blogthecat

Dreams and nightmares

Pretty soon, I'm going to write a post on Bambamblog about my kids, aged almost 4 and 6 1/2, my beautiful and funny and happy and ... lucky kids. So, so lucky. I'll write about their latest antics, and it will be lighthearted because in my own life, I am feeling very lighthearted these days, after a few tougher than usual years. Tougher than usual in this world, over here, in Canada, and even then, only tougher than usual for me. But I don't think I'll be alone today in feeling surreal in what I am doing, and in my freedom and ability to do it. It feels weird, given Pakistan today and Australia yesterday, and given really a shitstorm in so many places in the Middle East and parts of Africa, to not just stop. Just stop, and not be able to move or process what's around us, in our everydays, because in this very same world is monstrous insanity and it is impossible that it is happening, that people can do this to each other, to children, to mothers, to grandfathers—anyone, so long as it moves and can make a point if destroyed. The wildly unfathomable incompatibility of our lucky lives with those of so many other people. So many of us (I think) are thinking this, but carrying it around quietly, and/or helplessly when we do talk about what's to be done. But no one knows what is to be done. No one does. And this, too, is inconceivable. But of course we can't stop, and nor should we, but oh I had to write this because I am so sick at heart for the lives, and lives lost, of so many people. It is the world, and it was always thus, I hear, and it is very much possible because it is happening. I guess what you do is cling madly to your life, and never, ever take it for granted, and think every day, every single day, about what you can do to put something good into the world. It is not enough. But it is something.

 

Out with the new

In books, as in music and film (and so much else), December is the time when everyone presents their "Best of" lists for the year, and while sometimes it feels overwhelming, it's also an exciting opportunity to take stock of the amazing feats of writing and creativity published in 12 months alone. Year-end lists fuel Christmas presents, holiday reading, and dinner conversations with friends throughout the most whirling month of all.

And then they get forgotten. By January, we're done with the year that was. We extend our arms for all that is new, brushing off any bits of fluff still bold enough to clinging to our updated selves. We turn our eye now to Most Anticipated lists, and the books we planned to read—even bought—last year get sidelined for the sole fact of when they were published: the dusty history of whole months ago. They might get read at some point in the future, and they might not. Their stellar reviews still stand, the author blurbs still call to us on glossy covers, but it is not last year but this year and this changes everything in terms of how we consume our culture.

In some ways, this is totally understandable: cultural products, including books, don't just represent creative output—they are an important currency for what we talk about, how we come together, and how we find a voice when we're at parties and restaurants with others. Because it is more likely that our friends are reading the newest books, we are more likely to want to read the newest books because then we get to have a say, to find things in common, to share.

But it doesn't mean that it's not sad, and even wasteful—this disposal of past years' works of genius, many of which—especially in fiction and poetry—maintain their relevancy far beyond the year they were published.

I love working on 49th Shelf for many reasons, but one of the highlights for sure is being able to cast deserved light on great books not published right this very instant. And I also have been involved with the BC Award for Canadian Non-Fiction since its inception 11 years ago, and it was this project that got me thinking about today's post on Blogthecat. Specifically, I was this morning looking over past winners of the award, of which there are now ten. And it struck me how impressive the books remain:

• 2005: Patrick Lane for There Is a Season
• 2006: Rebecca Godfrey for Under the Bridge
• 2007: Noah Richler for This Is My Country, What’s Yours?
• 2008: Lorna Goodison for From Harvey River
• 2009: Russell Wangersky for Burning Down the House
• 2010: Ian Brown for The Boy in the Moon
• 2011: John Vaillant for The Tiger
• 2012: Charlotte Gill for Eating Dirt
• 2013: Modris Eksteins for Solar Dance
• 2014: Thomas King for The Inconvenient Indian

Wow. Those are some incredible books. There Is a Season is still one of my favourites, and watching Patrick accept the award a decade ago, in the company of his wife and fellow dazzling poet, Lorna Crozier, was a beautiful moment I won't forget.

Thankfully, I have many reader friends, especially on Twitter, who do an excellent job of remembering the very best books published any year. It's via them, actually, that I'm now ferociously devouring Brian Francis's Natural Order, published wayyyyyy back in 2011. Well, them and one of Brian's other marvels, Caker Cooking.

I'll read my new new stuff this December, like anyone else, but I'm glad to have ways of discovering more than that. Because there's so much more.

Palmolive Vs. Cauliflower

Yesterday I tweeted the scintillating fact that I had eaten a whole cauliflower for dinner (true), then sat back, looked at it staring me in the face, and considered deleting my Twitter account. Peppering my TweetDeck feed every so often amid witticisms and breakfast reports were disgusted and impassioned pleas to help the Kurds in Kobane.

Kobane, and the whole revolting mess in Syria, is very frequently on my mind these days. Sometimes I chime in about it on Twitter, inserting and then deleting #ISIS or #Kobane hashtags because I’m paranoid about Canadian #ISIS sympathizers trolling accounts—which of course makes me a coward. So I revert to tweeting about cauliflower. And while ingesting an entire cauliflower is indeed a feat (it was roasted) you know what I’m saying.

Tangentially perhaps, I’ve been thinking about our media habits of old. Like TV commercials, which we mostly suffered through impatiently as kids unless they featured toys we then knew we needed Santa to buy for us.

Here’s the thing: I have the fondest memories of some of them.

There was the Palmolive Dish Soap series that seemed to last for my whole childhood, the one where Madge came to the rescue of sad housewives with dishpan hands. I craved Madge, and I would have sat in front of her for days on end with my hands in soap if she would smile at me like that the whole time. With the twinkle in her eye. With those perfectly manicured nails. In real life, I quite regularly soaked my own hands in the green goodness, to no effect but whatever. Felt good.

 

Then there was Pert’s glorious Bouncin’ and Behavin’ hair campaign. The trampoline. The bodysuit. The bouncin’ AND the behavin.’ As the goddess models explained, both their problems were solved (the limp dirtiness and the dry frazzledness, both so annoying!). Man, I wanted that hair! To be her! To bounce so beautifully! My poor parents put up with a lot of whining about my desperate need for Pert in the grocery cart.

Thinking back on commercials like these, I have such memories of feeling safe and soothed, which is mostly what television is all about. But when I checked them out, both campaigns launched at the start of the 80s—the heyday of the Cold War. The Iran hostage ordeal had just ended. John Hinkley Jr. had just shot or was about to shoot Reagan. Those were scary times, too.

The difference is that we were watching TV for an hour or two to escape. Our shows were doing the job for us, and we lay down on our floors or couches with a bag of chips to enhance the soothing.

I don’t watch TV anymore. I read at night, and I oscillate between Facebook and Twitter in the day, where the serious, the sad, the funny, and the overly clever are all mashed together. I am nowhere near a couch, and my brain is always on, if ricocheting against a million inputs. And it’s confusing, figuring out how to be, how to think, how to feel about your cauliflower tweet in the midst of all of that.

Fragments of Ourselves

I don't know what the research says now, but in 2012, two years ago (which is a long time ago in today's digital environment), 40% of Americans said they were more comfortable engaging with people online than in real person. I would imagine that proportion has, if anything, increased. The 2012 research also showed that:

• 50 percent of Americans spend less time emailing because they are on social networks
• 49 percent of would rather text than call a person
• 48 percent use the phone less because they communicate via social networks
• 40 percent feel more comfortable interacting with people online rather than in person
• 30 percent would rather connect with close friends via social sites than traditional methods

Oh la la la la la. Who ARE these people? Um. Me.

Here's the thing: I am an odd person, as we all are (right!?). I am effusive, shy, prickly, anxious, confident, smart, dumb, eloquent, and clumsy. Which is exactly why I love social media: I don't have to show any of the yuckier bits. I don't have to brush my hair, respond immediately to questions, engage with people I don't agree with, bristle when someone I love drives me nuts, cringe when someone eats with their mouth open, nearly faint after prolonged eye contact, maintain my posture, or generally make time for anything that doesn't fit precisely into my day.

I get to control everything, or a whole lot more of everything than I would were I dealing directly with people physically in from of me, or people on the phone. I get to "like" something someone says and thus show my endorsement of their point-of-view or humour. With one click! Not even a word!

I get to "like" a lot, which I guess makes me a pretty positive, lovely person, eh? I get to post a lot about things I think about, which I guess makes me pretty confident and outgoing, right? I get to think about a funny way to say something, which I guess makes me funny.

Well, no. It means I get the time and platform to exhibit sides of me I prefer to show the world, and it means—because I work at home and I LOVE being alone—that fewer people really know me. And that, because I cannot be unique, that I really know fewer people, though I sure do like a lot more of them.

I can't decide how I feel about all this. I don't feel lonely. My life is nuts with two little kids right now—but they won't always be little and I won't always be so busy. Then what? Will I crave in-person company more? If I do, will I—in the expanse of time I indulged in more social media friendships than "real-life" ones—have lost a sense of what to say and do in public, and will I be even more inept at handling real one-on-one human, serious relationships with care and generosity?

Or will I continue on this path—because let's face it, social media is an amazing place for shy people who aren't so much shy as awkward or uncomfortable in public—enjoying and sincerely appreciating more people (or personas) than I otherwise would?

What about my yucky bits? Will I deem them even more horrid, distort them and magnify them because they are so much more handily contained now that I can hide them better? What about other people's? What if we don't have to work on ourselves—our whole selves—to be more functional in real life? What if we make less and less time for that cup of tea with a group of friends to find out that, gasp, we all are horrid and beautiful all at once, that we shine and fail, are mean and caring, and smart and dumb?

I don't know.

If this strikes a chord with you, some further reading:

Alone With Everyone: http://www.cbc.ca/books/2013/01/alone-with-everyone.html

Social Media's Small, Positive Role in Human Relationships: http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2012/04/social-medias-small-positive-role-in-human-relationships/256346/

The Flight From Coversation: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/22/opinion/sunday/the-flight-from-conversation.html?_r=0

Is Facebook Making Us Lonely? http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2012/05/is-facebook-making-us-lonely/308930/

On Turning Into Robots or Something: http://www.blogthecat.ca/blogthecat/2012/05/on-turning-into-robots-or-something.html

The Making of Men

Lately I’ve been thinking about the news and what it does to us—and what we’re supposed to do with it. And I’ve been thinking about all atrocities in the world that have one commonality: they've been committed by men. The Boston Bombings. The sickening rapes in India, often of young girls. The Oklahoma City Bombing. 9/11. The 2011 Norway Attacks. The Newton kindergarten massacre. Virtually every serial murder spree you’ve ever heard of. The list goes on. Not a woman present except among the victims.

I have a son. I think of him mostly as a human being, but sometimes he really is—to be simple and un-PC—such a boy. At five, Oliver’s favourite activities include:

• Practising to be a ninja;
• Whacking things with sticks;
• Watching superhero or Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle (TMNT) shows;
• Lifting household furniture items to show how strong he is;
• Beating his fists on his chest while hollering, all Tarzan-styles;
• Leaping, jumping, flying through the air;
• Wrestling his dad or friends.

We have to restrict the quantity of superhero and TMNT content he gets. If it’s been a slight day on that front, he’ll protest, “But I haven’t watched any violence today!”—funny only because he is getting that phrase from our admonishments that such shows can be too violent (i.e., he is not a psychopath).

Here’s the other side of the coin:

• He has never hit me, or Georgia (and we can be bossy and annoying)—his dad has drilled that into him from day one;
• He is incredibly sensitive and sweet—tactile in the extreme, he is on us for hugs and cuddles throughout the day, and he loves giving compliments and making people feel cared for;
• He is an absorbed and careful drawer, and loves to craft;
• He reads about five books a day, on everything from dragons to princesses who tell princes to hit the road when they’ve been jerks;
• He is fascinated by bugs, and giving them new homes or saving them.

Oliver is small now, but one day he will be a man. He will enter more fully into a world where men commit the vast majority of violent acts upon other people, as well as lesser-grade acts of intimidation. So I’m naturally interested in these questions:

• Why are men so much more likely to hurt other people?
• How much is genetic and hormonal, and how much is culture-based?
• How much is based on the balance of power in the world—gendered and other—and the threats to this balance some men perceive?
• How do we parent boys to help them buck the trend, without forcing effeminacy on them?

There are so many theories about the answers to these questions, and they’re generally quite interesting. Jesse J. Prinz summarizes some of them in Psychology Today, and rebuts the notion that men’s more violent tendencies are inherently biological and/or based on a male warrior hypothesis wherein “men are biologically programmed to form coalitions that aggress against neighbors, and they do so in order to get women, either through force or by procuring resources that would make them more desirable.” Prinz instead believes that the combination of biology (male upper-body strength) and economic development (the advent of intensive agriculture and herding) created an advantage men did not have in the allegedly more balanced hunter-gatherer arrangement (where women’s gathering function gave them power). He writes:

“Strength gives men an advantage over women once heavy ploughs and large animals become central aspects of food production. With this, men become the sole providers, and women start to depend on men economically. The economic dependency allows men to mistreat women, to philander, and to take over labor markets and political institutions. Once men have absolute power, they are reluctant to give it up. It took two world wars and a post-industrial economy for women to obtain basic opportunities and rights.”

Prinz associates violence with power in the sense that those who have power are more likely to be violent, saying:

“Of course, men still hold most of the power in the world, and it is no surprise, then, that they perpetrate most of the violence.”

To this I would say, but what about all the violence in the world that is perpetrated by men who do not have power? Men who feel stripped of power or unable to access power to “right” the world the way they see fit (e.g., Timothy McVeigh, every violent fundamentalist or otherwise violent loony)? Those are the ones who are turning to mass (and micro) destruction.

Good Versus Evil, and All That Trouble

And this is when I go smaller, when I look at my own household and my son’s love of superheroes and fighting turtles. What are these narratives about? They’re about fixing the world. About having the power to fix the world exactly as it should become: one shade of good, no grey, completely, totally, always. Now, I love me some Spidey and even Superman sometimes (though he can be a little bland), but this power stuff gets me a little jangled in the context of what we’re talking about here.

Apparently I’m not alone in my worry. This blogger did a bunch of research on the topic, and found a good article on of all sites, ComicsAlliance, called “Superheroes Are Bad for Boys. Or Possibly Good for Boys.” In this article one psychologist takes the view that superhero play among boys creates conditions where boys “wouldn't want to depend on others, or … deviate from heroic masculinity,” saying they “trap young boys in impossible versions of cartoonish machismo.” Another psychologist counters by saying, “playtime and actual aggression are firmly separated in the minds of children, [that] mock fights are perfectly healthy so long as they don't devolve into real fights.”

Right now, watching Oliver, I think he is entirely capable of distinguishing between playtime and fantasy. I’m also aware that everything that surrounds him—and his parents and role models’ interpretations of and reactions to them—is busily contributing to the value system that he is forming. So—back to an earlier point—what I’m interested in is this idea of power, and how our relationship to it and the value we ascribe to it determines our path through the world.

What is power? To Oliver at this formative pre-schooler phase, in the entertainment he prefers, power is physical, and it is black and white. It is about control. It is about being a good guy, and there are definitely only good guys and bad guys, nothing in between. And there are mostly men who wield the power—who can alter the fate of the world. Sure, Wonder Woman is an exception—but look at her. She is a black-haired Barbie doll who packs a punch, and she is no way as kick-ass as Wolverine, Spidey, Superman, or Batman—not in that outfit.

So while the real experts debate what it is that makes men more violent than women, I’m going to think about power, and how to explain it to Oliver in a little more nuanced fashion than some of what our boys are watching and reading. Things like:

• Power is not absolute;
• It comes and goes;
• It comes from making good choices, and we always have choices;
• “With great power comes great responsibility,” as Spidey’s Uncle Ben and originally, Voltaire, would have us know;
• Being powerful is about more than being physically strong;
• We all want power, and that can be a problem;
• We can't always “fix” something to be exactly as we think it should be;
• Sometimes we have to let go and rely on other character strengths like kindness, compassion, confidence, or intelligence;
• Most of all, don’t ever hit a girl. Just never do.

Obviously I have a lot more thinking to do when it comes to my role in trying to help Oliver be a good man—including how much to try to help and how much to let him figure it out. But it’s my first go at attempting to do more than react in horror or sadness—but more realistically, to do nothing at all other than feel—to the grimmer news stories surrounding us today. It’s that or look away altogether, which is tempting.

Next up: something light! A comprehensive examination of what goes into a perfect coffee shop.

 

 

 

 

Thanks to Macklemore

Sometimes I just despair about this blog. I either find myself stumped for things to write about because my brain is fried from writing workish things all day or I'm tired and worried about the inanities in my head making their way into my fingers. Sometimes there are just inanities, you know? But we all have them, I think, and perhaps if we were more honest about them the world would be a better place. So I don't care if they come out anymore.

My new thinking here is just to write as often as possible about something that makes me pause, for one reason or another. Gives me a little jolt, or a moment of reflection, or a bit of happiness, or a different way of thinking.

This week I've been feeling very adult in the worst sense of the term. Kind of locked, sluggish, middle-aged, squishy, and nervewrackingly uncurious. There are many possible reasons for this. One, I think, is the horrible sinking feeling I still get when I think of the Boston Marathon last week; I can't isolate it and rationalize it—I let it spiral into "the world is an awful, hopeless place if this can happen." It's so paralyzing, this thinking. Sometimes having kids makes you panic in ways you've never panicked before, and empathize with people like never before, and be afraid of people like never before.

Having kids also makes you do work you might not always want to do, because there is no escaping how much responsibility your love of those small beings entails ... so maybe you get less adventurous and willing to take risks, because you think a bit too much about house and home and all those sorts of things. I certainly have become less bohemian since O and G came into our lives, and part of me thinks this is inevitable and even a good thing, and part of me thinks it is entirely scary and not who I want to be for O and G—or for me. So this post, as it comes out, is about nipping my adult in the bud.

To celebrate this thought and hopefully spur it on, I am attaching a video Craig introduced me to last week—he is doing a better job than me at keeping up with music. I like the song, but it's the performance—live—that thrills me. The excitement in the air, the rangy, frenetic limbs of Ben Haggerty, the knowledge among all of them that they are doing something fantastic ... the joy.

This guy, Ben, does not let anything stop him. He thinks what he wants to think and does what he wants to do. I picture him in crazy sweatpants and a headband running through the park not because he needs the exercise but because he can't stop himself. He can't, or he's going to hit the ceiling. He's probably yelling things to himself and talking to strangers as he runs, stopping when he feels like it, probably grabbing a lollypop along the way. I want him to cook for me: I bet he makes an insane spaghetti bolognese, not that I eat meat.

Ben, I'm taking you to the gym with me today. I hope you make my legs go a little faster but I know for sure I'll be attacking my recent slothfulness with less grim resignation than I might have done without you.

On Turning Into Robots, Or Something

I had a crap day, a lonely, afraid, and angry sort of day. So I tried to fight it. I bought a beautiful bouquet for a friend who just found out she is having a little boy in a few months. She is a gorgeous woman—a real friend who constantly thinks of other people and with whom I can be myself, warts and all, all the time. The bouquet—and her reaction when I dropped it off—made a huge difference in offsetting my negative emotions, as did a yoga session I stole at midday. I didn’t achieve “empty mind, open heart,” but I did achieve “I have an hour not devoted to work or my kids.” I was able to reflect on my brimming life and sort out how I was processing it, which was not well, but with light at the end of the tunnel.

The day is ending now, and for various reasons, it’s not a thrilling end. But at least the flowers and the yoga put me in mind of what I think is a crazy important article published last month in The New York Times, “The Flight From Conversation.” In it, author Sherry Turkle writes about how, via social networking and the various technological gadgets we use to “talk” to each other, we’re replacing conversation with connection—and forgetting that there’s even a substitution taking place. If there’s a summary passage in Turkle’s piece, it is this:

In the silence of connection, people are comforted by being in touch with a lot of people—carefully kept at bay.

The article (and do read it if the rest of my post here is to make very much sense) is a mostly a cautionary tale about the way we’re choosing—more and more—to represent ourselves (in public, and also, really, to ourselves) and to relate to each other. I agree with most of it, yet I also think that it ignores some of the beauty of what online social networks can offer people. I think online chatter via social networks offers far more than a narcissistic, heavily edited outlet, and I think it’s simplistic to say the cumulative effect of it is a profound loneliness entailed by connecting rather than conversing. I think it’s ahistorical and nostalgic to imagine that we were fulfilled and engaged simply via our conversations with our offline circles of friends, family, and acquaintances before the advent of the Internet. In fact, many of us were cloistered, limited, and incredibly lonely because we had access to fewer people to connect with (and “connect” should not be a bad word) and became much happier when we could share a laugh or a sentiment over Facebook or Twitter, or learn of something new to think about, watch, or read in the same vein.

All these caveats aside, there are parts of Turkle’s article that so resonated with me. For example:

Texting and e-mail and posting let us present the self we want to be. This means we can edit. And if we wish to, we can delete. Or retouch: the voice, the flesh, the face, the body. Not too much, not too little—just right.

Human relationships are rich; they’re messy and demanding. We have learned the habit of cleaning them up with technology. And the move from conversation to connection is part of this. But it’s a process in which we shortchange ourselves. Worse, it seems that over time we stop caring, we forget that there is a difference.

I think of all the feelings I experienced today. And all the people I told about them. That would be zero. But I posted a pic and a video of Oliver’s birthday. They were uncomplicated: “Here is my son. He is cute, it is his birthday, and I love him.” Which is fine and good and true. But it is not the whole story. The whole story is more like:

Here is my son Oliver. It was his birthday this weekend and I really struggled to make it work. I freaking hate that it coincides with the Canadian tax deadline. And that North American kids’ birthday parties are getting so expensive and expected and overly planned. It’s so interesting to me that his favourite present out of the dozen at least he got was a dollar-store bug-collecting gizmo packaged with a totally useless magnifying glass. And I feel conflicted when I read pieces like the one in the Globe this weekend, "The Good Mother Doesn't Exist," that scolds women for giving up too much for their kids and not pursuing their dreams at the same time as I know how much my kids need me and how much I need them at the same time as I struggle to stay involved in my practice and industry and holy shit I feel like I’m losing ground and can I just have one full, solid hour to punch something good out and what the hell am I whining about I have so much and why can’t I do yoga without feeling guilty because it felt so sane and real.

I cannot reduce that (and that’s a fraction of the wartish feelings I felt hard today) to a Facebook or a Twitter post. It wouldn’t work, in word count; it wouldn’t work, in terms of how heavy and neurotic it reads; it wouldn’t work, because it doesn’t suit the persona I’ve wittingly and unwittingly created (like we all do) on these platforms. No one there has time for such feelings, and I would hate to subject them to it. I “like” so many people on these platforms and find my interactions with them enrich my day; yet most of them are not the real friends to whom I could vent stuff like this. And I have less and less time with and for these friends—or, as importantly, for and with myself, in terms of sitting with these feelings and figuring out what to do with them. So is there a problem? Yes, I think there is.

One of the more chilling passages from Turkle’s piece:

Researchers around the world are busy inventing sociable robots, designed to be companions to the elderly, to children, to all of us.

One of the most haunting experiences during my research came when I brought one of these robots, designed in the shape of a baby seal, to an elder-care facility, and an older woman began to talk to it about the loss of her child. The robot seemed to be looking into her eyes. It seemed to be following the conversation. The woman was comforted.

As human beings, we are vulnerable, and we are molded by the communication options and technologies around us. Could we be more conscious of the insidious creep of these communications and technologies—and fight back where we feel it’s warranted? Alexandra Samuel wrote an article in The Atlantic in reaction to Turkle’s piece, with the lead-in: “Sherry Turkle writes as though digital life is something that happens to other people. But it isn't. It's something we create.”

Yes, in theory. But how much do you, personally, “create” your digital life, really?  I mostly react to mine, live with it and try to have fun with it, and sometimes try out a new platform or change a privacy setting. I am not getting all collaborative and “open source” when it comes to my digital life; I don’t have time. I am too busy trying to live a non-digital life that compensates for some of the superficiality of my digital life. Or something like that.

All’s to say: nothing’s simple. Feelings aren’t, our half-wired, half-unwired lives aren’t, and our dividing lines between friends and “friends” aren’t. At the very least, we can think about it, which is what I’ve liked so much about the pieces I’ve referenced in here. And we can remind ourselves, when it doesn’t come quite naturally enough, because we’re too busy, because we could call or text or emoticon instead, to go get those flowers for someone’s amazing news because it matters. It matters a lot.

 

 

 

F*ck Off All You Pregnancy/Child Development Scaremongers!

A nice positive post to get things rolling ...

Yesterday at the chiropractor's (a practice I’m still nervous about but have resorted to in desperation due to some wicked pregnancy sciatica), I picked up a local pregnancy/baby resources newspaper and found this special column:

In the News

1. "Research shows a potential link between a pregnant mother's use of painkillers, and her son being born with undescended testicles:

'Use of mild painkillers such as acetaminophen, aspirin and ibuprofen during pregnancy may partly account for a sharp increase in male reproductive disorders in recent decades, according to a study published Monday.'

The research found that women who took a combination of more than one mild analgesic during pregnancy had an increased risk of giving birth to sons with undescended testicles.

2. Stress during pregnancy may lower a child's IQ as much as 15 points:

'Severe stress during pregnancy can damage a baby's brain and put the child at greater risk of anxiety, depression, and ADHD later on in adolescence, according to British research revealed last week.'

The higher the levels of cortisol—a stress hormone—in the womb, the lower the toddler's "baby IQ" at 18 months, the researchers found."

Having been informed last year by a similarly naturopathic publication that my son was 4x more likely at age 18 to be a criminal due to his having been delivered via forceps, I received this new business of undescended testicles, emotional disorders, and lower IQ with what can only be summed up as “WTF?”

Pregnancy, delivery, and child rearing are stressful enough without media like this making parents worry in vain about things over which they have very little control. If your baby isn’t progressing during delivery, something has to be done (hopefully not forceps but possibly). If you’re in great pain during pregnancy, you might have to take some Tylenol. And if you’re like me and a lot of other women I know, you’re going to feel some additional stress during pregnancy, if only because of changed hormone levels and anxiety over baby’s imminent arrival.

I say lay off the horror stories and scaremongering—especially when you're going to report it as cursorily, in so sensationalist a fashion, and with so little context as the above column does—and focus on information we really need and can actually work on. How to prepare ourselves physically and mentally for birth … how to raise caring, emotionally developed sons … how to build self-esteem in our daughters … how to remain in touch with each other and the world as parents. That’s news we can use.

If I do in fact have to deal with criminal activity, genital abnormality, or cognitive/emotional disorders in my children at some point, I’ll deal with it at that time, and through the appropriate resources and professionals. Until then, I raise my middle finger high and with feeling to irresponsibly alarmist publications that publish columns like the ones refenced in this post.

When darkness falls

Most people lucky enough to have spent time in Africa have made their way to one of its most beautiful countries, Kenya. My family used to vacation there when we lived in southern Africa in the 1970s, and though my memories of those trips are now soft around the edges, my heart still feels Kenya.

It feels it in colour (golden, accented by anything bright), music (my brother dancing like a madman to the beat of a local band, The Daffodils, whose The Lion Sleeps Tonight—uyimbuwe, uyimbuwe—was better than any version I’ve ever heard), taste (fresh-caught scampi sizzling in garlic butter), and smell (the Indian Ocean off Malindi, where I nearly touched one of the most dangerous fish in the world, the stonefish, in a shallow coral pool). But it feels it in a less tangible sense as well: I remember Kenya as safe, happy, and warm.

Without much doubt, this deeper imprint of Kenya is at least partly due to these trips being times in which my family felt particularly good to me. I associate Kenya with relaxation and tranquility on a personal level. So in expressing my sadness at the news that a jagged gash of violence and hatred has ripped through Kenya, I won’t say “isn’t that awful—it was so idyllic at one time.” It couldn’t be idyllic, given its post-colonial legacy of roughly 40 ethnic groups and more than half the population in extreme poverty.

And yet … and yet to me and to everyone I’ve ever talked to who has gone to Kenya, the country has steadfastly symbolized hope, despite the odds. It isn’t just me who is shocked by the chaos that has overtaken the country—Kenyans themselves are incredulous.

Stephanie Nolen, the Globe and Mail’s insightful and frighteningly brave African correspondent, had a piece in the paper last Saturday (“Into the Valley of Death") in which she described her harrowing road trip through the country to try to discover the root of the madness. On this trip, which included a stop at her driver’s burned-down house complete with the corpses of a mother and baby, Nolen can’t find one person who can tell her why the violence erupted. It seems to be some infernal combination of a contested election, desperation for economic reforms, and latent ethnic tensions. Nolen concludes the piece by asking her travelling companions, both Kenyan, if anything they saw on the trip surprised them. One responded, “with bitter wonderment in his voice.” His answer: “That this is Kenya, and you cannot move from place to place. That there is no control. That people are killing just like anything.”

Of course, one outcome of this tragedy is that it will reiterate the image of Africa as a savage and hopeless continent to the rest of the world. Play a word association game with Africa as the original word—an honest game—and you will get something like drought, AIDS, machetes, famine, and corruption. The words come fast and heavy. I know. But I also know that they must be contested. They must be balanced with other ideas, even when these ideas seem elusive. Because Africa is not just dark. And so I leave you—leave me—with this gorgeous picture of Africa—Malawi to be exact—that my friend Francesca’s husband, Chris, took about a year ago. (Chris is not only a fantastic photographer, he is an AIDS doctor and researcher; he and Francesca are currently living in Malawi). This is Africa, too.

Household gone wrong

Okay, I think this will be the first literal venture into blogging the cat. Craig is coming home tomorrow at noon from China. I have missed him inordinately, and he will be tired and jet-lagged. Thus: plans for a big clean to welcome him home. Nothing wrong with that.

I went out to get bits and pieces for my clean (including White Fig vacuum beads from Restoration Hardware—this is serious!). I am back, and raring to go. But there is one problem. Los gatos (our cats, Baizely and Franny) are all tucked in, heads on pillows, sheets up to their chinny-chin-chins. I don’t want to bother them with vacuuming. They really hate it.

Baizely and Franny sleep 22 hours a day. They demand and get food pretty much whenever they’re conscious. My husband is coming back. I want to be a good wife. This is so messed up. I am whipped.