Phoebe Kate

In the Bar Mitzvah ceremony, the rabbi announces to the thirteen-year-old boy, “Today you are a man.”  Native Americans have sweat lodge and dream quest rituals for their teenage sons.  African tribes conduct rites of initiation to mark the passage from childhood to young manhood.  In certain Christian denominations, the sacraments of Eucharist and Confirmation are considered major milestones on the pathway to maturity.  The Catholic Church teaches that seven years old — yup, seven — is the age of reason, at which point youngsters can differentiate right from wrong and be held responsible for their actions.  Historically, in all cultures and belief systems, it’s been expected that everyone would grow up, stop behaving like children and assume their role in adult society.  Having the honors and privileges of maturity was something kids eagerly looked forward to.  

Until now, that is.

Several recent books chronicle how America’s young men from teen to twenty-something are lost in a morass of hook-up non-relationships, career ennui, binge boozing, video gaming, club trolling and responsibility-shirking.  Asked what it means to be a man, the consensus of opinion from male adolescents seems to be, “I can do what I want and don’t have to answer to anyone.”  And just when do these guys plan to grow up and get serious about anything?      

Hey dude, that’s a no-brainer.  The answer is: Never.  Spring break is forever, for this generation whose lifetime goal is to be Peter Pan.      

And this isn’t a gender-specific problem, either.  There’s a huge population of women playing the high school drama queen into their 20s, 30s and even older.  Just think about how the four ladies of Sex and the City approach life and love — and how deeply it resonates with millions of female viewers.  Need I say more?

Just exactly why we’ve became a society that believes perpetual pubescence to be the norm and a good thing is a matter for sociologists, psychologists and educators to figure out.  But on the long emotional road trip to maturity, it’s clear we’re not there yet – and won’t be, any time in the foreseeable future.

–phoebe kate

So, this morning as I drank my Earl Grey, I thumbed through the Yellow Pages studying the listings for family physicians.  I don’t like the one I’ve got now and am contemplating making a switch.  Good doctors are hard to find.  I’m not talking about medical competence here, but patient/doctor compatibility — an examining room manner that doesn’t raise my blood pressure higher than it already is and the feeling I’m more than just Chart #F-178: Midlife female with hypertension and anxiety attacks. 

Up until this spring, I had a wonderful physician whose gracious demeanor and personal interest in his patients was as good or better a medicine than anything from a pharmacy.  However, he moved to another city and I wish I’d packed up and followed him instead of getting stuck with the person who took over his practice here — whom, as aforementioned, I’m in the process of jettisoning.   

Well, I didn’t get very far with the Yellow Pages, but the internet intervened to solve my problem.  I don’t need a physician, I need Fido.  I ran across a news feature discussing the uncanny ability of dogs to sniff out diseases in people — cancer, infections, diabetes, heart conditions, respiratory problems and a host of other ills.  

All you canines out there, listen up now.  This is the career opportunity of a lifetime. Americans are fed up with the medical bureaucracy whose P&L statements are more important than their patients’ well-being.  We’re tired of shelling out big bucks for a doctor with bad bedside manners who can’t correctly diagnose a wart on a pickle, much less what’s wrong with us.  We despair of ever seeing any sort of national health plan to insure that everybody receives the care they need.  So get ready to hang that shingle outside the ol’ dog house because we need your TLC and intuitive expertise. 

Now this would be an office visit I could anticipate with pleasure and a practitioner with whom I could feel totally at ease.  Warm and fuzzy, soft brown eyes, a caring and gentle manner, quiet, attentive, sensitive – and a diagnostic whiz, too.  Payment arrangements would be a lot simpler and kinder to the pocketbook as well – maybe a 20-pound bag of Purina or a couple of 16-oz. T-bone steaks?  Hey, sounds like a good deal to me.

–phoebe kate

Well, if the lyrics of a song originally popularized by Barbra Streisand (and subsequently performed by every nightclub singer, famous or obscure) are true,  then “people who need people are the luckiest people in the world.”

Luckiest?  In exactly what way, pray tell?

I think codependent, dysfunctional, insecure, immature and lacking self-esteem come a lot closer to the truth.  But that wouldn’t have made much of a love song, would it? 

Our cultural notions of romance aren’t especially healthy ones, psychologically speaking.  The idea that we are pathetic half-people desperately seeking someone to complete us and make us whole is a creepy concept at best and an express lane to emotional casualty at worst.  Up until relatively recently, being single past the age of twenty-something was a major social stigma, just a little less awful than leprosy.  You were pitied by your married friends.  You were suspected of being maladjusted, having intimacy issues, being a misogynist (if male) or a misandrist (if female), a misanthrope, a closet gay, or a sleazy sleeparound with an excess of hormones, a lack of moral fiber and a serious problem with commitment.

Okay, so now we can have relationships and choose to not marry and nobody except religious fundamentalists will point a finger of blame at us.  As a society, we’ve come a long way, baby, haven’t we?

Wrong.

We may be liberated, but someone forgot to de-program us.  We’re still frantically trying to locate our MIA Other Half and we’re going through partners so fast we need a score card to keep track of them.  I see men and women of all ages doing it — young, mid-life and golden oldie.  I hear it, like a recurring theme, in commercials for E-Harmony and other online dating services.  We still believe that there’s one special person out there somewhere who’s our perfect complementary counterpart  – and if we don’t find him or her, we’re the emotional equivalent of a one-legged marathon runner. 

Humans — even the very best among us — are imperfect and not very reliable crutches.  Love and emotional dependency are two very different (and perhaps mutually exclusive) things.  Unless we’re strong enough to make it on our two feet, we’re a poor risk for a healthy relationship with anyone else. 

Sorry, Barbra.  People who need people aren’t lucky — or happy either.  They’re just — well — needy.  And desperate.  

–phoebe kate             

A few weeks ago, I blogged about a 2007 Arkansas law worded in such a way it permitted children of any age (down to newborn) to wed with parental consent.  I really didn’t think anything could top that legislative faux pas.

Oh, silly me!  Underestimating our lawmakers’ ability to screw things up!

Late breaking news, people.  All you parents in Nebraska, heads up — this is big.  Your fair state just passed a law allowing you to abandon any child up to the age of (are you ready for this?) nineteen.  That’s nineteen years old, not nineteen months.

Laws regarding the abandonment of newborns are common — California, for instance, permits parents to legally abandon an infant to a hospital or “safe haven” up to 72 hours after birth.  But Nebraska is boldly pioneering uncharted territory in the child welfare world – without really intending to, of course.

Up until now, about all you could do with obnoxious and/or hormonal adolescent is threaten to send them to juvie boot camp, a boarding school run by some strict religious sect, military school or Grampa’s farm (and we all know that old geezer won’t take no sass and no nonsense.)  Ahhh, but now, the gloves are off and it’s no hold barred for Nebraskan parents whose state motto is “Possibilities…endless.” 

Did your kid go to the mall to get jeans but instead came home with a stud in the tongue, a ring in the nose, an eyebrow piercing and a new BFF who’s Goth?  Is your daughter dating a guy twice her age with serpent tats and a Harley you can hear in the next county?  Is your son wearing tees emblazoned with swastikas and hiding his copy of Mein Kampf under the mattress instead of issues of Penthouse?  Are you at your wits’ end that your (formerly) adorable little Amber is screaming, ”I hate you I hate you I hate you I wish you were dead!” as she slams her bedroom door in your face?  Is it trying that once-trustworthy Trevor is tanking up on your Tanqueray and taking his girlfriends up to the king-size waterbed in your bedroom when you’re out?  Did somebody under the age of 19 just get the 3rd speeding ticket and drive your insurance cost through the roof (as well as eating you out of house and home when he’s not getting in trouble with the cops)?  Does your house reek of weed even though the kids tell you it’s your latest Glade Plug-In air freshener?

No more need to raise your voices or make idle threats…if you live in Nebraska, that is. If you don’t and you have kids from 9-19, you might want to consider moving there.  It might have seemed like a bright idea twelve years ago to have three kids spaced out a year apart.  Now, well, you just might be seeing that from a little differently POV.  No more need to go through a rough patch with your teens or wait for one of those awful “phases” to end.   

The half-witted legislators who bungled this half-baked bill are leaving it up to the courts to sort out, of course.  And we all know how fast the hand of jurisprudence moves, don’t we?  In the meantime, “foundling” and “orphan” may take on a whole new meaning in the Midwest.

–phoebe kate 

“Flow with whatever is happening and let your mind be free. Stay centered by accepting whatever you are doing. This is the ultimate.” –Unknown

Yes, how true, how very true. It is the ultimate - because it’s so *!@#*&!* hard to do.

Even the most laid-back and mellow of us (and that category does not include yours truly) have aims of some sort — major or minor, from 5-Year Plans for career or financial success down to inconsequential quotidian particulars, like what to wear today and what to eat for lunch and which DVD from Blockbuster to watch tonight. And most of us — dare I say all of us (unless we’re living saints or extremely enlightened, neither of which yours truly is) — well, we don’t enjoy it one bit when things don’t go as we want or as we expected.

Ironically, small disappointments and setbacks can sometimes drive us the craziest. I’m hardly thrilled when my writing schedule gets disrupted or a peaceful evening at home turns into a night of entertaining thanks to unexpected guests or I’m side-tracked from going to the one-day, 50% off shoe sale at Belk or a pleasure trip has to be canceled or I get stuck in traffic when I’m in a hurry.

Then we’ve got the real biggies that so often blindside us and truly turn our well-ordered lives upside down and inside out. War, natural disasters, societal upheavals, job loss, career changes, financial reversals, life-threatening illness, death in the family — they’re always just waiting in the wings to make their calamitous appearance on our stage.

The wise “Unknown” is trying to tells us that we only make ourselves more unhappy and frustrated by struggling against what can’t be changed. I don’t think the underlying problem is selfishness in wanting our own way or having the cosmic toss of the dice always be in our favor. Moreover, it’s just that we hate, more than anything else, to realize how little we’re actually in control of our circumstances. Perhaps that’s the reason we get so upset when insignificant things go awry — if we fluff it so badly with the small stuff, what chance do we have to successfully forge our way to success in the matters that truly count? Deep down inside, we’re all fundamentally control freaks, whether we admit it or not. “Going with the flow” — when it’s not going in our preferred direction — is very scary.

I live on the NC coast. I’m not a swimmer, but my kids are. My two sons are surfers and have been caught in those oft-deadly rip currents more times than I’d care to dwell upon. Of course, as a mother, this has given me premature gray hair (and given L’Oreal Preference in the very attractive dark blonde shade a steady customer.) However, the reason that my boys have survived the dangerous tides that take out an unfortunate number of people every year is that they’ve learned one vital thing. To never try to go against the rip current, but paddle parallel to shore until you get out of it. It’s not as big as it seems. If you keep your cool and stay calm and focused, you come to the end of it and can swim safely back to home.

And so it is with life.

Now, if I can only remember that lesson tomorrow… Hmm, maybe I should take up swimming?

–phoebe kate