Tagged with friendship …

Aug 01 2010
culture

food: it’s what’s for dinner

food? or poison?

Food? Or Poison?

So it’s happened again: yet another lunch guest who tells me she hardly eats any meat or fat, mostly all-vegetables – and a few minutes later is ladling up two plates’-worth of my shepherd’s pie – with its buttery mashed-potato corona of Awesome – and devouring with much gusto. Then she tells me she doesn’t drink alcohol – and ends up asking for one of the gin and tonics my husband is mixing for other guests.

In my peer group at least, food fuckabouts are common enough. Whether men and women self-identify as “dieting” or not, they often are. And many of them do not demonstrate eating competence.

Food and diet are controversial, varied, and hugely complex subjects. So just to be clear from the outset, here is what I am not addressing in this article. I am not going to be talking about individuals and families who do not have access to a variety of food they can afford. I am not going to be talking about concepts appropriate for individuals with severe eating disorders.

I’m weighing in on the behaviors and strategies of people like my friends, family and I: people who have the means and resources to afford a variety of fare and who would not be classified as having an ED.1

Considering “eating competence” is almost as an important aspect of feeding and eating as supply and access it’s interesting few people know the basic tenets of the concept. From an article published at Kansas State University’s Department of Human Nutrition:

People who are competent eaters have positive attitudes about eating. They enjoy food. They are confident that they will have enough food to eat and they trust their bodies”‘ internal regulators to signal when they are hungry and when they are full. Children move toward eating competence as they learn to acknowledge their own internal cues. Development of eating competence ““ or the lack of ““ begins in infancy and continues through life.2

So I’m a pretty good cook; mostly though, a joyful and prolific one. I cook often for my family and for other people when I can.3 The socially-performed rituals of food-as-a-moral-failing-or-virtue are behaviors I’ve observed too often to be considered flukes.

See, many Americans can be really silly about food. Fer realz. Did you know we still have an operational Food Pyramid being purveyed by our government?4. Advocates of the Ethical Food Movement – with whom my family shares some aims and is locally-influential in promoting these goals – often do not address the institutional, cultural, and hugely oppressive stresses on American food habits, instead releasing considerable internet-vitriol slandering individual people and families for their ginormously disgusting Fatty McFatsalot food habits and sloth. (I’m not going to provide any soul-sucking links for this, throw a rock on Google and you’ll hit loads of it.)

That obesity business. Because let’s get real: one of the major factors in these food-games my friends and family play relates to their weight and size. Many Americans absolutely worship the Idol of Weight Loss with a fervor blind to any nuanced discussion of mitigating factors, scientific study, or personal health and happiness. Weight Loss is massive, a constant undercurrent, and an aspiration we’re all supposed to hold (so even if you’re not dieting, you should support dieting), even though countless studies prove diets don’t work and Americans know this anecdotally and empirically. In fact the efficacy of dieting is worse than many people realize: study after study shows around 95% of diet-participants gaining weight back in two years while two-thirds gain even more weight than what was lost.5 The significant health effects of de facto yo-yo dieting are wreaking havoc on American bodies and minds and quality of life (more about this in a minute). But this does not deter Americans from: dieting.

I notice a fair amount of my friends and family will claim their diet-and-exercise regimens and their food restrictions are about “health” – not weight. If you query them further (they might not like this) you often find this is a smokescreen.

Example: a dear friend of mine recently told me she needed to drop forty pounds. I asked Why? and she responded, “To be healthy”. She want on to say, “I want to be able to walk a brisk two mile walk and feel good doing it.” I said, “If you got up tomorrow and tried that walk slowly, then rested the next day then did it again, and so on, within a couple weeks you’d be able to do it and you’d probably feel great. And you probably wouldn’t drop more than a couple pounds, if that.” (This friend is able-bodied and fairly active already). From the look in her eyes I could see I wasn’t “getting” the fantasy-image she had of her new, slimmer, “healthy” self, a whole new Her (the fleshed out version of these visions is further-reaching than just Pounds Lost; it is also sometimes called The Fantasy of Being Thin6). Later, passing through her bathroom I saw the scale on the floor and the careful notes of pounds written on a piece of paper and taped to her mirror.

This woman, and so many people I know, might say the word “health”  but does not know her blood pressure nor has had recent bloodwork done or seen a trusted naturopath or physician or embarked on a study of quantifiable health markers (and yes, she could afford to do so if she wished). If her focus was truly on health she’d likely get rid of the scale and follow a proven method of lifestyle and fitness improvement, such as the HAES model developed by Linda Bacon (that’s right, BACON!).7 But of course, that’s not really what she, or lots of other “health”-touters, are really thinking about.

The typical versions of dieting are distressing behaviors because weight loss culture is a real agent of harm, self-loathing, and poor health. As long as people still cling to the ideologies of the Weight Loss Industrial Compex (fistfuls of money are being made hawking this religion) their bodies will suffer as will their quality of life: also and especially their children. Spending time with other people’s kids – especially the girl-children – I observe how many girls, even young ones, talk sneeringly about fatness or express their longing to thin – yes, even girls who already are thin. I’ve heard girls as young as four express these sentiments.  I am afraid in many cases their parents/carers aren’t doing all they can to protect these children, probably because they’ve either bought into “thin is in” or they don’t realize how invasive the forces are working against their children’s health.8 Make no mistake, the influence of peers and the media has even well-strategizing parents at a disadvantage.

The cost to our children is being borne out overwhelmingly by our female children, especially girls and young women of color.9 No one, however, is immune.  My own daughter asked me the other day if she was “too fat”.10 She’s not only not “too fat”, she’s just not fat at all, and the fact she has been asking and hinting about this lately troubles me. We are a homeschooling family who does not own a television and her father and I are active supporters of FA and healthy eating; we do not impose Draconian food measures. If she’s still getting these “better worry about one’s weight” messages loud and clear I’d like the reader to consider how oppressively ubiquitous they are and how they are likely playing out even more harmfully depending on the race, gender, sexual orientation, degree of disability, institutional status, and socioeconomic class of other children – most categories of which my daughter is an a culturally-privileged place.

It’s a grim picture. Yet we still talk about food incautiously and as if there were these tangible or elusive moral Rights and Wrongs. We still look at fat people (and occasionally thin people) and imagine we know what they eat (and/or how much they exercise and how “good” their exercise regimens might be). Sometimes my friends tell me they’re carrying “an extra X pounds.” I ask them how would they know it was ‘extra’? – literally, where would they go to find out? (The BMI index?11 The tabloids? Equally laughable!) They then, invariably, tell me about a time in their life they were smaller – maybe thirty years and three children ago (personally I came into this world at about eight pounds but I’ve put on a lot since then!).

We still suffer from poor-self-worth and insecurity which, tragically, often contributes to the pro-Diet mantras and myopic concepts of food morality. Unfortunately, this is not a “victimless crime” or even a one-victim crime; our attitudes and lip service in aggregate have very real effects on other people.  There’s also just the personal garden-variety misery our worldview effects; therapist, author and lecturer Ellyn Satter writes:

Our dilemma with weight is that at the same time as we are being told by health policy makers – repeatedly and with a great deal of judgment and urgency – that any degree of overweight is medically dangerous, there is no successful method for reducing and maintaining a lowered body weight. In fact, weight loss attempts have a boomerang effect: Most people regain lost weight and many gain to a higher level with each loss-regain cycle. While high body weight is a serious health risk only at the extremes, the far-more-common pattern of weight instability as a result of dieting is associated with negative health outcomes [emphasis mine].

For people who are relatively fat, the weight dilemma is even worse. Although body composition is, for the most part, genetically determined, people of size generally feel guilty about their weight and therefore ashamed of their eating. They have accepted society’s judgment that they overeat and that they are digging their graves with their knives and forks. In reality, most relatively fat people eat no more or no differently from thin people. They just pay the price. People of size at times eat chaotically, but that chaotic eating, rather than being a cause of high body weight, is far more likely to be a consequence of the weight-reduction dieting that they have pursued in the name of becoming thin.12

People make judgments about food and individuals’ “food virtue” that make little to no objective sense. Around these parts I’m known as a good cook and a “healthy” one. Because my family is slim and people know I enjoy cooking and I do cook with a wide variety of ingredients, some organic depending what I can afford, I am told I’m a “healthy” cook. What does that even mean? I’ve had people gush about my refried beans from scratch and tell me They’re Gonna Start Cooking Healthier At Home, and I think to myself, Do they want to know how much butter and salt are in those beans? From what I can tell some want to eat my food, proclaim it as healthy and delicious, perhaps claim they never eat such-and-such (while I’m watching them devour it), and/or tell themselves and the rest of the guests how they’re Losing Weight (or going to start soon). This is all part of that Fantasy I alluded to before. It’s hard to know what to say; often, I don’t say much at all.  (Disclosure: by vast overwhelming majority my friends and family who eat restricted diets because of medical issues or spiritual/ethical convictions are the ones I observe eat the way they claim to eat.)

Day after day I see the play-around “rules”, the “bad” food vs. “good” food, the “I can eat this slice of cheesecake because I did thirty minutes on the treadmill”, the endless discussions on size 6 jeans or size 8 jeans (and the hurt silence of the woman in the room who’s a size 20). I’ve seen it so many times, and as a hostess who loves to cook and have friends over it would almost be funny if I didn’t know What Lies Beneath; if I didn’t want better for future babies, boys, girls, men and women. My job as a hostess is to cook exactly the foods my friends tell me they want, put the grated cheese on the side or provide vegetarian alternatives or gluten-free main courses or whatever best serves everyone attendant; to lovingly craft with my own hands exactly what will nourish us all. What they put on their plate and how they frame it is, in the end analysis, under their control. The smiles and compliments, at least, tell me I’m doing something right.13

Here, writing about my observations, I know there are lots of people who simply can’t break the perpetuated mainstream mindsets on food and diet (and occasionally, ZOMG the obese are Ruining America!!11!) and who will want to tell me about all these Great Big Fat Persons14 out there who really, really, REALLY need to lose weight, Kelly, you should see what “these people” eat, blah blah.

But there are those I know who read here – those who are passionate about doing things a better way for themselves and their family, friends and children – who are open to expanding their worldviews and finding better ideas. As a personal aside, my own mother is gradually, ever-so-gradually, breaking a lifetime of training on self-worth-hinging-on-attractiveness, body image, and self-food-policing; she tells me I am her main influence in this regard.  This means a lot to me personally.

I’d hope I could positively influence other people, as well – not just cook for them.

Mentioned/Further Reading:
“If only poor people understood nutrition!” by Michelle Allison at The Fat Nutritionist

“Dear Health Care Provider” at RaisingBoychick.com, on partnering with your doctor/PA/naturopath/practitioner, etc. to manage topics of self-care, diet, exercise, and medication.

“But Don’t You Realize Fat is Unhealthy?” at Shapely Prose.

“Let us eat cake” at mymilkspilt: pressures on mothers regarding feeding their children.

“Occupied Bodies: Women of Color Speak out on Self-Image”, a call for submissions from Tasha Fierce at Red Vinyl Shoes.

“Diets Don’t Work, But…” on dieting-but-not-calling-it-that, by Kate Harding

“A Fat Rant” as performed by Joy Nash

“No Weigh! A Declaration of Independence from a Weight-Obsessed World” – a commitment to health from NationalEatingDisorders.org : “I, the undersigned, do hereby declare that from this day forward I will choose to live my life by the following tenets. In so doing, I declare myself free and independent from the pressures and constraints of a weight-obsessed world.” [click] for a pdf download.

  1. More information on Eating disorders can be found at the NIMH website. Also: obesity is not an eating disorder (warning-ableist language in the latter article). ↩
  2. Full article here: “What is Eating Competence?”, published April 2008. ↩
  3. Here are some snapshots. ↩
  4. Here’s the updated version: http://www.mypyramid.gov/; and here are some criticisms for the pyramid and its underwriters, the USDA: 1, 2, 3, and 4 (warning: some rather broad-stroke anti-obesity language therein a few links): as one study author mildly puts it, “the USDA is too closely linked to the agriculture industry to be in the business of giving diet advice”. ↩
  5. “Dieting Doesn’t Work”, UCLA research demonstrating “the most comprehensive and rigorous analysis of diet studies, analyzing 31 long-term studies.” ↩
  6. Well-elucidated by this essay:  “The Fantasy of Being Thin” at Shapely Prose ↩
  7. HAES, an introductory primer. ↩
  8. A suggestion: print out the NEDA’s list “50 Ways to Lose the 3Ds: Dieting, Drive for Thinness, and Body Dissatisfaction” (pdf download) and use the scorecard to see how you’re doing. ↩
  9. “A Different Kind of Fat Rant: People of Color and the Fat Acceptance Movement” by Lesley at Fatshionista. ↩
  10. Here’s a picture of her. ↩
  11. “Overweight Kills: If You Use Shaky BMI Science” at consumerfreedom.com ↩
  12. From “Resolve the Weight Dilemma” at Ellyn Satter’s website. ↩
  13. “cooking, a manifesto”, at my blog. ↩
  14. “Was she a great big fat person?” ↩
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Jun 07 2010
culture, feminism

the cost of “manners” amongst the ladyfolk

Oh, the tension!

What lies beneath? Hint: sometimes, Very Big Scary Feelings.

“Manners are the hypocrisy of a nation.” – Honore de Balzac

Recently on another mommy blog a question is put forth: How do we respond to friends who parent differently? The blog author relates a story of her friend, a carpool mom who one day drops a child off to the mother and says, “I ran through McDonalds for dinner because we were pressed for time, hope that’s okay” to which the mom replied, “Well, it’s really not” [emphasis by the blog author]. The blogger asked us to weigh in on the interaction.

Before I scrolled down to read the comments I predicted the following: the public (and predominantly female) voice would be against the woman who voiced her displeasure. Sure enough: as comments trickle in they cite her as “rude”, “self-righteous”, and “proselytizing”1; public sentiment is set against her (although notably she has been relegated to third-party status, the carpooling friend having related her version to the blog author).

Look, no one needs to say the word “bitch”. We all know how women who slip up and display a lack of social grace or who stand up – if at all imperfectly or “not nice enough” – for their values are going to get heavily policed socially (for instance one commentator says that since the child was being carpooled and this is a service, it was “rude” of the anti-fast food mother to speak up regarding food preferences).

In the comments section I put forth the following: if I ask a friend if something is “okay” I believe I should be prepared to hear the answer, warts and all.  The blog author responded quickly and alternatively inflated or ignored my points: thus my advocacy for authenticity amongst friends meant I was opposed to “civilities” like “How are you?” and that I wanted “every single conversation in my day to be an earnest, honest, heartfelt one”. The blog owner also set up a strawman defense defending her friend’s choice to buy McDonalds (since I am in agreement the mother did nothing “wrong” by purchasing this food, the relevancy of this defense escapes me).

Let me get to my point.

In many female friendships in my peer group, the rituals of “manners” and socially-policed quid pro quo often supplants authenticity and openness.

Go ahead and read the sentence again, carefully. I know it’s kind of a long labored thing. But I wanted to be super accurate in what I’m trying to say.

Look, if I was in the carpooling mom’s position I’d probably have felt stung.  I don’t know how many times I’ve tried to do right by a friend and received either a tacit or explicit referendum on my choice. Most women reading here know the pain of having one’s friend snub us verbally or speak with a “tone”.  It hurts, badly. We simultaneously empathize with our friend and feel horrid about letting her down while we also respond with a reflexive and defensive anger.  These things all make up a big bag of Suffering and like any animal we seek to avoid suffering.

Given that, it can seem seductive to just agree we’ll all play by “manners”.

I like talking about punctuality to illustrate my points on “manners” because this is an issue I have seen play out over and over again over the years.  For instance: according to the code of “manners” I should be on time to your dinner.  But if I am late (which it’s easy to be while juggling small children and a job and daycare and a partner and pets and a household) I may attempt to stifle my feelings of failure at having not performed my social duty of perfection: I will offer an apology and then, right on the heels of that, an excuse for why I was not on time.  This apology-cum-excuse is a nullifying maneuver; as the latecomer I am breathlessly expounding on why the whole issue is all about me and my (small or large) drama, while my host(ess) may feel hurt and/or angry but is powerless to say as much without looking like a troll according to our codes of conduct (I am perfectly aware that in some scenarios lateness does not give offense whatsoever). The host has been outplayed, not so much deliberately but as a side effect of the feminine-means-perfection roles and rituals that create severe social and personal fallout.

Do you know how many women I’ve heard say, “Maria, I’m sorry I’m late.” with the pause and presence that a true apology deserves, perhaps with a gentle hand on Maria’s arm or at least eye contact?  A small handful. These days I apologize in this manner when I’m late but it’s something I’ve had to work on. I still hate being late not only because I want to be considerate to the host(ess) but because of my resultant feelings of female-fail. Manners are ostensibly about the former considerations, yet the rituals of “manners” often play out according to the ugly morass of the latter.  In female society it is so tempting to avoid our discomfort by playing the game, almost a chess match of thrust-and-parry because we don’t want to feel shame and we don’t want to feel “wrong”.

If only our self-saving machinations didn’t have such potential to hurt our friends.

I have long lost count of the times I’ve seen women in a social setting say something is “okay” when really, deep down, it isn’t. Using the example of lateness, I once heard my friend E. excuse herself for being an hour tardy to the dinner fête her friend H. had thrown, because H. had been late to a party E. threw a half year ago. E. kept a list of her friend’s perceived faults (she never once paid for the pot they’d share; she let her kids eat “too much” candy) and then applied her own barter and balancing act based on this internal scorecard (respectively: therefore it was okay if H. footed the booze bill entirely; H. was responsible for the sabotage in E.’s otherwise flawless family dietary plan). This all happened internally; these trades were not negotiated openly nor made known in the friendship.  And if it sounds like normal “human” behavior to some I can tell you E. and H. had deep hurts levied against one another (I got to hear some of them) that also rarely, if ever, were aired directly with one another. No, they were aired more or less to other women entirely. More third-party speech.

I wish I could say the example of E. and H. is a rare one; however it was all too common in my peer group at the time.

But it doesn’t have to be that way.

Many years ago I had the good fortune to make friends with a woman who was both authentic and purposefully opposed to ad hoc quid pro quo arrangements.  She was going through a hard time in her life and had decided (in self-protection) that relationships should exist with contractual agreements (either verbal or written).  These agreements would, in her mind, keep her “safe” from the types of betrayals (one severe and of marital nature) that had hurt her so in the past.  (More on her contracts and their success in a minute.)

At first my new friend puzzled me because she didn’t play by the “rules”. She would, for instance, not allow me to purchase her latte when I was flush with cash and wished to do so.  It was apparent to me she was not doing this to rebuff me or out of a prickly sensibility around money; she simply didn’t want to risk engaging in the Game. Although I was surprised by her stubborn refusal – which never wavered – my mind also immediately flashed to the many “hints” and jabs that other women voiced about friends who “owed” money for this or that transaction that had been offered in the spirit of a gift.  In this first interaction with my friend I intuited issues around money would be considerable safer and less anxiety-inducing between us (incidentally, this meant a lot to me at the time; being a family of four with all sorts of financial problems cropping up I had little room to spare; life is easier for me today). Over the  years my prediction proved correct.

My friend’s worldview was formed as a self-protective one but as a near side-effect I came to trust her, immensely. I could ask her if she would buy my dinner and she would say, “As a gift, or for repayment? When will you pay me back?” while being truly open to either (and holding herself able to refuse). If I asked her for a favor or an opinion I could trust her response; I wouldn’t have to “prove” my virtue if I asked for something. Concomitantly, I was treated to her direct advocacy; if she didn’t want to watch a movie or eat a certain kind of food she would simply say so.  One time she removed a chair from my house (with my permission) and had a carpenter friend bolster it to support her weight (we had very rickety chairs as a rule). At first I felt an immediate small humiliation that I had so failed in a hostess as to not have adequate furniture. I felt slight aches of shame and reflexive anger.  But knowing her I had no reason to fear she was doing anything other than problem solving for the sake of her comfort so we could enjoy our friendship to its fullest. Over a short period of time my discomfort subsided and I felt gratitude for her action. It also was not lost on me that as a family of four with one income and two small children I perhaps could be forgiven my lapse of furnishings.

Our friendship is longstanding and it has had a portion of wrongs committed and apologies; it has not been free of strife.  I will say that considering how intimate we have been the amount of conflict and hurt I’ve felt is much lower than any friendship I’ve experienced.  The quality of trust, openness, and authenticity in this friendship is still a standout in my life. I am glad for her example as it has informed me in my other friendships. I wish more women would catch on.

As for my friend’s concepts of protective contracts and agreements, this was an issue she struggled much over and her views altered, morphed, spread, and softened. She experienced over time a reality that nothing, not really, could protect her from betrayal and victimization. But she retains her stalwart sense of authenticity, her ability to voice her feelings clearly, and a receptivity when I do the same.

While I could talk more about the quality of this friendship I would like to get back on point with a radical concept.  When our friends respond with honesty (in their words and their tone) that reveals displeasure or hurt in response to our actions, let’s try to remember something.  The anger and hurt we so immediately feel?  This cannot be truthfully attributed as The Entire Fault of the Person Who Is Wronging Us. We can remind ourselves it is our lifelong socialization to be properly feminized and to police other women that is causing us the most pain.

The pain is real but our reactions can improve. We can ask ourselves with gentleness and curiosity, “Why do I put so much pressure on myself to never make a mistake?” We can ask ourselves, “Why do I feel so humiliated and angry so quickly?”  We can remind ourselves, “My friend is trusting me enough to be honest in her communication. Take a deep breath; this is an important moment.”  We can say, “Please tell me more,” and mean it.  We can say (if we decide it is called for) “I’m sorry” to our friend – and mean it.  We can stop saying “sorry” when we don’t mean it.

Maybe we’ll even be brave enough to tell her, when the moment is right, that her tone or response hurt our feelings; maybe we can tell her with openness, without undue attachment to outcome, without reprisal waiting in the wings, with intimacy and honesty and Love.  My guess is she’ll surprise you by apologizing in turn (if she didn’t earlier in that wonderful, open and vulnerable moment).  These are transactions in a friendship that are rare, difficult, beautiful, and form strong relationships. Real female friendship can be accomplished with an eschewal of malicious speech, hidden daggers and the dwelling on hurt feelings, without chewing one’s nails and suffering in silence or venting in the ears of a third-party, never to be aired with clarity to the one who needs us to seek reparations.

“Manners” may serve us reasonably well in fitting in socially (like not shouting “Fuck!” in church) but they are a meager edifice to secure our hearts and minds upon in lieu of honesty; besides the obvious that no two people can agree on when “manners” are called for and when they must be eschewed, and no two people have the same background and therefore education in “manners”, they are in final analysis rituals that are not solely adequate in times of interpersonal difficulties. I have seen the most “mannered” women harbor the deepest and darkest angers, there to fester and become something silent and resentful and twisted.

In contrast I remain in supreme trust that my friend will tell me if I hurt her, and she remains trustful I will listen openly if she tells me.

And yes, we still say “Please” and “Thank you” and “How are you?”

This post is dedicated to my good friend Cynthia.

***

Photo credit: x-ray_delta_one on Flickr

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Feb 25 2010
culture, family, feminism

breeding, & how not to be an (inadvertent) jerk

Yo y mi amigas

Me (far right) and my girlhood (and non-babybirthing, so far) friends, some of whom may resent me or think I

I want to talk about the people you know – your friends, your family, those who may be dear to you – who don’t have children. Because seriously – Mama, Daddy? You could probably be doing better – if you’re ready and willing to try.

Here’s the thing: once you have a kid, there’s a faction of people that will just hate on your (and your child[ren]‘s) ass(es). I’ve read up on and thought about and pondered these examples of Hate in our culture – and no matter what the specific rant may be (pregnant women do not deserve extra consideration on a bus because they choozes to be pregnant, urban parents’ strollers are too big and full of too much expensive stuff and they’re such assholes for this) – what it really comes down to is that some childfree hate on parents because we, and our kids, have the audacity to exist. It’s about taking up space, mostly – space coming at more of a premium these days, our environment and planet being strained, and here we toddle out our snot-nosed little vacuum cleaners, sucking up even more of everything.  Children are, to an extent, reliant on grownups – they are almost entirely helpless when they are born.  They need our care, plain and simple.  Some childfree folks can’t wrap their mind around this – after all, taking care of oneself can be a difficult business! – so their head just asplodes.

That’s not all, though: some versions of childfree hate-of-breeders are informed by the attitudes of many who feel pressured that they aren’t deemed “worthy” by society until they’ve Married and Babied (this is their baggage, but it’s more complex than that, and I’ll discuss this more in a minute), a hefty dollop of Ignorance – thinking that by seeing how you and your bambino behave on your worst day of the week tells them, really, anything much about the whole picture – as well as an illusion of Control, which many of us parents and caregivers have now had mercifully shattered thanks to our pants-shitting and willful progeny.

I don’t really need to link you to or quote any specific breeder-hate, do I? If you’ve parented your children for a couple years you’re well-seasoned in it.  Sometimes I wish I could rid my mind of it certain examples so chilling and ugly they remain with me like an indelible soul-stain: off and on for the last couple months, my mind keeps going over a rant on heartless-bitches.com entitled “Entitlement-Minded Mommies (and their partners)” – such a caustic, soulless, and judgy spewing of vitriol I won’t even link below.

My purpose here is not to address the Haters out there, who will never particularly care about our actual experiences – any discussion of what it’s really like for us to meet our friends and family’s needs will be met with, “Maybe you should have thought about that before you had a kid” (ha! Hahahaha!) – nor expand their worldview to include reflection on Fact: every person who has ever existed has for a significant number of years needed the care and stewardship of others (if we live a long and full life, indeed our span may be bookended by such realities).

I’d like to talk about friendship.

First, Acknowledge: You Have More People To Feed
I think as parents, maybe sometime around year two, we should be allowed at least one full month in a closet hysterically crying, because it’s just that big a deal and that much of a strain for so many of us.  You know, kind of constantly, and in the backdrop, whatever others may see on the surface.  We have good days and feel on top of the world; our bad days bring us so very much lower than we thought Low could go; besides watching our children suffer we get to feel like whatever is wrong hurts or threatens our babies is Our Fault – such low points are like a straight-up toxic cocktail of fear, remorse, anxiety, and what can sometimes seem like a neverending burden to bear.

So sure, most childfree have very little concept of what parenthood is like: the care for, feeding of, nurturing of, worrying about (something very, very few – if any – involved parent could avoid), and guidance of the children; the constancy of financial, spiritual, emotional, and physical (including the feeding of, cleaning up after, bodily care of, and provision of clothing) resources needed.  But guess what?  Our responsibilities shouldn’t give us a free pass to stop doing, you know, the rest of life.

In my experience not every friend, acquaintance, or family member has understood my circumstances as a mother.  Well, fine.  It’s the truth, and they don’t have to understand it fully.  The question is: how am I going to do what’s right given these are my circumstances?  How can I love my friends and be there for them even if I’m not who I used to be?

Watch Your Mouth
Seriously?  When you say stuff about your husband and your kids, are you being careful?  Our culture gives special support to those who are the following: white, upper- or middle-class, cis-gender, able-bodied, straight, and married.  This support for a “typical” life is so pervasive and seen as is-ought (or preferred) that it ends up creating a pressured and unpleasant place to live for many who exist outside these parameters: they end up marginalized both directly and indirectly, coarsely and with finesse.  Since I myself fall into these categories I’m guessing many of my readers do too.

So, stop talking and consider what you’re saying.  Are you through your words and actions in any way implying that the married, straight, breeding life is normative and prescriptive, an experience all should live or are going to live?  Just stop that business right now.  Consider dissolving your marriage, if you’re totally bad-ass and want to support equal rights for gay and lesbian couples.  If you can’t (or won’t) do that you can read up on heterosexism, you can refer to your husband or wife as “spouse” or “partner”, you can stop doing unthinking things at Moms’ groups like saying, “Where does your husband work?” (which assumes this woman you just met is straight and married to a traditional breadwinner). Language is important because in part it forms the reality for those around us; even more important are the assumptions we carry and those we pass on – sometimes to harmful effect.

So, stop.  Stop assuming anyone else has, or should have, a partner or child(ren).  Seriously, I feel so silly writing this out because it’s rather 101, and this space is not generally a 101 space.  But I see enough of this kind of thing it bears mention.

There’s more: do not say, “When you’re a parent you will understand.”  Duh!  You can say, “I didn’t understand this until I was a parent,” if that applies.  Because it’s true, and hell, probably valuable to say!  And it doesn’t sound condescending nor assume everyone should squirt out some kids to be able to have a well-enough formed opinion!

Language is more than language, and the pursuit of better language – besides influencing other people, and our society and peer groups – changes us within.  When I stop assuming that Parenthood is some kind of journey essential to Wholeness – when I systematically begin to stamp out the wisps of this wrong-headed thinking – I am more open to my world, my friends, their needs and their potential positive influences.  When I stop assuming everyone should (and wants to) get Married I appreciate my own partner at the same time as recognizing, to some extent, the circumstantial nature of our union; I acknowledge the impermanence of this arrangement – however important I hold it – and feel humble, open, and grateful.

Take Care Of Yourself & Whomever Else You Can
I don’t owe my childfree friends a visit to the bar, or a hang-out at their black tie party, or my appearance at their child-excluding housewarming fete (these are real examples from my real life).  I owe them my friendship – more about this in a minute – but the truth is, when you’re a parent you have a few obstacles they’ve likely not considered, and the first that immediately comes to mind is a little complex:

As a family of four on one income, paid-for sitting is something of a fucking luxury, that is when I can find someone on a Friday night in the first place.  And maybe a party or the bar with girlfriends wouldn’t be a first choice when that luxury is obtained: for instance, if I have the kids out of the house I’d like to have the night with my spouse working on projects together, maybe watching a movie, and then getting up to dirty, dirty lovin’. There’s no friend in the world who can compete with that most days.  In fact, if I do go out with you while my kids are being looked after and my partner is available for that movie-watching, house-work, and spousal intercourse?  Then you should consider yourself highly esteemed in my eyes.

Another truth adding to the complexity of the “Why don’t you get out more?” business: our culture is a terrible, terrible village when it comes to raising kids.  Thusly before I had children I thought you know, now and then others would care for them.  And yet in my eight years as a parent, most of those who’ve cared for my kids have been either A. my own mother, or B. other mothers.  My childfree friends have not watched my kids gratis but a handful of times (and those that did have been predominantly female); my male relatives, not once.

Do I “expect” those in my life to watch my kids?  Not really, as in I did not feel particularly entitled to that assistance.  Have I been surprised just how segregated and hands-off the non-parents of this world are?  Hell yes.  Seriously – what is going on there? My children are not that terrifying!

Another reality: you can’t leave little ones in the house alone; and our culture currently pressures parents to not leave a child unsupervised until age twelve.* In terms of social nightlife – unless you can afford regular babysitting or repeatedly burdening your mom-friends with additional kid-care – that’s like a jail sentence!

So when it comes to friendships, for many of us it hasn’t been easy to maintain them without kids in attendance; and yet, some childfree begrudge the accompaniment of said youngsters into the friendship sphere.  No matter the amount of time you can and choose to take from your little ones, give yourself credit: your time is a precious commodity these days in a way others may not understand.

Be There
You’re probably reading this and, if you have kids, feeling hey, possibly you have let down some of your friends and family.  Fine.  The point is not that you should feel terrible for having been swallowed up by the care of children (Hey, guess what, people who haven’t had babies! Did you know newborn babies require to be fed and diapered about every hour and a half, around the clock! It’s fucking crazy!  Just a little informational tidbit!), but that you can show your friends your love by re-committing to the relationship.

The ways to do this are literally endless: it might be as simple as making an effort to listen more and talk less.  Last night I spent about a half hour in deep discussion with two friends regarding the training, care of, and feeding of their purebred dogs, and I didn’t once minimize their experiences by you know, comparing dog-ownership to child-raising while concluding child-raising is so much harder, or more important.**  I wasn’t pretending to care about my friends’ pets; it’s a genuine interest of mine.  I want to know my friends, not merely exchange quid pro quo fake expressions of interest.

Respect
Your kids?  Oh my gosh.  Your kids are so awesome.  They are literally the awesomest things ever.  I know this, because I too have THE CHILDRENZ.  But, how would you feel if you had a friend who bought some bright-red sportscar and then talked about little else for, oh, years?  Not too good, eh?

So, don’t talk just about your kids.  Again, duh, but – there it is, a complaint I’ve heard more often regarding new parents than those who’ve been doing this a while (but seriously, non-parents, did you read the part about how babies eat and poo around the clock and it’s like Anti-Sleep Boot Camp? Yeah, turns out it kind of occupies your Life a while).  So anyway, parents and caregivers: Listen.  Settle down.  Be present.  Be grateful for your time with your friends when you can get it.  If family needs are pressing or stressful, fine.  But realize that often our childfree friends and family aren’t in a great position to empathize or advise.  You can know if they’ve turned off or unable to comprehend by the tone of their voice, the quality of eye contact.  Whether you choose to continue the discussion is up to you.

That thing about listening?  Yes, that means occasionally listening to subjects that at first seem to hold little interest.  You cannot fake this one.  If you truly believe deep-down that your children and familyhood are more important than your friend’s passion for mountain climbing, or your sister’s squawky love birds, well first off: you’re an asshole (imagine how you’d feel back before you had children and were juggling three jobs or maybe college and an internship and a terrible cheating girlfriend or whatever, and your friend was condescending and disinterested because in their eyes you weren’t living some version of “real life”?  Not too fun, eh?).  Secondly: if you can’t bring yourself to care about what they’ve got going for themselves, ask yourself why you’re friends with this person.  If you can’t meet them at their needs maybe what you have is a drinking buddy or an ego-boost or whatever – not a true friend.  Be honest with yourself.

And then, hell, you may have to end a few friendships.  I broke up with a friend five years ago because even though I followed him down his fork of the road, and cared about his interests, these sentiments were ultimately not reciprocated (the letter, as linked below, intimates that I did not tell him my feelings; actually, I did change my mind and send him a copy).  This actually hurt, a lot, even though I don’t kid myself he felt the same.  Still, it was the honest and appropriate response:  we simply weren’t friends any more.

Life’s too short to be regularly half-assed.  Your childfree friends deserve your respect and consideration as much as they ever did, no matter how much your circumstances have changed.  And they can learn a lot from you, too – if their minds are open and you represent yourself fearlessly and honestly.

* Age twelve is not a legal requirement; that is a cultural standard that makes little sense to me, more about that some other time.

** It must be said: I have heard many childfree pet owners claim the responsibilities inherent in pet care to be identical to that of having children. LOL<sob!>

Mentioned / Further Reading:

Heterosexism at Wikipedia (I particularly liked the section on Heterosexism vs. Homophobia)

Heterosexism 101, a questionaire from One Hundred Little Dolls

“Dear Ex-Fellow Collegiate”, from my blog – five years ago

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