Ah, Thanksgiving. The time of year that I rant about material goods.
I’ve posted before about the crazy excess I sometimes realize we have in this country. It’s been weighing on my a bit again recently, as I see it as a theme in our political and societal conversations around me – not only material excess, but just taking things way too far. I guess we’re at an end of a pendulum swing, and I’m amazed at how it can seem to be ‘normal’ at such an extreme.
I’ve realized something about myself in the past couple of weeks, which is that I often compare myself to others and size up my material possessions. I don’t compare to those who have more than me, but to those who have much less. I do it all of the time, and now that I’ve noticed it makes me understand a little bit better why I find it so hard to buy the things I’d like to have sometimes, like plenty of clothes that fit, or things for my son that he doesn’t need but I would like him to have, like particular kid’s books. I feel like I’m being ungrateful to the universe by not realizing the books and clothes that we already have, even if they weren’t the ideal ones for that day. No wonder I’m a little bit of a hoarder of scraps and papers, and no wonder I feel guilty for the odds and ends that clutter my house from all of those hoarding instincts!
Beyond the general possessions I have really been struck over the past year by other things that seem to be in overabundance these days, and make me pretty uncomfortable. In St. Louis, guns spring to mind right away – as someone who grew up in a family that strives to be peaceful, at least on a physical level, it is really outside of my frame of reference to imagine carrying a gun around daily, or living around one at home. It’s hard for me to remember that my experience is quite atypical here, and that many of my friends and relatives have a different relationship with guns that doesn’t find them to be negative. I find it fairly terrifying to realize that I am often surrounded by armed people, whether I am at home or out. I consider my son growing up in this environment, which uses accessories capable of near-instant death as tokens of masculinity, and I remind myself that I need to make sure he sees other places and ways of life before he is a teenager. I hear stories of children killed by gunfire in my own neighborhood, and all over my city, and I cry and remind myself that I need to be patient and enjoy his company as much as possible, in case he is gone before me too. I think about how my family would feel if I was the one who was killed one day, as so many are around me. Such as my husband, who has buried his little sister and barely knew his dad who died when my husband was just 3 – both due to medical causes, not violence, I might note – would losing his wife suddenly be the loss that drove him to self-destruction? Would my son be a broken version of his current cheerful, confident self? I also worry about my husband often when he’s out alone, checking in with myself – do I really feel something is wrong when he hasn’t called to let me know he made it to work at night on the bus safely, or do I feel like he’s just been busy and forgot? Maybe I’d still have these nagging worries if there were not constant shootings around me, but knowing there are makes me feel like I’m justified. I’d much rather be able to dismiss them as groundless fears….
Another thing that’s going overboard these days? School. What? Yes, school for kids. I am all for kids getting high quality care when they are too young to look after themselves, whether through family members, at home with the parents, or in daycare/preschool and elementary school settings. To do that I think we have many tools of support we can offer to any of those scenarios, such as education on childhood development and needs to private providers, expansions of programs like the ones we have at our (wonderful!) city libraries that loan out toys and kits of crafts for different ages and provide lots of toys and games to use there, and more current-research based programs in institutional settings (such as incorporating more free time into the day and planning self-made goals). I find any of those options, if operated well, preferable to having many kids looked after by someone who is ill-prepared to do that, in any of those places I mentioned. Instead of hearing about ways to improve the resources for early childhood care wherever it occurs, I keep running into this trend that goes like this: mandatory preschool, full day mandatory kindergarten with aftercare, longer school hours, weeks and years for elementary and high school students, and striving for 4 year degrees for all post-secondary kids. This is not at all compatible with high quality care for small children, or for a life that works in our current world post graduation. Let’s start with the acknowledgement that our schools are not great. Even our best schools could use some improvements when we compare them to other schools around the world, and I would not say any of the schools in St. Louis are our best. I’ve been amazed for years at the message which has been persisting around here; our kids are not doing well in our schools, so let’s increase the amount of time they spend there. No thanks, I think if we need our kids to spend more time somewhere it should be a place with a record of success. As my son is just 4, I am quite in tune with the current preschool fervor, which I don’t find compelling at all – while a high quality preschool would be a better environment for him than a low-quality daycare, I don’t find either option better than being well cared for by his parents who are able and motivated to promote his development as a well behaved and educated child. If our schedules did not allow for us to be his main caretakers (as most couples’ don’t), I would consider preschool on an equal footing with our other options – a solo babysitter, a home-based or institutional daycare with other kids, or having a family member become his regular nanny. The idea that kids need to learn how to go to school as infants and toddlers so that they can continue to go to school until they are adults is crazy to me. I’m hoping my son will seriously consider trades, self-employment, and college and see where his passions lie when the time comes, and to begin indoctrinating him to outsource his educational responsibility from himself to teachers and administrators at the age of three doesn’t promote my goal to have him become a satisfied and productive adult.
Two more themes of too much, then the rant will (finally?) wrap up….
Let’s talk about bodies – living, breathing bodies that we all inhabit. I’ve been dismayed by the limitations put on women’s bodies physically by societal norms for many years, and hearing recent criticisms of female athletes’ bodies as being ‘too muscular’ really disturbs me (about the Williams sisters! Some of the most beautiful famous women I can think of). Here is a breakdown of my view on the topic: in the US, women alone are told that there are no positive implications of becoming physically strong and muscular. Not financial, not in terms of gaining respect or admiration, not for their own fulfillment. This is why women’s sports are not funded, and why women are discouraged from most physical labor as a career – we are told all of our lives that men want a thin or plump woman to love, and boys and men never want girls or women to be physically superior to them – even though many males are physically much smaller than many females at any age. This disturbing reality means that we are always tamping down our own potential as a people, as we would be if we perpetuated an idea that males shouldn’t be allowed to read (luckily we don’t have that, although unfortunately do often perpetuate the idea that males shouldn’t be allowed to feel anything besides pride, happiness and anger…). Imagine the change we would see in our nation if little girls could dream about pulling themselves out of poverty by becoming an ideal of strength, as boys do. Imagine the change in eating and exercising trends we’ve seen in the past 50 years if women were striving to be in the top physical shape possible, instead of just smaller. Decades of chosen starving/binging cycles would never have happened at all. Let’s move beyond the hourglass ideal and embrace the old Greek god physique for both genders – maybe we won’t all get to that ideal either, but at least we’ll be striving for optimal performance rather than self-imposed weakness.
As long as I’m whining about the past 50 years and mentioning how I compare my life to those in total poverty, let’s talk about what we consider to be ‘necessities’ when raising kids and living in a house now vs. 50 years ago. Now things like coffee machines, washing machines, and cars are all basic things we feel every family deserves. Why? What’s wrong with hand washing clothes and line-drying them, or using a laundromat? Why is this only an option for apartment dwellers and travelers, instead of an often suggested way to save money when you own a house? How about using a simple sock-filter for brewing coffee, how did an appliance ever become mandatory for something that is essentially quick-soaking tea in hot water? I feel like we are in such an overcompensating era of technology – there is no arena of life we haven’t attempted to mechanize, from giving birth to making toast. Some of these technological trends are definitely positive – like machines that allow us to treat heart attack victims and detect cancers and birth defects. Some are just ridiculous, like segways. Most are inbetween, meaning they can come in handy sometimes but are far from essential, and the problem I have is that we often act as if we are deprived if we don’t have them. Even subscriptions to online streaming services or cable are seen as a necessity these days, preventing us from being stuck in the drudgery of free online or network t.v. combined with shows or movies we own or rent on DVD. Another over the top new ‘normal’, nickle and diming us out of being people who don’t have to spend every waking minute beholden to work.
Happy Thanksgiving!
Really, I am grateful for what I have, what I do, who I live with and love, and the ability to share my views with you here, even when I am curmudgeonly, as I am today… Let’s all enjoy the simple pleasures this holiday season, and enjoy some candles, fires, music and light spirits through the shorter days of winter.
waldeninthecity 