Just when, exactly, did these 'with child' parking spots become standard-issue?
First of all, I'm not certain they're legally enforceable. I mean, if I can't have a brat-free restaurant, they can't have their own special portion of parking lot.
Secondly, hauling about children is in no way a disability. Giving it special dispensation like it is one only continues to propagate the stereotype that it is somehow a burden to be responsible for their tiny pink bodies. Kids can run about for hours on end -- they can easily toddle the distance of most any strip-mall asphalt. If a parent cannot control their child well enough to keep them from being run over, then, for gods sake, that child should not be allowed in a place of business in the first place -- it is much easier to steer junior clear of a 4x4 than it is to avoid his contact with a tower of soda bottles.
At first I saw only a few of these things, but lately they've sprung into fashion most everywhere. There are 16 at the local supermarket, making the first row of available spots nearly 4 cars back. It wouldn't be quite so bad if I didn't grocery on the weekend, when every other working person is also in attendance. Many a Sunday afternoon, the lot will be quite crowded, and I'm faced with choosing to abide a few glares from the maternally-oriented or park 20-30 cars back.
I don't hesitate to slip my sensible sedan into the cheerfully-marked slots. I may not have children, but I'm maintining a two-person, one-cat household, and I typically shop by myself, or with a girlfriend buying an equal amount of household goods. It's not exactly easy for me to haul that much stuff halfway across the parking lot, either.
Why should it be any more important for a mother with brood to enjoy the easy access than it should be for the busy exec, the hurried single woman? What's next? 'Mature Persons Parking'? 'Weak-hearted persons Parking'? 'Had-a-bad-day-at-work Parking'? 'Sprained my Ankle Parking'?
Slippery slope notwithstanding, the few times when those special spots would actually come in handy are, in all honesty, also the times when parents with young children should probably be *avoiding* the supermarket. Long lines, crowded aisles -- hurried people have little patience, and if your child decides to misbehave, an environment of chaos is most conducive.
Kids in the grocery store are already annoying enough, there's no need to encourage mothers everywhere to bring them along. What is it with supermarkets -- can they not just rest easy in the fact that we all have to eat? they have to also bring in successive generations thru some sort of cozy image manufacturing? Whether it is the toddler streaking down the aisle with those little miniature carts (just high enough to ram you in the kneecap), or the gradeschooler wailing in the temptation-free checkout line, no trip is complete without one. I don't begrudge them the perfect right to be there, perhaps even the right to annoy me as it does sometimes. But the parking space -- that's just a little to far. I mean, it's enough already that all the non-prepackaged food is in family-size portions...
What if it wasn't just the parking space? What if people with children had special checkouts that were always open, or the ability to jump the queue just because, 'hey! kid in tow!'. What if it wasn't just supermarkets, but the banks, the malls, the gas stations? Maybe we should have special prices on foods and health care products for people with families?
Not that we don't already do this with maternity and paternity leave, and, in some offices, special time off to attend school functions with your children. Though the intention of this sort of plan is good, it does smack of taciturn endorsement of a social norm. I will say on this subject, however, that I do not believe the solution is to discard any of those things. I think that it is healthy for both parents to have time with a newborn -- god knows mom could use the extra hand around the house then -- and for them to continue to be involved with the kid's education. But I also feel that people should have time off to get married, to go on a religious or socially motivated journey, or simply to "find themselves" through travel, the arts, whatever. The birth of a child is a prodigious experience... but so too are many other things for other people. If becoming a mother is your dream, you should have time to do so. If writing a novel is mine, should I not get to birth it as well? It seems discriminatory that there is time ready and available for some to fulfill their personal goals, but not for others.
Umm, is that just me, or does applying that logic universally not sound a little Orwellian? Dividing the population into classes based on the producutivity of their loins? Should we have one water fountain for the parents and another for the barren?
Granted, that's a wee bit extreme, but the precursors exist. Some see childbearing as a preferable condition, others seem to believe it is the natural progression of things. Some see having children as the most important thing we do as a society, and neglect the millions of people a year who choose to continue their lives childless.
Admittedly, continuing the species is an admirable occupation, but it is also important to some that they remain selfish, continue in their life's work or passion without the distraction that children entail. Single, childless people already pay a high price to remain the way they are -- rent prices are based on what the average tenant can pay, whether that tenant is a family of four or one single person. What is true of rent is true of almost everything in the common market -- price based on demand, simple economics -- and two incomes are always better than one. The government rounds out the balance, with deductions for bearing children, and the supposed 'marriage penalty'. two people, one household worth of expenses, somehow starts getting penalized at roughly twice what one person, with roughly the same expenses, starts shelling out for. I suppose in some situations that makes perfect sense, but somehow the large difference seems a little... gratuitious.
And the logic is not solely self-serving. The way the rules are set up can really create some notable differences in opportunity and lifestyle. Take your common tech industry admin, making roughly $60K, living in a 3-bedroom place. At that wage, being single, he's considered wealthy, and taxed accordingly, say 30% (to keep the numbers simple). So he's bringing home $40K, $15 grand of which is going right back into rent. That leaves him $25K, a perfectly healthy sum, but if s/he's like most I know, another $5-10 grand or so is going to student loans, car loans, or whatever debts he's accrued getting a start. That leaves $15 for travel, investments, major purchases.
Take that same admin, and make him married, able to take advantage of joint tax breaks and savings opportunities. If his wife also works, they'll have an income at least around $100K, where the tax for couples is still lower than for singles, trailing by about 5%. At $100K, that's still $75 grand coming home. Rent will be the same, perhaps slightly lower because of marriage's influence on mortgage, which leaves $60K for everything else. Even if both partners are paying off old debt, there still remains $40K, or $20K apiece, for travel, investments, or major purchases. $5,000 doesn't seem like much, but $10,000 a year in one household's budget adds up -- it adds up into retirement, vacations at disneyworld, maybe to a couple of kids.
Isn't that compensation enough? Anyone married and planning to have kids has a veritable jackpot of $10 grand a year (variable, as a percentage of total income) extra than the single people of the same salary. Just for having that tiny piece of paper that legitimizes them to the government on high.
I suppose if you really do the math, the best option is to co-habitate and knock out rent for one single-person taxpayer. that puts an additional $15 grand into the household (money not spent on rent for one person), in addition to each partner's 'left over' $15, for a total of $45 grand, the best yield per person of $23,500. Gee, I wonder if there's any coincidence between my math and the fact that the most recent census report showed that two-parent joint-filing families now make up less the a quarter of all US households. Or the recent birth statistic that shocked Time magazine -- fewer than half the babies born in 2000 were born to married couples, and significant number of those born to unmarried couples were born to both parents, just not married ones.
And we say that the government encourages family.
But back to the single tech. The outcry generally is, that the 'family man' has additional incurred expenses -- trips to the spa for the missus, diapers for the baby, etc. Okay, that's grand. But let's take into reality some of the perks. Paternal leave is a big one, if it's that clearly defined, but even if it isn't, there's little question even where I work that the validity of "I've got to go get my son from DayCare." is much more stable than that of "Um, I've got plans." Kids should be a big perk, if you like them (and one would hope if you have them, that you do.). I don't get parents who complain about the daily grind of child care. Uh, don't you realize these things come into the world, completely helpless, and will depend on you for a good portion of the first 18 years of their life, if not forever? But anyway...
That tech -- he's worked just as hard as the family man to be where he is. He may choose, like I and many of my friends, to replace family and children with travel and hobbies, perhaps an art or a particular skill. Maybe his $10,000 wouldn't be going into some bankroll for schooling or downpayment on a childhood home, but what if his brainchild is a totally new form of cryptography or a new style of painting that he discovered on sojurn in France? Shouldn't he have the opportunity to pursue THAT lifelong dream, the same way that someone who aspires to become a parent can? Though many of our great artists were family men or mothers and wives, many more were loners, aesthetics, madmen and free spirits. Maybe they needed periods of solitude for clarity, or world travels to open their eyes. I don't understand why federal mandate has to require maternity leave; how any businessman can be blind to the positive effects of allowing one's employees ample time to pursue their lives outside of work. The fact that maternity is allowed special dispensation here I feel is a start, and a good one, to recognizing flaws inherent in the worker culture we allow to exploit us. But in choosing maternity as the only acceptable external occupation... seems to be, for the moment, unfair to many. We seem to be promoting one lifestyle over another, shutting out an entire generation of society from an economic norm set by the haves, people who have only really chosen the other side of the evolutionary path.
Because we all can't reproduce and live so much longer at the same time. For you to have your brood of four, someone must have none, and that someone deserves to live in the same lifestyle as his peers, not $10 grand a year behind. Because if we continue to live longer, stay healthier... unless some sort of catastrophic plague (AIDS, so far, is doing a pretty good job of it, frighteningly enough.) drops our numbers we will quickly outgrow the spinning ball we currently call home. The combination of longer lifespan and improved viability means that even simply maintaining a 2.0-kid average (which we don't with it, indeed, slightly above.) means what we still grow the population on the order of the (a) gain in average lifespan plus (b) number of citizens of the 'average lifespan'. There are people in the ecosystem that would not have been in previous cycles. It's simple population biology.
What happens to animal species when they hit this growth wall? It varies. Some researches report gradual shifting of group dynamics to larger 'family' units -- animals will begin operating in a pride mentality, with fewer children but more shared responsibilities. Some create an obvious caste system, with some responsible for raising young and others acting as guards, hunters, or laborers. Some more controversial research suggests that some species may also tend towards same-gender pairings when carrying capacity is approaching. Why should we be any different?
But yet we do not accept these things as indicators of what is to come, the hallmarks of natural evolution -- we see them as trangressions or omissions. When some of us choose to do other things, to resist the biological pull because of some sort of self-awareness or inner strength and selfishness, or to buck the societal norm and find sexual attraction in the self-same gender... it is still seen as something outside that which is usual, something to be frowned upon. It's simply biological control, people, get over it!
And even if my tax-law math is incorrect (and given my skills with simple math, miscomprehension is entirely possible), even if the single and the married are completely equal in defacto earnings, there is still a blatent form of classism displayed openly in American society (some might say more simply in 21st century society, as it seems to be a more global trend). It's the Focus on Family, the American *Family* association. The *family* medical leave act. Everything seems, these days, to be about the children, about our role as parents.
What about those for whom there is no time of parenthood? Either through choice or bitterest impossibility, there are thousands of men and woman whose lives do not revolve around progeny. But yet our music, our television, our movies are being sanitized, censored, for the children we do not have.
I give portions of my salary for their schools, for subsidized daycare and lunches, insurance and social programs. I do not begrudge them that amount, nor the amount to be paid in the future. Understand me clearly -- I have no disdain for children, despite my detached consideration of their tiny copse. I've volunteered with several youth organizations in my life -- coached rec league soccer and swim teams, tutored underpriviledged middle and grade school students. I've been a Big Sister, I've raised money for CF and childhood leukemia. I have a great respect for most children I know, many as much or more than most of the adults I know. I consider the kids I know and have known to be among some of my better friends: The five-year-old with the fervant imagination whose parents would pay me to spend weekday afternoons in the summer making up stories about dragons in a treehouse far above the silly Muggle world. The eight-year-old who really digs astronomy and has been a willing companion to the planetarium many times over (he's also great at chess). The six-year-old son of friends who helps me through the tough spots in video games.
But they're still simply... small people. No more or less important than any other person on the street, in the world. We're fascinated with their incompleteness, their innocence. But it's really no more than that. We like to imagine ourselves continuing endlessly, so we always look forward, focus on that which takes us that direction. I will willingly donate to the reasonable forward expansion of our species, but of late I think our burgeoning population has been anything but reasonable.
And yet we encourage it? And it's not so much encouraging it as seeming to think it a... duty. An obligation. A necessity. We cannot simply be satisfied with the high rise condo and the sixty-hour workweek. So many have to Have It All(tm). No matter what the expense.
But I object when the expense is to everyone, and begins to become extreme. I pay my part for the future, for schools and roads and government programs, but beyond that, I believe children should be the business of parents and few others. I will grudgingly oblige to shell out for the convenience of being single. But I'm not giving up that parking space. No way.
What the hell is are those Bush daughters thinking?
I don't know about you, but I've seen and heard an awful lot about those Bush twins lately. Seems to me there are two camps -- one that thinks the girls are horrible floosies, drunks like their daddy who think they're entitled to some 'youthful indiscretions'. another group sees them as the innocent victims of a prying press, doing no more than any other girls their age.
Where do I stand? Not surprisingly, somewhere in between.
If the reports are in any way accurate (and I suppose they are, as anyone with a brain in his head -- even with a red hot lead in hand -- knows the meaning of the word 'libel'.), then that means that the girls have indeed been tippling where tippling is definately frowned upon.
And not just frowned upon (since that sort of ambivilence all but ignores the fact that it is decidedly illegal, according to US Law), but also foolish. I accept the fact that most young people their age do drink -- I did, my friends did. But I also accept that when I was that age -- and younger even -- I knew when an appropriate and safe time was to do so. I knew that my parents would not have approved. I knew that the town I lived in was small. So any wild oat sowing and rabble-rousing was done far from prying eyes, generally at a friend's place or a church basement. And I have to say that, even at 19, I think I would have realized -- especially so after being busted once -- that if my Dad was the president, my likilihood for getting busted would be particularly high. Especially if my dad signed a bunch of underage drinking laws into effect. I think I'd keep my drinking on the definate hush-hush, and I'd certainly not try to get away with a fake i.d.. (Okay, so I might try to get away with the fake i.d., but only at a club with lots of other people when I'd given the S.S. the slip, not at some cheesy Mexican restaurant in broad daylight with my twin sister sitting across the table from me and the Men In Black out front.)
The funny thing is, I don't agree with the law any more than she does. I honestly think that most of the American public, at 19, are responsible enough to have a beer or a glass of wine. Those that aren't never will be. I think keeping it illegal until 21 only increases the allure at 12 -- it does nothing to prevent the intelligent and resourceful teen from 'borrowing' a little booze from older friends or mom and dad. I also, especially by 19, understood that though my parents had no problems seving me a glass of champagne or cup of spiked punch at christmastime, it was not something I could have at a restaurant or club. I looked young, but I also understood that it was illegal, and that getting caught trying to get some or, worse, having some, would result in some serious difficulties, not to mention that my parents would have been entirely brassed off.
It is unfortunate, for her, that she is now something of a celebrity. Though I understand that that was not her decision, but her father's, I cannot help that he compounded the issue by running on a platform rife with moral implications. Father Bush was very much the image that he chose to present -- that of a reckless youth who was tamed and wisened by becoming a father and leader. The 'father' part of that seems very important to him, so important that he hid his own bout with what amounts to alcoholism to protect his children.
That presents an especial tangle here. As all AA groupies and psych majors know, one of the key factors in treatment for alcoholism is familial support, understanding of the patterns and triggers. Medical science also suggests a genetic component to diseases of addiction, so many consider it doubly important to share the experience with one's children, if only to try to prevent their trip down the same dismal road.
Father Bush did not see fit to educate his daughters about the dangers he faced with the drink. He also doesn't think it necessary to educate young people about contraception or abortion. He seems to believe that today's "youthful indescretion" deserves punishment -- the revocation of federal financial aid. He is essentially promoting legislation that determines how our society's children are treated when they screw up -- I damn well want to know how he treats his child when she's done the same.
It appears that hiring a high-powered attorney who can get your record expunged at 21 is the way to go.
But that's not the point, not the point at all. President Bush's platform focuses very hard on punishment, not treatment. His drug policies (and alcohol, mind you, is a drug) contain harsh ideas about minimum sentencing, single-strike offenses, and search-and-seizure rights. He supports drug testing in the workplace and in schools, and strict responsibility for parents with delinquent, drink-and-drug-abusing children.
You can't take that line with drugs and not recognize that alcohol is classified by both hard science and the DEA/ALE as an intoxicant, a legal drug. One would assume that Bush, a man who has faced the bottom of many a bottle and lived to tell about it, would carry his fervancy about the evils of intoxicants all the way across the board, and use his experiences with addiction to support his claims.
But he does not. He remains suspiciously mum, claiming consistantly that his past indescretions are just that -- past. He wallows in the self-satisfaction of a man who has Gotten Away With It. Maybe he had a coke problem, maybe he didn't. Maybe he really was a raving drunk, maybe he was just a tippler, like his daughter. It doesn't matter. It can't matter. The time to prove it is long since over (his being elected and all), and he is, in one way right -- it is the past, and unchanging.
But what he is not correct about is his right to conceal that past. He gave up that right when he chose to support legislature that increasingly criminalizes the very same indescretions we are supposed to overlook. Not because it is what he believes, but because he proposes to come to these political positions from a perspective of morality. When you bring moral terpitude to the table, you had better be prepared to cough up worthy examples of your own strength of character, even if the fables concern overcoming temptation rather than avoiding it alltogether.
I think it a fatal mistake in Bush's tactical agenda to have glossed over his miscreancy. I, for one, am only more suspicious of his bony closet in light of his silence. Bush brushed off his past as what 'not to do,' an example of the sort of things people should be even more severely punished for now, according to his politics. Hypocrisy? I'm not finished yet.
He also seems to be completely unaware that most of the population doesn't have access to the kind of legal representation that made his DUI so incredibly inconsequential, or his daughter's record so eradicable. He can pooh-pooh his past because he was lucky enough not to cream someone while driving plastered, or hurt himself or someone he loved.
Or has he?
I tend to think that perhaps the most devastating result of Bush's lame attempts to build a moral high ground on his own shaky foundation is that he's divorced himself from the reality of actual human behavior. He has, in a way, set his disciples -- be they by blood or politics -- up for failure. No matter how many drug laws and decency acts are put into place, the deviant nature of human beings, our pettiness, our mistakes, our physical cravings... these things will always surface.
It is unfortunate -- for Jenna Bush, at least -- but also quite convenient that this sort of indescretion has broken cover so close to the White House. What better argument against draconian punishment for 'youthful indescretions' (also called 'personal freedoms') than the fact that the President's daughter -- a perfectly intelligent, upstanding Stanford student -- can indulge and seemingly maintain all aspects of a perfectly moral life? What better argument for education and treatment can there be? Jenna Bush may not be a drunk, but she *could* be, and are we willing to accept that she is simply lost the way we do so many other delinquents? The message the government is sending is that we would rather punish her than help her.
So, yes, I think we should all be paying attention to Jenna Bush, though perhaps not in the same scolding manner that seems to be so popular. Perhaps your indiscretion of choice was legal, or moral, or something you never actually had the courage to do, but we're all guilty of considering temptation, doing something we know is wrong. And whenever that happens, you run the risk of being unlucky and getting yourself caught. Everyone runs that risk, but so few feel they deserve the resultant discipline. And that is our problem -- we want to punish others who are wrong, but desire leniency for ourselves. The republican party, and the Bush administration in particular, seem to err rather harshly on the side of punishment.
It is quite true that if Jenna were a normal girl, she probably would have succeeded in passing off the fake i.d., had her margarita, and simply moved on without giving it another thought. But she was rather unlucky, the odds were against her those days. Her predicament is rather unpleasant -- if she gets lucky and is punished lightly, people will believe that she benefited from her family's political ties. In the unlikely event that she is made an example of, and punished severely, that too will be bitter -- knowing that her father's political stances helped garner what could be a fairly serious criminal record. Some seem to think that it's terribly unfair that she was so unlucky.
But I don't know that she is any more unlucky than an inner city youth who gets picked up and searched because he's black. Or the woman who get charged with accessory drug crimes because her boyfriend was secretly dealing out of their house. Or the actor who gets picked up every time he stumbles off the Narcotics Anonymous wagon, because people recognize his drooling mug.
What Jenna Bush should tell us is that no one is immune. We cannot control people's behavior no matter how many laws we place on it and we cannot pretend that only criminals commit crimes. We have legislated ourselves into a place where we are defining subjective morality for perfectly rational adults -- and denying the First Daughter her right to par-tay.
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