Body Sculpture

One should never think too terribly hard about motivational sayings, posters, or images, but a striking comparison presented itself to me today, and I could not avoid having thoughts.

(I do try, sometimes, to avoid thoughts. Especially the inconvenient ones.)

A few months ago, a few different friends of mine shared the following:

I do not know the source of the image: who created it, for what purpose, or who owns the copyright.  (If the originator somehow finds this post and speaks up, I'd love to be able to give proper attribution.)

My friends who shared it had different intentions in doing so and different interpretations of the image.  One found it inspirational; another was horrified by it; still another (a "friend" only in the Facebook sense, and not for very long after he shared this) took the opportunity to make fat-people jokes.

Words in the url on which I found the image offer their own ambiguous interpretation: funny-stone-fat-woman-carving-herself.  I know not how to interpret either the words "funny" or "fat."  Even "carving" is giving me more trouble than it should.

I was and am uneasy with the image, although (or perhaps because?) it does seem to represent faithfully a longing that many women have (to re-sculpt their bodies) or an idea many women have of themselves (of a fit, beautiful, self-disciplined, happy woman hidden somewhere inside them).

I couldn't put my finger on exactly why the image made me uneasy, though, until I tripped across this one, today:

I think the inspirational quote on the man's image works for either image.  Both of them are proclaiming the malleability of the body, and the fitness (pardon the pun) of the project of self-renovation.

But there's the rub, no?

The man is not engaged in a project of self-renovation.  He is in the midst of self-creation.  He takes unformed, undifferentiated matter and makes it into himself.  He is a little god in that sense, performing in his own little way the same work that God does in forming man out of the mud of the earth.

It is a pure and gratuitous act of self-creation: he is powerful and he is free.  He is Man.  He is a god, a son of the Most High.

Not so the woman.

She starts trapped in her own body.  The "real" her is thin and beautiful and fit, but this ugly, evil monstrosity (called her body) is imprisoning her.

She must cut that body away to find the real her inside.   She must punish it for its sins so that her real self--the thin, beautiful, fit, happy her--can break free.

He is free to pursue his project of self-making.  She must--must--succeed at it in order be free.

There is no sharing in the creative work of God here.  She is not Eve, mother of the living, blessed with the capacity to make and feed little humans with her very body.  She is not even Christ, freely giving her body to be sacrificed for others.


She is just whittling away at herself, carving her own embodied life into a more controlled--and controllable--form.

How will she know whether that form is free?  Might she not find that that form, too, must be whittled away?

I'm a fan of caring for one's health through exercise and diet.  Really.  But self-hatred disguised as self-care . . . not so much.

Isn't There A Doctrine About This?

I don't object, in principle, to childless people giving me parenting advice.

One doesn't have to have children to have experience in what good or bad parenting does to children--every adult was once a child himself and is, at least in theory, able to reflect rationally on his childhood experiences and the results of his parents' or caregivers' choices.

And maybe I just have an unusually kind, thoughtful, wise, and good crop of friends, but most of my single or childless friends who reflect on family matters do a pretty darn good job of it.  (It probably doesn't hurt that they're unusually smart, and know enough to pander to a mother's ego by complimenting her children frequently and in great detail.  Spoonful of sugar, medicine, etc.)

So when the young, obviously childfree cashier at the Earth Fare started telling me yesterday about what all children Amos's age were like, and about how I should be feeling about kids that age, and about what he'd be like in a few years, I wasn't predisposed to be offended, simply because she didn't have children of her own.

But all I could think was, "Oh my gosh, lady, you would not say such things if you had any actual 24/7/365 experience with an actual two-year-old."

She said, "Oh, I love seeing kids that age in here!  They are so innocent!  They're just so pure in heart!"

And she had the nerve to look disturbed when I stared at her, wordlessly aghast.  I really couldn't form words to save my life.  (I blame Max, by the way.  It's hard to come up with snappy rejoinders when all the sleep you're getting comes in two-hour chunks.)

She started what sounded like a well-rehearsed speech about cherishing these years and enjoying their innocence and purity because "it gets destroyed all too soon in this world!"

I couldn't stop the snorting that escaped my throat.

And she started looking more and more disturbed by the second, though she didn't trouble herself to press pause and ask why I so obviously disagreed with her pronouncements.

I tried to come up with a story that would show her exactly how "innocent" Amos was.

I tried to come up with the words to describe how he sneaks out of the house at least once a week and tries to start the car.  Before we're awake.  Despite our trying to hide the keys.  And has been for at least a year now.

I tried to think of how to explain how he taunts his older brother when he is sitting in time out--sitting just out of reach, stretching his toes toward Theo until Theo starts crying "Stop TOUCHING me!!!!" and then jerking his legs back so that he can say, "I not touching Theo!  He talking in time out!!"

I tried to call up coherent sentences with which to relate the time he tried to take away Max's baby blanket, four times, while I sat in the rocking chair in the room.  How he tried to come up with convincing arguments. ("But it's mine!" "It's not cold today, Mommy." "He wants another blanket, not my blanket.")  And how in the end he just left the room and waited for me to go to the bathroom, and then darted silently into the room, stole the blanket, and had it completely hidden in his own room before I got back from the bathroom.

But, again, sleep in two-hour chunks.  Words simply would not come.

After a good twenty seconds of incoherent gutteral noises, I finally looked down at Amos and stuttered out, "Are you innocent, Amos?"

He looked at her, looked at me, and looked back at her and said, "No, I not.  I'm Amos."

And he was exactly right.

Developmental Milestones

I realize that charts of developmental milestones are supposed to be helpful--especially to help parents judge when their child might need some sort of therapeutic intervention.

Usually when I look at them, I'm the one that needs therapy.

I think I scared Theo's pediatrician once, when I openly snorted at her during her checklist.
"Is he able to verbalize his desires, sometimes in ways that you might perceive as defiance?"

She looked at me so strangely, but I really couldn't have formed words if my life had depended on it.  (I'm pretty sure his chart said, "Does not yet show any adverse effects from mother's bizarre affect.")

Anyway, the chart I recently consulted for Amos's developmental milestones had me similarly . . . amused.

"Can your child walk unassisted?"
He can tiptoe down the hallway in complete silence, if there's something he's not supposed to have at the end of it.

"Can your child pull toys behind him while walking?"
He can pull the whole toy bin behind him while walking through the house.  At 6am.
Also, he can pull his seven-year-old brother behind him while running.  This is usually at 6:30am, when he's decided that Theo Has Slept Enough For One Day.

"Can your child carry large toys or several toys at once?"
Do you know how many Thomas trains we own?  And he has to carry every. single. one of them to bed, all in one trip, or else the universe will explode.

"Can your child stand on tiptoe?"
Yes, but he prefers to drag a chair into place and climb up onto the counter.

"Can your child kick a ball?"
I don't know, but he kicks his brothers a lot.

"Can your child climb up and down furniture unassisted?"
Yes.  This is why we've removed all our furniture.

"Can your child scribble spontaneously?"
Have you SEEN our living room walls?

"Can your child turn over a container to empty out its contents?"
This is a milestone? I thought it was a torture technique.

"Can your child point to body parts when you name them?"
Yes.  In a house full of boys, you can imagine which parts get the most practice.

"Can your child use simple sentences, like 'want milk' or 'go for walk'?"
No.  He's more into, "Mommy, my milk cup is empty.  It's time for you to fill it.  Please stop dawdling and get it for me now."

"Can your child follow simple instructions?"
Not unless we make him think they were his idea in the first place.
But he's really good at giving instructions.  Long, detailed instructions.

"Can your child find objects even when hidden under two or three covers?"
Are you serious?  Locked doors cannot keep him out--what kind of moron only uses a couple of blankets?

"Is your child demonstrating increasing independence?"
No, he's already reached the threshold.

"Can your child give his age when asked?"
No.  But he knows the age limits for all the fun activities in town and gives the "right" age for them when asked.  ("Oh, honey, there's an age limit to go on this slide.  How old are you?" "Seven!" "Um . . .")

"Does your child imitate the behavior of others, especially older children?"
Yes.  This is why his older brothers are always grounded.

"Can your child describe things that he did earlier in the day?"
Yes.  We usually end up calling someone to apologize.

"Is he capable of goal-directed behavior?"
He sneaks out of the (locked) front door every morning, gets in the car, and pretends to drive it.  This morning, he took Stephen's keys with him.  He's almost figured out which hole they go into.

"Can your child repeat words he's overheard in conversations?"
Yes.  That's why we've stopped having conversations.

"Does your child speak clearly enough for strangers to understand?"
Unfortunately, yes.

"Does your child speak in sentences of four or five words?"
Oh, I do miss those days.

The Only People Crazier Than Theologians Are Linguists

I read this article earlier today, and I've been because-noun-ing all day.

Because Linguistics

"Why do you need a Moodle course for this class, Christian Ethics? (Please give a reason so that the administrator can determine the need for this course.)"
"Because God."

"I can't quite figure out why none of you are taking notes on what I just said.  Because, you know, exam."

"And so we see here that James makes the same explanatory move that was made in Leviticus.  Why shouldn't you hold a day laborer's pay back until the next day?  Because God."

"Please don't email me during another professor's class!  Because courtesy."

I feel very hip.

Well, I felt hip.  And then I realized that, by the time someone writes a blog entry on a hip thing, it's not hip anymore.  (Because, you know, novelty.  And boredom.)

And then I realized that someday, someone will write a second-grade grammar textbook in which "because" will be listed as a preposition, because of this article.  (Because idiocy.)  And I was tempted to repent of my participation in the stupidification of my own grandchildren.

But then I went back to because-noun-ing.  Because fun.  And also entropy.

Alarming Grammar

You know how sometimes you wake up in the morning feeling that you had just gone to sleep only minutes before, even though you really did get a full night's sleep?

That happened to me this morning.

But when my alarm went off, I didn't turn over and go back to sleep, because I recognized the phenomenon--where you feel you've just gone to sleep even though you've slept a full six hours--and formed a thought communicating the phenomenon to myself.

But the thought I formed, alas, triggered my Grammatical Angst Complex, and I was unable to go back to sleep.

(This turned out well, because Tuesdays are my early days, and I really did have to get out the door.  But it was annoying.)

The thought I thought to myself was, "Man, I just lay down ten minutes ago!"

It was a grammatical thought, but as soon as I thought it, I was wide awake, wondering whether I had thought grammatically.

"Wait, I just lay down?  Or just laid down?  Lie, Lay, Lain, Lay, Laid, Laid.  Lie.  Lay.  Yes.  Lay.  But I'm much more confident with the past participle, so I could make it easier on myself and say, 'It feels as though I had just lain down!'"

Yes, dear Readers, it was 5:06, and I was revising my own internal grammar.

This is what writing a dissertation will do to you.  I can only imagine what writing a grammar textbook does to you.

And then I thought, "I could avoid the problem by saying, 'Man, I just fell asleep ten minutes ago!'  And Chicago Manual of Style always suggests avoiding the problem if you're unsure, or if you know you're correct but you think your readers will trip over it."

Yes, dear Readers, it was 5:07, and I was quoting the Chicago Manual of Style to myself.

If you ever meet any of my sons, have pity on them.  They're doing the best they can, after being raised by such a mother.  It's really amazing they can speak at all, or are willing to.

Oh, Netflix. Try Again.

"Your taste preferences created this row: Sentimental Feel-good Romantic Comedies."
Um, no. No, I don't think they did.
"Your taste preferences created this row: Violent Suspenseful Action and Adventure."
Is this some sort of joke? I watch Miss Marple. The old one, because the new one is too . . . new.
MISS. MARPLE.