Sunday, May 25, 2014

Glurge and its downside

Last week I referred to the fake job interview as glurge: syrupy sweet stories of questionable accuracy. It is very popular; I used to get a ton through e-mail, and I still see some through social media, though I think a lot passes me by. It does give that initial rush of emotion.

The one applicant who said "Moms are the best" clearly was moved. After hearing about the impossible job requirements, that no one could do or would want to if they good, and then hearing "mother", she probably remembered her mother working hard for her and making sacrifices without any paycheck, and was touched.

If she had thought about it more, though, she may have remembered that her mother did in fact sleep and take breaks, and maybe that her mother was not a great cook, or that sometimes her mother read her diary, or that they had a lot of blowouts over things she was allowed to do, but then she would also remember specific good things, like good talks they shared, or how some of the restrictions in retrospect were exactly right. You get a person instead of a paradigm, but you love the person in a way the paradigm could never inspire.

My reason for getting irritated of glurge is that it robs the truth. Real life, unvarnished, is full of amazing and touching things. It is also messy, so sometimes fiction can focus various true things in a way that while it is not real, it still is, and because it is labeled fiction you know how to weigh the truth in it.

What we have here though is something that is false but passing itself off as true. To do that, it stays shallow. It is an imitation, which is I guess why this type of thing is so often described as "saccharine". And, I don't believe it's harmless.

Sticking with the fake job interview, the ostensible purpose is to celebrate motherhood: Moms are great. Yay!

However, it is saying they are great in a way that they actually are not great. They didn't even go into a fairly realistic general description; it equated motherhood with straight masochism. Maybe it feels that way sometimes, but if the mother is actually looking for punishment she may have issues that are not helpful to her happy family.

Sure, it might make a lot of women who aren't mothers feel like crap, and it might make a lot of us more cynical types roll our eyes and twitch a little, but I see a real possible outcome of making some hardworking but imperfect mothers feel insecure by reminding them of all the things that are not good at, but feel like they should be, when in fact a lot of it does not matter.

Shortly after I posted last week I noticed that the real difference in between what I said about my friends and what the video said about mothers is that with my friends, there was individualization. They do some things the same, but other things they do pull from their talents, their abilities, and their personalities. They are people.

Getting back to The Feminine Mystique, the focus became so much on making a home and motherhood that there was nothing else for the woman. She was unsatisfied, and she was doing something that everyone said was important, and rewarding, so why was she unsatisfied? And no one could put their finger on it.

So, next week we will go into that a little.

Sunday, May 18, 2014

Placing the wrong value on motherhood

Last week was Mother's Day. I know that some childless women have a hard time with this. I do have my moments when not having children does hurt, but usually they don't hit on Mother's Day, possibly because I focus on my mother. Father's Day is actually worse for me, and even then it tends to be more that I zone out. So, I wasn't really anticipating anything for church, but then I ended up getting very irritated.

One of the speakers referenced a fake job interview. I was able to find out more about it later, at http://www.adweek.com/adfreak/24-people-who-applied-worlds-toughest-job-were-quite-surprise-157028.

The problem is that they overstate the job requirements. Mother's may be on call all the time, but that is not the same as never getting to sit down or never getting to sleep. Yes, there are time periods where sleep is a lot more scarce, and it is really common for mothers to be on the verge of breakdowns during those times. If it was like that all the time, no one would be able to do it. And it is not any weakness in those mothers that they need sleep.

There are no degrees in medicine, finance, and culinary arts necessary. A first aid class is a great idea, and there are classes that specialize in pediatric home care, which is also great, but that is not the same as a medical degree. That level of expertise is not needed, and pretending it is devalues the work that goes into in. Basic finance knowledge is important, but not to the level of a degree. Feeding your children is important, but it doesn't need to be fancy, and some mothers are bad cooks, and still good mothers.

I thought I heard something about a degree in interior design too - maybe that was just in the talk - but that is so unimportant. A nicely decorated home is not nearly as important as a loving and supportive one, and if the home is too nice that could end up getting prioritized over freedom of movement, which would be bad.

I don't want to sound anti-motherhood; I totally am not. I do think that if we truly value something, we don't need to inflate it by making it sound like more than it is. There are pitfalls to that.

I know many women who are excellent mothers, and they all have different strengths and different things that they do. Also, they go in different phases. Sometimes they are more focused on one area than another, based on their family needs. It is hard, and it does involve sacrifice, but they also find gratification, and yes, they get breaks (especially the ones with supportive husbands).

So I admire the way Ericka has thrown herself into scouting, or what Jennie is doing with art, and how Jen explains things to her children and focuses on consideration of others. I could spend a lot of time on them, and others, in what I have seen them do, and the things that I notice about their children, and drawing the relationships between the skills and training and talents that they have, and how they bring their selves to their mothering, and it is awe inspiring, and more so because it is real.

It is probably worth noting that I have just finished reading The Feminine Mystique, and the problem in that case was that they were trying to make being a wife and mother something it was not. Women would subsume their entire personalities into their home, but it wasn't fulfilling. So they would drink or have affairs or have nervous breakdowns or commit suicide. Even in the church, I have seen a few women suddenly go a little crazy when the children leave home, and leave their husbands and leave the church, and it makes more sense than it should.

Parenting is important, and valuable, so it's worth looking at with realistic eyes, not fluffy glurge.

Sunday, May 11, 2014

Garden Report: May

I know we're not very far into May, but a lot has happened.

I planted the garden on April 28th. That should be the single most laborious thing that I do there. You feel working the soil, and you feel weeding, but the planting was more stooping, more digging, and much dirtier. I had thought maybe I would split up when I planted the plants and when I planted the seeds, but I ended up doing everything on the same day.

I worried about doing any seeds, but everything I was reading made it sound like I could still grow peas, beans, and pumpkins from seed, so I bought those, and I had received a seed packet for crookneck squash at an event, so I decided to plant those too. I bought three tomato plants, a six-pack tray of zucchini, another of marigold, and then five strawberry plants.

Once I started planting, everything seemed to go wrong. For the quantities that I had, and the recommended distances apart, and for what I had read on companion plantings, straight rows did not seem like they would work. The tomatoes are basically in the top row, with some marigolds, and then at the end of them the zucchini start, but they are in a cluster that moves into another row. To accommodate this, the strawberries are in kind of a W formation. To accommodate that, the beans start at the end of the strawberries, and curve around in a J-formation.

Beans and peas were the two things that were really supposed to be separated. Experienced gardeners have told me that doesn't really matter since then, but I was worried about it, so the peas are in the lower left corner while the beans are basically in the upper right corner, if you don't count the tomatoes. That left this diagonal swath for the pumpkins and squash. The squash have the upper left quadrant and then the pumpkins have the lower right. That was mainly because I can get in a second planting of peas, but the pumpkins will mature last, so it made sense to have them closer to the beans, I think.

Clearly, my patch is the least organized and messiest in the garden. Some of the other gardeners have amazing set-ups, and then there is mine. Still, the important thing is that it was planted, and could grow, and I felt good about that, until I saw how quickly the soil hardened after planting, and worried about that.

Despite that worry, little green shoots started popping up. Then I started worrying that they weren't deep enough, and would dry up, and then we got heavy rain, and I was worried that they would all be flooded out. Despite that, I still keep getting more green shoots, now with leaves, right on schedule.

The zucchini leaves that came with the plants seem very weak, but the stalks just started getting stronger, and it looks like they are putting forth new leaves. The tomato plants have not been getting taller, but we have some sunny days ahead, and that might do it. The squash are the only things that really seem to be lagging behind, but that was the gift packet, so anything I get is a bonus.

I suppose the first benefit of the garden is the endless entertainment. There is always something going on, and to me it is a real nail-biter. The second benefit, however, may be a reminder that I don't need to bite my nails. Things do work out, and this is still essentially a learning year. If that continues, the third benefit can be fresh fruits and vegetables.

It has been a remarkably social thing. I know three of the families with plots, but I almost never see them there. However, I see other people, whom I don't know, with plots, and we exchange pleasantries. Also, people without plots are interested, and will ask questions and want to look, and children will often want to help, and you can see where the community part of the garden comes in.

It's a good experience so far.

Sunday, May 4, 2014

Different soils

This is not exactly a garden update, but it is inspired by the garden.

I have planted it now. If you will recall, I had worked in a cubic foot of good soil, and I had turned over the regular soil before that, and when I was putting in the seeds I worked that area with a trowel, and was really impressed by how efficiently that broke up the soil. Imagine my dismay when on my next visit, after some rain, the soil looked all hard and solid again.

Again, in this area the soil is very clay-like. It takes a lot of work to get good crops. And often where you have that naturally soft and rich loam, I think that happens in flood plains, where there are other problems. I am glad not to live in a flood plain, but now I am wondering if any seeds will even be able to sprout and poke their way through, and if water will make it to the roots, and I tried doing some minor aeration, but it felt ineffective.

The stresses and worries of gardening, about which I am apparently quite neurotic, will come out in other posts, but this is mainly about the parable of the sower, as found in Mark 4 and Matthew 13. I have taught lessons on this before, and we have talked about how all of the unreceptive soils could be changed to be more receptive, but I hadn't really thought about the aspect of staying receptive. Soft soil can turn hard again really quickly.

I should have known. Weeds certainly spring up quickly again after having been cleared out. I knew that. You would think that once you have cleared stones out they would stay cleared out, but sometimes the way there are stones where there clearly should be none, I don't know, maybe they can come back. And soil can definitely harden again, far more quickly than you would think.

I suspect that for all the appearances, it is actually not quite as hard as it was before. Also, I could have worked it more, and those are all things that I will try and learn about and read about, because after all, this is my learning year. If I don't get much of a crop, but I learn enough to have a better one next year, that is acceptable.

It also won't be the end of my learning. I should learn a lot this year, where the increase in knowledge is notable, but that won't be the end of it.

My spiritual receptivity is going to be like that too. I have gone through various periods of refinement, and sometimes I know when it is happening, but not always, but it is not the end. My heart can soften, and then it can harden again. I can get too busy and careworn, and then simplify, and then start finding good causes and get too busy again. There's a back and forth push and pull as we try and get it right.

And, even the rocky, hardened weedy patch may produce some good fruit, just less than if it were better worked. I am working on it.