I have started trying to figure out what the children will do all summer. This is an annual task, fraught with pitfalls. The school offers day camps and we have some college student nannies who like to pick up summer work. Historically, whatever ratio of home care to school care I've tried I hear complaints. If they are home more than at camp they get bored. If they are at camp more than at home they miss the comforts of home. One thing I have begun to figure out is that I should just ignore all that bitching and not take it so personally. But both options are pricey and when they complain I feel bad that they aren't enjoying their summers and then I feel resentful because I've spent all this money - blah blah blah.
I am going to try and find some more challenging options for Emery - either technology or science camp - for part of the summer.
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Friday, February 27, 2009
Friday, February 20, 2009
What's a whorehouse?
So yesterday Emery is watching TV upstairs - some program called Kirby, which I have never actually sat down and watched. I hear parents all the time saying, "I watched the program and felt it was ok..." Well, I really have never done that. I have listened to the program from another room and the program is on Noggin or PBS or Nickelodeon. I have overheard the program. I trust it's ok.
But yesterday, Emery comes down the stairs from watching this show and says to me, "Mom, what's a whorehouse?" I start to wonder if giving him my secret code was really stupid or what in the world is he watching up there? I ask him that, "What are you watching up there?" Kirby he says, but they may have said the H word. And something about a whorehouse. What's the H word I say? I tell him to just say it - it's only a word. And we don't want him to go around saying Hell, not because it's a bad word but because it's common and sounds low rent for kids to cuss. Doug and I stumble a bit trying to explain a whorehouse, and we say things like house of ill repute which really doesn't go any further in explaining the concept, in fact it is obviously purposefully vague.
Finally I say that a whorehouse is a place where someone can pay for sex. Someone can pay someone else to have sex with them. I've always tried to be very factual and even casual about the topic of sex or our anatomy or procreation. But I have to admit, explaining deviant behavior, something lusty and illicit, is a different proposition.
In end, Emery has the show paused upstairs (it was OnDemand) and he says, "Let me just show you." As he's rewinding he's saying, "I think they said something like Hell up in a whorehouse" and I am trying to imagine the innocent circumstance that would permit Kirby or any show to throw around the word whorehouse. When the snippet plays I realize the animated character says, "Hello poorhouse" as in "if such-and-such happens it'll be Hello Poorhouse!"
I am relieved (that he wasn't watching a dirty, damaging show) and then immediately realize that we explained this whole thing about whorehouse to him when we really didn't have to. Really though, explaining a poorhouse is much harder.
But yesterday, Emery comes down the stairs from watching this show and says to me, "Mom, what's a whorehouse?" I start to wonder if giving him my secret code was really stupid or what in the world is he watching up there? I ask him that, "What are you watching up there?" Kirby he says, but they may have said the H word. And something about a whorehouse. What's the H word I say? I tell him to just say it - it's only a word. And we don't want him to go around saying Hell, not because it's a bad word but because it's common and sounds low rent for kids to cuss. Doug and I stumble a bit trying to explain a whorehouse, and we say things like house of ill repute which really doesn't go any further in explaining the concept, in fact it is obviously purposefully vague.
Finally I say that a whorehouse is a place where someone can pay for sex. Someone can pay someone else to have sex with them. I've always tried to be very factual and even casual about the topic of sex or our anatomy or procreation. But I have to admit, explaining deviant behavior, something lusty and illicit, is a different proposition.
In end, Emery has the show paused upstairs (it was OnDemand) and he says, "Let me just show you." As he's rewinding he's saying, "I think they said something like Hell up in a whorehouse" and I am trying to imagine the innocent circumstance that would permit Kirby or any show to throw around the word whorehouse. When the snippet plays I realize the animated character says, "Hello poorhouse" as in "if such-and-such happens it'll be Hello Poorhouse!"
I am relieved (that he wasn't watching a dirty, damaging show) and then immediately realize that we explained this whole thing about whorehouse to him when we really didn't have to. Really though, explaining a poorhouse is much harder.
Saturday, February 14, 2009
forgiveness
There are certain things that I've never forgiven myself for and they often come into my thoughts early in the morning when I'm just waking up. No matter the 12 steps, no matter how sick they made me, nor how long I've carried them around, I just can't bring myself to let them go. I can't get past the notion that I've not attoned for these things and that somewhere the people I've wronged, some of whom are dead, remember these things against me; even in death. And they have not forgiven me either.
There's a notion promulgated by therapists and mental health professionals that I must forgive myself and accept forgiveness from others. But I don't see how. As I get older these things get more pronounced. The one that awoke me this morning was making someone give up something for me, a high school boyfriend... And he missed something that he shouldn't have. And a year later he was gone. I torture myself with that and I have for 25 years. After 25 years it seems more important, because I'm a parent and I think of all the things I want for my children. This boyfriend's mother must feel that kind of regret about me: why did I hurt her son? Why did he die? If he was going to die, couldn't he have had a nicer girlfriend who would make sure he did all the things he should have done before he died, instead of one who held him back? She held him back out of selfishness and insecurity. Shame on her.
The rational part of me (or I might say the evil part) tries to say that it was just as much in his control as mine - to say whether we stayed or went to that dance. It says that I can't make up history and decide that this was an all-important life experience that he regretted missing. I really don't know what he thought of it. All I know is that it was a puppy-love, teen-age romance that is forever colored in my mind because he died. Because of that, everything I did or didn't do, all of my insecurities that played out on someone else's life, my inability to be a normal teen-ager at that time have tormented me. I think, 'I should have done things differently'. I wish I could call him up and laugh about it now - how I wouldn't go, how strange and wierd I felt inside about all those budding feelings, how I hated all that and just wasn't ready for it. I think now how unprepared I was to have any sexual feelings and how I was overwhelmed by growing up.
I realize now how all of this was fertile ground for growing mental dis-ease and disorder. And they grew tall and put down deep and substantial roots. No wonder I was so sick. Sometimes I think I could so easily get sick all over again. Like a mouth sore that I wish I could avoid, I'm drawn to this pain over and over; I keep sticking my tongue in it, making it hurt more. I had a dentist once who said the toungue is an exaggerator; a sort of drama queen, enlarging everything it feels. I don't want to be indulgent with this painful memory or the many others that I dredge up. There's the whole bit about my best friend in high school - that mess. I don't want to be indulgent, but there are things that happened, that I felt and did, for which it seems there is no forgiveness.
There's a notion promulgated by therapists and mental health professionals that I must forgive myself and accept forgiveness from others. But I don't see how. As I get older these things get more pronounced. The one that awoke me this morning was making someone give up something for me, a high school boyfriend... And he missed something that he shouldn't have. And a year later he was gone. I torture myself with that and I have for 25 years. After 25 years it seems more important, because I'm a parent and I think of all the things I want for my children. This boyfriend's mother must feel that kind of regret about me: why did I hurt her son? Why did he die? If he was going to die, couldn't he have had a nicer girlfriend who would make sure he did all the things he should have done before he died, instead of one who held him back? She held him back out of selfishness and insecurity. Shame on her.
The rational part of me (or I might say the evil part) tries to say that it was just as much in his control as mine - to say whether we stayed or went to that dance. It says that I can't make up history and decide that this was an all-important life experience that he regretted missing. I really don't know what he thought of it. All I know is that it was a puppy-love, teen-age romance that is forever colored in my mind because he died. Because of that, everything I did or didn't do, all of my insecurities that played out on someone else's life, my inability to be a normal teen-ager at that time have tormented me. I think, 'I should have done things differently'. I wish I could call him up and laugh about it now - how I wouldn't go, how strange and wierd I felt inside about all those budding feelings, how I hated all that and just wasn't ready for it. I think now how unprepared I was to have any sexual feelings and how I was overwhelmed by growing up.
I realize now how all of this was fertile ground for growing mental dis-ease and disorder. And they grew tall and put down deep and substantial roots. No wonder I was so sick. Sometimes I think I could so easily get sick all over again. Like a mouth sore that I wish I could avoid, I'm drawn to this pain over and over; I keep sticking my tongue in it, making it hurt more. I had a dentist once who said the toungue is an exaggerator; a sort of drama queen, enlarging everything it feels. I don't want to be indulgent with this painful memory or the many others that I dredge up. There's the whole bit about my best friend in high school - that mess. I don't want to be indulgent, but there are things that happened, that I felt and did, for which it seems there is no forgiveness.
Friday, February 13, 2009
Susanna Kaysen
I am reading Susanna Kaysen's book, The Camera My Mother Gave Me... And last night we started watching Away From Her, the film for which Julie Christie received an Oscar nod. Aging is bringing about a whole slew of insecurities and troubles for me. The notion that your body or your mind can just turn on you is truly frightening. The changes in my skin and hair bother me already, I can't imagine if my mind began to go - it's truly terrifying.
The Susanna Kaysen book is all about her vagina and the fact that something went horribly wrong with it - it hurt all the time. But no one can find anything wrong with her - it's like a phantom limb. So, it seems that it's not necessarily her body turning against her. Her mind might be doing it.
Months ago I read this fascinating article in the New Yorker about itching. It recounted the story of a woman who had this phantom itch on her scalp and an uncontrollable desire to scratch it. She managed to control the urge while awake, but once she fell asleep all bets were off. She finally scratched all the way through to her brain fluid - all the way through her scalp. The thing is, it was all neurological. Some scientist doing research on phantom limb pain figured out that one thing that seemed to work was using mirrors to give the illusion that the limb was there. When the patient's mind was fooled into seeing the limb and the person could scratch the phantom, the brain let go of the itch or the pain or what-have-you.
The Susanna Kaysen book is all about her vagina and the fact that something went horribly wrong with it - it hurt all the time. But no one can find anything wrong with her - it's like a phantom limb. So, it seems that it's not necessarily her body turning against her. Her mind might be doing it.
Months ago I read this fascinating article in the New Yorker about itching. It recounted the story of a woman who had this phantom itch on her scalp and an uncontrollable desire to scratch it. She managed to control the urge while awake, but once she fell asleep all bets were off. She finally scratched all the way through to her brain fluid - all the way through her scalp. The thing is, it was all neurological. Some scientist doing research on phantom limb pain figured out that one thing that seemed to work was using mirrors to give the illusion that the limb was there. When the patient's mind was fooled into seeing the limb and the person could scratch the phantom, the brain let go of the itch or the pain or what-have-you.
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