Pages

Monday, June 19, 2023

#MicroblogMondays: Odds & ends

Some odds & ends to start off the new week! 
  • Once again, a tragic story unfolded this weekend, connected to a place I knew well in my childhood.  :(   Late last week, a small bus/van full of seniors from Dauphin, Manitoba, collided with a semi-truck at an intersection on the Trans-Canada Highway (the main east-west route that runs right across Canada). 10 people are dead (still to be publicly identified);  15 still in hospital.  They were just 10 minutes from their destination, a casino near the town of Carberry. It's believed to be the worst mass casualty event in my home province's history. :(  
    • Between 1969 and 1974 (from the time I was 8 until I was 13), we lived in a small town about a 45-minute drive from Dauphin. Dauphin was the closest "big town" -- my mother would drive there every few weeks to buy groceries at the supermarket there (larger selection and lower prices than what we could get locally);  we would go there to see the dentist and optometrist and do other shopping;  and we would go there to the movies. Our best friends' mom & my mom would drop us off at the theatre for the Saturday matinee while they went shopping, and we'd all meet up later (and maybe pick up a bucket of Kentucky Fried Chicken to take home and reheat for dinner, or stop at the A&W drive-in for hamburgers, fries and their signature root beer) before heading home again. 
    • Between 1974 and 1980, we lived in another town along the Trans-Canada Highway, between Winnipeg & Brandon, and then between 1980 and 1984, while I was at university in Winnipeg, my parents lived in yet another small town, about an hour south of Brandon. So I've made that trip along the Trans-Canada, past that spot, many times, often by bus, to visit friends in Brandon and to visit my parents (they'd pick me up at the bus depot there and drive me home). 
    • Five years ago, in the spring of 2018, another horrific bus/truck crash near Nipawin, Saskatchewan (as well as another nearby town where we'd lived, 1966-69), claimed the lives of 15 young hockey players from the town of Humboldt. (Those involved with investigating that crash and supporting the survivors and families are now providing assistance with this one.) And last fall, 10 people died and 18 were wounded in a murderous rampage through two communities in northeastern Saskatchewan, both near yet another small town where we'd once lived (1963-66). 
  • Here's an excellent article from Psychology Today: "The Cruelty of Natalism."  (Subhead:  "Personal Perspective: If you don’t know what it means, that’s part of the problem.")  Excerpt: 
We all need to make room in our lives, and in the world, for people who don’t have, can’t have, and/or don’t want children. This requires checking our own natalism and working toward a world in which there’s a place for people without kids. Yes, some people are happily child-free. Others aren’t. Either way, they’re all struggling to exist in a world that tells them they don’t belong here.

  • Well, what do you know? The New York Times ran an article about men & infertility on Father's Day! (Gift link.)  
    • The NYT also offered tips on how to cope when Father's Day is hard, for whatever reason (which also apply for other difficult holidays & celebrations). (Gift link.) Content warning: adoption/birth announcement (on Mother's Day, no less...!) at the end of the article. 
  • Speaking of Father's Day -- we watch CBS Sunday Morning every week, and we usually enjoy Jim Gaffigan's wry commentary -- he's one of dh's favourite comedians. But his piece today about fathers vs men who don't have kids totally missed the mark. :p  (There are lots of commenters on the show's Facebook page who agree with me.)  I'm not going to link to it directly, but if you're curious, it's on the show's website and also on its Facebook page. 
  • Yael Wolfe hits it out of the ballpark once again with a rant on Medium about how aunties are undervalued ("The Auntie Era Has Arrived").  Unfortunately, it's a members-only story, and there don't appear to be any gift links.  :(  A couple of sample quotes: 
From where I’m sitting, childless and childfree aunties are one of the most unsung heroes of our world. And I’m so tired of witnessing our society judge and ignore them...

When I see the way childless/childfree aunties are treated, how invisible they are, and how underappreciated they are, I worry. When I hear people proclaim that mothers are more valuable to the world simply because of their parental status, I worry. And hell, when I see how much we fetishize the selflessness of mothers, I worry.

We don’t do this with men...  

It’s easy to call someone a doomer or a fearmonger if you’ve never lived through a rare tragedy. It’s easy to tell them to keep calm and carry on. It’s easy to tell them to look on the bright side. It’s easy to say everything will be fine.

It’s not so easy when you’ve lived through doom.

That’s why we keep our guard up.

You can find more of this week's #MicroblogMondays posts here

4 comments:

  1. Oh yes, that last quote. That is absolutely true! It's not as easy to dismiss odds when you've been on the wrong side of them.

    But oh, ugh, why why why NY Times did you have to finish the article with a pregnancy/birth announcement. Talk about not get the message. That's being tone deaf to the ultimate extreme! Gahhhhh!

    ReplyDelete
  2. I have/had excellent aunts. 2 were unmarried/childless, 3 are/were married with children. They have always been a significant presence in my life. My daughter, however, has only 3 good aunts - my sisters. The other 5 don't have any clue how to participate in the lives of children who are not their own. It makes me sad for her that she won't have the access to family history or the memories of her father that she could hear from his siblings, but they had no good examples of extended family either. I wouldn't be where I am today without my aunts - literally and figuratively. One of them is even coming to stay with our dogs when we go on vacation.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Such great finds, as always!

    UGH the Jim Gaffigan video. I was actually going to write about it and link, but I don't want to give him the clicks. I was so pissed I commented on YouTube, which I NEVER do, and was mollified to find that there were many comments about how awful that was for involuntarily childless men in particular. There were a lot of personal stories shared from the male perspective, which was great to see, but again conflicted because I DON'T WANT HIM GETTING CLICKS FOR THAT GARBAGE. My own comment was ended with something like "you don't lose anything by being inclusive in who is celebrated." Who's the manchild now? Ugh.

    ReplyDelete
  4. That Psychology Today article make such good points! And I'm so sorry for the families affected by the Dauphin tragedy :-(

    ReplyDelete