IslandRoar

Worrying

Like many people, I have very mixed feelings about the war in Afghanistan.

Let me also say that, although I do not currently have any close friends or family serving in the military, I greatly respect and admire those men and women who do.

What I want to write about here are the women of Afghanistan. I don't claim to know much. But I worry about them. A lot.

They are the collateral damage. In places where the Taliban rules, women have no rights. They belong to men who are free to discipline them as they see fit, even a male stranger on the street.

Women are not allowed to be educated or to have careers. In many cases they cannot leave the house.

The taboos on contact between the sexes is so severe that male doctors are not permitted to treat female patients. Yet female physicians are banned from legally practicing medicine. So women have little or no access to health care, and many die as a result.

Women brave enough to quietly rebel, whether it be to seek out education, practice a career, or help other women in some way, face horrific penalties. Beating, maiming, even killing them is not a crime.

Life has gotten better in the parts of the country where the Taliban has been run off. There are new schools. Girls are permitted to learn to read.

We've all heard about schools being blown up, destroyed. But they rebuild.

Women, girls, have had acid thrown in their face for daring to pursue an education. Or worse. How do these mothers find the courage to keep sending their daughters to school, knowing what might happen? The longing for a better life, one with more opportunity, obviously runs deep.

I cannot, for one single second, imagine what they feel.

Yet I think about them all the time.

I don't believe it is our job as a nation to police the world. Realistically, can we destroy the Taliban for good? As I understand it, we're in Afghanistan to attempt to leave the country less hospitable to terrorists, thus increasing our own safety.

But how we leave it will also have a huge impact on the lives of all its women.

I don't have any answers. But I worry.

Is there anything going on in the world that worries you significantly? Or do you have enough to worry about right in your own house?

 

Boys

I always wanted a daughter. There, I said it.

That doesn't mean I wouldn't have been happy if I'd never had one. Life is all about adjusting expectations, no?

My point is, I subconsciously spent years preparing myself to raise a daughter. She would be smart and assertive and grow up empowered as a woman. Which of course would serve to fulfill me as a woman, as well as make me a shoe-in for Mother of the Year.

Then I had a son. A son?

This was not in the plan. What did one do with a boy? There were whole volumes of issues I'd never before considered:
  How did I feel about circumcision?
  Would I allow him to play with toy weapons?
  Not to mention that whole burping-farting-spitting thing boys insist on 
  doing.

Fortunately, while pregnant, I dreamed I was having a boy. This gave me a few months to readjust my expectations and prepare (yup, I was that confident my dream was accurate).

MY son would be different.

He would be brilliant, brave, strong, blah blah blah. But he would also love women. Without ever underestimating them in any way. He would be enlightened. My personal man-gift to the future and women everywhere.

Then he was born.

I swear I must have intrauterine parts capable of being used as weaponry, because from the moment First-Born Son emerged, he seemed absolutely convinced he was an action-adventure superhero.

I read him Free To Be You and Me. He preferred books on dinosaurs.

I bought him a Doctor Barbie doll. He stripped her, bent her in half, and shot the cat.

His favorite game at age three was to make me lie on the couch and pretend I was Sleeping Beauty, while he, Prince Phillip, kissed me back to life.

At the time, I was pregnant with Daughter #1 and on bed-rest so this worked out quite nicely. For a while.

But there's only so many times  in one day a modern, liberated woman can tolerate this fairytale crap before she balks.

"Okay, my turn," I'd finally say, after about 50 wake-up kisses. "Now Prince Phillip lies on the couch and Sleeping Beauty kisses him back to life."

Smooth. Subtle. I know that's what you're thinking.

He didn't buy it for one minute. But, to his credit, he'd indulge me a time or two before we moved on. That is, if he wanted me to ever play with him again.

Yeah, I admit it. Manipulation, coercion, bribery: these are all part of my parenting repertoire. For my boy and my girls.

But the boy thing seems to have worked out okay. At 22, First-Born Son is a smart, generous young man who never underestimates women for a single second.

Not if he wants them to keep playing with him...

If you're a parent, did you have any preconceived notions about how you would raise your kids, and if so, how has that worked out for you so far?

 

Spin Cycle: Wish List

 

What do I wish for? Ha! A better question might be what don't I wish for?

I know admitting I wish for anything is probably mucho politically incorrect. So let me say right up front: I love my family and I'm grateful to be blessed with my wonderful life, blah blah blah...

Now that that's out of the way, I have to say it'd be really nice to replace the crappy carpeting in my house with hardwood floors. What were the people who built this place thinking! And on that same note, tile for the kitchen and the bathroom, because apparently they considered that a luxury as well.

While I'm on a roll, let me add a hot tub and a sex life (I don't believe the two have to be mutually exclusive), and a car that runs so that people won't actually laugh at me or want to scream obscenities about me murdering the environment when I drive by.

And how about a MacBook, a Kindle, and an ass you could bounce a quarter off of (they exist, I know they do. Ask Twenty Four; she sees them every day in Money Town).

Let me not forget a successful writing career, generous stock dividends, and children who are cheerful, always polite, and eternally grateful.

Wow, I'm exhausted. Who knew being shallow was this consuming?

Of course, I'd have to tag onto the end: no more wars or hate or poverty, and public acceptance by all world leaders that women really are the superior sex. No wish list would be complete without those.

Anything else?

No, actually, I think that'll do.

 

For more inspired and infinitely more generous wish lists, go see Sprite's Keeper. I really wish you would.

 

At A Loss (part two)

 

If you haven't read Part One of this post, you can find it here.

 

After she got her hearing aids, Daughter #2's speech grew by big fat leaps and bounds.

In those first few weeks, she would cock her head to the side, exclaiming, "I hear sum-tin!" Then run to the door or window to check out what it was. I couldn't believe how much she'd been missing.

I steered myself for the years to come, the negotiations I would need to engage in, and the accommodations that would be necessary for her in the school system. In life. The uphill battle certain things would be for her, things I had so taken for granted with my other kids.

Do you know some people treat children with hearing aids like they're mentally disabled or slow? Yeah, they do. And some people are uncomfortable at the mere site of a kid with hearing aids.

Fairly or not, I came to judge my older children's friends by how they handled D #2's disability.

"Is she retarded?" One little boy asked, sneering. As though she wasn't even in the room. STRIKE OUT.

"What's your sister got in her ears?" another asked.

"Those are her hearing aids." I could see First-Born Son almost holding his breath as he said this. "To help her hear."

"Oh." The boy shrugged. "Like bionic ears. Cool." HOME RUN.

I started saving for the tiny, but enormously expensive, hearing aids that would fit inside her ear and be practically invisible, the kind the audiologist assured me would be perfect for her as an adolescent.

Then, before she turned five, on a routine audiogram, her hearing tested almost normal. We'd been going every three or four months, to our same amazing audiologist, Ellen, each time.

Ellen didn't know what to make of it. Neither did the specialists she sent us to in Manhattan.

"I guess you might call it a miracle," one doctor said. "Except I don't believe in miracles."

The director of her school took me aside and quietly suggested that I not share what had happened with the other parents; she didn't want to encourage false hope.

Today, D #2 still has fluctuations in her hearing and does much better if she can look at someone as they speak, but she no longer wears hearing aids. She sits in the front of the class by choice, and she works really hard to overcome the learning difficulties she has as a result of those early years. Really hard.

And really successfully. She is driven in a way my two other children never had to be. She wants it. Bad.

This then, is my very un-scientific theory to explain what happened: I was so sick for that entire pregnancy. I only gained 13 pounds, and she was 7lbs, 14oz, with the biggest placenta the nurses had ever seen. Looking back, I think I may have had some viral infection that was passed on to her, affecting her hearing.

Unknowingly, I continued to pass on this virus to her through the next year and a half of nursing. Gradually, after she was weaned, the virus dissipated, leaving only residual damage, in the form of fluctuations in her hearing.

At least, that's my attempt at a logical explanation.

But as for what I really think happened?

Well, let's just say that, unlike that doctor, I do believe in miracles.

Wouldn't you?

Presidential Power

President Obama has come and gone from here on the Vineyard, bookended by tropical storms Bill and Danny.

Whether or not you're a fan of the President, it's hard to escape the excitement of knowing he's so near.

Driving up-island, for instance, we have to go past the entrance to Blue Heron Farm, where the President stayed. At the end of the road were police officers, state troopers, and Secret Service, all standing guard, as well as barricades and, at night, the brightest spot lights this island has ever seen (I took the above photo as we drove by; sorry, we couldn't slow down, and it's the best I could do).

And every day, of course, the reported sightings, either of the presidential motorcade, or the first family, or the big man himself. On an island this size, information and gossip both travel at light speed, but what never ceases to amaze me is the overwhelming amount of time that the word on the street is completely accurate.

Before opening a newspaper or clicking on the news, we knew each day which town Obama had been in, what sights he'd seen, and where he'd played golf or eaten a meal (and the man plays a lot of golf, people; he hit each of the island's 3 courses at least once. I thought this was supposed to be family time).

But the most exciting things for me personally, were First-Born Son's very own Obama sightings, three to be exact.

One of F.B. Son's jobs is way up-island in the town of Aquinnah, home of the beautiful Gay Head lighthouse. It sits atop the stunning, multi-colored clay cliffs that are considered sacred to the island's Native Americans, the Wampanoag.

Apparently the President climbed to the top of the lighthouse and waved to the crowds near and far, F.B. Son among them. He saw people pulling haphazardly off to the side of the road and abandoning their cars, running to get a glimpse of the prez.

That same evening, and again the next day, he was stopped for a security check on his way into work at his wait job, his first clue something was up. He and the rest of the staff were patted down by the Secret Service. There were bomb-sniffing dogs, and special security forces packing heat, hidden everywhere.

When the President finally made his appearances, he was preceded by a bevy of Secret Service agents, all carrying large duffel bags.

F.B. Son said someone called out, "What's in the bags?" and was met with a cynical smile by one agent who replied, "What do you think?"

Obama stopped to chat with the crowd during one of these encounters, and as he started to walk away he turned and looked in F.B. Son's direction.

"Then he did a double-take, I swear," my son reported with sincere excitement. "He looked right at me and smiled. Right at me. It was pretty cool."

I don't doubt it for a second. Who wouldn't notice him?

The President is obviously a very smart man.

Island Magic

Presidential Playground?

If you live on the Vineyard long enough, you will eventually have your share of celebrity sightings.

My son has been on the wait-staff of a private golf club for the past four summers, and he's served his share of actors, athletes, and politicians. Last summer in one two week period, he waited on Bill and Hillary Clinton, and then Barrack and Michelle Obama.

Daughter#1  got to attend Carly Simon's Christmas Eve party when the high school choral group she belonged to was asked to sing last year.

I have been able to provide my parents with celebrity sightings of Meg Ryan jogging in the road one summer, and Ted Danson and his wife, Mary Steenburgen, walking on an up-island beach one day after Thanksgiving. My mother still cannot accept that I moved to this "God-forsaken island," so I'm pretty sure I'm not exaggerating if I say these star sightings have been the highlight of her time spent here.

The word on the street recently is that Chelsea Clinton is getting married on the Vineyard this summer. And the whole world probably knows by now that the Obamas are set to vacation out here in August, despite the lack of comment from the White House.

Of course, the "island playground for the rich and famous" so often described in news and society columns is so completely out of sync with the island that I live on, that I wouldn't know where to begin. Sure, there's a lot of money out here in the summers, but the reason most celebrities love coming here is that it gives them a place to escape the circus of their daily lives (think Hunchback of Notre Dame yelling, "Sanctuary!").

While it would be pretty cool to actually see Obama, I realize I stand a much better chance of being held up in traffic, due to the Secret Service creating road blocks while he's here.

We didn't live here when Clinton was president, but our island vacation coincided with his on at least three occasions. The day he decided to walk up Circuit Avenue, the main drag in Oak Bluffs, for ice cream, the whole street was closed down. All the people already there had to stay, and nobody else was allowed access until he left.

The same thing happened at the Agricultural Fair, the August highlight of our island summer. When the Clintons decided to go to the fair, the gate was frozen. Nobody in or out until the president left. My friend needed to leave to get to work at the hospital. She says, and I believe her, that she had to get in the faces of the Secret Service guys, telling them she was leaving Now, and they could just Try and stop her (they didn't).

We'll see how it goes with the Obamas. I hope they have a great vacation and experience some of our island magic. But, hopefully, not at the expense of the rest of us.

Forms of Protest

When we were off-island to see "Hair" a couple of weeks ago, I made the requisite supply run to Walmart.

My friend stayed in the car with her son. It seemed he was boycotting Walmart based on certain of its practices he'd learned about, and my friend wanted to respect his dedication to this cause.

I could relate. Back in the 1980's, I went for years without eating one of my favorite foods, tuna, because dolphins were reported to be getting tangled up and dying in the tuna nets. My husband at the time, and any tuna-loving friends who frequented my home, were forced into this boycott by their association with me.

I didn't delude myself into thinking I could change the world. But that didn't mean it wasn't important to try.

Six years ago now, when the Iraq war started, First-Born Son, a freshman in high school at the time, participated in a protest at his school in the form of a walkout. I recall the look of apprehension on his face when I picked him up at the bus stop that afternoon.

"I don't want you to be mad," he precipitated his tale, as he got into the car. "But they took attendance during the walkout. I think we're going to be in trouble."

I wasn't mad. In fact, I was proud of him. It's hard to remember now, but at the time we still were fairly sure Iraq had weapons of mass destructiion. I wasn't completely sure how I felt about the war, but I was proud my son had stood up for his convictions.

At the same time, I also supported his school and the principal, who invited all those who'd walked out to turn themselves in and accept their consequences. Most of the kids did, and they received Saturday School (detention). The principal came in herself that morning, and talked with the kids about their opinions concerning the war. It was, for my son, a memorable experience.

What causes, little or big, have you or your kids taken up over the years? Did you learn anything as a result?

Sometimes I think I don't take on enough causes. But I know people (my mother, for one) who would probably disagree with that. I need to remember, we don't have to set the world on fire to make a difference.

Eventually, the tuna industry changed the way they caught their fish. And the dolphins triumphed.

Every little bit counts.

Supreme Court Pick

Half Court Press

So with the retirement of Justice Souter, President Obama gets to nominate his first Supreme Court Justice. The media is abuzz with choices. Everyone seems to agree the only candidates that don't have a shot are those that fall under the traditionally favored category of white male.

No argument here. Personally, I don't care if his nominee is Asian, African American, Hispanic, white, or purple, so long as it's a woman. This should be a no-brainer. There are nine judges and just one is a woman. Only two women have ever been Supreme Court judges. Come on, we make up over half the population; it's time we made up half the bench. And the time to start is now.

It's not just about politics. We need to see women in more positions of power. When they are, the world becomes a better place. Look at Sandra Day O'Connor. I remember so clearly the day President Reagan announced her nomination. A woman! He'd picked a woman. I was in college. 1981. I wasn't extremely politically active at the time, but I was keeping tabs. I remember people predicting Reagan would pick a very conservative justice, and there was the ever present buzz of Roe v. Wade being overturned.

Then he went and picked a woman. Not that it wasn't about time, but still, I was shocked. Ecstatic. And while many of those around me were more worried about her politics, I was busy celebrating the fact that a woman had finally made it to the Supreme Court.

A woman who wound up surprising a lot of people, Democrats and Republicans alike, with her thoughtful and often unpredictable decisions. A woman who helped me understand you can't let the media have too much influence on your political opinions until you get a chance to see for yourself what people are really capable of.

It was an exciting time. Sort of like last year when Hilary captured history as the first woman to make a serious run for the White House. And while I'm happy with Obama, and will continue to cheer Hilary on like mad as she takes on the world as Secretary of State, I hope one day to see a woman in that ultimate US position of power.

Until then I'll settle for more women on the highest court in our land. I may or may not agree with all their politics, but I'll be happy that they're there. Women should be judges; after all, everyone knows which sex is more intrinsically fair, don't they?