Bringin' Home the Bacon

The headline hit yesterday, women are the primary breadwinners in over 40% of American households.  I could have told you that without the flashy headlines, and backlash from conservative, white guys.  

This latest "duh" headline has brought out the usual band of haters claiming, once again, that women in the workforce are the reason for the downfall of the country.  Yet, where are these same haters when families realize that one income doesn't cut the mustard?  Are these same haters equally as vocal about fighting the war on the middle class?  

There are a lot of families I know who wish they could have one parent at home with the kids, but reality doesn't work that way.  Most of the women I know work.  They don't work for vacation money or fun money like they did back in earlier times, they work, because if they don't, the mortgage doesn't get paid, and the food doesn't make it to the fridge, but you wouldn't know that by the way the boys are on tv screaming about women this morning.  

This headline comes on the heels of Sheryl Sandberg's encouragement of women to "lean in" and take the bull by the horns.  She has been advocating for women to champion their dreams and goals in the workforce, so it doesn't surprise me that the backlash has been particularly vicious.  What sticks in my craw about this issue is the idea that women are being told what is supposed to make them happy and fulfilled.

By telling working women that they are destroying America, because they want a life outside the home, you are telling them that the validation they feel by working is devious and willfully destructive.  Back in the '40s, women entered the workforce as temps to fill in while the men were at war.  Immediately after the war, the ladies were expected to surrender their jobs.  Many tales have come out now where the young, working women of that time were told by the bosses who fired them that they were the best workers the boss ever had, and if given the choice, the boss would have liked to retain them.  Women continued to work in the '50s and '60s to a lesser degree, although you would have never known it from tv, which seemed to revel in the idea of the perfect housewife and mother stereotype.  Thankfully, the '70s came around along with the Second Wave and women re-entered the workforce with a vengeance.  However, the income earned from their work was mainly seen as fun money, not the serious money that helped the family survive.  With the increased rate of divorce and more women putting off marriage, combined with a large rate of inflation and stagnant wages, mom's income is no longer fun money.

If you are a stay-at-home mom, and feel completely fulfilled by it, then Mazel Tov!  I have friends who can't imagine not being at home with their kids, and feel that they are at their best when motherhood is the central focus of their lives.  I tried to be stay-at-home mom and failed miserably.  I love spending time with my kids, and having a clean and organized house, but I also love the validation I get from using my skills to produce a great event.  I like the comradery of being part of a team, and the idea that long after my girls have moved out to begin blazing their own paths I will be able to have something that fulfills me.  I'm not sure how that is destructive or how I am being willfully divisive, but there are a whole lot of boys on tv screaming this morning that I, and my other female working counterparts, am somehow responsible for the country's deterioration.

I guess, according to the verbal diarrhea spewing from their fat, white faces, that our supposed lack of presence in the home has torn this country apart and destroyed the youth.  Nevermind the decade of war, constant offshoring of jobs, 40 years of stagnate wages, a culture that promotes men being love 'em and leave 'em playas and the 'greed is good' mentality, not to, again, mention that conservative men have been so busy regulating our vaginas that they haven't been advocating for better conditions for American families that would enable a single-income household to survive.  Nope, it's all my fault, because I can't be 100% happy wiping snotty noses and folding laundry, and I have a crazy desire to use my college degree.

The point is that men just need to stop telling women what should make them happy and focus on giving women the support they need to be happy.  They also need to stop being pussies and worrying that a few more gals around the board room table means they are, somehow, going to be ousted from their jobs (you know, like we were back in the post-war '40s).  Men and women can co-exist just fine in the workforce, and when they work together, much to the chagrin of the conservative patriarchy, the workforce actually becomes a better place to be.  

Wanted: Concert Buddy

I've always accepted the fact that I'm an oddball.  I'm a chick, but I don't like chick flicks.  I like passion, but think romance is corny and sweet talk sounds childish.  My favorite fiction is the grimmest dystopia scenarios ever published, yet I tend to be an optimist.  I am grateful to Eli Roth for bringing back the horror film and modernizing it, and I really, really love hardcore music.

I am fine with living in the 'burbs in order to bring my kids the stability that I never had growing up, but it gets a bit lonesome when I attempt to search out oddballs such as myself.  There are billions of people in the world, but apparently I am the only suburb mom in Orange County who happens to be a fan of hardcore music.  Although I should be happy about this, because it makes me unique, I would be lying if I said I liked going to concerts alone.

I've heard the suggestion that I should take my husband, even if he doesn't care for the music.  When pressed, I know Jeff would go, but my kind of music would, frankly, scare the hell out of him.  He made it through exactly 2.5 minutes of the recent Revolver Golden Gods Awards broadcast before looking at me and asking if I understood what the hell the vocalist in Anthrax was singing about.  In those 2.5 minutes, he also managed a half dozen comments about how freakish the band and audience looked.  I married a great guy whose only fault is believing that the musical sun rises and sets to Billy Joel.  Nothing against Billy, after all, I enjoy the piano man from time to time, but he is nothing close to what is usually blaring through my iTunes catalog.

For quite a long time, I was spoiled.  I lived in Seattle where I could always manage to wrangle an old friend from art school or someone I knew a million years ago when I worked in the music biz to go to concerts with.  Sometimes I wouldn't even have to reach out, because I knew they would just be there.  Seattle, despite the corporate makeover it experienced 15 years ago, has always been a great music town.  Now, I live in one of the most conservative counties in California, because God has one hell of a sense of humor, and in the 'burbs, no less, where I can find copious amounts of cupcake recipe referrals, advice on the best area dog walking trails, and sympathy for the horrible drop-off traffic at my kid's elementary school, but no other human who resides here and does their morning drive to Slipknot, Disturbed, or Iron Maiden.

I almost wish there was a creep-free Craigslist where I could list an ad.  "Wanted: Concert buddy to accompany suburb mom to hardcore music shows.  Must also be a normal-appearing suburb mom who lives in the suburbs for their kids' sake."  At this point, I would even accept a suburb dad, because I know I would probably have more luck finding a male who loves hardcore music, since this always seems to be the case.

The good news is that Shayna seems to be a lot more open to harder music than Rachael, so perhaps I see a light at the end of my solo concert-going tunnel.  Sure, it might take another 10 years before I will let her go to one of my shows, but at least that is something for me to look forward to.  In the meantime, if you happen to be at an area hardcore show, and you see a short, dark-haired woman who you think might have ended up in the wrong place, hanging out in the corner waiting for the show to start, it's me.  Come by and say, "hi", because, aside from the two-minute chat with the bartender, it will be the best conversation I will have that night.

There is No Such Thing as Funeral Mascara

I laugh now when I think of how cavalier my attitude used to be about death when I was younger.  In my teens and 20s I would tell people that I wasn't afraid of death, because there was no point in fearing it.  I had never experienced death, so why be afraid of it.  I used to spout all the usual cliches; 'When your number is up, your number is up.', 'It's better to burn out than fade away.', and my favorite, 'Death is just another door.'

All of these cliches are true, but they seem more worth pondering now that I've hit the halfway mark.  Statistically, my life is halfway over, and in the ramp up to my 40th birthday, this was on my mind quite a bit.  One of the bummers about life in your 40s is that death seems to be everywhere.  All of the old guard in the family starts to go, every other day you see a Facebook post from a friend who has lost someone, and you start noticing it on the news.  To top it off, you see a band you always loved for the first time in years and realize that most of the members are now in their late 50s/early 60s.  Time is no longer your friend.

I lost half of my parents before the age of 40, but it seemed less distressing than when I lose someone now.  I guess I was so young that I could contrast their loss with all of the time I still had left, and in my head, it made the situation better.  The thing about death is that we all assume we are going to live long lives, despite the fact that no one gets a guarantee.

A little over a year ago, one of my lifelong friends buried her 21 year old son after he died in a car accident.  I held this boy when he was nine hours old, and the pain of his loss was tremendous.  I mourned, not only losing him, but the loss of the life that he could have had.  This is why a young person's death is so tragic, it's a double loss.  When my husband's grandmother passed away at 101.5, there was a void, but not a whole lot of sadness.  She had been asking for death for about two years, because her life was at the suck point.  She couldn't walk, she needed someone with her when she went out and going out was a hassle, she couldn't enjoy good food or drink due to meds and general stomach intolerance, and her razor-sharp memory and mind had began slipping.  I always say that no one was happier to wake up dead that Sunday morning than Grandma Ethel.

I don't think I'm alone in hoping that I will enjoy a long life, and say "farewell" before it gets to that suck point, but there are no guarantees, which is one of the reasons our culture seems so fearful and fascinated by death.  Death is something we can't control at all, no matter how advanced we make our technology.  We can keep a body incubated and functioning, but having seen someone being kept "alive" by machines, I can tell you that all of the most brilliant minds in medicine can't keep someone alive.  At this point, my cavalier attitude about death is gone, and I've come to respect it.

I'm not a great fan of aging.  I don't like the way my skin seems to be hanging off my bones differently now than how it used to.  I don't like it when the guy who does my hair describes the texture as "fine".  I despise being mistaken for a member of the venue staff at a concert, because I'm middle-aged, and I freakin' hate describing myself as middle-aged even though I am.  However, I am grateful that I'm here to have the days I have, even the crappy ones, because it's a gift, and the alternative is a bit scary.

I don't know if God exists in the form that religion suggests or if God is just the collective energy of the life that exists outside of the world we see when we wake up in the morning.  I don't believe in the devil or Hell.  I'm not a big fan of the idea of purgatory.  However, I refuse to believe all of that wonderful spark and energy just goes away once the human encasement we live in ceases to function.

I went to the funeral today of a woman whose smile I saw just two weeks ago.  Her journey to the grave began Tuesday night and ended Friday afternoon.  A close friend described her telling stories in ICU as her "final curtain call".  I was sad, because she was not an old woman, and there was so much more I'm sure she wanted to see and do before leaving this life, but we don't get to make that choice.

I hope, in the end, I will have done everything I wanted to do, seen everything I wanted to see, and can leave a legacy that someone can be proud of.  Despite the halfway mark, I still don't fear death, but I'm not ready for it.  My goal is to live to be old enough to see my girls become amazing women, and see their children develop into good, productive people.  I want to live long enough to complete nearly all of my bucket list, and mostly, I want to live to the point where everything negative and crude I say is automatically dismissed, because I'm old.  After all, in her final few years, Grandma Ethel was never so entertaining as when she'd let it fly about one or two particular family members that were pissing her off at the time, and I enjoyed every minute of it.