Showing posts with label motherhood. Show all posts
Showing posts with label motherhood. Show all posts
"Let your mother know how much she means to you, in the form of a haiku."
The last item on a questionnaire, which... ... ... I don't care how compliant you've been up to that point, filling out the answers, you need to just say no. Shut up questionnaire!
"I am the mother of a 13-year-old boy, which is like living with the single-cell protozoa version of a husband."
"Here's what my son wants out of life: macaroni and cheese, a video game, and Kim Kardashian. Have you ever seen Kim Kardashian angry? I didn't think so. You've seen Kim Kardashian smile, wiggle, and make a sex tape. Female anger terrifies men. I know it seems unfair that you have to work around a man's fear and insecurity in order to get married -- but actually, it's perfect, since working around a man's fear and insecurity is big part of what you'll be doing as a wife."
From a weirdly hateful HuffPo piece called "Why You're Not Married," by TV writer Tracy McMillan, who "lives in Los Angeles with her 13-year-old son." You know, get a life, so you don't have to talk about your teenage son. Or just shut up. He's not your husband or anything like a husband, and if you think he is, just shut up.
From a weirdly hateful HuffPo piece called "Why You're Not Married," by TV writer Tracy McMillan, who "lives in Los Angeles with her 13-year-old son." You know, get a life, so you don't have to talk about your teenage son. Or just shut up. He's not your husband or anything like a husband, and if you think he is, just shut up.
Some questions about the possible sexism of the way the NYT portrays Judy Clarke, the public defender in the Tucson massacre case.
Jared Loughner's lawyer has an "unassuming, almost motherly way," the NYT informs us. Judy Clarke, we're told, achieved an "essential act[] of lawyering... when she patted Mr. Loughner on the back in court last month, leaned in close and whispered in his ear."
Let's talk about the degree to which it's currently considered acceptable to ascribe lawyerly skills to gender.
Is the NYT being sexist? Is it okay because it's kind of subtle? Is it okay because if there's a special goodness in femininity, it lends momentum to the progressive trend of including more and more women in the legal profession?
If the answer to the last question is yes, imagine a similar statement made about a male lawyer, suggesting that his maleness brought extra value to his lawyering: Would that not be okay? If not, is that because you can say (in so many words) that it's better to be female, but it's retrograde to say (subtly as well as unsubtly) that it's better to be male?
If you've bought into the notion that it is acceptable to say (with some subtlety) that it's better to be female, because that seems progressive, why is it progressive to promote women using the traditional stereotype of women as maternal and nurturing? Why isn't that precisely what is sexist?
Do you think, in the long run, it is helpful to the success of women in the legal profession to portray them as good at mothering and being sensitive to other people's feelings?
Let's talk about the degree to which it's currently considered acceptable to ascribe lawyerly skills to gender.
Is the NYT being sexist? Is it okay because it's kind of subtle? Is it okay because if there's a special goodness in femininity, it lends momentum to the progressive trend of including more and more women in the legal profession?
If the answer to the last question is yes, imagine a similar statement made about a male lawyer, suggesting that his maleness brought extra value to his lawyering: Would that not be okay? If not, is that because you can say (in so many words) that it's better to be female, but it's retrograde to say (subtly as well as unsubtly) that it's better to be male?
If you've bought into the notion that it is acceptable to say (with some subtlety) that it's better to be female, because that seems progressive, why is it progressive to promote women using the traditional stereotype of women as maternal and nurturing? Why isn't that precisely what is sexist?
Do you think, in the long run, it is helpful to the success of women in the legal profession to portray them as good at mothering and being sensitive to other people's feelings?
"[T]here's no pong involved, it's not squidgy or anything like that."
I love this passage from Keith Richards's autobiography about keeping a pet mouse in his pocket:
For companionship I kept pets. I had a cat and a mouse, Gladys. I would bring her to school and have a chat in the French lesson when it got boring. I'd feed her my dinner and lunch, and I'd come home with a pocketful of mouse shit. Mouse shit doesn't matter. It comes out in hardened pellets, there's no pong involved, it's not squidgy or anything like that. You just empty you pockets and out come these pellets. Gladys was true and trusted. She very rarely poked her head out of the pocket and exposed herself to instant death. But Doris had Gladys and my cat knocked off. She killed all my pets when I was a kid. She didn't like animals, she'd threatened to do it and she did it. I put a note on her bedroom door, with a drawing of a cat, that said "Murderer." I never forgave her for that. Doris's reaction was the usual: "Shut up. Don't be so soft. It was pissing all over the place."Doris was (obviously) his mother. And I'm copying this paragraph out not to do another post about "Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother" — some English version of the maternal character — but a propos of the discussion of football we we're having in the previous post, which linked to a column that went on about the "pocket" —"Aaron and Ben are pocket-driven passers, with the extra element of being able to create once the pocket is no longer their friend" — and got garage "garaji" mahal to say "Little Ben will have plenty of opportunities to show how he can evade pass rushers. Because that pocket WILL be collapsing." That got me to say:
By the way, the "pocket" is another one of those feminine things in football... along with touching and tossing down a hankie. It's so adorable: a man in a pocket. It's like Keith Richards's pet mouse Gladys.My football commentary is (pretty much) all about finding the hints of the feminine in the hyper-manly game. I hope you like it!
"'Call me garbage,' one of the twins said again. 'I dare you.'"
"'O.K.,' I said, trying, for once, to be a good mother. 'You’re garbage.'"
Elizabeth Kolbert writes about "Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother" in the New Yorker. Bonus: An illustration by Barry Blitt. (Click my Barry Blitt tag if you can't remember by loving Barry Blitt.)
Elizabeth Kolbert writes about "Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother" in the New Yorker. Bonus: An illustration by Barry Blitt. (Click my Barry Blitt tag if you can't remember by loving Barry Blitt.)
"I have never seen a wildly successful adult who got there because his mother made him cry over his grades."
Says Ben Stein:
Men and women succeed because they find a field of endeavor that matches their interests and abilities. It's that simple. They then motivate themselves and achieve.... I don't believe the most successful people are the ones who got the best grades, got into the best schools, or made the most money. The most successful ones are those who find peace of mind. If they can do it with mothers who manufacture self-loathing the way Ms. Chua or Ms. Waldman do, it's despite those Moms and not because of them. This whole idea that there is something noble about browbeating your own children is just plain sick.And then there's Lee Siegel:
Ms. Chua's book is a case study in how lack of self-knowledge, absence of empathy, and poor writing skills can be a blessing if you possess enough robotic ambition, callousness toward other people and lack of honesty about yourself and your subject. Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother is an inspiration to aggressive mediocrities everywhere. The book wasn't written; it was assembled.
"In truth, Ms. Chua’s memoir is about one little narcissist’s book-length search for happiness."
"And for all its quotable outbursts from Mama Grisly (the nickname was inevitable), it will gratify the same people who made a hit out of the granola-hearted 'Eat, Pray, Love.'"
CORRECTION: Lord knows how I changed "Eat, Pray, Love" into "Hat, Pray, Love." Corrected. But laughing. I hate crap like "Eat, Pray, Love." "Hat, Pray, Love"? Shoulda been "Hate, Pray, Love."
CORRECTION: Lord knows how I changed "Eat, Pray, Love" into "Hat, Pray, Love." Corrected. But laughing. I hate crap like "Eat, Pray, Love." "Hat, Pray, Love"? Shoulda been "Hate, Pray, Love."
Andrew Sullivan reflects on the "difficult task is summoning the right amount of anger with the right amount of generosity of spirit."
Including the way he has treated Sarah Palin:
Here, there is no conceivable way in which, in my judgment, her presence on the national stage can improve our discourse, help solve our problems or improve public life. But that does not forbid one from noting the great example she has shown in rearing a child with Down Syndrome, whatever his provenance, or noting her effectiveness as a demagogue, or from admiring her father's genuineness or her skill in exploiting new media. I've consistently tried to do this without undercutting my still-raw amazement that an advanced democratic society could even contemplate putting such an unstable and irresponsible person in a position of any real power.His approach to the new civility, he says, will be "generous anger: a classically Orwellian term." The idea is "to make strong and lively points without demonization."
David Brooks thinks Amy "Chua would do better to see the classroom as a cognitive break from the truly arduous tests of childhood."
"Where do they learn how to manage people? Where do they learn to construct and manipulate metaphors? Where do they learn to perceive details of a scene the way a hunter reads a landscape? Where do they learn how to detect their own shortcomings? Where do they learn how to put themselves in others’ minds and anticipate others’ reactions?"
Brooks is talking about the much-talked-about book "Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother."
Brooks is talking about the much-talked-about book "Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother."
"If you’re going to be a diva, then own it."
Says David Lat:
What troubles me about the book is the idea that other parents, with less good sense and less naturally talented children, will extract advice that will lead to child abuse... or something close to it. Children need to play to develop their minds. They need to find intrinsic delight in their experiences. What good is hyper-achievement for its own sake?
Was this lesson was lost on Yale law professor Amy Chua, the author of an incendiary essay in last weekend’s Wall Street Journal, Why Chinese Mothers Are Superior, and a new book about Eastern versus Western parenting styles, Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother?...Lat read the book and says the WSJ piecce is "a collection of the book’s most inflammatory, anti-Western-parenting portions, collected from far-flung chapters" that "lacks the nuance and the narrative arc of Chua’s full memoir." Nevertheless, the WSJ piece got the book immense attention (including the attention she's as she remakes her image), so how can she complain?
After her controversial essay about the superiority of Chinese mothers and hard-ass Asian parenting set the blogosphere on fire — and sent her book rocketing to #5 on the Amazon bestseller list — Chua backtracked a bit, instead of defiantly standing her ground....
What troubles me about the book is the idea that other parents, with less good sense and less naturally talented children, will extract advice that will lead to child abuse... or something close to it. Children need to play to develop their minds. They need to find intrinsic delight in their experiences. What good is hyper-achievement for its own sake?
"She was wrapped in her fuzzy blanket, ready to listen to Taylor Swift or play Fruit Ninja on her iPod."
From an op-ed the NYT chose to publish in the wake of the Gabriel Giffords shooting. Please add this to the pile of evidence that the NYT aspires to be the newspaper for soft-hearted, soft-headed women.
IN THE COMMENTS: Mary Beth wins the thread:
IN THE COMMENTS: Mary Beth wins the thread:
I had a discussion with my daughter Amy the other day before I came here to ask her what the most important issue was....(Link added.)
"My son, being a golden boy, who is so good, he didn't do this."
"My son was not Carlos Castro's lover... From the beginning, he never hid his sexuality, which is heterosexual."
A mother's reaction to news about her son (involving murder and mutilation (with a corkscrew)).
A mother's reaction to news about her son (involving murder and mutilation (with a corkscrew)).
"Western parents are extremely anxious about their children's self-esteem."
"They worry about how their children will feel if they fail at something, and they constantly try to reassure their children about how good they are notwithstanding a mediocre performance on a test or at a recital. In other words, Western parents are concerned about their children's psyches. Chinese parents aren't. They assume strength, not fragility, and as a result they behave very differently."
Go read the whole thing. It's very interesting, beginning with a list of 10 rules that few American parents would be able to accept — at least not without modification. Never "get any grade less than an A"?! How can the parent dictate such a thing?
Go read the whole thing. It's very interesting, beginning with a list of 10 rules that few American parents would be able to accept — at least not without modification. Never "get any grade less than an A"?! How can the parent dictate such a thing?
"This couple are so desperate for a baby girl that they terminated twin boys and are fighting to choose the sex of their next child."
A lawsuit in Australia:
The couple, who have three sons and still grieve for a daughter they lost soon after birth, are going to the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal to win the right to select sex by IVF treatment....
The man said: "After what we have been through we are due for a bit of luck. We want to be given the opportunity to have a girl."
The woman, who is consumed by grief over the daughter who died soon after birth, admits she has become obsessed with having a daughter and it has become vital to her psychological health.
Victoria's Assisted Reproductive Treatment Act 2008 bans sex selection unless it is necessary to avoid the risk of transmission of a genetic abnormality or genetic disease to a child.How would you analyze this question? Abortion is legal there, and the woman has already used abortion as a method of sex selection. The case is about who may have access to advanced treatments.
"I felt like Neo from 'The Matrix.' I began hearing voices and feeling powerful."
"They were asking about the difference between mom and mother. It was a sign."
I don't think that a mentally ill person facing a murder charge should be giving — be allowed to give? — a press interview. Perhaps I shouldn't be interested in reading this.
I don't think that a mentally ill person facing a murder charge should be giving — be allowed to give? — a press interview. Perhaps I shouldn't be interested in reading this.
His mother ... knocked on the door and asked him to go to the kitchen and pour water from a pot in which she was cooking three chickens. "I looked at these chickens lying dead in the pot and a voice told me it was a sacrifice. It was black magic," he said.
Brea left the chickens alone and went back to his room. When his mother asked why he did not do what she had asked, he said she spoke with a different voice.
"She had the voice of the demon. I opened the door with the dagger at my side and the sword," he said....
"To you it might sound silly, but in my culture demons are very real."
The 5-year-old boy who chose to be Daphne from "Scooby-Doo" for Halloween.
And the mother who chose to blog about it.
So now there's a viral photo on the internet of a boy dressed as a girl and endless speculation about what that all means.
1. Did the mother invade her son's privacy? By blogging about the issue of a very young boy who wants to pretend to be a girl? Or was it the photograph? Or was it wrong even to invade the child's fantasy world by speculating about his sexual orientation? The mother's blog post was titled "My Son Is Gay." Do we owe children restraint in thinking about what sexual behavior they will find compelling when they grow up, and if we do, don't we all violate that duty in one way or another?
2. Consider the notion that a costume of a perfectly nice girl was perceived as an unusually scary Halloween character. Kids dress as devils and monsters and dead people all the time, but to be a pretty girl — if you are a boy — is terrifying. As the blogger noted, a girl dressed as a male character would not stir the same anxiety in the grownups. What does this say about sexism? Is there a special aversion to females, that manifests itself when a male associates with female things? Or is it that people have a special aversion to male homosexuals and are really pretty much okay with lesbians?
IN THE COMMENTS: Big Mike said:
So now there's a viral photo on the internet of a boy dressed as a girl and endless speculation about what that all means.
1. Did the mother invade her son's privacy? By blogging about the issue of a very young boy who wants to pretend to be a girl? Or was it the photograph? Or was it wrong even to invade the child's fantasy world by speculating about his sexual orientation? The mother's blog post was titled "My Son Is Gay." Do we owe children restraint in thinking about what sexual behavior they will find compelling when they grow up, and if we do, don't we all violate that duty in one way or another?
2. Consider the notion that a costume of a perfectly nice girl was perceived as an unusually scary Halloween character. Kids dress as devils and monsters and dead people all the time, but to be a pretty girl — if you are a boy — is terrifying. As the blogger noted, a girl dressed as a male character would not stir the same anxiety in the grownups. What does this say about sexism? Is there a special aversion to females, that manifests itself when a male associates with female things? Or is it that people have a special aversion to male homosexuals and are really pretty much okay with lesbians?
IN THE COMMENTS: Big Mike said:
I'm glad I'm at home when I followed your "perfectly nice girl" link because some of those cartoons are definitely NSFW.I've changed the link to the Wikipedia article on Daphne Blake. Previously, it went to the results of a Google image search on: Daphne Scooby Doo. I'll just add the "bestiality" tag to this post to indicate what you would have seen if you scanned the page too long.
"Barbara Billingsley, TV’s June Cleaver, Dies at 94."
Ah!
I was 6 years old when the show "Leave It to Beaver" began in 1957 and 12 when it ended in 1963. I watched an unbelievable amount of television in those years, but, without question, the TV family that impressed me most deeply was the Cleavers. June and Ward were, for me, the perfect parents. From this long distance, it now seems that were not really that different from June and Ward, but back then, how I longed for a family like the Cleavers. I can still make the theme music play in my head and open a flood of memories of childhood feelings of what a family should be. How profoundly affecting were the gender differences between the 2 parents! Ward and June were a beautiful team, and they were not even all that dissimilar. Both were tough and principled and at the same time caring and sensitive. But I can hear June in my head, echoing for all the ages, urging Ward not to be too severe with the boys. And Ward always listened and hesitated before he proceeded with his fatherly role.
Here's some video.
I was 6 years old when the show "Leave It to Beaver" began in 1957 and 12 when it ended in 1963. I watched an unbelievable amount of television in those years, but, without question, the TV family that impressed me most deeply was the Cleavers. June and Ward were, for me, the perfect parents. From this long distance, it now seems that were not really that different from June and Ward, but back then, how I longed for a family like the Cleavers. I can still make the theme music play in my head and open a flood of memories of childhood feelings of what a family should be. How profoundly affecting were the gender differences between the 2 parents! Ward and June were a beautiful team, and they were not even all that dissimilar. Both were tough and principled and at the same time caring and sensitive. But I can hear June in my head, echoing for all the ages, urging Ward not to be too severe with the boys. And Ward always listened and hesitated before he proceeded with his fatherly role.
Here's some video.
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