An Unconscious Backlash: The "Blanketing" of Disability

An Unconscious Backlash: The “Blanketing” of Disability

There is a subject I have avoided for a long time in my life, partly as a method of self-denial. It is the idea of disability discourse. Disability discourse is the way we, as a culture of Canadians, discuss and relate to disability. More than how we talk about disabled people, discourse is about our attitudes toward disability, and how those attitude both infringe upon and reinforce basic human freedoms.
Most recently, I have been looking into different writings on disability, trying to scrounge up anything that might give me some insight into how disabilities are internalized and portrayed by the public. I want literature as a starting point for helping me understand what I think I already know, and what confuses me about disabilities. I want some scholarly input on my personal experience: a concrete definition of what disabilities add to the dynamic society, so that I can evaluate where disability attitudes and discourse needs work in our society. In an effort to find this information, I loaned two books from the library, one which claims to discuss disability issues in our North American Culture and the other, which works through some of the struggles that siblings of a disabled person might face.
Instead of finding the clarity I had hoped for, I stumbled on further confusion. The books I had loaned had chapters and chapters of relevant topics--from disability and culture to the different roles thought to be played by disabled people--but upon closer reading I found something that made these sources somewhat unuseful to me: they were on developmental disabilities. Now, maybe you’re thinking that I just had a brain lapse, and magically missed the word “developmental” in front of the word “disability” before signing out both books. But I swear on my mother’s middle name I didn’t; it simply isn’t mentioned in any of the titles of either the books or their chaptered sections.
This sort of omission, while it may seem small to everyone else, makes my stomach turn. Don’t get me wrong, developmentally challenged individuals deserve all the same rights as everyone, I would never ever dispute that, and that is not my issue. My issue is that difference, when it comes in the form of disability, is often lumped together as one, which is in my opinion, perfect breeding grounds for misconception and further marginalization. The result is a “blanketing effect,” in which people with a variety of differing “impairments”, are bunched together under a cover of “disability.”

The Problem of Blanketing Disability

With groups that are marginalized fro reasons outside of disability, such as race, gender, or sexual orientation, blanketing can be a good thing. Look at the Gay Pride Parades-- there are gays, lesbians, bisexuals, transgendered and two-spirited people celebrating their commonality of diverging from mainstream norms when it comes to sexual orientation. It is hard to see such unity as anything but positive, when the goal is to gain acceptance of what are still sometimes deemed “alternative” ways of living. Gender politics and women’s fight for equality also frequently works best when women from all over take a stance against ill treatment, and headway towards a less patriarchal culture is made, at least for a second. There’s no doubt about it, there’s power in numbers when people on the outskirts of society fight for the same cause. But what happens when fighting for that general cause means ignoring or minimizing individual differences? What happens when the individuality and the vividness of a few people’s disability is lost in the mass of the fight, therefore belittling the speciality of their case? This “blanketing” effect is a problem that I believe has held movement towards disabled rights back for many years. Of course, it is not the only issue, but I think it is a major one. When disability is “blanketed,” everyone under the title of disabled becomes what society portrays as the most acceptable and least uncomfortable form of disability--in a sense, disabled people are expected to fit a poster-child version of what society deems ‘disabled’ and grounds for internal and external discrimination are conceived. If disabled people do not fit into the norm of disability--if they need too much, for example-- then they are frowned upon or considered “sick” by society and maybe even alienated by other disabled people.
When society does not see disabilities in their individual light, for all that one person’s disability means and all that it doesn’t, mistakes happen, and arbitrary assumptions fly. It is a minefield for misconception, generalization, and unproductivity. We, as a society, need to stop seeing difference as division and start seeing it as a fact that needs to be understood in moving forward for the betterment of people with disabilities, and a society that is more aware.

How To Make a Guy Love You Forever-And-A-Day!

So earlier tonight, I was doing whatever it is that I do when I'm on the internet for hours and lose myself in a maze of clicking. I clicked and clicked until I came across this shameful site by the name of "www.lovepanky.com". For those who have never been on it, go ahead, click. For those who have, you know that it's a bright pink, heart-filled website with a lot of content that is reliant on gender distinctions and female insecurities as the basis for its substance. Now, even though I'm a teensy-bit of a feminist and a tiny-bit annoyed by this type of literature (if you can even call it that) which promotes and therefore supports belief in, gender dichotomies, I still have insecurities (sometimes). As is such, I skimmed a few of the articles, leafing through, "How men love differently than women," "Why he takes forever to fall in love with you" and (wince) some annoying article telling me to flit my hair more if I want to capture a guy's heart (Somehow, I don't think it'll be his heart I'll be capturing, but I just don't have the heart to e-mail the author).To summarize tonight's learnings from Lovepanky in one sentence, I would say: Just act extra stupid, smile a lot and pretend you need his expertise at least once a day.
This finding caused a bit of an internal crisis for me...And here's why: I, Kristen, have a horrible habit of flitting my hair and laughing at men's jokes even when they aren't funny. I love flirting. In fact, everytime I sign-up to a new website and it asks what my hobbies and interests are, I'm tempting to write, "flirting for the hell of it," but subtlety and social norms keep me at bay. Just the other day, I met a man who seemed interested, and just for the hell of it, I found myself asking him some silly question that I already knew the answer to. Dumb charm, unfortunately, can be quite a hook for most guys. It's a terrible habit that sometimes rubs right in the face of some of my core beliefs about gender equality.
What I'm getting at is one main question for which I lack the answer: Can a flirty personality make someone a bad feminist? I'm sure there are other ways to flirt besides laughing and dumbing yourself down, but (sadly) I have yet to find anything quite as effective.

Back-logged: Canada's View on Disability

CANADA IS KNOWN for its amazing acceptance of everyone, from every walk of life. We are, by defualt, a very understanding and accommodating nation, and that notion is-- if nothing else-- part of our national image. And that’s swell, but I’d argue there’s trouble in paradise, specifically when it comes to the Canadian public’s views on disability. I’m not one two point fingers, but I think the confused impression the public has of people with disabilities is due to the contradicting mindsets of Canadian policy makers and those in the news media industry. In my fancy-shmancy my-parents-forced-me-to-get-a-degree lingo, I would say that:Canada’s legislation promotes acceptance and integration in the form of accessibility, but the ideologies inferred by media, specifically news broadcasts, send conflicting messages which favour ignorance. The mixed messages purported from the two influential sources create a back-log effect for the Canadian public’s views and understanding of disability.The cyclical relationship between the news, media and the general public is why we can’t progress, and become the all-accepting mosaic of a country we so long to be. In Laymen’s terms, the reason people speak to me like I’m hearing impaired (instead of in a wheelchair) is because they have received multiple contrasting signals from the government legislation and everyday news media, telling them what to do when it comes to disability. They’re probably really confused.

Gumdrops and Lollipops: Disability Policy in Canada

Canadian mandates on accessibility and equality sound so forward-thinking, they almost ring utopic. Around this time last year, the Legislative Assembly of Ontario released a new standard for accessibility around Ottawa stating that its goal was, “improving accessibility through identifying, removing and preventing barriers in key areas of customer service, employment, communications and information, and the built environment.”(see: www.ontla.on.ca/lao-organization/.../accessibility-2010-2011_en.pdf). The legislation touches on a number of things that effect many people with disabilities on a regular basis, such as improving building accessibility, adding accessible washrooms, and training those in customer service on what I call “disability etiquette”. It all sounds great, and in many ways it is. On the flip side of the coin however, is the glaring fact that people have to be “trained, retrained, or refreshed” on how to “communicate with people with disabilities” This strikes me as both horribly sad and hysterical, as it makes people with disabilities sound like a new species or something. Not to mention it makes all those in the service industry look like fools, for not having the sense to know how to interact with another human being. As ridiculous as it is though, I commend the legislative assembly for admitting that people do need to be trained on how to treat those with disabilities, since more often than not in my experience, prejudice gets in the way of common sense.

The Media, The Problem

While policy-makers are on the right track with implementing laws that enforce equality for people with disabilities, the news media is sending quite a different message. This is problematic, given that both policies and news media are major influences of public consciousness. I recently read that, “a “recent survey released by NADbank shows that [the] total weekly newspaper penetration levels [is] between 75% to 80% of the [Canadian] adult population.”This means that a huge chunk of citizens read the news on a regular basis. I’d venture to say that if you’re reading this, you likely fit somewhere in that 75-80%. Bottom line is, the news, in its many forms and outlets is wide-spread throughout Canada, and therefore influences, to varying extents, the people who consume it.

In the spirit of media influence, I think it was Spiderman’s Uncle Ben who said, “With great power comes great responsibility.” Since news providers have roughly 80% of Canada’s grown-up population watching them, their content--everything from portrays of wars, to depictions of human interest stories involving low income citizens--matters. Unfortunately, news reporters work on a tight, day-to-day/ breaking news timeline which doesn’t allow for much elaboration or explanation of the topics and situations which they so readily convey. This means that we, the public, are left to fill in the blanks in telegram-type titles and 5-7 word bi-lines, which, leaves a lot of room for interpretive error. The curt, brief style of news media essentializes people and stories at best, and discriminates groups and issues at worst.
Though the aftertaste of being stripped to the bare minimum in news stories is likely felt by nearly everyone at some point, I would argue the news’ portrayal of people with disabilities is especially careless. This week, I read an article dealing with the government’s pulling of $300 000 from a program which provided care and recreation for adults with physical and mental disabilities (see: http://www.cbc.ca/news/health/story/2012/02/08/ottawa-cut-program-disabled-adults.html).
The article is most troublesome in its choice of wording when describing the people with disabilities, both on the broadcast, and in the written piece. In the broadcast, the anchorman calls the subjects “severely disabled adults,” failing to specify that all member of the discussed program are physically AND mentally disabled. We, as audiences, are left to infer the occurrence or a developmental delay, on top of a physical disability, simply from the word “severe”. This language is not only problematic in that it is vague, it is also inaccurate. I have a disability that is termed “severe” by professionals, although my cognitive abilities remain untouched. According to what the news would have us believe however, “severe” encompasses only people who face physical and mental disabilities. Rather than using common sense and placing the words, “mentally and physically” in front of “disabled” before the description of the upcoming newsstory, viewers are left with a vague and incorrect impression of disability, likely assuming that “severe” indicates both a developmental and physical disability.
Aside from this issue of incorrectly labeling the people with disabilities it is identifying, neither the article nor the accompanying broadcast mentions whether the program takes on members with strictly physical or strictly mental disabilities. Does each individual who has access to the program have physical and mental limitations, or do some only have one or the other? We are, once again, left to assume these important details, under the blanket the media so easily labels as “The disabled”.

I find it quite annoying that we have policy makers peeing their pants with excitement when it comes to implementing barrier free environments for people with disabilities, while simultaneously some politically incorrect, lazy news transcriber can’t take the time to at least attempt depicting people with disabilities properly. Instead public is left to make their own impressions and, in my opinion, its likely that lack of knowledge, will lead to most people filling in the blanks with some sort of stereotype. This process flies in the face of disability awareness, and hence we have the vicious circle, the is policy, media, public.

Sit Down, Artie.

ON DAYS WHEN I am extremely bored and the usual fixes like reading post secret, stalking facebook, or watching horrible clips of covers to songs I don't even know aren't doing it, I sit down and watch Glee. Go ahead, judge away, it's probably better than some of the crapshoot music videos you pretend not to watch anyway. Also, what I am about to say really has nothing to do with whether or not Glee is a good show. It's not. Pretty undoubtedly, the plot is non existent, the actors are way too into their cheesy characters and the accapella-subbing for real instruments got old half way through the first season. It sucks, hands down.
Despite the show's poor quality, it has a fairly loyal viewership, and an even more loyal cast. Apparently Leah Michelle (Rachel Berry) got two tattoos in honor of the show and what it stands for. Which, brings me to my real topic: What the fuck does Glee represent?
When the show first came out, the majority was excited because it combined musical numbers (everyone's secret favourite thing) with diversity and acceptance, while challenging ideas of political correctness and categorization. The main characters included: Two white people, two Jews, two Asians one black person, one wheelie, and one homosexual. That's right, I said main. All of these characters were supposed to dance and jive until we forgot their differences, or at least until we no longer cared. It was a quirky fun show with just enough of the tragic element to add depth.
As the season unfolded, each character developed and, in their own ways, embraced their so-called differences. They even did a whole episode on difference, where The Female Jew (Rachel Berry) comes to love her big nose, on the grounds that it is resembling of Barbra Streisand's, and, well, she's famous. In other episodes, we see Tina and Mike referring to themselves as 'Asian' and 'Other Asian' to make light of their race. The character Kurt is openly gay and, after quite a struggle, becomes accepted by those whom he encounters on a daily basis.This is all warm-fuzzies, flowers, rainbows and honeybees, until it's Artie's turn to be empowered by his circumstance.
Artie is a rather two dimensional character: nerdy, with annoyingly straight teeth and glasses squarer than my nun aunt. If it wasn't for his paraplegia, caused (yes, you guessed it!) by an accident at age 7, he would not even be worth air time. But, for the sake of diversity, Artie is paralyzed, serving the wheelie quota for the shows' modern, liberal look at 'all walks of life'. This seems totally okay for a while, as Artie floats through each epi doing a series of hand-motions and cat-walks where appropriate, but trouble soon rolls in, as Artie starts to truly realize, at the age of 17, that his disability is part of him.
The problem here is not that Artie must come to terms with being in a wheelchair, but more with the fact that such acceptance isn't happening. This is particularly obvious in the latest episode, where he claims, he "doesn't want to hear that it gets better. He wants to hurt them...he wants them to feel his pain, because lately, that's all he has to give." That's not even the kicker. As if it's not enough that Artie is having a seemingly unprovoked emotional breakdown, the show deals with it by having him break out of his chair and do a whole dance and vocal duet to an MJ track. As is keeping in line with the shows sweep-it-under-the rug approach to Artie's disability, his breakdown/daydream is never brought up or mentioned again, and viewers are left to think that it is 'normal' to wish Artie could walk, because his dance moves are sooo much better when he can add footwork.
In my opinion, this sends a mix message of acceptance of limits and denial of circumstance. Wile Kurt is off applying to Performing Arts school and being the best version of his gay-self he can be, and Tina and Mike are proud of the "honor" associated with their Asain roots, Artie can't decide whether he is frustrated with or advocating for disability. Subliminally, these conflicting messages might lead watchers to think all wheelies are uncomfortable with their disabilities, that they daydream of getting up just to pull off the moonwalk, which is something that I would readily dispute.
If Glee isn't going off the air anytime soon, I at least hope that Artie will do the rest of his musical numbers as a true wheelie. The writers would never ask their black character to paint her face white for a scene, or tell Kurt to explore the possibility of dating Britney. So why doesn't Artie just stay sitting?

Pinky and Brain Are So Unhappy Though

When you are like me, you like to control things. This feels nice and self-protective, like a hug and a shove of independence, all at once. The assurance is there that things and people are exactly as you perceive them, and if anything decides to go wrong, you have that knowledge to fall back on. A blanket of security when not knowing is not enough.
The problem with being this way is that a) you start to see things as hum-drum and horrible, exactly as you’ve predicted them to be in your head and b) eventually people start to notice that you’re a bit of a douchebag, thinking that you know who they are and what they like before you’ve even waited for their answer.
There is no making light of this either, although it feels easier to swallow that way. Here’s a few things a controlling vag-bag like myself would say:
“You were taking a while so I got you a cappuccino”
“Oh, but I was thinkin I wanted a hot chocolate though”
“Well, here’s your capp.”
or:
“You’re mad because I’m being slow”
“I’m not mad though.”
“Come on, you don’t act like this when you're happy.”
Even as I write this, I wish i could just scroll the words, “I’m an asshole, fuck it.” across the page, but I can’t because that would be alleviating responsibility and/or guilt and would imply that people are just born controlling assholes. And in my opinion, nurture wins over nature in this one. This type of assholiness is an entirely learned behaviour.
I have one friend who has a catch phrase that describes perfectly the mistreatment of people. With a smirk on her face and a far-off, I-don’t-want-to-discuss-this-depressing-topic-anymore look on her face she says, “It happens everyday.” To which, I am usually struck with silence and a persistent need to sip my coffee. She’s right, and that fact never fails to make me terribly uncomfortable. Everyday someone is defining what someone else should feel, think, want, hate, love or desire. Everyday someone on the receiving end of being controlled croons because the person telling them what to feel, think, want, hate, love or desire, knows them so Goddamn well. And so the cycle of perpetual control and permanent mind-fucking begins.
Why do we do this? Animal instinct? Childhood trauma? Hitler’s rippling influence? If you recall, Hitler shot himself in the head. Most people think it’s because he lost the war. I like to think its because he realized that every life has value and couldn’t handle the blooming guilt, thus putting a bullet in his brain. Either way, he was clearly unhappy. And it couldn’t have hurt if he had chose to be a little less controlling.
I’ve spent a lot of awesome time reading about the after-effects of being controlled or abused, and the results are awful. What’s odd about the control dynamic though, is its inherent contradiction: people are controlling to feel better about themselves, but evidence and life-experience show that they mostly just end of feeling bored, apathetic, and lame. It’s lonely at the top, especially when you’ve ruined everyone else on the way up. That’s the major paradox, we do it feel better, but just end up worse.
So if all this is true, what do we do to stop this dynamic? I am not the first to pose this question, and the hierarchy of human nature suggests that we’ll struggle with this issue for the rest of time, facing wars and killing each other as a means to the end of ultimate power. But, in the meantime, we can start at home, with our families and friends. One of the smallest but most impacting steps one can make towards becoming less controlling is to stop using definitive statements. As you may know, definitive statements are those which tell others what to do think feel want love hate or desire. They most commonly function in a few different ways, which include:
- Ignoring ehat the person actually claimed they wanted, claiming the either you know best or that the deed is already done (as is seen in the Cappuccino example)
- Stating that your current knowledge of them is based on what you know them to be like, and understanding how they should behave (as is with the ‘You’re mad because’ example)
- General or extreme lies which are meant to provoke emotion, cause confusion, or both.
Definitive statements, to someone who has never had control issues (if there be such a person) may seem like a bunch of hooglygook. But to ignore relevance the issue of control that has plagued us since the start of time and will continue to do so until the Second Coming (ha...haha), is to deny that the sky is blue. Even if you arn’t like me and you manage to keep all your friends and your social life intact, at some point or another you will be effected by this problem. It is like the cancer of the social world.
Finally, it is my opinion that, if this issues are not nipped in the dirty little bud early-on in life, well, you have prime breeding grounds for more relationship violence, domestic abuse, and in extreme cases, murder. (It is important to get the controlling under control before spawn of Mein Kampf begin popping up everywhere!) On a smaller scale though, it ruins many friendships before they even begin. I lost one of my best friends this year, not from some normal cause like my boyfriend hates you or the cumulative sexual tension between us has totally mucked up everything, but because I was controlling the entire time. Without even fully recognizing it for what it was. Imagine that.
Needless to say, he’s gone, For good, not that he’s leaving much because I never knew the real him anyways. Just the person I had decided he was and the role he had, in turn, decided to put up with. I guess that’s why I’ve rambled on for so damn long now-- simply because I wanted to point out, on a broad spectrum, the severe dangers of controlling behavior. To give a refresher, the three options are: 1. End up like Hitler 2. End up abusive 3. Lose all your friends (or at least your best ones), due to the fact that you never truly got to know them in the first place. The pickin’s are pretty slim, if you ask me.

The Other Side of the Story

Nearly anyone who knows me knows that recently, I have become very interested in acts of violence and abuse against women. It’s been an ongoing obsession of mine for about a year now, as I've tried to understand characteristics of abusers and “abuse dynamic,” as well as what can be done to prevent it. In a way it has sort of become an all-consuming hobby, which has jaded my perspective and caused me to see almost every relationship, no matter how insignificant, under the microscope of power-and-control dynamics.
For a while, I thought that seeing the world in this shit-stained way was OK, telling myself that it was justified and helping me “get through” one day at a time. And anyone who didn’t understand it, well... too bad.
But last week I was at a friend's house visiting their adorable service-dog who, much to the owner’s dismay, was inching towards me for attention. Instead of laughing or ravishing the dog with secret-affections, I heard myself saying, “Well, aren’t you manipulative.”
I had just accused a beautiful, innocent, square-headed black lab of a characteristic associated with sociopathic men (and women).
It was then that I realized I had a problem. Claiming the dog tried to fool me is where I draw the line.
In light of the fact that I had taken the whole control thing too far, I agreed to go to a lecture on wrongful conviction yesterday, with the same friend whose dog i had bitched out. I figured learning about two men that had been wronged by the system could help me remember my empathy for humanity, not just women (Girl power!) We sat in the back and I skimmed over the event speakers, Jamie Nielson and Robert Baltovich, a knot forming in my stomach as a read about each of their awful situations. Jamie Neilson was accused of rape in 1996 by a friend of an ex girlfriend, Cathy Fordham, and soon after the judge convicted him of sexual assault, assault, forcible confinement and uttering death threats. Despite his steadfast denial of all accounts and the courts complete reliance on one eye-witness account (the victim’s), Neilson lived the next 3 and a half years in prison. He was finally released when some brainy lawyers put their heads together and realized Ms. Fordham was also accusing over 30 other man of eerily similar crimes and situations. The nut-job ( and I do not use that word lightly)had fabricated the entire story, and well, she only served 6 months in prison and is now raising a family (Lord help us).
Robert Baltovich was 24 years old when he was convicted of the murder of his girlfriend Elizabeth Bain, after she disappeared from her Toronto home in June 1990. Though their was insufficient evidence, and a belief that the Scarborough Rapist (Paul Bernardo) might have escalated to murder and taken another victim, the Crown believed Baltovich to be a “spurned lover” who killed Miss Bain, and he spent the next 8 years in jail.
Reading about these men and hearing their testimonies shook my belief system just as I had expected. Both of these men were wrongfully convicted due to tunnel-vision (which usually occurs because its easiest to blame those whom were intimately involved with the victim and therefore is less work for the Crown, or because the cop on the case has emotional investment in what they believe to be the truth) This means that in both cases, the victims were categorized as abused and, in the case of Baltovich, killed. Had it not been for our CJS’ tendency to prioritize acts of violence against women and believe those who claimed to be victims, these men could have lived their whole lives in the free world, instead of in incarceration.
So, maybe our institutional dependence on women’s rights is very much to blame for the years these men spent behind bars. The problem with this viewpoint is that our society’s support for abused women and their delegations of the men accused of abuse is often very beneficial to women. Some women do not even realize they're being abused until they’re hit 3, 4, 5, times. Others realize the minute they are belittled, smothered, or mocked. But either way, the minute a woman dials 9-1-1 after an instance of physical violence with their partner, the man is arrested and escorted to the cop shop on the spot, no matter how many times he claims she started it, or that she fell. Immediate action like this is necessary is for a number of reasons:
1) The women’s safety is at stake without law enforcement intervention
2) The abuser might have succeeded in convincing the victim that the abuse is ‘not that bad,’ that ‘she deserved it’ or that she is not being abused at all.
3) 9 out of 10 times, this type of intervention circumstance is necessary for a woman to find the courage to leave an abusive relationship.
4) If ‘innocent until proven guilty’ was considered in the arrest of violent men, the men would be found innocent more often then not, not because they are innocent, but because a general characteristic of abusers is that they are amazingly persuasive liars, and often believe their own lies.
It is for these reasons that accusations of abuse are taken so very seriously by the authorities. Women in abusive situations frequently need all the help in the world to process what has happened to them, often dealing with symptoms of Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome, such as nightmares, depression, bouts of anxiety, loss of concentration, low-self esteem, suicidal tendencies and alcoholism or addiction problems, just to name a few. Picture falling asleep for a while, a light,restless slumber, and waking up a few years later having no idea who the fuck you are or what you stand for. That’s what it’s like, seriously. So clearly, rights for women who have been violated or abused need protection, and it is the system's belief that immediate arrest after an act of physical abuse is the first step in offering support for women.

And I must say, they couldn’t be more right. One of the functions of law is to be a voice for those who are voiceless, fight back for those who can’t fight, and if anyone’s in the position, it is more often than not, the battered woman. So what do we do when our laws assertive, face-forward approach to abused woman put innocent men in jail because of the odd personality-afflicted, psychopathic women uses those rights to her sick advantage, as in Jamie Nielson’s case? What do we do when a innocent man spends 8 years locked up because the easy battered-women conclusion closes the case?

I’m writing this because I have no answers. The lecture left a bad taste in my mouth, as I wondered what can be done about such injustices. I’m still at a loss. Regardless, I think that pointing fingers to one cause is ineffective, because I think a number of factors make up a wrongful conviction. And though I’ll likely be a raving feminist until the day I die, I hope to slowly regain enough faith in women AND men and fight for humanity’s injustices, not just those with flowers below their waist.

Spoiled Kids' Day

Mom's Day is supposed to be full of pancake breakfasts and unrealistic promises which are meant to show the extent of our love for Mommy Dearest. Lots of hugs and kisses and cards and chocolate and lalala.
But, If you look a bit closer, run a bit deeper, Mother's Day is also a accurate indicator of spoiled kids. Spoiled kids are most obviously spotted when, in one sneaky way or another, Mother's Day, becomes about them. I know this, because, well, I'm part of the spoiled kids club, and...even at my age, Mom's day is really K-Day. In my experience, there are a few components that apply to every spoiled kid who makes this national holiday about them. These are characteristics that signify that the day is really about them, and in worst case scenarios, the roles of mother and child are confused. You know it's spoiled Kids Day when:
1. Your filling out a card for your mom, only to realize that the card is more exciting and relevant to you, not your mom. (Ex, your card includes jokes about drinking, men, fashion, etc)
2. Your visit with mom involves you leaving with a bag of hand-me-downs, clothes she "doesn't need" anymore. (Jackpot!)
3. Mother's Day events include: getting filled up on Mom's cookies, soup, wine, tea, all of the above.
4. If you live in another town, mom calls you, saying "Hi honey, today made me think of you".
5. (This one's most shameful- brace yourself) If you live in another town, the thought of calling mom entails you wondering if maybe all 4 of your siblings will overwhelm her with flattery, and get you off the hook, thus avoiding a three hour phone call.
It's my theory that if you are guilty of even 3 of these scenarios, you do not celebrate Mother's Day at all, but some version of Your Day beginning with your first initial. Go K-Day! Love you Mom.