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| Squatting Tiger Poster |
Apropos the furor over Amy Chua's book, "Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother", I've noticed a curious fact that her book and most of the commentaries on her book are about the bringing up of daughters, not sons. This may be a result of mere coincidence. Or maybe more female writers feel obliged, as it were, to put their oars in the public debate, when they have daughters, reflecting on their own upbringing. Having been only a daughter but never a mother myself, I was wondering if it would be far-fetched to say that there is slightly more anxiety on the part of parents in raising daughters than sons; there seem to be more pitfalls to guard them against (hence more restrictions), more virtues, the likes of patience, modesty, compassion, and so on, in addition to those championed for boys, to extol and instill in their young minds, and for the competitive-minded mothers, toughness and fearlessness to boot, all meant to be in preparation for what they deem to be a happy and successful life for a woman. As for the boys, "boys will be boys", a certain risk and laxity is tolerated; after all, they are expected to fend for themselves and, as it were, forge their own destiny out in the wild.
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| Cloth Tigers |
In contrast, in his lengthy discourse on the education of children, Montaigne aims his advice mainly at the upbringing of boys, sons of noble families in particular, though he himself only had a surviving daughter. (Unfortunately, he delegated the education for his only daughter to the care of the feminine contingent of his household, who admonished her for things which he did not find objectionable.) To him, the goal of education is to bring the child up to become a person of character and understanding, a far cry from the concerns and obsessions of all the "tiger" moms and "dragon" dads of the present day. (I've attached a scanned copy of part of the essay, Of the education of children, for your reading pleasure.)
To me, there seems to be a fundamental problem with general discussions on parenting, especially on the part of the mothers, and that is that it is difficult for the parents to 'disassociate' themselves from their offspring when they are old enough to develop a distinct person-hood; there is a sense of "proprietorship" that is hard to shake off, so much of the expectation and anxiety exhibited towards offspring is tied up with the desire of the parents to project or extend themselves into the lives of their children, to mold them into what they wish they had become but didn't.
I recently started reading Montaigne's essays (as translated by Donald Frame) after reading a newly published biography of Montaigne by Sarah Bakewell titled, How to Live - or - A Life of Montaigne in One Question and Twenty Attempts at an Answer (Other Press, 2010). She has an original take on illuminating Montaigne to present day audience by gleaning choice reflections about life from his massive book of essays. It must have been about 30 years ago since I first and last read a few of Montaigne's essays, while a college student studying English Literature. This time around I expect my experience reading Montaigne will be very different, more congenial with age perhaps. I was wondering if any of you would like to read the book along with me in your spare time. I am reminded of the aborted effort by some of us in reading and writing about War and Peace; time short and interest fags. But as Montaigne's essays are episodic, each one is only a couple of pages long, it stands a good chance that we may be able to plow through the book in due time. As being reported by Bakewell, generations of readers take ownership of what is congenial to him or herself in these essays, I think each of us will have something to say, about one thing or another, while reading through the book. I plan to do some of that in future postings and I hope you will too.
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| Sloggers |
As my neighbor, seeing me shoveling the snow off our driveway one time, said to me, rolling down his car window in passing, "you know, it's going to continue to snow...", clearing snow off one's driveway does appear Sisyphean, a futile effort with no ending in sight. But my experience has taught me that the timely removal of snow does make a difference, however futile it may appear. There are at least two practical benefits in so doing - it makes the task easier next time you shovel and it enables you to back the car out of the garage in case you need to go somewhere.
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| Snow soon returns |
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| Little snowplow for hire |
When I last shoveled the 100'x18' driveway by myself it took me almost 3 hours, today it took me half the time to get the job done, owing to the fact that we just got the snow cleared off the driveway a couple of days ago. When the snow is less than six inches deep and has not been allowed to settle, it is fluffy and manageable, like scrapping icing off a cake, with the icing made from fluffy shaved ice instead of heavy cream. I have even developed certain techniques to make the task more enjoyable and injury-free. As each clearing takes at least two passes, I would take the shovel on my right side at the first pass and switch it over to my left at the second. This way it ensures that I don't over-strain one side of my body. Dressing warmly is important too, especially to protect the body extremities - head, hands, and feet. I wear two layers of gloves to keep my fingers warm and for my feet I have on my incomparable waterproof "Sloggers" which Jeanne B. gave me when we left Gainesville. What foresight! And lastly, to make the task more enjoyable I listen to opera arias or symphonic music in my ear buds; it's a little bit eerie listening to the music this way for you are muffled up head to toe from hearing anything coming from outside. Of course, one can always pay somebody else to do the job for you, like most, if not all, of my neighbors. Alas, my driveway did not stay snow-free for very long; it has not stopped snowing, like my neighbor said. I wonder when I should go out and start the task over again. How many times does one have to do this in a day?
