"God, that pisses me off! Just makes me wanna slap her upside her head."
"The woman letting her baby cry in the stroller instead of soothing it?"
"Yes, and she is shoving her face full of food as she pushes, that is just frickin' ridiculous! No wonder kids these days are so screwed up."
I didn't have a response. I don't think it is suitable to tell Amelia that of her three boys, whom roamed wild like love children through their youth and didn't know physical discipline, she only likes one son; the 50 year old. It isn't anything personal, but I really don't think that my generation is all that screwed up. Maybe she means people younger than me, but that would make the majority of her pronoun fall under 18, and I simply can't imagine judging the generation for its formative years.
I do disagree with a lot of parenting techniques executed in the current market place. Such as the habit of wrapping a baby in layers of hard plastic instead of harnessing them to your chest or back. I don't see how putting the baby further from you keeps it warmer or safer. Also, if one more stroller wheel runs over my shoes in an amusement park, I may be driven to homicide.
There is nothing wrong with kids these days. They are completely capable of continuing society. Some of them haven't accepted that they will have to do that, and hardly any of them are ready to, but they will be when the time comes.
If anything, what could be wrong with kids, is that nobody has faith in them anymore. Unfortunate, since your life will really depend on them someday.
Thursday, January 24, 2008
Tuesday, January 22, 2008
The Racist Elderly
I work at a desk next to a set of volunteers that rotate out scheduled time slots through the week. If you are unfamiliar with volunteer positions, let me inform you of one of the basic concepts of the volunteer community. It consists primarily of an elderly community that lacks hobbies and has an abundance of money. In a normal community situation these people would inhabit a resort or consider going to the country club an occupation. In a hospital, their uses are varied and volunteers are a necessary and vital hub. They fill in the gaps that the hospital can't afford to pay to have filled, they run deliveries, occupy the information desk, and do light clerical work for the more important and busy departments.
Something I have learned about the elderly is that the more comfortable they become with you, the more disturbing their revelations become. One of the more serious revelations of late has been the apparent and extreme racism exhibited by one of the women I have to spend the most time with, Amelia.
We were having a pleasant if slow Monday morning when Amelia commented that the hospital was near empty and she didn't understand why either of us had to be there.
I thought for a while and remembered that I had opted to come in, it had been an offer to not miss the unpaid holiday. "It's a holiday weekend, so I suppose it will be nice and quiet." I smiled.
"Holiday, humph,"
"What's that?" I asked.
"I don't understand why he is the only man with his own fricking holiday." She stopped with her angry expression to look for agreement in my face.
"Who?" I asked, not realizing the floodgate I had just turned the valve on.
"They took away the presidents' birthdays, Washington and Lincoln have to share now, but he gets his own national holiday."
I looked frantically down at the calendar, wondering what holiday Monday I was working. "Martin Luther King, Jr.?"
"Oh, whatever his name is, yes! What did he ever do to deserve a holiday?!?"
My head actually reeled. I felt dizzy, but remembered eating breakfast. "He-" I stuttered trying to find importance in my voice befitting the event, "he led the civil rights movement in a positive direction forever altering the course of history." I hadn't accomplished the importance I had hoped for in my voice, I had failed. Had I just been Dr. King I would have hit my head on the microphone trying to find the on switch.
Amelia is 74 this year, she was born mid-depression and was raising kids when Marin Luther King, Junior was giving speeches. I imagined her throwing tomatoes, but not at him, at me, trying to give a speech about why I deserve equal rights. Here was my friend, a newfound hate monger, sitting next to me with her tangerine vomit cologne wafting through the air telling me how unimportant the man who paved the streets of equality was.
She fails to realize that I have my rights infringed upon daily, because a lot of people consider who I love a definition of what we may or may not do together, and subsequently, I am considered a deviant. I am a deviant who wants to marry so that my bond to a singular other person cannot be broken with my death or incapacitation. So that when I die, my remains can be dealt with by those who loved me most dearly, as opposed to the family that I may not have.
But wait, I think about it, and really, she also fails to realize that the only reason women ever got the right to vote was because men never expected to lose control of their wives, they were still possessions, even if they could vote. Luckily, that snowballed into suffrage.
"A great deal of people are very happy that he has his own day." I say, trying to create an environment of reason. I think I am one of those people who wishes they weren't too bust to realize the date, let alone important holidays.
"Sure," she says, "a great deal of violent and lazy people, all living off of welfare and killing each other. I wish they would all kill each other! It would solve some problems."
At this, my heart plummets fast enough to bruise my pelvis. Does she really not see the world? She comes to volunteer in a hospital that is extremely diverse and well rounded. She is sweet and kind to a number of black men that work here or do business here on a daily or weekly basis. She has even referred to one or two as handsome after they are out of earshot. How is it possible that she doesn't realize the truly insane and upsetting things she is saying?
I list these reasons at random in my head:
Almost half of her life she was allowed to spit on people if she felt like it.
She comes from a family of jewelers, she has always had money, why use her brain?
She is married to a conservative, so any thinking she could have done for herself was likely overshadowed and trained out.
When you are old, crazy becomes slightly less crazy than it was twenty minutes ago.
I am staring into the distance beyond her when she says, "I have a lot of things to confess in church." She laughs at this.
I consider my options and decided it is best not to point out that here in California Cesar Chavez has his own day too.
Something I have learned about the elderly is that the more comfortable they become with you, the more disturbing their revelations become. One of the more serious revelations of late has been the apparent and extreme racism exhibited by one of the women I have to spend the most time with, Amelia.
We were having a pleasant if slow Monday morning when Amelia commented that the hospital was near empty and she didn't understand why either of us had to be there.
I thought for a while and remembered that I had opted to come in, it had been an offer to not miss the unpaid holiday. "It's a holiday weekend, so I suppose it will be nice and quiet." I smiled.
"Holiday, humph,"
"What's that?" I asked.
"I don't understand why he is the only man with his own fricking holiday." She stopped with her angry expression to look for agreement in my face.
"Who?" I asked, not realizing the floodgate I had just turned the valve on.
"They took away the presidents' birthdays, Washington and Lincoln have to share now, but he gets his own national holiday."
I looked frantically down at the calendar, wondering what holiday Monday I was working. "Martin Luther King, Jr.?"
"Oh, whatever his name is, yes! What did he ever do to deserve a holiday?!?"
My head actually reeled. I felt dizzy, but remembered eating breakfast. "He-" I stuttered trying to find importance in my voice befitting the event, "he led the civil rights movement in a positive direction forever altering the course of history." I hadn't accomplished the importance I had hoped for in my voice, I had failed. Had I just been Dr. King I would have hit my head on the microphone trying to find the on switch.
Amelia is 74 this year, she was born mid-depression and was raising kids when Marin Luther King, Junior was giving speeches. I imagined her throwing tomatoes, but not at him, at me, trying to give a speech about why I deserve equal rights. Here was my friend, a newfound hate monger, sitting next to me with her tangerine vomit cologne wafting through the air telling me how unimportant the man who paved the streets of equality was.
She fails to realize that I have my rights infringed upon daily, because a lot of people consider who I love a definition of what we may or may not do together, and subsequently, I am considered a deviant. I am a deviant who wants to marry so that my bond to a singular other person cannot be broken with my death or incapacitation. So that when I die, my remains can be dealt with by those who loved me most dearly, as opposed to the family that I may not have.
But wait, I think about it, and really, she also fails to realize that the only reason women ever got the right to vote was because men never expected to lose control of their wives, they were still possessions, even if they could vote. Luckily, that snowballed into suffrage.
"A great deal of people are very happy that he has his own day." I say, trying to create an environment of reason. I think I am one of those people who wishes they weren't too bust to realize the date, let alone important holidays.
"Sure," she says, "a great deal of violent and lazy people, all living off of welfare and killing each other. I wish they would all kill each other! It would solve some problems."
At this, my heart plummets fast enough to bruise my pelvis. Does she really not see the world? She comes to volunteer in a hospital that is extremely diverse and well rounded. She is sweet and kind to a number of black men that work here or do business here on a daily or weekly basis. She has even referred to one or two as handsome after they are out of earshot. How is it possible that she doesn't realize the truly insane and upsetting things she is saying?
I list these reasons at random in my head:
Almost half of her life she was allowed to spit on people if she felt like it.
She comes from a family of jewelers, she has always had money, why use her brain?
She is married to a conservative, so any thinking she could have done for herself was likely overshadowed and trained out.
When you are old, crazy becomes slightly less crazy than it was twenty minutes ago.
I am staring into the distance beyond her when she says, "I have a lot of things to confess in church." She laughs at this.
I consider my options and decided it is best not to point out that here in California Cesar Chavez has his own day too.
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