The Portal to Boomeranger World

"Waste Not" A Glimpse of Beijing Hutong Life by an Almost Baby Boomer

An Ultimate in Savings

Song Dong, one of China's most inventive artists and only two years short of official Baby Boomerdom, being born in 1966 the start of the Cultural Revolution,   has made from his mother's life and her art of saving and recycling, a wonderful installation art project that is on display at the Museum of Modern Art in NYC running through Sept 21.

See this article in the NYTimes about Song Dong's mother's life and what she saved from hutong life in Beijing.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/15/arts/design/15song.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1&emc=eta1

Is Love Only Biological? Why "Orphan" Is off the Mark

Love Is a Contingent Emotion
I would not waste my money on the new movie "Orphan." It has clearly been developed
by people with narrow hearts. These are the same kind of people who ask--who are her
"real" parents? concluding that I, a non-biological, older 
(well, waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay older) parent can not be real, because 
I did not contribute any DNA to my daughter's mix. That I have contributed homemade 
pancakes and early risings on cold school mornings, hours over her homework, endless 
shopping trips (a boring chore for one who hates shopping, but a delight with my 
darling), loads and loads of laundry, sleepless nights when a sore throat was in 
the offing and more and more excludes me as a real parent, burns me--to say the least!

Here is an essay I wrote several years ago on the reality of parenting 
http://www.thimbleberrypress.com/Smitten.pdf.I describe how love is a product of all 
the actions you take on behalf of another; the accountability you undertake, 
the commitments you make. these are the attributes that make a real parent and a real 
child and that grow love. 


Orphan Wrong-headed When It Comes to Love

The trailer for "Orphan" questions love--"It must be hard to 
love an adopted child like your own." and suggests that DNA is the source of love 
of a child. No, it is not. Because, what, pray tell does "your own" mean? My child 
became "my own" the moment the legal papers were signed in Wuhan June 15, 1995. 
In other words, I and her father became legally responsible for caring for our
daughter--feeding her,getting her to school, clothing her, comforting her and 
yes--LOVING her. She did not agree nor do any children, however they become
one's children, to be owned by parents. The ownership part is not the child being 
possessed by parents, but the parents "owning" and carrying out their responsibilities 
for their child.

Love, I suggest, is something that grows with commitment and time. Love between 
parent and child therefore is contingent, not DNA driven. In fact, we have all seen
the statistics on the thousands of children beaten, sexually abused and 
"loved" to literal death by their biological parents. If this is love, I'm having 
none of it. I'll take my love in my daughter's washed socks not DNA combos.

It is the stereotypes about what makes for reality between parents and children that 
continue to confuse people, the very stereotypes that cultural productions like 
"Orphan" promote and exploit. Last year I spoke to a Houston FCC group and was saddened 
to hear how many parents at the book signing for my book, The Dragon's Daughters
Return, had been stabbed in their loving parent hearts by the "who are her real 
parents?" question. Their children had been hurt by this same question as well. 
( See my essay for more on this stereotype 
http://www.thimbleberrypress.com/Moments.htm.) But the very real love that exists 
between real parents and real children is the love that grows from the true heart 
such as that expressed by Willa, seven years old at the time, for the 
"bad people" who set off bombs in the London metro in 2005. 

Willa's Prayer About Love

The Folly of Adults 
by Sharon Salzberg
July 13, 2009

 
After the metro bombing in London, in July 2005, my initial response echoed most of
those around me: sorrow for lives lost, some anxiety about getting on a subway in
NYC, distress at the state of a degenerating world. This was all natural, but
remained strictly within "us versus them" thinking.

Willa, my then 7-year-old godchild, had another perspective. On being told what had
happened, her eyes filled with tears and she said, "Mom, we should say a prayer." As
she and her mother held hands, Willa asked to go first. Her mother was stunned to
hear Willa begin with, "May the bad people remember the love in their hearts." 

Willa's startling wisdom often takes me to another place, and a new perspective. She
is now 11, and a fantastic artist, a burgeoning actress, a poet, and an imp. It's
pretty hard to imagine life without her.

Willa was born in China, adopted and raised in the U.S. by 2 of my closest friends.
Their family came instantly to my mind when I heard about the trailer for the
upcoming movie, Orphan, about an older adopted child who turns out to be evil and
wreaks havoc on her new family. The original trailer featured the unbelievable
tagline: "It must be hard to love an adopted child like your own." Really? 

For all the Willas who might have sat in a movie theater somewhere, seeing that
trailer, I apologize for the folly of adults. I apologize for our tendency to be
unthinking and insensitive, to create and recreate an "other" over and over again.
Almost by definition, the "other" is an object, not a person, and so anything might
be said about them or done to them, and it doesn't count, it doesn't matter. That
kind of objectification lies at the heart of cruelty, heartlessness, and so much
casual indifference. 

Can one just say anything at all about children without it counting? There are
millions of children around the globe who are or were once parentless due to
circumstances completely beyond their control - do their feelings really not matter?
Can one then do anything at all to children without it counting as abusive, or
hurtful, or consequential? Really?

Can one say anything at all about families, with our own definition of a "real"
family counting as absolute truth, and a different construct of a family being
deemed inauthentic or unworthy or lesser? Who gets to decide when and how a child
becomes your own? What distant entity owns that right?

My heart aches for the pain caused by the attitudes we so often perpetuate, the
assigning of "otherness" we so often engage in to exclude someone. As recipients, we
all know when we confront the ignorance of others of who we are, and we all know the
temptation to dive into that person's or group's definition of us and cloak
ourselves in it, to know ourselves as not belonging, and inferior and left out. 

"Don't do it Willa," I keep thinking. "Don't believe that about yourself and your
family!" But then, it is quite possible she wouldn't. We should say a prayer. 
  
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/sharon-salzberg/the-folly-of-adults_b_230479.html 

Palin's Departure Cuts Governors Who Are Women Down to Six

Only Six Women Governors Remain

Back in the day when I was campaigning for Liz Holtzman or Bella Abzug for their various offices, it seemed impossible that there might be a day when there were more than several governors who were women. Sarah Palin's strange and abrupt departure from her Alaska governorship now reduces women's leadership to only 6 women in that leadership role. Irrespective of her politics, which I reject and her seeming emotional instability--this is another example of--her leaving her governorship is a blow to women's leadership. As more and more of pop culture demonizes or mocks older women and slutifies young women--casting them only in sex saturated roles and identities, the potential for women in leadership roles in politics diminishes. So for that reason, and that reason only, I regret her leaving her post. While not the best role model out there for young women, she was some kind of leadership role model.

What WomenCount Says About Palin

 Stacy Mason, ED of WomenCount says

“When it comes to Sarah Palin, we’re damned if we do and we’re damned if we don’t.  WomenCount is a non-partisan, progressive organization that got its start during the Hillary Clinton campaign. So it’s no surprise that we don’t share Sarah Palin’s policy agenda or politics.

 

 But when we defended her during the campaign when she was the victim of gender bias because it was the right thing to do, we were attacked. When we criticized her on issues of policy and didn’t back her as some had hoped simply because she is a woman, we were attacked. When we were just silent and neither defended nor criticized her, we were attacked.

 
We can take the heat, and we did. But it all misses the point: If we had more women in office in the first place, Sarah Palin wouldn’t be the symbol that she is for women in politics.

Frankly, I am tired of hearing that Palin sets women back, that she has disappointed us, embarrassed us, and the worst, that she reflects badly on all women. Not because it’s not true, because I am afraid it is, but because it shouldn’t be. When a man in politics makes a misstep or a bad decision, does it reflect on all men? Ha.

Our colleague Meghan Harvey has reminded us often in this space that women governors are dropping like flies. With Palin’s resignation we’re down to six women governors around the country. That’s it, six out of fifty.

 This disproportionate representation, like the 17 percent of Congress and the 24 percent of state legislators, means those women carry a heavier burden to speak for us, to fight for us, to promote issues that we hold dear. The flip side is that when they don’t, when those women let us down, it damages us even more. 

Sarah Palin does not speak for us, and she is not speaking for all women.

But until there are more women in office and running for office, the impact of her actions on all women will be magnified to a degree that is disproportionate to what it should be. That’s not fair to her or to us.

So the lesson of her abrupt and unexpected departure  and the fallout from it  is simple: We need more women in office. So run for office. Vote for women who run. Support women who run. Another way to help: Support WomenCount’s work to promote women in politics.” [http://cts.vresp.com/c/?WomenCount/0bf1cde067/3a55468887/d05457227d]

 

 And read our other blog posts about Palin. Comment and add your voice

 to the dialogue!

 [http://cts.vresp.com/c/?WomenCount/0bf1cde067/3a55468887/fa97be4674]