The UnderToad

Today I had a ten minute conversation in my driveway with my next door neighbor (in front of her husband) about our current and respective pooping schedules (our own as in, not those of our kids).  Her husband eventually interrupted with, “Wait, wait, wait, are you two talking about pooping?”

“Yes we are,” I said.  “This is exactly what I ever hoped for and imagined.  An NNBFF with whom I can talk shamelessly about poop.”

“Yeah, why don’t you go blog about it,” he said.

“What an excellent idea.”

Up until now, and generally speaking in my life, I’ve tried not to be too political about anything.  Not too politically minded, not too politically polarized, and certainly not too politically correct.  Obviously I had no plans for blogging about anything political.  But someone made a comment the other day that has been sort of festering inside me.  At the time it was made, I knew I disagreed with it, but like all my best come-backs, I didn’t figure out what I wanted to say about it until at least 4 days later.  And then, I didn’t hone that into my full response until last night.

The discussion topic was taxes.  I’ll say for the record, in case you need a reason to stop reading in advance, I did not vote Republican in the last presidential election.  However, at my core, I’m definitely more Republican than Democrat.  (This is because I believe I am going to be rich one day.)  My household currently falls into a tax bracket in which we do not have any income tax withheld from our paychecks and yet have managed to receive a refund for the past couple of years.  I hear it is called “credits” and having lots of children is helpful, so I’m still en route to my 4-child family plan because “Yes We Can!” and we will.

So, sometime after April 15th, a discussion arose among myself, some friends, and some strangers, through this question: Do you believe it is fair to get more back in taxes than you paid?

(I do not think it is fair.)

(But I’m also not one to look a gift horse in the mouth.)

I didn’t respond at first, because I wanted to hear what others had to say.  I was among a group of women who all have children (big surprise) and had on the whole, mostly benefited from Uncle Sam this year as a result of those children.  My non-committal initial comment was, “It is a bit staggering when you think about the fact that only the top 5% of wage earners in America are paying over 50% of the Nation’s taxes.”  *Phew.  That was safe.  No thoughts or feelings one way or another.  No one suspects I’m a Republican-in-denial.  To this, one woman says something along the lines of: if she was rich enough to be in the top 5% of wage-earners, she’d be happy to pay 60% in taxes because even after that, she’d have more than enough remaining, off which to live.  (Note: I’m sure the grammar was not quite so impeccable in her original statement.)

And while this is mostly true, in theory, my internal idiot alarm went off in full force.  I couldn’t really muster a response at the time, and because I missed my opportunity, I need to scratch an itch here.  I do not think this woman’s sentiments are unique.  I think there are a lot of people in the world who believe that having more would create in them a desire to give more of what they have.  What I want to say to these people (from behind a wall of anonymity and in the safety of my own home) is, “No.  You wouldn’t.  If you wouldn’t pay 60% of your income NOW, what makes you think that having more income would change your attitude?  It would still be your money.  If you can’t give away a little, what makes you think you’d be willing to give away a lot?”

That’s pretty much it.  This is the extent of all things political today, and hopefully for a long time.  It is probably better that this can of worms remained closed that day.

I’m certainly not proposing any solutions to our economic crisis.  I’m not even really trying to stir up trouble with all my bleeding heart democratic friends (of which I have many, and actually like all of them and their hearts very much).  In the meantime, I’ll keep squandering away my pennies in a little GOLD jar, preparing for the inevitable collapse of Social Security by the time I’m sixty two and a half.  And should Jesus come before that day, I’m glad I got to experience the joys of sex and childbirth.  So I’m ready now, Lord.

I’m not sure how it was for most people, but I know when I was growing up, we (my brother and sisters and I) did not go into my parents’ room very often.  I do not have a single recollection of getting scared in the middle of the night and crawling in bed with my parents.  Perhaps I didn’t wake up in the middle of the night all that often, but if it did happen, my memory tells me that it would have been far scarier to go into my mom and dad’s room, wake them up, and crawl into bed with them.  I’m not sure when nor how the boundary was set, but it was definitely there.  We didn’t go into Mom and Dad’s room.  We just didn’t.  For one thing it was cold.  And dark.  And it smelled different than the rest of the house.  And my dad snored.

Living in a condo that offered little more space than that of a double-wide made this a difficult boundary to create and enforce with my own children, starting with Eliott.  For one thing, I practically used the entire house to get ready in the morning.  Obviously my bedroom closet wasn’t big enough for two people, so half my stuff was in the closet in the hall.  Also, when the kitchen and my bedroom were mere steps from each other, making a bagel while only half-way dressed and putting rollers in my hair was not uncommon.  Though Eliott was usually gone with John by the time I was up in the morning, weekends and summer time weren’t very different.  And when we finally got a TV, we put it in our bedroom.  We soon discovered that 45 minute videos on Sunday morning occupied our 18 month old just long enough for us to both get dressed without interruption.  As a result, she probably believed our bedroom actually belonged to her.

So John and I had big plans for the new house and the bedroom boundary when we moved.  We were so sure that more space and a clean slate would make this new boundary an easy one to create.  Now, I understand that there are parents (in America) who share their bedroom and their bed with the entire family.  I understand there are entire cultures of people for whom this way of life is perfectly normal.  I also understand there are entire cultures of people who do not eat beef because what I believe about Jesus, they believe about cows.  Fine.  I’m allowed to admit that I think such beliefs are weird.  The bed sharing.  The steak worship.  All of it.  (Note: I’m not saying I hate slash cannot be friends with these people just because I think their crack-pot beliefs wouldn’t be good for me and my family so don’t go calling me a racist or getting your feelings hurt if you fall into one of the above categories, okay?)

I am probably lucky to admit that neither one of my children has ever awoken in the middle of the night and needed me.  They have both slept through loud company up late at night, thunderstorms, tornadoes, the fire alarm (in our condo), and the garbage man right outside their windows.  But I have not yet instilled in either of them a fear of my bedroom.  Waking up to find my 4-year old sorting feminine products on the floor of my bathroom is unfortunately not unusual.  (If you’ve seen the new “U” by Kotex, you understand why this activity is so enticing.  I think the ad says, “They look like something from art school. Cool!”)

Therefore, John and I are gladly accepting any tips or ideas for creating an atmosphere of fear surrounding our bedroom.  Not fear like, one of my children sleeps in her own vomit all night because she’s too afraid to come tell me she was sick, but something more like a respectful reverence for a sacred place.  (Like, maybe I should make them wash their feet at the door and wear a bell around their ankle every time they enter.)  Because I can’t decide which is worse: the possibility of Carter swallowing some potentially expensive piece of jewelry from the top of my dresser or the inevitable question from Eliott one day: “What are these things, Mommy?”