Put the darn cell phone down...

This evening I walked to the grocery store, and it was beautiful out, sunny and mild.  I waited on the corner of Aurora and Winona, a busy intersection, and I watched for a good two minutes while across the street stood a young mother with her baby in a stroller and dog on a leash with rush-hour traffic whizzing by.  She glanced up from her phone exactly three times very briefly to check the light and then right back to her phone -- the whole time.  When the light turned green I was halfway across the street before she realized it had changed.

And APPARENTLY it would be rude to say something like, In the time you took reading your phone you could have kneeled down and interacted with your baby.  You could have smiled at your dog.  Hell, you could have even pet your dog.  You could have looked up to see me watching you in sad amazement, or you could have looked up to see a bright blue sky with pink and orange clouds. 

Apparently that’s considered rude; she certainly would have thought so.  I came *this* close.

Then, as I walked out of the store returning home, there was a guy pulling into the parking lot off of that same busy street, and he was so engrossed in his phone conversation that he couldn’t take the phone away from his ear while he maneuvered a sharp turn out of traffic into a narrow parking lot with a small boy in the passenger seat.

People need to get off of their cell phone, not only because it’s dangerous to others, but because there are so many moments we miss when we’re wired up.  There is so much eye contact that does not get made.  There are real moments of talking with a child, smiling at a stranger, greeting a clerk, noticing birds soaring overhead, and smelling the flowers along your path.  Stop using the phone as an excuse to hibernate in broad daylight and in public view. 

Remember what life used to be like?  I’m glad I still do.  If I’m standing in line at the post office, I’ll read my phone. Otherwise, I’d rather live.

Raising girls -- and what the heck would I know about it?

Listening to an interview by NY Times reporter Peggy Orenstein who’s written a book: “Cinderella Ate My Daughter,” and she writes about the Disneyfication, the “Kim Kardashaianization” of girls and girl culture these days especially in this country, and it reminds me again how very, very, very grateful I am to have had a son. 

I vividly remember sitting in my doctor’s office in 1985, almost five months along, convincing him to do an ultrasound so I could finally know once and for all, Is it a girl or a boy?  He couldn’t talk me out of it, not even in his humorous and gentle way.  So much easier to raise a boy.  For me anyway.  And then I was blessed with a good-natured, late-sleeping, energetic, imaginative, athletic, and humorous son.  I could not have gotten luckier.  Raising a girl today means suffering eighteen years or more of pink and pretty, and sexualization of girls, and the pressure to be pretty on top of competent, could be a bit overwhelming for any parent.  So much easier to raise a boy to respect girls and women than to convince a girl that she is more than her looks and willingness to please, despite the barrage of contrary messages from society; constantly fighting against the tide of objectification and sexism, sometimes – oftentimes -- against the wishes of a little girl who might succumb occasionally to society’s propaganda and pressure, and just wants to be like other girls.  That’s a big job.   It’s probably not as big a chore as I think, but it’s probably not easy.

If I had had a girl, I would have undertaken the task of rearing a fully realized girl, and it would have been a full-time job to counteract the messages that girls get today, or twenty years ago.  We would have had to endure a thoroughly pink toy aisle, Barbie commercials, and beauty products aimed at seven year olds.  Having a boy -- almost as if somebody up there were looking out for me :)  -- meant childhood was largely fun, energetic, tomboyish, and silly without the weightier worries of the parent of a girl.  That’s not all it was and it was not without its trauma and scares, but it was pretty fun. 

I can imagine some people will say that you can do the same things with a girl that you can with a boy…  I get that.  I’m just feeling really fortunate after hearing Ornstein’s interview.

It was easy to tell Martin no, we probably weren’t going to see the latest Disney movie each year (even though I relented and then quite enjoyed The Little Mermaid).  Ace Ventura and Ninja Turtles I would have taken my daughter to see, but nobody enjoys a good talking-butt joke like the boys do.  For this I am constantly, still, and forevermore grateful. 

I’m thanking Steve Scher for a fascinating and funny interview and Ms. Orenstein for an interesting perspective on raising children.

That's my white mama

The bombardment of messages of consumption and unrelenting propaganda is finally beginning to be questioned and it’s a relief to me that my lifelong cynicism wasn’t really cynicism but an awareness that something wasn’t right.  Well, maybe it was cynicism, but maybe it was healthy after all, if not always easy to bear or to share, or to hear by others.  This collective communal awakening has brought with it a new appreciation for my mother who, from the time I can remember, eschewed and mocked much of what society seemed to value.  Popular shows like “Leave it to Beaver” and “The Brady Bunch” would launch her into cranky complaints about how those shows didn’t reflect reality when all I wanted as a kid was for her to enjoy them with me.  Why can't she just be happy...?

When I was little I used to yearn for her to be like the other mothers I met, who smiled brightly and cooked dinner every night, meatloaf or pork chops, and kept immaculate houses.  Of course, we never really know how other families live.  Sometimes we only know what they choose to show us. I knew my mom couldn’t have cared less about dusting and cooking.  She read voraciously, magazines like “Ramparts,” "Free Press," and “Avant Guard,” and books about the FBI and radical activists.  She often complained about police brutality and Jim Crow laws while I longed for a mother who smiled brightly.

I also used to wish I had grown up in a small town in Iowa, in real America, because that’s what I believed refleted the “real” America, where kids rode their bikes in safety, neighbors were neighborly, and schools were clean.  It wasn’t until later that I realized those images I saw on tv did not reflect my family; they were white kids attending clean white schools with nary a brown face to be seen.  This, too, my mother grew angry about.  Now I’m grateful that I grew up in Los Angeles, one of the most diverse and progressive cities in the country because if I had grown up in Iowa, I would have been isolated and out of place, much more than I perceived being when I was young. 

As I grew older and became aware of events outside of my world, I appreciated more and became interested in the opinions of friends of my parents, people who like my parents rode motorcycles, protested the war, and enjoyed movies like “Easy Rider” and "Guess Who's Coming to Dinner."  My dad played bongos at parties, and my mother was convinced she had an FBI file.  I met and overheard conversations of adults of all races in our home, radical and traditional, who also refused to accept what the government and Madison Avenue were selling us.

My mother was ahead of her time and she paid a price for it, emotionally and probably in other ways, and if your mother pays a price emotionally, you pay a price, so it was difficult at times, sometimes traumatically difficult, but maybe that’s inevitable when you cannot live the kind of life most Americans were living.  She was never content to stay at home and not work at a time when most mothers did.  When I was young, I was confused and saddened by that.  Now I’m proud of it.

Some things I would definitely change but much I wouldn’t, and I’m more proud of her than I am disappointed.  These days of revolution and involvement make me miss her more than ever because I wish that she could have seen the Occupy movement.  I wish she could have seen the election of Barack Obama.  She would have loved and been excited by both.  I wish I could believe she sees it now but my beliefs don’t lean that way.  She instilled in me a suspicion of government and establishment that I'm grateful for.  In some ways it’s easier to believe in our collective stories and the myths that make us feel good, but I’d rather have the truth than cling to an illusion. 

A few things I remember my mother hating:  John Wayne, Kate Smith, Clint Eastwood, "Hee Haw," cooking, Ronald Reagan, fine department stores, Leave it to Beaver, southern accents, the LAPD.

A few things my mother loved: Simon and Garfunkel, Robert Kennedy, Rowan and Martin’s Laugh-In, Herman’s Hermits, The Smothers Brothers, Dr. King, vodka and orange juice, Eugene McCarthy, long drives with the radio on while my dad (or her second husband) drove, her cats, Angela Davis, sewing, crossword puzzles, Benson & Hedges, reading (thousands of books), Dr. Pepper, anti-war rallies, and love-ins.

She was not an easy woman to love, but I’m glad and proud she was my mother.  They raise 'em up radical in Kansas.

The title of this essay comes from a "Mad TV" comedy skit.

 

Re-elect the President and Here's Why

Three years ago I found myself in an usual position before Obama’s election and do so again today, less than one year before his (hopefully) reelection.  I was not on board with him and resented the attention he got from the press and would-be voters.  I was not sold on him until the very end, probably his election night victory speech, he in Chicago and me downtown at the Westin Hotel on the phone with my father. 

Then I was convinced, or more accurately, moved by the historic achievement of that night.  Even as a biracial American with a white mother from Kansas, like him, I resisted his seeming anointment.  I felt alone among my friends because I hadn’t drunk the Kool-Aid, hadn’t been convinced of his promises of hope and change, and needed much more than rhetoric in my presidential candidate.  As happens sometimes in my life, I was swimming against the tide.  He was so woefully inexperienced.

Again I’m swimming against the tide of popular opinion and conventional wisdom because most liberals, progressives, and/or democrats are furious with him for this offense or that, while I see him as doing a pretty damn good job, all things considered.  Have we forgotten that three short years ago our economy almost collapsed, so that he wasn’t able to do the things he (naively) wanted?  Are we unaware of the depths of right-wing cravenness and willingness to send us all into the crapper to see him lose, to break him?  I wish people would grow up when it comes to politics and recognize the realities. I believe only with the benefit of hindsight can we know how good a president was.  I also believe that Obama has finally learned what he didn’t know in the beginning, and could not know, despite the high hopes people had for him. 

I believe he should not have been elected in 2008, but since he was and since he’s acquitted himself well in the face of a near economic collapse and a treasonous opposition party and cowardly members of his own, and since this is a crucial election in so many ways (I’m looking at you, Supreme Court), to abandon him now would be irresponsible.  It would be cutting off our nose to spite our unhappy face.  But if we think things are shitty now, just wait until a republican – any republican – is in office and reverses the good things accomplished in the previous four years and piles on to the damage that George Bush has done.  Don’t do it.  Don’t abandon the president now.  You’ll be sorry.  For once, listen to my good advice : )

Two respected journalists agree with me, or rather I agree with them for the past year: James Fallows and Ron Suskind.  Suskind wrote “Confidence Men,” and Fallows the following article in this month’s “The Atlantic,” must-reads for all interested voters and especially those who feel too disappointed to vote for him again.  When we pick presidents let's do more thinking and less feeling.  Let's be practical.  Politics has never run smoothly in this country, not in real time.

http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2012/03/obama-explained/8874/

"Freedom"

“Freedom” is the new buzzword describing the denial of basic human rights in healthcare and the workplace.  Employers are free to offer restrictive health insurance to their employees that does not cover contraception (while covering Viagra).  Employers are free to terminate employees at will, with little to no reason at all.  Workers are free to work elsewhere if they don't like it.  “Free” and "freedom" are the new buzzwords, the new doublespeak employed by the neoconservative party.  Don’t fall for it.