This Week in Its Briefs - Right Before Laundry
1. Buying a car on ebay- seriously, this happened to a member of my family. This man has a habit of putting incredibly low bids on cars he'd like to own, hoping all the while (and trusting) that a much crazier person places a higher bid and wins the auction. Well, the highest bid was his and the car now must be bought. (This is not Mr. Fresh Hell, by the way - he'd be pulverized by a meat tenderizer if he played that kind of game.)
2. Vintage Cupcake Stories: while on a trip to Istanbul last October he called me from a bar insisting that I Google a song recorded by The Four Lads ("Istanbul, not Constaninople") to settle a bet about the year it was recorded. They were definitely in a bar, as I heard the ambient background sounds. And yes, I had the answer for him in about 20 seconds and no, I didn't see any of the proceeds of the wager.
3. The immigration issue is of interest and foremost in a lot of the news recently. It is an issue that I am rather conflicted about. The only thing I can say with some degree of authority is that if there were no such thing as illegal labor, no New York city restaurant could stay open.
There's been a lot of discussion about whether immigrants actually do take jobs away from Americans, or whether immigrants will do the jobs Americans scorn. Ask yourself if you would work for $8.00 an hour six days a week, 8 or 9 hours a day, peeling potatoes, prepping vegetables, or washing dishes. It's an honest question deserving of an honest answer. (No cheating!)
4. Zen and the art of money management - I don't think this book has been written, but I really wish it would be, and soon. I try to take a long cool look at things financial, and generally it's an easy view to maintain. But lately I'm feeling as if the blades of Dr. Guillotine are inching just a little too close to the neck for comfort, and all the while Madame Defarge is clacking away at her knitting needles gleefully like a timebomb. I'm sure I'm not the only one feeling this, with rising prices and flat wages.
5. In a conversation with an older male colleague and a younger female one last week, the topic of families arose. The man declared that the birth of his daughter not only made him complete, but was the single most wonderful event of his life. Which is fine, until he adamantly insisted that it should be that way for everybody - that I, at the age of 44, would not achieve ultimate happiness without a child and that our younger colleague, at the age of 28, should look no further than reproduction to experience nirvana.
I did my best to present the other side of the issue - that it's possible for a woman to feel complete without bearing children and that biology is not destiny. I don't know for sure whether I made a compelling case but my female colleague did thank me afterwards for standing up to my principles by insisting that a marriage without children is still a viable family.
And so we close, after a quietly harrowing week, quite the devoted servant, blah blah blah.
posted by Miliana at 8:02 PM
4 Comments:
I wonder how long it will take the new father's euphoria to fade? If it survives the terrible twos, the advent of adolescence could change his view.
Cupcakes gambling proclivities are very funny. Not quite as bad as betting on whether the calico cat in a group of four will move right or left, but close.
I have children and do, nearly all-consumingly, love them dearly as most mothers are wont to do.
Therein lies both my delight and my dilemma. "Nearly all-consumingly", means I have shut off whole wide green pastures in which I might also have been 'complete'.
But when has a person ever been complete? Is that the same as 'being satisfied with life' or just 'having touched all bases' in life? I really don't get the concept of being 'complete' and have always suspected the term of being a little smug and self-satisfied. What about the itchy, striving soul of mankind? We wouldn't have been driven to do anything after we'd discovered fire if we were all meant to feel complete all the time. I know I don't feel it, despite being happy in my motherhood. Blogging is a stab at finding some vrsion of 'complete' for myself
You were right on to stick some back to that bloke. He may not have been listening but the 28-year old woman was. Parenthood is too often looked at, from within, in a smug, almost morally superior way. For most people, parenthood is an accident, is not easy and, often, it is conscious or unconscious envy of the lives of the childless that make us such an unbearable lot.
It's lovely and rich and rewarding to be a parent. But there is obviously a freedom and a richness to your life that I'll never know. And you never have to discuss the sleeping/eating/pooing habits of your offspring with anyone. Many an interesting adult converstaion has gone that tired old path when we discover we're both parents. We become incapable of conversation and can only coo instead, from thereon. You gain a lot emotionally in becoming a parent but lose a whole lot of intellectual rigour too. Whether the loss is commensurate with the gain, I can't say, but my brain has turned to pudding since breeding.
"Complete." I'm almost ashamed of myself for missing that word, but not quite. Childless by choice, I have, unfortunately, heard over the years all the reasons, excuses, coercions, assurances, and out-and-out bullshit on the topic of having children from parents, friends and absolute strangers to the extent that just the word pregnant makes me want to vomit on the person's shoes.
Other people's expectations never did have the ability to inspire me to conform. From cradle to grave, we're bombarded with the myths of tradition and collective society, and unless it is something the individual is convinced is right for them, going along with the mythology is a dangerous and fool hardy undertaking.
In most cases, but certainly not all, boundless parental love is endemic, and that is wonderful for both the child and the parent. But...it takes very little to 'create' a child and almost everyone can do it without conscious thought. When it comes to NOT having a child, however, that is a decision that requires a great deal of self knowledge, courage, and stamina to withstand the strictures and condemnations that far too many people think they have a right to put forward simply because that's the way things are 'supposed' to be. Horse manure!!
None of us are granted more than one existence at a time, and living the life you're given to the best of your capability and aspirations depends on you and the conscious choices you make for yourself. How you do so, and the myths you choose to entertain are no one's business but yours.
(I feel a bit saddened for Miliana's older male acquaintance. Something very basic must be lacking in him if he would have no sense of fulfillment or 'completeness' without sharing in the birth of a child. How would he have survived had he been incapable of producing viable sperm? Or, would he have tried again with a different wife had his been barren? Poor guy has unthinkingly bought into all the myths of his heritage.)
Oy people! Such lovely thoughtful comments.
As my default choice to remain childfree became my ultimate one through pesky biology, I agree withe Kaz - I've heard every rationale under the sun for why I should saddle myself with parenthood.
And when my colleague (and I didn't make it clear that his daughter is now TWENTY years old and he was crowing about how wonderful his life has been as a result) pulled that "and it's for everybody" routine I totally saw red. I'm surprised I could reply calmly.
Sure - it's a route. It just ain't everyone's cuppa tea. (And thanks Problem-Child-Bride for your wonderful comments.
Stoic - I really don't know how I don't collapse under the trivia that is Cupcake. (But I suppose i write about it here as a way to vent because it's a safe place to do so.)
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