Christmas letter to let everyone know how we are, 2017

Dear family and friends,

Here it is--the 23rd of December, and I am really hoping that I won't have to run to Kroger again until the 26th. Somehow, even though I have fixed a savory egg dish for Christmas morning for nearly 14 years, I somehow managed to forget that I needed ingredients for it. I did manage to order the donuts only two days ago.

I'm not sure my three part-time jobs are supposed to equal a full-time. I mean, in terms of salary, they absolutely do not. When I think about what I end up making per year, it really sometimes doesn't feel like it's worth it. All in the name of "flexibility," I guess.

I'm busy enough to forget all sorts of crap, though.

Of course, I'm gonna blame that stomach bug on December 12th that, technically only lasted three hours, but undid my colon for an additional three days. I had planned to do a whole bunch of stuff that Thursday and Friday of that week but didn't have the energy for it.

I took a graduate class this past fall that added just enough busyness to my life to make me develop a sinus infection and be even bitchier than I normally am. D got really good at fixing frozen pizzas on Thursday nights when I had class.

D and I celebrated our 20th wedding anniversary in November. We had visited Quebec in May, which we worried would doom us to a divorce before actually hitting our official anniversary date. It was a close call when I mixed cauliflower in with my mashed potatoes a couple days before. You never know what tests a marriage, but according to D, that was it.

D is still driving his 17-year-old Nissan, which has 75,000 miles on it and will dry-rot before it actually hits 100,000 miles. Then there is my car, which we affectionately call, "The Money Pit." She's at 164,000 miles. This year alone the air conditioning and heater died. And did you know cars have more than one catalytic converter?  We learned that the hard way.

D has been at his job for 17 years and vacillates between feeling overwhelmed with work/stress and feeling bored and like he doesn't earn his paycheck. That pretty much sums up how I feel as a mom, except I deserve such a big honking paycheck for what I do, they can't afford me.

We're waiting on both the furnace to blow up and the water heater to die. I'd like to buy some indoor shutters since some of our roman shades no longer raise/lower, but I can't justify the expense right now.

The kids are fine.

N has applied to a high school that will mean more schlepping her around for another few years rather than being able to stick her on a bus. She is playing lacrosse--we're not sure why, but we're glad she's getting exercise. If she would ever practice anything with any regularity, she could probably be really exceptional. But she doesn't, so she isn't.

The boys will have their piano recital in February. M practices piano at least an hour every time he practices, which sounds great except that 50 minutes of it is whining about playing the piano or just sitting at the piano not playing. I am never, ever, ever making that child play another instrument for the rest of his life, which I thought he'd like to hear, except when I say it he cries because he wants to play guitar.

G says the word "dick" too much, and he isn't talking about people named Richard either. He is at that stage where he really needs to start wearing deodorant but mostly doesn't remember. I've taught him to wash his pits in a pinch, which is good advice since I'm doing pretty well to remember to make them shower once a week.

Our cats--Slippers and Skits--are fine. Skits remains skittish. She is the good girl who leaves the Christmas tree alone. Slippers is f*cking psychotic and climbs both trees, squooshing all the limbs down with her fat cat ass.  If her colon doesn't get cinched in ornament ribbon, I'll be shocked. She has nibbled so many ornaments off the trees, it's ridiculous.

I'm finding more and more gray hairs on my head, and my mid-section is starting to develop that menopausal pooch.

I'm sure Christmas and New Years will not live up to the hype that society gives them. The 4th of July continues to be my favorite holiday. Wishing your family.....heck, I don't know what I wish your family. That you get through whatever it is you gotta get through without losing your mind or being insufferable.

Love,
Carrie

Uppity school

If there is one thing I despise, it is uppity-assedness.
Those people who and institutions that act like they are above everyone and everything else.

I am not above it myself.
I have my moments when I feel all judgy, like my master's degree should endow me with a crown and scepter.
But I also know where I come from, and there is a whole lot of working class that has contributed to who I am and where I am.
I know full well that in a zombie apocalypse, the people like me with our liberal arts degrees are straight up useless-as-hell.
I can't make anything.
I can't fix anything.
I can't kill anything.
I can't do anything of any measurable value with my skillset.
I could write a poem about how useless I am in the midst of the apocalypse.

I have never needed a poem or an essay or a song, but I sure as heck have needed a carpenter, a plumber, an electrician, and a mechanic.

Some people have jobs that help us meet our needs, and some people have jobs that help us meet our wants, and I fall in that second category of skill.
There is incredible value in BOTH of those, but if you fail to recognize this, I tend to think you might be afflicted with uppity-assedness.
And depending on the world around you, one type of skill may be more necessary than another.
In a zombie apocalypse world, poetry and music might be, at least temporarily, pretty unnecessary.

I don't need another reason to get my panties in a twist about high school choices, but here I am...panties twisted.

Since my Girl Scout girls are approaching high school, I asked them if they'd like to use our meetings to start exploring career paths. We've visited a vet before, so I thought I'd ask what others careers they might be interested in learning about. They said psychology, cosmetology, and culinary. I thought I might also throw in dental hygiene and assisting, too.

I set up for them to visit a local hair school today, and I think they learned a lot, even if they decide not to pursue it as a career (I know I did). Plus, they got their hair fixed and a goodie bag.

The lady who acts as admissions director asked the girls about what schools they now attend and where they hope to go for high school. When the girls mentioned their high school choice, she informed us that the high school that N is applying to won't allow this vocational school to come to career day. Apparently, the principal of this high school prefers that 4-year college careers only be represented.

To which I'd like to ask the principal: Who in the hay-hay do you think you are? And do you think that you might possibly have some students in your school who might WANT careers in cosmetology and what in the hell is wrong with that? What reason do you have to exclude a vocational school that would like to provide information to students?

Of course, I have not heard the principal's side of this (but you better believe if I ever get the opportunity, I'll ask about it).
If there is evidence that this hair school is mismanaged or stiffs students, then that is a different matter.

All the lawyers and doctors and engineers and other 4-year-degree operatives in the world have to have someone to cut and style their hair.
The impression that only certain jobs are worthy enough for a high school job fair is ridiculous.

Gender, fear, morals and being of the middle mind

I finished the novel This is How It Always Is by Laurie Frankel this past week after being sidelined by a stomach bug. It is a book about a family with a transgender child and how they both successfully and unsuccessfully help their child navigate the world.

Prior to finishing the book, I listened to one of my favorite podcasts, Hidden Brain, which had an episode all about gender.

I haven't totally finished it, but it discusses how gender is not all biology or all social environment. What in this life exists in a vacuum? Nature has blurry edges.

Many people don't like blurry edges.
I happen not to be one of them.

Just because a person has XX or XY chromosomes doesn't mean they weren't heavily influenced by estrogen or testosterone in utero (or maybe something else?), which may play a role in how they feel, regardless of what their DNA "says."

Gender identity is not a choice.
Sexual identity is not a choice.
Just like personality is not a choice.
It is what it is, and as anyone knows who has tried to change their personality, it doesn't really work.
You can fight it as much as you want for as long as you want, but there it is.

It occurred to me that anyone who has strayed outside the boundaries in even the smallest ways can understand a bit how a person who is LGBTQ feels.

Let's take hair, for example.

I have worn my hair short since I was in high school.
My hair doesn't grow long so much as it grows fat, and it simply doesn't look good long.
I am also a woman who doesn't want to waste even five seconds of my existence messing with my hair.
When I was a teen, I went to a barber shop for my haircuts, which means they often weren't the most "feminine" cuts.
I can't tell you how many times in my life I was mistaken for a boy or assumed to be a lesbian simply because of my haircut.
I didn't stay in the socially constructed lines of "long hair equals femininity."

G likes his hair long, and he has been mistaken for a girl numerous times. At a young age, he is learning that straying outside the lines has its consequences. Fortunately, he doesn't care.

Some people despise the notion of an "anything goes" society, and I can understand their concern.
Although I consider myself fairly progressive, there are some things about which I feel pretty conservative, pretty traditional.

For instance, I have mixed feelings about giving unmarried pregnant teens baby showers.
I'm sure some of this is residual from how I was brought up.

But then I think back to when a friend of mine in college accidentally got pregnant. A bunch of us had a baby shower for her, and that was the kindest thing to do.
Was it a difficult situation for her to be in? Of course.
Was she scared? I'm sure.
Did she feel embarassed? Probably.
But would shunning her or denying her friendship and kindness have made it any better?
Her baby hadn't "violated societies' dictates" (if you want to call it that), so why shouldn't we be excited about a new life?

Another traditional view I have is that separated individuals shouldn't date until they are officially divorced.
Again, I don't know where this comes from, but it is there.
I don't think it is fear that guides it as much as the concern that people may move from one failed relationship into another without taking the time to figure out what went wrong.

But I have to remind myself that I don't know all the ins- and outs of their marriage.
I don't know if they've been in counseling for the past five years struggling through their marriage.
And how does whatever they do within the confines of their marriage, separation or divorce CONCERN ME IN THE LEAST?
It doesn't.
It is absolutely none of my business.

So if a transgender person uses whatever restroom they decide is appropriate to them, and they don't come into my stall and interfere with what I am doing, what difference does it make to me?
What difference does it make to John Q who has an opinion about "queers invading our bathrooms?"

In the course of subbing, I have seen transgenderded children.
Despite what some may think, these kids do not lord their identity over others.
It's not a drag show moving up and down the hallways.
These kids struggle in ways that I cannot even wrap my head around.
Because they are children, I choose kindness.
Because they are HUMAN, I choose kindness.

I tend to think I am a pretty moral person, and that is more important to me than religiousity.
Within me are progressive ideals and conservative ideals, but sometimes I think I am at heart pretty libertarian.
It's complex.
There are some blurry edges in my beliefs between progressive, conservative and libertarianism.
Just like with gender. 

Opportunities to learn right from wrong

Let me be the first to say that I don't know what the hell I'm doing as a parent.

Like everyone else who has children, I'm flying by the seat of my pants. I read as much as I can, use my experience as a teacher, and listen to my own feelings to guide me.

I am a firm believer in letting kids fail on the small scale so that they learn how to "police" themselves.
My kids are going to make stupid decisions. All kids, including their mother, make stupid decisions, especially as teenagers.
But I'm hoping that they learn to listen to the little voice inside their heads that says, "This isn't right," and get out of situations on their own because they've had practice in developing good sense.

I know there are all sorts of technologies out there that will monitor my kids online, but at this point in time, we do not use them.

We talk about what is and is not appropriate for kids online.
We talk about not giving any kind of personal information about themselves online.
We talk about child predators.
We pop in and check to see what our kids are doing online. The boys do all of their internet stuff in the living room where I can see them. N is up in her room most of the time, but gets occasional "mom interruptions" where I ask what she is watching.

The other night, while I was at my class, D told me that G was watching a YouTube video on the couch. All of a sudden, D heard "F*ck yah! F*ck yah!" and G scrambled to get out of the video. G said, "I didn't know it was going to do that."

Did he get out of it because he knew his dad would hear it and question him? Yes.
Would he have learned the lesson if we had everything inappropriate blocked? I'm not sure.

I distinctly remember doing things as a teenager and hearing my mother's voice inside my head telling me not to do something. In some cases, I ignored the voice, but it was there, and it tried it's best to get me to do the right thing.

The problem with having all sorts of technology do the monitoring is that it can give parents a false sense of security. "Technology is taking care of it, therefore I have nothing to worry about it."
Technology can and does fail.
Technology isn't going to teach children how to monitor themselves.
Experience does that.

This is part of the reason I don't censor my children's reading.
I mean, if they walked into the house with Fifty Shades of Grey I would draw a line, but I don't research what they read.
When I was a kid, I read Judy Blume's books all the time and loved them. I read about masturbation in Then Again Maybe I Won't. I read about menstruation in Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret." I read about teenage sex in Forever. And I would say now, as an adult, that isn't the worst way to learn about those things. Better than learning about them from other goofy teenagers.

With my GAD, it would be very easy for me to put a bubble around my children and protect them from everything, but I see what happens when parents do that. I see how unsuccessful it is when parents deny their kids opportunities to fail or shelter them too much.  I have known parents who read Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath to their high schooler to censor out things that they deem inappropriate. (The parent who did this had a child who explored pornography, which tells me that sheltering them too much doesn't actually work.)

(There is a happy medium, though, because giving kids complete free reign isn't successful either. Children need guidance.)

As soon as you deny kids something, forbid them from something, that is exactly what they want to do or see or learn about unless they are unusually obedient kids. I say this as an adult who is hell-bent on doing whatever it is someone tells me I can't do, and I have a fully formed pre-frontal cortex that helps me be pretty darn rational.

So for now, we're doing our best to help our kids develop the skills to self-monitor so they don't have to have big-brother do it for them.

My own tame version of #metoo

When #metoo began trending, I thought about whether I had ever been sexually harassed or assaulted.

I know that may sound silly--to have to think about it--but I doubt I'm the only woman who had to think back throughout her life experiences.

Of course, any kind of violent or serious sexual assault doesn't require a lot of thought, but the thing with sexual harassment is that it is insidious. It often appears harmless, and perhaps a woman wonders whether she is making a big deal about something that wasn't intended in an intimidating or uncomfortable way. I think there is a certain amount of disbelief that goes along with it, a certain wondering, "Did that just happen the way I think it happened?"

I thought back to when I was a preteen. I'm not 100% sure how old I was, but I think I was around 11...maybe 12.  My parents took me and my brother to Panama City Beach, FL, and I met a cute boy. I don't remember his name or what he looked like. I think he was around 13 or 14.

We met at the pool and sat beside it talking. When my parents called me back to the room, I remember him escorting me. When we got into the elevator, he pushed the emergency stop button on the wall. It came to a sharp standstill. I don't remember if there was an alarm. I remember feeling startled. I remember him quickly coming up to me, pressing himself up against me, and kissing me. I remember pushing him off and feeling overwhelmed.

I don't know if he pushed the emergency release button or I did. I remember walking off the elevator and feeling angry with this boy. I remember walking out of the elevator when the doors opened. I hadn't thought about this event in many years, but now that I've been remembering for a couple hours in order to write this blog post, I seem to recall him saying, "You don't know what you're missing."

As an adult, I don't look at this event as having any major lasting impact on my life. I don't think it scarred me. I wonder if maybe the boy was just as stupid as I was and thinking this was the way you were supposed to "make a move on a girl." It certainly wasn't a situation in which someone with power or authority over me used that power for nefarious purposes.

I never told my parents about this experience. I don't really remember a reason why I didn't tell them, but I wonder if I didn't tell them because I suspected they would keep me from going out again alone if they knew this had happened. I wondered if I would essentially be "punished" because of this boy being too fresh or whatever word you want to use to describe what he did.

As a mom, I'm spending an awful lot of time instructing my sons in what is appropriate and not appropriate with other people. Drilling it into their heads that when someone says no or stop, they mean absolutely, positively NO and STOP. Informing them that if they are giving you mixed signals, you probably need to be with someone who communicates better.

I think we've spent so much time warning girls that we haven't spent enough time helping our boys learn to navigate what is appropriate and how a girl might read stopping the elevator emergency button and pushing yourself against her. Our girls end up being punished, being denied experiences and opportunities, because we are so terrified of what boys may do to them.