La La How The Life Goes On

http://www.litefm.com/cc-common/mainheadlines3.html?feed=421220&article=9738000

That video, folks, has the intertubes all atwitter. It’s a father’s video response to his teenage daughter’s disrespectful rant on Facebook about her family. The comments range from “Right On!” to “I’m calling DSS.” I myself am torn. While I don’t see myself necessarily taking a .45 to my child’s laptop anytime soon, I completely see where this man is coming from, based on my memories of myself as a teenager.

I’m trying to transport this incident back to 1989 to find a parallel. Like, how would my father have reacted if I’d written this as an article in the school newspaper? Or yearbook? Or bulletin board? Although Kids These Days see Facebook as a means of conversation and interaction, they fail to recognize that hitting “Share” is really akin to hitting Publish. It’s not the same as my diary entry from January 23, 1989 in which I ask, “why does my dad have to be such a fucking asshole all the time?!????!!!!!!” This girl thinks it is, but it’s really, really not. What you put online remains forever–and becomes exponentially more disrespectful in its public nature.

I remember I had friends at my house one day in early high school when I made some rude, flippant remark about my dad to my dad. Much to my shock and humiliation, he sent my friends home, but not before raking me over the coals in front of them. I was OUTRAGED that he had treated me so poorly, had made me look like such an ass in front of others, had not had the respect for me to deal with my infraction privately! I was in full-on teenage righteous indignation for the injuries done TO ME. Then he just quietly said, “So it felt bad to be treated like shite in front of company?” Sullen silence…and a lightbulb. He reached me in the only way left to reach me, since my respect-for-others meter at that point had been turned off for quite some time. I was still mortified and pissed off…but I got it.

I’m not sure if my friends told their parents and together they had a What A Terrible Father powwow, but I remember that incident precisely because my father saw what a spoiled disrespectful bitch I was turning into, and he was stopping it by any means necessary. And it worked. Mostly. I can’t speak to the video dad’s situation with insight, but I can speak to my own: Sometimes being a good father requires that you bring a gun to a knife fight. Even if you look like an asshole in the process.

Who can forget those halcyon days when Macauley Culkin was cute rather than the poor man’s love child of Ron Weasley and The Joker? Remember that impish little face that borrowed heavily from The Scream? Remember how funny that movie was precisely because the notion that parents would forget their kid was so ludicrous? Well, hello my neighbor in 2012.

Last week Bambina’s friend’s mom called about an hour before school dismissal to ask if her daughter could walk home with Bambina and stay with us for a bit because she had to drive another kid to some activity. We agreed we would each contact the school to tell our girls to stay together. Which I did. So, 15 minutes after dismissal and I’m seeing no Bambina, I’m getting ready to call out the dogs. I called her on her little emergency cell phone to make sure she was on her way. Which she wasn’t. She was, as I had directed her, waiting for her friend, who was nowhere to be found. Loooooong after everyone had left the school. So I told her to start walking and I’d come meet her half way. So I was not only trying to calm down my freaked out daughter, I was having a coronary about where her friend could possibly be.

I packed up poor Baby Sister, who was home sick, and began a walking search of every henhouse, doghouse and outhouse in our neighborhood, trying to track this missing girl down. As I was hurriedly walking toward Bambina, carrying Baby Sister, I had to make The Call. The call to tell a mom that I have misplaced her daughter. I was absolutely ready to vomit, thinking I have royally fucked up a simple child’s walk home. I got the mom, I told her that her child was not outside the school, that Bambina waited 15 minutes, that I am combing the neighborhood, that…WHAT?!….you forgot to call the school?!

Oh yes. Friends, she FORGOT to call and tell her child where to go after school. She just forgot. What?! So where the hell might your child be then, if she left school, didn’t see you, and didn’t have instructions on where to go? I could tell she was freaked out because she kept repeating, “I meant to call from the car, I meant to call from the car…” so while she called the school, my girls and I essentially trespassed on every piece of property between the school and her friend’s house, yelling her name like a goddamn bona fide search party. Did I mention it was icy freezing that day? Did I mention Baby Sister was sick as a dog? Did I mention my leg is in a brace from my knee surgery, so walking fast while carrying a 35 pound grumpy human is not the recommended physical therapy? Most importantly, did I mention we found the girl freezing outside her house, looking white as a ghost? And did I mention I could have fucking cried with relief?

So what can one say after a bowel-lurchingly scary event like that? The mom apologized, “I was just so busy!” Both girls began playing happily. Baby Sister stayed grumpy and sick. I don’t want to slam this mom because shit can happen to anyone, and please believe that if my child goes missing, even if by direct result of my own fuckery, I still fervently pray that someone else’s mom will drop what she’s doing and find my kid regardless of the drama involved. But—what of this life we as a culture have created for our families? This family is so overscheduled with activities that the mother FORGOT about her other daughter. Didn’t forget her lunch. Didn’t forget her gym shoes. Didn’t forget soccer practice. She forgot her child. She was so harried getting everyone from event to event to event without ever imagining that her older kid could arrive late to practice that one day because they needed to pick up her younger sister from school. That option never entered her mind amid The Tyranny of the Schedule. Amid the Manifest Destiny of her children’s future greatness via enrichment activities. Amid the crushing social pressure to “involve” her kids in all manner of success-ensuring avocations. Amid the seeming collective and individual unwillingness to ponder precisely who all of these activities really are for in the end.

The whole situation just made me sad. The mom was apologetic and rattled. But not rattled enough to contemplate That Which Must Not Be Named: loosening up the Teutonic-style schedule. All I’m saying is that if I ever EVER forgot about my child, I would not rest my head on my pillow until I had taken a long, hard look at the circumstances that made it possible–and changed them. My heart ached for this girl because her mom was very nonchalant about “forgetting” her. I mean, kids aren’t snowflakes. Sometimes you will arrive late, you will get stuck in traffic, sometimes your child will have moments of wondering where you are. These are the vagaries of life and must be dealt with bravely. These events are no big deal. But just not showing up because you forgot? I’m not even sure where to categorize that in my brain’s card catalog besides under Shit Moms Don’t Get To Do.

To be fair, had the girl been a bit older this probably would not have been a big deal. But second graders are still creatures of habit, of repetition. In my attempts to more free-range parent I thought I had prepped Bambina for such scenarios, all of which began and ended with “go back into the school building and find a teacher.” But even with all that prep, in real time she stood outside the building feeling scared because I had previously told her to wait. Bambina is no dummy, but this scenario demonstrated that the addition of any unexpected variable completely changes the dynamic, leaving a confident, prepared kid not knowing what to do.

So what’s the solution? Well, we have mandatory TV watching-while-eating-ice-cream Mondays and Tuesdays after school. We limit both girls to two activities per semester, no matter how badly they really want to ice skate or swim or learn French. Pick two and stop whining. You’ll thank me later. And we will now create a bottom-line rule my kid can go to for safety if all other rules go FUBAR, while rigorously prepping her (lesson learned) for the exceedingly high likelihood of FUBARity. After all, forewarned is FUBAR-armed—and that is something worth remembering.

Senior Citizens Are Wrinkled Teenagers.

I say this with love for our Greatest Generation, darlings, but it simply must be said: seniors and teenagers share many of the same characteristics. The revelation occurred this afternoon as a rather surly older lady was berating the lovely girl at Dunkin Donuts for “not bringing me my sandwich! And you owe me 20 cents!” The level of outright rudeness was so elevated that even my 3 year-old noticed, and she has, as you know, a pretty high threshold for bad manners. As I thought about the level of tolerance afforded rudeness from seniors, I realized that much of the behavior mirrors adolescence. For example:

Rules Do Not Apply To Me.
Baby Sister’s preschool is part of a community center that also serves a large number of senior citizens. There are 15 parking spots reserved for the preschool (with 100+ kids), so parking is always an issue. We just received word that we will be “donating” 6 of these spots to the seniors one day a week. All well and good and touchy-feely. Only, I’d be more into the good deed if they already didn’t take those spots every day anyway. You pull up, it’s 20 degrees outside, its raining, whatever, will there be a spot? Will there be a spot?! And there is a fucking Oldsmobile 88 Royale or somesuch parked across TWO spots, just as happy as larry. Meanwhile a mom with a toddler and a 6 week-old are hoofing it from the boonies, with stroller,coats, lunches, the entire cavalcade of preschool items….as a spritely senior strolls in with nothing but his canasta cards. It happens every single day, the only variable being whether it’s a Buick, Cadillac or K Car with a tattered “Buchanan 2000″ bumper sticker. Every damn day. Right in front of the “Preschool Parking Only” signs!

Which brings us to the second reason senior citizens are like teenagers…

They Will Tell You, With Zero Shame, To Fuck Off.
There are people in our lives whom we know to be The People Who Tell Others To Suck It. When I require such services, I always call my sister because she is the person who excels at such things. We can name That Person in our lives because we recognize that what they do is not the standard approach to daily life for everyone. So it is always a bit jarring when you kindly mention to the returning senior citizen, “You may not have noticed but this parking is for preschool parents only,” and with shockingly few exceptions they pretty much tell you to Stow It, Blondie because I am a Senior Citizen. No fake apology. No faux absentmindedness (which, full disclosure, is my go-to Get Out of Jail card). Not even an honest oops. Nope. Just a polite version of “kiss my ass” which is ironic, because, like teenagers, seniors are…

Extremely Concerned With Being Disrespected.
Many current adolescents understand the word “respect” by virtue of having backed into it via “disrespect.” As did Dunkin Donuts lady who, when directed to the Pick Up Here area, let it be known that the staff were being “disrespectful” to her. Which is humorous because the only raised voice was hers, and had she been a 30 year-old man she would have found herself ejected from the store. Which leads to my final example…

An Enormous Sense of Entitlement.
When I was 16 I pretty much knew for a fact that the world owed me many things, that everything my parents gave me was not a gift via the sweat of their brows, but in fact a deserved reward for being my great good self. I felt that of course I should get a free cone when I went to Super Swirl simply because my boyfriend worked there. Of course my parents should buy me Def Leppard audio tapes. I was 16 and I deserved stuff. Fast forward to freshman year of college in Scotland. I was grocery shopping with a friend at the Willie Lowes when an OAP (old age pensioner, as seniors are rather inartfully known) asked to go in front of me in the check out line. I was so confused. Did she have fewer items than me? No. Did she seem physically infirm? No. So I said, “okay, sure, but may I ask why?”. She said only, “Because I’m a pensioner!”

Which brings us back to the parking spots. I propose that, just like Babies R Us has the ‘parking only for moms-to-be’ spaces, our place should bulldoze the enormous useless landscaping directly in front of the entrance and make it seniors only.

Then watch this space for my post on my awesome, new, convenient parking spot at the preschool!

http://www.metro.us/boston/local/article/1073955–david-ettlinger-to-face-more-child-porn-charges-today

Friends, that link right there is my worst parental nightmare come true. A local schoolteacher has been charged with possessing hundreds of pornographic images of children, including images of him molesting a family friend when she was 12. Pretty horrifying, but it gets worse. He was part of the infamous international kid porn sharing site Dreamboard that was busted last year by the DOJ. I will not go into the micro details of Dreamboard for fear of vomiting, but you can google it. Truly vile, depraved and evil stuff going on, involving children under 12, many infants, with a preference for footage of “children in distress and crying.”

It absolutely boggles the mind that such evil exists in our world. It absolutely chills my soul to know that those involved are people you know and see everyday. These pedophiles are not homeless flashers. They are not creepy old men. And, folks who fear homosexuality, they are not your gay neighbors. They are married, “upstanding” men. Accountants, lawyers…and teachers. Why? Because you don’t leave your children in the care of homeless flashers. You leave them with clean cut all-American teachers.

Which is why–I will say it again and haters can hate–no male will ever babysit my daughters. Parents of sons, I mean you no offense. In fact, I would recommend that you adopt the same policy. This is a shame for the wonderful male elementary school teachers I know and adore, of course, that their motivations should now be suspect. So what else can we do besides suspect everyone of nefarious intent?

I think we should adopt a zero-tolerance attitude toward the sexualization of children. This means pageants, smart-ass t-shirts, kiddie bikinis, all of it. The BabyDaddy has what I thought were overly-strict rules for the girls: no bikinis, no online presence, no unsecured online pics, etc. Now I am with him 100%. I google my girls’ names frequently just to make sure that nothing comes up, because predators lift photos without your knowledge. They will have no email address and no Facebook profile until high school. End of story.

Another practice we have for hopefully decreasing their vulnerability is deflecting any praise they receive for being “pretty” or “beautiful.” I usually say something like, “thank you, and she is incredibly funny/smart/sweet too.” I want my girls to find it not normal for an adult man to comment on their prettiness. I want them to be skeeved out if someone remarks on their appearance more than once. I want them to feel that it’s weird enough behavior to tell me about. More than anything, I want them to immediately tell me if anyone ever makes them feel even the slightest bit weird, “politeness” be damned. Luckily, Bambina does tell me stuff, and I am so lucky and grateful. So, adult males ( and females), I issue you a challenge today: next time you see a young girl, challenge yourself to say something about her that is not appearance-related. In fact, challenge yourself to know that you don’t have to compliment her at all until she does something worth complimenting. Trust me, the kids won’t care either way.

What else an we do, folks? It seems that the coarsening and soft pornification of our culture is unstoppable. But maybe if a good number of us band together and say enough, even if our kids don’t have cool clothes and our great grandparents think we are crazy, we could make a difference. Maybe if we recognize that the entire paid sex industrial complex relies on children as its foundation, we will have less tolerance for strip clubs, a 4-to-1 hooker to John arrest ratio, and anything–anything–that says young equals sexy.

http://sctnow.org/

I remember the heady days of 1980′s school lunches: chicken rondelets, hoagie sandwiches, tater tots, franks-n-beans, and the ever-mysterious Salisbury steak. All disgusting, all delicious, and nothing my parents would ever consider eating.

I recently volunteered in Bambina’s cafeteria to help implement a recycling program, and let’s just say that it ain’t your mama’s lunch line. The table was a veritable abbondanza (thank you, Mama Celeste) of apples, salads and healthy choices. In the midst of handing out stickers to any kids who recycled and to those with Tupperware, I was seriously wondering how I could sign up for school lunch takeout.

But here’s the rub: that table was so full of healthy choices because none of the kids were choosing them. They took the pizza slice and the chocolate milk and went on their happy way. I mean, a few kids took an apple here or there, but the other items were ignored in droves. One teacher was imploring some boys to take a salad, but she might as well have been asking them to publicly confess a burning love for Justin Bieber: no takers. And lest the parents who send healthy lunches to school think they are superior, please allow me to relay how many times I counseled kids that neither carrots, celery, raisins nor grapes were recyclable. Entire half-portions of lunch boxes were thrown in the trash. Items kept: hot stuff in thermoses (thermii?), crackers, cheese, chips and various “granola” bars. Almost everything else? Trashed. With prejudice. I almost called one of those dumpster diving groups to come over and eat till they bust, so full of nutritious food were the trash cans.

So what’s the solution? I’m not sure. Maybe we give kids longer than 20 minutes from butts-in-seats to line-up-and-leave. That would be a start. Sad to say that I give Bambina lots of “squeezable” foods, simply because she does not have the luxury of time to open a carton and use a spoon. How do we expect our kids to understand the importance of healthy food if we don’t put some value on the time it takes to eat it?

Another solution may be pouring a tall glass of ice cold reality over our heads: if a 7 year old can eat celery from home or a few chips fom her friend’s lunch, which do you imagine she will choose?

Perhaps the key here is making healthy foods interesting to a child’s palate…and in line with their needs from seaon to season. This is not news. I eat kale like its going out of style, but it would have taken a rupture in the time-space continuum to get me to even try it as a kid. So that may be the disconnect. Add to that the reality that kids come in from recess on a cold wintry day and grab…an apple and a salad with their chicken nuggets? Not likely. Would you? You’d want something warming, something comfort foody…and a cold apple with dry ass raisins ain’t it.

The solution eludes me, but the discussion makes me nostalgic for the rectangular slabs of Ellio’s pizza with that one solitary pepperoni in the middle. Now THAT was good eatin’.

We will soon be taking the girls to visit dear friends from our former life in Georgia. It was 12 long years ago that we left to come back North, and only now are we returning. I’m so thrilled that all of our kids will finally meet, so ready to be in their company again, and yet completely conflicted about what Georgia conjures up in me.

When I think of Atlanta and Athens I feel the sweet, naive joy of being a 26 year old newlywed, the future all just what my mum would call a twinkle in my eye. I remember the smug satisfaction of living in such a cool college town with such a cool scene (oh wow, Michael Stipe looks even weirder and more disheveled in person). I remember the soft pleasant drawls–and then the auditorily jarring experience of flying home and being thrust once again into the lovable yet unforgiving Boston accent: “you have a nice flight, baby” vs. “Tommy ya queeah, the limos ah downstaiahs.” I recall in soft focus all the little places that had big meaning. Like The Mellow Mushroom pizza over which Baby Daddy proposed, even though I had been a complete and utter bitch to him the entire day for making me sweat at a Braves game (where, it turned out, his dad passed the ring to him), and for acting weird (not his usual mellow self) all day. I was, like, fine, fucker. Let’s eat the damn pizza, call it a night and maybe tomorrow you will not be ordering me to go places I don’t want to go. Or…maybe I’ll be your future wife! Aren’t you lucky!

I recall meeting my amazing friend Roberto after having driven 90 minutes home from work in Atlanta in a black mood. I was so not psyched that guests (including People I Don’t Know) will be in my house when I finally slog my ass home. But there was Bob. Funniest, wittiest, sharpest guy in the entire American South, evident within 40 seconds. Loved him instantly, love him always. I met the Notorious B.O.B through another of the babydaddy’s friends, a guy we will call Matty. I gave Matty some serious stink eye for a good few weeks because…and I know this is rich coming from me now…his stories all seemed made-up. He was shot by a bb gun while riding his bike. But that was only after he had been hit by a drunk driver. Which may or may not have been before something happened involving someone famous. I was like, “I call bullshit on this guy” and lobbied for his dismissal. But BBDD was having none of it. It was his first–and only–Bros Before Hos throwdown of our lives, and so I relented. Thank God. Or I’d have missed the fabulousness of knowing Matty, his whole extended family, and now his wife and baby, all of whom laughingly corroborated his stories when I finally confessed to my previous suspicions.

So, I guess what I love about Georgia is that I was young and free and a bitch. . Although, karma was simultaneously making me her bitch, because while Athens was freeing my inner oblivious judgmental vegetarian with an Inside The Beltway chip on my shoulder, it was also setting the stage for every single thing–good and bad–that would follow. Athens is where it became clear that something was amiss. I was tired, pale and cold. I was certain I had Epstein-Barr, and much of my memories of daily life in Georgia are a blur of fatigue and dissatisfaction. I had a Masters Degree and a profession in politics I’d left behind in DC, all of which qualified me in Athens for answering the phones at the country club. Then I finally got a marketing job that turned out to be less marketing and more serving coffee and Danish to conventioneers, the only upside of which at the time was that I did the backstage food for Counting Crows while Adam Duritz was dating Jennifer Aniston, blah blah. It seemed cool at the time. Which helped me not be too bitter that the jobs for “political fundraisers” were all volunteer and all filled by wealthy ladies with the Southern helmet hair that another GA friend JimK called, “sprayin’ for Jesus.” I hated that job with a passion I usually reserved for rapists and pedophiles. But as one sick day turned into another, and a random kook at the local hospital mistakenly diagnosed me with leukemia OVER THE PHONE, the worst boss I have ever had at the worst job I have ever had referred me to her mom’s oncologist, who sent me to Emory, who diagnosed me with Aplastic Anemia and set me on the road to where I am today. So to say that my memories of Georgia are bittersweet is to say only the very least that can be said.

But what CAN be said to my girls about my memories of Georgia? That predestined love and friendship bloom in unlikely places, sometimes in spite of ourselves. That every situation, even the least comfortable or fun, has something to teach us. That help often comes in unexpected packages.

That sometimes you really can trace the enormous arc of The Rest Of Your Life to one little spot on a map.

My mailbox is ready and waiting for the hate email, so let’s dive right in. Every year around this time we are subjected to breathless and outraged articles about political correctness, the War On Christmas, and Keeping the Christ in Christmas against an onslaught by unbelievers. Please allow me to suggest a compromise. Now, this compromise will require everyone involved to put on his or her grown up underpants and get over themselves. Can we do it?

I propose that people not celebrating Christmas will simply say, “thank you, you too” when wished a Merry Christmas at the Gas n Sip. We will not get our panties in a wad about What It Signifies about Inclusivity in America. We will just accept it like we do every other time of year when we are wished “a nice day.” you don’t see us correcting the cashier, “actually, my gout is acting up so it won’t be a good day.” We just accept the commercial valedictory for what it is. Let us do the same in December so we can stop with the terrible Happy Holidays already. After all, the store ain’t decorated and open at midnight for Diwali or Kwanzaa, right? We are all here because of Christmas, so why not just say so.

For my Christmas-celebrating friends, I’m going to say this kindly but firmly: there are many locations across the globe where Christians are persecuted. Persecuted. As in, loss of possessions, education, basic human rights, life itself. Friends, the United States of America is not one of those places. So please ratchet down the Defcon threat level when you discuss how it stinks that you can’t put up a manger in City Hall or bring Christmas cookies to 4th grade. It demeans those who truly suffer for their beliefs…and it makes you sound like an entitled whiner, and Santa leaves lumps of coal for entitled whiners.

Which gets back to my point for all of us. We all need to just stop the fucking whining. Being offended is a choice you make. Harrumphing around about how this and this and that is disrespecting you and your way of life is behavior we don’t tolerate in children and yet we all work ourselves up into a froth every December for just that purpose. So, from the Jewish tradition, I repeat the phrase on every dreidel: A Great Miracle Happened There. Let’s see that miracle in one additional way–as the existence of this great country, where we are all free to worship–or not–as we please, in December and on every day that ends in Y. And for my Christmas-celebrating family and friends, whether of the Santa or Jesus perspective, I offer my favorite line from A Christmas Carol: God bless us, EVERYONE.

Jerry Seinfeld once described life with a 2 year old as akin to operating a blender with the lid off. I would like to offer my thoughts on living with my particular 3 year old: it is akin to living with an angry drunk. Baby Sister has always been our little Nutball. She has never been demure or cautious or malleable, so her twos were challenging, as they are for most. However, turning three has turned her into the ultimate obstinate, opinionated conflict machine who can talk but won’t nap. It’s a perfect storm wherein she has just the right amount of ability in multiple areas to be dangerous– and pissed off. As a result, she is frequently annoyed at me for not being able to read her mind, understand what a whiny, “shooooooeeeeeesssss” means (shoes off? Shoes on? Shoes are hurting? Throw me a bone here, kid!), and for suggesting that she may be tired (“Me not tired! You tired! You not talk anymore!”). Simple tasks require extra time built in for tantrums, because Mama don’t negotiate with terrorists. I told the BabyDaddy that hanging with BabySister is just straight up exhausting because, well, high maintenance, outburst-prone people who alternately create and forget drama in minute-to-minute cycles are exhausting, whatever their age.

At the same time (and at alternating moments) Baby Sister is also the sweetest, kindest, funniest, most compassionate girl in the world. I can prove this because her preschool teachers swear that this is the only BabySister they see. At school she apparently complies with all requests, follows all directions, and is an unalloyed joy to work with. We walk in there every morning, fresh off a bench-clearing brawl because she has refused to wear underpants and, while I may run a rather slack operation at times at Chez Jones, underwear is entirely non-negotiable. She just runs over to her friends and gets happy. (She has a particular preference for the Israeli boys, who completely love her right back). You would have zero indication that the preceding 15 minutes had been a study in total effing irrationality about a pair of drawers.

And so this is my life. Which should answer your questions about why I look so damn haggard 25-8. But it also, in a twisted way, should answer your questions about why I am happy regardless. First, because This Too Shall Pass. She won’t be 3 and a drunk forever. Soon she’ll be a teenager, which is probably like an angry drunk who can drive your car. So I’m trying to enjoy the good moments while they last. Second, because her infinite capacity for sweetness (mama, you my best friend) trumps her infinite capacity for dramatic willfulness. And third, because Baby Sister obviously feels safe and secure enough to behave like a complete head case with me. My mom friends and I joke that our kids save their worst selves for us, and I think that’s a good and special thing, even if the bags under my eyes don’t agree.

Folks, I have a bee in my bonnet. ( I am trying to use fewer “vulgar” as my mom says, metaphors). My particular pet peeve is not only rampant in our society, it is coming from INSIDE THE HOUSE! Friends, I’m having an ongoing hissy fit about intellectual dishonesty, otherwise known as inconsistency or hypocrisy.

It all begins with Bambina bellyaching about some girl at school she deems “bossy” and “always wanting to be the mom when we play Families and everyone else has to be the kids or babies.” think of it what you will, but “bossy” is a damning indictment among the second grade set. So now that Bossy Girl has been so named, everything she does irritates Bambina. Everything. Even stuff Bambina and her friends do on a minute to minute basis is an unconscionable act of moral turpitude when committed by Bossy Girl. So, in the interests of not raising a queen bee bitch, I not so gently point out this inconsistency to Bambina. No takers. “it’s not the same!”. She also talks trash about spoiled kids and in the same breath gasps with outrage that she can’t get a third American Girl doll. It got so bad for a time that I simply started saying, “all right, Veruca darling” in my best British accent whenever she’d bring the hypocrisy. She’d flip out at me, and then I’d explain how sometimes when you don’t like someone or are irritated with someone, every single normal thing they do is further proof that they are exactly the monster you think them to be. And yet we often put up with bad behaviors in people we like–including ourselves–because, well, we like them. If we are honest, we all do it. But I don’t want my daughter to do it unless she’s prepared to acknowledge the internal dishonesty it takes to maintain the practice. Either “spoiled” exists or it does not. Either “bossy” exists or it does not. Bambina’s gotta choose.

Think I’m a hardass? Well, you’re right. But just look around you and see the effects of this behavior on our larger civil society if not our personal relationships. Consider the intolerance we have for people we don’t like because they are not like us or they don’t think like us. Note the rapid shift in our political discourse from, “I disagree with every policy that guy has” to “he is a traitor, a liar, a despicable human being.” Or very honestly ask yourself why you create a terrible backstory in your head about the guy who just cut you off rather than assuming he made a mistake or wasn’t paying attention. If we cut someone off in traffic were all, “oops!” but if we get cut off, we are certain the person (insert ethnicity different from your own here) is a fucking moron who woke up today so he could wreck your commute.

So on a general level, we have stopped giving other humans the benefit of the doubt, and on a more specific level, it’s because we as individuals and a culture have succumbed to the lazy thinking on which intellectual dishonesty thrives. Why is it class warfare if we are aiming the remarks at rich people, but it’s just Newt Gingrich tellin’ the truth when he is aiming his remarks at poor people? Class warfare either exists or it does not. Believing in one but not the other is inconsistent, and please believe you’ll get grounded at Chez Jones for your intellectual laziness. Do the Obamas have too many Christmas trees at the White House because they don’t care about suffering Americans–or are they godless liberals who hate the Baby Jesus and therefore minimize the celebration of His birth at our nation’s home? Do we as a nation revere our military members and their families? Or do we dislike homosexuals regardless of their vocation? Do we truly believe WWJD or do we just like to wear bracelets while we talk smack about the poor, the hungry and the leper? Do we believe that a patriotic American believes in the precepts of our Constitution? Or do we think those opposed to prayer in school are unAmerican?

Our entire political and social landscape now seems to be predicated upon assuming the worst of others–and contorting ourselves to maintain our “beliefs” in the face of all evidence or examples to the contrary, even among those people we like. Well, I’m trying to do my small part to right the ship, simply by forcing myself and my family to get honest–or get mocked. Because the last thing America needs is one more spoiled, bossy citizen who yells “asshole!” at fellow motorists. Right, Veruca darling?

I was recently asked a lovely, quaint question that will soon cease to have meaning to anyone under 40: What was the first piece of music I ever purchased?

It was 1979, somewhere in the UK, when record stores were ubiquitous and their employees fantabulous. It was 1979, and there were no music videos, no downloads, no means of hearing music besides buying the record, watching Top of the Pops, or attempting to tape your song from the radio, hopefully with as little DJ chatter as possible. It was 1979, and the only path to ownership of music was the record store where there was an unofficial DJ playing only the best hits by the biggest artists while you shopped. It was 1979, and I was there with my Auntie Julia, herself a tall, slim, 18 year-old shiny pants-wearing disco diva. She and my Uncle Bill were the absolute pinnacle of cool as I imagined it at 7 years old. They dressed in shiny clothing, they knew all the words to Le Freak by Chic, they had been to actual discos (which I imagined to be real-life manifestations of every Blondie performance ever televised), and they could navigate a record store packed with cool people like no one I’d ever seen. It was 1979 and I wanted nothing more than to own one particular song. So Auntie Julia procured it for me, got the store DJ to play it on his turntable to ensure it was not scratched, and put the 45rpm and its little paper sleeve into my eager, waiting, so-excited-they-trembled-with-embarrassment hands.

It was 1979, but I’m writing this now, so I want to claim that my first record was Bowie or Chic or Queen, but the truth is far less cool. It was 1979, and my heart skipped a beat as we purchased….this:

Www.youtube.com/watch?v=2ObqanR5p9w

Oh yes. The Dooleys. Who? I’m sure their work never made it past Wales, much less into the USA, but in 1979 they were UK huge, and I sang this song with a gusto most people reserve for drunken karaoke renditions of Sweet Caroline.

Yes, it was 1979, when I was seven and music felt timeless, when lyrics were not widely available, when the lack of 24-hour instant access made it feel valuable. It was 1979, when buying a tangible piece of vinyl that let you have Freddie Mercury in your living room felt like owning your own personal treasure. It was 1979, when buying your first record was a momentous rite of passage, even if it was The Dooleys.

It was 1979. When I jubilantly walked out of a store, finally a member of The Chosen Few.