Zoning

One afternoon during lunch time with my kids, I heard a multiple rap knock at the door. A knock with authority! Must be the UPS man. My friends don't knock like that. My husband gets car parts shipped to our house and I've noticed the UPS man knocks loud, the USPS postman knocks gently.

Nope. A cop.

Have you ever had a cop show up at your front door? A little alarming. My thoughts turned immediately to the half constructed bridge on my walk leading to my front door. Is it illegal to have bridges on your sidewalk? I know they are supposed to be over water, but, c'mon, not illegal ... I'm a real criminal, can you tell? The only thing illegal I could think of was wood projects, and as far as I know, that's not illegal (unless its on the public sidewalk. I've heard of people being cited if their car hangs over the sidewalk too far. #firstworldprovoproblems right?)

I haven't even ever been stopped by a cop. The closest car-cop interaction I have had is when a copped turned its lights on when I passed to flip a Uie, I mean a U-y, um, a U turn, whatever.

"Do you have a chicken permit?"

"Not yet," I said. I mean I haven't even gotten my kid license, I mean birth certificate, for my last kid, and she's almost two! When I feel overwhelmed with things I need to do and want to do, going to government offices is hard for me to remember to do, especially when I need to go there AND pay them money. But really, how bored is this officer if he is driving along looking for coops to check for permits.

"And you have a rooster."

Ah. There it is. Here is why this noble policeman is on my doorstep, even though I'm sure he wants to be somewhere else.

Yes, yes, we have a rooster. And he is annoying. And, I've wanted him dead for quite awhile now. As has my husband. But wanting him dead at 5:30 AM doesn't always translate into action once fully awake. I told our rooster, Gygi is his name (Gigi if you ask my husband), that he was going to be lunch meat after he pecked me quite hard once, and I meant it. But chicken society being what it is, we couldn't just kill him as soon as he crowed. You should never introduce a solo chicken into a flock. Since we had bought Gygi with one other chicken, we had to wait for the other chicken to be slowly introduced to the older members of the flock to prevent her from being mercilessly bullied.

And yes, we knew the rooster was against residential coding, but we live in a weird little area. Three out of four sides of our block are agricultural. I hear other roosters throughout the day and hear cows lowing throughout the night. And smell cows. C'mon, we're only quasi residential. But yeah, against the rules and I TOTALLY GET THAT.

BUT. During the apocalypse, or whatever happens that y'all are saving food storage for, y'all (see, I live in an agricultural area) are going to rue the day that you ratted out my roo (sorry, couldn't help myself). The roo is essential to self sufficiency. My hens will lay eggs for awhile, but they will get tired and old, and stop laying. If I had a rooster, I could raise new hens and have eggs in perpetuity. But I can't do that; my neighbors prize their sleep too much to allow that.

Our urban society has distanced itself from our food production and zoning rules prohibit food from encroaching back in. For those of us who would like to bring food production a little closer to home, it can be frustrating to think the only way to do that is to buy a large lot. In my city, you can't keep livestock on a residential city lot. I can't get the goat I kind of want so I can be partially sufficient in milk. You can only have six hens for egg laying. I've also learned recently that many cities have rules about how much grass you must have. One lady I knew in a neighboring city was told she couldn't convert her front yard to a vegetable garden because of zoning. You also can't put up a front privacy fence, you know, in case your neighbors think what you are doing is ugly. Our aesthetic is decided by the city.  I love gardening and I admire a well tended plot, but what if our coding motivated self-sufficiency and water-wise principles instead lifeless backyards and a wide swath of non-native, water and chemical hungry lawn? Smart gardens are beautiful gardens. What if zoning encouraged us to make habitats for bees, birds, and other wildlife? Maybe if we can change our outdoor values, the city codes would eventually follow suit. Rejoice in that rooster; rejoice in those weeds. They both have value.

P.S. My response to the police officer was "we're going to kill him." I'm glad I didn't get arrested on the spot since when I did go to get my chicken permit, I learned you are only supposed to have hens for egg laying, which I presume means not harvesting them for meat. I don't know what they think is going to happen to all the roosters that didn't win the genetic lottery.

Working Women

When you read "working women," what do you think about? Really, first gut response. Please comment below.

I see a woman in a tailored pants suit, hair swept into a bun, and strangely, the woman in my mind is biracial. I don't know, I'll just go with it.

I recently had a lovely facebook conversation with a friend and a friend of this friend about "working women." It was started by an article on Slate called "If America is Hell for Working Women, France Might Be Heaven." (http://www.slate.com/blogs/moneybox/2015/02/24/america_makes_life_impossible_for_working_women_so_how_come_they_re_so_much.html?wpsrc=sh_all_mob_tw_bot)

Just the title made me hot and bothered because having lived in both America and France, I'm done with Americans making France out to be some sort of social paradise (health care, women rights, etc.) based on what they read about it without having actually experienced it themselves. Yes, France has universal health care, but go visit a hospital and tell me you want to go there. Anyway, I digress. The article also featured another of my pet peeves: making assumptions based solely on statistics. If I ever need to make an argument why qualitative research is necessary, I'm going to use this article.

Statistics do not give a full picture. This article claims that French women are having more babies than Americans--if you follow the link in the article, it reveals a smidgen of a difference on a bar graph. I researched the actual birth rates, since I could barely tell a difference on the bar graphs: America has fallen to 1.86, and France is 2.01. To me in the real world, where babies come whole not in fractions, these two numbers sound pretty much the same but I'm not a demographer. The French government site,(www.diplomatie.gouv.fr), claims that they have such a great birth rate because of their great family friendly policies. But, Wikipedia backs up my impression of France from when I lived there during my LDS mission--the immigrants, specifically those from a Muslim background, are increasing the birth rate. Perhaps those family friendly policies are convincing some French women to have children, but it is not the sole factor.

(I'd like to note that the below chart is using 15 year old data and does not represent the current 2.01 birth rate in France. If anyone can find more current data, thank you in advance. 

	Average number of children in France (1991–1998)	Average number of children in country of origin (1990–1999)
All women living in metropolitan France	1.74
Women born in Metropolitan France	1.70
Immigrant women	2.16
Women born in overseas France	1.86
Immigrant women (country of birth)
Spain	1.52	1.23
Italy	1.60	1.24
Portugal	1.96	1.49
Other EU	1.66	1.44
Turkey	3.21	2.16
Other Europe	1.68	1.41
Algeria	2.57	1.78
Morocco	2.97	3.28
Tunisia	2.90	2.73
Other Africa	2.86	5.89
Asia (Mostly China)	1.77	2.85
The Americas and Oceania	2.00	2.54

I'd guess (no evidence to this) that the women who are helping to make France's birth rate look good are also the ones who are not working. Immigrants probably are not working, or working less, in traditional jobs because of either their immigration status or their conservative religious beliefs.

Also with statistics, you have to take into account definitions that were used when compiling statistics. According to one French friend, her mother had been on maternity leave for years--was this type of women counted as "working" in their 85% of women working even though she was no longer actively engaged in any type of economic production? Oh, and she was still receiving pay.

So "working"? What is the definition? Its always tricky to ask women (and I am one) if they work. Yes we work, whether it be at home or somewhere else, but we all know what they mean when they ask "Do you work."

Do you answer "yes and no."?

Do you say, "No, I'm a stay at home mom."

"Yes, I'm a stay at home mom.

"Yes I'm a home-based mom."

"Yes I'm doing the most important work a person can do."

"Yes and I'm exhausted."

So what if France counts SAHM in their stats? What if America started counting moms who don't work outside the home are counted in "employed" statistics? The employment statistics are used to represent how well the economy is doing. After my Facebook conversation, I realized that moms do play a part in economic production. What if moms who don't work outside the home are counted in "employed" statistics? For one, Utah would stop getting slammed in the press (just one example of many: http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2015/01/06/upshot/where-working-women-are-most-common.html?abt=0002&abg=0 ). But more importantly, women would understand their work is important on an economic level. We all remind ourselves that what we are doing is important morally and spiritually, but I say yes, economically as well. I believe that mothers who make the choice to stay home are not letting America down as the Slate article made me feel; nor, are we a throwback to the male dominated 1950's as the NY Times article suggested; nor should the feminists feel disappointed in us. We are powerful women who see our best opportunity at home. By raising resilient, creative, and loved children (and of course, we're all hoping for geniuses), we are affecting the ability of America to govern, produce, and serve better.

I hope that America/press/world will one day recognize the virtue behind the statistical anomalies of women not working and stop shouting about repression and dominance. If nothing else, I hope that women know that stats and their interpretations are not always truth.


**I'd like to add a post script for the women who do work: you go, girl! Some women do have "best opportunities" elsewhere. I was raised by a working mother and she is a great mother and I wouldn't have chosen any other nor any other way to be raised (except the bit about working on Christmas and holidays). This is not meant to make you feel guilty that you are working, but rather an economic argument for those of us that aren't represented in "employment" statistics.

Visitors

When visitors come to your house, what do you? What is your visitor ritual?

Growing up, we had monthly visits from the home teachers. As I Christian/caring human being, we all need to take care of each other. My faith implements this by trying to have each home in a congregation visited once a month by "home teachers" (men visiting families) and "visiting teachers" (women visiting women). As a child, we all gathered in the living room with the less comfortable couch as my dad and my mom talked to these men who came to visit. I love home teaching visits now that I'm the parent and the visitor is more my peer. But yeah, he comes in, we talk, he leaves.

I'm coming to realize, though, that my personal culture and perhaps my area of LDS culture's visitor rituals are not standard, American visitor rituals. On my mission for the Church in Europe, we were often offered something to drink or eat when we visited homes and as a hungry and thirsty missionary, I always appreciated such kind offers. I never compared their hospitality to my own, until...

A lady I visit as a visiting teacher, who recently joined our LDS faith (and culture, by consequence), always has bottled water and treats for us when we visit her. Always. Even after I explained to her that the other girl who visits with me has dietary restrictions.  I never offer water/treats to visiting teachers nor home teachers, and they don't seem to expect it. I think I need to work on my hospitality rituals.

What are your hospitality rituals?

Trash

Anthropologists for years asked questions about other tribes/cultures/peoples, but I love reading the contemporary anthropologists that study themselves. One of the more memorable projects (way to go Professor Bartlett!) in my Intro to Archaeology class was to go through my garbage to learn about myself, or if I knew nothing about me, what my trash would infer about my habits. My professor was mimicking this study (or one like it)

 "We are what we throw away"

These anthropologists have been cataloging and analyzing trash for 30 years to learn about OUR society. Sounds fun, right?

When I googled it, look at these fun things I found about anthropologists studying trash:

Have you heard of Discard Studies? Studying our discard culture

The Anthropology of Garbage
 This story is about a professor at University of Washington who is using his archaeological skills to study the trash left behind at resting places in the desert as illegal immigrants are crossing from Mexico to the United States.

What would your trash say about you?

My recycling today would reveal that we drink lots and lots of milk and use lots of butter.

Stereotypes

**Author's note: more about categories. I wrote this a while ago and found it after I published the "Categories" post. Can you tell I think about it a lot? This one is more serious/less sleep deprived.

As an anthropologist, I observe people and their material culture. I try to decipher what their material culture says about them. (Read in normal speak: I judge people based on their things.)

In my neighborhood, there is a house that has a huge five wheel RV, a big ol' truck to pull it, a four wheeler, and a sign with the family name accompanied by a deer/mountain scene. Last fall (the first fall we were in the neighborhood) someone mentioned that they would be gone for the hunt. I noted, I don't know if it was to myself or my husband, "Oh that brown house should be going too." I kid you not, a very short time later, the camper and RV disappeared. I've never met the people that live there, but I made assumptions about the people that lived there based on their belongings. That, my friends, is stereotyping. In this case, the stereotype fit and was accurate.

Another example, in my ward (or church congregation defined by a geographical area) there are residential agricultural lots. A couple weeks in a row the same family sat behind me. Their son wore cowboy boots; the dad had cowboy style shirts and a mustache; and the mom had big bangs. I noted to myself, "I bet they live on 600 South (the street where most of the agricultural lots are)." Again, I was right.

I'm sure no one likes to admit that they stereotype, but we all do it. I think we do it because there are truths behind the stereotypes (for good and bad). I'd like to believe that if they were always wrong, we'd stop doing it (maybe I'm being optimistic there). The stereotypes have roots somewhere. In a way, it is a way to develop categories.

In one of my anthropology classes, Professor Richard Buonforte talked about how our brains need categories so we do not get overwhelmed processing information. If every time we walked into a classroom, we had to process every thing we saw, we would take much longer to process everything. If, however, our "stereotype" of the classroom said that we could expect to see a clock, desks, a teacher, a whiteboard, students, learning implements, then our brain doesn't have to spend too much time/energy processing. We already know what we will find so we can start thinking about something else. It'd be like we had to relearn and relearn constantly. I'm still working on how categories help us understand people.

 Even if the stereotypes are accurate, though, they can still be dangerous. I think the danger of stereotypes comes from seeing a person as a flat, one-dimensional character, seeing them as nothing more than the stereotype and not allowing the stereotyped person to become more than the stereotype, an individual.

Categories

Do you categorize people as you see them?

I saw a man with red/purple pants and brown loafer shoes and I thought, "hipster," "trendy." And from there spawns a conversation in my head about how I'm not trendy and all the reasons for it. (If you wear colored pants--awesome! I would wear them if someone gave them to me.)

I see all sorts of people and spontaneously categorize them. Its not something I do consciously. I do it before I realize I'm doing it. I learned in one of my anthro classes that we categorize/stereotype so our brain won't explode with new information as we go about life. I'm not sure how this applies to people. Maybe its a knuckle dragging brain reflex that deserves extinction.

I wonder as I'm making my snap judgments (I call them "categories" when I want to be nice to myself) about what people's snap judgments are of me. And I realize that those snap judgments someone may make about me may really apply to me. No matter how much I don't like falling into the stereotypical "Mom" look--well yeah, I did care more about getting breakfast ready, nursing my baby, and folding that laundry that has been haunting me since yesterday than standing and blow drying my hair for 20 minutes. Hopefully no one classifies me as "non-hygienic" but I could see that happening because sometimes I really hate showers (because, heck, I'm just gonna get dirty again).

Besides "mom," I don't think anyone would categorize me as I would categorize me. Mom--wanna be garden hippy--loves outdoors to the point of loving pulling weeds to be outdoors--likes organization but is anything but (but that's what I'm obsessing about today. Maybe tomorrow I'll be categorizing myself differently).

Will you join me in stopping our snap judgments? People are much more complex than their appearances may suggest (or perhaps more bland than their appearances may suggest).

I was given a cupcake with a cupcake topper many years ago that I had thought so profound that I put it on my wall ( I know, a cupcake topper on my wall. Label me--"tacky teenager" :) ). It said, "She is a child of God."  Morals from cupcakes: "She is a child of God." Not just "I'm a child of God" but everyone around us.

Compliments

Beauty Redefined (http://www.beautyredefined.net/blog/ or on Facebook "Beauty Redefined), two University of Utah PhD students on a mission to change how American/modern/western culture focuses on women's bodies, has made me aware of how many of the small things we've been acculturated to do and say that focus on our bodies, how we look, and those messages we send with these comments. Over Christmas, they urged us not to fall prey to awkwardness and just compliment that person/friend/family member you haven't seen in awhile's weight loss/shirt/party dress and encouraged us to find something else to talk about beyond physical appearance.

Man it's hard.

But I agree. Its nice to be noticed physically, but its also awkward. When a friend who just had  a baby says something about my waistline (that also recently had a baby in it), I can fill the comparisons coming and its awkward. Nothing I can say will make it better, probably worsen what I'm feeling inside, because honestly, I really hadn't thought about me vs. her until she brought it up. And now that I'm married, its always awkward when a man says anything about how I look.

A while back, I also read an article by Lisa Bloom on Huffington Post about how to talk to little girls (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/lisa-bloom/how-to-talk-to-little-gir_b_882510.html?ref=fb&src=sp). The author suggests that we ask little girls what are they reading or what their favorite books are instead of commenting on their cute hair/dress/etc.  I myself have two little girls, a toddler and a newborn, neither of who are particularly receptive to talking about favorite books. BUT I have tried to come up with more original compliments.

I'm really stuck with a newborn. Have you noticed how much you dwell on physical appearances with babies? "You're so cute." "Hello, Beautiful." "Look at that cute tongue of yours." "I love your eyes." "Big smile!" "Such a chubby baby!"  I walk into my baby girls' (at least when they were babies) rooms when they wake up in the morning and say, "Hello Beautiful." I delighted in my first daughter's chubbiness. I was proud that I made such a happy, healthy chubby baby with the chubbiest legs. We called her "Chubbles" and "Chubbas" and "Chubbs." Many people worried we were going to give her a weight complex--she was not even talking! The name has faded as she's gotten older. Do you think this will give her a complex about her weight? On the flipside, I have a friend with the cutest, chubbiest son (about four months and 20ish pounds. I'm not the mom so I don't remember the exact weight.) that was telling him the other day, as if he was concerned, that his weight would go away. Which extreme is worse?

What do you think? Does how we talk to the less than 12 month crowd impact them? Or is it merely good practice for the parents to talk to them positively about body appearance?