Why do men love to be kept in line?

Seriously, what’s the deal with men needing to be schooled by the women in their lives on a regular basis? Is it one of those Oedipus things translated to marriage, or what?

For example, Huz puttered around our room the other morning looking for something to wear to work, despite having a closet full of drycleaned and perfectly acceptable choices. He came out wearing a pair of khakis that looked as though he’d folded them into an origami swan before donning them. As if I don’t have enough going on in the morning with Baby Bean, I had to stop him and do this:

You can’t wear that.
Why? *disgusted look, like I am just seriously wrecking his morning*
Because they look like you got them from under a rock, and you are the boss and you are supposed to be setting an example.
But I don’t have anything to wear!
*baleful look from me as I watch him stand and stare hopelessly at his full closet while I tend to Bean*
Then take them off, go get the iron, plug it in over there, and run it over those pants really quickly.
He then makes some sort of sound like, “Chuh!” then goes and does what I’ve told him, minus the last, most critical step, of actually applying the iron to the pants. Moves pants around quite a bit instead, then gives up and walks back into the room. Comes back out in jeans.
What happened?!
They’re too wrinkled.
Are you trying to tell me that you don’t know how to use an iron? Because I know that you do, I’ve seen you. You even know how to sew, for  God’s sake.
I didn’t have time. I have to take out the dog.
In the time it took you to do the little frustration dance you just did and then go change into jeans, you could have been done ironing. Is this one of those things where you pretend that you don’t know how to do something in order to get me disgusted enough to do it for you? Because I am holding your baby and besides, I can’t iron those for you now, just on principle.

aaaaand scene.

I checked with the Beavers and they have similar stories to tell. One husband will not eat dinner if she is not there, unless she calls and tells him what to make for himself. He will actually go hungry. Does he stare at the cupboard in her absence, desperately wanting to eat? How did he survive before marrying her?

Another one of the Beavs has a boyfriend that will walk out to work wearing clothes that have come from a ball in the laundry basket, and clearly look that way. She has to intervene at least twice weekly.

Huz even likes for me cut his hair, even though he has to beg me to do it and he can get a perfectly good haircut on any block in the city. He insists he likes the way I do it better even when I procrastinate for weeks and his hair grows long enough to look like Kirk Cameron’s in the 80’s (and no, I am not a stylist, although the boobs in the face/leg straddling thing I do while cutting may have something to do with his insistence).

These are not the stereotypically lazy, befuddled men that are so popularly depicted in sitcoms. They are professionals who are in charge of themselves and others in their daily work, and in some cases, of many others. All are otherwise intelligent creatures. What gives? Do men simply feign helplessness so that women will intervene and make them feel cared for? Because we do care for you, we love you all to pieces, so it’s actually a bit worrisome when you wander around the house with a confused and/or frustrated expression, bedeviled by the simplest acts of self-care.

It all reminds me of a documentary I once watched, about a dominatrix whose clients were all high-powered executive types. They pushed people around all day long, seizing opportunities while standing on the heads and shoulders of others, essentially raping and pillaging the common folk, yet they paid a dom a small fortune to bind them to odd apparatus and torture their balls and whatnot. One said something like it was a relief to not be in control of anything, even the pain being inflicted on him. His dom had a no-orgasm policy (!!!!!), so he wasn’t even going to her for a sexual release. Another dom said that she could no longer have her male “slaves” do housework for her, because they kept breaking dishes on purpose, just to be severely punished (again, !!!!!). Fascinating to me, these men.

I digress.

Who knows what all this neediness is really about…it certainly isn’t lack of ability; again, these are not lazy men. Huz has been acting lately as though I did my thesis on cleaning up after his ass, which annoys me to no end, but he’s not all bad. Besides, when he is being particularly annoying, I do have a tendency to yell, “Motherfucker!” to which he charmingly replies, “Why yes, Dear, yes I am.” This is an update to his response to that word during my pregnancy, when he would cheerfully say, “Not yet!” Cheeky bastard.

At this rate, our curse jar should be sufficiently full enough by the time Baby Bean is a year old to send us all to Fiji first-class with a private nanny in tow.

Watch this.

Watch this. It will definitely change your day, and it may even change you.

Current TV has become a part of our household. We found it while looking for the weather channel and it has been on ever since. It is usually running in the background with close captioning throughout the day, but often jumps into the foreground, as it did just now with the pod I’ve linked to.

It just makes everything else seem ridiculous.

Just a little reminder that ol’ Moby is right

We really are all made of stars.

I don’t know if that does anything for you, but I just plain like thinking about it.

Ah, the joys of city living…part deux

So yeah, our building is not handicapped accessible after 7PM and I am all over the problem in writing; Huz is my spokesperson with the “management” because I am way too surly. In response to my complaint, we were told that a connected building up the block (the one where the commercial “security” is) has a doorbell we can use to be let in after 7PM with our stroller. Ahem. A doorbell. On the street. 

Still, it is at least better than being locked out, right? So this evening on my way out with Baby Bean to enjoy the fine weather that global warming or el nino has caused, I decided to take that alternate way as an exit so I could pass by the “security” desk.

I implored of the ancient, uniformed person slouching behind it, “You will be able to let us in if we are out past 7PM, right?” (which I knew we would not be but THAT IS NOT THE F’ING POINT) to which he replied, “If there are two of us on duty, but if the other person is making his rounds, I can’t leave this desk to open the door.” 

*blood scalding*

“Hmmm, so how will we get back in? As you can see, I have a baby with me, we can’t be left waiting for who knows how long out there on the street, that could be very dangerous. Your manager said that you all would let us in if we rang the bell, otherwise the building is not ADA compliant.”

“That’s not my problem, I don’t know nothing about that.”

Sweet Jebus. Save this man from me. He knows not what he does.

And so the saga for accessible entry for all wheeled peoples continues… I should prolly call the Office of Disability right away as they would be on these people like white on rice, but Huz has asked me to give ”management” the benefit of the doubt and some time to do the right thing now that I have made them aware of the problem. I just may implode before then.

I, love, commas,

andIalsowritetoofast. So I wonder, when I publish what I intend to be my “final” post, and then go back and fix the quirks that I never notice until AFTER doing so, does that make the people who read my feed crazy? Does it repost an old post as a new post or an update if I fix my errors and re-publish? If so, I am genuinely sorry. I love you.

I am in some mood today

When someone is throwing you around the room, it doesn’t feel like it is really happening.  It is swift and you shut your eyes so often that it is like a dream. You can feel their hands on you, and you can feel your body jerk as it is pulled back and forth, but you don’t really feel it, so much as hear the sound it makes, when it hits the walls, the floor, the bed frame. It is like a dream, and when it is over, you are so grateful and in such shock, that you suspend your belief in what actually happened, even when the adrenaline fades and the pain sets in. You suspend belief and may even talk to the person afterward, carefully and almost amicably, like phew! that was crazy! because you are so glad it is over when it ends. It is almost like you feel as though they went through something with you, rather than put you through it. When someone is throwing you around the room, you catch their eyes with yours and you look in wonder at the way they are seething at you, hating you again for something real or imagined, as you glide past them and crash. When someone is throwing you around a room, it doesn’t really hurt while it is happening, and when it ends and they either help you up or leave you there, you try to shake it off, to disbelieve it. I think that is why people doubt themselves, blame themselves, and don’t leave. Maybe they are questioning their grip on reality, because they can’t actually trust that it really was that bad.

Jeezohpeez, I  had to get that out today. wtf. Deep cleansing breath….aaaaaand *scene*.

Oh, hey, relax, I’m okay. I am not an abused woman. I was at one time, but I never will be again. Huz would never hurt me; the man would walk through fire for me, and already has, in a lot of ways.  I even used to try to bait him a bit when we were younger, just to see if he would get violent. I guess it was hard for me to let go of all the chaos and self-loathing I grew up in. Sometimes it still is. I was just so good at it. 

Speaking of my beloved, Huz and I had a VERY. BIG. TALK. He helps me through things, and I help him. He is a good man, which is probably why I fear his drinking unwinding so much. It’s just that it would be such a long fall from the pedestal I’ve put him on, ha ha.

Seriously though, I even feared my own drinking before Bean was in me belly. We talked about how things could go if we weren’t careful. I call it the “times 10″ rule. When there is a problem in any relationship, it often gets glossed over in the beginning. Explained away. Underestimated. Excused and ignored to keep the peace. Revisit that problem in a year’s time, and its severity and impact has multiplied by 10. It applies to drinking, drugs, name calling, violence… basically, it’s a principle of suckinesss: anything that sucks will continue to do so until it becomes a large black hole that sucks the life out of anyone and anything around it. Heroin addicts wouldn’t be heroin addicts if they only had understood in the beginning just how bad it would get. Same goes for abusers and abusees, criminals, etc. etc. etc. The times 10 rule + complacency = a vortex of suck. Trust me on this.

We talked about how our fathers did not get married with the intention of workaholic-ing and drinking and cheating and leaving their children behind, in states far away. We talked about how our mothers did not marry with the intention of enabling and ignoring and screaming and breaking down and being left. We talked about how we need to be vigilant; to see the small ways that these things happen over time, and how we have to be careful with ourselves and with each other. I do believe we will be okay. I will not be a martyr and he will not be neglectful. We can enjoy wine with dinner (and even after dinner!) and not have it be part of some f’ed up legacy. Baby Bean will have us be fully present, both physically and emotionally, as he grows. Amen.

My mom said to me the other day, “You do not mean to fuck your kids up. It just happens.”  It made me feel bad for her, for ever being angry with her. I am tired from a lifetime of feeling bad for her.

Say it with me, kids: we are not our parents. We are not our parents. We are not our parents.

I am an idiot for leaving corporate

I am an idiot for leaving corporate, it’s true.

Yes, I should have asked about post-baby work arrangements before accepting my pre-Baby Bean job at the “largest parent and child advocacy organization in the world”, but the thing is, I wanted the job. Sadly, it is common knowledge that if you actually want a job, you should likely not mention the desire to become pregnant at any point. You must appear at the interview like you have just arrived fresh from your tubal ligation.

Basically, I assumed that an org devoted to the welfare of parents and children would offer flexible work arrangements, and I was wrong. Being a former Andersen-ite (no, not consulting, the arthur one, the one where the whole firm went under for the wrongs of a few and then later was exonerated) I could have landed a Big Five Four position, made a great deal more money, and had a job to return to at full pay, minus the groveling/apologizing/demotion trappings of returning to work after staying at home for a few years to *gasp* raise my own child.

I just felt that after the Andersen fallout, and the Sears relocation (that was not much better due to monthly threatened mass layoffs)I could no longer handle working for the man and needed to get back to my non-profit/advocacy/tree-hugging roots. Stupid! Stupid! Stupid! Do over, goddamnit, do over!

Of course, at the time I wished I could do-over ever leaving non-profit advocacy in the first place, just to see how well I could do in corporate. I can do extremely well, I found. My personality type excels there, as a matter of fact. My conscience, however, not so much. Life lesson: never accept a job offer on a dare while drunk, no matter how good the salary or how delicious the wine.

Who knew?

Free to Be You and Me is actually a piece of work which had, in part, a feminist agenda? Whaaat? That is fabulous! I knew I loved it as a kid for a reason, although it was probably more for the sweet melodies and funny words rather than some inborn desire to forward the cause of equality for women in the 70’s. I’d like to think it was the latter, of course. Let’s just say it is so. I was simply born this way, darling.

Seriously, I can’t believe it took me this long to catch on. What, with William wanting his doll, Jill showing Bill how to bait a real fish hook, and that “ladies first” chick meeting with such an untimely end in the jungle? I suppose if I’d actually taken some womens studies courses I would have known this already…instead, I bought it for Baby Bean recently and starting singing along with it (which kinda made me verklempt; I hated childhood but oh, the music!) and we get to the Mel Brooks “I’m a Baby” schtick and I am like, hey, this could actually be educational for the little man (which is totally weird that I sometimes call my infant son “little man” because I know I wouldn’t call an infant daughter “little woman”, but I’ll save that for another post).

Anyway, I am pleased and amused. It may not be The Teaches of Peaches (I keeed), but it’s a start! Between the bombardment of gender stereotyping in most media, the limited choices in ”boy” clothing (we got a lot of gifts with sporting patches and phrases like “little quarterback” and “little hero” on them), and my mother telling him already that hot pink is a “girl” color, I need all the help I can get so he does not feel like he is somehow a lesser person if he is not the embodiment of machismo by age 5.

Ritual de lo Habitual

Lots going on right now, I don’t really know where to begin. I’ll just keep it light.

Teething pain struck again yesterday so it just wasn’t fair to make Baby Bean go out in order to attend the rally against the Iraq occupation. We would not have ended up attending for long anyway, as the marching started a little later than we anticipated. Still, the turnout was good and we were there in spirit. I am saddened by the likelihood that there will be another one for us to attend on the 5th anniversary. Our country’s habit of getting involved in things in such a forceful, rather than diplomatic, manner is going to be the end of us all.

Baby Bean was sleeping better for a few nights recently, then another tooth started to make its presence known, so last night was a rough one. You can only give a baby so much Tylenol and chamomile. I did find this very encouraging article about sleep on mothering.com, though, and it sure does fly in the face of all the b.s. the so-called “sleep experts” are hawking. I love it.  That “Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child” loon can bite me.

We are facing the drinking thing again. I am just doing my best to set boundaries and set them early. The specter of both our fathers’ ritual de lo habitual is threatening my peace and I am not going to allow it to hang around. I am the exorcist, I am the witch. I am tearing out these pages from our family history, I am burning them, I am eating them.  I am not going to have my son think it is okay to drink heavily in order to “unwind”. I am not going to have him see his mother politely navigate around the pissed off elephant in the room. I am worried enough that when I wean the Bean from breastfeeding, I am going to pick up where I left off. These things take on a life all their own; it simply takes a series of bad days that are soothed with one too many glasses of wine to get mired down once more. I can’t be in charge of someone else’s compulsion to do the same. Huz is an angel in comparison to what we come from, and is often an angel in his own right, but it starts like this, this drinking heavily to unwind, and gets worse over the years and then everybody wonders what the hell happened but by then it is too late to fix a thing. I will not stand by, wringing my hands, hoping that it doesn’t get that bad. It will. I am just walking a fine line between making him aware of what could happen, and acting (and feeling) like I am the one who is responsible for whether it does or not.

So much for keeping it light, heh!

I am practically having multiples while reading this…

The ever-fabulous Judith Stadtman Tucker, Editor of The Mothers Movement Online (editor@mothersmovement.org) is making my brain twitch in a rather euphoric manner, thanks to her intro of their latest issue. Go there, then click the links, click them all, I mean it, it’s good.

…thanks to thirty years of formal research on gender, work and family, the motherhood problem is exceptionally well documented. I add that a growing number of maternal activists — from welfare rights groups to middle-class members of organizations such as Mothers & More and the National Association of Mothers Centers — are seriously committed to doing something about it.

Well, dear readers, I believe we’ve reached the tipping point.

………

But the centerpiece of this flurry of corrective journalism is EJ Graff’s essay, “The Opt Out Myth,” in the current edition of the Columbia Journalism Review. (Links to all articles appear below.) While others have challenged the factual basis and class bias of reporting on the so-called “opt-out revolution”, Graff denounces the recent spate of “moms-go-home” stories as socially irresponsible journalism. The problem, she argues, is not just that this stream of reporting is misleading and inaccurate; it also frames the issues the wrong way by erasing the experiences of the vast majority of American families. According to Graff, the danger in perpetuating the “opt-out” narrative is that if policymakers and the public accept its narrow definition of the women-work-family dilemma, they will end up supporting the wrong solutions.

I haven’t really gotten into my own experience much, but I am one of the so-called elite “opt-outs”, who wants very much to stay “in”, and can very barely afford to be “out” of the workplace, but could not afford childcare and create a flex schedule as needed in the work environment I was a part of.

Oh, I do hope the tide is turning, I really do, and I hope that journalists are responsible in reporting about it, rather than sensationalistic and polarizing. Yes, yes, yes!