Rebellious Thoughts of a Woman

Helping My Daughter Enter Dateland

I entered Dateland without a talk. Not only did my mother not understand the unrestricted nature of the 70s, she barely understood dating in her own buttoned-up 50s. And my father, well, obviously fathers don’t do those girl talks; although, it seems to me that their insights into the minds of teen boys would probably be the most worthwhile thing to hear. So I was completely unprepared the first time a kiss became a grind and a contest of wills far more than a testament to romance.

 

“Mom! Guess what?” My daughter’s deep brown doe-shaped eyes and effervescent smile were, for a change, passionately-pleased to see me and so very close to my face that I breathed in her excitement and in a rush I breathed out my response.

“He asked you out.”

“To Homecoming.” Her scream came out as an overwhelmed whisper. Even though she had told me that she was no longer interested in this boy and there had been no talk about Homecoming, there could be nothing else that could have brought that degree of passion to my generally staid young lady, now a senior in high school.

I could barely sleep that night. I was so excited for her. Her first high school date. A date with a boy she has liked for more than a year, but both of them too shy, up to the low-key, “Want to go to Homecoming?” to do more than daydream. At first I channeled myself as her. What will she wear? Will he drive or will she? Will they go to dinner first? What will they talk about? Will they be too shy and sit in silence? But sometime in the night I awoke as a protective father, sweeping all thoughts of romance and first kisses, tongue or no tongue, aside. “No more than a peck good-night. Don’t rush anything. Don’t let him touch you—anywhere.” Was I having a father’s thoughts since her father isn’t around? Or did I realize that it is my responsibility to prepare her for dating as I had prepared her for playdates and kindergarten. 

 

How do you prepare your daughter for the thrill of love and lust and not burden her with your own insecurities? I want to protect my sixteen-year-old daughter from letting her insecurities wall her up into a cocoon of protectionism that would stifle her development as a loved and loving young woman.

My older daughter, now 21, was so distant in her teens with the pain and bitterness of our divorce that I was unable to do “the talk” with her, other than to repeatedly warn her never to let a man—anyone—talk to her the way her father talked to me. So when she called me, six months after moving to LA to attend college, that she was in San Francisco for a few days with her boyfriend, who I had never heard about, all I could say was, “I hope you’re using protection. You don’t want to get pregnant or STDs.” To which she responded, “I know, Mom,” as if we were continuing a conversation that we had been having since she reached puberty.

My own fear as a teen was that someone would discover what I perceived as my physical abnormalities and so I reverted into prudishness. And even when I rounded second base, and no words of shock or disgust were uttered for my innie nipples, I was still embarrassed for my overwhelming body faults. I certainly didn’t look like the women in the Playboy magazines my brother had shoved under his bed, as I assumed everyone looked.

A healthy sense of my physical sense could have prepared me for the overwhelmingly-physical nature of dating. My parents subscribed to the child-rearing philosophy of “praise spoils a child,” so you neither praise for internal qualities nor for external ones. In that scenario, the only way to create a healthy sense of self is through years of trial and error. At 51 I do believe that I am finally accepting of my thunder thighs and gently rolling tummy, and my now drooping breasts.

For years I have been telling my daughter how beautiful she is, because she is. I don’t want her self-esteem be tied to what a man says to her. No, I want her to value herself and build her own realistic self-assessment. Of course, this has been in concert with talking about her intelligence and her sweetness. It seems just as hazardous to ignore a child’s physicality as it is to over-emphasize it. This way of raising her seems to have worked. She will shyly smile, say “Thank you,” and then look down when given a compliment. She can wear yoga pants or sweatpants, a body-hugging dress or one of my worn-out size L sweatshirts and look equally herself. Comfy in her skin seems to have been accomplished. What else do I need to give to her so that she is prepared to hold onto herself and fall in love at the same time?

 

The night before the Homecoming date we had a five-minute mini-lecture in the kitchen. Surprisingly, she didn’t resent my speaking to her, and the kitchen turned out to be the perfect location since it wasn’t a solemn sit-down in the rarely-used living room, rather it was a casual chat in the one room where we meet most often.

I had hoped to mentally write and rehearse my speech on my way home from work, but no ideas or phrases came to mind. It was disappointing; I had thought a steady stream of ideas would come. But they didn’t. So I ended up doing what I generally do: wing it. And, I must admit, what came out of my mouth was far more insightful than anything that casually popped into my head since last week when I knew I would need to have this talk, and even since I had daughters who reached their teens and the inevitability of this talk, with someone, became apparent.

“I need to talk to you about dating.” She rolled her eyes and her eyebrows went up, but she didn’t resist; rather, she looked at me as an athlete looks to a coach. “As a general rule, and I’m not saying this against boys, it’s just the way it is, they will always want to do more than you will want and it’s up to you to push his hand away or say ‘No.’” That felt so true and so unknown before I said it that I surprised myself with my insight. 

“Mom,” was all she said because she was listening.

I continued, still not knowing what would come out until it did, but pleased with the accumulated wisdom of 39-years of boy-girl interactions. “It doesn’t matter if he pays for dinner or what he buys you, your body is your own and you decide what you want to do. No one deserves anything just because he paid for a meal. Your body is yours.”

“I know.”

“Don’t let anyone try to pressure you into doing something that you’re not comfortable with. Only do what you are comfortable doing. Move his hand,” and I moved my hand over the lower and then the upper girl parts, “and say, ‘No,’ otherwise he’ll continue.” She looked embarrassed. This might have been too much for a girl who hadn’t been confronted with a kiss yet, but if I couldn’t be blunt now, when would I be? “And if you’re ever in a situation where you’re uncomfortable, call me. Thank goodness for cellphones.” I wasn’t sure if I should go there, but I gave her a watered-down version of my scary date story. “One time I was in this guy’s apartment, somewhere in Buffalo, I wanted to leave but I didn’t know where I was and I was afraid. Afraid to leave and afraid to stay. I ended up staying. If I had a cellphone, I could have called a taxi to take me to the airport rather than wait until the morning for him to take me. It was scary. I don’t want you to be in that situation.”

Those doe eyes of hers were finally reflecting some compassion for me. “Okay.”

“I mean it. You don’t have to do anything that you don’t want to do.” Was there anything more to say?

We stayed in the kitchen for another couple of minutes talking about the logistics of the next night’s Homecoming and then she went into her room.

I followed her to say one last thing. On her bed was one of her best friends.

“Did you hear our conversation?” I was annoyed, not that she possibly heard what I said, but that our poignant mother-daughter moment hadn’t just been between the two of us.

She shook her head.

“So I had ‘the talk’ with her while you were here?”

“I wish my mom would talk to me,” was her response.

That made me feel less bad about having lost the absolute intimacy of the moment. In my mother-to-all / teacher voice, I reiterated, “Your body is your own, that’s the most important thing to know.” With that, I left them, hoping that my daughter would be my surrogate to her friend and add some more of my wisdom. I was particularly pleased with my realization that men will not stop unless you stop them.

I did what I could do; now it is up to her, and to the men in her life to respect her and her protective mechanisms, as every woman deserves to be respected and heeded.

 

I wonder what the boy’s father said to him. I hope that he told him to respect my daughter by not seeing her body as a baseball diamond, and that he told his son that the key to happiness with a woman, at 16 or 50, is not based on what you can get or how you’re feeling, but on how you make her feel.  

Guest Blogger: Author of "Never Marry a Momma’s Boy and 62 other men to avoid like the plague!"

Thank you for allowing me to do a guest post on your blog!  I am very excited to have this opportunity!

I have recently published a book titled “Never Marry a Momma’s  Boy and 62 other men to avoid like the plague!”   This book deals with types of men and the problems they automatically bring to a relationship.

Now don’t get me wrong-I really like men-I have been married 4 times (yes, four-I am the eternal optimist!).  Men can be interesting creatures-they see the world differently than women, have different interests, and can be fun to be around (not to mention the sex thing!). 

But “Being around” a man and marrying him are two different things!  Marriage changes everything-you are stuck with the whole person, not just the fun parts!

Men and women are very different (in case you haven’t noticed!) Men tend to be shallower and more rooted in the moment.  Women tend to be more introspective, caring, and nurturing.  We plan more for the future, and just generally have a much deeper nature in all ways.  It makes me laugh that most of the famous philosophers were men-the women were probably at home caring for the family and guiding him in his deep, deep thoughts (that he got credit for!)  Anyway, back to our topic…

Some men are genuinely wonderful people (in some ways). Sometimes you would swear this same man had the brains of a nit- and just about as much compassion and understanding!

 With all this said, many categories of men come with predictable problems, not just because of the man.  Certain problems are just inherent with different habits, families, personalities, or occupations.

This book has been the result of years of observations made as a Public Health Nurse, also working in the ER, Labor and Delivery and teaching Psychology.  As the years passed, I noticed, as many of you probably have also, that many men tend to fall into categories, with each category having its own set of problems.

This book was triggered by an event at work-the Momma’s  Boy of a co-worker was engaged.  Looking at the invitation sent to our office(with a lovely picture of the couple) was a horrifying experience-I saw myself years earlier, and knew exactly what kind of hell that poor girl was going to marry into!  That started a cascade of thoughts about types of men to avoid.

At around the same time I emailed an author about a book of hers that I loved, mentioning that I liked to write.  She said “Only you can write your book.”

Well, this book took over my life-I would dream of types of men-and wake up to write them down.  In the bathtub, types would pop into my mind, and I would scribble them down as soon as I stepped out.  I wanted to be done, but kept thinking of different types. 

I felt that if I could save ONE woman from a bad marriage, then I would be happy!

So here I am, sharing this on your blog-I hope it helps someone, or at least makes you laugh!  If you read this book, please email me your thoughts at susanconner99@gmail.com-I would love to hear from you!

Here is the link to my book:  “Never Marry a Momma’s Boy, and 62 other men to avoid like the plague!”

 

A Small Family

Both of my daughters are here, and later in the week my mother will come down from New York for a few days, which means that my whole family will be together. Four women, three generations: a family, not as much modern as realistic.

The men are missing. My father has passed away. My boyfriend is gone, somewhere. My ex-husband is gone, somewhere. My brother is where he always is, in his house that is 30 minutes from where we grew up, with his wife and two children; he seems incapable of expanding his active compassion to more people.

So it is the four of us.

My older daughter is visiting for a week; last month she graduated from an LA-area college with a BA in English and next month she is headed to Vienna to study German and possibly stay there permanently. She will be going with her boyfriend, who, since he is much older, I refer to as her man-friend. In August my younger daughter will be going to college, probably in Colorado. My mother is in the process of selling the apartment in New York where I grew up and moving year-round to Florida.

There will be a dispersal of us women, but not a disintegration. It saddens me that my family doesn’t fill my dining room table when we sit round it for a meal. It saddens me that I couldn’t give my daughters the boisterous family full of close cousins and aunts and uncles that I had dreamed of for myself, but didn’t get, and so had hoped to create for my children. It did not come to pass. It is we four.

A cousin of mine recently adopted a baby, but she never notified me. Another cousin did, which is good that at least one person has a sense of keeping a link alive, but that is all it is, a tenuous, very occasional email link.

The sister of the cousin who adopted the baby tried to friend me on Facebook about a year ago. Since I don’t use Facebook, I contacted her via email, hopeful about reconnecting a childhood friendship. It turned out that she just wanted me to be a Facebook friend/number and possible client of her artwork.

My ex-husband’s two sisters are not in touch with my daughters; it seems that they decided that since their brother is not around, they have no hold or responsibility toward his part of the family.

But while I might feel inadequate about this paucity, my younger daughter gave me her decidedly different perspective. She had gone to a friend’s grandparent’s house for Christmas dinner. Round the table were relatives who her friend only sees at the annual holiday meals, but they felt it incumbent upon themselves to tell her what to study in college, what college to go to, and what to do with her life. There was arguing and interference, and my daughter was appalled; “I’m glad we have a small family” was her reaction.

I looked at her, stunned, that she wouldn’t want something that I thought would be so integral to her desires and that she was endorsing her life—which is what I give to her. It’s hard sometimes—okay, always—to separate your desires and perception of their needs from your child’s, and it’s hard, too, to learn from your children. But that was a good lesson. The grass over here is the grass she knows, and that is comforting to a child. They want—at least at the fundamental level—what they have, because the unknown is frightening.

So the next time I have family-envy, I need to remember that the four of us sitting round the table means a bigger piece of pie and talking time for each of us. 

Young-Womanicide

How much can a society violate its young women?

How much can a society free its young men of blame for violating its young women?

Is it an equation: a woman sacrificed for a man?

Is this our version of female abortion or infanticide—young-womanicide?

Are we standing before a pyre, with flames that are stoked through the clearest of skies by the twisted and the seemingly-sane?

If these men—and their enablers and supporters and bystanders—violate all that once was held sacred and we let them, then what are we?

How can I not hate these people who are so arrogant as to think that sons are better than daughters; that the despicable actions of boys are of greater worth than a single tear/tear of a girl’s?

Are there any mirrors to look into that don’t cloud over with shame and anger, and regret?

Who let these boys and men enter our public places as beasts?

How is it that their excuses and blaming drown out voices of remorse and sorrow and repugnance?

Go for a walk run jog. Attend a party play concert. Wear pants shorts skirt. Fear of being raped should not accompany every woman every day everywhere forever. 

Defensive Mothers and Innocent Sons

The world has always been as we know it now: violent, cruel, inequitable, and ceaselessly pressing upon us. Has there ever been a moment of Garden of Edenesque tranquility, except in individuals at moments of supreme joy? Why is there always a battle for supremacy—in everything—rather than a field of wildflowers stretching beyond the horizon? It’s stultifying to acknowledge that this is how the world is meant to be; it’s also stultifying to think that this is how it will be past time imagined.

Is the reason for this pre-evolutionary way of being to be found in a simple explanation, or at least a logical explanation albeit with an, as yet, unknown way of resolving it?

 

Every year since I started teaching about ten years ago, there has always been one problematic student. That student has always been a boy. This is the student who would not take directions from me; not only would he not listen to me, but he seemed determined to undermine my authority and take it for himself. That student was often of African or African-American descent or Muslim, though not always, last year’s bad boy was white. I am a 51-year-old white Jewish woman. In the past I have commented, part jokingly, that those students had a hard time accepting a woman’s authority—dominance—over them. I’m not joking any more.

When the student would disrupt class, I would send him out to the hall for a one-on-one talk with me, and then, after the next time and the next time, I’d have his counselor speak to him, and his assistant principal, and I’d meet with the parents (though more often than not it was only with the mother). But rarely was there lasting change.

At the beginning of the school year I have my ninth grade students write an essay about someone they know well. In my second year of teaching, one student, as many do, wrote his essay about his mother. Generally, these essays exalt, with a tiny critique, the mother. Not this boy. His perception of his mother, as it came out in his essay, was very condescending. That perception of his mother seemed to carry over to how he treated me.

Two years ago the mother of the student I couldn’t manage or teach asked why I was failing her son (as in putting in the grade book the Fs he earned). This was during a conference with him, his mother, his assistant principal, his guidance counselor, and me. Everything that I said to her in explanation of adhering to my grading policy (which is based on school policy) was irrelevant to her, since she only saw me as undermining her son. Never mind, apparently, that her son didn’t do his work and what he did do was of poor quality, and that he came late to class, and cursed me in class. Never mind, she implied, for surely I was trying to deny his essence with my insistence that he adhere to my rules, which did not accommodate him.

Last year’s problem son suffered, apparently, from me being too hard on him. You know, expecting him to be quiet in class and not talk back.

I haven’t yet figured out or been told what this year’s problem son’s issue is. Perhaps it relates to his coming to class without a pencil and not paying attention. It was when I was speaking to his mother recently that I realized that herein lies the problem of mankind—yes, mankind: the mothers of these problem boys are always defensive of them. The boys are never at fault: it’s always either the teacher, or the system, or a diagnosis.

This light bulbish moment came to me less than a month after the shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School. There was so much talk about how the murderer’s mother had tried to do her best for her son. She looked for the right schools and the right programs and, it seems—from so far outside of their truth—that she ended up helping him create his own cocoon.

Are these mothers who protect their sons against the impositions of the world helping them or hurting them, and, consequently, hurting all of us by setting upon the world men who are boys—boys who think they are above reproach. Once among us, instead of being sheltered by their mothers, they are the storms from which we need protection. They have been sheltered for so long that their interactions and reactions are off-kilter, but only if you aren’t looking at the world from the prism of their own eyes.  

I wonder if the mothers who create this barrier around their sons do so from love or need. It seems odd that, at least according to my perception, these fierce momma lions come out with sons and not with daughters. (Disclosure: I am the mother of two daughters.) Could it be that women are lacking something from the men in their lives and the only way to get it is through their sons?

When I talk to my mother, and if I happen to casually bring up the fact that my brother does not visit her or do enough for her, she will generally brush it off with excuses for him and the myriad constraints upon his time. Yesterday, tired of me and my barely-veiled accusations against him, she simply put a wall between my criticisms and my brother by saying, “Stop turning the screw.” Once again, the mother took the fall for the son.

The question to be asked, I realize, is not why he doesn’t visit her, but what happened in his childhood that made him think that he didn’t owe her anything? Friends have noted this about their brothers or husbands (ex or present): they are often disengaged from their parents. Many have said (and I said it myself) that the vast majority of these grown boys would never call or visit their parents without their wife’s prodding. These mothers devoted their lives to wiping their son’s noses, and yet demands are placed on their daughters, to whom they passed the box of tissues, and not the sons.

Obviously this is too big of a theory to figure out neatly in a short essay, but the reality of so many sons mistreating (or not treating properly) their mothers, has led to our world, a world in which men oppress women—in country after country, and generation after generation—and in which there is always so much imposed suffering. I have to wonder if the source of this anger and pain and struggle is to be found somewhere in mother-son relationships.

 

One Woman Roaring

Just a couple of months ago we women were on our way to ruling the world, what with the end of men and all. We were even arguing about what it means to have it all, because we were at the point in our societal evolution of hair splitting the definition of “all.” Now we can be found in binders, which certainly adds a new twist to the idea of having it all—for men, I mean, certainly not for women.

I want to know why, in October 2012, are so many men still bullies and cowards toward women? Recorded history of their wars and conflicts and pillaging and raping began more than 5,000 years ago; you would have hoped that at some point they would have put aside their little man-scepters and let us girls play, too, on a level playing field so that, perhaps, all the animosity and power-mania that they do so well could be tempered with thoughts of compassion and not aspirations of greatness.

It’s as if they are born with an endless bag of M&Ms in their hands and they won’t let women have any, not a brown one or a red one or even a yellow one. Nope. It’s their bag and they don’t have to share if they don’t want to. So they don’t, because who are they to listen to their mothers about the importance of sharing and caring?

Am I talking about the boys and men in Afghanistan and Pakistan where they are trying to tie girls—body, mind, and soul—to the kitchen and bedroom? No. I am talking about here. All the brouhaha about romney and his comments about “binders full of women,” and us ladies being granted the privilege to get home by five to cook for our little men, and the inability of single women to control the violence in their sons has not been met by the proper degree of disgust and condemnation. Sure, there are funny memes and tweets and witty comments about Avery binders, but where has the serious discussion been that 50% of the people (going on the tightness of the presidential race) in this country have their minds wrapped in turbans and have joined the Taliban. No wonder we can’t defeat them.

I guess it’s so addictive, this power that men have over women, that it’s too hard to relinquish.

Legitimate rape. Acceptable rape (military style). Shut-down systems. Forced vaginal ultra-sounds. 77 cents to the dollar. Ladies issues. Vagina as a four-letter word. And apparently we’re causing penises to go petite.

I don’t care if the crazy is limited to the republicans or the tea party, what I care about is the damage these ideas and actions are having on my present and my future, and on the present and future of my daughters—and of our sons. How many more generations will be forced to send their children to war because the men in power only know power? Why are women being put en masse into a ducking stool? These are not separate issues, they are one and the same.

I remember singing, “I am woman, hear me roar” back in 1971; who would have thought that we would still be roaring now, and even louder than before because now we are so much closer to where we should be, but we are being told to go back, to go back to the wonders of being barefoot and pregnant. (Contraception access restrictions anyone?) Okay, so the guys who say that are Neanderthals. But that’s an awful lot of throw-backs that we have in this country. Why is that?

Do we have any hope left of ever having it all, where “all” refers to the same choices and opportunities as the boys have, without giving ourselves gender-neutral names and becoming as aggressive as men?

We can laugh about those binders, but the comedy doesn’t go very deep before the pain throbs.

I know this will sound naïve, but I honestly don’t understand why any man thinks that he is innately better than any woman, or even why any person thinks that he or she is better than anyone else, or anything else, if I’m going all the way in my thoughts.

Arrogance. It’s so much easier to be arrogant when you can be because you hold the levers.

No one wants to serve when it is not a choice. No one wants to be told how to act and how to be by someone who only issues commands. No one wants to be boxed in by the dimensions of another person’s mind-box.

We can roar, but we cannot be invincible if we are thrown under the bus of men’s ambitions. In that case, who wants any of it, never mind all of it?    

A Single Lady, Her Dog, Her Girl-Chats, and Her Epiphany

On weekends I live in a virtually segregated world. There are no men around, unless you count the men servicing me—my groceries, I mean. It’s odd, but not a bad way to live. It’s as if I’m living on the flip-side of Taliban-enforced segregation but rather than in a remote Afghan village, I’m in a close-to-the-epicenter Northern Virginia neighborhood.

My ex-husband is gone. My boyfriend is gone. Even the man who just wanted to have sex with me is gone. And for some not-difficult-to-discern reason, I’m not seeking a man with whom I can attempt yet another failed relationship.

I know that there are families and couples in my neighborhood, and some barely-viewed single men, but their schedules don’t coincide with mine, so they are not a part of my world. It seems, though, that most of the single women around have dogs or at least keep similar hours as me, so we meet and chat as our dogs sniff each other’s not-so-private parts or as my dog sniffs and pees on one square of grass for ten minutes.

And on the home front, I have two daughters, so whether talking with my daughter at home or my daughter away in college, all our talk is from a woman’s perspective. For phone conversations there’s my mother who is always available for a recap of her day, which mostly involves discussing her women friends and their issues, especially since my father passed away two years ago. The one man still in my life, my brother, I call once every few months after I have despaired of waiting for him to ever call me, but our conversations barely make a flicker in my weekends of women-talk.

So there’s this constant brief interchange of stories and ideas that feeds my need to be heard and to hear. Since most of these conversations are unplanned, they represent the cream of conversations: concern for the other, telling only what is utmost in one’s mind and heart, and expressions of empathy—in short, conversations that recognize the value of the ordinary rhythm of life.

 

It occurs to me as I think of these open exchanges that there’s a reason why I’m single, and the blame doesn’t fall solely on the men who are no longer in my life—or never made it into my life. Maybe I’m just more myself with women. With men, there always seems to be a limit to my honesty. With my female friends I never try to figure out what to say to please them or to make them like me; there’s never any pressure to impress. It’s me in all my blunt and interrupting glory.

It could be, too, that I do better in small chunks of time rather than unending time together. There’s a big difference in who you are when you have two minutes every couple of days or two hours every few months than when you have dinner together every night, and breakfast, lunch, dinner and snack time on the weekends. For goodness’ sake, all the good stories have long since told and retold by the time a relationship’s second anniversary rolls around and by the weekend every day has been thoroughly examined. When you only see a friend once in a while, there’s always something new to recount. For two hours we can each put forward the best aspects of our personalities and our lives. It’s certainly not worth it to be grumpy when it will soon be back to the grind that caused the grumpiness in the first place.

Maybe the best way for relationships to survive is to redefine them. My marriage might have lasted if we only met once a week and sex was upon desire, not convenience.

But maybe not, because I fundamentally act differently with men, so the whole two-hour weekly visit practice might still have backfired on me. After my boyfriend, who had been my friend 28 years ago, became my partner I rose to the occasion by considering his feelings and needs before my own, which turned out not to be good for our relationship. With friends I pride myself on being forthright, so why can’t I do that with men? Sure, the stakes are different: no more coffees together versus no more retirement plans together. But I do I wish that I hadn’t felt the need to protect him from my honesty; I wish, too, that I hadn’t felt so much pressure to make him happy.

With friends there are no expectations beyond the moment, so there is no reason not to be forthright. It should be possible for me to act like that with a man, especially if I want to be in a relationship and, surely, I have learned by now that without honesty, there is no staying power.

Not needing or expecting anything could be the key; although, I’m not sure it’s possible. Isn’t reciprocity the very essence of a relationship? Indeed, I know that I don’t want a relationship that is as casual as a conversation on the corner. The problem might be in the hoping and the wishing that this man, whoever he is, could be my knight, even though I have learned that I am the only knightette I can depend on, and that I don’t want to be anyone else’s knightette.

The added value of these all-women weekends is not for me to safely retreat, but to have realized that my essence contains no subterfuge and that I need to live that truth—in or out of a relationship. 

Missing Words: the Quandary of Being 50 Plus

 I’ve been forgetting things for a year. Is this what’s supposed to happen when you turn 50? It was like clockwork: I got my invite from AARP to join the party and I started forgetting things. Not things, per se, I can still find my keys and my car (not counting supermarket parking lots), no, I’ve been forgetting words. Not all words, not words when I’m writing, but when I’m speaking. All of a sudden, in the midst of a conversation, when it’s my turn to talk, I freeze up. I become, sorry Mom, my mother: a picture of confusion, a pause one two three four five six and then back to the conversation. Or right in the middle of my talking the next word will suddenly—poof!—disappear as if a magic wand had suddenly descended upon my internal dictionary. I’m not happy about this development or reverse development, as the case seems to be.

One day in school I was standing in front of my class discussing The Odyssey and how Odysseus’ ship was sunk in the storm that Zeus sent as per the request of Helios, the Sun God, because Odysseus’ men had a bbq with his sacred cattle, when the word “sunk” disappeared. I stood there in front of 28 teens whose brains are in the midst of expanding watching me visibly losing some synapses. The word “drowned” popped into my mind, but I knew it was wrong—people drown, not ships. Still standing there, pretending that this wasn’t awkward, I searched some more, when it occurred to me to just say “the ship went down.” A few seconds later, thankfully, the word, “sunk” came into view, but too late for me to prevent a fearful insight—I am beginning my decline.

The other day I was at a sports store with my 16-year-daughter. As we walked around looking for a sports bag I told her that I was anxious that I was forgetting things.

“Oh, Mom, I forget things all the time,” she noted with that trademark exasperation of the teen.

“No, this is different. It’s an age thing.” Why is it that we always talk about sensitive topics in the car or public places?

“Mom, you’re being dramatic. Now, ask them where the drawstring bags are, and don’t call them cinch bags, that’s not what they’re called.” 

Sure, she doesn’t want to deal with thinking about her mother as less than the lady who can take care of things for her; after all, I am the only adult in her life. I’m her rock, but I’m crumbling.

I walked right over to the sales clerk and asked, “Excuse me, but where are the cinch bags, uh, I mean drawstring bags.”

As we walked over to the soccer balls, where the drawstring bags were located, I said to her, “You see, I didn’t mean to say ‘cinch’ but it just came out.” It’s confusing and upsetting this whole word-replacement thing. I have lost control over my brain.

When I was younger (yes, that’s how old I feel right now that I can say that with confidence) everything worked without being aware of the parts—of the magic of creation and how amazing it is that the mind and body work so well. I heard a scientist on the radio recently talk about how much work goes on in the brain just to bring a cup of coffee to our lips. I can still do that, with ease, but still, this visible change is hard.

I used to walk by older people, going at their extreme snail’s paces, visibly concentrating on each step, wondering how they can be so slow—I don’t any more. Now I marvel at their ability to keep going in spite of all the stuff that’s becoming unglued and dismantled inside. I don’t see “them” so much as I see me down the road. Hopefully I won’t forget the word “road” and that I need to keep truckin’ down it.

Envy-Free at 51?

I’m at the age when I should have stopped looking around to compare myself and my life to anyone else’s, and certainly not to everyone else’s. It’s time (51 is definitely after the supposed watershed moment) for me to rejoice in ME! I am free to discard all thoughts of limitations, weight issues, and life lackings—because, apparently, just getting to this point should be enough of an ego boost to last the rest of my lifetime!

HA!

And the trick’s on me because, unfortunately, this is just one more thing for me to feel bad about having failed: apparently I am the only woman who has failed in the “Look World, No Envy and No Jealousy! I Love My Almost Green Lawn Now That I’m 50!” stage of development.

Woe is me.

It’s not that I haven’t evolved at all, but there’s just no way a lifetime of thinking that I’m the smartest/stupidest/most attractive/least attractive/nicest/meanest woman around can be dismissed, or wished away just because THEY say it should be gone. You see, I’m still dealing with the darn THEYs of the world.

Even writing this has me fraught with comparisons because I am not writing the way I am supposed to. I can’t stay focused for more than ten minutes (I lied, five minutes) before I need to click to see if I have any emails or if there’s some undiscovered news to read. If I were a real writer, I’d focus fully for at least two hours without letting myself be tempted, even by the need to re-re-reheat my coffee. Alas, failure again.

And what of my being beyond all thoughts of could haves and should haves. I have found in my teeny tiny bit of research that it is the women who have checked off some accomplishments (besides the children, I mean, but that’s not exactly a unique accomplishment) who are able to lay claim to that “universal 50+ trait” of not comparing oneself to any other woman in the room. Is it that I am supposed to be content with not achieving any of the achievements I had dreamed of just because I’m 50+? Does it mean that I’m supposed to be content with whatever it is that I have done and not worry about falling further and further away from what I think I am capable or want I want to do? If that’s the case, doesn’t it assume, sort of, that I have given up, that I am no longer going to push myself because I have done all that I can expect from myself? But I am not ready to throw in any towels—I’m still here and hope to be for a while to come.

The real difference for me, pre and post the dawning of this marvelous age of the new Middle Age, is that I have less of a speak-up suppressor. The hand-over-mouth synchronicity that was there from my teen years to not so very long ago has vanished—POOF! The big mouth I was when I was still wearing dresses and Danskins is back, but the big difference is that in 3^rd grade it was just a need to talk constantly, now it’s a need to say what I think—even if it’s not my turn to speak and even if it’s not censured for proper company. The topics are often of the “think but don’t say” variety; it does feel good, I admit, to have overridden the what-will-they-say internal censor.

My skin. Apparently my skin is supposed to be very very comfy right about now, but I look in the mirror and I see that my face is fuller than it’s supposed to be and not as bright as it’s supposed to be. In my mind, I am the woman of my wedding pictures. I was 24 then. I am not now. I’m not even married now. Yet that’s my mind’s image of myself. How the heck am I supposed to change from perception to reality? And, really, are all those other happy-with-their-lawn women really seeing themselves in the here-and-now or are they trying to trick me for someone else’s good? Is it really bad that every time I peek in the mirror I am disappointed that I’m still me, as in puffy-and-tired-faced Laura? Isn’t it, in some sense, a good thing that I am not willing to forsake my hopes and dreams just because I have reached an age milestone?

Why am I feeling bad that I’m not aging the way I’m supposed to?

Is it self-esteem issues, still? Or is it that this magical glory-be-me revelation isn’t something that we all get to share? Perhaps, as in all things, it happens for some while for others it just doesn’t happen with exclamation marks or over tea with my closest, dearest friends since kindergarten.

What’s wrong with a bit of envy? Isn’t it a bit of a driving force? Can everything really be completely internally driven? Do we all become yogi masters when we step over the 50 milestone? Maybe the key is that by this time we have made our own internal recipes where we can adjust what we need with what we have and what we can still get, as opposed to thinking that all’s well, couldn’t be better, I’m where I’m supposed to be without really believing it—or afraid to believe it.  

Book Review: Love for Grown-ups

Book Review: Love for Grown-ups: The Garter Brides’ Guide to Marrying for Life When You’ve Already Got a Life by Ann Blumenthal Jacobs, Patricia Ryan Lampl, and Trish Rabe

A big recommendation goes out to women and men to read Love for Grown-ups. This book is about how we, the “over the hill” folks, are not so over the hill, or once we’ve all made it over the hill there’s a sensitivity and kindness that weren’t there on the other side—or at least there’s the acknowledgement that that’s what it’s all about: being loving, finding love, continuing to be loving, and finally being maturely loved (as in loved and respected for all one’s qualities—and personality quirks). What’s so wonderful about this time of life, as the Garter Brides describe in their book, is that both women and men have decided that kindness, consideration, and good sex are all things to want, to search for—to deserve and to expect. No longer are we to believe those adages about women over 40 and their chances of marrying being akin to winning a Vogue make-over. No, we are to listen and heed all the happily-ever-after stories of the many midlife women they have compiled in this book, including the three authors’ lovely stories, to make us know that we are the winning ticket! 

This book is listed as being a Self Help book, but as a non self-help book fan, I can say that this is not a simplistic do this and this will happen type of book. It’s more that Blumenthal Jacobs, Lampl, and Rabe laid out their stories and invited the reader into the lives of so many other women so that the reader can think that “you know, maybe it could happen to me too, maybe I can still be happy in a relationship.” And that, truly, is more honest help than I got from friends who just tried to pick up my spirits saying that I deserve happiness (which is true for all of us). But that’s not the same as showing how it has happened and how it could happen to me.

And now that I am in a relationship, although I don’t know if it’s going to last more than another month, there is a security that I feel because of this book, and it’s not necessarily that I will marry again, which is not my goal. No, the security is in the fact that Love for Grown-ups puts all those horror stories that I lived through via on-line dating into context—that there is a reason to believe that it could happened to me too.

While up-beat on the whole, the book tries to be realistic, but since the writers’ stories are so positive-in-the-end, “look we got married!”—it’s up to the reader to add her dose of doubt. The section on blending kids and families was, for me, not as true to my reality, but who’s to say my tough teen is not the exception? I did appreciate, though, that they did lay out the problems that arise and how they and other couples handled them. That, surely, was insightful.

So if you need to read some real life 40+ love stories, this is the place to go.  

The War on Women: Foot First

Sure, a woman’s ability to not get pregnant, stop a pregnancy, care for her body-mind-soul, feed her children, support herself, house her partner, tend to her parents is being undermined, curtailed and impinged upon, but at least she can buy all the guns she wants!

And a woman’s ability to be judged fairly, without any bias based on what she doesn’t have between her legs is being thwarted, but at least she can understand her place and not fight against the little men with their little fill-in-the-blank who inhabit the hollow—I mean hallowed—chambers of representation across the land!

No, my indignation is directed toward the real War on Woman, namely the War on Women’s Feet. How on earth have women agreed—paid of their 77-cents-to-the-dollar-earnings—to be strapped to five inch heels? What does this say about us that we have let this happen—that we have not forced shoe stores and shoe-sites to return these woman-hating shoes back to their designers with the heels sawed off! (A shoe castration, if you will.)

What is attractive (read sexy) about a woman taking itty bitty steps and needing to hold onto a man who is wearing quarter-inch heels because otherwise she couldn’t even attempt to walk straight to the nearest seat? (I know the answer to this is obvious, but still, for my soul, I need to cry out the question in protestation.)

I have to admit, there was a moment in the middle of a DSW when I thought that perhaps I was wrong—one of those “if everyone’s doing it, it must be right” moments. But then I attempted to try on a pair and came to the rapid conclusion that this style is yet another form of disempowerment.

I took off my well-worn black flats and prepared myself to mimic the stars on their red carpets and us ordinary women at the mall. With one five-inch shoe on, my other foot hovered above the ground—I held onto the shoe display for dear life. It felt like I was training to walk on stilts, only there wasn’t a circus performer there to instruct me how to maintain my balance. Quickly, before I should fall and be expelled permanently from the Woman of the World department, I put my shoeless foot back on terra firma, put the stilt-shoe back in its box and said goodbye to extreme fashion, goodbye to thinking that high heels are what defines a woman’s sensuality.

Was I not woman enough for this or was I too much a woman? Why is this the style now, now when women’s rights are being rescinded law by law? Why, when it had seemed passé to even talk about feminism (my teenage daughter mocked my even discussing it) is this backlash coming at us—first our wombs, then our feet? Why are they trying to manipulate us back to the times of bound feet and cobbled expectations? Why, when so many men and women respect each other as equals, is this undermining happening?

Is the extra height an extreme message that we have forgotten what we’re really valued for—or what we should value about ourselves? And why has walking on stilts come to be equated with one’s sexiness?

Women—let’s show those shoe purveyors and trendsetters what we think of their attempts at objectifying us into some kind of uber-stilted-Barbies and put our two feet down on the earth, walking right to the voting booth.

(I wonder if the Koch Brothers are investors in Louboutin?)

 

Being a Big Mouth with Friends

One of the perks of being a middle-aged woman (besides the physical alterations, faltering marriages, temperamental teens, and capacity-diminishing parents) is the ability for every woman you meet to become an instant friend.

Oh, wait--that’s me dreaming that all women did that—that we are all big mouths by the time we celebrate our 40^th birthday because, honestly, what are we waiting for? Why hold in the aches until you can make them momentarily disappear with savory, sweet, and liquid munchies or share them in a fifty-minute counseling session that doesn’t begin to ease the pain you’ve experienced since last week’s visit.

For years my marriage disintegrated until home and husband were cursed words. I would call my mother in tears, but she couldn’t give me more than a guilty opportunity to vent, what with her 54-years of holding hands with my father, and a “bear it” attitude. But tell friends, that was not done; I believed that we’re supposed to deal with the hand we’ve been dealt. And in the study, “Taboo Topics among Close Friends,” Robin Goodwin found that, no surprise here, “Most taboo topics reflected unwillingness to discuss family matters or hurt feelings.” This closed-door—or rather closed mouth—policy is pervasive in many cultures.

Naima Brown-Smith noted in “Family Secrets” that “families keep secrets as a way of protecting themselves against perceived vulnerabilities.” When we’re vulnerable in the home—we want to appear strong outside of it—or at least capable of having a conversation without breaking down in tears. Even in this age of social media, Brown-Smith found that “Among the most common explanations for why outsiders do not know more about family life is that information is considered personal and/or that revealing certain things would demonstrate inadequacies.” Let’s finally admit it ladies—by the time we get our first errant chin-hair, we surely should have recognized some personal lackings.

In a 2011 study, “Misery Has More Company Than People Think,” researchers at Stanford, Berkeley and Syracuse Universities observed that when we don’t share our negative emotions we end up with “less social support, more depressive symptoms, lower well-being, and less life satisfaction.” By not sharing, never mind over-sharing, we’re harming ourselves—and our friends.

I was only able to confide in one friend about my divorce and that was only after she overheard my ex-husband yelling at me on the phone, something, she finally admitted, she could relate to. Another friend, recently divorced and living in a different city, could offer her lessons learned because we needed to talk about something besides our daughters. And I needed that—I needed friends to talk to—ones I could call, free of charge, for insight and battle cries. I needed to not be solitary in my pain.

Having no one to friend is apparently not the reason why we’re not sharing. In the study, “Social Connectivity in America,” researchers at USC and the University of Toronto found that from 2002 to 2007 American adults have on average ten friends “they meet or speak with at least weekly with a few additional virtual friends and migratory friends” (internet friends who become face-to-face friends). So we’re underutilizing our friends, and ourselves as friends.

Why not admit when the marriage is hollow? Do you really think you’re the only one who has nothing to say to your husband when he comes home after the kids are asleep, never mind no sex? Do you think only your mother needs more care than you can provide through a telephone? Why should someone have to say to a friend that everything is fine when nothing is fine except the weather? Why are we still our mothers with their notions of dirty laundry flapping in the wind?

At my parent’s 50^th anniversary party, my mother told people that my husband couldn’t come because he had to work; she couldn’t bring herself to say that we were separating. But once she did start to tell her friends, she found that they could run a series of worst son-in-law competitions. It was a revelation and a release for her—and me.

We need to follow my mother’s example (I can’t believe I just wrote that)—speak honestly and openly. We need to trust each other, because we are the village—and shouldn’t we shape it to fit our needs? It’s time, surely, to admit that we need friends, not just to see a chick flick or get away from the kids, but because they are our best counselors and sounding boards.

Later today I will eat cucumber sandwiches with friends. I am imagining crustless white bread sandwiches and tea with cream. And maybe I’ll get a real conversation going by making a revelation or two. (Would talking about chin hairs count?)

 

 

We All Wear Underwear

On Sunday Pastor Dennis Terry said that anyone who lives in the US who doesn’t believe that this is a Christian nation whose supreme leader is Jesus should “Get out!”

I’m Jewish—I don’t worship Jesus, but thanks for making me feel so at home.

On Monday three Jewish children and a rabbi were killed in Toulouse by a terrorist linked to Al-Qaeda.

I’m a Jewish mother—I take the targeting of Jewish children particularly hard. (I can’t type the word “innocent” before child since it goes without saying that a child is innocent and has done no one any harm.)

I know that there is a difference between these acts, but at the core—at the thoughts behind the vile words and the violent act—not so much.

As a Jewish woman, I’m not feeling that the world is my kosher oyster.

Add to the anti-Semitism the War on Women going on full-steam ahead, and I’m feeling even more encircled by people who have no desire to let me be who I am if it’s not the same as who they are.

Then add to all that the fact that I’m a teacher and I can tell you, it’s a shock that my hurt hasn’t transformed to anger. But that is not what I do—unlike these men.

What unifies these men? Is it arrogance? Or hatred? Or envy? Emptiness perhaps? Whatever it is, I’m glad I don’t have it. I’d rather have to wonder about what evil will emerge next—and how to try to prevent it—than worry that people will see into the evil within me.

It would be nice, wouldn’t it, if those who claim to speak for God would heed his words. But those people are usually doing the talking, not the listening. It would have been nice, wouldn’t it, if they had heeded at least one little commandment, the one that seems to encapsulate the rest: You shall not steal. As in don’t take from someone what doesn’t belong to you. Don’t steal a life. Don’t steal a thought. Don’t steal a hope. Don’t steal. Keep your hands to yourself. Keep your words to yourself.

And the next time they feel that they're better than everyone else, they should remember that we all wear underwear and we all poop.

 

Rape: The Scourge of Our Time (II)

The following piece is cross-posted at Daily Kos. 

This post was originally published in December. Unfortunately, I felt the need to revise it to reflect news that the War on Women around the world is unrelenting. 

This week I was devastated by the way women are treated in Morocco. How could a law, as in something legal and condoned by society, allow a rapist, as in someone who forced himself on a woman, would be able to twist his crime into something innocent, noble even, if he married his victim? (Sanctity of marriage?) So Amina Filali, an innocent teenage girl except for the fact that she was female and that she was raped, which is her fault because she’s a girl and, well, you know that is inherently evil (a cultural original sin that seems to transcend all cultures), was placed in the care of a man who obviously has violence issues rather than his being carted off for some anger-management training in the Western Sahara.

A few weeks ago I was all fired up about the heinous way women are treated in Afghanistan; the brutal absurdity of imprisoning women for being raped and of forcing them to marry the men who raped them; and how unhealthy it is for a society to give men absolute power over women.

Then my boyfriend said that I should think about how many women in the military are raped; “Google ‘rape military,’” he said. Then he mentioned a female soldier who accused a man (working for a contractor) of raping her, and how he got off with barely a slap on the wrist. And her, he said, she was jailed.

He’s right: All the wrongs committed against women cannot be dropped on the laps of Moroccan and Afghani men. We can’t just pooh-pooh the men of Afghanistan who conceal women behind burkas and walls, and who torch their schools, and rape them with bestial impunity, because the rest of the world doesn’t exactly present a shining example of gentlemanly behavior.

And then I thought of forced ultrasounds, both the transvaginal kind and the cool-jelly belly sort. And this War on Women (or are they calling it the Defense of the Purity of Women Campaign?) that these pale American men, upstanding citizens all, are waging on women because we’re, you know, not as smart and important as they are. Just because someone has a boy part, what makes him the arbiter of what is or is not right for those of us without the big dingle dangle?

Women in the Congo, Bosnia, Kuwait, Sudan, Sri Lanka, and Rwanda have been raped as a course of war, as they have been during other conflicts, and throughout history. Reports of Libyan soldiers raping citizens surfaced a few months back, as have sexual assaults by Egyptian police against demonstrators.

I googled “us military rape statistics,” and 2,230,000 results came up. That’s a lot of stories about men in the military who rape, and women (in the military and civilians) who have been raped by our representatives.

And here in the US, where we attempt to look down on their mistreatment of their women, well, we actually have a term for when a man doesn’t get that “no means no.” Date rape is not quite akin to opening a door for a woman. And the acceptance of the twisted logic of “she asked for it” by wearing a dress that was too tight or too revealing, or by being out too late, or by drinking too much is a psychic rape of all women. Women do not ask to be violated. No, we Americans are not beacons in any one’s night.

People say that in Afghanistan it is an expression of their culture. Yeah, sure. Men take every right from a woman except the right to inhale and exhale and we let “culture” cover for that constant humiliation and exercise of power. Then what is it here? Can someone state as truth that rape is a reflection of our culture because we so degrade women by objectifying and sexualizing them? Have we let the deviants define us?

Is the genesis of these rapes by Moroccan men, African rebels, European fighters, and American soldiers the same? Is the problem a universal acceptance of “boys will be boys”? Have we conceded the stage to the bullies?

Googling “rape” brings up 206,000,000 results. No, we cannot breathe a sigh of relief that at least we don’t live there—because we do! Women can be strong, but not as strong as a 200 lb. man with societal support (for what else is indifference?) on his side.

Is rape the scourge of our time? We have defeated illnesses, now we must defeat a sickness. Or is it the arrogance of men? Or are they the same thing?

A person who rapes is sick in the crudest sense of the word. And it is unhealthy to ignore a sickness in our midst. Why are we always protecting men? Why are we protecting those who need no protection? Maybe we women are being forced back to being the weaker sex because society is unable or unwilling to protect us. What does that say about American culture?

Legislatures across the country are now our aggressors, taking it upon themselves to violate women. What’s the difference between Article 475 of Morocco's penal code that lets a rapist become a husband and the laws going through various state legislatures that violate a woman’s sovereignty over her own body?

Respect: To Be Given and To Be Expected

The other day I got an email from a counselor at school saying that a student of mine thinks that I am not nice to him. She suggested that I rectify this situation by having a one-on-one conversation with him asap. My response was one of those quickly written emails that we often come to regret, but in this case I have no regret for the quick-write and quick-send. I told her that I did have a tough talk with him that morning because he was supposed to have stayed after school with me a few days earlier to make up some work he missed while on vacation. I had told him that I would stay and wait for him. Not only did he not come, but two days later he still didn’t find it in himself to explain or apologize—and I demanded that he apologize to me, in a rather strong tone and with a mini-lecture thrown in.

There is just no way that I will be reprimanded for not over-coddling a teen’s ego. Seriously, at what point does a child need to stop listening only to his inner whiner and start learning that there are rules of decency that he needs to adhere to?

Another student told his mother that I yell at him. Besides the obvious fact that these kids have no conception of what a real yell is, they seem to equate a tough and forceful tone that is ever so slightly above the normal teacher tone as a yell. But I was having none of it. I told the mother that, yes, I have directed tough words at her son because he seems to think that making accents of different ethnic groups (his own included) is funny and is entertainment for the other immature boys in the class, and because I have forced him to throw out his green gum with which he likes to make bubbles during class.

Maybe I shouldn’t be teaching this age group. A number of teachers and people in the general public have told me that they could never teach freshman, but I enjoy them—up to a point. (Let me state unequivocally that the girls are not only mature, but they are well aware of the immaturity of the boys in their midst, and they are delightful.) At that point (I mean the point at which they are disrespectful and oblivious to some basic societal norms), I become a teacher whose lesson cannot possibly be evaluated by a bubble chart—it’s when I demand that they learn how to act and behave properly. It’s when I forget to modulate my tone and say what I think as if this child were my own child.

At what point do children lose the license to excuse their own bad behavior? And why, honestly, did they ever get that license in the first place?

It could be that I’m tough, as people have said, but I don’t see how expecting children to behave with respect to their elders and each other is tough or beyond a basic norm? Honestly, I’m tired of feeling that I’m doing something wrong when all that I am doing is trying to educate the whole child. Do parents really want their children to keep getting passes for work they don’t do and behavior that is reproachable? Sure, I admit that you can live a successful life even if you don’t understand Shakespeare, but what can you do if you don’t know what the word “courtesy” means?

I fear that the focus on teaching to the test and evaluating teachers based to a great degree on their student’s work will give too much power to children and lessen an understanding that they are to respect their elders and those who are trying to help them. It might come as a surprise to some, but not every child wants or knows how to do well, and kids know how to get back at someone they think has slighted them. A friend of mine teaches at the graduate school level and she has to deal with student evaluations which often read like mini-vendettas because they don’t like the amount of reading she has assigned and because there might not have been a syncing of personalities, not to mention disgruntled students who didn’t get an A.

Backing down and letting their behavior slide is not an option. I’d rather move right along to my Plan B career choice of working with the geriatric crowd than bend the understanding of respect that I was taught by example as a child.

We seem to be looking to other cultures for guidance on how to raise our children. We’re looking to China with Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother by Amy Chua, and France with Bringing Up Bebe: One American Mother Discovers the Wisdom of French Parenting by Pamela Druckerman, and a mélange with How Eskimos Keep Their Babies Warm: And Other Adventures in Parenting (From Argentina to Tanzania and Everywhere in Between) by Mei-Ling Hopgood, but how about we stick to what we were taught as children—or at least unearth some of the key lessons from our overworked minds. It might have been a different time, and yes, it might not have been the best of times, but weren’t there some basic guidelines that were imparted on us and which we have, perhaps, slacked off on imparting to the next generation? Why do we excuse our children from the things that were absolute bottom lines for us? I didn’t even know that you could turn in homework late until I was in graduate school.  

Fellow teachers talk about students who send, via email, requests for them to write letters of recommendation for colleges that are due in a day, and then not even receiving thank you letters from those students when they delayed their weekend grading to write the letters. Expectations, surely, are warped.

An I-whatever has become de rigueur for this generation. How about requiring behavior that reflects an understanding that the world is not all about “I” before the next purchase?

 

Words from some very wise men: "Teach Your Children," by Crosby Stills Nash and Young.

From 8 to 14 back to 10

In August my doctor told me that I need to lower my cholesterol and that I’m the o-word, as in obese. (Snarky but true, she looked to be in the o-category herself, but that’s her problem, not mine.) How’s that for an annual; at least I didn’t hear the c-word, God-forbid, but I felt a bitter mix of disappointment, surprise, and embarrassment at what I had done to myself. I can lay blame on circumstances (and I will) but my mouth and my eating habits and exercise habits are my own.

The toll of the divorce made its mark on my pant’s size. Way back when I had been an 8, then, after the girls it got up to 10, and over the course of so much dissatisfaction I was on the border of the Women’s Department—one more number and I was there.

And even Kenny, the vegetarian, helped me ever so slightly, what with my desire to tantalize him with the creamy mac and cheeses and quiches I could concoct just for him and his need for protein.

But no more. I was a good girl. No butter. No oil. No yolks. No regular ice cream. No potato chips. I told myself—and I believed it—that I had already had enough of those wondrous  home style potato chips and creamy custards any way. And I had frozen fruit desserts. And lots of salads—with only balsamic vinegar drizzled on top. And even on vacation I cut the cheeses and the desserts. A true testament: in Key West I made a slice of Key Lime pie last for two nights.

And I really did join a gym that afternoon—it was not said just to placate a concerned doctor. I don’t go enough, but I make it once a week (except for two weeks ago). I’m even starting to look at myself in the mirror when I get changed.

And it worked. This afternoon I am going to get a pair of size 10 pants because my size 14s are so baggy it looks like the 80s are back and even the size 12s look too mommy jeansy for me. And the cholesterol? The doctor had this to say after my recent blood test: “You have done a good job, keep up the good work.” And I will.

Last year when I was in San Francisco I barely made it up the hills; this year, I made it up and then up some more without ten-minute breaks to observe the breath-taking views.

As the Divine Bette Midler sang: “I Look Good.”

And I feel like myself once again.

How Personal of a Personal Day

I took a personal day today. I just couldn’t take one more day of the routine. I couldn’t take one more day of everyone before me. I couldn’t do it. I needed some time to not care about anything--everything.

It was, obviously, supposed to be a “me first” day. And it was, when I contemplated it. For the few days leading up to the decision to take this specific day and then for a few days after I set the date and arranged for a sub, it was my day. I thought about where I would go for lunch and what I would buy with the $100 Hanukkah gelt (money) from my mother: shoes or shirt, or even both. And I wondered where I would spend the time before and after those activities. And it was lovely, this leisurely way of thinking. I was anticipating my day off as much as a teacher looks forward to summer vacation.

But then I realized that I need to bring my car in for service and it would be better to do it today than on the weekend. And then I remembered my credit card bill; it was high, not from purchases now hanging in my closet or on me, but from living life and going on vacation during winter break to visit Kenny's mother and my daughter on the other coast. So I decided I could survive without any new things. And the refrigerator, well, I teach on Tuesday nights after a whole day of teaching, so the leftovers had already been finished. Someone would need to make dinner, and since I’m the only cook in the house, it would be me. Why not make something nice, make the delicious, multi-stepped, Maltese squash pie that Kenny’s mother makes? So there was the supermarket, the cooking, and the cleaning up. Oh, and since I had spent the whole weekend providing feedback on essays for seniors, I hadn’t had time to provide feedback on the essays the freshman had written, I needed to get those done—since I already have a backlog of essays to grade this weekend. So instead of reading, writing or staring into space while I waited for my car to get fixed, I worked.

Still, I managed to get in lunch at a Mexican restaurant, picked for the frozen margarita that could accompany the meal, and the proximity to the house.

And then I went home and napped for an hour and a half.

And I talked with my older daughter out in LA, and my mother in Florida, and I took Poops for a walk in the rain. And I just finished reading a book.

I guess it was as personal a day as I could have.

I’m already anticipating taking another one in March; it’s a month with no days off--too much routine. Personal day. If this is how personal it can be, I say it’s worth it: the combination of me and them, the inability to only tend to myself, or, perhaps, that is utterly what has come to be personal for me.

Rape: The Scourge of Our Time

I was all fired up the other day to write about the heinous way women are treated in Afghanistan; the brutal absurdity of imprisoning women for being raped and of forcing them to marry the men who raped them; and how unhealthy it is for a society to give men absolute power over women. I was going to write about how conflicted I am about our leaving Afghanistan: Is it good to leave them to themselves, or is it bad since, obviously, the women aren’t much better off after our ten-year offensive. I even intended to bring in World War II and how we didn’t leave Europe, another scene of debilitatingly horrific acts of violence, until we had defeated Hitler and the evil of his regime.

Then my partner said that I should think about how many women in the military are raped. “Google ‘rape military.’” Then he mentioned a female soldier who accused a man (working for a contractor) of raping her, and how he got off with barely a slap on the wrist. And her, he said, she was jailed.

He’s right: All the wrongs committed against women cannot be dropped on the laps of Afghani men. We can’t just pooh-pooh the men of Afghanistan who conceal women behind burkas and walls, and who torch their schools, and rape them with bestial impunity, because the rest of the world doesn’t exactly present a shining example of gentlemanly behavior.

Women in the Congo, Bosnia, Kuwait, Sudan, Sri Lanka, and Rwanda have been raped as a course of war, as they have been during other conflicts, and throughout history. Reports of Libyan soldiers raping citizens have surfaced, as have sexual assaults by Egyptian police against demonstrators.

I googled “us military rape statistics,” and 2,230,000 results came up. That’s a lot of stories about men in the military who rape, and women (in the military and civilians) who have been raped by our representatives.

And here in the US, where we attempt to look down on their mistreatment of their women, well, we actually have a term for when a man doesn’t get that “no means no.” Date rape is not quite akin to opening a door for a woman. And the acceptance of the twisted logic of “she asked for it” by wearing a dress that was too tight or too revealing, or by being out too late, or by drinking too much is a psychic rape of all women. Women do not ask to be violated. No, Americans are not beacons in any one’s night.

People say that in Afghanistan it is an expression of their culture. Yeah, sure. Men take every right from a woman except the right to inhale and exhale and we let “culture” cover for that constant humiliation and exercise of power. Then what is it here? Can someone state as truth that rape is a reflection of our culture because we so degrade women by objectifying and sexualizing them? Have we let the deviants define us?

Is the genesis of these rapes by Afghani men, African rebels, European fighters, and American soldiers the same? Is the problem a universal acceptance of “boys will be boys”? Have we conceded the stage to the bullies?

Googling “rape” brings up 206,000,000 results. No, we cannot breathe a sigh of relief that at least we don’t live there—because we do. Women can be strong, but not as strong as a 200 lb. man with societal support (for what else is indifference?) on his side.

Is rape the scourge of our time? We have defeated illnesses, now we must defeat a sickness.

A person who rapes is sick in the crudest sense of the word. And it is unhealthy to ignore a sickness in our midst. Why is it that we arrest prostitutes and not Johns? Why are we always protecting the men? Why are we protecting those who need no protection?

Maybe we women are being forced back to being the weaker sex because society is unable or unwilling to protecting us. What does that say about American culture?

“I Like Your Necklace”

The other day the “compliment clothing instinct” peeked out its pretty head. In the morning, as I walked by her, I blurted out to a student that I liked her ring. I couldn’t help it—it was so big, so obvious, so worthy of compliment; teacher-student relationship be damned—the girl has taste. It was a three-inch silver disc with intricate designs on it: quite the finger shield. A ring to be noticed—and complimented.

Then later when I was walking around the supermarket, a woman who almost walked into me (or did I almost walk into her?) complimented me on my necklace. As I said “thank you,” I reached for my neck to feel which necklace I was wearing. It was the necklace that I bought after my year of wearing no jewelry after father passed away.

And the next day I complimented a colleague on how lovely she looked. And she did the thank you blush and took the back straight-chest out stance.

Even when I tell my daughter, who doesn’t much like my voice or the words that come out of my mouth, how pretty she looks, I get a shy thank you and a tinge of blush to her beautiful cheeks.

Oh, how lovely it is to give and receive. Forget the lists. Forget the stores. Forget the gift cards. Give the gift of a compliment.

Why Do I Talk to My Mother?

Sometimes when I hear the Vaudevillesque ringtone I set for my mother’s calls I roll my eyes, press “Quiet,” and continue with my life. At other times, before the “answer phone call” instinct evolves into reflection and a pass on answering, I answer the call. And then, after the starter wave of information about her day, I wonder how I let myself be tricked again.

It’s not that I don’t get along with my mother or even that I dislike her, but I’m tired of the “world-revolves around your mother” conversations that we have. Sure, there’s the occasional “So how are you?” and “How are the girls?” but if I venture into an answer beyond “Fine,” I find her attention span diminished. She’s bored hearing my response or, and this is worse considering that her life and mine have never had anything in common, she’s done it/knows it/anticipated it, whatever “it” may be, from her place in sunny Florida.

I have learned that I need to accept that these calls are about her, they are not about me—that time has passed. I know that I’m not a young woman first stepping out on her own who needs all the concern and compassion she can get from her mother to shore herself up against the cruel, cruel world, but, seriously, isn’t my mother supposed to care more about me than the chicken she got at Costco that she’ll freeze in individual servings for when she’s in the mood for chicken?

Her loneliness is understandable. My father passed away almost two years ago. She went from having my father by her side to listen to her every critique for fifty-four years to having her distracted daughter via cellphone. One thing is clear: my father was more patient than I had ever imagined because, surely, she has not recently discovered the need to digest her day’s minutiae in talk. No, this must be a habit that she has transferred from my father to me. Before his passing, her calls had the endless detail of things of absolutely no importance, but the calls and the details weren’t endless, and, on occasion, there was a point. I had received the pearls that were gleaned after going through the mire with my father. Besides, she didn’t have as much time to chat since she needed to keep my father entertained with her non-stop talk show.

All that aside, there’s just so far compassion can take you when you hear the deliberations taken to go or not to go to tennis, and then to go or not to go out with “the girls” (who are all in their 70’s and 80’s) for breakfast after tennis. And to hear for the unknownth time that friend A doesn’t dress as nicely as she does, and that friend B thinks that restaurant A is good but she knows that it is not. Yes, I know, my life isn’t a fount of excitement, but at least I generally have a sense of audience and refrain from providing ad infinitum details ad infinitum times.

Unfortunately, I generally check out of our phone calls; I just can’t take the tone and substance of those conversations. Really? Does it matter? And that makes me feel bad. But I just can’t bring myself to focus on her monologue; it needs an accompaniment, like TV viewing needs food.

Maybe the point is that I had hoped that at some point from the time I became aware of her conversational limitations (at about fifteen) to now to have found more to my mother than she has revealed. But I have not. Is that why her calls are so hard on me? She is the sum of the details, and I need to accept that and stop expecting: voila, your philosopher-mother is on the line.

She is who she is—and she does a darn good job at being who she is. No, she is the best at it. No one does it better.

So here’s to you mom: You are who you are, fully. And I apologize for not having valued you before. Maybe at some point you’ll pause and I can tell you that. And if not, I will try, I will, to honor you for who you are—in all your glorious detailing. But maybe during shorter phone calls.