Posts Tagged ‘Parenting’
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Thursday, December 18th, 2008
The second comeback, not the one before.
I hate to say it, but I am a Britney Spears rubbernecker. I can’t help myself. Forget Christina. Forget P!nk. Nevermind Madonna even. Miss Britney’s popcandy is what keeps my legs moving at the gym and consequently I have developed an affection for her music and yes, for her too.
Now y’all may be laughing at me, but hear me out. Seriously. Britney Spears totally took one for the team. The mom team. Who hasn’t looked at their sweet child and then had thoughts of running off, doing drugs and shaving their head? Who hasn’t fallen for the wrong guy and then paid the consequences for it? You can’t tell me that you’ve NEVER worn an outfit that was completely unflattering (if you contest this one, you must not have lived during the 80′s).
I just think that it’s easy to judge. I know that I have been this close saying damnitall and instead of going grocery shopping, I have fantasized about going on a bourbon binge and having gratuitous sex with young bartender(s) who smoke cigarettes and have tattoos on their arms … in Brazil. The only thing different is that Britney just acts out all those impulses (and that she is an international pop starlet who could roll in money all day if she wanted to).
There was a time in my life when I was single and drinking up a huge storm every time Paige went to her father’s house. I felt as though that during this respite I could have some semblance of a “normal” 20-something life for a day or two a week. Except it wasn’t normal to drink that much. In fact, my friends had to have a firm but gentle intervention that basically went something along the lines of, “Baby, that ain’t flattering.”
Nowadays I’ve shifted to the otherside of the paradigm. I don’t think I drink enough. Correction, I am not carefree enough (carefree has traditionally been massaged out of me with a little bourbon neat). As you all know I am working on those changes but feel the need to take massive action. I think I need to launch a comeback.
Bring it on 2009.
Tags: britney spears, come back, Parenting, single parent, sweet bourbon
Posted in Daily, Midthirties Crisis, Parenting | 4 Comments »
Sunday, November 30th, 2008
“I tell you the story because I was raised the Chinese way. I was taught to desire nothing, to swallow other people’s misery, and to eat my own bitterness. And even though I taught my daughter the opposite, still she came out the same way. Maybe it is because she was born to me and she was born a girl, and I was born to my mother and I was born a girl, all of us like stairs, one step after another, going up, going down, but always going the same way.”
- An Mei, Joy Luck Club
Sometimes when I get smug and think that I have gone through some quantum leap in consciousness I get knocked back down again and am humbled by how childish I can act. Take Thanksgiving morning for instance. I was in the throws of getting ready to head out the door to spend the holidays at the beach when I realized that my shiny 3″ silver faux snakeskin peep-toe pumps were missing. This could only mean one of two things – either there is a shoe bandit roaming our neighborhood bypassing the Apple and Sony electronics for highly impractical (unless you want to get laid) shoes or Paige took them without asking. Suffice to say, it wasn’t a shoe bandit.
There are a lot of ways that I could psychoanalyze what ensued next but the simplest is to say that I snapped. I am not proud about it, but it’s the truth. After I realized Paige had snuck them out of the house so she could wear them to a party, I spewed some diatribe at her that went something like, “can’t I have ONE thing that’s just mine?” and “is nothing sacred?!?”and “you’ve already sucked the youth out of me, now you want my shoes???” Perhaps I am exaggerating a bit, but you get the point. I had a nuclear meltdown and everything within 3 miles was obliterated. In my own defense, Paige’s laissez-faire attitude, “So what?” and “I didn’t think you would care” and “you borrowed my mascara so I thought it would be okay” only served to fan the flames.
We can now laugh that I had a meltdown over a pair of shoes that cost less than $100, but those shoes mean something to me. They are the opposite of my Dansko clogs – instead they represent something completely impractical. I would even say that their sole purpose is to make me feel happy and sexy. Like a reminder to myself to have more fun and to not to take life so seriously and to feed the non-mommy parts of my soul. For years I loved my daughter more than anything, including me. This is definitely not what I want to be teaching her but I know that in some ways I have been … just like my step-mothers and Aunties did and as I am sure my mother did too. How many times have we put ourselves last? When will we get to the point where we realize when we do this in front of our daughters, we are perpetuating this mindset?
It’s taken 34 years of personal development to bypass the ingrained tendencies of growing up as an Asian woman or even more accurately, an Asian and a Woman. And even though having a meltdown about a pair of shoes is nothing to be proud about, I am proud of the fact that I am no longer pouring all my hopes and dreams into Paige and that I am giving relevance and importance to my own hopes and dreams.
This is something worth fighting for.
Tags: joy luck club, korean, Midthirties Crisis, Milestones, paige, Parenting, quotes, shoes, thanksgiving
Posted in Daily, Midthirties Crisis, Parenting | 7 Comments »
Saturday, November 15th, 2008
Paige & I attended the Anti-Proposition 8 march today and I can’t believe what a great mother-daughter bonding experience it was. Last night we stayed up till around 10 pm creating posters and had a grand time thinking up slogans and chatting about what to expect. Paige landed on her take of the Wasilla church’s program to convert homosexual tendencies through prayer. She wrote:
“Pray Away the Prejudice”
This morning we had a pre-rally breakfast up on Capitol Hill – close to where the march started. Our friends Betsy & Kim joined us there and I think it made it all the more meaningful for Paige to feel like she was marching for the civil rights of her loved ones. You see, even though Betsy & Kim have been together for years and are one of the most loving couples that we know – they are unable to legally marry. We think that is sooooo stupid.
After breakfast we headed to Volunteer Park and gathered with over 3,000 other people who were fired up and ready to go. The crowd listened to a series of speakers, including Mayor Nickels who declared today “Marriage Equality Day.” The sun was on our side.
Even though people are predominately addressing this as a gay-marriage issue, Prop8 is really about stripping the civil rights of a group of people because they are gay. This sounds eerily familiar, kinda like when our country stripped withheld the basic civil rights of African Americans or Japanese Americans (hello internment camps!). It wasn’t that long ago when interracial marriages were illegal. If you ask me it sorta smells a bit unconstitutional and discriminatory to me. Scary.
It was amazing to see gay, straight, families, religiously affiliated and people across the diversity spectrum come out in support of this important issue.
Paige is one proud demonstrator and was so happy to see folks on the sidelines cheering the rally on. Power to the peeps!
Tags: anti-proposition 8, paige, Parenting, protest, rally, volunteer park
Posted in Daily | 9 Comments »
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