more bringing up bebe

I put a comment to this effect down in the BuB post, but I'm putting it here as well--what do you think are the benefits of "American" parenting--specifically the pushing and competitiveness and disrespect of authority?  I know that I tend to encourage my children to not think that adults have all the answers or are the de facto moral leaders.  And the sort of people who grab the world by the tail, if you will, were rarely well-behaved, compliant children.  Am I off-base? 

my notes on "the handmaid's tale"

I don't want to take the time to craft an elegant post around my hurriedly scribbled notes, so I'll just try to lay them down in a somewhat discernible fashion, and you guys can choose which, if any, you want to talk about.

1.  I have had a number of people say to me, "I don't care about politics."  Well, this book is a shining example of why we can't afford not to care about politics.  I don't think much of people who don't vote, or who laugh about their willful ignorance of the affairs of the country.  I like my stories and shallow pursuits, too, but I also read the paper and listen to the news, because I am a grownup. 

2.  In the Red Center they use the phrase "freedom from."  As in, people used to have the freedom to do things, now they have freedom from things.  It reminds me of a conversation I had with my cousin's wife.  They lived in China for a year, and she commented about how much she loved being able to go running anywhere, at any time of the day or night, and how she didn't have to watch her kids, because China is so safe, and she'd love to move back there someday.  That's a scary thought, to me.  China is a fine place, I'm sure, but I like saying what I think without fear of imprisonment.  I don't like exchanging liberty for safety, within reason.  And "within reason" is something that you have to spend a lot of time parsing, if you're a responsible person. Because I've been blessed enough to live in safety AND freedom my entire life.  Would my opinion change if I'd ever seen what it's really like to live in a bad area? 

Also, the Aunts talk about how women are safe from the dangers of rape and other violence, but they aren't really.  The flesh trade outside the city is still very vibrant, and despite the pretty face they put on it, the Ceremony is merely state-sanctioned rape.  Lacking the authority to deny consent is the same thing as lacking the ability to give consent, and thus every sexual liaison between the handmaid and the Commander, and the more intimate relationship that Fred pursues, is rape.  

3.  In the flashbacks Offred is very different, and it took me a while to figure out what it is.  But then I realized that her current self is very infantile, and I wondered if it was an example of how treating people like children is self-actualizing.

4.  Offred misses the mundanities, like oranges and lingerie stores and going with her family to get ice cream. 

5.  In order to maintain control an oppressive regime relies heavily on its citizenry to be their eyes and ears, to inform on each other.  How long would it take before we became as craven and duplicitous as the people in the book? 

6.  The nomenclature for the handmaids is abhorrent--once I realized that "Offred" stands for "property of Fred," I was disgusted.  She doesn't get even an item name.  The wives are called "Wife of So-and-so," but the handmaids don't even get that much.

7.  Sexism is still alive and well in 2195, as evidenced by the jokes told in the keynote address at the conference.  They joke about the handmaids' lack of education, they make a put about "tale" vs. "tail," they refer to the underground frailroad . . . groan.

That's what I have for now. 

thoughts on "the fourth turning" as of page 28

Most of the time I think I'm a pretty smart person, until, say, I start talking about math with John's brother David who is into that really scary math where the numbers no longer behave predictably.  Then I feel dumb. I had a class in college called "Goedel, Escher, Bach," about the book of the same name, and I had to drop it on the second day because I was hopelessly out of my depth.  I felt dumb then, too. 

And I have felt dumb ever since I started reading "The Fourth Turning."  It reads like a textbook, and the authors are citing all these historical events that I've either forgotten or never learned about, and it is ROUGH GOING. 

what I thought about "bringing up bebe"

The premise of this book is that French parents, mainly mothers, are far less stressed and neurotic than their American counterparts, and have much better-behaved children.  There are some ugly things about French culture (at least Parisian culture) which I think Druckerman does a decent job of demonstrating, but there is some very sound advice in there.  If you don't want to read the book and want to know what the takeaway is, let me simplistically sum it up for you:  Don't be a doormat.  Settle down.  Your children are far more mature and capable than you think.

I like this book and am buying a copy for my shelf so I can improve my own parenting as well as recommend the appropriate sections to the other people in my life.  If you guys want to talk about some of the lessons in the book, whether you've read it or not, here's a place we can start:

Let's talk about childbirth.  I often hear the U.S.'s approach to childbirth derided as overmedicated, and we would be so much better off if we just used more natural, traditional methods of childbirth--that's why our infant mortality rate is the highest of any industrialized nation (I have no idea if that statistic is correct, it's just what gets repeated).  But the French culture is far less friendly to doula/midwife/birthing pool/unmedicated childbirth, has a higher rate of epidural use, and yet has a lower rate of delivery complications and infant mortality.  Discuss.  My own suspicions:  it's at least partly due to maternal nutrition.