Nordette's blog http://www.blogher.com/blog/7094/atom/feed 2008-04-14T13:27:43-05:00 Hurricane Katrina's Third Anniversary and Tales of Lingering Storm Phobia http://www.blogher.com/hurricane-katrinas-third-anniversary-and-tales-lingering-storm-phobia 2008-08-29T21:37:20-05:00 2008-08-31T12:15:12-05:00 Nordette I've observed the phenomenon of Katrina survivors fleeing public places at the first sign of rain and heard others testify to the potency of hurricane phobia. Down here in southeastern Louisiana, folks see rain, hear thunder, get a glimpse of lightning or dark clouds and they bolt for the doors, anxious to get home, hug their children, batten down, and make sure the world is safe.

]]> I've observed the phenomenon of Katrina survivors fleeing public places at the first sign of rain and heard others testify to the potency of hurricane phobia. Down here in southeastern Louisiana, folks see rain, hear thunder, get a glimpse of lightning or dark clouds and they bolt for the doors, anxious to get home, hug their children, batten down, and make sure the world is safe.

One woman told me of a day not too long ago on her job, where she works as a customer service supervisor, that she and others demanded that higher management let them leave early as a thunder storm appeared to worsen outside. She lives in Bogolusa, La., and many of her co-workers lived in the Covington area and other pockets of St. Tammany Parish, parts of which flood even after storms not as strong as hurricanes.

"They can't be doing that to us. Keeping us here. They know what we went through. If it looks bad outside, I've got to go. I've got to leave and see about my children," she said this to me, and three other women standing near nodded their heads in agreement. "The sky gets dark with rain. We've got to go." And so, they walked off the job that day. No one was fired for doing so.

It's that time of year again, hurricane season. Okay, we've been in hurricane season for a while now, but this is the first time I've written on it this year and it's a bigger deal down here since Hurricane Katrina than it used to be, which is one of the first changes I noticed in Louisiana human behavior when I moved back after 20-plus years.

The television stations started giving out free "hurricane preparation" books in May, I think, that anyone can pick up at local stores. At websites, in newspapers, and on television, each storm swirling in the Gulf gets analyzed and re-analyzed like it will morph into Godzilla and then sprout wings.

WDSU TV has a special hurricane section. WWLTV too. And here are links to WGNO's section as well as WVUE's, which by the way should be improved with more information. The Times Picayune's website also has big spreads on breaking weather news.

Tropical storm Fay was watched closely, and went on her way not nearly the destroyer of her sister Katrina. Yet, here we are on the third anniversary of Hurriane Katrina, fleeing a hurricaine again, Gustav, a terror that has already taken more than 60 lives in Haiti and Jamaica.

Gustav descending is scary as hell. You don't want to believe that you have to pack up, say good-bye, and do spiritual exercises to release attachment to material possessions, things that may be lost in a storm surge or waters rising after the levees break ... again.

I've got elderly parents, an 87-year-old father that uses a cane, an 81-year-old mother who suffers dementia. This storm won't stop for them or make their golden years easy. Neither did Katrina.

I've got a son loving his senior year of high school, a daughter who's happy in her job, a dog just out of surgery, and, of course, our cat, a tortoise shell slightly larger than a six-month-old kitten. We've all got to pile into cars and pile up on one gracious aunt in Memphis. My children, my cousins, my sibling, a wife, and more pets.

A panic sets in, one that you fight by with preparation for the worst. And that's what's on our minds, the worst--families trapped in the attics of their New Orleans shotgun homes, fathers torn away from wives and children in a Mississippi town. It's a fear so wide and deep that the local Wal-Mart can't keep up with our frenzied demands. Bottled water, tuna, crackers, even beef jerky fly off the shelves. And small businesses owners hawk their wares. A local seafood market promotes a "Gustav special," shrimp dirt cheap. Perhaps someone will stock up on crawfish before the lights fail and the makings of po boys spoil. We hoard in the face of impending doom.

An official from St. Bernard Parish has already held a press conferance and asked people to keep their heads clear. He says he knows that many residents of his parish and surrounding parishes were traumatized by Katrina, but he wants them all to keep their wits about them and make wise decisions. By 4:00 tomorrow, he says, he also wants them to leave the parish and not return until officials declare the threat has passed.

This is Louisiana during hurricane seasons. The threat won't pass for a long, long time.

The city, New Orleans, watches each tempest brewing and mourns losses on this third anniversary of Hurricane Katrina devastating the Gulf Coast. New Orleans flooded on August 29, 2005. WWL TV continues its Katrina Bells commemoration. The Picayune reported earlier that the third anniversary has brought "a new wave of books." Passionate Eater, a food blogger and former resident of California who now lives in New Orleans has a post up with pictures and reflections on the upcoming third anniversary. And a TV station reports that Mayor Nagin planned and has now completed a low-key commemoration on this third anniversary.

Low key events or not. If you live here you see that you can't hide the effects of Katrina. Many houses remain empty, gutted monuments to the flood's destruction and population losses. You hear stories of children who tremble and can't sleep during thunder storms. You see the people who fidget and finger their car keys whenever lighting cracks or the horizon darkens with brooding clouds. My sister-in-law, who works in retail, said it's different down here when it rains. "Everywhere else I've worked in the country, people come into the stores when it starts raining. Here they leave," she said.

It's always been different down here--the food, the music, the Mardi Gras balls and ghost stories--but now there are people here who once shrugged off hurricane season, chuckled at rolling thunder, and whistled through their daily chores while storms passed over who instead fall down and pray, pop pills the doctor gave them, down shots of bourbon, or cuss out their bosses with gusto all to endure the gloom and rumblings of a stormy day. You wonder why they stay? They love life in this Crescent City and its surrounding parishes. They gaze at the spot where a storm changed their lives and chant with Dorothy, "There's no place like home."

Nordette is a BlogHer.com Contributing Editor whose personal blog is at this link on another site.

This post is adaption of a earlier post at her blog.

]]> Baby and Me Behind Bars: Number of Moms in Prison Grows http://www.blogher.com/baby-and-me-behind-bars-number-moms-prison-grows 2008-08-17T00:06:47-05:00 2008-08-17T11:03:54-05:00 Nordette In a blog post entitled "Mothers Rocking the Prison Cradle," Marian Wright Edleman, President of the Children's Defense Fund, wrote that mothers are one of the fastest growing prison populations in the country. She wrote a poignant description of what it's like for some women who bear their children behind prison walls:

]]> In a blog post entitled "Mothers Rocking the Prison Cradle," Marian Wright Edleman, President of the Children's Defense Fund, wrote that mothers are one of the fastest growing prison populations in the country. She wrote a poignant description of what it's like for some women who bear their children behind prison walls:
Childbirth is not so joyous for the growing number of women who give birth behind bars. It is a time of humiliation, sadness and separation. Before, during, and after delivery, prison mothers are commonly shackled. No one is there to take those first baby pictures. And the infant may be whisked away by a social worker to be given to a family member to raise, or if they are less fortunate, the child goes to foster care. The mother returns to an eight foot by 12 foot prison cell to grieve. The bond between mother and child is broken at the moment of delivery. (Marian Wright Edleman at HuffPo)

baby and mom in prisonBut what if the system worked differently? What if women who had not been convicted of violent crimes and who had to serve short sentences were able to bond with their babies, even keep their babies with them?

Recently I listened to the first part of an NPR Morning Edition series called "Who's in Prison?" It discussed the growing number of mothers in prison, first telling the audience that in America right now one in every one hundred adults is incarcerated. In the print introduction NPR posted a correction. The fact is not one in every 100 adults is behind bars but that more than one in 100 American adults are serving time in the federal, state, and local prisons. (Also see Incarceration Nation here at BlogHer.)

The NPR story focused on an Ohio program that lets some of its inmates keep their babies with them:

At the Ohio Reformatory for Women, a dozen babies are spending time behind bars. Too young to say the word "crime," they are participants in a program that enables inmate mothers to raise their children in their cells. (NPR)

When I heard about the prison with baby program, I felt it was good on the surface. But something about the program disturbed me. I asked myself, "What if it gets out of hand? What if what seems like a compassionate solution to mother/child separation ends up keeping children with their mothers in prison for longer periods of time?"

I also thought of the how often blacks land in the prison system in disproportionate numbers and how quickly this compassionate system of keeping mommy and baby together could look, after a time, more like slavery: a woman born in chains bearing a child who remains with her, and so, not free. According to Edleman's post on mothers rocking prison cradles, "The majority of the 1.5 million children of incarcerated parents are Black or Latino."

The mental connection to slavery is not as big a leap as some people might think. With prisons under scrutiny for taking advantage of prison labor, a practice abused in the past, and disparities in sentencing for minorities compared to whites, prison/slavery analogies are not uncommon. But mostly, I wondered about the pain of mothers who must leave children behind to serve prison terms.

So, I talked to Babz about my gut feelings regarding babies in prison. She is a BlogHer.com member and the author of the blog Lovebabz: A Life in Transition. In addition, Babz is an African-American woman who holds of a Masters of Public Administration from City University in New York where she was a National Urban Fellow. She also has a BS in Marketing from Barber Scotia College in North Carolina. Formerly she held the position of Executive Director for a housing program.

Babz is a professional, an inspirational woman, someone who's always moving forward. She's also the mother of four children, all adopted, and a former resident of a federal prison camp. She spent 29 days confined for misappropriation of federal funds, a crime that would normally get a slap on the wrist for a person not in the political spotlight as she was at the time, she thinks.

She told me that she moved $48,000 around in a housing program budget in a way considered to be inaapropriate by authorities. No, she did not go on a spending spree, buy a Lexus for personal pleasure, or funnel money to a lover. And when she went to prison for those 29 days in October 2007, she left her children behind in the care of friends, church members, and their father. So, Babz knows how it feels to be in jail and unable to tell a child, "Don't worry. Mommy, will be right there." She's lived it.

"On face value, I think (the Ohio mothers program) is wonderful," Babz said. "I'm not ever going to say that you should not keep a mother with her child. But, Nordette, they didn't end up in prison because they're bad mothers."

She thinks that many women end up in prison because they lack better opportunities, solutions to life challenges, and access to a financially sustainable living. She feels policy makers should study what caused the women to end up in prison in the first place.

According to the Ohio warden, Sheri Duffey, as quoted by NPR, about 75 percent of the women at the Ohio facility are mothers, and so "the prison offers parenting classes." The women who have been allowed to keep their babies with them (and only if their sentences are short) receive other beneifts.

The Achieving Baby Care Success program began in June 2001. The 12 mothers currently participating live in a special wing of the prison. The babies sleep in identical cribs in their mothers' cells. Between prison roll calls, mothers take their children to the in-house nursery for scheduled activities. (NPR)

That's all well and good. But Babz thinks the program doesn't get to the root of the problem: "If you can put this (type of program) into place while they're there, why couldn't you have had something in place to help before they got there?"

Good question since some educators fear America is moving toward spending more money on prisons than it does schools.

Babz said that the women she met while she served time in the prison camp remain on her mind. She acknowledges that her evidence of who's in prison and why is anectdotal, but she said the majority of the women she encountered were in prison for drug-related offenses, often drawn into the lifestyle of their boyfriends.

Duffey, the warden, made similar statements to NPR, and one woman interviewed in the piece said she was there for drug traffiking. Her husband also serves a prison sentence for the same crime. Most of her children are with relatives, but through the Achieving Baby Care Success program her baby stays with her in her cell.

So, why is the female population increasing and as a result more mothers going to jail?

A 1991 New York Times afticle (the date shows that this problem is not as new as it appears) presented speculation that feminism is partly to blame for more women serving harsher sentences.

Criminal-justice experts attribute the difference to changing attitudes toward women. The pattern stems from a combination of feminism, the emergence of crack, a political hard-line on drugs and the troubled economy. (NYT)

I don't know if I'd agree that feminism is partly responsible as much as I'd say backlash against feminism is partly responsible, the tendency to be harder on women with the attitude that "You wanted the rights of a man so take this like a man." I think the system's embraced precedents built on a justice damn you and your little babies too philosophy.

I don't have any answers for mommies and babies in prison. Only time will tell if the prison baby academy solution works to keep fewer mothers from returning to jail
as Warden Duffey hopes it does. Life as it is, however, bites. The NPR reporter asked the inmate moms about prospects for their futures on the outside. They had few. One hopes she can go back to school, and another hopes she can find a job and get help from family. Having criminal records will make achieving these dreams a daunting task.

I think the inmate mommy and me program bears watching for both success and failure, scrutiny to ensure that babies don't grow into toddlers and toddlers into pre-schoolers in the name of God knows what, something beautiful on the surface but ugly at its core perhaps. To switch metaphors, it has the markings of a double-edged sword.

Babz has a similar opinion, and she told me that the privatization of prisons, making money through prison labor, is an industry unto itself. Whenever profit becomes a goal in the guise of a solution to social ills, people may fall through the cracks, and increasingly profit and prison go hand in hand.

Despite her troubles and the time spent away from her children, Babz believes she's blessed. Speaking of women who've received harsher sentences and who have no support systems in place she said, "But for the grace of God there go I."

While in prison, she heard inmate mothers on the phone talking to their own mothers, the grandmothers keeping their children and who faced financial threats to safety each day. From jail cells these women tried to manage crises such as their own mothers and their little ones about to be evicted from low-income housing.

"I mean these grandmothers would be getting evicted right while their daughters talked to them on the phone," said Babz. The daughter's drug conviction may have meant the whole family could be kicked out of a federal housing project.

Her children were not in that type of danger, and she and her husband (the couple is going through a divorce right now) decided not to tell the children that she had been sentenced to prison camp, the same kind of place in which Martha Stewart served her sentence. At the time her chldren were ages 10, 8, 5, and 6, and they were told that mom was away on business.

However, Babz knew her children would get the care they needed.

"It (being away from the children) was hard. I had to put it out of my mind and trust that the village that I built would be enough, would be sustaining. If I had had to go through that time and worry about them, I couldn't have done it," she said.

You may read the Lovebabz: A Life in Transition blog at this link, where Babz speaks from her heart and maintains forward motion.

And for another BlogHer.com member's thoughts on incarceration disparities, please read Candelaria and also consider Why is Shaquanda Cotton in Prison? by Kim Pearson.

Photo credit: From a good Reuters piece, "From Inside a Women's Prison"

Nordette is a BlogHer.com Contributing Editor whose personal blog is on another site at this link.

]]> Bernie Mac Dies of Pneumonia at 50 http://www.blogher.com/bernie-mac-dies-pneumonia-50 2008-08-09T18:06:06-05:00 2008-08-10T11:18:53-05:00 Nordette Today, when I returned home, my children told me the sad news before I even took off my shoes. Chicago native Bernie Mac, the large, dark, and lovable funny man, died this morning at age 50.

]]> Today, when I returned home, my children told me the sad news before I even took off my shoes. Chicago native Bernie Mac, the large, dark, and lovable funny man, died this morning at age 50. When I posted last week that Morgan Freeman and Bernie Mac had both been hospitalized, the thought crossed my mind that we may be suffering a loss soon, but I didn't think Bernie Mac would die, certainly not at 50 of pneumonia in a Chicago hospital.

He died due to complications from a fairly common illness that sometimes baffles physicians. However, Mac also suffered from sarcoidosis, an inflammatory disease that affects the lungs, but according news sources, Mac said the disease was in remission.

I first became aware of Bernie Mac when I watched The Original Kings of Comedy before he had his own TV show, The Bernie Mac Show, on FOX. His stand-up humor was not for everyone. It was raw and often incendiary, but also honest. I laughed until I cried watching his "Kings" routine and then felt guilty for doing so. If you grew up in the south and black, you may have known someone who talked like Mac did in Kings, who shared highly non-politically correct opinions, and didn't give a damn whether his language offended you or not. He slurred his speech during the routine, part of the act, because if you saw him in interviews you didn't get that from him.

I confess, while some people would declare his humor to be in bad taste, his stories about about his sister's children struck me as funny. Why? I've seen children who behave like that. He said the children hadn't had any home training and he took them in because his sister was a drug addict and his brother, who'd called him back to North Carolina to help, vanished when it was time to take the kids. (The Bernie Mac Show on Fox had elements of that routine.)

Listening to the blistering rhetoric in the stand-up routine about his niece and nephew, the two year old who stared him down and the effeminate nephew (sorry, he did use the "f" word for the boy), you might think Mac hated children or at least was crazy enough to want to fight a child, but Bernie Mac was a family man.

While promoting "Pride" in March 2007, Mac appeared on "Late Night With David Letterman" (CBS, 1993) and announced that he would retire from stand-up comedy after he completed filming "The Whole Truth, Nothing But the Truth, So Help Me Mac" in the fall of that year.

His announcement was met by saddened fans who had hoped to catch him on a stage or cable special in the future. But Mac insisted he needed a real life, choosing instead to focus on films and producing TV programs.

Part of the pull toward retirement was due to wanting to spend time with his family. Married to wife, Rhonda McCullough, the couple had one daughter, JeNiece, who was earning a master's degree in mental health counseling. (FOX)

I've heard interviews with him in which he praised his wife for putting up with him and spoke lovingly of his daughter. He made it clear that his marriage was important to him, and he loved his daughter.

If you aren't into comedy shows, then you may have seen Mac at the movies. He played Frank Catton in Ocean's 11, 12, & 13, the father in Guess Who with Ashton Kutcher, and had a cameo in last year's blockbuster The Transformers. According to IMDB, Mac left this planet with four other projects in post-production.

I found out the comedian was in the hospital through a political blog last week. The blogger lumped Mac and Freeman in the same article because of their support of Barack Obama. The post reported that Mac's humor at a Obama's fundraiser ruffled feathers. Today, in a report on Mac's death, I learned Obama's campaign gave a statement after the event that Mac's stand-up routine was inappropriate. Nothing new there. Like I said, he tended toward raw humor.

And now he's passed away at 50, in midlife.

We're blessed enough in this age, in this nation, to believe that to die at 50 is to die too soon. We're telling ourselves, it's the new 40. In particular, when female celebrities reach 50 looking fantastic, such as Jamie Lee Curtis who turns 50 later this year, we celebrate with them, assuming many glorious years lie ahead. Their vibrancy reassures us. But then there's a death like Mac's.

If we're approaching 50 or its shadow's now in our rear view mirrors, news of a contemporary dying may force us to sit and think, to contemplate our own mortality. I may do that a little tonight as I sit with my aging children and my aged parents, a pair in their 80s. If I drank, I'd toast with a good wine or a rich bourbon the funny man we'll only have now on discs, and I'd ask, "What jokes get laughs in heaven?"

Heaven's got one hell of a show anytime its eyes roll downward. The richest source of laughter is us, how we love, hope, face our fears and pain, and how we stumble through the raunchier pits of life. Bernie Mac knew that.

Photo source: HuffPo

Cross-posted at WSATA

Nordette is a BlogHer.com Contributing Editor whose personal blog is elsewhere.

]]> SAHM to WAHM Takes More Than Moxie http://www.blogher.com/sahm-wahm-takes-more-moxie 2008-08-02T19:05:15-05:00 2008-08-02T21:20:52-05:00 Nordette Love is glue, money is oil.  While staying at home with your children may be its own reward, the world runs on money.  So, it's possible, especially in today's economy, that you've considered moving from SAHM (Stay-At-Home-Mom) to WAHM (Work-At-Home-Mom).  You may have have decided that your family needs a financial boost, but lamented that you don't want to work outside the home.

]]> Love is glue, money is oil.  While staying at home with your children may be its own reward, the world runs on money.  So, it's possible, especially in today's economy, that you've considered moving from SAHM (Stay-At-Home-Mom) to WAHM (Work-At-Home-Mom).  You may have have decided that your family needs a financial boost, but lamented that you don't want to work outside the home.

I've done it before, worked from home with children, and still sing the praises of telecommuting to a corporate job.  I've also run a business from home, one that was a good idea but unfortunately didn't grow fast enough to pay its bills.  Still, the experiment required hard work.  So I know that building a successful work-at-home business while raising children takes more than a good idea, a desire to succeed, and patience.  Working from home with children takes careful planning and also mental preparation to adjust to a lifestyle change. 

Jennifer at Queercents tackles this subject in her post WAHMs, WHADs, and The Cost and Benefits of Working at Home with Kids:  Making the Most of Your Work Time.  She works at home but also has child care help.

My name is Jennifer, and I’m a WAHM.  No, that’s not some new addition to the ever-expanding LGBTQ alphabet soup of queer identities; it stands for work-at-home mom or dad. I'm part of a growing trend; an increasing number of folks are WAHMs or WAHDs. ...  When the kids are little, this requires some paid assistance, unless you are lucky enough to have family who will watch your kids for free. I’m in the unlucky group who has to pay for someone to watch my daughter while I work at home.

Prior to her WAHM post, Jennifer wrote another blog entry about finding a nanny who's also LGBTQ-friendly, and so her WHAM post focuses not on choosing a nanny but on how work-at-home-parents can be more efficient while the nanny sees to the children.   Her tips cover early adjustments to having a nanny nurture your children while you work, keeping lines of communication open, and more tips on matters such as how to make the transition from mom-time to work time as "untraumatic and undramatic as possible for all parties."

Jennifer's post links to a USA Today article about the growing trend of WHAMs, or should that be WAHPs (Work-at-Home-Parents)?  However, we don't need a newspaper to tell us that lots of parents prefer to work at home and have found a way to do that.

Indeed, I came across one site devoted to WAHMs called The WAHM Spot: 

The WAHM Spot inspires by sharing how other WAHMs got started in their businesses and how they juggle work and family at home through our Spot-light Interviews. We also have some articles (Spot-light Articles) that we hope will help you in starting, promoting and/or running your business, and articles that we hope will inspire, guide, and motivate you whether you are an established entrepreneur or a mom seeking work to do from home. (About The WAHM Spot)

I'm sure BlogHer has many members who'd clasisify themselves as SAHMS gone WAHM (Come out come out whereever you are!), which in no way suggests that being a SAHM is not work.  Having done both, my tongue would fall out if I suggested such a thing.  

Excluding members who are professional writers with children and who work from home, I know of at least one BlogHer.com member who happily calls herself a WAHM.  Renée aka Mekhismom describes herself as a work-at-home-mom in her Cutie Booty Cakes blog:

I have been inspired to create Cutie Booty Cakes by the original cutie booty - Mekhi Eli, my one year old son. I had never even heard of diaper cakes before my pregnancy and now I am in love with creating them! Since I spend a lot of time with diapers I figure why not make it enjoyable? Thank you for joining me on this new entrepreneurial adventure! (Mekhismom)

diaper cake by MekhismomI'm far enough away from changing diapers that I had not heard of diapercakes either.  The picture looked enough like an edible cake that I wasn't sure at first what I was seeing, but when I figured it out, I thought "WOW!  Now that's a cute, practical product." 

Starting with Cutie Booty Cakes, I found other WAHMS such as Jill Notkin who blogs at The Daily Grind of a Work-At-Home Mom.  Jill's in the upscale baby products business.  However at her blog you'll find posts on low-calorie meals, reviews of other products, and of course, entries about motherhood. 

Through Notkin's blog I found one of those WAHMs with an idea that made me ask, "Why didn't I think of that?"  Mary Sullivan Cooper, who calls herself CEO and Founding Mama, runs MommyMixer, a unique service that "connects busy families in need of part-time babysitting with high-quality college students."

I think Cooper has a degree from the University of Texas in a marketing field, but Notkin earned a degree in journalism  Still, I doubt that the ability to run a successful business from home  has anything to do with having a college degree.  I suspect if we think about it, we know of WAHMs who run successful enterprises, but who don't have a "professional" degree.  Think Paula Deen, who started what's now a mega cooking business from her home kitchen.  Whether you're into fattening comfort foods or not, you know Deen's doing rather well.

Dean suffered agoraphobia, yet when she became a single mom, she found the courage over time to overcome her fears and do what she had to do to ensure her sons' needs were met.  She said in an interview that she took the one talent she knew she had, her passion, and supported her family.  I saw the Oprah show Moms Who've Made Millions on which Deen was featured.

Working from home does not result in making millions for most moms, and frequently millions wasn't the goal.  (I don't think Deen thought she'd make millions when she starting selling lunches from her house.) WAHMs seek to make ends meet and also to be present as often as they choose for their children, no haggling over missed days with a boss or crying at the gas pump during oil crises.   (Telecommuting is becoming more common for both parents and nonparents.)

And since we've been talking WAHMs here, I've meditated on other working moms.  I don't think we have an acronym for moms who work outside the home.  Would that be WOHM?  Giving up job security to start a home business, to go from WOHM to WAHM, would also take more than moxie, but we'll save that for another day.

Are you a WAHM or one of the millions of women who'd like to be one?

Nordette is a BlogHer.com Contributing Editor. You may read her personal blog at this link on another website.

]]> The Season of Our Discontent or Life with the "N" Word http://www.blogher.com/season-our-discontent-or-life-n-word 2008-07-26T20:33:24-05:00 2008-07-27T21:25:57-05:00 Nordette Any discusion of the "n" word in mixed company, mingling ethnic groups, gets uncomfortable, maybe even dirty. It'll shake some folks up, maybe burn a few, but if we're lucky, like supernaturally blessed lucky, we might learn something to heal our disease. So, I've set aside the post I'd intended to write about Starbucks closing. Instead I'm picking up a topic that I've told other bloggers privately I won't discuss again until possibly next year, use of the "n" word.

]]> Any discusion of the "n" word in mixed company, mingling ethnic groups, gets uncomfortable, maybe even dirty. It'll shake some folks up, maybe burn a few, but if we're lucky, like supernaturally blessed lucky, we might learn something to heal our disease. So, I've set aside the post I'd intended to write about Starbucks closing. Instead I'm picking up a topic that I've told other bloggers privately I won't discuss again until possibly next year, use of the "n" word.

I said wait until next year because you know some drama about the "n" word will blow up again. It's become a fixture in our lives. Toni Morrison's assertion in Playing in the Dark that the African-American presence, either by appearing fully and positively or only as troublesome allusion, permeates American Literature may also be applied to the fabric of this nation. The blood-stained thread weaves through each patch, a pleasing splash of color or embarrasing stain.

First, Laina, thank you for taking on this complex subject. Laina is a BlogHer contributing editor who wrote about America's most recent dust-up over the "n" word, the Whoopi Goldberg/Elisabeth Hasselbeck drama. She's done an exceptional job. I like her pithtiness and how she also drew into the post the Jesse Jackson/Obama mess, a topic that reminds us just how much race has been in our faces this election year. Laina also had the following observation that made me laugh.

Plus, why are white folks so eager to say the N-word in public? It's like y'all chomping at the bit. Good luck with that. (Laina's post)

My problem with the "why can't we white people also use the "n" word because black people say it all the time" justification and then someone like Elisabeth Hasselbeck crying on The View over what, oh what will she teach her children if black people keep calling each other "n****r" is that the argument is bullsh*t. It's like most justifications that come from people who don't want to address a difficult issue honestly; it oversimplifies the subject, "white washes" it so to speak, just to let folks who are too lazy to walk in someone else's shoes off the hook for taking high road.

Really, how dare Hasselbeck make it sound as though black people are at fault for more white people using the "n" word? I'll concede that young white people listening to rap music have been stricken stupid by hearing this word so often, but what does that have to do with what Hasselbeck teaches her children about treating people with respect?

I know I'm treading a slippery slope here and certainly risk being called "an angry black woman," but that's okay. I'll be in good company with Laina and Michelle Obama. We have a tendency in this country to chide people for expressing anger about subjects that any fool knows should make a person angry. When feminists, for instance, passionately speak about the inequality of women, what's the common adjective tossed their way? Hmm, she sure sounds bitter. You may also hear some further discussion about it being her time of the month, or raging hormones from menopause. When black women speak of racial injustice, then it's "they're angry" and also, "You know how emotional those people are. They just don't know how to be rational."

I'm not angry. I'm frustrated.

I'm not so much frustrated by the racist policies and practices that affect African-Americans everyday. I was born into that. It's something you don't get over, but you do learn to adjust. You develop coping mechanisms such as practicing love instead of endulging meltdowns, and you live your life hoping the world will become what it should be. If you're not totally beaten down by the time you bear children, then you embrace the wonders of your heritage, ignore the hateful, and teach your children to behave as people would in a better world.

I am not angry but I am frustrated by people behaving as though they don't understand how some black people may use the word "n****r" sometimes and yet be incensed by people of other races using it. Frankly, this pretense of incomprehension is another form of racist propaganda, this view that black people are so foreign to white people and hard to understand when it comes to the "n" word. Any thoughtful person who takes time for introspection and observation knows that when black people use the "n" word they're exhibiting a common type of human behavior. What complicates the discussion and how we use language and the "n" word is the history of black people in this country, not that black people use it.

Part of the problem may be that some white people deny how much power they've enjoyed in this world, do not wish to consciously grasp the value of having white skin in a society that has historically favored white skin. I can understand how that happens. It's hard to see yourself as powerful when you're struggling to make rent yourself just like the black woman next door. It's hard for some people to put themselves as individuals within the context of centuries of history. So, they tell themselves that if there are any benefits to being white, they personally have not experienced it and so, therefore, have not benefited no matter what Andrew Hacker and those hoity-toity academics think.

Yet, I can't think of a nasty name for white people that non-white people may use that is as ugly as the "n" word. Is this because no matter what nasty name you call a white person (not that I spend time calling white people nasty names) it's understood that they are still "white," and so, have the upper hand?

Consider a joke that got a good laugh the first time African-American comedian Louis Ramey told it on Last Comic Standing. He said that he likes to play practical jokes. He likes to go to tanning salons: "Oh, I don't go in. I just stand outside and do this." Ramey holds his black arms and hands in front of him, widens his eyes, and then screams in terror. "Waaaaaahhhhhh!"

It's understood -- a little color is a good thing. Getting dark enough to be mistaken for a black person is quite another. We may agree that African-Americans have made great strides in this country. Look at this election season alone and the Obamas. But we also know, if we're honest, that for the average black person, life ain't no crystal stair to success. The Obamas, the Oprahs, the Tiger Woodses are exceptions not the rule. Yet, that they exist is a testament not only to their brilliance and perseverance but also to racial progress. When I was a child, there were no Oprahs and being like Obama could've been a death sentence for a black man in some states. (This is where I recommend the curious take a look at CNN's "Black in America" special.)

When I speak of a racial insult that someone could hurl at a white person, I'm talking about a mean word one group ascribes to members of another group no matter the content of a person's character or level of achievement. I'm not talking about personal insults. I've heard whitey, honky, cracker, peckerwood as insults to white people. However, none of these words will start a fight like the word "nigger."

Nevertheless, there is one word that I've always understood to be highly insulting to a white person and that is the word "redneck." The word "redneck" implies in one breath that a person is stupid, uneducated, possibly toothless and dirty, and "poor white trash" (a truly horrible phrase). Yet, whites who are most likely to come from a family background that the uncivil would call "redneck" call each other "redneck" in jest. They apply a pejorative to themselves the same way some black people use the "n" word .

An entire industry has arisen with branding of the word "redneck." Think Jeff Foxworthy and Blue Collar Comedy.

If the UFO hotline limits you to one call per day you might be a redneck. If directions to your house include turn off the paved road, you might be a redneck. If you prefer to walk the excess length of your jeans instead of hem them, you might be a redneck. If going to the bathroom in the middle of the night involves shoes and flashlight, you might be a redneck. ... If your two-year-old has more teeth than you, you might be a redneck. ... If your mother has ever has come out of the bathroom and said 'Y'all come look at this before I flush it,' you might be a redneck. If your dad walks you to school because he's in the same grade with you, you might be a redneck." (Jeff Foxworthy)

Many people who say they're rednecks and proud of it howl with laughter at Foxworthy's routine. But where does the humor come from? I suspect it comes from a place of pain, the same way Richard Pryor's comedy, and he used the "n" word often, sometimes came from a place of pain. So, some poor whites have taken the word "redneck," embraced it, and taken away its sting, which is the defense Whoopi gave Elisabeth for using the "n" word (a defense not all blacks share).

Within the embrace-the-n-word defense is the rationale that whites may not use the "n" word because whites, while they may have their own experiences with pain, cannot experience the pain that comes from being black in America. Indeed, the argument goes, whites created the environment in which black pain fermented. And yes, Elisabeth Hasselbeck, white people also coined the "n" word and cultivated it in world culture long before black rappers went overboard with it and other black artists addressed the shame, pointing out that most consumers of rap music are white young men.

If anything, the history of the use of the "n" word points to whites mishandling language and black slaves, who could have been beaten for reading books, adopting their masters' bad habits. The word is a mispronunciation of the word "negro." Furthermore, when you consider how segregationists used even the word, "negro," you realize insult comes through intent with tone. You may have heard someone, for instance, refer to an African-American woman as that "black" girl, and you knew that the acknowlegment that the woman is black was in itself the insult in the person's mind.

Some Americans show that they believe the word black itself may be the insult when in an effort to be politically correct are afraid to describe an African-American as "black." Somewhere in their hearts these PC people sense that black, being the opposite of white and all things perceived as good in this society, may be the bad thing.

Mexicans experience this phenomena today as some people have associated distastefulness with the word "Mexican." When they say "Mexican" they could as easily be saying "wetback" because the tone of voice suggests disgust.

Likewise, I have heard people use the word "negro," which is not thought of as a pejorative, with a seething hatred for all things black. They say the word "negro" with the same venom another person says "nigger." And then there's simply a way of saying either word that no one can fathom:

My decision (to not use the "n" word in a book with slave narrations) also derived from my frustration in trying to puzzle out its use as recorded by the subjects’ amanuenses. It is often impossible to determine whether a former slave employed the word in its derogatory sense, or whether as a more neutral variation on the word “Negro.” In fact it is sometimes hard to judge whether they employed it at all, or whether it was introduced by their interviewers and their editors as part of their attempt to render all African-American testimony in “Negro Dialect.”

“The situation is always delicate,” wrote an Arkansas interviewer. “Somehow both interviewer and interviewee avoid the ugly word whenever possible. The skillful interviewer can generally manage to pass it by completely, as well as any variant of the word negro. The informant is usually less squeamish. ‘Black folks,’ ‘colored folks,’ ‘black people,’ ‘Master's people,’ ‘us’ are all encountered frequently.” (Andrew Ward)

Back to the word redneck. What if a white person of the so-called "upper" class who had never been poor, never in a position to be called "poor white trash" were to call another white person who did grow up poor and struggling a redneck. Would the person who had been called that name laugh with him/her sincerely? Unlikely. I'm talking ordinary people here, not spiritual gurus.

Of course, the word "redneck" could never be applied to a white person of second or third generation wealth who'd never done a day's hard labor. If you called a wealthy, educated white person a redneck, the person would probably give you a quizzical look, might even laugh. The epithet will never apply. He's not poor. He's not uneducated and toothless at 40, and neither is anyone in his immediate family.

But a black person, no matter how wealthy, no matter how educated, may be dehumanized in an instant by the "n" word as insult. He/She may put on bravado's mask, but the word "nigger" has a distinctive sting unlike any other. Can you assure him or her you did not mean it as insult?

And here I am, a black person. Would I call a blue collar white person in the south a "redneck" for fun? Let's say I just heard that same white person call his friend "redneck." Would that make it okay for me to do the same?

Answer: "Only if I'm an idiot." I know the history of the word. I know it's meant to denigrate. So, I really don't care what one white person calls another white person. That's between them. As a black person who knows it's a mean word, I sure as hell better not call him that name or any other racist insult unless I'm cruising for a brawl.

Where does that leave us and the Whoopi/Elisabeth show? At the same place this discussion should always take us if we practice civility, at The Golden Rule: treat other people the way you want to be treated. If you don't want people to be glib about throwing what may be an insult your way, then don't throw any their way.

Weepy, whiney Elizabeth Hasselbeck should know this as should any other mother or father who genuinely wants to raise children to live life as it should be lived. When you're teaching young children to contribute their best to this world, you don't need to give a history lesson about the "n" word. Neither do they need explanations for why the two black kids called each other that strange name. The only thing you or Elisabeth needs to teach a child as far as name calling goes is don't do it. Would she have us believe that if her child comes home and says I do drugs because other people do it that she would say, "Well, I can't teach you not to do that until those other children stop as well?"

When it's time for that history lesson about black people and white people in a country that in its past has condoned slavery, segregation, systemized brutality and oppression, then give that lesson. Until then, keep it simple.

So, bottom line for me, use of the "n" word when it comes to whites who want to use it has nothing to do with what black people feel free enough to call themselves within "the family." Ask yourselves, as Laina suggested in her post, "Why do you as a white person want to say the word at all?" The answer should scare you.

Nordette is a Contributing Editor with BlogHer.com whose personal blog is hosted on another site at this link.

]]> Gun Pulled on Mom with Children in Summer Camp Car Line http://www.blogher.com/gun-pulled-mom-children-summer-camp-car-line 2008-07-19T19:51:10-05:00 2008-07-20T12:20:23-05:00 Nordette When my children were younger and needed to be picked up after school or from summer camp, parents got maps with directional arrows and written instructions. The unspoken message was clear: Don't start no mess in car line, won't be no mess in car line. That's not what happened earlier this week in New Orleans, La., at the Treme Community Center. Parents in car line and the children waiting for them witnessed an off-duty New Orleans police officer gone mad.

]]> When my children were younger and needed to be picked up after school or from summer camp, parents got maps with directional arrows and written instructions. The unspoken message was clear: Don't start no mess in car line, won't be no mess in car line. That's not what happened earlier this week in New Orleans, La., at the Treme Community Center. Parents in car line and the children waiting for them witnessed an off-duty New Orleans police officer gone mad.

NOLA officer Ashley Terry has been suspended without pay indefinitely for allegedly drawing her gun on an unarmed mother. The mother, Kiyana Howell, came to pick up her children from a summer program at the community center. Terry was there to pick up her nephew. Kiyana's misfortune -- pulling in front of Terry and blocking the officer's exit.

Terry, according to reports, has only been on the force 15 months. NOPD Chief Warren Riley said in a press conference that Terry has a previous complaint against her, and witnesses of the Treme incident complained that another officer came to the scene after someone reported Terry's rampage but did not investigate. They say he took Terry's word for what transpired and supported her off-duty gun-waving rantings. (That officer, David Ellis, has been suspended as well.)

Any accusations of cops protecting cops must be addressed by NOPD because, well, it's the right thing to do, but also because the department has a history of corruption dating to decades past. The NOPD has been working to overcome that legacy.

News sources said that Terry started honking at Howell to move her car. Howell didn't immediately do so, and so, all hell broke loose.

When the subject of her anger responded, annoyed, the officer then screamed at the woman, "B----, you don't know who you're f---ing with," among other coarse threats, witnesses said. At some point she identified herself as a police officer, and brandished a gun in full view of many witnesses, including children. (Times Picayune story)

WWL and other local TV stations have video of Chief Riley's press conference about this incident.

I've been annoyed in traffic before, grumbled about drivers who seem to exist just to torment me, but I've never been enraged in a children's pick-up car line. I can see how someone who's late for an appointment could become extremely irritated, but not to the point of drawing a weapon. Still, women have been known to go nuts while waiting out traffic sometimes.

Yet, there's no acceptable excuse for what Officer Terry did, possibly a reason such as a mental disorder of some type, but no excuse. When children are present, I think most parents try to be on their best behavior. You'd think a police officer would try for that as well, especially around children, but considering that the Police Chief said Terry had another complaint against her, it may be that Officer Terry needs anger management sessions. Long, long sessions. She has issues that I don't think having a car line map would help.

Endulging herself, abusing her position as a police officer, not to mention abusing any legitimate reason to carry a gun, she terrorized children and families in a community already stressed by the violence of ordinary criminals. New Orleans is not an affluent community where police stop to give tickets for car line violations, but neither is it normally a place where off-duty officers attack moms in car line. Fortunately, counseling services have been offered to the children who witnessed the incident.

Hearing about the Treme Community Center commotion, I tried to imagine how I would have handled the situation if in the mother's position. In an interview, Howell, said she wasn't aware of Officer Terry's presence or that she'd offended anyone. She was focused on picking up her children. When she saw Terry waving the gun, the safety of her children became her first concern. I appreciate Howell's focus on her children, but perhaps a car line map or paying closer attention to other drivers would have helped her avoid an Ashley Terry. We do, after all, live in an age of road rage.

I suspect that unless we have pressing appointments or worries that threaten life as we know it, most parents spend car line time thinking about the children they await, getting them home, feeding them, keeping them safe. We sit and hope all is well with our children and the world. Blogger SouthernBelle, for instance, has prayed for her child before in car line.

The most danger we anticipate in car line is that of small ones darting into the path of distracted moms or dads in big SUVs. We don't think gun.

Nordette Adams is a Contributing Editor for Blogher.com whose personal blog is at this link. This post was adapted for BlogHer from another post at her personal blog.

]]> When did you first realize being a woman could be a disadvantage and what did you do about it? http://www.blogher.com/when-did-you-first-realize-being-woman-could-be-disadvantage-and-what-did-you-do-about-it 2008-07-13T00:13:44-05:00 2008-07-13T01:16:16-05:00 Nordette Perhaps after the sexism in media coverage of Hillary Clinton's campaign or the nasty attacks on Michelle Obama, my ears perked up more eagerly this morning at the BBC Radio interview of Cherie Blair, wife of Great Britain's former Prime Minister Tony Blair. She considers herself an advocate of women's rights and didn't realize until she became a member of the Bar in Great Britain that being a woman could hold her back.

]]> Perhaps after the sexism in media coverage of Hillary Clinton's campaign or the nasty attacks on Michelle Obama, my ears perked up more eagerly this morning at the BBC Radio interview of Cherie Blair, wife of Great Britain's former Prime Minister Tony Blair. She considers herself an advocate of women's rights and didn't realize until she became a member of the Bar in Great Britain that being a woman could hold her back.

The interviewer, Owen Bennett-Jones, introduced her as "a woman who's been vilified in the British press, but who insists she's been misunderstood, a lawyer and a judge." Blair recently released her autobiography, Speaking for Myself.

In another interview about the book with NDTV's Rachna Prasad, Britain's former First Lady says that her autobiography is not a political book, but a woman's book. She says it's a book about one woman's journey over 50 years who came from a "simple beginning in Waterloo, in LiverPool" and ended up with a ringside seat to history. Prasad prefaced one of her questions to Blair with a reminder that Blair grew up "as one of six sisters ... and there were just a lot of women around you and you had very little male influence." Responding to the preface, Blair said that she was raised by "women who had to stand on their own two feet."

In her BBC radio interview (podcast here), Blair also said:

I was certainly a very naive lawyer in London. The thing that I hadn't realized throughout all this, and my mother and grandma had always said that if you work hard and set your mind to it you could achieve anything and indeed the nuns at my Catholic convent school also underlied that message and at the Elysee where I went I was fortunate enough to be at the top of my year, and it was only when I went to the Bar and became a barrister that I suddenly realized that I had one big disadvantage and that was that I was a woman.

She said this revelation that being a woman might not be good for her career bewildered her. She'd always thought as long as she was "clever and knew all the right answers" she'd get to the top of class, whichi s what she says she did up until then.

Blair explained that when it came to the Bar, success was more about being in the right place at the right time and knowing the right people. By implication that means she had to know the right men to get ahead.

Her observation caused me to think about my own experiences and the first time I realized that being a woman was a disadvantage to me in business and sometimes in my personal life. As an African-American female, you see, I grew up thinking more about racial discrimination not gender discrimination, and people of color experiencing angst about both has been in the spotlight this election.

Like Cherie Blair, I had strong women in my life who'd always worked. So, unlike some women who struggled with issues of work vs. staying home, I assumed you grow up, you go to college and you get an BA because you want a career. College for women in my family was not about getting an MRS, snagging a mate, the way I've heard it was for some women in previous decades. And, while I knew that women were treated unfairly and grew up hearing debate about the Equal Rights Amendment, I don't think I registered that this form of inequality would affect me directly in ways such as not getting the same pay for the same work as a man or not being promoted as quickly as males.

Oddly enough, I married young and did not make career a priority, despite my upbringing, until later. It's possible I also didn't make a corporate career specifically a priority because in my heart of hearts I've always wanted to be a working fiction writer. I did not consider that even in that field I'd be discriminated against because women's fiction has not always been taken as seriously as fiction by males. It wasn't until my daughter was in pre-school that I applied for jobs and found that employers can find all sorts of reasons not to hire you, pay you well if they do, or promote you after they discover you do your job well. I believe I've been discriminated against in the past for being a woman, for being a young mother, for being black, for not being thin, and lately, maybe for being older. Who knows? Sometimes it could have been all of these at once.

Growing up in Louisiana, I knew of arhaic laws, parts of the Napoleonic Code, that did not change until my lifetime, laws strongly associated with women having fewer rights than men. For instance, I remember hearing my mother rant about an old law that allowed a husband to sell the family home without his wife's signature. She said she knew a woman to whom this happened.

Also, I have met women younger than I who recall attempting to purchase cars or other major items and having the salesperson suggest she should come back with her husband. These women, however, were white. I don't know of any woman in my family being told to "wait until your husband can come by." Perhaps black women were treated a little different from white women in this regard.

My father, age 87, is sexist. Everyone knows this who knows him, but I didn't recognize it until I had moved away from home and observed how he handled my brother learning to drive versus how he handled my having learned to drive. He never told me I was a good driver, but he'd say my brother was in an instant. Even after my brother had had several accidents and I had not had any, my father would say my brother was a good driver. I pointed this discrepancy out to him one day, and he simply shrugged. I also realized that my financial opinion counted for little with my dad, even regarding subjects in which I'd been professionally trained.

In various jobs, I admit that if a manager was not being fair, I tended to assume he was racist first. Later I might observe and accept that for some managers the issue was gender bias more than racial bias. I saw that he talked to my breasts rather than my face.

I've written this post in hopes that BlogHer readers will share their own memories of when they first became aware of sexism affecting their lives. Have you experienced bias based on your gender or are you the lucky one? If you recognized sexism could be holding you back, how did you handle it or overcome the bias?

In closing, I recommend another post to you, Maria Niles' "What's A Woman's Worth." And, if you'd like to watch the NDTV interview with Cherie Blair, try this link.

Nordette is a Contributing Editor at BlogHer.com whose personal blog is linked here at another site with a recent post called Jesse, Obama, Men, and Their Nuts.

]]> Killing girls, praying to bear sons, and other ways to strangle the human race http://www.blogher.com/killing-girls-praying-bear-sons-and-other-ways-strangle-human-race 2008-07-05T20:41:51-05:00 2008-07-05T20:53:40-05:00 Nordette I suppose it's newsworthy that a 70-year-old woman, Omkari Panwar of Muzaffarnagar, India, has given birth to twins. On the other hand, last year the story was that a 60-year-old woman from New Jersey gave birth to twins. We talked about that here at BlogHer, and so, we've had the "what is too old to bear children" debate already.

]]> I suppose it's newsworthy that a 70-year-old woman, Omkari Panwar of Muzaffarnagar, India, has given birth to twins. On the other hand, last year the story was that a 60-year-old woman from New Jersey gave birth to twins. We talked about that here at BlogHer, and so, we've had the "what is too old to bear children" debate already.

Both of these women conceived through in vitro fertilization, big help from medical science. The shimmer of news in this recent birth is that the age ante has been upped. If these women had conceived naturally, then that would be even shinier news.

The real news in this story, however, at least news worthy of deeper thought, is why this 70-year-old needed desperately to try for another child.  She and her 75-year-old husband already had two daughters.  But the elderly couple wanted another baby because they needed a male heir.  Here are some of the reasons Charan Singh, the father, said a male heir was critical:

'We have plenty of agriculture land in Doghat village but we did not have any heir to look after us. In our clan, daughters are the 'assets of others'. Parents have to nurture them only to run others' household. In the absence of a son, parents are considered issueless,' Singh told IANS. (Indian eNews)

I won't sit in judgment of what goes on in India, the laws of succession, and how that impacts how families feel about having daughters.  Another BlogHer CE, Snigda Hasen, covered the subject well in January.  I will say, however, that I feel great sadness when I hear that female fetuses are often aborted in India as families without male heirs feel "issueless."

Here's more from that IANS article:

Doghat town council chairman Vairan Panwar added: 'In our parts, the clan system still continues. Although Charan Singh had two grown-up daughters with six grandchildren, he was presumed issueless. If daughters' in-laws had agreed to offer one of their male children for adoption, the couple would not have to go for more children.' (source)

So, remember the part of western marriage ceremonies in which the father of the bride gives his daughter away? Under a clan system in India, that would be more than pomp and circumstance.

In fact, one of Mr. Singh's daughters told reporters that she and her sister asked permission of their in-laws to give their parents one of their sons, but the in-laws said "no." Imagine that for a moment, that in order to take care of your parents you had to give up one of your own children.

The cultural belief that children perform certain duties for parents based on gender and that a son's children belong to him and his parents may seem strange to us in America. Many of us in the west run with Kahlil Gibran when it comes to our children:

Your children are not your children.
They are the sons and daughters of Life's longing for itself.
They come through you but not from you,
And though they are with you, yet they belong not to you.
You may give them your love but not your thoughts.
For they have their own thoughts.
You may house their bodies but not their souls,
For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow, which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.

However, let's not get cocky thinking about our own culture here. Don't we also have a saying in western culture that reflects what many of us really think and expect of daughters?

A son is a son till he gets him a wife,
But a daughter’s a daughter the rest of your life.

It's one of those quotes people whisper to comfort others and say "Your daughter will be there for you in your old age." In India, I suppose, they whisper that "Your son will be there for you in your old age."

We may not have strict succession laws or tight cultural boundaries in this country, but our reality speaks the truth of how we've been socialized. As I discussed in my woman-up, son post, daughters usually end up being caregivers to elderly parents. There's pressure on females to become caregivers even in the USA.

What's good for the goose is good for the gander, you say.  Do you believe that?

America and India are not that different when it comes to the expectation that daughters will physically care for elderly parents.  Indian parents may not expect the biological daughters they've raised to care for them, but they know that their daughters will care for somebody's parents at some point, the parents of their husbands most likely.

Feminists would object to limiting women in this way and pigeonholing our girls, but it remains a fact that this is the way life is, and so I ask how are we raising our daughters in so-called enlightened society?   Are you grooming your daughter to be a caregiver one day as part of life's natural course? Would you call her selfish if she bucked at this idea?  Would you say the same of a son?

And if you're raising your daughter to care for others and also have sons, are you teaching your sons to do the same, to consider that they may one day care for others or do you visualize him as having a wife who does that? Is he in your kitchen learning to cook? Have you ever asked him to change a diaper? When was the last time you asked your son to look after a frail grandparent if only to get him/her a glass of water? Is there a male, perhaps, in your life or an older woman telling you that if you train your son to do more than be the breadwinner and mow the lawn, that if you teach him to physically help care for others he will grow up to be less of man?

What are we teaching our sons and our daughters about giving care and what do these lessons say about how we feel about ourselves as women?  How much do you contribute to perpetuating gender stereotypes when it comes to raising your children?

To be caring and nurturing is seen as a female thing in most cultures, including our own, but won't we all be better off when it becomes a human thing? 

BlogHer readers have already tackled whether sharing chores between partners is for suckers, and in some ways this post is a similar subject, but the focus here is how are we actually teaching or children  to live better lives.   Many readers are preparing for the BlogHer Conference, but I hope someone out there finds time to answer some of the questions I've tossed to us all  and also answer this question:  Are you raising your children to stick to gender roles or to abandon them?

Nordette is a BlogHer.com Contributing Editor, and you may read her personal blog at another site here.

]]> What do you mean I'm in a midlife crisis! http://www.blogher.com/what-do-you-mean-im-midlife-crisis 2008-06-28T21:01:19-05:00 2008-07-01T19:06:54-05:00 Nordette I went with my offspring last night to see the movie "Wanted" with James McAvoy, Angelina Jolie, and Morgan Freeman. In it a young man is beaten repeatedly when he fails to give an acceptable response to the question "why are you here?"

]]> I went with my offspring last night to see the movie "Wanted" with James McAvoy, Angelina Jolie, and Morgan Freeman. In it a young man is beaten repeatedly when he fails to give an acceptable response to the question "why are you here?"

He has all kinds of answers. "I'm here to learn how to be an assassin," or something like that. "I'm here because you people came to me," he says, but I'm paraphrasing. Finally, after maybe the fourth beating he answers, "I'm here because I don't know who I am." The turning point.

I reflected, "Perhaps that's most of us. We're here taking a beating because we don't know who we are."

In my old life, not the one where I was married but the one during which I awakened and found myself going through a hellish divorce, I wrote something about how one day I realized my life was doing the Watusi and there was not much I could do to stop it. Back then I'd tell people that my husband had gone crazy. He was the one having a midlife crisis, not me, because men aren't in touch with their emotions and so they have crises when they start going bald or not being able to get it up. I am a woman having a health crisis, plain and simple, I'd tell myself, and that was causing me to re-evaluate my life.

I'd found out it was highly probable that I wouldn't live past age 52, that I was looking at a life-expectancy of 10 more years. I recall telling the husband back then that I needed time to think and to re-examine my priorities. He didn't get that news that you may be dying sooner than expected shakes a person up and asked the question, "Well, who's going to take care of me while you're examining your priorities?"

His question helped make one decision definite. Making a marriage work need not be one of the priorities under review. Still, the end of a 22-plus-year marriage is nothing to celebrate and when its end becomes a brutal court battle, your soul gives way.

Some of my early blog posts and Net writings sprang from pure rage. I wrote most of them at Confessions of a Jersey Goddess, which is no longer an active blog because I'm no longer in New Jersey nor have I been feeling very goddessy.

I had three Net personas back then. I was the WritingJunkie, Frillie the Dragon, and the Jersey Goddess. WritingJunkie was who I've always been because the desire to write has never left me. I started calling myself Frillie the Dragon, however, because I didn't know what to do with all the anger inside me and couldn't figure out why I was always blowing up at people. I'm a short woman but I would blow up at people in writing and in person in a way that would make people a foot taller than I am cringe. Then one night I had a dream about the frilled-neck lizard of Australia. I woke up thinking, "Hey, that's me!"

The revelation struck me as strange since I've always been afraid of lizards. Nevertheless, I also felt the dream contained personal spiritual truth and went online to look up this creature. As I researched frilled-neck lizards, I discovered that they blow up the frills around their necks and do a heap of hissing to make their opponents/predators believe that they are not a small reptile but a huge threat not to be taken lightly. However, these lizard are harmless and only bite if cornered. In fact, they run away shortly after making with the big scary frill and hiss. They generate drama because they are afraid.

Yeah, that was me. At the time I was a 40-something woman facing divorce, angry at the turn my life had taken, facing what I once thought was the love of my life in court as the villain of my world, and feeling alone because my mother, my life's biggest anchor, had been diagnosed with stomach cancer and showed signs of demential. My life was in full-state flux, and I was terrified. Like the frilled-neck lizard, I blew up to make myself seem big and scary in a world that I suspected was out to get me.

I'm so glad that stage of my life is over. However, I'm also glad I identified myself as Frillie for a time. Frilled-neck lizards flourish after their habitats have been destroyed by fire. If I was that lizard, then I was also a survivor.

While accepting that I was Frillie the Dragon who needed to stop trying to fool people and admit she was scared but also that she was strong enough to make it through fire, I became the Jersey Goddess. That was a branding decision based partially on living in Jersey. Still, it was also me wanting to declare "I am here and I am wonderful no matter what anyone else says." The problem was I didn't believe that for one minute, at least not deep down, and most of what I wrote was a tongue-in-cheek poke at myself thinking I mattered in the world. Surprisingly, people, especially men, bought the act and started calling me "goddess."

Today my life is much more quiet, despite my elderly parents and two children living with me. But what does quiet time do but give you time to think? The blog I have today, Whose Shoes are These Anyway?, is not the blog I started to show I'd moved from Jersey back to Louisiana. That other old blog, now dead, was "Two Miles from a Dive," and indicated that I lived about two miles from Lake Pontchartrain and so could dive in any minute, always on the cusp of jumping, always on the edge.

I was back home in Louisiana, helping to take care of my mother, who'd broken her leg at the time and who was in and out of the hospital. I left blogging for a time. My whole life was too personal and my nerves twisted too tightly to write anything that meant anything. I wanted privacy and time to process the steps that had brought me to a life I didn't recognize.

This thinking through my life, however, was not conscious. The review was a pot bubbling on the backburner, while I juggled more changes that terrified me. In that pot boiled the expectations others had of me, a scrutiny of my parents, in particular the mother who no longer knows who I am. I considered also my brother's bizarre view of me as the golden child in my parents' eyes, an image I find ludicrous. A re-examination of what it means to be a mother also floated in the pot since my children no longer need diapers changed or help with homework and struggle to find themselves. Finally, whatever dreams of me in the future worthy that I could still entertain also stewed. And so, I went online and created a new blog, Whose Shoes are These Anyway?, but months went by before I added a post.

I would open the blog and gaze at its intimidating emptiness. I fretted that perhaps I am not the writer anymore. What did that mean? I've always written. Maybe I'm nothing, I thought, and I trembled also at my fragile memory. Where are my glasses? What did I do with my keys? Why am I in this room? Will I become my mother, a once-smart woman who doesn't know her own name?

I held a job in my old field for a hot minute. Hated it. Quit. And then I slept for a week, only emerging for my room to do what duties I could not escape, ignoring anyone who beckoned that I be a social creature, and felt guilty about hiding from life. The pot on the backburner bubbled and chided, "This can't be you. What do you love? Revive yourself, woman!"

So, I forced myself to make future-shaping decisions. I started posting to that empty blog and worked at exploring what other women have to say who are my own age. Through BlogHer, I discovered MidlifeBloggers and began reading the posts by bloggers who admit they're facing midlife. But that's not me, I thought. Midlife challenges and midlife crises, so cliche. If I were in a midlife crisis, I'd know it, and anyway, nobody pegs me anything. I'm just me.

It's weird. On one hand we hate being labeled but on the other we want to fit in.

Still, there the midlife bloggers were, talking about failing eyesight, how to dress after 40, dating at 50, recovering from divorce, making decisions that had other people thinking that perhaps they were crazy, and defining their experiences:

A midlife crisis is a wake up call to change the things that haven’t been working in our lives for years, but just seemed too hard to do anything about. Things like difficult emotions, spouses, and careers. It is a timely, natural awakening which tells us we only have so much time left, so if we’re going to change something..now is the time! It can also be an adventurous attempt at “do-overs” before it is all over. (Midlife Crisis Queen)

Oh-oh. That is me. Perhaps it's been hard to see because of the health crisis, and the divorce, the ex-created drama, Hurricane Katrina hitting New Orleans, and all the upheaval in my family since, but I'm in midlife, and I'm looking at do-overs and how to make the right decisions for my own life and future.

Life's quiet at the moment. Maybe the crisis is over, but the midlife's still here, and I'm not Frillie the Dragon putting on a show when I'm scared. Neither am I pretending to be a goddess or seeking to prove anything to anyone other than myself.

During a course recently, I heard a good quote that the speaker attributed to Rita Mae Brown:

“A woman is like a tea bag… you don’t know how strong she is until she’s in hot water.”

I have been able to neither prove nor disprove that Ms. Brown said this, but I like the quote anyway, which brings me back to what the main character, Wesley Gibson, said in the movie Wanted, that he was there taking a beating because he didn't know who he was.

Do I know who I am? Yes, yes I do. I'm a woman in midlife who's stronger. Whatever the next crisis, I'll make it through.

Nordette is a BlogHer Contributing Editor whose personal blog is at this link.

]]> Life as a Sandwich Generation Mom http://www.blogher.com/life-sandwich-generation-mom 2008-06-21T13:37:45-05:00 2008-06-22T15:41:46-05:00 Nordette I came home Monday afternoon to a strange house. A confused woman who does not know me had been wandering its rooms, but now sat quietly, staring into space. Another woman that I barely know busily cleaned one room, shaken by what she'd witnessed, and a little old man hobbled in the living room. In the back bedroom, a young giant slumbered in clutter, and the family cat did not peep from behind the kitchen's bay window curtains to see who'd come to visit. Neither did the family dog bark in the backyard as he usually does when anyone arrives.

]]> I came home Monday afternoon to a strange house. A confused woman who does not know me had been wandering its rooms, but now sat quietly, staring into space. Another woman that I barely know busily cleaned one room, shaken by what she'd witnessed, and a little old man hobbled in the living room. In the back bedroom, a young giant slumbered in clutter, and the family cat did not peep from behind the kitchen's bay window curtains to see who'd come to visit. Neither did the family dog bark in the backyard as he usually does when anyone arrives.

As I parked my Toyota Corolla in the front drive and left the car, I spotted our cat, a little, tortoise shell, house kitty, outside, creeping across a ledge in the garden, her tail slightly puffed. Not all that surprised that she'd escaped from the house, I called to her, but didn't expect her to come. However, she took a few steps toward me in consideration.

I mused that the Louisiana sun might cook me and registered that the cat looked spooked, but I figured she'd come home later looking for water. More than likely my 86-year-old father left the door cracked when he went to pick up the daily paper, the cat had slipped out and had since seen something she didn't like.

I unlocked the front door, walked inside, and a stench accosted me. I saw my father walking away from "his side of the sofa," and I figured he must've gotten up when he saw me pull into the driveway. He headed out of the living room toward the the back of the house, limping slightly, his skinny, frail, 5'6" frame partially supported by his steel cane. His bony brown thighs protruded from the wide circles of his khaki Carpenter shorts, and he could easily wear a smaller size of the navy blue golf shirt he wore. He'd purchased both items of clothing at the dollar store around the corner the day before.

"I see the cat got out," I said.

"Yep. You had a black snake in your yard, V.," answered my father.

"What!" I'm no fan of snakes and thought I wouldn't see any now that I no longer lived in New Jersey next to a nature reserve. Well, let's say I hoped I wouldn't see more because I'd moved back home and since I grew up in New Orleans and never saw a snake then, I'd hoped not to see any now, at least not around my own house. But I'm not quite in the city anymore. Denial paints powerful delusions.

I considered, then, that the cat's puffy tail and the black snake may be related.

My mother, 81, sat quietly on "her side" of the sofa. She wore one of her sweat suits, the plain gray one.

"Hey," she called to me, "I was just wondering where you were." It's her common greeting. I think I look familiar to her, but she has no idea who I am. She suffers dementia. "You always look so good," she said.

 "Thank you, Mom." I smiled. My mother started complimented people more after her dementia worsened.

I concluded my dad was the source of the smell. He usually is, and he raced, I thought, as best he could, toward the bathroom.

Looking around the room and seeing no one else, I thought the caregiver had not reported to work, which happens sometimes. I didn't recall seeing her car when I drove up or when I called to the cat, but now I saw her large black purse on the love seat opposite the sofa.

Nervous about the source of the smell that was getting stronger, I followed my dad as he made his way through the tiny den. The den is an oddly-placed room with a door that leads to the back yard, and we only have a few items in it, a cherry wood chest of drawers, a small TV atop that, a large, deep blue recliner, and my dad's exercise bike. You must traverse this room before entering the hallway.

From the den I saw light streaming from the bathroom into the dimly-lit hall, and I cringed at the fecal smell strengthening. I hoped my dad would make it to his destination. If he didn't, I would lose at least an hour of my day to a duty I dreaded. Then I heard a commotion coming from my parents room and assumed Cece, the caregiver, must be in there.

Before I could draw any other conclusions, my father turned the corner and stopped in front of the bathroom. I stopped behind him, still in the den.

"Cece," he yelled, "Why aren't you getting ready to clean her up?"

Cece, a sturdy black woman of average height, stepped from the bedroom into the hallway. She's the caregiver who comes for five hours on Tuesdays and Thursdays, and unlike the caregiver who comes for five hours on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday--Sue, a short, white woman wears jeans and cute tops and whose husband pilots one of the river ferries--CeCe wears her nurses' aid uniform when she reports. Today she wore one with a floral print top and pastel pink pants. She also wore latex gloves.

"I thought I'd better clean up in here first and then I'll finish cleaning her up," said CeCe.

"Because I cleaned her up already some as best I could," said my dad. "But she needs to get cleaned up more."

"Did mom have an accident?" I asked, thinking that's a rarity.

"Well, we saw that black snake," explained my Dad. "Cece got all excited, and we were out there looking."

"How big was the snake?" I asked.

"Oh, it wasn't that big," said my Dad, approximating a foot length with his hands, one still holding his cane.

"Oh, it was big!" Cece said, taking a step toward us. "I went to get something from my car and that thing reared up at me." She threw up her right arm, and curved her gloved hand, imitating the shape of a snake about to strike. "Scared me to death!"

"What!" I couldn't stop my voice from going up in pitch and felt my eyes stretch wide.

My dad said, "And while we were out trying to see about that, the cat got out, I guess, and when we came back in your mother wasn't in the living room and we went to look for her. I just didn't hear her leave." My dad is hard of hearing, but hasn't yet looked into hearing aids. He only spends money as a last resort.

"We found her in here." He pointed to their bedroom, the room that used to be the den before my parents moved in with me, my teenage soon, and adult daughter. "She went to use the bedside commode instead of going to the bathroom," my dad said as though my mother knows who and where she is. "I cleaned her up some. CeCe's going to finish ..."

"But I had to get to this first," said CeCe.

My dad took stepped into the bathroom to let me through. I walked past him, and CeCe moved so I could look into the bedroom. Full frontal stench. My mother had not lifted the bedside commode cover and had stooled on top of it. Apparently she'd eaten something that didn't agree with her because more feces, a loose mound, formed below the commode on the carpet.

I amazed myself with calmness, realizing that my father had gotten up from the sofa when I arrived because he wanted to show that he was taking care of business. At his previous residence, a fury of yelling would have ensued in a situation like this and he would've accused him of not looking after mom. He would've been blamed because she managed to go off unseen and create a nauseating, unsanitary, carpet-ruining, mess.

"I guess she missed," I said. "CeCe, do you have what you need. I think I've got Pine Sol in my bathroom. And my son can go over the carpet with the spot remover when you're finished." I glanced toward the closed door at the end of the hall. Silence. My son was asleep and apparently had not even put the dog in the backyard yet.

Looking back at CeCe, I recounted how I stepped once on a black snake, near its head, in New Jersey. It was dusk. I felt something under my foot, and looked down to see the thing writhing in pain. My daughter said she's never seen me move so fast. I leapt yards away off the creature toward my doorstep, it seemed.

CeCe laughed, and I went off in search of more cleaning supplies, wondering how my teenage son could sleep through commotion in his junky room, and hoping the cat was still alive. I doubted she likes black snakes, and if they're poisonous, how would I ever explain to my daughter what happened to the cat?

Post Script: The cat came back during the night before my bedtime. Also, my dad said some snakes move the way CeCe described the black snake moving, but that doesn't mean they're poisonous or going to strike you. Maybe he's right. He grew up in the country. I, however, did not, and have no desire to test his word. I looked up Louisiana black snakes, and generally they are not poisonous.

Cross-posted as How A Black Snake Almost Ruined My Day.

More on sandwich generation

Nordette Adams is a BlogHer.com Contributing Editor whose personal blog is at this link.

]]> Are You Marriage Material? Er, Do You Want to Be? http://www.blogher.com/are-you-marriage-material-er-do-you-want-be 2008-06-14T14:12:11-05:00 2008-06-17T20:41:39-05:00 Nordette Let's get my answer out of the way quickly. I don't think I want to be marriage material right now. I'm not in a bendable phase of life. Emphasis is on the "right now." Maybe one day ... but, if I put any credence into numerology, then I may never be marriage material. It's possible I never was deep down. My number is "One."

]]> Let's get my answer out of the way quickly. I don't think I want to be marriage material right now. I'm not in a bendable phase of life. Emphasis is on the "right now." Maybe one day ... but, if I put any credence into numerology, then I may never be marriage material. It's possible I never was deep down. My number is "One."

As a divorced woman of 48, who has had two men talk to her seriously about marriage since her divorce, who struggles financially, and who has sexual needs but who wouldn't do well a in a casual affair, I'm sometimes introspective about the whole marriage thing. But for me, the marriage question is not a dating advice matter. It's a "who am I at this moment?" question, because I was married for 23 years.

Friends, both male and female, have accused me of being afraid of marriage because my first one ended so badly. They say I'm still smarting from the hellish divorce. Could be. I sort of get the shivers when I read passages like the following from a MidlifeBloggers.com post entitled " How Can You Tell the Difference between a midlife crisis and shaking the dust from your feet?"

I also have the wonderful example of my mother. She’s 76. Two years ago she married a guy she met on an internet dating site. They’d known each other six weeks and decided to take a trip to his native Alaska, and while they were there they thought they might just as well get hitched. I asked her, tentatively, did she not think it was a bit sudden and she answered, We’re both 74, what are we waiting for? (source)

Her post is not about getting married, but I focused on this woman, her mother, remarrying at 74.

Also, I have a friend who told me about her mother, who's about five years older than I am. She said that her mom met and married her second and current husband a few years ago. I didn't like the sound of that at all. I've even heard of some BlogHer members over 40 who've remarried. When I hear of these nuptials I think good for them! But the thought also crosses my mind, you mean I'm not safe yet? Somebody could still roll up and want to get married?

At other times I wonder what's wrong with me that I have no desire to be one half of a twosome.

At Black Women, Blow the Trumpet, Lisa Vasquez has a provocative discussion about African-American men and women and the spouse shortage. She began her post with a phone conversation she had with an ex-boyfriend who's now married who told her that he thought she didn't want to be married. Like me, she went trolling through her soul after hearing the statement, and that resulted in her writing a post on the subject that includes what women say, what men say, and a series of questions for other women regarding their views of marriage.

At the post she has the following list of what she reports men tell ministers will make a woman unsuitable for marriage.

Which factors would deem a woman less desirable as a marital partner?

Women who have unresolved anger towards their fathers or towards men.

Women who are domineering and critical. Women who have control issues.

Women who have low self esteem and are deeply insecure and emotionally-needy.

Women who have been sexually violated or physically abused in childhood or in adulthood. (Those who have not thoroughly worked through their survivorship issues.)

Women who are self-centered.

Women who have siblings and mothers who are allowed to meddle in their lives.

Women who are too attached emotionally to having family validation and approval.

Women who were forced to grow up too soon.

Women who have managed their lives poorly.

Women who have never seen positive, healthy examples of solid marriages.

Women whose parents had an exploitative, abusive or imbalanced relationship. (Those who have not addressed the wounds and negative expectations that resulted from it.)

Women who have not learned how to have friendships with men.

Women who are career-obsessed.

Women who do not get along with their future in laws. (Read more at African-American men and women and the spouse shortageBlack Women, Blow the Trumpet)

The list at BWBTT is much longer than the list the dating guy gives at AskMen, where I also found one man's answer to be right on target about marriage readiness.

Carl - Accountant, 38 "Having already been married once, I want a woman that communicates and can work out problems." Since the married life is not all about good times, he wants a wife that matches his character. Like any other project in life, he believes that a marriage should be worked through and constantly perfected. "The flipside," says Carl, "is that if you don't keep at it, you'll end up in divorce court." That's it, that's all. (Ask Men)

Marriage has lessons we sometimes learn faster by going through divorce.

I didn't need to answer Vasquez's questions for women at BWBTT near the end of the post, but you may want to take a look at those.

I'm not on the market for marriage, but I have a friend who is on the block. Well, she says she may not want marriage so much as to have a long-term relationship. I don't even want that. She's one of those friends who tells me I'm scared of marriage, but when I look at the amount of energy she's given to thinking about what kind of man would be right for her and compare it to how much I think about this (very little), I know what I feel is not fear but disinterest.

I enjoy the freedom of only concerning myself with what my children and elderly parents need and what I need or want. I hated the pressure of being expected to conform to what my former spouse or society believes makes a "good" wife. Neither have I found myself since my divorce thinking I'd do this or go there if only I had a husband or boyfriend. When I try to imagine being married, I shudder, true, but I don't think it's about fear of marriage but aversion.

Perhaps those men in Vasquez's post would put me in the category of being "self-centered," but I don't think that's it. I don't put myself ahead of my children. I'm concerned about social justice, improving the world, and helping people other than myself, and I volunteer time to causes because of how people will be served, not to get a gold star. But, I do like making decision about my life and how I spend my time for myself. Does that make me self-centered?

In contrast, being in a good relationship and spending time with a male companion is very important to my friend, so much so that she's taken time to dissect what makes a good mate. She's also divorced, btw, and was married for the same length of time as I. Like me she wasn't happy in her first marriage, and she doesn't want a man to run her life, but she does, unlike me, want steady male companionship.

When she talks to me about men of interest and relationships, I realize she's far more suited to what most men want in a wife than I am. She talks about cooking and organizing living space, how she would help so-and-so get his health on track. She also puts lots of energy into her career, and I doubt she'd give it up for a man. Still, with time, money, and a male focus, I think she could Betty Crocker down and be a great, traditional wife.

Is that what it takes, doing the Betty Crocker quick step?

I know some women don't like to hear it, but I think most average men prefer traditional wives who will cook and clean and free them of those duties iif at all possible. My mother didn't model this aspect of life to me as the key to a happy marriage, but I do recall arguments about cooking and cleaning when I was growing up. She worked, but my dad still hoped for June Clever, although he was not Ward.

To me household duties are something you do because you have to whether married or not. Only those wealthy enough to keep household staff can avoid it. But when you're a married heterosexual female, you do such duties on someone else's timetable and sometimes how someone else may want them done. And if you put them off for a while when they fall to you, there may be trouble. But for me, while I've gone through spells of domesticity, making a home does not come naturally. It's a real effort for me to think domestically regularly.

Nevertheless, I was raised seeing women serve men, not my mom as much as other women in the family, but I did see this behavior as standard. A man comes home and you fix him his plate. You attend a gathering and look! The women are preparing plates for men, bringing them their food and fetching their drinks. I still see this on TV shows and in commercials. Is it nature, or are we women nurtured this way? I think it's a little of both.

My stronger egalitarian nature, however, has never warmed to living my life this way, yet my practical nature senses that many relationships work better when the female adopts the servant role. Unfortunately, I'm one who easily absorbs guilt about not living this female tradition. Sunday School lessons shout in my head, "Who are you to not want to be a servant? Christ was a servant!"

The point I make here is not that you must like housework or even do housework in order to be a wife. If that were true then wealthy married men who employ cooks and housekeepers could declare their wives are not wives. What I'm talking about is compromise. Are you willing to compromise, are you willing to take on a duty or adopt a position on a regular basis that you don't like or that doesn't agree with your nature? Will you take it on for life?

For you, the stickler may not be housework or you may have a mate who doesn't measure his wife by housework, but something will come up that you must do that you would prefer to do on your own timetable and not someone else's, if you do it at all. Will love be enough to keep you in your place?

I married too young for me, I think, at age 20. I wish I had thought things through more carefully and not even had a relationship so young. I wish I had scrutinized myself back then the way Anxious Black Woman apparently has done according to her comment at BWBTT to Lisa Vasquez:

I guess I should jump right into this since I'm unmarried. Except, unlike you, I think marriage is VERY political, so I'm not sure how much this can be divorced from politics. Also, I too have been told that the reason why I'm in my 30s and still unmarried is because I don't want to be a "wife," and my eyes are finally opening and realizing that, yes, I have not been imagining myself in wife mold. I've fantasized the whole "bride" thing. Wife thing? Not so much. (Comment at BWBT)

When I read that I wondered how did I get married at all? I didn't fantasize about weddings either, What! Oh, yes, I fantasized ronance and thought I was in love. Stupidity just sort of happens.

And this is part of the reason I know myself better. I've been stupidity stricken since my divorce, totally smitten. I met a man and found myself feeling that I wanted to take care of him. Oh, he didn't need anyone to take care of him, not even to cook for him. He is one of those new-age "strong, secure" men. But I knew that if I were with him, I'd lean that way, lean toward deferring to him and putting his wants ahead of mine. Visions of fixing a plate danced in my head. That's how stupid the infautation chemicals in my brain made me.

And then I wondered, but how long would it last? How long would I want to defer? When would I start to feel I was taken for granted? And what would happen the first time we strongly disagreed? After getting used to being put first, would he turn into a crazy control freak trying to reign me in? Or would unconditional love prevail on my part and make me able to bend over backward? (And I knew it would have to be me because I could tell this new-age strong man could be inflexible.)

Unconditional love, a phenomenon that creates flexibility, is a rare thing, perhaps even a myth when it comes to the average human. On that the owner of BWBTT and I agree. But wouldn't it be nice to find a mate who possessed that quality. Not one that let you run over him, but one who bent with you? I think the average man either bends too far or rarely at all, especially the older, average man. A firm, yet bendable middle-aged man is hard to find. And is it male nature in general that assumes the woman must bend? When they drool over flexibility is it about more than great sex?

Like I said, until I'm ready to bend over again, I'm not the marrying kind.

Nordette Adams is a Contributing Editor for Blogher.com whose personal blog is at this link.

 

 

]]> I Don't Want to Sound Sexist But Woman-Up, Son http://www.blogher.com/i-dont-want-sound-sexist-woman-son 2008-06-07T18:05:49-05:00 2008-06-21T13:16:57-05:00 Nordette I'm going to tell you a truth about life, and in order to do that, I'm putting my revelation in context with the comedy of Russell Peters and his commentary about our racist world. In the piece, Peters draws laughter pointing out a snippet of reality we've probably observed, and he begins it telling white people how much he admires them.

]]> I'm going to tell you a truth about life, and in order to do that, I'm putting my revelation in context with the comedy of Russell Peters and his commentary about our racist world. In the piece, Peters draws laughter pointing out a snippet of reality we've probably observed, and he begins it telling white people how much he admires them.

White people, my white American friends, I'm here to tell you something. I like you. And I'm not just saying that, you know, to say it. I'm telling you for a reason because I think white people have done some major things in the past 30 years. They've really taken some strides. And I feel bad for them, you know, because all the nonwhite people in the world have them convinced that they're racist. We have them so scared to notice anything of color that they're afraid to describe things accurately now. (Russell Peters at YouTube)

Peters goes on to tell about a situation in which a white male would not acknowledge or describe a black man as black because he feared that would make him seem racist. You know why the white guy did this. He'd swallowed that idea that only racist people notice color and the nonracist folk are colorblind.

If you watch Peters, you'll know that he's not saying there are no racist white people. He's making a comment on political correctness when it comes to racism and does a brand of comedy that some political correctness fans would probably like banned. Peters is not afraid to deal with sterotypes, a vertebra in the backbone of comedy.

I looked for an excuse to mention Peters, perhaps. Nevertheless, his observation is a good segue to a similar phenomena I observed while watching a touching and educational documentary Caring for Your Parents on New Orleans' Public Broadcasting Station, WYES, this week. Here's the first instance:

... much more important than money, and the data show, that the single most important variable to never spending anytime in a nursing home is having a daughter. And that is not a sexist comment, I want to make that clear. It's based on the data and having a daughter is the most powerful predictor of not spending time in a nursing home. (Dr. John B. Murphy, emphasis added by author)

And again, this time a woman, Dr. Cora Christian, speaks during a roundtable following the documentary:

I know this may sound very sexist, but I think often if you look at the statistics and definitely in my culture, the women are the caregivers. The women are there for both father and mother. The women have to share much more of this burden. They'll run from their jobs much more quickly and try and feed mom and dad and come back and take care of it, but then when it comes to dividing the assets, if there are any, you then start to see equality. All of a sudden the men are involved. And I'm going to get in deep trouble on this program, but I think often that happens. That's the reality of what I see. (applause) ...