Even though Evan is in preschool now, he's only there three mornings a week, so we're still going to one of the community play classes for preschoolers on one of his off days. The main reason I decided to continue with this class in addition to preschool is because of how much Evan loves his teacher.
She's not a real teacher; she's a Parks Department employee who leads the kids in some activities and supervises them while they play, makes sure they're using the equipment and toys properly, that sort of thing. It's a really unstructured environment, held in a school cafeteria covered with big mats and active toys. The teacher really enjoys the kids, though, and she spends a lot of time just playing with them, for which they all love her too.
I'm about to tell more snobby parenting stories here, by the way. Because these classes are free or really cheap, you get a lot of different types of people attending. Let's just say that my bleeding-heart granola sensibilities are even more unusual here than they are at Suburban Preschool. I frequently find myself boggling over some of the things I overhear from other parents there.
There was the grandmother who told her grandson to be nice to Evan or Evan's mommy would get mad at him and yell at him. Then she looked at me and whispered, "Really, yell at him." Whuh? Sorry, Grandma, but it's not my job to discipline your grandson for you!
Then there was the father complaining that his daughter wouldn't go to sleep before 10 or 11 pm. They'd tried everything, he said, but it was no use, because his two-and-a-half year old daughter knew how to turn on the television in her bedroom and put on a DVD by herself, so despite their best efforts she still stayed up late watching DVDs. (The other parents listening to his complaint, by the way, responded with variations of, "Kids these days! They're so smart and technologically advanced!")
This morning there was another grandmother, playing with her grandson on the mats. Five-year-old grandson picks up a block and Grandma says, "You can pretend it's a gun." Five-year-old points his "gun" at the teacher and starts yelling, "FIRE! FIRE! FIRE! FIRE! FIRE!" Teacher keels over, groaning. Little boy laughs: "Ha ha! I killed you!" Grandma suddenly gets very sharp with grandson: "That's not nice! We don't say that!" Little boy asks, "What?" all innocent-like. Grandma says, "We don't use the word 'kill'. That's not nice." Oh, okay, gotcha -- pretending to shoot a teacher with a gun is fine and dandy, but don't call it killing! We wouldn't want to be inappropriate!
There are a lot of cute kids and normal people who attend these things, but some of these people are just so very different from me in their basic fundamental values and principles that I can't even comprehend what's happening inside their heads. Evan and I get along really well with the teacher, but some of these people make me wonder how she stands it sometimes. She was telling stories this morning too, of some of the more colorful kids saying things to her that just make her jaw drop at the rudeness of them.
I worry, sometimes, about whether my kids are going to grow up to be good people (and these worries are based more in my own paranoia and lack of parenting confidence than they are in any signs from my kids that they're becoming sociopaths or something) but then sometimes, when I spend time with my kids' peers, I figure, even if my kids aren't Gandhi or Martin Luther King, Jr., at least they'll be better than the obnoxious jerks these kids' parents are setting them up to be.
And then I feel guilty for thinking kids are jerks, and this is when I start to feel like a judgy snob. But I guess... I'm not really sure what my point is here. I'm not even sure I have one, really, so I suppose this is a good place to end the rambling.
01 October 2009
stories of preschoolers
23 April 2009
propaganda
Hayao Miyazaki is one of my favorite filmmakers. He makes beautiful, rich animated Japanese children's movies, but I'd watch them even if I didn't have kids, they're so wonderful. One of my favorites of his films is Nausicaa, the story of a young princess who is a warrior, pilot, pacifist, environmentalist heroine. The futuristic world she lives in is one where a toxic jungle flourishes, and enormous insects roam the earth, and Nausicaa attempts to bring harmony between people and their surroundings while trying to prevent a war in her peaceful valley. It's one of my favorite movies of all time (and one of Evan's favorites too).
A few years ago I loaned our DVD to a friend of mine to share with her children, as an alternative to the standard princess movies made in the US. She returned it after a week or two, and told me she thought it was okay, but she thought the environmental messages felt like propaganda and that really bothered her. I always thought the messages were obvious but not over-the-top -- they fit in with the context of the story and the passion of the main character. I wouldn't call them propaganda at all. (Bear in mind that I'm a dirty tree-hugger, though.)
But it occurred to me today that that's how I feel about most mainstream children's movies: propaganda, of the gendered variety. Most kids' movies completely reinforce traditional gender roles, and the narrative of Boy Saves Girl and Boys Have Adventures and Girls Want Romance. And most people, I think, don't question this at all.
Example: My kids and I recently watched Madagascar 2. Not the worst kids' movie I've ever seen -- it was mostly entertaining, not too gross or inappropriate, not objectionable in most ways. Even funny at times, and I don't usually find kids' movies very funny. (Those penguins, though! And the chimps!)
Of the four main characters in the Madagascar movies, there are three males and one female (That ratio is my first problem). The three male characters' storylines involved 1) a zebra's quest for individuality, 2) a lion's quest to prove himself to his father, and 3) a giraffe's quest to become a witch doctor. The female character's storyline? Dating. That's it. It's true that in the end (spoilers!) the female hippo ends up with the male giraffe after he confesses his love and attempts to sacrifice himself to save the other animals, so there is a male with a romance storyline -- but the romance is only a part of his storyline, whereas with the female hippo, it's basically all she gets.
There are so many children's movies where the only female characters function as love interests for the males without really contributing anything of substance to the plot, and it really is starting to seem like propaganda to me. Cultural propaganda that serves to convince little girls (and boys) that girls are there for decoration, ornaments, instead of being actual people who can solve problems and rescue people.
Luckily in the age of the internet it's pretty easy to find films that don't conform to this mold, and there are the occasional big-studio children's films that don't either -- the Pixar movies are generally pretty good about gender, and the recent film Coraline was completely wonderful (as is the book it's based on). And we're currently watching on DVD a television series that's the best kids' media I've ever seen in terms of gender stereotypes and roles (which I'm planning to write about in its own post once we're through the whole series).
It's hard to avoid the propaganda altogether, but I feel like my eyes have been opened to a new way of contradicting those messages now that I've identified them as a form of propaganda.
23 March 2009
girl stuff
This morning Evan was, as usual, leafing through the Lego catalog, since he's apparently hoping to become some kind of human Lego encyclopedia. Usually his remarks are predictable: "Cool!" and "Look at this!" and "I want this one for my birthday!" Today, though, I overheard him exclaim, "Yuck! Girl stuff!"
I flipped through the catalog when he was finished, and I found that in the 65-page Lego catalog (which might be longer, actually, but ours battered copy is missing a few pages), two pages are drenched in pink with the proclamation "Just for Girls!" at the top of the page. This pink girly stuff? Horses, puppies, and a house with a family.
By singling out two pages that are "Just for Girls!", the implications are that 1) the "girl" toys are not for boys to play with and 2) the rest of the catalog is not for girls to play with. You may think that's too narrow an interpretation of the subtext, but take a lesson from my three-year-old son. This little boy, who's heard over and over in his young life that there are no "girl toys" and "boy toys", that anyone can play with anything no matter what gender they are, firmly told me that those two pages in the Lego catalog are "girl stuff" and "me and James will definitely never play with girl stuff!" And when I asked him if girls could play with the Star Wars Legos and Bionicles and Indiana Jones, he did not hesitate for a moment to tell me no. So even if that's not the message toy companies are intending to send, that's the message that's being absorbed by young minds.
A similar thing happened a couple of months ago when I took Evan shopping with me for a birthday present for my nephew. We wandered the toy aisles, looking for something good, trying to remember what 1-year-olds play with, when we turned a corner and were visually accosted with a sea of pink and glitter. "No way!" Evan cried. "These are the girl toys!" Girl toys, such as kitchens and horses and dress up clothes.
And, to digress for a moment, what is it with horses being designated as girly? First of all, horses are most often associated with cowboys, who are usually not only men, but like the total masculine ideal, all macho and rugged. And then there's the reality that riding horses and caring for horses is really dirty work, which is typically the exact opposite of what society encourages little girls to do! I've always found that really odd.
Anyway, this is not a new phenomenon by any means -- toys have always been gendered, in some ways -- but it's new to me, trying to teach my sons how to interpret and navigate all of this division. My instinct is to say that there shouldn't even be any division in the first place -- I mean, the Supreme Court decided decades ago that "separate but equal" is never equal. But focusing on the ideal doesn't address the problem that exists in reality.
So I keep on trying. I tell my sons again and again that they can play with anything they want to play with, they can like anything they want to like, that their choices are not limited by manufacturers' colors, and neither should girls' choices be limited that way. I do think they understand that, and believe it -- after all, they play with their toy kitchen all the time, they like to have their nails painted, they play nearly every day with Neighbor Girl, with whom they play everything from Star Wars to hopscotch to soccer to, yes, horses. I do think they both get it.
But there is still something disheartening about hearing your preschool cry, with as much disdain as a three-year-old's voice can carry, "Yuck! Girl stuff!" It's just another reminder that no matter how attentive a parent you are, no matter how progressive or idealistic you are, there is still a whole culture out there that is insidiously trying to undermine every effort you make that falls outside the mainstream.
18 March 2009
an open letter to a fellow mother
Dear K's Mother,
It's so nice that our sons have befriended each other at the preschool play class, and I'm glad to have someone to talk to about our children, the town we live in, and other mundane small-talk sorts of things.
But what I don't enjoy is your sporadic gender commentary on our kids. I find it odd that you proclaim Evan and your son, K, to be "all boy" as they are tumbling and climbing and jumping on the mats, when our friend's daughter, A, is right alongside them. I find it puzzling that you marvel at how "dainty" A is: "She even walks differently than the boys!" And when A's mother explains that A's style of walking is something she's had physical therapy to try to correct, and you recall that actually, your oldest son walked that way for a while as a toddler but grew out of it, you still have no problem finding another way to differentiate the sexes, zeroing in on the one moment when A lies down on a mat and pretends to go to sleep, cooing that "the princess is sleeping!" Oh, those boys are wild, but the little girl, she is a calm and docile princess. In this minute and this minute only, but that's apparently enough evidence for you.
I find it strange, too, that you and N's mom exchanged laughter over how rowdy Evan, K, and N were being, "such boys!", with their jumping and tumbling, commenting that all of the little girls were staying far away from the mats where our sons were being so rambunctious. It seemed that you two had forgotten the previous half hour in which little girls were climbing right there on the same mats with our boys, and you must not have noticed in the next half hour when girls were again playing with the boys.
I wonder if you would still call Evan "all boy" if you saw the way he likes to snuggle up to me, sucking his thumb? I wonder if you'd hold fast to your notions of how different boys and girls are if you saw my son's bright red toenails? I wonder if you've ever considered that part of the reason boys and girls do behave differently might be because people like you label little girls "princesses" simply for existing? I wonder if your head would have exploded had you known Evan during the phase where he liked to pretend to be Princess Leia?
K's mom, you seem like a pretty nice woman. Maybe if you can stop your gender editorializing, or if I can learn to ignore it, we could be friends. I'm not sure how likely either of those options are, though. It's too bad, because I could use a friend who understands what it's like to raise boys surrounded by so many hyper-masculine cultural stereotypes.
Hugs,
Evan's mom
04 November 2008
election day
Happy Election Day! I hope you're all going out to vote today.
James has the day off of school today, so after breakfast all four of us headed down to our town hall to vote. No voter drama here -- there was one couple ahead of us in line, voting went off without a hitch, and the poll workers gave my kids their own "I Voted Today" stickers. Then we headed to Starbucks for our free coffee (we don't have a Ben & Jerry's near us, and I didn't know about Krispy Kreme in time or else my children would have been in a sugar coma before lunchtime).
I have to say, regardless of political affiliations or opinions, Election Day is so exciting to me. It was so nice waiting in Starbucks and seeing almost every other person wearing wearing an "I Voted Today" sticker, and conversing with fellow voters. Evan finally changed his mind about McCain and was chattering happily about Obama, to the delight of other customers. We overheard one pair of customers telling another pair to make sure they vote today, because their employers have to give them time to vote.
I've been seeing a lot of inspirational stories in the news lately, about people waiting in line for up to six hours to vote early, about elderly people registering to vote for the first time in their lives because of this election. I know several people who've donated their time to help campaign during this election. James came home from school yesterday shouting excitedly that his school had elected Obama.
Election fever, it's everywhere.
And I have heard stories about voter fraud, about sneaky measures to impede people's right to vote or to disenfranchise people, rumors that the election will be stolen by one side or the other. Obviously there are some problems with our voting system. But to see people's hope and optimism and excitement and patriotism in the face of these challenges is just so heart-warming to me. I feel so happy to be an American today, to be able to be part of this process, to voice my opinion, to be part of something so much bigger than myself.
Please vote today. And feel free to share any interesting election day stories!
20 October 2008
the political post
I don't write much about politics on my blog. I don't keep my views a secret -- I have my tagline and my "Obama Mama" button (thanks, Jessica!) in plain view on the front page -- but I don't often write about it, in part because most people who read my blog already know or can guess my views, in part because I get really worked up about certain political issues and, for the sake of my mental health, it's best to avoid getting into them too frequently, and in part because I would mostly be preaching to the choir here.
But I can't refrain from doing just one political post this year. There are a lot of things I could complain about, in regards to both presidential candidates, but there is one issue that's been coming up a lot recently, in the debates, in speeches, in election ads, that is driving me crazy: taxes, especially as they relate to economic class.
McCain and Palin have spent a lot of time criticizing Obama's tax plan, arguing (falsely) that it will hurt Joe Sixpack and Joe the Plumber and anyone else named Joe in the middle class. Palin has mocked Biden for saying in his campaign speeches that it is an act of patriotism to pay taxes. McCain has, since the last debate, spent a lot of time deriding Obama's plan to "spread the wealth around." They're hinting that an Obama/Biden administration is the first step on the path that will lead the US to socialism.** Under a McCain/Palin administration, however, good old free-market capitalism will ensure that everyone will make as much money as they possibly can, and hold on to every last cent. No need to share your hard-earned money with any free-loading poor people, or those soulless bloodsuckers in Congress! Sounds nice in theory, doesn't it?
My opinion on taxes is pretty well summed up by former Supreme Court judge Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr: "I like to pay taxes. With them I buy civilization." Republicans seem to have forgotten what taxes are actually used for. Presently, I'm not a fan of the large percentage of taxes which are being used to fund an ill-conceived and mismanaged war, but I would happily pay more taxes if it would ensure that every person in America had access to health care, that every child in America had access to a solid, well-funded, free education (including college), that the war would be ended, that more money would be invested in funding alternative energy sources and scientific research, and that failing infrastructure would be improved -- to name just a few.
The problem with arguing that your money should be yours to keep because you've earned it, is that you're ignoring all of the taxpayer-funded factors that contributed to you being able to earn that money. Were you educated in public schools? Do you drive a car that meets safety standards down a paved road equipped with traffic lights? Have you ever taken antibiotics that were tested for safety and approved by a federal agency? Can you call 911 and expect that police, fire, or ambulance will be dispatched to your home or the scene of an accident? Do you have mail delivered to your house and business almost every day of the year, free of charge? Heck, do you eat food or drink clean water?
Without taxes funding all of these aspects so necessary to daily life and to help our society flourish, you might be making more money, but you'd be spending more from your own pocket to make up for the shortfall. It is in the best interest of a society -- it is essential to the growth and prosperity of a society -- to protect public health and safety, to promote law and order, and to educate its citizens. Taxes may fund some things you don't personally approve of, but they fund many more things that we, as a society, require for our continued improvement.
What about Biden's patriotism angle? I guess that depends on your definition of patriotism. Personally, my patriotic relationship to my country resembles my relationship to my children. I love them, I am grateful for the things (both tangible and intangible) that they give me, I am proud of their accomplishments, I am occasionally disappointed in their bad behavior, but ultimately I want to see them succeed, and I will, to the best of my ability, help them achieve success. Part of that necessarily involves spending money to help support them. It is because I love America that I am happy to pay taxes to support all of the things that make this such a nice place to live.
I mentioned economic class above, and here's where that comes in: so far, all I've heard any politician talking about is the middle class. How do we help the middle class keep their homes, how do we help the middle class send their kids to college, how do we help the middle class afford rising gas prices? It seems like such a long time ago that I was a supporter of John Edwards, but before the primaries he was my top choice, in part because he was willing to talk about poverty, and how to help eliminate it. When he dropped out of the race he was congratulated on making poverty a priority for the Democrats, and Clinton and Obama both promised to keep talking about how to reduce poverty. And now... when is the last time you heard any politician mention poverty? The problem with focusing on housing, or college tuition, or gas prices, is that you're ignoring the people who don't even have homes and cars, and whose children will not be going to college no matter how cheap it is.
I wrote above about all of the societal benefits that are funded by taxes. We pay taxes collectively in order that all citizens might share in what these taxes pay for. That some people have managed to enjoy these benefits while building a great deal of wealth is incredibly fortunate. It doesn't happen that way for most people, and not because of laziness or stupidity, but because there is a lot of arbitrary unfairness built into our economic system. Personally I believe that the work I do raising my children to be educated, responsible citizens is, in the long run, a greater benefit to society as a whole than the work that a professional baseball player does. Yet somehow our free market has decided that a man who gets to play games for a living should be compensated more in one year than I will probably make in my entire life. I'm not asking for pity -- certainly I've made a choice here -- but it's a good example of how skewed our values as a society are. I can obviously see that some jobs require more skill, more training, more education, more time, more physical effort than others, and should be compensated accordingly, but in general the disparity in income between social classes is far larger than is reasonable, and I'm all for Obama's plan to "spread the wealth around" and make things a little more equitable.
McCain has also criticized Obama's proposed tax credits for people who don't pay income tax. Something I never hear mentioned in discussion of these tax credits is that these people who are not paying income tax are not paying because they don't even make enough money to live on, let alone be taxed on. Right now, we are one of those families. We pay no income tax because a graduate student's salary is not enough for a family of four to live on. Without tax refunds and credits, we would be bankrupt by now. Maybe this will sound hard to believe, but I actually look forward to being able to pay taxes, because it will mean 1) that we have enough money to live on with some to spare and 2) that we will be able to repay the government for the benefits they've given us over the last few years.
My family is on the threshold of becoming middle class, and if we ever do get up above Obama's proposed $250,000 cut-off (which was not chosen randomly or arbitrarily, but because the people who earn more than that in a year make up the top 5% in the US), I really will be happy to pay taxes to help the 95% of Americans who are not so fortunate. Especially those closest to the bottom. I don't have any complaints about paying taxes. I might disagree on how those taxes should be spent, but if I have some extra money that could be used to teach a child to read, to clean up environmental waste so that people have clean drinking water, to give someone a new kidney, to rebuild a bridge that collapsed, well, why wouldn't I give that money? Why wouldn't anyone want to contribute to making our neighborhoods and cities and states and our country clean and safe and healthy?
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** There's a good article in today's New York Times that explains just how hypocritical it is for McCain to accuse Obama of socialism.
15 October 2008
i was a girl scout, but i wasn't prepared for this.
James came home yesterday waving a flier for Cub Scouts sign-ups. I was really hoping to avoid this scenario altogether, but since this is the second flier we've had sent home, in addition to seeing a sign-up booth at his school's open house a few weeks ago, apparently they've been advertising it so much that it's finally wormed its way into my son's consciousness, and he's decided that he wants to be a Cub Scout.
I'm conflicted. Greg and I are not fans of the larger Boy Scout organization because of their discrimination against gay people and atheists, not to mention the gender exclusivity. Yet the idea of James being able to socialize with other boys while participating in the kinds of outdoorsy, crafty, practical activities that we try to promote for our boys anyway is appealing to me. And it's very appealing to him.
I just spent some time with the Google trying to find alternatives to Cub Scouts or Boy Scouts that are open to anyone, regardless of gender, race, religion, sexual orientation or whatever else, and such groups do exist (the Spiral Scouts and Campfire USA are two that looked good to me) but unfortunately there don't seem to be any chapters in our area.
So what to do? I guess I've already decided that despite its good qualities, Boy Scouting just doesn't measure up to all of my values. I just wish there were something to offer James in its place. I shouldn't worry, though; Greg was never a Boy Scout and he's the best outdoorsman I know. And he's already well on his way to teaching the boys how to enjoy and appreciate nature and the earth. So James may be disappointed by our refusal of Cub Scouting, but he won't be deprived. And, I suppose, with the additional things he'll learn from us about inclusion and acceptance, he'll be even better off.
30 September 2008
happy banned books week!
It is Banned Books Week once again, in which the American Library Association encourages people to Celebrate the Freedom to Read, and reminds America how important the right to free speech is. I'm personally a big supporter of free speech, and I like to use the lists of challenged books published by the ALA to find new books to read, because those which people seek to ban are often the most interesting and thought-provoking.
Here's the ALA's list of the most frequently challenged books of 2007, and the reasons why they were challenged:
1) “And Tango Makes Three,” by Justin Richardson/Peter Parnell
Reasons: Anti-Ethnic, Sexism, Homosexuality, Anti-Family, Religious Viewpoint, Unsuited to Age Group
2) The Chocolate War,” by Robert Cormier
Reasons: Sexually Explicit, Offensive Language, Violence
3) “Olive’s Ocean,” by Kevin Henkes
Reasons: Sexually Explicit and Offensive Language
4) “The Golden Compass,” by Philip Pullman
Reasons: Religious Viewpoint
5) “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn,” by Mark Twain
Reasons: Racism
6) “The Color Purple,” by Alice Walker
Reasons: Homosexuality, Sexually Explicit, Offensive Language
7) "TTYL,” by Lauren Myracle
Reasons: Sexually Explicit, Offensive Language, Unsuited to Age Group
8) "I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings,” by Maya Angelou
Reasons: Sexually Explicit
9) “It’s Perfectly Normal,” by Robie Harris
Reasons: Sex Education, Sexually Explicit
10) "The Perks of Being A Wallflower,” by Stephen Chbosky
Reasons: Homosexuality, Sexually Explicit, Offensive Language, Unsuited to Age Group
Sadly, I've only read half of these (1, 2, 4, 6, 8), and my kids have only read one (which I wrote about not too long ago). Looks like I have some reading to do! The link above also notes that Toni Morrison (one of my favorite contemporary authors) is off the list this year, after previously having two of her books featured. Too bad! Maybe she'd better write another controversial book.
Incidentally, it was very recently that I read I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings for the first time, and I found it to be a very moving and beautifully written book that I would recommend to anyone. The "sexually explicit content" (which, by the way, is not portrayed in a positive way) is one of the defining moments of Angelou's youth. Should she have ignored writing about something that affected her so deeply, that changed her in a very real way, that surely plenty of young girls can identify with, to avoid offending someone who's not satisfied to simply put down the book and walk away? That's what good literature is about in the first place: affecting the reader.
It really baffles me that some people decide that if they don't want to read a book, or want their children to read a book, that no one else should be allowed to read that book. I think literature is a great tool to use in learning to understand and process the world around us and the issues people face. It's hard for me to understand a point of view that would seek to prevent others from thinking and learning and challenging themselves.
Just for fun, here are some more links about challenged books from the ALA:
The Most Challenged Books of the 21st Century
The Top Ten Challenged Authors from 1990-2004
The 100 Most Frequently Challenged Books from 1990-2000
I'm pleasantly surprised to see a handful of books on that third list that were taught or read aloud in my elementary and high schools.
Some of my favorites on these lists I'd also count as some of my favorite books of all time. The Harry Potter series, Bridge to Terabithia, House of the Spirits, A Wrinkle in Time, The Handmaid's Tale, Julie of the Wolves, Roald Dahl's books, Toni Morrison's books, The Giver, and Slaughterhouse Five are all excellent books that I've enjoyed. Some of them I loved as a child, and have found as an adult that they're still just as good (for example, I re-read Bridge to Terabithia a few months ago after finding a copy at a used bookstore, and I sobbed every bit as much at 26 as I did at 11).
So what are your favorite challenged books?
19 June 2008
homophobia starts early
James got off the bus today and told me that one of his classmates and classmate's 4th-grade brother were teasing him on the bus, saying that James likes boys and James wants to marry a boy. James didn't seem too upset about it -- he said he told them it wasn't true, told them not to say it, but I don't think he got very angry about it.
But I'm angry. I can't believe that that's something six-year-olds are teasing each other about. First of all, all this talk about marriage in general among kindergarteners is unsettling -- how quickly do kids need to grow up these days? I hear far too much for my liking about which of the kids in James' class are "getting married." Yet already, at such young ages, these children are acutely aware that boys liking boys is something to tease about, something to shame another child for.
If it starts this early, how bad will it get as they get older? I made sure to point out to James that even if it were true, even if he liked boys, there's nothing wrong with that, but how do my reassurances stack up next to the taunting of his peers?
It makes me incredibly sad, actually. It makes me grateful that I've never had to face teasing over something as wonderful as love. It makes me worry about what my kids might face should one of them be gay. It makes me worry about my small voice versus the roar of society in their ears. It makes me fear that my kids may one day end up teasing other kids this way.
You know, I was so overjoyed about the recent California ruling legalizing same-sex marriage. But then something like this comes along, elementary children being already caught up in the prevailing negative attitudes about gay people, and it makes me realize just how far we have to go before it will really, truly not matter who you love.
15 May 2008
pernicious penguins
I just read my children one of the most "challenged" picture books in America: And Tango Makes Three, by Justin Richardson and Peter Parnell. It's a very sweet book -- the true story of two penguins at the Central Park Zoo who fall in love, spend all their time together, and raise an adopted baby penguin together. It's just that these two penguins both happen to be male, so apparently telling their story advocates homosexuality.
It's true, by the way. If you're a parent, then you surely know all about the pernicious influence penguins have over children. After we saw March of the Penguins, it was all I could do to keep my children from jumping in the icy river in the dead of winter. And after we saw Madagascar my children started learning martial arts and tried to steal a cargo ship. And after reading this book this morning, my children immediately set out in search of gay penguins to have sex with.
Really, it's a very sweet, simple story and I find it incredibly sad that there are people somewhere out there who feel that their children are in some way threatened by a loving penguin family. Penguins.
22 April 2008
happy earth day!
Being green is so in these days, so in honor of Mother Earth and Earth day, I'm going to post some interesting links on a variety of environmental topics. Enjoy!
Which Candidate is Greenest? -- An article in Vanity Fair discusses which presidential candidate will be best on environmental issues. Yes, we all know it's not McCain, but check out this piece and the other articles it links to for more details.
Find Earth Day Events in Your Area -- I know it's getting a little late in the day for this, but Mother Earth News offers some resources for finding out what's happening in your area today.
10 for the Earth -- Heifer International (an all-around excellent organization) lists ten simple, everyday things you can do to lower your impact on the environment. They may sound familiar -- none of them were new to me -- but it never hurts to be reminded.
Why Bother? -- Michael Pollan addresses the seeming hopelessness of those little individual acts of environmentalism, and makes a compelling case that we should persist in our individual efforts. (Thanks for the link, Kim!)
Greener Pastures -- Speaking of individual acts of environmentalism, Bill Nye (the Science Guy) puts the rest of us to shame. Some of his ideas are simple, others are prohibitively expensive for most of us, but all of them make me wish I were eating his scones and watching hummingbirds with him.
Earth Day Tips -- Another list, this one from National Geographic's Green Guide, of things you can do to make your life more green.
Environmental Cleaning Solutions -- Lots of resources about using environmentally-friendly cleaning products, such as vinegar and baking soda and lemon juice. Keep your home clean using fewer chemicals and pollutants, and save a few bucks too.
The Rainforest Site -- Just one click of your mouse and money is donated to rainforest preservation and habitat protection. (Click to donate to the other worthy causes while you're there, too.)
Thoreau's Laundry -- Interesting post at Shakesville about the intersection of gender issues with environmentalism -- thoughts I've had from time to time, but I don't think I could ever have put it down so coherently. As usual at Shakesville, the comments section is nearly as good as the original post.
Monsanto's Harvest of Fear -- Okay, this is not exactly an Earth Day link, but it's about the evil being done to the earth, to farmers, and to agriculture in general by one of the leading bioengineering companies in the world. Monsanto is responsible for the majority of genetically modified foods out there, as well as a marketer of bovine growth hormones, and they are frighteningly aggressive in both political lobbying and bullying small farmers.
Okay, that's all from me. Go out and do something nice for the Earth today!
10 April 2008
not about food
Okay, enough of the food blogging. The more I write about food, the fewer comments I get. I can take a hint.
Instead, today, I'm going to post on a couple of other topics I love: movies, and gender issues. (Not that I think these topics will get many more comments, but at least it's a change of pace!)
I want to direct you to this piece by NPR's Peter Sagal, which has been all over the feminist blogs I read, about the blatant sexism in the new Dr. Seuss movie, Horton Hears a Who. It's pretty short; read it if you haven't already. I've written before about gender distribution in sci-fi and fantasy, and in that post I mentioned, without getting into details and examples, that it's part of a larger trend in film in our culture. But Horton apparently takes the cake, with one heroic boy and his ninety-six useless sisters. Trust me, they didn't get that from Seuss's book.
It felt great to read Sagal's indignant rant about the worth of daughters. The lack of female characters in kids' movies (and adult movies too, though I'll save that rant for another day), not just of female heroes or protagonists but of female characters in general, is something that has irritated me for a long time. Television is generally better -- thank goodness for PBS! -- but part of the reason for that is that there are so many kids' shows to choose from (even when you only get five channels) while there are, what, 3 or 4 mainstream kids' movies in theaters every year? Maybe five in a good year. Slim pickings, at any rate.
At the end of his piece, Sagal mentions several iconic kids' movies featuring male protagonists saving the day, or saving the world. Below the fold I'm going to highlight some of my favorite kids' movies (favorites of my boys, too, I should add) that give girls a chance to shine.
At the very top of my list is every film ever made by Hayao Miyazaki. From the magical adventures of Satsuki and Mei in My Neighbor Totoro, to the compassionate yet fierce ace pilot and princess Nausicaa, to the smart, resourceful Sophie taking charge in Howl's Moving Castle, to the slightly-feral warrior Princess Mononoke, Miyazaki's films are full of girls who run the show and save the day. Totoro was a favorite of my boys' when they were small, and Nausicaa is a long-time favorite of both as well.
One of my favorite movies even now is Mary Poppins, and both of my boys fell in love with it too when we first watched it a couple of months ago. Two adorable children go on adventures with a magical nanny who takes no nonsense from anyone. Plus there are fun and catchy songs to sing along to. Bonus: the children's mother is a suffragette! (Something I had forgotten in the many years between watching this movie as a child and as an adult.)
I've been working on this post for a while, and the last film I can think of with good gender distribution (and a good plot too) is The Incredibles, the only Pixar film I can think of that has more than two female characters. (Did you see Ratatouille? Cute film, but am I the only one who noticed that in the colony of hundreds of rats, there was not a single female rat among them? Please!) As someone who likes superhero movies in general, and as the mother of boys who love superheroes, I have to say that I would really love to see more movies about female superheroes, and The Incredibles helps fulfill that wish a little bit for me. It's not only a fun film, but one that places its women on equal footing with its men, and in which everyone works together to save the day. My kind of film.
So there you have my favorite kids' films, for girls and boys. I don't think it's a coincidence that my favorite kids' films also have even gender distribution (well, more even than most films anyway) and/or strong female characters who are not stereotyped. (Okay, a proper British nanny is obviously a stereotype, but Mary Poppins goes so far above and beyond typical child-rearing that I think she's an exception here.) Maybe one of these days I'll have time to get into other kids' films that are good, but could have been better if their vast casts had included, say, one woman to every 3 men instead of one woman to every 10 men.
31 January 2008
what do global warming, childhood obesity, and torture have in common?
The meat industry.
Since mentioning our move towards vegetarianism in my last post, I've come across several articles that have only reinforced my belief that this is the right decision (for my family, at least) to make right now. You should read them, you should really, really read them, especially if you're considering reducing meat consumption. Or maybe especially if you're not considering such a thing. What Americans don't know about where our food comes from is an astonishing amount.
In comments, Kim pointed me to this article from the NY Times, which is all about the environmental effects of factory farming, and it is very surprising. To keep things brief, I'll quote the bit that surprised me most: "...if Americans were to reduce meat consumption by just 20 percent it would be as if we all switched from a standard sedan — a Camry, say — to the ultra-efficient Prius." I already knew that factory farming contributed to oil dependency and global warming, but I didn't really know the scope of it before reading this article.
Next: I actually bookmarked this article a few months ago, intending to read it when I had the time, and then promptly forgetting about it. I finally read it a couple of days ago, and was surprised once again at how much we as consumers do not know about our food. The article, written by Michael Pollan of The Omnivore's Dilemma fame, is all about the government's farm subsidies, which doesn't sound that interesting, but is really eye-opening. It tells us why the cheapest foods are those which are unhealthiest, and why these foods make it into kids' school lunches. It also talks about the global effect of these outdated policies. It's a copmlicated web of issues, but Pollan does an admirable job of weaving them all together.
Last: I came across this article this morning, about the sickening forms of abuse and even torture that go on in slaughterhouses. Horrifying things were captured on video by an undercover animal welfare investigator. I didn't even try to watch the video; just reading the descriptions was enough to turn my stomach.
So vegetarianism has moved beyond a simple animal welfare issue to one that encompasses all kinds of moral and ethical concerns. And even if I weren't moved by those concerns, the animal abuse practices along with the photos from the first article I linked to make me pretty certain that I don't want to eat meat that's been lying around in its own excrement, confined in close quarters that seem ideal for the spread of bacteria and disease. It's atrocious.
To quote once more from the first NYT article:
Animal welfare may not yet be a major concern, but as the horrors of raising meat in confinement become known, more animal lovers may start to react. And would the world not be a better place were some of the grain we use to grow meat directed instead to feed our fellow human beings?
...
If price spikes don’t change eating habits, perhaps the combination of deforestation, pollution, climate change, starvation, heart disease and animal cruelty will gradually encourage the simple daily act of eating more plants and fewer animals.
29 January 2008
updates
Things have been busy around here, and I haven't been interested in blogging lately, for no particular reason, but I thought I should post a brief update to let you all know we're still alive. Because I'm not feeling up to writing real paragraphs and stuff (mentally, that is), I will do this list-style, because I'm fond of lists.
1. I'll start with the bad news. Our car was hit, in the parking lot right in front of our house, a few nights ago. Our bumper is smashed and mysteriously, none of the neighbors seems to know anything. So later this week we have to take it in to get fixed and get a rental car for a day or so. The boys were excited because we had to report it as a hit-and-run, and a police officer came to our house!! Thrilling.
2. Other bad parking lot news: in the last couple of weeks, we know of one car that was broken into and another which had its windows smashed by a group of unruly fellows. The window smashing actually bothered me less, because from all appearances that was a personal attack, not random, but still, we're becoming less enchanted with the neighborhood. To put it mildly.
3. In good news, we took the kids bowling for the first time this weekend. We went with some friends of our who had some coupons, and of course I didn't take any pictures, why would I do that, but believe me, it was adorable. Evan and our friends' daughter got to use a ramp that's normally reserved for people in wheelchairs -- you just set your ball on top and push it down. This, along with bumpers on the kids' lane, meant that the two littler kids beat the two older kids who actually had to roll the ball down the lane themselves. We heard just a little complaining about the injustice of one being expected to actually bowl at a bowling alley. (And by "a little" I mean "constant".) But I think they all had fun anyway.
4. Big lifestyle changes are afoot: we are transitioning to a mostly vegetarian diet. We've been heading that way slowly for some time, but I really accelerated it last week. Maybe I'll write a whole post on this sometime, but I'm feeling more and more strongly, for environmental reasons, that we need to stop supporting the corporate farm industry. This also means more local and organic foods, too. Everyone so far is dealing with the change pretty well -- we were never big meat eaters to begin with -- so hopefully this will be a good change for us in the long run. Maybe when Greg gets a real job and we have more money, we'll buy organic, local meats too. But for now, lentils and beans and tofu are cheaper than most meats anyway.
5. I think that's all. Nothing terribly exciting, but I felt like I was being neglectful of the blog, so there we are.
21 January 2008
racism for six-year-olds
James had school off today, and he's old enough now to pay attention to holidays and to ask questions about why we celebrate them.
Martin Luther King, Jr. Day is a hard one to explain to a six-year-old. He knew of the idea of slavery from a conversation we had about Lincoln a while ago, but how do you explain prejudice, segregation, discrimination, and institutional racism to a child who has no concept of race? He's had classmates and neighbors of all different ethnicities. We have interracial marriages on both sides of my family, so he has cousins with varying skin tones too. He's used to seeing people of different colors in all kinds of settings. Racism -- even the very idea of difference -- has never come up. It's never needed to come up.
So how do you introduce a child to the injustices of the world? How do you explain the importance of King's work, of his life, without exposing the uglier side of humanity? I don't suppose you can, but it's a hard thing to have to tell a child. It's harder still to know that despite King's efforts, there is still a racial divide in America, that it is a really big deal that one of the frontrunners for the presidential race is a black man, that though we don't notice color, there are still so many people who do.
I suppose I should be expressing my gratitude to King, and everyone else who's fought the struggle for civil rights, that my son doesn't know the concept of race in the first place. Hopefully for James and his generation, race will continue to decrease in significance. Maybe someday we will achieve King's dream, and James can tell his children or grandchildren about racism not as something that still permeates society, but as just another chapter in the history books.
16 January 2008
i'm not the only one
If you don't know me in real life, if you only know me through the blog, you probably don't know that I'm not married. I'm in a committed relationship with the father of my children, but we are not married and we have no plans to marry anytime soon. We are committed to spending our future together, pursuing our dreams and facing life's challenges in partnership.
"Maybe someday," is what we say to people who ask if we're ever going to get married. And people do ask -- not so much anymore, but at first, when I was pregnant and when James was a baby, we heard it a lot. Actually, when I first started telling people I was pregnant with James, one of my co-workers at the time asked me if I'd set a date. I was confused -- I was about to tell her that it's the baby who decides when it's time to come out, not the mother -- when I realized she was asking when Greg and I were getting married. That was when it became clear to me that marriage is not just a life choice you make, but for many people, especially when pregnancy is involved, it is an expectation. People have asked us if we've ever thought about marriage -- of course we have! How could we avoid it in a culture like ours?
For a number of reasons, Greg and I have made a conscious decision not to marry. This surprises a lot of people. We've put a lot of thought and discussion into it, though, and it's not something we're interested in for the time being. We've got no religious inclinations, no pressing financial or legal reasons, and no money to spend on a wedding even if we were interested in marriage. We already have a very public symbol of our feelings for each other and our commitment to each other -- our two children. Most people we meet assume we're married, and I don't bother to correct the assumption most of the time, because what difference would it make? The only thing that differentiates us from married couples is a little piece of paper, which neither of us care about.
It wasn't an easy decision to come to -- there was a while where I really did think I wanted to get married, until I examined my motives and found, at the root of my desire, mostly social pressures and expectations. And there have certainly been times where I've felt condescended to, looked down on, or as if my relationship wasn't legitimate in the eyes of some others simply because I don't have a ring on my finger. After seven years, though, I've gotten used to it and am rarely bothered by it.
I bring all of this up because I read an essay in Newsweek that made me cheer a little bit on the inside. It isn't often that one finds a public, carefully thought-out, well-written defense of choosing not to be married. The author writes a lot of things that ring true to me:
Yet I do not need a piece of paper from the state to strengthen my commitment to Jeff. I do not believe in a religion that says romantic, committed love is moral only if couples pledge joint allegiance to God.
I don't need a white dress to feel pretty, and I have no desire to pretend I'm virginal. I don't need to have Jeff propose to me as if he's chosen me. I don't need a ring as a daily reminder to myself or others that I am loved. And I don't need Jeff to say publicly that he loves me, because he says it privately, not just in words but in daily actions.
Our married friends say you can make a wedding—and a marriage—what you want, but that is not true. It's a specific institution with defining principles and values. If it weren't, there wouldn't be so-called marriage-protection laws in the majority of this country's states.
And for me, that's the bottom line when I consider cashing in on all the benefits our heterosexual relationship is entitled to. My gay friends can't do that. I don't want to send a message to anyone, including my daughter—who may someday choose a same-sex life partner—that the value of her relationships can be determined by law and the affirmation of others.
I wouldn't say that marriage equality -- or, currently, inequality, I should say -- is "the bottom line" for me or for Greg, but that's certainly been a consideration in our thoughts about marriage too.
It was just so refreshing to read some of my own thoughts written by someone else. Greg and I are not the only people out there who feel this way about marriage, despite often feeling as if we're the only ones. Marriage is not a priority for us -- we are actively building our lives and raising our children together without pausing for a ceremony to recognize that, and that's not a common sentiment, nor one that many people readily accept.
And -- I realize that marriage means much more than this to many people. I realize that it has personal importance and tangible benefits for lots and lots of people. I do think it has its problems as a legal institution, but this is not to say I'll never get married. Maybe circumstances will change and we'll decide it's better to be married than not -- who knows. But please, if you're thinking about leaving a comment about how wonderful marriage is, and/or how many benefits it has, and/or why I should get married -- I've heard it. In seven years I've heard it all, and I've not yet been convinced to get married right this minute, so save your energy. I'm happy with my choice.
13 December 2007
'tis the season: rampant consumerism
Okay, this is not strictly a holiday post per se, but I figured that Christmas is the perfect time to write a bit about consumer culture and marketing. Everyone, at this time of year, feels the pressure to buy. If you're a parent, you're feeling it even more, because in addition to the ordinary media pressure to spend a lot of money on your family and friends, you have small children begging you for every cool new thing they lay eyes on, because they know that presents are coming. Lots of parents can shift the responsibility to Santa, but since we don't do Santa, we're stuck looking like Scrooges when we don't come through with the cool gifts. And this is the first year where either of our children has really cared about particular presents. I guess I should be glad they waited this long.
Yesterday I read this piece by Barbara Ehrenreich in The Nation about the ubiquity of the Disney princesses. The popularity of Disney princesses for little girls is the flip side of Star Wars and superheroes for little boys, with a slight difference -- little boys' loyalties and affections are divided between Star Wars and Transformers and Superman and Spiderman, while for little girls, the Disney princesses are it. There aren't any competitors in the same league, at least not for a particular age group. Ehrenreich covers the problems inherent with having princesses as role models, but she doesn't get into why they are so popular, so desired by little girls everywhere. I can answer that, at least in part.
This topic is really interesting to me, especially in light of the book I'm currently reading, Buy, Buy Baby: How Consumer Culture Manipulates Parents and Harms Young Minds, by Susan Gregory Thomas. Thomas writes about how consumer culture has evolved over the last few decades, and the ways in which toy companies market to children and prey on the fears and insecurities of parents in order to generate huge profits. It's been a really interesting read so far, in many ways. Where do the Disney princesses come into this? Thomas devotes a whole chapter to the Disney princess phenomenon and its financial success. It's a perfect example of a product being relentlessly marketed to young children (you can find Disney princesses on merchandise ranging from toothbrushes to bedroom decor to clothing to board games). It also falls into the category of appealing to parental nostalgia. Have you noticed the comeback of '80s characters like the Care Bears, Transformers, Strawberry Shortcake? It's not a coincidence that the children who grew up on these toys are now beginning to have kids of their own.
Thomas cites studies that show that the only measurable thing toddlers and babies learn from watching TV is character recognition. So it's not that little girls inherently want to be beautiful princesses, it's that from the time they are very small, they are saturated in a consumer culture where corporations deliberately target children as consumers. Children begin to form an emotional attachment, through repeated exposure, to a character. Children are incredibly succeptible to marketing, because until the age of 7 or 8, they are unable to understand the idea of persuasion, and at younger ages, can't tell the difference between fantasy and reality. They love Cinderella because they've watched her videos and they have her nightgowns and sleeping bags -- they think of her as a friend because of her presence in their lives -- and so naturally they will want the Cinderella tent and the Cinderella DVD player.
This is true not just of Disney princesses, of course, but all kinds of characters. For my own boys it's Pokemon and Star Wars. Star Wars Monopoly is superior to regular Monopoly because it has Star Wars characters and pictures. I have noticed that my kids are affected not only by media directed at them, but even by media that's not aimed at children. Greg and I were recently having a conversation about diamonds (and nothing positive, because I am not a fan of diamonds) and James, just overhearing the key word, pipes up, "Diamonds? Go to Zales. They're the diamond store," in his most helpful tone. (Also, as a side note: James heard me telling Greg a statistic from the book -- that over a quarter of kids under two have a television in their bedrooms, which I think is appalling -- and said incredulously, "A TV in their BEDROOM? Can I have one??")
I'm pretty anti-consumerism in general, but reading this book makes me want to sell my television and never set foot in a mall again. But it is really helpful to be reading it right now, at this time of year, because I'm able to realize that the overwhelming urge for holiday consumerism I'm feeling, and the ridiculous gift lists my son is composing, are products of the capitalist marketing machine. We are feeling this way because there are people out there whose job it is to make us feel this way, and they are good at what they do. They are getting rich because they are skilled at manipulating consumers. It's casting a new light on the Christmas season for me. I'm not even finished with the book but I'd recommend it to anyone, especially parents.
08 November 2007
this is what i get for being lazy
Last night, I was having an I-don't-feel-so-great, making-dinner-is-such-a-chore, let's-eat-out kind of night. We had some errands to run, so we decided to get some fast food while we were in the commercial area. Now, you should know I'm incredibly anti-fast food. I hate it, I think most of it is disgusting both in taste and nutrition, and I think the mass-producing factory farms that supply them are immoral and terrible for the environment and soulless. I'm proud to say that we rarely, rarely feed our kids fast food -- usually only when we're travelling and there aren't many options.
With that out of the way, I have to admit that I will, occasionally, eat fast food, because as much as I wish I were, I am not (yet) perfect.
So last night we ate at Burger King, and the kids were in seventh heaven what with the strawberry applesauce and the Viva Pinata toys. I thought, eh, once every few months won't hurt 'em.
Then, this morning on Slashfood (these people should start paying me to promote them, it seems I've linked to them twelve times in the last week alone), I saw this link: The 88 Fast Food Items Most Likely to Kill You. I started to panic -- what was I doing to my kids, just because I didn't want to cook for one night?!
The list is based only on trans fat content, and luckily none of the items we ate last night was on the list. But this 88-item list includes only fast food items (from an extensive list of restaurants) that contain 4 or more grams of trans fat. So we probably did consume trans fats last night, just not in the obscene amounts of some of the foods on this list. I could write more about the evils of trans fat, but follow the link above and read for yourself.
What really gets me, thinking back to last night, was that almost everyone we saw at Burger King last night had kids with the. Fast food are among the most unhealthy foods you can eat, short of just eating sticks of butter or guzzling sugar, yet they are the cheapest, easiest foods to feed to kids, and incredibly popular with kids.
All of this is just strengthening my resolve to never eat fast food again. I make a better burger than Burger King anyway.
06 November 2007
feminism is still necessary
Yesterday a friend I haven't seen in several months came over to visit. She has a son who James is good friends with, so the boys played, giving us a chance to catch up. It didn't take long for her to tell me that she and her husband are getting a divorce.
Mostly she's fine with the way things are working out, but she confessed that she's worried about going back to work. She was a nurse before her son was born, but she's been a stay-at-home mom for almost six years now. She's worried about how much the field has changed in six years; she's worried about whether anyone will want to hire someone with a six-year gap in her resume. In short, she's fine with the fact that her relationship is ending, but she's worried about the money.
She's gone from living in a spacious 4-bedroom house in one of the wealthiest suburbs around to living in a loft apartment in a terrible neighborhood downtown. Her husband is wealthy, with the potential to earn even more money in the years to come. Together over the last 7 or so years they've enjoyed a high quality of life. Now that they're getting divorced, her husband will be able to continue his way of life virtually unchanged. My friend, however, for all her years invested in raising their son and running their home, cooking their meals and managing their everyday life, is suddenly reduced to a fraction of her former quality of life.
This is not uncommon.
On my sister's recommendation, a couple of years ago I read Ann Crittenden's The Price of Motherhood. Every mother should read this book. Every parent should read this book. To be brief, it examines the value that American society really places on mothers* -- the economic value, that is. Cultural wisdom tells us that being a mother is one of the most important things a woman can do, if not the most important. The cultural ideal is that every moths should stay home with her children and devote herself to raising them.
The practical reality, though, is that women who choose to stay home with their children are making a huge economic sacrifice. They are losing income, obviously, by not working, but they are also losing future income, should they return to work someday, by putting a sizeable gap in their resumes. They are also forfeiting benefits such as health care, social security and retirement savings -- some are lucky enough that their husbands' benefits will include them, but certainly not everyone has that option, at least not at an affordable price. It's no wonder, then, that divorce is a worse experience for women, financially, than for men. Women usually retain custody of the children, but even with child support, they usually face a significant drop in income on which to raise those children. Sadly, my friend is finding this out the hard way. She did not hesitate to remind me that I'd face the same situation should Greg and I split up, something I've definitely thought about.
So what's the solution? Well, I think cultural recognition that parenthood is real, valuable work would be a start. Universal health care would help. It'd be nice if more businesses would offer flexible schedules and benefits for part-time workers. Maybe government inclusion of unpaid caregivers' jobs in social security. Crittenden's book -- seriously, I can't recommend it enough -- addresses all of this, with real-life examples of how other western nations deal with the same issues. There aren't any easy solutions, especially since people's circumstances vary so much. But I think more women, especially those who stay home to raise children, ought to be aware of the real consequences of that decision.
*Of course this would apply to stay-at-home fathers as well, but mothers make up the vast majority of stay-at-home parents, so I'm generalizing.
17 October 2007
raising a family on one income
Get Rich Slowly, a personal finance blog that I read regularly for sensible, practical money-saving tips and advice, is holding a contest -- to win a Nintendo Wii. Since the requirement for entry is a blog post about your personal financial success, I'd be a fool not to enter. Not that I've had a lot of personal financial success in my life (yet), but I do have a few things I can share. My biggest financial success so far in life is raising a family on one (small) income, without resorting to taking out loans or going into debt. Most of what I write will not be news to many of my readers, who all know a thing or two about being frugal, but maybe I can impart a small bit of knowledge about things that have worked for our family.
First, a word about our circumstances. Greg is a graduate student, nearly finished with his Phd, and I'm a stay-at-home mother to two little boys. I think our level of frugality is tolerable to us in part because we know that it's temporary. We know that within a year Greg will find a job that will push us into the middle class, and within a few more years, once both kids are in school full-time, I'll be able to get a job and further increase our income. If Greg didn't have the career prospects he has, if we were going to have to live on our income indefinitely, I don't think we would continue things this way. But we have a future in front of us to look forward to.
So how do we do it? How do we live on one income? Well, the short answer is that we don't spend money. We have a cushion in our savings account that we don't touch. Greg's paycheck goes to rent, utilities, food, gas, and paying back my student loans. We rarely use our credit cards, and don't keep a balance on them. We have only one car, which is sometimes inconvenient, but usually not an issues. Greg rides his bike to and from school whenever possible. We don't go out much-- to restaurants, bars, concerts, the movies. (This has been a bit of a sacrifice, but considering that having kids significantly curtails your social life anyway, it hasn't been unbearable for us.) We rarely buy new clothes (the exceptions being shoes, socks and underwear). We rarely vacation anywhere that requires us to pay for lodging (either we stay with family or friends, or we camp). We've never paid for a babysitter (thanks to the generosity of family and friends, or through making babysitting trades with other stay-at-home parents).
Living frugally isn't all about depriving yourself, though. In some cases, it's simply delaying gratification, rather than getting the instant gratification that our consumerist culture promotes. We may not be seeing blockbusters on opening night at the theater, but we can borrow almost any DVD from our local library. We don't have cable, but most of the good shows are on DVD now, and we don't mind waiting until the season's over to borrow those DVDs from the library. I'm a total bookworm, but again, the library is my best friend. I even borrow CDs from the library, instead of buying music. We are a family that loves video games, but we are happy with our original X-Box (which was paid for through a point-earning system available with a job I worked several years ago) and a borrowed Nintendo Gamecube (though we would really love that Nintendo Wii!). Used games for older systems are easy to find at affordable prices at game stores.
In other cases, living frugally is about looking for cheaper alternatives. One way in which we've managed to save a lot of money is by frequenting thrift stores. Our living room and dining room furniture have all come from thrift stores. Much of our other furniture was given to us by friends who were upgrading. We're happy to use used furniture -- it still serves the same purpose, and may look a little more worn than new items, but we're not picky.
Thrift stores can be a godsend for parents, especially. Kids can be incredibly expensive. I've had so many conversations with other mothers on variations of "I can't believe how expensive kids' shoes are!" For kids, who grow out of clothing, shoes and jackets so quickly, especially when they're very young, it makes no sense to pay $20 for a pair of new jeans when you can find a gently-used (or sometimes, if you're lucky, brand-new) pair at a thrift store or consignment shop for $5-10. Luckily, kids (especially young kids) don't care where their clothes come from, as long as you don't. If you feel weird about wearing other people's clothes, I'd recommend consignment stores over places like Goodwill or the Salvation Army. Consignment stores generally don't accept merchandise that's not in very good, almost-new condition. Garage sales are also a good option for kids' stuff -- not only clothing, but toys, games, bikes, or furniture too. Look for garage sales in the wealthier neighborhoods in your area and you'll find good-quality, name-brand items at a fraction of their retail price. These are also good places to look for expensive items that are rarely used, such as Halloween costumes or dress clothes.
We also manage to save a lot of money by cooking at home most of the time. It's easier for us than it might be for other families who don't have a stay-at-home parent who loves to cook, but it's still easy. I make a lot of things from scratch. My mom found me a used breadmaker at a church rummage sale, and after replacing a missing mixing blade ($9 online), I make my own bread, pizza dough and biscuits. I never knew how easy it was to make soup until I tried it. All you have to do is throw a bunch of ingredients in a pot and cook it for a few hours, and voila! Soup's on. I've started making large quantities and freezing leftovers to reheat for another dinner on another day. We've also cut our meat consumption over the last year, mostly for environmental reasons, but that small step has managed to further reduce our food costs.
By saving money on the little things, we're able to splurge occasionally and still (mostly) stay in our budget. We have high-speed internet instead of cable or cell phones -- we can email or instant message friends and family, and there are plenty of TV shows you can watch online now, so we're not missing out on much (Edit: I should add that we do have an ordinary land-line phone -- that plus the high-speed internet serves our needs quite nicely). We went to Nantucket last weekend, which was expensive for our budget, but cheap for a vacation -- we carpooled with friends, stayed at a friend's cottage, and ate in, splitting the cost of groceries with friends. We visit our parents as much as we can (with Greg's parents living on the opposite coast, however, this is not as often as we wish we could) and though travel expenses can be a lot, we have free lodging and food, as well as good company. We have memberships at our local zoo and children's museum, which require a substantial fee initially, but we can visit those places as often as we like, for free, which for us is a good investment.
Something I've learned from living frugally for the last several years is that it's more than a financial survival strategy, it's a lifestyle. Our income will probably triple within the next year, but aside from buying a new car, upgrading our living arrangements, and spending more on food (we'll finally be able to afford to eat organically!), I don't foresee our expenses increasing significantly. Now that I know that you can find a child's winter coat at a consignment store for $20, why would I pay $60 retail? Even with an increased income, $10 a person is still too expensive for a movie, when you can borrow one for free.
We have plans to buy a new(er) car, we have plans to buy a house, and we have hopes (if not definite plans) of traveling a lot more. By living frugally now, hopefully these goals will all be in our reach sooner rather than later. And, if we're lucky, maybe we'll have a Nintendo Wii to help us pass the time while we're waiting.
