Working Women

OK, so I’m an old lady, but I am still a lady. And, I lean left of center. Guess you know that. So the hurrah today about women and working and the response leaves me a little confused. A Democratic strategist said Ann Romney has not worked a day in her life and everybody blew up.  Of course in my day, a working gal carried a totally different connotation.  But perhaps you can help me with the confusion I am experiencing today.

True, being a mom and a homemaker is a challenge; it is hard work, etc., etc. But it is not “working” in that you do not report somewhere to some boss to do things you are told to do and get paid for it. Much of my time as a mom was out of my control too, dirty diapers, hungry kids, dirty clothes, etc., but no one was standing there telling me what to do. If you work in the daycare industry, you know what work is and you know what being a mom is. So, to tell Ms. Romney she has not worked a day in her life is not quite accurate. She may never have been on a payroll a day in her life. That is different. But come on ladies; let’s not get huffy about that. Being a mom is hard work. Being a working mom is even harder work. Never having been on a payroll before means you have never worked for a living before. Period.

There is a term for people who are not employed and yet have the money to eat, pay rent, or whatever. It is called welfare recipients. Welfare means you are living off the earnings of someone else. I do not have a problem with welfare. I would rather people receive some of my tax dollars than starve. But, I also think of Ms. Romney as a welfare mom. She did not earn the money she spends. So that is my first area of real confusion: why does she oppose welfare when she receives it?

My second concern is the obvious one everyone is talking about: why would you take advice on our economy and unemployment from someone who has neither studied nor experienced it? Spooky. That would be like NASA asking me for advice just because I take up space.

My real source of confusion is the conservative stand on women. Perhaps better said, why would you be a conservative and a woman? If you are a conservative woman you can still decide not to have an abortion, you can still decide to marry a rich man and become a welfare mom; you can still decide to be employed for less money than a male counterpart. No one is interfering with your right to make stupid decisions. On the other hand, if you are working hard to be sure that no woman gets to make her own decisions in the area of birth control, unwanted pregnancies, fair employment opportunities, and fair leadership opportunities, why aren’t you embarrassed to not allow your sisters the same rights of choice that you have? I don’t get it, unless you are independently wealthy and you do not want to pay any taxes.

I also do not get this “I am a conservative and I do not want government telling me what do, unless it is the government telling women what to do or not do.” Really? Please explain that to me!

Is it that as a conservative woman you do not think for yourself and some man told you to think this way? Is it that you are a Romney welfare mom and the price of living off someone else is to think like they tell you? If so, sister, call me quick! I get that some men do not want women to have equal rights, but that is their shortcoming and their insecurity and it should not be contagious and it should not be legislated.

Women have some different biology than men, we have some different organs than men. We are more alike than we are different, even though I celebrate the differences! The brain, however, is a common organ in both genders. I pray that women learn to use theirs.

OK, I pray men learn to use their brains too.  I probably pray for that more often.

Sitting with the Pain

I am not good at handling pain. I can handle broken bones (had a few), cut fingers (had a few), kidney stones (had a few), even open heart surgery (had one). It’s emotional pain I do not handle well. I am oh so tempted to grab a drink, or a pill, or find something to do that takes me out of me, takes me away, takes me out of the pain. It hurts and I do not like it and want it to go away. Heartbreak. Rejection. Hurting those I love. Loss of a loved one. I hate it. It hurts and won’t go away.


I’ve been at it long enough now though to know that even if I numb it, even if I distract it, even if I run from it, the pain remains and will come back with a vengeance. Worse.

So tonight as I have hurt someone I care about, I sit with the pain. Just sit. Just hurt. Hope he can forgive me. If not, then I will just sit with the pain.

Hand me a beer.

Lost My Appetite

I begin by freely admitting I am an old fuddy-duddy. Not so old or fuddy that I cannot appreciate good adolescent literature anymore. I loved Harry Potter, books and movies. I am not so crazy about the Twilight series, but I can see the attraction, and the author is skilled. Lord of the Flies is not really adolescent literature as far as I am concerned. I think the Marvel comics, Star Trek and Star Wars are much more appropriate jumping off spots for important dialog with young people about good and evil, right and wrong, powers and how they are used, etc.


Now, Hunger Games. I saw the movie last night and awoke still disturbed. If you have neither read nor seen Hunger Games what follows may perhaps pollute your experience with my perception. This then is your spoiler alert.

Among the most noble of themes in literature is love conquers all, sacrifice for and commitment to our humanity, and good versus evil. Each of these themes plays out in a macabre reversal in Hunger Games. Imagine a world where parents willingly sacrifice their children to participate in a reality TV show that leads to virtually certain death for the contestants. I cannot and remain a human. Imagine a world where our children numbly allow themselves to be selected to participate in such an event. I cannot and remain a human. Imagine a world where parents become spectators for the brutal killing of their children and others who are randomly selected to die to support an autocratic regime where wealth is centered on the few and the vast majority work as peasants to support the system. I cannot. This was science fiction feudalism and the basic premise does not work. It is nightmarish. It is much more like an America fashioned by the likes of Rick Santorum than the democracy I know and love. The rebellion I longed for never really happened. The kids died.

Worse, I never connected with the actress selected to play the lead. Though an attractive young lady, she never convinced me that she was a poor huntress from a starving outlying district. She never sold me on her willingness to fight for what was right. She looked more at home in the pomp and wealth of the capital than in the woods with bow and arrow fighting for survival. Where is a young Jodie Foster or Sarah Michelle Gellar when we need them to show us grit, show us athleticism, show us prowess, show us determination, show us some emotion? Even the farewell to a fallen tribute that we are to believe she cared for left me empty. Her kiss of another player in the darkest moments of the contest left me empty. No pathos, no passion, no guts, no glory. There were multiple opportunities for this young lady to engage me in her cause, until I sensed that her cause was simply to win the game, to be as guilty and complicit in the corrupt world as the reapers. This was not a show about good vs. evil. This was a show about evil vs. evil and the roles we agree to play in such a conflict.

I left sad. If these books and now movies are speaking to our children I wonder what they are hearing. If you are to be a sheep, at least be good one? A make believe world could be as dark and feudal as the world of Hunger Games. Reality TV is a good thing, and the real winner is the game show host. Ally with anyone, lie to anyone, if winning is the result. The human spirit can be defeated with political power and technological gimmickry.

I wanted to be inspired. I left depressed. I wanted to be hungry for more. I lost my appetite.

Rare Find

I am amazed to read on CNN.com this morning (http://lightyears.blogs.cnn.com/2012/04/02/scientists-find-signs-of-ancient-man-made-fire/?hpt=hp_bn13) that scientists have discovered a cave in Africa where it appears that humanoids used fire and possibly cooked food a million years ago. Wow. The article goes on to say that there is evidence that humans have controlled fire for the past 400,000 years. This rattles me to the core.


I order my beef rare. I do not care if it is a fillet or a hamburger; I prefer the taste and texture of rare beef to beef that is cooked well. My argument when dinner companions become aghast has been that for the 2 to 4 million years we have evidence that humans have been on the planet, it appears that mastery of fire has only been around for about 40,000 years. Therefore, we obviously survived for millions of years on rare meat and raw veggies. The ability to cook food arrives late in our history.

But now, it appears my core argument is wrong. Even if we mastered cooking as far back as 400,000 years, much less a million years, I need to rethink. That would mean that for only about ½ of our existence did we survive on rare meat and raw veggies. Not nearly so impressive an argument.

I am however, even more upset that many of the readers of this article posted comments that implied that they believe the planet and life here is only 6,000 years old so all of this is some kind of liberal scientific conspiracy. Really? This belief comes from a literal translation of the Bible, counting generations from Adam and Eve to today. I am so dumbfounded by these statements I am not sure where to begin. But, begin I shall:

I am a believer. I believe in things unseen. I believe there are some things that are unknowable and beyond our understanding that must be taken on faith. I believe that our God-given gift of rational thought is just that, a God-given gift rarely bestowed on other life forms to the degree we have it. Therefore, using my rational mind is for me a form of worship of the God that does in fact exist.

The Bible was not written by God. It was written by man. It was not written to be a literal scientific text book, a mathematical textbook, an auto mechanics book, or an astrological text book. It was written to describe in mostly metaphorical and allegorical terms ways in which God interacts with humans and humans interact with each other. I would no more turn to the Bible when my computer crashes or my car breaks down than I would turn to the Bible to determine the age of a bone using carbon-dating. Why in the world would I do that? Surely, God must laugh every time someone does that. For those who seem to insist on doing so, I wonder if they have sworn off all the scientific advances made in the last 2,000 years that are not in the Bible? Do they have cell phones? Do they take medicine? Do they have X-rays? Do they drive cars? Do they own firearms? Good Lord, who are these people?

If I am rattled by good science in terms of how I order my steak, then I am pleased that I remain a rational person informed by rational minds. If I choose to ignore the evidence and hang on to false beliefs, then I am insulting the God who gave us the precious gift of our minds.

I will still order my steak rare despite the rare find in Africa. I will still pray for those who are burdened with such cognitive dissonance as believing they live on a 6,000 year old planet and that humans co-existed with dinosaurs. If we all believed that, we too would deserve to become extinct.

Hindsight

I started this blog two years ago. Hard for me to believe. It is even harder to believe that I have 63 posts and 5,000 viewers. Who would have thunk the ramblings and rantings of a little old lady would be read at all?


One year ago I posted “All Fool’s Eve” expressing the hope that our legislature was just kidding when it spoke of budget cuts, charters, new high stakes tests, etc. They were not kidding. Now, well into our first year of compressed funding, 25,000 educators laid off while 80,000 more kids showed up in school, it is hard to believe we are administering a new, more rigorous standardized high stakes test. Class size has grown, salaries frozen, budgets squeezed, and we are not only still at it, and we are striving to prepare our kids for a tougher test which we have already started to administer.

What’s the matter with us? The Legislature keeps saying do more with less and we keep doing more with less.

If we quit, who would teach? If we quit, who would be willing to be principal, superintendent? What would 4.5 million kids do every day? Where will their parents be when they realize child care costs more in a year than public education? (Well, it costs more unless you own a mansion and a lot of property.)

But, that’s not us. We won’t quit. We’ll keep trying to make do with what we have.

If you are not educator, you might ask yourself why not? Whatever your answers are, ask yourself what you will do when there aren’t any more of us. But by then, it would be too late.

Then, it will be hindsight.

Happy All Fools Day!