The "isms" start young

So, when you have a kid you find out that it's actually 1955, and that girls wear nothing but pink, and boys can wear anything but pink and often wear blue, and that deviation from the norm is unusual and frowned upon. I find it somewhat hilarious and maddening that people often mistake Hazel for a boy simply because she is not wearing pink. So it's not only that girls wear pink; it's that they can ONLY wear pink. All other colors indicate the default gender, that of male.

All of this is rather obvious, of course. What is less obvious (until you start to look for it) is how incredibly pervasive sexist and racist many products for children are, from dolls to books to toys. What struck me this week was our alphabet book. Here are some stats. Of all the humans appearing in the book, the breakdown is thus:

white boy babies/kids: 8
white girl babies/kids: 17
white babies of indeterminate gender: 2 (though 1 of those is dressed in "girl" colors)
black boy babies/kids: 1
black girl babies/kids: 1
Asian boy babies/kids: 0
Asian girl babies/kids: 2
Hispanic boy babies/kids: 1
Hispanic girl babies/kids: 0
Adults: 3 white men

Of these, the black girl is yelling, and the black boy is undressing. The white men are "dad", "officer", and "vet". The Hispanic boy is wearing a uniform. The girls are often in pink. One is a nurse.

When there's a picture of a body part (elbow, hands, feet, etc) it's always white.

The messaging is powerful, and starts from day one. The default is white. The default for girls is feminine. Asians and African Americans exist, but they're rare. And of course it struck me particularly that the two black kids are a) getting undressed, and b) yelling; they are not reading, singing, playing an instrument, showing a knee or toe or hair. The Officer and the Vet are men, but the nurse is a little blond girl. Nursing is a feminized (and therefore infantilized) profession, after all.

And then there's the sheer lack of creativity: for P, the choices are pumpkin, poncho, purple flower, puppet, pink shoes, pretty in pink (a girl in pink clothes), and peach. Really, two "pink"s? What about pot, or pincer, or palace, or pond, or pillow, or pine tree? (etc, etc)

Having had a child, the urgent need for Affirmative Action, which I always supported, has become even more clear to me. People think that it's wrong to establish "artificial" quotas, and feel that this country should be a meritocracy, and if it is all will turn out as it should. That's like assuming that capitalism will work perfectly if we just let the markets take care of everything. It's just not that simple. The fact is that our default messaging is NOT NATURAL, and we have to fight it in order to create a better and healthier balance and representation. Insisting on representation of all races is not artificial: disappearing people of color from our kids' books is. And taking care about the way in which we portray people is critically important, too. Perhaps the authors just didn't notice that the two black kids they picked were fullfilling the stereotypes that many white people have of African Americans. If they didn't notice, however, they should have, and we should start demanding such care.

There is an incredible power in seeing yourself (or not) in what you read and see in the media. If, from the beginning, you do not appear to exist in what you read, you have been prepped for either self- or other-hatred from the very beginning, and it will be the extraordinary person who can clearly see this throughout the intense, often foggy, and challenging years of youth and adolescence. Having role models matters, even if just on a subconscious level. And those role models need to be positive not just for oneself but for others, too.

We human beings extrapolate from single examples to make assumptions about groups. This is especially true for an individual who is a member of a group that's "other" or "minority". A guy can do something, make a mistake, and it is not assumed by society at large that his example stands for all men. A woman or girl or person of color, however, is always representing the group of which they are a part. If a girl makes a mistake in math class, many of her class members will think, "Oh, girls aren't good at math". A black kid gets into a fight, and the kids around will think, "Oh, black kids are aggressive/trouble/mean". For a girl who wants to play football or a boy who wants to sew, there is often no pathway, and if there is it's hard and full of judgements internal and external. These thoughts crop up so easily because the structure into which they fall is pre-seeded from the beginning, and instead of observing reality and assessing it with a clear mind, people wind up receiving what they perceive to be examples which prove the rule they had already internalized.

Little boy babies get called "ladies' man". Little girl babies get called princess. Some adopters don't want to adopt boys, particularly black boys, because they'll be "trouble". Parents worry that if they let their boy dress in pink he'll be gay, or "worse". They worry that a girl baby who's got (good and necessary) chubby cheeks and legs will be fat, and so they ration her food, putting her at risk for failure to thrive. These isms hurt us all. In order to change them, we have to look at and for them, and deliberately replace the 1950's content we're feeding our children with content that's consciously free of racism, sexism, homophobia, and trans-gender prejudice. It's not going to come naturally (ie, easily). Like everything else worthwhile, it'll take work. But the rewards can be huge. Peace, joy, and understanding, anyone?

So, I think I'm going to create my own alphabet book for Hazel. Leave your suggestions for what to put in it in the comments.

Hazel's One Year Old!!

Hazel turns 1 year old tomorrow, so we had a party today in celebration. What a wonderful day we had. Ted wanted to invite the people who'd been there for the birth for Hazel's party. I thought it would be nice to include people who've become part of her close community by caring for her, including 5 of my students.

I went to a gluten-free bakery and got a variety of goodies, including a small vanilla cupcake to serve as a base for her birthday candle. We had a potluck lunch, at which we served Hazel saag, which is her favorite dish. And then we lit the candle and sang happy birthday. The first rendition freaked her out a bit, so we sang it again later, a tad more toned down. That went over better. Then she got to pulverize the cupcake. She ate some of it, too.

After that we went into the front room and opened presents, which she liked almost as much as the boxes a couple of them came in. :-) Babies are somewhat like cats in that regard. I had gotten some poster board and markers, so we experimented with giving her a marker or two. She did draw a bit, but was more interested in sucking the ink out of the marker. That was fairly predictable, of course, and so after the initial marker tasting, we kept the caps on. She became quite decorated in ink, however, and so a few of us didn't resist the temptation to add to her artistic endeavors. Hazel wound up with a flower on her brow, drawn by me. Creative and sweet, or deserving of the bad mother award?

Also, I sang her a rewritten "You Are My Sunshine", a tune I love but whose original words I find icky and co-dependant. Lyrics below. I became emotional during the singing, had to stop a few times, and my voice wobbled. But I got through it. I do love Hazel so much.

Then we went for a walk to the park, where Hazel got to enjoy one of her most favorite activities, being pushed in the bucket swing. She LOVES that. It's so fun to see her smile so widely. After the swing it was time to play in the sandbox, crawl around on the ground, and pat the water. It's fun to think about the many, many hours she'll spend at that park as she gets older.

It was a wonderful day. Nothing particularly profound to say, just that it was so great to have a party for my daughter, and that she has so many people to love and care for her.

You Are My Sunshine


You are my sunshine, my lovely sunshine,
You make me happy when skies are gray.
You'll always know, dear, how much I love you,
Because I'll tell you every day.


The other night, dear, as I was sleeping,
I dreamed I held you in my arms.
When I awoke then, and got to hug you,
I was happy, and I smiled.


You are my sunshine, my lovely sunshine,
You make me happy when skies are gray,
You'll always know, dear, how much I love you,
Because I'll tell you every day.


Each day you tell me
How much you love life
And we go out into the world.
You're so delightful,
We play together,
And I'm so grateful that you're here with me.


You are my sunshine, my lovely sunshine,
You make me happy when skies are gray.
You'll always know, dear, how much I love you,
Because I'll tell you every day.

My Halloween Spirit

It's official, I'm over the hill. I have become a curmudgeon, and chewed out teenagers on our porch this evening. I hope our house doesn't get tp'd later on...

I have a sort of love/hate relationship with Halloween. I think getting dressed up is major fun, and I love seeing all the little kids in our neighborhood all done up. On the other hand, I hate the rampant sexualization of costumes for girls and women. It's gotten so over the top and is so destructive to the development of the female psyche with healthy foundations in something other than being desirable to the opposite sex.

Also, I always thought that "Trick or Treat" meant that in order to avail oneself of candy at each house, one had to either do a trick, say a joke, something. I also appreciate a bit of interaction that isn't just the kid making a beeline for the candy and leaving. At the least, telling what he/she is meant to be is nice.

Tonight, however, took the cake as far as my experience of Halloween as the adult handing out the candy goes: two teens showed up at our door wearing street clothes, made no eye contact and went straight for the candy. Without thinking about it, I pulled the bowl away, and asked, "So, what are you dressed up as?" They looked a bit taken aback, and said, "Uh, people." "Is that the best you can do?" I asked, a bit sarcastically. They said, "Yeah." I said, "OK, but it's Halloween, you know." I gave them each two pieces of candy, told them to have a good night, and shut the door.

It's not like I was enraged or anything, but this weird gimme culture we live in sometimes really ticks me off. No please, no thank you, no even tiny attempt to join in the spirit of the thing. Just gimme the goods and don't be some irritating weird adult who wants us to talk or interact or make any damn effort at all.

grrrrr, argh.

Meantime, Hazel was wearing a pumpkin costume and looked totally adorable. :-)

My little randomizer

It's a truth as old as the hills, so I'm not breaking any new ground here, but having a child (and I'm sure it just gets more intense with more than one child) can really mess with one's personal schedule.

Because I have a strong tendency to procrastinate, I like schedules. Making and following them helps me stay focused on what I need to do, and I feel good when I can check off items in my list each day. Hazel is teaching me the zen of not being too attached to my schedules, though, because no matter what I've planned for the day, what actually happens is largely determined by her needs and wants. Many days, if not most days, I can accept that reality, even with a smile. Hazel is, as babies go, really happy, easy, and fun to be with. And most days she's sufficiently flexible and patient that I can get at least the basics done: in the morning I get the clean dishes out of the dishwasher, the dirty ones in, myself fed and showered and dressed, and in the afternoon I check my email and reply to most of it, etc. Then there are days on which, with gritted teeth, I have to keep telling myself that it will be ok, that I can make it through this moment, that I can practice/cook/sleep/walk/read/talk with friends or with Ted later.

The thing that I need to keep reminding myself is that it's not a question of her needs or mine. It's not black and white like that. I always have choices. Yesterday she spent hours and hours nursing and napping on me. I wound up with a headache at the end of the day, as well as stuck in a state of frustration that I didn't get any of the cooking done I had planned for the day (having returned from an out-of-town trip, there is no food in the house and I keep going out for meals) and barely made it out of the chair in which I was feeding her. However, I realized last night that the headache was a direct result of staying in the chair staring at my laptop screen. If I'm going to spend that much time feeding and holding the baby, I can choose where and how I'm going to do it, and those choices will strongly influence how I experience the day. Simply making choices consciously will improve things, rather than feeling stuck in whatever circumstance Hazel's mood/reactions/needs have created.

The answer is not, I think, to have no plans or to try to pretend that I have no actual wishes for the day. I don't do self-abnegation very well, and when I try to be a martyr to other people's needs I wind up in a black pit of despair, rage, and hate pretty fast. I have no wish to wind up feeling resentment toward my daughter because of an infantile feeling that "I never get what I want!" What I have to do is make a plan for the day with several backups in case of disruption, and then focus on what I can choose in every given moment rather than looking back and focusing on what I was going to be doing if we were still following my planned route for the day.

To that end I went to the kitchen store yesterday (yes, we did get out for one errand) and bought a food processor, a wok, and a second saute pan. Cooking can take an enormous amount of time, especially all the sous chef tasks of chopping, dicing, etc. I had one day of hell where I got stuck in the I-must-do-this place and Hazel cried a lot while I tried to get through all my tasks. Face grim and heart hurting, I realized that I had gotten into a yank and it was helping no one. So I decided that when I cook I need to do so in stages that I can pause at almost any time to take care of the baby. The thing I can do for myself is to shorten the time it takes me to prep, so enter the food processor. Last night while Ted played with the baby I shredded cabbage, chopped kale, and diced onions in no time flat, and am feeling a tiny bit of optimism that I will be able to get at least some of the rest of the cooking done today in swift bursts if Hazel has another don't-put-me-down day.

What-if's are often my downfall - "what if Hazel wakes up and I don't get this entry written", "what if I don't get enough milk pumped this morning," etc. They're my downfall because I'm not content with just asking the questions: I add in a shadowy worst-case answer that I fasten onto emotionally before I've stopped to really think about the question and my options.

So, in an answer also as old as the hills, I need to remain in the moment as much as I can. Right now, I am writing. Later, I will be doing something else. That's all I can know for now.

Life's sweet moments

I teach one day a week at a music store. With the advent of Hazel, Ted and I have a new routine on that day: he takes a half day and drives our car to work, and then, after he returns in the early afternoon we do a workout (each person takes the baby while the other does a spell on the treadmill), we all go off to my workplace for the rest of the day and evening. We can't keep this up indefinitely, as Ted's vacation is not unlimited, but we are grateful to be able to do it now.

Recently, a new student has started taking lessons from the teacher across from me. His mom brings him and his brother, and they arrive sometime during my first lesson. The two boys love Hazel. The first week they arrived I popped out of my room during the lesson, because I was hearing a bunch of Hazel sound and wanted to check that she was ok. She was more than ok; she was giggling up a storm as they played with her. When I came out of my studio, the younger boy came up to me and declared, "I helped with Miss Hazel!" I can't tell you how much it warmed my heart to see his pride and delight, and to hear them all enjoying each other.

I hear them coming now (I listen for them), and it's so fun to hear them enthusiastically great my baby, "It's Hazel!" The younger one is autistic, and his engaged interaction with her seems wonderful for him as well as for her.

Last week, they brought a quilt and two baby books with them, and when I came out between lessons there they were on the floor with her, having a party. They left us the quilt and books to use for the rest of the day, and I stored them in my room for re-use next week. That sort of love and generosity is one of the wonderful things you sometimes run into in this life, and it's one of the things that makes life worth living, imo.

legitimacy

I have been thinking lately about how sometimes, and unsurprisingly when you stop to think about it for a minute, I've had this nebulous feeling of illegitimacy, unimportance, reduction in stature somehow.

Why is it unsurprising? Well, I've been fairly career-focused for a few decades now, and was reasonably supporting myself for quite a while before I met my husband. And until we moved into our current house, I never lived anywhere I couldn't pay for myself or with roommates. So, I was in a situation in which what I made was sufficient to pay all my bills, and even if I didn't always make the best financial decisions, still, I was in many senses a self-supporting unit. I didn't feel confident about it, struggled with feelings of insecurity, inadequacy, and guilt among others, due to large bills, a tendency to spend when I shouldn't, and self-judgement. However, I also felt pride in my eventual success in pulling myself out of the hole I'd gotten into, becoming self-supporting, and running my own business. And in this society, legitimacy is conferred, mainly, by monetary success.

Then I met my husband. We got fairly quickly into a serious relationship, bought a house, got married, and then had a baby. Now I'm in a house I actually couldn't afford on my own, even with tenants (the NW real estate market being what it is), and my income will always (most likely) be a small fraction of his. I would certainly struggle to keep afloat if it were just me and my daughter.

Interestingly, I think that were I married to a fellow income-challenged artist, I would not feel the same way, because I wouldn't be making the comparisons I do between my income and that of my husband. So, it would seem that I feel inadequate only in comparison to someone else, that my legitimacy as an income-producing member of society is to be judged along a financial heirarchy.

Now, there are all sorts of reasons separate from money why my job has importance, relevance, and matters to more people than just me. I am a teacher, and can see that I bring positives to other people's lives. I have the reward of ongoing rich relationships with my students. I get to see them develop over a period of years. I learn from them and they learn from me, and I am glad to be able to do what I do for a living.

Now, however, I am home much more than I used to be, and when I am home my days are very different than they used to be. It's hard to get much done in between feeding, changing, playing with, and caring for my daughter. Sometimes it's hard at the end of the day even to remember what happened that day, because sometimes the days take on a certain sameness. I do dishes, I pump milk, I feed the baby, I eat, I usually get out for a walk, I feed the baby, I answer a bit of email (on which I'm behind), I eat, I feed the baby....etc. In a world in which production and external success count for so much, there are mere crumbs in my tally which would count for anything at all in the definition of some.

So, what is legitimacy? Is it internally derived, or externally conferred? On the first gut-check, it would seem obvious that there has to be some degree of externality to it: otherwise, a person could declare anything a legitimate way to spend time. It's easy to think of examples worthy of scorn, pity, or just a confused scratch on the head....the guy who spends all his time in his parents' basement doing nothing but eating pizza and playing online games, for example, or the woman who, ... but I cringe; the rest of my brain is already castigating me: who am I to judge the value or worth of other people's time, their lives? Really, I can't. I can have feelings about it, or even opinions, but I cannot know the realities of the interior of someone's mind and heart. I do not want to place myself in superior position and say that someone's life is not, in essence, worth living. That's a spiritual weight I'd rather forego.

So, let's check the dictionary for some help.
From Merriam/Webster, online:
Main Entry: le·git·i·ma·cy
Pronunciation: \li-ˈji-tə-mə-sē\
Function: noun
Date: 1691
Def: : the quality or state of being legitimate.

Well, ok. hmmm. Let's go see what they say about "legitimate".

Main Entry: le·git·i·mate
Pronunciation: \li-ˈji-tə-mət\
Function: adjective
Etymology: Middle English legitimat, from Medieval Latin legitimatus, past participle of legitimare to legitimate, from Latin legitimus legitimate, from leg-, lex law
Date: 15th century
Definitions:
1 a: lawfully begotten ; specifically : born in wedlock b: having full filial rights and obligations by birth
2: being exactly as purposed : neither spurious nor false
3 a: accordant with law or with established legal forms and requirements b: ruling by or based on the strict principle of hereditary right
4: conforming to recognized principles or accepted rules and standards
5: relating to plays acted by professional actors but not including revues, burlesque, or some forms of musical comedy

Alright. Number 1 doesn't apply here. So strike issues of, well, legitimate issue. :-)

Number 2 seems more applicable: I am what I say I am, a teacher. But I am teaching less, devoting more time and energy to mothering my baby, and to domestic chores. So, my connection to that sense of professional identity, while there, is less clear and strong than it used to be. Ok, in order to be legitimate, do I have to be who I say I am? Is it identity?

Number 3 also doesn't seem to apply here, except that my legitimacy as a teacher has something (maybe everything, but certainly a lot) to do with how my students view and experience me. After all, if they learned nothing from me I couldn't be viewed as legitimately teaching. I'd just be wasting oxygyn.

Number 4 is interesting. Accepted standards? Accepted rules? Of society? Well, so often that it's still the norm for significant chunks of society, the woman in a heterosexual partnership winds up in a position similar to mine upon the advent of children. So yeah, this is usual, accepted, and, by many, expected. So, given that externally no one would question my legitimacy as a mother/domestic worker (snark), why would I feel any oddness here? It appears to have to do with my own feelings of legitimacy, based in my background and upbringing, life experience, and values. So, a mixture of the external and internal. The rules by which I live are not mainstream, and that has everything to do with by whom and where I was brought up, as well, I think, as my own inherent personality and desires. I never really thought I'd have children, and when I thought about it, I didn't imagine that I'd be spending the sheer quantity of time that I am now in a non-professional setting. So, I've in some sense gone against my own set of "rules" or expectations.

Number 5, again, doesn't really apply except in the sense that we're all actors on the stage of life... (hee hee)

This definition is all externally-driven. It says nothing about identity, or self-defined reality. What I come back to in the end, then, is that I think that legitimacy does have an external component, but that ultimately the most important thing by far is whether I think that what I'm doing conforms with my values. So, does it?

Yes: I value living with courage, integrity, truthfulness, and love. Bringing up a child with love is something I consider to be deeply important and valuable. Ultimately, I have to be careful not to mix together two things which, though related in some way are separate issues: 1) my sense of identity, and 2) the legitimacy of my actions as they relate to my values. My sense of identity has been intertwined for a long time with my professional identity and life. I am seeing now that I need to expand and flex that identity. I know that I will, and am confident that I'll be able to absorb all the newness which has come my way. My lifelong commitment is to align my actions with my values, and I know also that, though there will be plenty of mistakes along the way, I'll do that too, because it is of extreme importance to me.

This does not mean that I'll kick up my heels and lightly brush away any care of what anyone else thinks of me; I am not at this point tempermentally able to do that. However, this whole thought process is a reminder to me that what matters to me the most is my own internal compass, and following my truth is the way for me to adhere to my sense of legitimacy.

That, and the knowledge that every dawn is a new day, and if I feel compelled to start a new career sometime down the road, well, I'll cross that bridge when I come to it.

Wedding gigs, traveling with the baby

So, I had a wedding gig that involved 1.5 hours of travel each way. When I accepted this gig I was pregnant, and so, obviously, didn't have the baby yet and didn't get how much that would impact our daily routine and things like work, and gigging, etc. Once I started to think about the gig in light of our new addition, plans changed. We decided that 3 hours travel in the car in one day was just too much, and so we took the opportunity to make it a weekend away.

Bottom line: it was fun, and I'm glad we went.

BUT.......... there were challenges.

Transcription on the fly:

In the group with which I accepted the gig, we use repertoire in which my part is often in treble clef, up quite high. In order to make it work on the cello, I'm usually dropping down an octave or sometimes two as I read the music. When I do this, it puts the actual note that I'm playing one note away from how the note would read if it were in tenor clef, as would be likely if the part were written for cello. That is insanely confusing to deal with on the spot. For those of you who don't read music or who have no idea what I'm talking about imagine the following: you're reading off a series of numbers for an audience, and as you do so, someone is shouting numbers in your ear that are one different from those on the page. Try it, just try it, I dare you! :-) Anyway, not wanting to screw up royally at a gig, I decided to write out some of the music in the proper register and clef. A good idea, but this takes a LONG TIME. And since I now have a child whom I'm feeding a good chunk of the day, I just don't have the time I used to for getting tasks like that done. So, Saturday was spent frantically trying to get all that transcription done, at the B&B, at the restaurant for lunch, etc. And why was I doing this instead of using Finale, the program designed to make all that work easier and faster? Because I am feeling intimidated by the software and haven't touched it though it's been loaded on my machine for over a year. *blush*

The Preciousness of Modern American Weddings:

Well, what can I say? Ted and I are not traditionalists. We had a friend MC, but married ourselves to each other without someone saying we could (at our wedding - obviously, we had a judge say we could a few months earlier at court). We had ourselves as well as our wonderful friends and family contribute time and energy and creativity and love to make the space happen, make the music, speak the words of the ceremony, and even clean up afterwards. (To any of you who might be reading this, thank you again, from the bottom of my heart!! We absolutely loved our community-produced wedding!)

In my experience, that was quite unusual. Having played many wedding gigs, (and I am now down to playing very few because they're usually more hassle than they're worth, imo) they often seem formulaic to me, despite varying trappings and settings. This is not to diss the feelings of all involved; I know how moving they are for people who are there to get married and their friends and family. From the point of view of a musician playing at the wedding, however, it's a different experience. Bringing my baby, my cello, and myself through a very large space outside, over two quite narrow wooden bridges was just the start of it. Then there was the wind, that kept blowing our music away from and off of our stands, despite clothes pins. And the bugs in our eyes. And the foetid smell of the pond in front of us. And the loudness of the fountain in said pond. And the bright sun and our professional black clothing. And the miscommunications about timing, and the fact that we couldn't see when anyone was starting "down the aisle" (around twisty/turning paths, through trees) which was to be our cue.... whee. Needless to say, my vacation didn't start till Saturday evening some time later. (This is a photo of the place; we were tucked behind the trees to the right, just to the side of one of the ponds).

Sleeping away from home, and My Princess-On-The-Pea self:

I have huge trouble sleeping. It's hard enough at home, but worse on vacation, where I often lie for hours on hard mattresses, tossing and turning. I really sleep best alone, but a king size mattress works pretty well. Ted has a sleeping talent the equal of which I have never seen, but does a lot better with more space too. At the B&B we had a queen bed, we had a baby, and the first night I got about an hour of sleep. The second night we slept separately, and then, yippee skippy, I slept. We have learned our lesson; as much as we don't want to be pampered little princesses, when we go away we have to get a room with a king bed. Otherwise, we're sleep-deprived, snappy, and not having that much fun. We don't want to wreck Hazel's childhood vacations that way, so we'll just have to celebrate our inner princesses and go with it.

On the Plus Side:

We happened into fun street fair in Langley. We drove over Deception Pass Bridge at sunset twice, and it is so incredibly beautiful! We got sunshine one day, and then a nice cool day to wander and meander through the fair the next. We had time together, wonderful meals, fun with the baby, who smiles all the time. We each love watching the other with the baby. We are giddy with love and cuteness, and enjoying that in each other. It's good.