Armed Police

Husband battled it out with Armed Police all week-end. Although he had the initial advantage of being able to vote for himself, what could one man do against so many, and with weapons? Armed Police have won the right to have their story told (but since Shadowy Husband generated so much interest, I’ll tell his too – next time).

As with so many good stories, the key to the Armed Police story is timing. We had been in the Midwest for 6 months. Our first set of visitors arrived – Granny and Grandad. They were jet-lagged, but in remarkably good shape, and got up for breakfast on their first morning. Husband had taken the boys to school on his way to work; the rest of us were sitting at the table in the dining room which is at the front of the house.

I saw two policemen, with rifles pointing forwards at the ready, gesturing to each other as they ran across the front lawn. I had that initial expat reaction: ooh, it feels just like I’m in a movie (so many things in the early days when you move abroad trigger that reaction). My other reaction, which can only be described as touchingly and Britishly naïve, was to think that there must be a vicious dog on the loose – why else would they have their rifles out?

At this point, like all good stories, there is a random amusing detail. There was a couple going for a walk. This is extraordinary enough in America, although we do live in quite a walky neighborhood. It’s all very serious, though. People don’t just go out of their front doors and walk. They have proper sporty walking gear on, bounce along purposefully, and monitor their heart-rates as they go. But this couple wasn’t like that. They were in ordinary clothes, sauntering along. No-one saunters as they walk here. But the best detail was this: the man was wearing a woolly bobble hat. In May (we’re talking 70 degrees plus).

“Um” I said to Granny and Grandad, “there seem to be policemen with guns on our front lawn”.

By this time, I was at the window watching the police, and watching the bobble hat couple who had stopped and were watching the police, and trying to spot the vicious dog. Grandad joined me, and we stood there, slightly bemused by the whole scene. It dawned on me that what we were watching might not develop into a very good situation – the lack of an obvious dog was ringing alarm bells by now.

I suggested we take 3-yo down to the basement, realising I didn’t want her to be around to see what might transpire, or even get caught up in it. She was young enough not to question the adults’ sudden desire for a game of air hockey at this early hour, and we all went downstairs. Grandad’s curiosity kept getting the better of him, and he sneaked up from time to time to see what was happening.

The story ends with 5 police cars parked in the street, and a whole huddle of policemen, and a man being put in one of the cars and driven away. I later found out that the man, who wasn’t armed, was burgling the house two doors up from us. He’d been watching the house, knew the times that the owners left in the morning, but, unluckily for him, the day he chose to do the burglary, one of the owners had forgotten something, realized on the way to work, returned home, became suspicious when he saw a strange car in the drive, and called the police.

What a great start to Granny and Grandad’s visit! I like to think we gave them something to tell the folks back home. Less than 24 hours in America, in a neighbourhood which we’d been telling them was nice and safe, and a drama unfolds before their very eyes involving armed police on the front lawn! Now if that didn’t confirm all their preconceptions of life in America, I don’t know what would (well, I suppose if we’d been having Krispy Kreme doughnuts and coke for breakfast, that would have helped). If it had happened the previous morning, we’d have missed the whole thing. We were only having breakfast in the dining room instead of the kitchen because of our visitors, and from the kitchen window, which looks out to the back, we’d have seen nothing. Timing, you see.

The thing I haven’t figured out is this. What was the point of the man in the bobble hat in the story? Was he just an extra, sent along by the movie-impressions people to add a bit of local color? Was he the Chief of Police, checking up on his men, incognito? Was he some kind of guardian angel, sent to make sure no-one got hurt in any crossfire? Was he a bobble hat salesman?

Next time: Shadowy Husband. The time after that: my reflections on America’s gun culture.

You have your say

I have a huge number of blog posts in my head. They form themselves in there while I'm driving around, or pottering in the kitchen, or lying in bed. Some of them make it out into cyberspace, but the majority are still inside. They've probably formed an escape committee by now.

Here's where you can help. I'm giving you a choice of four. You can vote in the poll on the sidebar. I thought you'd enjoy having some say in what you get to read next and I've been wanting to run a poll for ages - you're not really a proper blogger till you've run a poll.

You have a choice of four.

1 The day I saw armed police running across my front lawn. That's all I'm going to say about this one.

2 Cooking. Have I embraced the American way? Am I Martha Stewart in the kitchen? Can I bake a pumpkin pie, or are bangers and mash still on the menu?

3 Here I am, in Tornado Alley. Do you want to know what that means on a day to day basis? What exactly is a tornado? How would I know if one was coming? What would I do?

4 Husband. He's a rather shadowy character in this blog. Do you want to know more about him? What does he do? What is he like? Can he multi-task?

5 Other. Is there something else that you just ache to know about me and my life? (I don't think the poll will give you space to specify what other subject you'd like me to blog about. If it doesn't, you'll have to write it in the comments box.)

I'll write the post that gets the most votes between now and midnight on Sunday (6.00am Monday if you're in the UK). In the event of a tie, I reserve the right to choose. I also reserve the right to pick "Other". If nobody votes, I'll never blog again.

Saints

I was telling Husband that one British English-ism I’ve found it hard to drop (and I’m not sure I’ve even tried, to be honest), is the way we pronounce the ‘Saint’ in names. 5-yo overheard our conversation.

“What’s that? What do you mean? What are you saying? What are you talking about?”

I took a deep breath. This wasn’t going to be an easy one to explain to a 5 year old, but I thought I’d have a go.

“Well, when churches or streets are called St James’ or St John’s, in England we don’t say Saynt James’ or Saynt John’s, we say Ssnt James’ or Ssnt John’s, but here in America, they do say Saynt James’ or Saynt John’s. They say the word Saint like Saynt, whereas we say the word Saint like Ssnt.”

Crystal clear. I say that with confidence, because she totally got the point.

“You mean like we say St Derella?”

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Carnival Time Again

If you drew a Venn diagram of my life, there would be two large circles. One would be "Motherhood" and the other "Living in America". Look at the bit where they overlap (is there a technical term for that bit? I think it might be 'the intersection'). That bit is where you see I'm an Expat Mum.

Look again. Can you see that third circle? The one that is "Blogging"? Got it? Good. Now, if you were in 7th grade, or whatever grade it is where you learn about Venn diagrams, you would be asked to colour in the bit where all three circles overlap, and to explain its significance.

"Aha", you would say. "That's the Expat Mums Blog Carnival".

And you'd be so right.

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Easter Monday movie titles game

Since it's Easter Monday and no doubt raining in England (and here too), I think we all need a game to play. Here's a fun one, which I am stealing unashamedly from Lord Celery's blog.

Think of a famous movie. Change one letter (just one letter, mind) in the title, and produce a new movie, the one they could have had a lot of fun making if only they'd left that typo in the original proposal.

Let me start you off.

Dig Hard - Bruce Willis's lesser known gardening epic

Fission Impossible - the story of how the atom was split

Chariots of Fife - Ben Hur's visit to Scotland

Shrew - you thought he was an over-sized green ogre, but in fact Princess Fiona was rescued by a tiny furry rodent with a Scottish accent

Paws - when the Australian coastline was terrorised by a man-eating chihuahua

Star Wart - Steven Spielberg's budget-busting series about an inter-galactic facial blemish

The 39 Stops - life as a driver on the Northern Line

Schindler's Lift - the history of the world's third largest elevator company

Now it's your turn.
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You know you're in America when...

... your child gets a letter which is a personalized invitation to join in the National American Miss competition. Yay! My child has been selected for a Beauty Pageant!

I’m rather thrilled about this, as I feel I wouldn’t really have had the whole Living-in-America experience without it. It would be like going to New York and not eating a bagel, or London and not seeing Big Ben, or moving to the suburbs and not being invited to a Tupperware party. So I feel I’ve arrived. Yay!

The letter opens:

I understand that you may enjoy modeling, acting and learning stage techniques that will help empower and enable you to accomplish your future goals.

Ah, thank goodness for that. I thought these pageants were just for aspiring beauty queens. It continues:

National American Miss is a pageant experience designed for you, today’s girl; that’s why we do not have a swimsuit competition, we have a no make-up rule for participants age 12 and under, and you are not required to have a talent.

Phew. We wouldn’t want to rule out anyone just because they are entirely untalented. (And I do understand that it’s a talent, not just talent, before anyone points this out to me; I just thought it was funny when I read it.)

So what does my little darling, talented or untalented, have to do in order to have a chance of winning $25,000, modeling contracts, college scholarships, or a 2009 Ford Mustang convertible? Well, the letter gives details of where we can go for an Open Call session, where

you will have the opportunity to make new friends with girls from across your home state who have interests similar to yours, and also to gain self-confidence and valuable communication skills.

It gives details of the age groups, including the “Princess” category for age 4 – 6, and the “Junior Pre-Teen” for age 7 – 9, (which means that your kid can be “Junior Pre-Teen” pretty much as they leave Kindergarten. Mm, nice.)

The final paragraph helpfully provides a few tips:

First, dress for success! Come dressed as you would for a job interview.

Um, my child hasn’t been to many job interviews yet…

Before you hurry to advise me on what attire would be suitable for a child in this situation, whether they aspire to be in modeling, acting, or simply to attain a new level of self-confidence, I have to say that we won’t be pursuing this fabulous opportunity. Why not? Well, just one small glitch. The letter is addressed to 8-yo, my youngest son.

And what is it with blogging, by the way? I write a post about boys and self-confidence, and then this National American Miss letter arrives for 8-yo the very next morning. Am I in some cyber version of The Truman Show? This isn’t the first time this kind of coincidence has happened. Does it happen to the rest of you? Is it that we are more attuned to events in our lives that we have just written about, and that makes us spot connections more readily? Or is there some spooky blogger puppeteer out there pulling the strings in my little blogger life? (If there is, I don’t want to know about it.)

Boy talk

Oh dear, I’m well and truly hoist on my own petard on this one. No way out of it but to write my own post on raising boys in the post Girl Power era.

We are all very careful these days to bring our girls up to think the world is open to them. We call those stiff-jointed Playmobil people ‘firefighters’ not ‘firemen’, we carefully play female doctors with them, we explain how Barbie’s body shape is just for plastic people, not for real people. We try to be good role models, emphasizing that choice is all. We try to compensate for the generations of mothers who told their daughters “you can’t, you’re only a girl”.

Do we try as carefully for our boys? The scales have been weighted so far in their favour for so many generations, and we’ve been busy trying to redress the balance. Perhaps we need to pay attention to whether we may have started tipping them the other way.

I don’t really know where I’m going with this thought (which is why I was keen to read what someone else had written). It IS still a man’s world out there, for all the great strides that feminism has enabled women to take. But it’s not a boy’s world. It’s well documented that schools are places where girls naturally do better, and that is very evident at primary level. We prefer pupils who write neatly, colour between the lines, produce careful work, sit quietly when requested. What value do we place on the ability to figure out how things work by taking them apart, even if that means strewing the pieces around? Do we see the creative imagination behind a story about zombies in scrawling inch-high letters, when it’s on the classroom wall next to the ones about flowers and butterflies, in tiny beautiful writing with darling illustrations? Do we value the drive that makes it so important to be the fastest runner in the playground, or do we smirk to each other “boys are SO competitive” and make them play co-operatively instead?

I fear it starts long before school. As Someonesmrs commented, it’s all too easy for a gaggle of mums to denigrate boy-ness in a jokey way, saying “he’s such a boy” when a child does something daft. We say to each other “huh, men, typical” in front of our small children, and expect them to understand that we don’t really mean it, or not in a bad way at any rate. Do we take pains to make sure we say just as often “huh, women, typical”? I don’t think so.

I know I’ve told the story to girlfriends about the day Husband declared in exasperation “I can’t look after two children AND cook the dinner at the same time”, and enjoyed a communal girl laugh at his expense. Have I been careful not to tell the story in front of my boys? Is it really such a given that men can’t multi-task (yes), and if it is, do I want my sons to feel they’re second best because of it? I would be horrified if I thought my daughter felt second best because women are more emotional, or scatty, or liked shoes. I absolutely wouldn’t want Husband joking around with his friends about my womanly inadequacies in front of her, (and luckily he’s far too nice).

I suppose the bottom line is that children tend to pick up and internalize their parents’ attitudes. So if I think that girls should look pretty and keep quiet, marry doctors and not be them, then my daughters will assume that as the norm until they are of such an age when they can bring their own adult discernment to bear (and even then, they’ll still be deeply affected by it). If I, clad in my post-feminist war-paint, believe that it’s time men paid for the easy privileges they’ve enjoyed in the past, once we’ve scraped them off the soles of our shoes, then my sons will somehow have that burden put upon them. And actually my daughters too.

There we are. Petard duly hoisted with me on it. Did any of it strike a chord with anyone? Personally, I’m more the Bridget Jones generation than the Sex and the City generation. I was already a mother by the time the Spice Girls were telling men they had to get with their friends. So I’m not the best person to pontificate on girl power. Anyway, I’m too busy entertaining children AND cooking dinner.

Memory lapse

You know how you sometimes put something down somewhere, and then just can't find it? Or have a telephone number scribbled down on a piece of paper, but just can't find the right piece? I've done that with a blog post.

I came across a very interesting blog post, but just skimmed it, thinking "I'll read that later", but I now can't remember whose it was. I'm not sure it was one of my usual reads, so I'm afraid I might not stumble across it again. It was addressing the issue of how women of the "Sex and the City" generation (not quite my own advanced vintage, I have to confess) might need to adjust the way they talk about men, now they have boys of their own. I thought it was a really interesting point. The bit I read talked about how there is a generation of women who are comfortable being sassy, independent and man-equal, who have no problem teaching their small daughters that Girl Power is their birthright, but who might be struggling to help their boys, even as they crawl and toddle, to find a way of being men. Fascinating.

So if you're reading this, and you recognise your blog post, could you declare yourself? Even if you're not the author, if you recognise the post, could you point me in the right direction? I'd like to read it properly.

Now, where did I put down my cup of tea?