Husband talk

I find women differ much, both in the degree and manner in which their feelings will permit them to talk about their husbands. I have known women set a whole community against their husbands by the way in which they trumpeted their praises; and I have known one woman set everybody against herself by the way in which she published her husband's faults. I find it difficult to believe either sort. To praise one's husband is so like praising one's self, that to me it seems immodest, and subject to the same suspicion as self-laudation; while to blame one's husband, even justly and openly, seems to me to border upon treachery itself.

The Vicar's Daughter, George MacDonald

Rhymes with insidious

Part of being human--male or female--is accepting that there are certain things one cannot do. No girl or woman bore the sign of the covenant, circumcision. One can only imagine what would be said about such sex-based exclusion today. The covenant!

But I wonder if what chicks are really mad about is that men accept their exclusion with utter grace. They are  never jealous or feel maliciously left out of childbearing. Some men express wonder or admiration, but never envy.

Be smart

Many effects of the gender-free playworld we've fabulized are silly or stupid, but some are downright dangerous. Read any old-timey book and you will find a population of people who understand implicitly that a male and a female who are not related to each other (and some who are) should not be alone together in private. It is dangerous to both. One may accuse the other of having said or done something inappropriate, or anyone at all may make the same accusation because there are no witnesses. A damaged reputation is nearly impossible to repair, as anyone who has suffered one knows.

One or the other may actually say something inappropriate, which is even worse.

But worst of all is that one of them may do something inappropriate. Or one of them may even do something horrible, and this is where it becomes clear that the danger to women is much greater. They have so much more to lose, and so much less ability to defend themselves.

There is no law, no rule of etiquette, no Scriptural injunction, no cultural memory that tells us a male and a female who are not related to each other should not be alone together in private. But they shouldn't--even if they are coworkers, even if they are friends, even if they are not friends, even if it will save on gas, even if everybody's wife and husband are OK with it, even if it's just for a little while. It's a bad and dangerous idea. It is a courtesy to both parties to find an alternative, however inconvenient, to this situation.

Things I haven't said:


All men are or want to be rapists
Pastors shouldn't counsel women or hear their confessions

Above and beyond

I needed a baby so I could realize how much I needed a husband. A husband is not a BFF. A husband is the man who takes care of you when you can't take care of yourself.

I'm not saying a spouse isn't or can't be a friend, just that the "husband as BFF" motif so prevalent in contemporary conjugal piety (especially at weddings in which the couple writes the "vows") is really dumb. This has everything to do with a motif that's been dropped from contemporary conjugal piety: "husband as lord." This necessarily leads to people marrying their BFFs whether or not the BFF is of the other sex.

But anyway, although my husband is my friend, he is also more and less than that. He is my lord, and as such a great part of him is above me and therefore unknowable to me. And I will venture to assert that as his lady, I am and always will be a mystery to him. There is a great part of me that is beyond him and therefore unknowable to him. One of the greatest services husbands and wives do each other is NOT trying or pretending to share absolutely everything. Not every cross borne by a husband can be shared by a wife, as surely as a great multitude of a wife's burdens cannot be lightened by a husband. To act or expect otherwise is delusional and unfair.

Knowing this and valuing it frees us from needing to be jerks about it. I find that when I get to spend time with my female friends (which means one of us herding crawlers out of the kitchen while the other cooks), sharing with each other the burdens beyond our husbands, we end up thanking God together that he put us under the care of dudes so much better than we are.

Quintessential moments in maternity and paternity

Not long before the conclusion of my sentence to a government high school, I told my mom I wasn't really ready for college yet because I didn't know how to do laundry. She had never given any of the four of us the "If you want clean clothes, wash them yourselves, you overgrown freeloaders" speech and tutorial. I had no idea what went on in that corner of the basement. Blessed, blessed Mom. She said, "I know. I never taught you that because then you'd know everything and move out." !!!

Not long after the conclusion of my sentence to a government high school, I received a tale from my younger siblings. The toilet had broken. They informed our father. He paused; then came to his face an expression of genuine relish and he pronounced, inexplicably, "Cool." He took no action and gave no other indication of having heard them. There they stood, with neither toilet nor help. And we all knew. Dad was not a grownup at all, but a doofus like the rest of us. He'd been faking this whole time.

Sorry, I have to wash my hair that day.

I have questioned my husband and learned that at his various conventicles, conferences, and clambakes he is never expected to sing songs with actions or props, make foam crafts, pray prayers used by a host church's preschool, wrap a colleague in toilet paper, smell some viscous mass out of a diaper, or share factoids about himself by means of a vacuous anagram while wearing a stupid hat.*

So tell me: do women actually like doing these things? Or are we being enslaved by an oligarchy of crazed female event planners who either truly enjoy puerile diversions themselves or, more sinisterly, enjoy watching other women being forced into such performances?

Because pregnancy needs more indignities.

*Even men must beware; there are entities in which it is considered good form for them to share extremely personal information with groups of acquaintances, possibly facilitated in the endeavor by weeping.

One more thing inspired by SFC

I'm absolutely certain that if the ACT had been scored with a sex-based rubric comparable to our military's physical fitness requirements I'd have had a much higher number to brag about . . . or be too embarrassed to mention. "I did awesome on the girl ACT!"

I seriously don't know how anyone can publicize these things, much less actually use them, with a straight face.

Army Physical Fitness Standards (Too lazy to link to other branches, but rest assured that no equal opportunities require equal performance.)

Annie get your gun if you want to stand a chance

I must apologize upfront for the questionable neighborhood in which I was able to locate this clip. Never thought you'd see this title here, did you? :D It's OK for general consumption, though.

All I remember about the movie 3000 Miles to Graceland was loathing it, except the following scene. It is the only realistic onscreen portrayal of a woman undertaking to physically assault a man I have ever seen. I found it completely surprising, having been trained by TV and movies to expect Courtney Cox to wallop Kevin Costner into a pile of goo. News flash, females: you can't beat up a dude--even one who hasn't taken Tae Kwan Do like you have, even one who's smaller than you--and neither can Jennifer Garner.

(And once you get that gun, you'd better learn how to load and shoot it. Also not movie-like. And if he's got a gun too, she who hesitates is dead.)

Father's Day Gift, Recommended

If you’ve hung around CSPP long enough, you know that we are downright partial to the Concordian Husbands/Fathers of Perpetual Parturition, and with good reason.

One of the really great things Dad does around here on a regular basis is handle the older kids’ bedtime process whilst I wrangle the baby down. Lots of sound catechesis occurs during this time; everything from Guy Stuff to reading together from some of their beloved sciencey books.

The centerpiece of their time together, of course, is evening devotions and prayers. Bits of traditional liturgy figure in the formula, but we’re always on the lookout for good supplemental resources. Last year the boys cleverly gave Dad The Victor Journey Through the Bible, which has seen lots of use. It’s also been a handy quick reference for me, a no-prep show-and-tell for when we do Bible stories or history.

(You may be able to find it cheaper elsewhere—I remember paying at least five bucks less than that for it, with free shipping, from Amazon last year.)

Now I just have to help the boys find this year's Father's Day gift...(any ideas out there? :) ).

Explanatory variables

I wonder if test subjects were asked to load a dishwasher rather than idly rotating objects in space, women would perform more competitively with men in spatial reasoning?

You call this full?

Wherefore we submit, and gladly

More great words from Father Rick Stuckwisch. Long live men.

The Masculine Mystique

I knew little of the lives of my younger brothers and sister in our teen years for reasons of mutual disinterest and, in my case, jerkiness. What tidings I heard of the brothers in particular were strange, mostly dealing with pyrotechnics and ballistics and complex vandalism involving defunct appliances and acquaintances' yards. I did not understand these things.

I married a man, and he became the friend and enemy of these brothers. They demanded time together for the purpose of ridiculing and injuring and defeating each other. They invented structures and folkways for the purpose of better accomplishing these goals. Where vandalism decreased, pyrotechnics and ballistics swelled and overflowed the balance.

None of these men looked particularly suspect. Lean, yes, but more quarterback than linebacker. Indeed not even quarterbacks, but tennis players and speechies, Coen aficionados and history buffs and Greek tutors. Why, then, the violence? Why the idiocy? Why the inflicting and inviting of utterly pointless pain? Why the games (games!) wherein loss threatened emasculation? Why the retrieval of submarine-sized logs from a frigid Gitche Gumee, equipped only with swim trunks and a moronic will?

Girls, I'll tell you. They are practicing. In this time and place they will probably not be called upon for the ultimate trial of manhood. But they might. And they would be ready. They would know fear. They would know courage. They would suffer pain. They would prevail. They would go first. They would leave last. For us.

And so he must appear to be an imbecile, because a world safe as ours gives him little authentic opportunity to put himself to the test. For both of these things we should be grateful. In time, he will teach his sons the same, and they will learn to fight and kill and suffer and yet come home to eat the cookies we baked in their absence.

Tell him he was real tough next time he comes in all sweaty.

Cecil's voice came: "My dear Freddy, I am no athlete. As you well

remarked this very morning, 'There are some chaps who are no good for

anything but books'; I plead guilty to being such a chap, and will not

inflict myself on you."

The scales fell from Lucy's eyes. How had she stood Cecil for a

moment? He was absolutely intolerable, and the same evening she broke

off her engagement.

And actually, don't fish WISH they could enjoy something as cool as a bicycle?

Hutchens on husbands explains why they're so popular here at CSPP.

Yes, I do sometimes feel a bit outnumbered, thank you for asking

(If you’re too sophisticated for bathroom humor, don’t bother reading on)

I don’t have to get out the CSPP trading cards to know that a 4-to-1 boy/girl ratio (counting Dad and me) is not even close to the big time in boy numbers (think Preus…). But I’m here, and so are they, and—some days, it just seems like there are so many of them.

Scene: Nature’s call interrupts a family walk around the periphery of the local golf course. Dad directs the boy to the most appropriate venue, given the available options.

Boy, returning to path: Why are there so many bathrooms on the golf course?

Mom, muttering darkly: Some people call them trees.

Dad, gleefully: My son, you’re catching on: the world is our bathroom!*

Boy, musing contentedly as he gets back on his bike: I’ve never peed on the golf course before.

This episode occurred shortly after a family vacation during which the three-year-old, to amuse himself along the drive, composed a song. It was a real epic, celebrating the struggles and triumphs of the trip. The refrain: “And I peeeeeeeed on the plaaaaaants in the woooooods.”

Sorry. I just had to share. It's been like that lately.

*I should perhaps note that Dad is normally what I would consider to be a fairly civilized specimen of the male of the species (or should I say, the male species).

Caw! Ha, ha! Caw!

Did you ever notice how, on Dad's day off, the noise in the living room evokes a coastal feeding frenzy?

Throw me next, Dad! Throw me!

Just curious.

Advice to young women

Girls, marry a classicist. You will have a hilarious life.

Any time the news comes on, my husband starts muttering about the Gracchi. He tenderly likens me to cow-eyed Hera, and the bath water is wine-dark after the boys come out of it. You wouldn't believe how much the Iliad comes up in Bible class. He translates all medical terms in normal conversation to demonstrate how uncreative they are ("Her hip shattered when she fell because she's got holeybones.") If you ask him what something means, he says dismissively, "Exactly what it sounds like." He can identify any marble bust you happen upon in a book or movie. If you apologize for holding Gnostic notions, he'll say, "You're actually more of a neo-Platonist." If you tell him you're keeping the name Aurelia in your hopper for if you get to 11 or 12 kids and really go crazy, he'll say, "You can't name someone after her."

Marcus Vipsanius Agrippa. Duh.

This is one advantage of the St Louis seminary. They've got that sweet deal with the Classics department at Wash U, so every year there are a few brainy dudes who dream in Greek riding their bikes back and forth. Pick one up! (Stick with the Lutheran ones, though. Anyone who's read Ovid is dangerous.)

Brek-ke-ke-kek ko-ax ko-ax

Oppression

Once my husband told me that men would always be superior to women because of non-bipedal micturation or distractability by shiny objects or something like that. He is right that men will always be superior to women, but the actual reason is that women have to wear pantyhose.

First of all, they're called pantyhose. This is offensive in the extreme.

Have you seen them? What would possess any person to try to put their legs in them? As if the lower extremities of half the human race are bulk sausage.

What short of childbirth surpasses the humiliation of manuevering oneself into a pair? The humiliation is then magnified by the numerous children looking on and offering criticisms of both process and physique.

Buy the cheap ones and they're full of runs after one wearing. Buy the expensive ones and you bought the expensive ones, which still get runs.

I spend my whole Sunday morning dodging the kids. My two year old follows me around manhandling my weird feeling unskin. The baby cries as I dance about the kitchen, knife in hand, so he can't reach me to shimmy up my pantyhoed legs while I slice potatoes. I spend the sermon watching everyone's feet lest a prickly Velcro shoe fastener grab on and leave me looking like That Mom for the rest of the day.

Control tops.

Why not pants? Well . . . [she admits it grudgingly] men like dresses. Husbands want wives to wear dresses, and pastors think women should wear dresses to church. Some will come right out and say it, but most suspect they will be perceived as vaguely jerky so they drop hints and hope we'll notice. They think this is clever. In fact it is not clever because women communicate this way most of the time. Moreover, we do think it's vaguely jerky*. But Victor Hugo helpfully explains, "One of the magnanimities of woman is to yield." So in addition to all the other bad choices to which this magnanimity leads us (such as setting precedents for labor intensive Sunday meals), we who would otherwise never consider forfeiting our immeasurably more practical pants assume dresses, and therefore pantyhose, and therefore inferiority yet another day.

Because of the angels

(Pastors also want hats to come back, but seriously, dudes. Seriously.)

*Pam probably doesn't; however, she is a Nice Person and Good Wife.

UPDATE: Link corrected via elimination. It's in Les Miserables. Wasn't that a handy way to get to your inbox, though?

Dear Old Dad

Consider:

--the guys who gave up grad school so they wouldn't have to spend even more time away from home

--the guys who traded boneless, skinless chicken breasts for drumsticks

--the guys who drive minivans

--the guys who decline to take up expensive, time consuming hobbies

Let them be anathema

--the guys who live with a woman who gains 40 pounds every other year and don't sulk about the disappearance of that one dress

--the guys who remember the grocery budget and head home when all the other guys decide to move the shop talk to a restaurant

--the guys who won't watch the HBO show that's all the rage even if, not being X-rated, it's not technically pornographic

--the guys who, even though they have to go to work in the morning, are already walking down the hall with a toddler when Mom wakes up to crying

Thank you, Concordian Fathers of Perpetual Parturition, for all this and for demonstrating how not to whine about it.

She who blogs crabs twice

Why can't we just smile and wish the gentlemen well when they say they're going to go do something they like this afternoon? This is so obvious. Because we never get to go do something we like.

Men can leave. The perpetually parturitional can't. They are always pregnant, and thus bringing a baby and the associated discomforts and restrictions along, or (more often) nursing, and thus unable to be absent for more than a few hours, and totally unable to be absent without thinking they shouldn't be.

I've been pregnant, nursing, or both since March 2002, which means I'm barely out of my rookie years on a CSPP scale. This is why I have something like absolutely no sympathy for the "I just need some down time" argument. Believe me, I need some down time. But there is no way for me to get it. So it turns out I don't need down time. And you're going to have a really hard time convincing me that anyone else does.

NB, guys: she can't complain as much if your hobbies are edible.

I get it that life isn't fair, so all this isn't to say that a certain man in my life doesn't get his afternoons, days, and weekends away. I try not to resent it, but that really hasn't started working out for me yet. So I try for the next noblest thing, which is not to ruin it for him by crying, screaming, throwing things with the conscious intention of breaking them, and shrieking about how sick I am of all this and how totally unfair it is that he gets to not only occupy himself with employment of his choosing, engage his mind in exercises both practical and academic, socialize with colleagues, and participate in adult life (including interaction with women who would not debase themselves by living as I do), but also casually announce that he'll be gone at these times for this number of days to do things that he enjoys doing. Right now I'm generously ruining it for him only with dark moods and snippy reminders of my endless sacrifices whenever I see opportunity to slot one into a conversation.

I'm sorry to say that I weigh each paternal absence with miserly precision in units of self-determined necessity and reciprocity, and the children suffer under the foul moods that result when the number I come up with is low.

Gattesdienst, or How Girls Have It Easy

I have no idea what a dude's brain looks like. I imagine, based on the Concordian Husbands of Perpetual Parturition, that there are lots of antlers mounted in there, a sweet and well-maintained ride out in the cerebellum, and some funktastic rhythms keeping it keen. But I can see how the concept of loving Jesus would not come as easily to men.

I'm unspeakably blessed in having a husband whose representation of our Lord to me is humbling even to the point of humiliation. The best thing about this iconic faithfulness is that it teaches me to love and long for the true Bridegroom. It's a favor I can't return.