Barbie Vs. Meth

Another Barbie drama…

Ok, we’ve heard it all before – Barbie is bad for body image.  For anyone, but especially for girls.  I played with Barbie when I was a kid.  I loved taking her and her friends and Ken outside in her camper and creating worlds of stories that entertained me AND my brother and sister for hours.  Yes, my brother played Barbie with us.  There was no way he couldn’t – we were thrown out of the house together every day and there was no one else to play with except his sisters.  He was cool about it.  We would play with them in the backyard, in the woods, in the flower beds.  Barbie had great outdoor adventures, and when it rained we hung out in our bedroom and played there – turning bookcases into mansions.  We nailed blocks of wood together and covered it with old carpeting to make custom furniture for her.  Old boxes, Breyer horses, milk cartons, etc.  We reused and recycled before it was the thing to do.  Even the pets came into play.  Cats and dogs were monsters we played around. 

One thing Barbie did not do was throw up or binge eat.  We did get her pregnant a few times, by Darth Vader – not Ken, but she was just a regular girl with some good friends.  Barbie did not give me an eating disorder and I suspect this rings true with a lot of girls.  She did not skew my body image.  No, I learned my bad body images at school, music videos, and people who thought it helpful to point out that I was chubby or pleasantly plump.  These images and phrases can bring fresh pain if I let it, but I am not going to let it today.

I defend Barbie.  Yes, she’s pretty, she dresses well, has every accessory under the sun and has lots of great friends.  Barbie can be a stay at home mom or she could be a doctor.  The thing is, Barbie could be anything.  She could out deal Walter White because Barbie excels in everything she does, and if he tried to shoot her and stuff her in his duffle bag that his doll comes with, well I’m pretty sure she would be able to wrestle the gun away and take him down like a good cop would, because Barbie would make one damn tough cop.  I’m sure she could even eat a doughnut or two without gaining an ounce.

I think the mom who did the on-line petition was justified in her actions.  We need more figures like Barbie and less heroes like White.  I think it’s too bad that people are lashing out against her for it.  I also think they are idiots if they want their kids to play with a meth dealing doll.  Lots of great imagination-play right there.  Maybe they’ll be able to get a chemistry set and create their own meth recipes.  If you have no clue what I’m talking about check this out:

http://www.msn.com/en-us/tv/news/%e2%80%98breaking-bad%e2%80%99-doll-drama-aaron-paul-trashes-barbie-in-defense-of-shows-toy-line/ar-BBaQqvx?ocid=U220DHP

            And for the record, I do have body image issues.  They came from the girls in my class and the classic “you know you’re fat when” tests.  The one I remember was if you put your legs together and you can’t see daylight between your crotch and thighs.  Then you were fat.  I was also told by a boy I had a crush on that I was pear shaped.  It just sounded bad.  Barbie had nothing to do with it.  I was beyond her at that point.

            Let’s cut the doll a break.  I really don’t think she’s as evil as a lot of people would want one to believe.  And let’s not buy our children meth making dolls this holiday season.  It just seems very, very wrong.

Days Like These

It's days like these that I realize out of the 222 friends on Facebook, I have no true, real friend.  I used to have friends that I partied with, then we grew up and apart.  I used to have friends that I worked with, then I moved to an office that doesn't foster friendships and I am alone.  I have a long-term boyfriend, but his views oppose mine and therefore I cannot even cry in front of him because of this.  What should be the happiest time of my life, is becoming a sorrow that I just can't deal with.
My daughter is in jail.  She goes for sentencing soon and is planning on leaving her husband when she is released.  I'm thrilled that she is trying to put her life together - he is the reason she has been in trouble in the last five years.  He is controlling and abusive and if he dropped dead it wouldn't hurt my feelings, in fact I would go to his funeral.  No, the part of all this is losing the kids.  By law, because my daughter is not their natural mother, and because he is a giant douche bag, we will not get visitation.  I want to see the kids and remind them that we love them, but they are being punished, by us, for stealing and are not allowed at the house right now.  My bf won't back down and I haven't asked him to.  It's important for us to follow through.  But their father has them call and ask us if they can come over and when we say no, but let's get together Sunday afternoon, he has them hang up.  The girl is eleven.  She knows what's up and how to survive.  The boy, my heart, my little soul mate, is struggling so hard.  He's trying to please a crooked father by stealing, and yet he knows it's wrong.  Before he hangs up I tell him I love him.  He doesn't answer.  I know he heard me.  I know I'm on speaker phone.  I don't know if his father will let me take them Sunday.  I don't know anything.  All I know is I miss them.  I miss the hugs, the I love you's, the holding my hand, the constant "mema this, mema that, mema can we...".
I don't know what to do.  I can't call my mom because my daughter doesn't want her to know her plans.  I don't want her to tell me what I've done wrong and what she is going to do to fix it.  I just miss those kids and the fun we had and because one asshole doesn't want to deal with them, or wants me to take them so he can party, I will lose any time I can reinforce my love for them.
God this hurts.  I don't know how much more I can take.  I don't understand why God would put these children in my life and me in theirs and then take them away from me and me from them.  I don't get it!  And the worst part is I know they don't understand why I'm not there and I will not have a chance to explain it.
I wish I had someone to talk with about it.  I can't afford counseling and I don't have any friends, not real friends, that want to deal with me and my problems.  I never thought I needed anyone and after getting burned by a couple friends I figured I was better off on my own, but I really need one right now.

Superficiality - Guilty or Not? Or Am I Human?

I have to point out that I am spiteful and that I hold a grudge far longer than anyone I know.  That said, I’d like to talk about why.  I’m a loner.  I always have been.  I have only had one best friend at a time, starting when I was five.  I met my first best friend at our neighbor’s chicken coop.  I was watching the chickens while my dad was at the barn getting fresh milk.  This little girl comes up to me (the farmer’s granddaughter) and asks me if I want to be her best friend.  We were inseparable for seven years.  When we entered junior high she became popular and I did not.  She hung out with the cheerleaders and sports groups.  I hung out with nerds and outsiders.  What’s funny is that I never held that against her.  I still smiled and waved to her in the halls, and as we became adults we always spoke when we ran into each other.  She was the best first best friend a girl could ask for.

No, I’m not sure when I started holding grudges but it was definitely after I started dating.  In my senior year I lost my virginity and the guy I lost it to.  My best friend at the time was a geek like me.  Not such a loner (she really didn’t have the dark, sad look that I had and couldn’t pull it off), she had lost her first boyfriend through a tragic car accident.  When my ex asked her out she came to me all excited and asked if it was ok.  I told her that it would be, as long as I didn’t have to hear all the gory details.  She told me all the gory details and I promptly walked away from her- forever.  I tried to get back in touch with her later on just to see how life was treating her but she made her life sound too busy to really give me a straight answer so I never got back to her.

I have held grudges and then let them go.  This includes my brother’s ex-girlfriend.  We did everything together – shopping, partying, clubbing, heart-to-hearts – it was great and I never loved any of my friends like I loved her.  Then she decided to get married, and I was the person she asked to spend her last night as a single girl with.  Then she moved away, started having babies, and made new friends.  Did I resent that?  I guess I did.  We barely spoke and it’s only now, after several years of being back in the neighborhood, do we keep in contact and see each other.

I’ve gone through several jobs in the last couple of years.  Not because I was fired or laid off, but because the pain of going to a job where one’s voice didn’t matter anymore hurt too much and the way staff were treated was abominable.  I had been there for ten years and made some really good friends, or so I thought, until I left and worked elsewhere.  One of my very best friends, yes, I said best, didn’t even show up at my barbeque last year after I had spoken with her two days before to confirm.  At that point she was saying that she would absolutely be there.  She never showed up or called.  At this point I had been gone from that employment for one year.  I had kept in touch with them, visited, emailed, called.  I should have known something wasn’t right the last time I stopped in there.  She sat at her desk while I visited with other staff and she kept her head down.  She wouldn’t even look at me.  I never went back, and a couple weeks later she fired a woman she had worked with for years.

What bothers me is that she didn’t talk to me.  We were such good friends, or at least I thought we were.  I realize that I was no longer part of her work environment but we used to get together to eat once in a while.  We partied at each other’s home, we knew each other’s children, we even took their phone calls if the other was busy.  I don’t know if I did something wrong, or if I offended her in some way.  She took one of my other friends with her (I know this sounds very 8^th grade, but it’s how it really happened).  She brought her in to volunteer to cover for the person she fired.  That friend hasn’t really spoken to me since either, just a phone call by me at Thanksgiving.  I had also called her to see if she wanted to scrapbook with me, but she told me she couldn’t afford it, so no, she did not want to go.  She was very short with me and I knew then that I was out of the loop.

I miss my friends.  I miss the camaraderie and the silliness. The other day I realized that I had been un-friended on Facebook.  It was then that I realized that what I was doing in my life no longer mattered to her.  The other friend, the one she took with her, will speak to my boyfriend and ask him for favors, but will not call me or try to engage in conversation when we run into each other.  Not that I do, either.  Work friendships are just that, friends from work.  Once you leave you can’t go back, unless you offer to help out, and I just can’t so I lose.  The only thing is, they do too.

So am I spiteful?  I guess I am.  But I think maybe I’m a little more wary of superficial friends.  If one isn’t true, then I don’t want it.  And I guess they don’t either.

 

 

What Important Right Have Women Lost?

   Women’s rights.  Seriously, when I was younger I thought that this was a great idea.  Be equal to men, earn what they did, be independent and bring home the bacon.  You can do it all – raise a family, fix the car, volunteer, cook, clean, pay the bills – and for what?  My question now is, where did we go wrong?

   It seems to me that in the last 25 to 30 years our children have grown up alone, with no moral figures and no one to cling to when things get rough.  I say this in view of where I grew up, which is mainly rural.  When I was a kid it wasn’t the norm to have friends whose parents were divorced.  In fact, when my best friend told me her parents were getting one we were really worried that we might not be friends anymore.  I didn’t know anyone else whose biological parents weren’t together.  Using the term biological was usually reserved for adopted kids.  I was probably nine or ten before I found out my own dad had been divorced and that my older brother and sisters were really my half siblings.  I was told to keep it quiet, the whole neighborhood didn’t need to know.

   My mother worked.  I’m pretty sure she did part time work for a while and then full time when my dad had his heart attack.  I know she was home every day when I was a kid getting off the school bus.  We would walk in the door, drop our school bags on the floor, sit down and have snack and she would ask us how our day was.  Then we would run and change, do our chores, homework, eat dinner when dad got home, play and go to bed.  Dad would tuck us in and listen to our prayers.  Mom would get her tea and some quiet time with a book or a TV show.

   I look back now and I realize I had an idyllic childhood, not unlike something out of the Andy Griffith Show.  Our neighbors kept an eye on us when mom and dad might not be around, whether we knew it or not.  Someone called my mom when she saw me smoking in town when I was fifteen.  When I got home she was ready for me.  I still have no idea who told, but I knew someone was watching.

   We went to church as a family too.  I hated it, but every Sunday and church holiday, there we were.  Dad sang in the choir and he had an awesome voice.  I still love the church songs and I can still hear him in my mind singing them.  Mom always did the church groups and fund raisers.  They helped people and modeled the life they wanted us to live.

   My mom didn’t march on Washington.  She kept a good clean home, she made great meals from nothing, she read to us, fixed our hurts, monitored our television and our mouths, warned us of our actions and promptly punished us when warnings were ignored.  She taught us the lessons we needed to learn and gave us room to make mistakes.  She was there.

   It seems now, in this day and age, that we have the right to be everything except good mothers.  Sure there are some out there that get to stay home with their kids and live that life that a lot of us had, but there are a lot more that have to work to make ends meet.   There are a lot of single moms out there, by choice, that wanted it all and get home after a long day of school or work or both and just don’t get in the time that they want with their child(ren).  We’ve lost the right to raise our children in a two parent home, where one of us gets to stay home and take care of things on the “home front”.  The “home front” is now the “war zone” where we have to fight for time for dinner, for sports, for clubs, etc.  Our babysitter is the television with hundreds of channels or the internet with unlimited avenues or video games.  We had three TV stations – we were told to go outside and find something to do or something would be found for us.  We had to use our imagination. 

   Having our mom there gave us that.  She didn’t have to feel guilty about wanting to be there for us because she didn’t have to have it “all”.  What I don’t think she realized, and a lot of American women didn’t realize, was that they did have it all.  They had the best of it because they had a choice.  They could go out and work, or they could stay home.  There’s no choice now, not unless one is very wealthy or chooses to live very simply. 

   In my heart I believe the women’s rights movement did a lot for women.  We got the vote, we’ve passed some laws, we can get out and work in jobs traditionally held by men.  But socially, I feel it has broken down the family.  There was a reason women were nurturers and men were the providers.  There was a reason we held those roles. 

   I wish we could go back.  Just have a taste, see if the flavor is just as sweet as when I was growing up.  I know this piece has rambled, but I guess my point is this, by gaining all of these rights, women have lost the biggest right we had – to be a parent.  By losing our time to everything else we’ve lost that right and in doing so we are seeing a chain reaction in the loss of a cohesive society and a rise in violence.  Let’s give children back their two parent households with their moms at home.  I bet it makes a huge difference in twenty years time.