March 14, 2004

Screaming by Parenting
by Liza Sabater

Nick says in c u l t u r e k i t c h e n: Imagine 10 bombs detonating in the Times-Square Subway Station

BUSH IS RESPONSIBLE FOR 9/11, he KNEW and NEGLECTED which can only lead to "it was on PUPOSE" for his cause!!

SCREAM at the dieing [sic] of the light!

All I can say about this is that it sounds so young. I do not mean it negatively. It sounds like the cry of despair of someone who wants to do something about the horrible times we live in and all he can think of is screaming. I don't blame him. Yet, I feel that somehow, in these times, it is as good as anything because most people are not only not doing but not speaking about anything other than the weather.

Case in point? People were nervous, NERVOUS! with the prospect of Tim Robbins or Sean Penn getting too serious or political during the Oscars. And the most telling moment of all was Charlize Theron's "thanks to South Africa" shout out ---a horrifically loaded and ironic moment that was fully applauded and yet completely lost on white USA.

I believe that most people are still in denial over the 2000 elections. I remember people just looking at me in horror, shock or complete disbelief when I would throw the question : Can you believe? It just came out of left-field. Most people, me included, just did not know how to respond to that. How do you right a wrong that is mostly associated with banana republics?

Then Silicon Alley got wiped out, stocks got creamed and jobs disappeared overnight here in the city with the billions squandered by WorldComm and a company we'd never heard of, Enron. People were defaulting on their mortagages and the realty market went soft. Ken Lay was in the process of being deposed and then September 11 happened. That, I believe, was the straw that broke a lot of people's backs.

For months we had here in my slice of the East Village the smell of charred plastic, pulp and flesh that came from the burning ruins. I think this is what numbed a lot of people. Since then, it seems that a lot of my neighbors are desperately attached to the monotony that schools and any job can bring them. Holding on to what they know is better than the uncertainty of the new.

When I hear or read people speak like Nick W., it makes me wonder if they're parents. Parenting can be a liberating and even radical experience. But to most people it seems it is one of the most traumatic experiences they've ever been through. Top that with terrorism, the economy and global politics and the fears of failure, defeat and imposed marginality become greater when confronted with the "bigger problems of the world". Most of my comrades in parenting are in retreat.

That's not to say that some people are willing to talk. Mark and I are moving targets when it comes to the "state of the Union". As homeschooling parents, we cannot not incur the curiosity, pity and sometimes wrath of those who catch on to our chosen radical (to us) marginality (to them). This somehow opens people up to talk about politics, money and even religion --the three real taboos of USA culture.

What hits me from these conversations over and over again is the state of paralysis that most people live in:

• I could never do that.
• It's too hard.
• It's too scary.
• I'm so not like you.

Mind you, when I say that creating an environment conducive to learning is more a function of parenting than schooling, these are the answers people give me. Not that they know at all if *homeschooling is hard (because they've never tried it) but because the thought of parenting this way is scary. It's as if what people are telling is that they fear having to take care of their kids education because that would be admitting full responsibility for their kids lives.

A lot of the parenting folk I've spoken to feel like the whole process is too big and out of their hands. They're just winging it --and quite frankly, I do believe that is the case. Still, if this is the fear most people are living with, how can we expect them to deal with the problems of the world?

How do you bring courage instead of despair?
How can you turn rage into compassion?
How can you inject hope and enthusiasm into change?

By living differently and by doing differently. A day in the life can bring awareness to others. Living heroically. Just by going against the anesthetizing grain, somehow, somewhere, others will follow suit. Slow? Maybe. Still better than to just talk about the weather and pretend that nothing is happening in the world.

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* Homeschooling can be effing hard. That's topic for another post.

Posted by Liza Sabater in Activism, Culture, Ethics, Life, Parenting, Politics, War
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