Like all parents, we have been stressing the importance of honesty to our children. But every time I told one of them to always tell the truth, I felt like a fraud. And I couldn’t understand why.

In the past two weeks I have had to admit some uncomfortable truths to myself. You see, I haven’t been happy in a very long time. But if you had asked me how I describe myself the answer would’ve been “happy,” until about two weeks ago. I’m not sad or mopey or depressed, and I confused the absence of depression with true happiness. If I had been more honest, I would have described myself as angry, thwarted, dissatisfied.

My husband said that I have been unhappy for as long as he can remember. And he’s right. There are bits and pieces of happiness in my life–Hubby, Monkey, Pumpkin. But running underneath it all is a fetid stream of disappointment and it has been there since I was a teenager.

It seems cliched and too easy to lay the blame on my parents, but they at least got the ball rolling. My parents were two very unhappy people. Dad always seemed happiest in his absence from home. When he wasn’t at work, he was at church, stuffing his life full of other people and crowding us out. He joined a bass fishing club so he could be away on Saturdays as well, free from the thought of all his many obligations.

Mother was an unhappy woman from a long line of unhappy women. My maternal grandmother never was allowed to fulfill her potential and she made damn sure that her daughter wasn’t either. To be fair, both of my parents seem much happier now. They take fun vacations and smile a lot more. Perhaps it was having children that turned them both into such curmudgeons. Now the pressure is off and they can afford to loosen up a little. And they are much better grandparents than parents.

I never felt as if my hopes and dreams carried any weight. Writing was the first thing I really wanted to do. I wrote my first free verse at 12, it wasn’t very good, but I was 12. I read it proudly to my parents who promptly belittled everything about it. They stabbed me right in the dreams.

As I matured, others took notice of my writing and praised me for it. But no amount of outside encouragement could make up for its utter lack in the home-front. Journalism seemed like a good outlet, so I joined the school paper. (And not at my parents’ prompting mind you. My driver’s ed partner encouraged me. Thanks Gina!) But journalism and I weren’t a good fit. And nobody ever informed me that you don’t have to write for the paper to have a career in writing.

I loved to write stories and used the typing practice my parents forced on me to write them. My dad would read the stories to check my typing progress and laugh at me for my ideas. I learned to push my dreams down where no one would laugh at them anymore.

When college time loomed, I quietly sent off for information from Bryn Mawr and Mt. Holyoke. I wanted so badly to go to a women’s college and study writing, but I knew better than to voice those desires. Again and again I silenced my dreams, refusing to give them voice.

Denying myself my hopes and dreams became a kind of survival mechanism. If I didn’t tell anybody what I really wanted, they couldn’t laugh at me, denigrate me, dismiss me. And after a time I forgot who I was and what I wanted. I forgot why I wasn’t happy.

I began looking for other things, outside things to make me happy. If I only do this thing, then I will be happy. But nothing outside of me had the power to make me happy or unhappy.

I always knew I wanted marriage and a family, so I married the love of my life, who loves me, happy or sad, good or bad. Adjusting to married life kept my mind occupied for a long time. Then just the busyness of life took over and I forgot, for a time, about the unhappiness. But then we started trying to have a baby and ran into some difficulties.

Unhappiness threatened to overwhelm me. My body was betraying me daily, steadfastly refusing to get pregnant. I mistakenly believed that my infertility was the cause of my unhappiness and when I finally had a baby, everything would be all right.

What a terrible burden to put on a baby. Then post-partum depression hit. I was in the deepest, blackest pit in the dungeon. Alone, unnourished, with only the dank, stony walls of my prison to comfort me. Even after I came out of PPD, I still had a load of anger and resentment to carry around.

No matter what I tried, I couldn’t off-load that anger and resentment. Too often they would come bubbling up to the surface, spilling over onto my poor family. I thought going to nursing school would “fix” me. But I don’t really want to be a nurse. I’m certainly capable of being a nurse, but I’m not suited to it. Maybe I was trying to curry favor with my impossible-to-please mother.

Finally I couldn’t take anymore denial–I had to admit to my husband and to myself just how I really felt. I had to admit that I am not the basically happy person that I fancied myself to be. I am not a happy person, there I admitted it. I was honest.

Then I had to figure out why. It felt like there was something missing inside, but what? What is this shape in my heart? The one that I can trace with my mind, the way you can trace a missing tooth with your tongue. Oh yes, that is the shape of my dreams, my hopes, the thing I really want but have been unable to say aloud in too many years.

I want to be a writer! An author, the kind that gets recognized and paid for her words. The kind whose thoughts are valued and whose ideas see the light of day in the printed word. I want my words, my thoughts, my ideas, my fine sharp mind, to be set down in print.

With a boldness I have never expressed before, I claim my dreams. Never again will I allow any thought of my parents to dictate what I do and do not write.So, to all my readers–I am now open for business as a writer. If you know anyone who needs a writer be sure to let me know and let them know, too.

Attention politicians (mostly male, mostly hetero): Your sex lives are none of my business! Please stop calling your mating habits to my attention.

I am exhausted with all of your petty little sex scandals, so stop it! It’s like you all are just a big group of over-grown 5-year olds. My 5-year old is a good boy, but he has trouble behaving like a good boy all the time. He doesn’t always mind, he can be mean to his little sister, and he’s developed a very bad habit of calling (mainly) me an idiot. So needless to say, he gets in his fair share of trouble. And when he has to deal with the consequences of his actions, he tends to cry and say he’s sorry, he didn’t mean it. And I accept his apologies, but tell him it would be much better for him if he didn’t do the things he has to be sorry about.

So wouldn’t it be easier for you people to just not do anything you’re going to have to apologize for later? Save yourselves the trouble of hiding and denying and then, finally, making a forced, crocodile-tear-filled public statement, wronged spouse dutifully by your side. Why make the world, mainly me, witness to your disgrace? Practice some discretion, some tact, some taste, how about some good judgment. Don’t get caught with your pants down by never having your pants down in the first place. Lordy, do I have to do your thinking for you?

Apparently I do.

First things first, don’t cheat! Seems easy, right? Let’s take it step-by-step, if you are a budding politician or think that you would like to be involved in any sort of government anything and you haven’t stepped out on your spouse yet–don’t. Just don’t. If you are a more established politician and you have remained faithful to your vows, good, keep doing that. But if you are now, or have been in the past, cheating on your spouse, stop this instant! Put on your pants and go home.

Next, we’ll talk about why you shouldn’t cheat. Beyond the fact that it’s wrong, cheating is just plain dumb and stupid. Unless you and your spouse have a previous mutual agreement that yours is an open marriage, cheating is a serious breach of trust. And if you do have an open marriage, don’t go into politics. Most of your constituents just aren’t going to understand. Blame the Puritans. But I digress. At least pretend like you know it’s wrong.

On to the dumb and stupid part. You do not live in a vacuum, or on a desert island, or in an impenetrable shell of your own colossal ego. You are not as discreet as you think you are. Waiters see you, bellboys see you, security guards see you. Even if your spouse is totally blind-sided, there are way more people than just the two of you who know your dirty little secret. Perhaps your lover told a friend, in strict confidence of course, and that bouncer can be bribed. And you can’t quite discount the idea that you may been set up all along.

You will be found out. Some nosy reporter will make a shocking discovery and then the whole world know. And then I’m going to know. And that’s the real problem, I’m sick of hearing about it. Could we please just get some politicians with some freakin’ standards here?!

I think a big part of the problem lies in the kinds of people who seek public office. The mix of self-confidence and self-delusion that cause some people to decide that they would make fabulous governors or senators or city council members also makes them feel as if they are above reproach or even temptation itself. Ah, pride cometh before the fall! When your mind is on lofty goals (you are saving your little corner of humanity!), it is so much easier to stumble. And then there are those people who have such inflated senses of their own importance and superiority that they honestly believe that the rules that govern us mere mortals do not apply to them.

As a college freshman, I dated one such budding sociopath, I mean politician. His stated life-goal was to be a politician, he wanted to run for some kind of office. I was oh-so-very naive and not very experienced with dating. After a disastrous high school run of entrenched geekitude and unrequited crushes (the best kind!), I was flattered that such a handsome, ambitious guy found me worthy of his attention. This situation could’ve ended with heartbreak and teen pregnancy, but I had worked out, in advance, exactly what I was ready for in a relationship and what I wasn’t. When I wasn’t ready to commence a full adult, sexual relationship, he dumped me (in the middle of a party) for someone who was. To my eternal shame, I dated him again about a year later. I still wasn’t ready and he dumped me again, telling me I was selfish. You know, for not ignoring my own wishes and immediately caving in to his!

So when I see these politicians up on the dais, boo-hooing because they got caught, I always think of that boyfriend. And how I could have ended up one of those women, standing up there beside a disgraced man. Except for those pesky standards of mine! You know, the ones I worked out long before I was ever in a position to exercise them.

That’s what you politicians need to do, work out your standards before you actually need them. Decide way ahead of time that things like soliciting call-girls and hitting on interns and pages are bad things. Don’t pick up random strangers or have long-standing affairs. Ask any loving, faithful spouse how he or she would want to be treated and do that. Understand that being a faithful spouse is a pretty high standard, and exceed it. Because being faithful to the public you serve should be an even higher standard. And if you figure all these things out before temptation throws itself in your path, then you may not be as vulnerable to that temptation.

And then I may not have to find out how you get your jollies. Really people, too much information.

I am currently watching Ni Hao, Kai-lan, even when the kids aren’t in the room. Right now, we are having a TV problem–it’s 10 years old, takes about an hour to warm up and until then the picture flips and distorts. So once the TV is on, it is on for the day, whether anybody is watching it or not. When the kids leave, I just mute the sound.

Anyway, Kai-lan is a nice show, Pumpkin likes it more than Monkey does, and even repeats the Mandarin words. The visual style is very simple and colorful. The characters remind me of a cross between Hello Kitty and an Avon “It’s a Small World” perfume bottle I had when I was a little girl. The only problem I have is not with the show itself, it’s with Nick, Jr. Love the shows, hate hate hate the commercials. I would pay cash money if my oldest didn’t have the Chuck E Cheese theme song memorized now.

The next show, Pokemon DP, is definitely a favorite of Monkey’s. He plays Pokemon something-or-other every night with his daddy, he’s got a bunch of the cards, and he adores the show. I’ve always liked anime, Robotech was one of my favorites in high school. The show is as intricate as the video games. Last week, Monkey found one of my pens and wrote a little “R” on the pocket of his grey t-shirt. He told me it’s because he’s a member of Team Rocket. Pumpkin hates the show and screams, “That’s not my favorite!” whenever Monkey watches it.

One show they both agree upon is a classic: Popeye. They love it! And they take turns pretending to be Popeye and Bluto. I hear a lot of talk about spinach, but it’s just the pretend kind. Actually offer them real live spinach and they act like you just served up a poop sandwich. One interesting thing–while they like to run around and make straws into corn cob pipes, they don’t hit each other! So that’s good. Another interesting little tidbit, it’s always Popeye and Bluto, Olive Oyl never figures into it. I don’t mind that at all. Olive Oyl makes the rest of us dames look bad! Seriously, that character plays into so many negative stereotypes of women that I’m glad she’s not included. She’s fickle, she’s irrational, she’s ditzy, she’s a bad driver, and she’s only a prop to further the Popeye/Bluto rivalry dynamic.

I’d be really worried if either my son or my daughter wanted to identify with such a character. But I’d be pleased if either one pretended to be Dora or Kai-lan. But alas, strong, capable, identifiably-human girl characters are few and far between. Well, there’s always Velma.

Every single one of my teenage years took place in the 80’s. I know this is the time about which I am supposed to wax nostalgic. But I won’t. I’m absolutely sure that there are some pathetic souls who look longingly back on their high school years as the their peak years, their best years, after which all else is downhill. That is so sad. When I left my high school, and the little town it was in, I shook its dust from my tiny shoes and never looked back. I even refused to attend my 10-year class reunion, thinking that a mere decade was not enough time in which real change can occur. In me or others.

This year I turned 40, officially entering middle-age and marking my 20th anniversary of not being a teenager anymore. In that 20 years I: have been married for 17 of them, had two beautiful, infuriating children, started writing again, swallowed the bitter pill and attended my 20-year class reunion, but I still don’t think I’ve reached my peak. I feel that I still have way more to accomplish, more to offer the world.

So I’m not one of those crotchety, stuck-in-the-past, “you kids get off my lawn!” types. The world of the 80’s was no utopia: cold war, the constant threat of nuclear war, apartheid, famine, AIDS, Ronald Reagan. But there were certain elements of the 80’s that I miss. The wildness and experimentation in fashion–clothes, hair, make-up, anything and everything goes. The music, oh the music. My iPod is just stuffed with music from the Eighties or with artists that got their starts in the 80’s. And not Top 40 stuff either, it’s New Wave, punk, or electronica. Artists that changed the aural landscape of music.

Something else I miss–the movies about teenagers. I was thankfully too young to be subjected to the “Porky’s” franchise but I was of an age to truly enjoy and relate to all the John Hughes movies. If you couldn’t relate exactly to one of his characters, at least you could relate to all the free-floating angst. Some movies were about the brand-new feelings and experiences that all teenagers have to go through, but which they all feel are unique unto themselves. “No one has ever felt this way before!” On a side note, I will have to try very hard not to laugh when I hear this kind of drama from my kids. It’s not the raw and new feelings that are so amusing, it is the absolute certainty that no one else in the history of humanity has ever felt thusly. Sixteen Candles springs to mind.

Some movies were subversive fun, all about refusing to submit and conform yourself to someone else’s goals and expectations. Fast Times At Ridgemont High and Ferris Bueller’s Day Off are both lovely examples.

We have bought a lot of these movies on DVD, and they hold up very well. Some of the movies I liked back then, seen first through naive and uncritical eyes, haven’t retained their charm. Dirty Dancing, oh the shame. I loved that movie so much that I cut off a pair of Levi’s just like Baby’s and wore them with white Keds. I think I watched it with my mom. And Footloose. I went to see this little gem with my friend Sheila and we loved it!!! Unalloyed adoration! We saw it at the dinky little one-screen movie theater that was then tucked into a corner at Ne-Mar Shopping Center in Claremore. Afterwards, we danced around like mad idiots, probably causing many shoppers to laugh their asses off at us. Did I mention that we were dancing on the covered sidewalks of Ne-Mar Shopping Center in Claremore, Oklahoma? Just want you to get the full effect.

And I won’t even go into Red Dawn.

We had our share of gross-out or overtly sexual or slasher movies. The aforementioned Porky’s is one such sterling example. Not to mention Nightmare on Elm Street. I actually lost sleep over that one. Curses on you, Wes Craven! So I’m not saying that all the teenage movies from the Eighties were more culturally worthy than the ones made in the 90’s or this decade.

And I’m not some conservative anti-everything curmudgeon who bemoans the coarsening of our culture. I just don’t think that recycling the same movie plots over and over is very fun. One plot I find particularly annoying is the ugly/nerdy/smart unpopular/miserably unhappy girl is magically transformed through the power of fashion and lipgloss into the prom queen. Along the way she has a magical awakening to the awesomeness of the high school Big Man on Campus, the one she either previously dismissed or secretly desired.

Over and over again we are presented with the smart but somehow socially unacceptable, unworthy of love girl who only becomes a fully realized, completely worthy person when she is turned into a beautiful, sexy girl. The nerd-girl, smart-girl cannot be celebrated for her brain power alone. Her talents are secondary or worthless in the face of her non-adherence to accepted beauty norms. She cannot be celebrated for her independence of spirit, she can only be feted when she conforms and sublimates herself to love! Only in the connection to a sought-after male is she deemed worthy.

There are three movies which point out the problem from different perspectives. There is one scene in The Breakfast Club which I find problematic. Ally Sheedy’s interesting, wholly subversive character is transformed with a headband and an eye pencil into a completely ordinary, socially-acceptable girl, whereupon she catches the fancy of the Big Man on Campus-in-residence. I always identified with Ally-before, not Ally-after.

Never Been Kissed is, of course, a more recent movie in the magic-makeover vein. While I generally enjoy this movie, I find the end to be both edifying and frustrating. At the prom scene, Drew Barrymore’s character, Josie Grossy, who is no longer gross, finds that she cannot make herself conform to the expectations of the popular crowd and forcefully rejects the kind of kids who used to reject her. The frustrating part is that when she finally receives her “first real kiss” from Sam, she is the transformed Josie still. She is no longer the slightly frumpy, mousy grown-up Josie from the beginning.

And finally, the Revenge of the Nerds movies. The nerds triumph over their rivals in all their nerdy glory! The nerds do not need to conform to societal norms to achieve success. My big problem is not the dearth of similarly triumphant lady nerds, but the fact that the nerds still crave and “win” hot girls. We see that the nerdy girls are no prize.

Why can’t the nerdy/smart girls triumph in all their nerdy, brainy, awkward glory? I am, and always have been, a nerdy girl. I didn’t have to transform myself into a living Barbie doll to find love, or success. Somebody, somewhere give us a Revenge of the Nerd-Girls movie!

Addendum: The movies listed are by no means all of my most favorites or my most hateds. Feel free to use the comments as an open forum. Tell us what you did and/or did not like about the 80’s or its pop culture. And share with us your most favorite and most hated movies from the Eighties!

So, I’ve been doing some research on women’s fashions in the Civil War-era, specifically the incidence of pants-wearing women, and have found some very funny stuff.

Here’s a big news flash for all my readers who may be unfamiliar with various lunacies of the fundie crowd: pants are sinful. At least on women. Here’s my favorite online resource about hell-bent ladies’ trousers– Jesus-is-savior.com. My most favorite part is how, in his fervor to denounce all of us panted hussies, he gives free advertising to rap artist, Chingy. Mr. Stewart, after not getting enough titillation-factor from the title alone, felt it necessary to include all of the lyrics, suitably sanitized for our virgin eyes of course. I find it very interesting that Mr. Stewart is apparently taking his cultural direction from Chingy. I mean, come on, he is totally ignoring the incredible artistic contribution of one Trace Adkins and his incomparable “Honky Tonk Badonkadonk.” Man, that’s just sloppy.

I won’t even go into the historical flap that women’s pants have caused; the modern stuff is too much fun! Whenever one of these discount-theologians wants to back up his (usually a man, sometimes a defeated woman) personal biases, he quotes Deuteronomy or Leviticus. Yeah, these guys always use the Old Testament when they feel the need to condemn others, but I just always wonder how many of them have eaten bacon or a cheeseburger recently. Oops.

But Deuteronomy says that women shouldn’t put on things that pertain to men! And that men shouldn’t dress like women! Oh noes! Interestingly enough, nobody wore pants in the Old Testament. Everybody wore some version of a robe-like garment. So even if one is given to a literal interpretation of the O.T., except for that whole bacon-thing of course, there is NO specific prohibition against women wearing pants! But God-fearin’ folk will work themselves up into knots fretting about, not poverty, not injustice, not genocide, not oppression, not violence, but pants. Pants. Let the absurdity sink in a bit. Let it roll around in your brain for a while, as you try to understand someone whose faith is so shaky, so tenuous that it can be destroyed by pants. O.K., by women in pants. The devil’s own pants.

If you would like to see the preponderance of this opinion for yourself, just google women wearing pants, you’ll see. Another common theme in the know-what’s-better-for-women-than-the-women-themselves crowd is bringing up dubious sociological studies that allegedly prove that the eyes of both women and men are drawn to a woman’s butt and crotch when she is clad in pants. As opposed to what happens when said woman is dressed in a shapeless, ankle-grazing calico bag of a dress, where people look only at the woman’s face. My opinion on that one is that people are desperately trying not to stare at the hideous dress, because staring is rude.

And you know what, people notice each other’s appearances. We all look at faces and hairstyles and clothing and even shoes. We notice if someone’s hair is unkempt, we notice if a woman’s slip is showing, we notice if a kid has on an emo belt, and yes, we notice if someone has a nice caboose. Sighted people always notice appearances first, so what. Women have shapes, curves, actual physical bodies, and if a man can’t handle that it’s his own fault, not the woman’s.

The anti-pant crowd wants women to believe that shapeless dresses are somehow freeing. Freeing us poor, helpless frails from the unwanted lustful stares of big, bad men who just can’t help themselves in the powerful presence of our awesome sexiness. And they say feminists hate men. But I’m not in charge of another person’s lustfulness, I’m only in charge of my own. And that’s another thing. Men wear pants, does that mean I’m supposed to stare at them and not be able to control myself?

I guess the assumption is that women don’t lust after men. Maybe we’re too busy tempting hordes of fine, upstanding christian gentlemen into sin with our devil-pants. So, on one hand, we are wicked temptresses, well-versed in the siren-call of trousers-wearing. And on the other hand, we are demure, innocent creatures, who never lust after anyone, suitable only for patronizing and protecting. The only reason that fundamentalist heads are not exploding over this dichotomy is because fundamentalists are given to living unexamined lives. But, guess what, women do lust, so what.

But, but, but. Lust is a sin! You say that like it’s a bad thing. Hate to tell these people, but lust is sort of the very thing that has kept the human race going during the worst of times. The Great Depression wasn’t the most stable time to have children, but humans just insisted on reproducing. Times of war, disease, and famine are terrible times to bring children into the world, but since one of those things is almost always happening, what are we to do? Let the human race die out because we think lust is icky? But I digress.

For centuries, women were hobbled by their clothing. Corsets made it difficult to breath and impossible to move freely. Hoop skirts made the mere act of sitting down an exercise in embarrassment. Long skirts and multiple petticoats had to be held aloft as women walked around, effectively tying their hands. And those long skirts and petticoats often cost women their lives, by catching fire or becoming heavy with water and drowning them, or by catching in machinery. Long sleeves could also be caught in household or farm or factory machinery, causing injury or death. Yards and yards of heavy fabric were literally shackles around the ankles of the women who had to wear them.

And this pining for the modesty of an earlier time is misplaced at best. Corsets and bustles were designed to exaggerate the natural curves of a woman’s body. And we fetishize what we take pains to hide. There were times when the bodices of dresses were cut just barely high enough to cover the nipple, yet a stolen glimpse of black-stockinged ankle was scandalous! And trust me, people given to the practice of fetishisizing women are only going to be spurred on by the all-covering, ankle-grazing dress. Imagination is often more titillating than reality. “What’s under that dress!”

The issue here really is freedom, or rather, freedoms. Fundamentalist men, of all stripes, want the freedom that comes with not taking any responsibility for their own baser desires, and instead, off-loading all of society’s ills onto all women. I should actually say all females, because these men get started with the woman-blaming while the women are still little girls. Hello? Purity Balls?

And pants give freedom to women. The freedom to move without restriction, the freedom to do the hard work that our lives require, the freedom to run if we need to, and the freedom to fight if we must. The freedom to not worry about a stiff wind, the freedom to get dirty, and the freedom to have warm legs.

It is this feminine freedom that the fundamentalists fear. Before the freedom of pants and the throwing-off of the corsets, men could rest assured, basking in the certainty of their superiority over the “weaker sex.” But it was the clothes, the fabric shackles that kept women weak and helpless. The days of corsets and crinolines and fainting couches are over! Now we have the vote, our own jobs, and the devil’s own pants–the fabric shackles are off.

That’s how long Hubby and I have been married as of today. Happy Anniversary, Buddy!

Me, that’s who. Today, Saturday June 7, is my 40th birthday. (This is being written before Saturday because I don’t want to spend my birthday doing this.) I was born in 1968, one of the most turbulent years in recent history. The Vietnam War, the assassinations of Martin Luther King, Jr. and Robert Kennedy (who died the day before my birth), protests and riots, the Chicago Convention, Nixon. “Sympathy for the Devil” and 2001: A Space Odyssey were both released that year. Those two pieces of popular culture neatly encapsulate both the darkness and the hope of the year of my birth.

Hope was abundant that year in the Apollo Space Program. Apollo 7, in October, was the first manned Apollo flight and a welcome success after the tragedy of Apollo 1. Apollo 8, in December, was the first mission to leave Earth orbit and travel to the moon. Humans left the relative safety of Earth’s orbit and traveled to another world!

I decided to look up other people who share my birthday. Here are some of my favorites:

• Beau Brummel, 1778
• Paul Gauguin, 1848
• Jessica Tandy, 1909
• Dean Martin, 1917
• Tom Jones, 1940 (yes, that Tom Jones)
• Liam Neeson, 1952
• Prince, 1958 (yes, that Prince)

Thanks to Brainy History for some of the dates.

I grew up in Claremore so I was literally steeped in Will Rogers lore. The Will Rogers Memorial Museum was not far from my house and every time we had out-of-town visitors, we’d drag them there. Heck, I even had my formal wedding portrait shot on the museum’s wide veranda. I don’t think I’ve seen any more of Will’s movies than the snippets they played in the exhibits, but the title of one really stuck with me–Life Begins At Forty. I remember thinking how impossibly old forty seemed even as my parents neared (and passed) forty themselves. How could life begin at such an advanced and decrepit age?

Well, now that I’m here, forty doesn’t seem so advanced, maybe just a tad decrepit. But I get the title, I finally get it. At the time that movie was made (1935) people tended to marry and have kids fairly young. My own great-grandmother got married at 13 and had my grandmother at 15. So if you get married, say, at 18 and have kids in your early 20’s, then by the time you turn 40, the kids are grown and gone or nearly so. The next phase of your life (one sans kids) would indeed start at 40. Now more people are holding off on having kids, waiting until their mid-30’s to mid-40’s, much like I did.

Even though I got married at 23, Monkey wasn’t born until I was 34, then Pumpkin came along right before I turned 37. I had plenty of time to live one sort of life, one sans kids, and get thoroughly set in my ways. Parenting infants can feel like a kind of timeless limbo, but things start to pick up once they become toddlers and preschoolers. So it does feel like a different phase of life is beginning. Plus, I’ve only got two more years of school then I will re-enter the working world. I finally feel like I have a concrete direction for my life, not just nebulous wishes.

Even though I live in same old ghost-ridden house, I am still married to my best friend after all these years, and I’ve decided to keep at this whole motherhood-thing, I feel like I’ve been given a fresh start, a do-over. Maybe life really does begin at forty after all.

Melissa over at Shakesville has a biting series called Assvertising, highlighting all the many ways, shapes, and forms advertising insults, degrades, and devalues women. All women, everywhere, not just the ones who are aware of and sensitive to negative message in the media. Not just feminists, all you women out there who “hork, hork” at men’s crude, disgusting, victimizing, sexist “humor” trying to prove that you aren’t like those other bitches, look you’re rollicking good fun, just like one of the boys. News for you, lady, “the boys” know you aren’t one of them and those jokes are about you, too. So shut up and quit enabling them. But I digress.

A common trope is how feminists vilify and hate men. This is pure projection, men have been vilifying and violently oppressing women since the dawn of recorded history (hello, Eve!). I will not disagree that some, maybe many, women have been so scarred from their dealings with men that they do not trust men, maybe even hate them, as a whole. But that’s not what the trope is indicating. The common myth among woman-hating men is that all feminists everywhere hate all men everywhere. This is their raison-d’etre, their excuse, the way they justify their over-arching hatred of all women and everything feminine or woman-positive. The he-man woman-haters club never points to individual feminists to say, “Look this person has said this thing that paints all men, even the pro-woman ones, as evil bastards.” No, they extrapolate and assume, not even researching for themselves, but relying on hand-me-down information and hearsay to vilify all feminists and, therefore, all women.

I have been frequenting Shakesville for some time now, and I have never heard one of the fine feminists-in-residence paint men with such a broad brush. In fact, the only times I have ever read anything there that is anti-men-as-a-whole is from some passing troll. Somebody trotting out the same tired trope to explain away his unreasoning hatred for all things woman. When they (Shakers) point out individual incidences of misogyny it always made very clear that, while these acts are indeed indicative of the larger anti-woman bias that creeps like a noxious miasma through our culture, theses acts are the responsibility of the person or persons who performed them, not that of the entire male gender. Also in fact, many of these out-spoken feminists are, wait for it, men. Even straight ones, who pee standing up.

Men are being painted as brutish, stupid, inept, incompetent, lazy, good-for-nothing, family-abandoning jerks who live only to escape their nightmarish domestic existences with childish pursuits. All men everywhere are being painted in this fashion, but if it’s not the ee-vil feminists who are doing it, then just exactly who is?

Melissa’s latest installment of Assvertising seems to indicate that it is the man-heavy advertising industry that is doing so, in between trying to sell beer and push-up bars by making women feel inadequate. Her example is a commercial for a frozen confection and the low-set bar for a man to receive one of the coveted treats. In order to get one, all he has to do is put a cup in the dishwasher, or not ogle a nubile young woman in front of his wife, or listen to his wife. Excuse me, who is it that hates men, I didn’t quite get that?

Some other incidences of man-hating have come to my attention recently, probably because of the channels we watch during the day. As horrible as the commercials aimed at kids are, the ones aimed at their (usually) mothers are even worse. Right now an insurance company is running commercials for motorcycle insurance stating that if the men had just had this brand of insurance, they wouldn’t be hanging around your nice, clean house right now, bothering you, while the bike is in the shop. The very same commercial can be seen in a different context by the male viewers. You wouldn’t be forced to hang around the house, with that harridan wife of yours, doing chores if you’d only had our insurance. Imagine if you will, o man, hitting the open road, just an old smoothy on the loose, but no, you have to fold laundry or do all the other tasks that are necessary to the smooth running of a household. You know, all those things that women are supposed to do, I mean, the only reason you got married in the first place is so you could out-source your chores!

Wow, that’s a lot of man-hating and woman-hating all wrapped up in one neat little package! So, if you insult most men and most women, exactly who do you think is going to buy the insurance. Because it sure isn’t going to be anyone in this House.

And this little blurb on the cover of my June Parents magazine has me so livid that I won’t be renewing my subscription, “Hop on Pop-Why Dads are The New Moms.” Now I get that Father’s Day is coming up this month, but still.The accompanying article goes on the say just how awesome dads are because they spend more time with their own children than their dads did. Now don’t get excited, the numbers aren’t good.

“Make no mistake — it’s hardly a revolution. The typical dad spends 6.5 hours a week with his children, less than an hour a day, and far less time than the typical mom spends. Still, that’s more than double the 2.6 hours weekly that men devoted to their families 30 years ago.” says Doug Most in “The New Face of Fatherhood.”

The article doesn’t say how they arrived at these figures, did they average the numbers of hours spent by the men surveyed or did they tally how many men fall into each of the measured amounts of time spent. Because my husband spends a lot more time, on an order of magnitude, than 6.5 hours a week with his kids. I understand that this may have to take into account factors like time spent commuting on weekdays, but Hubby can easily spend more than that amount of time in one day on the weekends! Maybe it’s the fault of those guys with motorcycle insurance. And if they are taking into account non-custodial dads, it is not indicated.

I would like to think that a lot of dads are spending a lot more time than 6.5 hours per week with the kiddos but that the average is being lowered by a few absentee fathers. But if the majority of fathers surveyed looked the amounts given and said, “Six and half hours a week? That sounds about right, and they’re lucky I do that much!” then why should we be praising these guys? That’s another very low-set bar. This kind of reporting makes men look bad and it’s not coming from feminists!

I realize that hearth and home, and children, have long been considered the purview of women. And even in families where the mothers work outside the home, that is still the case. Who is it that does the childcare-scramble when things fall through? Usually it’s the mom. But I have noticed more and more dads doing the everyday things with their kids. Lots of fathers dropped off their kids at Monkey’s school. And since families come in all shapes and sizes, lots of grandparents do the everyday things, too. But still.

I’m sorry, no matter how much time a dad spends playing with his kids per week, he is not the new mom. Some dads have do the work of two parents, but for the most part, men rest safely assured in the knowledge that wife will handle most of the kid-stuff, whether she’s a SAHM or works outside the home. I guess I am peeved at the praise heaped on men for finally “pitching in” and doing all the things that women have been doing forever with little praise or recognition. You know, my husband doesn’t “pitch in”, he doesn’t “babysit” his own children, he parents, and does it well. And he is suitably rewarded, not with a frozen confection, but with the love and appreciation of his wife and children.

I am sick and tired of this media portrayal of men, and by extension, the women in their lives. Why is the portrayal of home and family life so unattractive? To be fair to Mr. Most, the article does showcase the changing (and improving) nature of the American family. I guess, in the end, what I am most upset about, is the editors’ decision to use such inflammatory (to me, anyway) titles and headlines. Here again I can’t imagine who they are trying to appeal to, moms are just going to be thinking, “New moms, eh? Well, when was the last time a dad got cracked nipples or got in trouble at work for pumping?” And fathers making real contributions to their families (like my husband) are going to be appalled at that paltry 6.5 hours and the praise it is garnering. I can’t remember the exact quote, but Hubby said something like, “Six and half hours a week? How is that possible?” I was so furious at the title on the cover that I nearly burned the damn thing without reading it!

And you know what? None of this came from teh ee-vil feminists! And they say that we hate men?!

O.K., I have two shows to review today, both fall into the inexplicable category for me, but the kids seem to like them.

Caillou-I despise this show, no, that’s not a strong enough word. I hate this show with the heat of a thousand suns, the fiery quality of my utter loathing and active hatred of this show is powerful enough to melt the paint off the walls. The star of the animated show is an extraordinarily whiny, melon-headed little punk. He’s supposed to be four years old, but exhibits a maturity level far lower than that of his barely-verbal baby sister, Rosie. Caillou’s mother and father are so preternaturally patient and kind and loving and mealy-mouthed that their resemblance to real parents is cursory at best. There’s a cat and some stuffed animals that have their own puppet show thing between the excruciating animated segments. The theme song is terrible, the parents seem like they are on tranquilizers, those grandparents are the most boring grandparents on the planet, there’s a creepy next-door neighbor with a gold tooth and no visible means of support, and did I mention the whining? Caillou is a terrible influence on children, at least on mine. One half-hour of Caillou leads, hop-skip-and-jump, to a week of emulating his atrocious whiny-toned voice. I think the kid gets away with being so whiny all the time because those cartoon parents of his are zonked out on Quaaludes all the time. I find no redeeming qualities in this show except that the kids seem to like it, thank heavens it’s not one of the favorites.

Then there is Yo Gabba Gabba, a children’s show/rave that boasts some very cool guests and artists. Guests like Elijah Woods and Biz Markie and Mark Mothersbaugh. This show is a cross between The Banana Splits, Sigmund and the Sea Monsters, and Dee Lite. And can I just say that I am utterly confused by DJ Lancerock’s hat? During my sophomore year of high school, before we got the new band uniforms, that hats we had to wear were these white, itchy towers of fake fur. DJ Lancerock’s hat looks just like those except in orange. To me, Yo Gabba Gabba just seems like a bunch of hipper-than-thou parents or wanna-bes got together and decided to make a “cool” children’s program. I can’t fault them for this, as much children’s programming is absolute garbage. But sometimes it comes off as self-congratulatory and pretentious in its efforts to not be Barney. 

When I get tired of modern children’s programming I just turn the T.V. over to Boomerang, watch Yogi Bear, and relive the innocent T.V.-viewing of my childhood. And, seriously, children’s-programming-people, why work so hard at being “cool” when we can just turn over to The Jetsons or Scooby Do, Where Are You?

I meant to write about Mother’s Day weekend way before now, but such is life. Friday was my open house at nursing school, where I was inundated with valuable information; and I’m really glad they gave us paper versions of everything or I wouldn’t remember a word of it. Saturday was Monkey’s Day. We dropped Pumpkin off at my folks’ and took Monkey to his first movie theater movie. We took him to see “Speed Racer”, thinking the racing cars would be a good fit for his little racing mind. He made it through about an hour. He liked the huge bag of popcorn and the giant pop he shared with Mama (two potty trips, thank-you-very-much), but the movie was a little intense. About half-way through, he closed his eyes and told me he wanted to take a nap. That means he’s scared and doesn’t want to look anymore. So when we asked him if he wanted to leave he said, “Yes.” So we played an arcade game on the way out and took him to Peppers for lunch.

We sat outside and enjoyed the beautiful weather. And Monkey spilled salsa on my feet. After lunch, we made the much-dreaded trip to the mall. But we didn’t have a choice because that’s where the Apple Store and Sephora are. I got my Mother’s Day presents a day early–an iPod and a nice, long time browsing in Sephora all by myself. Not only did I get my mom some great philosophy products, but I also picked up some perfume for myself, V by Valentino. It’s yummy. Now, I am not the fanciest of girls, but I LOVE Sephora! It’s like a candy shop for grown women.

I’ll be the first to admit that I’ve been a bit of a Luddite when comes to all this computer stuff. That is until I needed to get proficient, fast, for my first online class. Now I have three blogs (how’d that happen!) and pay bills online and shop online and can even put together a pretty good Word document. But the last personal music player I owned was back in probably 1989, a Walkman that played actual tape cassettes. Most of which were mix-tapes recorded for me by sympathetic friends. Now, I am the proud owner of Pinky, a (big shocker) pink iPod nano. She is named Pinky, not only for the obvious reason, but also for Pinky Tuscadero, ex-love of the Fonz. I always loved her, and ached to be that cool. Wow, that’s a lot of pink.

Last night I went to iTunes and bought my first 50 songs. No albums yet. And if I do say so myself, that is the oddest mix of songs; I’ve got everything from Ministry to Mozart. Lot’s of Eighties, some modern electronica, and very dark classical. Oh, and Johnny Cash covering NIN’s “Hurt.” Just odd, I tell ya.

After I downloaded all my new stuff, I played with my new iPod for about 2 hours. I was bouncing around to the music and Hubby started laughing at me. He told me I needed to go to the kitchen and make a sandwich, a la Terminator. I cracked myself up today, because after we dropped Monkey off at school and came home, I went into the kitchen and made myself a sandwich. All while dancing around the kitchen and singing out loud to the songs. But alas, no cybernetic assassins from the future showed up. Just me and my sandwich, and Pinky.