Not the BEER!

Before we had children, we got to have Sunday afternoon naps. (This might be partly how we got children.)

When our children were little, my husband and I had all the asparagus to ourselves. We also got to keep all the artichoke hearts, and we got to watch (uninterrupted and unaccompanied) all the most interesting movies, use the clothes washer and dryer whenever we wanted to and find only our own projects in those machines any time, day or night, and the cars were always ready for us at our most capricious whims. We could, in fact, share just the one car and keep the car seats in it all the time.

That was then, this is now.

Now, the naps, the cars, the asparagus, the artichoke hearts, the best movies, and the laundry room are never a sure thing. Over the years we have added to that list: the shower, the kitchen and all cooking materials and equipment, the most enjoyable books, the ice cream, and now ... the beer!

Don't you think that's the limit? I think that if it is no longer possible to count on one's beer being in the refrigerator when one comes home from a long day of work, then it is time to revise one's roommate list. Make some deletions and revisions. It has to be some kind of signal - a road sign or some kind of borderline in the family's development. Like a safety yellow square on a post - it says, "Adults in Roadway - Place Beer at Back of Fridge."

A few years ago, I worked as a substitute clerk at the local library. This is a great job. (I want it back - one of these days, I really want to work there again.) The local library is a PUBLIC library. The word "public" means that you can please some of the patrons some of the time, but you can never please all of the patrons. There will always be someone who thinks that the Christmas section is too religious for the public library, and there will always be people who think that the children should be barred from the adult books. There are pinched looking mothers who object to talking animals in picture books. There are desperate looking guys who have obviously just come from their garages, who look like they might burst into tears when you tell them that the library got rid of the car repair manuals that are that old. It's just not possible to make everyone happy.

The biggest quarrel, though, came about because of the big, scary, threatening, doom of all civilization waiting to happen .... the Public Library's Internet. (dun-dun-dunnnnn......) Fort Vancouver Regional Library's eventual decision regarding the difference between children and adults and the use of the web computers is a very sensible decision. But while it was being hammered out (with sparks flying in every direction), there were parents nearing strokes and aneurysms who would come to the front counter to tell us how they felt about the PORN on the COMPUTER (as if we could somehow make it disappear if only we were the right kind of community servants - it did not seem to occur to these people that the rest of the library was just as "dangerous" and needed just as much personal supervision from them - as parents - you know, the bigger people responsible for the littler people?)

I did not usually have to field these fly balls - I was a lowly sub. But I got one once. She appealed to me as a mother. She appealed to me as a library employee. She appealed to me as a member of the local community. And she was mad! Before that little exchange I had not fully articulated my own position in things like this, but while she was ranting and pleading and making her statement, it came to me. I told the angry woman that I am a mother too, and that I did not want the library or anyone else to parent my children. That was my job.

And honest to goodness, I tell you that I, personally, moi, as the Mom of the House, I never neared vessel-bursting anxiety when it came to my own children using the web either at home or unsupervised at the library. And there's a reason for that. With this issue, as with every other issue, I - we - worked with a kind of obsession at making sure the children were allowed to handle their own worlds. I'm not an idiot - I don't think all things are okay for all ages of all people. There are lots of things kids can't handle when they're little. But that is only because they do not yet have a wide enough perspective on the world until they grow tall enough to see the wider distances. It is not because the developing human is somehow a being less able to be human than I am. Thus, it is the job of the bigger people to keep a lookout, but to also allow the littler people to handle everything they can see from their more limited viewpoint.

Computer use at home started out entirely in the context of the rest of the family -- like asparagus and movies and riding in the car. And yes, there were a couple of Learning Moments for the web - just like there were for asparagus and movies and riding in the car. But "if they're old enough to ask, they're old enough for an answer," and we just dealt with it.

And we kept dealing with it.

We handled each thing as it came up. We Kept Clam (ever eat at Ivar's in Seattle? That's their thing - "Keep Clam." I love Seattle.) And while we were looking at dealing with it - whatever it happened to be at the time - those little skibers grew up! Literally and figuratively all three of those kids can see more than I can now, from up there, where they tower above me in a lot of ways. And I've gotten used to the fact that they know more music than I do. And I'm adjusted to their wide and shocking tastes in food - ethnic foods - Thai and Moroccan and Japanese, but Steve doesn't like Chinese very much, and John will never be a meat and potatoes guy. I will share my asparagus with them, and not complain very much. I don't care if they eat all the ice cream - they're just saving me from myself, I figure. And I will loan them my car if their own cars are not working.

But the beer? Really?

When my husband came home on Monday night, he looked in the fridge. But he was the last one home - others had been there before him.
"We can't afford to buy beer at THIS rate!"
"So say something to them - I'm not the one drinking it while you're at work."
"Don't have to." He closes the fridge. "I just won't buy it to bring home. We'll just drink our beer down at Walking Man. It's not more expensive, and that way we don't have to share." (It occurs to me again that the Woman thinks of something to say and the Man thinks of something to do so that he will not require something to say.)

So here we are. Banished to the brew pub. Admittedly, this takes care of the problem - several problems, actually. We won't drink it fast enough to get fat if we have to go elsewhere to get it. We can control the flow (ha!) by buying it only on weekends or something like that. The one who's legal is too cheap to spend his own money for family beer, and the other one isn't allowed to buy his own yet. (Their rants about the legal drinking age in other countries would take up more room than I want to spend on it.)

This is why we have to go on vacation. That's the only time we get to eat our own asparagus and experience inventive brewing as independent adults. And when we're done, we can go back to the hotel and take a nap.