An observation on observation of Mother’s Day vs Father’s Day

Having been part of a household observing the two holidays for 14 years or so, not to mention my own experiences as a kid with them, I have some observations. This is also informed by my experiences with my friends, my church community, and American culture in general. There are lots of variations but some themes emerge.

In general, on Mother’s Day, we do activities to “give mom a break” from the stereotypical jobs that mom does. We take her to dinner or someone else makes dinner. Someone besides mom does house cleaning and the dishes. We may even ask her if there is “something fun” she wants to do. And our language reflects recognition of the work that she does for the kids and family that doesn’t always get recognized. We honor her by excusing her from her chores.

In general, on father’s day, we ask dad what sort of family activities he would like to do. No one offers to do the stereotypically dad jobs (mowing the yard, car maintenance, clean the garage, etc.) We might ask him what he wants for dinner but rarely do we go out to dinner. (Even restaurants have caught on to this.) Our language reflects that this day is a chance for dad to “actually be a dad” and not have to do all those “dad jobs” but instead he can “play with the kids.” We honor him by giving him family time.

Mom’s chores and work are integral to the family.

Dad’s chores and work are external to the family.

Mom’s role is essential and has to be done every day even if she doesn’t do it.

Dad’s work can all be put off for a day.

Mom gets a break from “the family” (by which we really just mean her work) for her day.

Dad gets to play and have fun with the family on his day, since he doesn’t usually get to.

On Mother’s Day, we recognize “all the mom’s in our life” including those moms “that had to also be dad’s.”

On father’s day, we recognize that not all father’s are positive memories in our lives and the day may be troubling for some.

Most of these things are stereotypes and/or vestiges of heteronormative post-WWII culture. Where mom “is” the family and dad is the support of the family.

This is becoming increasingly challenging for families that don’t fit this. Some of my friends don’t fit this and we have discussed this at times. Maybe dad is a stay at home dad and packs the lunches and drives kids to soccer practice while mom works 60 hour weeks. Or maybe there are two moms, two dads, or two gender-non-conforming parents trying to navigate these gendered norms. Or maybe dad is a single-dad playing both roles. Maybe mom is abusive.

Besides their two very different origins, I think it is important to recognize the embedded cultural assumptions of how these two holidays are practiced. Practices based on two relatively-fixed (or at least slow to change) parental archetypes of the post-war mid-20th century. However, maybe dad wants flowers and maybe mom wants a necktie. Or maybe both parents just want some time to play with their kids. And maybe they hope that at least once a year their kids will recognize their contributions in some way.

Ask your parent figures, at least once a year, on whatever day you feel comfortable with, what you can do to recognize the contributions they have made in your life both seen and unseen. They will appreciate it. Especially if you recognize it in whatever way they want it recognized. And mom, dad, don’t be afraid to share the recognition you want.

(I find it odd that my iPad autocorrects Mother’s Day to be capitalized but not father’s day.)

Words I can agree with

Admittedly, John McCain is one of the Republicans I find myself agreeing with from time to time.

We are secluding ourselves in ideological ghettos. We have our own news sources. We exchange ideas mostly or exclusively with people who agree with us, and troll those who don’t. Increasingly, we have our own facts to reinforce our convictions and any empirical evidence that disputes them is branded as ‘fake.’ That’s a social trend that is going to be very hard to turn around.

 

Source: John McCain Makes An Appeal For Civility And Humility https://www.npr.org/2018/05/01/607193169/john-mccain-makes-an-appeal-for-civility-and-humility

 

Good Guys with Guns….and Mike Pence

It turns out that Vice President Mike Pence a “life long supporter of the Second Amendment” and the Secret Service aren’t buying the “good guys with guns” as a safety feature. When Mike Pence appears at the NRA convention, the NRA will have banned guns, knives, gun accessories, other weapons, and even selfie sticks, from the convention session.

There are a few ways to look at this.

1. Mike Pence says he supports the 2nd Amendment to get votes but doesn’t really personally want anyone but his own security to have guns.
2. Mike Pence thinks that the NRA has a number of fanatics in their midst that can’t be trusted.
3. Mike Pence is a puppet of the Secret Service and the “Deep State.”
4. Even the NRA is willing to accept gun-free zones in order to worship at the alter of Republican Gods.
5. Since the NRA isn’t pushing back or claiming they don’t want Pence to come if this is the case, the NRA knows that they have some crazy ass mother-fuckers in their midst who can’t be trusted with guns.

The best part about this is the NRA claiming this has nothing to do with them and nothing to do with the Second Amendment. They claim it is all “standard Secret Service protocol.” Which is true. But this “nothing to see here. move along.” attitude is an attempt to bypass the very core of the argument. It turns out the even “the good guys with guns” can’t be trusted.

Here’s a thought……maybe if the NRA and the gun owner community would take some responsibility for regulating themselves, the government wouldn’t have to ban their guns so they can worship at the alter of their gods.

Heaven on Their Minds

I don’t pretend to understand the evangelical movement. They criticize politicians and celebrities left and right but then look the other way when someone like Trump comes along. The guy has had two affairs that ended two marriages and seems to have had multiple affairs in marriage number three. He owns casinos and strip clubs. He jokes about assaulting women. He has been in porn movies and “adult” magazines. Yet they tout him as a “family values” candidate and their best hope for bringing Christian values back to America?

I’m reminded of a line from the song “Heaven on Their Minds” from Jesus Christ Superstar.

All your followers are blind

Too much Heaven on their minds.

They seem to focus on theoretical promises and not on his behavior. They seem willfully ignorant of his actual actions. They don’t pay attention to the importance of how he treats people in his life……wait. Nevermind. This is the same way they view Jesus. I get it now.

I mean the guy joked that his wife might be the next person to leave the White House. Just last month, at on official dinner with his wife, Trump says during his speech “Now the question everyone keeps asking is, ‘Who’s going to be the next to leave? Steve Miller or Melania?’ That is terrible, honey, but you love me, right?” I mean seriously, he’d replace her just as fast as anyone else and I’m not entirely sure he would be particularly heartbroken about it. I doubt “family values” evangelicals would care much either. Trump would turn on Melania like he has his other ex-wives and blame her. The evangelicals would pray for her and Trumpeters would post memes of her.

Evangelicals are, like many Americans, have fallen for the prosperity gospel. They seem to think that financial success (or at least someone who claims success) must be “living right” and under “God’s grace.” They are quick forgive transgressions by even the worst of the megachurch leaders in their billion dollar mansions.

The Tumpeters (an overlapping group with the Evangelicals in most cases) worship on the alter of brand recognition and celebrity. They can’t name a success business venture of Trumps (partially because there are so few). Just like other reality stars, they don’t know why he is famous, just that he is. They voted for a reality show President and now seem excited over the reality show the White House has become. America no longer looks like a semi-stable world power. We look like a reality show. It’s only a matter of time until other countries also start forgetting what we are famous for in the first place.

 

 

 

 

 

A new kind of underground

I have to wonder if we are facing a new sort of underground. One where the intellectuals are the minority. Where the emotional narrow-minded ones are the ones that control our society while the rest of us are forced to sit like a Kermit the Frog meme sipping our tea and watching.

I have faith though that this won’t happen. Intellectuals, moderates, and realists might get run out of the government but thanks to the internet (the 21st Century version of a free press) they still have a voice. You don’t need to look any further than the Alt National Park Service to see this. (It’s a meme from their page in the headline of this story.)

I have no doubt that if the internet were to be run by the emotional narrow-minds then the resistance would find new ways. Dark webs, black emails, file drops, and when all else fails, handed off flash drives full of data.

If history has shown us anything, it is that intelligent realists find a means to survive, thrive, and resist. They may move a bit and shift constantly, but they push society even when they have to do so with hidden forces.

Half-hearted about half-mast

The Governor has ordered flags around that state to be lowered to half-mast on Friday in honor of Reverend Billy Graham whose funeral is that day. I have debated if my neighbors will notice if I don’t participate and leave my flag all the way up. I’m debating it for two reasons:

1. Billy Graham doesn’t fit the guidelines of who we are supposed to honor with half-staff. Then again, a lot of people don’t. I think we are getting a bit too liberal with the half-staff. I’m all for recognizing national tragedies and the passing of major elected officials. I feel like Billy Graham’s death is less of a national tragedy and more of the death of that old awkward uncle that everybody is secretly thankful they won’t hear from anymore.
2. You’ve probably figured out already that I’m not a big fan of Billy Graham. It’s not just a a theological difference. It is a moral and civil rights difference. The guy openly and actively opposed same-sex marriage. He believes his religion dictates women should be homemakers. Graham denied his daughters a college education because they might turn into “career women.”

I googled and checked to see if Democratic governors had issued calls to half-staff their flags. The couple I checked had done it as well. So it isn’t just a Republican thing.

I think Friday, my flag will staff at full-staff in my own quiet little act of defiance. Even if my neighbors don’t notice.

Open letter to the NRA

Dear NRA,

I am a former NRA member. I am a gun owner. I have grown up on households with guns. They were used for sport and for varmint removal. I was given my first gun when I was a young boy. I don’t own nor need an assault rifle or a handgun. They stay securely locked up in my house. I know literally see that they are locked up, every day. If I had reason to worry about the safety of someone in my house including my kids, I would not hesitate to give them to a family member to hold on to.

What I’m writing you about today is the writing on the wall. I don’t know if you have noticed but there is an entire generation of young people, mostly still in high school, who are opposed to your political stances. Within a couple years, those young people will be voters. And within the next ten years there will be more of them voting than NRA members.

Now I get that your power doesn’t come from voters. It comes from money you wield in campaigns. Money from gun manufacturers, gun industry, and high end financial donors. You actually don’t have much voting influence you just have financial control over candidates. But here is the rub. In ten years, that won’t matter anymore. In ten years, you will be hiding who you give money and support to otherwise they will be voted out of office by this young generation. You are on the cusp of fading.

Now, you don’t have to go quietly. You can literally hold onto your guns until they are pried from your cold dead hand. There is also another option. Rather than letting the government set up databases for tracking and deciding what laws to put in place, maybe you could step up and be a part of that? Maybe you could help be the future of a safer America with reasonable gun laws?

I realize that means back pedaling a bit. In corporate terms they call it a “pivot” now days. Some things I’m thinking you could do….

• encourage good mental health habits among your members and their families
• develop a system for reporting NRA members to resources if you have concerns about them
• develop a system for a fellow NRA member to “hold” firearms of another member if there are concerns about that member
• develop a system for reporting stolen or missing firearms
• develop education programs that encourages people not to leave firearms, particularly handguns in unsecured locations (ex. glove box of unlocked cars)
• develop a system for training and vetting people who want to purchase assault rifles that isn’t just “Bubba says he’s an okay guy”
• be a partner with law enforcement in helping determine who should and shouldn’t have access to firearms
• stop playing the victim
• start playing the responsible citizen

These are just a few ideas. I’m sure there are other people with more. But your decision point is now. Do you want to pivot and be relevant in 20 years or do you want to got for Plan A the “cold dead fingers” option?

Sincerely,

Paul

 

My problem with pronouns

There is a trend in certain liberal circles right now to put “your preferred pronouns” on your email, on your business cards, on your name tag at conferences, etc. I don’t do it. Yet, I live in fear of being challenged for not doing it, in part because I’m a cisgender hetero white male who  runs in multiple liberal circles. And I’m sure I get perceived as being a “cranky old white dude” not willing to give up power. But I actually have two other reasons that I don’t do it.

First: Privilege. Note that the only place you see this trend is among educated elite and like-minded groups of liberals. You don’t see the cashier at Taco Bell or the grocery store worker doing this. You don’t see this trend with school custodian or manufacturing workers. And if Taco Bell did allow this, could the staff get mad at customers and correct them when they didn’t use the right pronoun? I mean Starbucks can’t get some people’s names right but I have to get their pronouns right? The reality is that advertising how they want people to interpret their gender isn’t a luxury they have. I’m not claiming to be one of them. In fact, the opposite. As a privileged straight white male, I’m not going to use my power and privilege to further dictate to people what they call me. I feel like dictating what pronouns you use to describe me is like the professor who insists you call them doctor or professor. As if you need to constantly remind them of their special place in society. Telling people to refer to me as “he” is just saying “remind yourself of my privilege.” Even the military gets tired of using ranks with people you work with all the time. On this note, I’ve noticed that it is largely women and non-gender binary folks who participate in this trend which makes me wonder how many other white males feel this way.

Second: It doesn’t function in practice. At a conference, I had a speaker pass out pronoun stickers and tell everyone to put it on their name tag. Then during her session, two minutes later, she started repeatedly said “I can’t see your name tag from up here, so I’m going to assume you use _____” from the front of the room. Not only is this the case at conferences, but we also don’t walk around with our email signatures pasted to us every day. If you really want to be inclusive in your language, don’t modify it for each person – practice saying “they” and using people’s names all the time, not just at conferences and on email. I feel bad for non-gender binary folks who have a preferred pronoun but often find people using the other one. I just don’t think telling people what pronouns you prefer is the answer to changing several thousand years of language programming. Encouraging society to adopt a single non-gender specific pronoun for every single person seems the better linguistic and practical route.

Why statues matter

Statues are not history. Rarely is a statue erected at the moment that something historic happens. (For instance, the first statues of George Washington were over 40 years after his death.) This is because we need time and distance to see what is historic. And also because statues are not history. Statues are looking back through history, through the lens of our moment, and cherry-picking someone we think exemplifies something worth looking up to – literally. Statues are public civics lessons.

So statues matter less because of who they are and more because of why they were made. One of my favorite statues is one you have probably never seen and it is someone you probably don’t know. In the Indiana State House, there is a statue of Colonel Richard Owen. He was a geologist and university professor who served in the Mexican American War and the Union Army in the Civil War. The statue though….was commission in 1913, by Confederates who had been in a prison camp run by Owen. No, those are not typos. Owen set up standards for how to run a prisoner of war camp. (Standards that later became norms in something called the Geneva Convention.) Those norms included allowing the prisoners to maintain their rank structure and chain of command in the camp. Ensuring prisoners had enough to eat. Allowing them to write home and read books. In fact, this became well known during the Civil War because of the deplorable condition of most prison camps. So well known, that when Owen was later leading a regiment in the war and was captured, the Confederate General thanked him and released Owen and his regiment to return home “on parole.”

The Confederate veterans continued to recognize how special Owen as they heard horror stories about other camps. In 1913, they commissioned and paid for the statue. It was then given to the state of Indiana. It is the only statue of a Union soldier directly commissioned by Confederate veterans. And they did it for his “courtesy and kindness.” That is why it matters. That is the lesson they wanted taught.

Are there other reasons to honor Owen? Sure. He was the first President of Purdue University. He was a very influential geologist. He was an abolitionist. He and his family were major leaders in Indiana history throughout the 1800s. But that isn’t why they did it. Read the plaque. READ. THE. PLAQUE. Even the Owen bust is cherry-picked history. The Confederates were not commissioning a memorial to an abolitionist. I wonder if they even knew that? If they had, would they have done it?

Which leads us to today’s topic. Statues of Confederate leaders. Why do we have them? It’s not like they were put up during the war. As mentioned before, statues come later. They weren’t even erected right after the war in most cases. Most of the contentious ones today were erected in the 1920s and 1930s. The height of segregation, lynching, voter suppression, and Jim Crow era power. Erected by white governments and white-controlled communities intent on cementing a sense of white power. Statues are also symbols of power. That’s why we make them larger than life.

So people were told, look up at these great powerful leaders! Look up at these cherry-picked historical moments! Look at our attempt to preserve slavery! And a solid reminder to African Americans as to where they belonged in the community (or didn’t belong as the case may be) and that “the South will rise again.” A reminder that African Americans were once owned by white people who would die to defend their right to own them. It’s not like the Southerners were erecting statues to Abraham Lincoln. Or statues of General Lee reading to children. They were being intentional about who they wanted people to look up to and how they wanted them to be seen.

And when a community decides that it no longer wants to look up at a statue and see that civics lesson, they can and should take it down. Putting a new plaque on it to change the meaning doesn’t work when you have spent decades using it as a tool to teach another lesson. Remember all those scenes of people tearing down Saddam Hussein statues in Iraq? Remember how we all laughed and cheered? They didn’t want that lesson anymore.

I’d love to see a park created for old statues. I’d love to see just row after row of statues and monuments in a park on the outskirts of town. One that we could take kids to and ask questions like – why is this here now? How has our culture changed over time? How has our community values changed? That would make for some excellent civics lessons.

Taking down statues doesn’t change history. Taking down statues says these are no longer the people from history who we want to look up to. These are no longer the people who we put on a pedestal. These are no longer the people we want our children to grow up to emulate. Statues are civics lessons, not history lessons. History will still be there in the books. We can still read about those people. We can even learn about why we took the statue down or moved to someplace else. Yes, we could also surround it with “opposing statues” but is putting Abraham Lincoln or Frederick Douglas next to a bunch of Confederate Generals really the same? (Or the first black professional tennis player….looking at you there Richmond). Unless we put Ulysses S. Grant on a horse headed directly at General Lee we are still teaching civics not history (and that wouldn’t be a very accurate history lesson anyway.)

 

Why does free speech only matter on college campuses?

I’m not dumb. I’ve seen the news. I realize that college campuses are a hotbed of free speech issues right now. And the backlash has primarily been directed at conservative speakers. Hence every Republican led state government is looking at some sort of “campus free speech” bill. But that is part of my point I think.

The “shout down,” “physical disruption,” and “mass intimidation” tactics that liberal students are using against conservative speakers are the very tactics many of them learned from the conservatives. Head over to your local Planned Parenthood and see how the religious zealots are handling things there.

Despite the focus on campus free speech issues there have been many more protests, counter-protests, and acts of violence related to off-campus free speech issues. But now, conservative state legislatures are suddenly worried – only because they see themselves as the victims – about campus free speech. When the crazy preacher guy is screaming at their daughters for being “sluts” for wearing shorts to class and gets shouted down by fellow students, they don’t seem to care.

What really set me off was an article about the Wisconsin legislature who wants to impose state mandated “sentencing” for those found guilty of violating free speech. Second offense gets you suspended and third gets you expelled. Yet there is no other law or campus code that has such a thing. Men found guilty of rape don’t get such a thing. Fraternities that cause the deaths of their members from hazing, drinking, and cover-ups don’t get such a thing. Let that sink in. Conservative law makers care more about not getting shouted down and harassed than they do about campus sexual assault or fraternity deaths.

The “free exchange of ideas” is a fundamental bedrock of higher education. But so is campus safety. If you are going to impose state mandated sentences, do it for all crimes and code violations. But then your rich white kids you send to those schools and join those privileged fraternities might face consequences…..better to just aim at the liberals and hope that your kids education doesn’t turn them into one of them.

 

Update: Nikki Haley, form South Carolina Governor and now Ambassador to the UN was heckled at the New York Pride parade. The woman who once defended the gay marriage ban was shocked she wasn’t welcomed with open arms. Maybe we will soon outlaw create free speech laws for parades as well.