Snap, you've been pwned.

There was recently some controversial press surrounding the choice of a Toronto couple to not reveal the gender of their baby (their third child) to anyone outside of their immediate family.  The flurry of public judgment surrounding their family's personal decision reveals much about the state of our society.

Each breeder makes many choices in the course of their parenting journey.  Some choose to release their children into other families.  Some choose to continue breeding well beyond societal and global norms - China's one child policy has been in place for almost 32 years and, according to their authorities, the policy has prevented almost 1 billion births.  Some breeding choices are more public than others.  The Toronto couple's controversy stemmed from the fact that many people felt that gender is something the public is entitled to know.  Gender is something our culture feels it owns and we are lambasted daily with media images defining gender norms.  So it is no wonder the controversy brewed worldwide about 'hiding' the gender of this infant. Our culture has given permission for that to be owned by others and kudos to these parents for highlighting this fact.

I remember touring a day care facility while pregnant and the tour guide proudly declaring their ability to look after babies as young as three weeks (this was in the days of six month parental leaves).  I recall being suitably impressed.  Nearly immediately after giving birth I started to question this.  My line of questioning revolved around the inane choice to breed and then hand off the responsibility of raising your infant/child to someone else...or most likely a series of other people that are paid very low wages.  The average baby in full time care spends 40 - 50 hours of their prime awake times with someone else.  This seemed logical before I gave birth but was extremely illogical, to me,  postpartum.  It was like a light switch went off the day I gave birth and it has never turned off.  The era in which I was raised made me believe that the natural course of events in one's life included the farming out of one's children to other people's care.  "Two earner families are a requirement in this day and age" is a line I've heard time and time again.

I feel strongly that the speed at which our culture changed in the 20th century did not allow time for our values and priorities to be thoughtfully re-adjusted.  For example, in the middle of last century my parents were both raised in homes where a mid-day hot meal was prepared and served by a homemaker.  Children came home from school for it.  I believe this contributes to their mostly good health (ps Dad's okay).  I look around at my peer group and I see many illnesses that were unheard of when my parents were in their forties.  Heart disease and diabetes being the headliners.  Cancer too.

The urgency of our world to reclaim feminine power in the 20th century usurped the basic human needs of healthy food (and nurture).  Communities have been decimated and reduced to enclosures that families shuffle into at night.  Neighbours are not regarded as allies but merely as temporary acquaintances until the next property flip or job change.  Fear permeates most opportunities for interpersonal engagement to the point that it is discouraged as soon as a child is allowed to walk alone on the streets (which is now at a much older age, if ever).  Families don't even eat together anymore!

But getting back to the gender free baby.   Our society is quick to pass judgment on this issue.  I myself was criticized many times for raising my child in a television free home ("but what about her friends at school? doesn't she feel left out?").  I was criticized for her father's and I choice to give her my last name ("you won't be a real family").  Etc., etc.

But that is not really the crux of it.  At the end of the day we all have to be able to look in our children's eyes and hear their opinion on the matter.  And last night daughter read me homework for her grade 12 english course.  It was a narrative essay that, in part, applauded me for my choice to raise her in a television free home. As a parent I can think of no better way to capture how I feel while hearing her read it aloud:  Snap, you've NOT been pwned. She'd shudder to hear me misuse modern vernacular this way but so be it :)

No longer just passing by.

I am one of the fortunate people that has managed to arrive to middle age and I have personally witnessed very little death.

In the natural order of things I know this will change but other than giving my heart a little squeeze when thinking of my parents passing on I don't put too much time or energy into thinking about it.  One never knows what can happen or when and worrying about it will do nothing to prevent it.

So when I found out last night that one of my neighbours passed away I was shocked.  This is not someone I know beyond passing an occasional fresh cut peony too and exchanging weather pleasantries but he was a fixture during my time in this house which is now almost eight and a half years.   I don't even know his name but since his daughter lived in their basement I always thought of him as C's dad.  His daughter is of my age and we have chatted a lot over the time I've lived here.  Her mother, the new widow, has limited english and my chats with her are also limited to pleasantries.

I first became aware of this man when the ambulance and fire trucks showed up in the middle of the night within the first couple of years of me living here.  When I asked the daughter what had happened in the days following I found out that this man had had a heart attack.  I found out about his expected convalescence period and his intent to return to work as soon as possible.

Sure enough, in the proceeding months, I saw him shuffling off to work each morning and returning at night.  The man worked long hours and the only thing that seemed to have changed was that he had acquired a cane and he had lost a fair bit of weight on his already slight frame.

Within a short period of this heart attack, he had another.  Ambulances and firetrucks again.  Discussions with C. told me that there was a longer hospital convalescence this time yet he was again planning on returning to work even though this time she didn't seem so eager about this plan.  At that time I was shocked he had survived another one since he no longer looked as strong as he had when I first moved to this house.

As far as I was aware, this was his last heart attack and until last Friday night I saw him shuffle back and forth to work and we would exchange the usual pleasantries.  A few months ago I saw him on his way home near the main intersection from our street and he was smoking.  I was shocked, since I know he had quit years earlier, but immediately my ex-smoker empathy kicked in.  I've joked with friends that I just might pick up the smokes again in my senior years.

I admired this man and his strength.  It turns out that his fatal heart attack this past Saturday night was his fourth.  He was 75 years of age and worked until the day before he died.

I will miss seeing him shuffling up and down the road and sitting out on his front porch with his wife and daughter.  I hope that as I age I might manifest some of the strength and courage he portrayed.  I also selfishly hope that my own death and the death of my loved ones goes as quickly as this man.