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Archives for December 2009

A utilitarian world?

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[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CedDUqKNm-Q]

I’ve been toodling about my apartment listening to Roger Scruton discuss beauty and art, modern architecture. (This after I cleaned to the art of Boney M’s Christmas album. Yes, art.) If you have time, you may enjoy this too.

I think there’s some import for the way we think about kids and pregnancy, by the way. Not 100 per cent sure what that import is, but something about babies not having much utility–therefore we don’t value them much these days?

(Youtube posts this in six ten minute segments.)

They’re big. They’re bulky. They’re part of life

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Say, this is my second bus-related post in two days. I’m on a roll! And so are these mothers, who successfully lobbied for strollers to be allowed on Ottawa’s busses.

Honestly, I think if you are a mother taking your kids on the public bus system, you should get all the help you can. I can move my single self travelling elegantly with one small purse either off the bus, or to the back, or what have you. It’s tough enough as a mom to ensure you have everything (extra diapers, change of clothes for baby, snacks, games, books, wetnaps, what else?) forget about being told your child has to be removed and the stroller folded up. That’s the same as telling a mother with a child not to take the bus, in my opinion; a policy put forward by someone who has not hung out with a small child in a very long time.

So good on these moms for making a stand.

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Véronique adds: I was going to write a post about why strollers need to be so big these days when I realized that not only had Andrea beat me to the post but I was even behind our commenter Suzanne.

So Suzanne, since you ask, let me tell you why strollers have to be so big nowadays. It’s both simple and complicated, obvious and convoluted. While things have been getting better since I had my first child 13 years ago, we do not live in a child-friendly world yet. And so when going places with young children, one must be as self-sufficient as possible, carrying diapers, wipes, change of clothes, snacks, baby seat for the restaurant, toys, beverages, bottle warmer and so on. Not only that but once you have packed all these essentials, you still need to have room for the stuff you are purchasing, e.g. groceries etc. Because no matter how much you struggle, you will be lucky if you get more than disapproving glances from passerbys. Finally, the big swivel wheels are necessary not only to navigate through rough terrain such as sidewalks and steps, but also for one-hand manoeuverability. Because when you struggle to get two kids, a stroller and the groceries through a narrow door, you will be lucky if your fellow citizens don’t bodycheck you to get ahead, let alone holding the door for you. As for helping you, they didn’t slam the door in your face, what are you complaining about? In these circumstances, the stroller becomes an extension of your home where you can safely change, feed and rest the baby without expecting help from anyone.

Interestingly enough, shopping malls and restaurants in the suburbs — where people are largely dependant on cars to eat, sleep and breathe — are relatively child friendly. But when you venture downtown, as I often do, and try to eat in non-chain restaurants while shopping in boutiques, you need to be self-sufficient. I was shopping on Bank street in Old Ottawa South a month ago and couldn’t even get in the breastfeeding clothing store with the stroller because of the steps. Then I went to eat at the Thai restaurant where not only didn’t they have a children’s menu or a high chair, but they couldn’t even accommodate my 3 year-old son when I asked for a small bowl of rice with some chicken. “You’re a thai restaurant, you have rice?” “Yes.” “You have chicken?” “Yes.” “Can you bring rice with chicken?” “No.” So next time, I’ll be shopping with my baby carrier — in case I need to leave the stroller at the door; my collapsible booster seat — in case they don’t have a high chair; my baby and toddler’s meals — in case there is nothing on the menu for them. And so on. I’m carrying all my gear in a gas-guzzler but the requirement for self-sufficiency wouldn’t change if I had to take the bus.

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Andrea adds: For proof that Véronique is absolutely correct, see the comments on the CBC story I linked to. (The CBC! These are ostensibly the compassionate lefties!) The vast majority are crusty childless folks complaining about how now that these mothers have won this battle their sense of entitlement will only grow. Excuse me? I was actually alarmed as I scrolled through those comments. Do I truly live in a city where people complain because some young mom is struggling to get somewhere on the bus? Don’t you think if she could possibly afford it she’d prefer to take a car? I find the comments absolutely, mind numbingly callous.

Protecting pregnant women with better seatbelts

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Car safety experts at Virginia Tech University, funded in part by Ford Motor Company, are trying to develop a computerized crash test model to determine how best to protect pregnant women and their unborn children during a collision.

I suppose pregnancy was not invented for the car age – not sure there is much to be done to protect someone who insists on riding right in front of the steering wheel. But who knows, maybe the researchers will find something good and even if they don’t, well, at least they’re trying. Good for them!

[h/t]

One reason not to get a car

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I’ve been known to complain about OC Transpo, in particular during the eternal driver strike in minus 50 weather last winter. Today, however, was a bright moment, which I’ll share with you. Tonight as I boarded the bus, the driver was very polite, very kind, and said hello to every passenger getting on in crowded rush hour traffic (and there were many of us).

I’m sitting there staring out the window into the dark December night when I hear a robust tenor voice start singing, loudly, “What child is this who laid to rest in Mary’s lap is sleeping”–you know the Christmas carol to the tune of Greensleeves. Concluding with a strong finish: “this, this is Christ the King” resonating throughout the bus…I was smiling and was quite sure he was done. But no.

Only in Ottawa would a bus driver carry forward with the exact same Christmas song, this time in French.

Made my evening, that.

Well, gosh, I don’t

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Margaret Wente says she has a lot of sympathy for Tiger Woods and even likes him better now that he seems more human. I couldn’t disagree more. If the cheating stories are true, he’s just a regular, run-of-the-mill, jackass. Oh, and an idiot, too.

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Andrea adds: We sure are on the same page today, Brigitte. Couldn’t agree more. I might add that my family-friendly web site doesn’t allow me to use the words I might like to apply to a man–or woman–who cheats.

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Brigitte updates: Stories like this sure aren’t going to make me change my mind. And what about the kids, huh? How many millions of dollars is it worth not to mess up their lives?

Oh please, we couldn’t find a five-year-old who hadn’t been exposed

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Some stories are so clueless they’re almost cute. Like this one:

When Université de Montréal assistant professor Simon-Louis Lajeunesse launched his project with men in their 20s, he wanted to interview subjects who had never been exposed to pornography — porn virgins — but he couldn’t find any.

“Guys who do not watch pornography do not exist,” Lajeunesse said Wednesday.

So his study examined the habits of 20 university students who consumed X-rated material — that would be all of them — and the impact on their sexual identity and how it shaped their relationships with women.

Lajeunesse found that most boys sought pornography by age 10, about the same time they became curious about sex. They chose what they wanted to see and soon rejected what they found offensive, such as bestiality or violence.

Where to begin, where to begin?

1) I find it absolutely, almost boringly, normal that boys should seek images of naked women when they start getting interested in sex. I’ve met a fair number of healthy heterosexual males in my time (I’m also married to one) and I’m pretty confident 100% of them, at one time or another when they were growing up, looked at X-rated images of women. They enjoyed it, too.

2) The fact that most, if not all, men have seen pornography does not necessarily mean that “Guys who do not watch pornography do not exist,” as the researcher said. Having seen pornography, even coming across it every now and then, is not the same as “watching” it. I’m prepared to believe there are no porn virgins anywhere around, but come on, it’s wrong to say that all men watch porn. They don’t. (Not even online; social networking sites are now more popular than porn.)

3) Hey, have you been out on the street lately? Have you visited any store with a magazine rack? Have you been driving anywhere? Then you, too, have been “watching” porn. Welcome to the club.

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Andrea adds: I agree with you, Brigitte. There is a huge difference between seeing some images in a magazine or online and “watching porn.” My concern when I saw these reports is that the takeaway would be hey! watching porn is AOK. And that, no matter what “studies” say, is not true. In any event, you are also correct in stating the obvious–I can’t get milk from the corner store without seeing soft porn. So that we are boiling ourselves to death here doesn’t make it right, and doesn’t mean our culture is flourishing.

In defence of regular Barbie

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Barbara Kay is not happy with Burka Barbie.

I have seen some pretty tawdry advertising campaigns in my time, but I must say this one takes the cake for insensitivity. What’s next in dolls that are “important for girls” to play with? “Illiterate Barbie”? “Forced-Marriage Barbie”?

One has to wonder what was going through the heads of these people. Mattel is a gigantic company with, one would presume, the cream of the advertising world’s crop at its beck and call. Save the Children has for many decades been in the business of rescuing children from poverty, despair and injustice. And yet neither the world’s biggest advertising brains nor the world’s most child-sensitive hearts saw the impropriety of “clothing” the world’s most instantly recognizable toy in the world’s most instantly recognizable symbol of oppression.

Taking a weird stand

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Apparently, Opposition parties are boycotting the 20th anniversary of the Polytechnique massacre because “Conservative policies have ‘rolled back the fight for women’s equality and safety.'”

Citing the elimination of the court challenges program and the move to abolish the gun registry as reasons that the Conservatives have endangered women, Bloc MP Nicole Demers said the ceremony remembering the victims was a “hypocritical gesture”. And Liberal MP Anita Neville said: “I find it difficult to stand beside a minister who chooses not to advocate for women, who chooses to follow the party line, who chooses to endorse the elimination of the long-gun registry.”

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