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Different Flavours

There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy –so says Shakespeare’s Hamlet. I suppose as one ages, there is a tendency to become, if not indifferent, then less surprised at the plethora of variations that exist when they are sought, less amazed at the range of combinations just waiting for discovery. Like ice cream, the world does not come in only one flavour.

But perhaps it is not just the array that so bedazzles, but that we could ever have presumed to define what is normal in anything other than in a statistical way. A Bell Curve distribution confronts us wherever we look –reality is a spectrum no less than the rainbows we all profess to admire. So, then, why is it that in some domains we are less than accepting of mixtures, less tolerant of difference? Why is there the overwhelming need to categorize things as either normal or abnormal? Natural, or unnatural? A macrocosm of only us and them?

Is it just the benefit of retrospection that allows me to notice that no one of us is the same? Or a corollary of Age that lets me thank whatever gods may be that it is like that? That not only do we differ in our tastes and thoughts, but that the discrepancies in our appearance, if nothing else, allow us to recognize each other?

At any rate, I have to say that, as a retired gynaecologist, I was pleasantly surprised to rediscover a world I thought I had left behind –intersex. It was an article in the BBC News that caught my attention: http://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-39780214 In my day, however, we still hewed to the label ‘hermaphrodite’ if both male and female gonads were present, or even more insensitively, to something like ‘disorders of sex development’, with the medical community taking it upon itself to assign and surgically ‘correct’ the anatomical features at variance with some of the more prominent features of the melange. All this often before the person was able to decide whether or not to identify with either or both traditional sexes. I don’t for a moment believe that this was done malevolently, however, and I think we have to be careful not to apply current sensitivities to another era. Historical revisionism is always a temptation…

But the spectrum of variation is so wide in both anatomy and physiology, not to mention time of discovery, that assignation of gendered roles is fraught. For some, the worry has been that of acceptance –acceptance of any divergent anatomy, any dissonance, by society at large, but also acceptance by the individual themselves (even pronouns become problematic –assigned as they usually are by gender).

It is common nowadays (UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights) to use the (hopefully) neutral term of intersex to define people who ‘are born with sex characteristics (including genitals, gonads and chromosome patterns) that do not fit typical binary notions of male or female bodies. Intersex is an umbrella term used to describe a wide range of natural bodily variations. In some cases, intersex traits are visible at birth while in others, they are not apparent until puberty. Some chromosomal intersex variations may not be physically apparent at all.’

Of course attitudes are as disparate as societies themselves. Not all have been as tolerant or accepting of difference as one might hope. The BBC article, for example, describes the attitude in some rural areas in Kenya that a baby born with ambiguous genitalia should be killed. ‘Childbirth is changing in Kenya. Increasingly, mothers are giving birth in hospitals, rather than in the village. But not so long ago the use of traditional birth attendants was the norm, and there was a tacit assumption about how to deal with intersex babies. “They used to kill them,” explains Seline Okiki, chairperson of the Ten Beloved Sisters, a group of traditional birth attendants, also from western Kenya. “If an intersex baby was born, automatically it was seen as a curse and that baby was not allowed to live. It was expected that the traditional birth attendant would kill the child and tell the mother her baby was stillborn.”’ The article goes on to say that ‘In the Luo language, there was even a euphemism for how the baby was killed. Traditional birth attendants would say that they had “broken the sweet potato”. This meant they had used a hard sweet potato to damage the baby’s delicate skull.’

‘Although there are no reliable statistics on how many Kenyans are intersex, doctors believe the rate is the same as in other countries – about 1.7% of the population.’ But the thrust of the article was really to discuss how  Zainab, a midwife in rural western Kenya defied a father’s demand that she kill his newborn baby because it was intersex. She secretly adopted the baby –and indeed, even a second one a couple of years later. ‘In Zainab’s community, and in many others in Kenya, an intersex baby is seen as a bad omen, bringing a curse upon its family and neighbours. By adopting the child, Zainab flouted traditional beliefs and risked being blamed for any misfortune.’ But she represents a slow, but nonetheless steady change in attitudes in rural Kenya.

‘These days, the Ten Beloved Sisters leave delivering babies to hospital midwives. Instead, they support expectant and new mothers and raise awareness about HIV transmission. But in more remote areas, where hospitals are hard to reach, traditional birth attendants still deliver babies the old-fashioned way and the Ten Beloved Sisters believe infanticide still happens.’ But, ‘It is hidden. Not open as it was before’.

I suppose it is progress… No, it is progress –however slow, and frustrating the pace may be, as long as there are people like Zainab there is hope. But it still leaves me shaking my head.

For some reason Robert Frost’s poem, The Road Not Taken, springs to mind, in a paraphrase of its last verse: I shall be telling this with a sigh somewhere ages and ages hence: two roads diverged in a yellow wood and she, she took the one less traveled by, and that has made all the difference…

Please.

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Blow, Blow, Thou Winter Wind

There is a time, a dark time, when normal daylight thoughts are banished. A time when what remains are skeletal shadows, atavistic remnants of ancestral fears, unbidden fragments of anchorless dread which in the fullness of a sunlit day, are sheer cotton. -translucent at their best. It is when doors are left ajar and watchmen sleep. It is a time when filtering is impossible, and  vetting unreliable. It is the time of night when even the moon is asleep, or hiding…

And normally, so am I, but age and diet sometimes conspire to rearrange diurnal rhythms –shuffle the deck- and if I allow the shards of my imagination any attempts to organize unsupervised, the resultant patterns are not ones I would recognize in the light. Nor accept. It is an existential angst, a dark time of the soul.

A few weeks ago, I awoke sweating, and in the nocturnal silence of a moonless night, seemed trapped in an airless blanket of dread. I couldn’t see, and everything around me was still. Unmoving. Mute. If it had been preceded by a dream, I couldn’t remember it; all was numbed by the intensity of the terror, and I was helpless in the current swirling noiselessly around me. Suddenly, the sure and certain knowledge that I would be blinded from complications of impending cataract surgery gripped me like the jaws of an unseen, unexpected predator, and the ensuing silence convinced me of the extent of my coeval deafness. I was, and would be for all time, trapped in a silent darkness -solitary confinement on the authority of cast dice.

Of course the feeling passed, and my daylight remembrance of the event was suitably tailored in the sun, but the feeling lingered. What would it be like to be forever trapped in both silence and darkness, I wondered? What would be left of life? And for that matter, what would be the use of a gift I could no longer use? No longer experience… except as a living, solitary hell?

I suppose I’m being overly dramatic about a highly unlikely confluence of events, but even the possibility makes me shudder -makes me fearful about the fragile egg-shell in which I am encased, and the delicacy of the components it is charged with protecting. It is perhaps a wonder that we as a species –and more specifically, I as an individual- have survived at all, let alone this many years.

With this in the back of my mind, I am surprised I had not heard of Usher syndrome before, although perhaps my specialty of Obstetrics and Gynaecology quarantined me from an extremely rare condition that results in both blindness and deafness as well as a host of other non-gynaecologic impairments. But it was the subject of a BBC article that caught my eye and quickly brought back the horror of my panic attack: http://www.bbc.com/news/disability-38853237

It’s the story of a young girl, Molly, who ‘was born severely deaf and learned to lip read. But, at the age of 12, she was diagnosed with Usher syndrome, a degenerative disease which causes sight and hearing loss. Now aged 22 she has just 5% of sight left in one eye.’ The eye condition is called retinitis pigmentosa which progressively affects peripheral vision and results in night blindness as well.

And, as if deafness and blindness were not enough, she was also a teenager struggling like every other teen, to negotiate the serpentine interstices of social life. She did receive speech therapy, so communication was possible, but as she admits, ‘”I have to strategise everything I do. I am night-blind and so when I go out I would often ask to hang onto a friend. I will only go out with the close friends who do not make me feel a burden.”’

There are also mental health issues with Usher syndrome, not surprisingly, and Molly has a bipolar disease which can complicate her ability to cope with her disabilities at times. Also, ‘Her experiences are often dictated by the support she receives. While she says college restored her faith in humanity, she left university early due to a lack of assistance. “Lecturers didn’t have the time to understand my condition. Training and awareness sessions were set up for staff and nobody turned up. I just needed materials to be made accessible – large text, for lecturers to wear a radio aid that connected to my hearing aids – it’s as simple as that.”’

Some people are truly special, aren’t they? I suspect I would have sunk into an irremediable depression and yet ‘Molly has set up her own charity – The Molly Watt Trust – to support others with Usher and has spoken at prestigious institutions including Harvard University and the House of Commons [UK] outlining how capable people with Usher are.’

But perhaps the spirit soars, even in captivity –or maybe especially in captivity. I’m reminded of Victor Frankl’s book Man’s Search for Meaning and his thesis of ‘tragic optimism’: ‘How […] can life retain its potential meaning in spite of its tragic aspects? After all, “saying yes to life in spite of everything […] presupposes that life is potentially meaningful under any conditions, even those which are most miserable. And this in turn presupposes the human capacity to creatively turn life’s negative aspects into something positive or constructive. In other words, what matters is to make the best of any given situation. […]an optimism in the face of tragedy and in view of the human potential which at its best always allows for: turning suffering into a human achievement and accomplishment […] and deriving from life’s transitoriness an incentive to take responsible action.’

I suppose that it is difficult to judge a response like Molly’s from the outside, though; I suspect that true empathy –experiencing something through another’s mind- is nigh on impossible for most of us in her case. After all, it would require relinquishing all of that which we have come to accept as normal –sight for as many years as we have lived, and the sounds that have accompanied us through the years… An existence unimpeded -until now, perhaps- by significant impairment. The contrast between then and now would be overwhelming, I think.

And yet, as Helena says in Shakespeare’s All’s Well That Ends Well, ‘”Oft expectation fails, and most oft there where most it promises; and oft it hits where hope is coldest, and despair most fits.”’

Thank you Molly!

 

 

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The Temple of Clothes

I caught someone inspecting me the other day. Okay, it wasn’t an inspect exactly –it was more of a look… Well, maybe a glance, but it bothered me all the same. I could feel her eyes doing a quick little dance on me. They started on my mud-caked running shoes, before appraising the hem of my rumpled jeans where they had partaken of the same puddle. Then they scampered up over the tattered edge of my untucked sweatshirt before flitting around my face like barn-swallows looking for insects. I felt violated, even though it certainly wasn’t my first encounter with eyes.

Frankly, I hadn’t expected the examination on a trail. It’s true I am not at my best in the woods. I am an anticipatory dresser; my couture is seldom haute even on city streets, but when I have to be en garde for roots, wary of curiously moving bushes that extend onto the path, and on the lookout for riparian sinkholes, I like to move carefully and blend in. Not make myself more of a target than necessary. And looking shabby, and unostentatious is all part of it –I do not dress for passersby, although I often wave.

I heard them coming before I saw them –a little girl’s shrieks of delight as she ran along the trail ahead of her more cautious mother. The girl was tanned, perhaps six or seven years old, and dressed in jeans and a grey sweat shirt that seemed several sizes too large for her. Curly black hair that tumbled and bounced on her shoulders as she ran, the forest held no terrors for her.

Her mother, though, was wary, looking from one side to the other, and then at her child, uncertain just what to expect. She was wearing a dark-coloured cloak that partially covered her head, and was making her way slowly over some roots and stones on that part of the path when I first saw her.

It was the mother who noticed me first, and then grabbed her little daughter and sheltered her from my advance, lest I lunge at her. I suppose I should have admired her courage –I could have been a criminal for all she knew. Or maybe a fugitive bent on taking them hostage. I mean, you just can’t be sure with men in forests nowadays. Her eyes were lasers, bullets aimed squarely at my clothes, but she was in mother mode.

Her daughter, on the other hand, was in child mode. Curious mode. She whispered something to her mother, who instantly shook her head. “Stay away from him!” she must have said, because the little girl began to pout.

Finally, she broke free of her mother’s tether and walked a few paces towards me. We had all stopped to declare our territorial boundaries by then, and she knew precisely where to halt.

“You live here, mister?” she asked slowly, her expression flirting with wonder. I thought I could detect an accent, and suspected the girl might be encumbered by a beginner’s vocabulary.

I had to smile at the innocence of the question. I shook my head and lowered my eyes to disarm the mother who by now was hurrying to restrain her child before she got too close to me.

“Where you live?” the girl continued.

I shrugged. “In the city. How about you?”

The mother had caught up with her by then and I could hear the urgent whisper but the only word I recognized was a name: “Nattie!”

Nattie looked up at her with adult eyes, and shook herself free of her mother’s grasp once more.  She said something to her that I didn’t understand and then turned to face me again. I suppose I must have looked puzzled, because she then translated it for me. “’Why not speak?’ I say.” There was a big smile on her little face. “Can we be friend?” she added, glancing at her mother out of the corner of one eye.

I smiled and nodded, but her mother still looked worried –terrified, actually- so I decided not to move.

Nattie went into a sort of huddle with her mother and the two of them began to argue –or maybe it was just a discussion -I couldn’t tell. But eventually Nattie turned to face me, her eyes sparkling. “My  mother want your name…” And as she said this, her eyes sought refuge on the ground. “She say is important…” I could hear her mother say something again for Nattie to translate. “She is afraid for strangers, but I say her this is Canada, not Afghanistan.” She seemed pleased at being able to communicate so well.

“My name is Gary, Nattie,” I said, uncertain about whether or not to offer my hand to shake –especially under the still-suspicious stare of her mother.

But little Nattie came right up to me and extended her hand. “Nice to meet you Gary,” she said, as if she’d memorized the phrase for just such an occasion. Then her face puzzled up. “How you know my name?”

I smiled again to reassure them both. “I heard your mother say it, Nattie…”

She immediately turned to her mother and said something, and her mother laughed and waved at me. Nattie turned back to me with a little giggle. “I say you must speak little bit Pashto, Gary… She okay now.”

We all smiled and laughed, and I suddenly realized how similar we were -no matter how we dressed for the woods. There are no strangers on a trail.

 

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Let Virtue be as Wax

We are all products of our era, and often unbeknownced to us, our language is to blame. Words become signposts that reassure us that we know where we are headed. Where we came from. And yet they can be as lost as us –especially in the domain of sexuality. Even the word ‘sex’ itself –a seemingly self-defining concept- can be misleading. It’s origin, commonly attributed to the Latin verb secare –to divide, or cut- presumably to explain the physical difference between men and women, does not necessarily entrain the psychological divisions. Or behaviour.

To paraphrase Socrates at his trial, the unexamined word is not worth using. That ‘sex’ and ‘sexuality’ were so inconsonant I had not suspected. Sex, quite obviously, is a physical assignation; sexuality on the other hand, is the more psychologically -the more erotically- imbued preference. Indeed, the concept of heterosexuality did not exist as such in the past. Nor did homosexuality as an article by Brandon Ambrosino in the BBC News pointed out: http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20170315-the-invention-of-heterosexuality?ocid=ww.social.link.email  ‘One hundred years ago, people had a very different idea of what it means to be heterosexual.’ In fact, ‘The 1901 Dorland’s Medical Dictionary defined heterosexuality as an “abnormal or perverted appetite toward the opposite sex.” More than two decades later, in 1923, Merriam Webster’s dictionary similarly defined it as “morbid sexual passion for one of the opposite sex.” It wasn’t until 1934 that heterosexuality was graced with the meaning we’re familiar with today: “manifestation of sexual passion for one of the opposite sex; normal sexuality.”’ It would seem that ‘all of our sexualities are “just there”; that we don’t need an explanation for homosexuality just as we don’t need one for heterosexuality.’

‘“Sex has no history,” writes queer theorist David Halperin at the University of Michigan, because it’s “grounded in the functioning of the body.” Sexuality, on the other hand, precisely because it’s a “cultural production,” does have a history. In other words, while sex is something that appears hardwired into most species, the naming and categorizing of those acts, and those who practice those acts, is a historical phenomenon.’ Or, to put it another way, ‘[…]there have always been sexual instincts throughout the animal world (sex). But at a specific point on in time, humans attached meaning to these instincts (sexuality). When humans talk about heterosexuality, we’re talking about the second thing.’

And as well, ‘[…] sexual desire was situated within a larger context of procreative utility, an idea that was in keeping with the dominant sexual theories of the West. In the Western world, long before sex acts were separated into the categories hetero/homo, there was a different ruling binary: procreative or non-procreative.’ So sexuality is the desire and although the act may be categorized as procreative (different-genital intercourse), or non-procreative (it doesn’t matter), with erotic desire -in the past at least- the intention was not further categorized. It was the act that was noticed. The act that was labelled. ‘Something […] happened with heterosexuals, who, at the end of the 19th Century, went from merely being there to being known. “Prior to 1868, there were no heterosexuals,” writes Blank [the author of Straight: The Surprisingly Short History of Heterosexuality]. Neither were there homosexuals. It hadn’t yet occurred to humans that they might be “differentiated from one another by the kinds of love or sexual desire they experienced.” Sexual behaviours, of course, were identified and catalogued, and often times, forbidden. But the emphasis was always on the act, not the agent.’

And yet nowadays, we seem to require labels –as if the words were themselves expositors and not mere descriptors. ‘Debates about sexual orientation have tended to focus on a badly defined concept of “nature.” Because different sex intercourse generally results in the propagation of the species, we award it a special moral status. But “nature” doesn’t reveal to us our moral obligations – we are responsible for determining those, even when we aren’t aware we’re doing so.’

The difficulty of negotiating this landscape had occurred to me long before I read the article, however. A few years ago I walked over to a downtown bus stop, tired after having a rather long day at work. I’d left the office early, and I thought I was the only one there until I noticed two teenaged girls sitting on the little bench in the bus shelter in passionate embrace. I didn’t want to embarrass them, but I did feel the need of sitting down. Unfortunately they had both put their backpacks onto what little remained of the seat on either side, so I thought I’d wait until they’d finished, as it were. I kept glancing at them, but their fervour seemed unending and I eventually resigned myself to standing.

Suddenly a head disentangled itself from the osculatory machinations and stared at me accusingly.

“Got a problem, mister?” it asked, while a hand deftly extricated a piece of overly-chewed gum from its mouth.

I blushed, but did manage a conciliatory smile hoping to defuse the tension. “Sorry,” I said, when I could find the words, “I didn’t mean to disturb you, but I was hoping I could sit down…”

The other head opened its eyes at the sound of my voice and managed an embarrassed smile while convincing its hands to leave her friend and move the pack from the seat. “We didn’t mean… We didn’t know anybody was standing there…”

The first head dropped its eyes to the pavement in obeisance. “Yeah, I didn’t mean to be rude…” She picked her eyes up again and sent them softly to my face before she looked at her friend. “It’s just that, like, some people get… You know, like, upset when they see us kissing.”

“Yeah, as if we were, like, tards, or something,” the second girl said as they both moved over on the bench to make room for me.

The word  tards seemed to offend the first girl. “She just means that, like, some people go strange when they see us being so… involved, I guess.” She looked at her friend and whispered something I couldn’t hear. “Like we’re pervs, or whatever,” she continued, after elbowing her gently.

“Yeah, the other day, one old guy walking by even, like, spat on the sidewalk when he saw us cuddling.”

“Yeah, as if he never cuddled with his partner…” the first girl giggled.

“He probably never had a partner, Joni!”

Joni shook her head. “Maybe not, but I don’t think he was, like, jealous or anything, do you?”

Her friend smiled. “He was just looking for a label, sweetheart. Some are easier to find, I guess.”

Indeed.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Sometimes the Twain Should Meet

That we are, each of us, different is a given; that societies and the cultures they produce are different, is also self-evident. But that any one individual picked at random should be representative of that difference is another matter. We humans tend to be bicameral when and if it suits us. For example: my Asian friend is clever and devious, so most Asians are probably clever and devious (inductive reasoning); but at other times: everybody knows the French are rude, so perhaps I should not hire that French person (deductive reasoning).

How much credence can we put in either type of reasoning when it comes to judging world views of different cultures? There was an interesting article in BBC News about this a while ago: http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20170118-how-east-and-west-think-in-profoundly-different-ways  And as you can imagine, the issue is complex: ‘From the broad differences between East and West, to subtle variation between U.S. states, it is becoming increasingly clear that history, geography and culture can change how we all think, in subtle and surprising ways – right down to our visual perception. Our thinking may even have been shaped by the kinds of crops our ancestors used to farm, and a single river may mark the boundaries between two different cognitive styles.’

‘[…] our “social orientation” appears to spill over into more fundamental aspects of reasoning. People in more collectivist societies tend to be more ‘holistic’ in the way they think about problems, focusing more on the relationships and the context of the situation at hand, while people in individualistic societies tend to focus on separate elements, and to consider situations as fixed and unchanging.’

For example: ‘An eye-tracking study by Richard Nisbett at the University of Michigan found that participants from East Asia tend to spend more time looking around the background of an image – working out the context – whereas people in America tended to spend more time concentrating on the main focus of the picture.’ So, ‘[…] this narrow or diverse focus directly determines what we remember of a scene at a later date.’ But because things like these seem to be so widely dispersed in a population, is it a genetic difference, or merely a learned, culturally favoured response? ‘Alex Mesoudi at the University of Exeter recently profiled the thinking styles of British Bangladeshi families in East London. He found that within one generation, the children of immigrants had started to adopt some elements of the more individualistic outlook, and less holistic cognitive styles. Media use, in particular, tended to be the biggest predictor of the shift. “It tended to be more important than schooling in explaining that shift.”’

The article goes on to suggest several theories as to why the so-called East-West differences arose in the first place -everything from epidemics, to types of crops grown by different populations, but the problem still remains: the differences lie on a spectrum –‘broad trends across vast numbers of people’. And yet even so, especially in small interpersonal discussions –dare I say ‘arguments’?- we are very likely to use whatever generalization makes our point.

But, for many of us, that tends to preclude any semblance of critical analysis. It’s far easier to succumb to the prevailing opinion without questioning the reasons for its presence, let alone its validity. And it’s not just the so-called East/West divide –the potential seems to arise whenever any culture examines another. Perhaps an example that stands out clearly in contemporary life, is that of the hijab –the headscarf. Sometimes the objections are couched in religiosecular terms of course, but they often boil down to simple perspective –Weltanschauung.

Aaisha, a Muslim friend of mine recently decided to wear the hijab, and although there were no prohibitive policies or objections from her bosses at work, she encountered resistance from a source she had not anticipated –her co-workers.

Some of it was just petty –“Why would you want to cover your hair?” one woman said to her, adding “It’s so beautiful” no doubt to take the sting out of her rudeness. But the woman had never complimented her hair before, so it rang hollow to Aaisha.

And then she told me about another, a man who had just joined the company a few months before and who seemed quite uncomfortable with hijab and glared at her whenever he passed her desk. Finally, she decided to talk to him about it.

“You keep staring at me, Jeffrey,” she said, smiling confidently as she walked up to his desk. “I get the impression you’re unhappy about something.”

He acted surprised at first, and then his scowl returned and he pointed at her head. “You didn’t used to wear that scarf, Aaisha,” he said, trying to keep his tone friendly.

Her smile broadened and she pointed to his tie. “I don’t remember you wearing that tie before, either, Jeffrey.”

He blinked uncomprehendingly. “It’s just a tie. I wear different ties all the time…”

She didn’t skip a beat. “It’s just a hijab,” she said, obviously proud of the word and pointing to her head.. “And you may have noticed, I also wear different ones all the time…”

His eyes narrowed and his forehead wrinkled. “A tie is different, Aaisha…”

She waited for him to continue, but he seemed to think his answer was complete –and for him, it probably was. Finally, she decided to ask the obvious question. “Oh…?  And how is it different?”

He actually rolled his eyes at the stupidity of the question. “It’s what men are expected to wear to work.”

The smile never left her face and she pointed to another man at the next desk. “John never wears a tie…”

Jeffrey shrugged. “We’re different, that’s all… And anyway, I’m my own person.”

Aaisha stood there, for a moment, and then blinked. “And so am I, I guess…”

Jeffrey seemed surprised at her answer, then shook his head. “Nobody makes me wear the tie…”

At this point, Aaisha laughed. “And nobody makes me wear a hijab, Jeffrey.”

He didn’t seem to know how to react. “But… Well, how about your husband?”

She shook her head, still smiling. “I’m not married… And my father and brothers are still back in England -just in case you want to involve them,” she added with a laugh.

Jeffrey began to sense he was losing the argument. “It’s a family tradition -and also a society thing- Aaisha. My father always wore a tie to work –and his father before him…” But his voice was less confident.

Aisha sighed. “Should I tell you about my mother, and her sisters? They all wore the hijab back in London –and not because they were forced to, they’d be quick to tell you. They just felt more a part of the community wearing hijab, so it, too, was a society-thing as you called it…”

He blinked, but slowly. “Your society, Aaisha, not ours!”

The smile returned, and she nodded her head towards John again. “And what about John? Does he belong to another society, as well? We’re all immigrants, Jeff; we’re all other if you go back a generation or two. And thank god we don’t all have to dress the same,” she said, touching the sleeve of his fraying shirt with her hand and winking coyly at him.

And for the first time, he smiled at her.

by

Crybabying

I remember (sort of) my days in Elementary School, when one of the most devastating insults a little boy could receive was to be labelled a crybaby. I’m not sure why, really. Maybe it meant you didn’t fit in with the prevailing umwelt –with what you were supposed to be as a little boy- or maybe it was just a talisman raised to guard against the fear that despite its undesirability, it might be hiding in us all –even the accuser. Children are inherently superstitious, don’t you think?

It never occurred to me to wonder about the expression at the time, nor even later when I had children of my own. Babies cry, often too much, and perhaps more to the point, often at inconvenient times: during the nights. But I never suspected that it was sufficiently upsetting that it would transmute into folklore as a children’s curse. In fact, as childhood made way for my adult clothes, I didn’t think much about it at all -let alone as an imprecation- until I happened upon an article in the CBC News: http://www.cbc.ca/news/health/babies-crying-health-study-warwick-university-1.4052932 ‘Researchers at the University of Warwick conducted a meta-analysis of studies involving about 8,700 infants in countries including Canada, Germany, Denmark, Japan, Italy and the U.K.’ and guess what? ‘[…]babies in Canada, Britain, Italy and the Netherlands cry more than babies in other countries.’ And not only that, ‘On average, Canadian babies cried 30 minutes more than babies from other countries.’ Great! There goes our long held patriotic claim to be the ‘polite nation’ -the one usually definable by what we are not: (not American, not greedy, not pushy, not… Well, you get the point). ‘Canadian babies had some of the highest levels (peaking at three to four weeks at 34.1 per cent of infants), followed by the U.K. (peaking at one to two weeks at 28 per cent) and Italy (peaking at eight to nine weeks at 20.9 per cent).’ ‘Germany, Japan and Denmark had the least amount of crying and fussing babies.’ Damn.

Mind you, if you actually look at the article reported by the CBC:  http://www.jpeds.com/article/S0022-3476(17)30218-4/fulltext – s0070, ‘Overall, fuss/cry durations were high across the first 6 weeks of life, then reduced significantly over the following 6 weeks. All studies found a “universal” reduction in fuss/cry duration between 6 and 12 weeks of age.’ The reasons for the differences were not at all clear: ‘[…] we can only speculate on the reasons why there are country differences, in particular between Denmark and the rest of Europe and North America. These could range from economic conditions, such as less social inequality, to caretaking patterns such as responsiveness, carrying behavior and management in Denmark that have been shown to differ from the United Kingdom. However, there may also be population genetic differences, and the infants both inherit their parents’ genes and are reared by them (gene-environment correlation). […]Feeding type was a further moderator of fuss/cry duration. Bottle or mixed feeding was associated with reduced duration of fussing and crying or colic from 3-4 weeks of age onward. Switch in feeding type is one frequently adopted method by parents dealing with a crying baby and has been found to reduce crying regardless of what formula change is instituted, suggesting a placebo effect.’

Unfortunately, ‘[…]this is a review of studies in North America and parts of Europe with only 1 study from Japan. No studies from threshold or developing countries were available, but these would be needed to provide adequate feedback to parents on other continents. Feeding type information was also not available for some studies.’

And what about ‘colic’ the catch-all word for persistent crying? ‘The most widely used definition for colic is the “Rule of Three’s”: an infant is considered to have colic if the infant fusses or cries for >3 hours, >3 days per week, for >3 weeks.’ Unfortunately it is, apparently, often a diagnosis of despair with no readily identifiable cause. Indeed, ‘The rapid developmental change in fuss/cry duration has implications for treatment and interpretation of treatment studies. Colic is the extreme of normal fuss/cry behavior, self-limiting, and, thus, the vast majority will spontaneously remit. Adequate management of fussing and crying in the first 3 months rather than treatment may be required. However, if excessive fuss/cry persists beyond the first 3 months, there is increasing evidence that this may indicate regulatory problems with adverse consequences for future development and may require treatment.’

But, bringing it back to Canada, my terre natale, ‘Psychology professor Dieter Wolke, lead author of the study, says Canadian parents need not worry. […] He pointed out that babies in Canada peaked around the three-four week mark but fell into a more normal range around week six.’ …Damned by faint praise again…

And what about Germany, Japan and Denmark? Especially Denmark –why does it always seem to win everything? ‘”In Denmark, it seems to be they’re more relaxed about it,” Wolke said. “They might have a little bit more support because of maternity and paternity laws … the father in the first few weeks can stay at home, too.” It’s worth noting that Denmark regularly falls at or near the top of the “best countries to live in” lists. Wolke speculates that this may foster a population that feels good about itself, and those emotions can transfer to the baby.’

Uhmm, excuse me! ‘”Babies are already very different in how much they cry in the first weeks of life,” the researchers said. “There are large but normal variations”’. So let’s not dump on les petits Canadiens, eh? It’s a squeaky wheel that gets the grease, after all. Right? …I mean that’s right isn’t it…?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

by

Methought I heard a voice cry Sleep No More.

 

I have always had a healthy respect for fire. I suppose this is not unusual, although nowadays fire is not a regular component of our daily lives, so its presence awakens something that alternates between fascination and fear. Something atavistic. Fire –especially unexpected fire- can produce panic; smoke –also if unexpected, or inexplicable- can have the same effect. Both are worthy of our attention, both should command our respect, our search for the source.

That’s why smoke detectors are so valuable. The two commonest detection systems would seem to be either ionization and/or photoelectric –the former, ionization, grew from an attempt in the late 1930ies to detect poison gas, but the advance of the technology did not make it widely available –or affordable- until the 1970ies. The optical variety matured around the same time.

The purpose of both smoke and heat detectors, as we all know, is to alert us to the presence of the potential danger by activating some form of alarm –something that either by sheer volume or unpleasant pitch will demand action. It should arouse us if we are asleep, or get us out of our chairs if we are not. It should be audible over whatever other sounds are present in the environment, and sufficiently different from them to concern us. Usually, smoke alarms have a frequency of around 3000-3200 Hz and need to reach 85 decibels at 3 metres.

Anybody who has ever heard their smoke alarm sounding when the toast burns in the kitchen can attest to the discomfort this incites. It is piercing and –at least for the hearing population- impossible to ignore. Enough to wake the dead, as my mother used to say -but apparently not the child: http://www.bbc.com/news/health-38918056  As the BBC article reports, ‘Researchers at Dundee say there are several theories they were exploring as to why standard smoke alarms may not wake children.’ One, however, has led to an interesting innovation. ‘Rodney Mountain, from the University’s School of Medicine, said: “Children’s hearing ability, brain function, sleep patterns and stage of brain development is very different to adults. We are programmed to respond to human voices warning of danger, such as a mother’s voice shouting to warn a child. Children are not born pre-programmed for our modern world of danger warning sounds from digital beeps and sirens -they have to learn, recognise and interpret these sounds.”’

So, the researchers wondered whether the sound of a woman’s voice –a mother surrogate, essentially- might trigger a child’s arousal more effectively. ‘Research by Dundee University and Derbyshire Fire and Rescue found that of 34 children tested, 27 repeatedly slept through smoke detector alarms. They have developed an alarm with a lower pitch and a woman’s voice, which issues a warning: “Wake up, the house is on fire.”’ And, instead of the terrifyingly strident, ear-piercing pitch, ‘the prototype has a lower pitch of 520Hz, to which young children are more likely to respond.’

Of course, this approach is still in its experimental phase and ‘The researchers said it was important the study did not undermine the need for every home to be fitted with smoke alarms, as these will wake adults and had a proven record in saving lives.’

Several weeks after reading this article, I happened to be over for dinner at the house of an old friend. We were sitting in the living room enjoying a glass of wine before eating when the smoke alarm suddenly activated. Apparently some grease on the stove had started to smoke.

“Well, the alarm did its job, didn’t it?” she said, laughing and filling up my glass again when she returned. “It’s amazing how annoying they are. You can’t ignore the alarm –you just can’t!”

I chuckled and told her about the BBC article I’d read about the alarm failing to rouse children.

The smile never left her face even when she had another a sip of her wine, but I could tell she was still thinking about what I’d said. “You know, that reminds me of something that happened when my son Jeremy was still around two years old…” She closed her eyes for a moment, savouring the memory. “We were over at my father’s cabin at the lake. Jeremy loved it there…” Her smile grew even larger and transformed her face. “It was so different from the city where we lived. Everything was new to him –the birds, the trees, the lake with Grampa’s little wooden rowing boat… He was usually so tired, it was no trouble getting him to go to bed at night. He slept in a little crib in my room, and rarely stirred even when I eventually came in to go to bed at night.

“Anyway one morning dad and I were sitting in the kitchen enjoying a cup of coffee while Jeremy was still asleep. He’d just installed a new smoke alarm because he used the fireplace a lot at night and I told him I was worried about the dangers of fire in a wooden cabin. I suppose he’d put it too close to the counter, or something, because when our toast began to burn, suddenly the alarm went off. The noise was so loud and high pitched it was painful and I had to cover my ears. I remember my heart started pounding and I actually felt faint.

“’The man at the store told me it’d wake me from a coma,’ dad said once he’d turned it off. ‘I’m surprised Jeremy isn’t crying.’

“Or out here,” I said. “Your crib is so low to the ground, I took the side off it so he could get out if he wanted.

“I went in to check on him right away; I’d left the bedroom door partially open when I’d gone into the kitchen, but he was still lying motionless in the crib like he does when he’s really asleep. I even remember standing at the door and watching him for a while –he was so adorable when he was sleeping…” She sighed and had another sip of her wine.

“I could see the gentle rising of his chest as he slept, so I knew he was okay. Dad started calling me from the kitchen to tell me my burnt toast was getting cold, and I can recall speaking Jeremy’s name in a normal tone of voice, telling him to wake up. Suddenly his eyes flickered then opened and a big warm smile filled his face…”

Martha turned her head to look at me, her eyes little sparrows flitting from cheek to nose and hovering over my face trying to decide where to land. “Do you think that’s what they were describing in the article?”

I smiled and added a tiny shrug. “A mother’s voice is so important, isn’t it?” I said, but realized as soon as the words emerged that it wasn’t a particularly profound observation.

She nodded her head and laughed. “Curious how my voice could wake him as a child but not as a teenager.”

“Who starves the ears she feeds and makes them hungry, the more she gives them speech…”

“Pardon me?” she said, giggling with the wine.

I enlarged the shrug. “Just a fragment of Shakespeare,” I said. “It means that noise isn’t as valuable as words… I’ve always wanted to use that quote.” I glanced at my own wine and smiled.