Ah...Spring Break. I love it. And now it's over. A lot of people use it for a way to work 24/7 with the regular responsibilities on hold for a while, but not me. I use it to recharge. Of course, the hard part is getting back into the swing of things.
I had a great stint as a stay-at-home mom this week. It was such fun--much easier than the same situation last summer. That was hard and exhausting because of RB's age--just learning to walk and eagerly searching for choking hazards. This time was fun, fun, fun, and when I got tired, we watched Bambi.
I am disturbed by The Mommy Wars and such ideas that are getting huge attention right now. It seems to be based on the idea that stay-at-home moms and work-outside-the-home moms have drastically different values and nothing in common at all. That they just naturally hate each other. The thing is, people are very sensitive about their parenting choices, and when other people make very different choices, it's hard to be objective and not take it as criticism--If her way is so right, goes the nagging paranoid thought, does she think my way is so wrong? I really think it's based on something we all share as mothers--we want to be good parents and make choices that will ultimately benefit our children. I am encouraged by the new book The Truth Behind the Mommy Wars by Miriam Peskowitz--she asserts that the division and resentment between SAHM and WOHM is not at all inevitable and that there is quite a bit of common ground there--that larger cultural assumptions about motherhood are the problem for all the (very problematic) categories of mothers. Unfortunately, my prelim exams are coming up and I can't read it right now. It's on the list for the fall (I am booked (ha--a pun!) solid through August, but maybe I'll sneak it in early).
One last note on my reading over Spring Break (okay--it wasn't a total vacation)--I officially do not like Barry Hannah. I was all ready to love him based on what I've read about him--comparisons to O'Connor, Faulkner, Mark Twain--what impressvie company! I read Airships and was physically repulsed by his images and turned off by his sentence structure. I'm all for Southern Gothic--in fact, I am passionately in love with Flannery O'Connor--but this was gratuitously grotesque. This was not just indifference, which is my typical reaction to bad wrtiting. I don't think I can call it bad writing, really. Instead, I felt an active abhorrence--a desire to get this book away from me immediately. It does have powerful images and word choice--but not in a good way.
P.S. I did not write my diss proposal. Sigh.
Edit: Guess what! Peskowitz has a blog.
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2 comments:
I have a funny Barry Hannah story. I went to college in the south. My senior year, I found myself in charge of the Literary Arts festival where we decided to invite Barry Hannah as one of two authors who would participate in workshops and readings.
Well, the night of his reading, I went to pick him up at the hotel and he was completely wasted. He walked out of the hotel with a full drink--glass and all. On the 15 minute ride back to campus, he rubbed my back and tried to convince me to run off to Paris with him or something.
He gave a fabulous reading and apparently forgot all about his indiscretions in the car.
There were other escapades, but he ended up putting our little festival out of business.
Laura--That's hilarious! Thanks for the story!
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