Overload
My brain is on overload. Quite certainly in every way. I like it, the feeling of losing myself inside the proliferation of maddening sensation, overwhelming.
Work is overtaking my humble attempts at writing. I want to write, a whole novel, I want to read, a trashy book, or one of high childhood fantasy, or just sit with my child and read a story of thieves and princesses locked in towers. But work calls, and the doing of gender prevails... (god I forgot how horribly repetetive sociological texts tend to be.)
This afternoon I sat in my usual place - I have found (while it doesn't rain) a place where I like to work, I let the sun beat down on me, bleaching my hair little by little. It is close enough to a bathroom, and my classes, and distant enough from my awful desk... I can see my tree, but I can't sit on the soggy ground. It is a productive place. While I read about the unequal gendered division of labor, not a new concept for me, I am torn between wanting and simultaneously rejecting the idea of picking I. up from her after-school Spanish class to walk her, on her first day, to drama. (I had made sure she had extra snack this morning, and also sent another one with M. just in case) I waver and waver, it turns into a full-blown moral battle in my head. I call to change plans three times because I finish my language test in just 10 minutes and this evening's seminar appears to be cancelled for a brief moment. I curse myself for being a control freak. I call again to say that I better not go, that I. isn't expecting me and that it would set a bad precedent. I secretly think, dammit, I should just let somebody else take care of things once in a while, this is unfair to me, to always be stressing about the upkeep of the child. I call again because I cave and I want to see her, participate (usurp parental authority?). And then I call back once more because class isn't cancelled after all. Saved from my own complicit acceptance of subordinate status.
After "doing gender" and revelling in "gender trouble" for the better part of the afternoon, I come home. I have no energy to make food, though I was imagining polenta, (even though I am the only member of my household that likes it)... there was leftover seafood risotto from last night, and pasta and chicken with a mushroom cream sauce (I have taken to using vermouth in all my cooking) but I was once more confronted with the fact that while we are both tired, and spent, I am the one invested with the making of dinner. I am too tired to be annoyed.
Before I take a scalding shower to focus my scattered energy on the paper that I write for tomorrow, I snuggle briefly with my child as she is settling in to watch "They Might Be Giants" puppet alphabet video that Jeffy sent and just arrived (she loved it! thanks;) and I am tempted to make an experiment of her.
"Come here sweet pea." (what is it with Americans and our ridiculous custom of calling our children vegetables? pumpkin, among others)... and the sly researcher in me slips out... "who's my good little boy?"
"I'm not a boy, I'm a girl."
"Are you?" I feign surprise.
"Yes"
(grumbling from the peanut gallery, "Ilana don't start with your strange ideas, don't confuse her.")
"How do you know?" I prod.
"Because I wear girl clothing." (aha! she is already socialized in distinctive gender markers, but does not conflate genitalia with sex category)
Silence.
"Well, boys can sometimes wear girl clothing too, it's ok. But I wear it more."
I smile to myself, my child is amazing. I'm convinced. I know some people might be horrified by this, but I think it is fabulous that at such a self-regulating age she is able to be not only tolerant of difference but fully open to it. Maybe there will be substantive change... maybe there is hope for the future?
Work is overtaking my humble attempts at writing. I want to write, a whole novel, I want to read, a trashy book, or one of high childhood fantasy, or just sit with my child and read a story of thieves and princesses locked in towers. But work calls, and the doing of gender prevails... (god I forgot how horribly repetetive sociological texts tend to be.)
This afternoon I sat in my usual place - I have found (while it doesn't rain) a place where I like to work, I let the sun beat down on me, bleaching my hair little by little. It is close enough to a bathroom, and my classes, and distant enough from my awful desk... I can see my tree, but I can't sit on the soggy ground. It is a productive place. While I read about the unequal gendered division of labor, not a new concept for me, I am torn between wanting and simultaneously rejecting the idea of picking I. up from her after-school Spanish class to walk her, on her first day, to drama. (I had made sure she had extra snack this morning, and also sent another one with M. just in case) I waver and waver, it turns into a full-blown moral battle in my head. I call to change plans three times because I finish my language test in just 10 minutes and this evening's seminar appears to be cancelled for a brief moment. I curse myself for being a control freak. I call again to say that I better not go, that I. isn't expecting me and that it would set a bad precedent. I secretly think, dammit, I should just let somebody else take care of things once in a while, this is unfair to me, to always be stressing about the upkeep of the child. I call again because I cave and I want to see her, participate (usurp parental authority?). And then I call back once more because class isn't cancelled after all. Saved from my own complicit acceptance of subordinate status.
After "doing gender" and revelling in "gender trouble" for the better part of the afternoon, I come home. I have no energy to make food, though I was imagining polenta, (even though I am the only member of my household that likes it)... there was leftover seafood risotto from last night, and pasta and chicken with a mushroom cream sauce (I have taken to using vermouth in all my cooking) but I was once more confronted with the fact that while we are both tired, and spent, I am the one invested with the making of dinner. I am too tired to be annoyed.
Before I take a scalding shower to focus my scattered energy on the paper that I write for tomorrow, I snuggle briefly with my child as she is settling in to watch "They Might Be Giants" puppet alphabet video that Jeffy sent and just arrived (she loved it! thanks;) and I am tempted to make an experiment of her.
"Come here sweet pea." (what is it with Americans and our ridiculous custom of calling our children vegetables? pumpkin, among others)... and the sly researcher in me slips out... "who's my good little boy?"
"I'm not a boy, I'm a girl."
"Are you?" I feign surprise.
"Yes"
(grumbling from the peanut gallery, "Ilana don't start with your strange ideas, don't confuse her.")
"How do you know?" I prod.
"Because I wear girl clothing." (aha! she is already socialized in distinctive gender markers, but does not conflate genitalia with sex category)
Silence.
"Well, boys can sometimes wear girl clothing too, it's ok. But I wear it more."
I smile to myself, my child is amazing. I'm convinced. I know some people might be horrified by this, but I think it is fabulous that at such a self-regulating age she is able to be not only tolerant of difference but fully open to it. Maybe there will be substantive change... maybe there is hope for the future?
posted by ilana at 10:48 p.m.
4 Comments:
Yo siempre me he preguntado lo mismo. Porqué las palabras de cariño en inglés suelen ser de comida y en español de cosas como vida, amor, cielo...?
Maybe it is because we are so repressed (puritanical mores and such), that the only oral pleasure we allow ourselves to name is that of food? I mean, not me, of course... but historico-linguistically speaking perhaps? right... sugar, honey, sweetie pie, peanut, (cream puff... ha ha. i think I might shoot someone in justifiable homicide if they called me something like this) "you're the apple of my eye"... etc.
Excellent! I am glad she likes it... I think my favorite is the cartoon with the robot. Although the "letter shapes" is astoundingly clever as well.
I really liked the music, and I need to watch it again before I pick a fav. Thanks again, it was really sweet of you, and she was shouting out the letters as they passed on the screen before they were announced. (She is reading and writing little words now, I am thouroughly impressed given that I didn't learn to read until I was well past 6).
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