The American public, and especially its elected representatives, continue to have a bias against city life. Our politicians consistently talk about Middle American values, privileging Main Street over any other street, and (in the case of certain vice-presidential candidates) the way in which our small towns grow good people. (Never mind who she was quoting, and what otherideas he liked.)
And then one of these stories comes along, in the same vein as the one Theodore flagged yesterday. Apparently it is not uncommon, in small-town Ohio, for parents to call the cops when their kids won’t do household chores. Some sort of scared-straight thinking comes into play. And the police are willing to play along! The police chief says he’ll send a cop out to the house in question, and give the kid a talking-to.
First of all, I cannot believe that residents of these small, conservative-leaning towns (“keep the government out of our lives”; “parents, not the nanny state, should raise children”) are, as soon as the kids act up, willing to lean on those institutions that they ostensibly hate. But also? A lot of those same people consider New York City, and city life in general, a swamp of dysfunction, where well-off parents produce entitled monsters and poor parents produce welfare queens. Back atcha, folks. I see your small-town values, and admit that big-city ways have their downside–but at least I am not calling the NYPD when my kid won’t sit still, and do not plan to, no matter how squirmy he gets.
I also fixated on one detail in this story: that the family is named Homer. Which, in my head, made every subsequent quote come out in Dan Castelleneta‘s voice.
Thus it pains me that when JP was pushing a year, I was adamantly opposed to keeping his hair long. My issue with it was simple and awful–with long hair, everyone thought he was a girl and that, despite my 21st century dad street cred, bothered me.
I didn’t wanted him dressed in pink. I wasn’t okay with ambiguity about his sex. I wanted him to dunk, beat his wife, and drive a fucking pickup.
I knew it was wrong, but there it was. Everytime someone asked me on the street about how old my daughter was, it made my skin crawl, which them made me feel guilty, which then made me beat the dog (just kidding, my ex-wife).
Fact is, even now, I’m still not okay with it. And that despite the fact that I think I would have no problem with him coming home someday and telling me he was gay. So long as he doesn’t wear a dress, so be it, apparently.
Parenting makes you realize what a total fuck-up you are (or at least it does me).
Last bit: I would like all readers of this blog post to put aside all the issues contained within this post and take a moment–perhaps draw a deep, soul-replenishing breath–and consider the wonderful horror that is the portrait of Marilyn Manson used above.
It’s been a little hard to think about much else these past two days besides the cloud of concrete dust and misery that has befallen Haiti.
But this is a Dad blog, not a disaster blog (except when it is). So what lessons are there here for parents? The Motherlode, always a first responder of sorts, offered heartfelt post about keeping one’s perspective. She was mostly on-target, although I could have done without this sentence:
Helicopter parenting is a frivolous phrase when the helicopters are real and have a much more urgent mission.
Yes, and Legos are so meaningless when so many buildings in Haiti crumbled like Lego blocks.
My thinking is more along the lines of what Matt said (no, not the thing about him getting laid): my mind has been wandering directly to the most morbid thoughts of what it must be like to have your child lost in the rubble.
It’s not just that I love my children so much that I am haunted by the idea of losing them (although that’s true). It’s more that when I had children, I think I sort of joined the human race for the first time. Reproducing is so elemental, and being a parent such a common bond, that I find it hard to have the same ironic distance from the suffering of others. My fatalism has also faded a bit. I am flesh and blood. I care, for better or worse.
I’m not saying this a universal thing: Mother Theresa never had children, and lots of parents remain self-interested pricks. And since I’ve become a parent, I have less time and money to do good for others and am now mainly just overcrowding the planet with my children. So maybe it’s a lose-lose: I worry about the world more since I had kids, and the world is worse off because I had kids.
Intellectuals seemed to be going for Tracy Kidder’s plea in the Times to support Paul Farmer’s Partners in Health, who put up a new website to handle the catastrophe. I had an editor’s lunch with Farmer once at TIME, and as much as one can fall in love over shrink-wrapped tuna sandwiches, I fell in love with him. He is a nerd-god with the heart of the Amida Buddha.
My money went to Unicef this time, though. Mainly because it always goes there. They know what they are doing, and Ann Veneman would pull bodies out of the rubble too if she had the chance.
I may well give to the Haiti Foundation of Hope as well. They’re not necessarily an immediate-response group, but I’m friends with the people who run it, and they do amazing work. It is likely the only Christian group I have ever donated too. But given the feeble-minded sophistry coming out of the 700 Club this week, it could be a powerful statement to give money to what you might call the Good Christians.
Of course, it doesn’t matter. Just give to anyone. In the name of all that is decent, in the name of that $200 stroller you’re thinking of buying when an umbrella stroller does just fine, just give.
Did I mention Haiti has beautiful music? Konpa Direk is almost like Haitian Latin music. Nemours Jean Baptiste is its best practitioner. Something about him–and his music–reminds me of the best of the old Cuban orchestral music.
