The Mother Mystery

It struck me today, that I've been complicit in a deceit.

The continuing deceit, in fact, of generations of girls by their mothers.

If I paint you a picture, it may seem familiar. My mum worked in the home - made dinners, cleaned the house, organised everyone, - and, at times, took on variously paid work out of the home. She didn't complain. (That was the arena for the next generation of feminists.) My mum's feminism never sat still - it involved supporting kids, husband and home in a never-ending whirl of activity. She listened to my father, endured our constant queries, gave late-night telephone support to countless female friends as they divorced, dated, and divorced again. She found time to join in the divorce boom herself, and subsequently listened as my sister and I contemplated lives that would avoid marriages and mortgages.

Now, I work silently in the home, bringing up my three kids, coaxing my partner through the daily tribulations of his own business, and putting in the maximum hours in my paid job that childminders and Easter playschemes will allow.

Am I telling my girls the secret truths of what I've learned? Do I dash their hopes by telling them they will work harder for less money than their male counterparts? Do I tell them now that they will breastfeed through the night while their partner sleeps soundly? Do I counsel celibacy or life on a Kibbutz? Do I remind them that Spanish law was changed recently to give equal responsibility for housework to both partners, the failure of which can be cited in divorce proceedings, even though in our house it's just females who hoover and polish?

Or do I rant in the blogosphere... and keep my girls in blissful ignorance for a while longer.

Perhaps some mothers of boys out there are busy instilling new values in their offspring, that will bring about a true revolution... I can't see how they could do this? Maybe by paying childcarers as much as minders? By citing empathy and love for your children as really manly traits?

My mum also used to say 'Be careful what you wish for - for you will get it.' Hmmmm.

Maserof

In the beginning

A deceptive Eden

Carob-green and aromatic with thyme

Uninhabited, except by fist-sized arachnids

And a lone dog

In summer verdancy

Each sun-split stone springs a bloom

Desert-rare and startling

Hot violet, gentian-blue, spike yellow

Like flesh in a convent

The cooling season

Still surprises with pregnant heat

And the breath of the Maserof

Tip-tilts up the valleys runway to the blue ache

Of sky

Standing at full height on a ridge

Child’s hand in mine

I can hear voices rise from the gorge

Ethereal, like a dream spoken aloud

The sounds dissipate.

Sept 2004

Tattoo You.

She was as tall as the men stood at the bar. One bared shoulder displayed a greeny-blue tattoo; on the other, hung her empty rucksack. As Irish hodcarriers vied for position with Italian plumbers, Carrie commanded the bartender’s attention with a simple flip of her head.

“Guinness,” she stated, placing coins to the left of the copper line marked ‘Solo Camereros’.

She drank the pint in slow gulps, savouring the malty weight. Wiping her mouth with the back of her hand, she hooked up her leather jacket from the floor and swung herself into it, dispelling a cloud of sawdust into Quinn’s pint. He harrumphed, but drank it anyway.

As she turned to the door for another shot at the motorway, Big Paul stopped her.

“Let’s see that tattoo.”

She studied him for a moment, chewing her lip, and then slid one arm from her jacket. A crowd gathered, craning necks.

The tattoo was a remarkable design – a bubble reflecting two worlds. One, the interior world, was a desert island with palm tree and exotic blooms. The other, was a reflection on the exterior of the bubble, revealing a bar-room and a figure in silhouette at a window.

“Hey, that’s some pretty shit!” Big Paul declared, and heads nodded approval. “Where d’you get that? Looks Polynesian.”

Guffaws broke out among a table of heavyset men. Big Paul silenced them with a wave.

“It’s Marquesan, ain’t it?” He squared his shoulders, anticipating her reply.

“Too right. You been to Tahiti or the islands?”

“Nah. Me mate did a tattoo convention though.” He glared at the hangers-on until men peeled away to tables, stools and the pool table.

“Is it Enata?” he asked, in a lowered voice, his eyes furtively finding hers.

“It’s unique. Enata AND Etua. Look, can I get a lift outta here? There’s trouble following me down the road and I need to outrun it. But if you’re chickenshit…”

She left the words in the air, where they spiralled in clear sight.

“I got a rig out back.”

He grabbed a checked shirt from a chair back, and they exited, squaring their shoulders in unison.

Opening paragraph of The Answer, 2007.

Personal Responsibility

There I was blathering on to a friend about taking personal responsibility for all the bothersome things we’ve done to the planet when I read about the Contract With America. This was a document released by the Republican Party of the United States during the 1994 Congressional election campaign – including a section called The Personal Responsibility Act

An act to cut spending for welfare programs by means of discouraging illegitimacy and teen pregnancy. This would be achieved by prohibiting welfare to mothers under 18 years of age, denying increased support for additional children while on welfare, and enacting a ‘two-years-and-out’ provision with work requirements to promote individual responsibility.

Calling this Personal Responsibility is like saying a gun promotes peace. Yes, but at what cost? And now – if anyone reads my blog, which is debatable in the first place – people may assume that my tagline means I’m all for this sort of knee-jerk, right-wing malarkey.

This is how we erode our innate sense of right and wrong, our will to community and humanity. The Nanny State tells us what we should do, instead of empowering us to make the right decisions ourselves.

When a child learns to take personal responsibility it is usually as a result of learning by making a mistake. So to punish those who make a mistake ensures they will not learn from it, but instead will feel aggrieved at those who punish him/her. Anyone with a grievance is dangerous to society as it turns their will to help and co-operate into an overwhelming sense of self-preservation ie it makes conservatives out of socialists! Self-fulfilling prophecy, anyone?

So now I’m right pissed off with the state of things, since where America leads, so much of the English speaking world seems to follow. But I want to take a stand – and I’m sure many free-thinking Americans want the same. So although the Contract With America may have had limited affect, possibly increasing the majority of Republicans in the Senate in 1994, I am determined to re-claim the concept of Personal Responsibility, and turn it into a meaningful statement 2007 style.

Singular Cake – take one slice, you greedy fascists! Stop killing in the name of state or country or Capitalist dogma, and learn to control your goddamn rage….er, like me.

How the world goes round

I get up in the morning with a plan to sail smoothly through the day.

I will NOT shout at the children.
I will NOT get wound up about the state of the house.
I will NOT get sidetracked by pointless tasks and MSN conversations and then rush through lunch and dinner desperately playing catch-up.

By 1.30 lunchtime it has all gone pear-shaped. I will feel guilty from now until the kids are asleep tonight, possibly around 10.30pm. Then, I will find a few minutes of tranquillity, clutch hold of the wraith that is my inner ME, and sternly tell myself to do better tomorrow. Suitably chastened, I will shed the guilt and relax. During this moment, I will somehow convince myself that I am an okay parent, that I do give my job the attention it deserves, that my partner is happy to be with me, and that life is just peachy.

I seem to have a fruit metaphor obsession.

I also seem to live my life in circular patterns of behaviour (from Pear to Peach and Back again). This feels unsatisfying, but somehow normal.

What about you?