I love things that violate the norm of society and challenge the status quo of thinking. I think it’s refreshing to constantly re-examine our standards, ways of thinking, and justifications for why something is right or wrong.

So, while I do not usually partake of ABC’s 20/20 “investigative” reporting show (although Elizabeth Vargas is cute enough to whip anyone into a verbal frenzy), I found their recent episodes on Taboos in America to be quite interesting. As you might suspect, I have a few reactions and commentary (I know, I know…you’re shocked. My sympathies.)

To Speak the Impossible Speech…

The first segment dealt with the saying of such taboo words like, “nigger”, on American public media and by Caucasian Americans in particular. There was several differing viewpoints presented, but the overall feeling was that the word still carries with it a lot of baggage from its original meanings and use when African Americans were horribly mistreated and treated as sub-humans.

The first of two of the things that struck me during this report was the quote by Senator Joseph Biden about Barack Obama, saying, “I mean, you got the first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy,” Biden said. “I mean, that’s a storybook, man.” Vargas questioned this by saying, “What…he can’t call a black man, ‘articulate’?”

Clearly, it’s intention and context that was at fault here. Biden screwed up, whether intentionally or not, and deserves the backlash he got from it. It’s one thing to say, “Barack is a very articulate man.” It’s a whole different story to say that he is “clean” and what’s with “that’s a storybook, man.” Are you going to vote for someone who a) thinks a black man running for President is a storybook story and b) uses the colloquialism, “man”, actively in a public statement?

The second poignant moment was when Vargas asked if there was a statute of limitations on black history and the faults of our forefathers in relation to today and what we are dealing with. Michael Eric Dyson answered by saying, “Yes, but we’re not there yet,” and I somewhat agree. In terms of how people think and act towards each other in relation to their race is absolutely a matter of still watching our step. As long as I have relatives that think that the blacks in the community are all corrupt and that homosexuals should be shipped off to their own island to die out on their own, we need to continue to be conscious of our words and actions and what meaning they have and how they affect each other.

I do not think, however, that paying reparations and giving exclusive, privileges or bonuses to minority races as a “payback” for what our grandparents did is viable any longer. I hope we have learned enough not to repeat those same sort of offenses, but there’s little point to keep acting like it was we who performed those particular crimes. (I’m speaking strictly to government fundings, etc. for various minority groups.)

I’m not bored, I’m just a mother

As a soon-to-be parent, I found the taboo about “mothers being bored” to be especially fascinating. It appears that journalist Helen Kirwin-Taylor recently wrote an article stating that she hated early motherhood and her children bored her to tears when they were younger. Bedtime stories, playgroups, and other events just left her dulled out of her mind. The article prompted this gigantic backlash from mothers everywhere stating that she was a bad mother, clearly disillusioned, shouldn’t breed, etc.

I think her article, while clearly misinterpreted (and possibly poorly written — I have not grazed my eyes on it myself), still hits a nerve in the world, otherwise it wouldn’t have sparked quite such a debate. I think mothers all over probably looked at that and a big ‘DENY’ flag went up in their minds all the while small voices in the back of their head said, “Well, some days….”

I think this is all perfectly normal. Children are great — I only have one in the womb at the moment, but I have always loved interacting with them, watching the gears grind, and generally enjoying their company. But I can absolutely see Kirwin-Taylor’s statement that aspect of their lives can be utterly boring in terms of intellectual stimuli.

Think about it — you’re taking care of a small human that, at first, can barely do anything on their own (even eating takes awhile to figure out) and presents no opportunity to make your mind struggle. Sure, you have a lot of things to do for the kid — they’re not easy to take care of and the work is always piling up — but they’re not engaging your higher mental functions and keeping you thinking intellectually. You’re fine is if all you crave is some good, hard, manual labor, but if your mind is the sort that loves to be stimulated, challenged, and questioned — small kids will really be a struggle.

I think there’s a few things at play here. One is that women these days, haven largely broken the taboos against getting an education and working the same level jobs as men, are now exposing themselves to large amounts of mental stimuli. Women as CEOs, controlling managers of companies, lead scientists and researchers — they are all involved in some heavy mental work. To take all that and drop off the face of the hard-thinking world in favor of becoming a stay-at-home mother — well, that’s hard to grasp. Your mind would naturally have culture shock and find the tasks to be onerous.

Secondly, there’s so much time involved when children are little just to keep them clothed, clean, fed, and happy that SAHMs have very little time to devote to themselves, whether its reading or interacting with other adults or viewing a complex movie — their minds just do not get the sort of workout that it demands and that becomes a hard thing to deal with.

Thirdly, we need to remove the stigma that motherhood is The Best Thing in the World OMGLOLWTFBBQ. It’s certainly a great thing to have children, don’t get me wrong, but we’re just perpetuating our species, ya know? I mean, we would end up doing it even if it wasn’t considered to be something honorable. By putting it up on this pedestal, we have this angelic property assigned to an activity that is pretty much the same as breathing. This happens with sex as well — it is viewed as the end-all, be-all of existence (“Are you getting laid?”) and yet everyone, from the lowest to the highest, does it at one point or another in some form. Taking off the mystique of the activity would then allow us to see both the good and the bad in everything without unnatural bias.

So, mothers — I think it should be fine for you to say, “My children bore me to death.” This does not, in the proper context, mean that you do not LOVE your children — far from it. It simply means that you do not find them to be challenging to your mental state. This doesn’t seem to me to be a problem, especially since after they are grown up somewhat your mind will get plenty of exercise as their little gears get engaged and they start talking, getting into stuff, asking questions, etc. While I look forward to holding my baby in my arms, feeding it, etc. I also look towards the days when we can spend time together fiddling with computer parts, going for walks, looking at the ants in the yard, and gazing up at the stars together.

Bored? Not for long, that’s what I think.