So one more mother’s day thing. Though it’s more of a parenting in general thing.

I had to work really hard to overcome what I had learned as a child that a mother was. Mothers were screaming beasts who you could never do enough for. Mothers loved you sometimes and other times told you that they hated you and wished you’d never been born. I never saw myself as a mother when I was a kid because I never wanted to be that monster. And then I got pregnant and this kind of overwhelming sense of love and protection kicked me in the ass.

But just that overwhelming love isn’t enough to keep you from being a monster if all you’ve ever known is monsters. You have to work at it, really hard. You have to say to yourself, over and over that this is a person you love more than anything in the world and you wouldn’t want anyone, including yourself, to treat them badly. It wasn’t automatic. I’ve certainly forgotten myself a few times. But I admit my mistakes. I examine them and apologize for them and never repeat them once I’ve figured it out. It’s a grueling process. It is hard to look at yourself honestly and acknowledge your flaws. But it’s worth it.

So then I read this from Matt Damon’s mom, who knows a thing or 2 about children.

‘I tried to “let go of the rope” and get on the same side of problems with them and solve things from that shared place. This helped both Matt and Kyle develop a strong inner core of confidence and self love. They didn’t have to get distracted by power struggles with me. Granted, I was the parental authority in the home—I was a single parent—but I never had to impose my will on them.’

I like this. Letting go of the need to dominate a child is a big deal. You get all kinds of shit for it, treating a child like a full fledged human being with a will and a purpose of their own is considered child abuse by the “spare the rod and spoil the child” folks. Hell I get all kinds of grief for letting Kid be the introvert that he is and not forcing him into social situations that he hates.(I’ve not yet met an introvert who thinks that being forced to be social as a kid was good for them).

Right now Kid and I have been in the midst of a cleaning fest. Kid unloaded dishwasher while I picked up trash from unpacking boxes in the living room. Kid then picked up the little shit off the floor that I have a hard time reaching while I loaded the dishwasher and cleaned the kitchen. This is how we work. I hate to nag. Really hate it. And he hates to be nagged. So we divide up the work and conquer. I do occasionally see him pulling the teenage trick of “oh I’ve forgotten how to do this chore I’ve done a thousand times” but rather than turning that into a giant power battle, I remind he that he knows how to do it and then drop it. His not wanting to do chores isn’t because he doesn’t love me, but because nobody likes doing chores.

This has become a long rambly post. Ooops. The point is that the Kid is a human being and that is more important than the fact that he is also my kid. I don’t own him. I give him

I’ve been seeing a lot of very thoughtful people talking about the death of bin Laden from a human rights point of view. And every point they’ve made is legit.

But…….

This wasn’t random joe gunned down in his house before we had proof of who he was or if he even had any involvement. Osama bin Laden openly and plainly declared war on us. He proudly took responsibility for deaths on our soil. What would the result of arrest and trial have done for us and him? He still would have been executed. But in the process he’d get a chance to spew more hate and gain more followers and his body would then become a shrine.

Until we can live in a warless, stateless world (and yes I am enough of a sucker idealist that I believe that can happen) then we have only a few options for justice and protection. In the imperfect world we have now, I am a champion of good intelligence work and surgical strikes against proven (that’s the key word, proven)enemies who have committed violent acts against us over full scale war, where innocent civilians die by the thousands so that a few assholes can die with them.

We never should have gone into Afghanistan, and the death of OBL proves that. He wasn’t killed in a traditional battle, but in a small action by a small team. he wasn’t killed in Afghanistan. (Though I do wonder if the drone strikes in Pakistan were part of the reason we got the intel about OBL to begin with. Were the drone strikes some form of International Uncle where we keep killing until they say enough?)

Don’t worry, I still don’t like Obama. But this is one of the only actions that I may actually agree with. We should now be able to pull out of Afghanistan since all pretense for war there is literally lost in the ocean (if you believe the reports) but I know that won’t happen.

I just got one of those compliments that at first glance seems like it’s ok but if you listen to the nagging, churning of your stomach you realize it’s really just some exceptionalist bullshit meant to keep well within patriarchial guidelines.

‘You look like one of those cool moms that’s a partner in crime with her son or her man. Not the garden variety Seattle area mother hen growing old in fleece pullovers and mom jeans and Birkenstocks and fanny packs! You know what I mean?’

My first reaction was to be the superbitch I know I can be and throw the same kind of “compliment” right back at him with a “wow you look like the kind of black guy who’s articulate and doesn’t show his ass in baggy jeans while listening to gangster rap! You know what I mean?” But he doesn’t know me and that kind of sarcasm would be lost without the fuller context. For the record both comments, his and mine, are tools of the patriarchy. So I refrained and you all get a post instead.

Compliments that aren’t really include some method of setting you up against your own group as better than. You are the exception. You’re supposed to be grateful because someone has just told you that you’re better than the group you belong to. In my case, mothers are supposed to be boring, sexless old kill-joys, but I’m hot and fun so I can be the superhero sidekick to a penis-waver! Sweet. All I have to do is agree that people like me suck, do everything I can to not be like people like me and maybe I can get a number 2 spot to a child or man.

There isn’t actually anything wrong with being a mother hen growing old in fleece and birkentstocks. That shit is comfy and I freely admit to spending more time than I should in yoga pants (though I don’t own birks, fleece or mom jeans. But that ain’t the point). There is also nothing wrong with being a black man who wears baggy pants and listens to gangster rap. (Though I’m not a fan of the misogynist rap, but again NOT THE POINT). The construction of compliments like this are meant to keep us isolated from others like us who might, I dunno, all come together to say “Fuck you and your crappy system! I don’t have to be pornorific hot all the time, or ever to be valued! I don’t have to shed all of my cultural markers just so that the oppressors find me worthy of second-class status!”

So instead of being straight up bitchy, this is what I sent back:

I’m sure you think that was a compliment. But it’s not actually all that different than if I said “Wow you’re articulate”. I don’t need to hear insults to other women to feel good about myself. Thanks for trying though.

Apparently when enough people complain loudly (or maybe enough of the “right” people) then we can stop our government from torturing citizens.

EDT: you can send Manning a letter even.
Bradley Manning 89289
JRCF
830 Sabalu Road
Fort Leavenworth, KS 66027-2315

So at some recent point this little blog got it’s 100,000 visitor! Whoooooopeeeee.

But this means that Echo, the crappy commenting platform that exactly no one likes, is now charging me 10 bucks a month instead of 10 bucks a year. That’s why comments look so funny with the all caps and not popping out like normal. I don’t know how to fix that. I think it might involve an even more expensive monthly option to do so. I am looking for a cheaper commenting platform that will still give me iron-clad moderating options and let me import old comments into it, but that seems to be hard to find.

But anyways, 100,000k. Hurray!

Damn do I hate this holiday. Here’s why:

1. Mothers are treated like shit throughout the world (except maybe in Norway). We are paid less than other people, even other women. We are thought to be stupider, less able to perform paid work, etc. etc. We are more likely to be killed by our partners while pregnant than to die from pregnancy complications, at least in this country. Childcare is expensive and/or low quality. Child support collection sucks. We still do more unpaid work than fathers do. And to make up for the fact that without mothers there would literally be no future (no babies= the actual end to the human race)we get one stupid hallmark holiday where we get cheesy cards and brunch. I’d rather have the cash, thank you very much.

2. Mother’s day started in the US because Julia Ward Howe was tired of watching sons die in the Civil War. Today we have, what like 4 wars going on where sons AND daughters are dying and have been for nearly a decade. But we’re going to send flowers and cheap gifts and no one will mention the wars in relation to Mother’s Day. Fuck that shit.

3. My own mother is an asshole. I have spent years, and will spend many more years trying to undo the damage she has done. Every child deserves at least one parent that loves them, but I would have settled for just one parent who wasn’t intent on causing me actual harm. I could tell you all how a huge part of the abuse that I suffered is based in sexism and how it was a generational problem. The boys are loved and supported, the girls are treated abusively to “toughen them up”. It was the early recognition of the unfairness in my family that made me a feminist. My mother is also the ultimate rape apologist and to this day, when she has lost an argument she will throw that in my face. She doesn’t realize how that just cements her assholery. There is nothing to celebrate in that relationship.

4. I have an awesome kid and we have a really good relationship. I don’t play the martyr “oh look how much I’ve given up for you” shit because I chose this life and I haven’t got a single regret as far as having the Kid goes. And to be honest, if I hadn’t experienced the overwhelming unconditional love that I have for my monkey boy, I would never have been strong enough to tell my own mother to fuck off. So he can skip the card. I know he loves me. No need to prove it.

So fuck mother’s day. I don’t need it. I will, however be throwing a brunch for my dear friends. Not because of mothers, but because I am a fabulous cook and I haven’t had a food related party yet. We’ll picnic on my living room floor (since I still don’t have furniture) and watch it rain on the Space Needle while eating frittata and drinking mimosas.

The Boxcarkid’s Blog is over. If you’ve never read it, it is the blog of a single, graduate degree educated mom and her kids who have had to move into a tiny trailer because of unemployment and foreclosure. She is one of the nouveau poor and it’s hard when you realize that the bad spots are going to longer and worse than you thought. And the good parts will be, well less good than before.

Poverty increases the likelihood of depression. Depression isn’t an overly pessimistic view of the world, but a realistic view devoid of hope. The reality for the poor is pretty bleak. I spend a lot of time just pushing back necessary things to a day where hopefully things will be better. I push back dental care (see kid’s recent abscess and the $660 that made me cry in public). I push back clothes buying. I haven’t bought underwear for myself in at least 5 years and it’s the last thing I do for the kid. Shoes, pants, shirts, underwear is the order of clothing necessity. We’re taking care of shirts (thanks Aeryl!) so underwear are next for him. But the constant pushing back of things you need is a drain. Keeping a running list in my head of what’s needed, what has to be paid, what’s desperate and what can wait a few weeks, months, years, takes up a lot of head space that could be put to better, happier uses.

This is all just a long way of saying poverty sucks. You’re in it for far longer than you expected to be. It’s hard to find joy in it. And it can be a very lonely place, waiting for a happy ending. I will miss the Boxcarkid’s. I hope they get their happy ending soon.

I’ve had more than my fair share of wine this evening (with Syyyyyylllllvvvviiiaaa and Amanda Fucking Panda, not less) so any random babblings are prolly due more to alcohol than anything.

But in the gleeful grossness of celebration, us USians may have forgotten that Canada is in the middle of an election and voting is today. Damn hard to type after 2 bottles of tempernillo and some proseco. Do I get bonus points for being able to type for that?

Anyways, if anyone is Canadian or Canadian by proxy, what’s going down with your elections? Inquiring (but inebriated) minds want to know.

She went to the fancy wine store and I’ve had a large portion of 2 bottles of tempernillo (how many brownie points do I get for spelling that right?)

I am told that these guys are the Milli Vanilli of Europe. But as they say que sera sera. I am tipsy, obvs.

Is what I keep reading. And uhm NO. The guy that got us into 2 wars was Bush.The guy that’s kept us in 2 wars and added 2 more is Obama. We did kill the guy responsible for 9/11, for the earlier bombing of the World Trade Center and for the deaths of countless others. Bin Laden was a murderous bad dude. But the wreck that is our country, from the ridiculously skewed income disparity to the removal of civil liberties pat by pat in airport security lines, is all us.

Think about how Bin Laden was killed. A small team went into a country we are not technically at war with and killed him. There was certainly no need for war with Afghanistan (since he was found in Pakistan, and not even close to the border). And we know that Iraq had nothing, nada, zilch to do with 9/11 yet people still keep talking like he was the reason, not Bush’s daddy complex or oil, that we are in Iraq.

I fear that people may be putting too much hope in the death of this one man to change things for the better.