Just keep swimming

I made a deal with Mimi last night. If she will take swim classes this summer, I will too.

Here's the thing: I do not like the water. I mean, I like water, in general. I like taking long hot baths. I like looking at lakes. I like sitting by the pool. I don't really like being IN the water so much. Because I never learned to swim.

It wasn't totally for lack of trying. My mom took me when I was little -- I was a goldfish, or a tadpole, or something. And then when I was in maybe 5th or 6th grade, my mom signed me up for swim lessons at the local high school pool, and the swim teacher was this absolutely terrifying man who taught 6th grade at my elementary school, and I just remember him yelling at me because I didn't want to do something called the "dead man's float." (Which seems sensible, because why would I WANT to do something called that?) I didn't like it. I tried to get out of it. I told lies to the instructor, that my mom would let me sit it out if I paid her back for the money spend on the lesson. No one believed me, of course. I was terrified.

I made it through that course and even the required dead man's float test, but I don't know that I voluntarily ever got in a swimming pool again. Then in high school we had to take swimming as one of our P.E. requirements. That sucked, too. My class was divided into people who knew how to swim and people who didn't; the kids who did went down to the deep end and worked with the gym teacher on jumping off the diving board and learning new stroked. The kids who didn't? We stood around in the shallow end holding kickboards, feeling idiotic.

And after that, I never HAD to get in a pool again, until the summer Mimi was three and I was pregnant and I decided it would be a brilliant idea to take her to toddler swim lessons. I spent those standing the shallow end with her clinging to me like a baby monkey, refusing to let the instructor pry her legs from around my waist long enough to teach her to kick. Since a year earlier she'd screamed when we tried to put her in two inches of water in the bathtub, I actually considered this progress. We did a beach vacation that year too, up near Traverse City, and I think that was the last time either of us were at an actual beach.

Then I broke my foot (yes, at seven months pregnant) and Mimi's dad finished out the swim class with her. And I think that's the last time Mimi and a pool had any formal interaction. Boo was born in September; I had massive PPD and was back at work in six weeks and my marriage was dying and I was dealing with a newborn and a three-and-a-half year old who was having SERIOUS adjustment issues to having a baby sister, and a 13-year-old stepson who, ditto times two. Extracurricular activities rather fell by the wayside for a bit.

A year and a half later we moved to a house less than ten minutes walk from a community pool, and talked enthusiastically about how we'd spend the summer teaching the girls to swim etc. But the marriage was in its death throes and the soon-to-be-ex lost his job, and things really weren't going well at all. And after that, somehow, we just never got around to hitting the pool.

Last summer, at the new house, the girls set up their kiddie pool and the sprinkler in the backyard and were happy with that, although Boo mentioned learning to swim a couple of times. I didn't want to discourage her, but I also didn't really want to be the one to take her. And Mimi didn't want anything to do with the idea. Near the end of the August last year we accompanied friends to a local water park, and I realized how much of my trepidation I'd unwittingly passed on to Mimi when she backed out of the "Lazy River" tubing ride, which was something even I enjoyed. And she wouldn't go in the water without me, while Boo would have dived in and not looked back, despite her lack of actual swimming ability.

I put off thinking about this for most of the fall and winter, and now suddenly spring has morphed into summer as it tends to do in Michigan, and people are buying pool passes and talking about beach trips and making summer plans, and I realized I have to do something about this. So last night I brought up the idea of doing swimming lessons.

Mimi immediately buried her head under a pillow, as she does when she doesn't want to talk about something.

"NO. I DON'T WANT TO DO IT."

We talked about why not -- this is what therapy has done for this kid, she DOES eventually take her head out from under the pillow, with some encouragement, and use her words -- and she said she was scared. And that she was worried about going under the water. And that she would sink. So I told her that I was scared of the water too, and that I wished I had learned to swim. That I didn't want her and her sister to be afraid of the water like I was, and that it was really smart to learn to swim because then you can go in pools and lakes and boats without being scared. That it makes you safer -- she interrupted, at this point, that "then you can just swim to the shore if you're in a boat and it sinks, instead of waiting for someone to come rescue you," which, HI MISSION ACCOMPLISHED as far as indoctrinating the "learn to rescue yourself" lesson -- and she said that yes, she does want to learn to swim, but she's still scared.

So I said, "A lot of times bravery is being scared but doing something anyway." And we talked about examples of that. Learning to ride a bike. Taking a shower by herself (this was a recent accomplishment, and a Very Big Deal). Playing on the soccer team. I told Mimi she is the bravest person I know, who has done the scariest thing of anyone I have ever met, and she looked at me like I had no idea what I was talking about.

"Mimi, you got on an airplane with two people you had just met, who you were still a little scared of, and came to a different country where the language was different and the food was different and the people even looked different, and you let us be your family and take care of you."

She started to laugh. "But I was a BABY! I didn't know any better!"

And that made me laugh, too, but I pointed out that made it even braver, because we couldn't even explain to her what was going on, that she was two years old and that she could have decided not to love us but she did. She started to cry, and I started to cry, and she said, "Well, at least these are the kind of happy tears. It's not really SOBBING. That's when you're like ah, ah, ah, and your face is ALL WET." Heh.

So THEN we calmed down, and she said she was still scared of swimming, and suddenly this was about a lot more than heading down to the pool, so before I even thought about it, I said, "look, if you will learn to swim this summer, so will I." And her jaw totally dropped open, and I thought, oh, SHIT. And she hugged me, and told me SHE was proud of ME and that I was the bravest person she knows.

So, it looks like I'm learning to swim.

Frightfully busy

The last few weeks have been just a little busy. I fully acknowledge that I've been losing what little cool I had left on a semi-regular basis since early April, and I sincerely hope that now I will start to pull it together a little bit. I've weathered spring break, three craft shows, and the start of Mimi's soccer season, with only the rest of soccer, the end of the school year, Boo's gymnastics extravaganza, a weekend trip to NYC and a week-long trip to California to go before the end of June.

Oh, is that all?

Mimi's soccer team is the third-grade-girls' powerhouse, undefeated after four games. I feel a little sad for the teams that have to play them, to be honest. They've shut out two of their last three opponents. I know they are old enough to deal with losing and all, but I still find myself wanting them to at least score one time. This is why I am not a very good soccer mom. No competitiveness whatsoever.

Mimi in action

I had three spring craft shows in quick succession, all of which were mildly successful although not quite as much as I'd hoped. I have a lot of idea about how to fix the problems I discovered, however -- at least the ones within my control; being tucked in a back corner behind a large display of carved wood items at the last show was not within my control, and definitely hurt my sales. These things happen. 

I came up with some new items, as per usual with some suggestions by the lovely Kate of Chicaloo Photography. I'm always looking for new ideas, even though I have more than I could ever finish already in my head -- after all, I want to make what people actually want. So if you have any flashes of "someone should crochet THIS!" brilliance, do let me know.

I started making smaller octopi, and added keychain findings to make them useful. If you happen to really need an octopus keychain -- I mean, who doesn't -- the first one is listed in my etsy store here. I added mini coffee cups, strawberries, and ice cream cones for the most recent show, and they proved quite popular -- particularly among middle-school girls, unsurprisingly.

I made Captain Picard ("make it sew!" Hah. Groan.) quite by accident. And then I made a Viking, because, why not. 

A lot of people commented on my fried egg headbands, but sadly no one purchased any. Cowards. 

Everyone who picks up the ice cream cone pretends to lick it. Without exception. 

This is me. This is my table, and my sign, and my craft goods. And my boobs. 

What else? Going to work, hauling kids to soccer and gymnastics practice, the occasional date or social outing. It's been a mostly rainy, dreary spring ever since that one spectacular sunny week we had in March, and that has kept me feeling kind of blah. I haven't had much time to myself, and that hasn't helped. I keep hoping that the sun will come out and things will start looking up. It's not bad, right now, it just could be better. 

Oh, and I started a new tumblr. Meet Cute Animals. Bad Dates. I needed to do something with all the horrific online dating profiles I run across.

The world doesn't hate you. Don't hate the world.

Dear daughters,

This is you being awesome

The world does not hate you.   

Look, everything in that post is true. The world is unfair. People can be horrible. A whole lot of the world, in general, thinks that being a girl is pretty much the worst thing you can be. So I'm not writing this to criticize the parent who wrote the above, or argue with anything she said. I admire her passion and her principles. I love that she teaches her daughter to go out every day and show the world how awesome she is. I like big chunks of that post, and the first time I read it, I thought "right on! Fuck 'em all!"

But I kept seeing it posted on facebook, by a lot of different moms. And I thought about it. It occurred to me I would express the same basic ideas rather differently, and I want to tell you why.

Granted, sometimes I want to say "fuck 'em." I have said it. When I get sick and tired of "girly" being used as an insult. When I get fed up with the "girl toys" and "boy toys" aisles at the big-box stores, or when I am frustrated because I have spent untold hours looking for appropriate Halloween costumes for your age. (This, by the way? NOT appropriate.) When I think about a culture that tells us motherhood is the most noble thing we can be, then doesn't support parents or families or children after they leave the womb, unless they fit into certain very specific, very gendered boxes.

You are 5 and 9 years old, respectively, and I shouldn't have to special order and pay $30 each for a pair of shorts that reach mid-thigh and don't have words written across your butts, or go to three or four stores in search of sandals in a size one that don't have heels. That makes me feel ill. A lot.

I could write several posts ranting about how utterly broken gender culture is in this country, about the messages we send little boys and little girls -- and big boys and big girls -- that can screw us all up for life. But that's not what I want to tell you about. You will find that out soon enough. And when you do, you will, I hope, be horrified, and refuse to buy into the conventional wisdom that your looks and your weight are your only source of self-worth, or lack thereof.

What I want to tell you, instead, is that the world loves you. I want you to wake up each morning knowing that you are utterly awesome, and that other people are too, and the world is a freaking fantastic place.

You will, of course, learn that there are people who treat other people badly because of things they have no control over: gender, sexual preference, appearance. There are people who are just bullies. There are people who want to make sure you stay in what they think is your place. You both have already started to learn that lesson, and there's no help for it. But you also know -- and I never want you to forget -- that there are completely wonderful people in the world, as well. Who help other people just because they can. Who give up their own comfort to make things a little bit more comfortable for someone else. Who will go out of their way to make your day a little bit brighter, for no reason other than that you both live on the same planet and it feels good to make someone else smile.

I'm not saying you have to be one of those people. Lord knows I'm not, not very often. I don't have that much energy and frankly I don't have that much self-sacrifice in me right now. But I want you to know they are out there. They might not outnumber the haters, but they are out there, and they love you.

And I'm not saying give up, accept unfairness and stereotypes and do nothing to change them. You can fight them, without hating the world that brought them into being. That world brought you into being, too.

Here's the other extremely important thing: you have nothing to prove to anyone. You go out and be awesome, because you ARE awesome, but if you don't want to be the one who proves that a girl can [fill in the blank] just as good, or better than, a boy, you don't have to. You didn't choose to be female, and you don't have anything to prove just by virtue of your sex.

You know that it's ok to like trucks, and motorcycles, and the color pink, and sparkly nail polish, and princesses and Transformers, whether you are a boy or a girl. You already know you can grow up to be anything you want to be. As long as you don't forget that you have a zillion choices, you don't have to be the one who makes the most radical choice. Someone will, eventually. If it's you, because that's what you want, fantastic. But if what you really want is to be a yoga instructor or a parent who stays home or an English teacher, then that's what you should do, instead. Don't do anything just to prove the haters wrong. Do what makes you happy.

Don't let people make you feel bad because you like to wear makeup or cry at sappy movies or collect Barbie dolls. And don't let people make you feel bad because you hate makeup and would rather sleep an extra 15 minutes, because you chop all your hair off and wear black nail polish, or because you would rather learn to rebuild an engine than sew a straight seam. Don't feel bad for wanting to get married and have children. Don't feel bad if you don't. Both are perfectly fine, valid choices. Frankly, just about anything you choose is just freaking fine, if you are choosing it because it's what you want. Not because you want to either a) conform or b) rebel just for the sake of fitting in or sticking out.

What I'm saying is, in my long-winded, god-mom-get-an-editor way, is don't go out every day thinking the world hates you for being a girl. Or for being anything that you are. Please don't. Because that will make you hate the world. You will grow bitter and angry, and you will do things just to spite the anonymous "them" who you think are telling you who you should be. Feel free to ignore "them" and do whatever you want, obviously, but don't do things just to spite "them." They don't actually care what you do. They only even exist because we give them any power to have any effect on us.

Look, I'm no Pollyanna. I know that political machinations will continue to make the world a difficult place for women. I know that some people will look at you and think "she's just a girl, what does she know?" I know that some people will judge you on the size of your breasts, not the size of your heart or your intellect. Someone someday will see you in a short skirt, or in sweatpants, and decide they know something about you because of your clothing choices. I know that at some point in the next 10 (20, 30) years, you will feel bad about yourself because of the way you look.

You know what? I'm almost 40. I'm divorced, renting a tiny house, driving a 12-year-old car, working in an underpaid, female-dominated field. This is not what I expected my life would be at this point. And still? I'm pretty sure that the world is an amazing, beautiful place. I don't feel it every minute of every day. Of course not. But on the whole. And I know that unless I let politicians, marketers, misogynists, and oversexed frat boys make me jaded and bitter, then I still win.

I want you to win, too. I want you to be awesome. Not to show anybody anything or teach anyone a lesson or to get back and anyone who said something hateful or mean or ignorant. But just because you are both amazing, wonderful, strong, loving, beautiful human beings. And I never want that to change.

This is you being awesome, too.

It's About Choice

Oh yay, it's the Mommy Wars redux! This time with added false Republican vs. Democrat dichotomy!

To recap, in case you hadn't heard: a Democratic strategist I never heard of before, named Hilary Rosen, is taking some heat because she said of Mitt Romney, in a CNN interview, “Guess what, his wife has actually never worked a day in her life. She’s never dealt with the kinds of economic issues that a majority of women in this country are facing.”

What Rosen was saying, I believe, is the arguably true statement that Ann Romney, married for most of her adult life to a very rich man, doesn't exactly have experience with the pressing financial problems of parenting that many of us do. Instead the media picked up "Ann Romney has never worked a day in her life" and ran with the "stay-at-home moms don't really work, according to top Democratic strategist" angle.

So Hilary Rosen had to issue an apology, saying that as a mother, she knows “raising children is the hardest job there is.” OF COURSE SHE DOES. Any mother who is raising her children and doing even a half-ass job knows that parenting is a shit-ton of work. I sincerely doubt Rosen meant to argue that Ann Romney didn't work hard and likely do a fine job of raising her five sons.

Obama campaign advisers were quick to distance themselves from Rosen, of course, calling her comments "inappropriate" and "wrong." I would say, however, that they weren't wrong. Ok, fine, "never worked a day" was a cheap shot. But is it wrong to say that Ann Romney has "never dealt with the kinds of economic issues that a majority of women in this country are facing?" I don't think that's wrong at all. I think it's spot on.

There's also the argument that, as President Obama said when he got dragged into this manufactured controversy, "I don’t have a lot of patience for commentary about the spouses of political candidates." Well, fine, but that's a little unrealistic. Ann Romney has been active in her husband's campaign, and Mitt Romney brought her into it when he said she was his "top adviser on women's issues." Since women are a pretty damn big part of the electorate, Romney's position on women's issues is important. And if his top advisor on women's issues has little experience with the type of issues most women are facing -- well, I think that's fair game for the Dems.

So when Ann Romney says on Twitter that she "made a choice to stay home and raise five boys," I can't imagine any mother -- up to and including Hilary Rosen -- who would argue that was not hard work. The point both the Romney and Obama campaigns, as well as the media in general, missed, or chose not to address, is that Rosen wasn't criticizing Ann Romney's choice to stay home. She was criticizing the Romney campaign's portrait of her as an expert on the economic issues facing women.

Ann Romney told Fox that her "career choice was to be a mother" and "we need to respect choices that women make." Again, true. And again, beside the point. Some will disagree, but again, I don't think Rosen was disrespecting Romney's choice to stay home. She was pointing up that unlike a lot of us, Ann Romney had the means to MAKE a choice.

See, however the campaigns want to frame it, this isn't WOHM-vs-SAHM. It's Ann Romney, or her advisors and strategists, pretending she can relate to any mom, working or not, who has ever had to prioritize buying groceries over paying the electric bill, or feel ashamed that her child is going to school in outgrown hand-me-downs, or who has to explain to her third-grader that he can't go on the field trip because Mom doesn't have the ten bucks to send to school that day. It's any politician, parent or not, thinking they know how that feels if they haven't been there. Don't tell me you understand me because you're a mother and so am I. It's not that easy.

The media might want to cast this as a working-outside-the-home versus a stay-at-home debate, but the truth is, most moms I know fought that war a long time ago and have achieved, if not peace, then some kind of wary détente with it. Most of us are working outside the home, or working at home, or not working at a job we get paid for at all, with the knowledge that we are doing what we need to do for our families.

We might have "chosen" to work because even though our spouses make decent money, we find it fulfilling to go somewhere people are wearing shoes and having conversations with multisyllabic words. Or we might be working because kids do, after all, need to eat and wear clothes and have somewhere to sleep. We might be staying home because we can't imagine missing out on a moment of our progeny's childhood -- or maybe it's because we know that whatever we might make at a paid job wouldn't cover what it would cost to keep said progeny in halfway decent daycare.

I'd wager that among the moms I know, most of us have a lot more in common with each other, whether we work outside the home or not, than any of us do with Ann Romney, or Michelle Obama for that matter. What I would really like is for politicians to stop creating fake media wars that distract us from actual problems, and get back to work making this country a place where more of us actually have the choices they all take for granted.

UPDATED : Racism: Bad: Sizeism: PERFECTLY OK, APPARENTLY.

(Copied over and expanded on from tumblr.)

hungergamestweets: Luna Lovegood?!?!?!? That little heifer looks like Casper the Friendly Ghost.
But of course, the rule applies. Pale skin equals innocence.

I found the above-linked blog through an article in Jezebel, and browsed through, appropriately horrified by the racism (as well as massive reading-comprehension fails) so nonchalantly displayed all over twitter. And I admired the author of this blog for calling people out on their horrific attitudes. Then I got to this post, where that same author who is outing people as racists displays a casual, hurtful attitude by calling someone — I’m guessing the actress who plays Luna Lovegood, who just had the misfortune of being mentioned by a random person on twitter — a heifer? 

Granted, I'm a little cranky today and I have a massive headache. But -- and correct me if I'm wrong, please -- isn't this a little, I don't know, HYPOCRITICAL? Now I'm not saying calling someone a heifer is comparable to calling someone a nigger. (That was painful to type out, but I did it, because that's the point, right?) But you can't call people out on a public platform for being racist and then turn around and use derogatory language about someone completely unrelated to the topic at hand, who did absolutely nothing to warrant the insult. Not to mention, if Evanna Lynch, the lovely, seemingly average-sized actress who plays Luna Lovegood is your idea of a heifer, I think you have been brainwashed by Hollywood and the fashion industry as to what people really look like. (And I won't even get started on that topic, or we will be here all day. And well into tomorrow.)

Since this tumblr doesn’t have comments enabled, I clicked the “ask me” button and submitted the following question: 

I was directed to this blog via coverage in jezebel and admired you for calling out racism on twitter. Then I got to the post where you call “Luna Lovegood” — I’m assuming the reference is to the actor who played Luna in the HP movies, since you talk about her “looks” — a “heifer.” How can you speak out against racism then be that cruel about someone else’s appearance? The comment was rude, inaccurate, and obnoxious, and it makes me take your blog as a whole far less seriously.

I'll let you know if I get a response.

UPDATE, 3/30:

Although the author of this tumblr, who now has been freaking interviewed by the New Yorker, has not responded to my email either directly or on the blog, he has removed the "heifer" comment from the post linked above. Good call, dude, but I'd prefer you own up and apologize. I have major problems with him getting attention and interviews for being horrified and outraged and willing to call out racists, while harboring other hurtful (if more socially acceptable) stereotypes. 

SECOND UPDATE:

He apologized, publicly, on the blog. Which I very much appreciate, although as I said in a tweet to his twitter feed, he doesn’t owe *me* an apology. And that’s why I’m glad he had the nerve to post a public apology, because when something blows up temporarily like this tumblr did, the responsibility not to be  massive hypocrit is toward your audience as a whole. 

He also says he didn’t mean it in a “sizeist” way, which, ok, but you’d never call someone a heifer as a term of endearment, either. I’m guessing he was upset about the content of the original tweet and used hurtful language unthinkingly, misdirecting his anger at an innocent party. I think this just points out that we all have a responsibility to be careful about language, whether we think anyone is reading what we put out here on the internet, or not.