Thursday, May 28, 2009

Marriage, American Style

I'm listening to a very interesting discussion about the marriage and divorce rates in the US. It seems that compared to the rest of the western world, we marry more, divorce more, and generally have more romantic partners moving in and out. In short, we have high turnover compared to others. A child with married parents in the US has a higher chance of seeing his parents break up than a child in Sweden with parents who never marry.

A sociologist has written a book on the subject, "The Marriage Go Round." He's been explaining his theories about why this phenomenon exists, but has been very polite so far. Here's my less polite take on it:

1. We treat marriage as a path to personal happiness (selfish, immature). Thus when either partner stops being happy, they feel that a divorce is appropriate. At the same time that we all say marriage is good for kids, we act like it must be good for us, or it's worthless.

2. We have very confused sexual attitudes (prudish). We tend to feel that sex partners should be married or marriageable. This results in people marrying because they want to have sex, and getting divorced after the infatuation with the partner dies.

3. We have no idea what a marriage is (naive, thoughtless). We are unsurpassed at creating special weddings, but we have little idea of how to forge long term partnerships with sexual relationships that may wax and wane.

4. We marry for legal and financial benefit (mercenaries who can't stick it for the long term). Actually, this isn't so much jerky behavior as it is necessary because of our legal code. There are many benefits that you can only get through marriage and many others that are easier or cheaper if you are married. Turns out that our government is the only western government to specifically encourage marriage. It's not really working that well. We are also the only ones without some sort of universal healthcare, so we get people marrying for the sake of insurance.

Lots of us like to think that we get married because we so moral and religious and whatnot, but it seems our motivations are much less noble than that.

Monday, May 18, 2009

Insular Annapolis

Occasionally since coming to Annapolis, I've run into people who haven't been exposed to much.  That's the only way I can describe it.  Once it was someone who had never heard of hummus and never tasted olive oil or lamb.  I can understand the hummus, even though it is in most normal groceries now, it wasn't commonly available everywhere until recently.  The other two though, they seem so normal to me, such common ingredients that it's hard to imagine never even tasting them in a life of eating.  I've met several people like this, and I've just figured that everyone has different norms, big country, etc.  Especially easy explanation since there are lots of foods my big city friends and relatives think are normal and I won't touch (pickled herring, followed by the even more abominable herring in cream?).  I've also met Annapolitans who have never visited Baltimore or DC.  Major cities less than 30 miles away, with large numbers of cultural attractions, never visited.  OK, I can see it (with some difficulty).  Today however, I met a woman who told me she never knew a car could be rented until she was hired by the car rental company.  This I do not understand.  How do you watch tv or listen to the radio or talk to friends who've gone on vacation or read a magazine and not realize that cars can be rented?  I've been trying to bend my mind around it and I just can't get there.  Can anyone explain this to me?

Sunday, May 17, 2009

Inglorious Basterd

Have you seen the trailer for Tarantino's new film?  It has captured my interest for two entirely predictable reasons: Brad Pitt and crazy violence.  I have some small hope of being able to go out and see it in the theaters, since we are gradually starting to go out again.  It was before a screening of Star Trek that I saw the trailer for Inglorious Basterds, and I had to put the movie at the top of my mental must-see list.

We are going out a little now because the baby has settled into a routine and we can put her to bed before a babysitter comes and still catch a movie at a reasonable hour.  Number 1 son of course, has been easy to parent for some time.  He does his homework without too much argument, he can get his own breakfast, he can wash himself... or not.

I may have mentioned before that my boy is not that interested in being really clean.  He comes by this honestly, in as much as we have never worried too much about keeping him really clean.  When he was an infant, we'd bathe him a couple times a week, but not stress about the daily dunk unless he smelled.  My mother took to calling me and asking if he'd been bathed that day, as she has a fetish about clean children.  Anyhow, seeing puberty on the horizon, we started emphasizing the daily shower as soon as he was old enough to shower by himself.  It's been going pretty well (except for a hiccup here and there) we thought, but two things have occurred that make me realize that shower time might need more parental supervision:

1. He ran out of soap.  For Christmas, I gave him a large bottle of Chocolate Mint shower gel, which he loved.  Apparently, it doesn't last forever, because he told me last week that he has run out of it.  Okay, I'll get him some more, but in the meantime he can use some regular bar soap, like the one that's been in his shower since we had guests during the holidays.  He said he didn't realize he could use that, didn't see it as real soap, blah, blah, whatever, he'll use it.  Just from curiosity, I asked him when he ran out of the special gel, and the answer was:  February.  It's May.  My son, who has not been using the bar of soap in his shower, has not had any shower gel in the bottle for 3 months.  To re-state, and allow you to absorb the full horror, that's 3 months without soap on a dirty, sweaty little boy.  He never smelled that bad or anything, but I did think once or twice that he was a little musky maybe.

2. Having solved the soap problem (which wasn't a supply problem so much as an application error), I was gazing at my boy yesterday with pride and delight.  What great hair!  Such a beautiful eye color!  What finely shaped ears- wait, what's that behind his ear?  Is that a rash?  A scar?  A bruise from some untold story of school bullying?  You probably don't need me to tell you it was none of those things.  Turns out there is a reason mothers are always telling their kids to wash behind their ears.  I have conveyed this information to him before, but not with any special emphasis.  I admit this was a mistake, because it turns out that my kid was harboring ambitions to collect dirt behind his ears.  Not just any old dirt, this stuff did not come off with a wet paper towel.  It didn't come off with serious paper towel scrubbing, or nail scraping, or a judiciously uttered profanity.  I had to break out a sani-wipe with some sort of crazy solvent before this junk finally gave way to serious swiping.

This may all seem like a serious digression, considering I started with Brad Pitt and a war movie.  But it's just that when I get to this movie, I won't just be admiring the scenery, I'll be comparing the relative filth of the soldiers and my child, and hoping that my child is cleaner.


Wednesday, May 13, 2009

My So-called Life

1. Why don't I post much?
Because I'm trying to finish grad school, and I'm depressed because I've spent so much time in grad school.

2. Why do I write so much trivia about the baby?
Duh.  Because she makes me smile and feel like I'm achieving something.  

This is not to say that raising the boy is not also an achievement, but he is rapidly becoming a self-steering child.  We apply small course corrections, and then stand back and watch him progress.  It is exciting, but except on the rare occasion (bat to the face, garage door debacle) there is not much to write about that is lighthearted and trivial.  

The baby, on the other hand, is the source of all that is light and trivial in my life (except Fug) (and stupid commercials)*.  She is not yet crawling, but she can scoot around while sitting up, and is quite mobile.  Her big interest now is food (surprise!).  We took her out to a coffee shop last week while Hunter was at Sunday School.  See, I could be writing about my rather tortured reasons for having him go to these classes, but since my religious ideas are equally tortured and (I fear) somewhat shallow, I'll spare myself the embarrassment.  So anyways, we're in this shop which sells coffee and books but is somehow not my favorite place to be, and I purchased some quiche to share with Britt.  (Even though Sunday school doesn't start until nearly 11, we usually have not had breakfast by then.  Make of that what you will.)  Apparently the SS Ward was also hungry, so we started giving her bites too.  This turned out to be a mistake, as we all discovered that quiche is her favorite food in the entire world.  All of us as in her parents and the customers of the shop, who all turned to find out why the baby was screaming when the quiche was finished.  Well, that's all fine and good and very cute, except the partypooping pediatrician who insists that young babies shouldn't be eating eggs.  This is something that is in the books too, but I was ignoring it because I think the books are FOS.  There are a couple of things I won't give her, like honey (botulism risk) and coldcuts (disgusting, half-rotten pieces of nitrate cured meat), but generally I feel that the food restrictions for babies are a combination of voodoo and wishful thinking.  Every once in a while there is a new report about food allergies in children, but since every other report contradicts the one that came before, they are not much help.  For whatever reason, the doctor's insistence that I shouldn't give her eggs is sticking with me.

To help this frail resolution to be a conforming, careful mother, I made a quiche Monday night.

I made it to make breakfast easy this week, because we are tired, and sick of cooking and tired, and bored with the usual breakfast.  It is the best quiche I've made to date, and I've enjoyed every bite.  The boy thought it was delicious, which is really a triumph.  The good ship Schuyler screams every morning while we eat it.  This means every morning starts with a hearty round of laughter as we savor our lovely, creamy, cheesy breakfast and she gums up her Cheerios and spits with fury.  Please don't think less of us because we are willing to taunt a defenseless baby: we have to get our licks in now, before she can talk.

*Is it just me, or is that commercial sort of racist?  That's in addition to its incredible vulgarity.