I work in the textbook industry. I see article after article about how students can get free or lower-cost textbooks by renting or reading online, complaining that so-called traditional textbooks cost too much and add too much of a financial burden to students pursuing degrees. You even have sites like 'Textbook Revolt,' founded by two former university students, where students can swap textbooks for free. People definitely seem pissed off that textbooks are so dang expensive, and they're mad as hell and not gonna take it anymore! Or something like that.
How exactly did textbooks become the de facto symbol of the Man in the realm of higher education? While it is true that publishing companies in the past decade have been bought up by conglomerate corporations, only interested in shifting units and increasing the bottom line, what else has changed?
If you ask me, the undue focus on the cost of the textbook is a device designed to keep students from asking questions in the right places, and to keep people from seeing the real problem. Almost no one defends the textbook or extolls its virtues, and the work that goes into creating a textbook is 'invisible' and therefore not valued. That work is devalued not only by the post-secondary academic audience, it is also devalued within the publishing company itself, with workers increasingly being laid off and replaced by offshore vendors. Those workers who remain must now do the job of at least 2 people, thus straining the quality and attention that can be given to any one product at a time. That's right, it's no longer a 'textbook,' it's a product--an abstraction that accounts for numbers in a spreadsheet. Now in publishing we have editors who don't edit, they product manage, and we have production folks who manage vendors in India to copyedit, typeset, and publish these products, work that used to be done here in America. It's easy to be cynical about textbooks these days because the undue attention paid to textbooks in the past 10 years has made the publishing industry into the monster that people claimed it always was: treat textbook publishers like evil incarnate corporate monsters, and over time, they will more and more resemble that monster.
By saying textbooks are too expensive, are people really saying that the knowledge that they contain isn't worth diddley-squat? Most students don't realize that one factor that goes into the cost of the textbook is the cost of producing FREE instructor supplements to help them teach the course, especially at the community college and career levels. These things cost money to develop, and the cost is rolled up into the sticker price of the textbook. You want fancy software with that textbook? That costs money too--someone has to develop that software, it doesn't just appear out of thin air. We have to float the cost of so-called 'free' supplements for instructors just to get them to adopt the textbook. We have to make their transition to our textbook as easy as possible, because if we don't, a competitor certainly will.
All of this aside, it was the well-organized used book market was really responsible for this dramatic shift in the way textbooks are viewed. A company invests capital into producing a textbook, and doesn't see the return on its investment why? Because instead of selling new copies, bookstores are selling ever-increasing amounts of used copies, and not at a significant reduction in price, either. This led directly to increasingly shortened revision cycles, and ever-inventive ways to cheat the used-book market out of a sale--online supplements, tear-out passcodes in textbooks, software in the back, you name it. In his article, Why Are Textbooks so Expensive?, Henry Roediger III expresses it best: "many factors used to "explain" the high prices of books are probably effects, with the cause being the organized used book companies that prey parasitically on the host publishing companies and threaten to destroy them." His article goes on to say that college bookstores have also driven publishers to sell on the net price, allowing the bookstore to set the list price, and they often drive the costs up 30 to 40 percent, not helping the perception that textbooks are outrageously priced, even though publishers don't see a penny of that money. And those free CDs and supplements publishers add to require students to buy a book new rather than used? The bookstores have been known to take those packages apart and charge extra for those as well, thus defeating the publisher's intention. Oh, and instructors contribute to this by selling their complimentary desk copies to organized retailers who then resell them to students as well. In response, publishers are starting to produce a certain amount of books with covers that say 'instructor copy' on them to combat these sales. Publishers have to become ever more creative in order to stay ahead of crafty people trying to make a buck off of their product.
And now there's the HEOA laws which require publishers to slice and dice their textbook offerings even further. If your book comes with a CD, you'd better make a non-CD version available, dammit, or suffer the consequences! Students have a right to purchase just the book or the book with CD for a higher price...funny thing is, we price ours the same either way, it's the bookstores that jack the prices up, but you don't see anyone stopping them or slapping them with legislation. It's those evil textbook publishers at it again!
What about the tuition costs, aren't those astronomically high and getting higher? What about those earnest promises of employment after graduation in this economy? Recently the government took for-profit colleges to task for the rates at which they were graduating students into fields that weren't hiring. Students were amassing huge student loans, then going out into the world, degrees in hand, only to find that they weren't employable in their immediate region, and then defaulting on their federally-backed student loans. But by and large, no one questions that large tuition bill, perhaps because they 'pay' for it with loans anyway, and the cost of higher education just continues to increase.
Saying textbooks should be cheap is like saying that banks should provide their services for free. I mean, consider all of the knowledge and expertise of the author, all of the time and money spent creating supplements like test banks, PowerPoint presentations, online courses, instructor's manuals, student software, websites to accompany the text--these things are 'must-haves' in the current competitive textbook environment. Instructors want cheaper textbooks? Then start creating your own PowerPoints and tests for class, stop demanding a full-color display for your so-called "visual learners," stop demanding that publishers kill themselves in the race to supply you will all of the tools you need just short of a robot to teach the class for you, in order to secure an adoption of their book. Don't wanna do that? Didn't think so.
Tuesday, October 4, 2011
Thursday, September 8, 2011
So what do you think of when you think of the birth?
My husband and I attended our first childbirth/lamaze class this week. The class is full of first-timers who are around our age and younger. The instructor is very upbeat. The first night she asked us all to complete a questionnaire so that she could learn more about us, like our due dates, occupations, etc. There were also a couple of questions that she chooses to share our answers to out loud when introducing us: What are you hoping to learn from this class? and What do you think of when you think of the birth?
We got through most of the couples except two--us and the other couple due in early December. Everyone who went answered the second question with things like 'joy' or 'excitement.' I'm pretty sure my answer wasn't one of those. I can't actually remember my verbatim answer, but it had something to do with stress/fear/nervousness! So next week I can look forward to being introduced and having her read aloud my answer to the question that is the title of this blog. Hey, I'm nothing if not honest I guess. You know those other bitches feel fear as well, they are just afraid to admit it lest someone think them unfit mothers!
People tell me all the time that I must be 'so excited' about the coming baby. Why must I be excited? Because everyone expects me to be? I wouldn't call what I'm feeling excitement, exactly. Excitement is what I feel when I'm going on a trip somewhere, or on vacation, something that promises fun, escapism, and immersion. I can honestly say that I don't feel that way about the coming baby! I am a realist, which to most people makes me a pessimist, so I tend to look at things differently. I realize that my life is going to change irrevocably, thank you very much, and I can only imagine the hard work that will be involved, and the sleepless days, etc. This is not going to be a picnic, and instead of excitement I'm feeling trepidation, concern, fear, worry. And I'm not ashamed to admit it.
Overall I think the class will be good for me because the focus is on trying to make us think positively and feel in control of what will be happening to us by educating us about the process. She said Americans generally fear childbirth, whereas that is not the case in other, more enlightened countries. Why am I not surprised? We seem to operate on fear in so many arenas of life in this country. In my opinion, so tenuous is our hold on the good life that we fear everything and anything that could tear it asunder. Most of us are just a couple of paychecks away from the poor house, and swimming in debt up to our eyeballs, so it's no wonder that we're a nation of worriers.
I am someone who definitely needs coaching in order to think positively and focus on the good aspects of the impending birth, rather than just the scary ones. It's just how I'm wired. All of that other "fun" parenting stuff seems vague and distant to me at this point, so focused am I on the practical, the day-to-day. Maybe other people are focused only on the positive parenting stuff, and that's why they can feel excitement and joy about the birth. I'll get there eventually, in my own time. Maybe.
We got through most of the couples except two--us and the other couple due in early December. Everyone who went answered the second question with things like 'joy' or 'excitement.' I'm pretty sure my answer wasn't one of those. I can't actually remember my verbatim answer, but it had something to do with stress/fear/nervousness! So next week I can look forward to being introduced and having her read aloud my answer to the question that is the title of this blog. Hey, I'm nothing if not honest I guess. You know those other bitches feel fear as well, they are just afraid to admit it lest someone think them unfit mothers!
People tell me all the time that I must be 'so excited' about the coming baby. Why must I be excited? Because everyone expects me to be? I wouldn't call what I'm feeling excitement, exactly. Excitement is what I feel when I'm going on a trip somewhere, or on vacation, something that promises fun, escapism, and immersion. I can honestly say that I don't feel that way about the coming baby! I am a realist, which to most people makes me a pessimist, so I tend to look at things differently. I realize that my life is going to change irrevocably, thank you very much, and I can only imagine the hard work that will be involved, and the sleepless days, etc. This is not going to be a picnic, and instead of excitement I'm feeling trepidation, concern, fear, worry. And I'm not ashamed to admit it.
Overall I think the class will be good for me because the focus is on trying to make us think positively and feel in control of what will be happening to us by educating us about the process. She said Americans generally fear childbirth, whereas that is not the case in other, more enlightened countries. Why am I not surprised? We seem to operate on fear in so many arenas of life in this country. In my opinion, so tenuous is our hold on the good life that we fear everything and anything that could tear it asunder. Most of us are just a couple of paychecks away from the poor house, and swimming in debt up to our eyeballs, so it's no wonder that we're a nation of worriers.
I am someone who definitely needs coaching in order to think positively and focus on the good aspects of the impending birth, rather than just the scary ones. It's just how I'm wired. All of that other "fun" parenting stuff seems vague and distant to me at this point, so focused am I on the practical, the day-to-day. Maybe other people are focused only on the positive parenting stuff, and that's why they can feel excitement and joy about the birth. I'll get there eventually, in my own time. Maybe.
Monday, August 22, 2011
Another public restroom pet peeve
I've made a previous post about bathroom etiquette here, and now I've got another one. I've been traveling a lot for work this summer, and I'm pregnant, which means that I've been in a lot of public bathrooms of late. This has helped me hone my other bathroom pet peeve: women who squat over a seat in a public toilet and pee all over the fucking place.
I don't know who started teaching young women that they need to squat over a public toilet, but that fuckery must be stopped, NOW. If you're a woman who has ever squatted over a public toilet (and I have too), you know that you end up getting pee everywhere, including sometimes on your clothes. This is because it is impossible to aim your pee if you're a woman (you know it's true), so while you think you're being so sanitary and smart, you're really no better than a friggin' animal in the woods when you do this.
When I was a little girl, my mother told me never to sit on a public toilet seat, but to squat over it instead, and this made sense at the time because the very idea of sitting where someone else sat to empty their bowels is repulsive, I admit. "Fifty percent of American women won't sit on a seat without some type of guard or without hovering," said Allison Janse, author of The Germ Freak's Guide to Outwitting Colds and Flu. But if no one sits, that means everyone pees all over the place, making the stall a very unpleasant place to experience.
It is in fact a myth that the toilet seat is the dirtiest surface in a public bathroom. It is fourth behind the floor (dirtiest), sanitary napkin disposal unit, and sink. And, contrary to popular belief, the women's restroom is far dirtier than the men's room. The dirtiest parts of a toilet stall are the toilet handle and the stall handle, because those are the surfaces people touch before washing their hands. (This is why I flush with my foot if there's no automatic flushing mechanism.)
I have burst from the chains of my upbringing and I am no longer a squatter, I am a sitter. I might use one of the sani-wraps or toilet paper as a barrier in a particularly grubby stall, but I sit down. Besides, now that I'm pregnant, squatting has become, well, problematic to say the least, with my new-found weight gain and awkwardness in general. I cannot tell you how many times in my travels this year I found pee spray on the seat from the previous occupant, and had to move on to another stall, or bravely wipe it off before applying a tissue layer. It's disgusting and infuriating because it doesn't have to be this way! We should all be able to walk into a stall and sit down; I shouldn't have to clean up your mess, you filthy cow.
London had some of the cleanest public bathroom stalls I've ever seen. I was continually impressed with the attention paid to privacy and space and the cleanliness I found in those stalls--the doors went all the way down near the floor, there weren't huge crevices between door and stall, and you didn't have to cringe after flushing to avoid backspray from the toilet bowl (another germ-ridden area). Plus, the doors opened outward and the locks worked, and I swear I never found urine on the toilet seat, ever. I don't understand why in American public restrooms, you will often find tiny stalls with doors that open inward, thus crushing you even closer to the dreaded toilet. And privacy? Forget it. There's usually a half-inch clearance on either side of the door frame. If you can sort of see the people milling about outside the stall, guess what, they can sort of see you too.
The Albany International Airport here actually has some of the cleanest public restrooms I've sampled. Everything is automated--the toilet, the sink, the hand soap, the hand dryer--very clean--yet people still pee on the seats. And even New Orleans has something innovative--a plastic sheet that rotates over the toilet seat and 'sanitizes' at the push of a button, making you feel almost invited to sit (and one wonders if peeing on the seat was a problem of epidemic proportions in the South to warrant such an invention). One of the absolute worst public toilets I've seen was at LaGuardia: rickety, inward-closing doors, filthy floors, everything hand-operated and no personal space whatsoever. It was like a torture chamber in there!
This little expose of public restrooms is just another brick in the wall for me of how people just don't give a shit about how they leave things for others. Everyone is out for themselves, and they will pee all over the toilet seat because they can, dammit; they don't take care of the space around them, they don't take responsibility for their bodily functions, and they don't care what they leave behind for others to encounter. Toilet seat etiquette aside, I have seen some pretty disgusting things in public restrooms, things that don't bear repeating, or even remembering. Women of the world, you are freakin' disgusting and appalling. Stop peeing all over the place and sit down!
I don't know who started teaching young women that they need to squat over a public toilet, but that fuckery must be stopped, NOW. If you're a woman who has ever squatted over a public toilet (and I have too), you know that you end up getting pee everywhere, including sometimes on your clothes. This is because it is impossible to aim your pee if you're a woman (you know it's true), so while you think you're being so sanitary and smart, you're really no better than a friggin' animal in the woods when you do this.
When I was a little girl, my mother told me never to sit on a public toilet seat, but to squat over it instead, and this made sense at the time because the very idea of sitting where someone else sat to empty their bowels is repulsive, I admit. "Fifty percent of American women won't sit on a seat without some type of guard or without hovering," said Allison Janse, author of The Germ Freak's Guide to Outwitting Colds and Flu. But if no one sits, that means everyone pees all over the place, making the stall a very unpleasant place to experience.
It is in fact a myth that the toilet seat is the dirtiest surface in a public bathroom. It is fourth behind the floor (dirtiest), sanitary napkin disposal unit, and sink. And, contrary to popular belief, the women's restroom is far dirtier than the men's room. The dirtiest parts of a toilet stall are the toilet handle and the stall handle, because those are the surfaces people touch before washing their hands. (This is why I flush with my foot if there's no automatic flushing mechanism.)
I have burst from the chains of my upbringing and I am no longer a squatter, I am a sitter. I might use one of the sani-wraps or toilet paper as a barrier in a particularly grubby stall, but I sit down. Besides, now that I'm pregnant, squatting has become, well, problematic to say the least, with my new-found weight gain and awkwardness in general. I cannot tell you how many times in my travels this year I found pee spray on the seat from the previous occupant, and had to move on to another stall, or bravely wipe it off before applying a tissue layer. It's disgusting and infuriating because it doesn't have to be this way! We should all be able to walk into a stall and sit down; I shouldn't have to clean up your mess, you filthy cow.
London had some of the cleanest public bathroom stalls I've ever seen. I was continually impressed with the attention paid to privacy and space and the cleanliness I found in those stalls--the doors went all the way down near the floor, there weren't huge crevices between door and stall, and you didn't have to cringe after flushing to avoid backspray from the toilet bowl (another germ-ridden area). Plus, the doors opened outward and the locks worked, and I swear I never found urine on the toilet seat, ever. I don't understand why in American public restrooms, you will often find tiny stalls with doors that open inward, thus crushing you even closer to the dreaded toilet. And privacy? Forget it. There's usually a half-inch clearance on either side of the door frame. If you can sort of see the people milling about outside the stall, guess what, they can sort of see you too.
The Albany International Airport here actually has some of the cleanest public restrooms I've sampled. Everything is automated--the toilet, the sink, the hand soap, the hand dryer--very clean--yet people still pee on the seats. And even New Orleans has something innovative--a plastic sheet that rotates over the toilet seat and 'sanitizes' at the push of a button, making you feel almost invited to sit (and one wonders if peeing on the seat was a problem of epidemic proportions in the South to warrant such an invention). One of the absolute worst public toilets I've seen was at LaGuardia: rickety, inward-closing doors, filthy floors, everything hand-operated and no personal space whatsoever. It was like a torture chamber in there!
This little expose of public restrooms is just another brick in the wall for me of how people just don't give a shit about how they leave things for others. Everyone is out for themselves, and they will pee all over the toilet seat because they can, dammit; they don't take care of the space around them, they don't take responsibility for their bodily functions, and they don't care what they leave behind for others to encounter. Toilet seat etiquette aside, I have seen some pretty disgusting things in public restrooms, things that don't bear repeating, or even remembering. Women of the world, you are freakin' disgusting and appalling. Stop peeing all over the place and sit down!
Thursday, June 9, 2011
Change my name, change my name
So today I downloaded the forms necessary to bring with me to court in order to have my name changed, officially, by the state supreme court. Eight years ago when I married my husband, whose last name has 9 letters in it, I hyphenated my own 5-letter last name to his. I didn't want to be so radical as to not take my husband's name at all, but I also didn't want to 'give up' my maiden name--so I compromised and did the hyphen thing. Plus, I was attached to the symmetry of my name--first name has five letters, last name has five letters, both end in 'in'--it was a symmetrical name, and that explains my desire to hold onto it.
Well, it turns out that a 14-character last name (15 with the hyphen) is more of a burden than it's worth. I'm always having to spell it, it doesn't fit on my driver's license, and I can never remember whether I'm listed as the hyphen or just my husband's last name. The driver's license thing really drove the point home--by keeping my maiden name as a hyphen, I lost my entire first name, which is represented on my license by only the first letter. But after 8 years of this kind of torture, it was recent events that moved me to make the change.
People must change their names for all kinds of reasons, but primarily to escape child support, liens, jail time, abusers, and the like. I say this because the program I used asked me if I was changing my name because my life was in danger, if I was responsible for paying child support, and if I had been convicted of a crime. In addition to paying the court $210 to grant my name change, I will have to take out a public announcement in the newspaper announcing my name change to the world.
I've had it with the hyphen, it must go, and go it shall before this baby is born. I don't want to be alphabetized away from my husband and baby--we need to be under the same umbrella, the same name, a family in name as well as in fact. My maiden name will supplant my middle name, which I never cared for anyway, and I can finally start using the 9-letter name that I gladly took from my husband years ago. It's a strong Irish name, and I have absolutely no problem with it.
Well, it turns out that a 14-character last name (15 with the hyphen) is more of a burden than it's worth. I'm always having to spell it, it doesn't fit on my driver's license, and I can never remember whether I'm listed as the hyphen or just my husband's last name. The driver's license thing really drove the point home--by keeping my maiden name as a hyphen, I lost my entire first name, which is represented on my license by only the first letter. But after 8 years of this kind of torture, it was recent events that moved me to make the change.
People must change their names for all kinds of reasons, but primarily to escape child support, liens, jail time, abusers, and the like. I say this because the program I used asked me if I was changing my name because my life was in danger, if I was responsible for paying child support, and if I had been convicted of a crime. In addition to paying the court $210 to grant my name change, I will have to take out a public announcement in the newspaper announcing my name change to the world.
I've had it with the hyphen, it must go, and go it shall before this baby is born. I don't want to be alphabetized away from my husband and baby--we need to be under the same umbrella, the same name, a family in name as well as in fact. My maiden name will supplant my middle name, which I never cared for anyway, and I can finally start using the 9-letter name that I gladly took from my husband years ago. It's a strong Irish name, and I have absolutely no problem with it.
Tuesday, June 7, 2011
Let the Baby Brainwashing Begin!
I read somewhere, I think in one of the baby books that I have, that one of the side effects of the hormone surge you experience during pregnancy is that it helps to make you a better mother, and in fact prepares you for motherhood, by making you more empathetic to babies, and eventually to your own child, ensuring that you handle the entire experience better and bond with your baby. Ever since I read that, it has disturbed me, making me view being pregnant as a somewhat hostile takeover, a kind of invasion of the body snatchers. I'm not overly sentimental by nature, and where most women coo over cute baby things, I mostly cringe and run away. In fact, I didn't care much for babies or toddlers, I prefer to interact with much older, more rational children. I just did not get enamored of babies. At all. I have never been one of those women who knew all their lives that they wanted to be a mother--in fact, to be honest, I viewed baby-crazy women with suspicion. It was just so other to me, so foreign, I had no conception of how they could feel that way. That is, until I held a friend's baby last year, and I felt something, and I thought, 'I want one of those,' for the first time in my life, ever. Maybe it was just the right time, but that set me down the path I'm currently on. It's like some secret program, long dormant in my brain, got switched on and started running a babymaking app in my head!
Now that I'm in the middle of my own pregnancy, I find myself studying myself and my reactions to things with a cautious eye. Little by little, millimeter by millimeter, I'm softening towards babies. I certainly notice them more now than I ever did. I'm more empathetic to women with children in public, and I smile at cute babies and children where I used to scowl or look away. Yes, it seems the hormonal brainwashing is upon me, and by degrees I find myself changing my reactions to babies in general. I find this disturbing. I realize that it is a part of what happens to you, but for me it raises all sorts of ontological questions. I mean, who are we really? Are we just the product of chemicals in our brains? How can I go from children leaving me cold to where I am now? But on the other hand, another part of me is grateful that this is happening to me, because I always wondered how people become mothers, and this has to be part of the secret. I mean, at times I simply cannot imagine myself as a mother, and I have fears that I will be a terrible, cold and distant mother, because I can't imagine caring for this baby, it's just not real to me still. So I'm thankful that something--mother nature, hormones, whatever--is taking over and making me a part of this process mentally and emotionally as well as physically.
I am still incredulous at the idea that I will be a mother in the next 6 months or so, and I find the idea almost hilarious--ME, a MOTHER? What?? I know I will get there, eventually. And I will have to make peace with the fact that I will probably become something altogether new, no longer the person I was, but not entirely different, either. I just wish other mothers could be more honest about their experiences--I feel like mothers who act like it's the greatest thing and spout platitudes like 'it will change your life for the better' and use phrases like 'the miracle of birth' do the rest of us newbies a disservice by ill-preparing us for the ups and downs of the ride before us. I see these women on the baby forums, going on about how their one life's aim is to have a baby, talking endlessly about the details of their pregnancies and their children, and I feel alienated.
No one likes to talk about the realities, the hard stuff, the trials and tribulations; no one talks about the loss of self that women must undergo to some degree, the changes that will happen in your marriage, good and bad--the picture that they paint is of a picture-perfect family life where women all love babies and want only more babies to make them happy. I still cringe at this kind of thinking--I mean, really people? Is that all there is? This baby is not my end-all, be-all, though I will certainly love it and will do all I can to make it feel loved and secure. But I am a person, I have thoughts and feelings, and I don't anticipate those being entirely subsumed by the baby; I don't think it's fair to the child either. I also don't think my marriage will get easier with a baby--I know things will get harder, and that some things will not be improved by the introduction of a new set of responsibilities in our lives. Babies aren't some kind of magical plaster that, when applied, make everything glowy and precious. Heck, babyhood itself doesn't last very long in the grand scheme of things--eventually that baby will turn into a child and an angry teenager, but no one talks about that.
Maybe I just don't 'get' motherhood yet. Maybe it's the kind of thing you never really get initiated into until it happens to you, and it hasn't happened to me yet, it's in process of happening. I know that babies are magical creatures, almost mythical in the hold they can have over people's imaginations. But I feel it is my duty to myself to be honest with what I'm feeling and going through, if for no other reason than to maintain my own sense of self throughout this process, and to document what happens to me along the way. It's going to be quite a ride.
Now that I'm in the middle of my own pregnancy, I find myself studying myself and my reactions to things with a cautious eye. Little by little, millimeter by millimeter, I'm softening towards babies. I certainly notice them more now than I ever did. I'm more empathetic to women with children in public, and I smile at cute babies and children where I used to scowl or look away. Yes, it seems the hormonal brainwashing is upon me, and by degrees I find myself changing my reactions to babies in general. I find this disturbing. I realize that it is a part of what happens to you, but for me it raises all sorts of ontological questions. I mean, who are we really? Are we just the product of chemicals in our brains? How can I go from children leaving me cold to where I am now? But on the other hand, another part of me is grateful that this is happening to me, because I always wondered how people become mothers, and this has to be part of the secret. I mean, at times I simply cannot imagine myself as a mother, and I have fears that I will be a terrible, cold and distant mother, because I can't imagine caring for this baby, it's just not real to me still. So I'm thankful that something--mother nature, hormones, whatever--is taking over and making me a part of this process mentally and emotionally as well as physically.
I am still incredulous at the idea that I will be a mother in the next 6 months or so, and I find the idea almost hilarious--ME, a MOTHER? What?? I know I will get there, eventually. And I will have to make peace with the fact that I will probably become something altogether new, no longer the person I was, but not entirely different, either. I just wish other mothers could be more honest about their experiences--I feel like mothers who act like it's the greatest thing and spout platitudes like 'it will change your life for the better' and use phrases like 'the miracle of birth' do the rest of us newbies a disservice by ill-preparing us for the ups and downs of the ride before us. I see these women on the baby forums, going on about how their one life's aim is to have a baby, talking endlessly about the details of their pregnancies and their children, and I feel alienated.
No one likes to talk about the realities, the hard stuff, the trials and tribulations; no one talks about the loss of self that women must undergo to some degree, the changes that will happen in your marriage, good and bad--the picture that they paint is of a picture-perfect family life where women all love babies and want only more babies to make them happy. I still cringe at this kind of thinking--I mean, really people? Is that all there is? This baby is not my end-all, be-all, though I will certainly love it and will do all I can to make it feel loved and secure. But I am a person, I have thoughts and feelings, and I don't anticipate those being entirely subsumed by the baby; I don't think it's fair to the child either. I also don't think my marriage will get easier with a baby--I know things will get harder, and that some things will not be improved by the introduction of a new set of responsibilities in our lives. Babies aren't some kind of magical plaster that, when applied, make everything glowy and precious. Heck, babyhood itself doesn't last very long in the grand scheme of things--eventually that baby will turn into a child and an angry teenager, but no one talks about that.
Maybe I just don't 'get' motherhood yet. Maybe it's the kind of thing you never really get initiated into until it happens to you, and it hasn't happened to me yet, it's in process of happening. I know that babies are magical creatures, almost mythical in the hold they can have over people's imaginations. But I feel it is my duty to myself to be honest with what I'm feeling and going through, if for no other reason than to maintain my own sense of self throughout this process, and to document what happens to me along the way. It's going to be quite a ride.
Wednesday, June 1, 2011
This is horrible news.
I just found out today from my sister-in-law down south some really harrowing, horrifying news about my sperm-donor (some people call them fathers, but this one does not deserve the title). He has three sons with different women, my younger half brothers, and unlike with me, he actually had visitation with them when they were growing up. Well apparently in addition to being a wife-beating, dog-throwing cretin, he also emotionally, physically, and sexually abused my three brothers. This was shocking news, and yet not so shocking at the same time. I would like to feel hatred for him, but I think someone actually has to mean something to you in order to feel true hatred for them--and I've never felt anything for this man other than a general sense of disgust and relief that he wasn't a part of my life growing up. What I feel is a sadness for my brothers, and an amazement that four reasonably well-adjusted adults now exist, no thanks to that asshole, but thanks to their mothers and their own inner strength.
Now I see that my mother was absolutely right to cut him out of my life like a cancer when they split up. I was the reason they married, and I was 6 months old when they finally split--and he did have brief visitation with me, because, as the story goes, I would cry so much when he would come and get me that finally he just gave it up. There is also a part of the story that involves him trying to come and pick me up from my grandparents' house one last time (where my mother was living with me after the divorce), and my grandfather threatening sperm-donor with a shotgun if he ever came around me again. Now with this new information I wonder if there's a piece of the story that I don't know...harrowing thought, that. But I have always been grateful to my grandfather for doing that, way back when, and now that gratefulness is increased ten thousand fold.
Somehow the story that sperm-donor beat my mother left me still curious about this strange man who was my father, since I went through an abusive stepfather situation when I was fairly young. When I turned 18, I sought out sperm-donor out on my own, to take for myself the measure of the man. Well I took his measure pretty quickly after only a couple of visits. First I went to him and visited at his shack in Gonzales, LA--actually stayed there--he had a third wife and all three sons with him that weekend. I remember they were very sweet boys and loved me immediately. Then there was another weekend where he came and stayed with me in New Orleans, and got me drunk on purpose (I didn't drink back then and had no experience with alcohol), and laughed about it. He also made creepy comments about my body that made me uncomfortable, and smoked pot on my back porch--so I shut him out after that visit. He tried to stop by after that, left notes in my mailbox--but I did not respond. I simply let the waters close over that again.
All my life I've missed out on getting to know my grandparents, his two sisters, their children, all because the break was complete. Now, I am grateful for that, because knowing them would not have been worth it because it would have meant I would have to have seen him along the way. Now that I am older, I have made contact with the family again on my own, circumventing him completely, and I'm the better for it. I was encouraged when I found out that my sister-in-law (married to the oldest brother) felt the same way about sperm-donor, and cited evidence for keeping her children safely out of his reach. The rest of the family is still in denial about sperm-donor's behavior--they still invite him to family functions, and sweep everything under the rug. In fact, I saw him again for the first time in 17 years (an my husband met him for the first time) this past Christmas, where all four of us actually took a picture with the bastard. Little do they know that sperm-donor's oldest son (7 years my junior) has had nervous breakdowns because of memories that have been surfacing for him about what was done to him. He is seeing a shrink and is on medication to help him come to terms with the abuse he suffered at the hands of his father, and the anger he should have been turning on his father, he was instead turning inward, causing him to have clinical depression. His PTSD was so bad recently that my sister-in-law's milk dried up from the stress of having to check him into a mental hospital again, so she had to bottle feed her newborn baby instead. Can you imagine?? I cannot.
Maybe once the aunts hear about this, they will realize that it is time to finally expunge sperm-donor from family functions. One would hope so anyway. But his mother, the 77-year old Japanese woman who lost her husband in the last couple of years, will likely not be able to handle this news about her only son, so they will keep it from her. It makes me wonder about my grandfather now too--did sperm-donor learn this behavior from his father, or from someone else? Jesus I hope not.
Like it or not, this man's genetic code runs in my veins. That thought disturbs the fuck out of me, now more than ever. People like him shouldn't get to propagate the next generation! He should have been put away as a sex offended years ago, if only one of his sons had spoken out (there was an incident with the second son but no charges were filed). Yet he has propagated four people, with three different women, and he's still out there, a danger and yet somehow still a magnet to women everywhere. At Christmas he joked that he thought he was going to be a father for a fifth time...and I just stared back. 'Things have come easy to me my whole life,' he said to me, out of the blue, apropos of nothing, 'women, work, children--these things just come easy to me.' And that was the end. He never asked how I was doing, or said anything whatsoever about me, even though he's seen me now at exactly two times in my life--at 18 and again at 34. Not that I expected anything, mind you--please don't think that, never think that. There are no words that can explain someone like him, there is no pity, there is just no feeling at all. The fact that the four of us are well-adjusted, strong individuals does not make up for the fact that sperm-donor is an absolute waste of carbon. He does not get credit for that.
Now I see that my mother was absolutely right to cut him out of my life like a cancer when they split up. I was the reason they married, and I was 6 months old when they finally split--and he did have brief visitation with me, because, as the story goes, I would cry so much when he would come and get me that finally he just gave it up. There is also a part of the story that involves him trying to come and pick me up from my grandparents' house one last time (where my mother was living with me after the divorce), and my grandfather threatening sperm-donor with a shotgun if he ever came around me again. Now with this new information I wonder if there's a piece of the story that I don't know...harrowing thought, that. But I have always been grateful to my grandfather for doing that, way back when, and now that gratefulness is increased ten thousand fold.
Somehow the story that sperm-donor beat my mother left me still curious about this strange man who was my father, since I went through an abusive stepfather situation when I was fairly young. When I turned 18, I sought out sperm-donor out on my own, to take for myself the measure of the man. Well I took his measure pretty quickly after only a couple of visits. First I went to him and visited at his shack in Gonzales, LA--actually stayed there--he had a third wife and all three sons with him that weekend. I remember they were very sweet boys and loved me immediately. Then there was another weekend where he came and stayed with me in New Orleans, and got me drunk on purpose (I didn't drink back then and had no experience with alcohol), and laughed about it. He also made creepy comments about my body that made me uncomfortable, and smoked pot on my back porch--so I shut him out after that visit. He tried to stop by after that, left notes in my mailbox--but I did not respond. I simply let the waters close over that again.
All my life I've missed out on getting to know my grandparents, his two sisters, their children, all because the break was complete. Now, I am grateful for that, because knowing them would not have been worth it because it would have meant I would have to have seen him along the way. Now that I am older, I have made contact with the family again on my own, circumventing him completely, and I'm the better for it. I was encouraged when I found out that my sister-in-law (married to the oldest brother) felt the same way about sperm-donor, and cited evidence for keeping her children safely out of his reach. The rest of the family is still in denial about sperm-donor's behavior--they still invite him to family functions, and sweep everything under the rug. In fact, I saw him again for the first time in 17 years (an my husband met him for the first time) this past Christmas, where all four of us actually took a picture with the bastard. Little do they know that sperm-donor's oldest son (7 years my junior) has had nervous breakdowns because of memories that have been surfacing for him about what was done to him. He is seeing a shrink and is on medication to help him come to terms with the abuse he suffered at the hands of his father, and the anger he should have been turning on his father, he was instead turning inward, causing him to have clinical depression. His PTSD was so bad recently that my sister-in-law's milk dried up from the stress of having to check him into a mental hospital again, so she had to bottle feed her newborn baby instead. Can you imagine?? I cannot.
Maybe once the aunts hear about this, they will realize that it is time to finally expunge sperm-donor from family functions. One would hope so anyway. But his mother, the 77-year old Japanese woman who lost her husband in the last couple of years, will likely not be able to handle this news about her only son, so they will keep it from her. It makes me wonder about my grandfather now too--did sperm-donor learn this behavior from his father, or from someone else? Jesus I hope not.
Like it or not, this man's genetic code runs in my veins. That thought disturbs the fuck out of me, now more than ever. People like him shouldn't get to propagate the next generation! He should have been put away as a sex offended years ago, if only one of his sons had spoken out (there was an incident with the second son but no charges were filed). Yet he has propagated four people, with three different women, and he's still out there, a danger and yet somehow still a magnet to women everywhere. At Christmas he joked that he thought he was going to be a father for a fifth time...and I just stared back. 'Things have come easy to me my whole life,' he said to me, out of the blue, apropos of nothing, 'women, work, children--these things just come easy to me.' And that was the end. He never asked how I was doing, or said anything whatsoever about me, even though he's seen me now at exactly two times in my life--at 18 and again at 34. Not that I expected anything, mind you--please don't think that, never think that. There are no words that can explain someone like him, there is no pity, there is just no feeling at all. The fact that the four of us are well-adjusted, strong individuals does not make up for the fact that sperm-donor is an absolute waste of carbon. He does not get credit for that.
Thursday, May 26, 2011
If you've seen one hamster, you've seen them all.
I just found this saved but empty blog entry in my blogspot pages file. I see the original save date was 3/13, but as I'm typing this it is actually 5/26/11. Apparently back on 3/13/11, I got inspired with the above title, logged into Blogspot, created a new blog entry, typed in the title, hit save, and went about my business. No doubt with the intention of returning later to fill it in with some observation or other about society and human nature and whatnot.
3/13/11...this was the week before I found out I was pregnant, the week before my 35th birthday, the week before I found out that I'd gotten the promotion. I wonder what my pre-pregnant, pre-successful, younger self was thinking all those weeks ago!
"If you've seen one hamster, you've seen them all," indeed. I guess the world will never know the strange wisdom I had in mind for these words.
3/13/11...this was the week before I found out I was pregnant, the week before my 35th birthday, the week before I found out that I'd gotten the promotion. I wonder what my pre-pregnant, pre-successful, younger self was thinking all those weeks ago!
"If you've seen one hamster, you've seen them all," indeed. I guess the world will never know the strange wisdom I had in mind for these words.
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