I am having a week month year life bit of a “Humans are not a very good species, at all” episode. At the grocery store, a stranger in line repeatedly reprimanded Henry, and I wondered what people like that think they’re doing. Like, they obviously don’t see themselves as being startlingly interfering and rude and all up in someone else’s business unwelcome and uninvited, so how DO they see themselves?
It gave me flashbacks to my mother-in-law, who thought she was benevolently helping others lead happier lives—and, if they declined her advice as not being The Obvious Only Right Way For Every Single Person To Live, she rolled her eyes and threw up her hands at their stupidity and ingratitude. In what way does that variety of ovary GROW in a person, and in what way does it continue to thrive?
Then, I was telling the children wearily for the millionth time that it is NOT NICE to mock and tease and make other people mad for fun, and then while I was cooking dinner I was wondering why we bother to tell them this, considering it seems like most people grow up anyway to mock and tease and make other people mad for fun, and at that point there’s no parent to tell them to quit it. All the scornful “Who DOES that??” and “Who THINKS that??” and “Who LIKES that??” and “Who CARES about things like that??” (with the implied answer “Clearly only a STUPID IDIOT”) is wearing me down. OTHER HUMAN BEINGS, THAT’S WHO. And yet it can also be so fun, and so comforting to find others who feel the same way about something, and so bonding in a very human “the enemy of my enemy is my friend” way.
As it wears me down and simultaneously comforts me when _I_ do it (ahem). I can’t believe how many people cut me off, or swerve around me when I’m stopped for a pedestrian, presumably because they thought I was just stopped in the road for no good reason. I can’t believe how many people leave bitchy comments, apparently thinking that’s okay to do. I can’t believe how many people sigh loudly in checkout lines, as if that does anything but bring morale down. I can’t believe how many people enjoy hanging out at websites like People of Walmart, where the only point is to mock and be mean. It’s so reassuring to find other people who feel the same way I do about people who are not living The Obvious Only Right Way For Every Single Person To Live. Who DOES that? Who THINKS that? Who LIKES that? OTHER HUMAN BEINGS, THAT’S WHO.
Also, in giving Rob some lessons in dealing with other humans, I was reminded that there are SO MANY TIMES when another person is acting awful (for example, two people disagree but one of them spins the other’s position insultingly and unfairly and as evidence of poor character, rather than seeing it as a disagreement), and there is NOTHING THAT CAN BE DONE except to go about your business and let them go about theirs. EVEN WHEN THEY ARE COMPLETELY WRONG AND ALSO THINKING MEAN AND UNFAIR THOUGHTS ABOUT YOU. Even if you COULD change that one person’s mind, there are THOUSANDS OR MILLIONS OF OTHERS THINKING THE SAME WAY.
And I read A Scanner Darkly by Philip K. Dick, and it reminded me why I originally formed my theory (since disproven) that I didn’t like books written by men. I don’t want to read a grown man thinking thoughts about a teenaged girl. I don’t want to read how he hates his wife and children. I don’t want to read about how often he thinks about cheating on his wife, or how depressed and burdened and bored he feels by his house and family and job. I especially hate it when Paul recommends books to me and they have these thoughts in them, because then I wonder if he identifies with this point of view or if he just brushed past it the way I do if I read a book where a woman fantasizes about shoes: I don’t relate to that particular aspect, but I don’t really notice it or think it represents All Women.
…Although, actually, that’s a terrible example, because I DO notice it and I then DON’T like the story because I DON’T identify. Well, anyway, that’s pretty much exactly why it got me upset. I felt similarly when Paul and I were first dating and he recommended Robert Heinlein books. Ah, Robert Heinlein. So much talk about how stupid monogamy is and how glorious the human existence could be if women didn’t keep being so ridiculous and jealous over the innocent and healthy joy of a man sleeping around. Maybe not the ideal book recommendation for a new girlfriend.
Things are looking up a bit this morning, though. I have made a batch of fudge, and I’ve started a book I thought I wouldn’t like but so far I like it a LOT: in just the first chapter, I laughed OUT LOUD (and I was the only one home, so it wasn’t even “I want you to know how funny I find this book” laughter) three times and cried once.
(photo from Amazon.com)
EVERYTHING ABOUT this book says I wouldn’t like it (and maybe soon I won’t). It’s exactly the kind of book I tried about a dozen of before completely giving up on the whole Ladies’ Fried Coffee Diner Quilting Club Sisterhood genre. The title falls exactly into that category: The Supremes at Earl’s All-You-Can Eat. The jacket description does, too: a group of women with cute group nickname meet every week at a diner, “through marriage, children, happiness, and the blues.” I don’t understand why I picked it up or why I checked it out (I think it was partly because it was a group of THREE women, not the OMG ALWAYS group of FOUR), but I did and I did, and it’s cheering me up considerably. (Though also reinforcing things, as one character refuses to acknowledge or accept another character’s second wife. Sigh. Who DOES that??)
“…the whole Ladies’ Fried Coffee Diner Quilting Club Sisterhood genre.” HA.
I would just like to say that you are looking very pretty today. And also, not ALL people are not nice. For example, YOU are teaching your children to be good people as I try to train my boys to be good people and hopefully many others are doing the same. Therefore, some of us are at least trying to be good people. On the other hand, sometimes it feels a bit overwhelming. And I’m not positive my training is working all the time. (especially in the way they treat each other sometimes) Gah! I give up. Thanks for the book rec. pretty lady.
I think you are a slice of awesome. Or maybe the whole cake of awesome. Your blog posts brighten my every day and make me laugh out loud, even when my children are beating each other up right in front of me. Thanks for providing a ray of sunshine on this dreary morning.
We often tell my 3.5 year-old to “act like a human being, please!” And I save your posts for last in my reader, because I enjoy them so much.
I’ve picked up that book three or four times and just can’t commit to it. Not sure why, because I actually tend to like the southern fried ladies genre. (Well, I like that genre as written by Fannie Flagg and Billie Letts–I might actually hate it in another author’s hands.) I hope you’ll post one of your famous reviews once you’re done with it.
“Ladies’ Fried Coffee Diner Quilting Club Sisterhood genre” HA! It’s like you captured all my thoughts in one perfect description!
I have at times wondered if I’m actually doing my kids a disservice trying to teach them to be polite, empathetic, nonassholes because sometimes it feels to me that everyone else on Earth is like this and my kids are going to suffer because they are not unmitigated jerks. Then I must remind myself that, in fact, there are quite a few kind, friendly, nonassholes out there and also that I would prefer to like my kids when they are grown up and if I raise them to be jerks to “survive” in society, I will dislike them myself. So I soldier on in the seemingly constant, unrelenting efforts to civilize my kids.
The only thing that gets me through sometimes is making myself look around and notice all the other people in the store who aren’t being jerks. It’s so easy for me to get down and feel like the world is filled with people like that passive aggressive guy berating the Target cashier because the line was so long, as though that is doing anything but make those of us standing behind him have to wait LONGER, but then all those other people! Just minding their own business and not being noticed at all. Probably plenty of them are jerks, but I pretend they aren’t.
I’d feel the same way about you with those husband book recs. And I’d be loud about it, too. “IS THIS HOW YOU FEEL? WHAT IS THE MATTER WITH YOU?”
I think part of the problem is we seem hardwired to remember the people who are rude, rather than the people who are kind and pleasant. I noticed this several years ago, and I am sure there is some kind of evolutionary explanation behind it all. So I really, really try and focus and remember when I meet someone nice, or who acts with random kindness.
Thanks for the book recommendation-I seem to be in a bit of a reading slump-even with books I have been excited to read when they came out-none of them are grabbing me right now. I am going to try this one, and I think I will go back and read some of my old favorites. I know those won’t disappoint!
Wait…I’m confused….do we have the same mother-in-law?
Sometimes I just need to come HERE to feel better about humanity. So maybe that’s why there are people who like People of Walmart, like marking blood on a lintel, but you know, the opposite. Oh, you know what I mean. METAPHOR HERE.
I’d like to think there is a whole bunch of nice, normal, polite, non-mean people out there (and from the comments it looks like there is and that they are raising their kids in the same manner – thank God!!!) – but you know the old adage “The squeaky wheel gets the oil” – and that’s why those jerks are so memorable; because they are annoying…like that squeaky wheel.
Whenever I read about strangers berating children in front (or not) of their parents, I always hope that I can get over my fear of confrontation and be like, excuse me, did I ask for your help here? (If the berating is for something I would be correcting) and please stop talking to my child (if it were unfounded). Because that always makes me so mad when people do that.
I work in child welfare and my job is basically to model parenting for those trying to get their kids out of foster care. So I have no problem offering redirection to random children in public, mostly because it’s a habit for me to do so. Obviously this doesn’t mean repeatedly berating strangers. But if a kid is kicking my seat you’re damn right I’m going to tell them to stop. I don’t judge the parents though because lord knows kids do some stupid shit
Oh, definitely, if a kid is actively interacting with a stranger in an unpleasant way (seat kicking, shin kicking, throwing things at them), the stranger can speak up—or of course if it’s part of your job because the children/parents are under your jurisdiction. But saying “No, don’t stand on the edge of the cart like that, that’s not safe” (when it’s my cart, and I’m right there and I don’t agree that it’s unsafe) or “Be careful with that, now” (when the child is helping me put things on the belt and I’m already audibly making the “Be careful” comments myself) is a different category.
I cannot stand the older person with the weird personal rules being directed at my kids!
I love this post, and think you’re awesome. And wise! You’re the kind of person who should have an advice column in a magazine. I am not kidding!! How do we arrange this?
Ugh, I had a run in the other day at my daughters’ ballet class, where the YOUNGSTER park employee came over and told me “you need to watch your child” because she’s “thrown papers everyhere” and you need to “clean them up NOW” because they “are a hazard”. It was so, so terrible and I was mortified and mad and I of course cleaned up the papers (which if they present such a big freaking hazard, I don’t know what they’re doing around where a 1.5 year old can get to them so easily), but I feel like it’s ruined me forever, this one little exchange. I’ve been taking my kids to this park system for years and I’m going to have to go for YEARS more and I just – I hate that I have to do so many things that involve so many human beings, and MY human beings are behaving like, well, human beings sometimes and ugh. Several times a day I wish I lived alone in a yurt or something and didn’t have to deal with so many jerkstores. I am hearing what you are saying, is what I’m saying.
I love your writing so much. It’s like reading a lawyer’s thoughts on subjective topics. I really have nothing in common with you (except the cats) but I stop by almost daily because I find a certain comfort in your thoroughness. I loved this entry so much.
ugh. i am a uu and so i am supposed to believe in the inherent worth and dignity of everyone and most of the time i do but sometimes i feel like when anne frank said that people are basically good i feel like she only thought that because she hadn’t yet had a lot of interaction with the nazis.
also it drives me crazy when people scold other people’s kids, outside of when that child is interacting with an adult or another kid in an annoying or dangerous way.
I got the Supremes from the library on your recommendation and finished it today. I liked it very much. Thanks!! Needed something new.