Happy Thanksgiving

A lot to be thankful for this year. Emerson's first Thanksgiving & 9 months old today. Grateful that my dad made it through his heart problems earlier this year so that he could be around for it. Grateful that my brother now has a job where is able to be off on Thanksgiving so that he could make the trip to Tulsa too. Grateful that my stepsons were with us this year. Grateful for my husband/best friend.

All was great except for about 6 hours when I turned into turbobitch. I keep scaling Thanksgiving back so that it should in theory be easier and easier every year. I still couldn't get through it without having a bad attitude.

Thanksgiving at my grandma's was great when I was a kid. No one ever seemed to be angry or pissed off. That was because everyone knew their roles. The women cooked and cleaned and the men entertained the young kids, watched football, but mostly lounged. No one expected the men to do anything, so there was no reason for the women to be resentful of it.

That's my problem. I expect men to do things now. I was angry when there were 4 men over 18 in my house and no one said "what can I do?". I got some help cleaning up only after I was noticibly pissed off.

But if I expect men to change their roles, why can't I let go of my "womanly" role of wanting a story book Thanksgiving? Of thinking that it's not really Thanksgiving without a turkey, potatoes, stuffing, and rolls?

I love my family and don't want to be angry again. Notes for the future:

1. Make expectations clear: Before a holiday meal from now on, talk with all attendees and assign roles so that I'm not doing it all. If nobody else agrees to help beforehand, we won't have a dinner at all. If I crave turkey myself, I'll go to the meal at Hope Unitarian.

2. Lower expectations: I was super calm after the meal was over. I was a completely different person. I love turkey but no meal is worth getting angry over. If it helps family cohesiveness, we'll eat cold pizza for Thanksgiving next year.

3. Better timing: Part of my stress was that Emerson started fussing for food when I had two pots boiling over and Rod was out. Don't attempt anything unless I have a backup for child care.

4. Better preparation: If I had started addressing the need to clean certain areas of the house before this morning, I wouldn't have let a week's worth of anger build up. It wouldn't have eliminated the anger about the meal but I probably would have been more forgiving if I hadn't already had a bad morning.

5. Embrace the bitchiness: Not all anger is bad. It was understandable to be irritated when no one felt compelled to help me without being prodded. Isn't it just common decency to offer to help the host? Or is that something that little girls learn but no boys were ever taught? Feel the anger, know why I am angry, and make sure the situation improves next time or find ways to avoid the triggers next time. It is not acceptable, however, to let the anger ruin my day and everyone else's.

I'm really not obsessed about this - I just wanted to write while it was all still fresh. I *did* have a great Thanksgiving and am more thankful every day for my family, health, job, and friends.

Fears

It is approaching the time of year for holiday travel. Both of my parents live a few hours away, and both will no doubt like to see Emerson around Christmas. I especially want her to make it up to Wichita to meet her great-grandparents, who are 86 and 89.

I have been fine driving Emerson around town. And I have been mostly fine driving long distances by myself. I had a job once where I drove all over the state and region. I made it through by avoiding high-traffic times and planning routes that put me on side-streets whenever feasible. I made it work because I had to. But the thought of driving with Emerson in the car at a high speed is a bit crippling right now.

In my family of origin, driving was always something to be scared of. My father always got a look of fear in his eyes every time he merged onto the highway, and often talked about all of the big dangerous trucks that were out there, just ready to kill us all if we weren't vigilant. And I don't recall my mother ever driving on the highway until I was in high school and she and my father were driving our two cars from Arizona to Oklahoma. I remember my mom being terrified, and my dad being terrified for her. I fully expected a horrible fiery crash, but we made it back unscathed.

I can't entirely blame my parents for this fear. My brother drives just fine. Rush hour. Dallas traffic. No problem.

I am afraid of something bad happening to my baby. An acquaintance of mine lost her young son in a car crash, and our minister lost her young daughter to a freak illness. When I see them at church, they remind me of how quickly it can all be lost. So it makes me want to huddle in my house and never take her anywhere. It makes me want to call an ambulance for any sniffle, just so I can be sure she's in the right hands if she stops breathing.

These are all things I feel driven to do, but I am not going to do them. I don't want to fuel any sort of neuroses in Emerson, or at least prevent that as much as possible. I want her to grow up seeing me as reasonable and confident. I want to *be* reasonable and confident. Having a fun life that is at all worth living means taking some risks. So while I might always have the underlying fear that something bad will happen, I will just have to swallow that up and put on a strong face for her. For Christmas and in general, I want to give my daughter the gift of not letting fear control her.

A Better Place

Quoting nictate from Twitter: "To borrow a phrase from Jack Nicholson in "As Good As It Gets": Obama makes me want to be a better man. Well, woman. Person. Oh, you get it."

I haven't written it down, but that AGAIG quote has come to mind lately, as so many people have felt called to service by Barack Obama. There are people who inspire me just to be "better". My Youth and Government kids. My husband. My stepsons. My daughter. A few teachers. My friends who volunteer for campaigns and charitable organizations to the point where they have no free time. They make we want to learn more. Help more. Believe that change is possible and that I can help bring it about. Basically not be such a lazy fatass. I think about petty crap a lot. I obsess about the division of labor in my house. About what they fed the baby at daycare. I want to think about MORE than that.

I was thinking a few days ago that some of my favorite teachers growing up were then about the same age that I am now. How they have influenced me more than they know. And how I'm a lazy sum'bitch for mostly keeping to myself and associating with few people other than my immediate family. Occasionally, I feel like I do some good in the lives of my Youth and Government kids, but it is such a small percentage of the nurturing and attention that they need.

I like having lots of free time. I like sleeping late on Saturday and not doing a damn thing if I don't feel like it. But I feel like one of these days I'm going to regret not doing more. I'm not going to beat myself up too hard for a few years at least - I mean I have an 8 month old. I don't exactly spend a lot of time pampering myself. I hope to make service a part of Emerson's childhood. She and I can do things together, so I don't have to feel like I'm sacrificing my already limited time with her to give back to the community. I want it to be second nature to her - I don't want her to be like so many kids I see who always have their face in an ipod or cell phone or video game and don't seem to care at all about what is going on around them. I want her to have empathy and some knowledge of the three dimensional world. I want her to have a giving heart but also be able to protect herself.

She makes me want to help her become a better person than I am, and I think that will also help make me a better person in the process.

So far to go

Yesterday was big. Adults crying out of pride, exhaustion, and hope. I, too, am happy about the selection of Obama as President. I think he is the symbol we need right now to restore hope to our country. He just "gets it". He values curiosity and appreciates technology. He understands that there is more to being a great nation than being the toughest bully on the playground.

We certainly have come a long way since the 1960's. The stories of so many African Americans who both lived through all the crap of those days and were able to see an African American be elected President are moving to me.

I wonder if we will see that much progress for gay people in my lifetime? I am saddened to see the passage of Prop 8 in California. Anti-gay marriage amendments passed in Florida and Arizona. A proposal banning adoptions for unmarried couples, aimed primarily at gays, passed in Arkansas. Sally Kern, known for her "homosexuality is a bigger threat than terrorism" comments earlier this year was re-elected to the Oklahoma State House.

All of this saddens me so much and erodes the happiness I feel about Obama's election. What is the path to equality?

I think it has to start with some kind of instigating event. We need some sort of equivalent of Rosa Parks refusing to give up her seat on the bus.

We also need a Martin Luther King-like figure. Someone who peacefully yet powerfully makes the case for equality.

We need to figure out a way to make our case known, more than just the annual parade. But how? How do we make being gay not seem wrong to the people who cite the Bible? How can gay people demonstrate and not get made fun of? How can we overcome the "eww" feeling that many people express when they think of two guys kissing eachother? How do we demonstrate that kids can thrive living with parents of the same gender? How can we make straight, "moral" couples feel less threatened if a same-sex couple is given the right to marry? I feel pulled strongly to joining with others and developing some answers to these questions.

I didn't cry for Obama, but I will bawl like a baby if we elect an openly gay President in my lifetime.

So much for light bedtime reading

I suppose I repeat myself quite a bit on this blog, especially when it comes to equality between the genders when it comes to housework and the like. It is something I think about a lot, as I want to avoid anything similar to the situation I grew up in, where the share of household responsibilities was nowhere near being equal, even when my mother was working full time. I think communication is very important here - when one member of the partnership feels like things aren't equal, then it should be mentioned as soon as possible before resentment starts to build.

I have been following the blog from the Equally Shared Parenting website for several months. While I question how this couple actually behaves in the real world and not in their online personas, there are always some good points made.

I also have been reading How to Avoid the Mommy Trap. I've found that it isn't the book I need to be reading right before bed, as it has never failed to raise my blood pressure when I read about the situations that these women get themselves into and fail to put on the brakes as they get further and further into these bad situations. So far it has raised several good questions that should be discussed by any couple before they get married, and definitely before having children.

A theme in this book has to do with BATNA, or the Best Alternative to a Negotiated Agreement. It is as important theme in Economics as well, and I consider it to be a part of Game Theory. Basically, it is your Plan B, what you will do if your situation doesn't work out the way you want it to ideally. I also think of it as your willingness to walk away from the current situation. If there is a neighborhood of similar houses selling for $200K and the seller of the house you want won't come down from $225K, then you have a pretty good BATNA - just walk away and find a better deal at the house down the street, or decide that you don't really need another house right now.

When women get married and have kids and immediately give up their careers, their BATNA will likely be worse. If the marriage ends for whatever reason, her own financial position will be worse because the husband isn't providing income for her anymore. She won't be able to find a great job right away because she has been out of the workforce and probably not spending much time keeping up her job skills and continuing her education in the field, plus she would have to pay for childcare and have enough flexibility to take care of a sick child. Not a good situation, so she is less likely to leave the marriage, giving the husband more power. Power to do pretty much whatever he wants. Not a romantic way to put things, but marriage is an economic agreement as well as all of the wonderful things that marriage can be.

On the other hand, if a wife keeps up her own career, she wields more power in the relationship. She doesn' t have to put up with things like domestic abuse or affairs, or even being treated in any way as less than an equal. This doesn' t mean that she has to ever threaten to leave or even really consider it. I just imagine that the husband of a woman who can take care of herself would think twice before pulling any kind of behavior that would give her cause to walk away. Again, not very romantic, but I think that women need to think about these sorts of things.