Me too

2 posts in one night, Fae? Weird.

Well, I wanted to talk about something, and then I had a bad couple of days…. but we’ll get to that in another post.

I want to talk about the Metoo campaign.

When it first started trending, I was so proud of the women responding. Some of those women on my Twitter and Facebook feed have rarely told their stories to people. Some of those I was surprised would actually publicly admit that they too were sexually harassed and/or assaulted. And I wanted to stand with them, but I’m one of the “lucky” ones.

I remember sitting in Women’s Self-Defense in college, cross-legged, in the small gym, listening about the statistics on sexual assault on women in the United States. Then I heard 1 in 4 women will be sexually assaulted in her life time. I was in class with some friends. And I already knew who the 1 was. And it wasn’t me.

As I grew and learned and listened and consoled, I counted. One woman was raped by an ex boyfriend, and when others heard the commotion, they ignored it and called her a liar afterwards. One woman was told that he took her out and she owed him; she complied out of guilt and fear. Another woman was drunk; he got her drunk; he plied her with drinks all night and got her drunk. One girl was fooling around with a boy, and then he forced her to have sex, pinning her down, and then he told her it was her fault because she made him hard. I know women as young girls who were fondled sexually on the knee of their relatives. Another woman waited until the guy she wanted was drunk and in bed before jumping in; I gave her hell for it.

And I was never the 1 in 4.

With every story from a friend, with every new article I read, I wondered how was I so lucky.

Why was I so lucky?

Was it because I always wore shorts or jeans? Was it because I always walked tough? Was it the rumor in high school and college that said I had no moral code to keep me from damaging a male’s favorite body part? Was it because I was straight edge? Was it because I grew up with boys? Was it because I was never last at the party?

But it was luck.

I walked home alone in the dark. I walked miles to my apartment alone after 10 pm. I was alone in dorm rooms and houses with boys. I’ve ignored my warning instincts. My warning instincts have failed to warn me.

But I was lucky. I’ve been playing Russian roulette, and every time that bullet wasn’t mine.

So I didn’t type Me too into my feeds.

Until I thought about all the discussions I had with boys and men about sexual harassment.

No, it’s not because the guy was unattractive or too old or too young or too drunk or didn’t dress right or didn’t look like he had money or a job or a nice car. No, it’s not a compliment. It will never be a compliment. It was never attended to be a compliment. Yes, if a very handsome, well-dressed, just-the-right-age guy said that to me in that way, it would still be sexual harassment.

At the age of 11, some guy, about late 20s, early 30s,  followed me around K-Mart, trailing me, stalking me, waited until my parents were a few yards away from me before leaning over me to whisper in my ear how tasty I looked.

That feeling I had at that moment is what I compare all “compliments” to. I felt small, weak, and helpless. I felt dirty, defiled, and disgusted. I felt naked, naughty, and guilty. I felt shame. I. felt. shame.

For what? Even at 11, I did not know why I felt violated and why I felt it was my fault.

This moment would happen over and over.

I didn’t wear dresses in high school and college because every time I did, some guy would sexually harass me.  I can’t even count how many times guys would yell or whistle from their cars. In college, I had to walk by a construction site every day, and when one of my guy friends learned I was trying to avoid the walk (which I couldn’t; that’s the only way to get home) and why, he walked me home every day after that.

When I was young, working at an operator, I wore short shorts to work, and an employee would always sit near me and look at my legs, just stare at them. One day he waited until I was on a long phone call and asked if he could touch my legs. I mouthed what? with a slight head movement. He took it as a yes and caressed my leg. I nearly gagged. As I write this, my stomach lurched. He disappeared so I couldn’t confront him later. But I wore jeans after that. I changed my behavior so a guy wouldn’t touch me.

And I can hear guys now, well you didn’t say no; he didn’t know better; at least he asked; you shouldn’t have been wearing short shorts either. Boys, could you please imagine some stranger sitting next to you in a public place who just caressed your bare skin without your explicit consent? Creepy, right?

And I thought my days were over. I didn’t have to worry about jerks like those man-children. I was a mother. I always had a child on me. I was a teacher. I was always with children.

Then a few months ago I took the boys out for ice cream at a fast food spot. As we ate out food, an older man came over and asked if he could give me a compliment. I assumed it was about the boys. They were doing amazing. Then he leaned over and whispered, “You look deliciously gorgeous.” And that disgust/shame/dirty/violated feeling hit me. And I was too ashamed to do anything.

Then he left, and I grew angry. How dare he cat call me in front of my boys! I should have ripped out his tongue. But I was ashamed. For that man’s behavior. He made me feel shame for being a woman. When I related the incident to another guy, he answered, “He thought he was giving you a compliment; he meant no harm.” Bullsh*t. You know how I know? Because he whispered it. He whispered it instead of saying it in a regular voice and tone. He knew he was going to make me uncomfortable. He wanted me to feel uncomfortable that’s why he used the word “delicious,” why he whispered it.

Yes, I’m one of the lucky ones who has never been sexually assaulted. But I have been sexually harassed. I know the feelings of guilt, shame, disgust, filthiness because some man-child thinks he owns my body for those few moments. As I tried to explained to my male allies, we know these words aren’t for us. We know we are just a piece of meat to be ogled, an animal to stalk and hunt, an image to masturbate to. We know the difference between a guy giving us a compliment and a guy cat calling us.

I know this piece is just preaching to the choir. But I had to say it.

To all the men and women, boys and girls, who have been sexually assaulted and/or sexually harassed, I stand with you.

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A Stupid Bill in AZ

My state cannot keep itself out of controversy.  And now it’s debating a bill so damn stupid that I’ve been seeing red since last night.  I read about AZ House Bill 2625.  You can read it here or watch it here or have the joy of reading the bill itself here, and if you want to be really pissed off, you can read this editorial here.

Basically if this bill becomes law, it allows any and all employers to deny an employee’s birth control coverage if the employer has a religious or moral objection.  If the employee wants birth control for something other than to stop conception, she would need to bring a note from the doctor to state the medical reason for the birth control.  I’m so angry right now that I don’t know where to begin to argue against this bill.  So instead of writing an incoherent letter to the editor, I figured I’d start here.

First off, employers do NOT pay for birth control.  They may pay for part of the health insurance.  The employee pays for the health insurance.  The employee pays for the birth control.  While the Obama administration is trying to make birth control pills covered by insurance companies, most employees still have to pay for that insurance.  So, I fail to see why the employer has a say on insurance coverage, if the employee has to pay for it.

Second, Debbie Lesko, State House of Representative, introduced the bill, saying,  “We live in America. We don’t live in the Soviet Union.  The government shouldn’t be telling mom-and- pop employers and religious organizations to do something that’s against the moral or religious beliefs. It’s just not right.”  No, Rep Lesko, what you’re proposing is a theocracy that puts a person’s religious beliefs above another’s civil liberties.  Here in the US, we were founded and believe in a separation of church and state, which means, not only are we protected to practice as we see fit, but we are protected from other people’s beliefs.  State Senator Linda Lopez said it better with this, “If it were truly about religious freedom, we would allow Christian scientists and Jehovah Witnesses to refuse to pay for coverage of life-saving blood transfusions for employers.  Religious freedom means I get to choose whether or not to be religious and if so, how.”

Third, it is no one’s business as to why a woman takes birth control pills.  Not her family’s, not her friend’s, not the government’s, and absolutely not her employer’s.  The right is worried about “a nanny state” and then proposes this kind of legislation.  If women have to “prove” why they are taking birth control, then what’s to stop other people needing to prove their illnesses.  Are we heading to a world where people will need a doctor’s note for every sick day?  Are we going to demand proof for other medications that treat allergies, depression, diabetes?  ALL people have a right to their own private personal lives and medical histories.

Fourth, what constitutes a religious or moral belief?  What keeps employers from abusing this law and opting for cheaper insurance coverages that have no birth control?  Shouldn’t the employer prove how religious he or she is?  I want to know their religion, if they tithe correctly, if they follow all the rules of the religion.  Failing these things, they shouldn’t be able to impose their beliefs on other people.  Oh, that’s right.  They shouldn’t impose their religious beliefs on any one.  I also propose that businesses have to disclose to all potential employees that they will not be offering birth control coverage, so that potential employees can withdraw their applications.  (Not that will happen with jobs as scarce as they are today.)

Fifth, why are we arguing about this?  (I can’t find the article that I read last night about this.  I don’t have the time to retrace my steps.  I’m, as Jon Stewart calls it, part of the busy majority. I’ll look for it.)  Back in 2002, Arizona passed a bill stating that all employers were required to offer birth control coverage as part of their health insurance coverages.  Not that they had to pay for it, just that it had to be part of the benefits.  In the last ten years, there has not been ONE SINGLE COMPLAINT.  That’s right.  Not one complaint.  No one has said this law infringed on his/her religious views.  No one has cried at the outrage of it all.  Not one person has written, called, email, gone to the press, got a lawyer to say that this law destroyed his/her religious freedom.  I don’t even understand why any one would write a bill for no one.

I’m angry enough that I emailed all 30 state senators last night as well as the governor.  The plan was to call all of them today, but I have kids, so I’ll have to do it in batches.  I plan to keep emailing and calling these senators.  I don’t understand why there is this backlash against women.  That’s what it feels like.  A war on women.  No one is talking about taking away men’s birth control.  Everyone is talking about taking away women’s.  They’re talking about mandatory waiting periods for abortions as though women haven’t agonized for hours, days, weeks before coming to a conclusion they didn’t want.  They’re making laws to force women to do intravaginal ultrasounds before abortions.  I have had the “pleasant” experience of one of these.  They’re not fun to say the least, and I dealt with the pain because I was scared over the failure to find a heartbeat.  They’re talking about defunding Planned Parenthood, which is where millions of women get their healthcare because it’s affordable.  My state wants to make it legal for doctors to withhold information about embryos and fetuses if the doctor feels the woman would abort if there was something wrong with the embryo or fetus.  I heard a rumor that my own state is debating a bill to have schools teach abortion is bad.  (Duh.)  If schools are going to start teaching morality, let’s start with the basics of lying, cheating, stealing, and hurting people. 

I understand the fight to end abortions.  No one wants more abortions or any that are not medically necessary.  But this is all the wrong way to go about it.  If people want to end abortions, then there needs to be easy access to free birth control.  Adoption needs to be made simpler.  Women’s Centers shouldn’t be shaming and guilting women into keeping babies; they should be helping these women with healthcare needs, employment needs, personal needs, baby needs.  People, who want to lie and shame women into keeping babies, should put their money where their mouths are.  Those people better be ready with resources to help those women, those families, such as babysitters, therapists, affordable daycare and whatever else is needed to help these families strive.  States should have six months maternity leave.  These are the things that will make abortion numbers drop like a rock.

I know I was all over the place with this post.  I usually don’t get on a soapbox.  I try not to judge.  I like to believe that people are making the right decisions for themselves.  I want politics to be used for making the world a better place for everyone.  Tune in tomorrow when I’ll be back to my usual self.  Hopefully I’ll be funny too.

Hey is that a soap box?: Sugar Babies and Daddies

Are you kidding me?

 

Did any one watch Good Morning America and the sugar daddies?  I wanted to write on their board, but I had just too much to say and I get a little PG-13 when I note the difference between sex and love making.

 

First off, we women need to make a pact.  If he’s married, we’re not interested.  Women are too competitive with each other, too leery of each other, to worry about some chick is going to take our man, even if we don’t want him.  Now if my husband found a cute little thing that makes him happy.  Fine.  Give me the divorce, half your stuff, and the kids and go have a nice life.  Spend as much money on her as you want, but don’t you dare think you can get away spending the family money to buy access to some nineteen-year-old’s twin bed.

 

Second, let’s be honest, little sugar babies.  You’re whores.  You are.  If you want a guy “to take care of you” and you fuck him (yes, fuck because it ain’t love making) to thank him or because you feel obligated, then you are a prostitute.  Now don’t feel too bad.  I know lots of girls who felt obligated to fuck a guy because he bought them a nice dinner or gave them something.  Granted, I was taught just to pay for the next meal, but I can see where you might get confused.  The difference between sugar babies and the ordinary girl is the ordinary girl isn’t looking for a guy “to take care of her.”  And if this is the road you girls choose, diamonds aren’t your best friends.  They don’t resell as well as you think.  Take a cue from your foremothers; the best courtesans received property and houses deeded to them.

Third, any woman, who had a good dad, would never ever call a guy a “Daddy” or a “Sugar Daddy.”  It turns my stomach just to think of it as I remember all the times I called my Dad, Daddy before I was cool enough and old enough to shorten it.  Once my husband joked about it after I had left my job to raise Tornado E.  The moment the word “daddy” left his mouth, his face contorted, and he said that it was a poor joke and one never to be mentioned again.  I looked over at the baby who would one day call my husband Daddy and quickly agreed with him.

 

Fourth, you girls who fuck as a thank you, you sugar babies, you all are making the rest of us look bad.  Most of us can’t be bought, not for a lobster dinner, not for a diamond ring, not for a vacation to the Bahamas.  But this will perpetuate the myth that all a girl wants is a guy’s wallet, and really, some guys aren’t even worth that.

 

And I promise I will make sure my boys aren’t the fools, who pay for love, that they aren’t the idiots who believe they can have it both ways, that aren’t the jerks who take advantage of the situation because that’s one of the many jobs of a mom, to raise the good guys.

Flanagan vs working moms and housewives

The problem with Caitlin Flanagan’s The Hell with All That: Loving and Loathing your Inner Housewife is Flanagan demonizes both working and stay-at-home mothers.  She wants to be considered fulfilled and important by being a working mother, but she also wants to create a home atmosphere where she stays to cook dinners and be there for her family.  There’s nothing wrong with wanting to have it all.  The problem lies that she holds working mothers in contempt because they miss that close bond with their children and believes stay-at-home moms are selfishly demanding me-time from their families, not caring to do the housework or even the mother work.  She believes in a simpler time when housewives were competent, content women who knew how to make a house a home.  This time never existed.

 

Her first look at the culture of marriage is through the bridal magazines, and she sees a world of inflated dreams crushing the very union of marriage.  She’s right.  But she tends to blame feminism for killing the wedding ceremony, leaving the American culture without any understanding of what the ceremony actually means.  Feminism did not kill weddings.  Materialism did.  Watch just one episode of Bridezilla, and you’ll understand that there is something very wrong with the institute of marriage.  Flip through a bridal magazine, and it will whisper of elegant dresses, extravagant dishes, and exotic locals.  The wedding industry cajoles, seduces, pushes weddings to be ever bigger because that is their business, to make weddings a significant occasion with a very significant price tag.  It is the savvy marketing that appeals to the very selfish, self-centered, greedy part of our society.  It is the dream that every girl is a princess, and every bride should have her dream.  Flanagan is right is laughable to see these women walk down the aisle in white dresses, forgetting that this is to symbolize virginity, but Flanagan forgets the white wedding dress only came to popularity with Queen Victoria’s wedding, when before any beautiful dress would do.  We are losing our bridal rituals, but we aren’t losing it to feminism.

 

While I have already discussed Flanagan’s views on the sexless marriage, I will just touch on them briefly.  Flanagan believes women are refusing sex in a passive aggressive way because they are doing all the work.  Because it’s the women’s fault for doing all the work, it is her problem to fix and mend.  I don’t agree at all. I think it’s a two person problem; therefore, it should be fixed by two people.  Another problem with this chapter is her first mention that if men started doing the housework like we women would like (cleaning up the crumbs after the dishes, putting notes in with the kid’s lunches, ironing curtains), men would be demasculinized in our eyes.  Ha.  I know plenty of men that help out with the housework, and they are still very much men.  I would almost bet they are getting more sex than the men I know who don’t help around the house.  Not only can we not keep our men satisfies, we apparently can’t keep a clean, orderly house either.

 

While Flanagan assumed stay-at-home moms could satisfy their men more than working mothers, she believes both women fail miserably when it comes to making a house a home.  Working mothers just pass on these chores to cleaning women, and so does the average stay-at-home mom.  Well, that was news to me.  I can’t even think of another stay-at-home mom that hired a cleaning person (well, except me, for three months after Tornado E’s birth at the insistence of my husband and his administrative assistant.  I fired her as soon as I could figure out how to run the household with a baby).  It is here that I realized the Flanagan is not an average stay-at-home mom, but that she had the means to do more and that she didn’t actually understand the plight of ordinary women.  According the Flanagan, stay-at-home moms go to the movies, the spa, to book clubs, leaving the house work to others, not even knowing the price of milk.  I am certain that most women, especially those who stay at home, do their own house cleaning, do the shopping with a budget, mend shirts, and all the other day to day things that Flanagan loves but never does.  She doesn’t understand the tedium of housework because she never did it.  She NEVER did it.  At this point, Flanagan should be fired as a sage for housewives.

 

Then Flanagan moves on to discussing child rearing.  After a chapter discussing the use of nannies in Victorian England, she then has a chapter about her nanny hired to take care of her sons because all the other stay-at-home moms have one.  Really?  Another interesting fact.  From the look of the blogs out there, most of us can’t find a decent sitter for a measly night out with or without a husband much less another set of hands to take care of the children five days a week.  In this chapter she talks about how inadequate she feels with her babies, and thank god her nanny is so good.  The rest of us mothers out there have felt our moments of inadequacy deep to the soul, and we dealt with it and moved on.  We were the ones that took care of the sick child, changing the sheets, bathing the child, calming the child, not someone else.  Flanagan also mentions how she wanted someone in the house to make it loving and warm, like her mother used to do.  That’s your job now, Mrs. Housewife.  We all miss our mothers taking care of us.  We make the bed so that we can return to it feeling warm and clean.  We cook cookies to eat the dough and have the smell run through the house because it reminds us of home.  Flanagan does not understand the desperate act of mothering. 

 

 

Flanagan is looking for a reason why she feels incompetent.  She finds it in the fact the feminism robbed women of home ec and the knowledge that we would be homemakers, important and loved.  She sees that mothers run after their children, taking them to every activity that can be crammed into their children’s lives, paying homage to the domestic goddess of Martha Stewart, and becoming addicted to organizing and decluttering.  Again I see these as symptoms of materialism and advertising.  Nothing can sell a parent better than the threat that their children may not be using their full potential; hence why many kids have several activities on their plate.  But this has been happening for some time.  My brothers and I were in scouts, volleyball, basketball, softball or baseball, swimming lessons.  If we could have afforded it we would have had music lessons.  My father and his siblings all took various music lessons and did various sports.  The fact that Americans have raised this to a new level of fanaticism is just yet another marketing scheme, trying to take money from parents who are trying to make prodigies or at least make them well-rounded enough to get into a good college.  As long as these activities are done to moderation, then why not schlep a kid around because we are yearning for a better life for that child. 

 

As for Martha Stewart and organization, I feel that Flanagan is right to believe this is a call for a simpler time.  Martha Stewart shows off peace and beauty as unattainable as that is in a house full of kids.  We yearn for a more organized home that runs efficiently leaving us time to redecorate, bake, or just plain relax.  It just makes sense that a busy mother would want this.  But I doubt that every household in those bygone days looked like the Cleaver’s or the Nelson’s.  Kids back then were much like kids today, tornadoes.  I think we set the bar too high to expect a perfectly manicured house while raising sweet, smart, clean kids.  Even my grandma didn’t believe in keeping an immaculate house unless company demands it.  Really Flanagan is living in a different world than what the rest of us live in, one with hired help.

 

The vary essence of this book is Caitlin Flanagan not realizing that housewives back then felt the same way as stay-at-home mothers today.  She even quotes Erma Bombeck as saying she went to see Betty Friedan just to get out of the day’s house work, but Flanagan fails to realize what Bombeck said.  To get out of the house work.  In Flanagan’s mind those fifties and sixties were a time where women were competent and confident in their roles of housewife, not minding the tediousness of the chores that had to be done and redone every day.  Flanagan is looking to understand why she isn’t like that, and because she lost her mother before her boys were older than five, Flanagan never had the same talks that I had with my mom, where my mom admits to being just as confused and anxious as I am.  Flanagan wants to be like her mom but fails because she doesn’t understand her “inner housewife.”  Maybe she doesn’t understand it because she’s never done it.  She instead vilifies all women in what they are trying to do, encouraging them to give up on their dreams of having it all and sending their children to private universities.  I guess Susan Jane Gilman is right.  We’re all the fashion police.

 

Breaking a Promise On The Hell With All That

Ok.  Ok.  (I’m not sure if Tornado E got that from me; or I from him.)  I’m in the middle of reading The Hell with All That: Loving and Loathing Our Inner Housewives by Caitlin Flanagan.  I have realized I will probably have to hunt down and read most of the books that she quotes from, which might not be too bad, due to some sound interesting.  I promised you all that I would write when I’m done, but I HAVE to get this off my chest.  Really, I might be able to raise a flag and get some support here.

 

I just finish reading “The Wifely Duty,” this is the point where I actually flip the bird at the book.  I was with Flanagan during the preface as she mourns the death of her mother, who will not be immortalized in the way her writer of a father will be with an archive in a college somewhere.  I understood the heartache and the fear of not being remembered, but I believe the lessons of motherhood and fatherhood are passed down through the heart and memories.  (I follow my great-grandmother’s advice, though I never met her, because her daughter and granddaughters followed and taught it.)  In “The Virgin Bride,” I agreed with Flanagan that the wedding industry is CRAZY, and all you have to do is watch one episode of Bridezilla to know that.  But I think this phenomom is due to sauve marketing and advertising of the bridal industry feeding off of the greed and selfishness in modern American culture versus that feminism fatally wounded the white wedding as it was known.  (More on these subjects later)  But to say that it is MY duty, and my duty alone, to keep the passion alive in my marriage, is enough for me to want to burn the book and be thankful that I bought it second hand so that there is no record of me reading it.  Wait, I guess I screwed that up when I decided to write about the book on this blog.

 

Like many young wives and mothers, I work my ass off, just like many young husbands and fathers work their asses off.  I have even actually had this discussion with a marriage counselor who said that many couples in their twenties and early thirties have a diminished sex life.  The counselor maintained this was due to the hard work and stress both partners were dealing with.  Those years are crucial to people who are building their careers, and these are also the years that there are small children in the house, who are taking up a lot of time and energy.  Once the working partner(s) make some head way in their career and the children start doing things for themselves, the couple reinitiates their sex life.

 

To say that it is the wife’s duty to make the husband satisfied is insulting.  It takes two.  Without going too much into my own marriage (just in case my husband does read it, because you know he will now that I wrote about him), let’s just say he wants it on the days that there was no sleep the night before, teething, fighting, pressing buttons, peeing, vomiting, and of course chores.  It never fails that the day he comes home from a stressful day to fall asleep on the couch to the noise of Finding Nemo and couch sliding is the day I’ve been wistfully fantasizing about when the boys go to bed and it’s the two of us.  If I remember my human biology right or even the sex course, I believe it takes two people.  I have a hard time believing that all those sexless marriages are due to a working mother’s resistance to her husband not cleaning up after the kids, which is just as comical as Greek actors running around the stage with paper maché penises agreeing to peace.  Hell, if that’s all it took to get world peace, much less a husband to remember that you have to wash children’s hands and faces after ice cream, women would be refraining from sex all the time.  The fact is that is doesn’t work, and in the end, women just have too much to do than to add wear sex lingerie as you cook dinner so you can give your husband a BJ the moment you finished putting the children to bed.

 

Really, who wants chore sex?

 

The fact of the matter is that if the husband and wife help each other out, they will be more willing to jump enthusiastically in bed because they will have the energy.  While my husband wistfully remembers the time before the boys, he has to think even further back to a time before he was building a company from the ground up.  And I will look forward to the time I can drop the boys off at my mom’s.

Apologies

To my Beloved Readers,

        Especially Penelope, badmommymoments, and Lindsey,

 

I apologize for my rant yesterday.  It is one of my fatal flows to allow myself a short snapping fuse that explodes with a horrible rant, like a thunderstorm that comes in, destroys, and leaves.  I thank you for reading and responding.  (I can actually picture badmommymomments rolling her eyes.)  I told my father about my rant who told me I’m becoming too sensitive, which is probably true.  He listens to my rants quietly and then turns the mirror my way, so does my best friend.  Maybe I’m a little unbalanced because she’s away, yet again, for her work, and I think it just might be that time of the month.

 

But really you didn’t need to witness (or read) a whiney, angry rant with all bark and no bite, sort of.  What was I pissed about that some one wants to be June Clever?  I don’t, so why should I care?  And I really don’t understand how you do it Lindsey with everything you do around your house or you, Penelope, with a professorship and two boys.  I’m amazed.  I promise I will reread To Hell with All That and clarify myself better, and I think I might read a few other books on the subject as well, seeing that this hit some nerve that needs to be explored.

 

As I also explained my actions today to my husband as he fixed himself a plate, he didn’t see my problem with the word housewife as the book explains it.  So I casually asked if he wouldn’t mind be called a househusband*.  He said he preferred the term domestic economist.  Ha!

 

So in conclusion, I again thank you for your patience, and if I write about this weirdness of being a housewife as I come to terms with it, fill free to roll your eyes and move on to the next post.  And badmommymomments, you might have noticed I said a dozen cookies out of the refrigerated dough, which actually comes in 18 cookie packs.  I eat a half dozen raw.

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* My husband dreams of the day where he has retired with a large sum; while I go to work.   He believes he’ll be able to do a better job than me, even though he is allergic to house work. He has actually said, “I’ll have gourmet food on the table, the kids cleaned and not fighting, and the house will look so good Better Homes and Gardens will want take its picture.”  Granted this vision is several years away, and the said kids will be in school.

Housewife! Kill me!

I’m sorry; I was just planning on getting out of the blogging world and calling my parents when I happened on a couple of posts that made me go WHAT!  Now I tend not to argue with people on their own blog; it is their own opinion.  Who am I to say they’re crazy?  Then we come to Faemom’s House of Insanity, and I have complete editorial power.  (Though I don’t mind if you call me crazy; I believe I’m one foot there with the other on a banana peel.)   But I just read some one referring herself to June Clever because she had cookies and milk ready for her kids, which is awesome, but they were from refrigerated dough.  And another blogger was extolling the wonderfulness of the book The Hell With ALL That: Loving and Loathing Your Inner Housewife by Caitlin Flanagan.

 

Ok, first off, you’re not June Clever for baking refrigerated cookie dough.  You just aren’t.  You can use it to make people believe you are, especially guests, but don’t for a minute believe it.  I have bought the refrigerated cookie dough when I’m jonesing for chocolate chip cookies and only need a dozen to get through.  I’m freaked out because for a wholesome (yes, I actually used the adjective “wholesome”) activity the other night, the boys and I made cookies from scratch.  Add that to the “bone” necklaces I’m making them and some friends for Halloween and that I’m making costumes, I am seriously stepping towards Cleverism.  I prefer to be more like Harriet Nelson from Ozzie and Harriet; she had spunk. But I digress, I made cookies from scratch with my boys.  Mainly because I didn’t want to turn on the TV and my mom’s copy of Martha had an awesome recipe for cowboy cookies.  And they are heavenly.  Trust me, the irony of baking cookies from a Martha Stewart magazine is not lost on me.

 

Next.  To Hell With All That is a very bi-polar book, and I planned on making a better post on it because it needs to be written.  I haven’t read the book in six months, so I have to reread it to give you all a real gist of the matter.  But let me just say while I was nodding in agreement, I started getting angry with the book.  Apparently the author puts the everyday housewife crap on a pedestal.  I mean like taking out the garbage and vacuuming and taking care of sick kids.  Basically all the crap we hate to do, and usually the stuff our husbands take for granted (but I bet some of you have really sweet husbands that think you’re totally a goddess for doing it, that’s just not all of us).  Well, it turns out the writer had (and probably still has) a maid and used to have a nanny until her kids went to school.  Are you F-ING kidding me?  You’re going to tell me to embrace my inner housewife when you have a maid and a nanny?  You had some one else to clean up vomit and wax your floors.  And I shudder at the term housewife, and I’ll explain in the latter post why she loves it.

 

Ok, I promised I wouldn’t get in to it until I reread the book, but it is obvious that I need to.  So after I finish the one I’m working on, which may take a while because it’s around a thousand pages, give or take a hundred (don’t worry, amazing writer, page turner and all), I’ll reread To Hell with All That and give a full report.  I promise I’ll even admit I’m wrong if I like it the second time around.  And I have only admitted that twice in my marriage.

Hate Speech

Just a thought before I relieve Tornado S of crib duty, I was looking at the fastest rising blogs on WordPress, trying to figure out what makes them so popular.  Good writing?  Knowing people?  Better tags?  What?  And I came across “American Women Suck,” the third fastest rising blog.  I prefer that you don’t seek this guy out because he just wants attention, which he’s getting.  He’s whole blog was hate speech toward women.  Just nasty, cruel pictures and writing, making women look just like monsters.  Nothing made sense, pulling statistics and facts out of his ass.  And on one hand it’s really sad because obviously this guy has been hurt many times by “women.” (I have quotation marks because I know guys who swear they lost a job to a woman but have no proof.)  I mean this guy must have had a horrible mother and a horrible wife, but get over it and realize most women aren’t like that.  On the other hand, it really pisses me off that people have a place to spew their hatred.  What if my kid came across that?  Why would anyone want to read that garbage?  I really think that WordPress should make hate speech blogs private.  What a jerk.

Men’s chores: A Conversation

I bet you think it will be between my husband and I, and you would be wrong.  During my daily conversation with my mom, I mentioned how I asked my husband to fill up my SUV that he was borrowing.  Amazingly enough he didn’t forget, and I was very glad.  (Which in a way is kind of pathetic that I get excited that my husband does something I asked)  Any ways, the conversation:

Me: . . . So he actually filled the tank.

Mom: You know, Pauline’s (a friend of my mom’s) husband always fills up her tank. 

Me: I know, Mom.  (Can we feel a lecture coming on?)

Mom: And your dad fills up the Mustang about 95% of the time.

(And here I thought he did that just to get away and be on his own for a little bit.  My dad’s a lone wolf.)

Me: I know, Mom.  It’s just I feel that who ever is driving the car, when it hits an eighth of a tank, can go fill it up or at least replace the gas they use.  My problem is he has left the car on empty when I’ve had the kids.  So it’s nice that he filled up the tank.

Mom: Well, we just think it’s a husband’s chore.  (silence)  What are you thinking?  (Is it that obvious?)

Me: I was thinking that you raised me to believe that there were no men’s chores or women’s chores.  They were just chores that needed to be done.  If the dishes needed to be done, then someone would do it.  If the garbage needs to be taken out, someone will have to do it.  You taught me to do “guy” chores.

Mom: (pause) I was a good mother, wasn’t I?

Me: Yes.

Feminism and Motherhood

“Don’t call yourself a feminist.  I hate feminists,” said my college friend with disgusted horror.  A boy at the table said, “Yeah, call yourself an equalist, someone who stands for the rights of everyone.”  I was confused; did I not work my ass off for four years get scholarships and an entrance into an university?  And I find people like this here?  I looked over at my best friend, who shrugged and started bobbing his head to music only he could hear.  By the rhythm, I guessed it was Spice Girls and realized he was not going to come to my aid, not because he agreed with the other two people at the table but because he didn’t want to waste his time on petty arguments when he could think of something happy.  (Please don’t confuse this with stupidity.  My friend is wickedly smart, an environmental scientist, who could solve math equations that took three pages to solve.  He just finds political talk boring, except with me.)

I sigh and turn to the boy.  “You don’t believe in equal rights, so don’t get cocky.  You don’t believe in gay marriage or any gay rights because they’re ‘special rights’ (Yes I did use my fingers for the quotes).  You’re homophobic and suppressing issues.  We all know it.”  With that said, I turned to my girl friend.  “I guess you’re right, feminists are pretty scary.  They’re women who think for themselves.  But isn’t it nice to go to college and have a career?  Isn’t great that we can have our own bank accounts and houses?  Gee, it’s swell that our husbands don’t have the right to beat us?  And I love wearing shorts and jeans, don’t you?  (yes, she was wearing jeans.)   So you might not like feminists for some crazy belief that they hate men or are dikes, but without them, we would not be here.  I gotta get to class.” 

I was reminded of this conversation as I read some blogs were women wrote that they didn’t consider themselves feminists but Sarah Palin motivates them.  Well, I’m glad they found some woman to motivate them.  Lucky for them, none of the liberals are going to be pissed off that Palin is a working mom, or that she had a child so late in life or that her teenage daughter is wrong to be pregnant and even keep the kid, or that Palin is a faminatzi.  Because that’s feminists have fought for those choices.  They keep fighting for choices for both men and women.  And also lucky for the newly realizing conservative feminists, no one is going to call them men-haters because they like a female politician.

But back to motherhood.  My mom was a feminist and her mom and her mom.  Actually, there hasn’t been a weak-willed woman in my mom’s side in living memory.  And my dad, well, he did marry my mom, but he was a feminist too.  And the stories I hear of my great-grandma, well, she was steal and silk.  My mom made sure us kids understood the value of choice and that we couldn’t judge anyone.  It wasn’t our job.  She raised us to love justice, hate injustice.  She was like every other mom out there, wanting her kids to be better than she and her husband.

As for me, I’m a mom of two boys (so far).  I, who taught her favorite babysitting charge that boys were bad.  I, who wouldn’t date in high school because “boys are like apes.”  I who claimed the only uses for a guy were killing spiders and sex.  What do I teach my boys of feminism?  Well, first I’ve got to stop making all those jokes about men.  But I grew up with brothers, so I know their inner workings.  Second, I have to show them what is expected of them as men.

I have to show them that it’s ok for guys to do work in the kitchen and go to dance class.  I have to show them that you can watch football and take care of children.  I have to show them that we respect people’s feelings and opinions.  I have to show them that it’s ok to cry, it’s ok to be strong. it’s ok to kick someone’s ass who’s being an asshole (when the need arises).  I have to be a strong woman, illustrating that women can fix a sink and dinner, wear make-up, or choose not to shave her legs.  I have to teach them to include everyone and not to make fun of someone who is different, whether she’s a girl or he’s a different religion.  I have to teach them that relationships are important and your partner’s feelings are just as important as theirs.  And finally, I plan to scare them with the thought of teenage marriage if they get a girl knocked up and she decided to keep the baby.  I have to teach them there is nothing they can’t do.  Every night I pray that they will be smart, strong, sweet, and the good guys.

I stay-at-home with them, and that is my choice.  One day I’ll probably go back to work, which most stay-at-home moms have to work at some point or another.  That will be my choice too.  That’s what feminism is really about: choice.  It’s working so everyone has a choice in their own lives, just like democracy. 

In the end, we’re all trying to make sure that our kids are better than we are.  My boys have dozens of various balls and a kitchen.  They have arrows and swords and baby dolls and stuff animals.  They play with my make-up brushes and my purses.  They were their father’s shoes and hats.  Granted Evan will climb into any heels he finds laying around.  They play with fairies, King Fu Panda, and cars.  We read them books about girls and boys.  So I think they’ll be pretty well rounded.  But if they think they’ll become sexist pigs, they learn they’re never too old for their mother to discipline them.