October 22, 2004
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Keeping Up Appearances
Yesterday was kiddie picture day at my kids' school. I spent some time listening to Ms. 4's preschool staff relive, with many a roll of the eye and evocative grin, their efforts at making all fifteen of their three- and four-year charges sit in some semblance of a collectively photogenic pose. Apparently the hardened photographer was brought to the brink of tears. I'm sure the result, however, will be complete perfection. What would a preschool photo be, after all, without the kid with the finger up the nose, another with the hand down the pants, a third without one shoe, and so on? It's completely endearing and it's altogether expected. It's also completely silly that us adults spend any time at all trying to make the kids pretend they don't do these things that we ourselves are only slightly better at pretending not to do -- on camera, at any rate.
America is very much a nation on camera, and even more-so in the last frantic weeks of a presidential election year. Not being a tv-watcher, and being particularly busy at mommying, working and (non-political) volunteering just now, I've managed to avoid the brunt of the onslaught. But I can't avoid being on all my friends' "copy all" lists. So I've got the one that gives you a daily update of predicted electoral college votes, the off-color "celibacy day" joke, the link to purported "family" (actually rather far-removed cousins) of one candidate who are voting for the other candidate, and a variety of funnier and therefore hearteningly meaningless visual jokes from one side or the other.
And then there was Ms. 6's homework in her Weekly Reader. It opened with a mom-and-apple-pie "nonpartisan" piece to which Diane Sawyer of CBS had affixed her name. For the political adult it was full of hidden meaning, at least one of which didn't get by Ms. 6 either. "Mommy," she demanded, "Why does she say that the man who gets the most votes may become President?" Ah, yes. Well. Half an hour's explanation later, we looked at her part of the exercise. Two big blank circles, intersecting slightly, opposed smiling images of the two main candidates and a brief bio. Where they were born, where educated, to whom married, how many children, the names and natures of their pets. 'Write in the circles,' said the merry instructions, 'what is different about the candidates and what is the same.'
I gagged. "Honey," I said, "Sure, these guys both have daughters and wives and pets and stuff. But let's talk about what's the same and different about them that really should make people vote for or against them, okay?"
It may just be election year ennui, but in general as I age I find I'm losing patience with fakery. Can we all just simply admit what's really going on behind the smile? Even admit we spend half our time with a finger up the nose or a hand down the pants?
Wouldn't we all be a lot more emotionally stable for that acknowledgement?
Comments (8)
No way, I don't pick my nose. ROFL! I'd love to see that school picture. I bet it will be perfect, noses, pants and all. Wow, your Ms. 6 is a smarty! Such intelligent questions. Seriously!
Dude, you caught me.
And I am HATING those emails, too.
no, the one with the hand down the pants was the LAST president...
I'm of the hardened cynical opinion that we should throw 'em ALL out. My goodness, a political campaign should at LEAST provide the masses with some entertainment... and this year has a marked paucity of that. What a shame.
I've been lucky in regards to the emails... however, you're right. Although there's a BIG difference between cleaning out the nostril and diddling the ol'... *ahem*.
((Ironically, yesterday Clinton's spokespeople announced that he has his sights on becoming UN secretary general when Kofi retires. I about snorted my tea.))
I'll be glad when the election's over, too. And I don't even have TV. ((wink!))
Oh...! And yes, I'm expecting again. Surprise! ((LoL!!)) Looks like we're due about June 14th. I'm much anticipating baby number three. And I see I'm not alone - eFairy is only a week or so apart from me.
by the way... that coding at the top of your page can easily be fixed - my page did the same thing - you just go to the 'look and feel' module and delete the space between the '<' and the 'http'. I just thought you might want to get rid of that...
Kudos.
My 2 year old will have a 2nd attempt at Day-care pics next week. The first time he screamed. I guess that did reflect his true personality, at least some of the time.
You're a dreamer. Not that there's anything wrong with that.
my thoughts went along the same path as kluless's did. i figure if we can get a politician who can keep their hands (and everything else) in their own pants then we're doing pretty good.
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