On Whining

I once knew a woman who halted her kids’ bratty chat with the simple phrase: “I don’t speak Whinese.” Sadly, this one liner never worked in my house. My kids would mostly look at me with this “what kind of nonsense are you sputtering now” kind of look, and go right back to whining. Ignoring them when they talk that way has worked, which I guess is the more literal form of “I don’t speak Whinese.”

As in, “Huh? Wha? Are you talking to me?”

I’m not sure exactly what the topic on the radio was today – maybe it was Britney Spears or something about how marriage can be hazardous to your health – but for about an hour or so, the banter seemed to center around our “whining” culture. There was a constant train of conversation about how we as modern Americans have become so weak in our ways, so entitled, so… whiny. (I was ready to agree even before I started watching Ken Burns’ “The War,” but I am completely down with the idea now… to a degree.)

At some point in the radio show, a mom of three junior high school boys with the crabby husband who was spending all their money called in say her a marriage was affecting her health. I listened when she explained that after so many years working outside the home, she had recently decided to work from the home (mostly to watch her boys and the father-in-law who was living with her family) and that now, she was suffering from high blood pressure and panic attacks. I listened to this woman, who described how her husband would rage at their financial problems (mostly caused by him), and how she worried she wasn’t cut out for the job she seemed to be assigned. All I could think was, damn, I hope this woman has some friends and also, how brave to share her problems with everyone ON THE RADIO.

The host responded in the way that she usually does, mildly catty, mostly benign and repetitive, but then, unhalted by her, caller after caller proceeded to destroy this woman, this “whiner.” One said, “Why did she have three kids if she didn’t want to stay home with them?” with no regard to her financial situation or her own desires. The next, unmarried and older, couldn’t understand why married women could bitch so much – her mother, who raised her in the ‘50s, never complained after all, not ever ever, never, not once.

Maybe she didn’t. Maybe she never read Betty Friedan either.

Do we "modern" women whine more now than the women, the wives and mothers who came before us? Maybe. Or maybe it’s just that we have a louder voice and the confidence to use it. Is burning your bra “whiny”? Or something else entirely?

Let’s be clear to ourselves and the culture around us: there is a big difference between whining and complaining.

Whining is a negative, desperate lament, which at the root implies -- why me, woe is me, oh poor me – as if that lament could change an outcome. (It shouldn’t.) A complaint is an aggressive acknowledgment of something wrong, or a wrongdoing, or of a problem that needs attention. Generally speaking, complaints get action. (And they should.)

Look at it this way: children who whine never get cookies. Children who complain about earaches get the care they need and deserve.

People whine when they are powerless and can do little else to reach an end result.

People complain to point out a problem, to spark debate, to force change.

I complain all the time. I complain about my kids, about That Man, about my kids’ schools, about speeding on our street, about our community in general, and about all the other (much bigger) problems in the world. I complain all over the place: here, in this virtual space (what a relief!), and with my friends and family when the shit comes up, and even to the powers that be in my town and my state and even my country.

Sometimes complaints rebound in helpful advice from another who knows better or more. Sometimes complaints create pacts and plans and petitions, and lo and behold, you get Stop Signs. And sometimes complaints change laws (think: the 19th Amendment) or governments (think: the future).

Women DO complain more now than they did in the 50s, that’s for damn sure, and I am proud of that, and I am grateful for that.

I wish I had a cell phone with batteries that always worked because I would have called into that radio show to defend that woman, who though probably reaching out in the wrong direction, was reaching out nonetheless. She was expressing a legitimate complaint and she needed and deserved some help, or at least, a friend.

When you feel the urge to whine coming on (which hell knows, I have had), please think of this man, Professor Randy Rausch, whose words are such a beautiful testament to “no whining allowed” and also, “what really matters.” And I bring some of his words to you, in this link, courtesy of Margaret, who by the way knows her way around a complaint and the difference between that and a whine.

http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2007/09/018520.php

And if you want more of what he says, make a complaint here, and you know, see what happens.

Laughed Out Loud

Which is rare for me really. Sorry to be so video heavy (did I mention it was hot? or that I am bored). This Anita Renfro bit is genius. Promise that later this week (when it cools down) there will be less vids and more words. Until then, OMG -- love it!

Music for a Hot Day

When my girls were toddlers they would sing this Nelly song all the time at bath time, or whenever prompted by me, which I did often mostly to embarrass my family. This version, by Jenny Owen Youngs, is pretty sweet, especially for a 90 degree fall day in New England.

Comments are for YOU

Comments are for everyone, Devlyn: even you.

Click on the "comments" icon and you, too (!), can lay your burdens, er, thoughts down.
Click on the "comments" icon and you can see how others laid it down.

There aren't any rules about who can say something here (Devlyn); it's free speech to the umph.

Try it. It feels good.

As I said to Sarah, it feels like a virtual dinner party -- except no one interrupts. How great is that?

Del Puckett - Charlie Brown - Linus and Lucy

Oh Happy Day.

It's War Too

I am an admitted pop-culture junkie. Love the reality TV, the celebrity gossip, music, film and most everything else that sweeps up the masses. So while I didn’t watch it all (I swear), I did check in with the Emmy’s the other night and saw Sally Field get bleeped.

If you don’t know what I am talking about – good on you for reading literature or meditating or sleeping through it – but basically, she was censored for saying a bad word.

Sally said some compelling things in her speech which most of the media is NOT talking about. She said or something like: "May (mothers) be seen, may their work be valued and raised... especially the mothers who stand with an open heart and wait -- wait for their children to come home from danger, from harm's way and from war."

And then she said (and even though it was not aired, you could have guessed it): “If mothers ran the goddamn world, there would be no wars.”

I like Sally Field, I really do. (I once watched her dance -- with Andy Garcia -- to a Cuban band I was working with in LA and she looked great enough for me to be alternatingly jealous and happy.) And I don’t like war, I really, really don’t. But with regard to that one line, that news-ticker money maker, I gotta beg to differ.

I know what she was implying: it's beyond words the pain of a woman who buries her son or daughter killed in combat. But there's more to it than that.

If she was suggesting that women are better mediators or negotiators, that might be true. God knows, we chicks like to talk. We are experts at saying aggressive things to one another in about a thousand friendly ways – and we almost never come to blows afterward. We are all for non-violence: just think about how many times we say “hands are for holding.”

But have you seen a mother bear defend her cubs? Usually someone dies. Threaten our kids, our homes, our everything? Most mothers will fight like the crazed Ninja killers they never knew they were.

Engage us en masse? We can organize in a second. Consider the moms with sick kids who team up over broadband with other moms to advocate for and actually make change in the medical community. Consider the moms in crime-ridden neighborhoods who raise fists to the infiltrators killing folks in their communities. Consider the moms with children in foreign conflicts who fight for effective battle armour in the military community. Consider how quickly you can figure out childcare for a mom who’s sick in your OWN community.

Do we start conflicts? Not so much, at least not so much historically, but history also has many examples of fierce and blood-thirsty warrior women, many of them mothers. Motherhood is not for wimps. And when one of us loses one of our own to war (or Autism or cancer or drunk driving) we rage against the machine with such a ferocity, the entire world feels it.

That’s war too. And a good and worthy fight for sure.

Pissed and Vinegar

I’ve been struggling for an hour to come up with the perfect opening line. By struggling I mean: pacing around, making dinner, talking on the phone, putting the kids to bed, smoking butts, and switching between the radio and the TV for distraction. I have not been “writing” per se, except for in my head -- where naturally I do my best work.

I’ve convinced myself that the perfect line will sum up all the piss and vinegar of this day so well that I will become so satisfied with it that my anger will simply just melt away.

Instead it boils down to this: there is no perfect line for a pissed off day. There aren’t even really sentences for it.

But bullet points work -- mostly because they encourage reading between the lines – so I offer some here, all pissy and without editing:

1) Children should say thank you to the paid employees or volunteers who run the activities they are involved in.
2) Parents of children who do said activities should do the same.
3) Do not complain about something completed if you were not involved in completing it.
4) Your opinion only matters when you express it. Find a way to express your thoughts. No excuses. Email it. Or write a letter.
5) Vote.
6) Even if you want to say “No”, find a kinder way to say it. “No” is a great word, and I encourage it, but be respectful of all the people who always say “Yes.”
7) It is not difficult to slice oranges!
8) When you’re doing all the work and notice someone who is as well, say “Thank you.” It matters and you might be the only one saying it.
9) Do not, as someone who is running an activity for my child, be angry when I go to said child who is bawling and barely breathing and hiccupping with distress and say, “she was fine until you came down” when you know full well that I was watching every minute from a very far distance while that kid who never cries cried uncontrollably. Until I came. Helped her, and sent her back to you because she is not a quitter, which you should have noticed.

God, I’m a bitch. I am also pathetic in the way that I hang on to my upsets, and even more pathetic in the way I express them.

My grandmother was a do-er of the first degree, and my mother too, so it’s in my blood. My grandmother was also WASPy polite and contained like my mom, so I regret (sometimes), as I am sure they do (all the time), my public beefs. But they loved manners and really, isn’t that all I am talking about now?

It’s been a long time since I wished more people would do the work that only a few people do. It doesn’t bother me anymore, but it does make me want to throw in the towel from time to time. I know there is a small minority in every town (like yours) who sign up to do the stuff that needs to be done. I understand as well that the people who don’t either never will or have reasons for not doing so, but slicing fucking oranges? Who says no to that?

And by the by, some of us are not coming to our crying kids to annoy you or because we baby them, but because we actually have a reason to be there and the ability to help.

Piss and vinegar in my veins only turns me sour. So I leak that crap here, and hope against hope that I become better for it.

Still, I worry and wonder: am I the only one who has these pissy days? Really? Is it just me?

Most Wonderful Time or Black Tuesday?

7:15 Everyone awake and almost dressed.

7:30 Hair brushed and tied (a wasted effort on Girl #2 who will yank out braids somewhere in between snack and gym); kids fed, photographed; everyone antsy.

7:50 Walk to school with Girl #1. A quick kiss outside the door and she’s gone -- a nervous bundle of new-school-outfit trying so hard to be calm.

8:00 Waiting on That Man to pick me up.
8:03 Waiting.
8:05 Kind of pissed.
8:07 Did he go to the wrong corner? Forget about me? Decide to take Girl # 2 to school all by himself and deny me the pleasure? Is he lost? Can’t find Giant Three Year Old’s shoes? Does he EVER listen?
8:09 Waiting. Wave to friends in cars. Try to look casual and relaxed.

8:10 That Man, Girl # 2 and Giant Three Year Old pick me up on corner to drive the three blocks to the next school where we will not a find a place to park.

8:15 Get dropped off. Walk Girl # 2 up to her classroom, send her off with a Hang Loose hand gesture; do not receive one back. Leave anyway.

8:25 Greeted by friends who have dropped off daughter; they serenade us with “It’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year…”

8:35 That Man drops Giant Three Year Old and me at home. We are alone together again.

8:45 Self-satisfied sip of ice coffee (graciously purchased by thoughtful husband, the coffee that made him late; feel mild guilt for earlier crankiness); make list for the day.

8:50 Receive email from friend who calls today “Black Tuesday” -- I think she is sobbing on her keyboard.

8:53 Make note to self: figure out if I am more “Most wonderful time…” or Black Tuesday kind of mom.

9:30 Giant Three Year Old mosies into kitchen: “Well, that’s that. Let’s go pick them up.”

You can imagine what happened from there – pretty much the 30 minute intervals of peace and play and activity punctuated by “Is it time yet?” “How about now?” “Now?” And then, naturally, when it finally was time, he couldn’t be bothered to go anywhere, didn’t like the way his shoes felt, wanted to buckle himself (oh lord), and needed in some OCD way to get in and out of the car four times once we made it to the school to pick up Girl # 2. (This last effort would have had me perplexed and googling “compulsivity in preschoolers” but he saved me from that when he smiled, all nasty-like, upon his final exit, and said, “Mama, is this funny or pissed off?”)

Then it was onto the schoolyard and the gaggle of anxious parents of new Kindergartners sifting through the more seasoned school vets, all of them waiting for their kids to unload from the building. Everyone was neatly dressed and all of them, or most, were making the same kind of huggy-kissy love that comes with the first pick-up on the first day back at school.

Me? I slunk to the corners, sucking my summer sitting-on-the-beach-all-day-too-much-beer belly in and hunkered down by the stairs where my child would soon descend. I tugged at my t-shirt, held my son’s hand and realized how lucky I was to never feel this way all through school and wondered why I was feeling this way now.

A lovely woman came over, an almost-friend (you know that kind? the kind who should be a better friend and you’re always just on the verge of getting there but your spontaneous bumping-ins come at the worst times, like at the grocery store with three kids?) – that almost-friend greeted me so warmly, with such encouraging non-small-talk kind of talk that it was just the thing I needed to get over my first-day jitters.

My daughter came soon enough and was happy (read: exhausted) enough to escape quickly with me. And we did. Home to greet Girl # 1 who walks home. No homework tonight, but forms to fill out, and routines to begin, which we did, despite the coaching meeting I needed to attend at 6pm with all three in tow. (The meeting was outdoors. Seems good right? But Giant Three Year Old learned that stomping on bleachers makes an hellaciously gigantic noise.)

Off to bed with them. Me alone. That Man on a business trip. Nothing on TV. Time to get back to that earlier note to self.

“Most wonderful time?” No. It was a great summer all in all, despite our lack of camps, and I already miss our lazy mornings and knowing them the way I did these last few months, even when they were pissing me off. Black Tuesday? No. I am happy to see them off and curious as to what will become of them this year. And after Thursday, when preschool starts, maybe I’ll get that haircut I am so desperately in need of, or just drive around for four hours, ALONE, in my car.

It is in some strange in between place that I find myself now. All gangly and misshapen and weird in my skin, as I felt this afternoon at pick-up, so I am when it comes to me as mom now. I’m not the mom of three under five anymore (to be pitied? to be helped?) and I’m not quite the mom of three who are all off to school and sports and friends’ houses (early empty nest? begging to have tiny bodies at home, sweaty heaps to cuddle up to?).

I think I am the gawky tweener of Momdom.