Dec 21 2008
Ralph Nader – Doin’ it 4 Da Shorteez
I’ve been thinking a lot about kids lately. A friend and an acquaintance who’ve been married within the year and are the same age are pregnant. They news of both pregnancies came within a week of each other. I guess it spurs my thinking. Michael and I have been married a bit over a year, and we have no intention of bringing children into the world any time soon.
Well, the other day Ralph Nader was signing copies of his book, The Seventeen Traditions, at Union Station. It’s pretty much a book about how he grew up – a book he’s dedicated to young parents today. Michael bought a copy, asked him to sign it to me. Apparently Nader asked if we had kids, and when Michael answered in the negative, he signed it to me, “For the Children.” Cue me running around singing it to “4 da shorteez,” (an Aqua Teen reference, for the uninitiated). Nader also misspelled my name, although Michael spelled it for him. It will earn a place of honor in our library.
The book itself, while starting a bit slowly in the introduction, is actually pretty good. I pretty much tore threw it tonight, and a lot of it reminded me of the way I grew up, of the way my parents wanted me to grow up. All of that is on my mind lately, anyway. Holidays tend to bring all those thoughts bubbling to the surface. I’ve said before that I’m starting to get baby-crazy a little when I’m out, and maybe I’ve indulged in a private jealousy that people who are the same age as I am and married are having kids already. Then I take a look at my messy house, the quantity of booze in my fridge, my ability to decide randomly to do whatever I want and the fact that I am currently responsible for myself and my marriage, a big enough task for me to handle right now.
Of course, while Michael was getting Nader to sign his book and perusing it on his train ride home, I was volunteering at a local children’s after-school program during a holiday party. Twenty 10-14 year old kids, who were high on sugar and the fact that it was Friday and Christmas is less than a week away, are pretty much the best birth control there is. If you haven’t given your kids’ teachers or daycare personnel Thank You notes, please do so. Not everyone has extra money to give a gift, but a simple thank you is more than most of those people get, and good lord, do they need it after a day like the one I experienced. My friend has been organizing this mostly thankless after-school program for a few months now, and she cried when one of her children (and the child’s mother) presented her with a small gift.
In conclusion, Ralph Nader’s book is pretty good, but kids are way far away on the horizon personally (sorry Ralph). And charity starts close to home, by thanking the people around you, for service you may or may not think about.