Wow, it's been far too long since I talked with
![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
postrodent online, and too long since I've had a discussion like this too. I wanted to open this up to the rest of you for commenting. For obviously personal and biased reasons, I think these are things that are worth talking and thinking about on a wider scale.
disclaimer: this was a friendly chat, and any sweeping generalizations or oversimplifications will hopefully be forgiven. :-)
***
Parenting paths:
me: I got some more sleep this morning, with Ellie, so that helped some. Dave's gone on his third trip in three weeks and I'm just struggling, though a lot of it's all internal, if that makes sense. My fundamentalist Christian cousin called last night talking about God wanting her to stay home, and steps she's taking to work full time and take care of her kid from home, as well as (when the time comes) homeschooling, and trying to have another baby...and it just threw me more than I would've expected.
That whole supermom thing.
post: I don't know, if that's her focus, if she basically expects and desires to give her life to that... that's her path... but from my point of view several thousand miles away ( :( ) it doesn't seem like that's your path, and it would be as unfair for you to be in that path as it would be for someone to force her to go to Anthrocon and (censored) and (censored). (Not that I would insist you do any of those things, I'm just hyperbolizing. :) And I understand you getting to AC is not a sure thing... *hug*)
me: giggles It's a lovely thought, though. And that does make sense. But for better or worse, at least part of it is my path...I mean, I had kids. That was my choice. And now it's my responsibility to do the best I can by them.
post: That's true. But while you are responsible for them, you're also responsible for yourself. Meeting your needs and theirs is always going to be a compromise. But you aren't required to sacrifice everything that you want, or to be superhuman.
post: I've probably gabbed about this before, but you know the whole modern notion of parenting is about maybe a hundred years old. Now, partly I really think that's why people were so screwed up in those days :) but at the same time... the expectations on parents now are pretty heavy. Especially because most of the social support systems that parents once had are no longer there. Parents are the worst hit by the collapse of community in the West in the last few decades. Just my thoughts, looking in from outside. I'm not saying you should give Daniel and Ellie a couple spoons of laudanum each and go and do what you like, which used to be the practice -- they'd call that child abuse and rightly so. :>
me: I agree with you; I should pull out my Adrienne Rich again. It's true; the old structures have collapsed and there's nothing new in their place, other than TV, which is its own sort of laudanum.
post: Yes, or at the very least it's used that way, by adults, and on children. Not to mention Ritalin. o.O Which addresses a real need, I've known several people who were clearly ADD and desperately needed something to keep their minds from flying off in ninety directions, but I still think underage psych meds are overprescribed. Anyway, excues me, tangent.
me: I do too, though I admit that I use the TV-as-babysitter option too much, or would, if my kids would watch it more. ;-)
post: Well, I would imagine as the keeper of a household, with kids too young to really help you at that, there are at least a few times where you just have to distract them long enough to get some work done.
me: Or live in chaos, which is another issue. grin Though lots of times it's so I can chat with my friends, if I'm honest. But then, I need that too.
And back to my cousin, I guess part of what bugs me is this tendency to overemotionalize being home into this wonderful, blissful thing, as opposed to having to work. It makes me out to be either landed gentry or slacker, neither of which feels like a good fit. I've been on both sides--I've done the work outside the home while parenting gig and the take care of my own kids at home 24/7 gig and they both have their own compromises, their own pitfalls. But so many people fall into the trap of thinking one is so much better, either through self-castigation or self-righteousness. It drives me nuts.
post: I do think there is a very strong tendency, in an age where family life is politicized, to romanticise the role of nurturer, caretaker, homemaker, while at the same time politically and economically disempowering that role. Insert Marilyn Waring essay here. :> It IS work. Essential work. Work that our society rests upon, and yet refuses to recognize. And demanding that it be recognized and perhaps compensated, if not directly in money, is the most revolutionary and most difficult to realize facet of the feminist agenda (which needless to say I support)
Communities, virtual and 'real':
post: I wonder if people who grow up without a community have difficulty integrating into one later in life. That would make the whole thing self-perpetuating. And I've never lived in a community. There's a strong political dimension to that as well. But, digression.
me: That's an interesting point, and one I should consider. I think it may be self-perpetuating, since I've only felt part of a community at very discrete, isolated instances. AC was one, fwiw. :-) <3
post: I don't know what the answer to the community question is, except for hoping for a system with the economic flexibility to facilitate the 'actualization" of virtual communities. Because while I love them, virtual communities have serious drawbacks over geographic ones. *So far*, they are unable to exercise the political and economic power that is available to geographic communities -- although that power itself has been eroded in the late capitalist age.
me: True. But the flip side is that virtual communities, in theory at least (though we've all seen how it doesn't always play out that way in actuality) have the benefit of being able to control which side of ourselves we put forth. I mean, I don't know if we'd all even like each other, if we were in close proximity. I think so, but playing devil's advocate, it's ahrd to know for sure.
post: It's true that we're presenting a certain side of ourselves in virtual interactions. But the thing is that we are in some respects more free to present a variety of aspects of ourselves than we generally are in real life -- but that extends into the kinds of social spaces that are and are not available in real life and under what circumstances different ones could be constructed, etc. :)
me: Makes sense. Like the current system makes the space we inhabit fit a certain mold, and if we don't fit that mold...
post: I suppose that healthy communities serve the social needs and modes of the majority of their citizens, within the context of their material and energy budgets, so there will always be limitations. But I still feel the cultural limitations are there, and perhaps they are the more confining.
me: I agree.
The roles are what are confining, and it's hard to get rid of them when the majority of the population believes in them. Hard to relate to people outside of all the constructs.
post: Still, the forces of traditionalism cannot stuff the genie back into the bottle. I would guess that of americans and westerners in general, about 50% are aligned roughly with the side of social reform as it has played out in the last 50 years, on the side of social liberalism and individual freedom. At least, they're more for it than they're against it. Consider that America is probably the most conservative Western nation, and yet still contains you and me. The social conservatives are basically reactionary. They don't have any ideas beyond setting the clock back. I think the only reason they're doing so well is because of the political and cultural weakness of the West in general. Nobody who is electable in the US has much of any kind of real vision, let alone a workable agenda. The "realists" of American politics don't even have the zip code of actual reality. That doesn't always matter in politics in the short term, but sooner or later such a disconnect always leads to grief and failure. :p
me: I agree with you; I've had that same though, about the Bush brand of conservatism being essentially 'from the past,' and ultimately (maybe even currently) obsolete.
I like to think that we'll be able to evolve,like you said. And maybe growing pains are inevitable on some level; I don't know.
post: The weird thing is that it is not from the past. It is surfing the waves of future/culture shock (expertly, in the purely political sense) but pursuing a radical agenda of transformation. Kind of like, you know, that short guy with the funny little mustache. Can't remember his name. :> I hesitate to use the F- or H-word, it's too cheap'n'easy, but in the psychological sense there are parallels.
It's evolve or... well, best to evolve. As difficult as it always is.
me: sorry about that--the connection on my laptop goes down randomly. We think it's a wireless card thing. Anyway, I didn't want you to think you'd scared me off by invoking the G law with the H word. ;-)
Wireless:
post: Hee, I didn't think so, but thanks. :) Wireless networks are a pain. We've only gotten good performance out of ours by sticking the router within about twenty feet from every computer that's likely to access it.
me: I'm glad it's not just me.
post: There's an art and science to it at this point. You have to know the technology itself, which right away is too much to ask of any casual computer user, and then you also have to have some idea of what your house is built of, and the physics of how the house stuff will interact with the transmissions. o.O
me: laughs That sounded bad, didn't it? It's just usually when I tell one of my friends that, they're like, 'well have you tried blahblahblah?'
Yeah, and we have the added issue of a connection into the wall that's a bit wonky.
The cable people have been out a couple of times; I suspect them of doing more harm than good, which is why I'm loath to call them again.
post: If you ask me, I think you should buy all new hardware according to the following guidelines (which refer heavily to the original IEEE standards) and then rip out any metallic objects, including electrical or telephone wiring, that may be in your house's walls. :>
me: giggles
post: Such is the cost of the wireless lifestyle. :>
Such is the cost of reading slashdot on the can. :)
me: Hey, who needs heat and light...we're talking about Internet Access here...
post: Yes. I will be warmed by the waste heat of my laptop. :) I have to admit, since my puter died, I have been jonesing pretty bad... not really for the puter, but for having my own internet terminal.
And back to housewives...and psychotropic meds... me: Oh yeah. It's pretty much my window to the world. I don't know what housewives did without it. ;-)
Probably made rl friends and stuff, heh.
post: Or got hooked on downers. I mean, historically speaking. :) I don't mean that as any kind of sexist thing... just noting that it happened, and it was an indicator of the stress factor of that life. o.O
me: Yeah. Although antidepressants may be the new Valium, and I take those.
post: They may be the new Valium, they may be terribly, terribly overprescribed, but I don't think they compare in terms of their effect on functioning. Your brain on antideps is still recognizably your brain. It's not so homogenously... numbing. I think. From what I've seen.
me: I think I was depressed for most of my life, in all honesty, because the first time I went on antidepressants there was this perceptible shift in terms of, I dunno, something *lifting*. But that could be argued artificial...still, I'll take it, I guess.
Of course, the curse of feeling good is that then you know it when you *don't*.
post: My understanding of the current generation of antideps is that they do not artificially make you "happy". They make it possible for you to experience happiness where you may have been more or less chemically incapable of it before.
me: That makes sense. My therapist said that too. And it fits w/my experience.
post: Oh, on this topic, you may find this interesting if you haven't seen it before:
http://www.hedweb.com/ Includes a very interesting discussion of psychopharmacology.
me: I mean, I'm on them now, and I'm far from happy all the time. But I'm happy some of the time, and the lows aren't crushing.
post: That's the impression I get. That it makes states possible that were not possible before, and adds a psychological "floor".
me: Or it does nothing, I think. :-)
post: Probably to a person of "normal" temperament, iif those exist, it does nothing. While doing subtle and strange things to their neurotransmitter receptors that may make them less "normal" in the future. :)
me: grins Yeah, that's the fear I have too. Just that shutting some of them down is less good than having more serotonin for all of them to soak in. But, hey, whatever keeps the demons away...
post: I say that with zero moral judgment for the user, I hasten to add. Whatever allows you to function in the manner you desire, go for it.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}