Simplicity and Discipline

Now that I have finished all of my work--a project that took about a week and a half starting when I returned to England from my vacation home--I have been able to accomplish the more "menial" tasks such as laundry, vacuuming and other organization. I also can actually sit and watch TV for a while, which, for the first time in some time, I did today.

I was absolutely amazed at what I watched.

I think I counted three or four shows that were exclusively devoted to poor parental management of children. Now, I don't think this is a "country specific" epidemic, but I can say that there is a lot more media coverage about that here than there is in the US. One of them focused on the "health" behind how children are raised. It features a family, usually including more than one child, and it actually titled something along the lines of "We're Killing Our Kids." The dramatic element of this show is this time accelerator computer which takes what the child looks like now and then demonstrates the process of aging to the age of 40, based on how the child is eating (nutrition) and the child's activity level. Of course, the first set of shots make the children look hideous at 40, but if the parents adhere to the suggestions an "expert" makes to them, then, a second try at the process reveals something far more visually appealing, and much more relieving to the parents.

There was another one that struck me more--about child behavior. I am always amazed at how parents allow their children to act sometimes. I remember sitting in an airport waiting for my flight to the UK, and there was this family with probably about four children, all running around disorganized and without supervision, yelling, tagging, and nearly running over other travellers. I wasn't so much surprised at that--I mean, kids run around, especially when they know they are supposed to be waiting patiently. I was surprised at what the parent said--once it was evident that their behavior was bothering the other clientelle, the mother told them to run around instead in the middle of the airport hallway as opposed to between the waiting area seats. Now, what is wrong with this picture? The kids were still running--now farther away from parental supervision and in the way of everyone walking to their gates and the potentially dangerous carrier carts driving around with disabled passengers.

Then, I got on the plane. I ended up in an aisle seat--thank you, Dad--on a completely full airbus to Manchester. My only seating companion was a father who was nervous about his son being placed so far away from him, towards the back of the plane, but next to some rather attentive parents and their children. The mother and their other child were sitting together in another section of the plane. At one point, the mother came over, reassured the father that the son was OK, and then proceded to go on and on about how she couldn't believe that the airline placed them where they did. What do you expect? You're allowed, you know, to choose your seats, and those of us who don't are subject to what's available after those of us who do make our choices upon booking. If you're a family, if you're going to be as neurotic as these parents were, then pick your seats. It's no one's fault but your own.

I remember when I was a kid. My brother and I grew up together, and we really do remember the same thing. We were raised strictly--probably too strictly, and certainly with a strictness that is completely foreign to parents today. We got grounded for two, three weeks at a time when we did something as seemingly minor as going too far away from the house. Mom and Dad were in charge--we didn't dispute that. We didn't expect they were going to do anything for us or give way once the "NO" had been uttered.

I'll never forget the one thing that my brother and I agreed upon: If ever we got arrested for any offense--something that required someone to bail you out or stay overnight in jail, we'd choose jail because it would inevitably be less miserable than being taken home by our parents. Thankfully, neither of us had to make that choice.

So, there you are. Do you know why teenagers seem so self-centered? Look at how they were raised--everything they want, right now, or nothing. Great mentality. Love to see who, in the generation behind me, ends up head of some powerful state. What are they going to do? Throw a tantrum if France doesn't back them on the Security Council? Or just turn the iPod up really loud?

Brave Men: Not Dragonslayers Anymore

Ok, so I'm here in England again after a soujourn in my "homeland," Rhode Island, USA.

I was walking today in the city of York, picking up a few odds and ends that I needed. It must be vacation week out here like it is in the US because the city was the kind of zoo I only expect on the weekends. Parents, kids, frustrated bands of teenaged youth, the city was full of people everywhere. Of course that meant that my accomplishing any errands in good time was a moot point.

However, that got me looking around. Here I am, single chick in the Mary Tyler Moore-esque tradition, walking in the city, by the river, expecting the "You're gonna make it after all" theme to start playing any second. I see girls younger than myself pushing strollers, young women older than I am who were those girls years ago, but now toting more than one child hopping about all over the sidewalk uncorrected.

Now, although I have no plans to end up one of your bored, average, frustrated housewives watching the new opportunites of this world pass me by, I do have respect for the mothers of this world. I do not buy into the whole idea that one day, I am going to have an epiphany, decide to "settle down" and then my life will progress as follows: I will marry the guy who I suddenly meet and "know" is the "love of my life," then I'll work for a little while, see the light again, get pregnant, quit my job because I am overcome with love and adoration for my newborn child, then I'll either continue to have children and stay home until they all pass the age of eighteen or I will try and juggle working and raising kids because God knows that no young man today is being "educated" by their parents as to how to participate in the raising of his own children, let alone how to clean a toilet. See: The Mommy Myth.

One generation after The Mary Tyler Moore Show, people like myself are the embodiment of what probably seemed like a near improbability thirty years ago. But that doesn't make it easy. There aren't many precidents for us that go back very far historically. We aren't compelled to make relationships the center of our lives. We go places, do things, take steps that others say when they're sixty, "I wish I had done that."

We've probably been with men, maybe multiple men, who have "wanted to marry us" but "just couldn't" either because we are so unconventional or because of some other present hinderance. Most men out there, like previous generations before them, still live thinking that some woman is going to come along and be that female figure that John Mayer describes in his horrible anthem to the Laura Bushs of the world, "Daughters." They want the supporter, the one who subverts herself for them, the child bearer, the caregiver, that woman who invests all of her happiness in themselves. Then, they marry that woman, and oh, they're not happy. But, they're too afaid to be with someone like us. We're scarey because we can teach them things and learn things from them and we, oh no--this is the proverbial cherry on top--want something from THEM. We don't want to be the eternal givers. We are not going to fill ourselves up with the moment he comes home from work, our precious children, and the mop and bucket in the corner of the kitchen.

Does this mean that ladies like me--mid-twenties, without a date to speak of at present--will end up perpetually single?

This question can be answered in one of three ways.

Either no, we'll settle and become what we don't want to be in order to subvert feeling alone.

Or, yes, we will continue to be single rather than settle, but we may still feel alone.

Or, no, we will be fortunate and will find someone who will be brave enough to stay with us.

Brave men out there when it comes to relationships with ladies like me? Come out and show yourselves and prove me wrong.