Home

The Tournament I’m Not Attending

November 1, 2024

Robyn Parnell annoyances, are we having fun yet? (Women & Men & Feminism), books & magazines, community, current events, family life, freethought/humanism, friends, general ruminations, Holidays, Holy Shit!, Isms (religion), music, radio & podcasts, Recreation, sports, Wow, Yikes! , , , , , , , , Comments Off on The Tournament I’m Not Attending

What would ushering in the holiday season be without The Dropkick Murphys?

 

 

Speaking of holidays….

*   *   *

Department Of Trying Not To Snarl At Children…

…who nevertheless deserved it.  Dateline: last night.   We had a great group of Halloween visitors to our porch, with four notable exceptions.

We had seventy-one trick-or-treaters.  I know this because I keep track, every year, which helps us estimate how much we may need for the next year’s Halloween stash.  It’s fairly easy to do: instead of counting the trick-or-treaters, we count the remaining candy/snacks, as we know how much we start with and we give one to each kid.  And it’s a pretty good “one” – e.g. an assortment of full size candy bars or mini boxes of animal crackers, single serving bags of pretzels and potato chips.  This year the count would have been 75 if I’d just counted the remaining treats but it was actually 71, as a group of four were double-dippers.   The DDs were two girls and two boys, approximate ages…8-11(?).  A girl in a green sequined dress (“Ilsa” from Frozen…I ask each trick-or-treater to identify their costume if I can’t guess it outright), a blonde girl in a pink…something (“A unicorn,” she said, although I never would have guessed),  two masked boys, one a transformer and another who was some kind of…storm trooper?

They returned to our house a mere 10 minutes after their first visit (not a good strategy if you’re trying to cheat the system).  They tried to blend in among another group of trick-or-treaters.  I held out the bowl for the first group, who, like all the others kids up until then, were cute and enthusiastic and kind and thankful as they chose their treats.  Then the DDers pushed their way to the front, and I recognized them. “Uh…you’ve already been here,” I said to Ilsa.  “No, we haven’t,“ she lied.  “Yes, you have – I recognize your costume, you’re Isla,” I said.  The unicorn also denied she’d been to our house earlier, even as I also identified her costume…even as stormtrooper boy grabbed a bag of chips and quickly backed off our porch.  “No, you’re the unicorn, and your group was here earlier,” I said.  The second boy (transformer) hesitated; I could sense his embarrassment from behind his mask as he whispered to the two girls, “She’s right; c’mon, let’s go.” Ilsa averted her eyes as she spouted her second denial, and grabbed another candy bar.   “That’s rude; it’s one per person,” I said.  The unicorn also grabbed a treat from the bowl, sassily proclaiming as she skipped away, “Well, we’re getting another one no matter what.”

Unicorn, my ass.  Greedy little bitch.

(Oh, and after that, moiself  reached and and put a bag of pretzels in transformer’s hands as he stood there, looking chagrined.  “Here,” I said. “At least you were honest about it.”)

 

 

*   *   *

 

Department Of Fun With Radio Ads

With two ads, to be specific.

Dateline: last Monday, circa 11 am, driving to  Trader Joe’s.  Ad#1:  My car’s radio was on but the volume was quite low; I missed the first few seconds of the spot, which was from a company supporting a sporting tournament.  What I made out was the ad’s narrator proudly announcing that his company was sponsoring “…a fecal tournament…”

 

 

… Which, I discovered when I immediately cranked up the volume, turned out to be a  FIFA   [1]   tournament.

Ad #2:  Driving on to TJ’s, with the volume at normal listening level, I did not miss the next ad.   It was a PSA, actually, for a group whose goal was to raise awareness for prostate cancer screening.   I am aware that one of the obstacles in getting men to see their doctor for a prostate exam is because of their fear that, should cancer be discovered, prostate surgery is known to cause of a variety of unpleasant side effects.  Perhaps the most common side effect is the nerve damage during a prostatectomy which can cause incontinence.    [2]   Which is why moiself  thought, at the end of the PSA where the sponsor’s name was given, that maybe it wasn’t the best idea to announce that the prostate cancer testing sponsor was Depends.

 

 

Just sayin.’

*   *   *

 

*   *   *

Department Of They’re Forgetting A Really Important Factor

Moiself  was reading an article (source forgotten, as I got caught up in the subject matter) about why many young(er) Americans – labeled as Millennials, Gen Z and Y, et al – say they do not plan to have children.  This caught my attention, for both broader cultural and also personal reasons.

A close friend of mine has noticed, and discussed with moiself, how rare it is that the offspring of our particular peers are having children.  This concerns us both, particularly when we consider how the having-no-kids reasoners are thoughtful, empathetic, politically and scientifically aware, intelligent, well-educated, and otherwise just the kind of people you *want* to be raising the next generations.

Are y’all worried about Armageddon, in whatever form you imagine it?   [3]    Have a stake in the future; raise your child “right” – raise her to cultivate curiousity about the way things work, and to be compassionate and involved and with a sense of perspective, and she just may be one of the ones to solve global warming, renewable energy, the pollution of forever chemicals – there is no shortage of good to be done.

Besides, if you and your peers don’t reproduce, guess what kind of breeders the world is left with?  Those who have little to no concern for their fellow human beings and especially for the planet, which they view as their deity’s gift for them, and a gift which their theologies tell them is not their ultimate destination, so who cares about a little trash in the rest area ( e.g. Jesus is going to rescue them, so why give a holy fuck about Pacific Islanders’ disappearing lands or starving polar bears ) ?

 

 

Aside from the practical (not being able to find a compatible and stable life partner; simply never having wanted to be a parent), the reasons many young Gens give for not planning on having kids vary.  From concern for the world in general to themselves in particular, their reasons include:

* financial insecurity (i.e., the high costs of childcare and housing);

* self-awareness about physical and mental health issues ( depression, anxiety and other stress-related issues are documented as being higher in Millennials Gen Y & Z, some of whom wonder if it is right for them to raise a child when they see themselves as not emotionally secure );

* worries about the increasing world-wide population (despite the fact that many so-called “first world” nations currently have a negative growth, as in, low reproductive rates which will not sustain their population );

* worries about climate change and what kind of world their children would inherit;

* for women especially, the realization of broader options/ feeling free from constricting social and gender roles of past generations ( no longer being “required” or relegated to having mother/wife as your primary role in life );

* worries that the sacrifices required for parenthood don’t align with their personal and/or career goals.

 

 

When I read this article, and others like it, I’ve found moiself  fidgeting at what the author(s) are leaving out, in terms of addressing the many factors involved in raising a family.  Who speaks for the positives, for the rewards – both personal and societal – and for the adventure of being part of (cue Elton John) The Circle of Life ?

By saying that, I am not *at all* dismissing or explaining away those legitimate concerns which lead some people to choose not to have children – concerns I moiself  had at one time, and still due to an extent.  I was one of those Not Gonna Do It ® people; I changed my mind as the circumstances of my life changed.  I later realized that my stance – I’m never getting married/having children – was based on false, or at least inadequate, information (as in, I’d made that declaration by moiself, not as part of a life partnership, and was thus imagining myself as a single parent, which is something I’d never choose ).

I’m just sayin’ that there’s one thing, one Really. Big. Thing.  that the naysayers are leaving out, when it comes to having children and raising a family:

How  much  fun  it  can be.

 

Found a compatible partner….

 

….and was still joyfully surprised by what fun was in store.

 

*   *   *

 

Department of Employee Of The Month

 

 

It’s that time, to bestow that prestigious award upon moiself .  Again. The need for which I wrote about here.   [4]

*   *   *

Freethinkers’ Thought Of The Week     [5]

“Along with the usual secular values (such as appropriate tolerance/intolerance, morality, critical thinking, appreciation for reason and science), don’t forget to impart social graces, playfulness, and humor. Those go far in our short existences.”

( Dale McGowan, professor and author of Parenting Beyond Belief:
On Raising Ethical, Caring Kids Without Religion )

 

*   *   *

May you appreciate the season that is upon us;
May you remember how much fun difficult things can be;
May you be joyfully surprised by what’s in store;
…and may the hijinks ensue.

Thanks for stopping by.  Au Vendredi!

*   *   *

 

[1] The acronym is for Federation Internationale de Football Association, the world’s professional soccer governing body.

[2] Usually temporary but sometimes…not.

[3] Hopefully with regards to global warming and how we are trashing our only home (planet This), as in, visible and tangible, and not silly religious apocalyptic scenarios.opefully

[4] Several years ago, MH received a particularly glowing performance review from his workplace. As happy as I was for him when he shared the news, it left me with a certain melancholy I couldn’t quite peg.  Until I did.

One of the many “things” about being a writer (or any occupation working freelance at/from home) is that although you avoid the petty bureaucratic policies, bungling bosses, mean girls’ and boys’ cliques, office politics and other irritations inherent in going to a workplace, you also lack the camaraderie and other social perks that come with being surrounded by your fellow homo sapiens.  No one praises me for fixing the paper jam in the copy machine, or thanks me for staying late and helping the new guy with a special project, or otherwise says, Good on you, sister. Once I realized the source of the left-out feelings, I came up with a small way to lighten them.

[5] “free-think-er n. A person who forms opinions about religion on the basis of reason, independently of tradition, authority, or established belief. Freethinkers include atheists, agnostics and rationalists.    No one can be a freethinker who demands conformity to a bible, creed, or messiah. To the freethinker, revelation and faith are invalid, and orthodoxy is no guarantee of truth.”  Definition courtesy of the Freedom From Religion Foundation, ffrf.org

The Santa Claus Story I’m Not Dissing

December 22, 2023

Robyn Parnell annoyances, are we having fun yet? (Women & Men & Feminism), books & magazines, community, current events, extended family, family life, freethought/humanism, friends, general ruminations, Holidays, Holy Shit!, Isms (religion), nature, Oregon, Wow, Yikes! , , , , , , , Comments Off on The Santa Claus Story I’m Not Dissing

Department Of The Partridge Of The Week

It’s that time of the year again. As has become a tradition much maligned anticipated in our neighborhood, moiself   is hosting a different Partridge, every week, in my front yard.   [1]

Can you identify this week’s guest Partridge?

 

*   *

Department Of  Somehow I Managed Not To Post This To The Store’s Site…

But I’m sharing it with y’all.

Background info:  my adopted village   [2]  of Manzanita (Oregon) has several nicknames, including, Muttzanita.   [3]  It’s a dog-friendly town to say the least, and in the 30 years moiself  has been hanging around the coast I’ve seen the best and worst of dog owners.  I am happy to report that *most* of the dog owners – well, the locals, as in, the ones who actually live at the coast – are good at picking up after their dogs (even though, the, uh, “remnants” of their dog’s solid business still remain, and the liquids blend in…eventually).  Still, there’s a reason (besides the rusty hooks, jagged crab pot wires and other fishing detritus that periodically come ashore with the tide) that, although I walk on the beach every day when I’m at the coast, I don’t do so barefooted.

Dateline: earlier this week. A store at Manzanita, one which I love and where I’ve frequently shopped, posted an ad on their social media page for a new holiday product they are offering for sale:

Stocking stuffer alert!🫧🌊🩵
Our magical Sand & Sea Scrub Bars are blended with sand from Manzanita Beach!

My first thought:  For anyone familiar with – as in, paying attention to –  what gets deposited onto the sands of Manzanita beach, this is not an enticement.   Do the buyers realize that means they will be scrubbing their skin with puppy piss-drenched sand?   [4]

 

Just adding the “magic” ingredient to the sand and sea scrub bars!

 

*   *   *

Department Of Yes Virginia, You’re Correct About Santa, But If You Know What’s Good For You You’ll Keep Your Mouth Shut
Sub-Department of Two Santa Stories

I don’t know how old I was when I figured it out, but I can never remember a time when I thought about Santa and “believed” – that is, when I thought about the story of Santa Claus and thought it was true/Santa was real, rather than knowing that he was a character in a story and that my parents actually supplied “Santa’s” gifts under the tree and in our Christmas stockings.  I also cannot remember ever discussing this with my parents, or my siblings, when I was a child.  Moiself  *does* remember the common knowledge about such things:  kids believed in Santa Claus; adults didn’t.  After noting the difference between the respective Christmas presents received by kids and their parents, I thought it in my best interest to keep my mouth shut.

 

 

Look at what kids who “believed in Santa” (even the ones just pretending to believe) found under their Christmas trees:  A miniature, pedal-propelled 1956 Chevy-styled sedan; Barbies and GI Joes; roller skates and skateboards and pogo sticks; Nancy Drew books and Animals of the World almanacs; Lincoln Log sets and Mousetrap games; Tonka trucks and plush stuffed animals.  And what did the adults, the A-Santa-ists, get?  Sockx and neckties; aftershave lotion and talcum powder; stationery and appliances.

I figured out early on that the idea was to go along with the story for as long as possible….which is somewhat related to the reasons why I stayed in religion (read: was not out about my non-belief) for so long.   You get better “presents” when you go along with the pretense.

Then, viola! you’re a grownup with a forehead-smacking moment of realization:  the Santa Claus story is one of the most useful tools ever for freethinkers, in showing how otherwise seemingly kind and intelligent people can agree to promote a lie, even after you ask them a direct question and emphatically request a truthful answer, for what they believe is the greater good (“Oh, honey, of course there is a Santa Claus!”).

“It’s hard to even consider the possibility that Santa isn’t real. Everyone seems to believe he is. As a kid, I heard his name in songs and stories and saw him in movies with very high production values. My mom and dad seemed to believe, batted down my doubts, told me he wanted me to be good and that he always knew if I wasn’t. And what wonderful gifts I received! Except when they were crappy, which I always figured was my fault somehow. All in all, despite the multiple incredible improbabilities involved in believing he was real, I believed – until the day I decided I cared enough about the truth to ask serious questions, at which point the whole façade fell to pieces. Fortunately the good things I had credited him with kept coming, but now I knew they came from the people around me, whom I could now properly thank.

Now go back and read that paragraph again, changing the ninth word from Santa to God.

Santa Claus, my secular friends, is the greatest gift a rational worldview ever had. Our culture has constructed a silly and temporary myth parallel to its silly and permanent one….“

 

 

…as our son began to exhibit the incipient inklings of Kringledoubt, it occurred to me that something powerful was going on. I began to see the Santa paradigm as an unmissable opportunity – the ultimate dry run for a developing inquiring mind….

This is the moment, at the threshold of the question, that the natural inquiry of a child can be primed or choked off. With questions of belief, you have three choices: feed the child a confirmation, feed the child a disconfirmation – or teach the child to fish.

The ‘Yes, Virginia’ crowd will heap implausible nonsense on the poor child, dismissing her doubts with invocations of magic or mystery or the willful suspension of physical law. Only slightly less problematic is the second choice, the debunker who simply informs the child that, yes, Santa is a big fat fraud….

I for one chose door number three.

‘Some people believe the sleigh is magic,’ I said. ‘Does that sound right to you?’  Initially, boy howdy, did it ever. He wanted to believe, and so was willing to swallow any explanation, no matter how implausible or how tentatively offered. ‘Some people say it isn’t literally a single night,’ I once said, naughtily priming the pump for later inquiries….

I avoided both lying outright and setting myself up as a godlike authority, determined as I was to let him sort this one out himself. And when at last, at the age of nine, in the snowy parking lot of the Target store, to the sound of a Salvation Army bellringer, he asked me point blank if Santa was real – I demurred, just a bit, one last time.

‘What do you think?’ I said.

‘Well…I think all the moms and dads are Santa.’ He smiled at me. ‘Am I right?’

I smiled back. It was the first time he’d asked me directly, and I told him he was right.  ‘So,’ I asked, ‘how do you feel about that?’

He shrugged. ‘That’s fine. Actually, it’s good. The world kind of… I don’t know…makes sense again.’

By allowing our children to participate in the Santa myth and find their own way out of it through skeptical inquiry, we give them a priceless opportunity to see a mass cultural illusion first from the inside, then from the outside. A very casual line of post-Santa questioning can lead kids to recognize how completely we all can snow ourselves if the enticements are attractive enough. Such a lesson, viewed from the top of the hill after exiting a belief system under their own power, can gird kids against the best efforts of the evangelists -– and far better than secondhand knowledge could ever hope to do.

( excerpt from “Santa, The Ultimate Dry Run,”
Parenting Beyond Belief, Dale McGowan;  my emphases )

 

*   *   *

Department Of The Second Santa-related Story

The second Santa-related story comes from a book moiself  has previously/recent blogged about, We Of Little Faith: Why I stopped pretending to believe (and maybe you should too), by Kate Cohen.  BTW, Cohen is not out to convert religious believers; rather, her book aims to support and persuade those who are religion-free to be open about *their* beliefs (and about their mere presence, in this religious rhetoric-saturated world).

In the book’s epilogue the author tells of an encounter she and Lena, the author’s then three-year-old daughter, had in a grocery store checkout line.  It was a few days after Christmas; Lena and her mom were standing behind a father who had his two preschoolers in his cart. The father turned to speak with Lena.

” ‘Did Santa bring you something good this year?’ he asked.

As you know, I grew up Jewish in a small town in Virginia.  And, as you know, I’m fond of Christmas.  When someone wishes me a ‘Merry Christmas’ I typically respond with a hearty, ‘And a Merry Christmas to you.’  but this felt different.  Asking a random child about Santa Claus in Albany, New York, where Yom Kippur is a public school holiday, struck me as a bit careless.

Indeed, my daughter looked confused, even troubled.  I was straining to think of a polite way to tell the guy he was a jerk when Lena did it for me.

Solemnly, she said, ‘Santa Claus is just pretend.’  He looked stricken and came closer, glancing back at his two little cart riders. ‘Don’t tell my kids, okay,’ he said to Lena.  ‘They still think he’s real.’  Lena nodded, accepting the burden of discretion.

I was so proud of her for speaking up, and then so sad that she was immediately asked to keep quiet.  To be a nice girl, she was expected to hold her tongue.  She was expected to hide the truth as she knew it and respect a lie that others had constructed.  A pleasant, harmless lie, you might say.  But a lie, nonetheless. “

( excerpt from Kate Cohen’s, We Of Little Faith:
Why I stopped pretending to believe (and maybe you should too), my emphases )

 

*   *   *

Freethinkers’ Thought Of The Week    [5]

 

*   *   *

May you never feel compelled to respect even “pleasant and harmless” lies:
May you enjoy the beach (and watch your step);
May you have the happiest of whatever you celebrate;
…and may the hijinks ensue.

 

Thanks for stopping by.  Au Vendredi!

*   *   *

[1] Specifically, in our pear tree.

[2] Why is it called a village, and not a town?  I’m not sure who is the demographics Boss re such things.

[3] The name of the annual “dog festival” held in the late summer in Manzanita.

[4] Or worse.

[5] “free-think-er n. A person who forms opinions about religion on the basis of reason, independently of tradition, authority, or established belief. Freethinkers include atheists, agnostics and rationalists.   No one can be a freethinker who demands conformity to a bible, creed, or messiah. To the freethinker, revelation and faith are invalid, and orthodoxy is no guarantee of truth.”  Definition courtesy of the Freedom From Religion Foundation, ffrf.org

The Important Life Decision Change I’m Not Regretting

October 13, 2023

Robyn Parnell are we having fun yet? (Women & Men & Feminism), books & magazines, current events, extended family, family life, freethought/humanism, friends, health & wellness, Holy Shit!, Isms (religion), music, nature, politics, science, The Write Stuff (literary life), Wow, YEE HAW!, Yikes! , , , , , , , Comments Off on The Important Life Decision Change I’m Not Regretting

Department Of Do Something Guaranteed To Make You Feel Smarter
(Or Maybe Just A Little Less Oblivious)

It’s much easier than you think.  Just listen the Ologies podcast (Cosmology: the Universe, Part I, with Katie Mack) in which host Alie Ward chats with theoretical astrophysicist Katie Mack about way cool things about the universe and how cosmologists study them, including by using The Large Hadron Collider.

You’ve heard of the LHC; you vaguely recall that it’s that huge, circular, underground, atom-smashing thing, somewhere in Switzerland.

 

 

But wait, y’all protest:  “Uh…trying to understand that stuff will definitely *not* make me feel smarter – I remember atoms but haven’t been required remember specifics since high school.”  Not to worry.  Writer, actor, science geek and podcast host Ward has got your back.  In her own entertainingly profane inimitable way, she makes it easier for you, with her Cliff Notes® take on the LHC, which includes a story offering a bit of cosmic perspective (my emphases):

Alie Ward:
“… The Large Hadron Collider is…a circular tunnel…over 500 feet deep in some parts and is 17 miles around. It is the largest machine in the world. This thing consists of over 1,200 magnets, and they’re cooled to a temperature colder than outer space. The magnets accelerate protons to almost the speed of light and then the protons are bashed together….

…Matter is stuff. Molecules are some atoms stuck together. Atoms are made of a nucleus – a little cluster of neutrons and protons. Protons have a positive charge – pro. Electrons have an equal negative charge, and electrons are…zooming around…outside the nucleus. The neutrons and protons…in the nucleus, those are made of smaller particles called quarks. The quarks come in a couple different varieties.

What gives these particles their mass? What are they? Where do they come from? We’ve got all these tiny things that make up matter….
there is a field called the Higgs field….How a particle interact with the Higgs field gives it its mass, kind of like drag in water. Higgs bosons are particles that are an excitation of the Higgs field, kind of like a drop of water splashing from an ocean. The Large Hadron Collider smashed protons together to see if they could prove that the Higgs boson exists, and guess what, bitches? It does.  The Large Hadron Collider, one of the things it does: smashes protons together in to smaller things to figure out why matter has mass. There you go.

Also, the Large Hadron Collider accidentally has its name spelled wrong on its own website as ‘Large Hard-on Collider.’ Once would be mortifying, but what if they did it more than once? Like twice? Or five times? That’s impossible. Is it? Because a search on their site revealed they’d spelled it “Large Hardon Collider” ONE HUNDRED AND SIXTY FIVE times!… . So whenever you’re like, ‘I don’t understand this stuff. Maybe I’m just not smart enough.’ Just think: someone typed in ‘Large Hardon Collider’ over 150 times. And they built the thing.”

 

(I decided against googling for a picture to illustrate a ‘large hard-on collider.’  Y’all will have to settle for this image of a hard-headed objects collision, which (fingers crossed) won’t get my internet search history forwarded to the FBI.)

 

*   *   *

 

*   *   *

Department Of Sometimes Say Never To Never Saying Never

“Dyanna Volek was never someone who dreamed of becoming a mother.
From an early age, she knew deep down that she didn’t want children…. ‘I’m always looking forward to the next thing,’ said Volek, who works in local government in San Francisco. ‘Being a parent was never one of them.’ ”
( excerpts from “Why more women are choosing not to have kids,”
CNN 9-25-23 )

* I’m afraid that I’m going to end up like my biological mom.
* I don’t like the idea of giving birth and changing my body.
* I feel like I am too selfish to have a child.
* I don’t want to lose myself as an individual.
* Having kids would mean having to be in that caring position for the rest of my life.
* I think the world is going to shit.
* I don’t want to subconsciously become like my mother.
* Honestly? I don’t like most kids.
(excerpts, 19 Women Got Brutally Honest About Why They Don’t Want Kids; )

 

 

“I can’t stand the way social media has idealised motherhood
at the expense of women and children.”
( wearechildfree.com )

“There should be no guilt in choosing a life path without my own children, yet I still…can’t shake the feeling that I’m missing some vital part of womanhood because I have never felt ‘baby fever.’ … I will not have kids, and I believe the decision is the right one for me, full stop. ”
( excerpts from “I don’t want children, but sometimes I want to want them,”
insider.com )

“____explained that the main factor for her (in not wanting children) was the disproportionate amount of work she would have to do as a mother compared to if she was a father.  She explained that dads get to be the ‘cool parent’, while mothers are categorized by any number of misogynist tropes like being overly smothering or nagging.  And also, just having to do a lot more work.
‘People have always asked me, do you have kids?…they love asking me if I have kids.  And I say, ‘No, I will not be having kids. And would you like to know why?’  And they say, of course.  And I say, ‘I would love, love, love to be a parent. I would love to be a dad. I don’t get that choice.’ ”
( excerpts from Single Woman Explains why she doesn’t want kids…;   )

 

 

Moiself has been seeing a lot of these kind of articles recently.  [1]  Is it just my imagination, or is there an increase in stories written about young women deciding not to have children,   [2]  and articles written by the young women in question, defending/explaining their decisions to be childfree?

“I love children…. But I don’t plan on having any of my own.
It took me a long time to be able to say that out loud. And by ‘out loud’ I mean whispering it with a hint of uncertainty so as not to offend. Because when you’re a married woman of a certain age with no kids, people have questions. Fertility advice. Pity. Judgment. Lots of judgment….

…the pressure to procreate comes from so many directions I’m considering pitching a ‘Walking Dead’ spinoff where the child free are the living and everyone else are zombies trying to turn us. But it’s a comedy so no one dies, except on the inside….
My mom-friends often confide in me the inequities of motherhood — how the childcare duties fall mostly on them and their bodies have shifted to the side and down. They lament the loss of time for personal, career or creative pursuits of their own. So, when I told one friend in an uncertain whisper that I wasn’t planning to have children, I was shocked by her reaction: ‘Telling people you don’t want kids is like telling people you’re vegan. It’s not about your healthy choices. It’s about making other people feel bad about their choices.’ And then she prayed I’d change my mind because having kids is the best.

I promise she’s not a monster. She’s a zombie, and that’s just what zombies do….

Life is about choices. Having them (or not). Owning them. And sometimes regretting them — but I would argue even that’s a choice. Because often there’s really no right or wrong decision, there’s just the one you make and you do your best to be happy.”
(excerpts from Opinion: “I chose to be child free. (The correct response is ‘Congratulations!’)”  LA Times 8-19-23 )

I read these articles about and by young women explaining themselves – and BTW, it’s *always* women doing the explaining.  Men, too, can struggle over the decision to have children, but there are nowhere near the same cultural pressures and expectations for men to become fathers – it is not locked up with society’s definition-as-a-person as it is with women.

 

 

I understand, and agree with, many if not most of the reasons and observations, both personal and societal, that the I-am-not-going-to-procreate women recount in these articles.  And while I am supportive of these decisions, many of them often seem to be…missing something…in their reasoning.  And moiself  can’t help but compare and contrast the stories they tell to my own situation and decisions.

For the first three decades of my life moiself  declared (and honestly believed) that I did not want to/was not going to have children, and probably would not get married.  Then, I went and did both.  I met MH when I was 28; we married when I was 31, and welcomed our son K and then our daughter Belle    [3]   when I was in my mid-late thirties.

As MH and I raised our very-much-planned-and-wanted   [4]   kids, when it was age-appropriate to do so, moiself  shared with them Robyn’s Realities ®  about marriage and family:  There are no Everyone-must-do-this/live-like-this-to-be-fulfilled rules:

* You can be single and be happy;
* You can be single and be miserable;
* You can be married and be happy;
* You can be married and be miserable;
* You can be happy if you and your spouse have children;
* You can be happy if you and your spouse are childfree….   [5]

But it wasn’t until relatively recently that I realized something key about my earlier, I-will-not-be-a-parent mindset.  It was not that I merely changed my mind about a major life issue.   [6]  It was that I had based that decision on my life – from my teens to early thirties, and how I viewed the trajectory of that life – as the single person I was. It was a decision made totally out of context of being in a committed relationship, which is the only way I would have even remotely considered having and raising a child.  It was a decision based on what I (thought I) knew about moiself, and not moiself-and-MH…because there was no moiself-and-MH.   [7]

 

 

There are people, men as well as women, who claim to have known from an early age that being a parent is what they’ve always wanted.  There are women I’ve known who said they’d “always” wanted to have children, and if that opportunity did not arise within a relationship, they vowed to pursue single parenthood.  Then there are the rest – the majority, in my opinion and experience.  When it comes to having or not having kids, these not-yet-married-or-partnered girls and women express slight to strong preferences either way, but acknowledge their decision might ultimately depend on their relationship with their potential parental partner.

Let’s say you’re one of those women:  you are single, and when you consider parenthood or are asked by friends/family/coworkers/your doctor/your barista about your procreative plans,    [8]  you say that you would do so only within the context of marriage/a committed partnership.  As in, even if you had a strong preference for having and raising a child someday you know you will never pursue that as a single parent.  So, if you are single and you consider the option of having children and conclude, “I’m not going to have kids,” you are making the decision sans complete data.  That is, you are imagining something you would never do, so your imaginations are going to be negative – what you think about what being a mother would be like could only be about what it would be like for you, alone, because you have no parent-partner.  There is no Other Parent (yet), to imagine how you would be a family, together.

Am I making sense here?

 

 

When I met the man-who-would-become-MH, as our relationship deepened we began to talk about Such Things ®.  MH married me with the understanding that, although he would like us to have children, for moiself  it was not a sure thing.  I married MH with the understanding that, while I’d always thought being a mother was not for me, MH and I would consider this parenthood adventure thing.

Our decision to have children was an outgrowth of *our* relationship.  It was vital to moiself  to see how we worked together, as life partners.   [9]  In my years of working in women’s reproductive health care, I saw too many  [10]  married women who were essentially single moms, with regard to their husbands’ participation in the physical, intellectual, time and emotional investment in child-rearing.  After five years of marriage to MH, I was assured enough to take the reproductive plunge.  More significantly, I also anticipated the rewards, the adventure, of being “part of it all” with him, part of the circle of life (take it away, Elton!), which is why all of us are here in the first place.

 

 

Despite having no time travel/alternate reality technology with which I can confirm this belief I am about to state, I believe that I would have had equally significant – just different –  highlights and low points in my life if I’d remained childfree (whether with MH, or another partner, or as a single person).  That being said, raising my offspring – watching them become the kind, intelligent, curiosity-filled, artistic, witty, science-oriented, free-thinking, compassionate, nature-appreciating, cat-loving, do-the-right-thing people that they are – has been a, if not the, highlight of my life.  I look forward to knowing them for as long as I can:  it has been has been and is a challenging, rewarding, exhausting, energizing, surprising, sometimes agonizing, and more often kick-ass-fun, pee-your-pants-with-laughter  experience, and remains an ongoing source of joy. 

When I read these I-am-never-going-to-have-kids articles, having been there moiself  I can identify with many if not most of the sentiments expressed therein.  I also understand that few things can be more irritating that the smug, condescending responses which are all too commonly flung at the declared child-free woman:  “Oh, you’ll change your mind, after all I/she/they did….”  I moiself have had those experiences and heard those comments (and I moiself  have changed my mind, moiself ).  Even so, I’d advise any young woman who would ask to keep an open mind: never say never….and congratulations, on whatever you decide.

 

 

*   *   *

Freethinkers’ Thought Of The Week    [11]

“The main goal of education should always be to learn how to learn, to become an independent thinker….
…evangelism of children seeks to cut off the process of independent thought before it begins. It’s this aspect of religious indoctrination that is most unacceptable—the idea that doubt is bad, that unquestioning acceptance is good, that there is only one possible right answer, and that someone else has already figured out what that answer is…
(1) Always question authority;
(2) when in doubt, see rule 1.”

( professor, writer, philanthropist Dale McGowan; excerpts from
Parenting Beyond Belief: On Raising Ethical, Caring Kids Without Religion )

 

 

*   *   *

May you carefully consider the contexts of your major life decisions;
May you enjoy your own particular dance steps in The Circle of Life;
May you be daring enough to do an internet search for “large hard-on collider”
(and discreetly let moiself  know the results);
…and may the hijinks ensue.

Thanks for stopping by.  Au Vendredi!

*   *   *

[1] Some of these articles are written about demographic studies that show that “nearly one-in-five American women ends her childbearing years without having borne a child, compared with one-in-ten in the 1970s.” (Pew Research center)

[2] As opposed to having no children due to infertility issues.

[3] They are three years apart, lest you think this was some kind of Irish twins situation.

[4] More than one longtime acquaintance of myself, knowing I’d never expressed any interest in parenthood, when hearing the news of my pregnancies had a kneejerk reaction of spewing something along the lines of, “Uh, was this intentional –oops, sorry, of course it was, or must have been…I mean, she worked for Planned Parenthood…okay, I’ll just shut up now….”

[5] And I always refer to the state thusly, instead of the vile (IMO), lacking-something label, “childless.”

[6] as I have done throughout my life and doubtless will do again.

[7] I had other boyfriends/potential life partners pre-MH, most of whom made it known that they wanted, eventually, to have kids.

[8] And if you are a grown-ass woman who has not yet had a child, someone will always ask you.

[9] And If I had married someone else, it is entirely possibly I’d also be happily married at this point and be childfree.

[10] Any is too many.

[11] “free-think-er n. A person who forms opinions about religion on the basis of reason, independently of tradition, authority, or established belief. Freethinkers include atheists, agnostics and rationalists.   No one can be a freethinker who demands conformity to a bible, creed, or messiah. To the freethinker, revelation and faith are invalid, and orthodoxy is no guarantee of truth.”  Definition courtesy of the Freedom From Religion Foundation, ffrf.org

The Routines I’m Not Going Back To

August 24, 2018

Robyn Parnell books & magazines, current events, family life, freethought/humanism, Holidays, politics, school, science, Wow, Yikes! , , , , , , , , , , , , , , Comments Off on The Routines I’m Not Going Back To

There is something different for me this year, about this time of the year – this particular end of August. I couldn’t put my finger on it, until I realized that Belle’s graduation from college in May means that for the first time in twenty years, there is no Back to School ® component to my life. The end of summer/resumption of school, the preparation and routine and rhythm of such, it was not so all-encompassing – for both my personal and the family’s schedules – when the kids were in college.  Still, it was…there.   [1]

 

 

 

 

 

 

I’ve noticed how “out of it” I’ve sometimes felt, during the past four years, with regards to schedules of other families – including even the approaching of holidays – by not having at least one child with a public school schedule. There was no compelling reason for me to keep track of certain things, and so I didn’t…and then I found myself frequently (and sometimes sheepishly) surprised by the mundane.

Why is there less traffic these past couple of morning? Why are there so many kids wandering around in the early afternoon…oh..yeah….it’s probably a teacher conference/grading/”staff development day” off for the schools….”

 

 

 

 

 

Friends would ask MH and I what we were doing for, say, Spring Break or the President’s Day holiday weekend, and we’d be caught by the question...uh, just when is spring break this year? Did we miss it?

And what’s with all the aisles of boxes of crayons and notebooks and Transformers backpacks front and center at Fred Meyer stores – it’s only August!?  Ahem, you mean, it’s already the end of August, and school starts the day after Labor Day, remember?

 

 

 

 

*   *   *

Department of Yet Another Podcast Promo

Arguably my favorite podcast of the past week was the Hidden Brain episode Originals, in which the show’s host, NPR’s social scientist correspondent host Shankar Vedantam interviewed Wharton School of Business professor Adam Grant. Grant’s book, Originals: How Non-Conformists Move the World,  “investigates who comes up with great ideas, how, and what we can do to have more of them.”

In the latter portion of the interview the host asked Grant about “who gets the chance to be original and how parents can foster this quality in their kids.” This led to a brief discussion between host and guest about a parenting-style dichotomy which has always fascinated moiself: those who parent by emphasizing values-based advice vs. those who instill rules-based behavior.

 

 

 

 

 

Vedantam: Why is it that rules-based behavior doesn’t produce the same thing as values-based advice?

Grant: When you focus on rules in the family a lot of times kids learn to follow it, which means accepting the status quo and essentially becoming an excellent sheep. When you go to values, kids actually have to think for themselves.

Grant admitted that as a parent it’s easy to find yourself barking, “new rule” every time your children misbehave, when instead you should be talking about the value behind the rule. When asked for an example, he provided a scenario familiar to most families:

We’re sitting at dinner, and one of our family values is respect, so we (the parents)  like for them (the children) not to get up from the dinner table until every is done eating. And they start to get up and it’s, “No, you must sit in your seat.” And then I realize what I need to say is why this is important to us.  It’s not about having the rule, it’s about – look, the reason we all like to sit at our seats is we like to have a family meal and it’s a great way to show respect for each other.

 

 

 

And who wouldn’t want to extend such heart-warming family moments?

 

 

 

K and Belle, MH’s and my two children, are young adults now.  The vast majority of our “active parenting” opportunities, re trying to influence their developing values and behavior, are in the past.  Back when MH and I were doing the heavy lifting in that department, we didn’t didn’t have a name for it – i.e., the particular label the differing parenting styles was given in the podcast – but I’m fairly certain MH and I followed the values-based advice model. As per author/educator/philanthropist Dale McGowan’s excellent series of books, Parenting Beyond Belief and Raising Freethinkers, we thought that teaching our children (and, hopefully, modeling for them) values-based advice seemed the best way to enable their moral, emotional and intellectual development based on reason, vs. unquestioning acquiescence to authority.  [2]

 

 

 

 

 

 

In the past few days, since listening to that podcast, I’ve found moiself thinking back to my own upbringing, and in particular, where my parents would have fallen on the values-based advice vs. rules-based behavior spectrum.  I think my parents, like most of their peers, employed (deliberately and sometimes unintentionally) a combination of the two styles. However, my memories  [3] reinforce my notion that, given many factors, including my parents’ generation, their adherence to religious doctrine, their own respective upbringings and temperaments – the latter which included an almost total lack of introspection and valuing consideration of “big” and/or existential questions of Life ® –  their parenting methods tilted most heavily to the rules-based behavior end of the scale.

 

*   *   *

Department Of Happy To Have Slept Through It, Thank You Very Much

An earthquake and aftershock have been reported off the coast of south-central Oregon.
The United States Geological Survey says an initial quake with a preliminary magnitude of 6.2 struck just after 1:30 a.m., more than 170 miles (264 kilometers) west of Coos Bay, about 220 miles southwest of Portland.
Robert Sanders of the USGS says there is no tsunami threat associated with the quake. He says people as far away as Portland reported feeling the temblor.
(8-22-18 Oregon Public Broadcasting)

 

*   *   *

 

Department Of More Musings Sparked By Podcast Listening
Sub-Department Of Morning Walks Are Time For Reflection…
Or Sometimes Just Snickering

Dateline: yesterday, 7 am. Listening to a Freakonomics podcast, Two (Totally Opposite) Ways To Save The Planet (episode 346) , in which the host (Stephen Dubner) interviews Charles Mann, a journalist who “…writes big books about the history of science.” Mann speaks about the decades-old debate between environmentalists (“we’re doomed if we don’t drastically reduce consumption”) and  technologists (“human ingenuity can solve just about any problem”). Mann titled his latest book The Wizard and the Prophet, which are his embodiments of those two respective worldviews. The book’s subtitle is Two Remarkable Scientists and Their Dueling Visions to Shape Tomorrow’s World.

It was a misty morning at the coast. My mind was wandering as I walked on the pathway heading toward Nehalem Bay State Park; I was thinking more of blackberry-picking than the “prophets vs. wizards” presentation coming through my earbuds,  [4] and wasn’t paying the closest of attention to Mann’s comments about “the prophet” of his book, WilliamVogt, “the progenitor of the modern environmental movement,”  and Vogt’s influential (in 1948) but now largely forgotten book, The Road to Survival:

MANN: “Much of (The Road to Survival) is a passionate screed for population control, sometimes written in language that makes you cringe….”

DUBNER: “So when you say that his discussion about population growth makes you cringe, was it from a classist perspective…or racist — how would you describe it?”

MANN: “… it’s hard to avoid noticing that although he was very, very hard on rich, white people being wasteful and destructive and so forth…the brunt of the population-reduction stuff he’s talking about are on poor, brown people…And he sometimes described them in language that is really kind of appalling — he talks about Indians breeding with the irresponsibility of codfish….”

That certainly got my attention.  Codfish – any cold-blooded aquatic vertebrate, for that matter – have never come to my mind as exemplars of anything other than being codfish., and certainly not as examples of human traits, particularly those related to responsibility.

Are not codfish merely yet profoundly the gold standard for being codfish? And why shouldn’t codfish breed prolifically? Considering that they are a highly-preyed-upon species, it would be irresponsible of them not to breed like…codfish.

 

 

It’s none of your business what we’re doing. Besides, it’s not like we can get a room.

 

 

 

 

I thought about this for a lot longer than perhaps I should have. Then I thought about my thinking about it: is this an example of my propensities for both being easily amused (read: distracted)  and easily stimulated to ponder the existential questions of life? And what would a codfish think of such drawn out deliberations  – would she consider them to be a responsible use of my intellect? Or would she use me as an exemplar to her fellow codfish of how warm-blooded, land-going bipedal vertebrates waste valuable mental energy that could be used to devise strategies to convince people to eat less codfish?

 

*   *   *

 

 

May you rarely cast metaphors of irresponsibility upon species other than your own;
May you find ways to value the routines you may one day forget to miss;
May you treasure those incidents you are Happy To Have Slept Through;
…and may the hijinks ensue.

 

 

Thanks for stopping by.  Au Vendredi!

 

*   *   *

 

 

[1] Son K graduated three years earlier.

[2] Sure, we had rules, but it was never, “Because this is a family rule, that’s why, and we are the parents/authority and you therefore must respect us and obey our rules.” We explained the “whys” behind the “rules” – the values behind the guidelines.

[3] Which include years of fruitless attempts to get them to engage in healthy discussions (or so I viewed them, as an optimistic if not yet out-of-the-closet freethinker teenager and young adult) about the basis for living ethically in this world.

[4] The prophet (environmentalist) sounds the alarm and wants us to reduce consumption, population growth, and habitat destruction. The wizard (technologist) pushes for us to keep going and invent/use even more, believing that history shows us that technology will solve our problems.