http://01ee2c7.netsolhost.com/commentaries Just another WordPress weblog Tue, 04 Nov 2008 12:59:10 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.9.1 en hourly 1 Just another WordPress weblog no http://01ee2c7.netsolhost.com/commentaries/?p=166 http://01ee2c7.netsolhost.com/commentaries/?p=166#comments Tue, 04 Nov 2008 12:59:10 +0000 jbram http://01ee2c7.netsolhost.com/commentaries/?p=166 http://01ee2c7.netsolhost.com/commentaries/?feed=rss2&p=166 0 Is it my imagination, or has there been a very different tenor to this year’s political discourse? I’m a news junkie, and usually relish these weeks leading up to an election.  Never one to miss a debate or editorial, today I’ve also got a plethora of blogs, twitters, and online political sites – not to mention e-mails, jokes, and YouTube videos – in which to indulge my fascination with politics. You’d think I’d be in my heydey. But something different this year has kept me from plunging into the fray with my usual enthusiasm.  Everyone seems just too passionate about this election.  Emotions rise quickly, and seem to get in the way of just about every conversation, e-mailed or otherwise. So instead of these conversations being intellectually engaging, I often find myself getting upset.  Objectivity long ago went out the window, and I worry that relationships will follow suit.  My family, which includes grown siblings who are as politically engaged as I am, began this election season by trading passionate e-mails about the candidates and issues.  This has turned out to be a bad idea.  When my brother, with political views very different from mine, sent me an especially inflammatory YouTube video about who was to blame for the collapse of Fannie Mae – probably from that long-held habit of finding ways to annoy his little sister – I rose to the bait.  Soon we were having it out like Fox versus MSNBC.  Finally my mother, who lives in Florida and is tired of being harangued by offspring holding her responsible for her entire state’s electoral votes, threw in the towel.  “Unless it’s something pleasant, or you’re writing to tell me you’re coming down for visit, take me off your cc list!” she announced. Perhaps there is just too much is at stake this year – and not only in the outcome of the presidential election, but our local elections as well. Whether it’s the war in Iraq, the makeup of the next Supreme Court, or making payments on a home whose value is suddenly lower than the outstanding mortgage, there just seems too much to worry about. And yet, anyone who’s been around a few decades will assure me that there has always been much in our turbulent world to fret over.  But there’s a difference this year, and it’s something utterly new to me: an undercurrent of fear. The issues cut too close to home, in a very personal way. Who around me will lose jobs this year? Whose children will be called back for yet another military tour? What happens to my family if I can no longer afford home heating oil, or medical insurance? The issues are far from remote. We all have skin in this game. I truly miss those days when I could enjoy political argument as an intellectual exercise.  But I, for one, am relieved that this election season is about over.  And I’m fervently hoping that whoever gets elected, our new president is able to reassure our country, as FDR once did, that “the only thing we have to fear is fear itself.”  Because it’s getting hard to imagine what condition our country – and my neighborhood – will be in four years from now … when we get the chance to do this all over again. Is it my imagination, or has there been a very different tenor to this year’s political discourse? I’m a news junkie, and usually relish these weeks leading up to an election.  Never one to miss a debate or editorial, today I’ve also got a [...] Jessica Bram 3:13 http://01ee2c7.netsolhost.com/commentaries/?p=5 http://01ee2c7.netsolhost.com/commentaries/?p=5#comments Fri, 11 Apr 2008 14:33:57 +0000 jbram http://01ee2c7.netsolhost.com/blog/?p=23 http://01ee2c7.netsolhost.com/commentaries/?feed=rss2&p=5 0   I did it:  I finally bought one of those big, reusable, ecologically friendly grocery bags.  I’ve tried using them before, but never seem to remember to bring them with me to the supermarket.  The one time I did remember, I left a whole bag of perishable food in the car for two days, because the bag just looked like all the other backseat junk.  But my local organic market just came out with these huge electric green and aquamarine bags bearing the image of a happy fruit – making it both cheery and hard to miss.  So, I guess I have now reluctantly joined the visible legion of  “green moms” who are saving the earth by recycling, reusing, and reducing carbon emissions one grocery bag at a time. Why “reluctantly”?  You would think this new “getting with the program” would relieve me of considerable guilt.  For months now I have made the “walk of shame” back to my car with a grocery cart filled with irresponsible, plastic bags.  I furtively slouch home with dry cleaning on wire hangers; and I still drink spring water from non-reusable plastic bottles.  But the problem with my new bright green grocery bag is that it’s just so damn trendy – and trendy is just not what I’m about.  I have never worn a color-coded lapel ribbon, or put a “Support the Troops” magnet on my car.   But with my bright, eco-friendly bag, every trip to the supermarket gives me the uncomfortable sense of being confused with that smug new majority who has recently jumped aboard the newly hip ecology bandwagon. And speaking of cars, when I bought my hybrid two years ago it had less to do with a desire to preserve the polar ice cap, than sheer miserliness.  When the price of gas hit $2 per gallon I said, “That’s it! – I’m getting a Prius.”  Only afterward did I learn that my Prius is not only a car, it’s a statement – kind of an expensive, snub-nosed looking lapel pin on four wheels.  I’m mystified when admiring strangers now rush up to me in parking lots and exclaim, “Do you love it?”   Though I’ve never been one to use the words “love” and “car” in the same sentence, I do admit to appreciating 45 mile per gallon gas mileage.  But let’s face it:  even with my electric green happy-fruit bag and my gas-nibbling hybrid, what I’m doing to reduce carbon emissions is miniscule compared to the real culprit, which is rampant, uncontrolled industrialization in places like China and Dubai.  It’s the smoke and industrial waste rising from those places that are making Swiss cheese of earth’s fragile atmosphere.  Can the feeble statement made by my grocery bag and my Prius possibly have any impact at all on those far-off, polluted places? Good conscience aside, I still can’t bring myself to give up my plastic water bottles that will – okay – will take 10,000 years to decay in a landfill.  But I fear it’s only a matter of time before I start drinking them out of discreet, brown paper bags – made of recycled paper, of course. I’m Jessica Bram.   I did it:  I finally bought one of those big, reusable, ecologically friendly grocery bags.  I’ve tried using them before, but never seem to remember to bring them with me to the supermarket.  The one time I did remember, I left a whole bag [...] Jessica Bram 2264503 recycle no http://01ee2c7.netsolhost.com/commentaries/?p=20 http://01ee2c7.netsolhost.com/commentaries/?p=20#comments Fri, 26 Oct 2007 15:44:49 +0000 jbram http://01ee2c7.netsolhost.com/blog/?p=100 http://01ee2c7.netsolhost.com/commentaries/?feed=rss2&p=20 0 I started swimming recently, at the Westport, Connecticut Family Y. My favorite time is around 6 a.m., when the cheerful 70- year-old ladies chatter noisily as they stuff white hair into swim caps and head to Aqua Fitness. Swimming is normally about the most relaxing thing I do. But not so relaxing these days, due to a controversy over the planned relocation of this much-loved institution. Neighbors are pitted against neighbors over whether the Y, which has already contracted to sell its cramped and outmoded downtown building, should be permitted to construct a new facility on land it owns two miles away near the Merritt Parkway. Years of study went into choosing a new location, and a campaign to gain required approvals from various town boards. But a vocal and well-organized contingent of local residents has raised an outcry. They’re staging protests, holding press conferences, and even filing lawsuits to overturn hard-won approvals and derail the plan. Inconvenienced, no doubt, by having the Y move from its central location, they decry instead how it will only further depersonalize a downtown that is rapidly being overtaken by national chains. People who have suddenly become environmental activists warn of threats from the new building’s sewage facility. Most of them neglect to mention that the proposed facility lies uncomfortably close to their own homes in a nearby residential neighborhood. By now others have joined the battle. The local papers are flooded with enraged letters, pro and con, trading accusations over what the town should have done about finding downtown space for a new Y, back when public land was available. Bitterly divided Representative Town Meeting (RTM) meetings aired on the public access channel have elicited resignations and even, once, an embarrassing shoving match. It has all made for evening television that is both dramatic and depressing to citizens who have long prized the civility and lingering New England character of the town. The sad irony is that none of these speeches, letters or protests is changing anyone’s mind. Even sadder is that the rhetoric has taken on a tone that one local editor describes are less civil than he has ever seen in his lifetime here in Westport. As I swim my laps in these unquiet waters, I wonder whether I am seeing the worst, or the best, of my town. Worst, perhaps, because the discussion on both sides seems steeped in an unpleasant sense of entitlement. I see it in the wealthy newcomers to this increasingly upscale suburb – the only ones who can afford to buy homes here now – who appear to believe that their wealth has bought them the right to get exactly what they want. And it is evident too, in the townspeople who were born and grew up here – who feel somehow entitled, by their birthright, to demand that things stay just the way they have always been. Or perhaps this bitter battle is revealing the best of my town: an engaged citizenry that, despite the teardowns and the McMansions, despite the dwindling of generation-linked mom-and-pop stores, retains a fiercely enduring sense of community. Maybe it just means we care so deeply, for better or worse, that we will go to battle to protect our home town with the same ferocity as those Minutemen who once met invading British troops on the shores on Long Island Sound. I myself am hoping that Y gets its new facility – wherever it is. But I won’t be surprised if by the time that happens, I’ll be stuffing my own white curls into a cap as I head for Aqua Fitness. I’m Jessica Bram. I started swimming recently, at the Westport, Connecticut Family Y. My favorite time is around 6 a.m., when the cheerful 70- year-old ladies chatter noisily as they stuff white hair into swim caps and head to Aqua Fitness. Swimming is normally [...] Jessica Bram 1760862 http://01ee2c7.netsolhost.com/commentaries/?p=19 http://01ee2c7.netsolhost.com/commentaries/?p=19#comments Tue, 14 Aug 2007 14:39:05 +0000 jbram http://01ee2c7.netsolhost.com/blog/?p=95 http://01ee2c7.netsolhost.com/commentaries/?feed=rss2&p=19 0 Every time I hear mention of Hillary Clinton’s U. S. presidential campaign I am struck with a new sense of awe. Not because I’ve made the choice to support her – I have not yet taken a stand on any candidate in either party. What’s mind-boggling to me is that for the first time, a woman is running a truly serious campaign – one that the electorate and the press are taking seriously. Hilary Clinton has so far raised more money than any other candidate in either party. For decades now it’s been commonly agreed – verbally, that is – that of course a woman could be president. But this time, some real money has been put on the table. For me, money speaks a lot louder than politically correct lip service. I suppose I’m dating myself to admit a sense of surprise that we have a serious female contender for the White House. After all, there is now a female chancellor of Germany, and one who came close to becoming president of France. The examples of Margaret Thatcher and Golda Meir are not far behind. And I live, after all, in a state with a female governor, Jodi Rell, which was also the first state to elect a woman as governor, Ella Grasso, without electing her husband first. It’s just that despite my heritage as a Gloria Steinem -Ms. Magazine-era feminist, I remain fairly pessimistic where full female equality is concerned. Certainly there will one day be a woman running this country. I just didn’t think it would happen in my lifetime. There are still a scant few women heading major U.S. corporations, and women are still a minority in both houses of Congress. Not very long ago Shirley Chisholm’s candidacy was all but ignored, and Geraldine Ferraro’s selection by Mondale as his running mate all but scuttled his run for the presidency. And I’m convinced we live in a country highly steeped in conservative values, despite a popular culture that suggests otherwise. Connecticut and New England notwithstanding – which include the first states, after all, to legalize same sex marriage – could the rest of the country be ready to elect a woman to represent us on the world stage? The gender issues that have already arisen during this very early campaign might support my doubts. Along with Hillary Clinton’s stand on Iraq and her senatorial record, we’re still hearing about everything from continued use of her husband’s last name to Botox rumors and her cookie recipe. Clinton’s campaign may be a Petri dish demonstrating just how far this country has come in accepting the notion of a female president. But one thing does give me hope – and it’s not just all those campaign funds she has raised. It’s the Petri dish I have overlooked right here in my own home. My three sons, who range in age from 14 to 21, belong to that generation who get all their news on line, and communicate with their friends mostly via Facebook. Their friends have never called me anything other than Ms. Bram. And my sons tell me they see nothing whatsoever remarkable in a woman’s candidacy for president. The fourteen-year-old might even vote for her … if he could vote. Isn’t it great, then, that what all have to focus on now is the really tough question, which is: who this is the right person for this very formidable job? Regardless of the color of his tie or the length of her skirt. I’m Jessica Bram. Every time I hear mention of Hillary Clinton’s U. S. presidential campaign I am struck with a new sense of awe. Not because I’ve made the choice to support her – I have not yet taken a stand on any candidate in either party. What’s [...] Jessica Bram 1655246 http://01ee2c7.netsolhost.com/commentaries/?p=18 http://01ee2c7.netsolhost.com/commentaries/?p=18#comments Thu, 29 Mar 2007 14:38:46 +0000 jbram http://01ee2c7.netsolhost.com/blog/?p=91 http://01ee2c7.netsolhost.com/commentaries/?feed=rss2&p=18 0 I love Connecticut. And its a good thing I love Connecticut. Because having recently returned from what should have been five relaxing days in Mexico of which two days were spent dealing with delayed flights, missed connections, security searches, and interminable lines, I can say this: I am never going anywhere again. Air travel for me was once both painless and thrilling. On my annual summer visits to cousins in St. Louis, I would feel so sophisticated in a linen suit and white sling backs, with my powder blue American Tourister train case. Traveling on business with a briefcase and expense account had its own glamour. But no more. The simple truth is that air travel today has become torture, from beginning to end. Not since one misguided Christmas Day at Disney World have I stood on such long lines as on this recent trip. The airlines have become so adept at cost-cutting that 12 check-in stations remained vacant while 3 harried agents processed thousands of nervous passengers hoping against hope not to miss our flights or trying to re-book flights already canceled. After inching forward for well over an hour, we were dispatched to another jaw-droppingly long line. Security. September 11 has made going through security a nightmare. After spending the better part of an afternoon on a line that snaked back through the food court, there came the indignity of removing shoes, belts, sweaters, laptop, watch before being all but strip searched. The TSA agents looked no happier about sticking their hands into strangers dirty laundry than we travelers were about having our messy packing revealed to the world. When a search of my carry-on turned up two small Hellmans mayonnaise packets, the result was an intense conference between two agents trying to decide whether mayonnaise constituted a banned liquid or a gel. Just take the mayonnaise! I begged them. And the weather delays am I only imagining it has gotten worse? Not long ago I watched news footage of travelers sleeping on airport floors during the Valentines Day snowstorms, smug because I wasnt going anywhere . yet. But here I was, only weeks later, delayed hours and hours first in Mexico where the weather was perfect, but with no planes available due to their being stranded in Midwestern airports and then again in Chicago. Why did I imagine that I would be exempt? Camped out in a jam-packed waiting area, it finally hit me: Wait a minute, are we being paid to do this? Why are we subjecting ourselves to this? Why would anyone fly to any vacation destination, when getting there and back is so exhausting and frustrating that you lose any relaxation value of the trip at all? The world is flat, Thomas Friedmans best-seller argues. We are one global community. Boundaries and distances no longer matter. Oh, really? I dont think so. The virtual world is flat, perhaps the one in which my tech support call is answered in Bangalore, India and my plane reservation confirmed in Utah. Where I can have a smoked salmon shipped in one day, still fresh, from Alaska to Westport. But if I want to actually feel the Pacific Ocean on my ankles or taste a sliver of that salmon before buying the whole thing then the world, sadly, is becoming as impassible as in the days of the explorers. The answer for me is simple. Im staying home. With the money I save on vacations Im going to splurge on an expensive set of professional cookware. And to avoid standing on one more checkout line, I will order them how? on line, of course. Im Jessica Bram I love Connecticut. And its a good thing I love Connecticut. Because having recently returned from what should have been five relaxing days in Mexico of which two days were spent dealing with delayed flights, missed connections, [...] Jessica Bram 3554369 http://01ee2c7.netsolhost.com/commentaries/?p=21 http://01ee2c7.netsolhost.com/commentaries/?p=21#comments Sat, 09 Dec 2006 15:45:19 +0000 jbram http://01ee2c7.netsolhost.com/blog/?p=104 http://01ee2c7.netsolhost.com/commentaries/?feed=rss2&p=21 0 First there was this spring’s horrific rampage – a disaffected Virginia Tech student who was somehow able to legally purchase two handguns in gun shops, ammunition on eBay, and methodically murder 32 students and professors. And now this: another unhappy young man, this one just 19, opening fire in a shopping mall filled with holiday shoppers, killing eight and wounding five. Apparently depressed from being fired from his job at McDonald’s and a breakup with his girlfriend, he was reported to have written in a suicide note he would “go out in style”. Presumable he intended to find some relief by emulating Die-Hard-like movie action heroes with a loaded rifle – and the satisfaction of having his name in the news for a day or so, along with a list of the dead. As I did after Columbine, and then again this spring, I find myself thinking about those silent young boys – the Cho Seung-Huis and Eric Harris’s and Dylan Klebolds, and a now this new boy in Omaha. I keep wondering how these boys could for so long have harbored such rage, and what could only be severe mental illness, and kept it a secret? As a mother, I ask: what about their parents? Didn’t they have a clue, not even a hint, that the boys they had nurtured as toddlers, who had slept in their homes for most of their lives, taken showers down the hall, grabbed milk from the refrigerator – that these boys had the capacity, and most of all, the will, to commit these acts? Or are we seeing, again and again, some highly deranged hero worship of our culture’s new style of cowboy, shoot-em-up, action figures with automatic weapons and endless rounds of ammunition? One thing I do know about sons, from raising three of my own. Boys, especially teenagers, are intensely private. Outgoing or shy, introverted or life-of-the-party, what they choose to share with their mother is on a strictly need-to-know basis. When my oldest son had his first high school girlfriend, I learned of it from the woman across the street with a daughter in David’s class. I learned that my ninth-grader Alex had officially joined the school newspaper when I read his name on the masthead. It’s not easy, but I have disciplined myself to put aside my curiosity and respect my sons’ privacy. I sense that it’s something that boys simply need in order to become men. But it makes parenting teenage boys kind of like driving in the dark without headlights. On instinct most of the time, I can only sense that I’m heading in the right direction, and pray never to go too far off-road. Meantime, I hug my boys frequently whether they like it or not, and let them know I’m interested in their lives whether or not they choose to inform me. Despite the endless analyses of these events which appear in the press and elsewhere, I know that we will never fully unravel those mysteries to which our teenage sons fiercely cling. But I also know that as long as any unhappy young man can walk into a gun shop and emerge with a handgun and box of ammunition, I, for one, will never feel safe. I’m Jessica Bram. First there was this spring’s horrific rampage – a disaffected Virginia Tech student who was somehow able to legally purchase two handguns in gun shops, ammunition on eBay, and methodically murder 32 students and professors. And now this: [...] Jessica Bram 1537881 http://01ee2c7.netsolhost.com/commentaries/?p=17 http://01ee2c7.netsolhost.com/commentaries/?p=17#comments Tue, 07 Nov 2006 14:38:29 +0000 jbram http://01ee2c7.netsolhost.com/blog/?p=87 http://01ee2c7.netsolhost.com/commentaries/?feed=rss2&p=17 0 My mother always said that there was nothing worse than hearing my brothers and me fight. I used to think it was the noise that bothered her; but only when I became a mother myself did I realize that the truly awful thing about it is hearing terrible things said about the people I most love and cherish my own children. That its other people I love just as much who are saying those things only makes it worse because the meanness of their words tarnishes them, as well. All this has frequently come to mind during this particularly ugly election season. Some months ago my commentary here applauded the civil tenor of Connecticut political discourse, compared to the national mudslinging. The Battle of the Huggers is how I labeled Connecticuts 4th district Congressional race between two highly popular public servants. Well, boy, do I ever take that back. Goaded and financed, no doubt, by both Republican and Democratic national machines, the most irresponsible, God-awful things are being said in just about every Connecticut race both by and about some of the most important people in my life: my public servants. Incumbent or challenger, Democrat or Republican, pro or anti Bush: for better or worse, these are the individuals standing up for me and my family in the public arena. These people will be making decisions about countless critical issues that affect my life everything from whether my draft age sons or my taxes will end up in Iraq, to how much I pay for gas for my car, to traffic on I-95. But what am I hearing today? That these individuals who feel compelled to public service simply to answer some inner, higher calling to serve the public good are, in fact, not noble, but evil. Dishonest, Misguided. Soft on terrorism, Villains. It is profoundly depressing. And the fact that these candidates (quote) approve these (ugly) messages makes me feel all the worse about them. Whats also disturbing about the negative rhetoric is how little respect it shows for us, the electorate. Do they really think were that stupid? Stupid enough to believe that any of these candidates wants our country vulnerable to terrorists? Enjoys risking our soldiers lives in Iraq? Has coffee with the Taliban, as one outrageous flyer in my mailbox suggested? Doesnt want seniors to have affordable drugs? Deliberately neglected to return the call from the mother of a disabled child, to deprive that child of a needed operation? Cruelly laid off employees to keep company profits for himself, rather than for sound business reasons? Heres what I think about these candidates for public office, regardless of whether theyre incumbents or challengers, Republican or Democrats. These people are patriots every last one of them. OK, call me naïve. But having witnessed political campaigns up close I have nothing nothing but the greatest admiration for people who sacrifice their own personal lives, leisure, fortunes and family time, to serve me and serve the public because they think they can do better. Even if it means having to hear the most awful things said about themselves in the public arena. Long ago I let my sons know that speaking ill of one another would not be tolerated in our home. You may have your differences and your squabbles now, I told them. But one day youll find that its a cold and unfriendly world out there, and a lot of people are going to be against you. But in the end its your brothers who will be there for you, on your side against the world, no matter what. Treasure that now because youre going to need it. As this painful election season finally comes to a most welcome end, I can only hope that Americans do the same as together we face the challenges of a terrifying and very dangerous world. Im [...] My mother always said that there was nothing worse than hearing my brothers and me fight. I used to think it was the noise that bothered her; but only when I became a mother myself did I realize that the truly awful thing about it is hearing [...] Jessica Bram 3833488 http://01ee2c7.netsolhost.com/commentaries/?p=16 http://01ee2c7.netsolhost.com/commentaries/?p=16#comments Mon, 03 Jul 2006 14:38:08 +0000 jbram http://01ee2c7.netsolhost.com/blog/?p=83 http://01ee2c7.netsolhost.com/commentaries/?feed=rss2&p=16 0 About 20 years ago, when my first son David was barely a newborn, I found myself sitting in a circle with a dozen other women on the floor at Gymboree. Our babies could not yet even sit up. So we propped them up against us and following the instructions of an earnest young woman who belted out “Eensty Weensy Spider” in a Broadway theater voice, waved their little limp arms around as the song instructed. That’s when it first hit me. I had a Masters. I had worked in City Hall and on Wall Street. And here I was carefully following the hand movements of a puppet called Gymbo the Clown in order to stimulate my child’s developing intelligence. “They can’t be serious,” I thought. “This is motherhood?” I felt punished, as though I been demoted from graduate school and dumped back in kindergarten. Sorry, you flunked. Start over. What I was encountering at that moment was a dazed mixture of guilt and disappointment that I was unable to put into words. But Betty Friedan, God bless her, could. She called it the Feminine Mystique, the title of her 1963 groundbreaking book. “The Feminine Mystique” was the myth that women like me, who had hungered for my turn at childbearing during all those years I commuted with a briefcase full of financial reports, who truly reveled in the sweet smell of my newborn’s scalp, would find perfect fulfillment in motherhood and domesticity. Far from it. My dilemma was that, as a passionate mother, I found it impossible to leave my babies in the care of someone else while I returned to 12-hour work days in the City. Unlike many other devoted mothers, I had the financial good fortune to be able to stay home while raising children. But that didn’t make it joyful or wonderful. My great, guilty secret all those years was how boring, irritating, and downright lonely domestic confinement could be. Sometimes the week’s highlight became taking turns with five other dazed mothers putting our toddlers on the mini Ferris wheel at Burger King, so that today, the greasy smell of french fries triggers immediate depression. In between planning gourmet meals and trips to Gymboree, and I spent a lot of time scribbling journal entries that began with the wistful title “What Did I Used To Be?” I have always been aware was how unbelievably fortunate I was to have followed so closely on the heels of the early architects of the women’s movement. I have never lost sight of how much I owe those crusaders who risked derision, and their own domestic tranquility, to open doors that I, only a decade or two later, would breeze right through. But what occurs to me today, noting the tributes to Betty Friedan who died this past weekend, is how well her book, The Feminine Mystique, explained the missing ingredient in my conundrum. Friedan’s book assured me that those of us with guilty feelings about marriage and motherhood, were not alone. It assured me that the fact that singing puppet songs in a circle on the floor hardly satisfied my need for achievement and creativity, did not mean I loved my children any less. But it was a reminder that if I just hung in there until the kids got a little older, I could, and certainly one day would, become so much more. I’m Jessica Bram. About 20 years ago, when my first son David was barely a newborn, I found myself sitting in a circle with a dozen other women on the floor at Gymboree. Our babies could not yet even sit up. So we propped them up against us and following the [...] Jessica Bram 3417748 http://01ee2c7.netsolhost.com/commentaries/?p=15 http://01ee2c7.netsolhost.com/commentaries/?p=15#comments Fri, 31 Mar 2006 14:37:42 +0000 jbram http://01ee2c7.netsolhost.com/blog/?p=78 http://01ee2c7.netsolhost.com/commentaries/?feed=rss2&p=15 0 Maybe it’s just because I’m a worrier. But there does seem to be an awful lot to lose sleep over these days. Bird flu. Roe v. Wade. And here’s one that’s on my mind a lot lately: that there’s a company trying to build a big, ugly natural gas platform out in the middle of our beautiful Long Island Sound. I even worry that greenhouse gasses are melting our polar ice cap, and that nuclear weapons are being developed in scary places like Iran and North Korea. They just don’t seem so far away in this highly unstable world of ours. My sister Karyn, who moved to Norway several years ago, swears she has found the solution. She ignores the news entirely. “I don’t read the international newspapers, and my Norwegian isn’t good enough to understand the evening news,” she says. I would be amazed, Karyn assures me, by what a serene life one can lead when one is free of hearing politicians sniping at each other on a daily basis, or those constant warnings of global crises that few of us can do much about. Karyn doesn’t even worry about that melting polar ice cap which, let’s face it, is a lot closer to her neighborhood than mine. But I recently stumbled upon a wonderful antidote to all this time spent worrying. Reading the newspapers closely, I come upon a multitude of news items that good, intelligent people are genuinely worrying about. But that I, most happily, am not. For example: Did you about how difficult it has gotten, nearly impossible, to get a Manhattan toddler into a decent preschool? The competition is fierce, and worried parents are burning the midnight oil crafting compelling résumés for their 3-year-olds. What a RELIEF not to be losing sleep over that one. And what about that 39,000 square foot hedge fund manager’s house proposed in Greenwich? Is that truly excessive, or is it time Greenwich got busy trying to cap the size of their mansions at a modest 30,000 sq ft.? Don’t have to worry about that one either. And just think what would have happened if Blackberry had lost its patent, and all those serious business people could no longer get their email on the road. That one really gave some people serious angst. But not me. I can now be truly grateful to have lagged so far behind the rest of the world in PDA technology. This isn’t “shadenfreude” … It’s not that I’m glad people are losing sleep over these things. I feel for my fellow worry-worts, I truly do. It’s just that it’s so darn good to come across these pressing issues, day after day, and realize hey, here’s something I don’t have to worry about over! Not my problem! It’s only a temporary reprieve, of course, from all that worries me. So I remind myself that there is one other route to relief, although it’s a small one. It’s looking over that long list of troubling news and finding the one or two things that I might be able do something about. I’ll contact one of the many deeply committed Connecticut environmental organizations that are leading the charge against putting that natural gas platform right out in the water where my children swim. Anything I can do, I’ll ask? Or … where do I send a check? Then I’ll pull out the Westport News, and - most gratefully – I’ll come across a front-page item causing the greatest anguish among my fellow Westporters. Will our beloved dog population lose their right this year to frolic on the beach off-leash? I’m so lucky! I don’t have a dog! I don’t care! I’m Jessica Bram Maybe it’s just because I’m a worrier. But there does seem to be an awful lot to lose sleep over these days. Bird flu. Roe v. Wade. And here’s one that’s on my mind a lot lately: that there’s a company trying to build a big, ugly [...] Jessica Bram 3359643 http://01ee2c7.netsolhost.com/commentaries/?p=14 http://01ee2c7.netsolhost.com/commentaries/?p=14#comments Wed, 08 Feb 2006 14:37:19 +0000 jbram http://01ee2c7.netsolhost.com/blog/?p=74 http://01ee2c7.netsolhost.com/commentaries/?feed=rss2&p=14 0 About 20 years ago, when my first son David was barely a newborn, I found myself sitting in a circle with a dozen other women on the floor at Gymboree. Our babies could not yet even sit up. So we propped them up against us and following the instructions of an earnest young woman who belted out “Eensty Weensy Spider” in a Broadway theater voice, waved their little limp arms around as the song instructed. That’s when it first hit me. I had a Masters. I had worked in City Hall and on Wall Street. And here I was carefully following the hand movements of a puppet called Gymbo the Clown in order to stimulate my child’s developing intelligence. “They can’t be serious,” I thought. “This is motherhood?” I felt punished, as though I been demoted from graduate school and dumped back in kindergarten. Sorry, you flunked. Start over. What I was encountering at that moment was a dazed mixture of guilt and disappointment that I was unable to put into words. But Betty Friedan, God bless her, could. She called it the Feminine Mystique, the title of her 1963 groundbreaking book. “The Feminine Mystique” was the myth that women like me, who had hungered for my turn at childbearing during all those years I commuted with a briefcase full of financial reports, who truly reveled in the sweet smell of my newborn’s scalp, would find perfect fulfillment in motherhood and domesticity. Far from it. My dilemma was that, as a passionate mother, I found it impossible to leave my babies in the care of someone else while I returned to 12-hour work days in the City. Unlike many other devoted mothers, I had the financial good fortune to be able to stay home while raising children. But that didn’t make it joyful or wonderful. My great, guilty secret all those years was how boring, irritating, and downright lonely domestic confinement could be. Sometimes the week’s highlight became taking turns with five other dazed mothers putting our toddlers on the mini Ferris wheel at Burger King, so that today, the greasy smell of french fries triggers immediate depression. In between planning gourmet meals and trips to Gymboree, and I spent a lot of time scribbling journal entries that began with the wistful title “What Did I Used To Be?” I have always been aware was how unbelievably fortunate I was to have followed so closely on the heels of the early architects of the women’s movement. I have never lost sight of how much I owe those crusaders who risked derision, and their own domestic tranquility, to open doors that I, only a decade or two later, would breeze right through. But what occurs to me today, noting the tributes to Betty Friedan who died this past weekend, is how well her book, The Feminine Mystique, explained the missing ingredient in my conundrum. Friedan’s book assured me that those of us with guilty feelings about marriage and motherhood, were not alone. It assured me that the fact that singing puppet songs in a circle on the floor hardly satisfied my need for achievement and creativity, did not mean I loved my children any less. But it was a reminder that if I just hung in there until the kids got a little older, I could, and certainly one day would, become so much more. I’m Jessica Bram. About 20 years ago, when my first son David was barely a newborn, I found myself sitting in a circle with a dozen other women on the floor at Gymboree. Our babies could not yet even sit up. So we propped them up against us and following the [...] Jessica Bram 3417748