We do have a lot, but it’s too much. Just think about how many choices we’re faced with daily. Many of us start our days with what used to be a simple cup of coffee; now we decide between non-fat, half-fat, full-fat, soy, decaf, half-caf, hazelnut/amaretto/vanilla, with whip, no whip, extra hot, iced, room for cream, sugar, Splenda, Equal, Stevia… and the endless options don’t stop after we grab our coffee. We choose cereal from an entire grocery aisle of options. We choose television programs from hundreds of channels. Looking something up on the Internet provides us with thousands of websites from the simplest query. It’s overwhelming. So many choices give us the feeling that we should be able to control every teeny aspect of our lives, so when our lives go awry, we feel responsible.

Advertisers have sold us the idea that choice = freedom. While that is certainly true for big things like voting, it doesn’t necessarily hold true for which brand of bottled water we buy. The human brain can only manage so many things at once. It’s exhausting. Sometimes I think we’re so wrapped up in wondering if we bought the right car seat that adding the burden of learning some of the basics like dealing with teething, what to do if the baby won’t latch, and other things that deal directly with caring for this new person in our lives, feels like too much. We are so focused on getting the right accessories and then wonder why it doesn’t all go smoothly like the advertisements promised it would.

We are lucky. We do have it all; we can vote, we can work, we may even have a woman president. We have bigger houses, nicer cars, and more clothes than our parents had. Some of us even have housecleaners and nannies. We take yoga classes and get massages. We’re so lucky that it’s too much. We gather more and more stuff, do more and more activities and wonder why we feel so empty. It’s time to cut back.

As children, we’re naturally full of spirit, whimsy, and a strong yearning for knowledge. Our days are filled with excitement and our sense of adventure wins out over the challenges and obstacles we encounter. Why then, do we as adults frown, scoff, and even sneer at the idea of fun or silliness? Why are we so anxious to “grow up” and distance ourselves from the spirit of youth?

Why does there come a point when responsible adults exchange their guitars for briefcases, their motorcycles for sedans, their snowboards for golf clubs? What happened to the freedom that was supposed to come along with the added responsibility of being in charge of your own life? As we grow through childhood, pressure is put on us to be increasingly more self-conscious. Certainly by the time we make it through high school, most of us have learned, rather painfully, to keep ourselves as inconspicuous as possible. Heading out into the world of adulthood, it’s soundly reinforced that we need to “look the part”, “be serious”, and “act responsibly”.

Now, you’ll get no argument from me that adults need to be responsible. It’s just that I’m thinking along the lines of: not causing harm to others, paying bills on time, not forgetting to feed the dog, and taking good physical care of ourselves and dependants. What I don’t understand is this; how did riding a skateboard, spontaneously jumping into a pile of leaves, or spending an afternoon drawing pictures with crayons worm their way into unacceptable, irresponsible adult behavior?

We’re too hard on ourselves and each other. Living life with spirit and enthusiasm is far more important than meeting someone else’s standard of appropriate behavior. We need to discover ways of reclaiming the youthful spirit that brightened our childhood and we need to let it be okay for others to do the same without judgment. It should be fun to be an adult. Funny thing is, the more we open up and allow ourselves the space to be real, to do and say the things we please, the more it allows and encourages those around us to do the same. My grandma had that effect upon people, and it’s a gift she passed on to me.

I thank her for it every day.

The idea that as modern women we can “have it all” pushes us to achieve more and more. The images in magazines and on television project the modern woman as being a laughing mother/professional career woman in a crisp white shirt and without a hair out of place. We’re sold hair dye, deodorant, lipstick, and skin cream based on this concept. We’re reminded often that our foremothers worked hard and sacrificed much for us to be free and equal, but with that comes a sense of obligation on our part. How can we let them down by not taking advantage of that and well… “having it all”?

We like to think that we have moved beyond the unrealistic expectations that we imagine our grandmothers had to live up to. In the 50’s, the show Leave It to Beaver epitomized the perfect mother in June Cleaver. Always wearing a smile and pearls, June was unflappable, the house spotless, dinner hot and hearty on the table at five o’clock every day. She was standing at the door with cookies and milk at the end of every school day and brought her husband his slippers and a paper when he arrived home from work.

We congratulate ourselves for reaching a level of society where we can look back on June Cleaver and the like as women who sacrificed their own dreams and needs, in order to be a good wife/mother/woman. Now we have our own careers and our husbands have to fetch their own slippers. But we are foolish to throw around such easy congratulations… living up to the standard of June Cleaver would be a piece of chocolate frosted layer cake compared to the new standard we are living with. In true Modern Woman fashion, we have raised the bar. I’ll see your hearty meal and raise you an international corporate empire, celebrity status, a television show, a few magazines, and dozens of cookbooks. In other words, a Martha Stewart.

Today we have Martha setting a whole new level of achievement for us. June may have been stuck in the kitchen making wholesome pot roast dinners and chocolate chip cookies all day, but Martha has us coming home from a full day at the office just in time to encrust citrus infused tilipia fillets and hand-roll lavender crepes stuffed with crème fraiche and drizzled with fresh raspberry coulis.

We’re still running the household, but now it’s under the added pressure of having a well-paying professional career, breaking glass ceilings, and looking flawless while doing it. After all, Martha runs a huge company and then heads home to host elaborate dinner parties complete with handmade party favors. She never raises her voice and heck, she even went to prison gracefully.

While Martha has us creating our own personalized wrapping paper, there’s a boatload of svelte celebrities taunting us into yoga and pilates and pole dancing classes in an attempt to make our bodies supermodel slim immediately after childbirth. A multitude of do-it-yourself television shows encourage us to re-tile our bathrooms, faux paint our living room walls, or build our own brick chimneys.

Isn’t it time we asked ourselves if this is too much?

True self-help is a combination of dream and reality. Too many self-help books only deal with one aspect or the other. The Re-Design Your Life Workbook brings you both in an easy-to-follow format. Not only will you figure out your True Goals, but you will understand exactly HOW to make them happen and what is holding you back (and it isn’t just yourself!).

This book walks you through:

• identifying and eliminating your own personal Spirit Thieves
• evaluating your “shoulds” vs. your needs and wants
• creative problem solving for the most common reasons “why not”
• creating an achievable Action Plan
• generating personal accountability
• prioritizing to obtain true happiness
• understanding why you haven’t been able to do it on your own

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What about it though? A recent study discovered that commercials aimed at kids (33 per hour!) show boys building, fixing things, or fighting 55% of the time. Girls, on the other hand, are shown 77% of the time laughing, talking, or merely observing others. Sadly, we continue to see this in real life… girls “watching” while boys “do”. Just think how often you see a girl on the back of a motorcycle and compare that to how often you see a girl riding a motorcycle. How can we ensure that we are equally, if not more, interesting and active than our male counterparts? I’ve got some suggestions.

Ride a motorcycle

There’s nothing cooler than a girl on a motorcycle. It sure makes you mindful of driving and is better for the environment and much easier on your monthly gas bill. What it gives you to talk about: great rides you have been on, how pretty your motorcycle is, how much better mileage you get than in your car. And for the fashionista’s among us… there are some exciting new motorcycle outfits designed just for women.

Start a band

Can’t play an instrument? That hasn’t stopped many of the boys I know. Pick one and start figuring it out. It doesn’t have to be an all-girl band either. A hot female guitarist in a band full of nerdy guys would really rock.

Get a camera

Be it a still or motion camera, get out there and take some pictures or shoot some video. Get a real camera, one with interchangeable lenses. Post an ad for some models, shoot something trashy, something edgy, something utterly commercial. Get some hunky male models to take their clothes off and wield that camera like you know what you’re doing with it.

Build something; something big

Use all those crafty skills for something big and dare I say, practical? Build a dining room table. Yes, that’s right… go buy some wood, borrow a table saw, and get to it. If you have the patience and skill to hand make pop-up birthday cards, you are going to build one hell of a dining room table.

Do anything that you do well, but take it to the next level

Boys aren’t low on confidence, even when they are low on talent. We all know that we can do anything boys can do, and better, so why don’t we start a business, go pro, book a gig…

Now let’s get to it.

“…take another little piece of my heart now, baaaaby…” It’s a snowy evening, there’s a crackling fire in the fireplace casting a warm glow around the living room. Dinner is in the oven and our little house is filled with the scent of roast chicken and rosemary. Dad will be home soon. Janis Joplin is playing on the stereo. I’m six years old. Mum and I sing along to the delight of Katie who watches from her playpen, laughing and bouncing. “…cause you know you got it, lord, when it makes you feel gooood…”

I loved the music my parents played, and the freedom we enjoyed in appreciating it. My parents were not afraid to share their musical tastes with us. I certainly didn’t like everything; I don’t miss hearing The Pogues and I think there was a Linda Rondstadt phase in there that I’ve blocked from my mind, but I can’t take a road trip without singing Beach Boys songs and I can’t clean the house without singing along to The Clancy Brothers. Despite my entire family’s lack of ability to keep a tune, we shared many many wonderful bonding experiences through music.

Somewhere along the line someone figured out that kids should have their own line of music, specifically tailored by age. Sell parents the idea that young brains will do better with appropriate music and whamo, you’ve just opened up a whole new market! Now you can have your music, your kids can have theirs. Forget about bonding (unless you’re ready to groove to the purple passions of Barney) and while you’re at it, kiss your sanity good-bye, for as anyone who has listened extensively to kids’ music knows, it’s designed for kids and no one else.

Music is all about rhythm, beats, melodies, and passion. This stuff isn’t age or gender specific, it’s universal. Kids naturally respond to music of all genres. The benefits of music are vast, from math and language skills, to creativity and physicality. (If it’s scientific data you’re after, the web has numerous articles on the positive effects of music in relation to spatial-temporal reasoning, sensory integration, early cognitive development, and learning.) You don’t need to be a musician or have any training to appreciate and share music with your child; it’s one of the basest of human reactions.

We can enjoy the same things as our children. Thank goodness my mother didn’t torture herself (or us) with the saccharin sweet, made-for-kids albums that are marketed to parents today. The point of this is not to dissuade you from ever buying another kids’ album. There are some decent ones, and kids do love a good interactive session of song and dance. But, if you don’t feel like listening to The Wheels on the Bus every day, just realize that kids don’t need a kid-specific song in order to reap the benefits music has to offer. They can clap and stomp to Twist and Shout by the Beatles as well as any kids’ tune; their minds will appreciate a melodic verse or catchy beat from almost any popular music that’s out there today. By sharing music you love with your kids you open up a terrific opportunity for bonding, and an appreciation of music that will last a lifetime.

So where does a ninth-grade dropout get such a voracious love of language?

I once heard George Carlin give an interview where he told how his mother would read the paper and when she came across an article that was well-written she would call him into her bedroom and have him sit on her bed while she read aloud, enthusiastically sharing with him her joy in word choices and language usage. Saying things like, “Doesn’t that word just cut through to the meaning…” and “Look at how that phrase captures the exact feeling…”, Ms. Carlin not only helped educate young George on vocabulary, grammar, and language, but sharing her interest made learning exciting, and is an excellent way to create a strong bond between child and parent.

So how can I get my child interested in learning?

My own parents were great lovers of learning. To them, life was full of exciting things to be discovered, shared, discussed. Genuine enthusiasm is catching.

I remember Stark Raving Mum dramatically reading aloud Edgar Allen Poe, followed by a discussion on haunting language, meter, and the effectiveness of repetition. How mere words could make such a spooky story is surprisingly interesting to seven year old girls.

And when Stark Raving Sister asked how wheels on a car turned freely and stayed attached, Stark Raving Dad followed with… “Good question, let’s take it apart and see.” Off he went to get a ball bearing and we took it apart. That’s pretty cool stuff.

So, like Ms. Carlin, Stark Raving Parents understand that learning isn’t limited to stuffy classrooms with blackboards and droning teachers. Whether it’s the physics of a Backside 540 air skateboard trick, or the telling body language of lying politicians, or how words can sound terrible but have mundane meaning (great for insults - You… Black-eyed, Star-worted Scabious!), life is full of exciting things to learn, share it with your kids.

Honest and straightforward, this is a woman who is strong and real, funny and intelligent, confident and yet, not vain. Michelle Obama is exactly the kind of woman I want to look up to. She shows us that a woman can be strong and powerful without being shrill or bitchy, that a woman can wear pretty dresses without being thought a bimbo, that a woman can be friendly to other women without being disingenuous. She is a mother, wife, career woman, and everygirl. In that rarity, she shows us how our culture has become one of extremes. (check back for upcoming post - Moderation in a World of Extremes) More of us need to accept who we are instead of allowing our selves to be stuffed into labels: good girl/bad girl, housewife/career woman, bitch/pushover…

I get that she might have some anger, some passion, some frustrations… we all do. I’d rather see it than to wonder what’s really going on under the vacant, placid masks of previous First Ladies (Laura Bush, anyone?) You get the distinct impression that Michelle Obama is a woman who understands that life has ups and downs, that people make mistakes, that meaning is more important than appearance.

Michelle Obama is a woman who has found an authentic voice, she is a true role model for the feminist cause and a great example of the American Dream.

I don’t know about you, but I’m tired of hearing shrieks of “sexism” over Senator Clinton’s losing race for the Democratic nomination.

As a woman I find Hillary’s cries of “I am a victim of sexism.” enormously offensive. She is not a victim of Howard Dean, Barrack Obama, the entire Democratic party leadership, Chris Matthews, Rush Limbaugh, the media at large, or whoever else the Clintons and supporters try to blame for Hillary’s failure to snatch the nomination.

She’s losing because she can’t keep her story straight in a country where people are growing tired of politics as usual. She’s losing because she strikes low blows against an opponent who generally takes the high road. She’s losing because she mismanaged her campaign, because nobody cares about her 35 years of experience as Bill Clinton’s wife, and she’s losing because more people believe in Barrack than her. People want change and Hillary Clinton doesn’t represent that.

I appreciate that a woman has run, I just wish it had been anyone else. I would have voted for Ann Richards in a heartbeat. Give me Nancy Pelosi (yeah yeah, I know), but there is Kathleen Sebelius, Janet Napolitano, Carolyn Maloney, Amy Klobuchar even Madeleine Albright, these are women I can respect and admire. These are women who will represent me.

Yeah, Hillary’s a woman and we’ve heard her roar. Now I’m ready for the next woman to run and win. Let’s have half of the nominees be women next term, great women who won’t lay blame on stupid t-shirts or idiotic comments for their stumbles.

I take Maya Angelou’s “Rise, Hillary rise.” to mean… ‘move beyond your petty, selfishness and grow to be a real strong, powerful, graceful and honest woman.” Unfortunately I don’t think Hillary has it in her.

So for now let’s throw our strength behind Barack and pressure him to make the changes and support the policies that will make our lives better as women, as Americans, as humans.

]]> http://www.starkravingmadeleine.com/clinton-cries-sexism-lets-support-obama/feed/ http://www.starkravingmadeleine.com/the-sex-and-the-city-curse/ http://www.starkravingmadeleine.com/the-sex-and-the-city-curse/#comments Fri, 30 May 2008 19:31:47 +0000 madeleine http://www.starkravingmadeleine.com/?p=12

The number of single women living alone has more than doubled since the 80’s. But are they happy? If you ask me, Sex and the City has ruined relationships for women all over the country and beyond.

Jessica is a typical 35 year-old woman. She has a university degree (actually she has two), she enjoys shopping, and she’s eager to find Mr. Right. She has no problem finding men; in fact she has just broken it off with yet another potential candidate. After six weeks of dating he made the grave error of saying, “I think I love you.” I THINK I love you? With that grievous word choice error, he was out of there. That was that. Jessica’s reasoning, “I deserve to have a man who KNOWS he loves me.”

Marnie is not much different. At 32 she is intelligent, athletic, and socially active. She searches to no avail for a suitable mate. The last boyfriend she left after discovering what she describes as a porn addiction. (Actually, she just found that he had looked at a porn website one day while snooping through his browser history.) End of story, he was finished. (check back for upcoming post – Oh My God… Not PORN!)

Susan hasn’t had a date in over a year. In a city full of attractive, athletic, intelligent, successful single men, she can’t find one that fulfills her self-proclaimed low standards. When questioned, she quickly points out that the man in question is obviously too pretty, too ugly, too successful, too sporty, too lazy, too old, too young… At 33 she vehemently proclaims that she would never date a man seven years older than her, men under 30 are too immature for a real relationship, and men her own age who aren’t married must have something wrong with them.

But, it’s not for lack of men or lack of trying. A year ago, Ashley, 38 signed on to every dating website she could find and has consequently been on 137 first dates in one year (yes, that’s right, more than 1 every 3 days), only 12 second dates and not a single third date.

These are just four of the many thirty-something women I know in the same situation. These women are intelligent, successful, athletic, and interesting human beings, yet they can’t find a decent man. And they desperately want one.

Is it true? Are all the good men gone? (check back for upcoming post – When Did Dating Stop Being Fun?)

So, what does this all have to do with Sex and the City? Sex And The City, a television show that spoke clearly and fervently to its target demographic; single thirty-something independent women. Women everywhere started identifying themselves as Carrie’s, Samantha’s, Miranda’s, and Charlotte’s. It was cult-like in its phenomenon. (see 5 Reasons Not to Watch Sex and the City post)

Each of these women, just like the vast majority of their peers… loves the television program, Sex And The City. They recite lines from it with alarming frequency, they nickname their dates (often crudely) and they insist with fervor that they deserve to find Mr. Right (aka The One) because they are not going to settle for any less.

Now let’s not get all up-in-arms now. Far be it from me to say that women don’t deserve to find Mr. Right. But isn’t that just a modern version of the same old fairy tale?

We all know the story… a prince will come along and whisk you away from the doldrums of life. Your foot will pop up on that magical first kiss. He’ll know exactly what to do and what to say without you telling him, and he’ll buy the most perfect, thoughtful, extravagant gifts. He will never look at porn, have no interest in strippers, he will pick up his socks, and not be friends with any of his exes. He’ll love you for you, exactly as you are. But, most importantly, you’ll know. You’ll know from the moment you lay eyes on each other… true love.

We’re all looking for the same guy. He’s a bad boy that cares about our feelings, a tortured soul with a depth that only we can bring out, a dented can that we can fix but is somehow able to hold us up through our tantrums. He won’t insult us by holding open a door, but he will pay for dinner. He will be strong and slim with gorgeous hair and chiseled abs but he will adore our flabby thighs and sagging breasts. He will be dangerous and exciting but come straight home after work to make dinner, do the dishes, fold the laundry and run the bath for us.

Prince Perfect sounds pretty good, doesn’t he? If you want to wait it out for him, go ahead, but you might be single for a long while, so find a way to enjoy it.

What’s the answer? Focus on yourself, become the person you want to be, do stuff you like to do, in essence - live life… because as I have been frequently heard to say, “There’s more to life than getting a man.” (check back for upcoming post – Whatever Happened to Friendship?)

Here’s my question for you… If you take romantic relationships entirely out of the picture what do you want from life? Who do you want to be? What do you want to do? How do you spend your days?