Good news on the homefront. Our rent is being paid and we will, in fact have a home for Christmas.
I guess this means I need to put up the tree.
I think this also means I need t find a way to get the Kid a Christmas present with exactly zero dollars and no cents (or sense- take your pick).
But first I am going to take the world’s longest nap, the first nap I’ve had in a while where I am sure that it won’t be my last nap in my own house.
I am slowly going through some 768 old posts and labeling them so that they are more easily searched.
It makes my head hurt.
I should have booze for this job.
Being bent over all day picking lettuce for minimum wage
Being a grave digger
Being a secretary who knows more about whats going on that the boss that makes 10 times what you do
Being a customer service rep answering the same questions over and over again during the day and being yelled at for things you have no control over
Being a prison guard
Being a counselor to rape victims or domestic violence victims
Being a nurse in a burn unit
Being a pilot flying a 747 full of people in rough weather
Being an immigration lawyer
Being a published author
Being a social worker
Being a scientist working on a cure for cancer or AIDS
Being a hospice care provider
Being the head of you own company
Probably not.
My piece for the anthology is about how we fetishize motherhood so we don’t have to pay women to do the actual work of mothering. It’s also about calling bullshit on the “motherhood is my greatest accomplishment” line that moms (both SAHM and working moms) are supposed to spew out instead of any accomplishments that might get the recognition outside of the home.
Over at RandomBabble and today at Pandagon and with some of the people (mostly guys) that I have talked to about the essay, I have started some shit. Apparently being pissed off that women get pigeonholed into an unpaid and thankless role means I’m bitchy or something. Fine.
But here’s the thing. Women have been having babies and raising them to adulthood for at least 200,000 years, and pretty damn successfully. In developed countries with access to prenatal care and childhood vaccinations and general freedom from the violence of wars and famine, raising a child to adulthood is a given. We don’t spend every day of our child’s life worrying about whether they are going to starve to death or be turned into war fodder. We worry about whether they are reading at grade level or socializing properly or getting the right organic nutrients and college entrance test scores. These are not life or death concerns, they are marginal. Being a mother in a developed country rarely means making life or death choices for your kids.
So if you’re a SAHM in America claiming that your kids are your greatest accomplishment- I call bullshit. If you’re a working mom in America and you say the same thing- I call bullshit on that too. We (moms) are doing a tough and thankless job, yes. But not a job that hasn’t been done by billions and billions of women before us.
And lots of people have tough and thankless jobs. Fast food workers, secretaries, farm workers, customer service people. I have yet to hear any of those people demand that people acknowledge their sacrifice for showing up everyday at a crap job. Because we pay them. Moms, on the other hand, get paid in stupid cards and flowers one day a year and a giant shitload of platitudes and sentiment the rest of the year.
I would rather have the cash than the sentiment. And I am sorry if you feel hurt because I think choosing to stay at home with your kids isn’t an accomplishment worthy of my admiration. Whopdee fucking do. You’re not some poor Sudanese mother who has managed to keep all of her daughters from being raped and her sons from being slaughtered (which would be an accomplishment). You’ve just managed to get little Chloe or Zack to sleep through the night or pick up cheerios in a pincher grasp or whatever. And so have we working moms, with half the time and twice the workload.
Be your own damn greatest accomplishment, let your kids be theirs. Give them an example to follow, not a fucking martyr.
In the comments to the last post, Wonder and I were talking about a phenomena we frequently run into in relationships.
“You make me want to be a better man”
“You’re my moral compass”
If we had a dollar for every guy that said that kind of stuff, we’d be much better off than we are. I don’t know how widespread this idea is that woman are supposed to be the ethics moderators for men, I only know how common it is in my relationships. And it SUCKS!
Granted, this is a kind of power can be sort of an aphrodisiac, at first. It seems like it’s the power to teach someone something hugely important to the human existence (whether or not you believe in god). But the truth usually shows itself soon enough. You are not teaching them to be better people, you are the excuse they use to continue to be selfish and small minded. They don’t have to do the hard thinking or feel guilt over being an asswipe because you are there to do it for them. It’s the relationship version of catholic confession, a way to rid yourself of sin without doing the hard work of actual atonement.
And I wonder if this isn’t the natural progression of making women the gatekeepers of sex, something that comes up way to frequently when talking about morals. Personally, I think any kind of sex between consenting adults is fine and not any sort of moral failing, but when you make morals so much about sexuality, and you make women the gatekeepers of sex, then it’s not a giant leap to think that women are the gate keepers of morality too. (Add the not small belief that women are responsible for original sin and we get the extra burden of making up for that for all eternity by being the sacrificing and compassionate sex).
Wonder says she wants a guy who is a better feminist than she is. (Good luck with that). I would be happy with a guy has his own strong ethical beliefs and internal moral compass. I am already teaching one male (the Kid) how to be moral, I don’t want to do it for a grown up.
The Kid is reading the Da Vinci Code, and like most people who have read it he has become OBSESSED.
I remember this age, I think I went batshit over the Mist’s of Avalon, but I am sure I was not nearly as cute in my obsession as the Kid
Kid: Mom, did you know that the symbols we use for man and women, you know the one with the arrow and the one that looks like a person, are wrong.
Me: Really, what are they supposed to be?
Kid: Well, the woman is really a cup, but it looks like a V. And the men, it’s an upside down V. It’s supposed to mean spear but (In super quiet whisper) it really looks like a phallus.
Me: You know why I like the other symbols better?
Kid: Why?
Me: Cause in Christianity there is this idea that women aren’t really people, but empty vessels that are useless till you fill them up, like a cup. I like the other symbol better cause it let’s women be people, not empty objects.
When last we left Ruby, she had gone to Buenos Aires for the annual tango festival. In Argentina, Ruby fell on hard times and found herself doing a burlesque tango show at a brothel. One night, when Ruby’s fishnets were on their last leg and tips were low in walked Miguel Luis Manana Naranja, head of Espanovision, the second largest media network in all of Latin America.
Miguel took one look at Ruby’s tattered fishnets and determined, furry face and decided that she was his new it girl, er hamster. He whisked Ruby out of the brothel and into a whirlwind of fancy parties, private jets and lavish dinners. He gave her a gold plated hamster wheel for her new penthouse apartment and made the producers of As the Wheel Turns create a part for Ruby based on her life in the brothel.
At first Ruby was overwhelmed by Miguel’s kindness and all the luxury. Her water bottled was filled with nothing but imported French sparkling water that had been blessed by deaf -mute nuns. She had her own private stash of silkworms who worked day and night spinning out fresh silk for her bedding. Miguel took her everywhere with him. But the fast life was wearing on her. She found herself shooting up pure Columbian coffee and snorting echinacea just to get out of bed in the morning. She was far from her punk rock feminist ideal.
One night Miguel took her to one of his high stakes poker parties. He said she was his lady luck and had to go with him when she tried to decline out of exhaustion. She half heartedly threw on a long silk gown, did a line of coffee and smeared some lipstick on her tiny hamster lips.
At the poker table, Miguel was losing big to Rupert Murdoch. Murdoch wanted control of Espanovision and Miguel had gambled everything he had, except his shares in the company. The final straw was when he gambled Ruby on a bet to get everything back. Ruby was pissed, she wasn’t possession he could dump when the stakes were high. Before the game could continue, Ruby ran out of the night and away from her luxury life.
She found her way to a clinic for coffee addicts in Peru. While there she became obsessed with the stories she heard of the Shining Path. After her life as a capitalist tool, she wanted to contribute to a great cause, and the Shining path seemed the way for her to do that. When she was strong enough, she packed up a simple rucksack with bread and nuts and trecked off into the Peruvian countryside to throw herself in with the rebels.
B says you’ve been tagged for I splotchy. Got to it chica!
I don’t like traditional Christmas songs for the most part. Sure, I can sing O Christmas Tree in the original German and know most of the words to Adeste Fidelus, but I prefer my Christmas with a side of music with some rock and roll 80’s pop in it.
So I have a cheesy weakness for the Beach Boys “Little Saint Nick”. I know all the lyrics and will sing it loudly and off key whenever it comes on the radio.
Some other faves
The Waitresses- Christmas Wrapping (the same peeps that do I Know What Boys Like)
Erasure- Another Lonely Chrsitmas
The Pretenders- 2000 Miles
And my all time favorite Christmas song- The Ramones- Merry Christmas (I don’t want to fight tonight with you)
One of my few strengths is being able to admit when I’m wrong. And I have to say a great big huge apology to someone who I was not terribly kind to.
Last night, Wonder told me someone wanted to help out my current situation with some money, anonymously if they could. I wracked my brains trying to think who it could be, but I could not have been more shocked when I saw who it was (turns out paypal isn’t so anonymous). This is someone I have not been nice to, someone I have been pretty dismissively mean to. For that, I am sorry. I guess I figured you were one of those types of Christians I run across all the time, all talk and judgment, not a lot of charity.
Thank you for your generous gift. I know you have kids and it’s Christmas,that money could have gone for toys for your own kids. So please know it means a lot to us. It will help us get some groceries and cover overdraft fees until we get food stamps, and I am sure that if the Kid knew you’re the reason we get to have a really good dinner tonight, he’d give you a tackle hug.
For not giving you the benefit of the doubt before, I am sorry. I am sure we will find many many ways to disagree in the future, but performing an act of charity for someone you don’t get along with very well is pretty much the top of the list of ways Christians are supposed to be good. I am sorry, and thankful, and very impressed.