Everywhere I turned yesterday, I heard this: “The planet has a fever,” Gore said. “If your baby has a fever, you go to the doctor. If the doctor says you need to intervene here, you don’t say, ‘Well, I read a science fiction novel that told me it’s not a problem.’ If the crib’s on fire, you don’t speculate that the baby is flame retardant. You take action.”
Each time, I rolled my eyes and said (sometimes out loud), “No, you don’t. If your baby has a fever, you know that his or her little body is fighting off infection on its own. All you have to do is watch and wait.”
I’m guessing Al Gore never actually tended a baby with a fever.
The problem with using metaphors is that all too soon, the metaphor breaks down. In this case, the metaphor crumbled from the very start.
Then I heard that Al Gore consumes more energy than most of us (“last August alone, Gore burned through 22,619 kWh—guzzling more than twice the electricity in one month than an average American family uses in an entire year. As a result of his energy consumption, Gore’s average monthly electric bill topped $1,359“) in addition to his frequent flying on private jets (I had to laugh when I heard on the news that he’s “jetting” around, spreading his message). I wonder if he actually believes his message of imminent catastrophe . . . and does he hang his own laundry on clotheslines to dry?
(I haven’t seen “An Inconvenient Truth.” The last time I saw a movie with an obvious political bias I was not persuaded by the movie’s bias . . . I was just annoyed and wondered how it could be that so many people believed the propaganda.)
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Speaking of topics in the news, did you all hear about the new study done that expunges the guilt of millions of American mothers by telling us that modern mothers actually spend more time with their kids than mothers in the past did?
In 1965, mothers spent 10.2 hours a week tending primarily to their children — feeding them, reading with them or playing games, for example — according to the study’s analysis of detailed time diaries kept by thousands of Americans. That number dipped in the 1970s and 1980s, rose in the 1990s and now is higher than ever, at nearly 14.1 hours a week.
A quote I found interesting was this:
There is primary time, when a child is the focus of a parent’s attention. There is secondary time — helping with homework, for example, while cooking dinner. Then there is a third category: just being with children.
Perhaps because I accessible to my children all day, most every day, I do not feel guilty over not spending enough time giving my children my sole focus. I wonder if our society is not too child-focused while at the same time, not taking into account a child’s true needs for security and protection. I, personally, would describe my parenting philosophy as “benign neglect.” I think I once saw Madeleine L’Engle use that phrase, but I have never been able to find it again. I like to believe that we share the same mothering philosophy.
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Well, this post started last night . . . and in the interval, I have been through five lessons of history with my children (I wonder if I would have supported Franklin Delano Roosevelt when he was in office?), slept, washed, dried and folded a bunch of laundry, exercised twice, watched “Oprah” while taking care of a 6-month old baby, read the newspaper, and gone to a sort of company dinner with my husband. I think I had a point when I started, but now, it’s just a jumble of observations, which has its own particular point, I suppose.
