Jenell 1, Capitalist Beast 0

I spent at least $10 in gas driving around in my attempt to save at least $10 on mid-weight winter coats for my twins. The local population here seems to go from sweatshirts to puffy quilted tundra wear, but like the Eskimos who supposedly have a bunch of words for snow, Minnesotans have outerwear for every 20-degree increment. I want the 30-50 degree type. Having exhausted two thrift stores, Kohl's and Target, I found only one suitable specimen at Old Navy, but it was $35. I'm supposed to spend $70 on jackets for boys who will outgrow them within 70 days? Last stop, local mall.

A smiling train against a bright orange background caught my eye, which was otherwise peeled for 3T labels on the base of hangers clad with jackets in JCPenney's toddler section. I held the orange long-sleeved Thomas the Tank Engine t-shirt in my hands, and looked right through it to how Oliver's face when I would give him the t-shirt. My transportation-enamored boy would beam, run into my arms to hold the shirt, and exclaim, "Twain! Twain!" He would love me a little bit extra.

I wanted the shirt.

But I shop as rarely as possible, almost exclusively for function and quality, and actively avoid corporate images. My boys have assorted Thomas, Blues Clues, and Spiderman stuff received as gifts or hand-me-downs, but I have never purchased a corporate image on their shoes or clothing. But this orange smiling Thomas challenged my admittedly ineffectual childhood marketing resistance movement. The shirt was $7.99, on sale from $14.99, but I'd have to buy one for Wesley, too, so I'd be in for $15.98. Would Oliver's joy be worth spending $15.98? The voice in my head analyzed the t-shirt with a very harsh tone. A corporation has screened an image onto a piece of fabric, and shaped the fabric into a T. They want you to pay for the image, despite no need for that which carries it. They want you to teach your children to experience joy in owning and consuming corporate images. They want you to believe you'll feel loved when your child approves of your shopping. Heading out to buy coats and then impulse-purchasing luxury items is exactly what the capitalists want you to do.

Deconstructed into a melted pool of faulty assumptions, I hung the shirt back in its place and moved on. No coats at JCPenney, either, but there were two at Sears. $17.40 is expensive by my standards, but they were high quality and unadorned -- in fact, notably higher quality than the ones emblazoned with Thomas or Spiderman. $34.80 plus tax, and my fast-growing boys are well-clothed again, if only for the short run. Just for fun, I let my inner postmodernist take a shot. The coats are brightly colored, decent fabric, and will keep the boys warm. Their current coats have become midrif-revealing; they really do need new ones. Real needs can't be deconstructed away. Shopping, as well as the capitalist efficiency that brings us mass quantitites of quality goods, does have its place.

My favorite section of The Communist Manifesto is this: "All that is solid melts into air, all that is holy is profaned, and man is at last compelled to face with sober senses his real condition of life and his relations with his kind. The need of a constantly expanding market for its products chases the bourgeoisie over the entire surface of the globe. It must nestle everywhere, settle everywhere, establish connections everywhere." The beast came chasing after me, and I won.

As I write these words, though, a full day after shopping, I'm still picturing Thomas' smiling face against a bright orange background. Good thing my college is built around a railroad; I'll take Ollie to see the real deal.

Necesitas gasolina?

Just as exciting as Messiah College students being able to take classes from yours truly, this fall also brought undergraduates at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary the opportunity to concentrate in homemaking while earning a humanities degree. For women only, the concentration teaches cookie-baking, conversation-starting, child-raising, husband-supporting, and the patriarchal theology that makes each of those tasks so fulfilling. The program has received more attention since this LA Times coverage.

When my senior class asked Dr. Hurd, our anthro prof, what we could do with our major, he answered, "Pump gas in a cross-cultural gas station." A homemaking concentration, on the other hand, prepares women to be wives, mothers, and homeschoolers. When I was 20, I mocked my domesticity-focused peers -- women should get out of the kitchen and change the world! Now a wife, mother and anthropology professor, I'm still glad I majored in anthropology, but maybe I should have minored in homemaking. Rather than taking a both-and approach, I overplayed the importance of achieving parity with men in the public sphere and underestimated the world-changing dimensions of being a good wife and mother.

If college should shape young adults who will positively influence society, then a homemaking concentration is timely; the family is among the most needy social institutions. Even more liberally-minded colleges offer courses in family studies, interpersonal communication, and relationship enhancement, though they do so with more science and theory and less prescriptive theology. I think this academic program is, in part, an aggressive strategy on the part of seminary and denominational leadership, but being part of the liberal artsy crowd, I can't argue with its existence. And regardless of my opinion, it stands to influence millions of Americans, considering the 16 million Southern Baptists and their friends and neighbors. Of course, I could wonder whether women are equal to racial minorities, and therefore hierarchical, exclusionary theories about their social roles are no longer acceptable...but I wouldn't want to be called a radical.

My unsolicited advice to the Southwestern curriculum committee is not to abandon a homemaking curriculum, but to go even further. First, I believe college courses should focus on topics poorly dealt with in the informal sector, such as finances: purchasing a home, doing taxes, investing, and retirement. A financial course could also teach women how to gently guide their husbands toward wise financial stewardship, which would contribute to a good outcome without violating patriarchy. (Even if men took a course in finances, 50% of them would be in the bottom half of the class and could use their wive's support.) Mothering and cooking are taught and learned best in community; formalizing education and social support reduces the informal sector's participation. When a woman needs to remove a stain or find a quick substitute for buttermilk, she should call a friend, neighbor, or relative.

Second, the curriculum should include advanced topics related to the absence of men. A 300-level course titled "Cheating, Leaving, Dying: What To Do When He's Gone" would cover most of what I have in mind. Reserved for the 400-level is "On Your Own Two Feet or By Your Man: Where to Stand" in which women discuss strategies for coping with sexual addiction, gay husbands, straight affairs, and financial scandal. The other 400-level is "Why the Bleep Am I Still Single?" Most women enrolling in the homemaking concentration will be anticipating a future of mothering, wifing, and homeschooling, but some of them will not marry and some of those married will not parent.

Third, there ought to be a parallel academic concentration for men, beyond a course in theology of patriarchy. A few essential courses could include: Basic Home Repair, Achieving Financial Stability, and Being a Song of Solomons Lover. Perhaps egalitarians and complementarians can agree that women deserve satisfaction in things financial, electrical, and sexual.

I'm glad I majored in anthropology at a liberal arts college, and I'm also glad my mother taught me to can applesauce, reupholster furniture, and get dinner on the table for my dad. A liberally educated mom like me can read peer-reviewed research to her children while they bathe, contemplate Aristotelian spirituality while doing dishes (truth in the immanent), and remember that whether her hands bless the many in public service or the one, two, or three in the highchairs, it is love that changes the world.

City Mouse, Country Mouse

My boys are in the midst of the Intensive Repetition phase, in which they repeat words until an adult repeats the word and affirms its meaning. When I refuse to participate, they will repeat over twenty times something like, "Twain? Twain? Wain? Ooo ooo twain? Wain? Twain? Ooo ooo twain? Twain? Twain?" and so on. When I say, "Yes, train, choo choo train" then they stop. They don't even mind if I say it in a sarcastic, bored tone. Well, they've got it wrong with "Cow." I'm not going to affirm them pointing at a photo of a cow and saying "Orse" or "Oggie." I suppose some postmodern parents would affirm the perspectival legitimacy of the child's subjectivity, but I go modern realist on their little tushies, saying, "No! That's a cow!"

So I drove them five minutes from our house this morning, parked the van near a field, and planted them two feet from a cow' s nose. "Cow," I said, "That's a cow." The cow mooed, they mooed, I mooed, a passerby laughed, and all was well. All quickly became unwell, however, when the stampede began. The fifteen other cows in the pasture saw us standing beside the road, and rampaged across a field and a stream right at us. One of them was shouting something at me about there only being stay-at-home cows in that field, and what was I doing there. In addition to being terrified, my feelings were very hurt.

The stampede, which now that I think about it may have been at the pace of one mile an hour, resulted in a row of ten thousand bovine pounds facing about two hundred people pounds, their noses six inches from our noses. A three-foot-high wire fence (not electric) with barbs on the top separated us. I was really frightened! Would dairy cows attack toddlers? Ever? Maybe they'd smell breakfast's maple syrup on our breath and go wild. Maybe one of them would realize there was a baby sleeping in the minivan down the road, and would steal him and raise him as a cow-boy. What do I know -- I'm a city mouse. We hightailed it for the van.

Our next stop was the duck pond, where Oliver threw breadcrumbs at the ducks, and Wesley kicked the ducks out of the way so he could eat the breadcrumbs off the ground. But they both got "Duck" right.

Country mouse readers, enlighten me. Were our lives in danger? And was it rude of us to stop by someone' s field and encourage their livestock to spend calories walking over to see us?

Please help me INSTANTly

It's now week 6 of the semester, and I still haven't set up my IM office hour.

I have a gmail account now, jenell-dot-paris-at-gmail-dot-com. I don't want it for e-mail, and I don't want to IM, other than one hour each week. Can I just do the following:

1. tell students my gmail address
2. go there, turn 'on' my status, and see if any of them appear during my office hour?

Or do I need to invite them or somehow get them on my list?

Thanks!!

What's in a name

Moving to a new place has resulted in meeting many new people, and especially in the workplace, people are concerned to get my name right. I like the symbolic unity of husband and wife sharing a last name, which is why I took "Paris." But six months after our wedding, when I formatted the cover page to my dissertation, it seemed ridiculous to write Paris on it. The Williams family contributed so much more to the dissertation than the Paris'. Plus, I had publications alphabetized under "Williams" that I didn't want to get lost to potential readers. So for ten years I've been Williams Paris at work and in print, and Paris at home/church. I have yet to decide what my middle name is -- Williams? Lora? Lora Williams?

But now, work is less than a mile from home, morning church is a mile from home, and house church is two blocks from home, and all settings have overlapping people. Compartmentalizing names is no longer an option. Neither is being nice in one place and an asshole in the other; I have to stop that.

So just to clear it up once and for all, here are the rules for my name.

1. My first name is always Jenell. It is not Janelle or Jenelle, not even on holidays. No one else spells it my way, which is why all my boys have names of only one spelling. I'm breaking the generational curse of idiosyncratic nomenclature.

2. My last name is Williams Paris when in professional settings and on publications. It never has a hyphen, and should be alphabetized under P.

3. My last name is Paris in personal settings, when in Minnesota. My last name is Williams Paris when visiting former professional settings in Minnesota. Former professors of mine at Bethel have a lifelong exemption, however, and may continue to call me Williams, as some of them did for the ten years I worked there!

4. My last name in Pennsylvania, at work, is Williams Paris. It's nice if my colleagues can use both names, but it's fine for students to just use "Paris." It's also fine for everyone to bypass the confusion and call me 'Jenell', which is what they seem to be doing.

5. I allow myself the freedom, at work, to use 'Paris' when writing quickly and don't want to take the time to write 'Williams', or if I'm really tired and want to conserve my strength by speaking one name and not two. Others may do the same. I also sometimes insist on "Williams Paris" when I'm the only woman in a meeting, or I feel disregarded because of my gender. Just roll with it - it makes me feel better.

6. In exchange for remaining noncomittal about my surname, I allow everyone to call me "Paris" or "Williams Paris" and I don't get offended. If you hyphenate me, I still won't be offended, but I will correct you. If you are a customer service person on the phone and hear "Harris" or "Parish", then I get irritated, but I'm still understanding about it.

7. I do not like being referred to as "Mrs." I don't participate in the Mrs/Ms/Miss cultural convention that identifies women based on marital status. If you send mail to my husband and me and are compelled to use formal terms of address, you can write "Mr. and Dr. Paris" or "Dr. and Mr. Paris." If you write "Mr. and Mrs. James Paris", I will hold a grudge (that goes out to you, grandma!), but if you write, "Dr. and Mr. Jenell Paris", I will smile.

8. The rules may change. I just got married recently, and am still adjusting to what that means for my identity, family of origin, and name. Oh, that's right, our ten year anniversary is coming up this winter. Well, is there a time limit on negotiating justice in one's personal sphere in the midst of a patriarchial society? I'll just keep working it out at my own pace, if you don't mind.

To summarize, it's Jenell (always) Lora (rarely) Williams (sometimes) Paris (always). It's really very simple, don't you think?

Cereal post

"Self," I said, "Grade five more papers, and then you can blog."
Four more papers.
Three.
Two.
One.
And here I am. The papers are essays in which I required students to discuss gender and spirituality in the lives of two characters, one from Traveling Mercies and one from The Kite Runner. They came up with some really interesting themes. My favorites are about friendship (Hassan and Pammy), single parenting (Anne and Ali and Baba), and finding God through personal desperation (Anne and Amir).

We moved last weekend to the small-yarded house that is .7 miles from work. If I drive, my commute is about 100 seconds. If I walk, it's 12 minutes one way (downhill) and 22 minutes home (uphill). The house itself is adequate in every way, except for the oven being broken.

While unpacking, I found my high school and college journals and read myself to sleep last night. This prompted dreams involving the old boyfriend, so I won't do it again. But it was worth it for this sentence written in 1991: "God, please let me live in Pennsylvania someday." In addition to remembering how totally self-absorbed I was about sexuality and boyfriends between the ages of 17 and 25, my journals reminded me how much I loved Philadelphia, as well as the PA Turnpike because it was the road that took me to Philly. I spent two summers in Philly doing urban ministry with KingdomWorks. I found myself in service -- that there was such a thing as the kingdom of God, and it was among the poor, and there was a meaningful place for me in it. I just wanted more, more, more. And here I am, sixteen years later, living the dream. Well, except for the urban part, which was pretty much the whole dream. But rural Pennsylvania is pretty wonderful, too. God, please let me live here for a long time.

We're really tired. We have pushed ourselves past our healthy limits almost every day since I got pregnant with Max last September. Daily vomiting, outrageous back pain, childbirth in the spring, putting house on the market, sweating out its sale, quit job, take new job, move cross country, start new job, buy house, move again. Whew. Max was born on the day between Good Friday and Easter, and it has sort of felt like that day over and over since then: not as bad as, say, being crucified, but not yet the clear sun of Easter morning. But we have had faith -- I'm proud of us for that -- and we're on our way.

If I date this transition from the beginning of my awareness of Max's existence, then it's been a solid 13 months of liminality. In Intro to Anthro we just finished reading Nisa, an ethnography about a !Kung woman. She talks about moving seasonally around the Kalahari Desert, and each time they settle, she says, "And we just lived and lived." Her words run through my mind these days. "We moved to Grantham, PA," I'll say into the anthropologist's tape recorder, "and we just lived and lived."

And as for cereal, there wasn't any today. Sausage, eggs, blueberry pancakes, melon, coffee for grown-ups, and milk for kids.

Grace Abounds

"Are you here for mom's club?"
"No," I said. "What is mom's club?"
Michelle, the only other adult at the park, told me about the local mom's club. My bevy of boys just happened to arrive right at the group's start time. "Do you stay home?" she said.
"No," I said, "My husband stays home and I work."
"Oh," she said, "Our group is only for moms who don't work. Or work part time."
Other moms arrived, and they enjoyed their playtime while I sat on the sidelines, unincluded at this event and uninvited to future ones.

And, the other day, a friend said to me, "Well, if you can't be with your kids, your husband is the next best thing." She also asked me whether I had damaged my son psychologically by weaning him at 15 months (one weaned himself, and I weaned the other when Maxwell appeared on the scene like a bunny from a magician's hat).

Listen up, you glasses-and-sweatpants clad, lumpy-assed, poop-stained house fraus. We didn't make this cross-country life upheaval just to set up 'second best' for our kids. My husband and I are not interchangeable in terms of parental role and style, but we are absolutely interchangeable in terms of value. Who could argue that it's a bad idea for a father to raise his three sons? And as for weaning Ollie, it was a jungle moment of survival of the fittest. I felt horrible about it, but I needed to save my strength for the most vulnerable, Fetus Maximus, and leave the boy to subsist on hamburgers and cheese, both of which he was successfully chomping at the time.

That defensive fight impulse is, of course, just to protect my feelings. The finely-tuned insult that opens the paragraph is an example of how we hurt others just to salve our own feelings of hurt. (But isn't it a zinger? I've been working on it for two hours). The truth is that my life is way past 'best', even way past 'second best.' Is anyone still working on Plan A for their lives? I'm not even sure what the relationship is between the family I have now and the family I thought I'd have. We're doing the best we can, meal by meal and nap by nap. Oliver may have been wounded by weaning, but he's also been hurt by all the losses of patience, oversights of owies, and parental disregards we've thrown his way since then. God makes kids resilient for a reason. And as for the stay-at-home mom thing, well, I believe it is one of many incredibly loving ways to raise a child. When I stop defending our statistically unusual household division of labor, I can see the plain reality that I'm just OK at mothering, and I'm just OK at my job, and even that degree of OK is reduced significantly by trying to do both at the same time.

But that's OK, and so is the fact that stay-at-home moms want to have a club that allows for mutual support. I think, however, that the larger club should be one of mutual support for all families. Michelle and I were both at the park, supervising our kids' play. That's pretty good, even if one of us heads off to work later. And the largest club of all should be one of mutual support for everyone. After all, each of us was weaned, and perhaps we're all carrying around psychological wounds from num-nums denied.

My bottom line is this: let's just promise that, when we see each other at the park, we'll say "hi" and play together nicely.