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 | Sometimes I go whole days
listening bored, half sleep
I won't say anything
that's worth a thing to me
One day, suddenly, time
took a turn that once felt so brief
I blinked to see polite ghosts fading quickly
What begins as an unguarded
train of thoughts slowly can become
an addiction to the slumber
of disconnection and the resonance
of memory that no longer has a shape
but keeps you numb through
the hours till gone is another day
Be aware, my darling
these things I say I mean
are just traces of something
I long to feel again
I see our time expand
in the air almost forcibly,
spreading thinner till it dissolves completely
--Half Asleep, by School of Seven Bells
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Gloria Steinem Might Bitchslap Me If She Ever Reads This
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Jun 16, 2009 8:50 am
1729 Views
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Gloria Steinem, that famous, fabulous, feminist icon, just might put me on her Hit List for daring to say what I'm about to.
Don't get me wrong -- I'm all for equality when it comes to men and women, especially at work. I'm so much for equality that it outraged me that it’s taken this long for the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Restoration Act regarding equal pay for equal work to be signed into law in the U.S. this year. In a country as progressive as the U.S., it’s nothing short of shameful--considering that women have been part of the the American workforce for decades.
That said, much as I believe in the Feminist Movement, I've always had my misgivings about it in ONE particular area more than anything. So let me take a deep breath, and sneak a peek if Gloria Steinem's lurking in the vicinity, before I plunge in. Here goes --
I believe feminism screwed men and women up, relationship-wise.
There, I’ve said it and – wait, is that Gloria behind the potted plant? No? You sure?
The roles that we used to have in relationships have been turned upside down and inside out by feminism, causing people to scurry around, editing and rewriting the rules, and glomming onto the book du jour, such as He’s Just Not That Into You, The Rules, and Why Men Love Bitches just to make sense of the whole mess.
In short, feminism redefined all of us, but biology has yet to catch up.
Men don't understand what women want anymore. Even us women don't understand what we want anymore. Should he be a gentleman, or will she call him a chauvinist? Should he offer to split the check so as not to insult her, or will that make him cheap? And why do some women think bitchiness for its own sake and being exactly like a man equals strength?
Hmm, that coffee barista with the long straight hair and large glasses looks strikingly like Glori– naah.
I'm not advocating a return to the olden days when women were cosseted and treated like fragile china, oh no. But forgive me if I have this sneaking suspicion we're spiralling downward. As a very astute friend of mine said, “Women have become bolder, louder, stronger, more aggressive, and men have staged a retreat.” And when that retreat happened, everything went haywire.
Sometimes the problem with the modern woman is that she doesn't want to sit back anymore. She wants to do EVERYTHING, NOW. We women sometimes fail to realize that men move at an entirely different pace from us, and when they're not moving fast enough to our satisfaction, we just get right down to it and take over. And because so many of us have done this, even those who would have men revert to taking the lead find that because of the sheer number of aggressive women available to them, most men have stopped doing what we expect them to do.
Feminism can't overrule what's been hardwired into most any guy's system -- that Mother Nature programmed them to be the pursuers. But when women appropriated that role for themselves in the name of equality, the guys were left wondering what else was left for them to do, so they did the next most logical thing.
They stopped working to win us over. So here we are now, at an impasse, thinking -- what the hell happened?
Kathleen Parker, author of Save The Males--wherein she argues that feminism has neutered men and deprived them of their noble, protective role in society, puts it succinctly:
The biggest problem for both sexes – beyond the epidemic of sexually transmitted disease – is that casual sex is essentially an adversarial enterprise that pits men and women against each other. Some young women, now fully as sexually aggressive as men, have taken “liberation” to another level by acting as badly as the worst guy.
Carol Platt Liebau, the author of Prude, another book on the havoc that pervasive sex has on young people, says that when girls begin behaving more coarsely so, too, do boys.
“And now, because so many young girls have been told that it’s ‘empowering’ to pursue boys aggressively, there’s no longer any need for boys to ‘woo’ girls – or even to commit to a date,” she told me. “The girls are available [in every sense of the word] and the boys know it.”Men, meanwhile, have feelings. Although they’re uncomfortable sorting through them – and generally won’t if no one insists – I’ve listened to enough of them to know that our hypersexualised world has left many feeling limp and vacant.
Our cultural assumption that men only want sex has been as damaging to them as to the women they target. Here is how a recent graduate summed it up to me: “Hooking up is great, but at some point you get tired of everything meaning nothing.”
Ultimately, what our oversexualised, pornified culture reveals is that we think very little of our male family members. Undergirding the culture that feminism has helped to craft is a presumption that men are without honour and integrity. What we offer men is cheap, dirty, sleazy, manipulative sensation. What we expect from them is boorish, simian behaviour that ratifies the anti-male sentiment that runs through the culture.
Surely our boys – and our girls – deserve better.
In the end, let me just say that—oh my God, Gloria?? No! Stop it! OW!! MOMMY!!
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I'm Full of Croc(s)
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Jun 9, 2009 2:25 am
1445 Views
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Yeah, yeah, I used to hate Crocs. In fact, I used to hate them SO much I actually joined the FB group, "I Don't Care How Comfortable They Are, You Look Like A Dumbass Wearing Crocs." I mean, rubber clogs as a fashion statement?? Wait, that entire sentence was an oxymoron. There is NO fashion statement at all in rubber clogs. Unless it's "You have abso-freakin-lutely NO fashion sense."
But talk about karma. The Crocs company saw fit to shut all of us embittered nasty snarky critics up by coming out with...heels. 3 inch platform wedges to be exact. Snappily called "Rio," trendy and hip, I fell in love with it at first sight. And they have it in size 5, too!
You have to understand, I'm a woman who tries to avoid flats whenever I can, unless I know I'm going to be on a tour in a foreign country involving a lot of walking while having two hyperactive kids tag along. In that situation, you have GOT to be ready to RUN at the drop of a hat. But if I'm just flouncing around the shopping malls here, going out lunching with my friends, meeting up with clients or just wandering about town, you can bet your bippy I'm in heels. Stilettos. Platform wedges. Kitten heels. So I've got a Napoleonic complex. So sue me. At least I can do something about it in style.
So I have to say, thank YOU, Crocs, for finally coming up with a pair I won't actually be embarrassed to be seen in, and man, are they comfy to boot! I might actually be able to retire my ballet flats soon at the rate I keep wearing this new pair around.
Think about it. I'm not only comfy while gallivanting about, I don't have to be THIS short anymore. What's not to love?
Crocs Rio platform wedges in black, the exact same pair I got.
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Spock'd
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Jun 4, 2009 5:12 am
1275 Views
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To all of you who watched Star Trek, you know that scene I'm talking about--the one where the older Spock meets the younger one at the end of the movie, and they have a profound conversation.
And it got me thinking, if you could go back to talk to your younger self, what advice would you give?
Me, I'd tell the younger, hellraising me that nobody ever died of heartbreak--you just feel like you would, but the pain WILL go away, so try not to do something you'd regret.
And if the older you could come by now and talk to the present you, what do you think the older you would say?
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44
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Things Learned From A Trip
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May 31, 2009 2:03 am
970 Views
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Back from an 8 day vacation from South Korea and Hong Kong with hubby and the boys, and these are just some of the things I've realized from this latest trip:
1. Learn the words to "spoon" and "fork" when traveling with children to an Asian country known for chopstick usage and lack of English. Otherwise, after realizing that you're miserably failing in miming a fork and spoon (Marcel Marceau I'm not), draw them on a napkin, show to the waitress, and watch her giggle over the fact that you had to draw it.
2. Put a sign around Youngest's neck in the local language warning everyone that anyone caught pinching his cheeks, chucking his chin, ruffling his hair without asking permission first will be charged for the privilege. The poor kid had his cheeks constantly pinched throughout the length and breadth of Korea and Hong Kong by cooing women passing us on the street.
3. Do not giggle when your tour guide pronounces "something" as "tumting." As in, "Hallo hallo, when talking to Koreans, do not say, 'please tumting tumting where is toilet?' Just say 'toilet' so they understand." Otherwise you start everyone on a fit of giggles, and you look like an insensitive heel.
4. Leftover french fries can be reheated with the hotel blow dryer. Laser gun sounds while pointing nozzle at french fry being held by 7 year old optional, and highly suggested. Be prepared, however, for french fry to morph into an assault weapon, and a heated gunfight to ensue.
5. When traveling with more than one nerd in the family (Hubby is Nerd 1, I'm Nerd 2, and Eldest is Nerd 3), make sure you bring more than one nerdy book to keep the two other nerds entertained. As it was, Nerd 3 appropriated The Mummy Congress by Heather Pringle that I was looking forward to finishing, and since he's pretty much a speed reader (the entire 341 page book in a couple of days or so), I had to rush through the whole dang book after he was done with it just so I could talk with him about what the heck a capacocha was (sacred Inca ritual involving child sacrifice) , and where the dang Chinchorro mummies can be found (Chile) because I couldn't take the easy way out and google the bloody info.
6. When watching an in-flight film suitable for adults in your personal TV screen in front of your seat, it would help if you hide yourself and the screen under the blankets they hand out during the flight, that way 7 year old son beside you doesn't catch a glimpse of Kate Winslet's naked breasts in The Reader. Never mind if you look strange--you can always say you're doing an obscure religious ritual, and you'll never meet any of your fellow travelers again anyway.
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The Man-ual
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May 18, 2009 11:09 am
1270 Views
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I was having a good talk with Laurie, a long time online friend of mine who's worked as a relationship counselor for years, and the subject, as usual, turned to why men and women act the way they do. It's a conversation that's been going on for more than 5 years, and Laurie has always had something worthwhile and insightful to say about the subject. From time to time I've added my own two cents' worth too, and it got me to thinking, why not write these insights down?
Now, I'm not saying it applies to everyone, because there's bound to be some of you out there who'd go, “But here's an exception!” You may or may not agree, and that's fine—all other perspectives are very welcome here.
That said, here we go:
The pursuit is not how the relationship is going to be. We gals are familiar with this. When a guy is still in hot pursuit, he'll drop everything to spend time with you, and we get so used to all the attention and time he gives us that we start thinking this is how it should be all the time. But all too soon after he finally wins us over, we notice he doesn't spend as much time with us as he used to. He gets busier with work. He wants to hang out with his friends. What happened?
The hunt is over, is what happened. Just like a hunter is fully engaged while tracking down a prey, so your man was while chasing after you. The problem with this is when you finally hook up with each other, he now feels he can relax and pay attention to other things. You, on the other hand, are delighted with all this attention and the fact that he has such fabulous taste to recognize the wonders of you. It's not broken and you certainly don't want it changed or fixed. When he moves backwards or isn't giving as much time and attention, some of us gals get clingy and whiny. But after the hunt is over, the adrenaline rush dies down, and now that he doesn't need to focus on winning you over, he starts noticing other things, like...ESPN. So if you're still looking for that man who practically parked on your front step 24/7, don't waste your time. He's gone.
Women overanalyze while men compartmentalize. Quick, how many of you women out there spent a whole night with a girlfriend on the phone mulling over what her prospective guy target meant when he said, “Yeah, see you sometime?” You spent hours turning that phrase over and over, looking for hidden meaning, a code to break, a nugget of gold to unearth. Did he mean he was going to ask you out on a date soon? Was it just a casual see-you-sometime thing he says to everyone else? (But he winked at me when he said it!) Is it a precursor to wanting to spend more time with you? You get the idea. We women could write a full hundred page dissertation dissecting phrases like these. And we'd do footnotes, too.
But the man who said that phrase? He probably forgot all about it already. When he said, “see you sometime,” he never thought those three words would be put under a microscope. If men knew how much we scrutinize every single word they ever said (Quick, how many of you men ever had a huge blow-out over a seemingly innocuous thing you said to your significant other which she then translated into a you-don't-love-me-anymore phrase that put you in the doghouse?) they'd probably start doing sign language. But then, you know, we'd probably overanalyze every gesture too. Men don't waste their time doing that—they're too preoccupied with other things to even bother, and they move on to the next thing that requires their attention.
We've seen women give up jobs, family, friends, interests, their coffee klatch--just to hang on to their man. But men more often than not won't go to such extremes—to them a relationship is just a part of the whole equation. To quote Laurie's grandmother, “To a woman, a man is her whole world, but to a man, a woman is but a small part of it.” This is SO true—especially when you realize that we women define ourselves by the relationships we keep while...
Men define themselves by the job they do. A friend of mine once wondered why I didn't mind it that my husband often worked long hours taking care of the family business. I told her the simplest answer I could think of, which was, “Because it's what he has to do, and I know he does it for the family.” Men are competitive by nature, so when your man has put his career in the fast track, don't stand in his way. As long as he still finds time to be with you and isn't neglecting you even though the hours you have together may not be as much as it used to be, be supportive. Believe me, he'll thank you for it.
Take a page from his book. I always tell girlfriends to take their cue from the guy. If he's trying to slow the relationship down, do the same. If he's not finding time to be with you, go do your own thing and stop sitting by the phone waiting for him to call.
Give only as much as he's willing to--that way you don't give too much of yourself, and you don't end up banging your head on the wall screaming about how stupid you've been, giving so much more to the selfish bastard than he ever did to you.
You can't control his actions, but you can always control yours. You can't really change a man unless he decides he wants to, so no amount of nagging will ever work to turn him into the ideal partner you've always wanted. That said, I've always been of the opinion that you either live with your choice or you don't—if you can't stand what he's doing, you can always leave. You have control over that. Some situations may be more difficult than others, but you can always leave. And if you don't want to leave because of other considerations, that's OK, too—as long as you know what you're getting yourself into (like Hillary Clinton and Elizabeth Edwards and Camilla Parker-Bowles, who waited and waited and eventually got rewarded for all her waiting) because ultimately, you have to do what feels right to you, and not what other people say it should be.
I have a friend who, finally fed up with her then boyfriend's constant boys' night out, dragged all her girlfriends out every weekend and made sure to come home even later than her boyfriend ever did. Her boyfriend finally freaked out so much he stopped going out so he could keep an eye on her. So remember this—what he can do, you can do, too. Who says you have to sit and mope and whine over his shenanigans? Who says you have to accept double standards? You can either bolt, mope, suffer through it or get even--but ultimately, the choice is always, always yours.
Keep your independence and identity. Keep your own friends. Keep your own interests. Keep your own opinions. We women have this bad habit of trying to be everything for the guy we're after that sometimes we even FAKE interest in things he's into just to catch his eye, of turning ourselves into his clone and agreeing with everything he says. He's into philosophy so you start memorizing Spinoza. He's into anime cosplay so you start dressing up as Sailor Moon.
It doesn't work that way. It'll backfire, it'll get ugly when you get found out, and I've yet to meet a man who respects a doormat. Besides, when he finally does find you interesting, isn't it better that he's fascinated by the things you actually do than by the things you pretend to like just to snag him? So when he finally does fall for the wonderful, independent, fun-loving woman that you are, you'll be doing both of you a favor if you stay the woman he fell in love with.
Learn to give him space. Let him have his own friends. Let him have his own interests. Most importantly, let him have his own time. As Laurie says, “How can he miss you if you won't go away?” And like I said in CaptainPrincess' blog, I really don't get jealous and clingy women. I'd rather be with a man who's with me because he WANTS to be with me, and not because I've isolated him from everybody else. So I don't get the man-to-man guarding some women feel justified in doing—I mean, if the slimeball is going to cheat on you, wouldn't you rather know sooner than later? Isn't it more gratifying where, given all the options open to him, he still chooses to be with you?
And if he doesn't, heck, there's still a whole world out there full of interesting people waiting for you to discover it, and waiting to discover you.
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Trippin' Out
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May 11, 2009 8:46 pm
1137 Views
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Hubby and I will be in South Korea and Hongkong with the boys at the end of the month, and we're all looking forward to another new adventure. Hubby reckons I'd probably need another vacation after this "vacation," so he and his best friend, after much plotting and scheming, decided to book another Hongkong trip for both of us couples (no kids, yay!), later this August.
The thing about traveling is that, apart from discovering new things-- along the way you can run smack into certain disappointments. From flights being delayed (Hong Kong to Beijing last year) to luggage being lost (my brother's entire wardrobe when he came home from Chicago) to having a rat the size of a capybara (which it might have been, had it been in the Amazon) in your hotel room (my law partner Chris, while in Sorong, Indonesia) traveling can be one heck of a learning experience, both good and bad. I've learned to shrug the bad things off as much as I can, but these travelers' complaints, compiled by Thomas Cook and ABTA and featured in Telegraph online, take the cake:
1. A woman threatened to call police after claiming that she’d been locked in by staff. When in fact, she had mistaken the “do not disturb” sign on the back of the door as a warning to remain in the room. (Wonder what would've happened if the sign said, “Please make up room?”)
2. "The beach was too sandy." (You don't say)
3. A tourist at a top African game lodge overlooking a waterhole, who spotted a visibly aroused elephant, complained that the sight of this rampant beast ruined his honeymoon by making him feel "inadequate". (Dumbo Does Dallas?)
4. A guest at a Novotel in Australia complained his soup was too thick and strong. He was inadvertently slurping the gravy at the time. (*snork*)
5. "We bought 'Ray-Ban' sunglasses for five euros (£3.50) from a street trader, only to find out they were fake." (Yoohoo! I got a genu-wine Rolex here for sale—all for 10 euros)
6. "Topless sunbathing on the beach should be banned. The holiday was ruined as my husband spent all day looking at other women." (Psssst, bud, wanna buy a pair of Ray-Bans? Just 5 euros)
7. "No-one told us there would be fish in the sea. The children were startled." (Thank God nobody told them about swimming in whale pee)
8. "It took us nine hours to fly home from Jamaica to England it only took the Americans three hours to get home." (That's cuz them 'Mericuns invented Warp Speed, don'tcha know? Didn't you watch Star Trek?)
9 ."My fiancé and I booked a twin-bedded room but we were placed in a double-bedded room. We now hold you responsible for the fact that I find myself pregnant. This would not have happened if you had put us in the room that we booked." (Twin beds as birth control, wow. I think even the Catholic Church can subscribe to this)
10. "The brochure stated: 'No hairdressers at the accommodation'. We're trainee hairdressers - will we be OK staying here?" (Step back from that blowdryer. Now.)
11. "There are too many Spanish people. The receptionist speaks Spanish. The food is Spanish. Too many foreigners." (I told you to stop speaking Spanish, elric! Now they think you're a furriner, too)
12. "I was bitten by a mosquito - no-one said they could bite." (It's really part of a quaint local tradition to welcome you furriners here)
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Pressing Question...
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Apr 27, 2009 5:37 pm
1900 Views
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...or why is it that I keep getting women sending me winks, waves, and kisses on FF???
I rarely open the Winks section of my homepage, since I usually don't even pass by my homepage but go straight to the Blogs, but today I saw that I had a number of winks.
So--curious about who would even send me these--found that almost half the people winking at me were women. And some of them, may I add, are pretty hot-looking women, too! An 18 year old supposedly from the UK, clad in nothing but a bikini (Winked), a 31 year old from Florida looking very sexy in a strapless cocktail dress (Winked), a 43 year old married woman from Missouri "looking for excitement" (Kissed)--you get the idea.
Maybe it's a sign that I should stop blogging about merkins.
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106
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Waxing Poetic, Redux
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Apr 25, 2009 8:27 am
1436 Views
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Just started a blog at another site called divinecaroline, where I came across this entry written by Simon Hillier, which just cracked me up. I asked him if I could put it in my blog here, and he graciously gave me permission. So here I am again, in lewd mode, sharing this very funny and very racy article--
Waxing Lyrical--A Male's View Of Hair Down There
If you ask a man what he looks for when he meets a v*gina, besides a great sense of humor of course, he will probably suggest many of the same delusional qualities he wants in his total fantasy female package. Easy on the eye, morning, noon, and night; perfumed to perfection; tantalizing to the taste buds; demure blushing rose bud one day; insatiable quivering tigress purring, “Sic ‘em Rex” the next.
Now before you give up on us and go surfing for a re-enforced steel chastity belt on e-Bay, consider the positive. In the real world, we’re just so excited about meeting a new v*gina; her physical attributes play second fiddle to her physical presence.
The wonderful truth is, we enjoy that every woman is unique and that we never know what we’ll get. You didn’t really think Forrest was gushing over just any box of chocolates did you? The assortment of innies and outties; bearded and bald; bitter and balmy; juicy, loosey, arid and airtight is part of what makes diving for hidden treasure so exciting. Each man has his personal favorite.
Being a traveler by nature, I love visiting exotic, sultry hideaways, but none more so than Equatorial Vulva (Capital city Clitoria, population 1). After stemming my Downunder enthusiasm for the place (and remembering that, “Crickey, it’s a big one!” isn’t a polite term of greeting in this part of the world), I thought I’d offer a few pondering on lower floor hairstyles, because in recent years you’ve spoilt us naughty boys with so much choice.
Personally, I’m a fan of minimalism when it comes to pubic art. I just feel more confident, comfortable and ravenous if I can see what’s on my plate. It’s not that I won’t eat a side salad, but I love something neatly trimmed, waxed, or with a little garnish for presentation on the specials board. It’s a surefire way to have me offering my compliments to the chef all night.
This is not to say that I’m anti-bush. In fact, I think this discussing politics here would be as inappropriate as discussing fairy tales. On the other hand, if do I happen upon some thick woods in the nether region, and can’t spot the apple for the trees, there is an overwhelming urge to call out “Are you alone in there Little Red Riding Hood?”
It can be equally disconcerting in the dark. Don’t get me wrong; lights out can be very exciting as the other senses become heightened. However, I remember one particular night enjoying this beautiful woman’s soft, smooth, scented skin, delighting in her quivering moans, as I kissed over her stomach, hips, until “Oh my God, you have a Yeti hiding between your thighs!” Needless to say, it was my last confirmed sighting in that neck of the woods.
From the lush, tropical, one-of-your-vines-is-strangling-my-tonsils jungles of the Amazon, we move to the soft, naked, swollen dunes of Copacabana and ask “What the hell is it with men and Brazilian badgers?” Some women feel that it’s an unleashed young girl fetish.
I can’t speak for the freaks out there, but this is furthest from my mind. You are women, not kids. You have fleshy breasts, dangerous curves and other gorgeous womanly delights. When a damsel unveils a shaven shroud, a ruby waxed, or a landing strip, I’m thinking she’s comfortable with her v*gina, proud of her body, a little bit naughty and loves to be sexy. It can only lead to trouble of the most wicked kind.
In addition, the sexual benefits are better than a TV shopping deal. “No more fishing for elusive pubes stuck in your mans throat or flossing his molars! No more painful rope burn that can strike the head of a plummeting p*nis when a long hair gets caught in the middle of a vigorous workout! And if you call now, you’ll also receive dozens of new radical oral maneuvers to enjoy over and over again!!”
Now I know all this preaching about the benefits of shaving and waxing sounds a bit rich coming from a male. After all, we go watery eyed just plucking a nose hair. So when your guy starts hinting that he’d like to see a little more Sinead O’Connor and a little less Beyonce around the golden triangle, make him share some of the pain by coughing up (pun intended) for the cost.
Which leads me (and naturally you) to re-growth. I’ve heard that some women shy away from sex whilst stubble grows long enough to re-wax. If you are worrying about what we will think, don’t. You put up with our three-day growths, so we are more than happy to return the favor. If we get a little over-enthusiastic and come up looking like a clown with smudged lipstick for a day or two, so be it. We’re just smitten to get some kitten.
If you still feel uncomfortable, rub in a little of that $200 moisturiser you go nuts about us using when we run out of shaving cream. There’s not a man in the world that will argue if you suggest he does the honors.
If you can’t possibly part with your hedge, then try something adventurous with it. Perhaps mow a path from the thighs all the way to Clitoria and tell your hungry hobbit to go find the Precious. Or if you like the idea of a Brazilian, but would feel naked without your fur coat, start a new fashion trend and try a comb over.
When all is said and done, it comes back to the box of chocolates. Each man has his favorite, but we love that every treat is a little different. Remember the old saying, “love thy v*gina, and men will love her too." And people wonder why I want to come back in my next life as an Oompa Loompa.
You know, I agree with almost everything he wrote, except for the comb over part. I mean, does any gal here really want her down under delights to resemble The Donald?
(And you thought nobody could get more risque than me, HA!)
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Suffer The Children
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Apr 22, 2009 6:16 am
1203 Views
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I have always been an advocate of juvenile rehabilitative justice, believing as I do that children in conflict with the law benefit when they are placed within a positive environment that teaches them solid values and equips them for the future. This is why I joined Stop Child Detention, a volunteer coalition aimed at ensuring that minors are not placed in adult jail cells with criminals, because in so doing we are in effect fast-tracking them into having careers in crime.
Prior to the passing of the Juvenile Justice Bill in the Philippines in 2006 where the age of liability was raised from 9 to 15, child criminals who were guilty of nothing more than sniffing Rugby glue (mainly to ease hunger pangs) or cellphone snatching found themselves thrown into overcrowded jail cells with adults guilty of homicide, murder, sexual assault, armed robbery and such, where they were sodomized, raped, physically abused, tattooed, and indoctrinated into a life of crime.
Against this backdrop, I read with interest this article in Huffington Post by Johann Hari--
Children Who Kill Never Had a Chance
I have met children who became killers several times in my life: in the warzones of the Congo and the Central African Republic, and in the grey Young Offenders' Institutes of Britain. When I read about the events that are alleged to have happened last weekend in South Yorkshire, England, I kept thinking about their small, paranoid eyes. Two brothers - aged ten and eleven - have been charged with torturing two other, younger kids. The victims had been hit with bricks, burned with cigarettes, and slashed with knives in a wild field.
We are a long way from knowing what happened in that field that afternoon, or who carried out these acts. But the visceral temptation when any children face accusations like this is to brand them as inherently evil demons who should be locked far from us for life. But the most famous case of child-on-child killing in British history - that of Mary Bell - shows us how flawed this initial reaction is.
In 1968, in the sagging streets of the poorest part of Newcastle, a ten year old girl strangled two toddlers - Martin Brown, and Brian Howe - to death. She then cut their bodies, and with her best friend, a mentally disabled thirteen year old, she left notes in a nursery saying: "We did murder Martain brown, fuckof you BAstArd." She was reflexively described in the press as a child who had been "born evil," a "monster" and "demon."
Now we know what happened to her to make her into such a child. Mary's mother, Betty Bell, was a severely disturbed alcoholic who had been sectioned at least once. She worked as a prostitute specialising in sado-masochism - whippings and stranglings. The first thing she said when Mary was placed into her arms after giving birth was: "Take the thing away from me!" She rejected her daughter and repeatedly tried to kill her by feeding her an overdose of sleeping tablets. But eventually, she did find a use for Mary. Once she turned four, she began to pimp her to paedophiles.
Mary never knew who her father was, but she suspected her mother had been inseminated by her own dad. Later in life, she asked her mother point blank if this was the case. She didn't deny it. Betty simply said quietly: "You are the devil's spawn."
When she was ten, Mary made friends with another girl who was being raped by a local paedophile. All they had known in their lives was violent abuse - and they began to act it out. Mary tried to cut off one of the boy's penises with a razor - a plain, crazed act of revenge for what she had experienced since she was a toddler.
Yet it is strangely comforting to see evil as a primordial external force, something alien that can be hunted down and confined to cages. It dodges the colder truth that I have learned from all the child-killers I have met: we all have the capacity for terrible cruelty and sadism, especially if we are subjected to horror ourselves. Which of us can be confident that, given such Mary Bell's childhood, we wouldn't have done something depraved?
Yet the trial of the two children who killed the toddler Jamie Bulger a decade ago - and the websites trying to figure out where they are now post-release, so they can be lynched - suggests we have barely progressed since then. Excellent works of investigative journalism like Blake Morrison's book 'As If' have uncovered evidence that these children were subjected to violent and probably sexual abuse. We don't want to hear it. We want devils and demons and a black-and-white world that tells us: no, it couldn't have been you; this crime belongs to a different species.
These killings are not political parables. However much right-wingers want to make this a story about welfare dependency and left-wingers want to make it a story of brutal neoliberal economics, these rare murders have happened in Britain and across the Western world at the same rate for over a century. They have to be understood at the personal, human level.
To understand and explain these cases is not to excuse, or justify. We are talking about the most terrible thing that can happen to a person: torture, and murder. The children who do this need to be humanely detained for as long as they are a danger. But everything we know about children who kill tells us they are invariably victims of extreme abuse themselves, deserving of compassion, not hysterical condemnation.
I have watched my friend Camilla Batmangelidh - the director of the wonderful charity Kid's Company - work with children in South London who have bricked, bottled and tortured other children. She explains: "Since the Bell and Bulger cases, we've learned a lot about how a developing brain reacts to abuse, but the judicial system hasn't caught up. We now know from brain scans that if you have really poor quality care in childhood, your pre-frontal lobes don't develop properly. Those are the parts of the brain that think rationally, empathise, and exercise self-control. It is physically impossible for these children to calm down and think a situation through. Their brains haven't developed that way." So to treat them like morally responsible mini-adults who just made a bad decision - as the British courts do today - doesn't make sense. It is a neurological fiction.
When this impaired brain chemistry combines with violent abuse and rape, the children can become time-bombs. "They have been taught to see the world through one template: you're a victim, or you're an abuser. That's how they think human relationships work," Batmangelidh puts it. "At first, they are abused, and at some point they become determined to be a perpetrator, because then at least they have power and control. If you think those are your only two options in life, it seems preferable."
As she said this, I remembered the child soldiers in Central Africa who pointed guns into my face and smirked. Their families had been bayoneted in front of them, and they had buried the bodies themselves. In the warzones of the Congo, I met eleven and twelve year old boys who had seen their mothers and sisters snatched away, and were then picked up by the militiamen and trained to rape and kill. Like Mary, they were re-enacting the violence they had experienced in a desperate attempt to switch roles: this time, they were the Big Men.
Children who kill are a question of mental health, not morality. They are internally destroyed children, not devils. Given the love and support that they deserve, such children can develop their frontal lobes and their capacity for empathy over time, and be released. As Gita Sereny's reportorial masterpiece 'Cries Unheard' shows, Mary Bell eventually developed into a morally responsible adult and "a very, very loving mother" - albeit one perpetually haunted by the knowledge of what she had done.
Haven't we progressed enough since the Middle Ages to see these truths, and reject the barbaric theology of "evil" children?
When accusations like this bleed into the news, we need to stand at the front of the looming lynch mob and say: Stop. Think. In 1861, a leader in The Times of London commented on the trial of two eight year old boys in Stockport who had tortured and killed a toddler. It said: "Children of that age cannot be held legally accountable in the same way as adults. It is absurd and monstrous that these two children have been treated like murderers."
Isn't it time we progressed to 1862?
This is why I believe that child abuse, whether perpetrated by family, by strangers, or by the system -- is an issue that must, MUST, concern each and every one of us. We may not totally eradicate juvenile crime--but effectively addressing child abuse, and helping rehabilitate those who commit crimes in their childhood--may help prevent these children into growing up to be the monsters who walk amongst us, doing the unspeakable.
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Maudlin Matron
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Apr 15, 2009 8:30 am
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I don't usually cry while watching talent shows--heck, I usually DON'T watch talent shows-- but this woman had me bawling like a baby. I found the link about her while reading Huffington Post. To check out what made my waterworks spout, go to the tube, type in "Susan Boyle -- Singer-- Britains Got Talent 2009 (With Lyrics)." (Typos deliberate, because that's how it appears on the tube)
And just...get some Kleenex handy. Maybe you're not as maudlin as I am, but if this doesn't make you believe in the sheer talent and indomitable spirit of this woman, nothing will.
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