Little Dog Syndrome

I hate little dogs. As far as I'm concerned nothing under 25 pounds is actually a dog, its simply an overgrown rat with a bad attitude.

I'm standing on the grass outside one of Gamma unit and one is being walked past. If it was a real dog and behaving that way it would be in fact walking the owner. It snarls and leaps at every available opportunity, and half way through each leap the leash stops it short with a jerk. As forcing individuals to learn from the consequences of their actions is completely out of style the leash is even a non-choke shoulder harness for the dog, leaving it free to repeat this behavior every few steps.

"Don't come near," the owner says, "He doesn't like people."

Yes, because that's the appropriate solution to the fact that your dog would tear my throat out if it could, just ask me not to go near it. Telling people to "just not go near it" wouldn't fly with OSHA, any zoning ordinance and most courts of law...but somehow it is ok for your dog. You're willing to walk around and pick up your dog's shit every few feet but you won't teach it manners?

***

I seem to be specializing in the white trash ambiance these days. Couches and chairs line grass between the units in front of Gamma and a half dozen college students pick their way among them. A different lady walks by, but the only reason I can tell is because this one has two dogs in tow instead of one. The border collie walks relatively calmly while the little dog is still jerking like a crash test dummy against the impact of his harness.

"May I pet him?" I ask pointing to the larger dog.

The lady nods through chomps of bubble gum, "yeah but not the little one, he doesn't like people."

As I approach the little dog makes a dash for my shins and the owner wordlessly scoops him up. The larger one temporarily rocks back onto his hind legs like it might put his front paws on my stomach.

"GINGER!" The word from the owner is sharp an angry as she flicks the leash. Its a real leash as well, not a chest harness, and the flick puts a small amount of tension on the animal's neck. Ginger sits meekly and waits to be petted. The smaller dog in the owner's arms is still going ballistic.

I think this is a pretty good representation of what is happening in general. The owner could teach both of her dogs self-control, good manners and discipline, or she could simply control the small dog from doing any sort of significant damage. The border collie, however, was probably too big to be brute forced by a small woman into behaving and so she took the time to teach it proper manners.

***

When I was a small child I remember being told to walk close to my mother, and, in circumstances which included extreme shininess, told to walk holding her hand. This was sufficient to keep me from getting lost or being run over by a car.

I'm walking through the farmer's market now. A small child keeps letting go of his mother's hand in front of me and dashing at various stands.

"Ugh," the mother sighs, "that's it! You're going in the stroller."

I find it odd that physically restraining a small child is an acceptable substitute for teaching him manners, but our society has somehow decided it is. In addition to strollers I have also witnessed a variety of leash products for children. Most of these are backpacks with a long handy string on them but a few are complete harnesses which are designed to be difficult for a child to remove.

I wonder what will become of these children when they grow too large for physical restraints to be a feasible control tactic.

***

I had wanted to take karate for a long time but my mother considered it far too violent. However, with the number of kids who were attempting to beat up my brother it was becoming increasingly clear that he needed a way to take care of himself. In 6th grade I was permitted to go to Taekwando lessons with the explicit understanding that I was there for the purpose of taking care of my brother until he was able to take care of himself, and that nothing I learned was to be ever used except to stop bullies from hurting me.

I was forbidden to ever spar under any circumstances by my mother, even in the dojo under sensei's supervision.

About two months later my mother was very angry with me. I have no memory of why she was mad, only that she was, and that she was going to slap me across the face for it. I remember watching her wind up and realizing I did not feel like being hit at that moment, and that furthermore I did not have to let her. I found myself standing with my arm extended in an upper block, her face speechless and red as she found her hand was harmlessly a good foot above my head. I don't think I have ever seen my mother so angry. I backed down at this point and silently let her hit me a few times because I was far more afraid of the anger than her hand. I think she mostly did it to prove that she could. After that she never hit me again.

This is the problem of raising your children by physical intimidation and control. Even if you have no ethical qualms around it whatsoever it is grossly impractical. Your child will eventually grow to be as strong as you.

***

I'm sitting on a bench on the edge of a street amid a large cluster of cafes. I see parents jogging by with children in the strollers. Is it just me or are children staying in strollers until older ages now? I think I have seen some rather industrial models with children as old as seven or eight in them. Was my parent's generation raised like this?

***

The small child bellowed unintelligibly through heaving sobs and tears. The whole restaurant was completely silent and aghast, and alternating between staring at the family and trying not to stare.

I sat there, across from my coworkers, and realized that I was going on my 10th week or so in Hong Kong and that this was the first time I had heard a child throw a screaming tantrum in a public place since I arrived.

I only spent 2 hours on the Newark layover but I witnessed 3 meltdowns.

***

I suppose when it all boils down I don't hate little dogs at all. I hate their owners.

Feminism doesn't delete "womanly" responsibilities

Oh man. How many comments will be made before anybody reads anything other than that headline? How many people will accuse me of being a chauvinist? How many others will never notice their missue of the word? (For the record people look that fucking word up. Yes, the french one, right there. Go look it up)

Screw it you're too lazy and I know it. Here we go (courtesey of the Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary):

chauvinist

Main Entry:
chau·vin·ism
Pronunciation:
\ˈshō-və-ˌni-zəm\
Function:
noun
Etymology:
French chauvinisme, from Nicolas Chauvin, character noted for his excessive patriotism and devotion to Napoleon in Théodore and Hippolyte Cogniard's play La Cocarde tricolore (1831)
Date:
1851

1: excessive or blind patriotism — compare jingoism
2: undue partiality or attachment to a group or place to which one belongs or has belonged
3: an attitude of superiority toward members of the opposite sex ; also : behavior expressive of such an attitude
— chau·vin·ist \-və-nist\ noun or adjective
— chau·vin·is·tic \ˌshō-və-ˈnis-tik\ adjective
— chau·vin·is·ti·cal·ly \-ti-k(ə-)lē\ adverb

(Hrm, talk about a word our society has twisted about...)

But let's get back to the point. Feminism was originally, essentially, the idea that women should be free to pursue a life and a career outside the home as equals to their male counterparts. That's a great thing. God knows I wouldn't have been able to set foot in my field without this concept being firmly rooted in our society.

Trust me, the last thing I am asking for is for people to jam women unwillingly back in the kitchen so they can proceed to do nothing but pop out a few more babies and cook a few dinners. There was just one little problem with randomly deciding women could simply drop everything and go out and have a career, or a life, or whatever you want to call it.

Women were already doing something. They were raising kids.

Instead of seeking to redistribute "womanly responsibilities" we just abolished them. Now both Mom AND Dad can become nothing more than a paycheck and a pat on the head every evening. That's equality isn't it? That's the American dream?

So who raises your children? Their school teachers, their summer camp councilors, the endless parade of team sports coaches you systematically have them shipped between as after-school activities so they don't get home before you get off work. No? Maybe it is the television, or that bubble-gum chewing brainless high school girl you hire to babysit them. Maybe you both work enough to afford to hire a nanny or a maid.

There is one problem with this: none of those people have the kind of vested interest in your children that a person raising them probably ought to have. I'm pretty damn sure your television for one doesn't. Additionally, your children are unlikely to spend enough time with any one strong potentially parental figure to develop a significant bond. Hell, you think a soccer coach is likely to be able to tell when a kid is having a bad day? He probably only sees the kid twice a week for an hour and a half, the other days being filled with other activities. Even if he does, to have the time to take to try to make the kid feel better when there are 20 other kids on the field? Even if he can, is it appropriate? Does he know the kid well enough to know how?

Now I understand that sometimes life is hard, money is tight, and both parents must work to make ends meet. I'm not talking about that. I'm talking about a pair of married grown children who essentially treat their own children like accessories while both simultaneously vying for high-power fast-paced careers simply because they enjoy it or because they enjoy the lavish lifestyle that comes with it. That's not equality! That's both of you being immature assholes. Don't have kids if you can't work out time between the two of you to raise them.

It gets better though!

Now stay at home moms are opting for having their children be raised by coaches and teachers. They don't want their child to be left out of all the social fun their peers are having so they just buy in and ship their kids off too. Then they use their free time to enjoy themselves, free from motherly responsibilities. That's not feminism. That's you being lazy and self-absorbed. Never mind it is probably well outside the family's means to try to spend on their children for all these time-consuming activities at a rate which rivals the dual income families. Your kid obviously would rather rather go to years of summer camp, sports teams, private lessons on instruments they don't even like, and whatever else you fill their lives out with "for enrichment" than go to a good college. And that's pretending you don't spend a dime on yourself in your new-found freedom and spare time. Oh, what's that? You expect a generous scholarship for Junior and are not very worried about saving for college? Let me tell you something: if a college is begging your child to attend by throwing piles of money at his feet it had better be at his dream school. Otherwise it means he probably could have gotten in and attended someplace better or that he liked more if only he could pay for it. You sold Junior short for a daily latte and monthly manicure. Congrats.

The other horrible effect of this is that parents are getting upset that their cheap parental replacements are being bad parents. You shouldn't expect your child's summer camp counselor to teach your little brat to share. It is not your child's school's responsibility to teach your child sex-ed. Your child is not suppose to learn morals form a television set, nor that disputes can be settled non-violently from a video game. Your child is not suppose to learn how to care for himself from a maid. These are lessons you as a parent are suppose to teach your kid. Some things are important enough, and parents fail often enough that other groups have stepped up to the plate to try to do your child some good such as the sex ed talks, (agree with them or not you have to admit the presenters mean well.) That doesn't really let you off the hook though.

I don't care if the man raises the kids, the woman does, or if they both shave a few hours off their work day and they take turns. The grandparents could raise the kids for all I care. All my point is that somebody has to. All I want to say is that just because our society decided that these burdens were "keeping women down" does not mean they suddenly disappeared just because we determined them inconvenient.

Re: I'm sorry you feel that way

I have been meaning to start this blog for a while now, but I previously was waiting for the time to make a nice proper blog with my internet skills, so I just wrote some posts and stashed them away. Turns out I have yet to have time to make a nice blog, but I do feel like digging out these old posts and seeing what I can make of them. Here's one.

This blog was inspired a lot by the work of Violent Acres. This particular post was written in response to this item of her work. For those of you a little too lazy to click, its a rant about how the words "I am sorry you feel that way" are a cover for people to feel good about themselves while still being assholes.

I'm going to disagree with her. I'm not going to say that phrase doesn't mean exactly what she says it does or that it isn't insulting or degrading.

However, it is still sometimes highly appropriate for the situation at hand.

Mentoring and teaching were my formal sources of employment from ages 16 to 19. The age gap between me and my students was often as small as six months. To compound this I look very young. Tomorrow I will be 22 but even today people still ask me from time to time what high school I am attending.

I never had problems earning and keeping the respect of my students. You may say this shouldn't be something to brag about as all humans naturally deserve respect but reality doesn't work that way. As it was, I worked hard to earn my student's respect (not friendship) and to keep my classes and teams organized and well-functioning. My success in this was a source of great pride.

I had tremendous problems earning the respect of these children's parents. This was not as much so for the parents of the poor high school children. These parents spoke broken English more often than not and frequently worked two jobs. They saw the extra-curricular semi-academic club I mentored as their daughter's opportunity to make something of herself.

No, it was the suburban, white, middle-class-who-lived-like-upper-class, SUV driving, soccer mom banshees who glare at you from behind movie-star sunglasses even while indoors with a cell phone surgically grafted to the palm of one hand who gave me trouble. I taught their precious darlings in an expensive semi-academic summer camp, which many parents of this type more closely equated to babysitting they did not have to feel guilty about constantly leaving their child in. It was academic wasn't it? Surely throwing money into what might be considered their child's future was an adequate replacement for an actual bond with their child, wasn't it? Besides, they had golf games to get to or a nail appointment. Junior could cope.

I took the job because I was poor, in college, and tuition is steep. I only worked there one summer.

I was easily the youngest councilor there. Worse than that, I still equated myself to being somewhat of a child, above my students, but deferring to the power of "actual adults." I called them "Mr." or "Mrs." while still permitting them to use my first name. When they complained I would apologize that I had caused their child unhappiness and ask for their input on how to improve the situation. These self-absorbed child-parents sensed this as a weakness and fell upon it in a manner which strongly reminded me of those wildlife documentaries where a lion chases and brings down the slowest gazelle in the pack.

They complained about some fairly ridiculous things. They called and said they didn't think their child should have to share class materials, couldn't I make one team of five and leave their child with their own kit instead of using the same resources to make two teams of three? They called and claimed that the reason their child wasn't doing well was because their child was bored by my lesson plans and had not signed up to learn what I was teaching. Couldn't the child just use class time and materials to explore their own interests? The winning line was a livid call to my boss, Big Mike, from one particularly proud mother who claimed "Pika doesn't understand the unique challenge and privilege she had teaching somebody as gifted my son."

It was evident their children heard these calls, quite possibly on speaker phone as they were made. The next morning they would talk back or act out for a few hours before the normal order could be reestablished. The other students might not have noticed but I found it stressful and frankly a waste of my time.

My boss had chosen long ago to set up his office in the corner of the room I used as my classroom. He had witnessed all of this, fielding the better part of these confrontations via the phone himself. One day I found myself in a conversation with him about how he handles confrontation with irrational customers. I do not remember how it started but I will probably never forget this line:

"I stopped saying sorry. I found this afforded me a great deal of power in these conversations."

I remember sitting there not totally convinced, and I not-so-subtly hinted as much. I'm incredibly lucky I had such nice bosses early in my career who pseudo-parented me or God knows where I would be.

He persisted, making it slowly quite evident that this was intended to be a lesson for me and that he did not have some bizarre desire to recount tales of his past to me arbitrarily. "When this happens to me, I apologize that the unfortunate situation has arisen, but when I apologize for my actions I am revealing what some people consider to be a weakness." He explained how certain people cling to these perceived weaknesses and how sometimes it was unwise to expose such an opportunity to people who were essentially complete assholes. He said it all much more subtly and much less condescendingly than that. Big Mike was a very gifted communicator. I know that compliment sounds like bullshit and the skill of communication has been ramshacked by talentless dolts who believe it an appropriate major to compliment their participation in college sports but this man was the real deal.

I listened politely to his wisdom and then promptly ignored him.

Another crop of students came and went with another crop of zealous parents.

Big Mike took pity on me and at this point just asked that I forward all storming parents directly to him. Not only did he dislike watching them skewer me but he also was finding it troublesome to derail the momentum of righteous indignation these people had built up by the time they got to him.

At some point during the batch after that I was caught by an unhappy parent in person in the hallway. She was a platinum blond piece of work. I have never been much into fashion but everything about the way she walked reeked of the fact that she had paid too much for her clothing and that she was proud of it. She had the obligatory cell phone and in one hand and she would from time to time pull her overly large oakley sunglasses down the bridge of her nose to glare at me over the top of them. It was during one of these brief moments of condescending eye contact that she paused to draw breath.

"I'm sorry" I interrupted.

The woman's eyes were lit up and I watched a thin line of a smile draw across her face. Creepy barely describes the situation. I felt like a deer in headlights.

"...that you feel that way."

The smile stopped short and suddenly the woman did not seem nearly as tall anymore. As a matter of fact I felt like I could nearly watch her crumple up like a piece of paper. I had just demanded that she respect my authority instead of constantly deferring to hers. The glasses rapidly snapped up to obscure her eyes. She was talking again but instead of seeming intimidating she reminded me more of a small dog that barks too loudly. The reality was that she probably had not changed much at all, but my mind perceived all these differences because, for the first time, I was in control of this conversation.

"Do you want...to speak to my manager?"

"I'll call him later. I'm too busy right now," she announced swinging her purse and flouncing down the hallway as the cell phone snapped back up to her ear.

Big Mike says she never did.