Lady Gaga Versus The Culture of Fear

I’ve been wanting to blog about Lady Gaga for some time now. My husband adores her. She speaks to his European soul. I’m not so convinced. The first time I heard Just Dance, I thought the song rocked, or whatever kids say now. And then I heard the lyrics. My first thought was, “not my daughter!”

I’m not so middle-aged that I can’t remember, vividly, what I did as a young adult in my late teens and early twenties. The “Just Dance” experience of being so blitzed that I didn’t know the name of the club, let alone where I’d left my friends, was the least of it. It’s not a period in my life that I’m proud of. Mostly I’m just glad I survived it. I’m not prepared as a parent to watch my children go through similar experiences. I’m terrified about what could happen to them, especially my daughter – which makes no sense since boys are just as vulnerable as girls. It can keep me awake at night. What if they get drunk? What about rufies and drugs? In my day everyone worried about AIDS, but now – it’s like a free for all! Kids not only think they’re invincible, so is everyone else, and it’s just not true. We’re delicate and easily damaged. I’m starting to hyperventilate.

My family recently went through a bout of the flu, and while I was up at 3:00 in the morning listening to my baby’s laboured breathing and coughing, checking out his fever, I started to worry. Did we have H1N1? What were the signs? Should I pack everyone up and head to the hospital in the middle of the night? Should I get the kids vaccinated? What happens if I get it? I have significant allergies that prevent me from getting the flu vaccine. I mentioned this late one night or early one morning to my husband who quickly lost his patience. “You always think you’re going to die when you get sick. Would you please stop it?! It’s the flu. It sucks, but it is what it is. If it was fun they’d call it a party.” I did not receive this editorial comment well.

After a cooling off period, as I was doing the dishes with my mp3 player on, to drown out the sounds of sick children and my opinionated partner, it occurred to me that he was right. Again. *sigh*. This fear of the flu inspired me to purchase more than $65 worth of over the counter medication for the family. It drove me to the clinic twice (which is where I probably got the flu in the first place). I can recite by heart the danger signs of H1N1 for adults and children. I have the sites bookmarked on my blackberry. Yes, 35,000 people in North America die of flu related illnesses each year, but the vast majority have underlying medical conditions or are elderly or otherwise medically compromised. Wait, do my allergies count? Am I compromised? What if...?

That’s the key. What if? I refuse to go to psychics or spiritual advisors because I don’t want to know what happens next. I really am enjoying this life, my family, the choices that I’ve made which have led me to this moment. But I keep anticipating disaster. I used to think that fear kept me alert, but it doesn’t. It distracts from the moment, from what is real, and the anticipation of disaster becomes the goal itself – my own rufie blacking out my common sense and knowledge of what’s important, serious and life-threatening.

Lady Gaga sings that “we may be plastic but we still have fun.” She’s wiser than her age. Enough of the culture of fear – fear of the flu, of the neighbour, of the sound of sirens, of the latest news, of growing up. It’s time to embrace the plastic, and kick the rest to the curb. Let go and just dance. Lady Gaga 1, culture of fear 0.

G.I. Joe vs. Momzilla

The babysitter came tonight and my husband and I went out for an intimate, relaxing early dinner, followed spontaneously by a movie. We didn't want to go home before the kids had been put to bed, and really couldn't think of anything else to do. The "creamery" ice cream experience, which had cost us $16 for two the last time, was quickly vetoed by me, but that's a different blog.

My sweetie told me that the only film he'd be interested in seeing tonight would be G.I. Joe. My husband is 30-something, and he remembers the toys and the cartoon, so it was a little bit of nostalgia combined with the desire to see some heart-pumping action. I really didn't care either way, and knew up front that Julie & Julia would be totally out. So off we went, with our popcorn and supersized soda to share.

What followed was action packed, superficial, and ultraviolent. I should clarify though...it wasn't violent in that you saw limbs blown off or very many gratuitous killings or maimings. If I was a 13 year old boy (or girl for that matter), it wouldn't even occur to me that thousands of people would have died had the action been real. But the car smashes, buildings blown up, planes vapourized, all that represented the unknown, unseen characters that make up the "population".

When I became a mother, I became a mother to the world. Bombings, plane crashes, drownings, violence against children, I feel it all. I can extrapolate the pain and horror and apply it to my life. I am still riveted by the individual tragedies unfolded nightly by the news. I know I'm not the only one. My friends tell me the same thing happens to them, nor is it limited to moms - fathers feel the same pull, but I think deal with it differently. I think dads intrinsically know there are things they can't change or affect, while moms - many of us haven't accepted that we're not in charge and can't rescue everyone.

G.I. Joe is not A History of Violence (I still can't pass a motel without seeing images from that film), Slumdog Millionaire, or Resident Evil. It's possibly more stylized and comic book than Transformers. But if I have anything to say about it, my kids won't be seeing it until they're at least 14. Yet, for all of my self-righteousness, I found myself telling my husband how much I had enjoyed it. And I did enjoy it. It was fast paced and kicked butt. So where does that leave me?

Back before we were parents, my husband and I used to let off steam by playing the video game Doom. It was a first-person shooter game that took place on Mars or some place in outer space. It really didn't matter. What mattered was there were really yucky monsters that devolved into even yuckier corpses when I shot them with the mouse. We'd play this for hours - him driving using the cursors and me shooting using the mouse. We'd talk about what we'd do when we had kids - dressing them in little Doc Martens and baby Rage Against the Machine diaper shirts, exposing them to a wide range of music, art and thought.

Now, umpteen years later, parents of three, nearing middle-age, my husband admitted as we were driving home that he couldn't stomach the G.I. Joe cartoon when he was younger. "We'd just come from Italy," he said. "The militarism of the cartoon was hard for me. We still have conscription - there's no choice. Italians know what putting the military in charge leads to - it's fascism." Our children can watch Bugs Bunny, but not Power Rangers, and certainly not Transformers or G.I. Joe. We have exposed them to a wide range of music and their favourite is Doo Wop. Nudity in classical art ("mommy, why is 'the Thinker' naked?") is ok, but fashion magazines are banned. I have become a censor for my children, but haven't applied that same morality to myself. Maybe it's time.

The violence of Doom has evolved into the proxy killings of Call of Duty, which I would never let into my house. I used to snicker that my mother, who ran kids programs at a local library, would only read young adult novels. She'd say, "I like them. They're so well written they don't need to be gratuitous." Now, finally, I understand. And while I'm waiting for my friend to lend me Julie & Julia, I think I'll take another look at Judy Blume or S.E. Hinton. They're more my speed. Stay gold, pony boy.

The Most Important Person in a Marriage - The Babysitter!

My honey and I went out on a date tonight - nothing fancy, but more than the usual run to the cinema to see the latest blockbuster (his choice) or romcom (my choice), where popcorn is our dinner as we try to squeeze a week's worth of relationship into a miniscule but expensive three hour block.

This night we chose to forego the celluloid and focus on each other. We allotted three and a half hours, and went to a nice pizza place for dinner. The conversation was riveting, quiet, and while acknowledging how awesome our kids are, focused on each other, not the offspring. I learned something new about my husband of many years - he's fascinated by engineering. Who knew?!

This new knowledge was made possible by our babysitter - a university student who's parents are friends of ours. She's a responsible, strong, intelligent, flexible and forgiving young woman who doesn't seem to understand the force she weilds within our relationship. If she's unavailable we don't go out, don't get time alone, don't get an opportunity to connect, talk without interruption, gaze lovingly into our own navels confident that the other is as intently interested in all the navel's caverns and whorls as you are yourself.

We are lucky because occasionally we get an additional night off when my in-laws come over, but babysitter time is different. It's guilt free. We can go and squander our time and our money and not worry about the reaction we'll get when we finally come home. Approaching the house when my in-laws are there, I still get the same tightening of the gut, the same shortness of breath, anticipating the looks and/or comments that truthfully I haven't heard since we were married. But I remember and so does my body.

Our babysitter is expensive. We want to make sure that if it came down to a choice between a job and us, that she's seriously consider us as her priority. And we trust her, which is invaluable. We wouldn't leave our kids with just anyone. Our neighbour down the street leaves their children with a twelve year old. I couldn't do that.

But our babysitter is in the driver's seat, and we're well aware of it, even if she's not. When she's happy, we're happy, and the kids are happy. And for a couple of hours, my love and I get to experience life as it will be later when the cacophany, diapers and insomnia are past, and we've moved on to new challenges as parents and as partners.

Happy Birthday - Cha-Ching!

(photo by Johnny Blood. http://digital-photography-school.com)

My daughter is turning four soon, and I suppose I began planning her birthday party the day after her last one. I tend to plan elaborate, fairly complicated, grand events. Oh, and expensive, too. My eldest son had 22 kids at his last birthday party which we had at Chuck E. Cheese's. Thank god for Grandpa. His present to my son was the party itself, which clocked in at an exorbitant amount, even by my standards.

So as I was running through the options for my daughter's shindig, my husband casually said, "Are you sure your doing this for Gigi? You know, she's four, right?" Apparently, 'them's fightin' words!'. I got my back up, he stood firm, he got righteous, I got self-righteous, he got indignant, I honed my obstinance. Oyve. Three hours later, when we were able to speak to each other again, and I had realized divorce was not a reasonable response to the question, we actually began to discuss the party - why we were having it, what the options were, how we would make the decision.

Is it reasonable to spend upwards of $200 for a preschooler's birthday party? Should they have anything outside of family celebrations at all? When I recovered from the sticker shock of my son's party, I spoke to a couple of friends about it. One mom of three, whose opinion I respect on all things, told me her daughters hadn't had birthday parties until they were 8 or 9, and then only with 2 or 3 friends. Another friend only started having parties once her kids were in school, and then only at her house.

I contacted a variety of service providers - animal wranglers who come to your house, indoor playgrounds, tea party hosts, cooking schools, plush animal stuffers, and without fail each event was in the neighbourhood of $15-20 per child, meaning $150-$200 for 10-12 kids, plus taxes, loot bags, and cake. Is this really reasonable? What are we teaching our kids by having such elaborate affairs every year? Why am I compelled to enter into this hysteria and pathological consumption?

I really don't have any answers. I think in part the providers recognized a viable market and are exploiting it - more power to them. It's a sweet gig, it makes kids happy, and hopefully pays the rent. But am I creating little monsters who will feel entitled to massive celebrations each year? What happens when we don't have a blow out? What will the fallout be?

I justified my son's extravaganza, after the fact, by rationalizing that our family doesn't have extended family in our community. We adopted friends and neighbours as our extended family and we don't really entertain except for two birthday parties a year, so they aren't really birthday parties, but really, really large family get-togethers. That carried me for six months, but now it's down to brass tacks. If it's really true that the bashes are more than just birthday parties, then my husband's question is valid: who am I really doing this for?

Tragedy

Tomorrow/this morning bloggers and the local media are going to be awash with opinions about the CUPE No vote on July 15. Most opinions aired by our two local media conglomerates (Canwest and CTV Globemedia) will be negative and particularly distasteful: "...greedy civil servants with cushy jobs and job security...no one else has what they have...if I don't have it, why should they!"

I am disgusted by these comments. I can't put it more strongly, how revolted I am that there are people in our city who actually believe that if they don't have something, no one else should either. It's an unChristian view that destroys communities, it doesn't build or create commonalities. Why should we expect only the lowest common denominator in our collective lives? Government is US not THEM, whoever 'them' is. It's us collectively working together to provide what we could never be able to on our own. It's US creating ways of living together, 230,000 people in a relatively small area, rules for living that we can all abide by.

We now have 1,800 taxpayers off the job for nearly a third of a year. These people are the ones who provide early learning to our children, register our businesses, issue bingo licenses for charities, run our children's drop in centres, arts or sports programs, inspect buildings and playground equipment, pick up the trash and mow the parks and sports fields. Their income, which comes from tax dollars (ours and theirs), helps support local businesses - corner stores, retailers at the mall, supermarkets, downtown bars; and non-profits - children's sports clubs, cancer charities, club memberships, etc.

People are losing their homes - not just strikers, but the people who depend on the city workers for their business. When Chrysler announced they would be eliminating the third shift at the minivan plant (1,200 people), we were all sad, because we all know that for every job in the Big 3, there are 7 or 8 jobs that depend on the Big 3 money. The city strike has half again as many people out, but no one is talking about how many spinoff jobs CUPE wages support. I can tell you, civil servants consume just like the rest of us, buy gas and oil changes, buy knickknacks and trampolines at Costco, support fundraising drives for local charities and arts organizations, pay membership in hockey associations and baseball leagues. This has gone on long enough. This isn't a strike anymore - it's a tragedy for everyone involved.

Is Barney Evil?

This morning my husband told our five year old that Barney was evil. Sigh. I had muttered that sentence in response to my son's question about why he couldn't watch Barney last year. I said it, under my breath, with my back turned to my son as I walked from the living room into our bedroom. My husband, lying on the bed, didn't realize I hadn't actually said it for my son's ears and repeated it loudly so our boy could hear it. What a pickle.

Our son's response was, "Oh." For a five year old that means he'll store it and process it at a later date. It also means that a rehash is forthcoming, probably at the most inopportune moment, like at the doctor's office, or at the Ontario Early Years centre, or at a play date, parroted back to his friend's mom. My stomach is in knots when I think about it.

But am I right? Is Barney appropriate viewing for children in the 21st century? The values of "happy family" and "let's all get along" seem fine enough. Sure the high pitched voice and the flailing armlets are pretty annoying as an adult viewing it, but from a child's perspective?

I know our kids are mesmerized, which I think was the original point - a non-violent babysitter who socialized kids appropriately. Barney isn't flashy (by modern standards), doesn't shout at the kids like Dora and Diego do, doesn't have quick edits like a music video like Bunnytown or some of the other Playhouse Disney shows do, and seems to have more educational content than the Doodlebops (which I refuse to let our kids watch, ever).

In the era of full-day early learning promised by the Province, where society is focusing on early childhood education as opposed to babysitting, nursery school or daycare, where preschools advertise their curricula, Barney seems just a bit archaic and quaint. The kids are squeaky clean, the special effects of the standard that most four year-olds could create on their own with iMovie, and the music is...well, let's just say it's not Yo Gabba Gabba. The premises are sweet and very simple, with no real conflict or arc. And that's not bad. My son puts his fingers in his ears whenever he's alarmed that a character has done something wrong or that there will be conflict (possibly because my parenting style involves lots of volume). That never happens with Barney - it's stress-free viewing.

Today's life puts little children under an enormous amount of stress - they hear or see death, destruction and fear everyday when their parents watch the news. They are bombarded with genderized, sexualized, monetized images of people in various states of distress on billboards and bus shelters, in ads and in magazines. They hear their parents discuss layoffs, foreclosures, and debt. Children are very aware of their own lack of control, and to see adults have little control over their lives undermines all the positive messages we put out.

So, no. Barney is not evil. Barney is a vacation for our kids - a temporary respite from the day to day stress every family feels. And why not - my Barney is called Grey's Anatomy!

Ward Boundary Review

Why shelving the WBR is the fair thing to do

Council voted today to shelve the Ward Boundary Review and keep the status quo for the next municipal election in November 2010. I think this is a good and fair decision.

The consultant did his job by meeting with Councillors, holding three public meetings across the city, and going on local radio programs to discuss his report. The report argued that the status quo was not a viable medium to long term option because of the disparity in populations between the wards (specifically wards 1 and 5 vs 2, 3, and 4) - suburban wards have been expanding and core city wards declining. The report was detailed, the maps were great, and the options (5 wards, 2 councillors each, adjusted boundaries; 10 wards, 1 councillor each, adjusted boundaries; 8 wards, 1 councillor each, adjusted boundaries) explained in detail, and, most importantly, the populations balanced across the wards.

The problem with the options as presented is that community assets are not balanced across the wards, the new economic circumstances of the city are not considered, and diverse neighbourhoods are mishmashed together. Let me explain: I met with the consultant back in February to discuss my concerns as a Trustee. He advised that it wasn't in his mandate to balance services, schools, rec centres, etc. through the wards. His mandate was to balance population while taking into consideration the diverse local cultures within various historic neighbourhoods.

I believe that a consultant undertaking work of this nature has an obligation to advise their clients that re-jigging the political boundaries in any community requires more than just population data be considered. People don't live in a vaccuum and you can't create amalgamated communities overnight. Many attempts to do so have met with abject failure. One example in our region is the amalgamated Town of Essex which seems to debate the secession of one of it's parts on an annual basis. Combining neighbourhoods like Sandwich Towne and Bellewood Estates into one ward makes no real sense. The communities have nothing in common.

I certainly have a stake in this. As a Catholic Trustee representing Ward 3, each of the options would have significantly altered my ward and the constituents I represent. One option actually put me in a different ward altogether, based on the neighbourhood in which I live. Some of the options actually result in wards without schools, with only secondary schools, or only elementary schools. The chaos that would have resulted from choosing any of these options would have, in my personal opinion only, thrown our board into complete disarray. I strongly believe that we would very likely have ended up opting for a modified "at-large" election of trustees similar to what the Public board does (4 trustees from Wards 1, 2, and 3 combined; 3 from Wards 4 & 5 combined). I don't like at-large elections because the wards that get the most representation are the wards where people actually come out and vote. Voter turnout in areas of poverty or economic decline are historically lower than suburban areas of relative prosperity and civic engagement.

Speaking of economic decline, the report uses population data from January 2009. The issue with this is that many of the major layoffs weren't announced when the data was collected. My observations regarding enrolments in core city schools for September 2009 are that the out-migration from the core to the suburbs has slowed significantly enough to suggest it's either stopped altogether or is being balanced by in-migration from the suburbs by families who have lost their homes or cashed out of their big mortgages and opted for something less expensive. I also believe, but have no proof to base this belief on, that families are looking to relocate near extended family (grandparents, aunts & uncles, etc.) in order to save on child care costs. But I digress...Let me sum up: shelving it was the right thing to do, although I know the issue will raise it's ugly head again after next November.

I Choose Nutella!

How dare he! Jason Kenney, overpriviledged Minister of Immigration - the man that let Abousfian Abdelrazik rot in the Sudan for six years and is now leaving an autistic man in Kenya, even though they are full Canadian citizens - the man that said immigrants should be denied citizenship if they don't speak English or French - now says that children of immigrants would do better if they did not grow up in 'silo' communities that resembled their parents homelands. What??? Has this guy even been to Little Italy in Toronto? Either of them?! He probably thinks Ragu Pasta Sauce is authentic Italian cuisine. Dear heaven.

I thought we were a proud mosaic of nationalities and cultures, MULTI-cultural and vibrant, not a melting pot where everything becomes homogenous and bland. And what are this guy's credentials that qualify him to be Minister of Immigration? Well he was born in Oakville in 1968 - now it's pretty multicultural, but in 1968? He grew up in Saskatchewan, where he attended Notre Dame College. A fine, fine school - but private, and again, not known for it's multicultural student body in the early 1980s. Known for it's hockey, also a deeply multicultural sport in the early 80s (we have English AND French players!)

But here's something interesting - his own website (http://www.jasonkenney.ca) says that Kenney was the President and CEO of the Canadian Taxpayer's Federation before he was elected to parliament. Hmm. Isn't that a small business lobby group? Hmmm. Aren't immigrant families very likely to create small businesses? Many of which service their cultural communities? So I have to ask: has Jason Kenney forgotten his own past?

The CBC reported that the Minister said, "We want people to be Canadians first and foremost - to be proud of and maintain their own tradition and heritage, but not at the price of developing their Canadian identity." Perhaps he thinks that Canadian identity means a single family house in a suburban cul de sac with a big, green lawn and two cars, where the family speaks English at the dinner table and eat mashed potatoes and roast beef with Yorkshire pudding for dinner and cereal with milk for breakfast?

Since when did we start asking people to choose? To choose between their immigrant parents and their Canadian friends? To choose between their traditional language and English (or French - wait! The choice between heritage languages and French has been going on for quite some time in some parts of our country!) To choose between Nutella on toast for breakfast or cold cereal with milk? Why isn't there room in Canada anymore for Nutella? As the wife of an immigrant, as a mother of first generation Italian Canadians, as a daughter who still can identify my parents cultural heritage even after 150 years in North America, it's very clear: I choose Nutella!

Welcome!

Motherhood, education and politics. Welcome to my blog. I've never been the kind of girl to keep my opinions to myself, for better or worse. And this is my opportunity to share on a grander scale than my husband, mommyfriends, or children provided, not that they aren't great - they are! And my blog will mostly be about my day to day experiences with them, as well as my take on local Windsor, ON events and news, things happening around the world, whatever I think may make good reading. I try to have fun, laugh everyday, and hopefully some of what I share won't be shrill, strident or obtuse.

For now, here's a brief run down of some of the issues getting my knickers in a twist: Immigration Minister Jason Kenney's overpriviledged, obtuse remarks about immigrant children; how a judicial ruling has changed how and who communities will elect as municipal politicians (and not for the better); the neverending story of the City of Windsor municipal strike (it's not JUST about garbage!); is it wrong to want some time off from my kids?; Thomas Mulcair (NDP Deputy Leader, MP Outremont) visiting Windsor (and my procrastination in doing my volunteer calling to members and instead creating this blog!); and lastly, why do those home-made minivan ice cream trucks make me think of serial killers?