I have several related questions, and I have forgotten at least one of them, but we are going to proceed with the ones I remember and we’ll see how that goes.

Here is the basic topic: I have a 13-year-old daughter.

And here is the basic thing I am wondering about: leg/underarm shaving.

Oh! I remember the third thing! It was about looking for recommendations for books teenagers can consult to find answers to their own questions, without having to ask parents or rely on the iffy knowledge of friends. Let’s save that one for another day, actually, because I think we have quite enough for one morning, and because I want to make a Reference Post of the other topic so we have all those recommendations in one place. If you put them in THIS post, and then I write the OTHER post, you might feel as if you already said it and don’t want to say it again, and then we’ll lose that valuable input.

In my own childhood, I was very keen to be a teenager and I got ahead of things by reading a lot of books about/for teenagers, and subscribing to Seventeen and Teen and Sassy. So, for example, I was the one who told my mom it was time for me to start using deodorant, and I asked to be taught to shave my legs and then explored other methods (my mom still uses the Epilady I bought with babysitting money and used for 20 seconds), and I was making my own appointments at hair salons and getting my hair feathered, and I was counting days until I was allowed to wear make-up. (I should mention that now, as an adult, I am no longer nearly as interested in hair/make-up.)

Elizabeth is not the same sort of child. She does paint her nails. She has strong opinions about her hair (LONG with BANGS, no she does NOT want to grow the bangs out, stop ASKING her). She has strong opinions about her clothes and is irritated that now that she is 5’6″ it is harder to find shirts with good pictures on them, or shorts in pink and purple and turquoise, or jeans with embroidery. With the possible-but-not-necessarily exception of the nails (MANY little girls like nail polish), those are all still indications of CHILD mode. She does not look for teen books/magazines, she does not ask to wear make-up, she does not have posters of attractive celebrity teenagers on her walls. She does not fuss with her hair or spend much time looking in the mirror.

Here is what I am nervously working up toward discussing with you:

1. She gives all indications of identifying as female.
2. We live in a society where most women shave their legs/underarms.
3. Our particular city is a place where ALL women appear to do so.
4. She is not making her own move to do so.
5. At some point, am I supposed to cue her to do so?

It is swimming pool season, is what I am saying. And I know in some areas of the country, there are LOTS of women with body hair, and that is good and natural and I’m glad to see it. At my own particular swimming pool: NONE grown women or teen girls with natural underarm hair. Literally none. I have seen literally not a single one, and we moved here when Rob was under a year old.

So. If you are a woman who has natural body hair, and your partner loves it, and your daughters are being raised to have natural body hair, and you couldn’t care less what society thinks, then that is LOVELY and also it is a different discussion. You will need to switch your problem-solving minds to Swistle Mode, where the circumstances are different on every point and there is an issue to be solved within those circumstances.

What I don’t want to do is rush her into teen stuff. What I also don’t want to do is leave her untaught and open to remarks. She tends to be embarrassed about this kind of thing, and I don’t want her to be stuck having to ask me for training or figure it out on her own if she doesn’t want to. And I don’t want it to be a nasty remark at the swimming pool that motivates her to start shaving. I would much prefer it to be just a normal thing, like when I said it was time to start wearing a bralette, or time to start wearing deodorant.

It’s just, I don’t know if shaving is the same category or not. Like, I would not say, “It is time for me to teach you how to wear make-up” or “It is time for you to get a fashionable haircut” or “It is time to start consulting magazines about what you should wear.” Underarm/leg-shaving is not exactly in the hygiene category, not exactly in the fashion category. That is: our society in general and my part of the country in particular would say it is hygiene, but I am worried about promoting that view when it is actually fashion. (If it were hygiene, most men would also shave their underarms and legs.) And yet I don’t want to try to make my child the vanguard for social change, at her own expense. Nor do I want to make a Big Deal about this. (Too late.) And I want to make sure she has the information/materials to make her own choices about it.

Oh! I have had an idea. What if I say to her something like, “So listen: in our culture many women start shaving their underarms and legs once they hit their teen years. You’re a teenager now, so I want to show you how and where the supplies are, in case you want to do that.” And I could go over other options I’ve tried, which might make for an entertaining talk while she’s trapped in the car. How about something like that? Does that seem like it gives her the information without pressuring her to do it? I could add a little rant about hygiene vs. fashion.

While we’re on the topic: if you shave underarms/legs, how did you start? Did a parent tell you to, or teach you to? Did friends start doing it, so you started doing it too? Did you get the idea from teen books/magazines, as I’m pretty sure I did?

After Mother’s Day, for which Paul regressed to his pre-prefrontal-cortex early 20s and said “She’s not MY mother” and he and the children did literally nothing, many of us, including me, were wondering what I might do for Father’s Day. There were so many satisfying, vengeful options to consider.

Here is what I decided: That even if Paul shrugs off his parental duty to teach the children to celebrate Mother’s Day, I’m not going to retaliate by shrugging off my parental duty to teach the children to celebrate Father’s Day. That in fact, if one parent is going to model selfishness and thoughtlessness, the other parent needs to STEP IT UP on those topics, however unfair that seems, if there is any hope of avoiding raising selfish, thoughtless jerks. And that if by doing this, I could passive-aggressively point out to the children and Paul that Mother’s Day had been done very poorly indeed, and teach them to do better in the future, then that would be a bonus.

Five days before Father’s Day, I began. I mentioned to the children in an enthusiastic voice that Father’s Day was the upcoming Sunday. I asked if they had thought of what they wanted to do for it. I told them they should let me know in plenty of time if they needed help/money from me. I gave some suggestions, based on things they would know their dad likes/wants:

making him a card
offering to go out and get a box of doughnuts
vacuuming out his car
shaking out his car’s floor mats
taking his car through a car wash (I’d pay)
taking his car to fill with gasoline (I’d pay)
sweeping the living room without being asked
cleaning up the living room without being asked
Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups
vacuuming the stairs
doing any of the other little things Paul usually tells them to do, but without being asked

After I’d mentioned the importance of thinking about the person and what THEY might like, Rob said scoffingly, “Or instead, we could just ask him what he wants?” Well, I said. Parents spend EVERY DAY OF THE YEAR telling children what to do. So part of the gift is DOING THE THING YOU KNOW THE PARENT WANTS YOU TO DO but without the parent having to ask this time; part of the gift is THE BREAK FROM HAVING TO ASK. Part of the gift is THINKING ABOUT WHAT THE PARENT MIGHT WANT, rather than forcing them to tell you AS PER USUAL.

Rob played into my hands again. He said “We didn’t do anything for Mother’s Day, did we?”—with a tone of so-why-are-we-suddenly-doing-this. And I said no, we hadn’t, and I pretended to misinterpret the gist of his question. I said that although it was tempting to get revenge on Dad by doing the same for Father’s Day, since I blamed him to some extent for not organizing the children into action, that I didn’t think that would be right—and that it would sacrifice a valuable teaching opportunity for the children. Rob said he didn’t think it would be revenge, he thought it would just be a step (“in the right direction,” his tone added) toward letting these “minor holidays” go uncelebrated. I did not cry or scream, even though his continued use of Tone made it tempting. Well, I said, I didn’t think so; I said that it had been pretty sucky to spend Mother’s Day seeing pictures on Facebook of all my friends doing Mother’s Day things with their families. So I didn’t think doing less was the answer. There was a significant pause.

Rob tried to blame Paul but quickly petered out, like he could tell there was no leg to stand on there. He brought up that he had ASKED Paul about Mother’s Day. I said, yes. And that I’d heard him ask, and that I’d heard Paul say “She’s not MY mother,” and that that was wrong and sad and here’s why, and here’s how Paul could have presented the same concept in a very different and useful way (“Well, she’s your mother; what do YOU think we should do?”). But. That the essence of what Paul had been saying was: It’s YOUR job to figure this out. Because she’s YOUR mother. Pointed look.

Rob wrote something down in a notebook. “I’m making a note to do something next year,” he said.

Lest you celebrate his change of heart: after all this, he let Father’s Day go by without doing anything. He went to work mid-afternoon, having done nothing at all. Despite discussion. Despite follow-up questions/reminders. Despite a sad face and personal testimony and a significant pause.

Mid-morning (while Rob was still asleep—he’s working second shift) is when I reminded the other children. “Are you remembering it’s Father’s Day?,” I asked them. “Are you all set? Do you need anything from me?” Sometimes I made sure that we were having these whispered conversations near enough to Paul that he would be aware that they were going on.

Mid-afternoon is when a low simmering anger kicked in. “You ungrateful wretches,” I didn’t say. “You horrible, selfish, spoiled beasts,” I didn’t add. “Where have we gone so wrong in our parenting?,” I didn’t wonder aloud. “How many of your future partners will blame ME for this?,” I didn’t speculate aloud. I did not scream or cry, or get in the car and keep driving away from these terrible people who are apparently younger versions of their father.

“It’s mid-afternoon; what are you PLANNING?,” I did in fact ask. “Come on, you’re running out of time!,” I did add. When I got shrugs, when William said “I haven’t done anything for Father’s Day since 6th grade,” when some of the kids started seriously arguing to me that OTHERS of the kids hadn’t done anything, that’s when I gave the rage a little leash. “This is one of two days a year we ask you to think of someone other than your own self,” I said. “Thinking of what to do is PART OF THE GIFT,” I said. “YOU are supposed to be thinking about Dad and what he might like,” I added. “I gave you ideas, and I gave them to you FIVE DAYS AGO,” I hissed. “Do something, do ANYTHING, but DO NOT LET THIS DAY JUST SLIP AWAY UNCELEBRATED,” I said with my hair smoking gently, lit with resentment about Mother’s Day and now new fresh resentment about Father’s Day.

When even that failed to yield results, I considered not telling you about it. It makes things look better on me and on the children if I have eager, willing, generous, easily-led children, and if all Paul needed to do was nudge/help the poor confused dears instead of thwarting/stunting them. It looks badly on me and on the children if I cannot kindly and easily coax them into lifting a pinky finger for their father. I hope you are empathetic enough to realize that this does not mean I want other people to say critical things about my children. I assume you and I can exchange A Look about it, possibly a CONCERNED Look, and have that be enough.

Eventually, with increased incredulous effort and sustained hissing, I achieved grudging results. One child cleaned the bathroom sink/counter, even though Paul does not particularly value that chore—but at least the thought/effort was there, and it was the child’s own thought/idea. One child brought out a card he had made at school but had not previously mentioned for some inexplicable reason. I coerced the other two children to come outside with me and work on Paul’s car: we shook out the floor mats and vacuumed the floor and threw away trash.

I gave Paul two presents, even though he is not my father. One was four pairs of Pair of Thieves socks from Target; they have this new line that costs EIGHT UNITED STATES DOLLARS PER PAIR for plain solid-colored socks, and because they changed colors the old colors were 70% off, so I got him four pairs to try. I’d also noticed recently that his favorite measuring-cup device had gotten badly chipped, so I replaced it with a new one.

Also, all day I kept up with dishes and getting them washed and/or into the dishwasher, because I know he doesn’t like having dirty dishes piling up on the counter. I washed a difficult dish he’d left to soak in the sink instead of leaving it for him to deal with. At the grocery store I made sure to get him the things he likes. I vacuumed the stairs because none of the kids did it and it really needed doing. I took care of several other things. It occurred to me that one reason he doesn’t think to do things like this to please me is that maybe he doesn’t notice/care when I do these things to please him. I tried not to think about that.

Sunday is one of the nights of the week when he cooks, so I thought about offering to take over that task for him, even though he claims to like cooking. But I could not quite work up the enthusiasm for that. I got him some presents, I worked with his terrible children, I was thoughtful about other things, and that is going to have to be enough for someone who did literally nothing for Mother’s Day.

The mother of Elizabeth’s friend Sarah asked Sarah to give Elizabeth a pamphlet for a religious summer camp. “My mom says to say it’s not REALLY about religion,” said Sarah. The pamphlet explains that the purpose of the camp is to have fun! and make friends! and eat s’mores! and deeply explore the Bible to learn how it relates to every aspect of our world and our lives! I looked up the organization and they are a group formed for the purpose of using children to evangelize to other children.

I am trying to react to this with semi-amused eye-rolling (“Just toss the pamphlet in the recycling and forget about it! She’s probably just thinking Elizabeth might like to go to the same camp as Sarah!”), but let me tell you confidentially that I am not succeeding. You may remember that I was brought up Christian, so I remember this kind of thing from the inside point of view, and I have been recognizing the symptoms in Sarah and her family for awhile now; this is not just a casual camp idea. I remember learning in Sunday School and youth group about looking for opportunities to witness to our friends. I remember telling friends that the picnic or youth group activity or vacation Bible school or summer camp wasn’t really about religion, it was just for having fun! and making friends! and eating s’mores! You don’t have to be religious, it’s for everyone!

I also know that back then, I would have felt very sorry for Elizabeth, whose parents Weren’t Saved and so weren’t teaching her The Good News. I would have been worried about this, and I would have had a strong mental image of their dark souls hungering for the light. I would have earnestly brought the situation up as a prayer request in Sunday School or youth group. It makes me feel queasy to think about this, and to think of this other family seeing our family this way. I don’t have to wonder if Sarah has reported Elizabeth’s unsaved status to her family, or if they might be thinking they can save Elizabeth, or if Sarah has been taught she should be on the lookout for moments she can Share Her Faith. “It’s not about RELIGION,” Sarah explains at the school lunch table. “It’s about the way the world WORKS.” I know this script. I have advised Elizabeth that there is no point in arguing, and that it is better to change the subject. Sarah is a good friend when she’s not trying to do her Evangelical Duty.

When I was on the inside of this kind of thing, it seemed compassionate: we’re trying to RESCUE people! we are battling for people’s ETERNAL SOULS! From the outside, it looks presumptuous and predatory. Adults should not be trying to convert other people’s children to their religion. Adults should not be using their own children as tools to convert other people’s children. Adults should know this through the easy one-step method of wondering if they would want other adults to work on converting THEIR children. I don’t think Sarah’s mother would think it was compassionate of me to try to save Sarah from her parents’ teachings. I think she would be outraged at any attempt, and would want me to stay away from her child, and would think it was really weird of me to try to get involved, and would see it as me trying to lead Sarah astray.

I am not, however, going to do anything about this, except explaining to my own children what this is and why I don’t like it and why this is a hot-button area of discussion for me. I’m not going to confront Sarah’s mother, someone I’ve met only once. I’m not going to send back a pamphlet about Skeptics Camp, telling Elizabeth to explain to Sarah that it’s not REALLY about skepticism. I’m not going to do anything except roll my eyes and recycle the stupid pamphlet and lie awake composing mental arguments about it.

I made the mistake of reading other books before reviewing these, so already they fade in my memory.

(image from Amazon.com)

My Ex-Life, by Stephen McCauley

The plot of this book is exactly my kind of thing: David, a gay man whose life is in a bit of upheaval, goes to stay with his ex-wife Julie and her daughter Mandy for a little while to help them with some stuff, and things go really nicely and companionably and appealingly. But the book was written in a style I don’t like: the author almost couldn’t write a sentence without making a snarky/clever/witty add-on:

David guessed him to be in his late thirties or early forties, but boyishness still clung to him, as it often does to men with good hair or unresolved relationships with their fathers. He was tidily dressed in short pants and a green polo shirt, and he wore around his neck a lanyard with a heavy set of keys attached, a little like a gym teacher or an obstreperous camp counselor.

I found it extremely tiring to read in fiction, because there is no way to get absorbed in the story if the author is constantly drawing your attention to the way he’s writing it. It was like getting constantly nudged.

Also, it was the kind of book that confirms your fears that everyone is thinking mean things about everyone else:

Carol had a high, girlish voice. She took superb care of herself–her skin appeared to be polished–but she had the hard face of someone who could stand to eat a cupcake once or twice a year. The bones were too prominent, and the muscles around her jaw flexed visibly when she spoke. As was to be expected, she was pretty. But it was the flat prettiness of a sorority sister who wears pastels, subscribes to Self magazine, and actually reads the articles. She punctuated her comments with a dry, nervous laugh that reminded David of the panting of a dog eager to be petted.

and:

If Carol was making an exhausting effort to please, Henry was aiming for a stern demeanor that gave away nothing. David had noted this deportment in strong-willed men overcompensating for the fact that their lives are controlled by their wives or girlfriends. He had a dark suntan, an attractive affectation, but one that these days looked somehow vintage, like a dial telephone or an electric carving knife.

It’s vivid, creative, descriptive writing, but I didn’t like it and it made me feel yucky to read it. Despite that, I read to the end because I wanted to know what would happen with the plot, which I liked very much. And because of charming passages like this one, where David and Mandy walk Mandy’s dog deliberately past a shop where the shopkeeper always comes out with a dog biscuit:

After a few minutes, a small man emerged holding something in his hands. “Please don’t pretend you’re not expecting a snack,” he said. “We’re beyond that charade.”

The author then interjects to say it wasn’t clear if he was speaking to Mandy or to the dog, but it is 100% endearing if he’s talking to the dog, and otherwise it is not, so I wish he had just let us assume it was addressed to the dog (which it absolutely was, and you cannot tell me otherwise).

It is hard to say if I recommend the book or not. I guess I do, especially since people have different tastes in writing styles and you might LOVE what I found tiring/depressing.

(image from Amazon.com)

Lincoln in the Bardo, by George Saunders

I read this after reading Shelf Love’s review, which I highly recommend you read as well, because it explains it very well with the appropriate warnings. Even with the warnings, I spent the first 50 pages or so thinking the book might be too experimental/confusing for me to get through (and sighing at the body-part crudity and bathroom crudity). But sometime after that, I went from uncertain to enchanted, and spent the rest of the book thinking things such as “Why are there not MORE books like this??” and getting bowled over by new plot points. (And skimming some of the chapters full of quotes from Lincoln resources. They were good, and they contributed to the story, but there were TOO MANY BY HALF.) I really, really liked it, and added several more books by this author to my library list.

I had another morning of cursing my sleep conscience: I dreamed I turned down a dinner date with a really great guy (“I’m married,” I said; “I don’t mind married,” he said, charming as all heck; “I really CAN’T,” I said), and I dreamed I turned down a dozen different foods I really wanted to eat. Why. Why have I not mastered lucid dreaming. I turned down a chance to eat brownies and not-forsake-all-others and EAT BROWNIES.

I am applying for TSA Pre-Check, which is that thing that lets you get through airport security faster and more easily and without all the instructions that make me frazzled and anxious. I kept starting the application process and then stopping it, because it said that it was CRUCIAL that your name be EXACTLY THE SAME on all the documents you brought to the interview to prove your identity. But my driver’s license shows just my two middle initials, and my passport has my middle names spelled out. Those are not matching, but not something I can easily fix. And I couldn’t find anything about it in the FAQ; and to get to the interview portion I have to drive 45 minutes away to a city I hate driving in, so it wasn’t something I wanted to take a chance on, either.

BUT ALSO, I have found while researching it for the baby name blog that at least for Social Security purposes, the U.S. government doesn’t consider middle names part of your legal name. (Suffixes such as Jr., III, etc., are also not part of the legal name. The post where I said so gets regular comments from pissed-off men who want to explain to me JUST HOW MUCH those suffixes ARE part of their names, and want to prove it to me with multiple not-at-all-proving-it examples. YAWN.)

(screenshot from SSA.gov)

So my hope was that this would be the same situation for the TSA Pre-Check thing, since that’s the government too, and I finally just proceeded with the application. Mid-application, I got to this line:

(screenshot from TSA.gov)

HOPE CONFIRMED. In case you too have been fretting about this.

I am reading The Parable of the Sower by Octavia Butler, and I would like to say that this is just the kind of thing I used to like to read before the possibility of this exact kind of future (no contraceptives! clean water is too scarce for most people to afford! all education is private and too expensive for most people to afford! police/firefighters are private and have to be paid for directly by the citizen who summons them! women and children can’t go outside safely except in a group including armed men!) went from “oooh, kind of thrillingly creepy to think of the effects of that kind of unlikely societal collapse!” to “our political leaders are right this minute working on achieving those very goals.” I want to finish the book, but it’s setting my baseline level of panic way too high for daily life, so I think after this one book I’m done (it’s a series).

I’d like to veer into another topic, which is my new pillow. This story begins when I was doing my in-home eldercare job, and one of the houses I went to had the TV set to a station that played a pillow commercial again and again and again and again until I was about to lose my fool mind but also kind of wanted to try the pillow. Then I read some reviews, and the reviews said the pillow was nothing but one of those egg-carton memory foam things you put under a sleeping bag, but all ripped up into chunks and stuffed into a sack.

I was at Target earlier this week, and their whole pillow aisle was full of the new yellow clearance stickers (I HATE the new yellow clearance stickers). I found a pillow labeled “Shredded Foam Pillow: Shapeable memory foam designed to fit your ideal sleep position.” Definitely hinting at it being a knock-off of the one in the commercial, and I squeezed it and it felt like it was full of ripped-up chunks of memory foam, so I bought it.

This would be a much better story if I loved the pillow, but I don’t. It seems like it might be good for me: when I lie on my side using the pillow, I can just SEE the part of the commercial that shows the side-sleeper’s spine aligning correctly. But I am also a stomach-sleeper, and a half-stomach-half-side sleeper, and this pillow doesn’t CHANGE enough for that. It’s the firmest pillow I have ever used: there is almost no GIVE to it at all. I am accustomed to a down-filled pillow, which had too MUCH give (I had to keep plumping it up and squishing it into a half-pillow-sized lump in the pillow case), but this is too far the other way. When I squeeze the pillow with my hand, it feels as if it would squoosh down nicely, but my head is not heavy enough to make it do that, so I feel as if my head is resting on a stable little shelf. In the reviews for the pillow on TV, reviewers wrote that foam chunks could be removed from the pillow to make it more adjustable; I may see if I can do that.