So, the technical problems still exist with the blog. We’re going to have to muddle through, until my hosting service gets its act together. In the meantime, comment quickly.
I’ve been dealing with plug-ins and other nonsense these past couple of days, which has eaten into my reading and writing time. But it turns out that I didn’t miss much yesterday. What with white and gold dresses and llamas and the Kardashian’s $100 million deal with E. The world is coming to an end.
Random things that crossed my screen this morning.
Vogue workers aren’t happy with their new digs downtown. (To be fair, Steve works across the street and is still pissed off that that food trucks are gone.)
If you’re an UMC woman, should you complain about your parenting challenges?
And the award to most clueless investment bank goes to….
Apt. 11d 
If you’re an UMC woman, should you complain about your parenting challenges?”
I have something really funny for you guys.
Here is Dalrock and his red pill commenters complaining (at great length) about how men and dads don’t complain:
https://dalrock.wordpress.com/2015/02/26/feminist-men-dont-complain-enough-when-taking-over-tasks-from-women/
I talked about this with my husband and he initially didn’t see the thing I was seeing (that the guys were complaining about not complaining), but the thing that jumped out for him is that why yes, men do complain. A lot, actually. (I guess this is one of those things that are more obvious if you spend a lot of time dealing with adult male academics that continually need to have their emotional boo boos kissed.)
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“If you’re an UMC woman, should you complain about your parenting challenges?”
Well, whose parenting challenges am I going to talk about?
Taken far enough, this approach means that unless you’re a Boko Haram sex slave or being burnt alive by ISIS, that you don’t get to talk about bad weather, car trouble, house floods, balky insurance companies, regional science fair paperwork, female trouble, your favorite Starbucks item being discontinued, teething, toddler’s recent decision to avoid being strapped down, etc., etc. So, basically, you’re not allowed to talk about your life at all.
And heck, even if you are a Boko Haram sex slave, it could be worse, right? You could be being burnt alive by ISIS. So, shut up!
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“If you’re an UMC woman, should you complain about your parenting challenges?”
Not in front of working class mothers. Sure, you have your challenges too. But your blues ain’t like mine, and at least from the policy perspective you stand a chance at having your concerns (a) seen as valid and (b) addressed. We’re just told we shouldn’t be parents in the first place.
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ubiddu said:
“Not in front of working class mothers.”
Does that mean, “never talk about your life on the internet”? Because it sounds a lot like “never talk about your life on the internet.”
“Sure, you have your challenges too. But your blues ain’t like mine, and at least from the policy perspective you stand a chance at having your concerns (a) seen as valid and (b) addressed. We’re just told we shouldn’t be parents in the first place.”
Eh, really?
I would say that 90+% of my problems have really nothing to do with public policy. If daughter dearest is balky about music practice or homework, is that a public policy issue? Will a public servant come to my house (just because I’m UMC) and supervise music practice, homework and projects? If middle child is terrible at basketball (team sports are mandatory at our kids’ private school for his grade), spends 90% of the time on the bench, and bursts into tears because he knows he’s terrible, is that a public policy issue? If darling toddler sprinkles crushed saltines all over the kitchen, is that a public policy issue?
Nope.
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And the award to most clueless investment bank goes to….
All of them?
Morgan Stanley is no worse than any of the others. They just got caught. This time. Next time it will probably be one of the others instead.
Burn them all to the ground and salt the earth. That’s the only solution to this disease.
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I would say that 90+% of my problems have really nothing to do with public policy. If daughter dearest is balky about music practice or homework…
You just made lubiddu’s point more elegantly than she could possibly have done so herself. Your problems aren’t even a blip on the radar of most working class parents. What you are talking about is what they worry about when (if) they (ever) solve their more serious problems.
Look, I’m an UMC parent. And I have the same problems that aren’t public policy problems. But that’s only because society has, by and large, already solved these problems for me. That’s a luxury that a lot of people don’t have. So am I bothered by these problems I have? Sure, but that’s tempered by the realization of how petty these things are and how lucky I am. My kid won’t practice his clarinet? Where is that in the general scheme of things? If you can’t correctly answer that then you have some serious problems regarding morality and perspective.
So should UMC parents complain about these things? If so, it should be with a sense of perspective and modesty. Either that, or you should be prepared to coo sympathetically about how hard it is for Mitt Romney to find servants who polish his car elevator correctly.
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But that’s only because society has, by and large, already solved these problems for me. That’s a luxury that a lot of people don’t have.
Thank you, Jay.
Look, say whatever you want, on the internet or elsewhere. Just realize that you’re sucking all the air out of the room. Dooce realized that in her essay, which I enjoyed. She realizes that her struggles are largely mitigated by forces outside her individual control. By education, by money, by luck, by inheritance—she has a great deal of privilege that was unearned—and that she realizes most other people aren’t able to “earn” by their own individual efforts. I mean, a job with flexible hours—do you have any idea how rare that is?! I liked her example of the music practice, because it wasn’t just the time she could spend with her daughter that she emphasized—it was the fact that she could (a) afford her the opportunity to begin with, and (b) she herself is/was a musician—she had the expertise to supervise her daughter in a way that would actually be productive, would actually help her. Don’t ever underestimate the benefits of an experienced helping hand—it’s far more than a shoulder to lean on.
Have you ever noticed that on mothering/parenting blogs, the default assumption is that everyone is upper middle class? Have you ever noticed that on education blogs, the default assumption is that everyone is upper middle class? Have you ever noticed that on feminist blogs, the default assumption is that everyone is upper middle class? I have.
When I mentioned policy, I was specifically thinking of how the small minority of upper middle class people in my school district have a disproportionate impact on the decisions of the school board. They were able to successfully stop year-round schooling from happening district-wide (it’s currently only available at one school, a K-5 charter school that is wait-listed for years) because they were upset about how year-round schooling would impact their family vacations. They were the ones who had all the spare time on their hands to lobby against it. Year-round school was proposed originally as an intervention to stop the annual two-steps forward, one-step-back that is experienced by the majority of kids in the district, who don’t have any vacation or enrichment to look forward to. To be blunt, the UMC parents threatened to ‘take their money and run’—in other words, move out of the district entirely, taking their resources with them, if this district went to year-round school. And that’s just one example.
Making sure my daughter is doing her homework may not be a policy decision. But whether or not she gets a curriculum that will help her build a future—a real future—is. Making sure she’s practicing her music isn’t a policy decision. But whether music and art are even offered as part of her curriculum is. Telling her to come straight home from school isn’t a policy decision. But whether she has the ability to get home safely is. Making sure she’s slotted into the academic track is and remains a battle—and if you don’t think policy (and how policy impacts the “musical chairs” of school districts just like it does our economy—call it the “more butts than seats” problem) has something to do with that, I gotta nice bridge to sell ya.
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And all that? Is setting aside the other parenting challenges, like “will I have a job” (which right now I don’t) and “will I have to farm my daughter out to some relative so I can travel for work, and if so how will that impact her/her education” and “will I be able to send her to college” and “will I be able to afford health insurance for her when she’s over 18” and “will I be able to keep her from following so many of our relatives into the abyss of addiction” (heroin is a thing), etc. etc.
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The hard part about writing for the Internet is that you never get to see your audience.
If I’m in a conversation with a friend, she isn’t going to brag about all the awards her G&T kid gets or all the privileges that the kid gets from the school district. Because she knows that I’m fighting for basics. And, likewise, I’m not going to brag that my kid is a music savant around a friend whose child can’t add. Anybody with good manners is aware of differences and adjusts their conversation based on their audience.
On the Internet, one minute you might think you’re talking with people with similar interests/privileges/experiences and then BAM! suddenly you’re not. You can either write a standard disclaimer at the top of every blog post that shows some awareness of privilege or just ignore the complaints.
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test startedat 1:50 and posted at 1:57. Problem solved.
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Standard disclaimers. Is there any problem they can’t solve?
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Heroin is a thing in our UMC community, too. Spousal abuse and child abuse? Yep, got it covered. There are more ways to cover things up, or make sure they don’t stay in the papers for long. Child gets sent to an out-of-state school, spouse gets therapy, no-contact orders, restraining orders, house is sold, proceeds split up, etc.
Access to lawyers makes it easier to hide things. They still happen, though.
What happens when an UMC mother-in-law has a daughter-in-law who grew up with a different parenting model? Or vice-versa?
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You can tell UMC heroin use isn’t being completely covered up. There’s no way the police and EMS would be always carrying Naloxone otherwise.
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Right–but the names are generally not public, until there’s a death or a court date.
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You can either write a standard disclaimer at the top of every blog post that shows some awareness of privilege or just ignore the complaints.
Or an even better tactic—listening and responding to different perspectives when your audience is revealed to be more diverse than you originally thought. (not that you aren’t doing this personally already; you are, otherwise I wouldn’t bother). I found this blog from the links section of what used to be a popular feminist blog. I no longer bother with that place.
I’m just stunned by the disparity between what I expect as typical demographics and what I find on the internet. I expect the broad-based statistical average; the internet skews heavily towards a UMC norm. I expect the (print) newspaper level of diversity, or the mainstream network television level of diversity; the internet is considerably more “upscale” (outside of individual social media pages on Facebook or tumblr or whatnot).
Access to lawyers makes it easier to hide things. They still happen, though.
Oh yeah—I don’t mean to imply that they don’t. Just that realistically, there is both greater risk and higher impact based on one’s social class. It’s not my opinion that there is more addiction and violent crime in my neighborhood as opposed to UMC neighborhoods, it’s a measurable fact. That UMC parents can afford to keep their kids out of prison or the newspapers isn’t the only difference.
What happens when an UMC mother-in-law has a daughter-in-law who grew up with a different parenting model? Or vice-versa?
I don’t know. Cross-class relationships are pretty rare. What I do tend to see is cross-religion relationships, or in-laws who are religious as opposed to their adult children who are religious “nones”, and how that impacts parenting styles.
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Each of us reads our own internet. The internet you perceive is shaped by your personal tastes. It is possible your tastes in internet parenting advice runs to UMC writers. You’re not reading whatnot, but it’s there.
I find tumblr more visual than word-based, but I don’t think that’s a class thing.
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I think we do a pretty job here in the comment section of Apt 11D of listening to diverse viewpoints. That’s one of the reasons that I keep blogging. But we have a fairly manageable level of readership with lots of familiar voices. It’s very difficult to blog and have useful conversations when those numbers go up. I get rather shy, when lots of unknowns show up here, like they did last week.
I don’t mean to defend the UMC perspective on the Internet. Just trying to explain why people like Dooce have a hard time navigating those waters.
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Each of us reads our own internet. The internet you perceive is shaped by your personal tastes. It is possible your tastes in internet parenting advice runs to UMC writers. You’re not reading whatnot, but it’s there.
No, I was thinking in particular about broad-based sites, or sites that I would assume to be broad-based. There’s a real dearth of working-class representation in any kind of media, and it makes it hard to participate in online discussions. I have a really hard time finding representation online—my “personal tastes” aren’t the ones being catered to, because my demographic can’t buy much.
I just think it’s weird—the same way I think it’s weird that most television shows have sets that are clearly UMC even when the characters aren’t supposed to be.
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To me what I talk about is similar to the circles of grief article that was circulating a couple of years ago, in which you can only complain out of the circle (the person who has lost their spouse can talk to everyone, the friend of a friend has to be careful). I can fully recognize that my concern about which of several good educational opportunities by child will have is not a problem I should talk about to someone who has lost their job.
It’s harder to apply the rule on the internet, since we can’t know who we are talking ot. As Laura says, the way to deal is to honestly listen to other perspectives. But, in a blog like this one, if we’re not allowed to talk about our first world perspectives, I wouldn’t have anything to say. I try to be careful in considering whether my perspective, when it does affect public policy (like year round schools, which I would hate), affects others differently.
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PS: I’m still having to do the backwards/forwards/reload thing to post.
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And, it’s not easy to apply the role, of not complaining about something that is harder for someone else, even when when you’re talking face to face. Some things are obvious, job loss, homelessness, deaths, . . . But, when someone is complaining about a child who won’t do their homework, can you complain about the child who is so intense that you worry about how much they spend on homework?
I think, if people are trying, everyone has to give everybody a bit of slack. There are people who refuse to see things from other points of view, or don’t care, or are clueless about the challenges that others face. But to insist on a strict ranking of pain, privilege, problems isn’t good, either. Such a ranking prevents people from finding common ground and working together. And, there is, almost always, someone worse of than you. A family in the US that is worried about where the money is coming from is in distress, but there is more distress out there in the rest of the world; talking about job loss or minimum wage in the US is still relevant, and as a public policy issue, too.
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