thoughts on thoughts
So coming home always makes me get a little nostalgic, a little thoughtful, a little deep. I look at my past and contemplate my future. I want to know what I'm doing here in Mattawan again, if I can or should or will do bigger things. A couple of thoughts wandered through my thinker on this beautiful almost-summer day~
At the little league fields I was surrounded by plethoras of families and little kids. Kids who were spoiled, kids who were funny, kids who were bratty and unathletic and goofy and everything else inbetween. It made me wonder about family. Mostly my family when I have one, if I want to have one. I thought about all the different interactions I've had with kids and decided with fierce determination that I will certainly have kids of my own. I can't imagine not having little buggers to teach, raise, be there for, and most of all, laugh with and learn from. But then what is my bad feeling about parenting? I think I worked it out today- I certainly want to have kids, but I have reservations and mixed feelings about raising them in the society that's already so different from when I grew up. These kids are dressed fashionably with great new uniforms and bats and gloves and shoes, not to mention GameBoys and iPods, and in the white upper-middle-class snobby-ass suburb of Mattawan, that and damn-well everything else about the act of childrearing is a competition. It's an unspoken, but very recognizable competition- and I don't think Mattawan is the exception, it's the rule. The reason middle school and high school, and now even lower grades as well, are dominated by social constructs that are intimidating and uncomfortable, and innocence and just plain old human compassion and love for each other as we are is diminishing earlier and earlier at an alarming rate- it's all this one-upping and keeping up with the Joneses'ing that forces the issue. So without commenting on the trajectory of our nation and our society as a whole, I want to say that I've decided that me having the children isn't the problem, it's me having to bring them up within the world that I don't fully agree with. If I could take them away, back to even just 20 years ago when things were just becoming full of Hummers and Lil Bratz and PSPs and all that materialistic wasteful bullshit, I'd have kids galore, and raise them to be caring, responsible, and upstanding human beings. In the world that bombards them with media, age-inappropriate advertising, and unrealistic ideals of socialization, molding that kind of a person is increasingly difficult. And I'm no magician, and those people who are even worse off than I will probably succumb. I don't spout pessimistic rationale like this very often, but I just have to say this society needs some fixing, and needs it quick. Also, I will have babies, and run away into the mountains to raise them. So if my future husband happens to be reading this, just be prepared.
At the little league fields I was surrounded by plethoras of families and little kids. Kids who were spoiled, kids who were funny, kids who were bratty and unathletic and goofy and everything else inbetween. It made me wonder about family. Mostly my family when I have one, if I want to have one. I thought about all the different interactions I've had with kids and decided with fierce determination that I will certainly have kids of my own. I can't imagine not having little buggers to teach, raise, be there for, and most of all, laugh with and learn from. But then what is my bad feeling about parenting? I think I worked it out today- I certainly want to have kids, but I have reservations and mixed feelings about raising them in the society that's already so different from when I grew up. These kids are dressed fashionably with great new uniforms and bats and gloves and shoes, not to mention GameBoys and iPods, and in the white upper-middle-class snobby-ass suburb of Mattawan, that and damn-well everything else about the act of childrearing is a competition. It's an unspoken, but very recognizable competition- and I don't think Mattawan is the exception, it's the rule. The reason middle school and high school, and now even lower grades as well, are dominated by social constructs that are intimidating and uncomfortable, and innocence and just plain old human compassion and love for each other as we are is diminishing earlier and earlier at an alarming rate- it's all this one-upping and keeping up with the Joneses'ing that forces the issue. So without commenting on the trajectory of our nation and our society as a whole, I want to say that I've decided that me having the children isn't the problem, it's me having to bring them up within the world that I don't fully agree with. If I could take them away, back to even just 20 years ago when things were just becoming full of Hummers and Lil Bratz and PSPs and all that materialistic wasteful bullshit, I'd have kids galore, and raise them to be caring, responsible, and upstanding human beings. In the world that bombards them with media, age-inappropriate advertising, and unrealistic ideals of socialization, molding that kind of a person is increasingly difficult. And I'm no magician, and those people who are even worse off than I will probably succumb. I don't spout pessimistic rationale like this very often, but I just have to say this society needs some fixing, and needs it quick. Also, I will have babies, and run away into the mountains to raise them. So if my future husband happens to be reading this, just be prepared.