Busy is not a virtue.
In fact, busy is bullshit. Multi-tasking is the devil. We’re doing too much, and not much of it is important, useful, inspired, or part of a passionate life.
Case in point: children’s activities.
I Do NOT Heart League Sports or Bourgeois Lessons
My children are five and (almost) three years old. So far, I have studiously avoided team sports, dance, play-dates and music lessons. But the end of our idyllic free time is nigh.
My oldest starts kindergarten in September, and I anticipate that school will be to her what the apple was to Adam and Eve. Her eyes are going to snap wide open when she finds out that her classmates do things other than play outside and get dirty. The veil of innocence will dissipate, discontentment will ensue and she will realize that her schedule is naked. Her fig leaf will manifest as requests to start gymnastics, ballet, tennis, soccer, baseball, opera, anthropology, mime and juggling.
I dread this.
I cannot adequately describe how deeply and intensely I dread this. In order to capture this fear in words, I would have to invent a new language called ‘forboding’.
In fact, so deeply do I dread this that if I was a hippy or a religious fundamentalist or just deeply paranoid, I’d homeschool her, except then I really would have to put her in activities so that she would spend time with humans other than me. You see my dilemna.
BAH to Being Over-Scheduled and Well-Rounded
Here are my issues.
I think we overschedule our kids, and I’m sure that we do this because we think it is good for them.
I think we overschedule them because we want to keep them off the crack-pipe, which is a noble and practical objective and for this, society thanks you (although TLC and the re-hab industry have quiet misgivings). Please note, however, that the schedules some grade-schoolers endure would drive me straight to the pipe. And I am an adult and presumably more bitchy and resilient and arguably have less disposable income (seriously!) than your average ten year old. So embark upon that path with care, if you please.
We want children to be well-rounded, but well-rounded is a vicious lie. Nobody needs to be well-rounded. We just need one or two overwhelming passions or talents and the freedom and the guts to follow them where they lead us.
Still, I think that we think that a busy, well-rounded schedule leads to a busy, well-rounded child who will get into a busy, well-rounded university so that she can lead a busy, well-rounded professional life.
Kill me now. I did all of those things and have a busy, well-rounded professional life and want nothing more than to just Be. Off. That. Hamster. Wheel.
Here is my objection to the “child must play violin, two sports, dance in a structured environ that requires year-end costumes and extortion via tickets to a torturous recital, and know how to swim” mandate of middle class culture:
- At this exact, activity-free moment, I have as many plates in the air as I can possibly juggle alone. Adding baseball or soccer practice two nights a week and tournaments on weekends WILL upset the fragile, precarious balance in our world.
It is a tipping point, but in the bad way. I see the future and it is so scary that it merits an incomplete run-on sentence that will make your head explode.
Like this:
Eating fast food in the car on the way to practice, rushing from daycare to home to McDonalds to games, forgetting the serves-no-earthly-purpose-except-to-torment-me-with-one-more-item-to-pack-and-remember stirrup socks and batting gloves, having to buy batting gloves and bats and cleats and fancy bags to carry all this crap, going to bed way past bedtime, waking up cranky and behaving badly because of bad food and lack of sleep, lipping off elders, crying over small reprimands, abandoning backpacks on the floor at the door, and leaving dishes to fester in the sink until abruptly moving house in the middle of the night is the only solution.
And that is just me. Pity the children.
The End
My three year old is passionate about sand, rocks, dirt, and being dirty. She has also been borne into my religion, which is shoes, and recently I looked out the kitchen window to see that she was playing in a sand mountain whilst wearing my new, hot pink heels. This, to her, was heaven. Why should I pay fees, eat dinner in the car, chit chat with other weirdly normal parents, so that she can then continue to play in the sand in the outfield of a baseball diamond?
When I played ball we had to take off our jewelry before the game started, so I can only presume that coaches also have rules about just-saying-no to hot pink pumps or would make up some as soon as the issue arose (and it would). We’ve already got paradise by the porch light. I don’t need to join leagues to round off my angular girls. We’re good.
I believe that this parent-driven, frog-marched participation in extra-curricular activities stems from a noble and earnest parental desire to give children the greatest, richest start in life, full of opportunities and experience, so that a child may find their passion and develop a well-rounded resume with a litany of awards and honours and honourable mentions that will get them into a good university, because a good university means a good job, and a good job means a good income, and a good income means a stable, respectable, satisfying life.
And of course a parent wants a child to have a satisfying life. That is The End. The activities are simply the means to that end.
Re: university. There is no guarantee, here, my darlings. I know this from experience, and let me explain why: liberal arts. Wide mind, narrow pay. A university degree (or two!) is no guarantee of good job, good pay.
Re: good job, good pay. The two do not necessarily go together. And even if they do, they do not necessarily lead to a satisfying life.
Re: The End. The End is a satisfying life. Let’s reverse-engineer that, shall we?
I want my children to be happy. I want them to be caring, compassionate people able to act on and actualize their goals, whatever they may be. I want them to live soul-full lives. And to do that, I think they need exactly two skills. They need to know how to interact fluidly and graciously with other people, and they need to know how to learn. This means, in my opinion, that all they need in life are good manners and to be passionately literate. Let’s discuss.
Good manners
I’m not talking about etiquette or charm school or elaborate codes of conduct signalled in silverware. I don’t care which fork you use as long as you don’t stick it in my eye. I’m talking about interacting with people with kindness and compassion in a way that puts them and you at ease. Good manners are social lubricant and a way of showing kindness and respect to others and to yourself. When you understand the purpose good manners and how to use them, you also know when to drop them and go to the mat. This is an essential life skill.
Passionate Literacy
A love affair with words and books and the written word cultivates the imagination, curiosity, and gives you the skills you need to learn anything you want to know about anything. If you love to read, you will be a lifelong learner. If you read critically, you will be able to make sense of the world and your choices within it. If you can navigate the written word, you can chart your own path. Dr. Seuss totally nailed it: “The more that you read, the more things you will know. The more that you learn, the more places you’ll go.” This is the base for launching an empowered, authentic life and that is the stuff of life, baby.
That’s All There Is, Folks
So that’s it. That is my parenting mission. If I instill in my children good manners and a love of reading, I have done my job and given them the tools they will need to live a rich life of their choosing.
That is The End, after all: a satisfying life. I don’t know what it is for them, but I know how they might find it and what they might need along the way.
And, I admit, if my five year old thinks she may find it on the baseball field, then I shall cave and we will rent Field of Dreams.
I’m kidding. I’ll sign her up already.
What’s up with The New Fatherhood?
From the head of which goddess sprang the Involved Father? Who is this demi-god with his fancy jogging stroller, hanging out at Starbucks on Saturdays at 10am with the baby and the toddler so their mama can sleep the required two hours a day, leaving early on Tuesday afternoon because his wife has a meeting and the babysitter isn’t back from Hawaii yet, (awkwardly) braiding his daughter’s hair, working nights so his wife can work days, knowing where the immunization records are kept, insisting on a say in which school the child attends, arguing the finer points of parenting philosophy because he took Psych 100 and he is the daddy after all, changing diapers, cleaning up vomit, rubbing backs, taking the children to see Beverly Hills Chihauha and becoming irresistably attractive because of that, and warming baby bottles unprompted because he is in it to win it.
And they are EVERYWHERE.
I blame the feminists. What with all their/our/my incessant bitching about housework and child-rearing being undervalued; insisting that this work had value; and yet, at the same time, insisting on being able to work outside the home, even though most non-white, non-middle-class women were always there, anyways. I blame women like Madonna Kolbenschlag, who in the 70s wrote a letter from a newly feminist wife to her husband:
…I would like to free you of your compulsive workaholism, your “breadwinner” fixation. But I can’t share that load unless you relieve me of some of the burden of homemaking and child rearing. Can you learn to work less, earn less, spend more time with the kids — and be happy? If you can’t then I can’t be happy either. Can you stop measuring yourself by the size of your paycheck?
I also blame the dot com bubble/bust; overindulged, entitled knowledge workers; Tim Feriss and his four hour work week; and Gen X and Y who grew up in broken homes with broken hearts full of travel-lust, who backpacked and couch-surfed from country to country only to finally discover home in the eyes of their children. It’s all your fault, people. You raised hell and now you’re raising children and you’re spoiled enough to think the world, especially the world of work, ought to accomodate this fact of life.
This is a very good thing, because having children is what people do. Maybe not all – and I’m certainly not judging anyone who chooses to be childless, in fact, I salute you and know that you are deeply, deeply happy (there is actual research about this) and please know that if you ever need an afternoon fix of children, I’ve got two that I lend out enthusiastically – but I wish we would stop talking about having children as a choice or a privilege. Having babies is what animals do. We are animals. As a species, we reproduce. This is not a ‘choice’ made by the adequately financially and emotionally prepared; it is life.
[Side note: I am truly, truly worried about the child-as-privileged choice theme that is weaving through our culture: poor people don't deserve to have children? Really? Humans have been making baby humans since we've been human, but now poor humans ought not be able to participate in that human experience. Nice. Poor people used to have children to help the family survive. Now, children are a luxury like the next Louis Vuitton bag, and only the rich should be able to collect them, preferably from exotic, African locales. It is so Gattica meets Handmaid's Tale via Brangelina, and that is scary, frankly.]
I love the new fatherhood. I heart the Involved Father. My heart swells every time my boss’s boss sends an e-mail to the entire team telling us that he is working from home because his baby is sick. It swells because his baby is getting the care she needs; his wife is getting the partner she deserves; he is getting to be a real father, and maybe, just maybe he is part of the first generation of men in our culture who have truly claimed and embraced this honour.
It also means that no one says s-h-i-t when I miss work because my kids are sick, and this rocks because then I can stay home and rub their backs and feed them soup and watch their temperature and know that I still have a job the next day and so will be able to continue to feed and clothe them and keep them in a state of health and well-being that means they likely won’t ever be really, really sick. And this, people, is the way it ought to be.
So it is with a full heart and fist in the air that I wish a Happy Father’s Day to all of you amazing, involved fathers on the frontlines, and to all the feminists and slackers who put you there.
PS to Charles, my children’s father, thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you.
PPS The revolution will be mothered. And fathered.
I am inspired by bodies. How they feel, what they can do, how they make other people feel, and yes, how they look.
We are amazing, organic, divine machines. Our bodies grow, grow others, hunger, thrive, get sick, recover, age, die. Our bodies do their own bidding. Viruses play tricks on us. Epistemology plays tricks on us and with a forked tongue tells us we are not our bodies. We draw distinctions between our minds, our personalities, our souls, our spirits and our flesh suitcases.
There is no distinction. So far as I know, we’ve only got this one body and this one life. There is no line between mind and body. You are who you are: body, mind and soul. No one – including you – can love your mind and not your body, or your body and not your mind. We are one.
I am inspired by bodies. What they can do. What they are capable of: breathing, living, moving, stretching, flinching, creating, pleasuring, strengthening, weakening, sleeping. A parent’s fiercest, gentlest pleasure is watching a baby, toddler, child learn to choreograph her limbs and her intentions. Wobble. Stand. Walk. Run. This ungainly dance is grace itself.
This is what I know about our bodies. Woman or man, we are not borne to be ornaments. Our sexualities are not solely inscribed by the gazes of others. The power of our bodies is in what they can do. Move. Birth. Fight. Endure. Play. Live. Love. Please.
There has been an awful lot of criticism about mommy bloggers lately.
Yesterday I added my whisper to the chorus - but if you read that piece, you’ll see that it was more about me whining about my writing than it was about mommy bloggers.
At issue is the idea that mommy bloggers ought to be avoiding bias in their blogs and in their reviews of products. Journalists, for example, do not get paid by companies to review products. No, journalists work for conglomerates who get paid by other conglomerates to advertise products. Big distinction (riiiiiiight). Journalists can be objective because they’re getting paid indirectly by advertisers; mommy bloggers, on the other hand, accept payments directly from advertisers, which means their blogs are not objective.
Blogs are supposed to be objective? Are you kidding me? “Blog” is short for “web log” which is just a technology-based diary, and diaries are personal. Personal – I just looked it up in the dictionary – apparently does NOT mean “objective” or “unbiased”. Just so we know.
I mean, do you see any actual reporting on this site? I tried an interview once. I interviewed my sister, for gawds sakes, and the MP3 crapped out halfway through. This should tell you everything you need to know about my journalism skills. I have none. So if you are reading this while under the sadly, wildly mistaken impression that you are getting balanced, objective research and reporting from me, you may wish to turn haughtily on your heel and exit stage left. Preferably in a big cloud of huffy dust. [Except if you are a magazine editor considering commissioning an article from me. If this is the case, I kindly request that you turn back time, ignore everything I just wrote, and put me in, Coach!]
Other (glaring) indicators of bias in this blog:
I trust that my point is made. Moving along…
Bloggers are not journalists. Blogs are usually inherently personal or partisan. They are island communities of opinion in the ever-flowing, continually refreshing ocean of information that is the internet. Mommy bloggers are not required to sign a Bloggers Code of Ethics or risk forfeiting their first-born child (although at this moment in time, I would sign up for that. My eldest is losing teeth like a professional hockey player and the results are no more attractive and profoundly less lucrative).
Blogging is inherently personal; journalism aspires to be objective. Bloggers are therefore not to be held to the same standards as journalists – not that they are of lesser quality or ability (let’s develop a convenient case of amnesia regarding my rant about my own lack of skill), but because it is just a different game entirely.
Bloggers, unlike journalists, are working for free. For themselves. For every Heather Armstrong (and there is only one Heather Armstrong) making $450,000 a year from her blog, there a bazillion and two mommy bloggers out there eking out pennies per post – if that.
I would argue that this is a thread weaving through this tangled mess of criticism. I think the hidden assumption animating much of critique of Mommy bloggers is the idea that they are supposed to be working for free, or at least very cheaply. They are married women, after all, and they just want some pin money. This is why when an uppity woman wrangles a sponsorship from Ford, a free car and a gas card in exchange for reviews on her blog the reaction is a collective sharp intake of breath and sucking on teeth. The nerve of That Woman.
Why should mommy bloggers work for free? Why shouldn’t they be able to charge for the fruits of the labour? (The blogs, not the kids. There are actual laws about the latter.) Because they are women? Mothers? And therefore their work cannot be exchanged for cash?
Well, yes it can. And yes, they should. And call me if you have something you want me to hawk.
It is Mama Monday and I’ve got a problem with mommy bloggers. This is truly, madly, deeply problematic since apparently I AM a mommy blogger – at least on Mondays.
Be warned. Snobbery and sexism may make an appearance in this post.
This is my blog. I set the editorial calendar, such that it is. [Oh my god, I am killing myself with laughter. I have an 'editorial calendar'. Oh, the pretentiousness of it all.] And yet I dread both Mama Mondays and Fat Fridays.
On Fat Fridays, I have to go deep (or wide, to be more accurate) and write about my fat ass. Depending on my mood, this is either painful, political or amusing. To me. I can’t speak for you.
On Mama Mondays, I sell out.
That is what it feels like. I write sweet pieces about my sweet babies and sweet comments ensue. It is easy. I am not sure that the results are particularly good. Just because I have a kid and a keyboard does not mean I am – **hushed, reverent, pause** – a Writer.
Yet I want to be a Very Serious and Important Writer, or at least a reasonably clever and funny one who gets paid every now and again.
Still, on Mama Mondays, I hop on the cognitive dissonance wheel and give it a good hamster go: while I aspire to create art, what I actually produce is easy, sentimental and forgettable. Gag.
At the same time, this blog needs a sweet spot. Revealing the chinks in my armour is essential to my own wellbeing and the health of this blog, too – otherwise it is just all piss, vinegar and posturing all the time.
Maybe I’m just being sexist. Writing about your children: how domestic, how personal, how female.
Yikes. Don’t lump me in with them.
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