Birthday party wisdom

No anthropological content in this posting. Although I suppose I could muse on the significance of bears in contemporary American ideas and practices concerning families and children. Oh, how the mighty totem has fallen! Infantilized and juvenated so.

Bubbie turns 3 years old this Wednesday! We celebrated the occasion today - it turns out that after 2 kids and a total of 8 (now 9) kids' birthday parties that I have organized, I know more or less what to do:

Keep it small and simple. We invited 4 families / 5 kids.

Have brunch. Especially for the pre-school set. The kids are happy and excited when they arrive. As their energies begin to flag, you give them sugar. Then as they start to crash, it is time to go home for a nap.

The pleasures of brunch, I believe, depend on vast quantities of eggs and heavy cream. In addition to a spinach-and-cheese strata (modified over time from The America's Test Kitchen Family Cookbook), I made a baked French toast (from Gourmet).

Have lots of coffee. In place of sugar, for the grown-up's.

The uses of ill literacy

Circulated on an e-mail in my department: This link to CNN's story about Arizona's new state law banning ethnic studies (i.e., Mexican-American studies) in the public schools.

The new law forbids elementary or secondary schools to teach classes that are "designed primarily for pupils of a particular ethnic group" and advocate "the overthrow of the United States government" or "resentment toward a race or class of people."

The bill was pushed by state school Superintendent Tom Horne, who has spent two years trying to get Tucson schools to drop a Mexican-American studies program he said teaches Latino students they are an oppressed minority.

Leaving aside the retorts that one could made - about, for example, the fact that Latino students in Arizona do not need to be taught in the schools that they are members of an "oppressed minority" when all they need to do is look at the good citizens who enabled the passage of what amounts to legalized racial profiling - as an anthropologist and parent, my attention is drawn to the intense legislation surrounding the teaching and learning about race, culture, and ethnicity of children in elementary and secondary schools.

Recognizing schools as a critical element in the reproduction of culture and society, it is not surprising that the follow-up to Arizona's immigration law strikes now at what ought or ought not to be learned and taught there.

Here is another report on the happenings in Arizona, from The Economist this week, emphasizing the intersections between immigration, ethnic identity, and age:

William Frey, a demographer at the Brookings Institution, a Washington, DC, think-tank, believes that Arizona may be a bellwether for the whole country in more ways than one. Over the past two decades Arizona’s Latino population of children and young adults has grown so fast that the state now has what he calls the largest “cultural generation gap” in the country: 83% of Arizona’s older people are white, but only 43% of its children now are. States like Nevada, California, Texas, New Mexico and Florida have gaps almost as large.

As a result, says Mr Frey, old white voters increasingly balk at paying taxes so that people they consider alien can go to school or the emergency room. The result, he thinks, is populist anger rather akin to that now fuelling the tea-party movement, which draws much of its support from white male baby-boomers. It is possible, says Mr Frey, that in Arizona the seeds of new racial and ethnic competition for public resources have been planted.

I think this points to a larger concern today, which is seeing children as somebody else's responsibility - and I think this is not just about old white versus young Latino people in Arizona.

"Don't trust anybody over 30" has become "Don't trust anybody under 30." In a college town, like where I live, the students themselves become the subjects of complaint, not the ramshackle conditions of the houses that they rent from landlords who charge a lot and do a little in terms of maintaining the properties. Teenagers are viewed with suspicion. Small children, like mine, regarded as annoyances.

Parents themselves become judged for helicoptering, neglecting, and / or spoiling their children. Or just having children at all.

This is what it looks like to disown the future.

The end is near

This old jalopy called my semester comes shuddering to a stop. I am fumbling my way out of it. Today, I have two exams to write. Tomorrow, I have final poster presentations in medical anthropology. Friday, I give the exam in linguistic anthropology.

This is all set against the possibility of furloughs starting next week. What does a furlough mean for an academic? I think it just means a pay reduction - for work already completed, I might add.

So, I feel a mite like a cranky anthropologist. Which brings me to my recent discovery of a blog called The Cranky Linguist, which is written by an anthropology professor.

I especially appreciated his musings on students missing the point you were making all semester.

StraightMan and I remind each other constantly that we should stop being so surprised. On occasion, I have offered in-class reviews ahead of exams, posting PowerPoint slides of questions (and answers), with the exact wording that later appears on the exam - and students still answered incorrectly.

I cannot speak for professors in other disciplines, but I think unfortunately, in anthropology, students take our classes expecting to have confirmed what they think they already know - for example, about human evolution and Neanderthals and race and culture and so-called Ebonics. It might be that students assume that they do not know much about chemistry or biology, but even the ones who come to my classes simply because they are fulfilling a General Education requirement figure that they know about culture and that they can be different and that it is important to respect them even so. Duh.

Which is ironic because in all of my classes, I feel like I take as much trouble to demonstrate what culture cannot explain. In other words, when you come to my class, you should expect me to try to contradict everything you think know, not confirm it. The default mode in my classes might be that whatever the common-sense line is, say something else.

To be continued.

On my Netfllix queue

A few months back, a few students had begun mentioning rather excitedly to me seeing the trailer for a new feature-length documentary, "Babies." They said it made them think about me. Hmm.

This line at the end of A.O. Scott's review of the film (in The New York Times) caught my attention:

“Babies” is rated PG (Parental Guidance suggested). Breast feeding.

Because like the "intense, horrific violence and appropriately profane reactions to the prospect of same" that are featured in "The Hurt Locker," audiences need to be advised!

The above, I admit, is a cheap shot. In fact, the line caught my attention mostly because it makes me wonder about how and why audiences could not expect breast feeding to be exhibited in a documentary called "Babies." Or is this an anticipation or expectation of the Times editors that might or might not reflect the reactions of audiences themselves? I mean, could we not give each other a bit of credit.

BTW, after viewing the trailer for the film, scroll down and view the third clip from the film. I see college students do this in class more often than I like to admit - c'mon, people, I am not as boring all that, and I teach cultural anthropology, which is fascinating! - but of course they just are not as adorable as this little kiddo.

Keeping up with The Times

While it is true that they occasionally say things that seem to make sense to us, as far as StraightMan and I are concerned, David Brooks, Thomas Friedman, John Tierney, and Nicholas Wade are the Gray Lady's own Evil League of Evil.

As anthropologists, we reserve our particular ire for Wade.

Recently, Wade discovered culture, which he describes as an "evolutionary force" that has been in effect for the last 20,000 years or so.

Today, Wade reported on a study of the possible consequences of cousin marriage in the Darwin family.

The topic of cousin marriage is one that I happen to teach in ANTH 100. For example, I screen the ethnographic film "Masai Women" (a "classic" documentary that helps students connect the practice of polygyny with ideas and practices about women and property) and also assign chestnuts like Melvyn Goldstein's "When Brothers Share a Wife" (an article about fraternal polyandry in Tibet that appears in a number of textbooks).

This is all done in the service of impressing upon students the idea that there is no universal definition of marriage. It can involve more than two individuals who need not be different sexes / genders and it is not assumed that first comes love.

I also like to talk about marriage in ANTH 100 to illustrate the point that it can be difficult to cultivate a stance of cultural relativism about activities, behaviors, and attitudes that "we" consider fundamental experiences of everyday life.

Given that cousin marriages, cross-culturally and historically in American and European societies, have been preferred, I make rather a strong case for how and why such marriages ought not be seen as "unnatural." I always anticipate that at least one student will ask the inbreeding question. So, I plan to read the study that Wade cites more carefully. It sounds like an interesting approach, but I feel a bit doubtful about whether or not this particular analysis is all that robust.

Who ya gonna call?

Postings here have been irregular recently, which I blame on my 4 body problem (2 academics with 2 children).

I am behind on writing: At some point, I plan to blog about the rise and demise of what had been called Take Our Daughters to Work Day, now called Take Our Daughters and Sons to Work Day, which would have been April 22.

I am behind on reading: I just learned that free range kids had declared Take Our Children to the Park and Leave Them There Day on May 22.

This follow-up posting at free range kids caught my attention, especially these observations:

Ultimately though, they were no more definitive than CPS in answering whether my son could go to the park alone. To quote them, “It depends…”

This ambiguity is extensive. I can’t even study it scientifically, because the very records that document what constitutes “neglect” — the court records and the CPS case reports — aren’t generally available to the public, as they involve juveniles. So in the end, it would seem, there is no legal certainty for us parents. The law will only be found in the courtroom, before a judge, on a case by case basis. Unfortunately, at that point, it’s too late.

...

Perhaps, since there is no clear law on leaving a child at the park, the numbers give support to what many of us parents feel out in public everyday: the cultural effect of CPS, the furrowed brows of neighbors and strangers who see a young boy biking down the block and think first to call a government department instead of slowing down their car.

I don’t want to make light of their mission. CPS protects children from very real abuse and neglect, from parents who beat their children or leave them alone for days. And I want to make it clear that if you leave your child alone and your child is hurt or breaks the law, you’ll likely be arrested. It’s that simple.

But I also want to make it clear that laws on neglect are subjectively enforced. And that’s why taking your kids to the park…and leaving them there is culturally important, because it seeks to change our perspective, our world view, and the world view of every stranger who has CPS on their speed dial.

Sounds like a job for an anthropologist.

Conspicuous consumption

The Optibike. A hand-built electric bike. Made in the USA. With a rechargeable and recyclable battery.

Oh. So. Want.

Priced at $4,950.

Sigh.