The Ado-Man

My husband and I have noticed a disturbing pattern among some of our married friends--the ado-man (short for adolescent man). Usually this man is in his late twenties to early forties, and surprisingly he has not really settled down into any stable job or career field. Instead he has flitted from job to job, often because he is "bored" with what he was doing, or it wasn't challenging enough, or it just didn't suit his temperament, etc. Most of the time, these men are also married with young children, and tend to be quite traditional in their marriages and childrearing preferences--i.e. they prefer that their wives stay home with their children, they are the "boss" of the household.

What is really disturbing to us is that these men seem incapable of providing any sort of sustainable support for their families, but they can't seem to connect the dots to their own decisions. Losing a job is "bad luck" and not due to the fact they were bored with work and stopped giving their best. The fact their wives have to scrimp, save, buy the scratch & dent cans and shop at Goodwill for their kids' clothes (NTTAWT) doesn't register when they go out and blow $500 on a Bose surround sound system because "Hey, I haven't treated myself to anything for a while and sometimes you just gotta do it, you know?" These same guys will buy themselves a new truck every two years because they feel like it (while their wife's car, the chief family transport, is held together with baling wire), have poker night with their buddies at their house even when their ten month old is teething and dealing with a miserable ear infection, and then they don't understand why their wives get so hopping mad that they are making a lot of noise and staying up until past midnight.

DH and I have encountered repeated species of these males and frankly we are just baffled. Just when do we hit the "Grow Up!" button for the American male of the species? What is wrong with our society that we give a pass to these guys hanging on to the good old days of teendom, when they have adult commitments, relationships, and very real fiscal needs? I get the traditional marriage, but frankly if you aren't providing LEADERSHIP to your family, then you aren't cut out for the male role in a traditional marriage! If you aren't leading by example, showing your kids that yes, sometimes your job is NOT your passion, but that's okay because you need to feed, clothe, and house your family, what kind of message does that send to them? What does it say to your wife when you SAY you support her, but every action is a sabotage to your financial stability and a demonstration of your lack of respect for her wants and needs?

Now that's not to say that the wives in these cases aren't responsible too. I would probably have quite a strong argument with my husband if he weren't pulling his weight in our marriage or family. And I have to say that some of these women are not communicating with their husbands. They complain to their friends but don't actually talk to their husbands about what has them so hopping mad a lot of the time. Is it any wonder we see the rate of divorce we see in the Christian church? Yeah, all of these examples are in CHRISTIAN households.

I just really mourn the lack of good, strong male role models. In an age where marriage is increasingly irrelevant, the whole idea of "service" to your marriage and family is fast falling out of favor. One need only look at the single parent phenomenon in African American households to see how ugly this gets when the dad is allowed a complete pass on responsibility. What is even more frightening is that moms are getting in on the act now, too. It seems increasingly common for moms to be committed in early childhood years, then to get tired of solely shouldering the responsibilities for childraising and leave their teens to go solo (figuratively speaking). Sometimes this takes the form of highly structured schedules, which has the added bonus of making Mom feel like a good parent, because John and Judy are in band, cheer, every sport imaginable, Mandarin, and a host of other "college ready" extracurriculars. Of course John & Judy are so busy you never get to talk to them, and they never get a break, but that's just preparing them for the "real world". Or you just stop listening to your kids, don't make an effort to understand them any more. Hey, it's just because they're teenagers, right? Eventually they will sort it all out and move out for college--the hard part is done. Yeah, because we all know how well that absentminded parenting works for teenagers.

I think we need to be honest with ourselves. Marriages take work. Families require solid commitments. That means sometimes (a lot of the time) you are working at a job that, at its best, drives you crazy sometimes. But you do what you need to do to put food on the table. If you want to "find yourself", "follow your passion", or "find the job you love", you wait to do it when you aren't putting your marriage and family under tremendous strain in the process. If that means drastically changing your lifestyle with everyone's agreement, so that you can afford to start your business or chase your dream, great! But if that is not possible, you need to be mature enough to recognize it and postpone it until you aren't putting other people's lives and well-being at risk. I realize that flies in the face of our hedonistic society, but you really AREN'T priority #1 when you have kids and a marriage. I'm not saying you don't need to take care of yourself, but you can't take care of yourself to the exclusion and detriment of all others. And you need to be involved in parenting your kids, period. Your wife is not the exclusive caregiver if the kids are under X years of age. You ARE responsible for the messages your behavior sends to them. You DO have to sacrifice some of your personal pleasures. It's called being a grown-up--how about trying it sometime, Mr. Ado-male?

The Barbie & Information Age

We are entering a new phase of childhood with DD--the Barbie age. We finally broke down and bought a Barbie DVD movie for her a few months ago, and it was just a matter of time before an actual Barbie doll made its appearance in our house. We haven't had an actual Barbie in play yet, but there is a new 'Thumbelina' doll, complete with closing magical flower, in residence in her room. And there is a cheapy $5 Barbie ballerina doll stocked in the store, to be purchased by good behavior points. I suspect it will be purchased this week or the following week, depending on how many points I assign as its purchase price. Then we will really be off on the roller coaster: Barbie clothes, gear, friends, etc.

Back when I was a young and somewhat foolish college smart aleck, I always thought I would never allow my daughter to play with Barbie dolls! Why she was a symbol of female oppression! Her figure was completely disproportionate to any real woman's body, and she had pre-formed feet made for high heels! Of course, some of those things have changed nowadays. They changed her proportions to be more realistic. Every Barbie is no longer pre-programmed with high heel feet, nor does every Barbie have automatic make-up on her face. Barbie is shown as a "baby doctor", a soccer coach, and all other sorts of self-esteem affirming professions for little girls (and yes, even a stay at home mom!). Still, I had a malingering resentment of Barbie as the dominant corporate creation, somehow forcing out the nameless "little guy" doll makers, not to mention the fact that her skirts are still hiked up to the '60s microskirt levels.

Well, frankly, I have looked at some of the alternatives to Barbie, and (to say the least) I found them seriously wanting. There are the High School Musical dolls, Hannah Montana dolls, and the Bratz dolls (no I'm not kidding). Hannah Montana and High School Musical might be fine entertainment platforms for tweeners (I know nothing of Hannah Montana but have heard good things from other parents about HSM), but it's hardly the sort of fare I want to show to my four year old. And the Bratz dolls--well, all the things that Barbie used to be maligned for, Bratz dolls are times ten. No thanks. And there are the generic competitors out there--the "Hearts Club" or whatever it is at Target, and other lesser known brands at more expensive prices from out-of-the-way 'intelligent toy' stores and online retailers. I'm all for shopping according to principles, but when your 4 year old has a gift card to Wal Mart from grandma, let's just say that she's going to want to buy her doll and have it NOW; which is how we came to have Thumbelina (and the Thumbelina dress up jewelry and shoes). Grandma's $50 card went a long way in the eyes of our DD. I snuck in the matching tiara for her Easter basket, because we are ALL about being a princess these days! And so it begins...I am already trying to figure out the best way to store Barbie paraphenalia such that she may actually use the storage system.

Our DS is at the "Why?" stage of development. He is 2 and trying to figure everything out, so no matter what answer you give to a question, it is immediately followed by "Why?" You can go on ad nauseum unless you remember the fact that he's TWO, and shut down the endless questions with, "That's the way it is, bud." And followed by, "It just is." For some reason, hearing this repeated somehow permeates his brain with the idea that he's not going to get any more information on that topic, and the subject is closed.

This information accumulation is particularly noteworthy in that it now trumps the sighting of an exciting vehicle, such as a dump truck, or school bus, or police car! He will notice them, but he's more interested in getting his questions answered. He is also very particular about his cars and trains, arranging them in specific patterns that make perfect sense to him. He gets very irritated if we move them before he's done playing with them, and will scold us: "No Mommy! No move dat!" Clearly there are imaginative stories being played out with the cars and trains. I am sure we will hear all about them over the course of the next year or so as he continues to accumulate ideas.

Kids are just so fun.

The Cocoon

My DH is out of the house this evening, attending a community meeting hosted by our local sheriff's department. Normally we would not be interested in meetings like these, but as it happens, our general area is going to be host to a registered sex offender, starting tomorrow.

Frankly, we've had a lot of responses to this since the notification first went out a few weeks ago. The immediate response is, of course, fear. You receive a notice in the mail (or, in our case, by email from a neighbor) and it has a number attached to this person, this man who is a known threat to society and who for reasons unfathomable to you is being released from the prison where he has been safely kept for the past thirteen years. The second response is, what can I do about it? We investigated the numbering system--what does that number mean? What are the details of the (multiple) cases that were successfully prosecuted against this man? Why is he rated likely to reoffend?

This has thrown a lot of comfortable assumptions into clear relief. Because we live in a rural area, it is very easy to think it is safer than other areas because it's relatively isolated, it's quiet. Our neighbors are nice people, so surely the people on the streets around us must be nice too. This is a very comfortable way of thinking, but it's not very accurate--and really we don't think that way all the time. Both DH & I have checked the map for known addresses of sex offenders (and we do so on occasion to update our sense of where they are) and up to this point they have all been more than 3 miles away, in distinct neighborhoods that are not our neighborhood. Now, however, we will have a convicted rapist living a mile away. A convicted rapist, I might add, who would have been a lifer in jail under the "3 strikes & you're out" law, but for the mistake of an officer testifying at his last trial, who let slip that he had a prior conviction. That was the grounds by which the appeal process reduced his sentence and made him eligible for parole.

It's quite easy to think that because we are reasonably rural, we couldn't be a target for crime. We have been in the habit of leaving our tool shed unlocked. We have a second shed that's not locked. It doesn't matter that it's not used, it's a place that someone could use to hide, or scope out our house & habits. That has changed. We have padlocks now, and we use them. We also did not have any sort of 'early warning system', aka a dog. That is changing as of tomorrow at 10 am. We will be the proud owners of a labrador retriever puppy, redeemed from our local humane society. We will have the irritating agony fun of house training the dog, and training her to leave our parrot alone. However, we will have a (not for long) small ball of furry energy to play with our kids, and to bark enthusiastically when someone shows up at our house or in our yard. As she gets bigger, hopefully she will also serve as a deterrent. We have alarms on our windows and doors, and we use them. We may get a gun (with the proper safety training and precautions since we have kids).

It helps to know that all of his victims have been adult women, his own age, whom he met that day in a bar or restaurant, or was already acquainted with. He has no history of burglary or enticing his victims in any way. He will be living with a family member and the department of corrections officer stated that his guardians are very interested in ensuring that he toes the line of all his parole conditions. He is not permitted in any bar or restaurant that serves alcohol, nor on any private roads. He has boundary conditions on how far he may travel from his home, and a curfew at night. He has obtained a job working with his family members through their business (which we will not be patronizing). The corrections officer at the community meeting emphasized that he has served his sentence and is legally a free man, subject to his parole conditions for 24 months.

At the end of the day, I think the corrections officer really hit the nail on the head for us. He said, "If learning that a registered sex offender is moving into your neighborhood makes you change the way you are living in your house, then you probably weren't living safe enough to begin with." Yup. And we are rectifying that right now. It isn't good enough to rely on comfortable thoughts of quiet and rural addresses. Nor is it enough, frankly, to rely on the goodness of one's neighbors. I hope that by cultivating safer habits and more awareness, we can still enjoy the substantial benefits of our neighborhood without fearing for our family when we're outside. Honestly we probably have more to worry about with a dog that a neighbor is dogsitting, who has gotten loose and charged at children, and bitten a neighbor. That is more real and present danger. But I am exceedingly grateful that God has ripped open our little cocoon in a very gentle way.

Flying with Children

Well, that was fun. Yep, I adore being locked in a plane with nearly all the people in a twenty aisle radius despising my child while he screams his head off for three hours of a four hour flight. Good times. At least I swapped seats with DH halfway through to get a break, and was treated to a pretty complaisant DD who was quite happy with her DVD of Dora and a snack. I admit, however, that I was more than a little interrupted in my attempts to read Pamela Aidan's Pride & Prejudice spin-off, An Assembly Such As This, by the fact that my child was screaming for me three aisles up.

But I digress. Let me acquaint you with the teeth gritting, hair pulling, 'why on earth would anyone in Customer Service think this is the way to treat people I ASK YOU???' inconveniences of traveling by air with small children these days. Ahem.

First, there is no such thing as "pre-boarding" any more, people...at least not with American Airlines. We got to pre-board with British Airways for our trip to Ireland, but apparently any domestic destination magically means parents don't need any extra time to shepherd recalcitrant children onto their unfamiliar aircraft, navigate the aisles carrying aircraft-approved carseats, and get said carseats properly installed in such a way that you can actually unbuckle the airline seatbelts when you get to your destination. Well, as you can probably guess, we did need that extra time. I suppose it is something of a marvel to me, how many parents we saw flying with children in the regular airplane seatbelts, but personally I just cannot fathom putting my kids in the airplane seatbelts. First, I know for a fact that they would definitely NOT stay in them. Each would be wiggled out of that sucker faster than I could threaten grievous consequences (no Dora! no ice cream!). Then would follow the agony of grabbing at flailing child parts from underneath the seat, or the one in front, or the aisle. Yes, that would be SO fun, wouldn't it? Second, what about the danger to the kids from turbulence or worse? (And yes, it does happen, having been on a pretty turbulent flight myself, and YES, planes do crash occasionally, and I personally know a plane crash survivor, so maybe I am a bit more paranoid than most.) If your kid is old enough that you have to pay for the seat anyway, what difference is it to you if you have to bring the carseat or booster? They make these marvelous things called "luggage wheels", and you can attach them to your carseat...and you know, it doesn't count as a carry-on! Imagine!

Anyhoo, we had a total of four flights for this little cross-country jaunt to Virginia, and that meant we had four times of wondering whether we would get to pre-board or not. The first gate agent explained that First Class and the "Preferred" classes (AA frequent flyers, Emerald, Ruby, Garnet, Tourmaline, Jet, Jet-Lagged...you name it, these encompass about a third of the plane and they all get to board before you) had the luxury of pre-boarding, but they do not pre-board families with small children. How nice. Thank you so much. She winked and nudged us in when we would have "pre-boarded" on British Airways, for which we are most grateful. However, the other three gate agents exhibited varying degrees of sympathy for our situation, from "None" to "You can board with Group 2" instead of Group 3. Oh gee, how generous. Thanks much. Carrying the carseat & attempting not to slam it into other people's elbows was really all we could each manage, so the kids HAD to get down the aisle on their own two feet. I'm sure all the folks backed up the jetway while we coaxed our reluctant 19 month old all the way down, down, down the aisle were understanding of their stay in a non-air conditioned jetway in Dallas/Ft. Worth in August. Really.

Next, we were informed abruptly at the first gate that we could NOT sit four together, and still use both carseats. What? Yes, their policy is that carseats must be used ONLY in a window seat, so we could either not use a carseat for one of our children (see above), or we had to get our seats reassigned to a 2 x 2 arrangement. Oh joy. I, for one, was pretty hacked off that their website, which they direct you to for ANY sort of customer service or assistance, had absolutely NO NOTICE of this policy! You can bet your bippy that we are writing a tidy little letter to American about this little gem of information which was so happily neglected from all relevant booking details on their entire website. Again our first gate agent was a gem and reassigned two people to other seats so we could be in two contiguous rows, and she was able to do the same for our flight from DFW to Virginia. Yay! On our way home, however, we were not so fortunate. We had no way of changing our seat assignment online and the phone agent could do nothing for us, so we had to rely on the gate agent. Well, the gate agents on the way back were less helpful. They were not terribly willing to move people, and as a result on our last flight we were separated by three rows.

At least it not me who had to deal with the woman across the aisle from my howling son, but my DH. I would probably not have the grace to have responded as politely as he had to her suggestion of, "Give that baby some milk and crackers, he's probably hungry." Um, yeah. In case you hadn't noticed, he has refused every snack offered. My DH said, "Thanks, but he's just tired and needs to go to sleep." Nothing more fun than strangers offering pointless advice because they are annoyed by your screaming child, yet not doing anything that might help him to go to sleep, like keep their own slightly older children from constantly peeping at the crying child, causing him to stop 'zoning out' toward sleep and laugh at your child, before screaming again when she peeps out of view. And I need not mention the flickering cabin lights that had the same effect.

I have nothing but good things to say about the baggage handling. They did not lose any of our bags, and they did get them out to the carousel before we arrived at it. Of course, this could have something to do with the fact that we were, without exception, the last people off every plane we were on.

All in all, I would recommend highly to anyone even contemplating travel with a baby from the age of 18 months to 3 years--just don't do it. JUST DON'T DO IT. Please, spare yourself the agonizing embarassment and teeth grinding frustration of dealing with a child in an unfamiliar situation who is old enough to know what he/she WANTS and not old enough to be distracted or reasoned with. That's it. We are staying WA for the next 18 months, or traveling in short distances by car. I could not repeat that experience again. And if you happen to be an employee of American Airlines, please b#$%h slap the VP who removed the pre-boarding option for families with young children. And while you're at it, slap your idiot web designer too, who hasn't included any information on carseats or ways to indicate that you will be using one for your minor child. Ugh.