upset at nanny -- vent

Bruce and Jeanne wrote:

Ah -point taken. I hadn't realized that Anita spoke Chinese fluently,
and certainly wouldn't have guessed from her name. I also just assumed
that she was posting from the US, and therefore was relatively unlikely
to speak Chinese.



You may be making too many assumptions.

You would be surprised how many people speak Chinese in the U.S. - I am.
I keep running into them :*(.

I'm Chinese-American (with an Angelized name). In the 90s, in Northern
Virginia while trying to get a VA drivers license, the clerk (white man)
behind the counter spoke fluent Chinese. I don't. Turns out he spent
10 years in Taiwan teaching English.

At my 10th year high school reunion, a man (white) I've known since
elementary school came up to me and asked if I spoke Chinese. No.
Turns out he was now (then) fluent in Mandarin and Cantonese and had
lived in Hong Kong. In school, he was just a really nice Jewish boy who
was class president in 6th grade. Who knew?

And I should perhaps know better, since I do that to people with
Japanese (I'm white) having lived there for a year. But then, the
vast majority of USians are woefully monolingual.

--
Emily
mom to Toby 5/1/02
#2 EDD 7/19/04

PattyMomVA wrote:

lol. Nope, not me. My entire family has brown hair.

Ha.

Is this an over-developed sense of *what?* color-blindness? respect of
personhood? I don't know.

-Patty

I know where you're coming from. I used to drive my parents
nuts by describing everything about people except their
ethnicity, even in contexts like trying to point a person
standing somewhere.

It just seems to me that there are so many stereotypes attached
to skin color (& hair color, at least in the case of blond hair),
that if you describe someone that way, without any other information,
you risk pulling in all of the stereotypes inadvertently.

An overdeveloped sense of political correctness, perhaps...

--
Emily
mom to Toby 5/1/02
#2 EDD 7/19/04

Circe wrote:

Taniwha grrrl wrote:

"Circe" wrote in message


I'd say black is a broader term for all people of the darker sorts
of skin tone that originate in Africa and might apply equally well
to some Pacific Islanders (e.g. Papua New Guineans

Not here in New Zealand, if you called a Maori or an
Islander black your likely to get your head kicked in. It's
a pretty offensive term. You're referred to according to
your culture, Maori, Islander, Somali or Asian rather than
your skin tone.


I'm just saying that if I saw someone I'd never met before who was Papuan or
possibly Maori, I might well describe that person as "black" if asked.
I don't claim to be able to intuit people's cultural affiliations from their
skin color, and I think it's a bad idea to try, since you can very easily be
misled. Again, citing my favorite example, Sammy Sosa of baseball fame is
black, but he's Hispanic rather than African-American.

I guess I don't completely understand why we impute so much meaning to words
that are really just intended to describe relative skin tones. Black as a
description for skin tone isn't, strictly speaking, any more accurate than
white, but it's a word we all understand as describing a certain range of
skin tones. I'm white, my husband is brown, my kids are brown, my Zulu au
pair was black, and my "colored" South African au pair was also black
because her skin tone fit into the range of skin tones we Americans describe
with the word "black". Colin Powell, IMO, is not black. I'm not saying he's
not African-American, because of course, he is. It's just that black doesn't
really correctly describe his skin tone--he's more in the range I'd consider
brown.

Incidentally, my brown husband of Mexican descent is often mistaken for
being either Greek or Hindi by people who meet him. People who are also of
Mexican descent easily recognize him as "one of them", but his features and
skin tone are in a range that could have a lot of potential cultural
affiliations. And because there are a lot of people like this in the States,
it would be pretty dangerous to try to describe a person physically purely
by cultural reference, since that can't necessarily be determined by
appearances.

Hear, hear (or is it here, here?). MIL/FIL are from southern
India. My heritage is Eastern-European Jew (mosly Ukranian).
I'm not observant, but I consider myself culturally Jewish. DS
is therefore both Jewish (Jewish law says, I belive, you're
Jewish if your mom is) and Indian (he certainly looks Indian,
although considerably lighter skineed than his dad & grandparents).
We're trying to stay away from any "half and half" talk. He has
an equal claim to both heritages. Although probably only the
Indian one would be apparent to most strangers, and many might
mistake him for a different heritage, say Latino, if they didn't
have many Indian acquaintances.

That said, I don't like describing anyone in terms of colors,
as I mentioned in a different post.

Another issue that comes up for us is the overloading of the
term Indian in this country. I tend to refer to Native Americans
as, well, Native Americans, and have been called on it by other
folks (not Native Americans) who said, "I think they prefer to
be called Indians these days" or some such. Well, my husband
is Indian (Indian American, no less), and I prefer to reserve
that term for folks from the South Asian subcontinent.

--
Emily
mom to Toby 5/1/02
#2 EDD 7/19/04

Elizabeth Reid wrote:

Chookie wrote in message ...

In article ,
(Elizabeth Reid) wrote:


Is there also any kind of difference between whether the
getting-things-done group and the other group about whether
time spent with kids should be spent on 'kid' activities or
spent doing work together and making it fun?



[...] I don't know if it's a greater willingness to 'ignore'
the kids in a benign way, or a greater ability to involve
them in adult household activities, or maybe those activities
are intrinsically more involving if they're obviously
part of the pattern of life rather than just 'tasks', or
what.

I think you've hit it. I would guess that the more "together" families
approach life like permaculturists, seeking multiple yields from each
activity. An example from my own life would be that doing the washing
includes DS helping with sorting, pushing the buttons on the machine and
playing with the pegs. The yields are in our relationships, DS's learning of
life skills (washing and cooperation), DS's being out of mischief, and our
washing getting done. The alternative would be to set DS up with some
activity while I get the washing done, which would (or *might*!) keep him out
of mischief, but wouldn't build relationships or skills... and doing the
washing on my own is a lot less fun without DS to talk to.


See, I would love to do this, I just can't quite figure it
out how to get it to happen. My son doesn't want to help sort
laundry, or do any other activity with it which is remotely
like the actual task. He wants certain specific activities;
primarily, he wants to be read to. He *lives* to be read to.
Now, I love reading to him, and it's a nice wholesome thing
which hopefully will leave him hooked on books forever, and
we have a great time, but it's not an activity which meshes
well with getting anything done. Plus, a lot of the more
urgent household tasks which I'm feeling like I'm neglecting
are harder to involve a young toddler in, like making supper
or washing dishes.

The image that Dawn paints of the calm loving families with
welcoming homes sounds SO wonderful to me. Living in the
frazzled-and-harried camp sucks rocks. I just don't know
how I could get there without being willing to listen to a
lot of heartbroken wailing from my toddler, and something
tells me that Dawn's Type 1 families aren't getting there
via screaming. There's something here I'm missing.

Beth

Hi Beth,

Jumping in before I finish reading this fascinating thread
because I have some ideas. I think we're midway between Type
1 and Type 2 in my house. I WOH (as does DH), and so it seems
like there's very little time to get household chores done.
We also both enjoy "disconnected" time in the form of the
internet (some of which is actually work for both of us).
I've also been tired through this second pg, and am now on
modified bedrest, so things are getting less and less organized.
(Dawn -- are the happy, together households as happy and together
if the mom has a hard pregnancy? Does the community help out
in that case? What about with a newborn in the house? ... although
actually I'm thinking that newborns have got to be easier than
toddlers in many ways!)

DS loves being read to, and looking at photos on google of
whatever category he demands, and generally having us involved
in his play. He also loves folding laundry ("big pile of laun-dry!")
and will help me put clothes in the dryer from the washer
and take them out of the dryer and try to hang up those
that need to be hung. Sometimes when I need to be in the
kitchen, he can be happy playing with other kitchen things,
although not directly participating in what I'm doing.
Kitchen toys include refridgerator magnets, the "noisy cupboard"
with the baking sheets (rarely used ;-), and the tupperwares.
(One of the messiest things about my house these days are those
tupperwares... They're never truly clean because they're always
being played with, but we just use them anyway. *sigh*)

The other day I had a real breakthrough. I was trying to
wash dishes, and he wanted to build with blocks, and have me
do it with him. I suggested that he build something for me
and then show it to me. That kept me involved in the process,
but also left me free to do the dishes.

As for trying to do laundry while DS wants to read books --
how about making up stories about the laundry? Might that make
it similar enough?

--
Emily
mom to Toby 5/1/02
#2 EDD 7/19/04

Emily wrote:


(Dawn -- are the happy, together households as happy and together
if the mom has a hard pregnancy? Does the community help out
in that case? What about with a newborn in the house? ... although
actually I'm thinking that newborns have got to be easier than
toddlers in many ways!)

Community is always helping out. I've witnessed families with newborns,
moves with tiny babies, funerals of elderly and one of a baby that died
a couple of days old. I've heard about families with difficult
pregnancies. Of course, those aren't all happy times, but they aren't
frantic, dishevelled, hopeless times either. The homes are still
orderly and clean, and the meals are still hot, although the main people
involved will have help if they need it. For a newborn, because it's
not an unexpected thing, there is somewhat less, because things are made
ready prior to the birth, from what I have seen, and I've not noticed a
dramatic decline in the tone of the home. There is support, though.

Partly I think there is the order that follows on naturally from
continued order....if that makes any sense. If you have always strived
(striven?) for a pleasant, orderly household, and tend to the ongoing
work of same in a timely way, and prepare for the future (canning, other
preserving, freezing lots of things, etc) then things tend to run more
smoothly when there are hiccups and bumps and outright disasters. If
your laundry is done, and put away, you can find it in the dark (and, as
I can relate from experience, it won't get damaged in a catastrophe at
3am involving deluges of smoke and water and a home evacuation), and
your older children or DH can get their days started without frantic
searches for matching socks. If your kitchen is orderly, preparing
meals is less hectic and frazzle-inducing. If you tend your garden
regularly and well, you won't have back-breaking hours of removing
enormous weeds and recovering fallen or diseased plants.

This is mostly JMO, based on what I see, and hear and thinking about
things during the length of this thread (and at other times in the past)
AND from my own experience. I'm continually shocked that so many people
apparently (irl) find what I do to be anything other than ordinary, and
I'm not nearly as tidy and calm as the Type 1 families, though I would
say I tend more in that direction.

And I've found that steady work towards that goal has made my life move
in that direction in many ways. I don't feel that I've had to neglect
my DS to do it, and in fact I am freer to be with him when there are
less overwhelming and put-off things looming either physically or
mentally.

Since I had to deal with many tradespeople after above mentioned
disaster a couple of years ago, I've noticed that in general, good
workmanship, pride of a job done well and such are SORELY lacking in
today's workforce. To have a worker show up on time, or nearly so, or
call if they couldn't, and do a neat, efficient, quality job that would
last was utterly unheard of, and impossible. And not one person seemed
to feel that anything more was expected or required of them, even if
obvious flaws and errors were pointed out.

Somehow, the collective we have failed to retain the value of
craftsmanship outside of various hobbies and "quaint" interests. We're
willing to overlook or accept shoddy goods, poor food, and badly done
tasks. I don't quite understand it, but I don't admire it. In a lot of
ways, I think some of the differences between the types boils down to
one group striving for simple quality in the things they do and use (and
think and say), and the other group seeking some unattainable when or
what to begin and ending up mired. Does this make ANY sense to anyone
else? :-/

Dawn

Hillary Israeli wrote:
In BgyWb.39216$QJ3.8247@fed1read04,
Circe wrote:

*reason for it. (Of course, "white" is a ridiculous term to apply
to people
*of European ancestry, anyway, since we are quite clearly not
white, but
*varying shades of pinkish-tan.)

Well, all of the black people I know are varying shades of brown,
not actually black.

Yeah, I actually said that in another post g. Black is absolutely no more
accurate than white, but just as we have a pretty good idea of what skin
tones qualify as "white", we have a pretty good idea of what skin tones
qualify as "black". There are places where all the skin tones tend to
overlap, though.
--
Be well, Barbara
(Julian [6], Aurora [4], and Vernon's [23 mos.] mom)

This week's special at the English Language Butcher Shop:
Financing for "5" years -- car dealership sign

Mommy: I call you "baby" because I love you.
Julian (age 4): Oh! All right, Mommy baby.

All opinions expressed in this post are well-reasoned and insightful.
Needless to say, they are not those of my Internet Service Provider, its
other subscribers or lackeys. Anyone who says otherwise is itchin' for a
fight. -- with apologies to Michael Feldman

"Circe" wrote in message

I'm just saying that if I saw someone I'd never met before
who was Papuan or
possibly Maori, I might well describe that person as
"black" if asked.

I wasn't saying you are wrong, it is probably perfectly
acceptable culturally in your country to do that. But as we
are talking about cultural differences I thought I'd point
out that here it's offensive. If you referred to a Maori as
Black you incite all sorts of racial hoopla, it's not a nice
term.
Plus no one here is black, except the Somali's, they have
pretty black skin tone, but it would still be very rude to
refer to them as Blacks. Saying their skin tone is black is
ok, but calling them blacks as a collective noun is very
rude.

I don't claim to be able to intuit people's cultural
affiliations from their
skin color, and I think it's a bad idea to try, since you
can very easily be
misled.

I imagine it would be pretty hard in the US due to the
reasons you mention further on, but with New Zealand being
much smaller it's very easy to know who is Maori, who is
Islander (even which Island they come from often, Fiji,
Tonga, Samoa) and who is Asian. And those Cultural/Ethnic
descriptions are used when referring to someone. Just
pointing out the 'cultural' difference in terminology :-)

Again, citing my favorite example, Sammy Sosa of baseball
fame is
black, but he's Hispanic rather than African-American.


I don't know who that is so no comment..lol

I guess I don't completely understand why we impute so
much meaning to words
that are really just intended to describe relative skin
tones. Black as a
description for skin tone isn't, strictly speaking, any
more accurate than
white, but it's a word we all understand as describing a
certain range of
skin tones.

I think that would be fine here describing a skin tone as
black if that is what it was, there aren't many actual black
people here though. Maori and Islanders have a brown skin
tone. But to 'name' someone black because of their skin tone
isn't.


--
Andrea

If I can't be a good example, then I'll just have to be a
horrible warning.

"Emily" wrote in message

Hear, hear (or is it here, here?). MIL/FIL are from
southern
India. My heritage is Eastern-European Jew (mosly
Ukranian).
I'm not observant, but I consider myself culturally
Jewish. DS
is therefore both Jewish (Jewish law says, I belive,
you're
Jewish if your mom is) and Indian (he certainly looks
Indian,
although considerably lighter skineed than his dad &
grandparents).

Well no one knows what your religion is by looking at you,
but if you are white 'here in NZ' you would be known as
Pakeha, you husband and probably your children would be
known as Indian (also Pakeha but that term is almost always
associated with white foreigners these days).
No one would ever be called a Jew here as a description of
who they are, that is like calling someone a Catholic, that
is your religion not your ethnicity. How would anyone know
that from looking at you.


--
Andrea

If I can't be a good example, then I'll just have to be a
horrible warning.

(Nikki) wrote in message . com...
(Elizabeth Reid)

No, it doesn't to me either, which is why the subject is on my
mind. I'm finding it hard to get to that in-between point. My
son's not a kid who whines, which I could ignore, he's more
the kind that goes from 0 to red-faced overwrought screaming
in about a second and a half, and once he's in that state
he can cry for a really long time. I feel awful just letting
him scream and follow me around going, "Up, up, up, Mama,
up, up Mama!" But I recognize that this completely has the
potential to get ugly down the road. I feel exactly the
way I did when I was trying to use the No Cry Sleep Solution
to help him to sleep. I don't know if he's the one for whom
gentle transitions don't work well or if I am.

IME they just outgrow this and nothing ugly happens. Hunter was like
that his first 2-3 years. He's a polite boy now that plays well by
himself. Luke was actually very easy as a baby. Very tolerant and
played by himself. He's very challenging now, Still, at 2.5 and 4.5
and I'm once again a Type 1 family for the most part :=) If I could
get dh on board to any kind of routine I'd have it made but that
apparently is impossible.

Nikki, have I ever formally thanked you for how much hope your
posts about Hunter's early habits have given me over the
last 18 months? :-)

Beth (thanks! really!)

Taniwha grrrl wrote:

Well no one knows what your religion is by looking at you,
but if you are white 'here in NZ' you would be known as
Pakeha, you husband and probably your children would be
known as Indian (also Pakeha but that term is almost always
associated with white foreigners these days).
No one would ever be called a Jew here as a description of
who they are, that is like calling someone a Catholic, that
is your religion not your ethnicity. How would anyone know
that from looking at you.

From a Jewish point of view, it is an ethnicity (esp. among
folks like me who identify as Jewish but aren't practicing,
so it isn't really a religion for us). I know someone who was
an egg donor for an Eastern-European Jewish couple, because
the couple specifically wanted eggs from someone of the same
ethnicity. (The irony there is that I think the mom of the egg
donor was actually a convert to Judaism...)

Just like folks can sometimes pick out Italians, etc., there
are general patterns to what Eastern European Jews look like.
Sure, you can't tell *religion* from looking at someone (unless
their religion influences their clothing or other self-adornment),
but in this ethnic sense, some people can tell. Looking
like a relatively light-skinned Indian, as DS does, doesn't
fit that pattern. But that was my original point.

--
Emily
mom to Toby 5/1/02
#2 EDD 7/19/04