23:46 - 29.07.07
old poison
A newspaper column by one of our resident playwrights gave me a great deal of comfort yesterday. You see, I chose to be an at-home Mom and a community volunteer because it a passion for me - a calling. Our society says it values and honours those two choices, but fails to add the proviso that those choices are only acceptable for the wealthy. Those same people will bemoan the number of immigrants entering the country, without accepting that the government must ensure a young workforce to care for all the baby boomers about to retire expecting to be cared for by the next generation. That those baby boomers haven't produced enough homegown baby Canadians never seems to register. Add in the complaints that community services aren't sufficient and that they cost too much. Community volunteers are the only reason that those services exist in most cases. It is estimated that the value of their free services to the country are worth a billion or so dollars a year. Uh huh. Neither choice of mine comes with a wage value, so in most people's eyes I was not working and so not of value myself. When the boys' Dad left, I never asked or received either welfare assistance or financial support from my family. Their Dad walked away from the boys and left a huge debt for me to carry as well. I went out and got one or two jobs at a time - most at minimum wage the first few years trying to support us. The boys and I did without even basic needs sometimes, but given the braying by politicians and certain segments of the press about the evils of single mothers and especially their sons in terms of how they evolved into adults, I wanted to be certain that no one would ever be able to confront one of my children and smear them with that cheap-shot stereotype. There were reports, for example, that would cite that nearly 50% of children in psychological counselling lived in single parent families, without acknowledging that the other 50% of children came from two parent settings even though the reports they cited made that perfectly clear. Too many people who listen to or read mainstream media fail to take a good look at the data presented or the original sources - including the agendas of the report writers. It often means that some of the most deeply entrenched perceptions about "others" in our society are nothing but big lies served up to promote some political or economic agenda at the expense of the segment of society thus tarred. Usually those who are perpetrating the lies choose those who have the least resources to defend themselves. The public relations attacks aim at destroying the target populations' credibilty first. No different than the demonizing that goes on during wars but aimed at our own citizens. Personally I believe those campaigns that are the scummiest are those that use children as their public whipping boy. Usually the "crimes" they accuse their targets of are actually their own behaviour. Look at Enron, for example.
The reason that column hit home particularly yesterday is that I am still receiving the same feedback from some of my own family members about my value in the family circle. When the boys' Dad left, the comment was usually not to look for any help from them. "You made your bed you lie in it". Whatever. I never asked any of them for money, but would it have hurt to help me with a ride to the hospital or the doctors when we were sick. Some of the family are very well off and have made us feel that we also aren't suitable to mingle with them in social situations. The last snub was my sister's milestone birthday party. I only found out about it by accident and it was made clear by a couple of the family that I wasn't welcome to "crash" that gathering because of my small "l" liberal opinions. I might embarass them in front of their friends, you see. Now that the issue of renovating my home has become some of their political football all of that old venom is spewing out in a number of ways again although now cloaked with comments that make it clear that my financial status and marital status mean that they have the right to take over. One of the family even told me I couldn't purchase a certain type of flooring because it was too expensive and I didn't deserve it. My one other sister who has chosen to care for children for a living - she does get paid but child care workers wages are low too - is treated the same way and constantly put down for her decision not to chase wealth at the expense of others. At least they don't discriminate that way. Equal contempt for us lowly care-givers. I know whine with cheese. Given their beliefs and attitudes it was probably better that I wasn't included in their lives except at Christmas and such times. As one astrologer put in in her introduction to this weeks horoscopes "The trick is to learn how to feel compassion for the person who makes you angry. Think how tough it is for them to live in this world being such a jerk.". Thanks Georgia. See two helpful columns out of one daily newspaper in one weekend. Thanks dear editors, you have no idea how much of a difference that made to this one person. It was comforting to know that other people - even ones who write columns in newspapers - value passion over profit and are willing to suffer "the slings and arrows" of mainstream society in order to be true to themselves. Integrity and ethics are some of the first casualties of expedience after all.
Last night I woke at about 2 in the am because I could hear my youngest yelling. Now he is usually very soft spoken, except for when his video games are beating him. "It's only microchips", says mom. Not only that, but it was clear that there was an exchange of words even though I couldn't hear another voice. I grabbed my phone and headed downstairs to his room to see if help was needed. He was on the phone with the buddy who had been kicked out of his home and had stayed with us for a couple of weeks at the beginning of July. His buddy was calling to badger my son yet again about becoming involved in that financial pyramid scheme. My son says his buddy has reached the point, in being inducted into the cult-like organization, where he is turfing everything and everyone who was in his life up to this point. His condition for contact now is that one must buy into his new cult also. My son said he had already terminated several long term relationships. I think my son has decided to not be involved with him for a while until there is a change in behaviour. Good thing although I am worried about his buddy. He is naive and is going to have a few very rough years because of this company's greed and exploitation.
Later in the morning I awoke realizing that I had been dreaming about solving a very difficult sudoku puzzle. I had just reached that point where a lot of seemingly small gains in the solution suddenly allowed me to fill in all the other blanks correctly. Maybe that was related to the family conundrum I've had to deal with the past few weeks. I still don't consciously know what is driving the behaviour and why specifically at this point in time it is manifesting, but maybe on a subliminal level the subconscious has figured it out. Two sisters did call today asking about certain things that happened since that insect bite on the elbow and all the drama that arose from there. There was a story in the news about tarantulas appearing in our grocery stores, but I don't think that was the source of my problems. The symptoms don't line up.
Today my youngest and I went out to pick up groceries. The cupboard was really bare and the cats' litter really needed changing. It was already near 30 C/ high 80's F when we left the house at noon. "Mad dogs and Englishmen go out in the noon day sun". So do cat owners. We had an escort of dragonflies the entire way there. For some reason there has been a large amount of those critters around the garden too. Maybe they like the raspberries and the roses, eh? It was nice and cool inside the store so we took our time travelling the aisles. A lot of unadvertised sales helped with the budget too. Since arriving back home all we've done is try to stay cool. My youngest had slipped a new toy in for the cats - a silvery blue fish on a fishing pole - so we were even forgiven for being away for so long. It is cool enough to sleep now so I think I'll go to bed. Good night dear diary.
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