Category: Pop Culture

Memoir, Pop Culture, Princess, Rants, Raves, Suburban, Teacher

Why I can’t get cocky about my mental health.

suburbanprincessteacher

writing34You should never get cocky about your mental health.

I should know. For the most part, I’m a confident, easy-going woman. I have an amazing family and a ridiculous number of incredible friends. My life is full of an abundance of riches.

And yet I’ve suffered from depression.

Mental illness can strike any of us. It doesn’t discriminate.

I’ve seen an 8-year-old boy crawling on the floor, barking like a dog because of a mental illness that has been made worse because of years of abuse and neglect.

I’ve seen a teenager who has suffered with anger issues and hormonal imbalances all of his life, suddenly discover drugs and spiral out of control.

I’ve seen a big, strong, confident man brought to his knees by depression.

Thousands of stories just like these play out every day, all over the world.

And yet many suffer in silence, too ashamed to admit that they have a problem. They are afraid of what other’s might think or how it might affect their position at work. And some of these fears are valid. Individuals still face the possibility of discrimination and recriminations when they disclose a mental illness.

Sometimes though, people do get the strength and the courage to reach out for help for their spouse, their child, or themselves, only to be told that help isn’t available.

They are often told that the wait-time for mental health services is months away. That’s too long a wait when you are on suicide watch for your 13-year-old daughter.

As a teacher, I often hear those in the “back to basics’ camp calling for less focus on helping children understand their feelings, so that more time can be spent on their math and spelling skills. They say it like self-esteem is a dirty word. As any teacher knows, a student with a mental health issue is a student who isn’t learning like they could. Our first priority as teachers is for our student’s well being. End of discussion.

Bell Canada started the Bell Let’s Talk fundraising campaign in 2010 and has since committed to investing $62 million in Canadian mental health initiatives. Some have criticized Bell, saying their campaign is nothing more than a marketing strategy designed to promote their brand and their products.

To that I say, well…duh. It’s marketing 101, not rocket science, people.

But if their program helps reduce the stigma around mental health and the money donated allows more access to quicker mental health services, then I don’t care why they are doing it.

You see, I’m one of the lucky ones. I have the financial means to access treatment, be it therapy, when needed or medication, when necessary. I also have the support of loving friends and family.

But I know how privileged I am.

Many Canadians don’t have that. Which is why we need to be there for each other.

So, thank you, Bell.

And Canada?

Let’s keep talking.

writing33

Pop Culture, Rants

Forgive me, Oprah, for I have sinned.

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writing14Poor Lance. Should I cue the violins now?

I watched Lance Armstrong deliver his carefully crafted confession to the great omnipotent Oprah Winfrey last night and I was struck by a thought:

I don’t care.

I don’t care if he used performance-enhancing drugs. I really don’t. We know most of the competitors in the Tour de France were doping. Basically, it was the All Drug Bike Race. And that’s OK with me. You want to fill your body with a cocktail of chemicals that will likely give you all sorts of health problems? Fill yer boots.*

I don’t care.

Here’s what pisses me off about Lance Armstrong.

He’s a bully. And an ass. And his confession to Oprah does nothing to change that.

Year after year, he lied and lied and lied again. He threatened friends and foes alike, and filed lawsuits against those who dared to speak the truth.

Even worse, he betrayed those who trusted him. Despite mountains of evidence to the contrary, some people continued to take him at his word. When you put your faith in a liar, you’re forever changed.

In last night’s interview, he denied coercing or bullying his teammates into taking drugs. It was such a bold-faced lie, delivered in the same robotic tone as the rest of his comments, that it was astonishing. Based on everything he said about winning at all costs and everything his teammates have said about him, it’s obvious to anyone with a brain in their head that he ruled his team with an iron fist. What he said was law. Dope as I say or bike away.

Lance’s well-maintained façade has fallen but his arrogance and self-delusion live on.

Lie to everyone and then confess to Oprah?

Spare me.

Please…spare us all.

 

*(Personally, I think it’s pretty stupid to be doing steriods after you’ve just finished battling prostate cancer. Seriously, dude, you only have ONE testical left and you want to put steriods into your body?!)

Pop Culture, Princess, Raves, Suburban

Smart, funny women who will make you pee your pants…just a little.

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I love smart, funny women. I love them in books, on TV, and in real life…especially real life. I am lucky beyond belief that I am surrounded by these women every day. At night, when they all go home to their own beds, I like to read about smart, funny women. It makes my husband’s snoring easier to deal with.
These are 5 books by smart, funny women that I guarantee will make you snort with laughter. And, if you are of a certain age (like me), you may just pee a little bit.

writing111. Bossypants Tiny Fey

I want to BE Tina Fey when I grow up, so it makes sense that I would love her book. She is smart, talented, funny and sexy in that “I’m sexy because I’m smart” kind of way. Her book literally made me laugh outloud  or LOL, as the kids say. (Note: My son just advised me that the kids don’t say LOL anymore. Damn it! I am sooo behind the times.)

Best part: I think of this whenever someone says to me, “Jerry Lewis says women aren’t funny,” or “Christopher Hitchens says women aren’t funny,” or “Rick Fenderman says women aren’t funny…Do you have anything to say about that?” Yes. We don’t fucking care if you like it.

You tell ’em, Tina.

writing122. Is Everyone Hanging out Without Me? Mindy Kaling

I just finished reading this book, much to the relief of my poor long-suffering husband, who was awakened numerous times by my hysterical snorts of laughter just as he was drifting off to sleep. I put up the back cover of her book instead of the front for a reason: it is adorable. She is so non-Hollywood. It’s part of her charm that comes through in her writing. Like Tina Fey, she seems ridiculously well-adjusted for a successful television writer, actor and producer.

Best part: Teenage girls, please don’t worry about being super popular in high school, or being the best actress in high school, or the best athlete. Not only do people not care about any of that when you graduate but when you get older, if you reference your successes in high school too much, it actually makes you look kind pitiful, like some babbling old Tennessee Williams character with nothing else going on in her current life.”

Seriously: this girl should be giving commencement speeches at high schools across North America.

 writing93.  I know I am, but what are you? Samantha Bee

Samantha Bee is a correspondent and writer for one of my fantasy boyfriends, Jon Stewart, of The Daily Show. Not only is she clever and sharp and funny, she is also Canadian! Which means she makes references to Timbits and Ontario throughout her book (and doesn’t even explain them)!

One really good part: “I have old lady hands; I’ve always had them. If you look at pictures of me as an infant, you’d think that the hands of tiny eighty-year-old hooker had been Photoshopped onto my otherwise smooth, alabaster baby body.”

writing104.  Are You There, Vodka? It’s me, Chelsea. Chelsea Handler

Chelsea Handler is not someone I would pick as a best friend. To be honest, she’s kind of scary. Her humour is sharp and dark and I am pretty sure she would make fun of me at a party and then go home with my boyfriend. That doesn’t mean she isn’t laugh-out-loud funny.

One of my favorite parts where she talks about dating a guy with red hair for the first time: I’m not a finicky person when it comes to pubic hair maintenance and I certainly don’t expect men to shave it all off, leaving themselves looking like a hairless cat. That’s even creepier than seeing what Austin had, which could really only be compared to one thing: a clown in a leg lock.

OMG Chelsea – you are B-A-D.

writing135. Let’s Pretend this Never Happened (A Mostly True Memoir) Jenny Lawson

Jenny Lawson might just be one of the funniest writers ever. Her childhood recollections are nothing short of bizarre. The part where her father pretends to have found a talking squirrel, only for her to discover that he’s actually using road kill as a hand-puppet? Priceless.

Typical piece from Jenny’s book (I call her Jenny because I am hoping someday we’ll be BFFs and hang out together and stuff): “When I was in junior high I read a lot of Danielle Steele. So I always assumed that the day I got engaged I’d be naked, covered in rose petals, and sleeping with the brother of the man who’d kidnapped me. And also he’d be a duke. And possibly my stepbrother.”

She did a thing on that scary Elf on a Shelf dude that had me laughing long after I went to bed and turned out the lights…much to hubby’s dismay once again…seriously, his life is hell. Oh well. Here’s a link to Jenny’s blog so you too can keep your husband up at night: http://thebloggess.com/

****Bonus funny part from Bossypants. Tiny Fey does a fake take on “Growing Up and Liking It” – a handout that was included in maxi-pads for girls starting their period.

Dear Ginny,

I finally got my “friend” today!! Yay!! It’s about time! If I roller-skate while I’m MEN-STRU-HATING, will I die?

Dear Pam,

Of course you can roller-skate. Don’t be silly! But be careful of odor, or neighborhood dogs might try to bite your vagina. Friends Forever, Ginny.

*** I read this aloud to my husband, while tears streamed down my cheeks, barely getting the words out I was laughing so hard. He responded by saying, “I didn’t need to hear that.”

And THAT, my friends, is why I need smart, funny WOMEN in my life.

Memoir, Pop Culture, Princess, Raves, Suburban

Dallas vs. Dukes – A Friday Night Dilemma

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dallasthe-dukes-of-hazzard

Larry Hagman died last week.  He was 81 and, by all accounts, was as nice a person as his alter-ego, J.R. Ewing, was nasty.

Coincidentally, also last week, my dad bought a new TV to replace the old one he had in his basement. Now, when I say old, I don’t mean 10 years old, I mean 1975 old! This was the very first color TV our family ever owned. We got it when I was in junior high. It only got the first 12 channels because there were only 12 buttons next to the screen. (You had to get your butt up off the couch if you wanted to change the channel.) But that was OK if you were living in New Brunswick in the 1970’s, because we only got two channels.

Every Friday night, my family (Mom, Dad, little bro, the beagle and me) would gather in our tiny family room to watch TV. We would break open the one bag of chips and the one bottle of pop. It was my mother’s job to divide the chips evenly into 4 plastic bowls – one for each of us. We couldn’t just share a bowl. That was crazy talk. And we’d each have a small glass of pop. I think we shared the same amount of pop among the four of us that I got at the movie theatre the other night for myself. (Hellooooo? people? When did we forget about portion size?)

Like I said, we only got two channels and for some reason unknown to anyone with a clue, the great programming gods of the day decided to put the two most popular shows of the time on opposite each other. So, every Friday night we had a dilemma.

Dukes or Dallas?

Usually we opted for fairness and equality. One week Dukes, one week Dallas. But remember, this was before DVRs, YouTube and even VCRs. If you missed a show, you missed it, unless somehow you were lucky enough to catch a repeat of the show months later and by then it didn’t matter. You already knew what happened.

Mom and I were already fans of Dallas, thanks to the casting of Patrick Duffy – the Man from Atlantis. (He was so cute with those little webbed feet.)

the_man_from_atlantis-show

My brother and father were big fans of the Duke boys and their crazy uncle, the evil Boss Hogg and, of course, Daisy Duke in her little jean shorts. (The dog was good either way. She was just happy to be inside, on the couch, with her peeps.)

catherine-bach-122284

(Sorry guys, no short shorts, but at least you can see the car!)

Don’t get me wrong. I didn’t hate it when we had to watch D.O.H. Them Duke boys was awful cute and the show was funny, in a hillbilly sort of way. They were the original Here Comes Honey Boo-Boo family.

But I loved Dallas. I loved the theme music and the fact that everyone was so rich and beautiful. J.R. was the man you loved to hate. He said the most vile things with a smile on his face. And he was funny – wickedly funny. When J.R. was shot in Season 9, we spent months waiting and debating with the rest of the world about Who Shot J.R.?  On November 21, 1980 we gathered in our little family with our chips and pop and watched, with the 350 million other people who tuned in, to see who the culprit was. (In case you were living in a cave during that time, it was his mistress, Kristen. No wonder. He was really, really mean to her.)

Dallas started when I was 12, a dorky girl with a pageboy boy haircut, and wrapped it’s finally episode when I was 25, a married woman juggling a job, a husband and a house full of pets. Dallas was a part of my growing up.

jr ewing

“I know what I want on JR’s tombstone,” Hagman once said. “It should say: ‘Here lies upright citizen JR Ewing. This is the only deal he ever lost.'”

Rest in Peace, J.R.

_____________________________________________________________________

If you only had two channels, which would you have picked? (Remember: you’re only 12. You got nothin’ else to do.)

Dukes of Hazzard opening sequence: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hxD0PqVlt5Q

The best of J.R. If you were a fan of Dallas or you just like funny stuff, check this out:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GZV3365a7Ew&feature=related

Pop Culture, Rants, Suburban, Teacher

A Tale of Two Buses – Fight or Flight

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Who’s driving the bus?

 Back in June of this year, Karen Huff Klein, a 68-year-old bus monitor from New   York, was caught on tape being harassed by the middle school students on her bus. These kids were vicious. They insulted her, swore at her, poked her, and threatened her.  Throughout it all, Ms. Klein sat in her seat and took the abuse. She kept her back to the kids and stoically looked out the window. When a video of the incident went viral on YouTube, a sympathetic Canadian man set up a donation fund called, Give Karen H. Klein a Vacation! People sent in money in droves to support this poor grandmotherly woman. When Karen was finally presented with her cheque it was for a whopping $700,000.

Fast forward to November. Halifax bus driver Heather Vidito is caught on tape breaking up a fight between two teenage boys. The video starts with the two boys pounding on each other in their seats, while the bus is moving. They eventually end up rolling around on top of each other in the aisle. You can hear the bus driver yelling at them to stop, along with the voices of the other kids urging them on. The bus driver handles the situation quickly and profanely. She drops the f-bomb a few times and tells one kid to move his ass to the front. The fight ends within seconds of her arrival and the bus is back on the road in less than a minute. She never touches the kids. This video also went viral and quickly caught the eye of Stock Transportation (her employer) and the school board. Within 24 hours, the bus driver was fired. The kids who were pounding on each other and cursing at the bus driver were “disciplined” according to the “code of conduct”. This usually means a maximum sentence of a 5-day vacation suspension. And these kids have the satisfaction of knowing they got their bus driver fired. That’s a lot of power for a kid who doesn’t even shave yet.

So, let’s compare.

If you let some snot nosed kids push you around and treat you like crap, you might get sympathy and affection (and in Karen’s case, a huge whack of cash.) But if you actually stick up for yourself and do your job, you could get fired.

Now, don’t get me wrong. You can’t have adults swearing willy-nilly at kids. You have to have some professional decorum. But the bus driver’s job is to keep ALL of the children on the bus safe as they travel from school to home and back again. What if one of those squabbling prepubescent monsters, or an innocent “by-sitter” got seriously hurt while the bus driver was politely asking them to stop their shenanigans and take their seats, please? Can you imagine the outcry?

On the other side of the coin, while my heart goes out to Karen Klein, I think some job training would have been in order.  As I watched the video, I wondered what her actual duties as a “bus monitor” were? If she couldn’t protect herself, how could she protect others? Was she actually keeping the other kids (the ones not acting like devil spawn) safe? The behaviour of the bullies was unacceptable, to say the least. It was outrageous and they should have to walk to school from now until they graduate…both ways…uphill…in a snowstorm.

Both of these women were in desperate need of some on-the-job training. How do you deal with kids who are fighting, belittling, cursing and swearing? Sitting quietly and taking the abuse doesn’t help anyone, while cursing and swearing at kids is unacceptable. Employers need to get on the ball here and help staff deal with these out of control kids.

Meanwhile, if I had to choose, I would rather my kids travel on a bus with someone who can stand up to bullies and, when necessary, kick some ass (figuratively speaking, of course). I would hope she could keep the f-bomb as part of her inside voice but if it happened to slip out in a moment of crisis, I might be willing to look the other way.

By all means, Stock should discipline Heather Vidito. But fire her? That’s just f-ing ridiculous.

Pop Culture, Princess, Rants, Suburban

A Real Life American Soap Opera

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Days of our Military

As the Socialites Turn

All My (General’s) Children

The Old and the Beautiful

The Young and the Breathless

The General’s Hospital

Those who know me know there is nothing I love more than a good soap opera (and no, that’s not an oxymoron). I have watched soaps since I was six years old when I would rush off the school bus so I could watch The Edge of Night with my mother. My biggest worry about going to a new school was whether I would still get home in time to see my shows. My guilty obsession continues to this day. I keep waiting for Alex Trebek to announce that he is starting a new Soap Opera Jeopardy. I would so win that thing. Move over Ken Jennings, there’s a new champ in town.

Any-hoo, that said, it appears there’s a new real-life soap that has people on the edge of their seats. Who is the shirtless FBI agent? Were military secrets really revealed during pillow talk? It even stars a set of a real live Kardashian twins! (Wait…what’s that? The Kardashians are real? How were we supposed to know that?)

Yes, Americans have a brand-new scandal to sink their teeth into and thank heavens for that. The election is over and YouTube kittens can only take us so far. And since I am an expert on all things “soap opera-ish”, I thought I would offer a brief summary of…ahem…affairs.

Former CIA director, David Petraeus, has admitted to having an affair with his biographer, Paula Broadwel and for this heinous crime he has resigned his high ranking military position. According to Petraeous himself, he and Broadwell started their affair a year ago after working together for more than 6 years. Reportedly, she nicknamed him, Peaches. Nice. The man is a four-star general and she gives him a nickname you would normally bestow on a cat.

Anyway, back to my story: Paula and David conduct their covert affair in the caves of Afghanastan until David, most likely feeling badly about thinking with his heat-seeking missile instead of his superior brain, decides to break it off. He plays her Taylor Swift’s song over the phone and tells her: “We are never, ever, ever getting back together…like ever.” Paula is heart-broken and when she hears of another hussy, one Jill Kelley, moving in on her man, she starts firing off threatening anonymous e-mails. “Stay away from my boyfriend or I’ll beat you up afterschool on the playground.” (I don’t have the actual transcripts…I’m just guessing based on the maturity of the people in the situation.)

Poor sweet Jill, a kind woman who is a real live diplomat…wait…what’s that? She’s not a real diplomat? Turns out she’s a rich socialite who organizes parties for high-ranking military men even though she’s in no way connected to military. (Hmmm…that sounds like an interesting job. Where does one apply?) Jill, in fear for her life because of these 8-grader-like e-mail threats,  asks her friend at the FBI (a friend who sends her shirtless pictures of himself) to investigate.

He does and loandbehold…the affair between Paula and David is revealed! Oh no! The tears! The anger! The resignation of Big David! But wait! Suddenly the tables are turned on Jill and she too comes under scrutiny. Turns out sweet Jill has been carrying on a long-distance relationship with General John Allen, David’s successor. 20-30,000 pages worth of e-mails. Wow! General John must be one hell of typist to get all of those e-mails out and run the American army in Afghanistan. (I can barely write this blog and get dinner on the table in the same day.)

Finally, because no soap opera is complete without an evil twin, the press has uncovered an ugly divorce scandal involving Jill Kelley’s twin sister, Natalie. Turns out, according to the judge, Natalie “lacks honesty and integrity” and should not have custody of her children. Ouch! Oddly, both the generals vouched for Ms. Liar Liar Pants-on-Fire in court saying she was a good mother. I wonder what constitutes a good mother in their books?

Now, all because two people who were married to two other people, couldn’t keep their pants zipped, everyone in this story is under investigation by both the government and the media. Stay tuned for breathless updates from the poor reporters who have been pulled from more important stories to cover this debacle.

I will continue to follow the story, like most of North America, mostly because it’s in my face all the time and also because it’s so ridiculous I have to keep reading to see what will happen next. But I hope it wraps up soon. I prefer my soaps the old fashion-way – poorly written, funny without trying to be, slow-moving and, most importantly, fake.

Memoir, Pop Culture, Princess, Rants, Suburban

Pears vs. apples – Why you should never ask a woman if she’s eating for two

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 POP QUIZ!
When is it OK to ask a woman if she’s “eating for two”?
a. Never
b. When hell freezes over.
c. When you see the baby’s head crowning.
d. When she’s eating.

I have read that there are two types of bodies – pears and apples. Pear shaped women are apparently the lucky ones, despite the fact they sometimes seem oddly out of proportion. They look like “real women” – all hips and boobs and tiny waists. We are told that this is also good thing in terms of health. And of course it is. Because I am an apple shape.  Us apples carry our weight around our middles, much like pregnant women. Apple men can rub their bellies and say, “This is one nice belly. Yup, I earned this belly.” A woman does that and everyone assumes there is a child nestled in there. And god forbid if there isn’t. Then she’s just a slob. The pear shaped woman can just smile and wiggle those ample hips of hers. That doesn’t work so well for the apple woman. Shaking my ample belly doesn’t have quite the same womanly affect.

All of that said: what on earth possesses people to ask a woman of ANY age if she is pregnant? Seriously. As an elementary school teacher, I have worked with hundreds of women of child-bearing age and it has never occurred to me to ask any of them if they are “with child” or “eating for two”. Or even worse, pat their belly and say, “Congratulations!” And yet I’ve seen it happen (and had it done to me) on many an occasion. It is horrifically embarrassing for everyone involved when a mistake has been made. The poor (usually apple-shaped) woman has to smile, say no, and make some joke about having eaten too many donuts that morning. The person who has made the faux-pas, hopefully, feels mortified and starts to stammer, “Oh I’m so sorry. It must be that blouse you’re wearing…” The people within earshot immediately have something else to do that requires them to leave the premises as quickly as possible.

Here’s a fact: sometimes women have bellies that protrude. It may be their body-type, monthly bloating, a tumour, or just too much cake going in the cake hole. Or they may actually BE pregnant, but not ready to share that information with the world. Whatever the reason, your mouth should stay shut until you get the birth announcement in the mail.

So, the answer to the above question is of course: a. Never, never, never. I don’t care if you see that baby’s head hanging out from below a lady’s skirts. I don’t care if you have just come back from hell wearing a toque and a parka. Don’t ask, wait to be told. And if (god help you) you ask a woman if she’s eating for two when she’s actually eating?! I’m sorry. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.

Memoir, Pop Culture, Princess, Rants, Suburban

I was a pregnant angel: Why Halloween is still my least favorite holiday

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This is what I “might” have looked like if I hadn’t been forced to wear my winter coat under my costume.

Trick or treating was banned in the village where I grew up. It was sort of like that Kevin Bacon movie, “Footloose” where the town council bans dancing after some kids are killed returning home from a dance. Rumour had it that one year a little girl in our neighbourhood had been hit by a car and killed while she was out trick or treating. The community leaders met and decided that letting children go door to door to beg for candy was too dangerous and was henceforth outlawed.

Instead, all of the parents (read: moms) gathered together the week before Halloween, with their assigned treats, and stuffed large paper bags with all sorts of Halloween goodies – chips, chocolate bars, cans of pops, even the yucky stuff like candy kisses made into those bags. They filled enough bags so that every kid in the village would get one.

Then, on Halloween night, all of the kids would get dressed up in their Halloween finest and go to Rec Centre for a two-hour ‘party’. The party was the same every year. March in, sit down, listen to a speech about how much fun we were going to have. Then the musical chairs portion of the evening would be begin. We all got in small circles and marched around to the music, while the judges fluttered in and out of our groups. If they tapped you on the shoulder, it meant you had to sit down because your costume was lame and you weren’t going to win the costume contest. By the end, there was only one boy and one girl left standing – the winners of the Costume Contest! Hooray for them! Then we would play some spooky games until it was time to get our treat bags. Once we got our bags we were put out of our misery and allowed to watch a movie, while we ate as much candy as we could shove in our faces.  For some reason, the movie was always, Ed, The Talking Horse, a rather bizarre Halloween choice I always thought.

One year, in a fit of Halloween frenzy, my mother made me an angel costume. I had long blonde hair then and when my mother put the halo on my head, I felt like I WAS an angel. Unfortunately, that was also the year the community decided to combine the annual Halloween party with an outdoor skating party. Halloween night arrived and it was about -20 degrees outside.

My father insisted I wear my winter coat.

“But it will cover up my costume!” I protested.

“Well, just put your coat on under your costume.”

I figured this was better than hiding my beautiful costume, so I put my puffy coat on first and then had my mother wriggle the dress over my head. She adjusted the halo and stepped back.

“Does it look OK?” I asked.

“Now you look like a pregnant angel,” my father said, starting to laugh.

This set my younger brother off and soon they were both howling at the 10-year-old pregnant angel.

My mother fussed with my outfit and whispered, “Ignore them. You look lovely.”

I did not look lovely. I looked like an albino penguin and skated like one, too. Thanks to my brother, all of the other kids called me “the pregnant angel” within minutes of my arrival. And I didn’t win the costume contest. I think the judges thought there was something unseemly about a pregnant angel.

Eventually the ban on trick-or-treating was lifted but by then, I was too old and ‘mature’ to go door to door. It left a bad taste in my mouth…one that I have tried to get rid of for years by eating numerous tiny chocolate bars and small, air-filled bags of chips. But I still do my civic duty and hand out treats to the youngsters when they come to my door. And when I see a little girl who looks miserable because she’s been forced to cover up her costume with her coat or even worse, jam it on underneath her costume, I give her a little extra treat. Eat up honey…it takes away the bad taste.

Pop Culture, Princess, Rants, Raves, Suburban, Teacher

Sticks and Stones…Why words can hurt us

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There are a lot of things I don’t understand, like people’s love of scotch (it tastes like cleaning oil), physics, and the public fascination with US uber-conservative and lawyer, Ann Coulter. This woman is a nasty piece of work. I can only imagine that she must have suffered some terrible pain in her lifetime that has made her dead inside to the feelings of others. Recently , Ms. Coulter tweated that she approved of Governor Romney’s decision to be kind and gentle to the “retard” during the third presidential debate. Seriously?!

Despite on-line condemnation from everyone everywhere, including Special Olympian John Franklin Stephens, Ms. Coulter defended her choice of words a week later on the Piers Morgan show. She said she wasn’t insulting people with mental challenges; she was insulting the president. She said she chose the word “because it’s a synonym for ‘loser.’” Seriously…again?! That doesn’t make it better!!!

But she’s right. The term ‘retard’ is most often used as an insult and it’s used because it implies that the person being insulted is not smart and a loser. But the part that Ms. Coulter seems to have missed is that’s why it’s not used by polite, caring society anymore. That’s why newscasters and reporters are referring to it as the ‘r-word’; because, it dehumanizes people with mental disabilities, therefore making it OK to abuse them.

And that’s the problem with words – they can be used to dehumanize others so that we can abuse them without any fear of guilt. On a global scale, it’s what the Nazis did when they rounded up the Jews. They dehumanized them making it OK for their soldiers to torture and kill them. On a smaller scale, this is also what happens with bullying. Call a girl a “slut” and it’s a lot easier to make fun of her and victimize her. Call a boy a “gay loser” and it’s a lot easier to beat him up and say hateful things about him. These people become “things” and not human beings anymore.

This thinking goes beyond hatred and moves into contempt. It means that you consider someone worthless or inferior to you. Once you don’t care about something, you are free to be as cruel as you want without fear of guilt, empathy, compassion or sympathy. In her book, Just because it’s not wrong, doesn’t make it right, Barbara Coloroso quotes Lieutenant-General Romeo Dallaire on how the world was able to ignore the genocide in Rwanda. He said that with silent indifference, the international community endorsed, “the ethical and moral mistake of ranking some humans as more human as others.”

So, Ms. Coulter, when you use the ‘r-word’ and say that you only did so because, in your mind, it’s a synonym for loser, I believe you. But if your end goal was to dehumanize the president so that we would all join you in your campaign of contempt, I think you missed the boat there. The only person dehumanized by this exchange was you.

The only conclusion I can reach is that we are in desperate need of a transfusion of humanity. If we believe that all humans are human, then how are we going to prove it? We can only prove it through our actions. Lieutenant-General Romeo Dallaire, Shake Hands with the Devil: The Failure of Humanity in Rwanda.

Memoir, Pop Culture, Princess, Teacher

“OMG – What are those things?!” – Why teachers should always preview the class movie.

suburbanprincessteacher

I popped the DVD in the machine and turned out the lights.

“Is everybody ready?” I asked.

The kids had moved all of the desks to the back of the room and pulled their chairs to the front. Some were less than a foot away from the big screen TV I had managed to snag from the AV room.

“Move out of the way, Josh. I can’t see!” one of the girls yelled.

“Move your own chair,” Josh said. “What? You got a piano tied to your butt?”

Josh’s friends laughed.

“OK, enough,” I said. “Remember. I can turn this off anytime. I need you to cooperate with me. I have to finish these reading assessments by the end of the day and the only way I’m going to do that is if you all watch the movie and eat your snack and be quiet. Got it?”

“Yeah, yeah,” they all grumbled.

‘This movie is called Babies. It’s about one year in the life four babies. One is from Mongolia, one is from Namibia, one is from San Francisco and the other one is from Tokyo. You can see how babies are raised in ways that are very different from here.”

“Have you seen it, Mrs. H?” one boy asked.

My heart stopped a little bit. No, I hadn’t. I had meant to preview it during the week but other things kept bumping it off my to-do list.  I figured: it’s an award winning documentary, rated G…what could possibly go wrong? It’s rated G, for heavens sake. Most of these kids had already seen movies that I still couldn’t watch for fear of nightmares.

“No, I haven’t but it has won a ton of awards and I think it will be great. You will learn about babies for health class and about different countries for social studies. Two birds with one stone! Hooray! Now, when I call your name, I need you to join me in the hall for your reading assessment. It will only take a few minutes and then you’ll be right back at the movie. OK?”

“Yes. We promise,” said the one girl who might have actually been listening to me. The rest of them were trading snacks, whispering to the friends, and moving their chairs to get a better view.

I hit play and called the first name on my alphabetical list.

“Ryan, my friend. You are first.”

Two chairs were set up in the hall perfectly so that I could see the class (but not the movie) and they could see me but not the reader. It was a delicate balance of supervision and assessment and doing these two things at once was challenging, to say the least. It would be a wonder if I didn’t have a split personality by the end of the day.

Ryan read his piece smoothly and quickly, while the rest of the class was immersed in their snacks and the movie. One down, 29 to go.

“Katie!”

“Robert!”

I had six students done when the buzzing started.

“What is that?”

“What is she doing?”

“Is that a…?”

“Oh my God! That’s her boob!”

The class went crazy.

“No way!” somebody shouted.

“Yes, look at it. It’s huge! It’s bigger than that baby’s whole head.”

“Oh my god. That’s sooo gross.”

The giggling had reached a peak and could be heard in the hall and beyond.

I dropped my clipboard of reading scores and raced into the room. The student I was reading with somehow made it there ahead of me.

Sure enough, there was the Nambian mother, completely topless, feeding her baby. Her heavy breasts hung almost to the ground and two babies were simultaneously sucking on them and playing with them.

And then, as quickly as it started, it was over. The film moved back to the California baby demurely drinking formula from a bottle fed to her by her father. I paused the movie and considered my options.

“Nooo! Turn it back on!”

“Don’t stop the movie just for that, Mrs. H! It’s no big deal. It’s natural, right?”

If I stopped the movie now, there would be no way I would finish the reading assessments by the weekend. And besides, they were right. Breastfeeding is natural and there was nothing gratuitous about the scene.  Next year they would all get the “sex talk” despite the fact that some of them still played with dolls and action figures.

“Do you think you can handle this maturely, boys and girls?” I asked, pretending like I trusted them to act more mature than my husband would if he were watching the same movie.

“We promise!”

“Pinky swear!”

So, I turned the movie back on, crossed my fingers, and called the next name.

The lesson I learned that day? Well, that previewing a movie before showing it to 30 ten-year-olds is not just a “good” idea, it’s essential. I was lucky it was just a little boob on display. Amazingly, I didn’t get any flack over the movie. I don’t know if the kids just didn’t tell their parents or if the parents agreed with me that it wouldn’t hurt them but I know I lucked out. So, do yourself a favour and watch the movie first and if you see boob or hear cursing, you might want to put it aside and find yourself a new electronic babysitter. Just a tip.