Interesting little tid-bit I read in Newsweek today. On average, in America, we spend 6,000 dollars more on raising a boy than raising a girl. That’s 333 dollars per year, on average.

Call me crazy, but I honestly can not think of a logical reason to assume anything but a subtle harmful tendency to value boys and boy things more than girls and girls things.

I guess there is the possibility that teenage boys consume 6,000 dollars worth of extra food. I’m thinking no, but to be fair it is a possibility. Or maybe I’m just crazy feminist looking for trouble

I was talking to my dad yesterday, telling him what a great father he is, because he is, and was. I had a great childhood. I love the man with all my heart. He is good good people.

To return the favor and tell me how totally fabulous I am, my father told me that I am everything a father could ask for, sweet and innocent and pure.

(Keep in mind here, I’m 30, a jaded cynical mother of three.) (okay maybe not so much jaded, my life’s been entirely too easy to label myself jaded)

Sweet, innocent, and pure? These are the best things a father could hope for? These are the qualities he thinks are most important? Maybe for a 5 year old. Maybe even a sweet 16. But ME? ME???????

Let’s just leave aside the question of whether any of these adjectives actually apply to me (it’s iffy), I just can’t imagine, under any circumstances a situation in which he would consider that best thing about his son’s being the fact that they are sweet innocent and pure.

Not that I’m arguing that men and women should be valued for the same things. Obviously that would be silly. But sweet innocent and pure? Not that I have any problem with those things. They’re great, wonderful, admirable . . . in a sixteen year old.

Sweet implies entirely too much perky submissiveness. Sweet people don’t fight. Sweet people aren’t strong. Sweet people sit quietly in the corner and knit. I am not sweet.

Innocent? Well, the three children aside, this also implies ignorance about all the many evils of the world. And while I (being a very well-behaved girl of long standing) have very little personal experience with all the evil in the world, I’m certainly not ignorant of it. I know all the evil trash that goes on out there. I read the news. I’m not even close to innocent.

What problem could I have with pure? Well it’s problem(s) actually. First of all, when we get purity all caught up in the idea of a woman’s worth, we get some really warped value judgments going on. Your 14 year old daughter gets raped and becomes pregnant. The shame! Impure! Kick her out of the house, so she has to sell herself on the street in order to get enough food to feed her baby. (I just read this story on the BBC front page re: West Africa, and I’m fightin’ mad). Second: Purity has been misused as a device to keep women in our place entirely too often for me to be comfortable with the term. Women are too pure for politics, too pure for school, too pure to dirty ourselves with dirty man stuff like making dirty money. Certainly we need to discourage impure thoughts and actions on the part of our youth, but is my purity really the best thing about me? I beg to differ.

The more I think about it, the more I think my dad is just a throwback to Cult of True Womanhood.

Also, I should mention again, that while I don’t agree with him on just about every topic you can imagine, he is a good, good man and he loves me very much.

Is it just me, or does it seem like every LDS stay-at-home mother is on some anti-depresant or another? First of all I’d be curious if this is just the norm for all housewives or if it is a specifically LDS phenomonon. Since I don’t know many non-lds mothers on a what’s-in-your-medicine-cabinent level, I can’t answer that for sure even on a personal level. But I can tell you that I can’t think of a single housewife in my ward who isn’t medicated. Except me. But then I do a lot of kick boxing, and it’s a close thing even then. Prozac is only one more poop-picaso on the living room wall incident away from becoming a valued part of my life.

I have had some really interesting conversations with a very fine therapist (who me in therapy? you just can’t believe it can you?) and I strongly suspect we mormon mothers are medicated (and depressed) at a much higher rate than our non-lds sister housewives.

What are the implications? I don’t know.

After listening to three hours of “binki” being screamed in a 2 yo nightmare, and four emergency lactation visits in the middle of the night, I am much too tired too think about that right now.

Right up front, I’d like to say that I all for teaching our kids that God can comfort us in hard times. That we should pray to him for guidance and peace. But as fun as the song is, I do have a hard time telling little kids not to be scared because “whatever happens God can handle it”.

This isn’t very helpful for the kids that are really scared. Scared that their mom is going to die of cancer. Scared that their dad is going to get drunk and knock ‘em around. Scared that Uncle Fred is going to molest them again.

So if God doesn’t “handle it”, does that mean there is no God? I’ve heard a lot of people come to this conclusion.

But it’s still a really fun song to sing, especially while jumping up and down on the bed. Not that I’ve ever done that.

My kids love VT, and I’m sure it’s not doing any lasting harm, but have you noticed that there are no admirable female characters (and hardly any female characters at all) in the whole VT canon?

(Also I should explain, as this is my first post, I’m not as angry as I sound, just being my delightfully polemic self. Thanks for asking. )

Here’s a list:

Madam Blueberry, a shallow materialist who only sees the light when all her stuff gets smashed.
Also a brief part as mayor who falls for the robot rumor.

Esther, you’d think this would be a good one, is a whiney vague mouse who has to be pressured and preached by Uncle Mortiki about every little thing.

Laura the carrot. Bit parts not worth mentioning.

Barbara Manatee, well, she’s a stuffed toy, and she has a nice bow, but I think she falls short in the admirable department.

That’s pretty much it. Girls don’t matter apparently.

Even characters that would normally be women are played by men. The elementry school teacher who teaches Bumbly Burg that rumors can be dangerous, a man. Aren’t something like 95% of elementry school teachers women? Couldn’t we at least get type cast?

The whole girl problem aside, I’m also bugged by some of the questionable moral tales they pull from the Bible. Don’t get me wrong, I love the Bible, but it’s not like we should start making moral decisions based on some of the behavior in there. (pounding nails into visitor’s heads, sleeping with your brother, these are generally a bad ideas in case you were wondering)

For instance. Josh goes up to the big wall and says, we’re God’s chosen people, he’s giving us your land, get out. Which in a biblical context can be an interesting and enlightening thing to study, but when Larry the Cucumber says it to the French peas, it feels like a very poor way to treat people and a really bad example of how to act when you need something. Just to scratch the surface.

Anyway, I could go on for days, but my kids still love Larry, and the silly songs rock, so despite my ambiguity, my kids will continue to sleep with their Junior Asparagras night light and the lovely Barbara Manatee my sister made, rose, bum patch and all.