If it May sweeps there must be the Forbidden Subjects
Posted By Kathleen David on May 21, 2007
Friday night after we got back to the Hotel Marlow (which we can’t recommend enough. Best Hotel in Boston in our opinion) from a long day that began at 4:30 in the morning, Caroline went to sleep after we got her into PJs and we turned on the TV to see if there was anything entertaining. We ran across on 20/20 ” Taboo: What You Can’t Get Away with in America” which I watched while Peter worked on my computer. We tuned in at the end of the section on language which I like the conclusion of and would have liked to see the beginning.
The next section was on relationships that were still considered taboo which I have to say didn’t even come up on my radar. The first couple said that many people stared at them because he is physical fit and she is a woman of size. They slipped in that these two met at a convention for men who liked WoS. I am sure there are an occasional snide comment but nothing like the oppression that these two were projecting that they suffer. She implied that people look at her as a freak when they go out. But when they had the shots of the two of them walking around, not one head turned.
The next couple, who live in Utah so this is a little more believable, the wife works and the husband stays home and takes care of their kids. She earns a much better salary then he did and he loves taking care of the kids. Mr. Mom was maybe strange in the 70s but by now it is not a big deal anymore. I know a number of families that the man does stay at home and take care of the house and the kids while the wife works. None of these couples feel that what they are doing is taboo. It is a practical matter of what is best for their kids and the life style they can provide for them. It doesn’t make the man any less of a man. I don’t think their gender changes when they put on an apron to cook dinner. Heck I know couples where the husband cooks because he is just so much better at it than his wife is and they enjoy his food more.
The last segment was a tempest in a teakettle about a mom who wrote that her kids bored her. She wrote an article that was published in England in the Daily Mail and set off a firestorm on both sides of the Atlantic. I finally found the article and I must say I don’t see why this set people off. She found the day to day with her children boring especially when they were younger. She didn’t say that she didn’t love them or that she wished that she hadn’t had them. She didn’t say that being a stay at home mom was irrelevant (but a lot of people thought that she did). And I do agree that sometimes being a parent can be boring but so can a job you go to every day.
There is not excitement everyday at anything you do. There are parts of making puppets I find incredibly repetitive and I groan at the thought of having to do them but they are part of the final product and need to be done. I really don’t know where this idea that life must be personally satisfying at every minute of one’s existence. It isn’t going to happen. I figure that if you are happy with most of your existence then you are ahead of the game. Parenting is not easy and at times is not fun but I love being a parent. I wouldn’t trade it for anything.
But this concept that we must be happy all the time is one that just annoys the heck out of me. There is this idea that if you are not happy then there is something wrong with you. Now there is a great difference between being a little unhappy and being totally depressed. Believe me I know this one too well having experienced both. And there are times that you do need help to feel more on an even keel. But the ads on the TV push this idea that if you are feeling a little sad then there is something wrong with you and they have the pill (with lots of fun side effects) that will make you feel better and those annoy me. There are people who have serious sleep issues and need medication to get to sleep and get the rest they need to function. But occasionally not being able to sleep is not equivalent to a sleep disorder. And that might be my pet peeve with all those commercials touting those pills and cures, it seems no longer OK to feel sad or unhappy or unable to sleep for a short time (Like I have said before long term is a whole other issue). Eventually the body, more specifically the brain, sorts itself out and one is back on that even keel but it needs time to do so and if it automatically gets medicated then it seems to lose some of its ability to bounce back because the chemical processes haven’t happen naturally.
Most of those Taboos that were talked about on 20/20 just aren’t taboo for me. Maybe because I have worked in the theater for as long as I have, I really don’t care if the leading man is gay just as long as he can act and make me believe that he loves the other character. Good actors can do it and bad actors can’t even if they are straight, gay or asexual. There is a double standard about language and who can say what but I think that probably goes all the way back to when we started to speak as Og and Unk the cave dwellers. I don’t agree with it but I acknowledge that it exists. Size issues just don’t exist to me. Maybe because I have been in fandom so long and have seen all kinds of people in all kinds of combinations happily together and no one blinks when seeing these couple together. Man as caretaker of the kids is no big deal and the less we make of it the more acceptable it will become which would not be a bad thing. Being bored with raising your kids happens to us all at some point or other. I don’t think that is a taboo but more an unspoken thing that people step around because they want to be seen as SUPER PARENT!
I am grateful for understanding.
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