Today You Look Like Outer Space

My daughter chose to wear a navy blue thermal shirt with white stars all over it and a black skirt with a similar design.

I know this doesn't match.

But she looks "like outer space"... and outer space is pretty awesome.  She is also sporting chocolate around her mouth.  I'm not sure what this is from.

None of that really matters.

Our family is going through a lot right now.

My husband's job is in flux - he's not going to be spending a whole lot of time at home with us for an indefinite period of time.  It's scary and sad and we're all nervous and a little angry.  Okay... some of us are a lot angry.  When he is home he's pounding the pavement for jobs or working on resume stuff or applying to everything online he can find.  We're preparing for the worst in a lot of ways.  I've been trying to find extra jobs too, just in case. 

Yesterday was just a hard day for our family.  Lots of dark moods.  Lots of sadness.  Lots of tears.

Sometimes it takes the six year old girl to dress up like outer space. A reminder that there isn't a whole lot we can control in this life, but we can choose our outer space clothes.  We can shrug off conformity and just wear what makes us happy.  That constraints like "matching" aren't the most important thing there is in this life.  We can choose our attitude.  We can freely choose that every day.

Cut.

Today my daughter gave herself a hair cut.

I have heard that this is a normal sort of right of passage for a young lady, and since my daughter is just over four, it must be about that time.

I blame myself.

First of all, I left the scissors out after cutting my sons hair today.

Second...  well...  I don't exactly present an example of long flowing locks as being equal to femininity.  I don't even present with a cute bob as equal to femininity.  So who the heck am I to tell my daughter she can't have a super short haircut?

But I admit, I gave serious pause when she opened the bathroom door, beaming, and her lovely brown hair was strewn all about the floor.  She removed her bangs completely.  There were several random chunks out of the back and sides.  Nothing was the same length.  And it. was. short.

I am certain that shock registered all over my face.

"I cut my hair!"  She was elated.  Empowered.  Glowing.

And I get it.

When you're four years old you don't have a lot of say over many things.  You can't drive.  You can't leave.  You can't use the sharp knives.  You don't have a lot of spending power.  You can't read well.  You don't yet type.  You don't have many friends.

But your hair...well...  that's yours, isn't it?  Isn't it?

I bit my tongue and smiled back at her.

My husband neatened it up a bit, with her permission, and now she's got a pixie-do... minus bangs.

While I was cleaning up the pieces of hair on the floor she said, "Mom, it's okay.  It's just hair.  And it's my hair, so I can cut it if I want to, right?"

Bottom line?

She's RIGHT.

So many of us are horrified when our daughter's take ownership over something as little as their hair.  Something as meaningless.

Hair does not define a person.  It does not define their beauty, their intellect, their emotions, their talents, their gifts, their capacity for love.  Hair is JUST HAIR, Mom.  It's JUST hair.

I've been through the wringer and back about my own choices in hair style - and yet I could feel my voice catching in my throat when it was my little girl.  I thought about my parents' reactions to my hair and I understand it now...  you think... suddenly...  she's not as pretty.

And you HATE that reaction.

That hair DOES matter?  It kills you.  Because it SHOULD.  NOT.  MATTER.

And you'd best bite it back.  And you'd best allow your little girl to OWN that haircut.  And you'd best tell her she's beautiful.  And you'd best MEAN IT.  Because if we are to say that women are more than their bodies.  And if we are to say that women have OWNERSHIP over their bodies, then we'd better apply that to our daughters right now.  And their daughters.  And the girl at the grocery store.  And the older woman who shaves or dyes or cuts or whatever she wants.  We need to look beyond the hair, and see into the soul.

...so why DON'T I?

I just finished reading this article in Whole Living Magazine about the Tao.

(cue freak-out from my religious friends who think I'll be a pagan/Buddhist/atheist/Jew at any moment...)

It's been awhile since I've read anything about the Tao. 

Last time, I was in college.

I was dating this guy who was supremely down-to-earth.  Not a boring down-to-earth, but a rich, soulful, grounded down-to-earth.

The kind of guy who sits up in his boxers playing jazz saxophone until three in the morning and tops it off with a joint, fine wine, and reading Anne Rice. 

He had the most interesting books, music, and philosophy piled in his cave-like basement bedroom, and introduced me to the wonders of Blues Traveler, Charlie Parker, Dead Poets Society, and The Tao of Pooh (did I mention the guy had an affinity for A. A. Milne?).

I read these books and listened to this music ravenously, and not just because I was trying to impress the guy, but also because I was genuinely interested.

And so...  long story not that much shorter, when I came across this article regarding the Tao in the magazine this evening, I was not wholly unfamiliar with the idea.

Of course, this time, I was approaching it as a married (NOT to this guy) mom of two who has her very own interests, a small-time career in the art world, and a shaved head.  Basically, I'm a far-cry from my nineteen-year-old self.

The first time I read, I took in the ideas, but this time, I nodded knowingly.  I embraced more fully.  I grasped more intentionally.  That fully developed frontal lobe has its benefits.

As I was reading I remembered how much the tao had to say about "going with the flow" and "trusting your instincts".  Those two things are catch phrases for nothing.  We really should much of the time.

It's funny.

There are so many times in my life where I look at something, or think of something, and think - I'd really like to do that right about now... but I don't.

I wrote these "mom goals" for myself a few years ago (I don't recommend this) and every once in awhile I visit them.  Mostly, they just serve for making me feel like a huge failure because the fact is, I really just don't do the things I set out to do there on that paper.  But... I want to.

One of those things is swimming every morning.

I can only imagine how much more amazing my life would be if I actually got off my butt and went to the pool every single day and started everything off with just a half hour of water awesomeness.  I love swimming more than just about anything.  I enjoy it more than running, hiking, walking, boxing, yoga - all that crap.  There's nothing that can compare to the water.

So why don't. I. do it?

Laziness?

I think about going to the water.  The thought thrills me.

And then something inside my body rebels.  It says "don't do it!  You'll get cold!  You'll have to shower after!  You'll be taking time away from your family!"  And those three things are enough to keep me home.

That...and the insane amount of busy-ness I've let accumulate in my life.

I haven't made any resolutions for this New Year.  And here I am writing something in January that you won't get to read until June... but I want to make this one promise to myself...  that I'll quit the busy-ness crap.  Seriously.  It's getting to me.

Most of you know I'm a theatre person.  I like that part of my identity.  It makes me special and different and associates me with a set of talented, intelligent, and creative people who are generally accepting, supportive, and fun.  The problem with being a theatre-person is that it is all-consuming.  During the rehearsal process and shows theatre trumps literally everything.  The longer I'm a mom and wife the more that bothers me.

Right now, I'm directing Brecht's Caucasian Chalk Circle.  I'm excited about the process and what will certainly be an exceptional product.  But when I looked at the schedule I'd made I realized that show week we trumped my daughter's dance class.  We knocked out my son's cub scout meeting.  We ditched swim team several times to make room for rehearsals.  And that's... well that's just wrong.  Selfish.  And wrong.

I have been so used to making theatre the Most Important Thing that I neglected to think about the ACTUAL Most Important Thing: the people I love.

Some show shouldn't matter to me more than spending time with my kids.  Than taking my kids to their chosen activities.

And this isn't me saying that parents shouldn't have their own interests, because trust me, it's a vital necessity, but it is me saying that for ME...theatre is probably going to have to go - at least until my kids are older - until I can approach it more on my own terms...until I can get to a place (if that place exists) where the craft doesn't own me...I own the craft.

And thus and so for the rest of my life.

Why should everything around me have so much power over me?

I get up in the morning and I WANT to eat an apple, but I eat potato chips because I feel a craving and I cave to it because it feels good for that moment even though I knew it wasn't what my body wanted or needed in that moment.

I don't go swimming because I've decided and programmed my brain to tell me every time I think on it that it's going to be more trouble than it's worth - forgetting the amazing pay-off for the follow-through.

Right now I'm in the throws of ...Chalk Circle and planning this bus trip with the fam. and trying to get out from under our house and taxi-ing our children hither and yon...  And it feels like this is not really the time to get out there and do the things I want to do...but if not now, when?

Now...  how to fit this into my already intensive schedule...  and which pool to try first.

What aren't you doing right now that you WANT to be doing?  What's holding you back?

Not Oppressed?

I've heard many state that women aren't an oppressed group.

I've thought about it a lot, honestly.

Growing up, I don't remember ever feeling oppressed.

There were times when I thought it must be a lot more fun to be a boy - but this was never because of restrictions placed upon me by my parents or society, just because they weren't so petty in conversation.

I was annoyed when I realized that girls couldn't play football, but it never struck me as oppressive.  I was angry when they kicked the girls off of the baseball team in fourth grade and sent them to the softball field, even when they were perfectly good baseball players - but I didn't think of this as oppression.

This weekend, however, while hanging around the theatre, I heard about the Crime and Punishment Museum.

I never knew about the severe oppression.  There were special torture devices for women who gossiped.  For women who disobeyed their husbands. For women who were "too quarrelsome".

We discussed it in jest, but it made my blood boil that such things ever existed.

And then, I saw this:

Sensei Keiko Fukuda was just presented with the 10th Dan (degree) in Judo.  She was a 5th degree black belt for thirty years, because a woman had never made it past that rank.  When asked if she could move on, the powers that be said that because there was no precedent for a woman, she should not be allowed.

It had nothing to do with her skills.  It had nothing to do with her understanding.  It was only her gender that prevented her from moving on in her art.

I had heard of oppression in The Congo and several other parts of Africa.  I had heard of oppression in Iran.  I knew of the disposal of Chinese babies who happened to be born female.

I had not heard of this in the martial arts.

My son takes tae kwon do locally and there are at least as many girls as boys at the do jang each time we visit.  They are equally capable, equally interested...  I can't imagine them being kept from progressing.

I know that we enjoy a little more equality when it comes to our gender in the United States, but we still have a long way to go.

Learning the history of what women have endured (and I'm sure I'll be doing more research into those devices seen at Crime and Punishment) has opened my eyes to just how far women have come, and just what we've had to fight for.

Stop it.

This morning I left my kids in the car with it running while I ran inside to get the Netflix and drop it into the mail. Don't chastise, you know all you mothers have done it at least once in your lives. Nothing horrible happened. I left the door open, and ANYWAY, that has nothing to do with this blog except that it sets the scene for what happened next.

As I was walking back from the mailbox, I heard my daughter screaming. When I looked into the backseat of the car, I could see my son reaching over and trying to tickle her and she was trying to push his hands away and crying. He knew that she wanted him to stop, but he kept doing it anyway. I saw it.

I told him to stop and he said "I was just tickling her!"

"She was crying because she wanted you to stop."

...

"But you did it more anyway. You are in time out. Five minutes. When someone says to stop, you stop. When [your sister] is crying it means that she wants you to stop. You don't keep doing it. You stop."

He did his time on the curb in front of our house while I made faces at my daughter through the car window. It was freezing, so I thought it best to let her sit in the heating car. The windshield wipers and defrost were on full blast so I could forgo scraping the windows, especially since I didn't have a scraper.

As I looked from my son to my now giggling daughter, I admit I felt a little sick. Why did he keep tickling her when it was so obvious she wanted him to stop it? Why would he do something like that?

I talked to him again after the time out and then we headed to his school. It was pretty quiet in the car. I had some time to think - which is rare in our family.

While were were sitting at a red light I had a little flashback to a few months ago when my husband's parents were here and my son's grandfather was tickling him.

"Stop it!" he yelled through forced laughter. Grandpa didn't stop it. Grandpa kept it up. And the other adults laughed. I remember this bothering me a lot, but I wasn't sure what to say. This seemed to be how grandfather's played with their grandkids.

There was another time when he was wrestling with my brother at Thanksgiving and he said "let me go!" My brother said "What's the magic word?" and my son said, obviously feeling out of control and a little scared "Please!", and then his uncle let him out of the "hold".

I remember as a child my own uncle played with me like that. I hated it. He was my least favorite uncle because I hated that feeling of being held down and unable to move, barely able to breath enough to choke out the word "Please!"

All of these flashbacks showed me something.

If this is how we play with children. If this is how we allow our children to be treated. How can they EVER say "No!" and mean it when they grow up? How can our sons understand that when a girl says "Stop it!" she MEANS it. She shouldn't have to say "Please!"

It seems, when I step back in this way, a twisted game of control, and it scares me. A small child couldn't hope to have control over an adult so much bigger than him. He pleads for them to stop and they DO NOT STOP or they tell them that they must SAY THE MAGIC WORD... this is wrong. We should treat our children with the respect we expect them to show others.

Treating them in this way will only show that the bigger person has all the power. The person who is physically stronger is always in control. Someone smaller or weaker must be subservient. Must ask permission. Must beg.

I think that these are the sorts of situations out of which rapists are born.

I am not saying that my brother or father-in-law, both of whom I love, mean any harm. Or that my uncle did when I was a child. Or that my son will grow up to hurt those weaker than himself... but it is an awful paradox to get through, is it not?

I hope that next time I will have the courage to say something - that God will give me the right words to say to explain why I don't want my children treated this way. That it will make sense to someone other than me.