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I hardly ever click on anything in the Facebook sidebar, but this one caught my eye: “What’s the point of Girls? Challenge one father’s goal for what he’s trying to raise his father to become by clicking here.” Uh-oh, I thought.
But I was wrong. His post is stellar, and although at first I thought, “I wish I had a daughter this applied to,” I realized almost immediately that it’s even more applicable to Julianna than to her typically-developing peers. Check it out.
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You know it’s campaign season when you find yourself witnessing the worst of human behavior from people you don’t even know. Here’s an excerpt from a series of emails I got this week:
Proposition B will do NOTHING TO SHUT DOWN PUPPY MILLS IN MISSOURI. NOT TRUE!
Oh, come on, people. Really? You are going to vote against a law that will reduce the number of breeding animals in a puppy mill from thousands to 50? Please, think about this.The HSUS sponsored Prop B was passed in California and now they pay $7.00 for a dozen eggs. The HSUS doesn’t care about puppies! They only want to turn the human race into vegitarians. They have stated they would rather see the human race die off so the other species could have the earth. I say let them lead by example. The left has always tried to use compasion as a lever to get their agenda passed. Do your research on the proposal’s sponsors and find out for yourself.
$7 for a dozen eggs in CA? I Googled “Price of one dozen eggs in CA” and immediately found this:
http://answer.co5.biz/food-drink/how-much-does-a-dozen-eggs-cost-where-you-live.html
Please look at response number 8, dated August, 2010. Eggs in CA are a whopping $2.50.
As for your ludicrous portrayal of the HSUS…poppycock. Please include the source of this rumor in your next email, I’d love to see it.
And please, Mr. ——, use your spell check. It’s hard to take your email seriously if you won’t even bother to present your ideas in a literate manner.
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When I start getting emails like these, I just want to retreat from social media. C’mon, people. No wonder the candidates treat each other the way they do, if this is what they see from their constituents!
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Well, there are happier subjects to address. I’ve been meaning to make note of it for two weeks: Nicholas has taken his first baby step out of TwinLand and ahead of his big sister. He can now repeat Mama, Dada, Wawa, Gege, Yiyi, Nana and Vava at will, on command. He’s also made progress on the toilet in the last week, for what that’s worth. But Julianna’s starting to show signs of a difference in the way she thinks & communicates, too. Christian brought home a new Signing Times video from the library, and she keeps coming up to me and signing Daddy–baby. Baby being code for her videos. After a while I realized she was asking for the Daddy Signing Times video. Ain’t that just too cute?
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It’s another sleepy morning. I stayed up to finish reading Catching Fire. If you haven’t heard of this latest YA book craze, it’s time to go to the library and put your name on the waiting list. Suzanne Collins makes me despair of being able to write a well-plotted, compelling book. She’s got it down, man. When was the last time I read a book between sunup and sundown? Oh, yeah. Six weeks ago, when I read The Hunger Games.
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I’ve been hard at work this week, clearing out writing projects and trying to outline in bits & pieces, in preparation for NaNoWriMo, which for those who are unfamiliar is a really stupid, hard-to-write-and-say abbreviation for National Novel Writing Month. Let me tell you, I am feeling intimidated. I know all the back stories for my characters, all the things that have to happen to them, but the thought of figuring out what events it takes to get them there, and have those events actually draw people in…I don’t know, from this side of November 1st, that just seems more than a little overwhelming!
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But I’m sure once I get started writing, things will begin to flow. There’s only so much you can do in prep, and then you just have to plunge in. And I warn you, I have quite a few writing blog topics in mind.
Have a great Halloween!
Kathleen M. Basi 
“His post is stellar”? Do you really think so? I know US society puts looks far higher up the scale than we Europeans do but even so… Given the central importance this guy places on beauty I don’t envy any plain little girls he fathers.
I feel sorry for his daughters. Poor little mites, being groomed for Disneyfication. The Little Mermaid as a female role model? The guy’s got some very nasty subtexts goin’ on, seems to me. “She must be protected from hardening her heart towards those that may love her.” Which sounds to me like code for “She’s not going to be one of those outspoken feminists.”
If you disagree, explain what else might “She must be protected from hardening her heart towards those that may love her” mean?
Here’s what I like: the role models he’s holding up are beautiful INSIDE as well as outside; they are PART OF THE ADVENTURE, not a sidekick to be protected or shunted aside. In other words, they are EQUAL PARTNERS. This is the truest, purest form of feminism: simple, true equality. I think it’s safe to say that most modern women–myself among them–believe that women are equal to men, and should be treated as such. But I take issue with man-bashing, which there is a LOT of in modern society. Women should not be taking the downtrodden nature of our forerunners and turning it around on the descendants of the men who perpetrated the abuse. True equality, true respect, for women, means respect for ALL people. Not “women are better than men,” “men are stupid,” and all the other implicit messages that we get in modern society.
But don’t you see that it’s the objectification of them as beautiful that’s the issue? Can you honestly go along with The Little Mermaid as a role model for women? Any Disney heroine for that matter.
Little girls love Disney heroines. Doesn’t mean they’re a good role model, and this silly man is promoting an even sillier book.
As one reviewer of “Captivating: Unveiling the Mystery of a Woman’s Soul” writes:
Christian readers who embrace a robust egalitarianism will not find the Eldredges’ perspective congenial.
Another puts it more bluntly: “I am tired of pop culture being repackaged as Christian truth.”
Fair enough. I haven’t read the book, and frankly it isn’t one I would go looking for based on any review. I totally get your objection, believe me. But little girls are going to love Disney heroines regardless. As a parent, I have to walk a line between simply letting my kids enjoy a fairy tale (which is FINE) and giving them a deeper message from it. In this case, seeking inner beauty and admiring the heroines for being an equal partner is, I think, a really good way to make it less trivial. Does that make sense?
As for objectification–yes. I get it. I’ve actually been planning a blog post about women in the movies, and sex, and how it’s repulsive, not attractive, and questioning why the rules are different for female nudity vs. male. Jeez, better stop before I write the whole post right here. 🙂 Even so, I truly believe that the solution to the world’s obession with beauty is not to belittle external beauty, but to shift the emphasis to internal beauty.
That’s what I got out of this man’s post. It’s entirely possible that I read it too quickly and missed other themes, but what I have written in my two replies to you is why I shared it.
Thanks for taking the time to reply. I suspect you didn’t read it as critically as I did – I was immediately struck by this guy’s assumption that girls are wholly different from boys – which just ain’t so. Sure, there are differences, but all human beings are more like each other than unalike. We all want love, to belong, to be involved, to achieve, to protect and be protected. Being parents together teaches us that men and women have very similar aspirations.
I guess there was something about this new father’s tone that turned me off. It’s a form of patronizing while seeming to praise. I’m sure you know about the studies done showing the harm caused when everyone praises the little boy with “You’re so clever/brave” while the little girl only gets “cute” or “pretty”. That sort of lesson goes deep, and lowers both self-esteem and aspiration in girls. Little girls get far too much encouragement to worry about their looks anyway – it’s our job as parents to teach them all the other ways in which they can shine.
Without long, boring analysis, I guess I’m saying this guy’s view of women did not feel good.
There’s a whole slew of reviews here that make the problems with the book he’s praising very plain. I hope you find them interesting. http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/11413.Captivating
My nanowrimo plan? Don’t kill self, don’t kill others, don’t get fat from gratuitous amounts of snacking. Now I feel like I should be plotting.
Nice responses above, Kathleen. And I’m looking forward to your blog posts about writing!
You’re a better woman than I. NaNoWriMo is too intimidating for me. Plus November is just a bad month at our house. I’m thinking of doing it in January. Having the discipline to do it would be awesome. Plus if I concentrated on the novel I’ve already started, I might be able to get a rough draft finished FINALLY. Good luck friend!