Random #1
The new television ads for Slumdog Millionaire are touting it as the most moving love story of the season. There a great shots of kisses and long, soulful looks against a soundtrack of almost riotous Bollywood music. Now, I have no problem with the characterization of this movie as a love story because it certainly is that. But it's also, in many ways, for large stretches of the movie, a deeply disturbing movie. It's about a guy's love for a girl and about his run on Who Wants to Be a Millionaire; but it is also about orphan brothers from the slums of Mumbai and the things they need to do and are forced to do to survive. I'm not saying I didn't enjoy the movie (I actually loved it). I'm just saying these new commercials are a bit dishonest.
Random #2
What kind sick, twisted universe do we live in that gives your child a 102 degree fever at 3am that then drops to 100 by 7am and 98 by the time you get to the pediatrician's drop-in hours at 8am? What the hell is that?
Speaking of hell--is there any more hellish place that drop-in hours on a Friday morning? Exhausted parents (because we've been up all night) with grumpy, germy kids all trying to get seen by the doctor before the weekend. We love our pediatrician and have no complaints at all about the care we get. But the 90 minutes we sat before we got to see the doctor (all to find out Frances *doesn't* have strep throat, just some random virus) even had me a little testy.
Random #3
I'm reading Order of the Phoenix with Frances. This is her first time through it (when we tried to read it aloud to her when it first came out, she told us it was too scary and, therefore, inappropriate for poppets; she said the same thing about Revenge of the Sith and still refuses to see it; this is heartbreaking to her father and I, but I digress) and my third time. Two things strike this time around. First, there is no way I would let my kid go to Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. It is a crazily scary and dangerous place. I suppose parents don't really know what's going on because Umbridge is monitoring all lines of communication and isn't letting out any bad news, but still. How many times does Voldemort have to attack Harry in or around Hogwarts before parents say enough?
Second, if Frances wrote fan fiction, she'd write great Mary Sue stories about her adventures with Fred and George Weasley and Lee Jordan. I used to, along with my best friend from middle school, write Mary Sue fic about our adventures with Bon Jovi and Whitesnake.
Saturday, February 28, 2009
Tuesday, February 24, 2009
Happy Mardi Gras!
I started to list Mardi Gras as a black thing that I love, but since it's actually a Catholic thing and not a black thing, it doesn't really qualify.
[This is Brian. She's not from New Orleans, so she doesn' t know about the foul debauchery that takes place at Congo Square (the corner of Rampart and Claiborne). There's nothing remotely Catholic about that!]
True, I have never been to Mardi Gras in New Orleans. Nice Catholic girls from Southwest Louisiana were not allowed to go to New Orleans for Mardi Gras (or any reason really) for fear that we would be turned into drunken sluts as soon as we crossed the city limits. (Though, to be fair, it is considered conventional wisdom at home that only tourists flash their tits for beads. Native girls know someone might see you and tell your mother, and you can't have that.) No, all of my Mardi Gras celebrations were spent in Lafayette, LA. You could take your kids and your grandmother and eat and drink and be merry for five days straight before you fasted and contemplated the sacrifice of Jesus for 40 days.
We are really missing Mardi Gras today.
Friday, February 20, 2009
Book Rec: Jump at the Sun by Kim McLarin
Okay, I clearly suck at writing every day. But I'm here today, so let's get going.
I've just finished reading Jump at the Sun by Kim McLarin. It's hard to describe what this book is about because it's about so many things really, but at its root it's about maternal ambivalence. The protagonist, Grace, is a black women who has recently located to the suburbs of Boston with her husband and two daugthers. She is a sociologist who did not earn tenure at Duke and who is presently staying at home with her children. The book opens with her desperate realization that the unprotected sex she had with her husband could very well lead to baby #3 and that's the last thing she wants. The story then becomes her own articulation of her ambivalence and desperation, interwoven with the stories of her mother and grandmother, two women who made very different choices about the way they mothered.
This book was riveting and disturbing. At one point Grace is having a day that is very familiar to me--her children are unexpectedly out of school and are demanding to be entertained every minute of the day. She is at her wit's end, tired of their bickering, bored out of her mind with Candyland, and desperately needing a break. I've been there. I daresay there isn't a mother who hasn't been there. Grace's response to this though, contemplating leaving them (even going so far as to send them into the house and stand on the front porch rationalizing just walking away), freaked me out. I had to put the book away for a few days before I could continue.
What I ultimately loved about this book is how human and flawed Grace is. There is seemingly nothing at all wrong with her life (big house, bills paid, healthy beautiful kids, loving husband), yet still she is unhappy. That made her unhappiness more believable to me because it was real. Sometimes you just don't know what the problem is. McLarin isn't trying to tell me that suburbia is evil or that motherhood is soul-sucking or that black women are the mules of the world (though all those things might be true). She gives me a brief window into the mind of a woman who has tons of questions but very few answers and that, for me, made the book a worthwhile read.
I've just finished reading Jump at the Sun by Kim McLarin. It's hard to describe what this book is about because it's about so many things really, but at its root it's about maternal ambivalence. The protagonist, Grace, is a black women who has recently located to the suburbs of Boston with her husband and two daugthers. She is a sociologist who did not earn tenure at Duke and who is presently staying at home with her children. The book opens with her desperate realization that the unprotected sex she had with her husband could very well lead to baby #3 and that's the last thing she wants. The story then becomes her own articulation of her ambivalence and desperation, interwoven with the stories of her mother and grandmother, two women who made very different choices about the way they mothered.
This book was riveting and disturbing. At one point Grace is having a day that is very familiar to me--her children are unexpectedly out of school and are demanding to be entertained every minute of the day. She is at her wit's end, tired of their bickering, bored out of her mind with Candyland, and desperately needing a break. I've been there. I daresay there isn't a mother who hasn't been there. Grace's response to this though, contemplating leaving them (even going so far as to send them into the house and stand on the front porch rationalizing just walking away), freaked me out. I had to put the book away for a few days before I could continue.
What I ultimately loved about this book is how human and flawed Grace is. There is seemingly nothing at all wrong with her life (big house, bills paid, healthy beautiful kids, loving husband), yet still she is unhappy. That made her unhappiness more believable to me because it was real. Sometimes you just don't know what the problem is. McLarin isn't trying to tell me that suburbia is evil or that motherhood is soul-sucking or that black women are the mules of the world (though all those things might be true). She gives me a brief window into the mind of a woman who has tons of questions but very few answers and that, for me, made the book a worthwhile read.
Sunday, February 15, 2009
Black Things I Love #8: The Cosby Show
When I was in college (1991-1996, the heyday of neo-black nationalism), it was de rigeur to be deeply suspicious of The Cosby Show. The family was too unrealistic, the argument, trying too hard to prove to white America that black folks were just like everybody else, too eager to ignore the realities of black life. I wasn't a nationalist, but I sympathized with others' frustrations with the show. The life of the Cosbys certainly looked nothing like my black life.
Watching the show now, with my own black family, is a very different experience. My life still doesn't look like the Cosbys', though it is significantly closer than when I was in college, but I can appreciate what Bill Cosby was trying to do. It's nice to be able to turn on a black show that isn't about blackness. I like that the Cosbys were matter-of-factly black, without apology or explanation. I like that it's show that, while not representing my life experiences, nevertheless represents my experience of my blackness.
And here's what else I like: the completely angst-free portrayal of a two-income household. I love that Claire Huxtable being a mother and wife and lawyer was treated as no big thing--just another part of being a grown up. Does the show completely gloss over the fact that having a successful career and five (!) kids is significantly harder than they make it look? Sure. But again, without apology or explanation, they gave us a woman who mothered her children well, had a career she loved and was good at it, and who had a husband who clearly adored her. Claire Huxtable was too busy living her fabulous life to navel-gaze about having it all. Where can we find that on television now?
Friday, February 13, 2009
Black Things I Love #7: The Electric Slide
I know I 've missed a couple of days. I've had some tooth trauma and a field trip with Frances's school, but I'm back.
First a Frances story: Her class took a field trip to Drayton Hall to learn about the Civil War. At one point, a guide was telling them about the 54th Massachusetts and how the men in that regiment said they would refuse their pay until they were paid equal to white soldiers. My daughter, sitting in the front row of course, says loud enough for everyone to hear, "I guess they never got paid then."
**********
Today's black thing I love is the electric slide. Every wedding reception, graduation party, Saturday BBQ in the park, etc. will, at some point, see a large group of people doing the electric slide. I even remember doing the electric slide on the sidewalk during Mardi Gras as a marching band marched past playing Cameo's "Word Up." It's a fun dance, easy to do, and incredibly egalitarian--young and old, men and women, tragically hip and profoundly uncool, everybody can do it.
First a Frances story: Her class took a field trip to Drayton Hall to learn about the Civil War. At one point, a guide was telling them about the 54th Massachusetts and how the men in that regiment said they would refuse their pay until they were paid equal to white soldiers. My daughter, sitting in the front row of course, says loud enough for everyone to hear, "I guess they never got paid then."
**********
Today's black thing I love is the electric slide. Every wedding reception, graduation party, Saturday BBQ in the park, etc. will, at some point, see a large group of people doing the electric slide. I even remember doing the electric slide on the sidewalk during Mardi Gras as a marching band marched past playing Cameo's "Word Up." It's a fun dance, easy to do, and incredibly egalitarian--young and old, men and women, tragically hip and profoundly uncool, everybody can do it.
Monday, February 09, 2009
Black Things I Love #6: Al Green
I've often thought I'd like to write a book about my grandmothers.
My father's mother, Dorothy Mae, aka Dot, was a loud, funny, crude woman who loved Atlanta Braves baseball, fishing, and cold beer. She lived in a big house with a man I only ever knew as Mr. Happy. (I also thought he was a white man until I was in graduate school. I probably would have thought my grandmother was a white woman had I not known she was my grandmother.) She used chamber pots because she didn't trust indoor plumbing and kept a compost heap so she could use the worms for fishing. She bought my sister and I an Atari game system when they first came out and she fed us pineapple juice and toast whenever we slept at her house. We used to love going there.
My mother's mother, Tina, is not loud or crude. She very much believes one needs to behave with a certain amount of decorum in the world. Yet, she is also a woman who wants to be cremated and have her ashes scattered beneath the floorboards of a nightclub she frequented until it burned down. I was thinking about her last night as I watched Justin Timberlake (who comes pretty close to being a black thing I love) sing "Let's Stay Together" with Al Green at last night's Grammys. My earliest memory of Al Green is living in my grandmother's house, before my parents were married, and of spending weekends there after they were married, and hearing my grandmother play Al Green records on Sunday morning. This was a woman who grew up in a traditionally black "holy ghost" church (as we called when I was little) and who married a devout Catholic. There was an awful lot of church in her life. She responded to it by listening to Al Green sing "Love and Happiness" on Sunday morning. My mother says she always played a James Cleveland record first, but I only remember the Al Green.
Here, for your viewing pleasure, is Al Green at the Grammys.
My father's mother, Dorothy Mae, aka Dot, was a loud, funny, crude woman who loved Atlanta Braves baseball, fishing, and cold beer. She lived in a big house with a man I only ever knew as Mr. Happy. (I also thought he was a white man until I was in graduate school. I probably would have thought my grandmother was a white woman had I not known she was my grandmother.) She used chamber pots because she didn't trust indoor plumbing and kept a compost heap so she could use the worms for fishing. She bought my sister and I an Atari game system when they first came out and she fed us pineapple juice and toast whenever we slept at her house. We used to love going there.
My mother's mother, Tina, is not loud or crude. She very much believes one needs to behave with a certain amount of decorum in the world. Yet, she is also a woman who wants to be cremated and have her ashes scattered beneath the floorboards of a nightclub she frequented until it burned down. I was thinking about her last night as I watched Justin Timberlake (who comes pretty close to being a black thing I love) sing "Let's Stay Together" with Al Green at last night's Grammys. My earliest memory of Al Green is living in my grandmother's house, before my parents were married, and of spending weekends there after they were married, and hearing my grandmother play Al Green records on Sunday morning. This was a woman who grew up in a traditionally black "holy ghost" church (as we called when I was little) and who married a devout Catholic. There was an awful lot of church in her life. She responded to it by listening to Al Green sing "Love and Happiness" on Sunday morning. My mother says she always played a James Cleveland record first, but I only remember the Al Green.
Here, for your viewing pleasure, is Al Green at the Grammys.
Sunday, February 08, 2009
Black Things I Love #5: Black Panther
Today's edition of Black Things I Love is brought to you byBrian, aka Afrogeek Dad.
The Black Panther. Marvel Comics. King of the fictional African nation of Wakanda. And super kick-ass, bad-ass, super-confident 1960s hero with no need to stick-it-to-the-man. No blaxploitation here. Just a good, well-rounded image of blackness in comics that young readers could read and not feel ashamed of. He wasn't the first black character in comics, but he was the first never to be drawn as a caricature, never to be written speaking false ghetto-ese. He was never a sidekick to or a spin-off of a white character. He didn't get his powers by being someone else's lab assistant. He didn't get his powers in prison. [Note from Conseula: Brian here is bad-mouthing Luke Cage, which I really don't appreciate.] His multiple levels of super-asskickery come only from years of intense training and discipline backed by the science and religion of his own culture. I *heart* the Black fucking Panther.
The Black Panther. Marvel Comics. King of the fictional African nation of Wakanda. And super kick-ass, bad-ass, super-confident 1960s hero with no need to stick-it-to-the-man. No blaxploitation here. Just a good, well-rounded image of blackness in comics that young readers could read and not feel ashamed of. He wasn't the first black character in comics, but he was the first never to be drawn as a caricature, never to be written speaking false ghetto-ese. He was never a sidekick to or a spin-off of a white character. He didn't get his powers by being someone else's lab assistant. He didn't get his powers in prison. [Note from Conseula: Brian here is bad-mouthing Luke Cage, which I really don't appreciate.] His multiple levels of super-asskickery come only from years of intense training and discipline backed by the science and religion of his own culture. I *heart* the Black fucking Panther.
Friday, February 06, 2009
Black Things I Love #4: Neil deGrasse Tyson
Tonight the whole family went to the College of Charleston's Observatory open house. Five telescopes were set got to see the Moon, Venus, the Orion Nebula and lots of other cool stars I'm not going to remember. This outing inspires today's black thing I love: astrophysicist extraordinaire Neil deGrasse Tyson.
Every time I see him on television, he makes me start all over again as a physicist (despite my appalling lack of any real mathematical ability). After his last appearance of the Daily Show, for about a week, I harbored great fantasies about inviting him for a guest lecture at the College. I had the dinner all planned out in my head. Then I found out how much his speaking fee is and realized that dinner will remain a fantasy. He's still pretty awesome, though.
Thursday, February 05, 2009
Black Things I Love #3: Lucille Clifton's Homage to My Hips
To say that I weigh more now than I did when I was in college is a laughable understatement. That's me in the picture above. I'm probably 20 or 21 there (though I look 12; how much bigger could my head have gotten?) Since then I've had two kids and embarked on a fairly sedentary career. I used to run. Throughout grad school I was almost always enrolled in a dance class. Brian and I used to hike when we lived in Washington. (We went hiking for our honeymoon on the lovely Whidbey Island.) But life takes its toll and it seems to have taken its greatest toll on my hips.Now many is the day when I'm perfectly fine with the body I travel the world in. But on those days that I'm not, I pull out this poem and I feel a little better.
homage to my hips
these hips are big hips.
they need space to
move around in.
they don't fit into little
petty places. these hips
are free hips.
they don't like to be held back.
these hips have never been enslaved,
they go where they want to go
they do what they want to do.
these hips are mighty hips.
these hips are magic hips.
i have known them
to put a spell on a man and
spin him like a top
Wednesday, February 04, 2009
Somewhere Pecola Breedlove is Crying
I feel inspired by Black Snob's post this morning, On Black Girls, Beauty, and Barbie Dolls. Go read it. You'll be moved, I promise. It was prompted by recent news that advertisers, in response to the popularity and adorable-ness of Sasha and Malia Obama, or the WeeMichelles as they are called over at Michelle Obama Watch, want cute little brown girls for their campaigns and that modeling agencies are scrambling to meet the demand. One agency rep offered this explanation for their lack of diversity:
Marlene Wallach, president of Wilhelmina Kids & Teens, says the First Daughters are tough subjects to match. “It’s a very specific age and a very specific ethnicity, so there aren’t that many girls that would necessarily fit the bill.”
WTF? One doesn't even know where to begin with is. Should we first point out there really isn't anything exotic at all about the "specific ethnicity" of Sasha and Malia? Are there any black people whose family has been here for more than a generation who aren't some crazy mixture of African and European blood? Should we point out that beautiful black girlhood looks like Malia and Sasha but also like Kyla Pratt and Keke Palmer and Willow Smith? Or do we simply point out that this woman clearly has never actually seen little black girls?
In the age of the Obama, when so many things seem possible, this is the kind of thing that keeps me awake at night. That people won't see my beautiful black girls, or that people will see them but will read their existence as some sort of aberration. I don't want my girls to be invisible or rare birds. I just want them to be.
Marlene Wallach, president of Wilhelmina Kids & Teens, says the First Daughters are tough subjects to match. “It’s a very specific age and a very specific ethnicity, so there aren’t that many girls that would necessarily fit the bill.”
WTF? One doesn't even know where to begin with is. Should we first point out there really isn't anything exotic at all about the "specific ethnicity" of Sasha and Malia? Are there any black people whose family has been here for more than a generation who aren't some crazy mixture of African and European blood? Should we point out that beautiful black girlhood looks like Malia and Sasha but also like Kyla Pratt and Keke Palmer and Willow Smith? Or do we simply point out that this woman clearly has never actually seen little black girls?
In the age of the Obama, when so many things seem possible, this is the kind of thing that keeps me awake at night. That people won't see my beautiful black girls, or that people will see them but will read their existence as some sort of aberration. I don't want my girls to be invisible or rare birds. I just want them to be.
Tuesday, February 03, 2009
Black Things I Love #2: Gumbo
"On a cold winter's day, gumbo is communion for the body."--BrianI'm sure some food historian out there my take issue with defining gumbo as "black," but as I'm from Louisiana and have never actually eaten gumbo (and I've eaten a lot of gumbo) prepared by someone other than a black woman, I'm going to call it black.
At home there are three questions that matter when meeting someone new: Who's your mama? Are you Catholic? And can you make a roux? While the first two are self-explantory, the third is nonetheless crucial. Roux (pronounced "roo") is the basis of any good gumbo (or etouffee for that matter) and getting it just right--cooking up butter and flour so that it turns a delicious caramel brown, without burning it, is considered an art.
In New Orleans, Brian's home, you can have okra gumbo or seafood gumbo or chicken and sausage gumbo. In Lafayette, where I'm from, we put all of that in the same pot (clearly the superior way to eat gumbo, though Brian doesn't let me cook it this way). If you meet anyone who is putting tomatoes or any other vegetable that isn't celery, onions, or bell pepper (the holy trinity of Cajun/Creole cooking), you know that person is making their gumbo all wrong.
Here's a last quote from Brian: "Make sure you put a little bit of cayenne pepper on top of your serving so that the gumbo lingers with you throughout the day, like any good sensual experience." (Actually what Brian said was quite a bit dirtier than that, but I've cleaned it up for you.)
Friday, January 30, 2009
Black Things I Love #1: Our Afrogeek-y President
I'm trying to institute a little writing discipline into my life, so I'm participating in Nablopomo's writing challenge. Instead of writing about this month's theme ("want"), though, I will instead observe Black History Month and Valentine's day by writing about black things I love. First up, Barack Obama: Fanboy.
Tales of Obama's comic booking collecting are almost certainly exaggerated, but I find this Onion piece, about Obama's cabinet complete cluelessness when it comes to Marvel comics, hysterical and comforting nevertheless. Here's a snippet:
While Obama has not scheduled another meeting with his cabinet this week—a respite the president hopes they will use to brush up on the 235-issue Savage Sword series—he is expected to meet with Secretary of Defense Robert Gates on Friday to discuss Afghanistan. A holdover from the Bush administration, Gates told reporters he may have gotten off on the wrong foot with the new president, citing an occasion when Obama asked him what he knew about 1984's Secret Wars, a 12-issue limited Marvel release. Gates then handed a visibly confused Obama 1,400 classified pages on covert CIA operations in El Salvador.
Is he really pacing up and down on the sidewalk outside his favorite comic shop every Wednesday (new comic day) hoping for the latest issue of New Avengers (my new favorite as of late)? Probably not. But the sheer geeky joy he seems to get from digging deep into the mind-numbing minutiae of political bureacracy or Keynesian economics or Medicare spending tells me he is fellow afrogeek.
Good Hair
I've written before about my own hair drama, but not about the how the drama plays out in my relationship with my daughters' hair. It's conventional wisdom (at least where I am from) that the kind of angst white girls have about their weight, black girls have about their hair. One of the parenting things I think about almost constantly is my girls' hair and whether or not their sense of worth or their own beauty will be diminished because it's not run-your-fingers-through-it straight and bouncy like their friends or women in shamppo commercials. One of the most trying moments I've recently with my older daughter is the morning she had a fit in the kitchen because I would let her wear her hair loose to school for "messy hair day." She insisted that her teacher was going to brush everybody's hair after the class took a picture. How do you explain to an 8-year old, without making her feel like the odd girl out, that brush her white firend's hair back into a ponytail is not really the same as brushing her hair?
Chris Rock apparently had the same concerns about his own daughters and made a documentary about it. Check it out.
Chris Rock apparently had the same concerns about his own daughters and made a documentary about it. Check it out.
Friday, January 23, 2009
Inappropriate Silliness on a Friday Afternoon
I had a whole post planned about my complete inability to parent the three year old who lives at my house (don't worry--that post is still coming). Instead of feeling sorry for myself, though, I'll post these instead.
First, in the tradition of Twisted Toyfare Theater, here is Barack Obama taking onDick Cheney in costume Darth Vader, complete with light sabers.
First, in the tradition of Twisted Toyfare Theater, here is Barack Obama taking on
And here is a lady talking about the Obamas' relationship. Watch and listen carefully. I think she has no idea she's being inappropriate.
Tuesday, January 20, 2009
Rev. Lowery Rocks My Socks; Praisesong for the Day
I was a weepy mess during the inauguration, and applauded several times during Obama's speech. But I have to say my favorite moments of the day didn't come from Obama, but rather from Joseph Lowery and Elizabeth Alexander.
While I continue to understand and support (mostly) Obama's pragmatic downplaying of the racial significance of his victory, it was incredibly satisfying to have Lowery, in his benediction, remind us of the racial context of the day.
Lord, in the memory of all the saints who from their labors rest, and in the joy of a new beginning, we ask you to help us work for that day when black will not be asked to get in back, when brown can stick around... when the red man can get ahead, man; and when white will embrace what is right. That all those who do justice and love mercy say Amen. Say Amen'...
And I also absolutely loved Alexander's poem. Here's my favorite bit
Say it plain, that many have died for this day. Sing the names of the dead who brought us here, who laid the train tracks, raised the bridges, picked the cotton and the lettuce, built brick by brick the glittering edifices they would then keep clean and work inside of.
Praise song for struggle; praise song for the day. Praise song for every hand-lettered sign; The figuring it out at kitchen tables.
Some live by “Love thy neighbor as thy self.”
Others by first do no harm, or take no more than you need.
What if the mightiest word is love, love beyond marital, filial, national. Love that casts a widening pool of light. Love with no need to preempt grievance.
In today’s sharp sparkle, this winter air, anything can be made, any sentence begun.
On the brink, on the brim, on the cusp — praise song for walking forward in that light.
While I continue to understand and support (mostly) Obama's pragmatic downplaying of the racial significance of his victory, it was incredibly satisfying to have Lowery, in his benediction, remind us of the racial context of the day.
Lord, in the memory of all the saints who from their labors rest, and in the joy of a new beginning, we ask you to help us work for that day when black will not be asked to get in back, when brown can stick around... when the red man can get ahead, man; and when white will embrace what is right. That all those who do justice and love mercy say Amen. Say Amen'...
And I also absolutely loved Alexander's poem. Here's my favorite bit
Say it plain, that many have died for this day. Sing the names of the dead who brought us here, who laid the train tracks, raised the bridges, picked the cotton and the lettuce, built brick by brick the glittering edifices they would then keep clean and work inside of.
Praise song for struggle; praise song for the day. Praise song for every hand-lettered sign; The figuring it out at kitchen tables.
Some live by “Love thy neighbor as thy self.”
Others by first do no harm, or take no more than you need.
What if the mightiest word is love, love beyond marital, filial, national. Love that casts a widening pool of light. Love with no need to preempt grievance.
In today’s sharp sparkle, this winter air, anything can be made, any sentence begun.
On the brink, on the brim, on the cusp — praise song for walking forward in that light.
Monday, January 19, 2009
Mommy Notes
I have long held that part of what makes motherhood so difficult is the unreasonable expectations women are encouraged to live up to. (Brian could write a whole book on the pitifully low expectations of fathers, but that's another post). The idea that having a womb means that I will unequivocally, at every moment, enjoy my children and love the day-to-day task of taking care of them, for me at least, has been something I struggled with. Because, honestly, sometimes parenting is nothing more than a pain in the butt, no matter how cute my girls might be in their self-fashioned superhero costumes or playing Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star on the guitar and moroccas.
A Chronicle of Higher Education article offers us some good news and bad news about parenting, particularly the nature/nurture debate. It's a great article about what the latest in sociology and psychology tell us about parenting, but this was my favorite bit:
According to a study by a team of scholars led by the Nobel Prize-winning psychologist Daniel Kahneman, mothers enjoy child care just a little more than housework, and a lot less than watching television. As an economist, I have to suspect that a major reason for parents' lack of enthusiasm for their role is simply diminishing marginal utility: Average enjoyment of parenting is low because parents are overdoing it.
A Chronicle of Higher Education article offers us some good news and bad news about parenting, particularly the nature/nurture debate. It's a great article about what the latest in sociology and psychology tell us about parenting, but this was my favorite bit:
According to a study by a team of scholars led by the Nobel Prize-winning psychologist Daniel Kahneman, mothers enjoy child care just a little more than housework, and a lot less than watching television. As an economist, I have to suspect that a major reason for parents' lack of enthusiasm for their role is simply diminishing marginal utility: Average enjoyment of parenting is low because parents are overdoing it.
Friday, January 16, 2009
Notes from Sabbatical, Part 2
(Hello Moxie Readers!)
The Good: I spent a guilt-free evening with Brian (it's a lot easier to enjoy date night when there aren't set of papers to be graded or class prep waiting for you at home). We saw Slumdog Millionaire, which was both heartwarming and incredibly disturbing, in part because the little kid who played the young Jamal looks a lot like my youngest kid--something about the big ears and the mischievious glint in his eyes.
The Unexpected: Everyone has an opinion about how I should spend my sabbatical and many people to seem to take it as a personal offense if they see me on or near campus. I am usually greeted by my colleagues with, "Hey. How's it going?" This week, almost everyone who's seen me on campus says, "What are you doing here?" I find that disconcerting.
The Not-So-Unexpected: I really don't want to be a stay at home mother. I am reminded again, as I am periodically, when the nature of my work allows me to spend an extended amount of time away from the office, that the care and feeding of children and the maintenance of a household alone cannot sustain me. I fully recognize that parenting is a lot easier when I haven't been at work all day. I'm not as exhausted, I have more patience, I get to go on school field trips. But I'm also fully aware that this arrangement is only temporary (my sabbatical is only a semester long), and since I'm writing and researching, I'm still working a great deal. That sustains me. This is not my life. And I'm happy about that.
The Good: I spent a guilt-free evening with Brian (it's a lot easier to enjoy date night when there aren't set of papers to be graded or class prep waiting for you at home). We saw Slumdog Millionaire, which was both heartwarming and incredibly disturbing, in part because the little kid who played the young Jamal looks a lot like my youngest kid--something about the big ears and the mischievious glint in his eyes.
The Unexpected: Everyone has an opinion about how I should spend my sabbatical and many people to seem to take it as a personal offense if they see me on or near campus. I am usually greeted by my colleagues with, "Hey. How's it going?" This week, almost everyone who's seen me on campus says, "What are you doing here?" I find that disconcerting.
The Not-So-Unexpected: I really don't want to be a stay at home mother. I am reminded again, as I am periodically, when the nature of my work allows me to spend an extended amount of time away from the office, that the care and feeding of children and the maintenance of a household alone cannot sustain me. I fully recognize that parenting is a lot easier when I haven't been at work all day. I'm not as exhausted, I have more patience, I get to go on school field trips. But I'm also fully aware that this arrangement is only temporary (my sabbatical is only a semester long), and since I'm writing and researching, I'm still working a great deal. That sustains me. This is not my life. And I'm happy about that.
Wednesday, January 14, 2009
Notes from Sabbatical, part 1
I wish I had something profound to say about being on sabbatical, but sadly I don't. The only insights I've gleaned from my first three days is that I don't quite know what to do with unstructured time. My days stretch endlessly before me and that freaks me out a bit. Today was better than Monday (I did actual work today), but I can tell this will take some getting used to.
All that said, sabbatical does give me some time to indulge in distractions, like this:
Clearly everybody in American has already seen this video, but I'm just now seeing it from beginning to end. And while I find the politics of the song horribly bourgeois and kind of antifeminist, I can avert eyes. I love it.
I've also been thinking about this article from Bitch: Aint I a Mommy. One of the reasons I started this blog is because I was in constant search of moomy narratives that mirrored my experience. In all the talk about "mommy wars" you rest assured that the voices of women of color (not to mention single women or working class women or lesbian women) are few and far between. I wanted to hear from women like me: nerdy black women who loved their kids and their job and were happily, mostly, doing the mommy dance. I couldn't find those voices, so here we are. Now that I'm on sabbatical, I'll have some more time to reflect on the mommy dance.
All that said, sabbatical does give me some time to indulge in distractions, like this:
Clearly everybody in American has already seen this video, but I'm just now seeing it from beginning to end. And while I find the politics of the song horribly bourgeois and kind of antifeminist, I can avert eyes. I love it.
I've also been thinking about this article from Bitch: Aint I a Mommy. One of the reasons I started this blog is because I was in constant search of moomy narratives that mirrored my experience. In all the talk about "mommy wars" you rest assured that the voices of women of color (not to mention single women or working class women or lesbian women) are few and far between. I wanted to hear from women like me: nerdy black women who loved their kids and their job and were happily, mostly, doing the mommy dance. I couldn't find those voices, so here we are. Now that I'm on sabbatical, I'll have some more time to reflect on the mommy dance.
Thursday, January 01, 2009
Kwanzaa with the Afrogeeks
I had a long post planned defending Kwanzaa, chastising those who mocked the "made up" nature of Kwanzaa (as if all holidays weren't man-made social constructs), correcting the myth that Kwanzaa is a black separatist, socialist holiday, but instead I will share how I came to celebrate Kwanzaa.
My oldest daughter learned about Kwanzaa last year at her public school. She learned that it was an African American holiday and wanted to know why we, a family of African Americans, didn't celebrate it. In my head I had a whole list of reasons, similar to the ones found in this article and the comments on this post, but I didn't tell her any of this. Instead I set about the task of reading all I could about Kwanzaa and figuring out how our family would observe the holiday. Last year it was important to celebrate Kwanzaa not because it was a black holiday but because my daughter, who often expresses anxiety about being the only black kid in her social circle, wanted to do something "black." However contrived the whole thing might be, easing some of her anxiety would be worth it.
The funny thing is, though, the family loved it. We bought a kinara and candles, but spent money on little else. We checked out some books on Kwanzaa from the library and read about Africa. We researched black scientists on the internet. We made a bunch of African flags from construction paper and made a black, red, and green streamer for the Christmas tree. And for seven days we enjoyed being together as a black family.
This year, as we got out the Christmas decorations, my daughter reminded me that we need to get out the Kwanzaa decorations as well. She had her wish list for Santa, but she was also looking forward to the handmade/useful/culturally relevant Kwanzaa gift she would get on the sixth night of Kwanzaa. She had hopes for a necklace made with African beads to match the bracelet she already owns. She was over the moon about the quilt made from her old t-shirts that she actually received. Our observance this year consisted of talking about the way we could practice the Kwanzaa principles all year (my favorite: the girls deciding on their own they could practice unity by not fighting all the time over toys), correcting my oldest daughter's impression that African American history consists solely of slavery and emancipation, reading about famous African princesses and fierce African American women, and listening to a lot of music (the baby has developed quite the passion for Motown and Miles Davis). We also made Kwanzza pal refrigerator magnets.
My oldest daughter learned about Kwanzaa last year at her public school. She learned that it was an African American holiday and wanted to know why we, a family of African Americans, didn't celebrate it. In my head I had a whole list of reasons, similar to the ones found in this article and the comments on this post, but I didn't tell her any of this. Instead I set about the task of reading all I could about Kwanzaa and figuring out how our family would observe the holiday. Last year it was important to celebrate Kwanzaa not because it was a black holiday but because my daughter, who often expresses anxiety about being the only black kid in her social circle, wanted to do something "black." However contrived the whole thing might be, easing some of her anxiety would be worth it.
The funny thing is, though, the family loved it. We bought a kinara and candles, but spent money on little else. We checked out some books on Kwanzaa from the library and read about Africa. We researched black scientists on the internet. We made a bunch of African flags from construction paper and made a black, red, and green streamer for the Christmas tree. And for seven days we enjoyed being together as a black family.
This year, as we got out the Christmas decorations, my daughter reminded me that we need to get out the Kwanzaa decorations as well. She had her wish list for Santa, but she was also looking forward to the handmade/useful/culturally relevant Kwanzaa gift she would get on the sixth night of Kwanzaa. She had hopes for a necklace made with African beads to match the bracelet she already owns. She was over the moon about the quilt made from her old t-shirts that she actually received. Our observance this year consisted of talking about the way we could practice the Kwanzaa principles all year (my favorite: the girls deciding on their own they could practice unity by not fighting all the time over toys), correcting my oldest daughter's impression that African American history consists solely of slavery and emancipation, reading about famous African princesses and fierce African American women, and listening to a lot of music (the baby has developed quite the passion for Motown and Miles Davis). We also made Kwanzza pal refrigerator magnets.
All in all, it has been a pleasant way to spend seven days
Tuesday, December 23, 2008
UPS Tracking is Evil
I have been watching Christmas presents make their way across the country. Three days ago UPS tracking was my best friend. It was nice daily assurance that the things I ordered were making steady progress to my door. Today, though, it's just evil because now, instead of making steady progress, UPS tracking shows me that my gifts arrived in Charleston at 4:12am yesterday and THEY ARE STILL THERE. Without UPS tracking I could imagine that my gifts, which are not under my tree, are in a truck somewhere in Georgia or North Carolina making their way here. But no. UPS tracking gives me the ability to know that my gifts are sitting just a few miles away in a warehouse. Evil.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)