Pearls Before Swine

This past Friday, the boys and I listened to a radio show marking the 43rd anniversary of the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. (If you are interested, you can find a link to the show here.) The program aired on the anniversary, this past Monday, April 4th.

Before you get all impressed that my kids listen to public radio, let me tell you that for the entire 15 minutes we listened to the podcast, they made goofy faces at each other, scowled at me, tickled each other, poked each other, asked random unrelated questions, and plotted their wii time. All those shenanigans had their intended effect and I set the boys free to terrorize their sisters rather sooner than I had hoped. (A maternal twist on a tired platitude: If you love someone, set them free and watch them wreck havoc all over your house.) (The grammatical issues in that sentence disturb me, but if I correct them, I lose the familiarity of the platitude. Such a dilemma.)

But I, for one, am glad we listened. We heard a couple of clips from King's speech to the Memphis sanitation workers during their historic strike of 1968. One of the guests was a retired sanitation worker, a man who participated in the strike and who brought his wife and three small children to listen to King speak on April 3. It was especially riveting to listen to his first hand account of being at the speech. We listened, and then we did some talkin'.

We talked about the labor movement, then and now. We talked about the dignity of work, whether you are a garbage collector, a doctor, a janitor, the President of the United States, or a stay at home mom.

We talked about language, and how language can be an agent of history. Another man, with the same passionate belief in equal rights and social justice but without the oratory skills of King, would not have been able to lead the Civil Rights Movement with the same success. Words make a difference; words change history.

We talked about why a boy might feel the need to prod his brother in the butt with a big toe while I'm attempting to share important cultural history with them.

We talked about why their little sisters are so annoying and why slamming the door in their sisters' faces is not the wisest response to how annoying the little cutie-pies can be.

We talked about how King almost predicted his own death, the very day before he was gunned down on a hotel balcony.

For several seconds, we talked about nothing, because I was too busy holding my head in my hands and asking God to smite my children for goofing off.

And we talked about King as a preacher, a man for whom civil rights were simply human rights conferred by a God who created and loves each and every person, no matter what.

It was perhaps the most important 15 minutes of my week. Maybe not theirs, but mine. And to ensure that they remember at least one small thing, I made this poster and hung it in our kitchen.

Dangerous unselfishness. Standing up for someone else, when I don't stand to gain from it, when doing so is risky. A powerful idea. And a Christian one. King goes on to say:

That's the question before you tonight. Not, "If I stop to help the sanitation workers, what will happen to my job." Not, "If I stop to help the sanitation workers what will happen to all of the hours that I usually spend in my office every day and every week as pastor." The question is not, "If I stop to help this man in need, what will happen to me?" The question is, "If I do not stop to help the sanitation workers, what will happen to them?" That's the question.

That's the question King wanted people to ask themselves in 1968. And that's the question I want my kids to ask themselves over and over again as they become adults.

Instead, all I'm really getting from them is their somewhat irreverent mimicry of King's speech style every time they walk past that poster in my kitchen. Who does that? Who mimics MLK for a laugh? My kids, apparently. Horrifying.

Oh well. Hopefully, the exposure alone will be good for them.

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Peeve

While waiting at a stop light today, I saw the following phrase on the back of the truck in front of me:

"If you can read this, your to close."

The lettering had been professionally painted, in fancy cursive script, and then outlined in a contrasting color. It was quite pretty, and clearly a certain amount of painstaking hard work went into the effort. Too bad no one threw any of that care and attention in the direction of a grammarian.

I wish I had been too far away to read it; instead, I sat at that light for what seemed like an eternity, staring at not one but two grammar offenses, waiting for red to turn green, so I could be on my way.

Grammar errors bug the crap out of me. Maybe it's obsessive or cynical or just plain weird, but bad grammar – public bad grammar – confirms my worst fears that our culture is dying a slow, painful, pathetic death.

You'd think I wouldn't have time to care about such things. Unfortunately for me, apparently I do.

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What's your pet peeve?

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Things That Make Me Feel Like My Head is Going to Pop Off

This morning, I had to keep reaching up to touch my head, to make sure it was still there. There are just too many things happening on a daily basis that make me think my head is going to explode. Lucky for me, I have a blog, where I can rant like a crazy person, thus releasing that awful pressure-cooker feeling and saving my children from my unloading on them instead. Here we go, with my first installment of Things That Make Me Feel Like My Head is Going to Pop Off.

Thing #1: Feeding ingrates. The other evening, I found myself in the rare position of grocery shopping by myself. It was awesome. I did not realize that solo grocery shopping has a palliative effect. It made me feel tender toward my family. It made me consider their tastes and desires. It made me want to buy them yummy things to eat. I walked leisurely through the aisles, imagining their joy at Honey Nut Joe's O's for breakfast and Z-bars for soccer game day. Remembering my own love for all things fried potato, I gleefully tossed some Trader Joe's hash browns in my cart.

This morning, those hash browns were met with suspicion and disgust. Raised eye-brows, half-curled lips, and resistance do not a happy mother make. So first of all, what the hell is wrong with me that I've been a mother for 12 years and I've never served hash browns? And second, what the hell is wrong with them, those ingrates who snarl and snub their mother's efforts to be kind? Do they not know that food = love, and if they turn down the food I offer they are, in effect, saying they do not love me? And what gives them the right to decline perfectly good food, food that starving children around the world would gladly accept and would probably say thank you for? How can they say no to something they have not tried? Who is raising these savages, anyway?

Thing #2: Outfitting my daughters.

I adore these pants. Daughter #1 would not wear them. I kept them for the next two. Daughter #2 would not wear them. I kept them for the third one. Daughter #3 used to wear them, but the other two recently got to her and convinced her that they are "dumb." She will not wear them anymore, and actually told me to put them in the give away pile. This is significant, since for my girls the give away pile represents their mother's attempt to ruin their lives by getting rid of clothes they say the love but which they haven't worn in ages.

Do they hate me? Do they purposely think of ways to disappoint me? Do they dream up new strategies for ensuring that I don't get my way? Does a word of approval from me doom an article of clothing to the give away pile?

Thing #3: Sniffling. I have a kid who sniffles so loud and so hard I think he might turn his whole head inside out. He and his horrific sucking noises wake us up at night. And then he refuses to get up and blow his nose. WTF is up with that? How is it possible that repeatedly forcing snot and boogers to pack up into your naval cavaties is preferable to getting rid of them? How is it possible that he doesn't find that beyond annoying?

Thing #4: Following up on a chore. If I tell you to bring the garbage cans in from the curb, is it really necessary for me to clarify that I intended for them to actually go back where they belong instead of for them to be left right in the garden path, blocking everyone's way?

And since we're taking about garbage, if I tell you to sweep up that pile and throw it in the kitchen garbage can, is it really necessary for me to specify that you might have to make sure there is enough room at the top of the bag so that when you dump the contents of the dust pan, said contents land in the can and not all over the floor around the can? And do I really have to call you back to the task, so that you will clean up the mess you created?

If I ask you to put the folded towels away, do I really need to spell out that I expect them to stay folded between the dining room table and the linen closet, so that I do not find them wadded up and stuffed randomly in the closet after I've spent time neatly and crisply folding them?

How many times, exactly, will I need to tell you that when you clear the table after dinner the dirty dishes go on the LEFT side of the sink, and the clean dishes go on the right?

When I tell you to clean your room, will I really have to explain that shoving everything in the closet is not, in fact, what I have in mind?

When you help your father bring the firewood inside, why is that we have to bang our shins painfully on the firewood that has been left right by the door? True enough, the wood is inside, but I'm curious how many times we will have to add "and put it where we keep the firewood, next to the fireplace" before you'll just do that automatically.

In other words, when are you going to do what I want?

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The torture that this past baseball season visited upon the San Francisco Giants came to thundering, glorious end on November 1st. Unfortunately, there is no World Series of parenting; my torture is here to stay.

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