A Jen Too Many

My sister wrote this in her book review of Under the Tuscan Sun:

This is the kind of writing I want to do. I find it difficult to write fiction because it is, generally speaking, used for entertainment purposes and lacks the power to motivate one's life or stir one's soul. I want to write to stir the soul.

Now, I've never read this particular book, but I've read similar books. They were interesting, but I can't say I found that they had any impact on my life beyond simple entertainment. I certainly can't say they stirred my soul.*

Fiction, on the other hand, has had a profound impact on my life. Writers like Suzette Haden Elgin, J.R.R. Tolkien, Robert Heinlein, Andre Norton, Isaac Asimov, Arthur Conan Doyle, Rudyard Kipling, Louis L'Amour, Zane Grey (and that's just what comes to mind in a without stopping to think about it) all wrote novels that made me think long and hard about the way I saw the world and how I saw myself in that world.

My favorite writers are the ones that provoke me to stop reading and start debating (silently - I do try not to talk out loud during those times) with the author. I might not agree with much of Heinlein's philosophy, but he sure made me examine the way I thought men and women should interact, and how technology fit into human relationships. Reading Sherlock Holmes and Kim made me think about the way I don't pay attention to the world around me, so I started trying to notice the details that would make me a brilliant detective, too.**

The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings made me think about trustworthiness, loyalty and friendship. I found that I really didn't care for Bilbo Baggins. I wanted to be like Frodo and Samwise - not someone who fell haphazardly from mishap to accident, but someone who moved purposely to accomplish my goals, no matter what stood in my way.

Zane Grey's attacks on Mormons annoyed me and made me look more closely into the history of my church. Louis L'Amour wrote about strong, confident pioneer women and inspired in me a desire to be like those women. Norton's Octagon Magic was an 8th birthday present. It showed me how fear can destroy you, and how attempting to overcome fear can give you the strength to defeat it.

Elgin's Native Tongue series was pivotal in awakening the feminist in me. She got me thinking about stuff I'd never examined before. Things that I'd picked up when I was little, things I'd heard my father say over and over again, examples I'd observed while I was growing up - all of that came under the microscope, and I wound up deciding that being a woman meant something different than what I'd thought. I started thinking more positively about being female than I had since I found out that I couldn't join Little League because it was only for boys. I decided there was strength and power in being a woman, a decision that has impacted almost everything I have done since then.

I don't know why it is that non-fiction leaves me cold. Maybe it's the writer in me, thinking how I'd tell the story differently, that makes fiction such fertile soil, whereas true stories don't stir a desire to change the outcome. How can you argue with reality, after all? When I read memoirs and histories, I only find them entertaining, never soul-stirring. Very few real-life people have inspired me to change my life, but I would have a hard time coming up with a complete list of the fictional characters that have influenced me.
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*Which just goes to show that, although we love each other dearly, we really do see the world from very different perspectives. It's nice to have siblings who have such different points of view - it widens my own perspective. Left to myself, I tend to fall into a comfortable rut and stop thinking entirely.

**Says the woman who has been known to walk into walls because she was thinking too hard to notice there was a very large obstacle in front of her.

Just got a call from school. Oldest Girl Child left her lunch at home.

They are having sloppy joes today. She hates sloppy joes. That's why she decided last night to pack her lunch today.

The school called to ask if I was going to bring her lunch to her. I had the principal on the phone with me, and I had to decide right then if I was going to make her eat sloppy joes, or climb in the car and bring her lunch.

She's going to be eating sloppy joes for lunch.

I am consumed with guilt. I am picturing a desperately unhappy little girl, who is convinced her mommy doesn't love her and is crying because she thinks the world has fallen down around her shoulders. I am practically clutching my chair to keep from jumping up and running out the door to save her by bringing her lunch. I feel like the worst mommy in the world.

I have thought this out before. She has even asked me before if I would bring her lunch if she forgot it, and I told her I wouldn't. This is one of those little, painful lessons that life gives us, that help protect us from the big, excruciatingly horrible lessons later down the road, I remind myself. Sloppy joes will not hurt her. Being a little hungry when she comes home from school will not hurt her. Learning to pay attention to what she's doing as she gets ready, instead of floating around in a sea of attractive distractions, is important.

And I am stupid to be crying just because I decided not to bring my daughter her lunch.

It's a cliche, yes, but may I just point out that raising two little girls to be strong, independent, confident women is an uphill battle?

Bratz are banned from our house. They have been ever since I became aware of them, which was well before the girls started asking for them. Once the girls realized their existence, I quickly put them in the We Don't Do That, Buy That, or Watch That category and that postponed the pleas. Now, however, they are old enough to question me, and while Oldest Girl Child tends to be one of those really good kids, who earnestly tries to be fully obedient*, Youngest Girl Child wants to have Reasons. Good Reasons. Because Ordinary Reasons? Will Not Do.

She has actually driven me to saying, "Because I said so! Now stop asking!" which I swore I would never do. (Yeah, yeah, yeah - one more myth of pre-motherhood, shattered. You may all laugh ... 3, 2, 1 ... OK, that's enough. Stop laughing now.)

After getting that response a few times too many, she has decided to attack from downwind, by casually dropping this kind of statement on me:

"Mommy, when I grow up, I'm going to let my little kids (whatever action I have forbidden her to do)"

Today, on the way to preschool, she piped up from the backseat, "Mommy, when I grow up, I'm going to let my children play with Bratz."

She's said that several times lately, and I haven't known how to deal with it. How can I possibly explain to a preschooler that I have banned those toys because of what I regard as a highly sexualized portrayal of women? That I don't want her being influenced at a very impressionable time in her life by dolls wearing ... well, clothes that can only be described using language I prefer not to use in front of a little sponge.**

The girls have friends with those toys. They see the displays in the stores. There are ads on TV. They inform me that there is a Bratz website with wonderful! fascinating! games! I don't even know where they heard about the website, except through friends, which highlights for me that they are moving out into the wider world, and the influences there are not what I want for my daughters.

It scares me, and it makes me angry. There are so many destructive messages out there. The idea that to be promiscuous is to empowered. The idea that beauty is the most important thing about a woman. That getting attention, no matter how you have to sell your soul to do it, is the road to happiness. That being regarded as sexy is more important than having integrity. That moral courage is an old-fashioned and outdated concept. That being intelligent doesn't mean anything if you're not attractive. That it's impossible to have an ideal and live up to it, and you shouldn't even expect that of yourself.

So I talked with YGC about how the first priority of the people who make toys and other products is making money through their products. How they frequently don't care if what they make is good or bad for you, as long as they can get you to buy it. How Bratz look pretty, but represent a way of looking at the world that is bad for her, and has the potential to hurt her in the long run.

She asked questions, and I stumbled through answers for most of the drive to preschool. And when we were done, she said, "Mommy, when I have kids, I'm going to tell them that Bratz are not good for you."

I never know how much she understands, or how much she is capable of understanding. Sometimes I try to explain a concept that seems simple to me, but turns out to be completely beyond her capacity. And then sometimes there are days like today. I don't know what was processed through her mind; I don't know if her understanding is what I would want for her on this subject. But I am cautiously optimistic that I got through to her, at least a little bit.

At the very least, I am hopeful that I will be able to stop fighting with her about it.
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*And, I fear, will wake up one fine morning, sometime in the next few years, with the rebellion switch turned "ON" and my life will suddenly become all, "Welcome to Hell: Teenage daughters and why it is All Your Fault"

**It's hard enough fighting the stereotypes that I have allowed (and now kind of regret allowing.) I had no idea that I'd have to talk so fast to overcome the influence of those stupid Disney princesses.

If I feed my children fish often enough, they will learn to like it. Don't shake your head like that. They will. Honest.

Stop laughing.

I know this is true because I read it in an article once. Children don't like new things, it said. After you introduce a new food, you have to present it several times - I think the number of times was something in the low double digits, like 15 or 20 - before they will get used to the idea and accept the new food.

Which means if I serve fish for dinner a couple dozen more times, we'll be doing just fine.

Really. We will.

Oh, shut up.