Dear Paul Mahoney

August 17, 2004 | Category: In My Life

Dear Paul Mahoney,

I bet you're surprised to see your real name on the internet. Well, I gave that some thought. And I realized, I could counter some of the dark corners of life by outing YOU. I hope you don't mind.

You are a real person, and you did something noble at an age when nobility and kindness are almost out of reach. I thought that deserved the credit of your own name.

You may not remember. So let me help you. You went to school in Fairfield County, Connecticut during the late 70's. And for the last 15 minutes each day it was just you and me.

You were popular. You looked like a young Paul McCartney, a little. You were comfortable in your skin, with a quick sense of humor and a big heart. You were known for being a flirt, but a good guy. You were into music, and as soon as the bus was a little emptied you'd convince the bus driver to turn up the radio.

I thought you were the coolest person I knew.

Conversely, I was pretty beat up. The kids bullied me something fierce for a while. Over the months, it softened to a dull roar; I made a few friends and had someone to each lunch with.

But I hated school, Paul. Counted the days in between the holidays.

At the beginning of the year, you were strictly a "back of the bus" guy and I was at the front. I would curl up behind the bus driver for safety. You'd expand, somehow. Taking up the entire bench seat with your arms and legs and white smile.

One day, in the crisp end of autumn, you yelled to me. It took you a week to convince me that it was all right for me to move to the back of the bus once it was just us and the driver.

You were a bit of the firefly, you liked the attention. You liked having someone to talk to.

You made me laugh.

I had girls in my life. Neighbors, cousins, girlfriends at school. I'd had crushes. But you were the first guy to ever hold a conversation with me without your mother forcing the relationship.

Did I mention you made me laugh, Paul?

You used to use your hands to tell the stories. I never saw so much happy personality tied up in so much testosterone before.

I wrote about you in my diary. Then I destroyed the pages because I had no privacy back then. But I didn't forget your name.

One day, in the spring, someone had really gotten to me. I couldn't face you, because I was crying. Huddled behind that chain-smoking bus driver, staring doggedly out a window that only opened from on top, and pretending not to notice that my cheeks were chapped. And wet.

You tapped me on the shoulder, and I still couldn't face you.

You'd moved. To the front of the bus. For me. And it only made things worse.

You said "Come on, now".

You said "What's wrong?"

You sat behind me. Until it was time for you to get off.

The next morning, you got on. You took my hand and led me to the back of the bus. You sat me against the window and took the aisle. And as the stops piled up, and disbelieving kids punched your shoulder, and you didn't move from my side until we got to school.

Then you silently exited, melding into your crowd.

So for a few weeks until school ended, I sat at the back. Everyday. With you.

No one said a word. That was a lot of power you had in the Darwinian ooze of adolescent political structure.

Why were you so kind? I wonder if you even remember it. Or if it was just a blurry moment out of your life, just something you did from some decent impulse. I guess it doesn't matter anymore but at the time, it mattered a lot. It was a domino that got knocked in the right direction, and my life was better for it.

The last day of school, you squeezed my hand and didn't look back. You said goodbye to the driver. I never knew what happened to you. I always kind of wondered.

Dear Paul Mahoney,

You were the only good thing that ever happened to me on a bus.

I hope you're having a splendid life.

Thank you.

Continue reading "Dear Paul Mahoney"

You, too, can be in Senior Management

August 11, 2004 | Category: On The Job

Have you ever wondered what it would be like to reach the peak of mediocrity; to attain that loftiest of all goals in Corporate America? Well, just take this simple test to see if you, too, could be suited for life as a ... uh... suit.

A. You wake up and realize you're already late.
Do you:
1) Do the minimum necessary to be presentable, and hit the road? 2) Do the usual ablutions, and speed (safely) to the site meeting to make up time? or 3) Do the usual, discard the planned outfit, iron a new one, forget your laptop and have to turn around and come back, and end up missing your own conference?

B. You're about to miss your own conference.
Do you:
1) Put on your cordless headset in the car and attempt to facilitate while navigating rush hour traffic? 2) Put on your cordless headset in the car, deputize someone else to facilitate, and offer commentary when needed between dead spots on the expressway? 3) Miss the whole thing because you've rolled down the windows and cranked the Rolling Stones "Waiting on a Friend" while singing your fool head off?

C. You've just poked yourself in the eye with your mascara because of the damn wind from the freaking open windows, and you need to get across three lanes of traffic to make your exit.
Do you:
1) Roll up the windows, put down the mascara, use your indicator and smoothly exit the expressway? 2) Roll up the windows, make the next available exit and make your way back to where you'd meant to go in the first place, and finish the mascara at the stop signs? Or 3) Leave the windows open, causing your hair (whipping around from the wind) to become permanently cemented to your wet eyelashes, forget it's mascara and not a pen and put it in your mouth to hold, scream in frustration, pull over into a shopping mall parking lot and wash entire face with a bottle of water and an old pile of Dunkin Donuts napkins, attempt to cover black smudges on lips with gloss, fail, realize tongue is black, try and wash with soggy napkins, accidentally pour some water on pants, run heater in car on high aimed at pants with windows STILL open and finally finish applying in the ladies room?

D. It looks like rain.
Do you:
1) Grab a raincoat, just in case? 2) Grab an umbrella, just in case? 3) Grab nothing. Wear a silk shirt. And a white bra. And wiggle your ass at the rain gods while climbing in the car?

And yes, they actually let me be in charge. Boggles the flipping mind, doesn't it?

The Only Job I Ever Wanted

August 06, 2004 | Category: Mother to the First Power

Note: This is my entry for Jay Allen's cool Blogging for Books contest. The assigned topic: best or worst experience you've ever had working for someone else. I picked "all of the above". Jay has said that for this we should get our funny going. And I tried. But I have written, instead, what my husband is calling "A funeral hymn for a dream". I hope you forgive me.
**************************************

Late at night, I'm holding on for tomorrow.

My son woke up this morning, and came looking for me. I wasn't there. He asked my husband "Mommy not home yet?" Because he hadn't seen me in a day. Because I came home so late last night and left so early this morning. I told myself, when I heard this with a flinch at lunch, that I would make it up to him.

I left the customer's office at 3PM but it took 2 hours to get home. I found my son, wired from watching TV all day. His teeth still unbrushed. I found my husband, writhing with the flu and a fever and hanging on by a thread.

I meant to help. I meant to.

But I had to collapse for a few hours before I could even remember my name.

I've become the kind of parent that I can't look in the eye. I cringe to think how easily I sometimes unplug from my son's life.

This isn't how it was supposed to be.

Growing up, I knew my life's ambition was to be a mom. I played teacher. I played author. I played rock star. Inside I knew being a mother was the one true thing I wanted to do with my days and my nights. Knew it like some people know they want to be astronauts, or doctors.

I also knew that paying jobs and me, well, let's just say that we didn't get along so well.

My first job? Babysitter. 13 years old. Let the popcorn catch fire and their kitchen was never the same. Paint took care of the most of this discoloration but the smell lingered for about 5 years.

My second job? Grocery store. Cashier. I stank. The manager was a family friend and he would regularly key into a register with my code and work it, in order to bing up my all-important "Items Per Minute" average.

Then my uncle died and I took off some time for the funeral. Then I asked for some more time off to go to his funeral again. Naturally, they had to fire me.

I actually felt bad for them when my father went in and demanded they expunge my records. How could they know that the shipping company had temporarily lost my uncle, necessitating an actual second funeral.

Even I thought it sounded like I was making it up.

My third job? At a restaurant. On my first day, I succeeded in committing a series of errors that, cumulatively, was nothing short of felonious.

But even after using a paper cup on the shake machine (to save time) instead of the metal one and spraying an entire line of customers with chocolate shake. Even after dropping the cash register tray on the floor, causing a scramble for money all over the restaurant. Even after exploding the top of the iced tea dispenser. Even after spilling the oil from the fryer and causing a nice cook to head to the the hospital with a possible concussion...

...Even after all that, they made me keep coming back.

Like my own "Twilight Zone" meets "Groundhog Day". The manager was my English teacher. Clearly on some kind of a Yoda trip. I, however, am no kind of a Luke Skywalker.

My first job in college? Campus tour guide. Accidentally led a group of alumni into a wedding in progress at the campus chapel.

My first job out of college? File clerk at a factory. Walking around and around a table collating a handout. And around. In nylons. In summer. In a break room. In a factory. With, you know, beefy men around. Taking LOTS of breaks. And trying to pat me.

My next job? As a temp in a trucking company, as a receptionist. I was fired after 4 days and called into my Temp Manager's office. "Elizabeth," the woman said sternly. "Don't wear your skirts so tight. Or so... yellow. And only one button undone on your blouse."

"Can it be the bottom button or does it have to be the top?" I snarked. She fired me on the spot.

Eventually, I became a chaplain. The kind of warm fuzzy job that didn't include me being near money, electricity, food or food by-products, or hornball truckers.

I regularly worked projects with other charitable agencies. One time a group of us was making our way into one of the Projects here in Chicago, when a big guy tackled me to the ground. He covered me with his sweaty body and kept telling me to shut up.

I screamed and never noticed the rest of our little group huddled nearby.

"Quiet!" He ordered in my ear. "Stay still for God's sake. Can't you see we're being shot at?"

It wasn't for another 10 years that I finally "fit" somewhere. I intuitively understood MegaCorp. It was like all these bizarre half-skills that I'd acquired all my life suddenly knit together to make me really good at something.

Hard? Yes.

Crying in the bathroom, hoping no one notices me. That kind of hard.

Learning to swim with the corporate sharks, I had a few bites taken out of me. But I am good at this. I am better at this than anyone I know outside my corporate life. I want to sing the chorus from Handel's Messiah. I love this job! I LOVE this job!

And looking back, I would have done it for a decade, maybe a lifetime, happily; stuffing my first dream away.

Then Bear came along.

And in an instant, I remembered why I was put on this Earth. I was born to be his mother.

And I dropped Mega like a hot rock.

Once he was in my arms, I knew certainly what I had known as a dream growing up. Motherhood was the only job I want as a full-time occupation. Luckily for me I had 7 months. 7 months where our plans worked and my job description was two words: Bear's Mother.

There isn't a word for how my soul felt. Happy is the pastel wannabe of the word. Amazing is a dim cousin.

Then circumstances changed and I was suddenly scrambling to nail down a paycheck job. Thank God, Mega took me back. Thank God, I do well at Mega. Thank God, Mega pays me well in return and set me up to work from home.

But there are days when I have to leave before he wakes. Days I am still gone when he goes to sleep. And I don't get to pick the days. Sometimes those are the days when Bear really needs me. One time it was the day he took his first steps. This is not Mega's fault. These are my choices.

Even though it's the only job I ever wanted, it's not my only job.

That means after doing dozens of jobs really, really, really badly I find myself torn between 2 jobs I love.

Well, maybe "torn" is not the right word. "Torn" implies that I am tugged between knowing which one I should do. I know I should be with my son.

What has me "torn" is the work. Ripped up inside over increments of hours, when my ability to prioritize is hog-tied. When the almighty dollar comes first and I twist in agony waiting to get back to who is really important.

God help me, I have not turned out to be the mother I could have been or the mother I wanted to be.

I am trying, instead, to be the best mother I can be.

I'm making decisions in the creases and sometimes? Too often? I am getting it wrong. Those are the times, like right now - like at this very moment in the deep of the night -that I just pray and hold on.

Hold on for tomorrow and try again.

Continue reading "The Only Job I Ever Wanted"

In which I let loose with my trusty flamethrower

August 04, 2004 | Category: Rants & Raves

Hey, this one's PG-13 for language. You've been warned.
**************************************

I'm a hybrid.

I was born to a McCain Republican and a Obama Democrat. Which is kind of like saying that my mom was an alligator but my dad was a crocodile. If that leaves you scratching your head and asking what the fuck's the difference? Yeah, I'm with you there.

I like McCain. I like Obama. I'm a pro-choice, pro-family independent Christian. I like you, even if you're the opposite of all those things. I like people trying to have smart ideas. I like people who take the high road. I like tolerance, respect, and good listening skills.

I like the conflict of arguments looking for the greater good. I'll go face to face with you screaming about the issues, and know all long that neither of us will budge. And it will be cool.

Conversely, I am a fierce clawed predator who puts the vego-matic to the crap spewed by the bastards who make it personal. Who take debate to its lowest common denominator.

So, Cathy Seipp.

One day she's at a grocery store, sees a stay at home dad's attention drift from his kid in the grocery cart, and turns it into a treatise on all stay at home dads.

She took her bully pulpit via the National Review Online, ranted at the use of the word "parent" versus the word "father", mixed in some examples from the TV show Everwood, and voila! came up with: stay at home dads are woosie suckwads who are incompetent at best.

Like women trying to parallel park. Her example, not mine.

Then she went on the radio to defend her position. Then she blogged about going on the radio. Then she quoted her friend blogging about her going on the radio. She called her article "making fun" and sheathed her claws while shouting "look at me!".

Wait.

Doesn't that sound like Nellie Olson on Little House?

Heh.

Seriously, as Rebel Dad said, you don't even want to sanctify this shit with a mention in your own world. On the other hand, well, the truth is that there aren't as many stay at home dads out there. I know and love some stay at home dads.

In fact, the ones I know are so cool. And when I paid attention, I realized with outrage that Cathy's argument has nothing to do with stay at home dads, really.

It has to do with propagating disgust with the non-traditional simply because it's non-traditional. So here's my say:

1. It takes two people to make a kid. 3, if you're counting the gestational surrogate. Maybe 5 if the child's going to be adopted. Do we count the doctors? Here's the point: NO ONE GETS TO BE THE ONLY "RIGHT" PARENT.

Right out of the chute, there are lots of people deeply invested in that child. Personally, I think introducing my 2 year old son to beef jerky was insane. But my husband thought it was fine. Welcome to reality. The differences from maybe the ideas we have in our head about stay at home parents? They're gender. They're cultural. They're personality. But they are just differences, not "wrongnesses".

Let's remember this students, there will be a quiz later in the form of a grown child. DIFFERENT does NOT equal WRONG.

2. Everyone gets to be an asshole, sometimes.

Cathy talks about a kid maybe almost falling out of a cart.

Hell, I was in a grocery store once and ran into a stay at home mom and we got to chatting. She cooed over mine, I wanted to coo over hers. Figured she'd been left at home.

Nope, she'd been left to chill, playing with her feet on top of a stack of frozen pizzas. She'd crawled out of her seat and fallen (not hurt) into one of those open-topped freezers and yes, her frazzled mother didn't notice until I asked about her a few moments later.

That's because ALL stay at home mothers are over-tired martyrs who can't parallel park. Right? RIGHT?

Here's something to have tattooed in backwards writing on your forehead. It will make the world a better place if you do: Never judge anyone by their worst day or moment.

Better yet, don't judge at all - unless you wear a swirly black overcoat and were elected to do so.

3. If we don't value men who nurture, we will continue to raise boys who value war.

'Nuf said.

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posted by Elizabeth at 10:42:00 AM
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10 Comments:

Jenny said...

Rave on, sister! (This is why I'm a huge fan of grocery delivery)
3:28 PM
Michele said...

Amen Sister!! You are my new best friend! And I also want to hang out with the mom who didn't notice her kid dumped it into the frozen pizza bin! We'll do lunch!
3:55 PM
Anonymous said...

Words to live by, Mom. This coming from a guy who's coming to realize he might rather be a stay at home dad than a trial attorney.

That was seriously well written.

RP
randompensees.mu.nu
3:39 AM
kalisah said...

I love when you rave. Especially when you're so RIGHT.
6:29 AM
Sexy Soccamom said...

Ah, I meant to comment yesterday. I loved your post! We must be kindred spirits.
3:59 PM
Philip said...

Thanks for bringing this article to my attenion. You've compelled me to write about this myself.
11:58 AM
Anonymous said...

Thank you! I'm a working mom married to a stay home dad and Seipp's column made my blood boil. Last time I checked, my daughter had two parents who participated equally in bringing her into the world (well, he didn't have the heartburn or the swollen ankles) and there's no reason in the world to think that he is not equally able and appropriate to take care of her. I'm not sure how one guy in a store and a fictional character are really a compelling indictment on stay home dads, but I can tell you that no one could take better care of my daughter than my husband. Oh, and for the record, I parallel park like a champ.
6:56 AM
Elizabeth Blair York said...

Dear Anon,

I identify with your story.

For 2.5 years, my husband was an At-Home Dad (thus his affiliation with the group a couple of posts upward) and it took a long time for him to figure out his own "style" - I was a SAHM when Bear was nursing and had set the schedule and the bar. Eventually, he established his own patterns and approach. We are different parents, imperfect - but equal in our investment in our child. Your husband is just as valid a parent as you.

It seems like Kramer Vs. Kramer was a very long time ago, and yet - we as a society is still struggling with that same issue.

In addition to Dave L.'s letter, - Philip at The Blue Sloth, Rebel Dad, and Jay at Zero Boss are 3 fathers who also took to their blogs against this article. All their links are in my blogroll.

Thanks for stopping by and commenting!
9:11 AM
Anonymous said...

"continue to raise boys who value war."

I think this kind of gender stereotyping is exactly what you are accusing Seipp of doing, isn't it? I mean if you really believe that men are intent on warring and violence, then you must believe that Seipp is correct that child rearing is best left to women, no?

"value men who nurture." I'm curious what does nurturing have to do with being a stay at home dad? Are you saying that all the mothers who are not stay at home moms are not nurturing?

Another question: do you think we value women who nurture? Since you seem to equate nurturing with staying at home, do you think we value stay at home moms? Clearly we do not. For the past 40 years we as a society have been ridiculing and belittling the idea that a stay at home mom has any importance or necessity, and instead we have extolled the idea of the career woman as the ideal. So if we believe in treating men and women equally, then since we don't value nurturing women, why should we value nurturing men? Again this is predicated on your apparent believe that nurturing equals staying at home. Or is that your belief only when it comes to men?

It seems to me that an article ridiculing and condemning men for staying at home with their children should not get any more criticism than all the gazillions of articles ridiculing and condeming women for staying at home, that we've seen since Betty Friedan's "The Feminine Mystique." But that's just how it seems to me.
7:02 AM