hundred families who sent them carpets for emissions testing all had new symptoms arise after installing the carpets and these symptoms were consistent with those associated with sick building syndrome and multiple chemical sensitivity. Laboratory analyses of product emissions range from $750 to $3500 depending on the extensiveness of the data requested.\n\n### Do a \"Bake-Out\" on New Carpeting\n\nIf you are unable to remove new carpeting or must move into a new, renovated, or refurnished house or apartment with unremovable new carpets, one option is to do a carpet \"bake-out.\" If the carpets have not yet been installed, ask the carpet provider to air the carpets in a well-ventilated area for seventy-two hours before bringing them to your home. Once the carpets are installed, stay away from your home for a few days. Before you leave, open all the windows, run the ventilation system (such as exhaust fans) at full capacity, and set the indoor heat at 100\u00b0F (38\u00b0C). The idea is to set the heat and ventilation systems to rim at much higher than normal levels\u2014overheating and overventilating. Let them run at that level for about forty-eight hours.\n\nThe theory behind the home bake-out is a bit like the self-cleaning oven: heat the house up and force the VOCs out of the carpets and, through the open windows, out of the house. It is believed that the high temperature forces the VOCs to be released quickly, compared to normal or ambient indoor conditions under which the VOCs are released more slowly and over a longer period, even up to years. Some studies have shown that a bake-out can reduce VOC emissions by sixty-five percent. However, other experts suggest that the bake-out may not have an effect on certain compounds such as formaldehyde, 4-PC, and BHT, which do not decay rapidly.\n\nAfter the bake-out, use a balanced mechanical home ventilation system, such as a heat recovery ventilator, that will continuously exhaust the indoor air (containing VOCs from all sources, including carpets) and replace it with fresh outside air. The recommended replacement rate of indoor with outdoor air is that thirty-three percent of the home's air should be exchanged every hour. This approach will reduce your exposure to airborne VOCs. However, healthy building house expert John Bower comments: \"Bake-outs aren't effective with long-term outgassing sources such as particle board and medium-density fiberboard.\"\n\n### Do a Nontoxic Carpet Cleaning\n\nA thorough cleaning of your carpets can reduce the likelihood of their contaminating your indoor space. Obviously a rigorous vacuuming is in order, followed by a hot water extraction and\/or steam shampooing. Annie Berthold-Bond, an expert in environmentally safe options and author of _Better Basics for the Home_ , recommends renting a steam-cleaning water-extraction machine and using your own nontoxic detergents for cleaning your carpets.\n\nAlmost always, commercial carpet cleaners will use detergents that have some amount of toxic substances such as perfumes, additives, or antimicrobial pesticides. As a nontoxic alternative, Berthold-Bond suggests mixing one-fourth cup of perfume-free, all-purpose liquid detergent (she advises using a product called Infinity Heavenly Horsetail, available at natural foods stores) with about four gallons of water. She also uses antifungal essential oils in the rinse water, notably tea tree oil (a natural essential oil known in aromatherapy as a powerful disinfectant; available at most natural foods outlets). Tea tree oil can also be applied as an antifungal carpet spray (not to be rinsed off) in a ratio of two teaspoons to two cups of water.\n\n### Try Woven Wool Carpets\n\nIf your budget allows it, you might consider replacing your synthetic, allergenic carpets with a natural fiber alternative, such as woven wool carpets. Although woven wool carpets may still contain yarn that has been treated with pesticide mothproofing, it is possible that even if you react adversely to synthetic carpets you may be able to tolerate these. In addition, woven wool carpets use a great deal less latex than conventional synthetic latex-backed carpets; woven wool carpets also tend to have fewer outgassing VOCs than the average synthetic carpet with a glued backing.\n\nA number of companies now offer natural woven wool carpets for the environmentally sensitive. One such firm is Colin Campbell & Sons of Vancouver, British Columbia, which has made their MCS-friendly \"Nature's Carpet\" since 1992. The company reports that their \"clean scoured wool\" is \"totally biodegradable\" and hasn't been subject to harsh chemicals during the mothballing stage of regular wool products; they apply a nontoxic latex made from a natural rubber base to the undersides of the carpets; no chemical dyes are used to color the yams; and the dual backing of the carpet is made from natural jute (a hemp product).\n\n\"The complete absence of chemicals, at every stage of the carpet's manufacture and composition, means there is no toxic outgassing,\" explains Colin Campbell & Sons. An independent laboratory testing of Nature's Carpet in 1996 (by Anderson Laboratories) confirmed the company's claims. It found no evidence of sensory irritation or pulmonary iritation produced by a sample of the company's 100% wool carpet.\n\nAnother highly regarded source of natural carpets is Hendricksen Nat\u00fcrlich of Sebastopol, California. Since 1989, this company has been providing environmentally friendly carpets made from natural wool fibers. The carpets are free of formaldehyde, stain-repellents, flame retardants, and synthetic blends, and contain minimal outgassing glues.\n\nWool has many merits for the allergic, notes the company, for after all, it is the original that synthetics strive to copy. \"Wool releases soil more easily than any other fiber, has the greatest resilience, absorbs noise and noxious gases from the air, and resists burns.\" In the warm months, it acts as a natural air conditioner by absorbing and releasing humidity and by definition is produced without hazardous chemicals, states Hendricksen Nat\u00fcrlich. According to a list they publish, obtained from a carpet manufacturer, at least forty-two potentially toxic chemicals are \"commonly\" used in carpet manufacture.\n\n### The Trouble with Indoor Air\u2014Worse Pollution Indoors than Out\n\nEver since the outbreak of Legionnaire's disease in Philadelphia in 1976, attention has increasingly focused on the relationship between indoor air quality and human health. In that initially baffling outbreak in Philadelphia, a microbial contaminant was distributed throughout a hotel's interior by way of the ventilation system, sickening many of those guests who breathed the air. It's an extreme example that illustrates the need for fresh, pure, constantly ventilated indoor air, and the consequences of not having it.\n\nAs we discovered above, if you live in an apartment or a tightly sealed new home and have new or even recently installed wall-to-wall carpets, potentially you are breathing air contaminated with numerous VOCs outgassed from the carpets. However, carpets are not the only source of airborne pollutants found in the typical modern home, although they are certainly a vivid example of how the mechanism of indoor air pollution works. Unfortunately, there are a great number of things in the modern home that can poison you.\n\nIndoor air quality can also be negatively affected by other factors including combustion gases, carbon monoxide, VOCs from other sources, formaldehyde, radon, biological contaminants, dust mite fragments and feces, molds, pollen, minerals and metals (notably asbestos, found in building materials; and lead, found in some paints, dinnerware, food cans, furniture, toys, dust, and soil), cleaning products made from synthetic chemicals, synthetic fibers and fabrics, household furnishings, pesticides, and tobacco smoke, among others.\n\nFor example, combustion gases (invisible gases left over from burning substances) can come from gas and oil furnaces, gas dryers, water heaters (gas or oil), and boilers (gas or oil). Carbon monoxide (formed as a result of the incomplete burning of carbon), can be released inside a home from fireplaces (wood, natural gas), stoves (coal or wood-burning), heaters (natural gas, propane, or oil), and hot water tanks. Radon, a radioactive gas from inside the Earth, can enter a home through cracks in the foundation and through well water.\n\nFormaldehyde can outgas from urea-formaldehyde foam insulation, glues used in manufactured pressed-wood products (particleboard, plywood, fiberboard), clear finishes, resin treatments on fabrics, durable press drapes, environmental tobacco smoke, paint preservatives, veneered kitchen cabinets, and wet fingernail hardeners and polishes, among others. Symptoms of formaldehyde toxicity include watery eyes, a burning sensation in the eyes and throat, nausea, breathing difficulties, chest tightness, skin rashes, allergic reactions, and, for the extrasensitive, asthma attacks; it is also regarded as a carcinogen.\n\nA recent study of formaldehyde emissions from fifty-five domestic consumer and construction products measured over a twenty-four-hour period showed that among the high emitters are polyurethane floor finishings, wet fingernail hardeners and polishes, permanent press shirts and draperies, and pre-pasted wallpaper. They found that when wet, the polyurethane can emit one thousand times more formaldehyde than bare particleboard, usually considered a high emitter.\n\nTypically, formaldehyde is present in both indoor and outdoor air at an assumed \"safe\" level of less than 0.03 ppm, but it becomes problematic for humans when it reaches airborne levels greater than 0.1 ppm. The less circulation of indoor air there is, and the less an infusion of fresh outside air, the greater the chance that formaldehyde levels will build to toxic concentrations. Further, formaldehyde levels rise when the rooms are humid and hot, and drop when they are cool and dry, arguing for the desirability of indoor dehumidification.\n\nFor some people, a tiny amount of formaldehyde may be way too much. According to the EPA, ten percent of all individuals are hypersensitive to formaldehyde, reacting allergically at much lower concentrations than are generally considered safe. Hypersensitives can react severely to formaldehyde at a 0.1 ppm even though the \"permissible\" work place level established by OSHA (Occupational Safety and Hazard Administration) is much higher, at 0.75 ppm.\n\n**_Volatile organic compounds (VOCs) in indoor air can number from 20 to several hundred\u20141,000 different VOCs have been detected in indoor air altogether, drawn from many samples\u2014and their concentrations inside tend to be larger than you would find outdoors, sometimes 100 times higher._**\n\nThe above are only the most well-known offenders on the list of possible indoor pollutants. In fact, one researcher has tabulated seventy-nine different organic chemical compounds likely to be found in a typical indoor environment (home or office). You're likely to encounter these in: refrigerants, linoleum floor covering, epoxy paint, gypsum board, polyurethane wood finish, moth crystals\/deodorizers, floor wax, cement flagstone, wallpaper, and plastics, among many other sources. VOCs in indoor air can number from 20 to several hundred\u20141,000 different VOCs have been detected in indoor air altogether, drawn from many samples\u2014and their concentrations inside tend to be larger than you would find outdoors, sometimes 100 times higher.\n\nAs mentioned earlier, studies have shown that indoor air can often be more polluted than outside air, containing a higher percentage of a variety of airborne contaminants. Using air conditioning rather than natural ventilation (open windows, fans) can make the situation worse, contributing to the onset of numerous sick building syndrome symptoms. Here's a look at some of the scientific findings on indoor air quality (LAQ) and illness:\n\n  * Researchers in France found exposure to air conditioning in offices (versus natural ventilation) was associated with an increased rate of SBS symptoms and sickness absence.\n  * A study involving 2,761 office workers from five different buildings showed that SBS symptoms decreased by forty percent to fifty percent after the workers were relocated to a single new building with superior indoor ventilation. Their old building had relied on mechanical ventilation, air conditioning, humidification, and had sealed windows. Among the symptoms that improved with better indoor air quality were skin and eye irritations, respiratory problems, nose and throat irritations, fatigue, and headache. Even better, sixty percent of the workers who were originally symptomatic were free of all symptoms once they were in the new, properly ventilated building.\n  * Taiwanese researchers looked at indoor air quality and respiratory illness symptoms in 264 nursing workers at 28 day-care centers and found a strong connection between dampness (indoor humidity) and SBS symptoms. The dampness concentrated airborne fungi and molds (notably _Aspergillus_ strains), and those centers that had no air conditioning or air cleaning systems had higher concentrations.\n  * Among 1,144 office workers, those working under ventilation conditions involving mechanical heating and ventilating, air conditioning, or fan coil units had a higher risk of experiencing SBS symptoms than those people working under conditions of natural ventilation. Symptoms included throat irritation, nasal discharges, blocked nose on awakening, migraines, and coughing.\n  * German researchers studied the role of airborne dust and SBS symptoms in a group of 133 office workers who had complained of symptoms after sound-absorbing mineral fiber boards were installed as suspended ceilings in their work spaces. More than half the 133 employees (79 in all) had complained of itching, eye irritation (burning, reddening), and upper respiratory tract irritations, and 50% of the employees had consulted a doctor for treatment of their symptoms. It turned out the fiber content in the office air was quite high, sufficient for the researchers to link it with the health complaints.\n  * Another Taiwanese study showed that inside building dampness is directly correlated with eye irritations, coughs, lethargy, and fatigue, based on a study of 1,237 workers in 19 air-conditioned offices. Reports of eye irritation were higher when stuffy odor or mold was present, still higher when both were present, higher still with the presence of water damage in the building, and the highest when all \"dampness exposure\" factors were present.\n  * According to research at Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center in Lubbock, Texas, buildings with IAQ complaints often have high airborne concentrations of _Penicillium_ strains (representing 89% to 100% of the total fungi), while buildings with a low incidence of IAQ problems have an indoor air \"fungal ecology\" (the overall balance of biological contaminants) similar to what's found outdoors. Fungal populations may vary outdoors, but the indoor fungal populations \"tend to remain unchanged,\" researchers concluded.\n  * An earlier study by the same group looked at forty-eight schools in which there had been concerns about indoor air quality and SBS symptoms. While five families of fungi (including _Penicillium_ ) comprise about ninety-five percent of the typical outdoor air, in twenty schools _Penicillium_ was the dominant organism found in the indoor air and at rates higher than found outdoors. In eleven schools, significant amounts of _Stachybotrys atra_ were isolated in the classrooms (under wet carpets, wet walls, behind vinyl wall coverings), leading researchers to conclude that SBS symptoms were associated with the presence of these two fungi.\n  * On the positive side, researchers at McGill University in Montreal, Quebec, found that when office workers had a new ventilation system that allowed them to individually adjust the ventilation at their worksite, their productivity rose by eleven percent and SBS symptoms declined when measured sixteen months later. In other words, bad indoor air quality leads to lost productivity and illness, while proper indoor ventilation can lead to enhanced productivity and better health.\n\nAs the research cited above suggests, molds and fungi are a big problem in the indoor environment. Experts are paying more attention to household fungi and toxigenic molds as possible main contributing factors in sick building syndrome and its many allergy-like symptoms. One fungus that is now particularly under study is called _Stachybotrys chartarum_ , a toxic fungus that can cause health problems in humans and animals. For example, _S. chartarum_ can produce skin rashes, nervous system complaints, nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, gallbladder-like colic pain, nosebleeds, and numerous respiratory problems typical of mild to strong allergic reaction.\n\nHow does it get into the house? It enters the indoor living space when the house has sustained water damage from broken pipes, flooding, roof leaks, sewage backups, or excessive condensation. These are ideal growth conditions for the fungus, which is present in soil, dust, dirt, the paper covering of sheetrock, wallpaper, ceiling tiles, various paper goods, natural fiber carpets, insulation material, wet cellulose products, and other organic debris. The fungus can grow in the damp conditions yet not be noticed by occupants; when observed, it is black, shiny if wet and powdery if dry.\n\nAmong the mostly commonly occurring microbes that can infest homes, offices, and schools are _Cladosporium, Altemaria, Fusarium, Penicillium_ (4 species typically encountered), and _Aspergillus_ (fifteen different species commonly encountered in homes). Often you can smell their presence before you actually spot them, in the form of a foul, musty odor when you enter the room. According to researchers at Georgia Tech's Indoor Environmental Research Program, in many respects the air pollution from molds and fungi is not much different than that generated by hazardous chemicals. \"Many of the volatile compounds produced by the cultured fungi are identical to those originating from solvent-based building materials and cleaning supplies.\"\n\nIn fact, the volatile organic compounds from molds and fungi can include hexane, methylene chloride, benzene, and acetone, thereby adding \"heavily\" to a building's existent level of toxic VOCs. In one case, the researchers found high levels of hexane in the indoor air but could not find an actual emitting source until they factored in the possibility of the ambient hexane levels being the result of microbiological contamination.\n\nOne of the most likely places to find any of seventeen fungi growing indoors is in some part of the home's HVAC system (heating, ventilation, air conditioning). For example, _Acremonium spp._ grows in humidifier water and HVAC fiberglass insulation; _Altemaria spp._ in cooling systems, refrigerator coils, and on dust in ductwork; _Aspergillus spp._ in an evaporative air cooler, HVAC fiberglass insulation, cooling systems, coils, fans, filters, and dust in ductwork; _Fusarium spp._ in humidifier water; _Penicillium spp._ in air conditioners, HVAC ducts, filters, fans, and humidifier water. The same is true of at least eight harmful bacteria that grow indoors: _Micropolyspora faeni_ flourishes in the humidifier; _Pseudomonas aeruginosa_ in the evaporative air cooler, humidifier, and indoor dust; and _Thermoactinomycetes vulgaris_ in air conditioners and humidifier water.\n\n## HEALTHY LIVING SPACE DETOXIFIER #48 Filter Your Home's Indoor Air to Remove Toxins and Allergens\n\nThe scientific reports give a vivid and sometimes chilling picture of the degree to which elements of our indoor living space can make us sick when we live in a home or work in an office that lacks good air circulation. Not necessarily every home or interior work or living space is toxic, or toxic to the degree that it guarantees some degree of illness. On the other hand, most of the VOCs are invisible, and many are odorless, so how can you tell if you're living under their baleful influence? One way is home testing.\n\n### Be a Professional House Doctor\n\nA company in Iowa is now providing a set of seven inexpensive do-it-yourself Healthy Home Test Kits by which you can monitor indoor levels of molds and bacteria, lead, carbon monoxide, radon, asbestos, and formaldehyde. The kits range in price from about four dollars to forty dollars. No special knowledge of laboratory procedures or instrumentation is required to get reliable results, the company (Professional House Doctors, Inc., or PHD) explains.\n\nFor example, to test the levels of molds and bacteria, you expose a culture plate to the indoor air for fifteen minutes, store it in a dark place for seventy-two hours, then compare the results (that is, what has grown in the plate) against a chart to find out what contaminants you have. For formaldehyde, you expose the monitor to your indoor air for eight hours, then send it to the PHD laboratory for evaluation. For lead, you dip the lead test dauber in water and rub it on the item in question; if the item or dauber turns pink, the item contains lead. The carbon monoxide test is even easier: when the \"CO Alert Badge\" changes from tan to gray\/black, it means you have too much carbon monoxide in your indoor air; the badge returns to its normal color when exposed to fresh air.\n\n  **_The Healthy Living Space_ Info Tip**\n\nFor information about Healthy\n\nHome Test Kits, contact:\n\nProfessional House Doctors, Inc.,\n\n1406 E. l4th Street,\n\nDes Moines, IA 50316,\n\ne-mail: info@prohousedr.com;\n\nwebsite: www.prohousedr.com.\n\nFor formaldehyde monitors, contact:\n\nAir Quality Research,\n\n100 E. Main Suite, C,\n\nCarrborro, NC 27510;\n\ntel: 800-818-5894;\n\ne-mail: ppecevich@mindspring.com;\n\nwebsite: www.airqualityresearch.com.\n\nMonitors specifically for formaldehyde are available for home and office use as originally developed by Air Quality Research, an organization founded in 1982 at the School of Public Health at the University of California at Berkeley. One unit (PF-1) determines indoor levels of formaldehyde in work and home spaces; the second unit (PF-20) is a clip-on device to measure individual exposure levels for people in a work space.\n\n### Decrease Your Mold Exposure\n\nIf you suspect mold in your indoor living space, a key preventive step to take is keep the indoor humidity level below forty percent and ventilate (with exhaust fans) all showers and cooking areas. Use a humidifier or air conditioner during the humid months; add mold inhibitors to indoor paints before applying to the walls if you are repainting; scour the bathrooms with mold-killing products (nontoxic, nonallergenic: see below); refrain from carpeting basement and bathroom floors; remove any carpets and upholstery that have sustained water damage.\n\nIf your home has walls or floors that have sustained water damage, disinfect the surface with a chlorine solution of one cup of laundry bleach per gallon of water (provided you're not allergic to chlorine). It is prudent to do this with adequate ventilation, wearing goggles and rubber gloves.\n\nIt is essential to regularly clean the water reservoir in humidifiers because they can act like \"little mold factories . . . pools of standing stagnant water\" that during a season can allow mold to grow, infiltrate the ducts, and get blown through the house.\n\nThe most effective step to take to purify your indoor air of VOCs is air filtration, and here you have several choices. These include mechanical filtration by way of HEPA (high efficiency particulate air) filters, either whole house or individual room systems; electrostatic filtration, by electronically charged plastic panel filters inserted into a home's central heating system; ultraviolet radiation; and negative ion generators.\n\nBefore we review the different technological options for air filtering, let's get a sense for how fine the filtration mesh must be, which is to say, how small the toxic airborne particles are. The key measurement in this domain is the micron, which is equal to 1\/25,000 of an inch. The HEPA systems are so called because they can deal with particles as small as 0.1-0.3 microns in diameter, but is that fine enough? Yes, for most microorganisms.\n\nAmong the airborne viruses, adenovirus (associated with the common cold) is 0.08 microns in width; rhinovirus (also with colds) 0.023; influenza (flu) is 0.1; respiratory syncytial virus (pneumonia) is 0.22; paramyxovirus (mumps) is 0.23; varicellazoster (chickenpox) is 0.16; and mycobacterium tuberculosis (TB) is 0.86. Now for bacteria: _Acinetobacter_ (opportunistic infections) is 1.3; _Corynebacterium diphtheriae_ (diphtheria) is 1.0; _Klebsiella pneumoniae_ (opportunistic infections) is 0.4; _Staphylococcus aureus_ (opportunistic infections) is 1.0; and _Streptocococcus pneumoniae_ (pneumonia, otitis media [ear infection]) is 0.9. Among the fungi, _Cryptococcus neoformans_ (cryptococcosis) is 5.5 microns wide, considerably larger than the viruses and bacteria.\n\n### HEPA Mechanical Filtration\n\nThis approach is generally rated as capable of removing 99.99% of airborne particulates, such as dust, pollen, plant and mold spores, asbestos dust, animal hair, and tobacco smoke particles, if they are no smaller than 0.1 microns in diameter. There are _many_ HEPA filters available, so the ones mentioned here are presented only to give the reader an idea of how a HEPA unit works and where to start looking for a suitable model.\n\nThe Safe Zone 2500 (weight: fifteen pounds) can handle a medium-sized room of about 300-650 square feet and uses both a carbon-activated and a HEPA filter. The activated carbon canister (weight: 8 pounds) is especially good at removing indoor odors, such as in a kitchen. One user stated that the unit \"cut the dust buildup on our furnishings by probably 70%.\" The Safe Zone 3000 (weight: 22 pounds) air-cleans a 400-850 square foot room; one user employed it to ventilate her home nail salon business.\n\nThe Safe Zone 4000 is a whole-house, three-stage filtration unit that works with a home's HVAC system (heating, ventilation, and air conditioning) to clean and circulate indoor air. In addition to the HEPA and charcoal filters, the unit's third filter is a VOC cartridge capable of removing dangerous chemical gases outgassed from household products and fixtures. At 56 pounds, it is not as readily portable as the other Safe Zones, but is rated to air-filter 560-1100 square feet.\n\n### Activated Charcoal Air Filtration\n\nIn some instances, the hypersensitive person might require a non-HEPA indoor air filtering system. Chemical fumes and pollutants can contaminate the HEPA filter such that it begins to smell of them\u2014a perfume, a new wall paint, or whatever chemical particulate it has absorbed. The Aireox Activated Carbon Air Purifier is recommended when a person could become allergic (chemically reactive) to the substances collected in the HEPA filter or when the primary offending substance is chemical fumes.\n\nThe carbon filter\u2014the unit can be set unobtrusively on a desktop\u2014can remove 99.95% of dust, pollen, and particulates to 0.5 microns, as well as most indoor fumes and odors. According to the manufacturer, \"if your work place is loaded with VOCs, consider the activated carbon purifiers as the safest air purification.\"\n\n### Electrostatic Air Filters\n\nThe concept here is to remove particles from airstreams having large steady flow rates, such as you have with indoor heating or air conditioning. Air filters are placed within a home's central heating and\/or air conditioning system to catch tiny airborne allergenic particles before (or as) they are blown through the ducts. In a sense, the furnace or air handling system becomes a whole-house air-cleaning device. The device is inserted in the place normally occupied by the filter in the existing furnace or air conditioner; the normal filter is usually fiberglass and removes only five percent to ten percent of particles.\n\n  **_The Healthy Living Space_ Info Tip**\n\nFor information about Electrostatic Air Filter and OxyClean Air Filter, contact:\n\nCrystal Enterprises,\n\n770 Big Tree Dr., Building 114,\n\nLongwood, FL 32750;\n\ntel: 800-724-2220;\n\nfax: 407-260-9690;\n\ne-mail: webmaster@oxyfilters.com;\n\nwebsite: www.oxyfilters.com.\n\nFor Safe Zones 2500,3500, and 4000:\n\nAirFilters.net,\n\n11905 NW 35th Street,\n\nCoral Springs, FL 33065;\n\ntel: 800-757-1836 or 954-752-1836;\n\nfax: 954-752-0113;\n\ne-mail: info@airfilters.net;\n\nwebsite: www.airfilters.net.\n\nFor Dust Fighter 95 and Bio-Fighter Anti-Microbial UV Light System (Nomad, Nomad 2, Triad):\n\nDust Free,\n\nP.O. Box 519,\n\n1112 Industrial,\n\nRoyse City, TX 75189;\n\ntel: 800-441-1107;\n\nfax: 800-929-9712;\n\nwebsite: www.dustfree.com.\n\nThe Electrostatic Air Filter removes 99.97% of indoor air allergens of 1.3 microns in size and larger. Its surface has been treated with an antimicrobial substance to deactivate bacteria, molds, fungi, and other microbiological contaminants as they pass through it. The company also makes an OxyClean Air Filter, which they claim can remove foul odors and harmful gases present in indoor air. The filter can be used with activated charcoal pads to remove odors and gases.\n\nAccording to the manufacturer, the filters use the magnetic effect of static electricity and special filtering media to attract and trap airborne particulates; in other words, the static electricity on the fibers of the filter attract the contaminants and, as the air blows across these electrically charged fibers, the static charge actually increases. The filter does not require replacement, but maintenance every thirty to sixty days (washing it out with a garden hose) is recommended.\n\nAnother brand called Dust Fighter 95 uses five layers of filtration media to trap about ninety-five percent of particulates passing through it. According to Dust Free, the manufacturer, numerous clients with allergy problems have reported improvement after using the air filters. A nurse (with allergies) who works with allergy patients found the filters \"made a noticeable difference\" in the amount of dusting she had to do in her'home. A child with post-nasal drip and leg pain every morning found that these symptoms abated over the course of a few months once the unit was installed in his room.\n\nAn asthmatic child who started coughing the minute the home's central air conditioning blew dust through her room, had considerable reduction in her asthma attacks once a filter was in place. A woman said she no longer woke every morning with a sinus headache and dry sinuses; another user said the unit made it \"so much easier to breathe\" in her home; and still another said the filters reduced \"moderately severe\" allergies to house dust and animal fur.\n\n  **_The Healthy Living Space_ Info Tip**\n\nFor a source of numerous products dealing with all the topics mentioned in this chapter, as well as air filtration, see:\n\nThe Cutting Edge Catalog,\n\nBefit Enterprises,\n\nP.O. Box 5034,\n\nSouthampton, NY 11969;\n\ntel: 800-497-9516 or 516-287-3813;\n\nfax: 516-287-3112;\n\ne-mail: cutcat@cutcat.com;\n\nwebsite: www.cutcat.com.\n\nFor Aireox Activated Carbon Air Purifier, Care 2000 Air Purifier, and a general catalog of environmentally-friendly products and equipment: Nirvana Safe Haven,\n\n3441 Golden Rain Road, Suite 3,\n\nWalnut Creek, CA 94595;\n\ntel: 800-968-9355 or 925-472-8868;\n\nfax: 925-938-9019;\n\ne-mail: daliya@nontoxic.com;\n\nwebsite: www.nontoxic.com.\n\n### Ultraviolet Light Air Purification\n\nThe idea behind this approach is to kill airborne pathogens with ultraviolet (UV) radiation, a naturally occurring frequency of light that has proven antimicrobial capabilities, especially against molds, bacteria, yeasts, and viruses. The Bio-Fighter Anti-Microbial UV Light System, for example, kills harmful microbes in the ductwork and air space of the home's HVAC system; it comes in four sizes, according to the size of the indoor environment needing purification. The device, which is installed in the ductwork or on either side of an A-coil, is meant to work alongside a dust filter or electrostatic air filter system already in place in a home.\n\nThe UV light radiates a surface to prevent microbes from growing there, and it disinfects the airstream as it passes through the HVAC system. The \"kill rate\" for microbials passing through the UV light is fifteen percent to twenty percent with one UV lamp per single pass, according to the manufacturer, which adds that one lamp is normally enough to control microbial growth on the coils and drain pan of the HVAC system. Because indoor air is constantly recirculated, the kill rate is cumulative, and soon almost all the airborne pathogens are destroyed. UV light is basically safe for humans provided you do not look directly at the emitting source for more than five seconds; doing so can damage the eyes.\n\nThe Care 2000 Air Purifier is a device that combines HEPA air filtration and UV cleansing. It is billed as capable of removing mold, dander, odors, chemicals, dust mites, and virus and bacteria particulates with a system that changes the air six times an hour in a 1500-square-foot room. The UV features, says the manufacturer, make the unit especially advantageous for \"vulnerable, immune-compromised, newborn, chronically ill, emphy-semic, or bronchitic people.\"\n\nThe unit has five different filters, including a 10-micron particulate prefilter (to capture the big stuff, such as dust, pollen, dander, and mold particles); a fifteen-pound activated carbon filter (to absorb odors, gases, fumes, and VOCs); a 0.3-micron primary microfiltration 99.97% HEPA filter; a germicidal dual ultraviolet light, which constantly bathes the HEPA media, the other filters, and the air passing through them, killing any trapped microbes; and a carbon-impregnated post-filter, which reinforces the air cleansing performed by the first four filters.\n\n## HEALTHY LIVING SPACE DETOXIFIER #49 Install an \"Indoor Waterfall\" to Add Negative Ions to Your Air\n\nOne of the popular ways of improving indoor air quality is through a negative ion generator, or what colloquially is referred to as an \"indoor waterfall.\" Diffusing indoor ambient air with negative ions produces a refreshing, reinvigorating effect on the room's occupants similar to the excellent results you get from sitting before a plunging waterfall or breaking waves at the beach. Your body and its energy field are refreshed and healthfully stimulated with negative ions.\n\nThe term \"negative ions\" of course is confusing, for why is something with a positive value labelled negative? To answer that, we have to first understand what an ion is: a charged particle in the air produced when something forceful acts on a molecule (it could be carbon dioxide, nitrogen, water, or oxygen) such that it releases an electron. The molecule is now a positive ion, meaning, it's short an electron.\n\nThis now displaced electron attaches itself to the nearest available molecule, which becomes a negative ion\u2014paradoxically now more than complete with the extra ion attached and thus capable of imparting a health benefit. It is the negative ions that exert the revitalizing effect, leading one commentator to dub them \"vitamins of the air.\"\n\nA negative ion generator takes advantage of this natural activity by emitting negative ions of oxygen, which once in the air collide with particulate matter (typically positive ions, such as dust, pollen, mold spores, bacteria, chemicals). The negative ions surrender their extra ions to the positively charged particles or positive ions (which, technically are deficient in ions, having lost some). Other positively charged particles start to surround this newly negatively charged particle, building up around it like a snowball. These react with dust and pollutants to form larger particles. Eventually, the \"snowballs\" of positive ions get too heavy to stay up in the air and fall to the floor where they can be vacuumed up.\n\n**_The modern city and the tightly sealed office or apartment building act as \"ion prisons,\" concentrating unhealthy levels of positive ions. Consider these sources of air pollution: car exhaust, factory fumes, dust, tobacco smoke, fumes from cooking and heating. All of these grab negative ions and either neutralize or convert them to positive ions._**\n\nThe modem city and the tightly sealed office or apartment building act as \"ion prisons,\" concentrating unhealthy levels of positive ions. Consider these sources of air pollution: car exhaust, factory fumes, dust, tobacco smoke, fumes from cooking and heating. All of these grab negative ions and either neutralize or convert them to positive ions. For example, the typical ion count of fresh country air is 2,000-5,000 negative ions per cubic centimeter (ccm); the negative ion count at big waterfalls, such as Yosemite Falls, is estimated to be 100,000 ccm. In contrast, indoor environments can have negative ion counts as low as 100 ccm.\n\nInside the buildings, the steel and concrete building materials also absorb all the negative ions, as do synthetic building materials, furniture coverings, clothing, metal ducts covering the ventilation outlets, and plastics (which emit a positive static charge). Air conditioned buildings and homes (as well as trains and planes) become laden with positive ions because the air conditioning system's metal blowers, filters, and ducts strip negative ions from the air before it is vented into the rooms.\n\nYou end up with an intensely positive-ion-dominated internal environment whose negative ion level may be below 100 ccm. The minimum level considered supportive for top human functioning is about ten times that, or 1,000 ccm.\n\nPositive ions exert numerous ill health effects. In a sense, they are the delivery system of the sick building syndrome and its effects. Research shows, for example, that they can alter the functioning of the human nervous system; induce a higher secretion of serotonin (the brain chemical associated with sleep, mood, nerve impulses); and slow down by thirty-three percent the sweeping action of tiny throat hairs and cut mucous flow, thereby lowering our resistance to airborne allergens.\n\nPositive ions have been shown to raise blood pressure; decrease blood albumin; generate various allergy symptoms (dryness, burning, and itching of the nose, dry and scratchy throat, dizziness, breathing problems, eye irritations); decrease alertness; and increase depression, tension, irritability, and insomnia. Generally, the principal ill effects of positive ions are to produce tension and irritation, exhaustion, and an overstimulation of the thyroid gland (in the throat). The Santa Ana winds (the dry desert or sea winds, known by many different names worldwide) concentrate positive to negative ions at the rate of 33:1, producing numerous symptoms of physical and mental discomfort in people subjected to them.\n\nNegative ions, in contrast, produce a great number of health benefits, according to more than 700 scientific papers. As early as 1932, researchers discovered that workers became ebullient when situated next to an electrostatic generator when it generated negative ions, but morose when it emanated positive ions. Subsequent research has shown that negative ions can reduce anxiety and neurosis, increase appetite and thirst, even stimulate sexual activity; they can sharpen reaction time, voluntary movement dexterity, and mental performance while reducing error rates.\n\nHyperactive children get calmer, students concentrate better, and teachers feel less fatigued when under the influence of negative ions. People report relief from allergies, migraines, and postoperative pains; infections and bums heal faster\u2014apparently negative ions kill infection-propagating germs. Negative ions may also accelerate the blood's delivery of oxygen to the body's cells and enhance our ability to absorb and use oxygen.\n\nOther benefits of negative ions include reducing the severity of depression, counteracting the effects of tobacco smoke on mucous membranes, increasing work capacity, relieving allergy symptoms (such as sneezing, watery eyes, itchy nose, exhaustion from insomnia), providing an emotional lift, reducing germ counts (in one study, by fifty percent within six hours, by seventy percent in twenty-four hours), and disinfecting indoor air. Even better, houseplants growing under the influence of negative ions showed a marked increase in size and growth rate.\n\nThere are numerous inexpensive portable or desktop-size negative ion generators now available on the consumer market. How do they work? Essentially, an extremely low current at a high voltage is applied to a group of sharp points known as the ion emitter within the device; electrons build up on these sharp points, then are ejected into the air and attach themselves to oxygen atoms. The electrons ejected have a negative charge, which means the oxygen molecules they attach to become negative ions. Here are some details on merely a few of the units available.\n\n  **_The Healthy Living Space_ Info Tip**\n\nFor information about Electrocorp Zestron Ionair Ionizers, contact:\n\nElectrocorp, 595 Portal Street,\n\nCotati, CA 94931;\n\ntel: 800-525-0711 or\n\n707-665-9616, ext. 201;\n\nfax: 707-665-9620, ext. 201;\n\ne-mail: electrocor@aol.com;\n\nwebsite: www.electrocorp.nu.\n\nFor lonAir Wein VI-2000 High Density\n\nNegative Ion Generator:\n\nThe lonAir Company,\n\nDept. Purify Online,\n\n2574 North University Drive, Suite 201,\n\nFort Lauderdale, FL 33322;\n\ntel: 800-478-7324;\n\nfax: 954-742-7882;\n\nwebsite: www.purifyonline.com.\n\nFor Comtech Research units:\n\nComtech Research,\n\n4360 Walls Ford Road,\n\nMansfield, MO 65704;\n\ntel: 417-741-6934;\n\nfax: 417-741-6056;\n\ne-mail: info@comtech-pcs.com;\n\nwebsite: www.comtech-pcs.com\/ions.\n\n### Electrocorp Zestron Ionair Ionizers\n\nVarious Electrocorp units may be used on a tabletop, in an automobile, greenhouse, laundry room, RV, truck, boat, or hotel room. The IG700 is a tabletop ionizer, but it can also be hung from a ceiling (IG1000). The IG200 works in a car and can be plugged into the cigarette lighter outlet. The IG300 and IG350 are fan-driven and work in a car or room. The IG900 is a desk model for use in an office or reception area. In terms of ion density emitted, the IG700, IG1000, and IG900 emit 4.5 million negative ions per ccm\/second, measurable about three feet from the unit, while the IG300 and IG350 produce 500,000, and the IG200 produces 100,000. The units weigh between one and two pounds and can be purchased for around $150 each or less.\n\n### IonAir Wein VI-2000 High Density Negative Ion Generator\n\nThis unit is especially recommended (by its manufacturer) for relief of positive ion overload and radiation from working with computers and video displays. It is now scientifically recognized that long-term exposure to computer radiation and positive ion emission produces numerous symptoms, dubbed Video Operator Distress Syndrome. The symptoms include increased fatigue, eyestrain, blurred vision, rashes, headaches, back pain, irritability, depression, anxiety, and apathy. This unit covers a 400-square-foot area, plugs into any wall outlet, and can operate noiselessly on a desk next to the computer, emitting an estimated ion output of 70 trillion ions\/second and an ion density of 1.6 trillion ions\/cc at 2.5 cm from the device. The unit sells for about $110.\n\n### Comtech Research IG-033A\n\nThis unit, measuring 5 by 5 inches, can cover 400 square feet, or a room twenty feet by twenty feet, emitting an ion output estimated at 93 trillion ions\/second and an ion density of 1.2 trillion ions\/cc, and only 0.04 ppm of ozone close to the emitter. Comtech notes that it is safe to place the ionizer about four feet from your computer, safe in that it will not damage the computer yet still fill the air around it with negative ions.\n\n## HEALTHY LIVING SPACE DETOXIFIER #50 Use Houseplants to Filter Out Toxins from Your Indoor Air\n\nOne of the effective ways to improve indoor air quality may be something you already have in place in your home: houseplants. Joint research by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and the Associated Landscape Contractors of America beginning in the 1970s showed that common houseplants are capable of ridding indoor air of a variety of contaminants and VOCs. Somehow the plants are able to absorb the airborne toxins without ill effects to themselves and either deposit them in their leaves and roots, or in some cases, biodegrade the molecules into food.\n\nIn the NASA study, spider plants were placed in a closed chamber twelve cubic feet in size, the air of which contained either carbon monoxide at a concentration of 120 ppm or nitrogen oxide at a concentration of 50 ppm. NASA scientists observed that after twenty-four hours, the spider plants had removed ninety-six percent of the carbon monoxide and ninety-nine percent of the nitrogen oxide. They also found that the plant golden pothos was able to remove seventy-five percent of the carbon monoxide in the same time period.\n\nAmong the plants best suited for removing formaldehyde are aloe vera (ninety percent), elephant ear philodendron (eighty-six percent), and ficus (weeping fig, forty-seven percent). For removing benzene, there is English ivy (ninety percent), peace lily (eighty percent), Janet Craig (corn plant, seventy-nine percent), and golden pothos (sixty-seven percent). Also rated well for benzene removal are gerbera daisy and chrysanthemums. The peace lily can also remove fifty percent of the trichloroethylene from an indoor space in twenty-four hours, the study found.\n\n### General Air Filtration\n\nIn terms of overall effectiveness in detoxifying indoor air, NASA ranks the houseplants in this order: heart leaf philodendron, elephant ear philodendron, green spider plant, lacy tree philodendron, aloe vera, golden pothos, Chinese evergreen, mini-schefflera, peperomia, and peace lily.\n\n### Formaldehyde\n\nPlants with a large leaf surface area perform best in removing formaldehyde, the scientists found, and these include heart-leaf philodendron, elephant ear philodendron, green spider plant, lacy tree philodendron, golden pothos, Chinese evergreen, mini-schefflera, peperomia, peace lily, corn plant, snake plant, bromeliad, aloe vera, bamboo palm, pot mum, orchid, dumbcane, wameckii, Madagascar dragon tree, mass cane, poinsettia, weeping fig, variegated lily-turf, banana, azalea, Mother-in-Law's tongue, miniature umbrella plant, arrowhead plant, and oyster plant.\n\nSmall azalea plants can remove formaldehyde from a sealed chamber at the rate of about 1 ppm per hour, which is equivalent to 264 ug of formaldehyde. This means one azalea plant can remove 6,336 ug of formaldehyde per day from an office or home. To put this in perspective, the typical indoor air concentration of formaldehyde is about 5,436 ug, based on a contamination level of 0.2 ppm per 1,200 foot area.\n\n### Toluene\n\nUseful in removing this toxic chemical are Chinese evergreen and miniature umbrella plant.\n\n### Trichloroethylene\n\nThis toxic substance comes from dry cleaning, inks, paints, varnishes, lacquers, and adhesives, and can be effectively removed from indoor air by Gerbera daisy, chrysanthemum, peace lily, Warneckei, and marginata.\n\n### Benzene\n\nThis substance derives chiefly from tobacco smoke, gasoline fumes, synthetic fibers, plastics, inks, oils, and detergents. The following plants can help filter it out of your indoor air: English ivy, marginata, Janet Craig, chrysanthemum, Gerbera daisy, Warneckei, and peace lily.\n\n### Carbon Monoxide\n\nSpider plant and golden pothos can remove this toxic substance from indoor air.\n\n### Orchids\n\nThe Dendrobium orchid can remove airborne pollutants such as acetone, methyl alcohol, and ethyl acetate as exhaled by humans. They can also remove xylene and carbon dioxide from indoor air and seem to be more effective at doing this when it is dark; they not only remove the toxins, but they also release oxygen. Used in conjunction with plants that filter air better during daylight hours (such as _Dracaena marginata_ ), the result is a stabilized day and night balance of carbon dioxide and oxygen in tightly sealed indoor environments.\n\n### Hydroponically Grown Plants\n\nAs a variation on this approach, research developed at the University of Koln in Germany reports that plants grown by hydroculture (also called hydroponics, that is, in water, without any soil) are also effective in removing airborne toxins, notably formaldehyde, benzene, phenol, and nicotine.\n\nApparently, the plants are able to transform up to ninety percent of these pollutants into sugars, new plant material, and oxygen, rather than merely storing them in their own plant matter. Especially competent when used hydroponically are _Ficus benjamina_ and golden pothos. Ficus and golden pothos together are effective against airborne nicotine, because the former removes nicotine and breaks it down (biodegrades it), while the latter stores nicotine in its growing leaves.\n\nThe German researchers said that you can \"substantially\" improve the plants' air-cleaning abilities by installing a special ventilator in their pots. This device acts as an air filter and draws indoor air over the roots for enhanced removal of toxins. The researchers further reported that one to two hydroponic plants can cleanse a room with an air space of 100 square feet. An additional advantage to using hydroponic plants used as air filters is that because they lack soil, they do not add fungus spores to the indoor air; this is a desirable factor for people with allergies. The plants also humidify the air, reducing the buildup of static electricity (or positive ions).\n\nNot everyone thinks plants are good toxic air filters. As a qualifying note, research since the NASA studies in the mid-1980s has challenged their findings, downgrading the ability of houseplants to filter out airborne toxins. Researchers at Ball State University in Muncie, Indiana, put plants in a sealed chamber and subjected the air to a continuously outgassing source of formaldehyde (particleboard). At the end of the trial, the ambient levels of formaldehyde were slightly lower, but nothing on the scale of the original NASA findings.\n\n**_\"The ability of over forty interior plants to remove various indoor air polluting chemicals from sealed chambers has been extensively tested and documented over the past ten years,\" declared B.C. Wolverton, Ph.D. in a 1992 report._**\n\nAccording to Lynn Marie Bower in _The Healthy Household_ , if you have a great number of houseplants in a room or throughout your home, it raises the living space's relative humidity (from the regular watering), and insofar as formaldehyde outgasses faster in damp, high-humidity conditions, it may create suitable conditions for higher airborne concentrations of formaldehyde rather than lower. Further, it will probably take a lot of plants to duplicate NASA's botanical air filtering effect. In _Home Safe Home_ , author Debra Lynn Dadd estimates that to get the same results that NASA reported you would need seventy-two plants for a nine-by-twelve-foot room.\n\nContinuing research by B.C. Wolverton, Ph.D., director of Wolverton Environmental Services in Picayune, Mississippi, one of the NASA's principal researchers on this topic, tends to support the ability of plants to filter indoor air. He is the author of thirty-eight technical reports published by NASA and _How to Grow Fresh Air\u201450 Houseplants that Purify Your Home or Office._\n\n\"The ability of over forty interior plants to remove various indoor air polluting chemicals from sealed chambers has been extensively tested and documented over the past ten years,\" he declared in a 1992 report. In 1993, Dr. Wolverton concluded that a low-light-requiring interior plant can remove \"significant quantities\" of formaldehyde, xylene, and ammonia from a sealed room. In 1996, one of his research colleagues reported that the accumulation of particulate matter (tiny particles of various chemicals) on horizontal surfaces inside a living space can be reduced by up to twenty percent by foliage plants.\n\nEven if the true air-filtering ability of plants is less than the NASA research indicates, your indoor air quality is bound to benefit considerably by having a fair amount of plant life around; the oxygen-releasing activity of houseplants in itself improves ambient air quality.\n\n### Clean Air Plant System\n\nHere is a practical way to take advantage of the research linking indoor plants with air filtration. Sunshine Tropical Foliage in Homestead, Florida, has developed a combination houseplant, carbon charcoal filter, and small fan. The system uses one of five houseplants: White Bird of Paradise, Dracaena Marginata, Philodendron Xanadu, Spathiphyllum Supreme, or Golden Pothos Totem.\n\nA small fan is placed inside a pot containing one of the plants. The filtration system draws room air down through the soil in the pot where the plant's roots trap the dust and particulate pollutants and, with help from the microorganisms in the soil, break them down into harmless substances. The air then passes through the charcoal filter and is exhausted back into the room as clean air.\n\nAccording to Sunshine Tropical Foliage, if you run the unit twenty-four hours a day, it will change the indoor air in a typical 100-square-foot room about ten times. \"That is more than adequate to give you good indoor air quality.\" The company claims the charcoal filter never needs to be replaced because the microorganisms around the plant's roots are \"constantly eating the pollutants.\"\n\n### The Breathing Wall\n\nThis is a more ambitious, wall-sized solution to the problem of indoor air pollution and sick building syndrome, developed by Canadian scientist Wolfgang Amelung, director of Genetron Systems, Inc., of Downsview, Ontario. The Breathing Wall is an \"indoor ecosystem\" in the form of a sheet of moss and fern-covered lava rock, five feet high by fifteen feet long. It's kept constantly wet and is supported by an aquarium filled with fish and aquatic plants.\n\n  **_The Healthy Living Space_ Info Tip**\n\nFor information about the Clean Air Plant System, contact:\n\nSunshine Tropical Foliage,\n\n13805 SW 248 Street,\n\nHomestead, FL;\n\ntel: 305-251-6966;\n\nfax: 305-257-1421;\n\ne-mail: stf@netrus.net; website:\n\nwww.zonelO.com\/tech\/cleanair\/cleanair.htm.\n\nFor information about the Breathing Wall, contact:\n\nGenetron Systems, Inc.,\n\n4801 Keele Street, Unit 34,\n\nDownsview, Ontario M3J 3A4,\n\nCanada;\n\ntel: 416-665-8155;\n\nfax: 416-665-8779;\n\nwebsite: www.flux.com\/Genetron.\n\nAccording to Genetron, there are fans behind the structure that draw the room's air across the plants and water, and through the \"breathing wall,\" thereby absorbing the airborne pollutants. \"Air passing nearby the continuously flowing water is filtered to remove water soluble pollutants and improve its overall quality,\" states Genetron. The Breathing Wall can be connected to a ventilation or air conditioning unit to distribute this plant-purified air throughout an entire building or home. The Breathing Wall is able to prevent unpleasant smells, allergens, and other contaminants (fumes, dust, fibers) from being released into a room's air.\n\nAs a filtration system, it \"inhales sick air and exhales clean air.\" The Wall, says Dr. Amelung, is \"a self-contained ecosystem in an enclosed space . . . like putting life on a planet that doesn't have life.\" The planet in this case is the sealed indoor living or work space.\n\nThe Breathing Wall was originally devised as a pilot project for a large Toronto-based insurance company's building. Called the Canada Life Environmental Room, it was an 1,100-square-foot meeting room featuring a Breathing Wall containing 8,000 different life forms, including mosses, ferns, orchids, and bulrushes, as well as frogs, insects, mollusks, salamanders, and fish. The wall was prepunctured with thousands of little holes through which ambient air could be drawn and filtered by the living organisms. The biological air cleaning system was later installed in other commercial settings and was studied by NASA for use in their proposed space station. Genetron reports that \"the environmental quality in this partially sealed room is equal to that achieved by the most modem engineered system of air turnover.\"\n\n## HEALTHY LIVING SPACE DETOXIFIER #51 Get the Radon Out of Your Basement\n\nNot to be overlooked in our review of toxic elements in the home is radon, a gas derived from uranium and radium. Radon is a carcinogen linked with lung cancer, and it can enter a home through the basement or building foundation. Uranium, although it is found almost everywhere on the planet, is a radioactive element; it goes through a series of changes, changing into as many as a dozen other unstable elements until it settles into a stable form of lead. Radium is one of the in-between changes uranium makes, and radium, found in soil, emits a gas known as radon. While radon itself is a short-lived naturally occurring gas, sometimes existing for only a few days, it decays into various even more short-lived elements (or decay products) called radon progeny or \"radon daughters,\" such as polonium, lead, and bismuth. You don't want these in your basement, and you definitely don't want to inhale them.\n\nRadon is present in the outdoor atmosphere in highly dilute concentrations, so breathing it there causes no harm; but inside a building, its levels can concentrate to a toxic degree. Radon can be found in soil, rock under the home, well water, building materials, and loose underground pipe fittings; from any of these sources, it can enter the breathable air inside a living space. It seems that pressure differences between a home's interior (the inside of a tightly sealed construction) and the outside draws the radon gas into the home through existing cracks in the foundation. Then lack of adequate ventilation and fresh air circulation prevents the radon from getting diluted in the indoor air, and allows it to concentrate. Radon levels are usually higher below the ground than above.\n\nIt is helpful to think of radon exposure as somewhat akin to X-ray exposure. When the dangers of radon first came to national attention in the 1980s, it was through the unfortunate experience of a worker at a Pennsylvania nuclear plant who was triggering radiation alarms. What was puzzling was that his radiation exposure was not from the nuclear plant; rather, it came from a geologic formation called the Reading Prong, which had far higher than average radium concentrations, and the man's home sat over this radium factory. It turned out he and his wife were getting radon exposure at the equivalent of 455,000 chest X-rays per year\u2014just by living in their home and breathing the radon-enriched indoor air.\n\nThe cancer risk of radon exposure is well established. In fact, radon is now regarded as the second leading cause of lung cancer, the first being tobacco smoke. The National Cancer Institute (NCI) estimates that at least 15,000 people die of lung cancer due to residential radon each year. The NCI studied the morbidity data on 68,000 miners who were exposed to different levels of radon in their work and found they were dying of lung cancer at five times the expected rate for the general population. A 1998 mortality estimate by the National Academy of Sciences placed radon-caused cancer deaths at between 15,400 and 21,800 per year.\n\nAccording to a 1991 national residential radon survey conducted by the EPA, the average indoor radon level is 1.3 pic-ocuries\/liter (pCi\/L ) compared to 0.4 picocuries\/liter outdoors. \"Millions of homes and buildings contain high levels of radon gas,\" said the EPA in a 1996 fact sheet. How high is dangerous? The EPA says very high radon levels start at 10 pCi\/L, and reports it has tested some homes at 30 pCi\/L; levels between 210 pCi\/L are \"probably somewhat dangerous\"; while \"typical\" indoor levels are 0.5-2 pCi\/L, which might constitute a slightly increased risk. How dangerous is 4 pCi\/L? If you're exposed to this level of radon, it's about thirty-five times as much radiation as the Nuclear Regulatory Commission would permit as a \"safe\" level if you stood at the fence of a radioactive waste site.\n\nEPA advises that all homeowners should check their homes for radon, and homes in radon-intense regions of the country (with concentrations over 4 pCi\/L) should not only test, but also take measures to correct the problem.\n\n### Regional Radon Reports\n\nWant to find out if you're living in radon country? The Columbia University Department of Statistics and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory have prepared a highly detailed U.S. map of radon exposure levels, available on the following website: www.stat.columbia.edu\/radon. Click on the part of the map corresponding to where you live, and the full-color map shows you the radon concentration in that area.\n\nAnother radon information database is offered by Air Check, Inc., which provides data per state, including the number of radon tests performed, average results, and a concentration report based on county. (See this website: www.radon.com\/radon\/radon_map.html; e-mail: info@radon.com) In Virginia, for example, 113,856 tests have been performed, with an average statewide radon level of 4.2 pCi\/L, or \"probably somewhat dangerous,\" according to EPA; 74.6% of the tests showed radon at less than 4.0 pCi\/L and 19.5% of the results were 4.0-9.9 pCi\/L. However, 73 tests (0.1% of total tests) showed radon levels above 100 pCi\/L, indicating the state has some toxic radon neighborhoods.\n\n### Home Radon Testing\n\nThere are numerous local or regional radon testing services available for home radon monitoring, and simple home radon testing kits are available at hardware stores. Businesses that offer professional building inspections also may do radon tests. The tests may be based on short-term (a few days) or long-term (measured over many weeks) samples.\n\nFor an initial, short-term evaluation of your home's possible radon levels, AirChek offers a mail-in charcoal packet radon test, which they report has been used to determine radon levels in more than two million homes and 250,000 schoolrooms. The basic test takes ninety-six hours, but the company also has a long-term radon test kit (ninety days to one year). If your radon levels come in at the risk level, you might wish to proceed to a longer-term monitoring, or even to what is called a continuously operating radon gas monitor that provides you with \"radon alerts\" when ambient levels get too high.\n\n  **_The Healthy Living Space_ Info Tip**\n\nFor information about AirChek\n\nRadon Test kits, contact:\n\nAirChek,\n\n570 Butler Bridge Road,\n\nFletcher, NC 28732;\n\ntel: 800-AIR-CHEK or 828-684-0893;\n\nfax: 828-684-8498;\n\nwebsite: www.radon.com.\n\nIf your radon level tests out above the EPA safety level, then you will need to engage professional radon \"mitigation\" experts to develop a plan to rid your home of this gas; it may involve structural changes and\/or the installation of specialized equipment. For example, you might need to install a radon ventilation system (to ventilate crawl spaces or the soil under the building's foundations) or to seal any foundation cracks that permit radon to enter the home's interior.\n\n## HEALTHY LIVING SPACE DETOXIFIER #52 Take the SADness Out of Your Indoor Space with Full Spectrum Lighting\n\nIn thinking about the nontoxic, natural home and how to detoxify it, many people tend to overlook their lights. Light is a nutrient, and its absence can affect your health. The wrong kind of light can act as a toxin. Working indoors under standard fluorescent lights deprives you of the full spectrum light you need; living in an apartment in a big city also cuts down your exposure to natural sunlight. You get sunlight deprived as a result. You may know it as the winter blues, a season-long slump, a draining away of energy, vitality, and enthusiasm, and a corresponding desire for a quick\u2014perhaps permanent\u2014trip to the tropics.\n\nThe \"winter blues\" is now recognized as a legitimate medical condition known as seasonal affective disorder, or SAD for short (see figure 10-4). SAD refers to the measurable negative effect that a lack of natural sunlight has on the body and mind of the person deprived. Put simply, SAD is a light-mediated depression. The National Institute of Mental Health estimates that perhaps 10 million Americans suffer from SAD every year, while another 25 million are affected by a milder form of this dysfunction, which chiefly manifests as a seasonal depression and fatigue.\n\nFor example, an estimated one percent of people living in Florida experience SAD while ten percent of those living in Alaska have the problem. Other estimates place the incidence of SAD at ten percent of the general population of Northern New England, five percent of those living in the BaltimoreWashington, D.C., area and less than two percent of those living in Southern California.\n\nOther symptoms of SAD include a desire for extra sleep accompanied by a failure to feel more rested from the expenditure under the covers; increased appetite and irresistible food cravings, especially for carbohydrates (sugars, starches, alcohol), which lead to undesired, unneeded weight gain; diminished sex drive; body aches or pains; memory loss; concentration problems; indecisiveness; low self-esteem; suicidal thoughts; anxiety; and irritability, even to the extent of violent outbursts. Physical activity decreases, and one feels sluggish and sedentary. In women\u2014seventy-five percent of SAD sufferers are female\u2014SAD can produce a worsening of menstrual discomfort; in both men and women, it can create a desire to withdraw from the world and to avoid social contacts. SAD sufferers feel sad, sometimes to the point of grief.\n\n**Figure 10-4. Typical Symptoms of SAD\u2014Seasonal Affective Disorder**\n\nYou almost feel as if you have entered a period of winter hibernation\u2014or would like to. Most people feel a diluted form of some of the SAD symptoms as a natural response to winter, but people with SAD are hypersensitive to these changes and suffer the physiological impact of reduced sunlight in a more intense form.\n\nAnother way to look at SAD is that it is a season-long dose of jet lag. Your body's internal clock gets thrown off by the steadily diminishing amount of daily sunlight (the shorter days of winter) and gets disoriented. Another way to put it is that the decreasing length of the \"photoperiod,\" that part of the twenty-four-hour cycle in which natural sunlight is available, generates the symptoms of SAD.\n\nSAD appears to deliver its negative effects through the hormonal system, specifically melatonin, a key player in the body's biological clock. People with SAD are said to have a disturbance in their biological clock; it runs slow\u2014or too slow\u2014in the winter. A sunlight deficiency leads to a reduction in the secretion of melatonin by the brain's pineal gland; melatonin is crucial to the body's sleep\/wake cycle.\n\nThe chief recommended therapy for SAD is called bright light therapy, which means being exposed to full spectrum bright lights from one-half hour to three hours daily during the winter months. The light is conveyed by way of full spectrum fluorescent bulbs or special light boxes. The concept behind light therapy is that the bright light helps to reset the biological clock and thereby restore normal physiological (and pineal gland-melatonin) function. For those with mild SAD symptoms, a device called a dawn\/dusk simulator can be effective; this device gradually raises the light of a lamp over a preset time period, imitating the arrival of morning light.\n\nIt's important to realize that light is a nutrient, like food, air, and water, and that full spectrum light is the best photonutrient. \"Our eyes are not only organs of sight, but they are also photo receptors for the brain glands,\" comments Nicholas Harmon, the president of Verilux, a company based in Stamford, Connecticut, that makes various full spectrum lighting devices (see below). \"These glands produce hormones which affect our mood, health, and sense of well-being.\"\n\n### Light Boxes\n\nTypically, the therapeutic 'light exposure is at 2,500 lux (a technical measure of brightness), which is five times brighter than the average \"well lit\" office and twenty-five times brighter than the average living room, which can be as low as 100 lux (although normal indoor light is stated to be about 300-500 lux). Light boxes that emit 10,000 lux produce resolution of SAD symptoms even faster. To put this all in context, bright summer sunlight emits 100,000 lux.\n\nThe user sits or stands about two feet from the box; or you can place the light box in any part of the house where you are likely to perch for a time while awake, such as a home office, library, den, kitchen. \"The light box provides a measured amount of balanced spectrum light equivalent to standing outdoors on a clear spring day.\" The light enters the body through the eyes, which transmit the photonutrients to the brain where they help reset the body's internal clock. A typical selftreatment is thirty minutes at 10,000 lux or one hour at 5,000 lux once a day. Generally, a SAD person begins to notice a response\u2014many describe it as \"energizing\"\u2014within two to four days of beginning light therapy, and the \"cure\" is often complete within two weeks.\n\nThe North Star 10,000 Bright Light Box provides 10,000 lux at 26 inches, requiring the user to sit in front of it (the box measures 13\" high by 24\" long by 4\" deep) for about thirty minutes daily to get the optimal benefit. The Ott-Lite, developed by pioneering \"photobiologist\" John Nash Ott, Ph.D., is a full spectrum device in the form of a desktop lamp, a clamp-on portable light, or a light box of 2,500 or 10,000 lux strengths.\n\nAmjo Sunrise II and III are light boxes that have an adjustable lux strength; you can have 10,000 lux at 12 inches, 18 inches, or 24 inches, depending on how many bulbs are turned on inside the box. Amjo notes that they wrap a special tape around the base of the tubes to reduce or eliminate electrical, RF, or UV radiation from the cathode tubes, and that the tubes are hum and flicker-free. The Brite Lite IV from Apollo Light Systems provides 10,000 lux at 26 inches and has an electronic ballast on the tubes that eliminates the flicker and magnetic emissions typical of conventional tubes.\n\n### Full-Spectrum Fluorescent Tubes\n\nIf your home (or office) has conventional strip fluorescent lights, you might want to consider replacing them with full-spectrum lights. This way you eliminate a potentially toxic factor from your living space and introduce a health-promoting one at the same time.\n\nDr. Ott's early research on the relationship between light and human health revealed that standard partial-spectrum fluorescent lights were actually detrimental to health. He found that he could not successfully grow plants indoors under artificial lights and that the cathode radiation emitted by common fluorescent tubes made his plants mutate and form unnaturally.\n\n  **_The Healthy Living Space_ Info Tip**\n\nFor information about North Star 10,000 Bright Light box, contact:\n\nAlaska Northern Lights,\n\nP.O. Box 1801,\n\nHomer, AL 99603;\n\ntel: 907-235-6953 or 800-880-6953;\n\nfax: 907-235-7665;\n\ne-mail: nlights@xyz.net; website:\n\nwww.alaskanorthernlights.com.\n\nFor Brite Lite IV:\n\nApollo Light Systems,\n\n352 West 1060 South,\n\nOrem, UT 84058;\n\ntel: 800-545-9667 or 801-226-2370;\n\ne-mail: info@apollolight.com;\n\nwebsite: www.apollolight.com.\n\nFor Sunrise II, III, and Dawn Simulators: Amjo Corp.,\n\nP.O. Box 8304,\n\nWest Chester, OH 45069;\n\ntel: 513-942-2770 or 877-289-2656;\n\nfax: 513-942-2771;\n\ne-mail: support@sadlight.com;\n\nwebsite: www.sadlight.com.\n\nFor Vita-Lite: Natural Lighting.com,\n\n1939 Richvale, Houston, TX 77062;\n\ntel: 281-486-9583 or 888-900-6830;\n\nfax: 281-486-0352;\n\ne-mail: larry@naturallighting.com;\n\nwebsite: www.naturallighting.com.\n\nFor Ott-Lites:\n\nEnvironmental Lighting Concepts, Inc.,\n\n3923 Coconut Palm Drive, #101,\n\nTampa, FL 33619;\n\ntel: 800-842-8848 or 813-621-0058;\n\nfax: 813-626-8790;\n\nwebsite: www.ott-lite.com.\n\nDr. Ott further discovered that artificial partial-spectrum light is another form of potentially dangerous indoor pollution. It illuminates more intensely on the yellow part of the color spectrum and can cause eyestrain and eye fatigue. Further, said Dr. Ott, light from fluorescent tubes (as well as from televisions and computer monitors) can cause red blood cells to clump together after a long-term exposure. The clumping then contributes to reduced mental alertness and a sense of chronic tiredness.\n\n  **_The Healthy Living Space_ Info Tip**\n\nFor Natural Spectrum light bulbs:\n\nVerilux, 9 Viaduct Road,\n\nStamford, CT 06907;\n\ntel: 203-921-2430 or 800-786-6850;\n\nfax: 203-921-2427;\n\ne-mail: verilux@ergolight.com;\n\nwebsite: www.ergolight.com.\n\nNatural sunlight, or full-spectrum lighting, in contrast, stimulates the red blood cells to unclump and does not strain or fatigue the eyes. Research suggests that full-spectrum lighting can improve your mood. When he installed radiation-shielded, full-spectrum lights in schools, Dr. Ott observed a significant reduction in behavioral problems and learning disabilities and an improvement in academic performance. Other research has supported Dr. Ott's findings. Canadian psychologist Warren E. Hathaway, Ph.D., studied 327 school children in five different elementary schools and found that under full-spectrum lighting they had fewer dental cavities, better attendance, higher rates of academic achievement, and greater physical development than students in classrooms with standard fluorescent tube lighting.\n\n\"Full spectrum lighting, containing all wavelengths, sparks the delicate impulses which regulate brain and autonomic functions of the body, regulating these functions and maintaining health,\" comments John Downing, O.D., Ph.D., director of the Light Therapy Department at the Preventive Medical Center of Marin in Santa Rosa, California. \"In order to maintain health, it is important to be exposed to light containing the full wavelength spectrum found in natural sunlight.\"\n\nReplacing conventional fluorescent tubes with full-spectrum, radiation-shielded ones can make simulated light a nutrient for your system. Vita-Lite, for example, \"simulates the full color and ultraviolet spectrum of sunlight,\" according to the manufacturer who reports that these lights have been used in thousands of schools, medical care facilities, factories, banks, dental offices, retail establishments, grocery stores, and florist shops.\n\n### Healthy Light Bulbs\n\nVerilux has developed Natural Spectrum light bulbs that they describe as \"the closest replication of natural sunlight available.\" According to Verilux, their bulbs show the colors of the spectrum accurately in accordance with natural light, increase the contrast between black and white, and thereby reduce eye strain, glare, and ocular fatigue.\n\n### Dawn Simulators\n\nThese are programmable units (set to a specified wake-up time by the user) that can emit up to 400 watts of incandescent light. The Pi-Square SunUp and SunRizr by Amjo are examples of this approach, and are recommended for waking up refreshed on dark winter mornings.\n\n**_(Dr. Ott's research on the relationship between light and human health revealed that standard partial-spectrum fluorescent lights were actually detrimental to health. He further discovered that artificial partial-spectrum light is another form of potentially dangerous indoor pollution and can cause eyestrain and eye fatigue._**\n\nThe idea is to simulate the dawning and duration of natural sunlight so that your bedroom gradually brightens in the morning (presumably in the deep of SAD-flavored winter). The dawn-simulated light can either be directed at the user's pillow or indirectly elsewhere in the room; an ideal situation, says Amjo, is track lighting with three to eight 50-watt bulbs directly over, but about three to four feet above, the sleeper's head. The dawn simulator activates the lights according to its timer schedule, and you can set this timer so that the light reaches its full intensity in anywhere between one minute to three hours.\n\nAccording to Sheri Lundstrom, founder of Light Therapy Products of Plymouth, Minnesota, and an admitted SAD sufferer, the dawn simulator prompts the brain's pineal gland to start stimulating the feel-good hormone, serotonin. Light is crucial in the production of serotonin, and serotonin is essential to the body because it influences numerous aspects of our physiology, such as pain, digestion, body temperature, blood pressure and clotting, immunity, sleep, and daily body rhythms.\n\nBut the shorter days of northern latitude winters, buildings with no outside windows, frequent cloudy skies, or not spending much time outside in the winter leads to a serotonin depletion and its host of symptoms. This is why Lundstrom characterizes light therapy as a \"natural Prozac\" for winter depression. She comments: \"Research subjects have shown marked improvement in energy, mood, social interest, productivity, quality of sleep, and quality of awakening with dawn simulation.\"\n\n## HEALTHY LIVING SPACE DETOXIFIER #53 Go Green with Your Household Products\n\nFrom a certain perspective, it seems that most commercial products that are supposed to make our lives run smoother, more efficiently, and with more ease end up being potentially toxic for us. This is especially so if you are already allergic or chemically reactive to many of the fixtures of modern life, and it is acutely so if you have symptoms of sick building syndrome or multiple chemical sensitivities.\n\nMany of the items we take for granted actually contain allergenic or toxic elements. These items household products (air fresheners, cleaners, bleaches, dishwashing detergents, floor wax, drain cleaners, carpet shampoos, laundry fabric softeners, oven cleaners, toilet bowl cleansers), paints, stains, thinners, home and garden pesticides, pet supplies (flea collars, cat litter, flea and tick products), auto products, art and craft supplies, cosmetics and personal care products, perfumes and colognes, hair conditioners and shampoos, dental and oral hygiene products, feminine hygiene products, nail polish, and skin products (deodorants, shaving creams).\n\nThe simple, possibly shocking, fact is that most of these products contain known toxins\u2014some are poisons on purpose, such as disinfectants and pesticides\u2014and when you use them you are exposing yourself to a poison, either through skin contact or by breathing in the product's vapors. Your exposure may be minimal and not necessarily produce an immediate or noticeable reaction, but you need to think in terms of long-range effects. Toxic exposure is often cumulative; the toxins remain in your system, and your liver is unable to remove them. Eventually your body is overloaded by a number of toxins, and you get sick. Perhaps you get an allergy first, then a gastrointestinal problem, then a hormonal imbalance, and eventually worse, more debilitating and chronic conditions emerge.\n\nThe matter of toxicity in common household and personal products is relative to the individual. Various governmental authorities, such as the EPA, have standards for \"safe\" levels of presumed or proven toxic elements in commercial products, but these standards are based on averages, norms for human biochemical tolerance. Your tolerance may fall above or well below these averages.\n\nIf you are healthy, detoxified, and fortified with nutrients, there is a strong chance your system can tolerate more exposure to toxins than the average. But if you are already allergic, and your immune system and liver are stressed by chronic exposure to toxic substances, one more toxin\u2014from something as seemingly innocuous as your automatic dishwasher detergent\u2014could send you down into a new level of dysfunction and ill health. You tolerated the first six toxic exposures, but the seventh made you sick. Your body's total toxic burden was exceeded.\n\nUnfortunately, once you are chemically reactive or chronically allergic to human-made substances, it starts to extend to other items you wouldn't think could be harmful, yet, for you, they are. You need to concern yourself with furniture, upholstery, curtains, vacuum cleaners, bedding, clothes, even, in extreme cases, the ink used in books and magazines.\n\nGiven these physiological facts, it is prudent to carefully consider the products with which you customarily surround yourself in your home. Are they full of toxic chemicals? Do they contain known or suspected carcinogens? Is there evidence that they can produce allergies or symptoms that fall under the various medical categories of chronic fatigue, fibromyalgia, environmental illness, sick building syndrome, and multiple chemical sensitivity? If so, it's time to start thinking green\u2014that is, thinking in terms of environmentally friendly products. But remember, there are two environments here: the outside world, which includes your home, and your body, which is your inner environment. An environmentally friendly, green product does not pollute either; many conventional household and personal products do.\n\nThe problem is the synthetic organic chemicals they contain. Today, an estimated 75,000 chemicals are in use in commercial products. Of these, only 1.5% to 3.0% (or 1,200 to 1,500) have been tested for carcinogenicity, that is, to see if they can cause cancer. So far, about 200 have been identified as carcinogens. But in 1995, the National Toxicology Program stated that somewhere between 5% and 10% of the existing industrially used chemicals could be carcinogenic, based on the 1.5-3.0% of chemicals they had tested. In other words, 3,750 to 7,500 chemicals found in products we might encounter or use could be carcinogenic.\n\nSince nobody knows yet which of the remaining 75,000 chemicals are carcinogenic, how will you know if you're using one? Worrying about cancer isn't even the chief concern here. The minute a chemical produces an allergic reaction, such as a sneeze, a rash, a gastrointestinal upset, your body is telling you\u2014your liver actually\u2014that it doesn't like this substance and considers it inappropriate for further contact. Either it doesn't want to or can't detoxify the substance and throws out an allergic reaction as notification of the fact. Allergies are the first act in a health tragedy that can lead to dozens of different dysfunctional conditions, including but not limited to cancer.\n\nHow can a chemical that's labeled \"organic\" be harmful to my health? It all comes down to petroleum, which, technically, is a natural, organic product, being derived ultimately from plant substances. Many of the toxic products contain petroleum as a base, employing its hydrocarbon composition (combinations of hydrogen and carbon atoms); hence the terms petrochemical and organic chemical. Yet these organic chemicals are synthesized, invented, as it were; hence the term synthetic.\n\nIn nature, for each compound there is an enzyme that can break it down and neutralize it, but in the case of synthetic organic chemicals, no balancing natural enzymes exist to break them down because the chemicals themselves have been added to nature, not derived from it. This means petrochemicals persist in the environment for a long time; it also means they can persist in the human body, producing illness.\n\n\"Organic chemicals are some of the most hazardous substances ever made,\" states a fact sheet published by Seventh Generation, a supplier of green products based in Burlington, Vermont. \"The average household contains 63 different organic chemical products for a total of approximately ten gallons of hazardous petrochemicals . . . [and] most of them are found in an unlikely place\u2014common household cleaners.\"\n\nHere are a few examples of how common household products can be toxic. Window cleaners contain diethylene glycol, which depresses the nervous system. Toilet bowl cleaners contain chlorinated phenols, which are known to be toxic to the circulatory and respiratory systems. The phenols often found in disinfectants are harmful to these two systems as well. Laundry detergents and all-purpose cleaners often contain a chemical called nonyl-phenol-ethoxylate, which biodegrades slowly and into even more toxic compounds than itself.\n\nYou will find formaldehyde in some spray and wick deodorants; this chemical (discussed earlier) is a suspected carcinogen and a known irritant of the respiratory system. The petroleum solvents found in floor cleaners can damage mucous membranes. A substance commonly found in stain removers, called per-chloroethylene, has been proven to cause damage to the kidneys and liver. Butyl cellosolve, a synthetic chemical you'll find in various cleaners, damages bone marrow, the kidneys, liver, and nervous system. This is just the beginning of a long list of offenders.\n\nLet's consider fabric softeners in detail. Thanks to EPA research collated by Julia Kendall (a multiple chemical sensitivity sufferer), former co-chair of Citizens for a Toxic-Free Marin (California), we know that at least nine toxic chemicals are found in many brands of this product.\n\nA typical fabric softener can contain alpha-terpineol (causes central nervous system [CNS] disorders, irritates mucous membranes, can cause edema, loss of muscular coordination, headache); benzyl acetate (a pancreatic carcinogen that irritates eyes and breathing passages); benzyl alcohol (causes headache, vomiting, nausea, dizziness, blood pressure drops); camphor (causes CNS disorders, dizziness, confusion, nausea, twitching, convulsions); chloroform (a neurotoxin and carcinogen, vapors can cause headache, nausea, vomiting, drowsiness, kidney\/liver damage); ethyl acetate (causes headache, stupor, anemia, liver\/kidney damage); limonen (a carcinogen); linalool (a narcotic, causes CNS disorders, affects muscle and heart activity); and pentane (depresses the CNS, causes headache, nausea, vomiting, dizziness, eye irritation, skin rash). Incidentally, this is only a partial listing of the symptoms each of these nine substances can cause.\n\nNext consider the relationship between toxicity and the ingredients in various common fragrance-based (scented) household products. Examples of these are perfume, soap, shaving cream, deodorant, air freshener, hairspray, hand lotion, Vaseline lotion, after-shave, and many more similar products.\n\nAcetone, found in cologne, dishwashing liquid, and nail polish remover, is a CNS depressant and can cause dryness of the mouth and throat, dizziness, nausea, slurred speech, even coma in severe cases. Benzaldehyde, found in perfume, cologne, hairspray, laundry bleach, deodorants, shaving cream, shampoo, and dishwasher detergent, is a CNS depressant, is irritating to all mucous membranes and the gastrointestinal tract, and can damage the kidneys. Even though FDA banned the use of methylene chloride in 1988, it can still show up in products because the chemical fragrance industry is protected by ingredient secrecy laws. Methylene chloride is a carcinogen, producing carbon monoxide in the body and reducing the blood's ability to transport oxygen. Again, this is just a brief review of the long list of toxic household products.\n\n  **_The Healthy Living Space_ Info Tip**\n\nFor more information about and sources of environmentally-friendly, non-toxic, green household products: Seventh Generation,\n\nOne Mill Street, Box A-26,\n\nBurlington, VT 05401;\n\ntel: 802-658-3773;\n\nfax: 802-658-1771;\n\ne-mail: recycle@seventhgen.com;\n\nwebsite: www.seventhgen.com.\n\nSee also:\n\nReal Goods,\n\n200 Clara Street,\n\nUkiah, CA 95482;\n\ntel: 800-762-7325,800-994-4243, or\n\n707-468-9292;\n\nfax: 800-508-2342;\n\nwebsite: www.realgoods.com.\n\nFor information about and sources of products for environmentally safe and low-toxic building and interiors: Shelter Ecology,\n\n43 Pine Ridge Road,\n\nAsheville, NC 28804;\n\ntel & fax: 828-251-5888;\n\ne-mail: sheltereco@aol.com; website:\n\nwww.ioa.com\/~shelterecology.\n\nFor information about household prod ucts from an advocacy organization: Environmental Health Network,\n\nP.O. Box 1155,\n\nLarkspur, CA 94977;\n\ntel: 415-541-5075;\n\ne-mail: wilworks@lanminds.com;\n\nwebsite: www.users.lmi.net\/wilworks.\n\nCare for perfume? Perhaps you won't after reviewing some of the toxic constituents that may be found in various perfumes and fragrances. In general, perfumes may contain upwards of 5,000 natural or synthetic sources of sweet smells, of which, as of 1991, 84% have not been tested for toxicity to humans, or tested only minimally. Scents, incidentally, show up not just in perfume, but cosmetic and hygienic products, drugs, detergents, cleaning products, plastics, industrial greases, oils, solvents, and even foods. The National Academy of Sciences, back in 1986, targeted fragrances as one of six categories of chemicals requiring testing for neurotoxicity, that is, for their capacity to damage the nervous system. The other five groups included food additives, heavy metals, air pollutants, insecticides, and solvents.\n\nSome of the chemicals found in fragrances have been identified as neurotoxic, carcinogenic, or capable of producing birth defects, while a few have even been designated \"hazardous waste disposal chemicals,\" according to EPA standards. Of a list of 2,983 chemicals (a partial list) used by the fragrance industry, 884 of them were identified as toxic substances. Toluene, a chemical we first encountered earlier in this chapter in toxic carpets, is a big player in the fragrance industry, found in every fragrance sample in a 1991 EPA study, as well as in auto parts stores and in the fragrance sections of department stores. Toluene, among other things, is linked with asthma attacks, and it can trigger asthma episodes even in people who never previously had respiratory symptoms. Insofar as a 1986 study showed that seventy-two percent of asthma patients have adverse reactions to perfume, one reasonably wonders if the seeming ubiquity of toluene is a major factor in new cases of asthma.\n\nIn fact, the statistics on perfume and human health are very surprising, even the basis of advocacy movements to ban fragrances in public places. The American Lung Association states that 14.6 million Americans every year sustain a dangerous and\/or painful reaction to fragrance chemicals in the form of an asthma attack; 5,000 of these people die from the effects of the asthma attack. Louisiana state medical officials reported that twenty percent of asthmatics in their state undergo an asthma attack as a result of exposure to perfumes or fragrances.\n\n  **_The Healthy Living Space_ Info Tip**\n\nFor more on how-to recommendations for \"less toxic living,\" see: www.betterbasics.com, edited by Annie Berthold-Bond.\n\nRosalind Anderson, research director of Anderson Laboratories (visited above under toxic carpets) reports that laboratory mice experienced neurotoxic effects, pulmonary irritation, and airflow limitation as a direct response to being exposed to fragrances. In her view, this evidence was sufficient to advise humans to stop using fragrances, suggesting that sensitivity may be cumulative; you may not be chemically reactive today, but keep using the various scented household products for five or ten years (or months), and you may be.\n\nDon't stop your review of household toxins with the perfumes and scented products. There may be problems with your bedding. If your mattress is made of polyurethane foam plastic\u2014your innerspring mattress can also be wrapped in this substance\u2014this has most likely been sprayed with chemical fire retardants and has a covering of polyester plastic fabric. Exposure to polyurethane foam outgassing has been linked with bronchitis, skin and eye irritations, and coughing. This is probably due in large part to the fact that it out-gasses toluene diisocyanate, a toxin known to produce respiratoiy problems. In effect, every time you lie down on your bed and, by your body weight, apply pressure on the mattress, you may be forcing the outgassing of this and other toxic chemicals into the bedroom's indoor air.\n\nFurther, if you have a polyester mattress pad, polyester pillow, polyester comforter, and if you use polyester sheets, you are exposing yourself to additional toxins. That's because the sheets maybe treated with a permanent press finish based on formaldehyde. \"Amid this cloud of plastic vapors, is it any wonder that millions of Americans take drugs to get to sleep at night?\" comments nontoxic solutions expert Debra Lynn Dadd. She might as well have added: Is it any wonder an estimated fifteen percent of Americans are hypersensitive to common household products?\n\n**_The key principle with respect to toxic household products is simple and twofold: avoid and substitute. Don't use ones that contain synthetic chemicals and find nontoxic green substitutes, of which there are many. When you have a choice between natural and nontoxic versus conventional and toxic, be prudent andgo green._**\n\nThe key principle with respect to toxic household products is simple and twofold: avoid and substitute. Don't use ones that contain synthetic chemicals (or at least reduce your use of them and thus your exposure to their contents) and find nontoxic green substitutes, of which there are many. When you have a choice between natural and nontoxic versus conventional and toxic, be prudent and go green. In many cases, you don't need to have a commercially prepared green substitute to go green; there are many homemade nontoxic solutions to standard household cleaning and personal care concerns.\n\nThis is by now a well-researched subject and a handful of excellent books detail your options. You might consider these as starters: _Home Safe Home_ , by Debra Lynn Dadd (1997); _Better Basics for the Home_ , by Annie Berthold-Bond, (1999), and _Clean House, Clean Planet_ , by Karen Logan (1997).\n\n# CHAPTER 11\n\n# The Feng Shui of a Healthy Home: Detoxifying the Energy Aspects of Your Living Space\n\nAs I write this, spring is imminent, and with it, the need to thoroughly air out my two-story home. As the weather warms up and the heater gets turned off for the season, all the doors and windows can be opened wide to encourage fresh spring air to rush through the interior space and blow out all the stagnant furnace-heated indoor air. My house has many windows, and they are situated in such a way that air can blow straight through the house, from the back porch to front garden. There are no troubling curves or strange comers or dead-end corridors where the air can get either trapped or slowed down. With all this fresh air cleansing my interior space, I am bound to feel invigorated every time I am inside now, and I will have more of a _feeling_ for the outside while I'm indoors\u2014I won't feel so shut in against the cold.\n\nAiring one's house in the springtime of course is not a new idea, but it is a useful image to get across an idea central to the practical guidelines in this chapter: the role\u2014and _circulation_ \u2014of energy in an indoor space. By energy, I don't mean gas, oil, electricity, or any other physically tangible form of energy; rather, I mean something more subtle, yet still one that can be sensed and adjusted.\n\nIn China, it's called _qi_ (pronounced _chee_ also spelled ch'i), and in traditional Chinese medicine (and its vast philosophical foundations) it has a pivotal role as the prime agent of healing and health. In terms of a healthy living space, the circulation of _qi_ in environments, both indoors and outdoors, is regulated by a practical discipline gaining increasing popularity and application in North America and known as feng shui (pronounced _fung schway_ ). This chapter will explore some of the many ways this vital energy can be used both to detoxify your indoor living space and to make it one that imparts health.\n\n### Charting the Movement of Life Force Energy\n\nBefore going any further, let's be sure we have a sense of the meaning of the two concepts of _qi_ and feng shui.\n\nThe broadest observation we can make here is that both come out of a profound cosmological model put forth by classical China. This model encompassed heaven and earth, energy and matter, thoughts and emotions, health and illness, and had many practical applications including music, landscape utilization and architecture (feng shui), medicine (acupuncture), diet, herbology, physiology, meditation and \"internal alchemy\" (Taoism), philosophy ( _I-Ching_ , or the _Book of Changes)_ , and energy management on all levels. At the heart of all these applications is energy, or _qi._\n\n_Qi_ is a Chinese word variously translated to mean \"vital energy,\" \"essence of life,\" and \"living force.\" (In other cultures, it is known variously as _prana, dynamis_ , od, orgone, and other names.) Generally, it's easiest to think of it as essential life force energy and to appreciate that it has a role in our body (managed through acupuncture) as well as our house and its surroundings (managed through feng shui).\n\nIn Chinese medicine, the proper (balanced) flow of _qi_ along energy channels (meridians) within the body is crucial to a person's health and vitality. There are many types of _qi_ , classified according to source, location, and function (such as activation, warming, defense, transformation, and containment). Within the body, _qi_ and blood are closely linked, because each is considered to flow through the body along with the other. _Qi_ may be stagnant (non-moving), deficient (partially absent), or excessive (inappropriately abundant) in a given organ system. _Qi_ has two essential qualities: _yang_ (active, fiery, moving, bright, energizing) and _yin_ (passive, watery, stationary, dark, calming). The manipulation and readjustment of _qi_ to treat disease and ensure maximum health benefit is the basic principle of acupuncture, although other remedies and therapies can be used to influence _qi_.\n\nIn a simplistic sense, feng shui is a form of acupuncture applied to environments, both interior and exterior. Feng shui means \"wind\" _(feng)_ and \"water\" _(shui)_ , and evokes a sense of the constant movement and interplay of these two elements in a natural environment. In practical terms today, people tend to take the term to mean \"the art of placement,\" in reference to designing interior spaces to maximize the health benefits. According to scholars, the term \"feng shui\" has been used only for the last one hundred years, and this complex science of energy and landscape was earlier known as _Kan Yu_ , which means time theory _(kan)_ and geographical theory _(yu)_ , and addresses the flow and change of _qi_ through a landscape over time. _Qi_ is a living, dynamic energy, constantly moving and changing.\n\n_Kan Yu_ , according to one expert, is about the study of the environment, both inside and out, both natural and constructed. The term evokes this state of mind: \"Raise the head and observe the sky above. Lower the head and observe the environment around us.\"\n\n_Kan Yu_ properly concerns itself with the location and orientation of a site, whether it is a room, home, garden, pagoda, city, or grave. The proper place for a site is dependent on \"a complex interaction of location and direction of topographical and artificial features\" as charted over time, explains another expert, Thomas Lee, a chartered land and hydrographical surveyor based in Hong Kong. \"The technique of _Kan Yu_ is mainly concentrated on the observation of surrounding features and understanding the flow of ' _Qi_ ' in terms of time. Energy is therefore believed to flow periodically, cycling hourly, monthly, or annually, etc., under a rigid mathematical formula that has been applied for over thousands of years,\" explains Lee.\n\nThe purpose of this energy flow is to balance and harmonize environments. \"The degree of harmony in an individual place is solely dependent on the balance of Yin and Yang (Ch'i) in the theory,\" says Lee. Even though _qi_ is invisible and hard to detect by conventional means, he adds, \"it is an energy which brings good influence to the living organisms within its influence.\"\n\nThe idea here is that _qi_ not only flows through an environment (a landscape or a home), but it _changes_ , with the seasons, the planetary influences, with the use given to that environment (e.g., a polluted landscape, a cluttered house or a clean, well-ordered one). The practical goal is to be aware of these flow changes and to utilize them for the health and well-being of those living in them. In the Chinese model, the benefits of maximizing the flow of _qi_ include not only health, but prosperity, longevity, family and community cohesiveness, even political stability. \"Utilizing these principles, people are creating comfortable, safe, and re-energizing environments for themselves and the people who visit their buildings or dwellings.\" When feng shui principles are applied, the results are \"happier attitudes, more prosperity, more sense of harmony and balance, an improvement in health and well-being.\"\n\n**_Regarding the living space, feng shui looks at numerous factors, including the site; the orientation of the house (or apartment); the layout of the rooms; the qualities of light, air, and heat circulation; the placement of the furniture; the layout of individual rooms; and architectural shapes and angles within the house. All of these factors have marked health effects on the people living under their influence._**\n\nAlthough this chapter focuses only on the movement of _qi_ through a living space, it is instructive to appreciate the _wide_ scope of Chinese thinking on energy flow, one that takes in the entire world, from bedroom to planet. Regarding the living space, feng shui looks at numerous factors, including the site; the orientation of the house (or apartment); the layout of the rooms; the qualities of light, air, and heat circulation; the placement of the furniture; the layout of individual rooms; and architectural shapes and angles within the house.\n\nAll of these factors, and many more not cited here, have marked health effects on the people living under their influence. These effects can be toxic or health enhancing. Recall, if you will, my opening example of airing the house in springtime. It is not only air that I invite to flow through my house when I fling open the windows and doors; _qi_ will flow into the house with the air. If my house is laid out properly, the _qi_ will reach every corner, flow through every room, and invigorate every aspect of my living space; but if my house is laid out poorly (as are many, if not most, modern North American homes), the _qi_ flow will be blocked, compromised, curtailed, or rendered stagnant, and my living space will become a health-deteriorating one.\n\nBear in mind, because this is only an image to get an idea across, _qi_ flows, or is blocked from flowing, in a house regardless of whether the windows and doors are open; everything in your house and the house itself either helps or hinders its flow on a moment-to-moment basis, and as the _qi_ flows, so goes your health.\n\n## HEALTHY LIVING SPACE DETOXIFIER #54: Evaluate the Energy Flow in Your Home with the Ba-Gua\n\nHow is one to know if one's house or apartment has good or bad feng shui, has _qi_ flowing or stagnating? Increasingly, North Americans are seeking the advice of qualified feng shui advisors to evaluate their living spaces to answer this precise question.\n\nOne of the evaluation tools commonly used by feng shui practitioners is a standardized energy template or blueprint called the _Ba-Gua_ (also spelled _Pa-Kua)_. It is a kind of generic map of the ideal flow of _qi_ through an interior environment, dividing this space into eight sections. Fortunately, you don't have to be a feng shui expert to compare the layout of your living space with the ideal _qi_ template of the _Ba-Gua_.\n\nThe _Ba-Gua_ is a complex symbol, based on complex ideas. In a simplistic sense, suitable for our purposes of home detoxification, it's useful to know that at its core is the yin\/yang symbol, representing the basic twofold polarized nature of energy as active and passive, hot and cold, dry and wet. The eight figures consisting of solid (yang) and broken (yin) thick lines are called trigrams; these are taken from the classic Chinese book of divination and philosophy, the _I-Ching_ (which contains sixty-four trigrams) and represent different combinations of the five elements and the outcome of those combinations (see figure 11-1).\n\nThe five elements are in dynamic relationship with one another, subject to cycles of influence and passivity (see figure 11-2). The feng shui expert uses the five elements to restore energetic balance to a place. As feng shui experts Sophia Tang Shaul and Chris Shaul, operators of the website _168 Feng Shui Advisors_ and a feng shui consultancy in Burbank, California, note: \"Used incorrectly, the elements can cause harm to relationships, health, or money prosperity. When used correctly, they can strengthen relationships, health, and money.\"\n\n**Figure 11-1. The _Ba-Gua_ Wheel of Energy Flow in a Home**\n\n**Figure 11-2. The Five Elements in Dynamic Relationship**\n\nAccording to the theory of feng shui, the way the elements are arranged (the variations on the trigrams) can be _predictive_ of life situations, including health, prosperity, and longevity in a living space. You might think of the _Ba-Gua_ template as a geometrical model of energy relationships with practical applications for how your house is laid out and how you are likely to fare living within this layout.\n\n_Directions_ : Draw a floor plan of your house or apartment, showing all the different rooms and their compass orientation, windows, doors, and the placement of furniture. If your home has more than one story, make a separate diagram for each floor.\n\nMark the center point in your house diagram by drawing an \"X\" from opposite comers. If your house or apartment is not square, rectangular, or symmetrical, square it off on the diagram, then draw the two diagonal lines from the opposing corners to find the midpoint.\n\nNext, align the _Ba-Gua_ with your floor plan. Set the center of the _Ba-Gua_ diagram on top of the midpoint on your floor plan, so that your front door corresponds to the bottom trigram of the _Ba-Gua_ , marked \"Career\/Kan.\" This is called the \"mouth of _qi,\"_ and marks where the vital life energy enters the house, like a guest, and how it is \"greeted\" by the home's interior layout. It does not have to be the front door; if the main traffic pattern in your home is through a side or back door, then, functionally, this is the mouth of _qi_ in your living space.\n\nNow that you have matched the two diagrams, label your home floor plan with the terminology from the _Ba-Gua_. See where your bedroom, kitchen, living room, and other functional rooms show up in the ideal template. But first a quick word of clarification on the terms and concepts of this ideal template, starting with the mouth of _qi_ then moving around the _Ba-Gua_ clockwise.\n\n  * Career: Think of this first section as your financial livelihood and career path, your spiritual path, and generally the way you approach life.\n  * Knowledge: Matters of contemplation, introspection, meditation, study, and seeking guidance from within occur here.\n  * Family\/Health: This area pertains to relationships with parents, authority figures, one's ancestors, and influences from the past.\n  * Wealth: Here we observe the flow of abundance and prosperity, but the blessings can take any form\u2014money, materials, good will, good fortune.\n  * Fame\/Rank: Your individuality and uniqueness of personal expression are grounded here.\n  * Marriage: This section of the house focuses on your primary relationships, such as with a partner, yourself, your friends, and colleagues.\n  * Children: Not only literally about children, this energy field deals with creativity, to anything that you can birth out of yourself.\n  * Helpful People: This points to the constellation of allies and supporters in your life, even helpful situations, such as finding answers from books; this section of the house connotes your relationship to philanthropy and generosity, and can be well used as an altar room.\n  * _Tai Ji_ : The _Ba-Gua_ 's central space is about health and vitality at the center of our living space.\n\nThis preliminary assessment of the layout of your living space contrasted with the ideal energy blueprint will give you ideas and insights as to how your house works, the degree to which it is in accord with the natural flow of energy, and the places where a feng shui adjustment would be advisable. Doing a _Ba-Gua_ analysis of your domestic living space is analogous to doing a biochemical assay of your blood and your body's nutrition, as we explored in Chapter 3. Both approaches give you a base line from which to evaluate your physiological and domestic status against a presumed ideal template, and to see to what degree your condition deviates from the optimal. As this chapter proceeds, the health significance of the deviation between your house and the _Ba-Gua_ will become clear.\n\nAccording to feng shui, a misalignment, such as having the bedroom in the career space, or the bathroom in the marriage space can be unfortunate; in fact, it can disturb or imbalance your life and possibly make you sick. In other words, it can be a toxic influence. Obviously, you cannot tear the house apart if the rooms are wrongly allocated, and in many cases this is not necessary, as feng shui offers many practical ways to alleviate the harmful influence of misaligned rooms. Nor is the _Ba-Gua_ meant as an ultimate architectural authority; some feng shui experts see it as an interpretive overlay, while others see is as a tool for calculating the attributes of a building.\n\nAccording to feng shui practitioner Terah Kathryn Collins, you can apply the _Ba-Gua_ to individual rooms, taking the principal doorway into the room as the orienting \"mouth of _qi_.\" While the _Ba-Gua_ alignment of the entire house is of greater importance and holds more \"structural _qi_ \" than that of individual rooms, it is still useful to chart the layout of individual rooms against the template. Once the evaluation and the practical feng shui adjustments are made, says Collins, \"a positive change occurs that directly relates to the person's desires and goals in less than thirty days.\"\n\n### The Healthy Living Space Expert Interview: Stanley Aaga Bartlett, Feng Shui Master\n\nThe _Ba-Gua_ represents \"an example of a perfect, balanced piece of the whole, a core template for understanding the flow of energy through a living space,\" observes Stanley Aaga Bartlett, a feng shui practitioner based in East Burke, Vermont. After twenty years in the real estate business, Bartlett shifted his professional interests to the use of feng shui for improving residential and commercial properties, and now consults nationally as a feng shui expert. \"The _Ba-Gua_ is a playful tool of discernment, a tool to better understand the clues as to what your environment is telling you about your life and a tool with which to change your reality. You can even carry the _Ba-Gua_ configuration around with you and check out various environments, looking for clues as to what is going on.\" The _Ba-Gua'_ s eight sides correspond to the various central aspects of our lives, and when each of the eight sides of the _Ba-Gua_ is in balance, then the whole is in balance, and our living space can fully support our well-being, Bartlett explains.\n\nForemost in Bartlett's approach to living space is the following principle gleaned over his years of feng shui practice: _As our environment goes, so go we_. In other words, our living space can either support our health and psychological well-being, or hinder them, Bartlett explains. \"There is a direct relationship between what happens in our environment and what happens in our lives, and the reverse, too. So if there is some imbalance in our living environment, whether it is physical or nonphysical, it affects our health, our mental and emotional attitudes.\"\n\nTo truly achieve domestic balance, you must deal with both the obvious and the subtle, with the \"practical\/tangible issues and the transcendental\/intangible aspects,\" Bartlett says. \"On the physical level, you have the obvious issues such as color, lighting, floor plans, electrical pollution, air quality, the placement of objects, furniture, and doorways. On the non-physical side, you have electromagnetic influence, Earth energy imbalance, predecessor and lingering energies from previous occupants of the space.\"\n\nIt is crucial to use a feng shui approach that integrates both aspects, Bartlett says. \"Considering only the practical aspects of feng shui might be 40% effective in creating harmonious space, but when the practical is combined with the transcendental, then it may have a 140% effectiveness. Knowledge of these transcendental aspects allows a feng shui practitioner to see through our environment what we are unable to see in our selves.\"\n\n_Everything_ in our living space has an effect on us in some way, even the angles of the furniture, the geometric shapes that surround us. Further, how our living space is situated with respect to its environment also has a pronounced effect on our well-being, says Bartlett. In other words, how our house or apartment building sits on the landscape, the direction it faces, the houses or other buildings that face it, even the angles of those neighboring houses and which part of our home they face\u2014all these factors and more come into play when a feng shui expert looks at a living space with a view to making health-supporting adjustments.\n\nHeightened sensitivity certainly comes in handy in this kind of work. \"When I walk into an environment, I see a panoramic view, a holographic pattern, if you will, of what is happening in that environment,\" Bartlett says. Somehow, his \"internal computer gathers vast information\" about the conditions of the immediate environment. Bartlett senses the subconscious of the living space, the influences that, perhaps not consciously known to the space's inhabitants, nonetheless are subtly shaping their lives, thoughts, feelings, and health.\n\nHe might hear an almost inaudible sound from an electrical transformer or power line nearby that is out of balance and creating a \"gnawing, annoying, or irritating vibration\" that affects the occupants of the house, even though they are not consciously aware of the origin of the toxic energy. \"Perhaps the environment is telling me that the front door entrance is constricted and dark, the colors inside are dark and not very balanced and the wall is too close to the entrance as I walk in and it is compressing my energy field. You might also notice that the Earth energies are depleting your _qi_ on one side of a room, but on the other side of the room you sense that the Earth energies are much more supportive.\" Bartlett says he often gets distracted by \"another irritant\" when he realizes the energy of the space suggests there must have been an argument in that room recently.\n\n\"I see the history of what has happened in a space. There are energies that linger\u2014they're called _ling_ energies in Chinese thinking, and mean the energies of the preceding occupants. For example, if there was an argument in this space yesterday or even a traumatic event one hundred years ago in this house, the energy _patterns_ of that experience will sometimes remain, or linger, in that environment.\n\n\"Our environments have an energy consciousness to them, and there is a lot we can do to create a different reality in our lives and in our environment by using the tools of feng shui wisely,\" Bartlett says. \"The goal of feng shui is to help us use this information to arrange our reality in more harmonious ways. Many wonderful stories exist of how people have used these teachings to bring health, prosperity, and good fortune to their lives.\" Even though feng shui often deals with the highly subtle energy influences in our environment, it is also deeply practical, never overlooking the obvious, such as the effect of chronic clutter in a living space.\n\n## HEALTHY LIVING SPACE DETOXIFIER #55: Tidy Up All the Cluttered Areas in Your Home\n\nUnattended clutter has repercussions in our life. \"I look for clues in the environment on a physical level to see what is going on in one's life and what one is (sometimes unconsciously) creating,\" says Bartlett. A cluttered living space is often at the root of many dysfunctional aspects of a person's life, and clearing out clutter can be \"one of the most powerful, yet unglamorous solutions to feng shui issues. When you are feeling stuck in life, start getting rid of clutter and watch how quickly new possibilities surface.\"\n\n**_A dense, cluttered environment most definitely affects us. Not only do cluttered areas attract dust, but they become sites of stagnant qi, places around and through which invigorating qi cannot flow. Areas of stagnant qi then attract other energies, thoughts, objects that are in agreement with that level of stasis and stagnation_**.\n\n_Directions_ : Examine your living space with a neutral, detached, objective eye. Is it cluttered? Are there piles of old stuff, debris, unused possessions, clothes, books, postcards that only gather dust, closets bursting with forgotten objects, stacks of old magazines, crates of glass bottles, or too much furniture in too small a space? Probably few people can truthfully say there are no clutter zones in their homes. So start throwing stuff out, winnowing out what you do not need any more, and recycling, giving away, or selling the rest. Keep only those things \"you truly love and need in your environment.\"\n\nA dense, cluttered environment most definitely affects us, says Bartlett. \"We say in feng shui, less is more, get rid of the old to make room for the new, and cluttered closets are like cluttered minds.\" Not only do cluttered areas attract dust, but they become sites of stagnant _qi_ , places around and through which invigorating _qi_ cannot flow. Areas of stagnant _qi_ then attract other energies, thoughts, objects that are in agreement with that level of stasis and stagnation and these merely strengthen this stagnant quality, heightening the attraction for what Bartlett calls the \"transcendental\/intangible aspects\" of a living space, in this case, negative, toxic aspects (discussed below).\n\nBartlett offers a vivid case study from his practice that illustrates the life-hindering effect of unattended clutter. Bartlett consulted with a woman named Joan who was having health, relationship, and career problems. \"She was experiencing health issues, relationship deprivation, a lack of money, and an inability to achieve success in her career as an actress and theater director. She was stuck in survival and forced to accept menial jobs and was even experiencing difficulty securing regular menial work.\"\n\nHer house was full of too many beautiful antiques, books, baskets, and other objects such that the overall visual impact was one of intense clutter. \"Joan thought she was simply going to have a feng shui expert come in and help her arrange all her things, move her furniture into the correct feng shui positions, and that this would resolve all her problems,\" says Bartlett. But that would have been fruitless unless she made a substantial reduction in her clutter. Bartlett agreed to return for more consultation after she had cleaned up some of the clutter. \"Joan began to understand that on some level she was surrounding herself with things out of a deep fear of lack. Somehow it felt safer if she kept lots of things around her. It also became clear to her that there were emotions hidden behind all these things that she had not been willing to look at for a long time.\"\n\nA short while later, Joan called him up, saying she had thrown out, sold, or given away a fair amount of her stuff. She said: \"I don't know what's going on but ever since you were here and I started clearing the clutter, I've been getting a lot of job offers.\"\n\nBartlett visited Joan again, and suggested another round of clearing, this time focusing on dense, old energies lingering in the house and how those energies were associated with Joan herself. \"We did a healing of her environment to fill her home with loving light.\"\n\nBartlett left Joan a second time to complete the deeper housecleaning. This time, she threw out more stuff, cleaned the windows and walls, dusted everything, gave the place a proper scrubbing. Joan called back again. \"I told you I hadn't been in a relationship for 19 years [since the death of her husband] and that I had some health issues. But all of a sudden, I'm getting inquiries from men.\" A few weeks later, Joan called Bartlett again. \"This is really the ultimate,\" she told him. \"I just had a call from a woman I knew well years ago; she had a very successful theater company. She made it big then lost everything, but now she's getting ready to make it big again and invited me to be her assistant director. So I'm selling my house and moving to the city.\" Joan's life continued to improve. \"Romance is in, career is great, and the body is much healthier,\" comments Bartlett.\n\nIn a sense, the ultimate (and a little amusing) result of Joan's rigorous clutter-removing work was to get rid of her house. This of course is not always required. The essential point in this case study is that Joan had a high level of clutter and thus stagnant energy in three areas of her living space: Career (\"mouth of _qi_ \"), Marriage, and Family\/Health. As a result, her career was stalled, she had no love relationships, and her health was deteriorating.\n\n  **_The Healthy Living_ Space Info Tip**\n\nStanley Aaga Bartlett can be\n\ncontacted at\n\nBartlett Designs,\n\nP.O. Box 119,\n\nEast Burke, VT 05832-0119;\n\ntel & fax: 802-626-9492;\n\ne-mail: stanlu@aol.com;\n\nwebsite: www.bartlettdesigns.com.\n\nWhen the clutter was removed and the stagnant energy exorcised from these domestic spaces, these three factors in her life reconfigured because she had reenergized their correlates in her living environment. \"For Joan, by clearing her attachments to physical things and clearing out her clutter, it allowed new possibilities to enter her life. This is such a powerful thing to do for one's health and well-being because when one is stuck emotionally, energetically, one tends to be stuck in one's environment, and that's when things do not happen very well in our lives.\"\n\n## HEALTHY LIVING SPACE DETOXIFIER #56: Repaint All the Interior Walls with Your Color of Happiness\n\nBefore addressing any of the specifics of individual room layouts and alignments, there is a simple but powerful way to impart fresh _qi_ to every inch of your living space. This is especially advised if you are moving into a new home or apartment because this detoxifying step is one you can\u2014and should\u2014do immediately upon taking possession of the place, even before you bring in your belongings.\n\nEssentially you want to expunge the physical residues of all previous occupants _and_ impart the unique stamp of your own energy and well-being. There are three interlinked cleaning tasks you can perform in your new space: repainting the walls, cleaning the carpets, and washing all the windows. While these are obvious hygienic, house-warming measures, they can become powerful feng shui tools by adding a special element: your _intention_.\n\nI will illustrate this point with an example from my own experience. My wife and I once rented a fairly new home for a year. The owner gave us a reduction in the first month's rent in exchange for our repainting the interior. This suited us fine, not only for the cost savings, but because we could impart our own energy to the walls that would surround us for the next twelve months.\n\nWith every slap and swish of the brush, we imparted a sense of peace, stillness, and spiritual presence to the fresh white paint, gradually filling our interior environment with a new vibration\u2014ours. We happened to be in pretty good spirits at the time\u2014dare I say happy?\u2014so this emotional quality flavored our intentions and whatever other qualities we sought to impart to the paint. Sometimes we played music to accompany the brush strokes, such as a Mozart sonata or vocal music of a gentle lilting quality, knowing that whatever vibrations we surrounded ourselves with during the \"thoughtful\" painting, along with the quality of our own internal state, the fresh paint (the \"inner skin\" of our living space) would \"remember\" and reflect back to us. We had a wonderful year within those newly painted walls.\n\n_Directions_ : \"Embrace your environment as if it were a part of you, which it is,\" says Bartlett. He suggests that even before starting your thoughtful painting that you hold \"the image of the perfect environment in your mind.\" This image, Bartlett explains, \"might elicit a feeling of love, protection, and perfect harmony from all around you.\" It should be so strong that \"when you near the entrance to your driveway, you begin to get this feeling that it is really good to be coming home.\" Then when you open the front door, \"your heart opens wide with this overwhelming feeling of love and harmony.\"\n\nThe remarkable property of energy is that once you have formed this intention, once you have evoked this sense of heart-opened harmony and balance, you can impart it to your living space, through the paint, the substance with which you wash the windows, and the substances you use to clean your carpets. As long as you hold this feeling quality of the image, you can imbue everything around you with it\u2014putting a little white magic spell on your walls, so to speak.\n\nBartlett recommends lightly sanding all the wall surfaces and cleaning them with soap and water before painting. This is another level to clearing out the old, dense energies of the space and bringing the environment up to a level of purity and neutrality upon which you can now impart your own intention and vibration. If your floors are carpeted, Bartlett advises vacuuming then cleaning them thoroughly with a nontoxic carpet-cleaning solution. You may need to use Clorox bleach to remove the residual mildew in and underneath the carpets. (Be careful, though: you don't want to bleach the color out of your rugs.) Similarly, scrub and sanitize all windows, both inside and outside, removing all traces of dirt and residue. \"Windows are the eyes of the _qi_ (life force energy) and affect one's clarity, so replace any broken panes and clean all the windows.\"\n\n\"Do this with clear intention, that you are clearing out older, denser energies, and filling your home with loving light,\" says Bartlett. \"Intention is very important. Your thought-energy is crucial in creating a new reality for you.\" Once you have evoked a sense of your ideal living environment and the feeling-quality associated with it, try to stay in this meditative space throughout your housecleaning work. The positive, life-affirming vibrations you impart to your walls, paint, windows, and floorings, will return to nourish and support you throughout your stay in that home.\n\n## HEALTHY LIVING SPACE DETOXIFIER #57: Clear Your Space of All Predecessor Energy\n\nThoughtful painting and imparting the color of happiness to your interior walls is the outer, physical aspect of clearing out old, dense energies of former occupants of your living space, says Bartlett. But you also need to address the subtler aspects of having had former residents in your living room and bedrooms. The central idea here is that the older, denser energies of former residents will interrupt or contribute to the stagnation of _qi_ in your house, unless you take steps to remove them.\n\n\"If you were to examine these dense, old, stuck energies with Kirlian photography, using a camera that takes pictures of energies in color, you would see these as a kind of clouded, murky fog,\" says Bartlett. \"On the other hand, a light-filled energy would be very clear and crystalline-like. That's what we want to create in our environment because the denser energies tend to keep us stuck.\"\n\nLet's ground this observation with some examples. Eira Hellberg, a Swedish collector of occult lore, remarked some years ago that often when examining an apartment with the intent to rent, she might discern \"something unpleasant in the walls ... an atmosphere that exhales something distinctly human.\" Even though the physical details of the room\u2014wallpaper, carpets, furniture, the colors and layout\u2014seem congenial and hygienic, there is still something off, exuding \"an uncomfortable sense of oppression.\" The person showing the apartment may be friendly, but your feeling of unease does not go away.\n\nHellberg comments: \"If our amiable hosts in their comfortable room cannot overcome our uneasiness, the reason is that the room and the objects in it are _saturated_ with the mental activity of the occupants, their will- and thought-waves, which are beamed back on any receptive individual who comes within range of them.\"\n\nIn other cases, intense feelings, such as of despair or violence, can remain in a room or \"in\" the former occupant's furniture (in the case of a furnished rented room) and exert a harmful, if unsuspected, influence on the new tenants of the living space. For example, French occult scholar Paul Sedir noted in 1923 that \"human beings exercise a real influence on the objects in their environment. A chair that has been flung across the room in a rage stores anger inside it; the things used by a niggardly housewife make subsequent owners stingy.\"\n\nA feng shui expert echoes this observation: \"If the last tenants' marriage ended in divorce, or someone was very sick, patterns of this energy stay with the house until it is cleared.\" Similarly, if a particular room had formerly been given over to young children with the intent of their having great fun in it, \"lingering childish energy might impede your plans for a tranquil retreat.\"\n\nStuck energy and \"psychic debris\" can accumulate in all rooms in a home, but especially in comers, nooks, and crannies, comments another expert. Many people, unknowingly, live in the \"psychic equivalent of a garbage dump.\" Everything that happens in a room is recorded in all of its structures; \"repetitive patterns get deeply imprinted, as do moods and atmospheres.\" Further, it is conceivable that if previous persons living in a house, or room, had health problems and were, for example, overweight, or had eating disorders, the energy supporting this, or associated with its expression, is still present in the house and may influence a new generation of weight disorders.\n\n_**Stuck energy and \"psychic debris\" can accumulate in all rooms in a home, but especially in corners, nooks, and crannies, comments another expert. Many people, unknowingly live in the \"psychic equiualent of a garbage dump.\" Everything that happens in a room is recorded in all of its structures.**_\n\nGerman occult researcher Willy Schr\u00f6dter relates how a Viennese family \"suffered inexplicable health\" for two years. It turns out an oil painting that hung in their living room was, according to a clairvoyant who discerned this, \"a hate radiator.\" Once the painting was removed and _burned_ , all occupants of that household regained their health. In other words, the painting radiated energy that acted as an unrelieved toxin to all those in its sphere. Schrodter cites the examples of others for whom hygiene encompassed the realm of subtle influences. One man surrounded himself only with new furniture and objects, so as \"not to have any old thoughts or feelings hanging about him.\"\n\nThe reality of \"mental atmospheres\" and their effects on consciousness must be accepted, Schr\u00f6dter and many other eso-tericists state, thereby confirming what feng shui has always said about _ling_ energies, or predecessor energies. Schr\u00f6dter comments that according to the Tibetans, \"the Earth's atmosphere is injured by unkind thoughts\" and that when people send out bad thoughts, they collect in a manner similar to water vapor condensing into rain, and fall down on people in the form of diseases. This phenomenon of \"raining toxicity\" can happen at any level of residence\u2014country, city, community, neighborhood, single house, or single room.\n\n_Directions_ : There are many practical steps for clearing an interior space of lingering predecessor energies, according to feng shui.\n\n### Remove Old Energies with an Energy Blanket\n\nThis is a practical step advised by Carol Bridges, an instructor at the Nine Harmonies School of Feng Shui in Nashville, Indiana. Bridges suggests visualizing that you wear \"energy gloves,\" and that if you stretch your arms before you, you can send \"strands of light\" across your property (including your home or apartment). Imagine that a \"team of spirit energies\" (or helpful forces) are cooperating with you in this space-clearing work (that is, cleaning the subtle \"airs\" around you), and that they occupy the basic compass directions.\n\nNext, visualize that you and the helpers hold an \"energy blanket\" underneath the entire property, so that it is twelve feet underground. Asking that the blanket collect all foreign, inimical, and predecessor energies from this site, raise the blanket up through the house until you and the helpers are holding it twelve feet above the top of the room, house, or apartment building, says Bridges. Coming up through the house, the blanket would have collected all these energies, which may or may not present themselves to you in a variety of displeasing forms. Bundle up and tie the blanket and ask the spirit team to take it away.\n\n### Use Incense, Candles, and Expelling Mudras\n\nOne way to remove older, denser energies is to burn a strongsmelling incense such as frankincense, sage, or other pungent incense while walking through each room and allowing the smoke to infiltrate the air and furnishings, recommends Bartlett. As you fill each room with the aromatic fumes, visualize the older, denser energies clearing out and \"loving light\" filling the room throughout. You can also bum candles in each room to \"burn off the old and symbolically fill your home with loving light,\" Bartlett adds.\n\nAmong the \"transcendental cures\" Bartlett uses in his feng shui practice is the expelling mudra. This is a special hand gesture meant to change the energy field in a room. Curl the middle and ring finger of each hand toward your palm while keeping the index and pinky fingers pointing straight out. Hold the backs (nails) of the middle fingers with the ball of your thumb. Flick the two middle fingers upward \"expelling all older, denser energies.\" According to Bartlett, this mudra can be used to clear the aura, the land, an automobile, an airplane, and any room, including a motel room or a doctor's office, among many other venues.\n\nOther simple but effective ways to change the energy of your interior space include singing, dancing, chiming bells, drumming, ringing gongs, striking cymbals, toning (emitting tones or other nonverbal sounds), or playing music in each room, says Bartlett. According to Celtic folklore, one of the principal reasons church bells were tolled frequently in villages, especially on Sundays, was to drive away all the lingering spirits, both good and bad. The spirits could not abide the sound of the bells and considered it \"poison.\"\n\nWhile performing these space-clearing exercises, it is important, says Bartlett, to visualize your living space \"filled with loving light and that only those energies that are harmonious to your being are present.\"\n\n### Keep the Lights On\n\nMost people think it is energy-efficient to keep only the minimum of lights on in a house in the evening. However, from a feng shui viewpoint, this is not advised. It is better for the circulation of _qi_ through an interior environment if a light is left on in each room, preferably twenty-four hours a day, says Bartlett. \"During the evening hours or on cloudy days, leave a light on for twenty-four hours in the basement to keep the _qi_ active.\n\n\"It is not advisable to keep all the lights turned off, other than the one area you are currently in, as this can cause the energy in the rest of the house to become tired. This is especially important in the winter, as it helps to avoid winter blues and depression. A small light left on twenty-four hours a day in the basement will also help keep the foundation of your home activated.\" If the _qi_ is moving and the foundation \"activated,\" there is no room for energy stagnation, which is a reservoir for predecessor energy. \"Carefully positioned lighting can cause stuck energy areas to flow. When we keep the _qi_ flowing, that tends to be an environment where lingering energies choose not to hang out.\"\n\nOn a practical level, Bartlett recommends conserving electricity (since he's advising to keep all the lights on) by using energy-efficient, full-spectrum fluorescent bulbs in each area of the house and by designating these as the lights that are kept on in the evenings. You can use 12-volt halogen track lighting in the kitchen instead of fluorescents, if desired, Bartlett adds.\n\n### Clapping in Every Room\n\nAccording to \"space-clearing\" expert Karen Kingston, you can disperse static energy in a room by clapping your hands loudly in every corner, crevice, and closet in that room. After clapping, be sure to wash your hands under running water to clear away \"any bits of psychic debris that may have clung to you\" while clapping.\n\n### Purify Secondhand Furnishings\n\nDespite the fantastic bargain you may have achieved on that antique coffee table or Spanish clothes dresser or sofa-bed, it is quite likely that these furnishings bear energy residues of their former owners and users and that these residues, if not expunged, will visit your energy field and produce discomfort. Let's reprise a technique introduced in Chapter 9 as Healthy Living Space Detoxifier #40, Scrub Your Aura Clean with a Golden Sponge.\n\nFirst, apply this golden energy sponge to the furnishing in question, mentally swabbing all its surfaces and interior, visualizing that this golden energy field is absorbing the toxic residues. Then imagine that there is a drain under the table, dresser, or sofa-bed, and that this drain goes all the way to the center of the Earth. Instruct the drain to draw to it all the negative, foreign, toxic, predecessor energy presently within the object. You may get a visual impression of sludge or mucus flowing slowly out of the furniture and down the drain. Continue with this draining until no further exudate is visible, or for at least five minutes if you don't have any visuals on the proceedings. Then visualize a bright golden Sun over the furniture and slowly bring it into the object so that sunlight permeates every molecule of its structure. These steps should make the table, dresser, or sofa-bed fit for your aura.\n\n## HEALTHY LIVING SPACE DETOXIFIER #58: The Health Benefits of Ghost-Busting\n\nPredecessor energies may involve more than the residual thought patterns and energy waves of previous occupants of your living space. They may involve the purely \"transcendental\" aspects of energy imprints, a term Bartlett uses to refer to \"the realm beyond our current intellectual understanding.\" But what we cannot understand with our minds, our bodies and auras can nevertheless register, even if it is possible ghosts in the house.\n\nAccording to the classical description of _ling_ energies from the feng shui canon, the life force energy, or _qi_ , of a deceased person may return to their familiar earthbound haunts, such as a former living space and inadvertently (or sometimes purposefully) annoy, irritate, or deeply trouble the current living occupants, says Bartlett.\n\nHe was recently asked by some householders to remove the influence of a former occupant who had died twelve years earlier and whose lingering presence was producing \"weird ghostlike events\" and other negative energies for the new owners. To some, the return of a deceased former resident\u2014perhaps he is a relative or parent\u2014can be perceived as a pleasant event, but for others it can be quite disruptive. In either case, it can be confusing and intrusive to one's own _qi_ to be visited by the _ling_ energy of a deceased being.\n\nIn ghost-busting cases such as these, Bartlett relies on his various space-clearing techniques, as described above. In some instances, occupants with no previous training or experience in metaphysical matters may be able to expel the foreign energies, or they may have to engage a consultant, says Bartlett. If you possess any physical objects belonging to the former and now deceased occupants, it is helpful to purify these of all energy residues of the previous owners, using the techniques described above in \"Purify Secondhand Furnishings.\" Otherwise, these residues act as magnets or homing signals, enabling the deceased to find a familiar landmark in an otherwise troubling (because no longer \"physical\" the way it used to be) environment.\n\nIf it is the case of a lingering ghost, in most cases, the intelligence inhabiting the ghostly form does not know it is dead and no longer lawfully associated with the physical plane. Or if they know they're dead, sometimes they don't know what to do next, or feel a strong gravitational pull towards both their former domicile and the Earth plane in general, almost out of habit.\n\n\"It is appropriate to lovingly invite these _ling_ particles [or spirits of the deceased] to return to the light for completion of their soul's journey,\" comments Bartlett. It may sound ridiculously simple, but often telling them these facts is sufficient to move them on their way. The hard part may be _believing_ that the ghosts are really there in your house and are capable of exerting toxic effects on you.\n\nHere are two examples from my experience as a householder that help to illustrate this possibly challenging, unsettling observation.\n\nOnce I stayed at a small ranch in New Mexico and found I couldn't sleep in the appointed guest room. I tossed and turned, and strange thoughts ran through my mind. I perspired, fretted, worried, got irritated, and got up. I usually fall asleep within five minutes of my head reaching the pillow, and if I don't, I figure it's because I went to bed too early. But this was different. My wife was unable to sleep, either. The next morning we learned from the owner that generally nobody was able to sleep well in the room.\n\nBetween the three of us, we mustered enough psychic power to investigate the problem. The impression we gathered was that underneath the room in question was a casket containing the remains of a teenage Native American girl who had been buried there some two hundred years earlier. She had lived in the space where the ranch house now stood and had died young and under considerable trauma, due to a severe sudden illness. Our impression was that \"she\" didn't approve of where she was buried and was still traumatized by the events, which to us were several centuries ago, but to her, were the eternal present, having happened only \"minutes\" ago.\n\nAs we were not about to excavate the ground under the room, not to mention tear up the floor to get to it, we called on higher authorities for help. To the extent we were capable, we counseled the girl and advised her to move on, and let the spiritual helpers do the rest. That night we slept wonderfully in the room, as if it had never been the site of insomnia for many.\n\nIn this example, had someone taken over this room as a bedroom and not been aware of the possibility of _ling_ energies, quite likely, physical, emotional, and mental symptoms would have developed in accordance with the \"fault lines\" of that person's constitution. The toxic emanations of the restless dead girl could have produced irritation, chronic sleeplessness or broken sleep, nightmares, foreign dreams, paranoia, despair, fear, panic, headaches, elevated blood pressure\u2014any of a long list of possible symptoms.\n\nIn the second example, I once rented a home in coastal California. There was a two-car garage, which I appropriated as my office and filled with bookshelves and a large worktable. However, I soon noticed that every time I spent more than ten minutes in the garage, I became irritated, even angry. Even though that is my \"fault line\" psychologically, I have learned to use it as a dowsing rod to detect foreign, inimical energies. Feeling irritation is one way I receive information from my aura that there is an energy imbalance in my immediate environment; of course other times it's just because I didn't get my way.\n\nMy wife and I isolated the toxic energy influence to an area of about three feet square in the central part of the garage. It looked like a vertical column of energy, like a smoky quartz crystal column\u2014nothing I'd want to have on my coffee table to be sure. Using a pendulum, we could chart where the field started and stopped; even so, being within ten to fifteen feet of it was enough to irritate me and drive me from the garage. We placed a very large clear quartz crystal on the edge of this toxic field to deflect the energy somewhat, but I still felt it anywhere I stood in the garage. Soon I stopped working in the garage and even avoided going into it unless I had to.\n\nThe day before we moved out of the house\u2014we lived there only one year and did not like it at all\u2014we discovered what the problem was in the garage. We saw two men lying on the garage floor, dead of knife wounds; police cars were parked in the driveway. The events took place approximately in the mid-1950s, which meant their toxic influence had lingered in the garage for more than forty years. Again, we asked for \"backup\" from the spiritual world, and watched as \"they\" escorted the lingering souls of the slain men off into the light. As soon as they were gone, the vertical column shattered into a thousand pieces and the vile energy spot was purified. The garage was now fit for human occupation, although I suspect the next residents used it for their car.\n\nThe lesson in this garage haunting is the same as with the dead girl under the floorboards. The toxic emanations were capable of producing no end of unfortunate effects on those within their field of influence. In matters like these, unless you can discern what is self and not-self as far as thoughts and inclinations go, you are likely, regrettably, to act out as your own, to some degree, the baleful influences your aura is registering. Sufficient immersion in that angry, literally murderous energy field in the garage could have provoked somebody to a significant outburst of rage, or worse. This is the kind of _ling_ you don't want lingering under any circumstances.\n\nEven _ling_ energies of a more benign nature are not to be encouraged. \"These energies disturb your _qi_ , producing interference with your energy, so that things get too crowded energetically,\" explains Bartlett. \"Unless these spirits are personal spirit guides, they are best not kept around your living space for long periods of time because then it becomes a case of too much interruption, too much interference.\" They become an additional toxic element in your living space, and can distract you from your focus on positive activities and your own creativity, says Bartlett. \"In my experience, when your environment is free and clear of entities and ghosts, then you are allowed to co-create in more ease-filled and perfect ways.\"\n\nGhost-busting of course is not something everyone will feel comfortable undertaking, nor is it particularly advisable to try to remove restless spirits if you are just beginning to acknowledge subtle energies. Often in such cases, it is prudent to engage the services of a qualified feng shui practitioner, a dowser, or a psychic trained in this particular type of space clearing. It is not unusual for a well-seasoned dowser to be skilled in all three of these practices.\n\n  **_The Healthy Living_ Space Info Tip**\n\nFor information about dowsing, including books, practitioner referrals, educational conferences, and publications, contact:\n\nThe American Society of Dowsers,\n\nP.O. Box 24,\n\nDanville, VT 05828;\n\ntel: 800-711-9530 or 802-684-3417;\n\ne-mail: ASD@Dowsers.org;\n\nwebsite: www.dowsers.org.\n\n## HEALTHY LIVING SPACE DETOXIFIER #59: Eliminate Poison Arrows and Cutting Qi\n\nIt sounds strange at first hearing, but according to feng shui practitioners, the quality of your life within your house can be affected, for better or worse, by the way other houses face yours. Obviously noisy neighbors can be irritating even when you are indoors, but this is different.\n\nThe way other houses _face_ your house can be an energy toxic element. Face means the orientation of the other houses, their geometry with respect to yours, the angles and comers and how they're situated in relation to your house and particular sections (as defined by the _Ba-Gua_ ) of your house. When these geometric features of neighboring houses are injurious, they fall into the category feng shui terms \"poison arrows\" and \"cutting _qi_ ,\" and this becomes something you need to address for your long-term well-being in your home.\n\n_Qi_ flows best and is most supportive of health when it can always move in gentle, meandering curves, but not in straight lines, and it should always be able to keep moving. When it enters a house, _qi_ must be able to depart from a different door; it can't flow backwards. But you don't want the _qi_ rushing into your house like an assault team, which can be the energy effect of an unchecked poison arrow.\n\nA poison arrow (also called a \"secret arrow\") is any straight line or sharp angle that heads directly for you, like an energy arrow shot from the bow of an opposing architectural structure. Here's how feng shui practitioner Angel Thompson explains it: \"When it is forced into straight lines or sharp angles, instead of gently falling and rising like the tummy of a sleeping baby, _chi_ compresses into a barb, like an arrow, as sharp as the tip of a knife. . . .\" She adds that no matter where you live, \"there are many secret arrows around you.\"\n\nHere is a way to gain a visceral sense of the problem of poison or secret arrows. Sit before the comer of a rectangular table so that your eyes are about six inches from and level with the right angle. Observe how this makes you feel. It is very likely that within a matter of minutes, or less, your eyes will feel uncomfortable, as if assaulted, or even penetrated; you may feel that spears are piercing your eyes and you want to pull your face away from the line of vision. But what has happened? The table hasn't attacked you\u2014or has it? In terms of feng shui, it has: it has thrown poison arrows at you by virtue of its geometrical relationship to you. On an energy level, the two lines that form the right angle continue through space, beyond the confines of the physical table, and pass through whatever is before it, in this case, your eyes.\n\nYou can expand the example to the sphere of an entire house. Say a neighboring house is situated at right angles to your front door, so that when you stand at your open door, you are confronted by the right-angle comer of that house. It doesn't matter if it's fifty or 100 feet away; you'll still get the poison arrow effect, just as you did when sitting before the table. Your energy field will register it as a hostile, even aggressive energy focus.\n\nOther examples of poison arrows can include T-intersections on roads, driveways, sidewalks, rooflines, corners, streetlights, walls, signs, porches, pillars, clock towers, statues, any very large imposing object, the sharp edge of any nearby building, sharply defined hills and landscape contours\u2014essentially any straight line, extended from an architectural or landscape feature, that comes right at you or at your front door. Other toxic situations include having your house at the center of a fork in two roads, at the outside of a bend in the road, or in the center of a circular traffic pattern, such as a rotary or roundabout. Remember, in and of themselves, each of these features is not necessarily harmful, but when placed in the wrong geometrical relationship to your house, they become toxic.\n\nPoison arrows are harmful for your health because they embody \"cutting _qi,\"_ which is also known as noxious _qi_ , \"the cutting breath.\" They interrupt, distort, divert, or pollute the natural, health-promoting flow of basic life force energy through an environment, in this case, your home through its front door, the \"mouth of _qi_.\" \"All these structures give out an energy that is too strong and will overwhelm your home, often with sad or tragic consequences,\" explains Lillian Too, a well-known feng shui expert and author. Poison arrows can block the good, healthy _qi_ from flowing into your home, leading to energy stagnation. Poison arrows generate _shar qi_ , says Too, \"the killing breath,\" capable of producing every type of misfortune and ill luck, especially disease and fatal illness.\n\n_**Poison arrows are harmful for your health because they embody \"cutting**_ **qi,\" _which is also knows as noxious_** **qi, _\"the cutting breath.\" They interrupt, distort, divert, or pollute the natural, health-promoting flow of basic life force energy through an environment, in this case, your home through its front door, the \"mouth of_** **qi.\"**\n\nSome feng shui experts say the reason poison arrows are harmful is that they project \"high-velocity _qi_ ,\" basic energy that's moving too fast (because it's moving in a straight line) to be health promoting. _Qi_ is supposed to flow in curves, but when it is forced to move in a straight line, it gathers in power and acts like a speeding projectile or flying arrow. Others note that one main reason they're called \"secret\" arrows is that most people are not immediately aware of their effects, which build over time, from minor irritations to major disturbances. But meanwhile your energy field, or aura, feels as if it is facing directly into a sharpened knife point, or as if it is the stationary target receiving arrows in its body from an expert bowman.\n\n\"A secret arrow is like having a stick stuck in your side: not only can it be annoying, but eventually it can also cause harm,\" notes Nancilee Wydra, founder of the Pyramid School of Feng Shui in Vero Beach, Florida. She adds that even a person with a normally positive, uplifted temperament can gradually be worn down by this \"insidious or subtle pressure.\" Secret arrows can distort your own _qi_ field, and make you feel unsettled, confused, disoriented, and as if you have lost your grounding and sense of life direction.\n\nHere's a practical way to visualize the probable effect of poison arrows. Imagine you stand within a large inflated balloon that extends perhaps three or four feet away from your physical body in all directions. Next, imagine all the poison arrows you documented on your list (see below) come at this balloon from the outside and cause indentations, punctures, and disfigurations. Now imagine that this balloon around you can transmit its energy to your physical body, and you ar _e feeling_ the effects of these dents, holes, and distortions in your physical organism.\n\nThis \"imagination\" is actually not too far off the mark from what actually happens. The balloon corresponds to your aura, or energy field, which surrounds you and transmits energies to your physical body. Sooner or later, depending on your inherent vitality, your body will register the effects of these distortions in its energy envelope and will manifest this registration in the form of symptoms and, if unchecked, eventual health problems. Just to be precise, even though your aura can sustain punctures and holes, it does not \"deflate,\" although its local integrity collapses inward to an extent at the site of the injury.\n\nThe feng shui answer to poison arrows is deflection. In nearly all cases, you won't be able to move the offending object or source of poison arrows, but you can effectively block their energy effects.\n\n_Directions_ : There are many ways to deflect or calm the incoming toxic _qi_ , according to long-established principles of feng shui.\n\n  * Before we get into the practical steps, here is a preliminary exercise. Open your front door, stand in the doorway, and survey your environment. Look for poison arrows. Examine the buildings nearby: do they have sharp angles projected at your front door? Repeat this exercise by standing before every window in your house, looking out at your neighbors from inside. Make a list of all possible secret and poison arrows, no matter how slight or inconsequential they may seem. Contemplate for a moment the combined effect of these poison arrows on your energy field, using the simple example of the effect of a table's comer on your eyes to get a visceral sense of the assault on your aura.\n  * Plant bushy trees, shrubs, or a dense hedge to block off the poison arrow. This is like placing a shield between yourself, your front door, or window, and the source of the poison arrows. The natural foliage will absorb the toxic energy stream of the poison arrow, so that it does not reach your house.\n  * Employ mirrors, shiny reflective surfaces, or plaques, even polished brass doorknobs, orienting these towards the source of the poison arrows. If a poison arrow from an abutting house is focused through a window, hang a reflecting mirror inside your window but facing outwards towards the arrow. (For more on mirrors, see Healthy Living Space Detoxifier #60, below.)\n  * Calm the incoming _qi_ according to Five Element theory. This approach is typical of feng shui's marvelous sense of using restored balance as a way of eliminating problems. Simon Brown, a design engineer and feng shui consultant, explains that insofar as the _Ba-Gua_ gives the orientation for the five elements (according to Chinese philosophy), you can use the interrelationships of these elements to deflect poison arrows and \"calm\" or \"drain\" their effect. For example, earth drains fire, metal drains earth, water drains metal.\n\nSay you have an incoming poison arrow from the southwest, which is the orientation for earth, which is \"drained\" by metal, explains Brown. To calm or drain the cutting _qi_ from the southwest, place an object associated with metal _qi_ , such as a gold or silver disc in the southwest corner of your house. \"Alternatively, place a large statue made of cast-iron, bronze or other metal, which includes circular shapes, in the garden between your house and the corner.\" The same applications can easily be worked out with the other elements and compass directions, according to the _Ba-Gua._\n\n  * If your home is disturbed by traffic patterns or is at the end of a T-intersection or other toxic traffic arrangement, hanging wind chimes in your hall, just outside the front door, or in your backyard can help cleanse and purify the _qi_ around your house so that it no longer transmits disturbed energy patterns into your living space.\n  * If you have a tree, post, or pole directly facing your front door, the ideal solution is to remove the tree, because it blocks the flow of _qi_ into your living space. If you can't remove the _qi_ , Angel Thompson recommends placing a small mirror in the middle of the tree (or post or pole) so that it faces your front door. This mirror acts as a \"symbolic hole,\" says Thompson, and absorbs the noxious _qi_.\n  * If your walkway leads directly in a straight line from the road or driveway to your front door (thereby generating a poison arrow), arrange bricks, stones, or potted plants on the edge of the path along its course to deflect and soften the _qi_ flow and to break up its straightness.\n\n## HEALTHY LIVING SPACE DETOXIFIER #60: Pacify Your Neighborhood with Feng Shui Mirrors\n\nProbably most people have experienced obnoxious, noisy, or irritating neighbors whose lifestyle activities we wish we could curtail or eliminate. Or maybe our neighbors don't like us, or don't like anybody, and transmit a steady field of ill will and negativity in our direction. Or their back porch faces our back porch and they are too close for comfort. Or your house abuts a funeral parlor or cemetery.\n\nThere are many scenarios, both mild and serious, in which the presence of neighboring houses (and their occupants) sometimes exceeds our ability to cope. Short of moving away to live somewhere else, there are some palliative steps you can take using feng shui principles.\n\n_Directions_ : One of the simplest of these methods is the mirror, which some practitioners refer to as \"the aspirin of feng shui.\" Specifically helpful here is the _Ba-Gua_ mirror, an octagonal piece of reflecting mirror set inside an octagonal frame with some of the traditional _Ba-Gua_ signs and traditional colors of red, green, and gold. If you have troubling neighbors, place a series of these mirrors (they're about four inches in diameter) around the outside of your house and facing the direction of the irritation.\n\nUse the _Ba-Gua_ mirror to redirect intrusive energies such as from an intrusive neighbor, says Stanley Bartlett. \"Simply point the mirror with loving intention towards the intrusive energy and it will lovingly redirect it back to the source of the intrusion. That will redirect the intrusive energies as if to say 'return to sender.'\" Using mirrors to deflect threatening _qi_ achieves two purposes at once, according to Sarah Rossbach, author of _Interior Design with Feng Shui._ \"The mirror both offensively reflects back malignant ch'i and defensively provides protection. Any size will do.\"\n\n  **_The Healthy Living_ Space Info Tip**\n\nFor a source of practical feng shui devices, objects, mirrors, and other feng shui tools, as well as books and practitioner listings, contact:\n\nFeng Shui Warehouse,\n\nP.O. Box 6689,\n\nSan Diego, CA 92166;\n\ntel: 800-399-1599 or 619-523-2158;\n\ne-mail: fengshuiWH@aol.com;\n\nwebsite: www.fengshuiwarehouse.com.\n\nUsing mirrored glass walls (such as you see on many urban skyscrapers) is also effective if you care to spend the money to refit your windows or redo one side of your house. Further, Rossbach suggests, as a way of removing \"the overbearing forces altogether,\" a convex mirror that reflects the images upside down. However, Bartlett cautions against over-using mirrors or using them randomly (especially inside the house), as \"they are powerful remedies and can cause chaotic energies when misused.\"\n\nIn terms of influencing your neighbors, there is more you can do than setting up effective defense perimeters against their noisy intrusions, explains Bartlett. You can send them nice vibrations. The simplest way to do that is by purifying your space; this change in the energy pattern of the neighborhood gets registered, at some level, by your neighbors. If they are sensitive, they may detect that somehow the change came from your house, and they may want to make changes themselves, says Bartlett.\n\n\"Because everything affects everything, if you focus on your environment, and make that as whole and healthy and clearly aligned as possible, then you immediately affect your neighbors,\" Bartlett says. \"Inevitably, after doing a house clearing, sometime later\u2014a week, a month or two\u2014I'll get a call from somebody a street or two away in that same neighborhood asking me to do feng shui on their house. As I understand it, on some level, they _felt_ the positive changes. They heard, felt, or sensed the energetic change in their neighborhood and it sparked them and woke them up, and now they want some of it, too. That's one way to affect your neighbors in a positive way.\"\n\n## HEALTHY LIVING SPACE DETOXIFIER #61: Optimizing the Mouth of Qi at Your Front Door\n\nOne of the most important elements of your living space to check and correct is your front door, or whichever entrance you use most frequently. This is your point of transition from outer to inner world, from the external environment into your private domestic space. The threshold into your home, and to a lesser extent, the threshold into any room in the house, is where the life force energy enters like an exhaled breath. Feng shui calls it \"the mouth of _qi_ ,\" and if your home's \"mouth\" is unclean or obstructed, your health will suffer.\n\n\"The way _qi_ flows throughout the house is important,\" explains Bartlett, and the front door can be the key to a healthy flow. Your home's mouth of _qi_ represents your relationship with the outer world, both natural and social: energy, money, opportunities, good health, well-being, friends, and good fortune flow in through the front door, but if the flow of this energy (and its numerous expressions) is blocked, the _qi_ cannot get to your marriage comer, or prosperity section, or any of the other six _Ba-Gua_ life divisions, and your life, correspondingly, will be negatively affected.\n\nYou need to think about the matter of _qi_ flow in both a symbolic and practical sense, because both realms will help you detoxify your home using feng shui principles. How the _qi_ flows, or doesn't, affects the parts of your life that correspond to the parts of your house where the _qi_ is obstructed. The front door is like a _qi_ valve, which can let in positive energy and block out negative energy. \"Inhibited, obstructed, or confused flow of chi is probably the number one problem to solve with feng shui,\" comments Angel Thompson. There are numerous ways in which the _qi_ flow can be blocked, compromised, or diverted, and any of these arrangements can \"frustrate, anger, even enrage the chi,\" with the result that the occupants feel the same way. \"Tension, poor health, and bad luck await those who occupy the space.\"\n\n\"What you see first upon entering a house is important, as this creates your first subconscious experience of its atmosphere,\" observes Bartlett, and this is especially true of your own living space. Preferable is a view of a foyer or vestibule or living room with its evocation of rest, leisure, and quiet entertainment; not preferable, for example, is a view of a bathroom or kitchen, says Bartlett. Particularly undesirable in a two-story home is a direct alignment of second-floor toilet, staircase, and front door; in the symbolic energy calculus of feng shui, your wealth (an expression of _qi)_ flows right out the front door and\/or down the toilet.\n\nA first view of a kitchen is undesirable, says Bartlett, because the first thought you get upon entering your home is food. The result may be eating or bingeing tendencies, which lead to weight problems. Feng shui consultant Terah Kathryn Collins relates a case study of a woman who was unable to overcome her bulimia. Collins, upon visiting the woman's house, found that her front door opened directly into the kitchen. The solution was to transform the kitchen (at least what could be seen from the home's threshold) into an atrium, with palms, bromeliads, and a flowing water and rock feature. The kitchen functions were moved down to one end of the room and redesigned as a kitchen nook. The woman thereafter found it much easier to correct her unbalanced eating habits since her home (and its mouth of _qi_ ) was not constantly stimulating her to overeat.\n\nYou can get a sense of the flow of energy through your home's mouth of _qi_ by standing at the threshold of your home, facing in. Imagine a gently forceful breeze flowing into your house through this open front door; it is a breeze that brings all good things, invigorates everything it contacts, clears out stagnation, and brings well-being _\u2014provided_ its flow is unobstructed. Follow this flow of energy through your house: what path does it take? What gets in its way? Where does it get stuck? Is there an exit point, a back door, out of which it can flow when it's finished inside your home?\n\nThe information you gather from this simple exercise can be the basis for applying feng shui \"remedies\" to improve the _qi_ flow in your living space. The key point to remember is this: obstructed _qi_ flow produces energy stagnation, and this negatively affects the health of the home's occupants.\n\n  * Keep hallways and access areas free of clutter and unnecessary objects, says Bartlett. If possible, avoid zigzagging flows (such as multiple L-layouts in hallways and attached rooms) from one section of the house to another. These \"twist up your energy field, causing confusion and an uncentered feeling, which can be quite exhausting.\" Further, it makes it hard for the _qi_ to flow smoothly, or at all, through the house, says Bartlett.\n  * Make sure your front door opens fully and is not obstructed by anything behind it. The hindrance in opening fully obstructs the _qi_ flow and it can chronically provoke a reaction of annoyance and irritation by those who open the door, expecting it to yield fully. \"When doors are allowed to open fully, the people walking through them can open fully to promising opportunities, resources, and circumstances in their lives.\"\n  * Another typical and undesirable feature at the entrance is constriction, such as if there is a wall close to the entrance on the inside. \"If upon entering you come to a wall close to the entrance, then this would be said to limit your opportunities in life,\" says Bartlett. It inhibits _qi_ and, according to traditional feng shui thinking, it guarantees you a life of struggle, if not failure within three years.\n\nIf this is the case in your home, place a mirror (not a feng shui mirror but a conventional larger reflecting mirror) on the wall to face the door, \"thereby expanding the reflected image so that the wall feels more expansive.\" Alternatively, you can hang a picture or photograph of an outdoor scene, \"featuring a stream flowing down through a valley, thereby allowing your sensitivities to go beyond the wall in front of you,\" says Bartlett.\n\n  * If you live near a place of excellent _qi_ , such as by the ocean, a park, a river, lake, mountain view, or other natural setting of high quality _qi_ , there is a simple way to invite this _qi_ to flow into your home. Place a feng shui mirror outside your front door (or the door or window facing the auspicious scene) in such a way that it reflects the scenic environment into your house. You should be able to see the scene reflected in the outside mirror as you stand at your front door (or window).\n  * If the immediate space inside your front door is dark or constrained, this oppresses the mouth of _qi_ and \"chokes\" the occupants' good luck. Or if the entrance is a narrow hallway, this can generate health problems such as respiratory problems and difficult births; further, the psychological impact of such a darkened entryway is depressing and can lead to melancholy moods. The feng shui \"cure\" is to install a very bright ceiling light (at least 100 watts) and a mirror on the opposite wall; both will invigorate the _qi_ and create a sense of depth.\n  * Feng shui offers other practical low-cost devices either to ward off harmful _qi_ or to maximize inflowing positive _qi._ Wind chimes, hung under eaves, can temper and redirect malignant energy or summon positive _qi_ into a living space. Rounded prisms or small-faceted crystal balls can convert overly strong _qi_ and disperse it throughout an interior space.\n\n## HEALTHY LIVING SPACE DETOXIFIER #62: Setting Up a Feng Shui-Friendly Bedroom\n\nPossibly of equal importance to your home's mouth of _qi_ is the disposition of your bedroom, where you spend up to one-third of your life. There are many key factors to consider in applying feng shui to your bedroom, including the following recommendations about bed placement:\n\n  * Do not situate your bed such that your feet, as you lie in bed, face the bedroom door. In classical Chinese thinking, this is the \"death position.\" In old China, corpses were laid out with their feet pointing towards the door to facilitate their passage into the next world. _Do_ situate your bed so that the bed faces the door but displaced to the side. In other words, your feet face the same wall that contains the door, yet none of the bed directly faces the door opening. Remember, that on a smaller scale, the door into your bedroom is the mouth of _qi_ for that room and its function, so the same principles apply here as they do for your home's main front door.\n  * Put the bed against a solid wall if possible, but not a window because your _qi_ can escape through the window while you sleep, leaving you depleted in the morning.\n  * Regarding bed placement, the important principle is to have the correct relationship with your bedroom's mouth of _qi_ , explains Bartlett. Ideally, you want to be in a \"commanding position,\" he says, so that \"when you're lying in bed on your back, you can clearly see the doorway to the bedroom. This gives you a feeling of being in control, of having power over your environment.\" If anything enters the bedroom, you will see it as it enters and not be taken by surprise by its unannounced entry. \"On a subconscious level, if you are not able to see the bedroom's doorway at night when you sleep, this might create a feeling of uncertainty and insecurity.\"\n\nOne long-term consequence of having your bed positioned wrongly with respect to the bedroom's mouth of _qi_ is that \"your opportunities in life might be limited,\" says Bartlett. \"You might find that you're not easily manifesting and creating things that you want and need.\" Bartlett cites an example from his case records.\n\n**_One long-term consequence of having your bed positioned wrongly with respect to the bedroom's mouth of qi is that \"your opportunities in life might be limited,\" says Bartlett, \"You might find that you're not easily manifesting and creating things that you want and need.\"_**\n\nHe consulted with a woman who lived in an apartment; she told Bartlett she felt stifled in her career and wanted to establish a relationship with someone. \"Her bed was placed in such a way that it was not in the commanding position, yet when I explained this to her, she was resistant to changing it.\" She told Bartlett she felt comfortable being \"tucked away\" into the room's corner; he countered by suggesting that it was perhaps \"part of her subconscious need to protect herself.\" He encouraged her to try moving the bed as an experiment, to see how she felt under the new conditions. \"She did this, then all those difficult aspects immediately changed in her life.\"\n\n  * Do not place your bed under an exposed beam or low slanted ceiling. \"These angular protrusions are carriers of sha [negative _qi_ ] and can cause headaches, confused thinking, and even financial and career problems.\" An exposed beam that runs the length of the room, bisecting the bed from above, can provoke marital discord, literally by placing an energy barrier between the partners. Beams that cross the bed horizontally can generate aches, pains, even diseases in the body regions under the crossing influence, such as a beam across the abdomen leading to digestive disorders.\n  * Do not place mirrors facing the bed. If you wake in the middle of the night and see your reflection, it can be very unsettling, even shocking.\n  * Generally, it is not advisable to place electronic equipment in the bedroom, such as computers, televisions, fax machines, or radios. These generate a constant electromagnetic field, which can negatively affect you while sleeping, and they can confuse the function of the bedroom (rest and regeneration) with profession and career (such as using the computer for writing, bookkeeping, or Internet research). They serve as continual reminders of work obligations, and this is contrary to the state of mind that induces relaxation and rest.\n  * There are two ways to minimize or eliminate the effect of electromagnetic fields upon you as you sleep at night, says Bartlett. First, if your head is near an electrical outlet (not desirable but often unavoidable), you can install a switch in the circuit box that shuts off all electrical power to the bedroom at night. Second, you can place a flat spiral dielectric resonator under your bed. \"This device balances the energetic field under a bed and will neutralize most noxious zones. Aside from improved sleep, many people report they suddenly feel more comfortable.\"\n  * Don't use the bedroom as a storage facility. Piles of materials, such as books, clothes, boxes, or other objects in corners of the room or under the bed lead to areas of stagnant, nonflowing _qi_ , and these conditions will eventually have a negative impact on the health of the room's occupants. These piles can also produce jumpiness and disturb one's sleep.\n  * Don't situate the head of your bed against a wall that abuts the bathroom. Feng shui consultant Angel Thompson relates a case in which a woman consulted her for relationship help, reporting that her affairs were constantly falling apart and \"going down the toilet.\" Thompson found that the head of the woman's bed was against the same wall that abutted the toilet. So symbolically and energetically, her relationship\/marriage section of the _Ba-Gua_ was in the toilet space, which flushed away all the marriage _qi_ generated or cultivated in the bedroom.\n\nThompson recommended moving the bed to another wall; this apparently worked as, soon after, the woman got married. If you can't move your bed, place a mirror in the bathroom on the wall opposite the toilet to deflect the toilet energy from entering the bedroom, Thompson suggests. Alternatively, place a mirror on the bedroom wall opposite the bed \"to symbolically move the bed to the opposite side of the room\" and away from the toilet wall.\n\n  * There are several ill-advised locations within the house for a bedroom, according to feng shui practitioners: under a toilet, a washing machine, or stove (on the next floor up); over a garage; at the end of a long corridor. The flow of _qi_ down a long corridor is too fast and strong and can attract health problems over time; it's even more harmful if your bed faces the door that opens into the corridor. The situation of a bed over a garage leads to an inability to develop foundations in your life, to the sense of rootlessness and a transitory residence in the home.\n\n## HEALTHY LIVING SPACE DETOXIFIER #63: Setting Up a Feng Shui-Friendly Bathroom\n\nFeng shui experts agree that a key principle with bathrooms is that the _qi_ must be able to flow in and out of this room without any obstruction or any place in which it can get stuck and produce stagnation. They also agree that feng shui imbalances in this section of the house can produce health problems, as this case study from the practice files of Terah Kathryn Collins vividly shows.\n\nCollins was called in to consult with a woman who had moved into a new house only nine months previously. During that short stay, she had sustained an inexplicable sudden bout of clumsiness and three falling injuries. She had tripped or fallen as many times in nine months as she had in her entire life of forty-five years, so she suspected something in her environment might be stimulating this. Collins determined that while most of the woman's house was in good feng shui balance, there was a significant problem with the bathroom. For one thing, it was in the wrong place\u2014that is, the home's sole toilet was situated between two bedrooms, both of which opened into it with their doors in direct opposition to each other.\n\nThis configuration speeded up the flow of _qi_ as it passed through the bathroom and into the bedrooms, especially as their doors were usually left open, says Collins. \"Living with the rushing Ch'i can cause you to move too quickly,\" she told the homeowner, who admitted that in the three falling incidents, in which she was injured, she was \"rushing to do something.\" In other words, her own actions were influenced by the imbalanced flow of _qi._ it rushed through, and so did she, except she got off balance each time and fell.\n\nOnce Collins had identified the source of the problem, she was able to apply effective feng shui solutions. Keep the bathroom doors closed whenever possible; keep the bathroom drains closed and the toilet lid down; hang two round faceted crystals in the bathroom, one by the window (to draw the _qi_ into the bathroom from outside), the other in the middle of the bathroom (to balance the flow from the two bedrooms when both doors were open).\n\nCollins further recommended that the woman hang in the bathroom a piece of art that to her symbolized good health, and also hang a large wardrobe mirror on the outside of the bathroom door leading into the bedroom currently being used as an office to increase productivity in that room. A few months after the changes were completed, the woman reported that ever since the changes, she had been healthy, calmer, and had not fallen or tripped.\n\nAs mentioned above, _qi_ needs to move easily and briskly in and out of the bathroom, but water is another element of crucial importance to this room. Sink, toilet, shower stall, bathtub\u2014from out of the bottom of each flows water. Feng shui experts counsel that it is vital to observe the energy symbolism here so that water does not get equated with money, and as your bathroom goes, so goes your prosperity. It is a truism\u2014yet true nonetheless\u2014that if your toilet faces your mouth of _qi_ (your home's main entrance), you run the real risk of having your good fortune (incoming _qi)_ flushing down the toilet every day. Here are some additional tips for the feng shui-friendly bathroom:\n\n  * A potted plant can encourage _qi_ to flow into the bathroom, and blue is an excellent color for the walls or fittings because this color relates to the water element, advises feng shui advisor Richard Webster.\n  * However, he counsels if your bathroom is located in the middle of your home, in the good luck area (the center of the _Ba-Gua_ octagon), this is most unfortunate because \"it will send negative ch'i throughout the house\" and your good luck down the toilet. Obviously it is not practical to rip out the toilet and move it, so Webster suggests placing _Ba-Gua_ mirrors on all four walls of the bathroom to produce the effect of making the room symbolically disappear. In a sense, its otherwise negative energy gets trapped and neutralized in an infinite hall of mirrors, and becomes incapable of escaping this energy matrix to exert an influence on the rest of your home.\n  * Webster also says it is unfortunate if your bathroom is located at the end of a long corridor, because this sends a _shar_ (poison arrow) heading directly into it, and beneficial _qi_ entering your house through its mouth of _qi_ goes down the toilet and is lost to the home's occupants. The solution is to keep the toilet lid down when not in use, to keep the bathroom door closed, and to place a mirror on the outside of the bathroom door\u2014again to make the room \"symbolically\" disappear and at least to disarm the poison arrow flying down the corridor.\n  * Another problem with the bathroom is if it is located in the wealth section of the _Ba-Gua_ , as this is likely to produce financial or abundance problems. Again, the issue is one of flushing your wealth down the toilet. If your toilet is located in this section, Australian architect, engineer, and feng shui consultant George Birdsall advises placing a crystal in the bathroom window to attract incoming _qi_ from outside, keeping the toilet lid down and the bathroom door closed, and placing a feng shui ( _Ba-Gua_ ) mirror on the outside of the bathroom door to \"seal off this room's energy from the rest of the home or business.\"\n\n### The Health Costs of Having an Energy-Imbalanced Home\n\nAt first glance, many of the feng shui observations and recommendations cited here and throughout the burgeoning literature of the ancient art of placement seem odd, perhaps ridiculous, and surely impossible according to our general sense of the way the world works. How can a toilet flush affect our well-being? But feng shui describes the world and its workings at a subtler level of operation than we are accustomed to credit it as having; it works in a sphere of influence about which we are normally oblivious. Feng shui deals with causes, and we are usually aware only of the effects, in the form of dysfunction, ill health, or misfortune.\n\nEven though it seems hard to grant that your prosperity can be symbolically flushed down the toilet if your bathroom is situated in the wrong part of your house, this eventuality has been demonstrated empirically in hundreds of documented case studies reported by feng shui practitioners. The _Ba-Gua_ is not an arbitrary or fancifully contrived scheme; it is, according to feng shui, a true-to-life model of energy relationships at any level of reality\u2014a hologram of the cosmos, if you will\u2014and especially at the level of a residence. Functions within each of its eight sections are influenced, if not directed, by that section's symbolic role within the overall energy configuration and the dynamic interplay of the five elements during the course of the year.\n\nPerhaps the best way to demonstrate this point is to relate the following remarkable case study of the terrible effect of bad feng shui arrangements in a home upon its occupants, as explained by Jenny Liu, an environmental designer and feng shui professional. Liu relates the extreme toxic effects a house had on its teenage resident and how she corrected the bad feng shui.\n\nA woman called Liu and said her teenage son was rebellious, having \"mental problems,\" and generally driving her crazy. Visiting the woman's house, Liu immediately saw that the orientation of the house itself was highly unfavorable. It was a \"backwards-sitting house,\" which means a hill rises in front of the house, and behind the home, the ground slopes downward. For well-being, the arrangement should be the opposite, Liu says. The hill before the house blocks the inflow of good energy into the house, while the incline out back allows energy to drain away from the house.\n\nThere were other more arcane aspects to the home's orientation\u2014its orientation and energy style were contrary to that of its occupants\u2014that ensured that the home itself would produce internal trouble for its occupants, especially any males living within it. It would weaken their health (producing head colds and respiratory problems) and generate unstable relationships. Inspecting the interior of the home, Liu found that a fireplace directly faced the main entrance (mouth of _qi)._ \"Having a major circulation path where people are constantly coming into conflict with fire energies is a potential cause of family arguments,\" Liu told the woman, who confirmed that her family members had many disagreements.\n\nFurther, a stove and an exposed overhead beam were located in the center or \"heart\" of the home. This spelled further trouble, because the stove produced temper, while the exposed beam \"suppresses heart energies that can cause family members to feel congested and stifled.\" Both features were triggers for constant quarrels among family members. The son's bedroom door was directly in line with that of his parent's master bedroom, a configuration that set the stage for conflicts between the occupants of both rooms. Further, the two bedrooms were separated by a bathroom, which faced the _Ba-Gua_ direction associated with the liver and eldest son, in classical Chinese thinking. Functionally, this meant that the bathroom's inherently \"degrading energies\" would conflict with the son's liver energies, and make him moody and easily tired, and hinder his body's ability to detoxify itself.\n\nLiu found the bedrooms to be dark, poorly ventilated, and intensely cluttered, and the teenage son's room had numerous wall posters depicting violent images. Just to complicate matters further, the home's previous owner had died in the house and the present owner's teenage son had tried to commit suicide three times already. Liu's overall assessment was that this house was a \"container of _sha qi,\"_ or harmful, negative, health-dampening energies. Anyone living in such a house, she added, \"is bound to get very sick, have abnormal behavior, mental problems, and suffer a great deal of trouble and money loss.\" Astonishingly, the woman's family had endured this \"sick house\" for ten years, although she had tried on occasions to move; failing this, she admitted her family was \"slowly falling apart.\"\n\nLiu's main recommendation was to move out of the home immediately. It was too full of negative, stagnant energies for her family to cope any longer; already the males had succumbed to its bad influence. Liu noted that the woman's husband's aura was extremely dark and that his face showed signs of kidney exhaustion; even so, he was unaware that the house was having a bad influence on him, and he denied that there were any problems afoot inside his home at all, so he refused to move.\n\nLiu set out to purify the _sha qi_ , or negative energies. She advised the family to clean up the clutter and get rid of everything they didn't need; to cover the fireplace with a screen to hide it; to hang crystal balls and place living green plants on either side of it to neutralize the fire energy; to place a mirror behind the stove to reflect negative energies away from the home's center; and to hang a wind chime between the son's room and that of his parent's to disperse some of the conflicted energy between them. Liu further instructed the son to take down all the violent posters and put in their place images of nature and uplifting themes related to his personal goals.\n\n\"These are temporary means of ameliorating some of the negative energies, so that they may live a bit more comfortably while they search for a new home,\" observes Liu, noting that the father finally consented to move. These measures would not, she added, change the bad effects of the land and home's structural configuration, but they would help the family enhance their own positive energies so as to resist the debilitating effect of their home. These measures would help them \"break the cycle of having the house's energies constantly degenerating their well-being.\" While the combined toxic elements of this _sha qi_ house did not entirely produce all the ill-health and poor results in this family, they _amplified_ the residents' latent vulnerabilities, tendencies, and unresolved conflicts to the extent that they became almost unbearable and lethal.\n\nWith the exception of the issue of the home's orientation, most of the health-destroying toxic elements in this \"sick house\" existed inside the house. In the next chapter, we take a look outside the house to see what effect subtle exterior environmental influences and toxic agents can exert on our health.\n\n# CHAPTER 12\n\n# _Cleansing the Home's Exterior Environment: Neutralizing the Effects of Geopathic Stress_\n\nIt comes as an alarming discovery to many to learn that after having removed all the toxic elements in the home to make it a bau-biologie-friendly residence, as discussed in Chapter 10, and having arranged the home according to feng shui principles to make it a _qi_ -friendly living space, as in chapter 11, there may still be another underlying toxic element, one of equal if not greater potency to produce ill health. This one literally _underlies_ the home.\n\nThe influence is called geopathic stress, or geopathogenic stress, and refers to the ability of the Earth to produce illness or pathology. It isn't that the planet itself is inherently toxic, but that in certain places, the combination of natural and\/or humanmade elements can produce toxic effects. If your home is situated over such a confluence of potentially toxic energies, you may develop any of a wide range of illnesses and physical dysfunctions, including chronic fatigue syndrome, cancer, and multiple sclerosis. It gets worse if your bedroom, or merely your bed, sits over such an underground field of noxious influence, principally because most people spend one-third of their lives here.\n\nTypically, the term geopathic stress encompasses the health-altering effects of underground water streams (50-450 feet below the surface and 10-20 inches wide, although they can be any width), mineral and ore deposits and concentrations, caves, geological faults, underground cavities, or specially \"disturbed\" places within various energy \"grids\" purported to exist on or below the Earth's surface. It can also include human-made features such as mining installations, foundations for tall buildings, underground transport systems such as subways, sewers and drains, and public utility installations.\n\nThese various geobiological influences, according to the researchers, emit what have variously been described as \"noxious fields,\" \"earthrays,\" \"Earth radiations,\" and \"black streams\" that penetrate everything above them, destabilize the electromagnetic fields of living organisms, compromise immune function, and produce illness. The key is that various factors can distort the Earth's natural, and usually beneficial electromagnetic field (EMF); in fact, the planet's EMF is subject to natural gradients, of variations of stronger or weaker strengths. As one expert puts it, \"Geopathic stress occurs when the Earth's magnetic field is disturbed, either naturally or artificially, and the background field we normally experience is changed.\"\n\nOnce the natural radiation is disturbed, it can become harmful to biological life, including ours as humans, if we spend a lot of time over it. If you spend enough time over a geopathic stress zone (and the amount of time can vary dramatically from hours to years), some form of illness or dysfunction is likely to develop, according to the Dulwich Health clinic in London, one of England's premier geopathic stress (GS) and treatment facilities. \"By diagnosing well over 40,000 people, we have found GS in people with most types of serious and long-term illnesses.\"\n\nThe effect is especially enhanced if we sleep over it, because while relaxed, the body is more susceptible to the harmful influences, and the brain and nervous system must spend some of their energy dealing with the noxious influence instead of resting. Normally during sleep the brain accomplishes the body's \"housekeeping,\" creating some eighty percent of required new cells and directing the body to absorb nutrients and adjust its hormone levels. \"GS will interfere with this process and leave your immune system weak. Geopathic stress does not cause any illness, but lowers your immune system and your ability to fight off viruses and bacteria.\" Dulwich Health emphasizes that usually all these body functions return to normal once GS is removed from the environment and its effects cleansed from the body.\n\nPut more technically, advocates of the discipline of geo-pathic stress explain that harmful Earth energies, in the form of ionizing and nonionizing electromagnetic radiation that emanates naturally from the planet's \"geophysiology,\" rise upwards to the surface of the planet and can negatively affect all life living over and in its influence. Fortunately, geopathic stress, once detected, can be minimized, reversed, or eliminated according to a variety of simple but effective techniques.\n\n### _Disease Can Be a Problem of Location_\n\nKnowledge of geopathic stress emerged in Germany in the early days of the twentieth century when a researcher named Baron Gustav Freiherr von Pohl discovered a link between cancer clusters and the patients' homes. In 1929, working in Vilsbiburg, Germany, a village of 3,300 people and 565 houses, von Pohl correlated the addresses and sleeping locations of 54 people who had died of cancer with the existence of noxious underground water streams that passed beneath the homes or bedrooms of the cancer victims.\n\nVon Pohl was acting on a hunch inspired by the earlier Winzer-Melzer survey of Stuttgart in the 1920s, which had determined that major geological faults in that city traversed the districts that had the highest cancer mortality rates. The tentative conclusion was that an unknown but noxious radiation emanating from the earth faults might be an important and overlooked contributory cause of the cancers.\n\nThrough dowsing, von Pohl located all the major subterranean water veins (lying at a depth of forty-four to fifty meters with a width of three to four meters) under Vilsbiburg, then mapped their courses on the city street plan. Next he crosschecked this with the residences of the fifty-four recent cancer fatalities and arrived at a startling conclusion. \"The completed check of my map confirmed all the beds of the 54 cancer deaths were where I had drawn the radiation currents,\" von Pohl wrote in 1932 in his now classic _Earth Currents: Causative Factor of Cancer and Other Diseases._\n\nVon Pohl concluded that those who died from cancer had \"slept in a strongly ray-infected place\" at the time of their diagnosis. In fact, he declared: \"All diseases of human beings, animals, trees and plants are actually caused by earth currents; the currents weaken the organism and make it more vulnerable to disease.\" Von Pohl was confident about his discoveries but tended to take a conservative stance regarding developing a hypothetical model. \"My observations set down in this book about negative electrical earth currents are in the main virgin territory for medical science. We not only hope but expect that more doctors will research and advance this new knowledge for the benefit of mankind.\"\n\nEighteen months later, von Pohl returned to Vilsbiburg and found that the beds of another ten cancer mortalities were situated directly over the intersection of underground streams. Following von Pohl's indications, another researcher named Dr. Hager investigated the residences of 5,348 people who had died of cancer over a 21-year span in the town of Stettin; he found that in all cases \"strong earth rays\" and a subterranean water vein had intersected underneath their homes. \"Medical science has now a preventative measure which did not exist previously,\" noted von Pohl. \"If one makes sure one's bed does not stand above a strong underground current and one tries not to work above these underground currents, one should not get cancer.\"\n\nThere are very few people whose constitution is robust enough to permit sleeping \"in a bed full of radiation\" without some form of adverse health effect, von Pohl added. In fact, von Pohl documented the direct relationship between sleeping in a bed situated over Earth currents and numerous health complaints: nervous itching, insomnia, abdominal pains, asthma, shivers, headaches, migraine, gallbladder dysfunction, rheumatism, heart spasms, tuberculosis, heavy menstruation, thrombosis, mental illness, and epilepsy, among others. Not only did von Pohl describe the correlations between bed location and noxious underground emissions, he demonstrated the curative benefit of simply moving the bed to avoid the geopathogenic zones. He thereby produced remarkable reversals in numerous immedicable health conditions.\n\nVon Pohl had determined the existence of the underground streams using the services of professional dowsers, which to most scientists was not a \"legitimate\" methodology. In 1960, another German researcher named Jacob Stangle replicated von Pohl's research using sophisticated geomagnetometers and confirmed von Pohl's 1929 findings. Since von Pohl's day, a host of researchers from Germany and other countries have confirmed and considerably extended his model of \"cancer houses\" and \"cancer beds.\"\n\nFor example, in the 1930s, Swiss researcher Dr. S. Jenny studied the effects of geobiological faults and subterranean water streams on the health of laboratory mice. He documented these geopathic effects on 25,000 mice over a period of twelve years of study. Dr. Jenny found that when the cage of the mice was placed over a disturbance in the geomagnetic field, the mice grew agitated, gnawed their own tails, and sometimes ate their offspring; they also often developed cancer. When they were moved to a neutral zone, free of geopathic stress, the mice settled down. Given the choice, the mice chose to stay over the neutral (healthy) zone rather than over the geopathically stressed one. Not long after, Professor K.E. Lotz of the School of Architecture of Biberach, Germany, analyzed 400 cancer deaths and found that 383 were related to beds situated over geological faults, underground water veins, or disturbances in the natural geomagnetic field.\n\n**_Austrian researchers found that when a person was exposed to the noxious energy emissions of the Earth there were measurable changes in a majority of the twenty-three biochemical factors considered, such as the blood values of serotonin and melatonin as welt as levels of important minerals such as zinc and calcium._**\n\nIn 1989, Austrian researchers finished a twenty-four-month study on the short-term effects of geopatho-genic sites on human health. Researchers led by Otto Bergsmann, M.D., a specialist in internal medicine at the University of Vienna in Austria, tested 985 sites with 462,421 different measurements included within 6,943 individual tests. They found that when a person was exposed to the noxious energy emissions of the Earth there were measurable changes in a majority of the twenty-three biochemical factors considered, such as the blood values of serotonin (an important brain chemical, or neurotransmitter) and melatonin (the sleep-regulating hormone) as well as levels of important minerals such as zinc and calcium. \"There were many other altered states to biological functions noted as a result of short-term exposure to these forces.\"\n\nHans Nieper, M.D., another noted German researcher and former director of the Paracelsus Silbersee Hospital in Hannover, Germany, concluded on the basis of his clinical observations that seventy-five percent of his multiple sclerosis patients spent too much time over a geopathogenic zone. He found similar correlations for cancer, reporting that ninety-three percent of people with malignancies acquired them as a result of residing over \"a crossing in a geopathogenic zone.\"\n\nDr. Nieper explained that the geopathogenic zone did not necessary produce the cancer all by itself, but the incidence of cancer cases is certainly higher in correlation with such zones than otherwise, and the effect of living or sleeping over these noxious zones \"increases the risk of gene lability,\" which becomes a biochemical foundation for the emergence of cancer. Dr. Nieper characterized the \"geopathically stressed zone\" as \"the ultimate push button\" that makes the cancer happen. Like von Pohl, Dr. Nieper strongly advised those suffering from the ill effects of geopathically stressed areas to remove themselves from the site of geopathogenic exposure.\n\n## _HEALTHY LIVING SPACE DETOXIFIER #64: When Nothing Else Heals, Try Moving Your Bed_\n\nDespite the complexity of the geopathic stress theory and its dismaying illumination of another toxic environmental energy, often the solution is radically simple. Move your bed, even a few feet, and you may get well. While the subject of geopathic stress and geopathogenic zones is still practically an unknown medical category in North America, in Europe, especially Germany and England, it has been recognized to a far greater extent by physicians as a factor in illness and its reversal. In fact, some physicians now state that as a rule of thumb if a patient fails to respond to the indicated therapies (either conventional or alternative), it is possible that a geopathogenic influence exists in their living space.\n\nIn an influential article in the British _Journal of Alternative and Complementary Medicine_ , physician Anthony Scott-Morley of the Institute of Bioenergetic Medicine looked at how geopathic stress might block natural therapeutics. He proposed that habitual exposure to \"geopathic disturbance\" produced by \"localized variations in the geomagnetic flux of the earth\" might be a basic reason why natural therapies like acupuncture and homeopathy fail to provide a definitive cure in some patients. He reasoned there must be other mitigating factors that compromised what was otherwise \"excellent and appropriate therapy.\"\n\nScott-Morley reported that according to \"experienced practitioners who are aware of these stresses,\" thirty percent to fifty percent of chronically sick patients exhibit some degree of geo-pathic stress. \"A geopathic stress may be defined,\" wrote Scott-Morley, \"as a geomagnetic disturbance which is geographically localized and which disrupts the homeostatic mechanisms of the sensitive patient. It does seem that geopathic stresses energetically weaken the body so that the patient may be more prone to disease-forming processes.\" A more recent study concluded that geopathic stress can undermine \"both the body's subtle energy system (the etheric body, chakras, and meridians), and the body's electrical system (brain, heart, and muscles), thus delaying healing and recovery.\"\n\nVon Pohl produced stunning turnabouts in clinical conditions merely by moving the patient's bed out of a dowsed geopathogenic zone in the bedroom. Since his time, other practitioners have applied his insight and helped many suffering individuals reverse their otherwise intractable health conditions. Notable among these practitioners has been Kathe Bachler, an Austrian dowser who investigated over 3,000 homes and 12,000 cases of geopathic stress among individuals in fifteen countries. Bachler concluded that toxic underground energy emissions\u2014she called them \"noxious Earth energies\"\u2014represent a major contributing factor in the emergence of many health problems.\n\n\" _All_ serious illnesses I have found up to now occur above interference crossings: twitching, tinnitus, facial paralysis, angina, asthma, heart attacks, strokes, inflammation of the kidneys, cancer (in more than 700 cases without exception). Doctors say that our immune system is weakened by constant radiation so that, depending on one's constitution and the prevalent influences, different diseases can develop.\" Bachler specialized in correlating poor school performance in children and children's health problems with geopathogenic zones or what she refers to as \"interference zones.\" Below is a sampling of her empirical field results.\n\n  * A young mother had two boys with serious behavior problems. Every night, one of the boys, depending on which bed he was sleeping in, would toss and turn, and throw his arms about as if he were having a fit. Bachler found he was sleeping over an interference zone that got activated every night when the boiler on the other side of the bedroom wall was turned on. She moved both beds and the children slept soundly thereafter.\n  * A boy was a chronic bed-wetter and, after seven years, no physician could provide an answer to the embarrassing problem. Undersized for his age, nervous, and irritable in the morning, he was sleeping on a crossing of two interference zones. \"With other bed-wetters\u2014all of whom lie on interference zones\u2014a cure can often be immediate and often achieved simply by moving the bed at random,\" says Bachler.\n  * Poor school performance is often linked with \"geobiological influences.\" Bachler found that students who were always tired, were the slowest in doing school work, had the greatest difficulty in concentrating, were the most forgetful or the worst behaved, or were frequently ill \"were all victims of interference zone crossings.\"\n  * A twelve-year-old girl developed a severe backache during a gym class, and the pain did not go away afterwards. She was confined to her bed for eight weeks with cramp-like pain, but no physical cause could be identified for her discomfort. Bachler found she was sleeping over an interference zone. The girl's bed was moved immediately and in a few weeks the mother reported her daughter's back problem had healed.\n\nIn the cases above, and in the thousands of others treated by Bachler, moving the bed of the one who was ill reversed the health problem, usually in a dramatically brief period. In every house, even in every room in a house, \"there are also good places where we all have the chance of becoming healthier in body, mind, and spirit,\" she concluded.\n\nDuring the last three decades of the twentieth century, as the concept of geopathic stress gained currency in the progressive flanks of American research and alternative medicine, dowsers independently verified and extended the original findings. For example, Vermont dowser Herbert Douglas stated that based on ten years of research and investigation of sixty cases of arthritis, twenty of cancer, and nine of cataracts, in every case, intersecting lines of energy passed under the bedroom in direct relation to the affected part of the body.\n\nIn almost all the cancer cases, Douglas found \"a network of water veins creating anywhere from thirty to fifty crossings.\" In some cases, clefts or breaks in a subterranean rocky ledge underneath the ground (but directly underneath the bed) created the harmful energy emissions, he said. Douglas said the easiest way to visualize this hidden but measurable effect was to lay a series of wooden laths across the patient's bed, to correspond with the dowsed underground energy lines. With actual clients, Douglas laid the laths on the bed, according to his dowsing indications, then had the patient assume their customary sleeping position on top of them. \"Repeatedly, the crossing of the laths indicates precisely where the person is afflicted,\" states Douglas.\n\nFrench research in the 1940s demonstrated the connection between subterranean energy emissions (ionizing radiation) and the incidence of cancer. Pierre Cody made a seven-year study in the French city of Le Havre using an electrometer to measure air ion concentrations at various locations in the cellars underlying 7,000 \"cancer beds\" in the homes of people who had died of cancer. Cody discovered that the air ion concentrations were ten times higher when measured on the spot in the cellar directly under the bed than at spots even a few feet away; he further found that the typical width of the band of toxic radiation was about four and one-half feet. His study also showed that the radiation was capable of rising vertically, up from within the ground and through the patient's bed, without spreading out horizontally.\n\nBritish dowser and geopathic stress investigator Alf Riggs also built an impressive empirical base for his conclusions about geopathogenic zones. He studied the energy emissions in 14,000 homes in fifteen countries for correlations between noxious underground radiation and illness. Among the health problems, he studied 2,200 cases of chronic fatigue syndrome (myalgic encephalomyelitis, as the British call it) and found that one of the two major causes of chronic fatigue is exposure to specific types of Earth radiation, the other being energy depletion due to viruses.\n\n\"As a result of these observations, I contend that chronic fatigue syndrome is initially a bioelectric problem,\" says Riggs. This illness often results \"from an imbalance in the value of bioelectric fields at cell level caused by the invasion of specific electromagnetic fields\" from the outside edges of the underground water stream. Riggs further concludes that disease is, in fair measure, \"a problem of location, with the fields generated from Earth and manmade sources having the ability to invade the cell, altering the values of the bioelectric systems within.\"\n\nAs a subterranean water stream flows under a house (or simply under the Earth's surface), it interacts with the geological strata present and creates a positive electrical field, more specifically, a direct-current-generated magnetic field, Riggs explains. Small bands of energy appear on both outside edges of the flowing water and radiate upwards. According to Riggs, most of the biological damage caused by geopathogenic zones produced by underground water is due to these two outside bands. Riggs estimates it is the chief factor in seventy-two percent of cases.\n\nHe reports that after moving a patient's bed into a neutral zone in the bedroom, \"away from the harmful Earth rays and manmade radiation,\" chronic fatigue patients \"often enjoy a measurable improvement,\" although they do not always have a full recovery from this intervention alone. Usually what completes the recovery is some form of energy therapy or \"bioelectric treatment\" by a skilled practitioner. This combination of approaches has resulted in significant improvement in over eighty percent of the cases Riggs has overseen, including many long-term cases involving severe disabilities.\n\nRiggs further explains that these frequencies have deleterious effects on women by interfering with their estrogen cycle. Riggs investigated 1,600 cases of energy depletion, and found that young girls can sleep in beds positioned over the outside edge lines of underground streams for years without being noticeably affected until they reach puberty, when without exception they develop chronic fatigue. Boys may sleep on such noxious lines without ill effect, but adolescent girls always suffer far worse because of the negative interaction between the emitted electromagnetic fields and estrogen, says Riggs.\n\nNot only can the position of the bed be a negative health factor when it sits over a geopathogenic zone, but sometimes the composition of the bed itself can relay the noxious energies to the sleeper, says Riggs. In one case, he found that the geomagnetic field under and around a single bed was within normal range (that is, the bed lay over a zone, but the zone exerted only a minor influence), but the mattress springs and the metal in the headboard increased the field by ninety percent, rendering it toxic to the person in the bed.\n\nThis person had been ill for six years with a variety of problems including chronic fatigue, depression, mental confusion, and candidiasis (systemic yeast infection). The occupant's health problems had begun right after she had bought the bed six years before. Riggs recommended getting rid of this bed, and using instead one made entirely of wood with a nonspring mattress; the bed was also moved elsewhere in the bedroom to a neutral zone. Once she made these changes, the woman's health started to return, even though she had received no therapeutic benefit from years of consulting a list of qualified health practitioners.\n\n## _HEALTHY LIVING SPACE DETOXIFIER #65: Scan Your Home and Environment for Signs of Geopathic Stress_\n\nThe evidence continues to mount linking bed location and noxious underground emissions with health problems. But how can you tell if your bedroom, or the location of your bed, is making you sick because it sits over a geopathogenic zone? British natural health practitioner and geopathic stress educator Jane Thurnell-Read offers the following \"do-it-yourself' indicators:\n\n  * Look for places of persistent dampness in your house. Even though physical factors such as poor ventilation may seem to be the cause, the reason the damp flourishes may be due to an unsuspected geopathic zone.\n  * Often your pulse rate (measured at the wrist) rises significantly when you spend time in the influence of a geopathic zone.\n  * Bees, ants, and cats flourish over geopathic energy zones that are harmful to humans. If you have these animals in your environment, study their behavior; wherever they congregate, you should not. Thurnell-Read notes a curious correspondence between high levels of geopathic stress and homes that have cats that were once strays. She adds that in many cases the homeowners had discouraged the strays from staying, but they had remained nonetheless, probably because of a preference for the noxious (to humans) geopathic zones. Further, look for where your cat sleeps; some cats often choose drafty, unpleasant (to humans) areas, preferences that might indicate the presence of harmful Earth energies.\n  * Most trees will tend to lean away from negative Earth energies, with the exception of oaks, ash, willows, elder, and elm, which like geopathogenic zones. If you can discern this botanical behavior on your property, see if the tree leaning fits a generic pattern of distortion and if this pattern can be traceable or definable to a particular area of ground, such as the ground under which a water vein might pass. Also look for cancerous-like growths on apple trees, abnormal sap increase in cherry trees, and plum and pear trees that rot or wither. These phenomena indicate geopathic stress, says Thurnell-Read.\n  * Other techniques may be used, but they require a little advanced training or, in some cases, a little enhanced sensitivity. You can dowse your environment, using rods or a pendulum, asking the device to indicate a \"yes\" or \"no\" answer to designate the presence or absence of geopathic stress. You can use muscle testing or kinesiology to measure your body's response (or that of someone else) to different energies and locations in your environment; here, typically, a muscle goes weak when the body is in contact with something unbeneficial to it.\n\nAnother way to determine if your house sits over a geopathogenic zone is to fill out the following questionnaire (see figure 12-1), developed by professional dowsers and geopathic stress educators Tom Passey and Robert D. Egby. These are some indicators of probable geopathogenic zones in your bedroom.\n\nIf you answer yes to at least one third of these, it is worth considering calling in an expert to investigate your house for possible geopathogenic zones. It certainly can't hurt things to move your bed provisionally to a different spot in your bedroom and observe the results in your health and well-being over the next two weeks.\n\n**Figure 12-1. 13 Telltale Signs that You're Probably Living in a Geopathic Zone**\n\nAnother approach is to get a geopathic survey performed on your house. One organization that provides this service is the Geo Group, based in Medina, Washington. \"A geopathic ( _geo_ -Earth, _pathic_ -disease) survey determines if there are Earth energies . . . under a home or office and if they are neutral or negative (polluted or potentially harmful),\" the organization explains. All the Geo Group requires from a homeowner in order to prepare a geopathic survey is a map of the home, its interior layout and how it sits on its property; the location and types of furniture in each room; a listing of known problems or unusual conditions; and the names of the people living in the home.\n\nBased on twenty years experience, the Geo Group's founder Chuck Pettis recommends a geopathic survey if someone in your family is hyperactive, cranky, or moody for no discernible reason; a place in your home doesn't feel right, or feels scary or evil; you feel energy is being drained from you or pulled out of you; you feel someone or something is watching you; you feel unproductive; there is someone in the house with a history of illness or a disease that doesn't improve; there is a feeling of unease; strange things happen in your home.\n\nThe Geo Group notes that while geopathogenic zones can produce these effects, the effects can be exacerbated or complemented by the presence of \"human entities (ghosts) and nonhuman entities (invisible malevolent beings).\" (See Chapter 9.)\n\nPettis, an expert in creating \"sacred space,\" comments: \"Entities tend to take up residence around water lines or springs. They seem to be attracted to the field that the moving water gives off.\" Although he does not mention this, it is logical to presume that if you have, without knowing it, unwholesome energies or beings in your aura, by a kind of negative resonance this in itself can attract you to live in an environment that has corresponding geopathogenic energies.\n\nThat there is a kind of feedback loop or field of resonant attraction between your energy field, entities, and sites of geo-pathic stress is confirmed by Australian psychic practitioner, Samuel Sagan, M.D., whose views on auric pollution we visited in Chapter 9. Living in a house full of noxious lines, also called earth ray lines or black streams, \"often leads to catching multiple perverse energies and, possibly, entities,\" he says. (Perverse energies are not entities as such, but discordant nonsentient energy fields.) Dr. Sagan notes that if you meditate for long periods over noxious lines you may \"catch\" an entity; similarly, sleeping or meditating above a sewage pipe, a tank of stagnant water, or an underground creek can lead to entity attachment. Any mass of stagnant water, including a water bed, \"can attract several 'unattached' entities.\"\n\nFurther, it is prudent to be aware, to whatever degree possible, of the potential presence of \"spirits of the place\" or nature spirits at your living location, advises Dr. Sagan. He notes that the Australian city of Sydney has many sacred sites with heightened \"land energies.\" Some of these sites are uplifting and beneficial to humans, but others are not, and are \"completely incompatible\" with healthy human life. Some buildings have been unadvisedly constructed at such heightened land energy sites, Dr. Sagan comments. He says \"unadvisedly\" because they are sites where no human dwelling should ever be situated. Such places \"will attract fragments [perverse energies] like sticky paper attracting flies.\" Architects usually design homes on paper only and are \"completely insensitive\" to land energies; if they unknowingly pick the wrong place, it is a losing proposition. Remove one entity, and ten more will come back within the week, says Dr. Sagan.\n\nHe has witnessed homes where the residents and their animal pets were constantly attacked by entities and perverse energies, and where the \"spirits of the place were constantly waging war on them.\" The residents became depressed, mentally disturbed, even severely ill as a result. In such cases, it is better to move than to try to combat or remove the spirits of the land. Lest this seem too fantastic a scenario, one needs only remember the plot line of Steven Spielberg's film _Poltergeist_ (1982), in which the troubled spirits of Native Americans made the life of a California family unbearable because their home, while being constructed, had disturbed an ancient burial ground. Of course, nobody removed the spirits; rather they removed the house by imploding it.\n\n  **_The Healthy Living Space_ Info Tip**\n\nFor information about a geopathic survey of your home, contact:\n\nThe Geo Group,\n\nP.O. Box 602,\n\nMedina, WA 98039;\n\nwebsite: www.geo.org\/dowsel.htm;\n\ne-mail: chuckp@geo.org.\n\nAlso:\n\nFor information about dowsing, including books, practitioner referrals, educational conferences and publications, contact: The American Society of Dowsers,\n\nP.O. Box 24,\n\nDanville, VT 05828;\n\ntel: 800-711-9530 or 802-684-3417;\n\ne-mail: ASD@Dowsers.org;\n\nwebsite: www.dowsers.org.\n\nThis is why Dr. Sagan, like other experts in geopathology, recommends that before moving into a house, you have the house and its surrounding land dowsed for negative energies. If there are traces of previous residents or lingering \"ghosts\" in the land, in many cases these can be removed, if done expertly. In ancient Indian culture, for example, recognition of this was commonplace. When a person moved into a new dwelling, the local priests would perform a _yajna_ , or fire ceremony, including a _bhuta-shuddhi_ , or entity-clearing and purification ritual, to cleanse the energy field of the home and its surroundings, making it fit for human habitation. Something in the spirit of this approach is still recommended today by geopathic practitioners.\n\n### _The Healthy Living Space Expert Interview: Patrick MacManaway, M.D., Ch.B., Geomancer_\n\nScottish-born physician Patrick MacManaway has made a career out of treating sick homes, a discipline he dubs \"whole Earth geomancy.\" With offices both in Shelburne, Vermont, and Strathmiglo, Scotland, Dr. MacManaway operates on the principle that ill effects in a building's residents may be (and often are) traceable to harmful energies emanating from the ground over which they live or work.\n\nDr. MacManaway goes to homes and figures out the sources of geopathic stress that hinder the residents' health. He does this through a process he calls \"therapeutic dowsing,\" which is dowsing with a medical focus; once he has identified the problem\u2014geopathic zone, underground water, radioactive fields, disturbed energy flows, \"lines of various Earth grids or traumatized psychic energies\"\u2014he uses a variety of techniques to neutralize the ill effects.\n\nFor him, geopathic stress denotes a place where the energy relationship between people and environment has become toxic. \"Often there is a great deal of associated emotional trauma and dissonance held in the energy field, with or without the presence of disturbed and disoriented spirits. Geopathic stress may be first experienced as a disturbed, heavy, cold or unfriendly atmosphere in a place, and it progressively gives rise to emotional fatigue and a sense of being overwhelmed, difficulty in human communication and relationship, and it leads to depleted physical health. This energetic soup of trauma and dissonance can be very disturbing to attune to, and I typically know how bad the problems are by how tightly I feel myself contract and tighten as I arrive on the site. The tension that develops in my body, most noticeable in and around my gut and abdomen, gives me a feel for how the people resident in that building feel most of the time.\"\n\nHe defines whole Earth geomancy as \"a holistic environmental health service that is committed to teaching and providing healthy solutions for homes, work environments, and landscapes.\" But what is geomancy? It is a science barely known in North America, but one that is widely employed by practitioners in the British Isles and Northern Europe. \"Geomancy,\" says Dr. MacManaway, \"is the study of the dynamic and interwoven relationship between human consciousness and its subtle energetic matrix with the consciousness and subtle energetic matrix of the Earth.\" Both humans and planet, Dr. MacManaway explains, exist in a perpetual \"dynamic interdependent relationship,\" and geomancy is the discipline that both explains and rebalances this relationship.\n\nOne's ties, both emotional and energetic, to one's house are often more profound than people think, says Dr. MacManaway. \"The human relationship with a place is the primary relationship a human being has. Stress questionnaires have shown that the most stressful thing you can do to yourself is to move; this is an even stronger influence than changing your job, which is second, and getting married, which is third. I think this speaks to the primacy of the relationship between a person and place. Almost in the same way as coming into mood with a piece of music played in the background, humans tend to be primarily reactive to the subtle energetic environment they find themselves in.\"\n\nThe trouble is that our system may be \"reactive\" to an environment, but we are not necessarily aware of it. Most of the time the effect is \"off our radar screens,\" says Dr. MacManaway. The body recognizes the influence\u2014geopathic stress\u2014but the mind doesn't know how to interpret it, so in a sense, it minimizes or even ignores it. \"How rare this is, and how little we notice\u2014so much of our time we are in landscapes of place and of people that are woven with pain and fear, anxiety and hurt. We may notice the initial contraction, but once pulled in to ourselves, we no longer notice how small we have become. We have simply adapted to our environment, and in our adaptation, defined limits to our energetic and emotional availability. We've been taught to disbelieve our imagination, so the place from which we get this level of geomantic information is locked away for many people.\"\n\n**_\"Geopathic stress may be first experienced as a disturbed, heavy, cold or unfriendly atmosphere in a place, and it progressively gives rise to emotional fatigue and a sense of being overwhelmed, difficulty in human communication and relationship, and it leads to depleted physical health,\" says (Patrick MacManaway, M.D)._**\n\nLocked for many, but fortunately not for Dr. MacManaway. In his process of therapeutic dowsing, he scans a residence or its surroundings for evidence of geopathic stress. \"The first layer I scan for is the basic nature and health of the Earth's energies themselves, including water veins and any other detectable lines or pockets of energies. The next layer I look for is the accumulated psychoemotional residue that 'floats' in that first energy layer.\" This residue can include what feng shui characterizes as _ling_ or \"predecessor energy\" (discussed in Chapter 11), the presence of discamate spirits, the residues of human trauma, or imbalances in the subtle energies of nature, what mystics and clairvoyants call the \"elemental and devic kingdoms\"\u2014nature spirits to the rest of us. All of these factors can have a bearing on human health, and when they are disturbed, the effect can be harmful.\n\nThe most direct physiological effects come from prolonged human exposure to underground water streams or veins, says Dr. MacManaway, to which he attributes eighty percent of geo-pathic stress. \"Underground water is a passive receptive energy form; it absorbs energy into itself. It will drain psychic and emotional energy out of a living space so that a room above it may feel cold or appear darker than it actually is, measured objectively.\" It has a kind of vampiric effect, producing a sensation not unlike having a hole in your energy field, he explains.\n\n\"People residing over such a water stream will tend to get very sleepy and lethargic.\" And if it drains energy, the immune system is likely to suffer, he adds, and when that happens, any of a long list of possible health problems may develop and persist until the Earth energy cause is resolved. The data from the Bergsmann study, cited earlier in the chapter, testifies to this observation. \"That study showed shifts in plasma immunoglobulins, changes in the EKG, EEG, and quite a variety of both blood-based and electrophysiological measurements, and both specific and nonspecific measurements of immune function.\"\n\nThe biggest shift noted was in serotonin, which affects mood and the biological measuring of time (as discussed previously). \"That's one of the key factors that one sees with geopathic stress\u2014a disorientation in time sense. A body will tend to sleep heavily, sleep long, but wake unrefreshed. Many times you find gynecological dysfunction, problems with the menstrual cycle and with conception, both in animals and humans. One of my observations from working with geopathic stress is that it is quite frequent in women of menstruating age who are exposed to underground water to have menstrual irregularities for a month or so _after_ I've rectified the geopathic stress. There seems to be a resetting of the pineal measurement of time when the geopathic imbalance is resolved.\"\n\nOf special interest here, says Dr. MacManaway, is the fact that all of the physiological parameters studied by Dr. Bergsmann in relation to geopathic stress would also shift under direct electromagnetic field exposure. But this fact does not take us away from geopathogenic zones at all, because, as Dr. MacManaway explains, \"geopathic stress is related to geomagnetic anomaly (disturbances or imbalances) and to the physiological pathway for naturally occurring electromagnetic disturbance, which affects the energy of geopathic stress. EMF problems of humanmade origin go through the _same_ physiological pathway.\"\n\nNot only do they share the same pathways, but they interact; further, geopathic zones with their associated EMFs also interact with atmospheric phenomena. \"Lightning tends to strike where underground water veins cross under the Earth, particularly where you have a deeper, faster flowing vein that is crossed at a shallower level by a weaker one. All of atmospheric radiation and pollution grounds itself in a more intensely focused way over underground water veins. So if there are local EMF sources and you're on a water vein, then you are probably getting a double dose of geopathic stress.\"\n\nLet's see how these models of geomancy, therapeutic dowsing, and neutralization of geopathic stress play out in actual case histories drawn from Dr. MacManaway's files. \"The most florid and exciting stories are those involving psychic disturbance. Psychic disturbance is very depleting of the energy field and leaves people drained, lethargic, irritable, and, if sensitive, psychically manipulated and physically quite unwell. Some degree of psychic involvement is classic in chronic conditions such as chronic fatigue, although whether the energy depletion or psychic attachment comes first can be hard to sort out.\"\n\nA woman named Patty contacted Dr. MacManaway after thirteen years of \"one disaster after another,\" as she told him. She lived in a 400-year-old house on the border of Wales and England. The house sat in the \"Y\" of a lane that came down from a church at the base of a hill, which meant it was \"almost certainly\" situated on what British dowsers call a \"ley line.\" Dr. MacManaway found that behind the church and up on the hill was a big boulder\u2014a \"glacial erratic\"\u2014which marked the border between Wales and England. \"It was known locally as a magic stone, and if you went around it three times and made a wish, your wish would come true. It had also been the site of incredible atrocities.\" In the old days, anyone found on the wrong side of the border was subject to having his hands chopped off at this stone, says Dr. MacManaway.\n\nFactoring the influence of the stone and its conduit, the ley line, Dr. MacManaway concluded that \"there was significant psychic and emotional trauma here as well as a very strong energy in the house.\" Patty did not have any physical health issues, \"but her whole life was miserable.\" Lots of bad things had happened in it\u2014the list of phenomena is startling:\n\nThree businesses that Patty opened in the house failed; she was a painter, yet shortly after moving into the house, her creative energy dried up and she wasn't able to sell any of her work either. Her neighbors treated her with hostility; several parts of the house felt cold, appeared dark, and felt fearful to her. There were certain rooms she would not enter at night. The plumbing in one of the bathrooms was always breaking down. Patty said she was aware of ghosts in the house; friends and family who visited the house hated it, and all had terrible nightmares when they slept over. Her mother came to visit, got ill, and eventually died in the house; two infants almost died while staying there. Patty's neighbors redug a drain and caused very expensive flooding and water damage in her house, such that she had to wage a six-year legal battle with them for reparations.\n\n  **_The Healthy Living Space_ Info Tip**\n\nPatrick MacManaway, M.D., may be contacted at:\n\nWestbank Natural Health Centre,\n\nStrathmiglo, Fife, KY14 7QP,\n\nScotland, UK;\n\ntel. & fax: 01337-868-945.\n\nAlso at: Whole Earth Geomancy,\n\n4076 Shelburne Road, Suite 6,\n\nShelburne, VT 05482;\n\ntel. & fax: 802-985-2266;\n\ne-mail: PatchMac@aol.com;\n\nwebsite:\n\nwww.geomancy.org\/patrick\/patrserv.html.\n\nEven though she had a large garden with fruit trees, in the thirteen years she lived there, no birds ever visited the property. Dr. MacManaway found this fact alone highly suggestive of major geopathic stress, as birds do not like geopathic zones. When Patty would try to sell the property, major problems would erupt and require up to two years to set right before the house was marketable again. In fact, nobody ever made a bid on the house.\n\nIn desperation, Patty went to the magic stone, circumambulated it three times, and fervently wished to be rid of her house. Three nights later, reality obliged and her house almost burned down, generating thousands of dollars of repairs and many months' delay before the house could go back on the real estate market. All told, there were two floods and two fires.\n\nThe \"magic stone\" seemed to be the focal point for the disturbances at Patty's house, Dr. MacManaway concluded. \"It was the focal point for a lot of the psychic trauma this house contained.\" Dr. MacManaway performed what he calls \"Earth acupuncture\" around the house (described in more detail below). He burned the aromatic herb sage in the house, and daubed the interior of the home with water from a holy spring. He assembled seven other people and together they did a \"collective blessing\" on the house, ringing bells, lighting candles, offering prayers, and focusing love and attention on the situation. Basically, he was attempting to detoxify the geopathogenic zone and neutralize its harmful effect on Patty's life and fortunes.\n\nJust as a structured physical detoxification program produces a healing crisis for the body and a temporary worsening of symptoms, eventually yielding to greatly improved health and well-being, so too does a geomantic housecleaning. Patty went through a few weeks of \"very intense and unpleasant withdrawal experiences, gastric upset, heavy flu-like symptoms and emotions that were all over the place,\" says Dr. MacManaway. Why did Patty get the brunt of the geopathic detoxification?\n\nFor years, her physiology and energy body had been living within the disturbed matrix of the geopathogenic zone and its harmful radiations. \"There is a constant interchange between us and our environment with every breath, every heartbeat\u2014it's a two-way flow of energy. So whatever dissonance is present in our environment, depending on how strong a personality and constitution we have, we will react to its influence like a thermometer reacting to heat.\" In a sense, Patty's body had grown accustomed to this toxic energy milieu and to an extent reset itself to the imbalanced biological parameters. But once the geo-biological parameters were corrected and restored to normal (or at least their effects were neutralized), Patty's system was allowed to go back to normal; getting there was what caused all the detoxification reaction she experienced.\n\nDoes everyone who wants a detoxified home have to go through what Patty did? Not necessarily. \"Not everybody is equally sensitive and not everybody has been chronically exposed,\" says Dr. MacManaway. \"In extreme cases, I observe in clients two or three nights of very vivid dreaming and restless and disturbed sleep, followed by seven to ten days of detoxification symptoms typical of withdrawal from the harmful energies.\" These can include flu-like symptoms, gastrointestinal upset, excess mucus and phlegm, and \"a fragile emotional state.\"\n\nOften Dr. MacManaway uses his body's own reaction to the change in environment to give him reliable feedback that the geomantic work has been successful. \"As my work proceeds on site and the healing process goes along\u2014Earth acupuncture easing _qi_ flow and restoring vitality, psychic intervention allowing the release and easing of long-stored hurts\u2014the pain, dissonance, and trauma are gently brought to a harmony of peace and balance. A state of grace often descends upon the place. The way I generally notice that my work is taking effect is that my body starts to relax and my mood to lighten. This is for me a most interesting phenomenon, and one that is so repeatable that it has become predictable. I never know which stage in the process of healing is going to bring the energy field into peace and balance, but I know that creeping feeling of ease that accompanies it, almost like the relaxing warmth of easing into a hot bath.\"\n\nOnce her body had detoxified and adjusted to the new energy parameters of the geobiologically balanced house, things started to clear and get better for Patty. About four weeks after the geomantic work, her neighbors started treating her more cordially; she resumed painting; she sold some paintings; she received a statement of interest in the house. \"The house felt lighter and brighter,\" says Dr. MacManaway. \"Since your visit, the birds are everywhere in the front garden and back. The house is now peaceful and no longer has an icy feel to it,\" Patty told Dr. MacManaway. The flocks of finches and a fair number of robins visiting Patty's property perhaps made it a little easier to sell, which she did a few months later.\n\nDr. MacManaway relates another case in which geopathic stress produced constant migraine headaches in a resident. The client had noticed that along with the onset of his migraines, a number of newly planted shrubs and trees on his property were not thriving, and some had died. Dr. MacManaway found that \"harmful Earth rays\" crossed the client's bed. As a remedy, he placed copper rods in the ground around the house to neutralize the rays. As the client testified afterwards, \"He told me I might have some withdrawal symptoms that first night in the form of a headache, which I did, but soon I was waking up with no more migraine headaches and with much more energy.\"\n\nAnother case shows how both humans and plants can be affected by geopathogenic zones. Dr. MacManaway was called in to consult with a woman who had been diagnosed with Hodgkin's disease, a form of cancer. He found a harmful ray at chest level going across the woman's bed. She remarked that her husband suffered a chest disease. His placement on the bed corresponded to where the harmful ray crossed the bed. In the couple's garden, an apple tree that was falling over and had to be supported and two azaleas that hadn't bloomed in seven years were both situated over a harmful energy line. \"The results of Dr. MacManaway's work is the azaleas look healthier and one has flowered,\" the woman commented. \"The apple tree is firmer in the ground. My husband's health is much better and his sleep is less restless. I, too, am feeling much healthier.\"\n\nVery often fruit trees affected by geopathic stress \"pick up tremendously and put out much greater blossom and fruit after the Earth energies are 'sweetened' for them,\" says Dr. MacManaway. \"I 'rescued' one plum tree which had never had any fruit on it and heard that next season it had a bumper crop of plums.\" He also rescued a warren of commercially grown rabbits, as his next case highlights.\n\nDr. MacManaway was called in to help a rabbit breeder whose Angora rabbits were not doing well. For months, all of the rabbits bom in one hutch at the end of the barn (out of seven hutches) died soon after birth. \"Three post-mortems had been performed by the veterinarian who was unable to explain the deaths. I found a toxic line running under the hutch and balanced it with simple Earth acupuncture techniques.\" The litter of rabbits being carried by the doe in that hutch at the time of Dr. MacManaway's visit died shortly after birth, but subsequently there were no further problems or unexplained mortalities.\n\n\"Interestingly for me, this would suggest that the problems had been intra-uterine, affecting the mother rather than primarily affecting the baby rabbits. Pineal function is greatly responsible for governing the fertility and childbearing cycle, and, as discussed by Dr. Bergsmann, it can be disordered by exposure to geopathic stress.\"\n\n## _HEALTHY LIVING SPACE DETOXIFIER #66: Take Your Energy Body Out of the Curry-Hartmann Grid_\n\nThe majority of research in the field of geopathic stress for the past one hundred years has come out of Germany. An additional element was added to the theoretical model of geopatho-genic zones by the complementary work of two German researchers, Ernest Hartmann, M.D., and Manfred Curry, M.D.\n\nIn the late 1940s, Dr. Hartmann described a tightly woven checkerboard energy grid comprised of naturally occurring charged and magnetically oriented lines running North-South and East-West across the entire surface of the planet. According to Dr. Hartmann, alternate lines are positively or negatively charged, and where N-S and E-W lines meet, there can be double positive charges, double negative charges, or a mix of both charges. It is the intersections that are problematic and that figure into the expanded model of geopathic stress. \"At the more powerful crossing points of this system, there is a fifty percent increase of radioactivity,\" and the grid of Hartmann lines are distorted during earthquakes and take thirty minutes to return to normal.\n\n**_Remaining for any length of time over a Hartmann knot, either in a bed or at a desk, is considered unhealthy. The new discipline of \"geocancerology\" has demonstrated that when a bed is situated over a Hartmann knot and a subterranean water vein, the deleterious effect is amplified. \"Cells located on a geopathogenic point become tired or, contrarily, defend themselves by multiplying.\"_**\n\nAccording to one commentator, the Hartmann network \"appears as a structure of radiations rising vertically from the ground like invisible, radioactive walls\" nine inches wide. The lines are spaced about six feet, six inches (north to south) by eight feet, two inches (east to west). A crossing of the rays in this \"terrestrial grille\" is called a Hartmann knot, and here \"there is very frequently found a geopathogenic point having great importance for the health of a human being, even to the point of chronic illness.\"\n\nRemaining for any length of time over a Hartmann knot, either in a bed or at a desk, is considered unhealthy. The new discipline of \"geocancerology\" has demonstrated that when a bed is situated over a Hartmann knot and a subterranean water vein, the deleterious effect is amplified. \"Cells located on a geopathogenic point become tired or, contrarily, defend themselves by multiplying.\" The Hartmann grid \"penetrates everywhere, whether over open ground or through dwellings.\"\n\nDr. Manfred Curry, in turn, described a global gridwork of electrically charged lines, also naturally occurring, that run diagonally to the north and south poles\u2014NE-SW and SE-NW. The lines are believed to be about nine feet (three meters) apart, although the width can vary; the medically significant \"Curry crossings\" occur as double lines about forty-seven yards apart. Again, the problematic area is where the lines crisscross.\n\nDr. Curry contended that positively charged spots on his \"Curry Net\" can cause cells to proliferate, and potentially lead to cancerous growths, while the negatively charged points at the intersections can produce inflammations. So confident was he of the etiological role of his gridwork, that Dr. Curry claimed he could forecast which part of a patient's body would be the most affected by knowing where the subterranean rays crossed the bed.\n\nThe geomancer who seeks to neutralize areas of geopathic stress at a residence must take into consideration the combined effects of these two energy grids, says Dr. MacManaway. Researchers in the field of geobiology generally contend that in some way the CurryHartmann grid (a meshwork of intersecting lines) represents an interface between incoming cosmic rays (whose existence is well-documented and confirmed by astronomers and astrophysicists) and the Earth's various layers and types of energy (see figure 12-2).\n\n**Figure 12-2. Pictures of Hartmann Net and Curry Grid**\n\nOne theory is that the combined webwork is an \"earthing grid for cosmic rays\" subject to distortion by geological fault lines and underground mining. Another interpretation is that the Curry-Hartmann grid describes the planet's geomagnetic field with \"its active and neutral zones, the active areas being lines 21 cm wide with the neutral zone lying between the lines.\"\n\nWhatever the Curry-Hartmann energy grid proves to be, for geomancer Dr. MacManaway it has a certain experiential validity. \"Certainly a lot of dowsers, and I myself, find energy grids in the ground. My observation is that as far as geopathic stress goes, these grids tend more to be carriers of energy than causative problems. They are usually never problematical unless there is underground water present, too.\" It's like a fish net, and unless there is a fish in the net, the net itself is not a problem.\n\n\"These carrier grids definitely hold any psychoemotional residue of previous occupants of that space, so if there has been emotional trauma expressed in the landscape, it will get held in this grid which is analogous to the human nervous system.\" Dr. MacManaway notes that when there is unresolved trauma in the land, the grid lines will tend to compact and draw themselves close together, \"almost like forming a scar in the lattice work where the land has been wounded.\" When the psychoemotional tension is released at a location, the lines tend to space themselves further apart again. He also says that when working with the grids, he often observes them clearing within twenty minutes, while energy residues in the home may take up to two weeks to fully be purged.\n\nBut how do human emotional residues get into this energy grid in the first place? Dr. MacManaway explains that there is a constant transfer of subtle information between the human energy body, or aura, and the equivalent energy \"body\" of the landscape. Human traumas might include domestic quarrels or violence, traffic accidents, sudden intense emotional experiences, former military battles, or forgotten burial grounds. \"Patterns will tend to repeat themselves over and over again as people just express the energies that are there.\" Let's take a moment to amplify the idea of toxic residues of psychological and emotional trauma in the landscape. \"The land has memory and therefore every act of violence is registered on Mother Earth,\" explains English spiritual teacher and dowser, Reshad Field in his book, _Here to Heal._\n\nHe notes, for example, that when he goes to a place where strip mining has been done, he gets a tingling in his solar plexus and a desire to leave the place immediately. There is a place in the Scottish Highlands called Glencoe where a massacre once occurred; few people ever stop there, Field says, because \"they can sense the smell of blood.\" Something nasty still remains from the terrible events that happened there many years ago.\n\nNear Sedona, Arizona, Field was asked to consult on the possible reasons for the strange atmosphere around a creek that flowed through a canyon. For the most part the land held great charm, he noted, except for one area. There the temperature of the air was colder, people didn't talk to one another, and something was clearly amiss. Finally, Field identified the source of the disturbance. According to dowsing vocabulary, it was a negative energy spiral, which means, the energy was flowing in the wrong way. But the reason it did was that there was \"the most terrible atmosphere of grief and violence present,\" as it were, trapped in the landscape. It was Field's impression that somebody had been either raped or murdered on this spot.\n\nIn a manner similar to acupuncture, the geomancer can \"aid in bringing back harmony to the land by redeeming the long-lasting effects of man's mistakes,\" Field says. In this case, he inserted three rods into the ground to release the stuck, traumatized energy. People accompanying Field said they felt \"a tremendous sense of relief,\" and Field noted that the air temperature rose an estimated ten degrees, leaving a warm, inviting warmth where there had been a chill.\n\nThe Curry-Hartmann grid lines are like \"capillaries in the Earth's subtle, energy body; they are its warp and woof,\" says Dr. MacManaway, as if the combined effect of the Curry-Hartmann grid lines were a globally encompassing energy carpet (see figure 12-3). Fortunately, any carpet can be cleaned. Here are two of the techniques Dr. MacManaway uses to neutralize geopathic stress and to remove psychoemotional residues from the CurryHartmann energy grid:\n\n**Figure 12-3. The Geopathic Room: Layers of Energy Disturbance**\n\n### _Eliminating Detrimental Energy from an Underground Stream_\n\nDowsers commonly employ a rebar, which is a steel or iron reinforcing rod used with concrete pouring for house foundations. Once you, or a dowser, geomancer, or psychic has identified the location of an underground stream and found the place and angle at which it passes underneath your home, hammer the rebar (it should be several feet in length) into the ground over the water vein upstream, says Dr. MacManaway.\n\nTypically, this will be ten to twenty feet away from the house, and depending on the size of the metal and the strength and volume of the water vein, \"you can clear a 150-300 yard section of vein by doing this.\" He calls this \"staking the heart of the vampire,\" referring to fact that the underground vein can literally suck energy out of people who live in a house situated over its \"mouth.\" On certain kinds of water veins, it is better to situate the rebar over the edges of the current, while in other cases, it works better if you pin the center of the vein with the rebar.\n\nMore often than not, Dr. MacManaway locates the rebar upstream, sometimes at the edge of the property line, sometimes leaving a small part of the bar above the ground's surface. \"I tend to sink most of mine under the surface although the occasional practitioner will leave part of the bar protruding. Doing this is like putting an antenna in the ground. You ground the atmospheric electromagnetic field and you allow an ion exchange from the Earth upward so that it is locally concentrated. That way you change the water vein's radiating effect, even though you are not actually moving its physical course.\" More traditionally, other dowsers tend to hammer the rebar all the way into the ground. In any event, be sure there are no electric cables, cable lines, sewer pipes, or other necessary human-placed pipes or conduits under the ground where you propose to place a rebar.\n\n### _Space-Clearing a Hartmann-Curry Knot_\n\nHere Dr. MacManaway uses what he calls \"an Earth acupuncture technique.\" He finds a nodal point in the energy web then inserts long copper needles (fifteen inches long by one-half-inch wide) into the ground, leaving them in place for twenty to forty minutes. He inserts these either into the \"knot\" in the Hartmann or Curry grid, as close to it as he can get, or at the appropriate distance to be able to affect it. Somehow the copper \"acupuncture\" needles \"release and disperse the energy held there.\"\n\n## _HEALTHY LIVING SPACE DETOXIFIER #67: Five Simple Techniques for Detoxifying a Room or Environment_\n\nHere are several simple, do-it-yourself techniques for cleansing an interior space or local outdoor environment, derived from the experiences of two seasoned geopathic stress experts:\n\n### _Salt_\n\nDr. MacManaway may also use table salt placed in an open dish for a few days in the room of the house where the problem is most acute. The salt absorbs the toxic energy during this time; in fact, it is well recognized as capable of absorbing heavy or depressed vibrations out of the atmosphere in a room. Leave the bowl of salt exposed in a targeted room; after a few days, dump the salt in a compost heap outside the house or dissolve it in water and sprinkle it around the edge of the property. Repeat as needed, or do this regularly if you desire. \"Salt is a wonderful cleanser of atmospheric influences,\" he notes.\n\n### _Burning Cauldron of Salt_\n\nAs a variant, try burning salt. This is a technique borrowed from magical rituals, where the salt (Epsom salt, not sodium chloride) is used to purify the local atmosphere of inimical influences. Use a fireproof container, such as a metal cauldron, and fill it with two cups of Epsom salt. Just before lighting, coat it with one to two cups of ninety-nine percent alcohol (found at drugstores). Light with a long fireplace match. The fire should burn yellow and produce almost no smoke; be sure to keep the cauldron away from any flammable materials. The more alcohol you use, the longer the salt will burn. You can employ this technique when you have a particularly disturbed room or if you are planning on dedicating a room to a pursuit, such as art or meditation that requires a clean energy field.\n\n### _Sound_\n\nDr. MacManaway also uses sound, delivered by a set of tuning forks, to help release trapped emotions from a knot in the energy grid of a property. Similarly, he might assemble a group of men and women and have them stand over the troubled area (or as close to it as they can get) and then have them \"just express themselves with a tone or sound.\" People express grunts or tones, but it tends to be very dissonant and chaotic as they release the stored energy through themselves. But gradually the noise becomes more harmonious and congruent. Once the group is in harmony, then that is generally a sign that the space has been cleared.\" He adds that prayer and \"focused loving attention to channel healing\" to a site may be what does the real work.\n\n### _Rock the Walls with Wagner_\n\nIn Chapter 9, British psychic protection expert William Bloom showed us how to use physical vibration, or shaking, to release stuck energy from our bodies. The same technique can be used to clear a room of baleful influences. Here vibration, from music or sound, dislodges the toxic traces from the room's atmosphere. \"Vibration is naturally created by sweeping, mopping, beating, wiping, and vacuuming, all of which work directly into the fabric of the floors and walls,\" Bloom comments.\n\nWith regard to sound, Bloom advises filling a troubled room with loud music that has a strong bass vibration, such as Johannes Brahms or rock music. (My preference is some of the stirring, high-decibel moments in Richard Wagner's operas.) Also useful, if available, are Scottish bagpipes, drums, cymbals, bells, vibrant chanting, or even trumpets. The Tibetans traditionally used ten-foot long trumpets to cleanse the atmosphere; Christian churches have relied on full-strength organ bass notes and clanging bells to shake the toxic energies out of a space.\n\nBloom advises playing your music system full blast for five minutes every few weeks to vibrate your house as a kind of interior energy cleansing, an approach bound to please most teenagers and the recidivistic Woodstockers in many of us. While the music is vibrating the room, air all blankets and coverings, and thump, shake, and thwack\u2014a tennis racket is helpful here\u2014all chairs, sofas, mattresses, and cushions, says Bloom.\n\n### _Flower Essences_\n\nOften Dr. MacManaway pours drops of flower essences (in liquid form) in the ground at the site where he would place copper needles, in other words, at the troubled zone. Or he might dilute them in water and sprinkle the mixture around the site, much as one applies plant food in water; or he may put the essences in an aerosol mister and spray the area this way. There are some 1,600 commercially available flower essences, so Dr. MacManaway typically dowses for the appropriate ones, finding \"they tend to be specific to the kind of trauma that occurred at the site.\" However, he finds that often he uses a preparation called Rescue Remedy or Five Flower Formula as a \"safe first aid catch-all essence.\"\n\nFurther, he often gives the same essences to the house's occupants, so they can make the same shift as their property and home. \"This minimizes their withdrawal symptoms\u2014that is, the transitory healing crisis\u2014and it minimizes their likelihood of recreating the same problem just because they have become habituated to it, as this can sometimes happen. People can recreate the original trauma that you've cleared because it has become an established pattern of their own behavior.\"\n\n## HEALTHY LIVING SPACE DETOXIFIER #68: Put in an Energy Drainage Pipe from Your House to the Center of the Earth\n\nDo you happen to remember the movie by Steven Spielberg called _Poltergeist_? A California family found their house had been built over native burial grounds and the spirits were intensely restless. In fact, they were so disturbed by the placement of the house (part of a hillside housing development) that after they had finished frightening and even abducting the occupants, they caused the house to implode and effectively cease to exist. It was their retribution for the obliviousness of the builders and residents and for the continuing desecration of their sanctified land that the presence of the house represented.\n\nThis is a dramatic and of course exaggerated scenario of what can happen when the house and its occupants are out of harmony with their immediate environment and when they are unaware of (initially) and ineffectual against (later) the existence of and incursion by nonphysical beings and energies into their domestic terrain. The energy field of the house or apartment is in many respects similar to that surrounding the human being. Foreign, inappropriate, and\/or generally unhealthy or unwholesome energies may reside in it, or pass through, or squat uninvited in it for a time, contributing their influences and \"flavors\" to the overall energy mix of the home. In most cases, the presence of such beings or nonphysical energies is not beneficial to the residents in terms of physical and mental well-being.\n\nIn Healthy Living Space Detoxifier #43: Ground Yourself to the Center of the Earth (Chapter 9), we reviewed the benefits of establishing a kind of master energy drainage pipe between your physical body and the center of the planet. The same can be done for a home. Why not let the planet itself absorb the negativity or toxic energy from a room or given locality?\n\nIt may seem counterintuitive, but energetically, the planet is well equipped to absorb negativity flushed down an energy drainage pipe; in many respects, it can handle it easier than physical toxicity. Even though it is toxic to the Earth when we dump physical chemicals and poisons into the landscape, it is different when we \"drain\" toxic energies into the Earth. It is capable of absorbing and transmuting much of our local accumulation, suggests William Bloom. We often forget \"what a huge and magnificent creature of energy she is,\" he says, referring to the planet in its energy aspect.\n\nBloom recommends visualizing a \"spinning plug-hole\" directly under the toxic place in question, and seeing the vortex spin itself down to the center of the Earth, carrying the toxins with it like grey water down a sink drain. In a sense, you can \"instruct\" the \"spinning plug-hole\" to collect and remove the toxic energies you have identified or sensed in a room or local environment, seeing the drain as a kind of vertical vacuum cleaner. This technique is especially useful if you need to drain the energy out of a room in which a group has discharged \"a load of emotion and pain,\" says Bloom.\n\nIn terms of specific recommendations, the idea is to visualize the drainage pipe as being set under a specific room or, better, under the entire house. Imagine there is a drainage pipe with an open diameter as wide as you house. Set your house, room, or apartment on it, or set the pipe under it, and make sure the connection is secure. Make sure the pipe connects firmly to the center of the planet as well. You could visualize a name plate \"down there\" that says \"my house\" or \"the house (or room, or apartment) of the so-and-so family.\"\n\nOnce you have the drainage pipe in place, you tell it to release and drain the toxicity from the room or house. You could visualize a lever at the top of the pipe marked \"release\"; set the lever on release. All this may seem a bit like magic, but because you're affecting energy with energy\u2014the toxic residues in a space with a mentally energized construct\u2014it works. The bad energies will drain out. It is advisable to renew this pipe every day. You can do this by refreshing the visualization: go through the steps again, making the image stronger and more vivid, and instruct it again to release toxic energies from the living space.\n\nThis drainage pipe will release a fair amount of unpleasant energy from your living space. It will work even better if you put into play many of the suggestions in Chapter 9, even, ideally, having at least one psychic reading or energy clearing session with a qualified psychic practitioner. Remember, you and your living environment are in a perpetual feedback loop. Events and toxic exposures in one will affect the other.\n\nIf it is physically toxic, and you are trying to detoxify your body, the toxins in the home will come into you. If your home is detoxified, chemically and energetically, but you are not, the toxic energies in your own energy field or aura may contribute to a retoxification of your living space. As I have stressed throughout the book, it is essential to detoxify both aspects of your living space\u2014body and home\u2014at the same time to get the best results.\n\nThere is another benefit to putting in an energy drainage pipe for your living space. It grounds the living space. It gives the space an energy center, a calm, focused midpoint. When you are in this space, you will feel more grounded yourself. You will feel calmer, more centered, relaxed, less reactive, less emotionally volatile, and less mentally agitated. You are sitting in a living space that is grounded to the center of the planet. That has a wonderful psychic and psychological effect on everyone in that space. It also acts as a subtle protection device for your home, discouraging robbers or others that might be otherwise motivated to damage, vandalize, or rob the home. As an energy equation, groundedness equals strength, much like having a strong, vital immune system is the best protection against infectious disease.\n\nEvery time you are able to drain off residual toxic energy, you are helping the energy situation of the entire planet or what might be called the planet's \"psychic ecology,\" Bloom suggests. A great deal of the planet's vibrational pollution comprises negative attitudes and stuck energy, he says. Energy is stuck in the body and the home\u2014in both aspects of our living space. There is in fact a \"huge amount of invisible psychic pollution floating around the whole planet,\" and it might be a major contributing factor, even a root cause, of the ubiquitous toxic pollution, creating the disturbed energy framework that makes it possible for toxic substances to accumulate.\n\n## HEALTHY LIVING SPACE DETOXIFIER #69: How to Take the Stress Out of a Geopathic Zone\n\nAs the role of geopathic stress in human health becomes gradually accepted and more widely studied, low-cost neutralizing devices are now appearing on the market to enable individuals to clear suspected geopathic stress out of their homes. The following is a review of a few of the units available and some of the health claims put forward by their manufacturers or distributors.\n\n### _RadiTech_\n\nThis a device that comes in four sizes, according to the size of the geopathically stressed area. It plugs into a wall socket yet draws almost no current. Physically, the device is an unassuming thin white canister varying in height (according to the model) from about six inches to a little less than two feet tall. It operates on the principle of \"stabilizing multiwave oscillators,\" by which it neutralizes the electromagnetic field (which causes the geopathic stress in the first place) of an entire building, apartment, house, hospital room, or office, and removes the effects of geopathic stress from the individuals within its radiating field. There is also a portable RadiTech unit that one can carry into an office, supermarket, or other environment for \"moving\" protection.\n\nFurther, the device apparently adjusts the balance between positive and negative ions in an environment, so that negative ions predominate, producing an effect similar to fresh mountain air, which is high in healthful negative ions. The manufacturer (Dulwich Health clinic of London) claims that the RadiTech works at maximum efficiency within a few moments of installation and that as the geopathic stress is cleared out of a person, one is likely to experience transitory withdrawal symptoms as the body releases toxins. These symptoms typically include brief headaches, irritability, flu-like feelings, upset stomach, and disturbed sleep.\n\nThe affidavits for the RadiTech are copious and impressive, illustrating its positive effects on numerous health conditions as well as further exemplifying the multiple ways in which geopathic stress can compromise your health, according to Dulwich Health. The following are examples of how RadiTech has helped relieve health problems:\n\n  * Prominent among the health conditions benefited has been chronic fatigue. A woman who suffered from \"tremendous limitations in energy levels\" and a \"mystery paralysis\" for thirty years found she could now clean her house again, go out shopping, and resume seeing clients. Another chronic fatigue sufferer\u2014ill for six years and diagnosed with chronic fatigue for the previous two\u2014was able to discontinue use of her wheelchair.\n  * A woman experienced her first pain-free menstruation in over a year.\n  * Old injuries tend to start to heal suddenly. A man's old leg sore started to heal within seven days. Another elderly man with long-term open leg sores found they started to heal and close up.\n  * A woman installed a RadiTech in her house after she tried to commit suicide. After six weeks with the unit, \"she . . . [was] a changed person, optimistic, and making plans for her future.\" She went out dancing (before she never wanted to leave the house); she ate well for the first time in years; and she went off her tranquilizers and antidepressants.\n  * People with chronic migraines have benefited. One man who had endured migraines for twenty years found that they virtually ceased, with only one minor attack in five months. Another man who for twenty-seven years had food-allergy-related migraines found he could now eat all his formerly allergenic foods with no resulting migraine. A woman used to wake up at night with an \"oppressive feeling and a splitting headache\"; in fact, she had suffered from migraines since childhood and was unresponsive to conventional pain-killing drugs. After a few days with the unit in her bedroom, she felt much \"brighter and ha[d] more energy . .. and no longer .. . [got] up five or six times a night.\"\n  * Other conditions that improved include asthma; eczema; hyperactivity; arthritis; neck, back, and leg pain; nervous stomach; neck gland swelling; and moodiness, among many others. Speaking of the device's effect on an entire home, one user commented: \"It feels as if my house has been spring-cleaned.\"\n\n### _Energeia_\n\nThis device, which bills itself as a geopathic stress neutralizer and is plugged into a wall socket, can clear a home of distorted energies, raise the occupants' energy levels, put a \"protective field\" around them, and enhance one's sense of harmony and well-being, according to its British manufacturer, Geomack Products. The Energeia device comes in three sizes, one of which is portable. It weighs from between one and eight pounds (depending on the model), and can reduce the harmful electromagnetic field emitted from household appliances, computer equipment, or electric utility poles.\n\nAccording to Geomack, \"Harmful energy fields are emitted from the Earth, electrical products, and transmitters. Energeia works in conjunction with a property's electrical wiring system to convert detrimental distorted energy fields into well-balanced beneficial energies.\"\n\nOne application of the Energeia that has drawn positive response is its use in British natural health clinics.\n\n  * Dr. Laurent Bannock of the Nutrafit Clinic in Wimbome, Dorset, reported noticing a \"distinctive difference in the 'feel'\" of his building's atmosphere after installing two units. Various unexplained headaches and migraines that had bothered staff members disappeared, and when Dr. Bannock used a portable Energeia with his laptop computer, he found it \"made a tremendous difference in my ability to concentrate at the screen for long periods of time, without feeling ill or suffering from a bad headache.\"\n  * Liz Morris of the Heavenly Bodies Therapy Clinic in South Wonston, Winchester, Hantshire, reported that prior to using the unit she had been unable to sleep well at night, and that for the previous thirty months, three to four hours a night was the best sleep she could expect. She also suffered from depression and was on antidepressants, but once she started taking these, she slept so well that she had trouble waking in the morning. She developed irritability, self-doubt, concentration problems, and lethargy, among many other symptoms. Three months after using the Energeia, Morris reported being \"a different person\"; her symptoms had abated and she was \"back at the top of the hill instead of at the bottom.\"\n\n  **_The Healthy Living Space_ Info Tip**\n\nFor information about RadiTech, contact:\n\nDulwich Health,\n\n130 Gipsy Hill,\n\nLondon SE19 1PL,\n\nEngland;\n\ntel: 0181-670-5883;\n\nfax: 0181-766-6616;\n\nwebsite: www.dulwichhealth.uk.com.\n\nFor Energeia, contact:\n\nGeomack Products,\n\nP.O. Box 519,\n\nSouthampton S016 7RW,\n\nEngland;\n\ntel: 23-8076-0100;\n\nfax: 23-8076-0200;\n\ne-mail: mail@geomack.com;\n\nwebsite: www.geomack.com.\n\nFor products available in the United States from:\n\nThe Healing Center,\n\n1924 Juan Tabo NE, Suite E,\n\nAlbuquerque, NM 87112;\n\ntel: 505-292-222, ext. 1;\n\nfax: 505-821-2325;\n\ne-mail: addleasy@aol.com.\n\n  * Mayne Sundewall-Hopkins, a therapist in Looe, Cornwall, with more than twenty years' practice, reported that ever since she moved into her house seven years ago, her health started to deteriorate. \"Something didn't feel right, but I couldn't put my finger on what or why,\" she said. She had problems upon problems: aching muscles, digestive disturbances, allergies, joint stiffness, mood swings, concentration difficulties, constant flu\/cold symptoms, fatigue, stress. \"It was as though something like a leech was continually emptying me of energy,\" she said, adding that even regular acupuncture and other natural healing modalities failed to improve her condition. This, as we saw above, is a classic indicator of geopathic stress.\n\nBy good fortune, Sundewall-Hopkins came across the Energeia device and installed one in her home and realized she had identified the source of all her problems: geopathic stress. \"The distorted energies in the house prevented me from getting well. My immune system suffered and thus everything gradually worsened,\" she explained. \"With the unit in the house, I felt better within hours.\"\n\n## HEALTHY LIVING SPACE DETOXIFIER #70: Selecting Energy Wells in a Geography of Enlightenment\n\nOne of the most practical steps you can take, suggests Samuel Sagan, M.D., is to become sensitive to Earth and ambient energies in local environments, even in as small a space as a single room in a house. Many living spaces are crisscrossed with toxic energy lines and geopathogenic zones, as discussed above, yet they often present positive Earth energies, too. Dr. Sagan calls these positive, uplifting sources energy wells. Both rooms and landscapes have energy wells, and if you can identify them, they can help restore your health by reestablishing energetic balance, he says.\n\nIf you are gifted with clairvoyance, an energy well resembles \"a little fountain of energy, a little 'geyser,' a column of light,\" says Dr. Sagan. Even if you cannot see one, you may be able to sense the presence of an energy well. You may find your thoughts uplifted, more positive, exalted, happy, or inspired, or you may experience some degree of healing of a discomfort as you reside, even for just a few moments, within an energy well. Dr. Sagan reports that typically an energy well is quite small, perhaps one or two feet in diameter.\n\nHow do you sense an energy well? Listen to the \"belly signal,\" advises Dr. Sagan. The solar plexus, and especially navel area, has a keen ability to act as a dowsing rod for sensing ambient energies, he says. This is the energy basis of the folk wisdom about having a \"gut feeling.\" Once you know what neutral feels like in your \"gut\" or solar plexus, you can sense energy changes in that region in response to sensing new environments. In fact, when sensing for energy lines, geopathic or otherwise, it is more helpful to think in terms of \"walls\" not \"lines,\" Dr. Sagan comments. He makes the interesting observation that what you will feel is more like a \"wall of vibration\" or \"a wall of etheric smoke\" than a two-dimensional line.\n\nDeveloping a sensitivity to energy wells within your home, property, or immediate landscape can have a definite practical value. It could lead you to completely reorganize how you use and allocate living space, suggests Dr. Sagan. \"All this means that you have to reconsider your habits and to start using the space in harmony with the energy of the house.\" You may wish, to the degree it is possible, to redesign the interior of your home so that you sleep, meditate, eat, work, think on energy wells to get their maximum benefit for consciousness and the functions of your mind and body.\n\nDoing this, suggests Dr. Sagan, provides \"immense\" benefits for your physical, mental, and spiritual health. \"By systematically choosing spots of high-quality energy, we can influence our state of health and consciousness positively.\" Dr. Sagan notes that people often select an environment, even which chair to sit on in a room, based on resonant vibrations. There is a correspondence between one's energy quality and that of a room or environment, and thus we are drawn (or repelled) accordingly.\n\nFor example, in his experience, many people unconsciously select toxic spots in which to sit in a house, movie theater, or other enclosed space; this selection is energetically appropriate (but not therapeutic) because it reinforces, or is in resonance with, the quality of their own energy imbalances. Modifying the principle of homeopathy: like draws like.\n\nBut once you have detoxified a certain amount of your mental, emotional, psychic, and physiological toxins, you will start being in resonance with the health-affirming energy wells rather than the geopathic spots. You will start moving within what Dr. Sagan elegantly calls \"a geography of enlightenment,\" selecting your every environment\u2014the seat in a movie theater, the table in a restaurant, the plush chair in a living room\u2014based on your sensing of energy qualities and high and low points in a given living space. You will avoid the toxic sites and gravitate toward the healthy ones. It is possible, Dr. Sagan assures us, to so fine-tune this sensing ability that standing in the doorway of a new interior living space, you can detect the toxic sites and the energy wells, and thereby avoid the first and move towards the second.\n\n# AFTERWORD\n\n# _Life in a Healthy Living Space_\n\nSo what happens next? What is life like after detoxification? How can we use detoxification as a foundation for further exploration in our lives and the world?\n\nIn a sense, the experience of detoxification can be like a reentry into the physical world, and even into our own bodies. This is especially so if we undertake our first detoxification intensive in our forties or fifties. Purging ourselves of half a lifetime of toxic accumulation can be acutely stimulating. It's as if we are free to think, feel, and sense anew, if for the first time. Our life works better in all its aspects.\n\nPerhaps as a result of following the seventy detoxifying steps in _The Healthy Living Space_ you are considering the matter of medicine and health care. The mental clarity produced by your detoxification gives you the \"space\" to consider some interesting questions. Perhaps alternative medicine and its nontoxic worldview is new to you; maybe you never critically examined the principles and practices of conventional medicine even though you have been a recipient of its \"products\" all your life.\n\nConversely, maybe you are an \"old hand\" at alternative medicine and in agreement with its principles. Either way, it is important to note that medicine is not neutral: it embodies a philosophy of matter, a way of looking at and understanding the physical world. It expresses an orientation toward the body and the environment. It invades and attacks; or it supports and nurtures. It has ramifications in the world, and affects our total environment. Your choice of medicine\u2014essentially it comes down to conventional and alternative systems\u2014affects how you relate to your body. It is quite likely that the detoxification experience has given you a new perspective on this.\n\nYou might ask yourself three questions: Does a given medical approach or an entire field contribute to or diminish my existing level of toxicity? Does it stimulate my waking up to my role and responsibility in the physical world, or does it keep me in the dark as a nonplayer? Does it make me more conscious or less? Many of these matters are discussed in my book _Physician: Medicine and the Unsuspected Battle for Human Freedom._\n\nAfter detoxifying ourselves, we have a new understanding of our relationship to the world, and our responsibility for that relationship. We as consumers participate in the pollution of the planet and the sickening of human bodies by all our choices in the marketplace. Now we have woken up to that responsibility and we are making new, more informed consumer choices. But there's more.\n\nWe have a new sense of how our physical well-being influences our psychological and emotional well-being, and vice versa. We no longer divide our life into categories, each separately treatable. Now we see they are interconnected. So, too, we see our home afresh. Our body and home form a living system, and this living system itself has a relationship to the larger environment.\n\nIt is quite likely that the detoxification experience has given you a new appreciation of how you relate to your living space, your home. You may see the need to adopt a new style of relationship consistent with the conclusions you reached about how you will treat your body from now on.\n\nHow we relate to either our body or our home represents a philosophy of matter, represents a definition we have formed of both. Are things living or inert? Is consciousness important? Does it have a role in the world? Do our decisions really affect the planet? The detoxification experience may open up some large questions for you and encourage you to consider big subjects that previously you had neglected or thought too remote from your interests. The matter of toxicity and detoxification is one way you can see your inter-relatedness with the entire planet and all of matter. It's a doorway, and once through it, you will have a vista of far more than free radicals, organochlorines, and the liver's two-phase detoxification pathway.\n\nPerhaps some of the ideas in Chapter 12 were provocative. The concept that subtle, technically \"invisible\" energies from the landscape can affect how we feel and how our bodies function is certainly a different perspective than that offered by conventional science and medicine. In this book, for the most part, we focused on those landscape energies that were harmful to health. But are there Earth energies that are good for us, that elevate consciousness and improve our health just by our being in proximity to them? Yes, there are.\n\nJust as many traditional societies routinely practiced detoxification, they also knew about beneficial Earth energies and used them in their rituals, placement of holy buildings, and other aspects of their lives. Such places are known today variously as sacred sites, holy places, power points, vortexes, and pilgrimage destinations, among other names. Such places have a definite \"energy\" to them, but it is subtle.\n\nDetoxification actually prepares you to be more sensitive and receptive to beneficial Earth energies in much the same way as ritual purification and detoxification were employed in traditional societies for the purposes of preparing people for spiritual experiences. Detoxification frees you up to consider the concept of Earth energies, and it fine-tunes your senses so you can make some discoveries on your own. This field is called geomancy, and many aspects of this subject are discussed in my forthcoming book, _The Galaxy on Earth: A Traveler's Guide to the Planet's Visionary Geography._\n\nTaking the large view, we can say that the planet itself is our total living space. Do we want it to be toxic or healthy? Detoxification of the planet truly starts at home with the choices we make. When we choose to detoxify, it has a global impact. One person detoxifying affects everything. It may seem like a minute influence, but big effects are compounded by many minute influences working together. The detoxification experience itself shows us convincingly that our seemingly inconspicuous efforts to purify ourselves of toxicity can change the world and help make it the healthy living space it was always meant to be.\n\n# _Endnotes_\n\n## _Chapter 1_\n\n Theo Colborn, Dianne Dumanoski, and John Peterson Myers, _Our Stolen Future. Are We Threatening Our Fertility, Intelligence and Survival\u2014A Scientific Detective Story_ (New York: Dutton\/Penguin Book, New York, 1996): 106.\n\n For more information about POPs, see: www.stoppops.org. This is a politically active organization working to eliminate POPs in the world environment and food supply. See also: www.ewg.org (Environmental Working Group, 1718 Connecticut Avenue, N.W., Suite 600. Washington, D.C., 20009; e-mail: info@ewg.org).\n\n Eric Dewailly et al., \"Concentration of Organochlorines in Human Brain, Liver, and Adipose Tissue Autopsy Samples from Greenland,\" _Environmental Health Perspectives_ 107:10 (October 1999): 823-828.\n\n \"Alpine Lake Traps 'Dirty Dozen' Poisons,\" Reuters Limited, 11 April 2000, EnviroLink News Service www.envirolink.org\/environews.\n\n Sandra Steingraber, _Living Downstream. An Ecologist Looks at Cancer and the Environment_ (Reading, Mass.: Addison-Wesley Publishing Company, 1997): 177.\n\n Some experts now use the term \"toxics\" to distinguish toxic substances from \"toxins,\" which, technically, are poisons from plants and animals, and from \"toxic substances,\" which tend to indicate only chemicals and not radiation. \"Toxics\" thereby refers to chemicals, nuclear radiation, and even electromagnetic fields and noise. See: John Harte et al., _Toxics A to Z. A Guide to Everyday Pollution Hazards_ (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1991): xiv.\n\n \"Enjoy Vibrant Health in a Toxic World,\" Health Designs International (1997) www.healthdesigns.com.\n\n Iris R. Bell, _Clinical Ecology: A New Medical Approach to Environmental Illness_ (Bolinas, Calif.: Common Knowledge Press, 1982).\n\n Sherry A. Rogers, _Tired or Toxic? A Blueprint for Health_ (Syracuse: Prestige Publishing, 1990): 5, 10, 11.\n\n This list of toxicity symptoms is adapted from several sources, including a detailed toxicity screening questionnaire published by Health Designs.com. To take the test and get numerical toxicity rankings of the results, see: www.healthdesigns.com\/DetoxificationTest.html.\n\n Catherine Hoffman, Dorothy Rice, Hai-Yen Sung, \"Persons with Chronic Conditions,\" _The Journal of the American Medical Association_ 276 (November 13, 1996): 1473-1479.\n\n Peter Bennett, Stephen Barrie, and Sara Faye, _7-Day Detox Miracle: Restore Your Mind and Body's Natural Vitality with This Safe and Effective Life-Enhancing Program_ (Rocklin, Calif.: Prima Health\/Prima Publishing, 1999): 30-33.\n\n W. John Diamon, W. Lee Cowden, with Burton Goldberg, _An Alternative Medicine Definitive Guide to Cancer_ (Tiburon, Calif.: Future Medicine Publishing, 1997): 545.\n\n The EHIS has been publishing its chemical profiles since 1978 by Congressional mandate. The full text of the _9th Report on Carcinogens, 2000_ , is available at <http:\/\/ntp-server.niehs.nih.gov\/> NewHome Roc\/9RocFacts\/html. You can also contact them at: National Toxicology Program-RoC, MD EC-14, P.O. Box 12233, Research Triangle Park, NC 27709; tel: 919-541-4096; email: jameson@niehs.nih.gov.\n\n Philip J. Landrigan, \"Commentary: Environmental Disease\u2014A Preventable Epidemic,\" _American Journal of Public Health_ , 82 (July 1992): 941-943.\n\n Philip J. Landrigan, _Environmental Neurotoxicology_ (Washington, D.C.: National Academy Press, 1992): 2.\n\n Robert W. Pinner et al., \"Trends in Infectious Diseases Mortality in the United States,\" _Journal of the American Medical Association_ , 275:3 (January 17, 1996): 189-193.\n\n David W. Talmage et al., _Biologic Markers in Immuno-toxicology_ (Washington, D.C.: National Academy Press, 1992): 1.\n\n Cynthia Wilson, \"Chemical Sensitivities: A Global Problem,\" _Earth Island Journal_ , Spring 1998 www.earthisland.org\/ejournal\/spring98.\n\n Richard Leviton, \"Environmental Illness\u2014A Special Report,\" _Yoga Journal_ , November\/December 1990.\n\n William J. Rea, \"Chemical Hypersensitivity and the Allergic Response,\" _Ear, Nose, and Throat Journal_ 67 (January 1988). William J. Rea and Monte J. Mitchell, \"Chemical Sensitivity and the Environment,\" _Immunology & Allergy Practice_ (September\/October 1982). William J. Rea and Alfred R. Johnson, \"20th Century Illness,\" _Total Health_ , December 1986. Yaqin Pan, Alfred R. Johnson, and William J. Rea, \"Alipathic Hydrocarbon Solvents in Chemically Sensitive Patients,\" _Clinical Ecology_ V, no. 3 (1987).\n\n John L. Laseter, Ildefonso R. DeLeon, William J. Rea, and Joel R. Butler, \"Chlorinated Hydrocarbon Pesticides in Environmentally Sensitive Patients,\" _Clinical Ecology_ II, no. 1 (Fall 1983).\n\n Janette D. Sherman, _Chemical Exposure and Disease. Diagnostic and Investigative Techniques_ (Princeton: Princeton Scientific Publishing, 1994): 88, 91, 97, 101-102, 118-119.\n\n Agrow Reports, \"World Non-Agricultural Pesticides Markets,\" March 2000; data summarized in \"Non-Ag Pesticides Market Growing,\" September 12, 2000, by Pesticide Action Network North America (49 Powell Street, Suite 500, San Francisco, CA 94102; tel: 415-981-1771; fax: 415-981-1991; e-mail: panna@panna.org; website: www.panna.org). The organization offers a free weekly e-mail newsletter called PANUPS, available on their website.\n\n Joel Grossman, \"Dangers of Household Pesticides,\" _Environmental Health Perspectives_ 103:6 (June 1995): 550-554.\n\n The National Library of Medicine offers a searchable online database for toxic substances and their effects, including toxicology, lists of hazardous substances, and carcinogens. See <http:\/\/toxnet.nlm.nih.gov>.\n\n Sherman, Chemical Exposure and Disease, 223, 230.\n\n EPA, Office of Toxic Substances, \"Broad Scan Analysis of the FY82 National Human Adipose Tissue Survey Specimens,\" EPA-560\/5-86-035 (Washington, D.C.: 1986).\n\n P.A. Stehr-Green, \"Demographic and Seasonal Influences on Human Serum Pesticide Residue Levels,\" _Journal of Toxicology and Environmental Health_ 27 (1989): 405-421.\n\n F. Adeshina, E.L. Todd, \"Organochlorine Compounds in Human Adipose Tissue from North Texas,\" _Journal of Toxicology and Environmental Health_ 29 (1990): 147-156.\n\n J.L. Jacobson et al., \"Determinants of Polychlorinated Biphenyls (PCBs), Polybrominated Biphenyls (PBBs), and Dichlorodiphenyl Trichchloroethane (DDT) Levels in the Sera of Young Children,\" _American Journal of Public Health_ 79 (1989): 1401-1404.\n\n Walter J. Crinnion, \"Environmental Medicine, Part 1: The Human Burden of Environmental Toxins and Their Common Health Effects,\" _Alternative Medicine Review_ 5 (February 2000): 53-54.\n\n Benjamin C. Blount, et al., \"Levels of Seven Urinary Phthalate Metabolites in a Human Reference Population,\" _Environmental Health Perspectives_ , 108 (October 2000): 979-982.\n\n Kenneth Bock and Nellie Sabin, _The Road to Immunity. How to Survive and Thrive in a Toxic World_ (New York: Pocket Books\/Simon & Schuster, 1997): 81.\n\n Al Meyerhoff, \"We Must Get Rid of Pesticides in the Food Supply,\" _USA Today Magazine_ , November 1993, 51-53.\n\n Peter Montague, \"Illegal Poisons in Our Food,\" _Rachel's Environment & Health Weekly_ 9 May 1996, www.rachel.org.\n\n J.E. Davies, \"Changing Profile of Pesticide Poisonings,\" _New England Journal of Medicine_ 316:13 (March 26, 1987): 807-808.\n\n James Liebman et al., \"Rising Toxic Tide: Pesticide Use in California, 1991-1995,\" 1997, Pesticide Action Network & Californians for Pesticide Reform, San Francisco, CA. For more information, see www.igc.org\/cpr; see also www.panna.org. Both organizations, based in San Francisco, are coalitions of numerous citizens groups around the world working to oppose the misuse of pesticides and to promote sustainable, ecologically-based agriculture.\n\n \"EWG Air Monitoring Finds Toxic Pesticides Drifting from California Farm Fields,\" Environmental Working Group, Washington, D.C., 13 January 1999 www.ewg.org.\n\n Robert Repetto et al., _Pesticides and the Immune System: The Public Health Risk_ (Washington, D.C.: World Resources Institute, 1996): 3, 9-16, 18, 21, 56, 46-48.\n\n \"Technical Report,\" Beyond Pesticides\/National Coalition Against the Misuse of Pesticides 15:7 (2000). 701 E. Street SE, Suite 200, Washington D.C., 20003; tel: 202-543-5450; fax: 202-543-4791; website: www.beyondpesticides.org. This organization is a good source of information about the hazards of pesticides and the means of taking advocacy action to limit their use.\n\n Jacqueline D. Savitz et al., _Factory Farming: Toxic Waste and Fertilizer in Virginia_ , 1990-1995, Environmental Working Group, Washington, D.C. (n.d.) www.ewg.org. EWG offers a free downloadable report on toxic wastes used in fertilizer for each of the fifty states.\n\n John Cary Stewart, _Drinking Water Hazards: How to Know If There are Toxic Chemicals in Your Water and What to Do If There Are_ (Hiram, Ore.: Envirographics, 1990): 158.\n\n \"Tap Water in Central Valley Tainted With Banned Pesticide,\" Environmental Working Group, Washington, D.C., 15 November 1999 www.ewg.org.\n\n \"Government Underestimates Infant Exposure to Toxic Weed Killer,\" Environmental Working Group, Washington, D.C., 28 July 1999 www.ewg.org.\n\n Although arsenic is a naturally occurring element (the 20th most common in the Earth's crust), it can be toxic to humans. High-dose exposure to arsenic can produce gastrointestinal irritations, problems in swallowing, abnormally low blood pressure, excessive thirst, even convulsions and cardiovascular collapse in cases of acute exposure. Arsenic has also been linked to cancer and diabetes. In addition to ingesting it in water, people consume arsenic through fish and seafood.\n\n MSNBC Staff and Wire Reports, \"How Much Arsenic in Our Water?\" MSNBC News\/Environment, 25 February 2000 www.msnbc.com\/news.\n\n Butch Kinerney, \"New Map Shows Arsenic in Nation's Ground Water,\" UniSci, Daily University Science News, 10 May 2000 www.unisci.com\/stories.\n\n Denise Riedel Lewis et al., \"Drinking Water Arsenic in Utah: A Cohort Mortality Study,\" _Environmental Health Perspectives_ 107 (May 1999): 359-365.\n\n P\u00e4ivi Kurttio et al., \"Arsenic Concentrations in Well Water and Risk of Bladder and Kidney Cancer in Finland,\" _Environmental Health Perspectives_ 107 (September 1999): 705-710.\n\n \"Update 1. U.S. Toxic Pollution 3 Times Worse Than Thought\u2014EPA,\" Reuters Limited, 12 May 2000, EnviroLink News Service www.envirolink.org\/environews.\n\n Steingraber, _Living Downstream_ , 197-202.\n\n Hans-Rudolf Buser and Markus D. Muller, \"Occurrence of the Pharmaceutical Drug Clofibric Acid and the Herbicide Mecoprop in Various Swiss Lakes and in the North Sea,\" _Environmental Science and Technology_ , 32:1 (1998): 188-192. Janet Raloff, \"Drugged Waters,\" _Science News_ , 153:12 (March 21, 1998): 187-189. Peter Montague, \"Drugs in the Water,\" _Rachel's Environment & Health Weekly_, September 3, 1998.\n\n Christian G. Daughton and Thomas A. Ternes, \"Pharmaceuticals and Personal Care Products in the Environment: Agents of Subtle Change?\" _Environmental Health Perspectives_ 107: supp. 6 (December 1999): 907-938. Also: Peter Montague, \"Pay Dirt from the Human Genome,\" _Rachel's Environment & Health Weekly_, #702, 6 July 2000 www.rachel.org.\n\n Other toxic substances are emitted from motor vehicles or formed as byproducts of incomplete combustion, contributing to air pollution. These substances include benzene, toluene, xylene, formaldehyde, acetaldehyde, and 1,3-butadiene. Some of these are known or suspected carcinogens.\n\n W.S. Linn and H. Gong, Jr., \"The 21st Century Environment and Air Quality Influences on Asthma,\" _Current Opinions in Pulmonary Medicine_ 5 (January 1999): 21-26.\n\n William S. Linn et al., \"Air Pollution and Daily Hospital Admissions in Metropolitan Los Angeles,\" _Environmental Health Perspectives_ 108 (May 2000): 427-434.\n\n South Coast Air Quality Management District, \"Smog and Health,\" July 1996 www.aqmd.gov. The South Coast AQMD is the smog control agency for Los Angeles and three neighboring counties.\n\n S. Takafuji and T. Nakagawa, \"Air Pollution and Allergy,\" _Journal of Investigative Allergology and Clinical Immunology_ 10 (January-February 2000): 5-10.\n\n G. D'Amato, \"Outdoor Air Pollution in Urban Areas and Allergic Respiratory Diseases,\" _Monaldi Archices of Chest Diseases_ 54:6 (December 1999): 470-474.\n\n Rob McConnell et al., \"Air Pollution and Bronchitic Symptoms in Southern California Children with Asthma,\" _Environmental Health Perspectives_ 107 (September 1999): 757-760.\n\n Joachim Heinrich et al., \"Respiratory Diseases and Allergies in Two Polluted Areas in East Germany,\" _Environmental Health Perspectives_ 107 (January 1999): 53-62.\n\n Bart D. Ostro et al., \"Air Pollution and Health Effects: A Study of Medical Visits Among Children in Santiago, Chile,\" _Environmental Health Perspectives_ 107 (January 1999): 69-73.\n\n South Coast Air Quality Management District, \"Smog and Health\" www.aqmd.gov.\n\n Annette Peters et al., \"Associations Between Mortality and Air Pollution in Central Europe,\" _Environmental Health Perspectives_ 108 (April 2000): 283-287.\n\n Joe Thornton, _Pandora's Poison: Chlorine, Health and a New Environmental Strategy_ (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 2000).\n\n Ibid., vii.\n\n The production of chlorine gas is the \"single root cause\" for all the pollutants known as organochlorines, says Thornton. A powerful electric current is passed through a saltwater solution (sodium chloride plus water). This changes sodium chloride, entirely natural and a part of nature and our body, into chlorine gas, \"a heavy, violently reactive, greenish gas.\" Most of the chlorine gas is then used as the \"feedstock\" or base material for making 11,000 organochlorines, also foreign to nature. The chlorine industry produces about 40 million tons of chlorine gas annually, most of which is used to make chlorinated organic chemicals.\n\n Some organochlorines can persist a very long time in the atmosphere. The half-life of chloropentafluoroethane is 381 years; of dichlorotetrafluoroethane, 152 years; of dichlorodifluoromethane, 69; and of trichlorotrifluoroethane, 58. A half-life means how long it takes for a substance to degrade to 37% of its original concentration\u2014in other words, for about two-thirds of it to degrade. The half-lives of 20 other organochlorines range from 0.4 years (chloroform) to 31 years (trichlorofluoormethane). The persistence of organochlorines in water involves unbelievable stretches of time. Scientists estimate that 1,2-dichloroethylene found in water will require 21 billion years to degrade; heaxachloroethane will take 1.8 billion years; perchloroethylene, 990 million years; 1,1-dichloroethylene, 120 million; and trichloroethylene, 1.3 million years. (Data from Thornton, _Pandora's Poison_ , 27, 33.)\n\n Ingrid Gerhard et al., \"Chlorinated Hydrocarbons in Women with Repeated Miscarriages,\" _Environmental Health Perspectives_ 106 (October 1998): 675-681.\n\n A. Mayani et al., \"Dioxin Concentrations in Women with Endometriosis,\" _Human Reproduction_ 12 (1997): 373-375.\n\n It is shocking to learn, as Thornton documents, that the global organochlorine problem and the entire chlorine industry were the result of trying to find a use for a chemical byproduct. In the late 19th century, German chemists found a faster way to make alkali, needed for the manufacture of paper, soap, glass, textiles, and other products. They introduced an electrical current into brine and got alkali, hydrogen, and chlorine gas. The trouble was they got a lot of chlorine gas: to make one ton of alkali, nine-tenths of a ton of chlorine gas was generated. It was dangerous to store and impossible to get rid of, so new markets and applications had to be found for it. These included, during the 20th century, bleaching powder; chemical weapons and war gas; degreasing solvents; and PCBs, DDT and other pesticides.\n\n Jay M. Gould, _The Enemy Within: The High Cost of Living Near Nuclear Reactors_ (New York: Four Walls\/Eight Windows, 1996): 15-56. See also Ralph Graeub, _The Petkau Effect. The Devastating Effect of Nuclear Radiation on Human Health and the Environment_ (New York: Four Walls\/Eight Windows, 1994).\n\n Interference with the functioning of the thyroid gland is a serious matter. The thyroid gland, one of the body's seven endocrine glands, is located just below the larynx in the throat, with interconnecting lobes on either side of the trachea. The thyroid is the body's metabolic thermostat, controlling body temperature, energy use, and, in children, the body's growth rate. The thyroid controls the rate at which organs function and the speed with which the body uses food; it affects the operation of all body processes and organs. Of the hormones the thyroid synthesizes and releases, T3 (triiodothyronine) represents seven percent and T4 (thyroxine) accounts for almost ninety-three percent of the thyroid's hormones active in all of the body's processes; T4 is converted into T3 outside the thyroid gland. Iodine is essential to forming normal amounts of thyroxine. The secretion of both these hormones is regulated by the thyroid-stimulating hormone, or TSH, secreted by the pituitary gland in the brain. The thyroid also secretes calcitonin, a hormone required for calcium metabolism.\n\n Jay M. Gould, \"The Current Cancer Epidemic and the Baby Boom Generation,\" _Nuclink. The Journal of Current Radiation and Public Health and Issues_ 17 February 1999 www.radiation.org.\n\n Joseph J. Mangano, \"Improvements in Local Infant Health After Nuclear Power Reactor Closing,\" _Environmental Epidemiology and Toxicology_ 2:1 (March 2000): 32-36.\n\n Jay M. Gould, \"Why Cancer Rates in the Hamptons Are So High,\" _Nuclink. The Journal of Current Radiation and Public Health and Issues_ , 14 September 1998 www.radiation.org.\n\n Russell L. Blaylock, _Excitotoxins\u2014The Taste That Kills_ (Santa Fe, N. Mex.: Health Press, 1994).\n\n For a comprehensive list and discussion of the toxicity of each food additive, see \"Chemical Cuisine: CSPI's Guide to Food Additives,\" Center for Science in the Public Interest www.cspinet.org. Address: CSPI, 1875 Connecticut Avenue, NW, Suite 300, Washington, D.C. 20009; tel: 202-332-9110; fax: 202-265-4954; e-mail: cspi@cspinet.org. CSPI also publishes _Nutrition Action Healthletter_ , a monthly nutrition newsletter.\n\n Doctor's Guide to the Internet (Medical & Other News), \"Food Additive Can Cause Severe Allergic Reactions,\" 5 November 1997 www.docguide.com.\n\n Carol Simontacchi, _The Crazy Makers. How the Food Industry is Destroying Our Brains and Harming Our Children_ (New York: Jeremy P. Tarcher\/Putnam, Penguin Putnam, Inc., 2000): 35, 93.\n\n Marc Kaufman, \"Antibiotics in Animal Feed\u2014A Growing Public Health Hazard, Worries Rise Over Effect of Antibiotics in Animal Feed,\" _The Washington Post_ , March 17, 2000.\n\n Kirk E. Smith et al., \"Quinolone-Resistant _Campylobacter Jejuni_ Infections in Minnesota,\" _New England Journal of Medicine_ , 340:20 (May 20, 1999): 1525-1532.\n\n M. Kathleen Glynn et al., \"Emergence of Multidrug Resistance _Salmonella Enterica_ Serotype Typhimurium DT104 Infections in the United States,\" _New England Journal of Medicine_ 338:19 (May 7, 1998) 1333-1338. Also Denise Grady, \"A Move to Limit Antibiotic Use in Animal Feed,\" _The New York Times_ , March 8, 1999.\n\n Food poisoning from bacterially-tainted food is a serious matter: about 76 million cases are reported annually in the United States, of which 5,000 result in fatalities.\n\n Shannon Brownlee, \"Agribusiness Threatens Public Health with Antibiotics in Animal Feed,\" _The Washington Post_ , May 21, 2000.\n\n Michelle Allsopp et al., \"Recipe for Disaster. A Review of Persistent Organic Pollutants in Food,\" Greenpeace Research Laboratories, March 2000 www.greenpeace.org.\n\n Environmental Working Group, \"Moms... and POPs\" www.ewg.org.\n\n Allsopp et al., \"Recipe for Disaster\" www.greenpeace.org.\n\n Environmental Working Group was founded in 1993 and is today, with its staff of eighteen researchers, a leading source of information for public interest groups campaigning to protect the environment. Its website (www.ewg.org) offers a searchable database on numerous environmental issues.\n\n Environmental Working Group, \"Moms . . . and POPs\" www.ewg.org. EWG compiled this information based on the FDA \"Total Diet Study, 1991-1997\" and USDA \"Continuing Survey of Food Intake by Individuals, 1994-1996.\"\n\n EPA, \"EPA's Agency-Wide Multimedia Persistent, Bioaccumulative, and Toxic Pollutants Initiative, 1999 Accomplishments Report,\" EPA 743-R-00-003, July 2000 www.epa.gov\/pbt\/accomp99.htm.\n\n Joe Thornton proposes that it will take six human generations, or about 150 years, before all the PCBs and the other organochlorines have been removed from human fat cells\u2014even if no further organochlorines were introduced into the global environment starting today. In other words, we may be contaminated for centuries, he says. Thornton further suggests that our natural detoxification mechanisms may be ineffective against many organochlorines, although they are able to degrade some of them into more easily excreted chemical forms. (Thornton, _Pandora's Poison_ , 43, 215).\n\n## _Chapter 2_\n\n Peter Bennett, Stephen Barrie, and Sara Faye, _7-Day Detox Miracle: Restore Your Mind and Body's Natural Vitality with This Safe and Effective Life-Enhancing Program_ (Rocklin, Calif.: Prima Health\/Prima Publishing, 1999): 113-114.\n\n Rudolph M. Ballentine, _Radical Healing. Integrating the World's Great Therapeutic Traditions to Create a New Transformative Medicine_ , (New York: Three Rivers Press, 1999): 294-297.\n\n Frank Edward Allen, \"One Man's Suffering Spurs Doctors to Probe Pesticide-Drug Link,\" _The Wall Street Journal_ , October 14, 1991.\n\n Kenneth Bock, and Nellie Sabin, _The Road to Immunity: How to Survive and Thrive in a Toxic World_ (New York: Pocket Books\/Simon & Schuster, 1997): 34-36.\n\n There are six types of free-oxygen radicals, including superoxide, hydroxy radical, lipid peroxy radical, singlet oxygen, hydrogen peroxide, and hypochlorous acid.\n\n Stephen B. Edelson, \"Free Radical Pathology: A Unified Cause of Chronic Illness,\" Environmental and Preventive Health Center of Atlanta, 1995 www.ephca.com.\n\n Genox Corporation, Baltimore, Md., providers of Oxidative Stress Profile www.genox.com.\n\n D. Harman, \"Free Radicals in Aging,\" _Molecular Cell Biochemistry_ 84:2 (December 1998): 155-61; \"Aging: Phenomena and Theories,\" _Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences_ 854 (November 20, 1998): 1-7; \"Extending Functional Life Span,\" _Experimental Gerontology_ 33:1-2 (January-March 1998): 95-112; \"Free Radical Involvement in Aging: Pathophysiology and Therapeutic Implications,\" _Drugs Aging_ 3 (January-February 1993): 60-80.\n\n J.E. Gallagher et al., \"Comparison of DNA Adduct Levels in Human Placenta from Polychlorinated Biphenyl Exposed Women and Smokers in which CYP 1A1 are Similarly Elevated,\" _Terato Carcino Mutagen_ 14 (1994): 183-92.\n\n Joseph Pizzorno, _Total Wellness. Improve Your Health by Understanding the Body's Healing Systems_ (Rocklin, CA: Prima Publishing, 1996): 99.\n\n Ibid., 101-102.\n\n Toluene, a hydrocarbon distilled from crude oil, is a common additive in gasoline. It is vented into the air every time a car, truck, bus, or airplane is driven. A catalytic converter can remove about ninety-five percent of toluene from automobile exhaust. Toluene is also an additive in model glues, paints, inks, resins, and adhesives; and is found in dyes, detergents, linoleum, perfumes, lacquers, prescription drugs, and saccharin, among other products. You will also encounter toluene in tobacco smoke from cigarettes. For more information about toluene, and other toxic substances, see John Harte et al., _Toxics A to Z: A Guide to Everyday Pollution Hazards_ (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1991).\n\n Bennett, Barrie, and Faye, _7-Day Detox Miracle_ , 99-101.\n\n Since the Center was founded in 1974, more than 30,000 patients have passed through its bio-detoxification program or have received treatment for toxicity-related illness. \"We analyze difficult cases from all angles using environmental, nutritional, allergy, medication, and surgical strategies tailored to the individual patient,\" states an information release by the Center. Reknowned for its carefully executed, chemically-reduced indoor environment for sensitive patients, the Center has also consulted on \"less-toxic building technology\" for 17,000 private and public buildings. Dr. Rea is the author of two books, the medical textbook _Chemical Sensitivity_ , Vols. 1-5 (CRC Press-Lewis Publishers, 1992-1997), and coauthor of _Your Home, Your Health and Well-Being_ (Ten Speed Press, 1988) as well as over 100 peer-reviewed medical articles.\n\n W.J. Rea and G.H. Ross, \"Food and Chemicals as Environmental Incitants,\" _Bol Asoc Med P R_ 83 (July 1991): 310-315.\n\n W.J. Rea et al., \"Confirmation of Chemical Sensitivity by Means of Double-Blind Inhalant Challenge of Toxic Volatile Chemicals,\" _Bol Asoc Med P R_ 83 (September 1991): 389-393.\n\n Sherry A. Rogers, _The E.I. Syndrome: An Rx for Environmental Illness_ (Syracuse: Prestige Publishing, 1986); _Tired or Toxic: A Blueprint for Health_ (Syracuse: Prestige Publishing, 1990); _You Are What You Ate: An Rx for the Resistant Diseases of the 21st Century_ (Syracuse: Prestige Publishing, 1988). Also Richard Leviton, \"Environmental Health\u2014Sherry Rogers, M.D.,\" _East West Journal_ , July\/August 1991.\n\n Walter J. Crinnion, \"Environmental Medicine, Part 1: The Human Burden of Environmental Toxins and Their Common Health Effects,\" _Alternative Medicine Review_ 5:1 (February 2000): 52-63.\n\n W. Crinnion, \"Results of a Decade of Naturopathic Treatment for Environmental Illnesses: A Review of Clinical Records,\" _Journal of Naturopathic Medicine_ 7:2 (1998): 21-27. See also W. Crinnion, \"Chronic Fatigue Syndrome and Environmental Overload,\" (n.d.) www.naturopathic.org\/Library\/articles.lay\/WC.CFS.html.\n\n M.S. Wolff et al., \"Blood Levels of Organochlorine Residues and Risk of Breast Cancer,\" _Journal of the National Cancer Institute_ 85 (1993): 648-652.\n\n J.R. Davis et al., \"Family Pesticide Use and Childhood Brain Cancer,\" _Archives of Environmental Contamination and Toxicology_ 24 (1993): 87-92.\n\n Crinnion, \"Environmental Medicine, Part 1\" 57.\n\n C.G. Ohlson and L. Hardell, \"Testicular Cancer and Occupational Exposures with a Focus on Xenoestrogens in Polyvinyl Chloride Plastics,\" _Chemosphere_ 40 (May-June 2000): 1277-82.\n\n Ted Schettler et al., _In Harm's Way: Toxic Threats to Child Development_ (Cambridge, Mass.: GBPSR, 2000): 1-8. This report is available in full online at www.igc.org\/psr\/ihw.htm. Or by mail: Greater Boston Physicians for Social Responsibility, 11 Garden Street, Cambridge, MA 02138; tel: 617-497-7440; fax: 617-876-4277; e-mail: psrmabo@igc.org.\n\n Peter Montague, \"Dumbing Down the Children-Part 1,\" _Rachel's Environment & Health Weekly_, #687, February 17, 2000 www.rachel.org.\n\n Peter Montague, \"Dumbing Down the Children-Part 1,\" _Rachel's Environment & Health Weekly_, #687, March 2, 2000.\n\n Ibid.\n\n Peter Montague, \"Toxics and Violent Crime,\" _Rachel's Environment & Health Weekly_, #551, June 19, 1997.\n\n Peter Montague, \"Toxics Affect Behavior,\" _Rachel's Environment & Health Weekly_, #529, January 16, 1997. See also Herbert L. Needleman et al., \"Bone Lead Levels and Delinquent Behavior,\" _Journal of the American Medical Association_ , 275 (February 7, 1996): 363-369.\n\n Roger D. Masters, \"Environmental Pollution, Toxic Chemicals, Crime and Disease,\" at www.dartmouth.edu\/~rmasters\/research.html.\n\n Crinnion, \"Environmental Medicine, Part 1,\" 60.\n\n The thyroid gland is located just below the larynx in the throat, and has interconnecting lobes on either side of the trachea, giving it the effect of a bowtie on the trachea. This gland is the body's metabolic thermostat, controlling body temperature, energy use, and, in children, the body's growth rate. The thyroid controls the rate at which organs function and the speed with which the body uses food; it affects the operation of all body processes and organs. Of the hormones the thyroid synthesizes and releases, T3 (triiodothyronine) represents seven percent and T4 (thyroxine) accounts for almost ninety-three percent of the thyroid's hormones active in all of the body's processes. The thyroid also secretes calcitonin, a hormone required for calcium metabolism and for satisfactory digestion. Conventional medicine tends to downplay, if not ignore, the importance of the thyroid in many health problems, and it tends to use inadequate laboratory tests to measure thyroid hormone levels, thereby giving, in many cases, a false picture of thyroid hormone status. The thyroid gland also is one of the first of the endocrine glands to be damaged by exposure to nuclear radiation, indicating its sensitivity to environmental poisons.\n\n M.H. Li and L. Hansen, \"Enzyme Induction and Acute Endocrinic Effects in Prepubertal Feamel Rats Receiving Environmental PCB\/PCDF, PCDD Mixtures,\" _Environmental Health Perspectives_ 104 (1996): 712-722.\n\n J.F. Leatherland, \"Changes in Thyroid Hormone Economy Following Consumption of Environmentally Contaminated Great Lakes Fish,\" _Toxicology and Industrial Health_ 14 (1998): 41-57.\n\n Susan Porterfield, \"Vulnerability of the Developing Brain to Thyroid Abnormalities: Environmental Insults to the Thyroid System,\" _Environmental Health Perspectives_ 102:2 (1994): 125-130.\n\n There are five main groups or categories of endocrine-disrupting chemicals: 1) phthalates (used as plasticizers; can imitate estradiol, a type of estrogen); 2) alkylphenols (used in industrial and domestic detergents); 3) bisphenol A (found in dental lacquers and used to coat the interior of metal food cans; estrogenic to breast cancer cells); 4) organochlorine pesticides (lindane, DDT, altrazine; may increase breast cancer risk; DDT can block the action of male hormones); 5) polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) and dioxins (dioxins are produced during incineration and industrial processes; PCBs were once used in electrical equipment, and still present in transformers and capacitors); and 6) others (the cosmetics preservative parabens; food antioxidant BHA; fungicide vinclozolin; and a group of natural plant compounds called phytoestrogens). From research provided by Dr. A. Michael Warhurst, \"Introduction to Hormone Disrupting Chemicals,\" Friends of the Earth, London, England, 1998 www.website.lineone.net\/~mwarhurst.\n\n Dieldrin is an organochlorine insecticide, used extensively in agriculture since the 1940s. \"It is one of the most persistent of all pesticides, remaining for years in soils, accumulating in the fatty tissues of living organisms, and consequently, concentrating in the food chain.\" Dieldrin is no longer used in the United States on food crops, yet dieldrin residues continue to be detected in foods, especially carrots, com, cucumbers, and sweet potatoes. It is highly persistent in water, more so than other organochlorines, and enters the human body through the skin, eyes, lungs, and gastrointestinal tract. (Harte et al., _Toxics A to Z_ , 207-208.)\n\n A.P. Hoyer et al., \"Organochlorine Compounds and Breast Cancer\u2014Is There a Connection Between Environmental Pollution and Breast Cancer?\" _Ugeskr Laeger_ 162 (February 14, 2000): 922-926.\n\n S.A. Ahmed et al., \"Gender and Risk of Autoimmune Diseases: Possible Role of Estrogenic Compounds,\" _Environmental Health Perspectives_ 107, supp. 5 (October 1999): 681-686.\n\n N. Olea et al., \"Inadvertent Exposure to Xenoestrogens in Children,\" _Toxicology and Industrial Health_ 15 (January-March 1999): 151-158.\n\n J.P. Sumpter, \"Xenoendocrine Disrupters\u2014Environmental Impacts,\" _Toxicology Letters_ , 102-103 (December 28, 1998): 337-42.\n\n Gina M. Solomon, \"Endocrine Disruptors. What Should We Do Now?\" Natural Resources Defense Council, 1997 www.nrdc.org.\n\n Theo Colborn, Frederick S. vom Saal, and Ana M. Soto, \"Developmental Effects of Endocrine-Disrupting Chemicals in Wildlife and Humans,\" _Environmental Health Perspectives_ 101 (October 1993): 378-384.\n\n OCCs are synthetic, organic, chlorinated chemicals\u2014in other words, industrially produced chemicals (synthetic) based around carbon (organic), to which chlorine has been added (chlorinated). Examples of OCCs are chloroform, DDT and PCBs, certain pesticides, and dioxin. Normally carbon and chlorine are not found bound together into a molecule in nature, other than as a byproduct of volcanic eruptions and forest fires, and as a natural exudate of marine algae.\n\n Peter Montague, \"Dangers of Chemical Combinations,\" _Rachel's Environment & Health Weekly_, #498, June 13, 1996. See also Steven F. Arnold et al., \"Synergistic Activation of Estrogen Receptor with Combinations of Environmental Chemicals,\" _Science_ 272 (June 7, 1996): 1489-1492.\n\n Montague, \"Dangers of Chemical Combinations.\"\n\n It is encouraging to note that in Massachusetts it is now a law that certain chemicals may not be used in schools and day-care centers, and any use of pesticides requires parental notification first. Although thirty other states have some form of chemical regulation, the Massachusetts law, passed in June 2000, is considered the most far-reaching. Other states, such as California, New York, and Wisconsin, are attempting to pass similar laws. For more information about pesticides and schools, contact: Beyond Pesticides\/NCAMP (National Coalition Against the Misues of Pesticides), 701 E. Street SE, Suite 200, Washington, D.C., 20003; tel: 202-543-5450; fax: 202-543-4791; e-mail: info@beyondpesticides.org; website:www.beyondpesticides.org.\n\n Kagan Owens and Jay Feldman, \"The Schooling of State Pesticide Laws: Review of State Pesticide Laws Regarding Schools,\" _Pesticides and You_ 18:3 (1998): 9-23. Published by Beyond Pesticides\/NCAMP (National Coalition Against the Misues of Pesticides), 701 E. Street SE, Suite 200, Washington, D.C., 20003; tel: 202-543-5450; fax: 202-543-4791; e-mail: info@beyondpesticides.org; website: www.beyondpesticides.org.\n\n World Resources Institute, \"Threats from Environmental Estrogens,\" 1995 www.wri.org.\n\n Theo Colborn, Dianne Dumanoski, and John Peterson Myers, _Our Stolen Future: Are We Threatening Our Fertility, Intelligence, and Survival?\u2014A Scientific Detective Story_ (New York: Dutton\/Penguin Group, 1996): 187-209.\n\n Clinical molecular medicine is so named, says Dr. Edelson, because it integrates environmental medicine, which assesses the effect of the environment on human illness, and applied immunology (how the immune system functions), toxicology (how toxins make us sick), and clinical nutritional biochemistry (the scientific way of using nutrients to improve health based on an understanding of cellular chemical processes that are not working optimally).\n\n Stephen B. Edelson, \"Requirements for Chemical Detoxification,\" 1998, The Edelson Center for Environmental and Preventive Medicine, 3833 Roswell Road, Suite 110, Atlanta, GA 30342; tel: 404-841-0088; fax: 404-841-64156; website: www.ephca.com; also: www.edelsoncenter.com.\n\n Elson M. Haas, \"Detoxification and the Detox Diet: An Important Healing Process,\" 1999 www.elsonhaas.com.\n\n Elson M. Haas, M.D., \"General Detoxification and Cleansing,\" (n.d.) HealthWorld Online www.healthy.net. See also _The Detox Diet: The How-to and When-to Guide for Cleansing the Body_ (Berkeley, Calif.: Celestial Arts, 1996): 21-32. Elson Haas, M.D., may be contacted at Preventive Medical Center of Marin, Inc., 25 Mitchell Blvd., Suite 8, San Rafael, CA 94903; tel: 415-472-2343; fax: 415-472-7636; e-mail: lora_pmc2000@hotmail.com; website: www.elsonhaas.com.\n\n Elson M. Haas, \"Spring Cleansing,\" 2000 www.elsonhaas.com.\n\n Strictly speaking, for some, especially Westerners raised on animal protein, soybeans are not easy to digest and can produce gastrointestinal discomfort. However, for the purposes of this example, the statements made about soybeans are accurate.\n\n## _Chapter 3_\n\n Natural killer (NK) cells are central to the immune system's ability to withstand toxins and potential disease. They are a type of nonspecific, free-ranging immune cell produced in the bone marrow and matured in the thymus gland, located behind the sternum. NK cells can recognize and quickly destroy virus and cancer cells on first contact. \"Armed\" with an estimated 100 different biochemical poisons for killing foreign proteins, they can kill target cells without having encountered them previously. As with antibodies, their role is surveillance, to rid the body of aberrant or foreign cells before they can grow and produce cancer or infection.\n\n Symptoms of mercury toxicity make a very long list: anorexia, depression, fatigue, insomnia, arthritis, multiple sclerosis, moodiness, irritability, memory loss, nausea, diarrhea, gum disease, swollen glands, headaches, and many more. Mercury toxicity has been shown to have a destructive effect on kidney function and to contribute to cardiovascular disease, neuropsychological dysfunction, reproductive disorders, and birth defects.\n\nMercury fillings, or amalgams, have been used in dentistry since the 1820s, but not until 1988 did the routine use of mercury raise serious enough questions for the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to declare scrap dental amalgam a hazardous waste. Even so, the majority of dentists routinely install mercury fillings in patients' mouths, despite the fact that it is a certified poison. Evidence now shows that mercury amalgams are the major source of mercury exposure for the general public\u2014at rates six times higher than those found in fish and seafood. Studies by the World Health Organization show that eight amalgams in a single mouth can release 3-17 mcg of mercury per day. A Danish study of a random sample of 100 men and 100 women showed that increased blood mercury levels were related to the presence of more than four amalgam fillings in the teeth.\n\n DMPS stands for 2,3-dimercaptopropane-l-sulfonate. It is a substance used by progressive physicians as an evaluation tool to measure suspected mercury levels in a patient. DMPS is the chelating (binding-up) agent of choice for the removal of elemental mercury from the human body. It can be given orally, intravenously, or intramuscularly, and is useful for people who have been exposed to mercury amalgam through their dental fillings, or for those who show evidence of or suspect heavy metal toxicity from other sources.\n\n The pivotal concept in EDS is that an energetic event transfers its signal through an acupuncture meridian to the nervous system, with the end result being a cellular pathology, or some kind of organic disturbance. Essentially, a trained practitioner conducts an \"interview\" with the patient's organs and tissues, gathering information about the basic functional status of those systems and their energy pathways. Not only can EDS show the degree of stress affecting an organ, it is able to monitor the progress of therapy. EDS practitioners assert that this enables them to avoid the trial and error and general guesswork that often accompany difficult diagnoses.\n\nAs a form of computerized information gathering, EDS places a blunt, noninvasive electric probe at specific points on a person's hands, face, or feet, corresponding to acupuncture points at the beginning or end of energy meridians. The theory behind EDS is that very small electrical discharges from these points serve as information signals about the condition of the body's organs and systems, useful for the physician in evaluation and developing a treatment plan. EDS uses a scale of 0 to 100, with 45-55 being \"normal\" or \"balanced.\" Readings above fifty-five are interpreted as indicating an inflammation of the organ associated with the meridian tested, while readings below forty-five to fifty suggest organ stagnation and degeneration.\n\n Fats and oils are made of building blocks called fatty acids. A fatty acid is made of a chain of carbon atoms with hydrogen atoms attached, and an acid group of atoms at the end able to combine with glycerol. When three fatty acids attach to one molecule of glycerol, this makes a simple fat called a triglyceride. The chain of carbon atoms can be short (two to six atoms), medium (eight to ten), or long (twelve to thirty). Butyric acid, found in milk fat, butter, and cream, is a short-chain fatty acid. A fatty acid that has its full quota of hydrogen atoms is a saturated fatty acid (animal fats and hardened fats, solid at room temperature); a fatty acid with less than its full allotment of hydrogen atoms is an unsaturated fatty acid (many plant and fish oils, liquid at room temperature). When a fatty acid lacks only two hydrogen atoms, it is a monounsaturated fatty acid (such as oleic acid); a fatty acid lacking four or more hydrogen atoms is a polyunsaturated fatty acid (linoleic acid). Unsaturated fats required in the diet are called essential fatty acids and include linoleic acid (an omega-6 oil), found in corn, beans, and some nuts and seeds; and alpha linolenic acid (an omega-3 oil), found in fish, flaxseed, and walnuts.\n\n Dr. Robert C. Greenberg, \"Biological Terrain,\" Biological Technologies International, 1998 www.bioterrain.com.\n\n King James Medical Laboratory, Inc., \"Frequently Asked Questions Regarding the Analysis of Metals in Hair Specimens,\" 1998 www.kingjamesomegatech-lab.com.\n\n Affinity Labeling Technologies specifies five proteins found in gingival crevicular fluid, each indicating a different aspect of possible (or probable) dental infections under way. 1) Human alkaline phosphatase: Normally found inside the body's cells, when this protein is present in the gingival fluid, it indicates inflammation or tissue destruction at the sampling site. It will not be found around a healthy tooth; also, the higher the level of this protein, the greater the degree of periodontal disease. 2) Bacterial alkaline phosphatase: This protein is produced by various species of anaerobic (not requiring oxygen) bacteria in the mouth and associated with dental disease. This substance, used by bacteria for their own growth, is not found around healthy teeth; thus its presence indicates infection. 3) Human serum albumin: This protein normally appears only in the blood; when it is encountered in the mouth, it means the blood vessels in the mouth have become permeable, allowing this protein to \"leak\" out. Its presence usually indicates inflammation. 4) Bacterial proteases: These are enzymes that break down other proteins and are secreted by various bacteria found in the mouth. They are responsible for a fair amount of the connective tissue damage that happens with periodontal disease. 5) Human antibodies: The immune system releases specific immune cells (antibodies) in response to the presence of pathogenic microorganisms present in the mouth in the case of dental infection. See \"GCF Components: Proteins Present in Gingival Crevicular Fluid (GCF) Samples (Not Added by ALT, Inc.) and the Possible Reason(s) for Their Presence,\" Affinity Labeling Technologies, 2000 www.altcorp.com.\n\n The term intestinal dysbiosis refers to an imbalance of intestinal flora, or the total microbial population of the large and small intestines. Specifically, these flora are friendly, beneficial bacteria, such as _Lactobacillus acidophilus_ and _Bifidobacterium bifidum_ , and unfriendly bacteria such as _Escherichia coli_ and _Clostridium per-fringens._ In dysbiosis, the unfriendly bacteria predominate; they begin fermentation, producing toxic byproducts, such as ammonia, amines, nitrosamines, phenols, cresols, indole, and skatole, which interfere with the normal elimination cycle. Dysbiosis is considered a primary cause or major cofactor in the development of many health problems, such as acne, yeast overgrowth (by _Candida albicans)_ , chronic fatigue, depression, digestive disorders, bloating, food allergies, PMS, rheumatoid arthritis, and cancer.\n\n Richard S. Lord, \"Dysbiosis Metabolic Markers,\" MetaMetrix Clinical Laboratory, 2000 www.metametrix.com.\n\n Gary Kaplan, \"Chronic Pain, Fatigue, and Sinus Headaches,\" _Alternative Medicine Digest_ , October\/November 1997, 56-63.\n\n James Braly, \"Detecting Hidden Food Allergies,\" _Alternative Medicine Digest_ , June\/July 1998, 30-34.\n\n Ibid.\n\n Richard Leviton, \"The Allergy-free Body,\" _Alternative Medicine Digest_ , April 1995, 8-13.\n\n## _Chapter 4_\n\n Peter Bennett, Stephen Barrie, and Sara Faye, _7-Day Detox Miracle: Restore Your Mind and Body's Natural Vitality with This Safe and Effective Life-Enhancing Program_ (Rockland, Calif.: Prima Health\/Prima Publishing, 1999): 164.\n\n Ibid.\n\n F. Batmanghelidj, _Your Body's Many Cries for Water_ , Global Health Solutions, Inc., P.O. Box 3189, Falls Church, VA 22043; tel: 703-848-2333; fax: 703-848-2334; website: www.watercure.com.\n\n Terry Grossman, _The Baby Boomers' Guide to Living Forever. An Introduction to Immortality Medicine_ (Golden, Colo.: The Hubristic Press, 2000): 53.\n\n You can be exposed to VOCs in your drinking water even if you rely on untreated (unchlorinated) well water. In 1999, the United States Geological Service (USGS) reported that about 42 million Americans were consuming water from an untreated groundwater aquifer containing at least one VOC. Out of 3,000 water sources tested, VOC levels in 6% of urban wells and in 1.5% of rural wells exceeded the established safety levels for VOCs, said USGS. In urban areas, about fifty percent of the wells had at least one VOC, and thirty percent had two or more, while in rural areas, fifteen percent of the wells had one VOC, and six percent had two or more. The four most commonly detected VOCs in wells were chloroform, methyl-tert-butylether, tetra-chloroethene, and trichloroethene. See \"About 42 Million Americans Drink Water Containing at Least One VOC,\" Earth Vision Reports, 12 October 1999 www.earthvision.net; this is a publication of Global Environment & Technology Foundation, at: www.getf.org\n\n M. Thomason et al, \"Study of Water Treatment Effects on Organic Volatiles in Drinking Water,\" _Journal of Chromatography_ 158 (October 1, 1978): 437-47.\n\n _Cryptosporidium parvum_ is a parasite capable of causing human disease. It is generally not removed or deactivated when water is chlorinated. In 1993, 400,000 people in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, developed diarrhea (the disease is called cryptosporidiosis) after drinking municipal water contaminated with this microorganism, a single-celled protozoa. The parasite is transmitted through the stool of an infected person or animal. The presence of chlorine in water actually makes the parasite enter a self-protective cystic form, in which it surrounds itself with a hard impermeable shell, like an egg, which is chlorine resistant and very hard to destroy. Thus, chlorination supports the toxicity of _Cryptosporidium_ in water. Chlorine is also ineffective against _Giardia lamblia_ , another hard-shelled cyst that produces human illness.\n\n G.A. Boorman, \"Drinking Water Disinfection Byproducts: Review and Approach to Toxicity Evaluation,\" _Environmental Health Perspectives_ 107, supp. 1 (February 1999): 207-17.\n\n T.F. Lin and S.W. Hoang, \"Inhalation Exposure to THMs from Drinking Water in South Taiwan,\" _Science of the Total Environment_ 246 (January 31, 2000): 41-49.\n\n Kirsten Waller et al., \"Trihalomethanes in Drinking Water and Spontaneous Abortion,\" _Epidemiology_ 9 (March 1998): 134-140. Shanna H. Swan et al., \"A Prospective Study of Spontaneous Abortion in Relation to Amount and Source of Drinking Water Consumed in Early Pregnancy,\" _Epidemiology_ 9 (March 1998): 126-133.\n\n R.D. Morris et al., \"Chlorination, Chlorination By-Products, and Cancer: A Meta-Analysis,\" _American Journal of Public Health_ 82 (July 1992): 1347-1348.\n\n M. Wrensch et al., \"Spontaneous Abortions and Birth Defects Related to Tap and Bottled Water Use in San Jose, California, 1980-1985,\" _Epidemiology_ 3 (March 1992): 98-103.\n\n L. Fenster et al., \"Tap or Bottled Water Consumption and Spontaneous Abortion in a Case-Control Study of Reporting Consistency,\" _Epidemiology_ 3 (March 1992): 120-4.\n\n M.D. Gallagher et al., \"Exposure to Trihalomethanes and Adverse Pregnancy Outcomes,\" _Epidemiology_ 9 (September 1998): 484-489.\n\n L. Dodds et al., \"Trihalomethanes in Public Water Supplies and Adverse Birth Outcomes,\" _Epidemiology_ 10 (May 1999): 233-7.\n\n Judith B. Klotz and Laurie A. Pyrch, \"A Case Control Study of Neural Tube Defects and Drinking Water Contaminants,\" Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry, Atlanta, Ga., January 1998.\n\n Frank. L. Bove et al., \"Public Drinking Water Contamination and Birth Outcomes\" _American Journal of Epidemiology_ , 141 (May 1, 1995: 850-862.\n\n Andrew T.L. Chen et al., \"Re: 'Public Drinking Water Contamination and Birth Outcomes,'\" _American Journal of Epidemiology_ 143 (June 1, 1996: 1179-1180.\n\n P. Magnus et al., \"Water Chlorination and Birth Defects,\" _Epidemiology_ 10 (September 1999): 513-17.\n\n P. D. Lilly et al., \"Trihalomethane Comparative Toxicity: Acute Renal and Hepatic Toxicity of Chloroform and Bromodichloromethane Following Aqueous Gavage,\" _Fundamentals of Applied Toxicology_ 40 (November 1997): 101-110.\n\n Kenneth Cantor, \"Bladder Cancer, Drinking Water Source, and Tap Water Consumption: A Case-Control Study,\" _Journal of the National Cancer Institute_ , 79 (December 1987): 1269-1279. See also Peter Montague, \"Chlorine Chemicals in Our Water Linked to Human Bladder Cancer,\" _Rachel's Environment & Health Weekly_, #84, July 4, 1988 www.rachel.org.\n\n R.J. Bull et al., \"Use of Biological Assay Systems to Assess the Relative Carcinogenic Hazards of Disinfection By-products,\" _Environmental Health Perspectives_ 46 (December 1982): 215-27.\n\n M.S. Kanarek and T.B. Young, \"Drinking Water Treatment and Risk of Cancer Death in Wisconsin,\" _Environmental Health Perspectives_ 46 (December 1982): 179-86.\n\n J.K. Dunnick et al., \"Bromodichloromethane, a Trihalaomethane that Produces Neoplasms in Rodents,\" _Cancer Research_ 47 (October 1, 1987): 5189-93.\n\n J.K. Dunnick and R.L. Melnick, \"Assessment of the Carcinogenic Potential of Chlorinated Water: Experimental Studies of Chlorine, Chloramine, and Trihalomethanes,\" _Journal of the National Cancer Institute_ 85 (May 19, 1993): 817-22.\n\n R.D. Morris, \"Drinking Water and Cancer,\" _Environmental Health Perspectives_ 103, supp. 8 (November 1995): 225-31.\n\n W.D. King and L.D. Marrett, \"Case-Control Study of Bladder Cancer and Chlorination By-products in Treated Water (Ontario, Canada),\" _Cancer Causes Control_ 7 (November 1996): 596-604.\n\n T.J. Doyle et al., \"The Association of Drinking Water Source and Chlorination By-products with Cancer Incidence Among Postmenopausal Women in Iowa: A Prospective Cohort Study,\" _American Journal of Public Health_ 87 (July 1997): 1168-76.\n\n K.P. Cantor et al., \"Drinking Water Source and Chlorination By-products. I. Risk of Bladder Cancer,\" _Epidemiology_ 9 (January 1998): 21-28.\n\n M.E. Hildesheim et al., \"Drinking Water Source and Chlorination Byproducts. II. Risk of Colon and Rectal Cancers,\" _Epidemiology_ 9 (January 1998): 29-35.\n\n K.P. Cantor et al., \"Drinking Water Source and Chlorination Byproducts in Iowa. III. Risk of Brain Cancer,\" _American Journal of Epidemiology_ 150 (September 15, 1999): 552-60.\n\n KDF uses high-purity copper-zinc granules to remove heavy metals, microorganisms, and chlorine from water. KDF has been demonstrated to remove ninety-nine percent of free chlorine from water, ninety-five percent of chlorine in municipal water, and ninety-eight percent of water-soluble, positively charged ions of lead, mercury, copper, nickel, chromium, mercury, and other dissolved metals. For more information, contact KDF Fluid Treatment, Inc., 1500 KDF Drive, Three Rivers, MI 49093; tel: 616-273-3300; fax: 616-273-4400; website: www.kdfft.com.\n\n \"News You Can Use: Everybody Out of the Pool,\" _Non-Toxic Times_ , 1 (August 2000): 4-5, published by Seventh Generation, One Mill Street, Box A26, Burlington, VT 05401; tel: 802-658-3773; fax: 802-6581771; e-mail: recycle@seventhgen.com; website: www.seventhgen.com. Seventh Generation is also an online source of \"environmentally conscious products,\" including alternatives to chlorine-based products.\n\n A.R. Hinman et al., \"The U.S. Experience with Fluoridation,\" _Community Dental Health_ , 13, supp. 2 (September 1996): 5-9.\n\n Toxic waste remaining from the manufacture of phosphate fertilizer is the source of a large portion of the fluorides dumped in American water. The waste left over from making phosphate fertilizer contains about nineteen percent fluorine. Municipalities all over the United States purchase \"fresh pollution concentrate\" in the form of fluorosilicic acid from Florida companies. This acid is composed of tetrafluorosiliciate gas and other types of fluorine gases collected by pollution scrubbers in the manufacture of phosphate fertilizer. Fluorosilicic acid would otherwise be classified as a hazardous waste if governmental and industry \"health\" authorities hadn't set it up to be used to fluoridate public drinking water. Fluorosilicic acid contains at least two radionuclides (radiation products): polonium-210 and radon-222; both are decay products of uranium, which is found in phosphate rock used to make the fertilizer. When we talk about radionuclides, we're talking about carcinogens. See George C. Glasser, \"Fluoride and the Phosphate Connection,\" _Earth Island Journal_ , Summer 1998, 12.\n\n Fluoride has always been the aluminum industry's \"most devastating pollutant,\" and in 1938, when the aluminum industry had to step up production to meet wartime demands, it had to find new ways to deal with its toxic byproduct. Ironically, the industry sustained a number of damage suits claiming damage to human health from exposure to fluoride wastes. Conveniently, the aluminum industry found a way to dump its toxic waste product into America's public drinking water in the 1940s under the guise of dental benefits, even though very little hard evidence had been generated to support the contention. See Joel Griffith, \"Fluoride: Industry's Toxic Coup,\" _Earth Island Journal_ , Spring 1998 www.earthisland.org.\n\n Richard Leviton, \"The Fluoride Lie\u2014Santa Cruz Refuses to Comply with State Law,\" _Alternative Medicine_ , August-September 1998, 105-109.\n\n Gar Smith, \"Why Fluoride Is an Environmental Issue,\" _Earth Island Journal_ , Summer 2000 www.earthislandjournal.org.\n\n L. Seppa et al., \"Caries in the Primary Dentition, After Discontinuation of Water Fluoridation Among Children After Receiving Comprehensive Dental Care,\" _Community Dental and Oral Epidemiology_ 28 (August 2000): 281-8.\n\n B.A. Burt et al., \"The Effects of a Break in Water Fluoridation on the Development of Dental Caries and Fluorosis,\" _Journal of Dental Research_ 79 (February 2000): 761-9.\n\n W. Kunzel and T. Fischer, \"Caries Prevalence After Cessation of Water Fluoridation in La Salud, Cuba,\" _Caries Research_ 34 (January-February 2000): 20-5.\n\n J.J. Warren et al., \"Fluorosis of the Primary Dentition: What Does It Mean for Permanent Teeth?\" _Journal of the American Dental Association_ 130 (July 1999): 922.\n\n K.E. Heller et al., \"Dental Caries and Dental Fluorosis at Varying Fluoride Concentrations,\" _Journal of Public Health Dentistry_ 57 (Summer 1997): 136-43.\n\n R.H. Selwitz et al., \"Dental Caries and Dental Fluorosis Among Schoolchildren Who Were Lifelong Residents of Communities Having Either Low or Optimal Levels of Fluoride in Drinking Water,\" _Journal of Public Health Dentistry_ 58 (Winter 1998): 28-35.\n\n L. Morgan et al., \"Investigation of the Possible Associations Between Fluorosis, Fluoride Exposure, and Childhood Behavior Problems _,\" Pediatric Dentistry_ 20 (July-August 1998): 244-52.\n\n D.G. Pendrys et al., \"Risk Factors for Enamel Fluorosis in Optimally Fluoridated Children Born After the U.S. Manufacturers' Decision to Reduce the Fluoride Concentration of Infant Formulas,\" _American Journal of Epidemiology_ 148 (November 15, 1998): 967-74.\n\n A. Bardsen et al., \"Dental Fluorosis Among Persons Exposed to High and Low-Fluoride Drinking Water in Western Norway,\" _Community Dental and Oral Epidemiology_ 27 (August 1999): 259-67.\n\n A.E. Villa et al., \"Dental Fluorosis in Chilean Children: Evaluation of Rsik Factors,\" _Community Dental and Oral Epidemiology_ 26 (October 1998): 310-15.\n\n A. Bardsen and K. Bjorvatn, \"Risk Periods in the Development of Dental Fluorosis,\" _Clinical Oral Investigations_ 2 (December 1998): 155-60.\n\n Morton Walker, \"Fluoridation Brings Hazards to Human Health,\" _Townsend Letter for Doctors & Patients_, No. 202, May 2000, 30-36.\n\n G.J. Judd, \"Mass Fluoridation Causes Alarming Rise in Cancer Deaths,\" _Health Freedom News_ , May 1995, 10.\n\n E. Tohyama, \"Relationship Between Fluoride Concentration in Drinking Water and Mortality Rate from Uterine Cancer in Okinawa Prefecture, Japan,\" _Journal of Epidemiology_ 6 (December 1996): 184-91.\n\n W. John Diamond, M.D., and W. Lee Cowden, M.D., with Burton Goldberg, _An Alternative Medicine Definitive Guide to Cancer_ (Tiburon, Calif.: Future Medicine Publishing, 1997): 580-582.\n\n Collation of published researched provided by Health and Longevity Resource Center, 1998 www.all-natural.com.\n\n S. Hillier et al., \"Fluoride in Drinking Water and Risk of Hip Fracture in the UK: A Case-Control Study,\" _Lancet_ 355 (January 22, 2000): 265-9.\n\n John R. Lee, \"Fluoridation and Hip Fractures,\" _Earth Island Journal_ , Summer 2000 www.earthisland.org.\n\n M. Diesendorf et al., \"New Evidence on Fluoridation,\" _Australian New Zealand Journal of Public Health_ 21 (April 1997): 187-90.\n\n J.K. Maurer et al., \"Two-Year Carcinogenicity Study of Sodium Fluoride in Rats,\" _Journal of the National Cancer Institute_ 82 (July 4, 1990): 1118-26.\n\n Richard G. Foulkes, \"The Fluoride Connection,\" _Townsend Letter for Doctors & Patients_, April 1998, 11.\n\n Leviton, \"The Fluoride Lie,\" 107.\n\n Bob Woffinden, \"A Clear and Present Danger,\" _Earth Island Journal_ , Summer 2000 www.earthisland.org.\n\n P.J. Mullenix et al., \"Neurotoxicity of Sodium Fluoride in Rats,\" _Neurotoxicology and Teratology_ , 17 (March-April 1995): 169-177.\n\n Joel Griffith, \"Fluoride: Industry's Toxic Coup,\" _Earth Island Journal_ , Spring 1998 www.earthisland.org.\n\n Gar Smith, \"Why Fluoride Is an Environmental Issue,\" _Earth Island Journal_ , Summer 2000 www.earthislandjournal.org.\n\n Joseph Dispenza, _Live Better Longer. The Parcells Center Seven-Step Plan for Health and Longevity_ (San Francisco: Harper San Francisco, 1997): 38-45.\n\n Research summarized from C.H. Van Middelem, \"Fate and Persistence of Pesticides,\" presented at Pesticides in the Environment, a 1965 symposium, reprinted at www.veggiewash.com.\n\n For a good review of the subject and its ramifications, see Martin Teitel and Kimberley Wilson, _Genetically Engineered Food:Changing the Nature of Nature_ (Rochester, Vt.: Park Street Press, 1999). See also the author's website, the Council for Responsible Genetics: www.gene-watch.org.\n\n Richard Leviton, \"Bioengineered Foods\u2014Putting Consumer Health and Safety Last,\" _Alternative Medicine_ , November 1998, 104-110.\n\n Ibid., 108.\n\n Julie A. Nordlee et al., \"Identification of a Brazil-nut Allergen in Transgenic Soybeans,\" _New England Journal of Medicine_ 334 (March 14, 1996): 688-692.\n\n \"Frequently Asked Questions About Genetically Engineered Food,\" Summer 1999, The Council for Responsible Genetics, 5 Upland Road, Suite 3, Cambridge, MA 02140; tel: 617-868-0870; fax: 617-491-5344; website: crg@gene-watch.org.\n\n Francesca Lyman, \"'Transgenic' Pollution a New Concern,\" MSNBC News, 28 September 1999 www.msnbc.com.\n\n Rich Charnes, \"Genetically Altered Food: Myths and Realities,\" EarthSave, 2000 www.earthsave.org. Earth Save International, 1509 Seabright Avenue, Suite Bl, Santa Cruz, CA 96062; tel: 831-423-0293 or 800-362-3648; fax: 831-423-1313.\n\n Joe Cummins, \"Gene Tinkering Blues: Allergy,\" _Gene Tinkering Blues_ , February 1997 www.holisticmed.com\/ge\/allergy.html.\n\n Marion Nestle, \"Allergies to Transgenic Foods\u2014Questions of Policy,\" _New England Journal of Medicine_ , 334 (March 14, 1996): 726-728.\n\n Ronnie Cummins, \"Son of Frankenfoods: GE Trees, Fish, and Functional Foods,\" _BioDemocracy News_ #28, July 2000 www.purefood.org.\n\n \"Summary of U.S. Consumer Polls on GE Foods,\" Center for Food Safety, 666 Pennsylvania Avenue, SE, Suite 302, Washington D.C., 20003; tel: 202-547-9359; fax: 202-547-9429; website: www.centerforfoodsafety.org.\n\n Peter Montague, \"Genetically Altering the World's Food,\" _Rachel's Environment & Health Weekly_, #639, February 25, 1999.\n\n Richard Leviton, \"The Tainted Milk Mustache\u2014How Monsanto and the FDA Spoiled a Staple Food,\" _Alternative Medicine_ , January 1999, 94-108.\n\n Samuel S. Epstein, \"Unlabeled Milk from Cows Treated with Biosynthetic Growth Hormones: A Case of Regulatory Abdication,\" _International Journal of Health Sciences_ 26:1 (1996): 173-185.\n\n Steve Emmott, \"EU Scientific Committee Warns of Human Health & Cancer Hazards of Monsanto's Recombinant Bovine Growth Hormone (rGBH),\" March 1999 www.purefood.org.\n\n Susan E. Hankinson et al., \"Circulating Concentrations of Insulin-like Growth Factor 1 and Risk of Breast Cancer,\" _The Lancet_ 351 (May 9, 1998): 1393-1396.\n\n June M. Chan et al., \"Plasma Insulin-like Growth Factor 1 and Prostate Cancer Risk: A Prospective Study,\" _Science_ 279 (January 23, 1998): 563-566.\n\n \"Summary of U.S. Consumer Polls on GE Foods,\" Center for Food Safety www.centerforfoodssafety.org.\n\n For a complete list of labeling requirements and loopholes, see \"Background and Status of Labeling of Irradiated Foods,\" BioDemocracy and Organic Consumers Association, 28 June 2000 www.purefood.org.\n\n See John W. Gofman, \"Preventing Breast Cancer: The Story of a Major, Proven, Preventable Cause of this Disease\" (Committee for Nuclear Responsibility, San Francisco, Calif., 1996). \"Radiation from Medical Procedures in the Pathogenesis of Cancer and Ischemic Heart Disease\" (Committee for Nuclear Responsibility, San Francisco, Calif., 1999). \"Radiation-Induced Cancer from Low-Dose Exposure\" (Committee for Nuclear Responsibility, San Francisco, Calif., 1990).\n\n Richard Leviton, \"FDA's Mission Impossible\u2014Selling the American Public the Food Irradiation Safety Con,\" _Alternative Medicine_ , May 1998, 103-108.\n\n Jeffrey Reinhardt, \"Liver Cancer: Danger of Radiolytic Products in the Diet,\" BioDemocracy and Organic Consumers Association, 26 June 2000 www.purefood.org.\n\n Wenonah Hauter, \"Overview of Food Irradiation Reports,\" _Public Citizen_ , 28 December 1999 www.citizen.org.\n\n See Gary Gibbs, _The Food That Would Last Forever_ (Garden City Park, N.Y.: Avery Publishing Group, 1993).\n\n S.G. Srikantia, Professor of Food and Nutrition, University of Mysore, India, in testimony before U.S. Congressional hearings on Food Irradiation, June 19, 1987. Published at www.citizen.org.\n\n \"Memorandum, Irradiation and the New Proposed National Organic Program Area of Concern,\" Center for Food Safety, 5 April 2000 www.centerforfoodsafety.org.\n\n \"How It Hurts: Key Research on the Unwholesomeness of Irradiated Foods,\" Public Citizen, 2000, www.citizen.org.\n\n Wenonah Hauter, \"Food Irradiation: Do You Know Where Your Dinner Has Been?\" Public Citizen, 1999 www.citizen.org.\n\n Patricia Kane, \"Lifting Depression with Nutrition,\" _Alternative Medicine Digest_ , March 1998, 64-70.\n\n A. Ascherio et al., \"Trans-fatty Acids and Coronary Heart Disease,\" _New England Journal of Medicine_ 340 (June 24, 1999): 1994-8.\n\n Research compiled and summarized by Mary G. Enig at www.enig.com. Dr. Enig is a nutritionist, former faculty research associate with the Lipid Research Group at the University of Maryland, director of nutritional sciences at Enig Associates, Inc., and the author of two books on fats.\n\n For more information, see: Mary G. Enig, _Trans-Fatty Acids in the Food Supply: A Comprehensive Report Covering 60 Years of Research_ , 2d ed. (Bethesda, Md.: Bethesda Press, 1995): available from www.enig.com; e-mail: marye@enig.com. Also Mary G. Enig, _Know Your Fats: The Complete Primer for Understanding the Nutrition of Fats, Oils, and Cholesterol_ (Bethesda, Md.: Bethesda Press, 2000): Bethesda Press, Suite 340, Meadows Park Building, 12501 Prosperity Drive, Silver Spring, MD 20904; tel: 301-680-8800; fax: 301-680-8100; website: www.bethesdapress.com.\n\n Mary G. Enig, \"Published Estimates of Trans-Fatty Acid Availability and Consumption in Various Countries,\" (n.d.) www.enig.com.\n\n Bruce Fife, _The Detox Book. How to Detoxify Your Body to Improve Your Health, Stop Disease, and Reverse Aging_ (Colorado Springs, Colo.: Health Wise, 1997): 99.\n\n Elson M. Haas, _The Detox Diet. A How-To & When-To Guide for Cleansing the Body_ (Berkeley, Calif.: Celestial Arts, 1996): 119.\n\n Lewis Harrison, _30-Day Body Purification. How to Cleanse Your Inner Body & Experience the Joys of Toxin-Free Health_ (Paramus, N.J.: Reward Books\/Prentice Hall, 1995): 80-81, 83.\n\n Jacquelin Krohn, M.D., Frances Taylor, and Jinger Prosser, _The Whole Way to Natural Detoxification. Clearing Your Body of Toxins_ (Point Roberts, Wash.: Hartley & Marks, 1996): 132-33.\n\n Fife, _The Detox Book_ , 93.\n\n John Updike, _Rabbit Redux_ (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1971): 194.\n\n Charles Tart, quoted by Ralph Losey in \"The Problem of the Subtle Sybil Effect,\" www.sun-angel.com.\n\n Untitled, unsigned editorial], _Cogenesis Journal_ , Eos CoCreations, P.O. Box 483, Cave Creek, AZ 85327; tel: 602-502-0686; website: [www.cogenesis.com.\n\n Also known as bitter salts or heptahydrate, Epsom salt is a naturally occurring mineral called epsomite, with a high magnesium sulfate content. For commercial use, it is made through the action of sulphuric acid on magnesite (magnesium carbonate\/oxide). During the bath, the high magnesium concentration in the salt enables water to be pulled out through the body's skin pores and, with it, toxins capable of excretion through the skin. It is not uncommon for the bath water to turn a light grey color after one has been soaking for twenty minutes or so; this is an indication that toxins have been excreted through the skin. Epsom salt is also an effective, safe, nontoxic laxative, taken as a drink, mixed with water, per instructions on the package. As a topical agent, Epsom salt is recommended for providing some relief from stiffness, soreness, joint tightness, arthritic pain, discomfort from tender muscles, bruises, sprains, or strains, and to improve sleep and increase the body's energy levels through deep relaxation.\n\n Valerie Ann Worwood, _The Fragrant Mind. Aromatherapy for Personality, Mind, Mood, and Emotion_ (Novato, Calif.: New World Library, 1996): 131-132.\n\n Ibid., 193-194.\n\n Chrissie Wildwood, _The Encyclopedia of Aromatherapy_ (Rochester, Vt.: Healing Arts Press, 1996): 83.\n\n The approach was developed in 1954 by Dr. John C. Lilly, a pioneer in brain and behavioral research and later famous for his work with dolphins. Dr. Lilly experimented with the effects on the brain of restricting external sensory stimulation; he thought it would put the brain to sleep. Instead, it woke it up. Using himself as his first test subject, Dr. Lilly removed all visual, sound, tactile, and temperature stimuli, and found his brain operated independently of external sensory data, and functioned at an even higher level as a result. He found that the greatest benefit to floating in salt in a sensory deprivation chamber was the profound state of relaxation it induced. He stated that two hours in the flotation tank is equivalent to eight hours of restful sleep and that floating is an excellent way to destress after an overloaded work day.\n\n The autonomic nervous system (ANS) can be likened to your body's automatic pilot. It keeps you alive through breathing, heart rate, and digestion, without your being aware of it or participating in its activities. The ANS has two divisions: the sympathetic nervous sysyem, which expends body energy; and the parasympathetic nervous system, which conserves body energy. The sympathetic nervous system is associated with arousal and stress; it prepares us physically when we perceive a threat or challenge by increasing our heart rate, blood pressure, and muscle tension. The parasympathetic nervous system slows heart rate and increases intestinal and most gland activity.\n\n According to information provided by ThinkTank International Pte. Ltd. (Singapore) about the PathFinder floatation tank; website: www.thinktank.com.sg.\n\n Thomas H. Fine and Roderick Borrie, \"Flotation REST in Applied Psychophysiology\" (paper presented at the Sixth International Conference on REST, San Francisco, Calif., April 17, 1997) International REST Investigators Society (IRIS) www.concentric.net\/%7Etfine\/flotrest.shtml.\n\n According to information provided about Oasis Flotation Systems by Biofeedback Instrument Corporation, New York, N.Y.; website: www.biof.com\/oasis.\n\n According to information provided by Samadhi Tank Corporation, Nevada City, CA; website: www.samadhitank.com.\n\n Comments by Steven Halpern drawn from \"Push-Button Relaxation,\" 1997 www.stevenhalpern.com; from an interview by Richard Leviton, 1992; and from Richard Leviton, \"Healing Vibrations,\" _Yoga Journal_ , January-February 1994.\n\n## _Chapter 5_\n\n First developed by 19th-century European physicians, naturopathy is an umbrella term to describe the original basis of natural, holistic, and alternative medicine. A naturopath understands that Nature heals and that the body is inherently self-healing when given the appropriate support therapies, such as diet; herbs; nutritional supplementation; detoxification and internal cleansing regimens; exercise; heat and water therapy; massage; bodywork; counseling; and relaxation. Naturopathy emphasizes disease prevention and health promotion. It is currently licensed as a medical profession in at least eleven U.S. states, with the number of new states accepting naturopathy growing steadily. In a few states, naturopaths function as primary care physicians, and insurance companies cover their services. There are several accredited four-year naturopathic medical colleges now in operation.\n\n These cruciferous vegetables all contain a nutritionally valuable component called glucosinolates. Studies have shown that these compounds can increase the body's detoxification activities and help protect against the effects of carcinogens. According to nutritionist Jeffrey Bland, Ph.D., the beneficial activity of cruciferous vegetables may be due not only to glucosinolates, \"but to the synergistic interaction of many substances inherent in cruciferous vegetables.\" Dr. Bland further notes that it is important not to overcook this type of vegetable, because the heat destroys or denatures the enzymes, thereby diminishing their benefit. See Jeffrey S. Bland, _The 20-Day Rejuvenation Diet Program, With the Revolutionary Phytonutrient Diet_ (New Canaan, Conn.: Keats Publishing, 1997): 65-66.\n\n Bile is a thick, viscous, straw-colored fluid produced by the liver, from which it passes into the common bile duct and then into the small intestine as needed. Bile is also stored in the gallbladder and discharged as needed. It is typically produced at the rate of a pint to a quart per twenty-four hours, although during fasting, little bile is formed. Bile functions as a digestive juice and emulsifying agent, facilitating the digestion of oils and fats in the small intestine. Essentially, bile emulsifies the fats so that digestive enzymes from the pancreas can break them down. When consumed food (especially fats) reaches the first part of the small intestine (duodenum), it triggers the liver and gallbladder to release bile into the intestine. Bile also stimulates peristalsis, or the rhythmic contractions of the intestines that move fecal matter along to its final elimination. Normally bile is ejected from the liver or gallbladder storage only during small intestine digestion.\n\n Laurel Vukovic, _14-Day Herbal Cleansing. A Step-by-Step Guide to All Natural Inner Cleansing Techniques for Increased Energy, Vitality and Beauty_ (Paramus, N.J.: Prentice Hall, 1998), 73, 145-6.\n\n Carolyn Reuben, _Cleansing the Body, Mind, and Spirit_ (New York: Berkley Books, 1998): 178.\n\n RR. Bradley, ed., _British Herbal Compendium_ , Vol. 1 (Bournemouth, Dorset, U.K.: British Herbal Medicine Association, 1992): 112-114. J. Yamahara et al., \"Gastrointestinal Motility Enhancing Effect of Ginger and Its Active Constituents,\" _Chemical Pharmacology Bulletin_ 38 (1990): 430-1.\n\n Paul Pitchford, _Healing with Whole Foods. Oriental Traditions and Modern Nutrition_ (Berkeley, Calif.: North Atlantic Books, 1993): 497.\n\n Helene Silver. _Rejuvenate. A 21-Day Natural Detox Plan for Optimal Health_ (Freedom, Calif.: The Crossing Press, 1998), 42.\n\n Donald J. Brown, N.D., _Herbal Prescriptions for Better Health. Your Everyday Guide to Prevention, Treatment, and Care_ (Rocklin, Calif.: Prima Publishing, 1996): 151-158.\n\n Vukovic, _14-Day Herbal Cleansing_ , 75.\n\n Daniel B. Mowrey, _Herbal Tonic Therapies_ (New Canaan, Conn.: Keats Publishing, 1993): 239-241.\n\n Marie Nadine Antol, _Healing Teas. How to Prepare and Use Teas to Maximize Your Health_ (Garden City Park, N.Y.: Avery Publishing Group, 1996): 122-123.\n\n David Hoffmann, _The Holistic Herbal. A Herbal Celebrating the Wholeness of Life_ (Shaftesbury, Dorset, U.K.: Element Books, 1988): 62.\n\n Bennett, _7-Day Detox Miracle_ , 187-88.\n\n Ibid, 179-186.\n\n Carol A. Newall, Linda A. Anderson, and J. David Phillipson, _Herbal Medicines. A Guide for Health-Care Professionals_ (London: The Pharmaceutical Press, 1996): 60-61.\n\n Michael Tierra, \"How to Do a Liver Flush,\" 1999 www.planetherbs.com.\n\n Silver. _Rejuvenate_ , 51, 49.\n\n Christopher Hobbs, L.Ac, _Healing with Herbs & Foods_ (Loveland, Colo.: Botanica Press\/Interweave Press, 1994).\n\n Serafino Corsello, M.D, \"Reversing Lupus and Diabetes,\" _Alternative Medicine Digest_ , February-March 1998, 44-53.\n\n William Lee Cowden, M.D, \"Health Hazard in Your Intestines,\" _Alternative Medicine Digest_ , November 1996, 26-29.\n\n W.C. Willett et al, \"Relation of Meat, Fat, and Fiber Intake to the Risk of Colon Cancer in a Prospective Study Among Women,\" _New England Journal of Medicine_ 323 (December 13, 1990): 1664-72.\n\n B. Trock et al, \"Dietary Fiber, Vegetables, and Colon Cancer: Critical Review and Meta-Analyses of the Epidemiologic Evidence,\" _Journal of the National Cancer Institute_ 82 (April 1990): 650-61.\n\n E. Benito et al, \"A Population-Based Case-Control Study of Colorectal Cancer in Majorca,\" _International Journal of Cancer_ 45 (January 15, 1990): 69-76.\n\n C.F. Babbs, \"Free Radicals and the Etiology of Colon Cancer,\" _Free Radical Biological Medicine_ 8:2 (1990): 191-200.\n\n \"The Colon: Sewer or Cesspool?\" Angel Healing Center, 1999 www.cyberport.net\/angel.\n\n Dr. Bernard Jensen, _Dr. Jensen's Guide to Better Bowel Care_ (Garden City Park, N.Y.: Avery Publishing Group, 1999): 27, 37-38, 51-54.\n\n \"Medicinal Activated Charcoal Tablets and Biscuits,\" J.L. Bragg (Ipswich) Ltd., Suffolk, England www.users.globalnet.co.uk.\n\n Robert C. Atkins, M.D., _Dr. Atkins' Vita-Nutrient Solution. Nature's Answer to Drugs_ (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1998): 237-238.\n\n Richard C. Kaufman, \"The Universal Antidote and Detoxifier That Extends Life: Activated Charcoal,\" _Journal of the Megahealth Society_ , July 1989 www.healingtools.tripod.com.\n\n S.M. Lipson and G. Stotzky, \"Specificity of Virus Adsorption to Clay Minerals,\" _Canadian Journal of Microbiology_ 31 (January 1985): 50-53.\n\n M.D. Sobsey and T. Cromeans, \"Effects of Bentonite Clay Solids on Poliovirus Concentration from Water by Microporous Filter Methods,\" _Applied Environmental Microbiology_ 49 (April 1985): 795-8.\n\n V.M. Illrin et al., \"A New Sorbent for Concentrating Viruses from an Aqueous Medium,\" _Lik Sprava_ , May-June 1995, 5-6, 177-9.\n\n W.A. Hartman and D.B. Martin, \"Effect of Suspended Bentonite Clay on the Acute Toxicity of Glyphosphate to Daphnia pulex and Lemna minor,\" _Bulletin of Environmental Contamination and Toxicology_ 33 (September 1984): 355-361. And R.D. Fairshter and A.F. Wilson, \"Paraquat Poisoning: Manifestations and Therapy,\" _The American Journal of Medicine_ 59 (December 1975): 751-753. D. I. Blodgett, et al. \"Adsorption of Aflatoxin with Feed-Approved Clays,\" Virginia Com Board Project Progress Report (n.d.) www.yerbaprima.com\/bentproc.htm.\n\n J.M. Santurio et al., \"Effect of Sodium Bentonite on the Performance and Blood Variables of Broiler Chickens Intoxicated with Aflatoxins,\" _British Poultry Science_ 40 (March 1999): 115-9.\n\n M.A. Abdel-Wahhab et al., \"Effect of Aluminosilicates and Bentonite on Aflatoxin-Induced Developmental Toxicity in Rats,\" _Journal of Applied Toxicology_ 19 (May-June 1999): 199-204.\n\n T.C. Schell et al., \"Effects of Feeding Aflatoxin-Contaminated Diets with and without Clay to Weanling and Growing Pigs on Performance, Liver Function, and Mineral Metabolism,\" _Journal of Animal Science_ 71 (May 1993): 1209-18.\n\n R.A. McKenzie, \"Bentonite as Therapy for Lantana camara Poisoning of Cattle,\" _Australian Veterinary Journal_ 68 (April 1991): 146-8.\n\n Ran Knishinsky, _The Clay Cure_ (Rochester, Vt.: Healing Arts Press, 1998). See also \"Cleanse Yourself Internally with Liquid Clay\u2014The Bentonite Cure,\" _Alternative Medicine_ (December 1998-January 1999), 14-15.\n\n \"Chlorella Q & A\" www.earthrise.com.\n\n W. John Diamond, M.D, Lee W. Cowden, M.D, and Burton Goldberg, _An Alternative Medicine Definitive Guide to Cancer_ (Tiburon, Calif.: Future Medicine Publishing, 1997): 809-811.\n\n \"Greater Health and Longevity: Chlorella, the Green Algae Superfood, May Be the Answer,\" _Alternative Medicine Digest_ 12 (1996): 56.\n\n Information provided by Taiwan Chlorella Manufacturing Co, Ltd, Taipei, Taiwan; website: www.taiwanchlorella.com.\n\n Randal Merchant, M.D, \"1999: Research Update,\" Health & Happiness Publishing, The Press Room, 2435 E. North St, #116, Greenville, SC 29615; tel: 800-694-2774; e-mail: info@health-books.com; website: www.health-books.com\/PressRoom.\n\n Randal Merchant et al, \"Dietary _Chlorella Pyrenoidosa_ for Patients with Malignant Glioma: Effects of Immuno-Competence, Quality of Life, and Survival,\" _Phytotherapy Research_ 4:6 (1990): 220-231.\n\n R.S. Pore, \"Detoxification of Chlordecone Poisoned Rats with Chlorella and Chlorella Derived Sporopollenin,\" _Drug and Chemical Toxicology_ 7:1 (1984): 57-71.\n\n I. Hagino, \"Effect of Chlorella on Fecal and Urinary Cadmium Excretion in 'Itai-Itai,'\" _Japan Journal of Hygiene_ 30:1 (1975): 77.\n\n T. Nagano et al, \"Absorption and Excretion of Cadmium by the Rat Administered Cadmium-Containing Chlorella,\" _Eisei Kagaku_ 24:4 (1978): 7182-7186.\n\n Randal Merchant et al, \"Nutritional Supplementation with _Chlorella pyrenoidosa_ for Patients with Fibromyalgia Syndrome: A Pilot Study,\" _Phytotherapy Research_ 14 (May 2000): 167-73.\n\n Merchant, \"1999: Research Update.\"\n\n Ayurveda is the traditional medicine of India, based on many centuries of empirical use. Its name means \"end of the Vedas\" (which were India's sacred scripts), implying that a holistic medicine may be founded on spiritual principles. Ayurveda describes three metabolic, constitutional, and body types (doshas) in association with the basic elements of Nature. These are vata (air and ether, rooted in intestines), pitta (fire and water\/stomach), and kapha (water and earth\/lungs). Ayurvedic physicians use these categories (which also have psychological aspects) as the basis for prescribing individualized formulas of herbs, diet, massage, breathing, meditation, exercise and yoga postures, and detoxification techniques.\n\n Dr. Michael Tierra, L.Ac, O.M.D, \"The Wonders of Triphala: Ayurvedic Formula for Internal Purification,\" Online Articles, 1996 www.planetherbs.com.\n\n Rudolf M. Ballentine, M.D., _Radical Healing. Integrating the World's Great Therapeutic Traditions to Create a New Transformative Medicine_ (New York: Three Rivers Press, 1999): 306.\n\n Jacqueline Krohn, M.D., Frances Taylor, and Jinger Prosser, _The Whole Way to Natural Detoxification. Clearing Your Body of Toxins_ (Point Roberts, Wash.: Hartley & Marks, 1996): 17.\n\n L.J. Cheskin et al., \"Mechanisms of Constipation in Older Persons and Effects of Fiber Compared with Placebo,\" _Journal of the American Geriatric Society_ 43 (June 1995): 666-9.\n\n J. Stevens et al., \"Comparison of the Effects of Psyllium and Wheat Bran on Gastrointestinal Transit Time and Stool Characteristics,\" _Journal of the American Dietetics Association_ 88 (March 1988): 323-6.\n\n M. Tomas-Ridocci et al., \"The Efficacy of Plantago ovata as a Regulator of Intestinal Transit. A Double-Blind Study Compared to Placebo,\" _Rev Esp Enferm Dig_ 82 (July 1992): 17-22.\n\n W. Ashraf et al., \"Effects of Psyllium Therapy on Stool Characteristics, Colon Transit and Anorectal Function in Chronic Idiopathic Constipation,\" _Alimentary Pharmacological Therapy_ 9: (December 1995): 639-47.\n\n All cholesterol is not unhealthy; some is required for the body's metabolic and hormonal functions; but one form of cholesterol is believed to be injurious. To understand this, we need to discuss lipoproteins. These are found in two principal forms: low- and high-density. Low-density lipoproteins (LDLs), which are made from protein and fat molecules, circulate in the blood and act as the primary carriers of cholesterol to the cells of the body. An elevated level of LDL, often called \"bad\" cholesterol, contributes to atherosclerosis, a circulatory system disease that leads to a buildup of plaque deposits on the inner walls of the arteries. These plaque deposits can eventually cause heart attacks, stroke, and other illnesses. A diet high in saturated fats can increase levels of LDLs in the blood. In contrast, high-density lipoproteins (HDLs) contain a larger amount of protein and less fat than LDLs. HDLs readily absorb cholesterol and related compounds in the blood and transport them to the liver for elimination. A higher ratio of HDL to LDL cholesterol in the blood is associated with a reduced risk of cardiovascular disease.\n\n J.W. Anderson et al., \"Cholesterol-Lowering Effects of Psyllium-Enriched Cereal as an Adjunct to a Prudent Diet in the Treatment of Mild to Moderate Hypercholesterolemia.\" _American Journal of Clinical Nutrition_ 56 (July 1992): 93-8.\n\n W.L. Haskell et al., \"Role of Water-Soluble Dietary Fiber in the Management of Elevated Plasma Cholesterol in Healthy Subjects,\" _American Journal of Cardiology_ 70 (September 15, 1992): 840.\n\n Technically, this physiological experience, or sensation, is called the Jarisch-Herxheimer reaction or effect, or sometimes \"herx,\" for short. It is named after the Austrian dermatologist, Jarisch Adolf Herxheimer, who identified it in 1895; the effect was confirmed by his brother, Karl Herxheimer, M.D, also a dermatologist but working in Germany. Originally it was used in reference to syphilis, but doctors found it accurately described the phenomena of other illnesses, such as tuberculosis, arthritis, and candidiasis (yeast infestation by _Candida albicans_ ). The term refers to a temporary increase of symptoms under the influence of treatment; in the case of syphilis, it referred to the temporary worsening or intensification of symptoms as a result of administering anti-syphilitic drugs, or antibiotics. In that case, the syphilis organisms were literally dying off at a rate faster than the body could clean up and remove their toxic debris. The term is now being used in the context of Lyme disease, caused by the spirochete _Borrelia burgdorferi_ , related to _Treponema pallidum_ , the organism responsible for syphilis. But it is also being used even more generally for comparable experiences during detoxification. Although the experience is unpleasant, it is a sure sign that the detoxification protocols are working. It demonstrates the ironic truth of the following statement: You wouldn't feel this miserable if you weren't actually getting better.\n\n Thomas Fleming, ed, _PDR\u00ae for Herbal Medicines_ (Montvale, N.J.: Medical Economics Company, 1998): 1090.\n\n Mowrey, _Herbal Tonic Therapies_ , 215-218.\n\n Richard Anderson, N.D, N.M.D, \"The Key to Excellent Health: Cleansing the Colon,\" _Alternative Medicine_ , March 1999, 18-22. _Cleanse & Purify Thyself_, Book 1.5, Richard Anderson (publisher), 1998, 48-49, 66-67.\n\n Anderson, \"The Key to Excellent Health: Cleansing the Colon,\" 21-22.\n\n Ann Louise Gittleman, _Guess What Came to Dinner. Parasites and Your Health_ (Garden City Park, N.Y.: Avery Publishing Group, 1993): xiii.\n\n An immunoglobulin is one of a class of five specially designed antibody proteins produced in the spleen, bone marrow, or lymph tissue and involved in the immune system's defense response to foreign substances. The main types of immunoglobulins, grouped according to their concentration in the blood, are: IgG (80%), IgA (10-15%), IgM (510%), IgD (less than 0.1%), and IgE (less than 0.01%). Technically, all antibodies are immunoglobulins.\n\n Silena Heron, N.D, and Eric Yarnell, N.D, \"Treating Parasitic Infections with Botanical Medicines,\" _Alternative & Complementary Therapies_ 5 (August 1999): 214-224.\n\n Leo Galland, M.D, \"Persistent GI Upset a Signal of Hidden Giardiasis,\" _Cortlandt Forum_ (1990):120-21.\n\n Leo Galland, M.D, et al, \" _Giardia lamblia_ Infection as a Cause of Chronic Fatigue,\" _Journal of Nutritional Medicine_ 1 (1990): 27-31.\n\n \"Results of Testing for Intestinal Parasites by State Diagnostic Laboratories,\" United States, 1987, _Morbidity and Mortality Weekly_ 40 (SS-4) (1992): 25-30.\n\n J. Lee, G.M. Park et al., \"Intestinal Parasite Infections at an Institution for the Handicapped in Korea,\" _Korean Journal of Parasitology_ 38 (September 2000): 179-81.\n\n K.J. Lee, Y.K. Ahn, and T.S. Yong, \"A Small-Scale Survey of Intestinal Parasite Infections Among Children and Adolescents in Legaspi City, the Philippines,\" _Korean Journal of Parasitology_ 38 (September 2000): 183-5.\n\n M. Youssef et al., \"Bacterial, Viral, and Parasitic Enteric Pathogens Associated with Acute Diarrhea in Hospitalized Children from Northern Jordan,\" _FEMS Immunology and Medical Microbiology_ 28 (July 2000): 257-63.\n\n A.L. el Idrissi, M. Lyagoubi et al., \"Prevalence of Intestinal Parasitic Disease in Three Provinces in Morocco,\" _Eastern Mediterranean Health Journal_ 5 (January 1999): 86-102.\n\n Joseph Pizzorno, N.D., _Total Wellness. Improve Your Health by Understanding the Body's Healing Systems_ (Rocklin, Calif.: Prima Publishing, 1996): 215.\n\n J. Flegr, P. Kodym, and V. Tolarova, \"Correlation of Duration of Latent _Toxoplasma gondii_ Infection with Personality Changes in Women,\" _Biological Psychology_ 53 (May 2000): 57-68.\n\n Pizzorno, _Total Wellness_ , 79.\n\n Michael Murray, N.D., and Joseph Pizzorno, N.D., _Encyclopedia of Natural Medicine_ , rev. 2d ed. (Rocklin, Calif.: Prima Publishing, 1998): 436-437.\n\n R. Sharma, C.K. Joshiu, and R.K. Goyal, \"Berberine Tannate in Acute Diarrhea,\" _Indian Pediatrics_ 7 (1970): 496-501.\n\n V.P. Choudry, M. Sabir, and V.N. Bhide, \"Berberine in Giardiasis,\" _Indian Pediatrics_ 9 (1972): 143-6.\n\n S.A. Kamat, \"Clinical Trial with Berberine Hydrochloride for the Control of Diarrhea in Acute Gastroenteritis,\" _Journal of the Association of Physicians of India_ 129 (1967): 525-9.\n\n J. Lai, S. Chandra et al., \"In Vitro Antihelmintic Action of Some Indigenous Medicinal Plants on _Ascardia galli_ Worms,\" _Indian Journal of Physiological Pharmacology_ 20 (April-June 1976): 64-68.\n\n V. Munoz et al., \"The Search for Natural Bioactive Compounds through a Multidisciplinary Approach in Bolivia. Part II. Antimalarial Activity of Some Plants Used by Mosetene Indians,\" _Journal of Ethnopharmacology_ 69 (February 2000): 139-55.\n\n A.D. Frame et al., \"Plants from Puerto Rico with Anti-Mycobacterium Tuberculosis Properties,\" _Puerto Rican Health Science Journal_ 17 (September 1998): 243-52.\n\n A. Singh, S.P. Singh, and R. Bamezai, \"Postnatal Efficacy of _Momordica charantia_ Peel, Pulp, Seed, and Whole Fruit Extract in the Detoxification Pathway of Suckling Neonates and Lactating Mice,\" _Cancer Letters_ 122 (January 9, 1998): 121-126.\n\n P. Scartezzini and E. Speroni, \"Review on Some Plants of Indian Traditional Medicine with Antioxidant Activity,\" _Journal of Ethnopharmacology_ 71 (July 2000): 23-43.\n\n O.V. Rybaltovskii, \"On the Discovery of Cucurbitin\u2014a Component of Pumpkin Seed with Antihelmintic Action,\" _Med Parazitol_ (Mosk) 35 (July-August 1966): 487-8. R.J. Blagrove and G.G. Lilley, \"Characterisation of Cucurbitin from Various Species of the Cucurbitaceae,\" _European Journal of Biochemistry_ 103 (February 1980): 577-84.\n\n S.J. Bhatia et al, \" _Lactobacillus acidophilus_ Inhibits Growth of _Campylobacter pylori_ in Vitro,\" _Journal of Clinical Microbiology_ 27 (October 1989): 2328-30.\n\n M. Racccach, R. McGrath, and H. Daftarian, \"Antibiosis of Some Lactic Acid Bacteria Including _Lactobacillus acidophilus_ toward _Listeria monocytogenes,\" International Journal of Food Microbiology_ 9 (August 1989): 25-32.\n\n M.Y. Lin and F.J. Chang, \"Antioxidative Effect of Intestinal _Bifidobacterium longum_ ATCC 15708 and _Lactobacillus acidophilus_ ATCC 4356,\" _Dig Dis Sci_ 45 (August 2000): 1617-22.\n\n O. Sreekumar and A. Hosono, \"Immediate Effect of _Lactobacillus acidophilus_ on the Intestinal Flora and Fecal Enzymes of Rats and the in Vitro Inhibition of _Escherichia coli_ in Coculture,\" _Journal of Dairy Science_ 83 (May 2000): 931-9.\n\n N.M. de Roos and M.B. Katan, \"Effects of Probiotic Bacteria on Diarrhea, Lipid Metabolism, and Carcinogenesis: A Review of Papers Published Between 1988 and 1998,\" _American Journal of Clinical Nutrition_ 71 (February 2000): 405-11.\n\n G.H. Mclnbtosh, P.J. Royle, and M.J. Playne, \"A Probiotic Strain of _L. acidophilus_ Reduces DMH-Induced Large Intestinal Tumors in Male Sprague-Dawley Rats,\" _Nutr Cancer_ 35:2 (1999): 153-9.\n\n L.I. Chernyshova, \"Effects of Dysbacteriosis and Impairment of Immunity Formation in the Early Neonatal Period on Morbidity of Children During the 1st Year of Life and Ways of Its Reduction,\" _Pediatriia_ 6 (1989): 24-29.\n\n PS. Moshchich, L.I. et al, \"Prevention of Dysbactriosis in the Early Neonatal Period Using a Pure Culture of Acidophilic Bacteria,\" _Pediatriia_ 3 (1989): 25-30.\n\n H.S. Gill et al, \"Enhancement of Natural and Acquired Immunity by _Lactobacillus rhamnosus_ (HN001), _Lactobacillus acidophilus_ (HN017), and _Bifidobacterium lactis_ (HN019),\" _British Journal of Nutrition_ 83 (February 2000): 167-76.\n\n Natasha Trenev, _Probiotics. Nature's Internal Healers_ (Garden City Park, N.Y.: Avery Publishing Group, 1998): 74-75.\n\n John Anderson, \" _Acidophilus_ \u2014Why Your Intestines Need This Friendly Bacteria,\" _Alternative Medicine_ , November 1998, 72-76.\n\n Bennett, _7-Day Detox Miracle_ , 192.\n\n Diamond, _An Alternative Medicine Definitive Guide to Cancer_ , 963-964.\n\n T. May et al., \"Effect of Fiber Source on Short-Chain Fatty Acid Production and on the Growth and Toxin Production by _Clostridium difficile,\" Scandinavian Journal of Gastroenterology_ 29 (October 1994): 916-22.\n\n R.K. Buddington et al., \"Dietary Supplement of Neosugar Alters the Fecal Flora and Decreases Activities of Some Reductive Enzymes in Human Subjects,\" _American Journal of Clinical Nutrition_ 63 (May 1996): 709-16.\n\n Trenev, Probiotics. Nature's Internal Healers, 126-7.\n\n## _Chapter 6_\n\n W. John Diamond, M.D., W. Lee Cowden, M.D., with Burton Goldberg, _An Alternative Medicine Definitive Guide to Cancer_ (Tiburon, Calif.: Future Medicine Publishing, 1997): 968.\n\n Morton Walker, D.P.M., \"Jumping for Health,\" _Townsend Letter for Doctors_ (July 1995): 42-48.\n\n John Anderson, \"Rebounders\u2014Bounce Your Way to Better Health,\" _Alternative Medicine Digest_ (October-November 1997): 42-46.\n\n A. Bhattacharya et al., \"Body Acceleration Distribution and 02 Uptake in Humans During Running and Jumping,\" _Journal of Applied Physiology_ 49 (November 1980): 881-887.\n\n Walker, \"Jumping for Health,\" 42-48.\n\n H. Erichsen and H. Bottcher, \"Trampoline Therapy with Brain-Injured Children and Adolescents,\" _Rehabilitation_ 15 (May 1976): 100-2.\n\n J.K. Stanghelle et al., \"Effect of Daily Short Bouts of Trampoline Exercise During Eight Weeks on the Pulmonary Function and the Maximal Oxygen Uptake of Children with Cystic Fibrosis,\" _International Journal of Sports Medicine_ Supplement 1 (February 9, 1988): 32-36.\n\n Helene Silver, _Rejuvenate. A 21-Day Natural Detox Plan for Optimal Health_ (Freedom, Calif.: The Crossing Press, 1998): 128.\n\n Farida Sharan, M.D., _Iridology. A Complete Guide to Diagnosing Through the Iris and to Related Forms of Treatment_ (Wellingborough, U.K.: Thorsons Publishing Group, 1989): 141.\n\n W. J. Evans, \"Vitamin E, Vitamin C, and Exercise,\" _American Journal of Clinical Nutrition_ 72 (supp.) (August 2000): 647S-52S.\n\n D.A. Leaf et al, \"The Exercise-Induced Oxidative Stress Paradox: The Effects of Physical Exercise Training,\" _American Journal of Medicine and Science_ 317 (May 1999): 295-300.\n\n M.C. Polidori et al, \"Physical Activity and Oxidative Stress During Aging,\" _International Journal of Sports Medicine_ 21 (April 2000): 154-7.\n\n Bruce Fife, N.D, _The Detox Book. How to Detoxify Your Body to Improve Your Health, Stop Disease and Reverse Aging_ (Colorado Springs, Colo.: HealthWise, 1997): 124.\n\n Electrolytes are substances in the blood, tissue fluids, between the cells, or in the urine that conduct an electrical charge, either negative or positive. Specifically, potassium, magnesium, phosphate, sulfate, bicarbonate, sodium, chloride, and calcium are all electrolytes. These substances provide inorganic chemicals needed to run cellular reactions and to control mechanisms such as the conduction of electrochemical impulses to nerves and muscles. The body also requires adequate stores of electrolytes for crucial enzymatic reactions involved in metabolism.\n\n Saunas come in two modalities: dry, radiant heat and wet heat, or steam. Most of the scientific studies of the benefits of sauna therapy or heat stress have been based on dry heat saunas. Similarly, most detoxification experts who discuss sauna therapy advise dry over wet heat. In a dry sauna, no moisture is introduced into the chamber, while in a wet sauna, moisture is introduced. A wet heat sauna is akin to the traditional Native American sweat lodge, where water is splashed on super-hot rocks inside a tightly sealed chamber to produce steam.\n\n Blood pressure is the force of the blood against the walls of the arteries, veins, capillaries, and heart chambers as it is pumped through the body and as the heart beats. Two measurements are involved: systolic (the heart contracts and pumps blood) and diastolic (the heart rests and fills with blood). The ratio of systolic and diastolic equals blood pressure, as in an average or normative reading of 120\/80.\n\n J. Leppaluoto, M. Tuominen et al, \"Some Cardiovascular and Metabolic Effects of Repeated Sauna Bathing,\" _Acta Phsyiologica Scandinavia_ 128 (September 1986): 77-81.\n\n K. Kauppinen, \"Facts and Fables About Sauna,\" _Annals of the New York Academy of Science_ 813 (March 15, 1997): 654-62.\n\n A. Eisalo and O.J. Luurila, \"The Finnish Sauna and Cardiovascular Diseases,\" _Annals of Clinical Research_ , 20:4 (1988): 267-70.\n\n T.A. Parpalei, L.G. Prokof'eva, and V.G. Obertas, \"The Use of the Sauna for Disease Prevention in the Workers of Enterprises with Chemical and Physical Occupational Hazards,\" _Vrach Delo_ 5 (May 1991): 93-95.\n\n K.V. Sudakov, V.V. Sinitchkin, and A.A. Khasanov, \"Systemic Responses in Man Exposed to Different Heating and Cooling Treatments in a Sauna,\" _Pavlov Journal of Biological Science_ 23 (July-September 1988): 89-94.\n\n W. Dean, \"Effect of Sweating [letter],\" _Journal of the American Medical Association_ 246 (August 7, 1981): 623.\n\n \"Have a Sauna At Home: Healing Benefits from a Plug-In Radiant Heat Sauna,\" _Alternative Medicine Digest_ 17 (March 1997): 72-74.\n\n Zane R. Gard, M.D., and Erma J. Brown, \"Literature Review and Comparison Studies of Sauna\/Hyperthermia in Detoxification,\" _Townsend Letter for Doctors and Patients_ (August\/September 1999): 76-86.\n\n \"Aromatherapy Spa\u2014Detoxify, Relax Muscles, and Enhance Immunity,\" _Alternative Medicine Digest_ 15 (November 1996): 57-58.\n\n Laurel Vukovic, _14-Day Herbal Cleansing_ (Paramus, N.J.: Prentice Hall, 1998): 209.\n\n Joseph Dispenza, _Live Better Longer. The Parcells Center Seven-Step Plan for Health and Longevity_ (San Francisco: Harper San Francisco, 1997): 31-34.\n\n## _Chapter 7_\n\n Biological dentistry stresses the use of nontoxic restoration materials for dental work and focuses on the unrecognized impact that dental toxins and hidden dental infections can have on overall health. Typically, a biological dentist will emphasize the following: the safe removal of mercury amalgam; avoidance or removal of root canals; the investigation of possible jawbone infections (cavitations) as a \"dental focus\" or source of body-wide illness centered in the teeth; and the health-injuring role of misalignment of teeth and jaw structures.\n\n Morton Walker, D.P.M., _Elements of Danger. Protect Yourself Against the Hazards of Modem Dentistry_ (Charlottesville, Va.: Hampton Roads, 2000): 63-65.\n\n Joachim Thomsen, D.D.S., \"The Frequent Involvement of 'Vital' Teeth in Focal Disturbances,\" _American Journal of Acupuncture: Special EAV Issue_ (1989): 94-99.\n\n Richard Leviton, \"Cancer, Miscarriage, and Your Teeth,\" _Alternative Medicine_ (July 1998): 56-62.\n\n Hal Huggins, D.D.S., M.S., \"Dental Toxins. Your Teeth May Be Making You Sick,\" _Alternative Medicine_ (May 1998): 48-54.\n\n Burton Goldberg and the Editors of Alternative Medicine Digest, _Alternative Medicine Guide to Chronic Fatigue, Fibromyalgia, & Environmental Illness_ (Tiburon, Calif.: Future Medicine Publishing, 1998): 191-192.\n\n M.M. van Benschoten, \"Acupoint Energetics of Mercury Toxicity and Amalgam Removal with Case Studies,\" _American Journal of Acupuncture_ 22:3 (1994): 251-262.\n\n Christopher Hussar, D.D.S, D.O, \"No More Chronic Pain,\" _Alternative Medicine Digest_ (November 1996): 30-34.\n\n J.W. Osborne, \"Dental Amalgam and Mercury Vapor Release,\" _Advanced Dental Research_ 6 (September 1992): 135-8.\n\n L.J. Hahn et al, \"Dental 'Silver' Tooth Fillings: A Source of Mercury Exposure Revealed by Whole-Body Image Scan and Tissue Analysis,\" _FASEB Journal_ 3 (1989): 2641-2646. Also Fritz Lorscheider et al, \"Mercury Exposure from 'Silver' Tooth Fillings: Emerging Evidence Questions a Traditional Dental Paradigm,\" _FASEB Journal_ 9 (1995): 504-508.\n\n W. J. Crinnion, \"Environmental Medicine, Part Three: Long Term Effects of Chronic Low-Dose Mercury Exposure,\" _Alternative Medicine Review_ 5 (June 2000): 209-23.\n\n J.W. Reinhardt, \"Side-Effects: Mercury Contribution to Body Burden from Dental Amalgam,\" _Advanced Dental Research_ 6 (September 1992): 110-113.\n\n A. Jokstad, Y. Thomassen et al, \"Dental Amalgam and Mercury,\" _Pharmacological Toxicity_ 70 (April 1992): 308-13.\n\n W. Melillo, \"How Safe is Mercury in Dentistry?\" _The Washington Post Weekly Journal of Medicine, Science, and Society_ , September 1991, 4.\n\n A. Lussi and V. Schoenberg, \"The Mercury Release of Different Amalgams in Vitro,\" _Schweiz Monatsschr Zahnmed_ 101:11 (1991): 1405-8.\n\n H. Lichtenberg, \"Mercury Vapor in the Oral Cavity in Relation to the Number of Amalgam Surfaces and the Classic Symptoms of Chronic Mercury Poisoning,\" _Journal of Orthomolecular Medicine_ 11:2 Second Quarter (1996): 87-94.\n\n Hal Huggins, D.D.S, M.S., and Thomas E. Levy, M.D, J.D, _Uninformed Consent. The Hidden Dangers in Dental Care_ (Charlottesville, Va.: Hampton Roads, 1999): 170-171.\n\n N. Galic et al, \"Dental Amalgam Mercury Exposure in Rats,\" _Biometals_ 12 (September 1999): 227-31.\n\n E. Berdouses et al, \"Mercury Release from Dental Amalgams: An _In Vitro_ Study Under Controlled Chewing and Brushing in an Artificial Mouth,\" _Journal of Dental Research_ 74 (May 1995): 1185-93.\n\n Walker, Elements of Danger, 90.\n\n For an excellent bibliography of published scientific articles documenting the effects of mercury, see \"Our References\" at www.iaomt.org.\n\n R. L. Siblerud and E. Kienholz, \"Evidence that Mercury from Silver Dental Fillings May be an Etiological Factor in Multiple Sclerosis,\" _Science of Total Environment_ 142 (March 15, 1994): 191-205.\n\n R.L. Siblerud, \"A Comparison of Mental Health of Multiple Sclerosis Patients with Silver\/Mercury Dental Fillings and Those with Fillings Removed,\" _Psychol Rep_ 70 (June 1992): 1139-51.\n\n S. Ziff, \"Consolidated Symptom Analysis of 1,569 Patients,\" _BioProbe Newsletter_ 9 (March 1993): 7-8.\n\n Diana Echeverria et al., \"Behavioral Effects of Low-Level Exposure to Elemental Hg Among Dentists,\" _Neurotoxicology and Teratology_ 17 (March-April 1995): 161-168.\n\n R.L. Siblerud, J. Motl, and E. Kienholz, \"Psychometric Evidence that Mercury from Silver Fillings May be an Etiological Factor in Depression, Excessive Anger, and Anxiety,\" _Psychol Rep_ 74 (February 1994): 67-80.\n\n A. Kingman, T. Albertini, and L.J. Brown, \"Mercury Concentrations in Urine and Whole Blood Associated with Amalgam Exposure in a U.S. Military Population,\" _Journal of Dental Research_ 77 (March 1998): 461-71.\n\n Walker, _Elements of Danger_ , 138.\n\n M.J. Vimy et al, \"Maternal-Fetal Distribution of Mercury,\" G. Drasch, \"Public Annoucement 25,\" _Bio-Probe Newsletter_ , January 1994. M.J. Vimy and F.L. Lorscheider, \"Intra-Oral Mercury Released from Dental Amalgams,\" _Journal of Dental Research_ 64:8 (1985); 1069-71.\n\n Huggins and Levy, _Uninformed Consent_ , 172-175.\n\n A.O. Summers et al, \"Mercury Released from Dental 'Silver' Fillings Provoks an Increase in Mercury- and Antibiotic-resistant Bacteria in Oral and Intestinal Floras of Primates,\" _Antimicrobial Agents in Chemotherapy_ 37 (April 1993): 825-34.\n\n _Candida albicans_ is a yeast-like fungus found widely in nature, in the soil, on vegetables and fruits, and in the human body. It is frequently present in small quantities in the intestines and in the vagina. Provided its population is small, _Candida_ is generally not harmful to the human body. A _Candida_ overgrowth, a condition called candidiasis, can become pathogenic and cause allergic reactions throughout the body. These reactions can lead to a wide range of symptoms, including depression, fatigue, weight gain, anxiety, rashes, headaches, and muscle cramping.\n\n Richard Leviton, \"Fibroids and Male Impotence,\" _Alternative Medicine Digest_ , (August-September 1997): 46-53.\n\n The peripheral nervous system (PNS) is a part of the central nervous system and consists of a network of about 93,000 miles of nerves and nerve channels inside the body. The PNS works with the five senses and motor branch of the body to translate sensory information from the outside world into appropriate muscle movements by the body.\n\n L.J. Hahn et al, \"Whole-Body Imaging of the Distribution of Mercury Released from Dental Fillings into Monkey Tissues,\" _FASEB Journal_ 4 (1990): 3256-3260.\n\n The sympathetic nervous system is involved with responding to stress or physical threats to the body. It prepares the body's systems by increasing the heart rate, blood pressure, and muscle tension; it also controls the contraction and expansion of blood vessels; the activity of the connective tissue, a body-wide network; and the voltage (called membrane potential) that exists across the cell wall in every cell. So when a toxic substance starts affecting the sympathetic nervous system, it potentially affects every operation in the body.\n\n Richard Leviton, \"Migraines, Seizures, and Mercury Toxicity,\" _Alternative Medicine Digest_ (January 1998): 60-66.\n\n R.F. Kidd, \"Results of Dental Amalgam Removal and Mercury Detoxification using DMPS and Neural Therapy,\" _Alternative Therapies_ 6 (July 2000): 49-55.\n\n Y. Omura et al., \"Significant Mercury Deposits in Internal organs Following the Removal of Dental Amalgam,\" _Acupuncture Electrotherapy Research_ 21 (April-June 1996): 133-60.\n\n Y. Omura, S.L. Beckman, \"Role of Mercury (Hg) in Resistant Infections and Effective Treatment of _Chlamydia trachomatis_ and Herpes Family Viral Infections (and Potential Treatment for Cancer) by Removing Localized Hg Deposits with Chinese Parsley and Delivering Effective Antibiotics Using Various Drug Uptake Enhancement Methods,\" _Acupuncture Electrotherapy Research_ 20 (August-December 1995): 195-229.\n\n Maya Muir, \"Current Controversies in the Diagnosis and Treatment of Heavy Metal Toxicity,\" _Alternative & Complementary Therapies_ (June 1997), 170-178.\n\n A.L. Miller, \"Dimercaptosuccinic Acid (DMSA), a Non-Toxic, Water-Soluble Treatment for Heavy Metal Toxicity,\" _Alternative Medicine Review_ 3 (June 1998): 199-207.\n\n J. Forman, J. Moline, et al., \"A Cluster of Pediatric Metallic Mercury Exposure Cases Treated with Meso-2,3-Dimercaptosuciccinic Acid (DMSA),\" _Environmental Health Perspectives_ 106 (June 2000): 575-77.\n\n G. Englund Sandborgh et al., \"DMSA Administration to Patients with Alleged Mercury Poisoning from Dental Amalgams: A Placebo-Controlled Study,\" _Journal of Dental Research_ 73 (March 1994): 620-8.\n\n P. Grandjean et al., \"Placebo Response in Environmental Disease: Chelation Therapy of Patients with Symptoms Attributed to Amalgam Fillings,\" _Journal of Occupational Medicine_ 39 (August 1997): 707-14.\n\n H.V. Aposhian, \"Mobilization of Mercury and Arsenic in Humans by Sodium 2,3-Dimercapto-l-Propane Sulfonate (DMPS),\" _Environmental Health Perspectives_ 106, supp. 4 (August 1998): 1017-25.\n\n H.V. Aposhian et al., \"Urinary Mercury after Administration of 2,3-Dimercaptopropane-l-Sulfonic Acid: Correlation with Dental Amalgam Score,\" _FASEB Journal_ 6 (April 1992): 2472-6.\n\n D. Gonzalez-Ramirez et al, \"Sodium 2,3-Dimercaptopropane-l-Sulfonate Challenge Test for Mercury in Humans: II. Urinary Mercury, Porphyrins, and Neurobehavioral Changes of Dental Workers in Monterrey, Mexico,\" _Journal of Pharmacological Experimental Therapy_ 272 (January 1995): 264-74.\n\n R.K. Zalups, \"Influence of 2,3-Dimercaptopropane-l-Sulfonate (DMPS) and Meso-2,3-Dimercaptosuccinic Acid (DMSA) on the Renal Disposition of Mercury in Normal and Uninephrectomized Rats Exposed to Inorganic Mercury,\" _Journal of Pharmacology and Experimental Therapies_ 267 (November 1993): 791-800.\n\n J. Nerudova et al, \"Mobilization of Mercury by DMPS in Occupationally Exposed Workers and in Model Experiments on Rats: Evaluation of Body Burden,\" _International Journal of Occupational Medicine and Environmental Health_ , 13:2 (2000): 131-46.\n\n Hal Huggins, D.D.S, M.S., \"Appointment Scheduling,\" Hugnet FAQs, 1997 www.hugnet.com.\n\n Daniel F. Royal, D.O, \"Health Hazard in Your Teeth,\" _Alternative Medicine Digest_ (July 1996): 40-44.\n\n Huggins and Levy, _Uninformed Consent_ , 212.\n\n Mark A. Breiner, D.D.S, _Whole-Body Dentistry. Discover the Missing Piece to Better Health_ (Fairfield, Conn.: Quantum Health Press, LLC, 1999): 102-106.\n\n Dr. Karen Evans and Dr. Stephen R. Evans, \"Cavitations,\" 1999 by Affinity Labeling Technologies, Inc, 235 Bolivar Street, Lexington, KY 40508; tel: 606-388-9445; fax: 606-388-9645.\n\n P. Schupbach, V. Osterwalder, and B. Guggenheim, \"Human Root Caries: Microbiota of a Limited Number of Root Caries Lesions,\" _Caries Research_ 30:1 (1996): 52-64.\n\n K. Okuda, Y. Ebihara, \"Relationships Between Chronic Oral Infectious Diseases and Systemic Diseases,\" _Bulletin of the Tokyo Dental College_ 39 (August 1998): 165-74.\n\n F.A. Scannapieco, \"Position paper of the American Academy of Periodontology: Periodontal Disease as a Potential Risk Factor for Systemic Diseases,\" _Journal of Periodontology_ 69 (July 1998): 841-50.\n\n W.J. Loesche, \"Association of the Oral Flora with Important Medical Diseases,\" _Current Opinions in Periodontology_ 4 (1997): 21-8.\n\n G.J. Debelian, I. Olsen, and L. Tronstad, \"Systemic Diseases Caused by Oral Microorganisms,\" _Endodontics and Dental Traumatology_ 10 (April 1994): 57-65.\n\n V. Lucas and G.J. Roberts, \"Odontogenic Bacteremia Following Tooth Cleaning Procedures in Children,\" _Pediatric Dentistry_ 22 (March-April 2000): 96-100.\n\n R. Hayrinen-Immonen et al, \"Oral Health of Patients Scheduled for Elective Abdominal Aortic Correction with Prosthesis,\" _EuropeanJournal of Vascular and Endovascular Surgery_ 19 (March 2000): 294-8.\n\n I. Tar, K. Bagyi et al., \"Screening of Patients Referred to Our Clinic for Odontogenic Focal Diseases,\" _Fogorv Sz_ 92 (October 1999): 295-300.\n\n X. Li, L. Tronstad and I. Olsen, \"Brain Abscesses Caused by Oral Infection,\" _Endodontic Dental Traumatology_ 15 (June 1999): 95-101.\n\n B. Bertrand, P. Rombaux et al., \"Sinusitis of Dental Origin,\" _Acta Otorhinolaryngol Belg_ 51:4 (1997): 315-22.\n\n Hubert N. Newman, \"Focal Infection,\" _Journal of Dental Research_ 75:12 (1996): 1912-1919.\n\n J.H. Meurmann, \"Dental Infections and General Health,\" _Quintessence International_ 28 (December 1997): 807-11.\n\n George E. Meinig, D.D.S., F.A.C.D., _Root Canal Cover-up_ (Ojai, Calif.:, Bion Publishing, 1994): 7.\n\n W.A. Price, \"Dental Infections and Related Degenerative Diseases,\" _The Journal of the American Medical Association_ 84 (January 24, 1925): 254-59.\n\n Breiner, _Whole-Body Dentistry_ , 99-100.\n\n M. Georgopoulou, E. Kontakiotis, and M. Nakou, \"In Vitro Evaluation of the Effectiveness of Calcium Hydroxide and Paramonochlorophenol on Anaerobic Bacteria from the Root Canal,\" _Endodontic Dental Traumatology_ 9 (December 1993): 249-53.\n\n N. Olea et al., \"Estrogenicity of Resin-Based Composites and Sealants Used in Dentistry,\" _Environmental Health Perspectives_ 104 (March 1996): 298-305.\n\n H. Oysaed, I.E. Ruyter, T. J. and Sjovik Kleven, \"Release of Formaldehyde from Dental Composites,\" _Journal of Dental Research_ 67 (October 1988): 1289-94.\n\n## _Chapter 8_\n\n Florinda Dormer, _Being-in-Drearning. An Initiation into the Sorceror's World_ (San Francisco: Harper San Francisco, 1991): 126-127.\n\n John Diamond, M.D., \"Reversing Fibroids and Ovarian Cysts,\" _Alternative Medicine Digest_ (January 1998): 98-102.\n\n Norman Levin, M.D., \"Rheumatoid Arthritis and Fibromyalgia,\" _Alternative Medicine Digest_ (September 1997): 100-105.\n\n Candace B. Pert, _Molecules of Emotion. Why You Feel the Way You Feel_ (New York: Scribner, 1997): 187, 189, 192.\n\n Joseph Riccioli, M.D., N.D., \"Talking to Your Body,\" _Alternative Medicine_ (March 1999): 72-80.\n\n Christiane Northrup, M.D., _Women's Bodies, Women's Wisdom. Creating Physical and Emotional Health and Healing_ , rev. ed. (New York: Bantam Books, 1998): 19-21, 55-56.\n\n Carolynn Myss, _Anatomy of the Spirit. The Seven Stages of Power and Healing_ (New York: Harmony Books, 1996): 40.\n\n W. John Diamond, M.D., and W. Lee Cowden, M.D., with Burton Goldberg _An Alternative Medicine Definitive Guide to Cancer_ (Tiburon, Calif.: Future Medicine Publishing, 1997): 616.\n\n Dr. Arthur Janov, _Why You Get Sick and How You Get Well. The Healing Power of Feelings_ (West Hollywood, Calif.: Dove Books, 1996) 5, 6, 8, 16, 141-143.\n\n Others have followed suit to expand the original concept of flower essences. Today, an estimated 20 different brands of flower remedies, based on plants native to many landscapes, from Australia to India to Alaska, offer about 1,500 different blends for a diverse range of psychological conditions. Innovative remedies are now made from gems and crystals, certain types of sea creatures, even the essence of glaciers.\n\n Patricia Kaminski and Richard Katz, _Flower Essence Repertory. A Comprehensive Guide to North American and English Flower Essences for Emotional and Spiritual Well-Being_ , rev. ed.( Nevada City, Calif.: The Flower Essence Society, 1994): 26.\n\n Patricia Kaminski, _Flowers That Heal. How to Use Flower Essences_ (Dublin, Ireland: Newleaf\/Gill & Macmillan, Inc., 1998): 27, 30, 104.\n\n Kaminski and Katz, _Flower Essence Repertory_ , 329.\n\n## _Chapter 9_\n\n Willy Schr\u00f6dter, quoting Henry Cornelius Agrippa, in _History of Energy Transference: Exploring the Foundations of Modem Healing_ (York Beach, Maine: Samuel Weiser, 1999): 115.\n\n Willy Schr\u00f6dter, quoting Dr. Friedrich Markus Huebner, in _History of Energy Transference_ , 116.\n\n Willy Schrodter, quoting Hiro Hasegawa, in _History of Energy Transference_ , 107.\n\n Ruth Berger, _The Secret is in the Rainbow: Aura Interrelationships_ (York Beach, Maine: Samuel Weiser, 1979): 47-57.\n\n Walter J. Kilner, _The Human Aura_ (Secaucus, N.J.: The Citadel Press, 1965): 160.\n\n John C. Pierrakos, M.D. _Core Energetics. Developing the Capacity to Love and Heal_ (Mendocino, Calif.: Life Rhythm, 1990): 73-74, 91.\n\n Shafica Karagulla, M.D., and Dora van Gelder Kunz, _The Chakras and the Human Energy Fields_ (Wheaton, Ill.: Quest Books, 1989): 207-208.\n\n Shafica Karagulla, M.D., _Breakthrough to Creativity. Your Higher Sense Perception_ (Santa Monica, Calif.: DeVorss & Company, 1967): 123-146.\n\n Shakuntala Modi, M.D., _Remarkable Healings. A Psychiatrist Discovers Unsuspected Roots of Mental and Physical Rlness_ (Charlottesville, Va.: Hampton Roads, 1997): 295, 297, 334-336, 357-361.\n\n Arthur Guirdham, _The Psyche in Medicine_ (Jersey, U.K.: Neville Spearman, 1978): 44, 48, 73, 223.\n\n Samuel Sagan, M.D., _Entity Possession. Freeing the Energy Body of Negative Influences_ (Rochester, Vt.: Destiny Books, 1997).\n\n William J. Baldwin, D.D.S., _Spirit Releasement Therapy. A Technique Manual_ , 2d ed. (Terra Alta, W.Va.: Headline Books, 1992): 13, 15.\n\n Modi, _Remarkable Healings_ , 353.\n\n Adapted from suggestions by Shakuntala Modi, _Remarkable Healings_ , 290-291.\n\n The Dead Sea in Israel is the world's lowest point, at 293 meters (approximately 900 feet) below sea level. It is considered a unique source of concentrated natural minerals and salts, which have been used over the centuries for cosmetic and therapeutic purposes.\n\n Information provided by the manufacturer, Ashtar Natural Dead Sea Products; website: www.fjcc.com\/amig\/ashtar.\n\n William Bloom, _Psychic Protection: Creating Positive Energies for People and Places_ (London: Judy Piatkus Publishers, 1996): 70-72.\n\n According to occult scholar Willy Schrodter, the nape of the neck, where the medulla oblongata passes through the occiput (at the base of the skull and the top of the neck), is important in occultism. It is a place of strong and easily detected psychic radiation, and is known by different names: _Uls_ (ancient Egyptian magicians); _Lus_ (Jewish Qabalists); \"divine mouth\" (Indian Kriya yoga); \"and the exit-point of a hypothetical subtle meta-organism,\" says Schrodter. When you sense people behind you and it makes you uncomfortable, your psychic gate at the nape of the neck is registering an energy input from this other source. In Schrodter, _History of Energy Transference_ , 31. Another writer, Peter Dawkins, calls this site the eighth or alta major or Pan chakra, and says it is associated with universal consciousness. \"It acts as a control chakra and integrates the powers and qualities of all the other chakras. It is the primary gateway for divine inspiration . . . and is perhaps the most sensitive area of the whole body.\" In: Peter Dawkins, _Zoence\u2014The Science of Life. Rediscovering the Sacred Spaces of Your Life_ (York Beach, Maine: Samuel Weiser, 1998): 72.\n\n Judy Hall, _The Art of Psychic Protection_ (Forres, Scotland: Findhom Press, 1996): 97-105.\n\n Irene Dalichow and Mike Booth, _Aura-Soma. Healing Through Color, Plant, and Crystal Energy_ (Carlsbad, Calif.:, Hay House, 1996): 23-24.\n\n Heinrich Zimmer, _Philosophies of India_ , ed. Joseph Campbell (Princeton: Princeton University Press\/Bollingen Series XXVI, 1951): 231,251.\n\n Mona Rolfe, _The Sacred Vessel_ (Sudbury, England: Neville Spearman Limited, 1978): 59-62.\n\n## _Chapter 10_\n\n \"Indoor Air Facts No. 4 (Revised): Sick Building Syndrome (SBS),\" Office of Radiation and Indoor Air, Environmental Protection Agency, April 1991 www.epa.gov\/iaq\/pubs\/sbs.html.\n\n C.A. Redlich, J. Sparer, and M.R. Cullen, \"Sick-Building Syndrome,\" _The Lancet_ 349:9057 (1997): 1013-16.\n\n Adrian Bejan, \"A Cure for Sick Buildings,\" 1994 www.tc.cornell.edu\/er\/sci93\/dis04sickb\/dis04sickb.html.\n\n J.E. Woods, G.M. Drewry and PR. Morey, \"Office Worker Perceptions of Indoor Air Quality Effects on Discomfort and Performance.\" In B. Seifert et al (eds): _Indoor Air '87. Proceedings of the 4th International Conference on Indoor Air Quality and Climate._ Berlin, Institute for Water, Soil and Air Hygiene, 1987.\n\n \"Bad Office Air, Not Bad Vibes, May Cause Many Symptoms of Sick Building Syndrome, a New Cornell Study Finds,\" Cornell University News, 24 Feb. 1998 www.news.cornell.edu\/releases\/Feb98\/sick.building.ssl.html.\n\n O.A. Seppanen, W.J. Fisk, et. al., \"Association of Ventilation Rates and CO2 concentrations with Health and Other Responses in Commercial and Institutional Buildings,\" _Indoor Air_ 9 (December 1999): 226-52.\n\n Michael Hodgson, M.D., M.P.H., \"The Medical Evaluation\" and \"The Sick Building Syndrome: Effects of the Indoor Environment on Health.\" Cited in _Occupational Medicine: State of the Art Reviews_ 10 (January-March 1995): 167-194.\n\n P. Skov, O. Valbjorn: Danish Indoor Climate Study Group. \"The 'Sick' Building Syndrome in the Office Environment: The Danish Town HaH Study,\" _Environ Int_ 13 (1987): 339-349.\n\n S. Burge et al. \"Sick Building Syndrome: A Study of 4373 Office Workers,\" _Annals of Occupational Hygiene_ 31 (1987): 493-504.\n\n P.O. Fanger, et al., \"Air Pollution Sources in Offices and Assembly Halls, Quantified by the Olf Unit,\" _Energy Building_ , 12 (1988):7-19.\n\n PL. Ooi, K.T. et al., \"Epidemiology of Sick Building Syndrome and Its Associated Risk Factors in Singapore,\" _Occupational Environmental Medicine_ 55 (March 1998): 188-193.\n\n PL. Ooi and K.T. Goh, \"Sick Building Syndrome: An Emerging Stress-Related Disorder?\" _International Journal of Epidemiology_ 26 (December 1997): 1243-9.\n\n L. Lundin, \"Allergic and Non Allergic Students' Perceptions of the Same High School Environment,\" _Indoor Air_ 9 (June 1999): 92-102.\n\n E. Bjornsson et al., \"Symptoms Associated to the Sick Building Syndrome in a General Population Sample: Associations with Atopy, Bronchial Hyper-Responsiveness and Anxiety,\" _International Journal of Tubercular Lung Disease_ 2 (December 1998): 1023-28.\n\n R.A Phipps, W.E. Sisk, and G.L. Wall, \"A Comparison of Two Studies Reporting the Prevalence of the Sick Building Syndrome in New Zealand and England,\" _New Zealand Medical Journal_ 112 (June 25, 1999): 228-30.\n\n Arnold Mann, \"This Place Makes Me Sick. Modern, Airtight Offices are Causing More Cases of Sick-Building Syndrome, Just Ask Southwest Airlines.\" _Time_ , December 21, 1998, 152-25.\n\n M. Bullinger, M. Morfeld et al., \"The Sick-Building Syndrome\u2014Do Women Suffer More?\" _Zentralbl Hyg Umweltmed_ 202 (August 1999): 235-41.\n\n Michael J. Hodgson, M.D., M.P.H., \"Clinical Diagnosis and Management of Building-Related Illness and the Sick-Building Syndrome,\" _Occupational Medicine: State of the Art Reviews_ 4 (October-December 1989): 602-603.\n\n Burton Goldberg and the Editors of _Alternative Medicine Digest, Alternative Medicine Guide to Chronic Fatigue & Environmental Illness_ (Tiburon, Calif.: Future Medicine Publishing, 1998): 251-255.\n\n \"Is Your Building Sick?\" _TFM on-line, Today's Facility Manager_ 18 July 1999 www.tfmgr.com.\n\n An encouraging trend is found in the fact that the International Institute for Bau-biologie has established an affiliation with the University of Natural Medicine of Santa Fe, New Mexico. This will enable students of alternative medicine to include Bau-biological principles in their understanding of health and healing, and thus gain an additional therapeutic edge in treating clients. For more information, contact: The University of Natural Medicine, P.O. Box 4089, Santa Fe, NM 87502; e-mail:natmedu@aol.com; tel: 505-424-7800 or 800-8933367; fax: 505-424-7878; website: www.unaturalmedicine.edu.\n\n Richard W. Pressinger, M.Ed., \"Environmental Causes of Learning Disabilities and Child Neurological Disorders,\" University of South Florida, 1997 www.chem-tox.com.\n\n Kaye H. Kilburn, M.D., and John C. Thornton, \"Protracted Neurotoxicity from Chlordane Sprayed to Kill Termites,\" _Environmental Health Perspectives_ 103 (July-August 1995): 690-694.\n\n K.H. Kilburn, \"Chlordane as a Neurotoxin in Humans,\" _Southern Medical Journal_ 90 (March 1997): 299-304.\n\n Comments by John and Lynn Marie Brower derived from their website www.hhinst.com.\n\n An electromagnetic field (EMF) is created by the interaction of an electric field (surrounding an electric charge) and a magnetic field (surrounding a source of magnetism), when an electric current passes through a wire. Put slightly differently, an EMF is a biologically active but invisible energy field that accompanies electrical current flow. For ease of layperson understanding, you could think of an EMF as the energy aura emitted by the interaction of the electric and magnetic fields, and which surrounds the carrier of the electric current, such as a wire, appliance, electric panel, power line, etc. Electric fields are found around electric typewriters, lamps, digital clocks, heaters, and water pipes, among other objects.\n\n Lucinda Grant, in _The Electrical Sensitivity Handbook: How Electromagnetic Fields Are Making People Sick_ , Weldon Pub., 1995, reproduced in part at www.northlink.com\/~lgrant\/whatises.html. For further information (and a six-issue\/year newsletter called _Electrical Sensitivity News')_ , contact: Electrical Sensitivity Network, P.O. Box 4146, Prescott, AZ 86302.\n\n Lynn Marie Bower, quoting data provided by the Electric Power Research Institute study, in _The Healthy Household: A Complete Guide for Creating a Healthy Indoor Environment_ (Bloomington: The Healthy House Institute, 1995): 383-384.\n\n Ellen Sugarman, quoting J.R. Guager, \"Household Appliance Magnetic Field Survey. IEEE Transactions on Power Apparatus and Systems,\" PA-104 (September 1985), in _Warning: The Electricity Around You May Be Hazardous to Your Health_ (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1992) and reprinted at WaveGuide website www.wave-guide.org\/exposure.html.\n\n B.W. Wilson, \"Chronic Exposure to ELF Fields May Induce Depression,\" _Bioelectromagnetics_ 9:2 (1988): 195-205.\n\n Data review provided by WaveGuide's \"What Are the Studies Telling Us?\" www.wave-guide.org\/ccwti\/studies.html.\n\n A free radical is an unstable, toxic molecule of oxygen with an unpaired electron that steals an electron from another molecule and produces harmful effects. Free radicals are formed when molecules within cells react with oxygen (oxidize) as part of normal metabolic processes. Free radicals then begin to break down cells, especially the cell membranes, often in a matter of minutes to an hour. A single free radical can destroy a cell. Their work is enhanced if there are not enough free-radical quenching nutrients, such as vitamins C and E, in the cell. While free radicals are normal products of metabolism, uncontrolled free-radical production plays a major role in the development of degenerative disease, including cancer and heart disease. Free radicals harmfully alter important molecules, such as proteins, enzymes, fats, even DNA. Other sources of free radicals include pesticides, industrial pollutants, smoking, alcohol, viruses, most infections, allergies, stress, even certain foods, and excessive exercise.\n\n Veronica Strong, \"Biosensing to Counter Geopathic Stress,\" www.positivehealth.com\/permit\/Articles\/Environment\/strong33.html.\n\n Jeffrey R. Cram, \"Flower Essences Reduce Stress Reaction to Intense Environmental Stimulus,\" Flower Essence Society, 5 February 1999 www.flowersociety.org\/DrZ.htm.\n\n \"Carpeting, Indoor Air Quality, and the Environment,\" _Environmental Building News_ November\/December 1994 www.environmentalbuilding.com\/Archives\/Features\/Carpets\/Carpets.html.\n\n John Bower, \"Healthy Construction Recommendations for Health People\" (speech presented at the Energy Efficient Building Association Excellence in Housing Conference, Dallas, TX, February 1994) published at www.hhinst.com.\n\n David Pearson, _The Natural House Catalog: Everything You Need to Create an Environmentally Friendly Home_ (New York: Fireside\/Simon & Schuster, 1996): 141.\n\n Rosalind C. Anderson, \"Toxic Emissions from Carpets,\" _Journal of Nutritional and Environmental Medicine_ , 5:4 (1995): 375-386.\n\n Robert Abrams, \"Consumer Alert: Chemicals in New Carpets Pose Potential Health Hazard,\" April 1991, cited at www.holisticmed.com\/carpet\/tcl.txt.\n\n Debra Lynn Dadd, _Home Safe Home: Protecting Yourself and Your Family from Everyday Toxics and Harmful Household Products_ (New York: Jeremy P. Tarcher\/Putnam, 1997): 316-319.\n\n Merritt McKinney, \"Home Carpets Catch & Hold Benzene from Car Exhaust,\" 9 March 2000 www.sightings.com.\n\n Robert G. Lewis et al., \"Distribution of Pesticides and Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons in House Dust as a Function of Particle Size,\" _Environmental Health Perspectives_ 107 (September 1999): 721-726.\n\n Cindy Duehring, \"Carpet Concerns, Part Four: Physicians Speak Up as Medical Evidence Mounts,\" and \"Toxic Carpeting: Important Points to Remember,\" Environmental Access Research Network, 1995 www.holisticmed.com\/carpet\/tc4.txt.\n\n Mauiy M. Beecher, and Shirley Linde, _Healthy Homes in a Toxic World: Preventing, Identifying, and Eliminating Hidden Health Hazards in Your Home_ (New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1992): 160-166.\n\n For a comprehensive source of information about MCS and numerous sources of toxicity, as well as legal and political aspects, contact: Chemical Injury Information Network (CIIN), publishers of the monthly newsletter, _Our Toxic Times._ P.O. Box 301, White Sulphur Springs, MT 59645; tel: 406-547-2255; fax: 406-547-2455; website: ciin.org\/newsletter.htm. CIIN was founded in 1990 as an advocacy organization run by chemically injured persons primarily for the benefit of other chemically injured individuals. It is considered a major clearinghouse for information on the adverse effects of chemical exposures.\n\n Fibromyalgia is a multiple-symptom syndrome primarily involving widespread muscle pain (myalgia), which can be debilitating in its severity. The pain seems to be caused by the tightening and thickening of the myofascia, the thin film or tissue that holds the muscle together. Typical tender sites include the neck, upper back, rib cage, hips, and knees. Other symptoms include general fatigue and stiffness, insomnia and sleeping disorders, anxiety, depression, mood swings, allergies, carpal tunnel syndrome, headaches, the sense of \"hurting all over,\" tender skin, numbness, irritable bowel symptoms, dizziness, and exercise intolerance. Post-traumatic fibromyalgia is believed to develop after a fall, whiplash, or back strain, whereas primary fibromyalgia has an uncertain origin. The majority of fibromyalgia sufferers are women between the ages of thirty-four and fifty-six.\n\n Peter Montague, \"A New Mechanism of Disease,\" _Rachel's Environment & Health Weekly_, February 12, 1998.\n\n William R. Rea, M.D. et al, \"Considerations for the Diagnosis of Chemical Sensitivity,\" in D.W. Talmage et al.: _Biologic Markers in Immunotoxicology_ (Washington, D.C.: National Academy Press, 1992): 169. See also Thomas Orne and Paul Benedetti, \"Multiple Chemical Sensitivity,\" American Council on Science and Health. 1991 www.hcrc.org\/contrib\/acsh\/booklets\/mcsdoc.html.\n\n J.S. Tepper, V.C. Moser et al., \"Toxicological and Chemical Evaluation of Emissions from Carpet Samples,\" _American Industrial Hygiene Association Journal_ 56 (February 1995): 158-70.\n\n D.L. Ashley, M.A. Bonin et al., \"Measurement of Volatile Organic Compounds in Human Blood,\" _Environmental Health Perspectives_ 104, supp. 5 (October 1996): 871-77.\n\n Research from multiple medical sources collated by Albert Donnay, executive director, MCS Referral & Resources, July 1998 www.mcsrr.org\/factsheets\/mcsdisorders.html. For more information: MCS Referral & Resources, 508 Westgate Road, Baltimore, MD 21229; tel: 410-362-6400; fax: 410-362-6401.\n\n Albert Donnay, \"Overlapping Disorders: Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, Fibromyalgia Syndrome, Multiple Chemical Sensitivity & Gulf War Syndrome,\" MCS Referral & Resources, 29 May 1997 www.mcsrr.org\/factsheets\/mcsdisorders.html.\n\n Julius Anderson, \"Reactions to Carpet Emissions: A Case Series,\" _Journal of Nutritional and Environmental Medicine_ 7 (1997): 177-185.\n\n Bake-outs have been tested on commercial buildings. It has been found that the best results are obtained when the interior is heated to at least 90\u00b0F and kept there for several days (about three days); a one-day bake-out is usually not long enough to release the maximum VOCs possible through this technique. Even so, overall release of VOCs is not necessarily high. The average obtained over several tests was twenty percent to thirty percent (based on measuring fifteen to twenty of the most abundant indoor VOCs), but one building achieved a ninety-four percent reduction, and another had a sixty percent reduction of concentrations; another had an initial VOC decrease of sixty-five percent one day after the bake-out, but this had declined to only six percent after a month. See John R. Girman, \"Volatile Organic Compounds and Building Bake-Out,\" in _Occupational Medicine_ \u2014 _State of the Art Reviews 4_ (October-December 1989): 695-712.\n\n Information Technology Specialists, Inc. REED (Residential Energy Efficiency Database), Site 4, Box 16, RR1, Carvel, Alberta, Canada TOE OHO; tel: 780-829-3594; fax: 780-892-3598; e-mail: info@its-canada.com; website: www.its-canada.com\/reed.\n\n John Bower, _The Healthy House_ (Bloomington, Ind.: The Healthy House Institute, 1997): 536.\n\n Annie Berthold-Bond, _Better Basics for the Home_ (New York: Three Rivers Press, 1999): 52-54.\n\n T.J. Kelly et al., \"Emission Rates of Formaldehyde from Materials and Consumer Products Found in California Homes,\" _Environmental Science & Technology_ 33 (January 1, 1999): 81.\n\n Hal Levin, \"Building Materials and Indoor Air Quality,\" in _Occupational Medicine\u2014State of the Art Reviews 4_ (October-December 1989): 667-693.\n\n John R. Girman, \"Volatile Organic Compounds and Building Bake-Out,\" in _Occupational Medicine\u2014State of the Art Reviews 4_ (October-December 1989): 695-712.\n\n D. B. Teculescu et al., \"Sick-Building Symptoms in Office Workers in Northeastern France: A Pilot Study,\" _Int Arch Occup Environmental Health_ 71 (July 1998): 353-56.\n\n J. Bourbeau et al., \"Prevalence of the Sick Building Syndrome Symptoms in Office Workers Before and After Being Exposed to a Building with an Improved Ventilation System,\" _Occupational Environmental Medicine_ 53 (March 1996): 204-210.\n\n C.S. Li, C.W. Hsu, and M.L. Tai, \"Indoor Pollution and Sick Building Syndrome Symptoms Among Workers in Day-Care Centers,\" _Archives of Environmental Health_ 52 (May-June 1997): 200-207.\n\n D. Vincent et al, \"Ventilation System, Indoor Air Quality, and Health Outcomes in Parisian Modern Office Workers,\" _Environmental Research_ 75 (November 1997): 100-12.\n\n B. Thriene et al., \"Man-Made Mineral Fibre Boards in Buildings\u2014Health Risks Caused by Quality Deficiencies,\" _Toxicology Letters_ 88 (November 1996): 299-303.\n\n G.H. Wan and C.S. Li, \"Dampness and Airway Inflammation and Systemic Symptoms in Office Building Workers,\" _Archives of Environmental Health_ 54 (January-February 1999): 58-63.\n\n J.J. McGrath et al., \"Continually Measured Fungal Profiles in Sick Building Syndrome,\" _Current Microbiology_ 38 (January 1999): 33-36.\n\n J.D. Cooley, et al., \"Correlation Between the Prevalence of Certain Fungi and Sick Building Syndrome,\" _Occupational Environmental Medicine_ 55 (September 1998): 579-84.\n\n D. Menzies et al., \"Effect of a New Ventilation System on Health and Well-Being of Office Workers,\" _Archives of Environmental Health_ 52 (September\/October 1997): 360-367.\n\n \"Fungi Suspected 'Culprit' in 'Sick Building Syndrome,\" Georgia Tech Alumni Association www.alumni.gatech.edu\/news\/topics\/sum96\/RealFungus.html.\n\n W.J. Kowalski and William Bahnfleth, \"Airborne Respiratory Diseases and Mechanical Systems for Control of Microbes,\" Pennsylvania State University, Architectural Engineering Department, July 1988 www.engr.psu.edu\/www\/dept\/arc\/server\/wjk\/ardtie.html.\n\n \"Molds in the Environment,\" Centers for Disease Control and Prevention-National Center for Environmental Health Factsheet, 3 April 1997 www.cdc.gov\/nceh\/pubcatns\/facts\/molds\/molds.htm.\n\n Eckardt Johanning, M.D., \"Hazardous Molds in Homes and Offices: Stachybotrys atra and Others ...\" Enviro Village Library, Acumen Technologies, 1997 www.envirovillage.com\/Papers.\n\n \"Fungi Suspected 'Culprit' in 'Sick Building Syndrome,\"' Georgia Tech Alumni Association www.alumni.gatech.edu\/news\/topics\/sum96\/RealFungus.html.\n\n W.J. Kowalski, and William Bahnfleth, Ph.D., P.E., \"Airborne Respiratory Diseases and Mechanical Systems for Control of Microbes,\" Pennsylvania State University, Architectural Engineering Department July 1998 www.engr.psu.edu\/www\/dept\/arc\/server\/wjk\/ardtie.html.\n\n \"Negative Ions: Vitamins of the Air?\" Don Strachan and Jim Karnstedt, _New Realities_ , reprinted on Library-Electrocorp website: www.net-gain.com\/electrocorp.\n\n Research data compiled as \"Medical Studies\" by The IonAir Company; website: www.purifyonline.com\/studies_chart.html.\n\n Virginia Peart, \"Indoor Air Quality in Florida: Houseplants to Fight Pollution,\" Fact Sheet HE 3208, Florida Cooperative Extension Service, University of Florida, April 1993.\n\n B.C. Wolverton, \"Removal of Formaldehyde from Sealed Experimental Chambers by Azalea, Poinsettia, and Dieffenbachia,\" Research Report No. WES\/100\/01-91\/005 January 1991, published by Wolverton Environmental Products, 514 Pine Grove Road, Picayune, MS 39466; website: www.wolvertonenvironmental.com.\n\n Data on trichloroethylene and benzene air filtration from Plants for Clean Air Council, 3458 Godspeed Road, Davidsonville, MD 21035; fax: 410-956-9039; website: www.plants4cleanair.org.\n\n Data drawn from these sources: \"Clean Air Plants & Sick Building Syndrome,\" interiorlandscape.com, 1997. W. Prescod, \"More Indoor Plants as Air Purifiers,\" _Pappus_ 11:4 (1992). United States Environmental Protection Agency, \"Sick Building Syndrome,\" Air and Radiation, Indoor Air Facts, 4, 1991. B.C. Wolverton, _InteriorLandscape Plants and Their Role in Improving Indoor Air Quality_ (Picayune, Miss.:, Wolverton Environmental Services, 1990).\n\n B.C. Wolverton, Ph.D. and John Wolverton, \"Improving Indoor Air Quality Using Orchids and Bromeliads,\" Wolverton Environmental Services (514 Pine Grove Road, Picayune, MS 39466) December 1991 www.wolvertonenvironmental.com.\n\n \"Hydroculture: The Cure for 'Sick Building Syndrome,'\" and from information published by Inter Urban Water Farms Online (3638 University Avenue, Suite 225, Riverside, CA 92501; tel: 909-342-7947; fax: 909-342-7984. This is a good source for information about hydroponics.\n\n B.C. Wolverton and John Wolverton, \"Interior Plants and Their Role in Indoor Air Quality: An Overview,\" Research Report # WES\/100\/06-92-008, Wolverton Environmental Services. C. Wolverton and John Wolverton, \"Plants and Soil Microorganisms: Removal of Formaldehyde, Xylene, and Ammonia from the Indoor Environment,\" _Journal of the Mississippi Academy of Sciences_ 38 (AugustSeptember 1993). Virginia I. Lohr and Caroline H. Pearson-Mims, \"Particulate Matter Accumulation on Horizontal Surfaces in Interiors: Influence of Foliage Plants,\" _Atmospheric Environment_ 30:14 (1996).\n\n \"The Breathing Wall from Genetron,\" _TFM On-line (Today's Facility Manager)_ , 6 September 1999 www.tfmgr.com.\n\n Bower, _The Healthy House_ , 501.\n\n \"Biological Effects of Ionizing Radiation (BEIR) VT Report: 'The Health Effects of Exposure to Indoor Radon,' Executive Summary,\" The National Academy of Sciences, 19 February 1998 www.epa.gov\/iaq\/radon\/beirvil.html.\n\n Melatonin, a hormone produced by the pea-sized, light-sensitive pineal gland in the center of the brain, regulates the body's internal clock, or circadian rhythm, which determines the twenty-four-hour sleep-wake cycle. Low melatonin levels have been associated with sleeping disturbances and light-related conditions such as SAD. With aging, the peak in melatonin secretion is about one hour later than normal (normal peak secretion time is about 2 a.m.), and the maximum peak of melatonin is only one-half the level of young adults.\n\n Nicholas Harmon, \"Lose Those Winter Blues with Verilux's Newest Full Spectrum Lighting,\" press release, 4 November 198 www.ergolight.com.\n\n \"SAD Info,\" Light Therapy Products; website: www.lighttherapyproducts.com.\n\n Overuse of light therapy is possible and may produce side effects if overused for four to six weeks. The symptoms include irritability, agitation, eye strain, and fatigue. About one percent of users are prone to mania from consistent overuse.\n\n Alfred J. Lewy, M.D., \"Treating Chronobiologie Sleep and Mood Disorders with Bright Light,\" _Psychiatric Annals_ 17 (October 1987).\n\n \"Tests Prove Children Do Better in School with Full Spectrum, Visually-Efficient Lighting,\" press release, Verilux, 13 May 1998 www.ergolight.com.\n\n John Downing, O.D., Ph.D., F.C.S.O., \"Clinical EEG and Neurophysiological Case Studies in Ocular Light Therapy,\" in _Light Years Ahead: The Illustrated Guide to Full Spectrum and Colored Light in Mindbody Healing_ , ed. Brian J. Breiling (Berkeley: Celestial Arts,1996): 133-164.\n\n Sheri Lundstrom, \"Light Therapy a 'Natural prozac' for Winter Depression, _Twin City Wellness_ , November 1997, reprinted at www.lighttherapyproducts.com.\n\n _The Seventh Generation Guide to a Toxic-Free Home_ (Burlington, Vt. Seventh Generation, n.d.): 11.\n\n \"Just the FAQs: Answers to Frequently Asked Questions about Petroleum and Household Cleaners,\" Seventh Generation, 16 June 1998 www.seventhgen.com\/petrol.htm.\n\n Julia Kendall, \"Chemicals Found in Fabric Softeners by U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA),\" 1995 www.immuneweb.org\/articles\/fabricsoftener.html.\n\n Julia Kendall, \"Twenty Most Common Chemicals in Thirty-One Fragrance Products Based on a ] 1991 EPA Study,\" Environmental Health Network (n.d.) [www.users.lmi.net\/wilworks.\n\n Julia Kendall, \"Making Sense of Scents,\" collated scientific research (n.d.) www.ourlittleplace.com\/scents.html.\n\n Damon Franz and Holly Prall, \"Smelling Good but Feeling Bad,\" _E Magazine_ , XI (January-February 2000).\n\n Debra Lynn Dadd, _Home Safe Home: Protecting Yourself and Your Family from Everyday Toxics and Harmful Household Products_ (New York: Jeremy P. Tarcher\/Putnam, 1997): 281-282.\n\n## _Chapter 11_\n\n Larry Sang, _The Principles of Feng Shui_ , 2d ed. (Monterey Park, Calif.: American Feng Shui Institute, 1996). For more information about feng shui training, class schedules, and books, contact: American Feng Shui Institute, 108 North Ynez, Suite 202, Monterey Park, CA 91754; tel: 626-571-2757; fax: 626-571-2065; e-mail: fsinfo@amfengshui.com; website: www.amfengshui.com.\n\n Thomas Lee, \"Temporal Location Theory, Kan Yu (Feng Shui)\u2014An Ancient Chinese Theory on Site Location\" (paper presented at Geoinformatics '95 conference, The Association of Chinese Professionals in Geographic Information System, Hong Kong, 1995), published at <http:\/\/home.hkstar.com\/~starvsn\/fsgeoinf.html>.\n\n Thomas Lee, \"Kan Yu\u2014The Book of Change Concept in Environmental and Architectural Planning\" (paper presented at \"Greening to the Blue\" conference, Yale University, New Haven, 1996), published at <http:\/\/home.hkstar.com\/~starvsn\/kyyale.html>.\n\n Sophia Tang Shaul and Chris Shaul, \"Why Feng Shui?\" 168 Feng Shui Advisors website, June 1998 www.168fengshui.com.\n\n Here are more examples of the yin\/yang polarity. Yin: passive, cold, death, winter, female, night, even numbers, moon, water; yang: active, hot, life, summer, male, day, odd numbers, sun, fire.\n\n In Chinese philosophy, the five elements are wood, fire, earth, metal, and water. In contrast, the Western philosophical tradition originally accorded five also, but differently: earth, water, fire, air, and ether (for space); later, the fifth element, ether, was relegated to the metaphysicians while the chemists tended to deal with only the first four. The Chinese elements have to be understood with a fair degree of \"poetic license,\" in the sense that they do not mean that, literally, trees and branches are the wood element, or that steel and iron are the sole expression of the metal element. The Chinese elements of wood and metal partake in some degree of the qualities of the Western elements of ether and air. The Chinese elements are assigned many qualities, including direction, time of year, yin or yang shadings, and their own trigram.\n\n Sophia Tang Shaul and Chris Shaul, \"The Five Elements, Part One,\" 168 Feng Shui Advisors website, 1999 www.168fengshui.com.\n\n Terah Kathryn Collins, _The Western Guide to Feng Shui_ (Carlsbad, Calif.: Hay House, 1996): 63.\n\n Stanley Aaga Bartlett, \"Feng Shui for Lightworkers: Feng Shui and the Spirit of Change,\" _Planet Lightworker_ , 1999 www.planetlight-worker.com.\n\n Ibid.\n\n Willy Schrodter, quoting Eira Hellberg in _History of Energy Transference_ (York Beach, Maine: Samuel Weiser, 1999): 118.\n\n Willy Schrodter, quoting Paul Sedir, in _History of Energy Transference_ , 120.\n\n Carol Bridges, \"The Bones of Your Home,\" in _The Feng Shui Anthology: Contemporary Earth Design_ , ed. Jami Lin (Miami: Earth Design, Inc., 1997): 400.\n\n Karen Kingston, _Creating Sacred Space with Feng Shui_ (New York: Broadway Books, 1997): 30.\n\n Schr\u00f6dter, History of Energy Transference, 124.\n\n Carol Bridges, \"The Bones of Your Home,\" 401.\n\n Stanley Bartlett, \"Feng Shui for Lightworkers: Part III, Getting Rid of Density and Creating Light Centers,\" _Planet Lightworker, 1999_ www.planetlightworker.com.\n\n Kingston, _Creating Sacred Space with Feng Shui_ , 95-98.\n\n Angel Thompson, _Feng Shui. How to Achieve the Most Harmonious Arrangement of Your Home and Office_ (New York: St. Martins Griffin, 1996): 34.\n\n Lillian Too, _Feng Shui Fundamentals: Health_ (Rockport, Mass.: Element Books, 1997): 47.\n\n Nancilee Wydra, _Feng Shui. The Book of Cures_ (Lincolnwood, III.: Contemporary Books, 1996): 134.\n\n Simon Brown, _Practical Feng Shui_ (London: Ward Lock, 1997): 62.\n\n Thompson, _Feng Shui_ , 83.\n\n Sarah Rossbach, _Interior Design with Feng Shui_ (New York: Arkana\/Penguin Books, 1991): 21-22.\n\n Thompson, _Feng Shui_ , 38-39.\n\n Collins, _The Western Guide to Feng Shui_ , 44.\n\n Stanley Bartlett, \"Feng Shui for Lightworkers: Part II, Practical\/Physical Aspects of Feng Shui,\" _Planet Lightworker_ , 1999 www.planetlightworker.com.\n\n Collins, _The Western Guide to Feng Shui_ , 41.\n\n Kirsten M. Lagatree, _Feng Shui. Arranging Your Home to Change Your Life_ (New York: Villard Books, 1996): 29.\n\n Rossbach, _Interior Design with Feng Shui_ , 84.\n\n Lagatree, _Feng Shui. Arranging Your Home to Change Your Life_ , 40.\n\n The flat spiral dielectric resonator is available through Stanley Bartlett.\n\n Thompson, _Feng Shui_ , 101.\n\n Collins, _The Western Guide to Feng Shui_ , 82-86.\n\n Richard Webster, _101 Feng Shui Tips for the Home_ (St. Paul, Minn.: Llewellyn Publications, 1998): 93-97.\n\n George Birdsall, _The Feng Shui Companion: A User-Friendly Guide to the Ancient Art of Placement_ (Rochester, Vt.: Destiny Books, 1997): 117-118.\n\n The reader should bear in mind that feng shui encompasses a great deal more than what I have surveyed in this chapter. It has a more complex model of energy influences, timing, and location, and a copious amount of practical solutions for all aspects of our environment. What I've presented in this chapter, is merely a pr\u00e9cis of what is possible, in terms both of analysis and remedy, as well as the range of thinking available from practitioners.\n\n Jenny Liu, \"Sick House, Sick People,\" 1998 www.spiritweb.org.\n\n## _Chapter 12_\n\n Jane Thumell-Read, _Geopathic Stress. How Earth Energies Affect Our Lives_ (Rockport, Mass.: Element Books, 1995): 2.\n\n Information provided by Dulwich Health at www.dulwichhealth.uk.com.\n\n Ionizing radiation consists of high-energy rays capable of taking electrons out of molecules and forming ions in the substances through which it passes, thereby producing genetic mutations that can lead to cancer. Examples include X-rays, mammography, and other nonnuclear medical sources such as radiation therapy, used in conventional cancer treatment, and food irradiation, used to sterilize foods. An ion is an atom, or group of atoms, that has a negative or positive charge _as a result_ of having lost or gained one or more electrons. Ionizing radiation can break atomic bonds and affect chromosomes, thereby making gene changes. Nonionizing radiation does not possess enough energy to remove electrons from atoms. This makes it unable to alter genes.\n\n Gustav Freiherr von Pohl, _Earth Currents. Causative Factor of Cancer and Other Diseases_ (Stuttgart, Germany: Frech-Verlag, 1983): 11, 12, 13, 22, 33.\n\n J.M. Gobet, \"Geobiology\u2014The Holistic House,\" (n.d.) www.earthtransitions.com\/articles\/geobiology.htm.\n\n Serotonin is a neurotransmitter involved in many key body functions (and can produce problems when its levels are off), such as hunger and appetite regulation, sleep induction, cardiovascular activity, motor activity, respiration, control of body temperature, perception and moods and mood disorders (depression). Deficiencies or imbalances in serotonin levels are associated with violence, aggressive behavior, suicide, schizophrenia, and Parkinson's, among other health problems.\n\n Melatonin, a hormone produced by the pea-sized, light-sensitive pineal (pronounced pie-NEEL) gland in the center of the brain, regulates the body's internal clock, or circadian rhythm, which determines the twenty-four-hour sleep-wake cycle. With aging, the peak in melatonin secretion is about one hour later than normal (normal peak secretion time is about 2 a.m.), and the maximum peak of melatonin is only one-half the level of young adults. Low melatonin levels have been associated with sleeping disturbances and light-related conditions such as seasonal affective disorder (SAD). Eating vitamin- and mineral-rich foods and increasing your exposure to bright light can improve the body's natural melatonin production.\n\n Alf Riggs, \"Harmful Effects from Earth Radiation & Electrical Fields,\" <http:\/\/whale.to\/Earth_Radiation\/Riggsl.html>.\n\n Hans Nieper, M.D., \"Modern Medical Cancer Therapy Following the Decline of Toxic Chemotherapy,\" _Townsend Letter for Doctors & Patients_, November 1996, 88-89. _Dr. Nieper's Revolution in Technology, Medicine and Society_ (MIT, Oldenburg, 1985): 206, 222. Lecture notes from Professional Medical Seminar, Los Angeles, California, July 4, 1986, 13-15, 22, 28 (From A. Keith Brewer International Science Library, Richland Center, WI; tel: 608-647-6513; fax: 608-647-6797; e-mail: drbrewer@mwt.net; website: www.mwt.net\/~drbrewer\/other.htm). See also Hans Alfred Nieper, et al., _The Curious Man: The Life and Works of Dr. Hans Nieper_ (Garden City Park, N.Y.: Avery Publishing Group, 1998).\n\n Anthony Scott-Morley, \"Geopathic Stress: The Reason Why Therapies Fail?\" _Journal of Alternative Medicine_ , May 1985.\n\n D. Freshwater, \"Geopathic Stress,\" _Complement Ther. Nurs. Midwifery_ 3 (December 1997): 160-2.\n\n Kathe Bachler, \"Noxious Earth Energies and Their Influence on Human Beings\" (talk given in 1987), published at <http:\/\/whale.to\/Earth_Radiation\/Bachler.htm>. See also Kathe Bachler, _Discoveries of a Dowser_ (n.p.: Veritas, 1981) and _Earth Radiation_ (Manchester, U.K.: Wordmasters, Ltd., 1989).\n\n In some senses, the presence of a geopathogenic zone and what it dictates for bedroom arrangement may have to take priority over what a feng shui analysis reveals about the mouth of _qi_ and the optimal flow of _qi_ through a bedroom. It is possible of course, that when you move the bed out of the toxic zone you also move it into the healthy _qi_ zone. It is also possible to consult a professional who is skilled in both disciplines.\n\n Christopher Bird, quoting Herbert Douglas, in _The Divining Hand. The 500-Year-Old Mystery of Dowsing_ (Black Mountain, N.C.: New Age Press, 1979): 268-269.\n\n Bird, _The Divining Hand_ , 273.\n\n Alf Riggs, \"Myalgic Encephalomyelitis\" <http:\/\/www.simnet.is\/vgv\/jardarur.htm>.\n\n Thurnell-Read, _Geopathic Stress_ , 63-64.\n\n Tom Passey and Robert D. Egby, \"Is the Place Where You Sleep Making You Sick?\" <http:\/\/members.spree.com\/achievers\/pagell.htm>. Egby is a professional \"hypnoanalyst\" and director of the Center for Inner Healing and Meditation Studies. P.O. Box 1494, Hightstown, NJ 08520; tel: 609-581-2415.\n\n Chuck Pettis, _Secrets of Sacred Space: Discover and Create Places of Power_ (St. Paul, Minn.: Llewellyn Publications, 2000): 87.\n\n Samuel Sagan, M.D., _Entity Possession. Freeing the Energy Body of Negative Influences_ (Rochester, Vt.: Destiny Books, 1997), 98,106-7. See his website at: www.clairvision.org. Dr. Sagan's Clairvision School in Sydney, Australia, offers courses in developing sensitivity to land energies and energy qualities of homes.\n\n Dr. Sagan recommends leaving a food offering for the bhutas you are removing. It is well known that entities have food cravings\u2014usually for sugar, chocolate, heavy fried foods, and meats\u2014and inspire or compel their hosts to overconsume these foods. In his practice of bhuta-suddhi (\"entity purification\" or cleansing of the elemental energy layer, the one just beyond the physical), he puts out a sugar cube or two, offering it to the entities; at the end of the ritual, he wraps the cube (or sweet, if he used something else sugary) in a leaf and buries it. A certain portion of the energy essence (or at least the debris remaining from the ritual clearing) of the entity adheres to the sugar and is thus removed from the scene.\n\n Patrick MacManaway, \"A Definition of Geomancy,\" MAG E-zine, Mid-Atlantic Geomancy, Winter Solstice 1996 www.geomancy.org\/ezines\/ezine_4\/ezine_4c.html.\n\n In Dr. MacManaway's usage of the term a ley line is a narrow track of dowsable Earth energy that usually runs in straight lines and upon which in Europe old churches are oriented. Ley lines are not the same thing as a geopathogenic zone, although they can have strong effects on one's state of mind and to a lesser extent, upon one's physiology. Within circles of dowsers, there is disagreement whether a ley line is the track of subtle telluric energy (more recent definition), or is merely a straight line of alignment between ancient structures, such as old churches, standing stones, and other megalithic structures, but one which has no discernible energy (old definition). \"Pre-Reformation English and European churches will always have an energy ley line running down their long axis, which is the same pattern as you find in temple space in much of the world,\" says Dr. MacManaway.\n\n Ernest Hartmann, M.D., (1915-1992) practiced medicine in Eberbach, Germany, for over forty years. In 1961, he created the Institute for Geobiology and served for almost thirty years as its chairman.\n\n Manfred Curry, M.D., lived from 1899-1953.\n\n David Cowan and Rodney Girdlestone, _Safe as Houses? Ill Health and Electro-Stress in the Home_ (Bath, England: Gateway Books, 1996): 124.\n\n Blanche Merz, _Points of Cosmic Energy_ (Saffron Walden, England: C.W. Daniel Company, 1987): 17-20.\n\n J.M. Gobet, \"Geobiology\u2014The Holistic House,\" (n.d.) www.earthtransitions.com\/articles\/geobiology.htm.\n\n Reshad Field, _Here to Heal_ (Shaftesbury, U.K.: Element Books, 1985): 81, 88-89.\n\n Joan McFarlane, \"Dowsing Geopathogenic, Electromagnetic, and Other Irritation Zones\" <http:\/\/members.tripod.com\/Reid_J\/Joan.htm>.\n\n Mary K. Kuhner, \"Useful Ritual Techniques,\" 22 August 1996, posted on soc.religion.paganism (internet newsgroup), University of Washington at Seattle, by mkkuhner@phylo.genetics.washington.edu.\n\n William Bloom, _Psychic Protection. Creating Positive Energies for People and Places_ (London, England: Judy Piatkus Publishers, 1996): 65-66.\n\n Rescue Remedy is a formula originally developed in the 1930s by English physician Edward Bach. It contains the essences of five flowers, including Star of Bethlehem (for trauma and shock), clematis (for a tendency to pass out into unconsciousness), cherry plum (for being on the verge of a breakdown), impatiens (for irritability and tension), and rock rose (for frozen terror and panic). The combination produces a first aid effect on an overly charged emotional body. Rescue Remedy is available in the United States from Belson Bach USA, 100 Research Drive, Wilmington, MA 01887; tel: 978-988-3833; fax: 508988-0223. For more about Bach flower remedies, see these websites: www.bachflower.com; www.nelsonbach.com; www.bachcentre.com. The same formula is also available as Five Flower Formula, made by Flower Essence Society, RO. Box 459, Nevada City, CA 95959; tel: 800736-9222 or 530-265-9163; fax: 530-265-0584; e-mail: mail@flowersociety.org; website: www.flowersociety.org.\n\n William Bloom, _Psychic Protection. Creating Positive Energies for People and Places_ (London: Judy Piatkus Publishers, 1996): 126-7.\n\n Bloom, _Psychic Protection_ , 16.\n\n From information provided by Geomack Products under \"Alternative Health Practitioners\" www.geomack.force9.co.uk\/geo0.7.html.\n\n Samuel Sagan, M.D., _Awakening the Third Eye_ (Roseville, Australia: Clairvision, 1997): 173-180.\n\n# _Index_\n\n4-phenylcyclohexene, ,\n\n_9th Report on Carcinogens, 2000_ ,\n\nAAL Reference Laboratories, Inc.,\n\nAce Pump Corp.,\n\nacetone, ,\n\nN-acetyl-cysteine,\n\n_Acremonium spp_.,\n\nactivated charcoal, \u2013\n\nactivated intermediates,\n\nAffinity Labelling Technologies,\n\naging, \u2013\n\nAgrippa, Henry Cornelius,\n\nAir Check, Inc.,\n\nair conditioning, \u2013\n\nair filters, \u2013\n\nair pollution\n\nillness correlated with, \u2013\n\nmajor pollutants, ,\n\nmortality rates and, \u2013\n\n_See also_ indoor air\n\nAir Quality Research,\n\nairborne pesticides,\n\nAirChek,\n\nAireox Activated Carbon Air Purifier,\n\nAirFilters.net,\n\nAlaska Northern Lights,\n\nalbumin, ,\n\naldehyde detoxification pathway, \u2013\n\nalginate, \u2013\n\naliphatic hydrocarbon solvents,\n\nallergies\n\nCandida albicans and,\n\nfood\n\neliminating, \u2013\n\nidentifying,\n\nsymptoms of, \u2013\n\ntests for, \u2013\n\nwheat,\n\nfrom air pollution,\n\nfrom genetically modified foods,\n\ntriggers of,\n\nalpha-lipoic acid,\n\nalpha-terpineol,\n\nALS (amyotrophic lateral sclerosis),\n\n_Alternaria_ , ,\n\nAlzheimer's disease, , ,\n\nAmelung, Wolfgang,\n\nAmerican Academy of Biological Dentistry,\n\nAmerican cheese,\n\nAmerican Institute of Reboundology,\n\nAmerican Society of Dowsers,\n\namino acid conjugation,\n\namino acids, , ,\n\nAmjo Corp.,\n\nAmjo Sunrise light boxes,\n\nammonia, ,\n\namyotrophic lateral scierosis (ALS),\n\nanaphylaxis,\n\nAnderson Laboratories,\n\nAnderson, Richard,\n\nAnderson, Rosalind, ,\n\nandrogens,\n\nanemia,\n\nangina,\n\nanti-idiotope allergen,\n\nantibiotic resistance, , \u2013\n\nantibiotics in livestock feed, \u2013\n\nantimony, test for, \u2013\n\nantioxidants\n\naction of,\n\nas cleansing support,\n\nblood test for,\n\ndefined, ,\n\nnutrient,\n\nplant,\n\nanxiety reduction, \u2013, \u2013\n\nApollo Light Systems,\n\nAqua-Stream shower water filter, ,\n\nArctic, pollution in, ,\n\nArise & Shine Cleanse Thyself program, \u2013\n\naromaSpa, \u2013\n\naromatherapy,\n\narsenic\n\neffects on body, , n46\n\nlevels considered safe,\n\nlevels in drinking water,\n\ntest for, \u2013\n\narthritis\n\ndental focal infection and,\n\nemotional problems and, \u2013\n\ngeopathic stress and,\n\ntrigger of,\n\nAshtar Natural Dead Sea Products,\n\naspartame (NutraSweet), ,\n\n_Aspergillus_ , , ,\n\naspirin,\n\nasthma, , , \u2013,\n\natrazine, \u2013\n\nAura-Soma International Academy of Colour Therapeutics,\n\nAura-Soma Products, Ltd.,\n\nAura-Soma USA Inc.,\n\nauras\n\ndamaged, \u2013, \u2013\n\ndetecting toxins in,\n\ndetoxification methods\n\nrequesting a cleansing, \u2013\n\nsalting energy centers, \u2013\n\nusing pomanders, \u2013\n\nusing psychic methods, \u2013\n\nentities and, \u2013\n\nill-health and, \u2013\n\nnature and characteristics of, \u2013, \u2013\n\nof the unhealthy, \u2013\n\nprofessional detoxification, \u2013\n\nprotecting, \u2013\n\nautoimmune disease.\n\nautomobile emissions, , n55\n\nautonomic nervous system, n113\n\nAyurveda, \u2013, On51\n\nazaleas,\n\nB-vitamins, test for, \u2013\n\n_Ba-Gua_ , \u2013\n\nbaby food, contaminated,\n\nBach, Edward,\n\nBach Flower Remedies,\n\nBachler, Kathe,\n\nbacteria\n\nantibiotic-resistant,\n\nsizes of,\n\nbagels,\n\nbake-outs, , n54\n\nBaldwin, William J., ,\n\nBallentine, Rudolf,\n\nBarrie, Stephen, , ,\n\nBartlett Designs,\n\nBartlett, Stanley Aaga, \u2013\n\nBassett Aromatherapy,\n\nbathrooms, \u2013\n\nbaths\n\nbody-detoxifying, \u2013\n\nchlorine from, \u2013\n\nrelaxation,\n\nspirit-detoxifying, \u2013, \u2013\n\nBatmanghelidj, F.,\n\nBau-biologie, \u2013,\n\nBDCM (bromodich1oromethane),\n\nbedding, \u2013\n\nbedrooms, \u2013\n\nbeds, \u2013, ,\n\nbeech remedy,\n\nbeets, \u2013\n\nBefit Enterprises,\n\nBell, Iris,\n\nBennett, Peter, , ,\n\nbentonite, \u2013,\n\nbenzaldehyde,\n\nbenzene\n\nfrom carpets,\n\nhealth problems associated with,\n\nincidence in humans,\n\nplants which absorb, ,\n\nsources of,\n\nsymptoms produced by,\n\nbenzoate(s), ,\n\nbenzopyrene,\n\nbenzyl acetate,\n\nbenzyl alcohol,\n\nbenzyl butyl phthalate,\n\nberberine, \u2013\n\nBerger, Ruth,\n\nBergsmann, Otto,\n\nBerkeley Psychic Institute,\n\nBernard, Claude,\n\nBerthold-Bond, Annie, ,\n\nBeta-BHC (benzene hexachloride),\n\nbeta-carotene, test for,\n\nBieler's broth,\n\n_Bifidobacterium bifidum_ , ,\n\nbile, n3\n\nbile lubricants,\n\nbilirubin, test for,\n\nBio-Fighter Anti-Microbial UV Light System,\n\nBioCalex, \u2013\n\nbiochemical defenses, test for,\n\nBioDemocracy and Organic Consumers Assoc., ,\n\nbiodetoxification,\n\nBiofeedback Instrument Corporation,\n\nbiological dentistry, n1\n\nBiological Technologies International, Inc.,\n\nBiological Terrain Assessment, , \u2013,\n\nBioProbe, Inc.,\n\nbiotransformation,\n\nbirds,\n\nBirdsall, George,\n\nbismuth, test for, \u2013\n\nbitter melon, \u2013\n\nblackberry remedy,\n\nbladder cancer, , ,\n\n_Blastocystis hominus_ ,\n\nBlaylock, Russell L.,\n\nbleeding heart remedy,\n\nblood levels of toxins, mothers and infants,\n\nblood pressure, n16\n\nblood tests\n\ncomparisons with known patterns\/standards,\n\nnutrient and toxic element, \u2013\n\nBloom, William, ,\n\nBock, Kenneth,\n\nborage remedy,\n\nboron, test for, \u2013\n\nbotulinum,\n\nbovine growth hormone (BGH), \u2013\n\nbowel movement frequency,\n\nBower, John,\n\nBower, Lynn Marie, , ,\n\nbrain cancer, ,\n\nbrain symptoms,\n\nBraly, James, M.D.,\n\nbread, cracked wheat,\n\nbreast cancer\n\nBaby Boomer mortality,\n\ncase of, \u2013\n\ndental problems and,\n\nnuclear counties mortality,\n\norganochlorine compounds and, ,\n\nXcray-caused,\n\nbreast-feeding,\n\nbreast milk,\n\nBreathing Wall, \u2013\n\nBreiner, Mark A.,\n\nBRI. _See_ building-related illness\n\nBridges, Carol,\n\nbright light therapy, , n91\n\nBrite Lite IV light box,\n\nbromodichloromethane (BDCM), ,\n\nbronchitis,\n\nBrown, Simon,\n\nBrowrung, John M.,\n\nbuilding-related illness (BRI)\n\ndefined,\n\nsymptoms of, I\n\n_See also_ indoor air; sick building syndrome\n\nbulimia case,\n\nburdock, \u2013\n\nbutter,\n\nbuttercup remedy,\n\nbutyl cellosolve,\n\ncadmium, test for, \u2013\n\ncalcium, test for, \u2013\n\ncalendula remedy,\n\nCalifornia wild rose remedy, ,\n\ncamphor,\n\ncancer\n\nchildhood,\n\ndaily development of,\n\ngeopathie stress and, \u2013,\n\nrates. and nuclear radiation, \u2013\n\ntriggers of,\n\n_See also_ specific types of cancer\n\n_Candida albicans_\n\nand intestinal dysbiosis,\n\nallergies and,\n\ncleansing toxins from, \u2013\n\ndefined, n32\n\nFOS and,\n\nCanyon Dudleya remedy,\n\nCarbon Based Corporation,\n\ncarbon dioxide, , ,\n\ncarbon monoxide, , , \u2013\n\ncarbon tetrachloride,\n\ncarcinogens, \u2013\n\nCare 2000 Air Purifier, \u2013\n\ncannine dye,\n\ncarpets\n\n'bake-outs' of new,\n\nbenzene from,\n\ncleaning,\n\ndangers of new, , \u2013\n\nEnvironmental Protection Agency,\n\ngas emissions from, \u2013\n\nhouse dust and,\n\nneurotoxicity of,\n\n'new carpet' smell,\n\n01d,\n\nsub-acute reactions to,\n\nsymptoms in humans from, \u2013\n\nsymptoms in mice from,\n\ntesting for toxicity,\n\nuse in U.S., \u2013\n\nwool, \u2013\n\ncarrots,\n\nCarson, Rachel L., _xxi_\n\ncascara sagrada, \u2013\n\ncataracts, ,\n\ncats,\n\ncauliflower mosaic virus, \u2013\n\ncavitations\n\ndangers of, \u2013, \u2013\n\ndebridement of, \u2013\n\ndefined, ,\n\nincidence of,\n\nCayce, Edgar,\n\nCDSA (Comprehensive Digestive Stool Analysis), ,\n\nCellMate Blood Test Report, ,\n\nCenter for Food Safety, ,\n\ncentral nervous system (CNS) disorders, , \u2013\n\nchakras,\n\ncharcoal water filtration,\n\ncheddar cheese,\n\ncheeseburgers,\n\nchemical sensitivity. _See_ multiple chemical sensitivities (MCS)\n\nchemicals\n\ncommercially used,\n\nhousehold, logging exposure to, \u2013\n\nindustrial, , ,\n\n'organic,' \u2013\n\nChernobyl, ,\n\nchickens,\n\nchildren\n\nair pollution and, \u2013\n\nbehavior problems,\n\nDMSA administration to,\n\ngeopathic stress and, \u2013\n\ninfants\n\natrazine in,\n\nDBCP in,\n\ndioxin in,\n\nhypothyroidism in,\n\n_L. acidophilus_ for,\n\nunderweight newborns,\n\nneurological disorders in, \u2013\n\nsexual maturation, \u2013\n\nsusceptibility of,\n\nchloral hydrate, \u2013\n\nchlordane\n\namounts in home building,\n\neffects of, , , \u2013\n\nfoods found in,\n\nincidence in foods,\n\nlevels in homes,\n\nchlordecone, \u2013\n\nchlorella, \u2013\n\nchlorinated hydrocarbon pesticides,\n\nchlorine, \u2013, , n68\n\nchlorine absorption by the body, \u2013\n\nchlorine chemistry,\n\nchlorine industry, n72\n\nchloroform, , , , ,\n\nchloropyrifos,\n\ncholesterol, , \u2013\n\ncholinesterase,\n\nchronic fatigue syndrome\n\ncase of,\n\nchemicals associated with,\n\ncoincident with fibromyaIgia, \u2013,\n\ncoincident with MCS, \u2013,\n\ngeopathic stress and, \u2013,\n\nMCS and, \u2013\n\nmercury and,\n\ntoxicity and,\n\ncilantro,\n\ncirculating immune complexes (CIC), ,\n\n_Cladosporium_ ,\n\nClarus Products International,\n\nClean Air Plant System, \u2013\n\ncleansing\n\nauras\n\nrequesting a cleansing, \u2013\n\nsalting energy centers, \u2013\n\nusing pomanders, \u2013\n\nusing psychic methods, \u2013\n\nintestinal, \u2013\n\nwhole body, \u2013\n\n_See also_ liver cleans ing; detoxification\n\nclear cell cancer,\n\nClearWave digital clock,\n\nClifford Consulting and Research,\n\nClifford Materials Reactivity Testing, \u2013\n\nclofibric acid, \u2013\n\nClorox, \u2013\n\nclutter, \u2013\n\ncochineal extract,\n\nCody, Pierre,\n\ncoffee,\n\nColburn, Theo, \u2013, , \u2013\n\nColin Campbell & Sons Ltd.,\n\nCollins, Terah Kathryn, ,\n\ncolon. _See_ intestinal tract\n\ncolon cancer\n\nchlorinated water and,\n\ndiet associated with, \u2013\n\nfecal free radicals and, \u2013\n\nfiber-rich diets preventing,\n\nslow transit times and, \u2013\n\nTHM levels and, l48\n\ncolon cleansers, \u2013\n\ncolonies,\n\nCommittee for Nuclear Responsibility,\n\nComprehensive Digestive Stool Analysis, ,\n\nComprehensive Parasitology Profile, \u2013,\n\nComtech Research,\n\nComtech Research IG-033A ionizer,\n\nconjugation,\n\nconsensus reality,\n\nconstipation, ,\n\nconsurner products\n\nadvice on,\n\nassessing,\n\nchemicals used in, \u2013\n\ncommon toxic, \u2013\n\npotentially toxic, ,\n\ncopper toxicity,\n\ncore pictures, \u2013,\n\nCorsello, Serafina,\n\nCram, Jeffrey R.,\n\ncramps,\n\nCrirmion, Walter J., N.D., , ,\n\ncruciferous vegetables, \u2013, \u2013\n\n_Cryptosporidia_ , ,\n\n_Cryptosporidium parvum_ , n7\n\nCrystal Enterprises,\n\nCulturelle, ,\n\nCurry-Hartmann Grid, \u2013\n\nCuny, Manfred,\n\ncutting _qi_ , \u2013\n\ncytochrome P450\n\ndefined, \u2013\n\nfunction of,\n\nnutrients needed by,\n\nvulnerability to mercury,\n\nCzech Republic,\n\nDadd, Debra Lynn, , ,\n\ndairy products, \u2013\n\nDAMS (Dental Amalgam Mercury Syndrome),\n\ndandelion root,\n\nDaughton, Christina G.,\n\ndawn simulators, \u2013\n\nDBCP (dibromochloropropane),\n\nDDE\n\n(dichlorodiphenyldichloroethylene), ,\n\nDDT (dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane)\n\nimmune damage from, \u2013\n\nin children,\n\nin fish, ,\n\nin foods, \u2013\n\nincidence in chemically sensitive patients,\n\nspread of,\n\ndeath rates\n\nfrom chemical exposures,\n\ninfectious disease, \u2013\n\ndehydration, \u2013\n\ndental\n\ncomposites,\n\nfluorosis, \u2013\n\nfoci, \u2013\n\ninfections, n8\n\nDental Amalgam Mercury Syndrome (DAMS),\n\ndental material biocompatibility, \u2013\n\ndental mercury amalgam fi1lings\n\nalloy composition,\n\nannual use,\n\nantibiotic-resistant bacteria and, \u2013\n\ncontroversy over, \u2013,\n\nmercury levels per number of, \u2013\n\nmercury release rates from,\n\nmultiple scleros is patients with, \u2013\n\noutgassing from, \u2013\n\nremoval of\n\nassessing need for, \u2013\n\ncase study of, \u2013\n\ncautions during,\n\nincorrect,\n\nnutritional support for,\n\npatient satisfaction after,\n\nproblems prompting,\n\nsymptom reduction after, \u2013\n\ntiming of,\n\ntoxicity of, \u2013\n\nurinary mercury per number of,\n\ndentists, , , \u2013\n\ndepression\n\ncase of entities and, \u2013\n\nelectromagnetic fields and,\n\nflower essences for, \u2013\n\nnature of,\n\ntoxicity and,\n\ntrans-fatty acids and,\n\nDES (diethylstilbestrol),\n\ndetoxification\n\naura\n\nrequesting a cleansing, \u2013\n\nsalting energy centers, \u2013\n\nusing pomanders, \u2013\n\nusing psychic methods, \u2013\n\nbenefits of, \u2013, \u2013, \u2013\n\nde-fined, _xxii-xxiii_ , \u2013,\n\nglobal consequences of, \u2013\n\nimportance of, _xxv_ ,\n\nliver as primary organ for,\n\nnutrients supporting, \u2013\n\nphases of, \u2013\n\nshaking for, \u2013\n\nspiritual, \u2013, \u2013\n\nwhole body, \u2013\n\n_See also_ colon cleansers; liver cleansing\n\nDetoxification Profile,\n\ndetoxification program components, \u2013\n\ndetoxification system, rnaladaptation of, \u2013\n\nDevelopmental Natural Resources,\n\ndevelopmental neurotoxicants, \u2013\n\nDiamond, John,\n\ndiarrhea,\n\ndibutyl phthalate,\n\ndieldrin\n\nbasics of, n37\n\nbreast cancer and,\n\ndaily dietary intake of,\n\nresidues in foods,\n\n_Dientamoeba fragilis_ ,\n\ndiesel engine exhaust,\n\ndiet\n\nassessing,\n\nhigh-fiber, ,\n\nlow-fiber, \u2013\n\nmeat, \u2013\n\ndiethyl phthalate,\n\ndigestive tract symptoms,\n\ndill pickles,\n\ndioxin, , \u2013,\n\ndizziness,\n\nDMPS (2,3-dimercaptopropane-l-sulfonic acid), , \u2013, \u2013\n\nDMSA (dimercaptosuccinic acid), , ,\n\nDNA repair enzymes, test for,\n\ndoctors,\n\nDoctor's Data, ,\n\nDonner, Florinda,\n\nDouglas, Herbert,\n\nDowning, John,\n\ndowsing, therapeutic, \u2013\n\nDr. Gauss,\n\nDragon River Herbals, ,\n\ndrainage pipes, energy\n\nhomes to earth, \u2013\n\npeople to earth, \u2013\n\ndrinking water\n\nchlorinated\n\ncarcinogenic effects, \u2013\n\norganochlorine byproducts from \u2013, \u2013\n\nreproductive problems and, \u2013\n\nusage of,\n\nconsumption of,\n\nfluoridated\n\ncancer and, \u2013\n\ncavity reduction and, \u2013\n\n**The Healthy Living Space**\n\ndental fluorosis from, \u2013\n\nextent of, \u2013\n\ninception of,\n\nlead levels and,\n\ntypical fluoride concentrations,\n\npersonal care product residues in, \u2013\n\nphannaceutical drug residues in, \u2013\n\nuntreated, VOCs in, n5\n\n_See also_ water (tap)\n\ndry cleaning solvent case, \u2013\n\nDuehring, Cindy,\n\nDulwich Health,\n\nDursban,\n\ndust,\n\nDust Fighter  fi1ter, \u2013\n\nDust Free,\n\ndysbiosis\n\ndefined, \u2013, , n9\n\nproblems from, , ,\n\ndyspepsia, \u2013\n\near symptoms of toxicity,\n\nEarth acupuncture, \u2013\n\nEarth Essentials,\n\nEarth Partnership, Inc.,\n\nEarthrise Nutritionals, Inc.,\n\nEast Germany,\n\nEdelson, Stephen B., M.D., \u2013\n\nEgby, Robert D.,\n\nEI (environmental illness), \u2013, \u2013\n\nElectrocorp,\n\nelectrodermal screening (EDS), \u2013, n4\n\nelectrolytes, , n14\n\nelectromagnetic field, n26\n\nelectropollution\n\naction of, \u2013\n\nbody-shielding devices, \u2013\n\ncases involving, \u2013\n\ndelecting,\n\nexposure reduction devices, \u2013\n\nfield strengths per source,\n\nhot spots,\n\nlow-frequency,\n\nmeasuring devices,\n\nsymptoms due to, ,\n\nElectroStatic Air Filter,\n\nelectrostatic air filters, \u2013\n\nE.L.F.-Zone Gauss Meter,\n\nemotional symptoms of toxicity,\n\nemotions, toxic,\n\nendocrine system\n\ndisruptors, n36\n\nglands in,\n\nsymptoms of damage to, \u2013\n\nendometriosis,\n\nEndosulfan, ,\n\nendotoxins,\n\nEnergeia, \u2013\n\nenergy cords\n\ncutting, \u2013\n\ndefined, \u2013\n\nenergy level symptoms,\n\nenergy refreshing, \u2013\n\nenergy toxins, \u2013, \u2013\n\nenergy wells, \u2013\n\n_Entamoeba histolytica_ ,\n\nentities\n\ncases of, \u2013\n\ndefined, \u2013\n\nfood cravings of, n21\n\npoints of residence, ,\n\nsymptoms of, \u2013\n\nenvironment, toxins in, \u2013,\n\nenvironmental estrogens\n\nconcentrations in body,\n\ndefined,\n\neffects of, , \u2013\n\nfetal susceptibilities to, \u2013,\n\nillnesses linked with, \u2013\n\nmarine life affected by,\n\nmultiplicity of, \u2013\n\nsources of, ,\n\nEnvironmental Health Center, , n14\n\nEnvironmental Health Information Service, \u2013\n\nEnvironmental Health Network,\n\nenvironmental illness (EI), \u2013, \u2013\n\nEnvironmental Lighting Concepts,\n\nEnvironmental Management, Inc.,\n\nenvironmental medicine,\n\nenzymatic activity test, \u2013\n\nenzymes\n\ndefined,\n\nliver, action on toxins,\n\nmixed function oxidative, \u2013\n\nepilepsy,\n\nEpsom salt, , , n108\n\nEpste in, Samuel,\n\nestrogen,\n\nestrogenicity,\n\nethyl acetate, ,\n\nEverpure, Inc.,\n\nEverpure water filters, ,\n\nEWG (Environmental Working Group),\n\nexcitotoxins, \u2013\n\nexercise, \u2013\n\nexotoxins,\n\nexpelling mudra,\n\nextracellular connective tissue matrix,\n\neye symptoms,\n\nfacial paralysis,\n\nfacility managers, and SBS,\n\nFagan, John B.,\n\nFarin, Jacob, ,\n\nfasting\n\nbenefits of,\n\nfrequency of,\n\nmental, \u2013\n\nprecautions, \u2013\n\nsome drinks for, \u2013\n\nwater,\n\nfatty acids\n\nbasics of, n5\n\ndefined,\n\nfunctions of,\n\nsaturated, \u2013\n\ntest for, \u2013\n\nunsaturated,\n\nfear and flower essence therapy, \u2013\n\nfeces\n\nfree radical generation in, \u2013\n\ntests of, \u2013,\n\nFeldman, Jay,\n\nfeng shui\n\nbasics of, \u2013, , n37\n\nconf1icts with geopathogenic zones,\n\nevaluation tool for, \u2013\n\nFeng Shui Warehouse,\n\nfertilizers, toxic components of,\n\nfetuses, \u2013, ,\n\nFIA (Functional Intracellular Analysis), ,\n\nfibroids, uterine, ,\n\nfibromyalgia\n\nchronic fatigue and, \u2013,\n\ndefined, n46\n\nemotional problems and,\n\nMCS and, \u2013, \u2013,\n\npesticides and,\n\nFife, Bruce, ,\n\nFinlandia Sauna, \u2013,\n\nfish, ,\n\nFit vegetable wash, \u2013\n\nfive elements, n6\n\nFive Flower Formula remedy, \u2013, n33\n\nflatulence,\n\nFlotation REST, \u2013, n112\n\nFlower Essence Society, ,\n\nflower essence therapy\n\nbasics of, \u2013, \u2013, \u2013\n\ncase study, \u2013\n\nemotion-essences summary,\n\nfor anxiety\/fear, \u2013\n\nfor depression, \u2013\n\nfor EMF stress, \u2013\n\nfor hostility, \u2013\n\nfor stress\/tension, \u2013\n\nfluoridated water. _See_ drinking water, fluoridated\n\nfluoride\n\nadult daily intake of,\n\nill effects of, \u2013\n\nindustrial emissions, , n36\n\nremoving from tap water, \u2013\n\nsource of, n35\n\n_See also_ drinking water, fluoridated\n\nFluoride-X filter,\n\nfluorosilicic acid, n35\n\nfood additives,\n\nfoods\n\ncontaminants of,\n\ndairy products, \u2013\n\nDDT-laden,\n\ngenetically modified\n\navoiding, \u2013\n\ncommercially prepared (list), \u2013\n\ncrops containing GMOs,\n\ndangers of, \u2013\n\npublic's view of, \u2013\n\nheptachlor-laden,\n\nirradiated\n\ndangers of, \u2013\n\nenergy sources used for,\n\nexposures allowed on,\n\ninception of,\n\nlabelling of, \u2013\n\nnutritional deficits of,\n\nPOP-laden,\n\ntesting for GMOs in, \u2013\n\nformaldehyde\n\ncase history involving,\n\nhypersensitives and,\n\nmonitors,\n\nplants which absorb,\n\nproducts contained in,\n\n'safe' level of,\n\nsources of, , , ,\n\nsymptoms produced by,\n\ntoxicity symptoms of,\n\nFOS (fructo-oligosaccharides), \u2013\n\nfragrances, \u2013\n\nfree radicals\n\naction of,\n\ndefined, \u2013, , n32\n\neffects of,\n\nfecal, \u2013\n\nsources of, , \u2013,\n\ntest for, \u2013\n\nfront door area _qi_ , \u2013\n\nfructo-oligosaccharides (FOS), \u2013\n\nfull spectrum lights, \u2013\n\nFunctional Intracellular Analysis (FIA),\n\nfungi, , , \u2013\n\nfurnishings,\n\n_Fusarium_ , ,\n\nGeneral Ecology, Inc.,\n\nGenetic ID, Inc., \u2013,\n\nGenetically Engineered Food Alert,\n\ngenetically modified organisms\n\n(GMO)\n\ncrops containing (list),\n\ncross-species examples, \u2013\n\ndefined, \u2013\n\n_See also_ foods, genetically modified\n\nGenetron Systems, Inc.,\n\nGenox Corporation,\n\ngentian remedy,\n\nGeo Group,\n\ngeocancerology,\n\nGeomack Products,\n\ngeomancy\n\ncase studies employing, \u2013\n\ndefined,\n\ngeopathic stress\n\nbiochemical factors and,\n\ndefined, \u2013,\n\ndevices for clearing spaces of, \u2013\n\neffects of, ,\n\nentities and, \u2013\n\nhealth problems near, \u2013\n\nindicators of, \u2013\n\nneutralizing, \u2013, n13\n\nwomen's estrogen cycle and,\n\nghost-busting, \u2013\n\n_Giardia lambia_ , ,\n\nginger root,\n\ngingival crevicular fluid, n8\n\nGittleman, Ann Louise,\n\ngliadin,\n\nglobal distillation, \u20135\n\nGlobal Environment Technologies,\n\nglucuronidation,\n\nglutamate,\n\nglutathione, , ,\n\nglutathione conjugation,\n\nglutathione peroxidase, test for,\n\nglutathione S-transferase,\n\ngluten,\n\nglycine,\n\nGMOs. _See_ genetically modified organisms\n\nGoffman, John W.,\n\ngolden ear drops remedy,\n\ngolden sponge, ,\n\ngolf courses,\n\nGould, Jay, ,\n\nGrant, Lucinda,\n\ngrapes,\n\nGreat Smokies Diagnostic Laboratory, ,\n\ngreen drink,\n\nGreenberg, Robert C., \u2013\n\ngreens.\n\nGrossman. Terry,\n\ngrounding cords\n\nhomes to earth, \u2013\n\npeople to earth, \u2013\n\ngrowth periods, \u2013\n\nGTC Nutrition Company,\n\nGuirdham, Arthur, M.D.,\n\ngutta percha alternative, \u2013\n\nHaas, Elson M., \u2013,\n\nHailey, Boyd,\n\nhair analysis test, \u2013,\n\nhair-pulling case, \u2013\n\nHall, Judy,\n\nHalpern, Steven,\n\nhamburger,\n\nHarman, Denham,\n\nHarmon, Nicholas,\n\nHarrison, Lewis,\n\nHartmann, Ernest,\n\nHathaway, Warren E.,\n\nheadaches\n\ncase of entities and,\n\nchloropyrifos and,\n\nexcitotoxins and,\n\ngeopathic stress and,\n\ntartrazine and,\n\ntriggers of,\n\nHealing Center,\n\nHealth Mate Sauna, \u2013,\n\nHealthy Home Test Kit,\n\nHealthy House Institute, ,\n\nhealthy living resources,\n\nheart problems, ,\n\nheat depuration,\n\nheavy metals\n\nfound in tap water,\n\npoisoning from,\n\ntesting feces for, \u2013\n\ntesting hair for, \u2013\n\ntesting urine for, \u2013\n\nHellberg, Eira,\n\nHendricksen Nat\u00fcrlich, ,\n\nHEPA air filters, \u2013\n\nheptachlor, ,\n\nheptachlor epoxide,\n\nherbicide exposure case, \u2013\n\nHeron, Silena,\n\nHerxheimer reaction, , , \u2013\n\nhexachlorobenzene, , ,\n\nhives,\n\nHobbs, Christopher,\n\nHodgson, Michael,\n\nHoffman, David,\n\nHolistic Dental Association,\n\nholly remedy,\n\nHolyk, Peter, ,\n\nhomes\n\nbathroom considerations, \u2013\n\nbed location in, \u2013\n\nbedroom considerations, \u2013\n\nchlordane in,\n\nclutter in, \u2013\n\nconstruction, \u2013\n\ndesign and arrangement, \u2013\n\nenergy flow evaluation, \u2013\n\nenergy imbalance costs, \u2013\n\nenergy of, \u2013\n\nenergy refreshing of, \u2013\n\nenvironmental assessments of, \u2013,\n\nfront door area _qi_ , \u2013\n\nfurnishings,\n\ngeopathic zone testing for, \u2013,\n\nghost-busting, \u2013\n\nlights in,\n\nlocation of. _See_ geopathic stress\n\nneighboring homes' influences, \u2013\n\npainting interior, \u2013\n\nroom detoxification, \u2013\n\nunderground water near, \u2013, \u2013,\n\nhormones (fed to livestock),\n\nhormones (human)\n\ncentral,\n\ndefined,\n\nthyroid T4,\n\nhostility and flower essence therapy, \u2013\n\nhot flashes case, \u2013\n\nhouseplants as air filters, \u2013\n\nHuebner, Friedrich Markus,\n\nHuggins, Hal, , ,\n\nhuman milk,\n\nhumic water,\n\nhumidifiers, ,\n\nHussar, Christopher,\n\nHVP (hydrolyzed vegetable protein),\n\nhydrocarbons,\n\nhydroch1oric acid dumping,\n\nhydrogen fluoride dumping,\n\nhydrogenated fats,\n\nhydrolyzed vegetable protein (HVP),\n\nhydroponic plants, \u2013\n\nhyperactivity,\n\nhypertension,\n\nhypnotherapy, \u2013\n\nhypochondriacs, ,\n\n'hypochondriasis,'\n\nhypoglycemia,\n\nhypothyroidism,\n\nice cream,\n\nIGF-1 (insulin-like growth factor), \u2013\n\nillness\n\nchronic, \u2013\n\nenvironmental, \u2013\n\nrate from workpiace exposures,\n\nimmune system\n\nanti-cancer capability of,\n\nintestines as part of,\n\noverloaded, ,\n\npesticides and, \u2013\n\nresponse to toxins in blood,\n\nspiritual, \u2013\n\n1mmuno  B1oodprint test, \u2013,\n\nimmuno Laboratories,\n\nimmunoglobulins, , n68\n\nimpatiens remedy,\n\nindian pink remedy, \u2013\n\nIndividualized Optimal Nutrition (ION) test, \u2013,\n\nindoor air\n\ncarbon monoxide in,\n\nchemicals found in, ,\n\nchlordane in, \u2013\n\ndamp, , ,\n\ndust in, \u2013\n\nfactors affecting,\n\nfiltering\n\nwith houseplants, \u2013\n\nwith machines, \u2013\n\nformaldehyde in, \u2013\n\nfungi in, , , \u2013\n\nionizing, \u2013\n\nmolds in, , \u2013, \u2013\n\norganochlorines in,\n\npollutant sources,\n\nproductivity and,\n\npurifying, \u2013\n\nsick building syndrome and, \u2013,\n\ninfants. _See under_ children\n\nInfinity Heavenly Horsetail,\n\ninsulin-like growth factor (IGF-1), \u2013\n\nInternational Academy of Oral Medicine and Toxicology,\n\nInternational Dental Health Foundation,\n\nintestinal tract\n\nbacteria in\n\nbeneficial, \u2013,\n\nharmful,\n\nbasics of, \u2013, \u2013\n\ncolon\n\naverage American male,\n\ncleansers for, \u2013\n\ndiseased,\n\nnature and function of, \u2013\n\ntransit times in, ,\n\nleaky, , ,\n\nlength of,\n\nmucoid plaque in, \u2013\n\nparasites in, \u2013,\n\nsmall intestine, \u2013\n\nstagnation symptoms,\n\ntoxicity of, \u2013\n\n_See also_ parasites\n\nInuit,\n\nion generators, \u2013\n\nION (Individualized Optimal Nutrition) test, \u2013,\n\nion levels, \u2013,\n\nIonAir Company,\n\nIonAir Wein VI-2000 High Density Negative Ion Generator, \u2013\n\nionizing radiation, n3\n\nions\n\ndefined,\n\nnegative, , \u2013\n\npositive,\n\niron, test for, \u2013\n\nJainism, \u2013\n\nJanov, Arthur,\n\nJarro-Dophilus, \u2013,\n\nJarrow Formulas,\n\nJenny, S.,\n\nJensen, Barnard,\n\njoints, ,\n\nKaminski, Patricia, \u2013,\n\nKan Yu,\n\nKane, Patricia,\n\nKaragulla, Shafica, M.D.,\n\nKaufman, Richard C.,\n\nKDF shower water filter, , , 560n32\n\nKellogg, John Harvey,\n\nKendall, Julia,\n\nkidney inflammation,\n\nKilner, Walter,\n\nkinesiological muscle testing, ,\n\nKing James Medical Laboratory, ,\n\nKlinghardt, Dietrich,\n\nKnishinsky, Ran,\n\nKron, Jacquelin,\n\n_Lactobacilius acidophilus_ , , \u2013\n\nLake Baikal,\n\nlakes,\n\nLange, Susan,\n\nlasagna with meat,\n\nlaxative types,\n\nlead, , ,\n\nlead poisoning, \u2013, \u2013\n\nleaky gut syndrome,\n\nlearning disorders,\n\nLeGant, Leon S., \u2013\n\nlemon juice,\n\nLessEMF Inc.,\n\nlethargy, ,\n\nleukemia, , , \u2013\n\nLevin, Norman,\n\nley lines, n23\n\nLichtenberg, H.,\n\nlight therapy, , n91\n\nlightning,\n\nlights\n\ndawn simulators, \u2013\n\nfeng shui of,\n\nfull-spectrum\n\nfluorescent tubes, \u2013\n\nlight boxes, \u2013\n\nlight bulbs,\n\npartia1 spectrum, \u2013\n\nLilly, John C., n112\n\nlimonen,\n\nlinalool,\n\nlindane,\n\nling energies, , , \u2013,\n\nlipid peroxides, , ,\n\nliquid clay. _See_ bentonite\n\nLiquid Needie Rebalancer,\n\nLiu, Jenny,\n\nliver\n\nbacklogged, \u2013\n\ncleansing frequency,\n\ncommon toxicity of,\n\nfunction of, , ,\n\noverloaded, ,\n\ntest for health of,\n\nliver cleansers\n\ncommercial, \u2013,\n\nhomemade, ,\n\nliver cleansing\n\nbenefits of,\n\ncastor oil compresses during,\n\nflushing\n\noverview of,\n\nprotocols for, \u2013\n\nfoods for, \u2013\n\nfrequency recommended,\n\nherbs for \u2013\n\nprogram for \u2013\n\nresults to expect, \u2013\n\nliving space. _See_ homes\n\nLogan, Karen,\n\nlogging one's chemical exposures, \u2013\n\nLord, Richard S.,\n\nLos Angeles air pollution,\n\nLotz, K.E.,\n\nlove-lies-bleeding remedy,\n\nLundstrom, Sheri,\n\nlung cancer, ,\n\nlung symptoms, , \u2013\n\nlymph, ,\n\nlymphatic system\n\ndefined, , ,\n\ndysfunctional, \u2013\n\nfunction of, \u2013\n\nstimulating, \u2013\n\nlymphocytes, viability test for,\n\nlymphoma, ,\n\nMacManaway, Patrick, \u2013\n\nMag-Stop Plates,\n\nmagnesium\n\ndeficiency,\n\nmetabolic role,\n\ntests for, , \u2013, \u2013\n\nmagnetic fields, \u2013\n\nmagnetic shielding material, \u2013\n\nmanganese toxicity,\n\nmanufactured foods,\n\nmarine life,\n\nmarine pollution,\n\nMasada Marketing Corp.,\n\nMasters, Roger D.,\n\nMCS (multiple chemical sensitivities)\n\nCFS, fibromya1gia, and, \u2013\n\ndefined,\n\nincidence of, , ,\n\nVOCs and, \u2013\n\nmeditation,\n\nMeinig, George, D.D.S.,\n\nmelatonin, , n88, n7\n\nmelons,\n\nmenstrual bleeding,\n\nmental symptoms, ,\n\nMerchant, Randal,\n\nmercury\n\nabsorber of,\n\naction of, \u2013\n\nbinder of,\n\nchelators of, , \u2013\n\nconversion to methylmercury, \u2013\n\ndangers of, ,\n\ndisplacing magnesium,\n\nexposure standards, \u2013\n\nnervous system effects from, \u2013\n\npersistence in body,\n\ntests for, \u2013,\n\ntransmission to fetuses,\n\nmercury toxicity\n\ncases of, \u2013, \u2013\n\nhealth problems associated with, , \u2013, n2\n\nin dentists, \u2013\n\nmood altering effects of, \u2013\n\nsources of, \u2013,\n\nstudies on rats, \u2013\n\nMetagenics,\n\nMetaMetrix Clinical Laboratory,\n\nmethionine,\n\nmethyl alcohol,\n\nmethyl bromide,\n\nmethylmercury, , ,\n\nmethylene chloride,\n\nMeunnann, J.H.,\n\n'Mickey Finn:' \u2013\n\nmicrofiltration water filters, \u2013\n\nmicronutrients, testing for,\n\n_Micropolyspora faeni_ ,\n\nmicrowave pollution,\n\nmilk thistle, \u2013\n\nmimulus remedy,\n\nMineral Rich, ,\n\nmirrors, , \u2013,\n\nmiscarriage, , \u2013\n\nModi, Shakuntala, ,\n\nmolds, , \u2013, \u2013\n\nmolecular medicine, n51\n\nmolybdenum, test for, \u2013\n\nMom's Veggiewash, \u2013\n\nmonobutyl phtha1ate,\n\nmonosodium glutamate (MSG),\n\nMonsanto, ,\n\nmontmorillonite. _See_ bentonite\n\nMother & Others,\n\nmountain pride remedy, \u2013\n\nmoving between homes, \u2013\n\nMowrey, Daniel B.,\n\nMSG (monosodium glutamate),\n\nmucoid plaque, \u2013\n\nmultiple chemical sensitivities\n\n(MCS)\n\nchemicals in people with,\n\nproof of,\n\ntoxicity and, ,\n\nVOCs and, \u2013\n\nmultiple sclerosis, \u2013,\n\nMuMetal,\n\nmuscle symptoms,\n\nmuscle testing, ll,\n\nmusic therapy, \u2013\n\nmustard remedy, \u2013\n\nNambudripad Allergy Elimination Technique, , \u2013\n\nNambudripad, Devi S., ,\n\nnasal symptoms,\n\nNational Human Adipose Tissue Survey,\n\nNational Toxicology Program, \u2013\n\nnatural killer cells, , nl\n\nNatural Solutions Environmental, Inc.,\n\nNature's Carpet, , \u2013\n\nnaturopathy, nl\n\nnausea,\n\nneck, nape of, n18\n\nNeedak Manufacturing,\n\nNeedak Soft-Bounce rebounder,\n\nnegative ion generators, \u2013\n\nnegative ions, , \u2013\n\nneighbor pacification, \u2013\n\nneighboring homes' influences, \u2013\n\nnervous system\n\nautonomic, nll3\n\ncentral, disorders of, , \u2013\n\nmercury and, \u2013\n\nperipheral, n34\n\nsympathetic, n36\n\nNestle, Marion,\n\nneurological disorders, \u2013, ,\n\nneuropeptides, \u2013\n\nneurosis,\n\nNF Formulas,\n\nNickel, David J., \u2013\n\nnickel, test for, \u2013\n\nNieper, Hans,\n\nNirvana Safe Haven, ,\n\nnitrites,\n\nnitrogen dioxide, ,\n\nnitrogen oxide,\n\nnitrosamines,\n\nNoetic Field Therapy,\n\nnonionizing radistion, n3\n\nnonyl-phenol-ethoxylate,\n\nNordic Naturals,\n\nNorth Star ,000 Bright Light Box,\n\nNortheast Center for Environmental Medicine,\n\nNorthrup, Christiane,\n\nnuclear counties,\n\nnuclear power plants,\n\nnuclear weapons testing, \u2013\n\nNutraFiora,\n\nNutraSweet (aspartame), ,\n\nnutrients, intracellular,\n\nnutritional deficiencies,\n\nOCCs (organochlorine compounds). _See_ organochlorines\n\nOlestra,\n\noral\n\nbacterial populations,\n\ndiseases and heart problems, ,\n\nfocal infections, \u2013\n\ntoxicity symptoms,\n\ntoxicity tests, \u2013,\n\norchids,\n\nOregon grape remedy, \u2013\n\nOrganic Crop Improvement Assn.,\n\nOrganiclean E-Commerce Division,\n\nOrganiclean Fruit and Vegetable Wash, ,\n\norganochlorines\n\naverage dietary intake of, \u2013\n\nbodily damage from, \u2013\n\ndefined,\n\nformation of,\n\nhalf-lives of, n69\n\nin dolphins,\n\nin humans, \u2013\n\nmultiple, in blood,\n\npersistence of, , n69, n93\n\nsources of,\n\nOtt, John Nash,\n\nOtt-Lite,\n\noutgassing\n\nof carpets,\n\nfrom dental mercury amalgam fillings, \u2013\n\novarian cancer case, \u2013\n\nOwens, Kagan,\n\noxidation, \u2013,\n\nOxidative Protection Screen test, \u2013,\n\noxidative stress, , \u2013,\n\nOxidative Stress Profile, \u2013\n\nOxyClean Air Filter,\n\nOxystat, ,\n\nozone,\n\nPacific Northwest Laboratory,\n\nPacked Blood Cell Elements Profile, \u2013,\n\npacked red blood cell intracellular analysis, , \u2013\n\npaint exposure case,\n\npainting home interiors, \u2013\n\nPantox Laboratories,\n\nPantox Profile, ,\n\nParagon shower water filter, ,\n\nParagon Water Systems,\n\nParaquat,\n\nparasites\n\naction of,\n\narthropod,\n\nformula for purging, \u2013\n\nincidence of, \u2013\n\nsymptoms from, \u2013\n\ntest for, \u2013,\n\ntreatments for, \u2013\n\nworms,\n\nParkinson's disease\n\nexcitotoxins and, ,\n\npesticide exposure and,\n\ntriggers of,\n\nparticulate matter, as alr pollutant, ,\n\nPassey, Tom,\n\npathological detoxifiers,\n\npatient evaluation, \u2013\n\nPBBs (polybrominated biphenyls), ,\n\nPBTs (persistent, bioaccumulative, toxic substances), \u2013\n\n4-PC (4-phenylcyclohexene), ,\n\nPCBs (polychlorinated biphenyls)\n\namount produced worldwide,\n\nbanning of,\n\nin dolphins,\n\nin humans, , ,\n\nthyroid function and, \u2013\n\nuses of, \u2013\n\npeanut butter,\n\npeanuts,\n\n_Penicillium_ , ,\n\npenstemon remedy,\n\npentane,\n\nperchioroethylene,\n\nperfumes, \u2013\n\nperiodontal disease, \u2013\n\nperipheral nervous system, n34\n\npersistent organic pollutants. _See_ POPs\n\nPert, Candace,\n\npesticides\n\nalrborne,\n\nannual market for,\n\nCalifornia agricultural use of, \u2013\n\ncancer and,\n\n'drift' from, ,\n\nexposure case,\n\nhousehold, \u2013\n\nin house dust,\n\nlicensed agricultural,\n\nproportion not reaching target,\n\nproscription in schools, n47\n\nresidue levels in humans,\n\nusage rates, \u2013, \u2013\n\nwater contamination from, \u2013,\n\nPettis, Chuck,\n\npH, intracellular, test for, \u2013\n\nPhase I detoxification\n\naction of, ,\n\ndefined,\n\nensymes involved in, \u2013\n\nnutrients needed for,\n\nsubstances blocking,\n\ntriggering substances,\n\nPhase II detoxification\n\ndefined,\n\nnutrients needed for,\n\npathways in, \u2013\n\nphenols,\n\nphosphorus, test for, \u2013\n\nphthalates in urine,\n\nPhyto-Pro,\n\nPi-Square SunUp dawn simulator,\n\npickles,\n\nPierrakos, John C.,\n\npineal function,\n\npizza, pepperoni,\n\nPizzorno, Joseph, ,\n\nPlanetary Formulas,\n\nPLH Products,\n\n\"poison arrows,\" cutting _qi_ , \u2013\n\nPolari Tea,\n\npolychlorinated biphenyls. _See_ PCBs\n\npolycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons,\n\npolyurethane,\n\npolyurethane foam,\n\npolyvinyl chloride (PVC), \u2013\n\npomanders, \u2013\n\nPOPs (persistent organic pollutants), \u20134, ,\n\npositive ions,\n\npotassium, test for, \u2013\n\npotato chips,\n\npotatoes,\n\np, p-DDE,\n\nprebiotics, \u2013\n\nPrestige Publishing,\n\nPrice, Weston A.,\n\nProAlgen,\n\nprobiotics, \u2013\n\nproduce\n\ncleaning,\n\norganically grown,\n\nwas hes for, \u2013\n\nProfessional House Doctors,\n\nprostate cancer\n\ncase of,\n\ndental problems and,\n\nrates of,\n\nproteins, metal-binding, test for,\n\nPsenner, Roland,\n\n_Pseudomonas aeruginosa_ ,\n\npsyllium husks and seeds, \u2013\n\nPublic Citizen, ,\n\npumpkin pie,\n\npumpkin seeds, \u2013\n\nPur Recovery Engineering,\n\nPur water filters, ,\n\nPure-Pro USA Corp.,\n\nPure-Pro water filters, ,\n\nPVC (polyvinyl chloride), \u2013\n\npyrethroids, \u2013\n\n_qi_ , \u2013\n\ncutting, \u2013\n\nQLink, \u2013\n\nradiation\n\neffects of, \u2013\n\nionizing, n3\n\nradioactive fallout, \u2013\n\nradiolytic products, \u2013\n\nRadiTech, \u2013,\n\nradon\n\nassessing homes for,\n\ndangers of, \u2013\n\ndeaths attributed to,\n\nmode of entry, ,\n\nresidential levels of,\n\nsources of,\n\nU.S. concentration maps,\n\nraisins,\n\nRancho Seco nuclear plant,\n\nRandolph, Theron,\n\nRau, Thomas,\n\nRea, William J., , , ,\n\nReal Goods,\n\nReboundAIR rebounder,\n\nrebounding, \u2013\n\nrectal cancer, ,\n\nredox,\n\nreduction,\n\nrelaxation suggestions, \u2013\n\nreproductive problems, \u2013\n\nRescue Remedy, \u2013, n33\n\nresistivity, intracellular, test for, \u2013\n\nrestricted envirorunental stimulation therapy (REST), \u2013, \u2013\n\nreverse osmosis water filters, \u2013\n\nRiccioli, Joseph,\n\nRiggs, Alf,\n\nRiversong, Michael, \u2013\n\nRogers, Sherry, , , \u2013,\n\nroot canals, \u2013, \u2013\n\nRossbach, Sarah,\n\nRoundup,\n\nRoundup Ready,\n\nRoyal Center of Advanced Medicine,\n\nRoyal, Daniel F., ,\n\nSAD (seasonal affective disorder), \u2013\n\nSafe Zone filters,\n\nSagan, Samuel, , , ,\n\nsalmonella,\n\nSamadhi Tank Company,\n\nsauna units, \u2013\n\nsaunas, \u2013, \u2013, n15\n\nSBS. _See_ sick building syndrome\n\nscarlet monkeyflower remedy, \u2013\n\nSchr\u00f6dter, Willy,\n\nScientific Consulting Service,\n\nscleranthus remedy,\n\nscotch broom remedy,\n\nScott-Morley, Anthony, \u2013\n\nscrubs, \u2013, \u2013\n\nSeagull IV X-1 water filters, \u2013,\n\nseals, and POPs in body fat,\n\nseasonal affective disorder (SAD), \u2013\n\nSedir, Paul,\n\nseizures,\n\nserotonin, \u2013, , , n6\n\nSeventh Generation,\n\nsexual maturation, \u2013\n\nshaking, \u2013\n\nSharan, Farida, \u2013\n\nShaul, Chris,\n\nShaul, Sophia Tang,\n\nShelter Ecology,\n\nShelton, Bruce,\n\nSherman, Janette D., ,\n\nshower water filters, \u2013\n\nshowers, chlorine exposure in, \u2013\n\nsick building syndrome (SBS)\n\nair quality and, \u2013\n\ndefined, \u2013\n\ndust and, \u2013\n\nincidence of, \u2013\n\nstress and,\n\nsymptoms of, \u2013\n\ntoxin sources surrounding, ,\n\nwomen and,\n\n_See also_ building-related illness; indoor air\n\nsilicofluoride,\n\nSilver, Helene,\n\nSimontacchi, Carol, \u2013\n\nskin\n\nbrushing, \u2013\n\nscrubs for, \u2013\n\nsymptoms,\n\nsmectite. _See_ bentonite\n\nsmog, \u2013\n\nsolvents, , \u2013\n\nsour cream,\n\nsoy products, \u2013\n\nsoybeans, ,\n\nSpecial Provocative Mercury Test, ,\n\nSpectraCell Laboratories,\n\nspider plants,\n\nspiritual\n\nantioxidant, \u2013\n\ndetoxification, \u2013, \u2013\n\nguide, \u2013\n\ntoxins, \u2013\n\nSprite Slim-Line shower water filter, ,\n\nSt. John's wort remedy,\n\n_Stachybotrys atra_ ,\n\n_Stachybotrys chartarum_ ,\n\nStangle, Jacob, \u2013\n\nstar tulip remedy,\n\nsteam distillation, \u2013\n\nSteingraber, Sandra,\n\nSteven Halpern's Inner Peace Music,\n\nsticky monkeyflower remedy,\n\nstomach cancer,\n\nstool tests, \u2013,\n\nstrawberries,\n\nstress\n\nflower essence therapy for, \u2013\n\nrelieving, \u2013\n\ntypes of, \u2013\n\n_See also_ geopathic stress\n\nstrokes, ,\n\nstrontium-90,\n\nstyrene,\n\nsulfation,\n\nsulfur dioxide,\n\nsulfuric acid dumping,\n\nSun-Pure Water Purifier, ,\n\nsunflower remedy,\n\nSunRizr dawn simulator,\n\nSunshine Tropical Foliage,\n\nsuperoxide dismutase, test for,\n\nsweet chestnut remedy,\n\nsympathetic nervous system, n36\n\nsymptoms\n\nper organ or organ system, \u2013\n\nvague, \u2013\n\nSynercid,\n\nTagamet,\n\nTanalbit, ,\n\nTart, Charles,\n\ntartrazine,\n\nteeth-brushing,\n\ntension and flower essence therapy, \u2013\n\nTernes, Thomas A.,\n\nTerraFlo CBLX water filter, ,\n\ntesticular cancer, \u2013\n\ntests available, body nutrients and toxins, \u2013\n\ntetrachloroethylene, \u2013\n\n_Thermoactinomycetes vulgaris_ ,\n\nThinkTank International,\n\nTHMs. _See_ trihalomethanes\n\nThompson, Angel,\n\nThornton, Joe,\n\nThree Mile Island,\n\nthroat symptoms, ,\n\nThurnell-Read, Jane,\n\nthyroid gland\n\nfunction of, n74, n32\n\nincidence of malfunctioning,\n\nPCBs and, \u2013\n\nthyroid hormones\n\nT3,\n\nT4,\n\nTierra, Michael,\n\ntinnitus,\n\ntoluene\n\nasthma and,\n\nbasics of, n12\n\nbenzoates as block to cleansing of,\n\nhouseplants which absorb,\n\nincidence in fat tissue,\n\nincidence in fragrances,\n\ntoluene diisocyanate,\n\ntomatoes,\n\nToo, Lillian,\n\ntooth extractions,\n\nTOPAS (Toxicity Prescreening Assay),\n\nTotal Antioxidant Status test, ,\n\ntotal environmental load,\n\nTotal Shield,\n\ntoxaphene,\n\ntoxic bowel, ,\n\ntoxic load, tests for, \u2013\n\ntoxic substances\n\nannual dumping of,\n\ncarcinogenic,\n\n'toxic triggers,'\n\nToxicant-Induced Loss of Tolerance,\n\ntoxicity\n\nas disease,\n\nassessment criteria, \u2013\n\ndegrees of,\n\neffects of, _xxii_ ,\n\ngradual development of, ,\n\nlong-term, ,\n\nmistaken as fatigue,\n\nunrelieved,\n\ntoxins\n\nblood levels of, in mothers and infants,\n\nbuildup in environment,\n\ndefined,\n\nenergy, \u2013, \u2013\n\nexposures to, versus body levels of,\n\nfat-soluble, ,\n\nhuman milk,\n\nincidence in humans, , \u2013,\n\nindoor sources of, ,\n\nlevels in body, \u2013\n\nmigration of, , \u2013\n\nnon-chemical,\n\n'safe' levels of,\n\nspiritual, \u2013\n\ntoxics versus, n6\n\ntypes of,\n\nubiquity of, _xxi-xxii_ , \u2013\n\ntoxoplasmosis,\n\nTrace Mineral Systems,\n\ntrampolining, \u2013\n\ntrans-fatty acids\n\navoiding consumption of,\n\nconsumption statistics,\n\ndangers of, \u2013\n\ndefined,\n\nhistory of,\n\nnature of,\n\ntransgenic,\n\ntransit times, , ,\n\ntrauma, unresolved,\n\ntrees, ,\n\ntrichloroethane,\n\ntrichloroethylene, , ,\n\nTrifield Meter,\n\ntrigrams, \u2013\n\ntrihalomethanes (THMs)\n\ncarcinogenic effects of, \u2013\n\ndefined,\n\nlevels considered acceptable,\n\nmodes of ingestion,\n\nreproductive effects of, \u2013\n\nTriphala, \u2013\n\ntubulin,\n\ntwitching,\n\nUltra Clear, \u2013,\n\nultraviolet light air purification, \u2013\n\nultraviolet purification water filters, \u2013\n\nuranium, \u2013,\n\nuric acid, test for,\n\nurine\n\ncolor of,\n\nmercury in,\n\nphthalates in,\n\ntesting for heavy metals, \u2013\n\nUrine Elements Profiles, \u2013,\n\nvan Benschoten, M.M., O.M.D., \u2013\n\nvanadium, test for, \u2013\n\nVariel Health International,\n\nventilation systems, , \u2013,\n\nVerilux, ,\n\nVideo Operator Distress Syndrome,\n\nvilli, intestinal,\n\nVilsbiburg, Germany, \u2013\n\nViracin, ,\n\nVirginiamycin,\n\nvirus sizes,\n\nVita-Lite, \u2013\n\nVitamin C, test for,\n\nVitamin E, test for,\n\nVitamin Research Products,\n\nVOCs (volatile organic compounds), \u2013, \u2013\n\nexamples of,\n\nhouseplants as absorbers of, \u2013\n\nhuman-made,\n\nin blood,\n\nin tap water, \u2013\n\nindoor levels of,\n\nnatural sources of,\n\nsources of, \u2013, \u2013,\n\nvon Pohl, Gustav Freiherr, ,\n\nWalker, Morton, ,\n\nwater consumption\n\nbenefit of,\n\nbest times for,\n\ninadequate, \u2013\n\nindicator of adequate, \u2013\n\nminimum recommended,\n\nwater contamination, \u2013, , \u2013\n\nwater filter types, \u2013\n\nwater filtration,\n\nwater, stagnant,\n\nwater (tap)\n\nchlorination of,\n\ncontaminants in, \u2013\n\nreproductive problems from, \u2013\n\n_See also_ drinking water\n\nWaterman, Robert D.,\n\nWaterwise, Inc.,\n\nWaveGuide,\n\nWebster, Richard,\n\nweight symptoms,\n\nwhacks, auric,\n\nwhite blood cell counts,\n\nWhole Blood Elements Profile, \u2013,\n\nwillow remedy,\n\nWolverton, B.C.,\n\nwomen\n\ncolon cancer in, ,\n\nendocrine disruptors and,\n\nhealth problems and geopathic stress, ,\n\npregnant and nursing,\n\nsick building syndrome in,\n\n_See also_ breast cancer\n\nWorld Resources Institute,\n\nWydra, Nancilee,\n\nX-rays,\n\nxenobiotics,\n\nxenoestrogens. _See_ environmental estrogens\n\nxylene, , ,\n\nYarnell, Eric,\n\nyarrow remedy,\n\nYarrow Special Formula remedy, ,\n\nYerba Prima, Inc.,\n\nYerba Santa remedy,\n\nyin\/yang polarities, n5\n\nZestron Ionair ionizers,\n\nzinc, test for, \u2013\n\nzinnia remedy, \n**Hampton Roads Publishing Company**\n\n... _for the evolving human spirit_\n\nHampton Roads Publishing Company  \npublishes books on a variety of subjects, including metaphysics, health, integrative medicine, visionary fiction, and other related topics.\n\nFor a copy of our latest catalog, call toll-free\n\n(800) 766-8009, or send your name and address to:\n\nHampton Roads Publishing Company, Inc.\n\n1125 Stoney Ridge Road\n\nCharlottesville, VA 22902\n\ne-mail: hrpc@hrpub.com\n\nwww.hrpub.com\n\n","meta":{"redpajama_set_name":"RedPajamaBook"}}