The Purity Ball is a nine-year old invention created by the Wilson family, a family with a ton of children some of whom have names like Khrystian. That's Christian, in case their prediliction escapes you.
This is ostensibly a really nice thing, sort of like its sister the Debutante Ball, wherein girls are presented to the world and each other by their fathers.
Both the Deb Ball and the Purity Ball, to my way of thinking, and you can call me cynical, put the ick in sick.
Let's return for a moment to the Purity Ball. Here girls get dressed up in ballgowns to go on a date with Dad. Their dads stand up and swear that the girls will remain virgins until their wedding nights. Or until death if no one takes them off the market. The dads swear they will be good examples, keep it in their pants, and won't run off with the secretary leaving the moms behind. The language is probably crafted more nicely, but that's the gist.
See for yourself:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/19/us/19purity.html?scp=1&sq=purity+ball&st=nyt
I have one of those non-modern dads who brought home the bacon and cooked it on Sunday mornings, who fixed things, who was the go-to for discipline when my brothers and I were particularly badly behaved, and who remained largely silent in my life. He was always very gentle and nice to our kittens, and adores my tiny dog. It's quite amusing to see this huge 6-ft 2-in man playing with a 3-lb scruffy mutt. We lived with a nice sort of benign indifference -- I knew he was always there should I need him, and I never did mostly because I knew he was always there. If you see what I mean.
Growing up is never easy, but it is especially not easy when you are closely scrutinized. How do you become yourSELF when other people are weighing in on what you should think, do, decide? Add to this the perceived humiliations and mortifications of adolescence. To have your dad stand up and talk about your purity, to talk about sex, strikes me as a huge infringement on something deeply personal and quite frankly none of his business. That he should have such an interest strikes me as a bit creepy.
How about this. How about if dad behaved like a good father every day, and how about if mom and dad sort of led by example? You know, skipped the "do as I say not as I do" trip? How about they raise their kids to have self respect and confidence? And then how about they simply step back and watch you flourish?
Rather than take you to a dance and swear to your virginity, which is fundamentally and utterly yours to protect or abandon as you choose. One of the few things you can use as a marker of the transition between childhood and being a grown-up.
Monday, May 19, 2008
Sunday, May 4, 2008
Mommy dearest
So you think you have the mother of all mothers.
Read this, from the Times:
http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/books/article3842502.ece
"Michel Houellebecq is a literary icon whose novels have been acclaimed by critics as the cruel illumination of a troubled era.
But France's most celebrated and controversial contemporary author could be pushed off his pinnacle following an astonishingly vitriolic attack from a critic with a unique insight into his oeuvre.
She is his mother - and she is threatening to knock his teeth out with her walking stick if he mentions her again in one of his works.
In a book of her own to be published next week, Lucie Ceccaldi depicts the cult writer as an untalented social climber whose ego is only matched by his dishonesty. "
And oh, she does go on:
" “This individual, who alas! came out of my tummy, is a liar, an impostor, a parasite and especially, especially, a little upstart ready to do anything for fortune and fame,” Mrs Ceccaldi, 83, writes in L'Innocente, an autobiography."
Seems he started it, according to her. See, he wrote a book in which a despicable character called Ceccaldi abandonned her kids and took off to have sex in a sex community on the Riviera.
He could at least have changed the name I suppose.
The mother of imagination is a warm and soft place to go to be told that everything is going to be alright, you are just fine, you are wonderful, you are everything you hope you are. The maternal instinct, we are told, is an instinct, that it automatically kicks in and swathes progeny in the warm glow of unstinting love and approval.
Would that this were so. "Mother" is one of the enduring myths of civilization but in fact, if we were to look at the facts and the writing on the wall, that instinct kicks in intermittently and relatively infrequently.
My view may be warped by years of crime reporting where I was daily astonished by mothers who backed their abusive husbands versus supporting their sexually abused daughters; who stood by as fathers shook their babies to death or frankly, shook them themselves; who weekly participated in the shocking physical and emotional abuse of their own children. It always interested me that so long as there was a man to blame the courts would punish him more harshly, giving more prison time to him than the mother when in fact, to my way of thinking anyway, it is SHE who is further against nature. But the myth is so prevalent that even crusty judges cannot quite believe clear evidence and therefore mommy mustn't really have been entirely to blame.
But my view is also influenced by my circle of friends -- I have just one acquaintance who says she has the best mother on earth and who turns to her mother for love and support when she's feeling the world is against her. The rest of us have a slightly more distant relationship. Another of my friends has a mother who asked her if she were putting grey highlights in her hair now, and who was constantly petulant about the lack of attention she was receiving despite daily phone calls and weekly visits. My own mother is famous for various quotable quotes from my childhood, including "It's a dog eat dog world, get used to it" and "you look okay when you're fixed up" and "you think we're the Waltons -- well we're not." For those too young to know what the Waltons might be, it was a television show about dirt poor southerners in the Depression who nonetheless got along and loved each other deeply. Despite poverty they were a blissfully happy family. What a fairy tale! Interestingly, old age and forgetfulness has led my mother to query "I am not sure why my children don't come for Christmas, I always thought of us as being like the Waltons." Another girlfriend, daughter of a harsh mom, always said there was no way Madonna could be Madonna if her mom were still alive. That's worth pondering.
That said, the cold splash of water that was often my mother's advice or input sometimes had exactly the right effect. She could in a comment, something like "oh for god's sake", take the air out of my adolescent and neurotic horrors and make them manageable. She was kind of a checkpoint. If she thought no biggie, no biggie it is. I far prefer this to someone who joins in the madness to help sort it out -- this is the style of another friend's mother who is constantly nattering and worrying and fussing that her granddaughter seems unfriendly and what's going on in her mind and should we call a doctor. The granddaughter is adolescent and suffers age-appropriate moodiness, so what if she doesn't want to hang with an old lady. I want to scream at this woman, "It's a dog eat dog world, get over it!!" One of the nicest things about an ex of mine is that when I was upset about stuff, like being hideous and deformed or something, he'd listen, clearly drift off into a reverie about some football game or errand he might have to attend to, and then say in a perfectly pleasant tone: "oh shut up you dreary bitch" and instantly I was laughing and felt entirely better.
We believe, though, that we should have constant approval from our mother and mine was of the view, well, you know her world view as stated above but essentially, "I don't want to send you in the world thinking you're amazing so that the world can shoot you down". In protecting us from that eventuality, she often made even home seem a tad scary.
The other day I was whinging about fatness and my colleague, in frustration or just to shut me up so he could get back to work actually turned around and took a look at the lamentable legs in question. "It's not so much that you're fat as your pants are too tight" he said, totally misunderstanding the intended effect of the outfit. As I freaked with all kinds of sputtering "WHAT?!" comments, he quickly wrote a number on a piece of paper and said "Hey, I think you are an 8.5 despite anything you are wearing." EIGHT POINT FIVE??? The attack on his poor psyche continued, despite "What, that's a good score!" and so on. He could not understand that I don't want truth from my friends, I want consoling. I want "no, actually, have you lost weight?" and "wow, you're hot, you are a 14 out of ten."
Poor lad could not understand that truth is not intrinsically valuable, truth is actually of no use. If I wanted truth I could look in the mirror. If I wanted truth, I could call my mother.
What we want is the warm bath of approval, from the only one on earth whose approval we crave and the only one who can actually make us believe it. Interesting that even the cleverest and most talented among us struggle for and don't receive it.
Read this, from the Times:
http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/books/article3842502.ece
"Michel Houellebecq is a literary icon whose novels have been acclaimed by critics as the cruel illumination of a troubled era.
But France's most celebrated and controversial contemporary author could be pushed off his pinnacle following an astonishingly vitriolic attack from a critic with a unique insight into his oeuvre.
She is his mother - and she is threatening to knock his teeth out with her walking stick if he mentions her again in one of his works.
In a book of her own to be published next week, Lucie Ceccaldi depicts the cult writer as an untalented social climber whose ego is only matched by his dishonesty. "
And oh, she does go on:
" “This individual, who alas! came out of my tummy, is a liar, an impostor, a parasite and especially, especially, a little upstart ready to do anything for fortune and fame,” Mrs Ceccaldi, 83, writes in L'Innocente, an autobiography."
Seems he started it, according to her. See, he wrote a book in which a despicable character called Ceccaldi abandonned her kids and took off to have sex in a sex community on the Riviera.
He could at least have changed the name I suppose.
The mother of imagination is a warm and soft place to go to be told that everything is going to be alright, you are just fine, you are wonderful, you are everything you hope you are. The maternal instinct, we are told, is an instinct, that it automatically kicks in and swathes progeny in the warm glow of unstinting love and approval.
Would that this were so. "Mother" is one of the enduring myths of civilization but in fact, if we were to look at the facts and the writing on the wall, that instinct kicks in intermittently and relatively infrequently.
My view may be warped by years of crime reporting where I was daily astonished by mothers who backed their abusive husbands versus supporting their sexually abused daughters; who stood by as fathers shook their babies to death or frankly, shook them themselves; who weekly participated in the shocking physical and emotional abuse of their own children. It always interested me that so long as there was a man to blame the courts would punish him more harshly, giving more prison time to him than the mother when in fact, to my way of thinking anyway, it is SHE who is further against nature. But the myth is so prevalent that even crusty judges cannot quite believe clear evidence and therefore mommy mustn't really have been entirely to blame.
But my view is also influenced by my circle of friends -- I have just one acquaintance who says she has the best mother on earth and who turns to her mother for love and support when she's feeling the world is against her. The rest of us have a slightly more distant relationship. Another of my friends has a mother who asked her if she were putting grey highlights in her hair now, and who was constantly petulant about the lack of attention she was receiving despite daily phone calls and weekly visits. My own mother is famous for various quotable quotes from my childhood, including "It's a dog eat dog world, get used to it" and "you look okay when you're fixed up" and "you think we're the Waltons -- well we're not." For those too young to know what the Waltons might be, it was a television show about dirt poor southerners in the Depression who nonetheless got along and loved each other deeply. Despite poverty they were a blissfully happy family. What a fairy tale! Interestingly, old age and forgetfulness has led my mother to query "I am not sure why my children don't come for Christmas, I always thought of us as being like the Waltons." Another girlfriend, daughter of a harsh mom, always said there was no way Madonna could be Madonna if her mom were still alive. That's worth pondering.
That said, the cold splash of water that was often my mother's advice or input sometimes had exactly the right effect. She could in a comment, something like "oh for god's sake", take the air out of my adolescent and neurotic horrors and make them manageable. She was kind of a checkpoint. If she thought no biggie, no biggie it is. I far prefer this to someone who joins in the madness to help sort it out -- this is the style of another friend's mother who is constantly nattering and worrying and fussing that her granddaughter seems unfriendly and what's going on in her mind and should we call a doctor. The granddaughter is adolescent and suffers age-appropriate moodiness, so what if she doesn't want to hang with an old lady. I want to scream at this woman, "It's a dog eat dog world, get over it!!" One of the nicest things about an ex of mine is that when I was upset about stuff, like being hideous and deformed or something, he'd listen, clearly drift off into a reverie about some football game or errand he might have to attend to, and then say in a perfectly pleasant tone: "oh shut up you dreary bitch" and instantly I was laughing and felt entirely better.
We believe, though, that we should have constant approval from our mother and mine was of the view, well, you know her world view as stated above but essentially, "I don't want to send you in the world thinking you're amazing so that the world can shoot you down". In protecting us from that eventuality, she often made even home seem a tad scary.
The other day I was whinging about fatness and my colleague, in frustration or just to shut me up so he could get back to work actually turned around and took a look at the lamentable legs in question. "It's not so much that you're fat as your pants are too tight" he said, totally misunderstanding the intended effect of the outfit. As I freaked with all kinds of sputtering "WHAT?!" comments, he quickly wrote a number on a piece of paper and said "Hey, I think you are an 8.5 despite anything you are wearing." EIGHT POINT FIVE??? The attack on his poor psyche continued, despite "What, that's a good score!" and so on. He could not understand that I don't want truth from my friends, I want consoling. I want "no, actually, have you lost weight?" and "wow, you're hot, you are a 14 out of ten."
Poor lad could not understand that truth is not intrinsically valuable, truth is actually of no use. If I wanted truth I could look in the mirror. If I wanted truth, I could call my mother.
What we want is the warm bath of approval, from the only one on earth whose approval we crave and the only one who can actually make us believe it. Interesting that even the cleverest and most talented among us struggle for and don't receive it.
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