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October 21, 2004
Comprehensive Mom Package v5.2
The first major storm of the season blew in from the Pacific yesterday and for a lot of So. Californians, it was the first confrontation with Rain-Alzheimer's that we develop during the months of dry weather. We get into our cars; pull out on the road and stare, slack jawed, at the windshield and sky. "What is that wet stuff? Somebody's lawn sprinkler system broke?"
No nevermind, just keep driving like you always do - crazy-fast. Push those yellows, roll through those stop signs. And if you're in a SUV, hell, even better! Have fun driving faster than the cars around you AND fly through flooded streets swamping those losers in Rio's and Escorts.
Sheesh.
It really was a mess. Morning commute times tripled, major freeways were closed at points dumping commuters onto surrounding (and flooded) streets. Cars and trucks ended up in flood control channels and firefighters and other emergency personnel who had held their collective breath just the week or so earlier due to red-flag fire conditions now shifted to water-rescue operations.
Which brings me to daughter #2, Erin, mother to the twins. She and the boys had an appointment within a couple of blocks of my work. She calls me yesterday morning to check on the road conditions, wondering if she should reschedule. Yes, dear, it's pretty nasty here, better call and make a new date.
Among my many jobs, I'm Weather Mom. As my husband later said, "Ah yes, Weather Mom, part of the Comprehensive Mom Package. Including Finder of All Things, Homework Consultant, Preparer of Food, Taxi Driver ..."
Since I've been a mom since 1979, I'm v5.2 with all the enhancements listed above, plus added extras like Maker of Halloween Costumes and Prom Dresses, School Volunteer, and Small Bank & Loan Officer. I've now been upgraded to include the Grandma plug-in, which reloads and upgrades my Dealing with Small Children module.
Erin is v1.2 and still learning. She periodically links to me to download files and procedures dealing with subjects like Tricking Toddlers into Eating Vegetables, Potty Training and Small Toys & Toilets Don't Mix.
I love being a mom and grandma. It's got to be one of the hardest, most frustrating jobs that exist yet offers moments of such great reward that, heck, many of us just keep doing it!
Which is why, I suppose, I found Teresa Heinz Kerry's dismissal of Laura Bush as not ever having a "real" job so jolting and so, well, retro-feminist.
Yes, I know that the classless and clueless Tay-RAY-zhah is known for opening her mouth and having some of the most amazing things tumble out, but I truly thought we had moved beyond this dismissal of women who make the choice to be moms as some sort of traitors to The Feminist Cause. That's just so ... so ... 60's!
Ok, the attitude did last through the 70's and much of the 80's where one could go to any cocktail party and watch a woman arch a nicely plucked eyebrow over her white-wine spritzer when you tell her you are a mother and homemaker and she says through ironically pursed lips, "Is that all you do?"
"Why, yes. See when you get pregnant and decide to stay home, it is mandatory that you relinquish your college degree and your brains before you leave the hospital. Oh, and you must cancel all the newspapers and periodicals you may subscribe to, also. No mom is allowed to read about issues and current events, let alone comment on them."
Having small children sharpens the sarcasm gene.
Color me wishful, but I had thought that the gender-feminists who look upon love, marriage and kids as a Running-Dog Capitalist Plot to Suppress the Glorious Talents and Superior Aspirations of Womyn, had gone the way of the dodo -- save for those few in protected sanctuaries where they are insulated from the realities of the majority culture. We usually refer to those sanctuaries by their more common name, American Universities.
They are still out there! Seems I caught the same show as James Lileks
I heard a fascinating interview on the Medved show this week with a droning professor who lamented the failure of feminism to drive more women out of the house. She’d done a study of high-achieving women whose marriage notices were printed in the New York Times, and found that several years out, almost half had quit their jobs to stay home with the kids. Apparently they hadn’t internalized the New Truths, the Blazing Facts, the Glorious Realization that the highest calling in life is to sit in a veal pen on the 34th floor of a Manhattan skyscraper and type up depositions while Consuela teaches your children how to write their ABCs.
Actually, James was rather kind to the professor. She was exceedingly rude, condescending and dismissive. Now, I can understand that attitude towards Michael Medved, seeing as his being the dreaded male he didn't deserve any better from the professor, but she was even more hostile to Medved's wife, a professional psychologist and mother who questioned the professor's rantings against women who "choose" to stay home with their children.
"Wasn't that what the feminist movement was about? Allowing women a whole range of choices and supporting them in their choice?" Mrs. Medved asked.
"Well [huff, snort] you can choose to eat creme puffs all day, and only creme puffs, but that choice is not healthy."
For the professor, it was/is an invalid choice. Women should be only free to choose the "correct" choice ... the one the professor has defined as "correct."
And that, dear reader, is the Left in a nutshell.
Posted by Darleen at October 21, 2004 12:13 PM
Comments
There is so much there, that I'm at a loss for keys...
When I'm thinking mode husbandly I suffer verbiage and find contentment in "What ever you say hon." Marriage, it is, and after all a most beautiful thing. I wish for me, it still was!
Posted by: song_and_dance_man at October 21, 2004 10:15 PM