Wednesday, December 3, 2008
A Really Talented Kid
Anyway, I was pretty disappointed with the dad when Josh was asking him what would happen if he lost. How is, "It's not going to happen, don't worry about it?" a good answer? That's just saying that a loss is incomprehensible and possibly incomprehensibly bad. Would it have been so hard to say something like, "Well, then we'll go home, have dinner, you'll go to school on Monday, practice some more, and then get 'em again at the next one."
This is also kind of something I've talked about with Katie. Should a kid be doing lots of things or focusing on just one thing? I never had a thing growing up, but Katie was really into riding - competitions, every day at the barn, every summer at the barn, that sort of thing. I guess I think that if that's what the kid wants to do, then sure, do the one thing and be good at it. But then there is that line of when do I push the kid to be really good? Josh obviously likes chess, but does he want to be really good? The dad sees that potential and is ready to push, but the mom does not want to push. Who is right? Suppose kid does turn out really, really good, but isn't happy or well-adjusted? Was it worth it? What if kid turns out happy anyway? What if he doesn't actually turn out really good? What if he turns out unhappy even without being pushed? Is not pushing just a concession, a deprivation of the chance to even be really good? Is it that important to be really good? What is good enough? I hope I have a kid that's just above-average and don't have to worry about this. But then am I limiting my kid already by not wanting him/her to have some sort of outstanding attribute? Ahh! I don't know!
Last Blog Post
Movie Themes
The father is the breadwinner of the household, the mother seeming to play every bit the housewife. We see her cleaning, preparing dinner, transporting children to and from school etc. while the husband works as a sports writer/commentator. What’s interesting is that the movie doesn’t play up the gender specific roles; instead it focuses on the emotional roles of mother and father. In part I think we have not read about this because it is more of a spectacle than anything else. A writer would also not be able to carry his/her own agency if he/she were to imagine or infer what his/her spouse was feeling. The emotional characteristics of the mother seem to fall on the stereotypical nurturing persona of motherhood. Thus the mother is seen as an intermediary between her husband and child. In one particular scene the mother breaks her shell of normal complacency she when she tells her husband that the child will not stop playing chess with the bums in the park. The father’s emotional characteristics involve his father/son bond. In the sports field we see the father root for his son’s success in baseball. In one particular scene the father/son bond is really clear when the father helps his son fix a baseball glove. The emotional background of the father isn’t necessarily typical of the father, but perhaps the stereotype stems more from the image of a father throwing a baseball with his son.
As an audience member we see the frustration of the son in his transformation from chess being just a game to something more of a competition and pressure to be the best. I actually can really identify with this boy’s emotional conflict. When you are good there is a pressure to stay on top. However, there is always a fear of losing and what the consequences are for that failure; what does that mean not only to oneself, but also to those who support you? In a way I’m glad that the boy threw the game in the end, if not to prove his unhappiness as a way to show his father that there is more to life. However, I also think that the boy will always have a fear of success. Does this mean that every time he does well he gives up? This is just something to think about.
Lastly, I would just briefly like to mention that the sibling relationship and how that is stereotypical, but at the same time diverges from that stereotype. The initial stereotype is that the boy plays baseball, while the girl plays house. The mother virtually shows the girl how to be a mother by taking her shopping for groceries, while the son is left to play chess or baseball. In part this is because the girl is young. The stereotype divergence occurs a little bit when the brother takes the time to play with his sister and also her communicative skills via words and hugs/kisses towards him. It is not often, at least in my experience, that children want to be with the one other. But then again, this might turn out to be a stereotypical big brother protection.
Monday, December 1, 2008
Gender Roles
In that essay, the author thinks she's met this wonderful guy who is all about dividing up domestic work equally and doesn't expect her to spend her time on "woman's work." But then they go to visit his family over a holiday, and what happens? He turns into the stereotypical man. His mother does all of the cleaning and food making, and he doesn't even offer to help! And then she finds that she's invited to help clean up and make food, and anyway, she feels like she ought to be helping out anyway. Or at least, I think this is what happened in the essay. It's a little confusing because it's almost exactly what happened when we went home.
My mom (and my dad, actually) made all of the meals (including Thanksgiving dinner) and I never offered to help. I set the table once. They did most of the cleanup too. I emptied the dishwasher occasionally, and always cleaned up my own dishes (most of the time), but I wasn't making an effort to clean up after everyone. And I don't really know how to feel about this. My parents didn't expect me to do more than I did, and it certainly didn't annoy them that they were doing most of the work. I know how much I need to do to keep them happy, and it's not a lot. And the amount I do now, and that I do without whining, probably makes it seem like I've come a long way.
But there were other times when I cleaned up when I didn't want to, when I felt like I got suckered into it. These were the times when Katie offered to do the dishes, and I couldn't just abandon her. So the two of us ended up doing more than we needed to, and Katie felt like she didn't do enough.
And then there was the one time I did abandon her to play basketball with my friends. I left after dinner while several relatives were still there. My parents had no problem with that, as I had planned the basketball first, but Katie was displeased. Never, in her family, do you leave a gathering of relatives to hang out with your friends. This seems misguided to me. Relatives will always be relatives, but friends can fall out of touch and cease being friends.
Anyway, when I returned two and a half hours later, Katie was washing the dishes and was obviously pissed (which is awkward with parents around because we have to suppress this tension). How come I got to go out and have fun, and she got stuck doing dishes? She said she still had a lot of fun with my relatives after I left, but still, I left! She got stuck with the woman's work!
There was another incident where I went upstairs to do some work on my computer and my mom asked Katie if she wanted to help make a pie. Katie said sure, because she's unfailingly polite, and helped. We both know that something like this is also an opportunity for my mom to spend time with her, which is of course nice, but still - I was allowed to go off and do my own important work, and she got stuck in the kitchen.
There were more examples as well, one of the larger ones being that Katie kept feeling like she was doing stuff wrong, so that my mom kept subtly (and nicely) correcting her. I think the worst part is that we don't know how to fix this. We decided it would get better in time as she gets more comfortable in my house. But one of the biggest problems is that Katie likes cooking, doesn't mind doing dishes, etc. Yet when she's doing this because she feels like she's supposed to (because she's the girl), it makes her miserable.
Other than that, and that it took 11 hours to get home from Philadelphia (which means I'm posting this today, instead of as last week's entry, which it is), Thanksgiving was fun.
Takes a Village
Except, when you use a village to raise a child you have to trust the villagers. Each and every person that you take advice from or ask to help watch you're kid you have to trust. Especially on the internet this can be tough to do. People are cruel and they judge as much as they help. The blogs I looked at censored negative comments and warned in the blog posts themselves to be nice. There was a need to claim that mean comments were not helpful, but the internet is a big scary anonymous place and people are going to be harsh. This harshness seems to spiral into guilt on the part of the parents and I'm not sold on the fact that that's so helpful.
I think that its pretty incredible how many people are willing to share their entire life with others through books and blogs. With this new place to share comes vulnerability and all parents open themselves up for that in their circle of friends and family, but the writers we've looked at open up to their entire audience of strangers or the entire blogging community. A couple of the author's we've read have given disclaimers in their writing about what they are willing to share (Alternadad doesn't offer drug talk advice for example). Yet there is still so much personal information offered out to the world as Bernstein said in order to reach other people. This puts parents in a vulnerable position and they will most certainly run into cruel villagers.
So the question for me is, is it still worth it to have a big vast village of readers. It seems clear that a close knit village is important, but a virtual anonymous one or a vast book audience one seems dangerous and to hold to little privacy. Does this mean that this genre will die out? It looks like that's not going to happen any time soon.
Sunday, November 30, 2008
all you need is love
Saturday, November 29, 2008
The Dark Road
Secondly, I’ve come to realize how much advertisement and the media seem to obsessively focus around mothers as targets and subjects, leaving the fathers curiously exempt from scrutiny. Just turn on the television during the day and you will see what I mean: an overwhelming barrage of ads show why choosy moms choose Jiff or why mom should buy this laundry detergent over another. You would be hard-pressed to find an ad for dish soap featuring dad’s dishpan hands! It appears that this is one area of culture which has definitely not been altered by the waves of feminism since the 1950s. The women in the Bitch in the House wonder why their husbands/boyfriends seem to be oblivious to housework. The answer could be that there are little to no media images featuring men doing domestic duties. Men are simply not “taught” that housework is something to master and get a handle on. I find this somewhat bizarre in the year 2008, this side of the 21st century.
Finally, it amazes me how much having a child seems to take from a person. Even Neal and Regina Pollack—two folks who definitely fought hard to maintain their individuality in the midst of parenting—came away changed in crucial ways, guilty, self-remonstrative and wondering at their parental credentials. While they did seem in certain ways to very much love being parents to Elijah, they still fell down all the same dark roads the other parents we read about did before them. I think this shows us that, no matter how much we read about parenthood, or how many papers we write on the topic—we will not know how much it will change us until we do it. It appears that no matter your intelligence or education or professional aptitude, parenthood takes tolls that are impossibly heavy. I suppose soon-to-be parents should just suck it up and get ready for a bumpy ride no matter how “ready” they think they may be.
I hope that when I decide to become a dad that it is out of a deep desire to nurture someone else and not to merely bring fulfillment to myself. I have learned that once you have a child your life ceases to be your own. And parenthood is not something you just can stop doing when you get tired of it. Parenthood is forever.
Monday, November 24, 2008
An Attitude Change
Regina Pollack is not much different than most of the mothers we have read about. She has the disease known as mother angst. She constantly feels guilt, stress, failure, fatigue, and regret. Regina’s husband takes note of her unhappiness:
“I may have grown confident in fatherhood, but Regina remained in constant conflict with herself. In my opinion, she denied herself happiness, deliberately maneuvering into the regret and self-pity that can often attach itself to mothers as they grow older” (290).
While I cannot provide the universal answer on how to deal with all the negativity surrounding motherhood, in many cases (including Regina’s) I think a simple attitude change is the best start. Although fatigue cannot be avoided with an infant, the other negative feelings commonly surrounding motherhood would improve with a positive attitude.
In particular, the work/home balance is a major problem mothers face. Regina, like many mothers is conflicted between dedication to her work and the duties and responsibilities of being a mother. As a painter she has a flexible work schedule. However, even with work flexibility, Regina appears depressed over the situation.
“Look at me. I wanted to be a world-famous painter by now. And I’m nowhere”
“I’m never going to get there...”
“I just know that I’m going to have to give it all up” (290).
I’m not saying that balancing work and kids is easy (far from it), however; I think Regina should give herself some credit and make more time for her painting. In her case, she has a husband who seems willing to allow her more time for her work. “I wanted to help her recapture the shared thrill and need for adventure that had characterized our life before we’d had a child. But she wouldn’t meet me at that mental place” (290). Neal seems to allude to the fact that there is a mental problem standing in the way, and while I think Neal is an idiot a lot of the times, I agree with him here. An attitude change will not make all the motherhood issues resolve, but it would help. With a husband who is willing to help out, the mental problem is even easier to solve.
Whether a child is mentally retarded, cries non-stop, or simply likes to stick objects up his nose, I believe mothers are extraordinary women and can handle it with the right attitude. Although a multitude of factors play into motherhood and each mother’s experience, I think attitude is everything. A positive outlook (I know, easier said than done) could significantly impact a mother’s experience.
Saturday, November 22, 2008
Assorted Thoughts
First, I was thinking back to very early in the novel, where Pollack is talking about the alternative families he knows, and he mentions a father and son who remain best friends despite the son being well into adulthood. (Sorry, I don’t have the book with me for an exact quotation.) But Pollack seemed impressed with this relationship, almost as if it occurred to him that hey, wouldn’t it be cool if my kid was friends with me in his thirties. This view turned me against him for awhile. I think that parents should be parents, not friends. I’m not saying that parents and children shouldn’t enjoy their time together, and spend time together, but I don’t think either should be the dominant social figures for the other.
Second, a note about being cool: I think it is commonly accepted that the cooler you try to be, the less cool you end up being. Pollack should take note, because his efforts sometimes seem a little desperate.
Third, I rocked out to classical music when I was little. So I’m afraid I can’t offer any congratulations to Pollack for teaching Elijah to like the kind of music that Pollack thinks of as objectively good. Little kids like to be crazy, and if you give them the chance, they will be. So its not taste, its being a kid. I’m not sure Pollack has accomplished anything that any other father has.
Fourth, I liked the last part of Alternadad much more than the first. For all my negativism, I don’t dislike Pollack any more than I disliked the other parents. He was often a pretty cute dad.
Ideas I had for subjects within the parenting genre:
Get a 6 year old to keep a journal. (How? I don’t know.) Have the narrative riff of this structure from the parent’s point of view. This would probably work best if they were living an already unusual lifestyle.
“How to Parent from Prison”
Being a parent during a war, in a refugee camp, or any event occasion where there is a great deal of external conflict. I wonder if in these cases the external conflict always outweighs the demands of parenting. If it doesn’t, this could be an interesting story. Hopefully there would also be humor. I’m envisioning a scene where a bomb explodes a block away, but the kid is more concerned with sticking grenade fragments up his nose.
I think a version of Perfect Madness where the anecdotes are drawn out for longer would be interesting. Maybe this would be a collection of mini-essays, like a combination of Perfect Madness and The Bitch in the House.
Thursday, November 20, 2008
Not so Alternadad
Wednesday, November 19, 2008
Response
Earlier in the class we talked about the fact that Regina feels guilty about sending her child to school. It seemed to us to be a good idea to try to relieve some of that guilt for the mental health of both parent and child. However, when strangers judge you to be such awful parents that you deserve to have your child taken away from you it is hard to see how you can not feel guilty and that you are not living up to the rest of soiciety's standards. As Neal says in an earlier chapter the world excpets alot from moms.
Every child will have their own issues and no matter what happens you can only do the best you can with parenting. Regina and Neal seem to understand this, as do the 1 out of 3 responses to the biting episode that are positive rather than judgemental. Especially since these well informed parents were so panicked that they listened to bad advice from a supposedly reliable source of their school it just doesn't seem fair to place all of the blame on only them.
The only other thing that I had to say this week is slightly extracurricular. I am playing for the drama school's production of Into the Woods this week, so I have so far listened to they entire show about 20 times (only 4 more to go) which has let me mull over the plot and symbolism of it alot recently. It seems to tie into this class very well because the main plot is about a quest to concieve a child and what happens once lives have been ruined in the process of getting that child. It has alot to do with how that child is raised and grows up into adult hood as well through other side plots. It has absolutly made me think about the fairy tales that I want to see being passed down to children and this line of thought reminds me greatly of Neal deciding which books to read and even deciding which music to listen to, the lyrics of which are obvoiusly teaching Elijah as they go. The media that children are exposed to is so important but I feel like its impossible for parents to control this entirely and it is definitily not possible for them to be able to inepret what their children see for them. That will be Elijah's responsibilty and right and there is nothing that Regina or Neal can do about it. Into the Woods drives that point home for many of its characters and I would recommend it as a relevant show to this class.
Alternadad: A Tragedy?
Pollack proclaims: “Show me a perfect parent and I’ll show you a liar…we did the best we could,” but as much as his writing tries to pick up where it began with its rock-out, “who cares” attitude, railing against society and all of its stupidity, I found it faltering—ultimately unable to recover: “A miserable legacy of failed adulthood loomed before me…life was a hopeless journey into a bottomless abyss, only occasionally punctured by ironic Brazilian vacations. This truly was the end of the end” (317; 325). While attempting to be hopeful and rebellious by the book’s finish with “‘What we going to do in Los Angeles Daddy?’…‘Whatever the hell we want to, son,’” I still felt unsatisfied. The artistic, intellectual Neal at the beginning of Alternadad, so intent on remaining himself—refusing to conform to a judgmental society, seemed a far cry from the more worrisome and broken Dad by the end: “‘No,’ I said. ‘Elmo wants to give SpongeBob a kiss.’ That was the moment that I officially stopped pretending to be cool” (299). Wherever the controversy might lie in respect to Pollack’s coolness level must fall silent upon his own admission of defeat. Fatherhood has ended his quest for coolness once and for all; and it is a sad day for Alternadad.
It might be because it is so late at night that I have taken on this somber air of pessimism. Flipping through the pages and looking again at the family’s dynamic does seem to add some hope to the melancholy picture I’ve described: “You’re not a failure at all,” Regina reminds him. “You own a house. You have a wife and a son and a dog that love you. You support your family doing work that you love on your own terms…for some people that’s the very definition of success” (281). He seriously contemplates giving up smoking pot. But during the scene at Target, Neal cries because he wishes he “could give Elijah more, could be more for him. I just wanted the best for my family, and I felt ashamed that I couldn’t give it to them” (337). I suppose that we could view the ending as something other than a tragedy if we remember Bernstein’s idea of perfection as unstable peaks and valleys: “I knew that both good and bad awaited us in California. My family would convulse many more times, only to repair itself again. Careers would rise and fall. There would probably be a major earthquake at some point. But it had still been a long time since something had exited me this much” (344). The most hopeful lines in the book, I believe, are uttered by Elijah himself, when he states that “I see many beautiful things when we’re in the car, like trees and houses and flowers and oranges” (334). He seems happy and optimistic even if his worrisome, now-uncool parents are no longer are able to be. Perhaps, as Jill suggests, we should take our lessons from the child and not the parents. Maybe, aside from being peacemakers, they are the ones with the real answers, and are the ones who keep parents constantly surprised by the little ways that life reminds us of the happiness and contentment we’ve forgotten on their account in the quest to be perfect parents in an age where this has become a true and utter impossibility.
A Child's Role as Peacemaker
I think that since this was the first time I really thought about a child’s role with respect to a peaceful dynamic between his or her parents, I was really engaged. However, I think that it is a good thing that I never really considered this concept because if this was brought to the attention of every husband and wife, the privilege of a referee as an offspring would be abused. Also if a child was aware of their role as a peacemaker, it might affect their livelihood and create problems with them, they might feel guilty. Maybe Pollack can only get away with acknowledging it because Elijah is so young.
Although a child can be a unifying commodity, it is never good to use a child as a device used to leverage power or pride. Luckily, although I have played the role of referee, I have never been made to feel guilty about when to step in or whose side to take. It is also interesting to see a child presented in a positive way, rather than as an annoying and time-consuming burden.
Cool or not cool?
I read Jill's entry "Alternamom" and found myself completely agreeing with her. My last entry was about how fathers that take on more responsibilities in parenting are in a sense glorified and I definitely think this is related. If Regina were the one going out and partying, I would be completely proud of her for having a life other than her child. At the same time, when I hear about mothers that neglect their children because they like to party too much, a lot of negative opinions form. The lack of maturity, responsibility, and capability to take care of someone else is always associated with women that can't fulfill the mother role. My own mother is the opposite. She thinks she's always been a great mother but even to this day I think that she was always too overbearing and controlling. So when she compares herself to her sister, who was more neglectful and much less controlling and partied a lot while my cousin was growing up, I always thought of her as a "cool" mom and thought that I would have preferred her more. But in the end, it came down to the fact that my aunt wasn't exactly a "good mother", at least in that traditional mother role.
In fact, I'm beginning to think that the traditional father roles are slowly beginning to change whereas the traditional mother roles are still the same. Our expectations of mothers are already subconciously drawn, but for fathers I feel like it's still a little bit fuzzy. In this way, it seems that fathers are expected to have more freedom and not frowned upon for not participating in household activities. But if the roles of fathers are beginning to change, then it may mean that the roles of mothers adjust with these changes too.
Monday, November 17, 2008
Blog from Last week: AlternaMOM?
However there is something to learn from this Alternadad situation and that is the importance of care. Despite his lifestyle, Neal Pollack loves and cares for his child. I believe that regardless of how wild and crazy a parent might choose to be, if they embrace the importance of care, their child will live a safe life. Since there is no magic wand we can wave, no legislation we can pass, we just have to trust society to make good decisions. And since most of society will continue to make bad decisions, we have to make sure on an individual level we always have our priorities in check.
Always Guilty?
When Neal and Regina decide to send Elijah off to school Regina’s guilt is clearly articulated. The separation from her child leaves her making comments that question her role as Elijah’s mother. First she comments, “I feel like a bad mother” (209). While Elijah is at school she later asks Neal, “Are you sure he doesn’t hate us” (213)? While Neal misses Elijah too, he does not express these concerns. He does not feel guilty. Why is it that only the mother feels guilt in these circumstances? After all, it was both parents’ decisions to take Elijah to school at this early age. Both of them left him for the day. Yet, while Neal may miss his child and worry about him, he does not feel guilty like Regina.
What I found most interesting was that even though this was Neal’s story, a father’s story, the mother’s guilt was still present. Regina’s guilt is more hidden in Alternadad since it is Neal’s story, but it was still there in both obvious and subtle ways. Neal even acknowledged Regina’s guilt. “Regina isn’t normally a guilt-ridden person, but motherhood ratchets up the guilt stakes” (210).
My older cousin Leslie just had her first child last February (Andrew). A few weekends ago we were at a family wedding and she was telling me just how exhausted she was (even though the dark circles under her eyes said it all). Baby Andrew was being passed all around the reception hall between family members. My mother and my aunt had him for a significant portion of the evening. Leslie deserved a break and Andrew is adorable so everyone wanted to hold him. Plus, Leslie was in the wedding party and had plenty going on throughout the evening. However, later on when I was talking to her, she expressed to me that she was feeling really guilty that she had not been holding and taking care of Andrew more that evening. She constantly was coming over and making sure everything was ok and that whoever was holding him at the time was ok. It was as though, even being separated from him in the same room and not being the only one taking care of him, was causing her guilt.
Is there a way for mothers to avoid this guilt-trap? It sure doesn’t seem so. My question and fear at the same time is whether or not mothers always feel guilty? Did I send him to school too early? Did I stop breastfeeding too soon? Did I make the right decision about this and that? Both parents have a responsibility to a child and both parents aid in the decision-making process for their kids, so why then is the mother the only one racked with guilt?
Saturday, November 15, 2008
Why Kids?
As a side note I just want to mention that Pollack’s writing style in section three became very boring and materialistic (especially “Play that Monkey Music Wiper.”) This may be in part because he is talking about songs and ideas that I am unfamiliar with as well as trying to recount the exact ‘conversation’ language of Elijah. This style of writing may add to the question of audience that Pollack intended.
Wednesday, November 12, 2008
In my second paper this was a huge part of why women are very frustrated with their positions as mothers. I don't know if it's a political, cultural, societal, economic kind of thing that makes the pressures on women so much more in terms of having children (generally speaking), or if it's really an innate kind of thing. Mothers are the ones that walk around for months with a tiny new life forming in their tummies and maybe that in itself is enough for women to feel more compelled to be responsible for their children. But in the case of adopting, do most mothers feel the same way, the same pressure, the same responsibilities? The only adoption reading we've had was The Kid, and in this case, there was no mother position in their family, at least, from what we read.
I'm really glad that Neal Pollack said this though, because he says how he's not that nervous about having a child while Regina is nervous about everything. He sees the difference between them as parents - the world expects a lot more from moms. There are also expectations for the ideal husband or father too, of course, which is why we also see movies in which fathers are the main characters. Even "Full House"and "Smart Guy"was more about fathers than mothers since Danny Tanner's wife died and Uncle Jessie and Joey are both male. Another example I can think of is "Smart Guy", a TV show about a 12 year old boy going to high school with two older siblings and has a single father. In both of these popular 90s shows the men are single parents. The main issues that surround them are raising their children without a mother, trying to find substitutes for that mother position once their children have become mature enough to accept another mother figure in their lives. Undoubtedly, these shows would have been completely different and even bland if the fathers were not single. I think that fathers do deserve as much credit as mothers in raising children, but I sometimes wonder if we give them too much credit when they decide or have to do more than the typical father role. For example, the friend Neal Pollack had, Ned, would take his daughter around and use this as a way of attracting women and flirting with them. Babies in general do attract attention, but when it comes to men that look like they're really loving fathers, girls just seem to melt. The idea of good mothers, on the other hand, seem to be less glorified (or maybe it's just that all of these readings lately have brought me to think so).
Alternadad
One of the funniest lines in the reading was, "I cooked, walked Hercules, did laundry, and scrubbed toilets. The responsibility was oddly satisfying, like I was proving to myself that I could be a man." From the other readings we've done it seems like the cooking, laundry, cleaning, and dog walking would only solidify his proof of his femininity rather than his manliness. I got this feeling from the first half of this section of the book, that they could share somewhat equally and gender roles hadn't come into play all that much in their relationship. However, as the book went on more and more often the sharing ended up on Regina which Pollack readily admits. But I get a hopeful feeling from this entire situation, especially the chapter where Pollack returns from his rock tour. I feel like he's figuring things out and he has a good sense of how important both Regina and Elijah are and the balance that he needs to make work for them.
Two other sections that struck me were the fact that her birth while they had planned on it being easy was incredibly difficult, and the first three months of infancy were much easier than they had planned. So far the only successful easy birth we've seen was by the one mother who decided from the beginning that she wanted drugs (Melissa in Savage's The Kid). Both Cusk and Regina go into a birth hoping for a natural birth complete with standing in the shower, and both end up in risky operations demanding drugs. The message I take from this right now is plan on taking the drugs but I think that I had that sentiment to begin with. The difference between Cusk and Regina though is the infancy after the birth. Regina feeds the child but her husband is far more present in this narrative than in A Life's Work. Pollack and Regina seem rather shocked at how much TV they can watch and sleep they can get guilt free. But this guilt free is based solely on how successful Regina was in feeding the baby which is exactly the same sentiment that Cusk has just with better luck. Lessons learned are take drugs and get lucky which is exactly what I think Alternadad is all about.
The True Story of One Man's Inability to Let Go of the Teenage Angst That Has Been Haunting Him Throughout His Entire Adult Life
But in Alternadad, its not that he has any personal problems, its that he has a "punk-rock lifestyle." And I'm going to have to agree with Jana that he exhibits a lot of "wrong behavior for a dad like symbol." Its like he's on a constant journey of self-discovery, but he doesn't really like to discover anything significant about himself. So he knows he loves his family, and then he leaves that family (with an extremely young infant) to go on a rock tour, because pretty soon it'll be too late to be a rock star! Oh no! In my opinion, its already too late. You don't spend your child's infanthood learning that you really want to be with your child during that phase. I don't buy his 18-34 demographic idea, where he seems to think that you can be as young as dumb as you want. The 30+ year old guy at concerts isn't cool, even if he thinks he is, and even if he smokes a lot of pot.
I think that Amanda has pretty low standards for fathers, to be impressed with Pollack. I imagine most of the fathers in the essays we've read would acknowledge that the world demands a lot from mothers, and put up with a lot from their pregnant wives without seriously complaining because, they realize how cool it is that this woman is going to be giving birth to their child. That's the easy part. But what happens when Pollack has an infant? 1. Rock tour 2. Complaining, "Why don't you stop trying to hold me back?" when his wife asks him to take care of the baby for two hours. Seriously? Stop trying to hold me back? Hello, everyone, I'd like to introduce you to the teenage angst of a 30 year old man! We could sub-title this book, "I Refuse to Grow Up, But My Kid Makes Me Feel Good About Myself."
I don't want to judge the values of Neil and Regina in general, because being able to have your own values matters a lot. But one instance, Regina's inability and refusal to even get trash into a trash can, and Neil's acceptance of this, really troubles me. This is why: it's one thing to raise a kid with different values, its another to raise that kid with values that are inevitably going to come in conflict with pretty much everyone he meets. I'm imagining a 20 yr old Elijah, who has never cleaned up after himself, though has never had anyone clean up after him, moving with several roommates. And I'm imagining their resentment build as he just creates more and more filth and has absolutely no awareness that it might bother other people.
Tuesday, November 11, 2008
Let Daddy Rock
Regina shares Pollack’s wish to be a cool and different kind of parent, even if she is more pragmatic or “healthy” in the way she goes about it. Pollack writes, “we would be cool parents…we would not succumb to the cult of child rearing; our kid was not going to be our excuse to retreat from the wider world. He would be our passport and we would be his” (113). But Regina undoubtedly calls all the shots, or most of them, and where Amanda applauded his glorification of his wife during and after her pregnancy, I saw his sometimes “pathetic” role to be typical of the fathers in the Bitch in the House—sad, helpless men whose only escape from the torments of family life were to either keep away or just become “yes-men”: “I had one job: to nod and say ‘Yes, dear,’ to whatever she wanted” (73). Wouldn’t it have been enough to have Neal there at the birthing? Why was it necessary to have the Doula? Was it because Pollack was incapable of being supportive or emotionally helpful? Somehow, I thought that Pollack was treated somewhere between being placated and patronized solely based on the fact that he wasn’t a female and couldn’t “relate.” The annoyed looks the women exchanged at his attempts at understanding could have been more useful if they had been followed by explanations. Pollack seems endearingly desperate to learn about parenthood so that he can at last be seen as not just a disappointment, but some sort of authority: “I actually craved the responsibility that fatherhood would bring. I liked the idea that people would be dependent on me. I’d felt like the employee, the son or the clownish afterthought my entire adult life. It was time for me to prove that I could take the ship’s tiller” (62). He is genuinely stoked about Daddyhood.
In addition to all of the “serious” issues the book raises in regard to contemporary parenthood, I think Alternadad, at least so far, is a very enjoyable book. Apart from being a very good writer, Pollack obviously shares many of my core values (e.g. hanging out in Philly with eccentric folks and starting rock bands because it just needs to be done), and has a killer sense of humor: "It is generally not a good idea to tell a woman you're in love with her while she's breaking up with you" (24). But he doesn’t merely value these things because they are counter-culture or whatever, they are just a part of who he is, and he even has a somewhat mature understanding of his otherwise adolescent views: “Aesthetics matter a little bit, but they weren’t all that mattered. Eccentricity is not a virtue unto itself” (18). As a product of the “Indie” age loaded with gnarly music, yuppie-hating, beer swigging, dirty coffee-house culture, Pollack is an unlikely candidate for “family man”. This fact, however, merely makes Alternadad all that more compelling a read, for when and if I decide to have kids, I want to do it a lot like Neal Pollack. Minus the moving to Texas part. (Texas? What?!) Rock on.
Monday, November 10, 2008
A Mother's Presence
What I felt most interesting from the father’s point of view in Alternadad was not that the mother was clearly present, but that she was almost glorified. In my opinion, Pollack was not the ideal, perfect husband to have during pregnancy, but his actions and thoughts towards a mother’s role were impressive. For example, I greatly respected Pollack when he noted that upon becoming a dad not much changes except for increased responsibility; whereas in contrast, “once a woman has a baby, she’s a mom, and the world demands a lot from moms” (64). This acknowledgement to me signified that Pollack was already one step ahead of most the dads we have read about so far because he understands the demands of motherhood, at least to some extent. Furthermore, it seems to foreshadow that Pollack will do whatever he can to help ease the demands of being a mother for his wife.
The other quality I admired about Pollack was his devotion to his wife during her pregnancy. He may not have been ideal and he did go out on occasion, but he still acknowledged that his wife came first. More importantly though was that he did not portray his wife as a demanding, crazy, bitchy, pregnant woman. In fact, it was quite the opposite. For example, Regina gave him permission to go out and party a little after the first six false alarms (which I think is impressive to begin with because I want my husband at my beck and call when I’m that pregnant). He portrayed himself as the ‘bad guy,’ not his hormonal wife by stating: “I was pathetic, but she was forgiving” (82).
Men cannot experience the joys and sorrows of pregnancy or the pain of childbirth (lucky them)! However, why I admired Pollack as a father writer was because he was as involved as he could be in the entire birthing process. We have discussed the emotion that mother writers express during pregnancy and birth, and I was pleasantly surprised at Pollack’s. For example, he was not afraid to show his emotions when his son was first born. In fact, he really began to weep when the nurse pointed to his son’s chin dimple and noted that he was definitely his child. Furthermore, although he could not experience the unbelievable amount of pain his wife encountered, he seemed exceptionally horrified. Afterwards he shouted: “That was horrible!” and “How could they put Regina through it all?” This was shortly followed by “Fuck the process.”
(91).
Although a potential future husband of mine may not be able to deliver a child, I hope that if I’m in a great deal of pain afterwards, he is shouting to someone “Fuck the process” too.
Saturday, November 8, 2008
ALTERnadad
Wednesday, November 5, 2008
Queen of the Cul-de-Sac
This is the blog I am reading. It was very difficult for me to choose a blog to read. Too many of them had awful, punny names. One was actually called "A Desperate Housewife." Anyway, this one is funny in a rage against suburbia kind of way.
Blog
http://boobsinjuriesanddrpepper.blogspot.com/search?updated-min=2008-01-01T00%3A00%3A00-06%3A00&updated-max=2009-01-01T00%3A00%3A00-06%3A00&max-results=50
Her about me is:
- Crystal
- I have a girl, Virginia, who is eight and a boy, Devon, who is fifteen and baby Harmony is this many (1). I'm married to Chris. This is not a mommy blog. My kids aren't perfect & I cuss a lot. I think that disqualifies me from the mommy blog club.
I have to disagree with Crystal, her blog was absolutely a member of the mommy blog club, mostly because her children aren't perfect and she cusses a lot. What makes blogging more interesting than essays and published books for me was the fact that there was interaction right there in front of me. All of her posts had around 70 responses and she was continually raising money for charities for individuals that needed help. She had a very compelling post about a friend's child who was born with a heart condition that would keep her living in a hospital for the first two years of her life only to go through incredibly risky heart surgery. Her requests for donations weren't for organizations in a lot of cases and I found this rather appealing as a new way of doing things. It felt like she was definitely contributing to citizenship for her readers and herself.
Blog exploring
The blogger is "The Naughty Mommy". As can be guessed by the name, this woman is a very unconventional writer. She is basically a mommy sex columnist. Her writing is explicit and gutsy, which is what attracted me to it in the first place. She does not just write about sex though... she writes about her identity now as a mother and her nostalgia for the freedom of the past. She compares a lot from pre-baby to post-baby. Her personality seems to be very free-spirited and she is very honest with even the negative things. Her feelings about her daughter are surprising contrasts to her stories about sex with her husband. The only reason why I didn't just pick this blog was because I think I only have access to about 9 entries, and I'm not even sure if this is an official blog. She has also come out with a book recently called Love in the Time of Colic: The New Parent's Guide to Getting it on Again.
The second blogger is "Her Bad Mother"
This is a woman living in Canada. The blogs that I have read are about her life as a mother and how she is confused by her feelings about motherhood. She loves her children but hates the work that comes with raising kids. She never regrets any of it, but questions whether or not she would ever have one again. (The answer is most likely no). She also questions other women about how they feel when they were put in similar situations. Her writing is comedic and light but expresses the concerns and emotions that I believe most mothers have. She also has a nephew who was diagnosed with Duchenne's Muscular Dystrophy. He is expected to die young. Her Bad Mother also uses her blog, which has a lot of commentors for almost every entry, to promote for a fund raiser that her sister wants to donate to Duchenne's research.
Blog
This is the blog I checked out. While there were some positive posts, I felt the majority of them tended to be negative (especially when the husbands were involved).
Mommy Confessions blog
http://sometimesdisgruntled.blogspot.com/
Sunday, November 2, 2008
An Intriguing Paper
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_go2771/is_4_38/ai_n28880024/pg_1?tag=artBody;col1
Thursday, October 30, 2008
Domestic Wasteland
In her essay Crossing the Line in the Sand, Elissa Schappell defines quite well, the place where every mother we have read about thus far seems to be rotting away— Domestic Wasteland. “But still, here I am in the domestic wasteland turning more and more shrewish by the moment.” Seemingly, women are unavoidably made into bitches as a result of everything that ensues after a child is born. Women exchange their hopes and dreams (and romance) for dirty diapers, oven mitts, fights about money, a husband they never see and start to resent, etc. On top of all of this, the Domestic Wasteland has a snowball effect on all who dwell within it’s boundaries. Day after day, the once optimistic woman (now a bitch) is the personal secretary to kids (who throw books at her head) and the stress piles up and her bitchiness grows. Soon the bitch is on a roll—gaining volume and speed with every second of everyday, until she crashes, exploding in the faces of her children and husband, crossing the line in the sand. And of course, the bitch of the Domestic Wasteland looks like the bad guy, feeling guilty for what she can’t escape. For those other than the bitch living in Domestic Wasteland, life seems easy. My momhas lived in Domestic Wasteland, and my dad doesn’t get it. I’ll have to admit, for a while I didn’t get it either, but after reading for this class, and doing a little maturing (and I have come to accept that maturing is something I will never see my father do), I see how frustrating it must be for my mother (who is stuck married to my father, stuck taking care of three kids)stuck in Domestic Wasteland), and I take a deep breath, and I understand if my mom has a bitch fit. I don’t think it’s fair that women (mothers/wives) are sentenced to this life in this Domestic Wasteland—permitted to leave, only after it is too late, or maybe, if a bitch is particularly full of nerve, after getting a divorce. Personally, I don’t want to be a slave to Domestic Wasteland, and it scares me to think that if I do acquiesce to society’s standards—get married and have kids, that I will be forever trapped and labeled as a bitch from this dark and scary Domestic Wasteland.
Wednesday, October 29, 2008
Still, a lot of anger comes from lack of a healthy communication. Although communication is a common theme in many of our readings, the kind of communication between my mother and I is a bit different. My mother has lived in the US for more than 15 years and she still can't speak English very well. I, on the other hand, speak mandarin and English and understand Taiwanese and Haka fairly well (my mom uses Haka all the time when she wants to talk about me to her sister and thinks that I don't understand until I say, "HEY! I can hear you!"). Although I try very hard to speak to her in mandarin when we get into arguments, our language barrier is one of the many reasons why we can't fully understand each other. The other major reason is because of the cultures that we were both raised up in. My mother's upbringing was traditional, and although she is now a U.S. citizen, she has not really assimilated to the American culture. This causes much misunderstanding between the two of us because it's hard to explain the way I have adopted some American practices.
We have seen before how motherhood in other cultures are different, but what about cultural differences between mothers and children? I'm glad I don't really have that problem yet, and it is something I seriously think about when I think about my possible future children. After reading about these working mothers I wonder if this is the anger that I will have to deal with - work vs. home - or if I will have to deal with cultural conflicts? And I'm sure there are so many other factors too. Mainly, from our readings I think that the inner-conflicts of these women can lead them to resent themselves. They question if the way they feel is wrong and it has a lot to do with what society expects of them. Their relationships with their husbands is also an additional factor.
Last night after I had finished all of my readings I was talking to my boyfriend on the phone about them and realized my biggest worry. I am not most afraid that I will be a raging bull and hate my children. I think every one of these women we read about except for one has ended up loving their children. My biggest fear is that I will end up with a horrible relationship with my possible future husband. Before this class, I was somehow under the impression that most women's marriages were strengthened after they had children. Yet, many of the readings in our class are the opposite. Maybe the marriage doesn't fall apart, but there is a lot of conflict and tension. I wonder if most working wives feel this way after they have had children, or if it is also common for working wives in general.
Fear of Crossing
In part it was the circumstances that were too overwhelming, causing the mother to snap. Her husband is usually a barrier, the one that takes ‘the chair before it folds.’ The children were rambunctious as their routine was off from the night’s entertainment. In truth I find it hard to be critical of the mother at this point, but the routine seems to not be for the kids, but more so for the mother to be able to say this is when I am done. However, I become the most critical/surprised of the mother when she goes after her children, especially the child’s neck. At first I thought that she would just scream, making a bigger deal of the thrown book than it actually was. She did this and more, crossing the line of anger management.
Luckily her child’s pleading reached her and she was able to calm down. The guilt that she feels afterwards, I imagine is only natural. I’m glad she understands that she crossed a line and had the ability to draw another one. At the same time I’m bothered by a couple of ideas. First of all I can’t tell if the mother really went after her child’s neck or if that passion was a literary technique. This leads itself to my next point. Reading the mother’s frustration as an outsider I would like to think that I would have acted differently. I would have screamed, but would at least have the capability of walking out of the room until I was calmer. However, I realize that the boy needs consequences for his actions as his amusement at the mother’s distress was the most frustrating. I don’t know how to take the child’s amusement. The child’s lack of communication through words and ability to translate more so through action seems understandable at the age of three. It’s not as if the child intentionally threw the book at the mother’s face. But within this justification I feel as if I am falsely accusing the mother without having experienced the situation myself. I think there is a level of understanding that can only come from experiencing the trials of parenthood. In itself this is the most frightening aspect. In reading accounts like this I feel like I am able to say I will not act like this mother. But what if the situation is truly as overwhelming as the mother describes? What line will I cross and will I truly be thankful that I can redraw that line?
Tuesday, October 28, 2008
Rants!
Next, fairness and self-righteousness come to mind. I really hate the you-hurt-me-so-to-be-fair-I'm-going-to-hurt-you attitude. Its not an intentional thing, but that doesn't mean there's an excuse for it to get out of hand. In the essay where the writer talks about how talking about the problem solved it for a little while, I kept thinking, well why not keep talking about it? Suppose you want or need another person to sacrifice or change something. How is attacking them and making them defensive going to accomplish this? It also doesn't make the attacker feel any better. Ever. One of the greatest temptations in the world is the desire for the tit-for-tat, petty revenges.
Daddy Dearest angered me the most of any of the essays. Here's a father whose finally taking initiative and knows what's going on in his daughter's life. Except he doesn't know what's going on in his wife's life. I think that being in a relationship means that it is never just about the individual. Every decision needs to be made with an awareness of how it affects the other. So realize that by trying to steal your daughter from your wife, you are trying to damage their relationship. And how is that going to be at all beneficial to you?
On an unrelated note, has anyone seen the McCain commercials where they criticize Obama for wanting to spread the wealth? Its basically a bunch of people getting interviewed and saying, "I don't want my hard earned money getting turned into government spending." I think this is the kind of individualism that Warner criticizes in the Perfect Madness. Go it alone, work hard for yourself, screw everyone else. I wonder what would happen if these people read Rachel in the World, or Life As We Know It. Yes, the government is inefficient in its spending, but it does provide a lot of great and necessary programs. Above a certain income level, I just don't see why people need more money. If we quantified happiness, and hypothesized that there is a 1% (overestimate) increase in comfort when one's salary goes from 1 million to 2 million dollars, is this really better than a 10% (underestimate) increase in comfort which could be achieved by giving $10,000 to 200 people, potentially bumping them out of poverty? But hey, the million dollar family worked for it. They earned it. Never mind what advantages they started life out with, or what breaks they got along the way, its theirs! Man. Politics.
Monday, October 27, 2008
Mishpaha
My mother during this time was working in New York City and commuting each day from our home in Jersey into the city. She was an editor for Shma: A Journal of Jewish Responsibility. I don't know what my mother did day in and day out, I just remember her not being around. If she was around she was asleep. Schulman phrases her concern this way "I knew they would be very upset to wake up and not find me home. They'd never woken up to not find me home before." and I am almost sure that my mother felt the same way. While my mother had been absent just the year before, when my grandfather was diagnosed with lung cancer, it did not make her absence any less apparent and difficult for us children.
While my grandmother did come up to help around the house, and while we did have a nanny to stay with us in the harshest of times, my mother was still the one to prepare shabbat dinners each week, she was still mentally present to ask us each week what the highlight of our week was (as was the friday night dinner tradition). But even with all the help the stress still got to my mother. I never saw her angry and she never yelled, but I think that was more because she was exhausted than anything else. "What happens to a person when she suddenly finds herself more powerful than the most powerful people in her life? My parents, who after all gave me life, shepherded me through childhood that surprisingly seemed to extend itself way into adulthood, gave me love and advice, lent me money, cared for me when I was sick, baby-sat my kids so my husband and I could go to the movies... my parents were suddenly both weak, vulnerable, small." I never saw her angry, but I did see her cry.
At age six I had never seen my mother cry. At her father's funeral I don't remember a tear falling from her gorgeous and delicate brown eyes. But one night in the middle of my father's hospitalization I saw my mother sitting on the end of her bed, head in her hands crying. What do you do when you suddenly find yourself more powerful than those most powerful in your life? I gave her a hug. Schulman distanced herself from her own husband, she did not want to wear her mother's ring, so where was the comfort in her life supposed to be coming from. To make it through hard times you need to feel loved. My family made it through together and only together.
My Future
Both of these opposite problems seem to have the same core problem though. They both have forgotten that raising a child is a joined process which two people share. Both parents need to be seen as an agreeable team that will get through the difficult stuff as well as the fun easy stuff together. While these women seem somewhat better at communicating with their husbands than earlier essay's writers with their boyfriends, they couldn't solve their logistical and therefore emotional problems. When Edelman comments that she didn't realize what she was getting into with her husband following the carreer path he chose I got the sense that maybe he hadn't known either. And the competition shown by Abraham seemed more driven by both of their individual personalities. However, both of these problems seem much scarier to me than the earlier essays in The Bitch in The House because they both seem much harder to solve. They are here because of very real situations that I can see happening to myself and these are much harder to shrug off as just something that I simply won't let happen to me.
But at the same time I agree with Amanda that the couple in My Mother's Ring who still manages to kiss after everything that they've been through physically, is awe inspiring. The story of the author's mother losing her ring at the beginning of the essay and their marriage had me expecting the worst, but they actually seemed like a stable loving couple. And by the end of the crunch period of her husband's company the author of The Myth of Co-Parenting they seem to be happy and they seem to be equals. I'm impressed and I'm not giving up. These glimmers of love and equality are endearing and I'm hoping that they're worth it.
A Happy Ending???
The Notebook, which is one of my favorite movies of all times, is a love story between Noah and Allie Calhoun. The story of their actual marriage and of raising kids is never shown, but what is shown is their life as an old couple, one with heart problems and the other with Alzheimer’s. Their bodies have grown weak, but their love has only grown stronger. Even when Allie, with Alzheimer’s cannot always remember her husband and must live in a supported living environment, Noah comments, “That's my sweetheart in there. Wherever she is, that's where my home is.” Their love after all their years ago is inspiring, intimidating, and exceptionally moving.
Although the story “My Mother’s Ring” was about the balancing act between wife, mother, and daughter, the same kind of Notebook story was shown briefly in the mother’s parents. The mother’s parents both suffered from old age issues. The mother highlights this scenario of her parents at the hospital:
“My father couldn’t lift himself out of the wheelchair and stand, and my mother couldn’t bend forward in her hospital bed to meet him because of the pain and all those tubes and wires hooked up to all those machines, but still by some miracle of determination my parents managed to kiss each other” (157).
Allie was Noah’s world. The mother’s father (in referencing her mother) noted, “She was his entire world” (155). Could it be that the rough years of early marriage and the torment of kids is worth it in the end? Could the hard times only make love stronger so that when a couple has reached old age they are everything to each other?
It seems to me that beneath all of the hell of kids and “wonderful” husbands in the early years of marriage, there is still the love. Either the couple will remember that love and push through the frustration that seems to plague all the women we have read about so far or they will fall apart. It seems to me t hat marriage is rough and kids are equated with absolute chaos. Maybe marriage is hard? Maybe raising kids really is hell? Maybe everything is as frustrating and difficult as these mothers describe, but if in the end you can still by some miracle kiss each other despite the pain and hospital equipment, then maybe, just maybe it is all worth it.
Wednesday, October 22, 2008
Themes
Another theme that we have seen which Berube touches on is sitters/nannies. But where most other authors touched on the difficulty of attaining a nanny, Berube looked at the nanny from a different perspective. First and foremost, the most interesting thing about the Special Sitter Class was that Berube was attending it for himself; i.e. to learn how to take care of his own child. I admire him in this aspect, as he yet again takes on an immediate and caring father role. In the meantime he still manages to become more aware of the type of help he needs and the price (possible abuse) with which it comes as well as what it pays ($5-6/hr).
Communication is another important theme. Most of the other works we have read dealt with the verbal communication between adults and government, mothers and other mothers etc. In Life as We Know It some of these communication interactions occur, but the reader is introduced to a new non-verbal form i.e. sign language. Sign language is not a new concept, but it was interesting to note the different connotations behind it. Some people, for instance saw signing as Native American Indian ‘speech,’ while others saw it as a prevention of the ability to talk. Since communication is that much harder for Down Syndrome children, I personally, and Berube would probably agree, take the ability to sign as a form of intelligence.
I feel like Berube walks a very fine line between a desire for privacy and a desire for fiscal aid. It is my opinion that a society should help raise a child, much like the African proverb suggests. Therefore it is of my opinion that the some tax dollars should in fact be destined for the education and living facilities for disable peoples. Berube poses this problem "So, dear reader, be you a chimey sweep or a chairman of the board, do you have any obligations to the Jamies in your midst? Why is it possible for us to believe that we may, and so easy for is to act as if we do not?" (232). What does it say about the American society that we do not feel the need to support our fellow citizens? Or rather that we do feel the need and obligation and more frighteningly do nothing about it?
Berube discusses in his final chapter the need to place "disabled" children in the classrooms with "normal" children. He puzzles at the legislation that varies state to state about whether they in fact share classrooms. It seems that American society has inherrent in it some sort of fear of those different. That those people with some disabilities do not share the same rights as those who are "normal." What sort of lesson do we teach our own children if we insist that disabled children should be separated from everyone else. According to Berube, Jamie learns better in the presence of other fully functioning children, he learns better from reward, he learns better, in a sense, from peer pressure. So, is it not an obligation of this society to aid in the education of these disabled children without any sacrifice on our part?
To return to the first point, do I have an obligation to help someone else's child? And if I do, do I have a right to know something about their lives? It is a question of Roe v. Wade and it is a question that I believe the Supreme Court is continuously battling. In my opinion, Yes, we have an obligation to help someone else's child. But No, we do not have any right to peak into their lives simply with our money.