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Posts Tagged ‘preadolescence’

Good Morning! Spoiler Alert about Bridgerton – the jig is up!

We now know who Lady Whistledown is and that Pen gets her man. Amidst all the lies and deceit, love wins! And all the while I’m thinking this Bridgerton husband, fresh off his European tour bedding as many French women as he could find, will surely be giving his new bride an STD of some sort. Why must reality cozy up with a SIX minute sex scene? Maybe when you raise your children during the AIDs crisis, pragmatism kicks in.

I wonder what future generations will say about this time – climate change is a chronic, existential crisis; European elections are tilting to the Right; and America is debating the rules of a debate between a nice guy named Joe from PA, and a delusional, twice-impeached felon named Don! Could Bridgerton be the escape we all need? After all, in the end three new babies are born to fathers who will presumably mend their wicked ways.

Yesterday we celebrated Father’s Day with lunch and a movie, “Inside Out 2.” Temps were in the mid 90s so air-conditioning was an essential part of the plan. As we were walking out, the Love Bug asked me what emotion I liked best? “Ennui,” i said. I thought she should have had a bigger part. I also loved how Joy put Anxiety in a recliner with a cup of tea! Then the Bride said she loved Ennui also, and did we notice she was French? Mais OUI! The Pumpkin wanted to know what Ennui was, and while throwing out our candy boxes at the back of the theatre, I attempted an explanation.

Like the flat, bluish-gray animated character said, she is bored but rarely boring. She was distanced, lethargic like a noodle always lounging around. It’s fascinating that Ennui always had a phone in her hand. While the main character, Riley, is trying to fit in with her peers, all of her “old” emotions are literally bottled up in a jar! Could Hollywood be telling us that suppressing our emotions never works? Notice that Envy, a new emotion for Riley, is kinda cute with sparkly eyes and without a phone in her hand; maybe teens are not so envious of their friends’ social media feeds?

Another Spoiler Alert: Ennui joins Joy to save Riley! Key the eye-rolling, the shrug, the insidious “FINE!”

The good news is that Inside Out 2 is the number one, record breaking film of the year so far. “Pixar’s Inside Out 2 has broken box office records over the weekend as it brought in an estimated $295m (£232.6m) around the world.That makes it the strongest global opening by an animated film of all time, parent company Disney said. In North America, ticket sales hit about $155m, dethroning Dune: Part Two as the holder of this year’s top box office opening weekend.” https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cd114gg38xpo

Hooray! People are getting out, going back to the movies with candy and popcorn, even if it is an animation. I tried watching “Poor Thing” on the plane back from Heathrow, but it just wasn’t sitting well. I turned it off after she killed the toad. I remember the Flapper idolizing Veronica Lake, and Greta Garbo. Garbo’s “I vant to be alone,” was the synthesis of Ennui, and very much like Lady Whistledown. A smart woman, who’s been overlooked and underappreciated with a biting wit and a poison pen. We all need a break from the constant noise! Not the cicadas, those are gone thankfully; the pings and dings of our phones, the podcasts and songs in our ears, the stories we tell ourselves in order to soldier on.

It’s spending time alone, getting to know ourselves, listening to our intuition, that will help teens forge an identity. Ennui is never bored with herself! On the wall is a picture of my Foster Father Jim when he was in the Navy. He’s looking over The Love Bug on ProCreate; we like to get creative in the Snug!

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Last week I was helping the Bug study for a science test on human reproduction.

She was learning about puberty, menstruation, and sex. There was not an ounce of self-consciousness or body shaming in my beautiful granddaughter, who is only one inch shorter than I am. I can vaguely remember my big sister Kay filling me in on such things. It was certainly not in my Catholic school’s 5th, 6th, 7th, or 8th grade curriculum. However, the Bride was taught about reproduction in her public school, albeit mostly about anatomy and to fear AIDs as the latest STD. I’m happy to say my Grands are the children of doctors, who never shied away from difficult questions.

Then the Pumpkin who hears everything, asked how old you have to be to have a baby?

And I immediately thought about an Ob-Gyn who did her best with a patient, and her state medical board reprimanded her. They fined her $3,000 – for saving a patient’s life. They came very close to taking her license away. Would you think this doctor must live in a developing country? Wrong; this courageous woman physician lives in Indiana where there is a Republican AG, and she had the audacity to perform an abortion on her 10 year old patient.

The board cleared Bernard on two other counts, determining that she did not improperly report child abuse and that she is fit to practice medicine.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/parenting/2022/10/27/abortion-doctor-indiana-caitlin-bernard/

We tried to answer the Pumpkin’s question, but honestly we were stumped. Sure once menstruation starts, the uterus is signaling its ability to carry a fetus, but when is it advisable? Certainly not in the teenage years, right?

Dr Caitlyn Bernard followed protocol. She reported the procedure involving a minor in the time frame required – three days. This speedy reporting process has been determined to help police find and prosecute a rapist, a child rapist – which they eventually did. What exactly did this doctor do wrong? She spoke to the press about it. She spoke in generalized terms to a reporter about her patient’s age and the consequential influx of young girls to Indiana from Ohio after the Dobbs decision. Even the Chair of the Board called Bernard a “good doctor.”

There was no HIPAA violation, all docs talk in general terms about their interesting patients. So long as a patient isn’t named, or identified, doctors have freedom to speak. But telling a reporter that a child had to cross state lines in order to receive life-saving care is a bridge too far?

Dr Bernard’s patient is the same age as our Bug. She aced her science test on the last day of school, and will be turning 11 this summer. Of course I didn’t bring up the Indiana court case while studying human reproduction. I didn’t talk about an extreme Christian anti-woman agenda in our home state. Instead I suggested we all go to the movies!

It was my first time back to a movie theatre since the pandemic. Three generations of girls / women sat through all the ads and trailers, I told the Bug how it used to be full-length cartoons before a movie in my day… and I immediately feel ten times older every time I say something like that. Note to Self – “When I was a girl…” must be eliminated from my vocabulary! Then the movie started, and the thrill of being surrounded by strangers in a dark cavern returned.

“Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret” unfolded in classic pre-teen angst. A rising 6th grader (just like the Bug) must leave her grandmother, Kathy Bates who was channeling Grandma Ada to a T, her friends and her NYC apartment and move to the suburbs. The actress playing Margaret, Abby Ryder Fortson, even resembles the Love Bug with her piercing dark eyes. Her first prayer is pretty concise – “Please don’t let New Jersey be too horrible” and we laughed though southerners didn’t get the joke. Bras and menstrual periods were discussed willy nilly. Margaret has decided she must choose a religion, Judaism or Christianity? And she learns how to navigate new friendships.

If only our country could learn how to keep religion out of politics.

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