Well, Duh!

Plunking your kid in front of the TV won’t make her a genius.

File this under I can’t believe this is news but an article published on Yahoo Shine today claims that the revelation that the Baby Einstein videos are nothing more than, “a mind numbing way to occupy infants”, is apparently, “rocking the parent world.”

All I can say is…really? The idea that TV isn’t good for kids under two is “rocking” the parenting world?

I don’t have children of my own which in some necks of the woods qualifies me for nothing but withering looks when I issue an opinion on child rearing, but I do have multiple degrees in education and once upon a time I used to work for the largest toy retailer in the city of Boston. The Baby Einstein videos were on a constant loop on a small beat up TV in the infant’s department. Being within ten feet of them while I scraped gum off the floor, scooped candy into tiny cellophane bags or gift wrapped a $300 mohair teddy bear as a present for a toddler who would undoubtably gnaw the ear off of it was enough to give me, a grown woman, a migraine. People, have you ever seen these videos? They’re like bad acid flashbacks. Seriously, my mind hasn’t been bent so severely since the light show at that Phish concert I got dragged to back in college. Baby Einstein videos aren’t educational, in fact I’d argue that they have more potential to damage a kid’s attention span than make them smarter. They’re the equivalent of video catnip. In short, they are a shitty, stupid and ridiculous product that just happens to have a marketing scheme that plays into the vanity, insecurity and laziness of modern parents. My kid can have a head start over all the other kids and all I have to do is plop him in front of these videos!

As a sales associate I would constantly try to steer potential gift givers away from the Baby Einstein videos,”How about a monogrammed baby blanket? A set of handmade wooden blocks? A hardcover heirloom-quality edition of Make Way for Ducklings?”

Like an evil parent from a Roald Dahl novel the parent would reply,”Oh he already has enough books, let’s get him some videos.” Enough books? I grew up in a family where one could never have enough books. The idea that a parent would choose a video that was obviously garbage over a book was mind-boggling to me. Who are you? The Wormwoods?

“A child can’t have too many books!” I’d opine cheerfully. The Beacon Hill mom would dismiss me with a wave of a perfectly manicured hand decked with a diamond that was probably worth more than the house I grew up in and say in a tone that barely masked her contempt that a complete philistine who wore a name-tag and a polo shirt to work would dare to give her parenting advice, “The Baby Einstein videos were designed to be educational. It’s brain science. I’ll take two.”

Time and again people would ask me my opinion on the Baby Einstein videos and I’d tell them I didn’t think they were developmentally sound. Time and again people would tell me I was wrong, just because the packaging and the advertising told them it would make their kid smarter. Never mind that anybody with two eyes can look at the videos and see they are junk. Never mind that the parental wisdom that children under two shouldn’t be watching TV has been around forever. Why are we so quick to trust what advertising and packaging tell us are true instead of our own guts? Are we that insecure with our own judgement? Are parents that lazy?

I’m laughing to myself today thinking about all those condescending bitches who used to send their drivers around to the store to fill the family Cadillac Escalade with birthday gifts for their toddlers (I saw a lot of that, it was downtown Boston before the stock market crash) instructing their maids to purge all the Baby Einstein merch from the nursery. “Get that garbage out of here, I read on the internet that it isn’t educational! Now Blake  Jr. will never get into Harvard! “

Ha fucking ha, bitch.

It warrants a mention that parents have been looking for a way to occupy small children since the beginning of time. And no, women in the work force or feminism is not to blame for this particular form (or I’d argue, any form) of crap parenting. Yes, parents of both genders are busier than ever so an excuse to plop your kids in front of the TV while you fix dinner is more seductive as it ever has been. But let’s be straight here people, my grandmother and her  mother and just about every other mother who went before them were stay at home moms. Did they spend their days playing mentally stimulating, developmentally appropriate educational games with their kids? Hell no, they smoked, played bridge and got their hair done while the kids ran around and played outside. And out of those generations of children, plenty of them still were top in their class, got into ivy league schools and landed good jobs, no cracked out kiddie videos required.

Know what is developmentally appropriate? Building a fort with the couch cushions, coloring with those big fat crayons and playing in the sandbox. In fact, I’d argue that almost anything is more appropriate for toddlers than watching Baby Einstein videos. But how would I know? I’m not a parent, I’m just a person with common sense.

Sometimes I’m not so sure I want to have children, but articles like this make me want to breed just to make sure that another generation of children will grow up knowing what it is like to play in the mud, put on their own puppet shows and live with a life that’s not over-scheduled and inundated with pre-packaged crap before they’re even old enough to tie their own shoes.

 

 

 

I Have Boobs, Deal With It.

Sing it, Meghan McCain!

So by now most of us are already over the non-controversy regarding Meghan McCain and a certain chesty twit pic. However it is her response today in the Daily Beast that really intrigues me as it seems to encapsulate the struggles that all well-endowed women face. So McCain posted a picture of herself on twitter sporting vaguely porny looking cleavage. She claimed it was in preparation for her big night in that involved a good book and some takeout. Now I don’t know a 20 something female who would post and unflattering or dowdy picture of herself on the internet and as Broadsheet pointed out, “What do they think young Republican women wear to bed? Lanz of Salzburg?” OK, so posting a megaboobs shot of yourself online might be vaguely tacky (however again, I challenge you to find me a 20-something female who doesn’t have at least one vaguely saucy pic of herself on Facebook) but to be called a slut over it? What century are we in?

 McCain says she has, “struggled to accept the fact that the way I look in a tank top comes off more “sexual” than a flat-chested woman.”  I can totally relate here, there are some styles smaller chested women can wear without stares that I just can’t pass off without looking like Marilyn Monroe. Although it can be a nuisance at time, I’ve always ultimately thought of it as a nice problem to have. I do my best to dress appropriately for the situation I’m in, try to keep it all “tucked in” and not flash people in public, but in the end… I have boobs. They’re big, sometimes people are going to notice them. I’m not going to go around wearing turtlenecks every day or uncomfortable chest minimizing bras just because some people can’t handle the sight of a fully grown woman. 

What’s up with people behaving as if having large or noticeable breasts is a sign of promiscuity? Last time I checked, there was no correlation between cup size and number of sexual partners and if there is… boy did I miss out when I was single. It doesn’t work the opposite way, people don’t look at women with small breasts and think, “Oh, she must be such a prude.”  Why do we look at a woman who has larger breasts, breasts that are often more visible than the breasts of a smaller woman and automatically think that she’s a slut just because her body’s doing what it does naturally? 

Although breasts are highly fetishized in our culture, the fact is that they serve a very practical evolutionary purpose; feeding human babies. Unless you have a lactation fetish, that’s just about the least sexual thing I can think of. Having large breasts is not an invitation for people to stare, comment or think ill of my character any more than having a large nose or ears would be. Living with the body I was born with and feeling comfortable in it, comfortable enough to not want to hide behind boxy clothing doesn’t make me, or Meghan McCain a slut. And while we’re at it, I’m so done with slut shaming. What’s a slut? Anyone who’s had more sex than you have? I’m tired of the word slut. I’m a slut, you’re a slut, we’re all sluts. Why in this day and age do we really think it is our business to comment on who or how many people anybody else is sleeping with anyway? 

Meghan McCain says she’s proud  of her curves, but like so much of her other writing, I feel that she gets close to making a great point and then backs off it in the end. She says she’s not perfect and that she’s still “making mistakes” and that she says she’s, “learned a valuable lesson about the internet and boundaries” and hopes, “other girls can learn from this episode.” Learning to draw the line between the internet and real life is a valuable lesson for sure, but in the end is this a lesson about being who you are, critics be damned, or covering up and shutting up when a few assholes pull out the S word? After all, McCain did threaten to take down her twitter page after the whole incident, something she has never done when the media has repeatedly called her fat. Why is it that a tiny four lettered word like slut has the power to make a confident woman like McCain consider silencing herself? Why is it that we use the word slut so often to defame, discredit and shut down young women? 

It’s something to think about. In the mean time, don’t you even think about calling me and my C cups slutty. Unless, of course, you mean it in a good way.

Midday Barf O Rama

So in keeping with the topic of the Sluttoween,  here are some links you can check out if you really want to throw up in your mouth a little:

For some reading that will make you want to give up on society and move to a yurt in the middle of the wilderness, check out the blog Packaging Girlhood. They are hoping the stripper pole marketed as a children’s toy is a hoax. So am I.

And if you really want to break your brain, see Salon’s article on sexy Halloween costumes for your pets. Now just because she’s a dog doesn’t mean Fifi can’t sex it up once in a while. Seriously, being seen with a dowdy, unattractive pet on Halloween is like totally embarrassing! No more hot-dog or bumble-bee costumes for my Dachshund, this year Sparky is going as a naughty nurse!

People, Sluttoween has gone too far. I call bullshit on these stupid costumes (which aren’t even clever most of the time) and hereby announce a boycott against un-inspired slutty costumes for women of all ages. Forget sexy cop, sexy beer wench and sexy prostitute, this year I’m going as Botulism. Don’t think I won’t do it. Last year I appeared in a fat suit as Teddy Roosevelt. I’ve also donned a zombie Lavinia costume involving so much fake blood that it made other trick or treaters gag. One thing is for sure, for the sake of my sanity the Catholic School girl outfit is staying in the closet this year.

Oh I Don’t Know…

Call it out of character, but I’m having difficulty mustering feminist outrage against the supposedly “new” phenomenon of pre-teens buying into the “Slutoween” trend by donning tarty costumes made especially for them. 

Why? Well first of all, I have trouble with the idea that pre-teen girls trying to dress older than their years is anything new, or even necessarily something that adults should be overly alarmed about. Adolescent girls have always pilfered mom’s lipstick and changed in the bathroom at the school dance into that shorter skirt the ‘rents wouldn’t let them leave the house in. Yeah, part of that is pressure from society, but part of it is also natural curiosity. Trying to figure out what the hell to do with one’s newly morphed pubescent body is a big undertaking and it doesn’t happen overnight. It takes a lot of experimentation (and plenty of fashion train-wrecks) to figure out your relationship with your budding body. Dressing older (and by association, sexier) is as much about independence to most teen girls as it is about fitting in and being pretty. Instead of trusting our girls to navigate the muddy waters of adolescence and make good choices why do we behave as if it only takes one pair of sparkley fishnets to turn a 13-year-old into a baby prostitute?

Case in point, when I was in seventh grade I saw the movie Clue and decided I wanted to be a French maid for Halloween. My mother tried to talk me out of it. She even tried appealing to my emergent feminism by explaining that French maids are sort of a degrading male fantasy. This tidbit was pretty much lost on me. At that point my budding sexuality did not include any awareness of dominance, submission or other kinks. All I knew was that French maids got to wear frilly costumes, carry feather dusters and speak in smarmy French accents. Who wouldn’t want to be a French maid for Halloween? All mom’s suggestions for other, more appropriate costumes for a thirteen year old (“What about being a bag of grapes!? We can blow up some purple balloons and stick them to a sweat suit!”) fell on deaf ears. I was dug in. I was being a French maid for Halloween. 

Instead of locking me up and throwing away the key, my mother reluctantly took me on a field trip to the local costume shop to pick out the most conservative French maid outfit we could find. She also insisted that I wear a turtleneck under it and drape a shawl over my shoulders, “Because it will be cold out.” I went out trick or treating in the outfit, practiced my smarmy French accent, accosted several people with my feather duster, collected a butt load of candy and came home… without herpes. I did not magically become popular with all the boys. I didn’t even end up dating for another three years. I didn’t ditch my well worn wardrobe of peasant skirts and wool clogs for leather pants and bustiers. The next Halloween I went as Red Death from Phantom of the Opera in pants, a tuxedo shirt, a floor length cape and a mask that covered most of my face. In short, I remained unharmed by my brush with the Slutoween phenomenon. 

Was I just lucky that I didn’t become a statistic? I think not. First of all, I had good parents who wanted to have constructive conversations with me about my choices instead of just slut-shaming me. Because she actually listened to me my mother learned that my interest in being a French maid had more to do with playing a kooky character than pandering to the male sex. In fact, pandering to the male sex wasn’t even on my radar at that age. Even if it had been, I’m sure mom and I would have had a conversation about that too.

Unlike the author of the Daily Mail Article, I don’t believe that, “Parents who allow their offspring to wear this junk should consider putting them up for adoption.” I am so glad that my parents valued me as a person who could make her own decisions instead of thinking of me as a Pretty Pretty Princess that they had to keep pure as long as possible no matter what the cost.

Pre-teens of both genders are thinking about sex all the time and it’s totally natural. What else are you going to do when your brain is totally bathed in hormones? We’d be foolish to think that denying them every pair of tacky earrings or pot of lip gloss is going to stop them from growing up too fast. Guarding your daughters from the trappings of adulthood is a false sense of security. Instead of trying to take away the makeup and the high heels, why aren’t we trying to teach young women that these things don’t have to define them? Because that would mean that parents would actually have to talk openly and honestly about growing up with their kids… and that’s just awkward. Better to call them  whores and ground them until they are 30! 

As a kid I was encouraged to think for myself and stand up for what I believed in and be my awkward, imperfect self in any way that I wanted to be. This didn’t win me many friends in Junior High but in the end I think it made me less susceptible to the junk culture that tells girls their only value is being attractive. I understand that parents have a very real responsibility to protect their kids form predators. I also understand just how damaging it is to sexualize children from a young age. I just don’t think that the solution to the problem is to shelter our children more. I think the solution is to help our children learn to make good choices on their own.

Sometimes I wonder what would have happened if my mom had refused to let me wear that French maid outfit on Halloween. I certainly would have had less fun dressed as a bag of grapes. Would I have merely snuck out in the slutty outfit anyway? Would fishnets and heels become even more attractive and glamorous once I knew that my mother hated them? Of course! Perhaps the fact that I had permission to experiment with the sexy outfit in the first place also empowered me to reject it in the end. Bottom line… kids are vulnerable, precious and impressionable but they are also a lot smarter than we think they are. Raise your kid well and a little eyeliner (or a slutty Halloween costume) isn’t going to change who they are. 

The Small Things

Today I had my first visit to the ophthalmologist. The good news is that I have, “Beautiful, healthy, nearly perfect eyes.” The bad news is that I have a very slight astigmatism in my right eye. I’ve been prescribed glasses for night driving and for making it more comfortable to read small print, but on the whole I’m fine.

Except for a few glaring instances, beautiful, healthy and nearly perfect have been the story of my health in my adult life. Over and over again doctors have ecstatically proclaimed my perfect heart beat, good blood pressure and beautiful teeth and commended me for taking care of myself. Until recently my good health was something I was happy to smugly take credit for. And why not? I eat right, I exercise, I don’t smoke. Surely, this is the reason why I’m for the most part in exemplary health. Except I’d forgotten one key thing, something that has very little to do with me. I’ve had excellent doctors all my life. Sure, it’s on my head to make my doctor’s appointments, fill my prescriptions and follow their advice when I’m sick. But the reason I’m able to do that so easily also has very little to do with me. You see, I’ve also never gone without health insurance for more than a few weeks (when I was between jobs) in my entire life. This pretty much makes me an anomaly in modern America.

I’ve never had to desperately scour the internet for a homemade cure to my health problems because I couldn’t afford to see a doctor. I’ve never had to half the dosage of my meds or go off them completely because they were too expensive. I’ve never had to choose between having dental work or paying my rent. I’ve never had to compromise my reproductive health by skipping pelvic exams or going off the pill. I’ve never had to languish in depression or chronic pain because the crappy insurance I feel lucky to have won’t recognize my problems as real. I’ve also never had to undergo the humiliation of being harassed by medical bill collectors when I couldn’t afford to pay for a procedure that I urgently needed.

I’m not any smarter or more deserving of medical care than the people who do have to make those hard decisions every day. It’s easy to stay healthy when you can actually see a doctor. It’s also easy to stay healthy when you happen to be in one of the few professions that isn’t expecting more and more of their employees (working longer hours) while taking more and more away from them (cutting pay and benefits). Most of my friends are college educated people in professional fields and most of them have at some point or another had difficulty obtaining the medical care they needed. Not being college educated shouldn’t preclude one from having affordable health care, we all should have affordable health care. It’s just that we were taught all our lives that higher education would afford us some security to save money, see a doctor when we’re sick, have a roof over our heads. That’s a big part of why we bothered to go to college, it sure as hell wasn’t the dining hall food. Now it feels like they’ve re-written the rules and all of the sudden what used to mean security just isn’t enough anymore.

We like to think that there’s something wrong with people who don’t have insurance. They’re lazy, they’re too stupid to get a good job, they made some bad life decisions and dammit, we shouldn’t have to pay for other people’s fuck ups! What we can’t admit is that they’re just like us. If I lost my job tomorrow there would be no doctor’s checkups every time I felt something wasn’t quite right. I’d probably be pretty stressed out so there goes my good blood pressure. I wouldn’t be able to afford my gym membership anymore so there goes my “beautiful heart beat”. I’d be priced out of the organic produce that gets delivered to my door on a bi-weekly basis, in fact if I was living near the poverty level I’d be priced out of most produce (Hello Dollar Menu!) so my eating habits would go right down the toilet. I could probably manage to squeak by… unless I got sick. If I got sick I’d be screwed. That, my friends, is the scenario we all can’t bear to think about. It’s easier to just think that the poor get what they deserve and those of us who are clinging to middle class by our fingernails are somehow the Elected, as if we’re living in Puritan Fucking New England.

What if I did lose my job tomorrow? What if my luck ran out and I got sick tomorrow and my insurance didn’t want to pay for my treatment? Wouldn’t I deserve a safety net? Wouldn’t you? Wouldn’t anyone?

To say I’m disappointed that there isn’t going to be any real health care reform doesn’t go far enough. I’m thoroughly dismayed by the fact that the opportunity to actually do something good for the people of this country has been turned into a political mud-wrestling match where each side hopes a definitive victory will gain them absolute power. The lives we lead every day have been completely forgotten in the clamor.

The big lie politicians tell you, the lie that gets exaggerated and amplified by the media and splayed everywhere to terrify us into our opposing camps is that there is an absolute Good and Evil in these situations and that everyone who doesn’t rally around your particular pole is moronic, evil and dangerous. The left and the right both do this, I’m not saying any one is better than the other. They can’t let us believe for one moment that we aren’t any different from our neighbors and that the survival of all that is good and just in the world doesn’t depend on your particular side having a definitive victory. If they allowed us to feel that even people who don’t share our views are basically good and we all want the same basic things out of life (we all want to be happy, healthy and safe, we all want to leave behind a better world for our children) then they would lose all their power. The power to make decisions for us that have nothing to do with making our lives better and everything to do with increasing their own power.

I’m disappointed but I’m not surprised. For now I’ll go on being thankful for the small things, knowing that for many people being able to see a doctor if their eyes hurt (or even if something worse happens) is a luxury, not a right. I’m no different from any of them. I just happen to be on the winning side of the system. For now.

Confession of the Day: I’m A Premature Bridezilla

A friend of mine recently posted a blog entry complete with to her ideal renaissance-inspired wedding dress. Never mind that she doesn’t happen to be engaged or even in a serious relationship at the moment. She momentarily pondered if this made her a bit silly. If this makes her silly, then I’m just plain certifiable. Friend, I’ll do you one further, much further. I’m not engaged either but I not only have a dress in mind… I have my entire damn wedding planned. You heard me. 

For a while I’ve wanted a Dia de los Muertos inspired wedding. My mom cringed when I once mentioned this in front of her, but hear me out mom, I’m not thinking cheesy-ass goth wedding, I’m thinking Martha Stewart Living Halloween Issue wedding. Picture it. A crisp fall day on Cape Cod. It will be just cool enough to wear an amazing Supermaggie scarf. The color scheme is purple, green and orange. The dress is 1950’s style, maybe with some colorful embellishments like this. Obviously this unique ensemble will involve a fascinator instead of a veil. Papel Picado and brightly colored lanterns adorn the place. On each brightly colored picnic table there is a different Mexican oilcloth tablecloth. The centerpieces are white ghost pumpkins carved into tasteful lanterns, and surrounded by short mason jars with bunches of Gerber daisies. The cake is a tower of Lyndell’s cupcakes atop a vintage cake stand with a sugar skull bride and groom at the very top. 

Oh, and this all won’t be mind numbingly expensive because it will all be vintage, etsy or DIY. 

Where’s the hypothetical groom in this? Oh, he just has to show up and look pretty. And wear a top hat.

Seriously though, what is up with wedding fever? or should I say wedding planning fever? Is it because a motherload of my friends have gotten engaged or married in the last year and watching them plan their weddings naturally makes me think of my own? Is it because in spite of my combat-boot stomping, anti-patriarchal “I don’t need no stinkin’ marriage to make me complete” feminist trumpeting  I’m secretly starved to settled down in partnered, heterosexual bliss? Have I been brainwashed by society to fantasize incessantly about “my special day”? 

Maybe I’m secretly a romantic at heart. Or perhaps it is the party planner coming out in me. I’m a theater person for chrissakes, most of the shindigs I throw involve mood lighting, atmospheric design and costumes (not to mention interactive craft projects, hooo!), is this all just a natural extension of my tendency to do it up?

So what’s your take on it? Is it normal and natural to dream about your wedding before you’ve even gotten engaged? Why do we all do it even if we scoff at romance? Am I helping to set womanity back like 200 years just by writing about this stuff or is it all just good clean fun? Do I even give a fuck?

20 For My 20s

So I just happen to be on the cusp of a very significant birthday. The great 3-0. At first I planned to do a huge self-deprecating retrospective of all the birthdays of my second decade, forever immortalizing the pageant of bad self-esteem, bad boyfriends and bad haircuts that seemed to characterize my 20s. Then I thought better of that idea, if only because I actually rather like the person I’ve become since I turned twenty five. Besides, dwelling on the past is like, so immature. I’m ready for the future.

When I was younger I used to dread turning 30, the proverbial age that all us hip young kids are supposed to hand in our street cred and high tail it out to the suburbs to become soul-less, minivan driving cyborgs. 30 was a completely different universe to us. It wasn’t just that you became old at 30, it was almost as if you ceased to be, or at least ceased to be in any incarnation that we could identify with. Saying someone was “like 30″ was probably the worst insult one could one could drone at another over the bong water. “Dude, that guy is like 30, what’s he doing still hanging out at Manray? That’s just creepy”, or, “Yeah, sure I’ll get a real job, maybe when I’m like 30 or something.” 30. Too old to go clubbing, to enjoy even vaguely interesting music or wear combat boots and a feather trimmed black negligee over your favorite velour mini-dress to your 9am playwriting class. In short, 30 was the end of it all.

Could my black-eyeliner-smeared 20-year-old self ever have imagined I would look forward to turning 30? Would I have ever dreamed that the secret is that I’m actually getting cooler with age and not less so? All of those awesome things that the shy, image concerned me would never dare to try in her early 20s? I’m doing those things now. And what of 30 being the end of it all? Not even close. Get this: I’m not even afraid of things like partnership, starting a family and eventually even moving to a place where every spare inch of ground isn’t covered with asphalt and cigarette butts. I don’t ever have to be afraid of those things changing who I am. In my life I’ve met so many badass women who have still managed to maintain their professional goals, potty mouths and travel habits while being kickass partners and moms, I know when my time comes I’ll be able to do it to– and still be me. And what if I don’t choose a partnered life? That’s OK too. I’ve met countless other women who’ve shown me that there is no credence to the spinster stereotype and that being on your own is by no means the same thing as being lonely. Life… whatever you’ve got coming, I’m ready.

Yet, I wouldn’t be the confident person I am today if it hadn’t been for the me of my 20s, bad at home dye-jobs at all. I spent so much of the last decade trying on different identities, seeing what fit and discarding the old ones like thrift-store finds that I couldn’t quite make work with the rest of my wardrobe. I figured out what worked for me and what didn’t, culled what just didn’t feel right and hung on to what did. I worked my ass off to find my passion, become independent and be good at my job. I had a shit ton of adventures and good times along the way. And I learned a lot, I really did. Every train-wreck and triumph I’ve had over the last 10 years has made me who I am today. So here’s a run down, 20 for my 20s. 20 important things I’ve learned, many of which I’m still working on, but hey, life’s a work in progress…

1) You know that thing you have been dying to try but you’re afraid to because you think you aren’t smart enough, talented enough, cool enough, tough enough or attractive enough to do it? You are.

2) While we’re at it, you know all those people who are already doing that thing you want to do? Most of them aren’t any smarter or more talented than you. Chances are the only difference between you and them is that they decided they could do it.

3) It is not your job to make everybody you know like you, agree with you and think you are smart and wonderful and right all the time. In fact, chances are that if you are living your life according to your principals, everyone around you isn’t going to like you agree with you or think you are smart and wonderful 100% of the time. That’s OK. You don’t need to define your worth in terms how much others like you.

4) It is perfectly OK to spend time focusing on the relationships in your life that are mutually beneficial and to let go of those that are not.

5) Don’t ever waste time dating or being friends with someone who makes you feel “less than” or someone you can’t trust our be yourself around.

6) It’s OK to be busy sometimes with lots of different projects. Someday you’ll look back on your life and say, “I can’t believe I did all that cool stuff!”

7) It is also OK to say no to things and unplug your computer, turn off your phone and pretend to not be home for a night.

8. Self care is not vanity or self-indulgence. Taking care of yourself does not mean you are weak and lazy. In the end, your mental, emotional and physical health is all you’ve got so do your best to preserve it! If you are healthy you will do better at your job and be a better partner, lover, friend, artist, etc.

9) Taking time to connect with your true friends is worth it, even if it always seems like there is never enough time.

10) Following your curiosity is always worth it. Money spent on travel and education is also always worth it. That being said, don’t live on credit. Figure out what you can live without in order to afford living that adventurous lifestyle you crave.

11) Don’t let somebody else’s dreams or expectations of you define what you want to do with your life.

12) Don’t dwell on your most negative interpretation of yourself. If you spend too much time being self-critical, you’ll never learn what your strengths are or become a better person.

13) Identify a few core things about yourself that you are proud of, things about you that will never change regardless of your life situation. Use those things as a touchstone to come back to when you are questioning who you are, when somebody else isn’t treating you right, or you need to make a major life decision.

14) Learn to like the body you are in. Work on trying to love it.

15) Never ever be afraid to speak up for yourself.

16) Everything you need is right inside you. You can’t always get what you need from other people, so learn how to achieve goals and feel good about yourself independently without somebody elses’ approval or support.

17) That being said, no woman is an island. Learn how to ask for love, care and support when you need it. Sometimes your loved ones can’t read your mind.

18) You are smart, don’t downplay your accomplishments. Just stand securely with them.

19) If you are itching to take a risk or make a change, chances are it is a good risk or change, chances are you will be successful in your venture. Don’t ever be afraid of the future. Just do it.

20) You always deserve to strive for more, be it more happiness, more life fulfillment, more love, more adventure, a more satisfying job, whatever. If you want it and you are willing to work hard to get it, you owe it to yourself to go for it. Settling for life being just OK is never enough. Strive to be enormously satisfied with everything you do, set realistic incremental goals and don’t be too hard on yourself if you don’t get exactly what you want right away. In the words of Cheetah Rivera, “Try not to take yourself too seriously, but always take your work seriously.”

Health Care Reform, Fever Style

You knew I was gonna go here eventually.

So a couple of Wednesdays ago I attended the big town meeting in the beautiful “All American City of Somerville MA” on the arm of the gallant GeekUSA. What can I say, the couple that is politically active together, erm… blogs together?

Anyway, we stood outside Somerville High School for over an hour waiting to get in. At least four thousand people from Somerville and the surrounding towns waited with us, many holding signs and engaging in political discussion. On the news later that night the town meeting was described as “mostly peaceful” without all the derisive shouting matches that have characterized other town meetings across the nation. This makes me proud even though I am ashamed to say that I was one of the people who contributed to the non-peaceful segment of the evening when I lost my shit on this snot nosed LaRouche supporter holding a giant sign picturing Obama with a Hitler mustache when he tried to engage these nice Cambridge ladies behind us about “Obama’s Nazi healthcare plan.” To the credit of the Cambridge ladies, they listened politely to him until I butted in. I might have told him that he, “should be ashamed of himself comparing healthcare to the Holocaust”, that he needed to “pick up a history book before he talked again” and that he was, “willfully ignorant”. Although I’m sure it didn’t sound half as rational and intelligent as that because I was sputtering with anger.

What can I say, I fucking hate those LaRouche guys. Yes, I’m familiar with Godwin’s Law, I still fucking hate them. The reason why those people make me so angry is not just because they carelessly misrepresent and distort history to their own ends in a way that is incredibly disrespectful to those who actually lived through the Nazi era, it is that I feel like they have to know on some level that what they are peddling is complete garbage, yet they continue to proselytize about it anyway. I just don’t understand why you would do that unless you were a crappy human being.

Moving on… healthcare. Unlike some people, I don’t like to blindly follow my leaders, even if they are leaders I helped elect. I went in there open minded but attempting to have a critical eye. I honestly wanted to cut through the bizarre three ring circus that has been the health care debate and find out what’s actually on the table here, so I could like, form an opinion on my own. There has been so much hoopla over death panels and socialism that it is hard to cut through the noise to the real problem… there are 46 million un-insured Americans out there and those of us lucky enough to have health insurance in the first place are watching helplessly as our premiums go up and our benefits shrink.

I sat in the hot, cramped Somerville High School gym for hours listening to John Kerry answer for the health care reform proposal. It was John Kerry more passionate, personal and down to earth than I have ever seen him . Here’s what I learned… and yes, Joe Wilson, I believe it.

• The new reforms will end discrimination against people who have pre-existing conditions. In a country where somebody who has had pediatric cancer can have trouble getting insurance for the rest of their lives you’d think that this would be a good thing.

• For the last time, nobody is trying to take away your health insurance, or take away your doctor, or force you into a nationalized health plan. There has never, ever been an option on the table that would end private insurance, I don’t know why the hell people are so confused about that. The comparisons between the proposed public option and nationalized health care in countries like Britain and Canada are erroneous because they are not the same thing. The public option is just that, an option. If you are unemployed, or your employer won’t insure you or you just don’t like the insurance your employer provides for you, it’s there. If you like what you have, you can keep it. Why do I believe John Kerry when he said that? Because for one thing, he said it himself, it would be too damn expensive to nationalize U.S health care.

• Don’t want to pay for everybody else? Tough shit, we’re already paying for the uninsured anyway. Apparently my insurance premiums (and yours too, if you are lucky enough to have it) have hidden costs in them meant to cover the overhead when uninsured people end up in the emergency room (that’s what happens when you can’t afford a regular doctor). If uninsured people had insurance, it would bring down the cost for all of us. Oh, and BTW, the plan is not going to cover illegal aliens. I believe that too. Think about it, trying to sneak a provision like that into a bill would be career suicide for the Dems.

• But it will destroy the free market economy! Um, isn’t competition a good thing? You’d think people who are so into the free market economy wouldn’t be so terrified for those poor little insurance companies having to um, beef up their product or actually give a shit about their customers in order to compete. If a public option forces private carriers to provide a better rate or better services to their clients it is going to directly benefit us, the consumers.

• But it’s socialism! Um, we already have medicare and medicade. Is that socialism? While we’re at it, the health insurance that government employees enjoy is (gasp!) government run! Maybe all the senators who plan to vote against health care reform should put their money where there mouth is and give up their socialist government run health care and jump into the private insurance carrier pool with the rest of us shmucks. No takers? Didn’t think so.

• But I don’t want the government in control of my health care! First of all, see bullet point #1. The government won’t be in control of your health care if you don’t want it to be. Second of all, somebody else is already in control of your health care, a large corporation that doesn’t give a rat’s ass about you and will probably slash your coverage just when you need it most. I look at it this way, at least the government has to answer to the people, big insurance companies don’t have to answer to anybody. If I don’t like the job my elected officials are doing with health care reform I can vote them out in the next election cycle. If I don’t like what my insurance company is doing with my health care (hey there Blue Cross Blue Shield, raising my co-pays and taking away my physical therapy just when I needed it the most, I’m talking about you! BTW, it’s been fun trying to recuperate from a foot injury on my own!) if it’s all my employer provides, I’m stuck with it.

• Come on people, get real. We’re paying over 2.5 trillion dollars to fight foreign wars but we can’t insure our own citizens? Dick Cheney had ties to Halliburton, one of the biggest contractors in the reconstruction of Iraq and nobody bitched and moaned about how it was fascist (OK, well I did), nobody saber rattled about how it was undermining the American way. While we’re at it, I find it rich that so many people are trying to say that Obama’s health plan is “unconstitutional” when the last administration fabricated a war, justified torture, and reinterpreted laws on illegal search and seizure to justify their own ends. Wasn’t that unconstitutional? Or is it only OK to take a piss on the Bill of Rights when you are doing it to justify blowing up foreigners? Is this who we are, a nation of people who would prefer their tax dollars fund destruction overseas instead of making sure that the most vulnerable of our own are taken care of?

The more I see these fucking teabag Circuses on TV every night and see impeach Obama stickers popping up, the easier it is to get cynical about the whole thing. In the end though, I gotta be hopeful. In the end I still live in a country where one of the most powerful people in the land has to come to my stuffy, un-airconditioned high school gym and answer my questions for three hours. Deep down in my heart, I know that just like other unpopular things that have been fought for in the past; civil rights, women’s rights, gay rights, that eventually what is just and compassionate will win out. I just hope I live long enough to see it…

I Can Stop At Any Time…

I know this is old news to anyone with a vague interest in fashion but…

Anna Sui is coming out with a new line of clothes for Target!

And they are Gossip Girl inspired!

They hit stores on the 13th!

Squeee!!!!!!!!!

I know, I know. I was supposed to be keeping my fashion dollars out of the big box stores.

I have a big birthday coming up next week and I was supposed to start dressing with a little more dignity, i.e not like a wanna be teenage socialite.

I can’t help it.

I totally want the one on the far left. The black number is a little too Sophomore semi-formal ‘98 for me but the silver one… that totally would have worked for a New Year’s Eve On The Moon theme party I had a few years ago. I don’t know how I feel about the jacket over the cute little wrap dress but whatevs.

In general, I’m feeling it.

I think I may have a problem.

Wake Up America

The following is my final paper for my graduate class in Urban Education. The assignment was to define problems and solutions in urban education. I decided to write it blog style, cuz that’s how I roll.

Our schools are racist. America’s educational system is not a meritocracy where success is open to all who work hard, it is a factory attempting to crank out one size fits all education that ignores the individual talents, needs and backgrounds of our students. Our students are not mechanical cogs, they’re people and when we deem them deficient, or “failing” we’re leaving them behind, doing the exact opposite of what all this educational reform is supposed to do. Think I’m just some ranty liberal bringing in the Bush administration on trumped up charges? Think again. Test fraud, creative number crunching and ignoring the children who need help the most (as well as allowing our most talented children to languish) in favor of pushing the “bubble” kids to pass the test is well documented. No Child Left Behind is not working. Even Fox News agrees with me on this one.

96% of our nation’s teachers are white. The overwhelming majority of us went into our profession with the desire to do good and educate children from all walks of life. We’re not white supremacists who enter the classroom with a desire to subjugate those who are different from us in fact, many of us take offense to the idea that our schools and our teaching styles are based on racist assumptions. 

Whether or not our schools and teachers purposely support educational policies that are harmful to students of color, we are a part of a complex, invisible web that tells us “white is right” and that an individual’s ticket to success in life is dependent on her ability to acclimate to the white middle class world. The widespread misconception that white middle class culture is the ideal to aspire to is not isolated to the school system. This invisible web is all around us, in our school systems, our political systems, our job market, entertainment, the arts, everywhere imaginable. Yet for those of us who grew up white and middle class, it goes largely unnoticed and undiscussed. It is accepted that the end goal of all who are not like us is to be more like us. We may even feel passionately that it is our job as educators to help our students to gain access to this world so that they may live in prosperity. There are so few examples of successful people who have retained their  non-white cultural identity that we assume that a non-white cultural identity is a hinderance to success that must be shed. Very few people living in this invisible web of privilege see the fact that it isn’t the individual that’s the problem, it’s the system. Even if educators can see the problem, we feel very little power to be a part of the solution. How are we supposed to be effective teachers of minority children in a political climate where we can be sent to jail for speaking a child’s native language to them?

The biggest hinderance to today’s educational system is that educators are not in control of our educational system, politicians are and they rely on knee jerk reactionist rhetoric to rally their bases and get re-elected. Think racism isn’t an implicit norm in our culture? Check out the new these days. Consider the following clip of Pat Buchanan on Rachel Maddow blasting Sotomayor for “learning English by reading children’s books” as if it disqualifies her from her supreme court nomination and talking about how America was “built by white men” so therefor white men deserve a larger slice of the power and privilege pie (check out Maddow’s eloquent response to his douchebaggery here):

Um, Pat? Did you forget the millions of African slaves who helped build this country? (including the white house!) Or how about the Chinese who aided western expansion by building America’s railroad? Or the leigons of Eastern European immigrants who became the workforce of the Industrial Revolution? What about the farm workers from South and Central America who keep our plates full today? Their work is feeding the people of our country, keeping our factories humming, building our roads and our bridges. I would say that counts as “building America”. According to Pat, they don’t deserve a slice of the pie. Because people of color and those who speak English as a second language aren’t “real” Americans, “real” Americans are white guys in suits with corporate jobs. Yeah, just like Bernie Madoff or those guys from Enron. They were doing a service for the American people, right? In a world where these types of racist assumptions often go unquestioned how can we build an equitable education system? 

What’s the solution to this problem? Number one: Put educators in charge of education, not politicians. This is not an easy task. For the best of our nation’s teachers, the classroom is where the heart is. They’d rather be in the trenches with their students every day despite this broken system, than battling it out on Beacon Hill.  Well my fellow teachers, we’re just going to have to go outside our comfort zone. It is unacceptable that a businessman like Ron K. Unz, could help get a law against bilingual education passed that was not based on any research about how the human brain aquires language and develops fluency. This law has seriously impacted the job that we teachers do in the classroom every day and we were powerless to stop it or give input on how we believe bilingual students should be taught in the first place. This has to change. 

 More teachers need to run for school committees, city council and local and state government. We need to be there when the decisions are being made. As teachers, we need to see ourselves as vital in the shaping of policy, not simply as civil servants or people who are not in the place to decide what’s best for “other people’s children”. We need to view our profession with pride. Teaching is an art and a science and we must approach it at as such. Our level of training and education qualifies us to call the shots, not special interest groups. Until we feel entitled to shape policy and take steps to do so very little will change. 

I would like to see a grassroots organization that uses technology to help activate a base of teachers, students and concerned citizens to take action on issues that are relevant to our schools. Sort of like a moveon.org for education reform. With this as a tool it would be simple to attend meetings of like minded people, circulate petitions, start letter writing campaigns to our elected officials and attend rallies. Teachers and their allies need to be empowered to take action together on matters of importance and we need a structure to do this in. Web based technology moves fast, is cheap to set up and maintain, and makes it easy to get a message out to a large group of people instantaneously. In addition, teachers need to network with other teachers of like mind. We need to set up an online resource that helps us disseminate best practices in urban education, share lesson plans, and visit each other’s classrooms. We should take inspiration in this from the Obama campaign, the first political campaign that motivated it’s base primarily through online tools such as facebook, twitter, text messaging, email, etc. 

Additionally, in order to make school systems more equitable for children of color, we need to change the face of teaching. It is unacceptable that 96% of our nation’s teachers are white. Universities with established education programs need to do a better job of recruiting and retaining teachers of color. If a traditional four years of college plus a master’s degree and an unpaid student teaching internship is not financially realistic for a future teacher of color we need to develop alternative paths to degrees and certification that do not bar people who need to work for a living from higher education. 

 Teacher certification programs should be set up in colleges that are close to high need areas so that aspiring teachers do not have to relocate from their communities to get certified. Teacher colleges should develop courses, concentrations and certification tracks that specifically address the unique challenges of urban education. Every student majoring in education should have to take at least an introductory course in multicultural education. 

In my Master’s of Education program the needs of urban students and the realities of working in urban classrooms that are often overcrowded, saturated with high need students and bereft of what most teachers consider basic resources (even things like books, paper and pencils), was not discussed. We were taught to teach under the ideal circumstances, not real circumstances. As a result, my first year teaching ended up to be a crash course in urban education. Receiving little support or training, I often felt frustrated and discouraged. Half of urban teachers quit within 5 years. After my own experiences I believe this is because we do not feel empowered to be the best teachers we can be in this crumbling and defunct system that turns schools into holding pens for society’s “undesireables”. When there is no heat in your classroom, the principal keeps ignoring your counseling referral for the troubled student who spends class repeatedly running full force into a brick wall and you are trying to protect that child from bodily harm while simultaneously teaching 22 other students with no books, no papers and no pencils (true story!), the outlook can seem pretty bleak. How are we supposed to attract the most talented, driven and intelligent people to teaching when we throw them into these situations to sink or swim on their own? 

 In The Dreamkeepers, Sucessful Teachers of African American Children, Gloria Ladson-Billings asserts the need for special support for urban educators in the form of team teaching, longer internships and mentoring connections that actually help new teachers develop effective skills. Knowing that I wasn’t alone would have done measures to make my first year teaching more productive. Instead, I decided that I couldn’t in good conscience be part of a system that was allowing students in need to languish, so I left hoping to find another school system that was actively helping their neediest students, not just detaining them. In my leap between my first job in the poorest city in our state and my next job in a large, well funded urban district I saw a big difference. The kids weren’t all that different, I was still working with a large proportion of immigrants and students of color but just about everything else was different. What did my new school district have have that my first school district lacked? In a word, money. This brings me to my final point of education reform.

Money. It’s an ugly word. People don’t go into teaching for the money. Maybe that’s part of the problem, as teachers we are uncomfortable in the money-getting world so we don’t know how to  best advocate for more resources being allocated to us. There is that tired old adage that it will be a great day when schools have all the money they need and the government needs to hold a bake sale to buy a bomber. Call me airy-fairy, but I agree. The city I teach in was bashed by my old pal Mitt Romney (affectionately known as Mitler) for spending more per student than any other district but still having low to middling MCAS scores. Despite this fact, we’ve still been lauded as having one of the best public high schools in the state. Part of this is because we spend money on our schools and our students. Teachers here have more money available for professional development than any other school district I’ve ever heard of. Our classroom sizes are small and I know if I had a student as emotionally disturbed as my wall-thrower at my first job he would be able to access services immediately. Because of the resources and environment here, I am more than just a warden keeping my students in line, I am an educator. People can talk about test scores all they want but educators know that what makes a real difference is smaller classroom sizes so that teachers can get to know their students individually and more access to better teacher training and support, not just a “teacher proof” curriculum. If we want to hire more (and better trained) teachers to keep our classroom size down and move to a “small school” model where every student matters, we need money, plain and simple. 

If we had more teachers out there on the front lines of the decision making, we could get our voices heard and have money and resources allocated to educational approaches that have the best interests of our students at heart. If we had a grassroots network of activists, teachers, parents and concerned citizens we could vote with our feet on political issues and make our voices heard. We don’t have to accept this broken system as reality. We can mobilize. The changes can be small ones we make in our classrooms, and large ones that are made on a national agenda. The push has got to come from both directions, in the little things we do each day, and the big things such as how we vote and where we spend our money. The road is long and frustrating but we can do it. In the immortal words of Clash frontman Joe Strummer calling youth to rally against the status quo in the song, “Working for the Clampdown“, “Anger can be power d’y know that you can use it?” 

 Let’s mobilize. 

 

For Further Reading:

The Real Ebonics Debate, Power, Language and the Education of African American Children 

The Dreamkeepers, Successful Teaching of African American Children

English Only Doesn’t Work

 What Is Bilingual Education?