Women, Work, and What Really Matters

An article by Donna Britt about women and housework has been making the rounds today on Facebook. Basically, Britt writes about the rage that women feel because they continue to do more of the housework while also now engaging in significant careers. Britt's article (really an excerpt from her new book) ends with a realization that the person she has to change is herself--that she's the one making these demands on herself.

I don't necessarily resonate with the rage part, perhaps because I have a partner who does more than his half of the house and child work in our family, but I do resonate with the idea of placing demands on myself that my husband doesn't. Even though we both do housework, it seems to matter to me more; my husband doesn't think much about it if the laundry piles up, knowing that he'll get to it, while I tend to fret and grumble and see the mounting pile of clean, unfolded clothing as some kind of indictment of me as a wife and mother.

Why is that? And more importantly, what can I do about it?

The why has a lot, I think, to do with society and expectations, and probably some to do with my own personality, too. But the solution is what interests me more. Because this is where I think getting religious about things helps.

Religion--or any philosophical system--can offer an alternative to what society says we ought to care about. If I remind myself that my deepest values center around love and dignity for all people, is the laundry really that important? Sure, eventually you want folded clothes...but it doesn't really seem worth beating yourself up if you remember that your goal in life is to live compassionately, not neatly.

Of course thinking of this is the easy part. Remembering it is another story. Good thing my job is reminding people; all I need now is to listen to myself.

That's a Bad Word!

True confession time: if you hear my four year old use a curse word sometime in the next few weeks, it's my fault. It was a hectic morning, the baby was fussy, something dropped all over the kitchen floor and...it just slipped out.

And it was definitely noticed. "Why did you just say s---, Mama?" my daughter asked, charmingly mispronouncing the word. "That was a bad word I said," I responded. "I shouldn't have used it and I'm sorry I did. It was a bad word."

The topic dropped easily enough, and I haven't heard it again (and I'm hopeful that the mispronunciation will make it indistinguishable!). But the whole thing has me thinking about the concept of "bad" words...the way what's bad changes generation to generation, how bad words are arresting when we hear them but sometimes so satisfying to say, and what the heck it means to have a word be bad, anyway.

Of course, one reason is cultural mores, and those are strong: check out Carolyn Hax on this topic today and the campaign to pull Modern Family from ABC because of an episode featuring a swearing toddler (which was hysterical, by the way).

I am someone who tends to be relatively bound by societal expectations for behavior--unless, and this is a big unless, I think a justice issue is at play. I don't swear a lot, and I don't want to see my four year old swearing. But I'm intrigued by the idea of what makes a word bad one decade and okay the next, and by the idea that our "bad" words are almost always connected to our bodies or to hell. There's something there about religion and embodiment that's worth exploring!

Just not by my preschooler.

Guest Blogger: Response to "Act As If"

From Barbara Searle, WES Member and Alert Reader!

I am far from qualified to argue with neuroscientists, but nevertheless I think there's a fatal flaw in the kind of argument you reported. The underlying assumption seems to me to be that if we can't find a scientific explanation for a phenomenon now (or can't even imagine a conceptual framework within which an appropriate explanation might be developed) then the only possible recourses are either to adopt a non-scientific explanation (God, or god or whatever) or to deny that the phenomenon exists. There are many serious scientists who are strictly deterministic -- they believe that since such experiences as free will and consciousness must arise in the brain, and they can't imagine how something that arises in the brain could produce such experiences, they don't exist. (Another camp accepts that they exist, but holds that such things are beyond human understanding, an equally useless position, in my view, since if true there's no point in even looking.)

This is very reminiscent of the way many biological observations have been treated in the past. To take just one example, many reputable scientists in the early 20th century denied the reality of genes because they couldn't imagine either how they were constructed or how they could carry out the functions attributed to them. It took both new tools (to allow appropriate experiments to be carried out) and new conceptual frameworks, for it to become obvious that genes are real. (Sort of -- but that's another story altogether!)

In my view, not only is behaving 'as if' a reasonable way to go, but it is betting on the right side!

Acting As If

I just came across an interesting Slate article on evil and neuroscience. Contrary to how I just wrote that sentence, it's not suggesting that neuroscience is evil!

Actually, the article talks about how neuroscientists suggest thttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifhat evil may not really exist--that evil acts can all be blamed on faulty wiring. Extending this idea, some neuroscientists would posit that all that wiring means that we don't really have free will; in other words, "my brain made me do it."

I've been interested in the problem of evil for a while, and wrote two platforms on it: one about evil specifically, one connecting evil to fear. And now I'm really interested in the interaction of evil and free will.

For me, though, the best part of the Slate article is an ethicist's suggestion, toward the end, that we act "as if" we had free will to choose between good and evil. I love the concept of acting "as if" and I use it in my life. I've written here about acting "as if" the world bends toward justice, whether it does or not, and I also act "as if" people are all connected in a deep and spiritual way. And frankly, I don't care much if they are. I like the effects on my life of acting as if.

How about you? Does it work to act "as if?" Or does it feel more important to know the truth? Can we know the truth? What is most effective as you seek to live the life you hope to live?

Everyday Awareness: Sorting Socks

I do a lot of laundry. Actually, my husband really does the laundry; my job is folding and sorting. The scenario is usually the same: me on the bed, at the very end of the evening, surrounded by a huge pile of clothes--some inside out, some stuck together with that ferocious static cling, some balled up and still damp.

Since I have to fold the laundry one way or another, I figure I might as well do it with some attention to the moment, some mindfulness. Spiritual sorting, if you like.

Here's what I was aware of last night:

I sort socks last, after everything else has been folded. When I first approach the pile of socks, which belong to four different people and range from very tiny and mostly pink to large and mostly black, I have a moment of despair. It's too much, I'll never find the matches, I've reached the limit of my tolerance for laundry. But as I begin to sort, the matches make themselves clear. What once looked like a huge mass of black socks, all the same, start to distinguish themselves--these have a slight herringbone pattern, those have a little pinstripe. As each match is found and set aside, the remaining socks and their matches become clearer. Order emerges from the chaos, and I can see which socks really don't have matches; I scoop them up and put them to the side, where they await the next load of laundry and the hope of finding their mates once again.

How many things in life, I wonder, are we unable to see because of all the balled up socks lying around them? What matches would emerge if we began to clear the clutter, if we matched first the easy ones--the bright pink, the rainbow stripes--and then allowed our eyes to adjust to the subtler shades, to see with clarity the variations presented to us?

A little mindfulness while sorting socks.

Santa Claus and Inherent Worth

Christmas with a four-year-old, I have found, is very Santa-centric. I think my daughter could have skipped the rest of her presents as long as she new the big guy with the white beard had come, eaten the cookie she left for him, and filled her stocking.

The whole thing had me wondering about why the gifts from Santa are always the most exciting, even if they're not the biggest or the most expensive. Of course there's an element of magic and fun which Santa brings. But I wonder if there's not something deeper...something about our worth in the universe.

Our parents (when we're four) have to get us presents, of course...just the way they have to love us. But to receive presents from, and to be seen and noticed and cared for by, this magical and unrelated individual seems somehow more wonderful. My daughter picked up a little from some books about the naughty-nice list, and she was very clear that she was on Santa's good side, and that he'd be sure to bring her presents. Somewhere in there, I think, is an affirmation of her place in the world, her worth as an individual, and the love that the world returns to her.

So how do we tap into that affirmation in a religious community? For some, it's found in a call to connection with God, or with the divine understood broadly as love. For others, it's found in each other--that is, we can be Santa, and affirm someone's worthiness, when we give them our love just for being who they are. Another human being.

I'm thinking about all of this as I prepare for my address on Sunday, focusing on inherent worth and dignity, a key value in both Unitarian Universalism and Ethical Culture. Will Santa make an appearance in my remarks? Maybe so. You never can tell where that jolly guy will show up next.