Pink Warrior Boy?

Today I faced one of my first true parenting dilemmas-- and one of the first times my partner and I have disagreed on a decision. I signed my eldest son, Carston, up for town soccer where he will play on a U4 team. He needs cleats and shin guards for the first time so we headed to a sporting goods store to get him sized and outfitted.

After relaying Carston's street shoe size the salesman found the corresponding box of Umbro cleats to try on. That box happened to hold hot pink cleats. Which happened to fit.

Now you may recall Carston's favorite color has long been purple. He has recently expanded his "favorite" palette so that he ranks his fave colors in the following manner: "purple, pink, and blue." So after these shoes fit and Mr. Eddy of Dick's went to get him neon green shoes in the same size, Carston obviously said he wanted the pink ones. I hesitated for a second, but privately thought the neon green option was pretty heinous, so decided the pink ones were fine.

Next up were shin guards. This time Mr. Eddy used the standard black-sock covered ones for size. After finding a set that worked we thought we were done. But Carston then pointed out he could get those in hot pink as well to "match." For some reason, this suddenly struck me as a lot of hot pink.

Look, I am very open on this, but even I have my limits. Why? I've suddenly started worrying that all those pink and purple might lead to some teasing. In many ways Carston is even more "boy" than he was a year ago. Just walk into our house to see superhero detritus of shields, swords, and other fighting gear all over...

When he asked for purple shoes for back-to-school, and specifically to wear them on his first day of his new school this week (where one of the school colors is purple), I was fine with it and even crossed to the girls' shoes at Stride Rite to make that happen. But when he then wanted "sparkly pink and purple shoes" I drew my own line. Why? That teasing worry. It wasn't aesthetic, because I know if he were a girl I would have gotten the sparkly ones.

But a new neighbor was there at Dick's (who has sons and a daughter) and she commented that times have changed and it's ok, so we went with the Pepto Bismal-pink shin guards and socks. Of course, we even got the purple ball.

As we were walking back to the car Carston commented, "Mommy, I'm glad you brought me because Daddy wouldn't have let me get the pink stuff." Well, that's when I started to get worried...

Sure enough when we got home Carston proudly showed off his new gear. Once he was up in his room my husband then informed me that he would have just said that the pink ones weren't an option for his team. But I have this policy about not fibbing to my kids so that wouldn't fly with me.

The thing is that just as we don't want girls to think looking pretty is their thing and not being a computer scientist isn't, I don't want boys to think pink can't be their thing and being a car mechanic automatically is their domain. But when I coined the term "pink warrior girls" specifically about youth soccer players who happen to be girls, I didn't see a good male analogue.

Can Carston and other boys growing up today fight with pink and purple swords? It seems that things, even in soccer, are moving in that direction. I hope that if someone does comment on his pink shoes he can simply say, "Pink isn't just for girls, nothing is just for girls or just for boys." Or, I'll have to inform him that apparently a lot of male professional players now wear pink cleats, among other function options, per the paper of record.  [And who knew black cleats used to be made out of KANGAROO leather?! Learn something new every day.]

This seemed to assuage my partner, though I might just have to exchange  those pink shin guards for reasons solely related to TOO MUCH pink. If my parenting philosophy is captured by the phrase, "everything in moderation," then I think pink cleats and a purple/pink ball is quite enough, no?

How would you handle this situation, or how have you handled it?

Veronica Mars: The Girl Who Gets Me Through Post-Op Periods

10 years ago I discovered Veronica Mars.

At the height of my obsession with Season 1 of the show, I was simultaneously recovering from major jaw surgery (which also necessitated another minor surgery after the crazy complication of a loose screw!) and studying for my General exams for my PhD in Sociology. That meant I was pretty home-bound, and, yes, lonely. Veronica Mars gave me not only something to look forward to each week (these were pre-DVR days so I literally had a date to watch the live show each week) but a community to connect with in the form of Television Without Pity. When I say there were days I thought I saw Logan Echolls' yellow car driving around New Jersey, you might get a hint of my obsession.

So why did I love VM so much? The snappy dialogue was a big part of it-- the witty way you'd love to talk on a daily basis was how Veronica, Logan, Weevil, et al spoke. I also loved how interwoven the narrative threads were, with weekly mystery characters coming back when it came to the series-long mysteries. And TWoP sometimes helped me appreciate what the writers had done even more. Oh, and of course, the ROMANCE. LoVe not only gave me my first relationship acronym but my first scream-at-the-screen reactions (balcony kiss, anyone?!). When I say Veronica Mars was the first show I ever loved in an epic way, I mean it.

But that's why anyone might appreciate the show. I think for me personally I liked that Veronica was essentially a very smart, tricked-out armchair sociologist (with a taser, natch). Additionally the actress who played her, Kristen Bell, was basically my age from a similar suburb of Detroit where I was from, so I had this weird parallel-lives interest as well.

I religiously watched Season 2, and while I liked it, in the end it can't compare to the highs and shocks of Season 1 (I think this is true for most people, but it was especially true for me since I had passed my exams and was recovered from surgery). Although the Season 2 finale is pretty incredible TV... By Season 3 I was in the thick of both my dissertation fieldwork and my own romantic crisis and I missed several episodes. It was an unsatisfying conclusion to what had been a torrid love affair.

When the now record-setting Kickstarter campaign launched I donated the first day. I was pregnant for the second time and knew I likely wouldn't be getting to a theater anytime soon, so I made sure to give enough to get the DVD mailed to me. I somehow thought I'd have postpartum time to (re)watch the three seasons on DVD; postpartum period#2 (and I imagine any subsequent ones) is much busier than the first, so that fell by the wayside...

About a year later, after finishing all seven seasons of West Wing with my husband, I suggested Veronica Mars. It was hard to describe the show that had meant so much to me and it was a bit of a tough sell when I described it as, "Well, it's about a high school girl who happens to be a teenage detective and she's really, really smart." But hubby agreed and began requesting episodes every night of what he (in a Logan Echolls-tone) called, "TEENAGE DETECTIVE!" [complete with jazz hands]

We got through half of the first season before we moved in early June, upending our lives across state lines. We then watched a few more episodes before I had surgery in early July. And that's when Veronica came back into my life in a bigger way. While I sat on the couch and he got me my meals we binge-finished Season 1 (staying up late when I should have been asleep recovering!). We did the same thing for Season 2 and he loved how I cheered when Duncan left and pointed out all the Beaver stuff going back to Season 1. I had more fun with Season 3, especially picking out the guest stars who would go on to become bigger stars-- like Matt Czuchry and Diana Argon.  At least this time the unsatisfying end to Season 3 was assuaged with the MOVIE (and I finally watched the FBI alterna-Season 4 and am glad the movie went in another direction).

The movie is basically every fan's fantasy. I say basically because while I digged it and it made me smile in a nostalgic way (I especially appreciated the whole "teen PI" narration riff at the beginning given my husband's interpretation) it didn't move the character Veronica forward. It's a smart reunion, but more like a party in many dimensions.

Cue the books! As I readily admit more than anything I am a book person. I like a good TV show for sure, but books have always been my thing. Movies not so much, and especially at this moment in my life (1.5 hours is a long time to commit when you have a a toddler and a preschooler!). The day after I watched the Veronica Mars movie in July I gulped down The Thousand Dollar Tan Line. (I was still convalescing!) It's known that Mars creator Rob Thomas started conceiving of Veronica as a book character so it's not surprising the whole enterprise has gone this route.

First of all, I can't recall the last time  a BOOK made me gasp aloud. But when (spoiler!) Lianne Mars reappears, I did just that. Because I am such a book person I always have an idea in my own head of what characters look or sound like, but because VM people are so a part of me I read the book with them in mind, which was a new and fun experience (complete with intonation). I think it was also wise to keep Logan away in this first one, but I was thrilled with his return in book 2, Mr. Kiss and Tell.

Two quibbles with Mr. Kiss and Tell. 1) I can't believe Graham (speaking of, how many TWoP-ers would have killed for this noir job?!) and Thomas skipped over the fact that Mac's old college boyfriend was the guy who exposed V to the porn site. No mention of their break-up? Also, let's introduce some new people.Not everyone only ever hangs with their high school crew and Leo as love interest can go away now please and Mac and Wallace can get some new steadies... I'm guessing in Book 3 we get more on who attacked Keith in the movie. I loved the pace of 2, the drudgery of detective work, and that thankfully Veronica did not end up in any mortal danger.

Given that the books are canon (I was gleeful that I got to explain a term to my know-it-all husband...) I wonder how many will come out before another potential movie gets funded? Or is this the way forward now? And these books defy categorization for me, falling somewhere between mystery/fan fic/YA.  All things I generally love though, so me and my Kindle don't care!

After this latest surgery (hopefully my last for another decade!) these books woke my mind up again. They got me blogging again for the first time since May. And now that I am moved and recovered, I plan to blog personal things like this at least once a month, in addition to my other writings.

If you never watched Veronica Mars I'm impressed if you made it to the end here, and perhaps I've convinced you that, "A long time ago, we used to be friends..."

How had I never before read The Blue Jay's Dance?

Louise Erdrich's The Blue Jay's Dance is one of those books that it seems like I've always known about. And yet I'd never read it.

When I received Daisy Florin's lyrical, moving review of the book (published today at Brain, Child!) I knew I had to read it. Florin's summary and the ways in which she intertwined the language and story with her own life-- really part of the message of Blue Jay's Dance-- pushed me over the edge.

And boy am I glad it did. My pink highlighter [confession: the same color and brand for the past 10+ years!] was working in overdrive.

Some of my favorites:

• "Writing is reflective and living is active—the two collide in the tumultuous business of caring for babies.”
• "It requires no thought at all for me to form and fix a whole other person. First she is nothing, then she is growing and dividing at such a rate I think I’ll drop… Whatever else I do, when it comes to pregnancy I am my physical self first, as are all of us women… Still, our bodies are rounded vases of skin and bones and blood that seem impossibly engineered for birth… I fear I’ve made a ship inside a bottle. I’ll have to break. I’m not me.”
• This one was a total gasp-worth passage for me: "Although every birth is a story, there are only so many outcomes possible. Birth is dictated to the consciousness by the conscious body. There are certain frustrations in approaching such an event, a drama in which the body stars and not the fiction-making mind. In a certain way, I’m jealous. I want to control the tale.”
• And one of Florin's favorites as well: "Growing, bearing, mothering or fathering, supporting, and at last letting go of an infant is a powerful and mundane creative act that rapturously sucks up whole chunks of life.

So much resonated with the past few years of my life. For instance, "I scratch messages on the envelopes of letters I can’t answer, in the margins of books I’m too tired to review.” (!) Also that Erdrich ate matzos while pregnant (I am addicted), that she went electric curlers in her hair when she went into labor (I took a shower, shaved my legs, used STEAM rollers, and went in full make-up both times after my water broke), and her friendly relationship with her mail carrier (after my boys were born we really got on first name turns as he was at my door almost every day).

I would have loved Erdrich's language even before I had my babies, but being out of the newborn stage (no more lap baby for me, and I haven't had one now for some time-- sob) but still near it makes it resonate so much more for me. The idea of the unfolding origami children who could no longer fit inside of me, the biological zero, the notion that women don't know how strong they are until they push out their babies. It.all.hit.so.close.to.home.

Now I just need to hold on to the last wilderness, according to Erdrich, of sleep. But books like Erdrich's keep me up late at night thinking...

Jump! Bigger than the ropes

I can now say that thanks to a Lifetime reality show something I wrote is a little bit less true. The four-episode Jump! about a double dutch team in New Jersey showed me that jump-roping has more to do with teamwork than I previously thought.

In Chapter 1 of Playing to Win I detail the historical evolution of competitive children's activities. I write, "By the 1960s more adults had become involved in these organizations, especially parents. Parents and kids spent time together at practices for sports that were part of a national structure: Biddy basketball, Pee Wee hockey, and Pop Warner football. Even nonteam sports were growing and developing their own formal, national-level organizations run by adults. For example, Double Dutch jump-roping started on playgrounds in the 1930s; in 1975 the American Double Dutch League was formed to set formal rules and sponsor competitions."

While the facts are true (many of which I took from Howard Chudacoff's 2007 book Children at Play: An American History, in Chapter 5), I learned by watching the Floyd Little team compete that double dutch is actually an "extreme sport for teamwork." That's because the turners and jumpers have to work together and communicate in order to succeed. That communication occurs not just in terms of their bodies, but often their language as they call out commands and counts to one another.

I learned a bit about double dutch by watching Jump!, but I was also left with many questions.

In many ways Jump! is similar to Bring It! (though I still have love for the show, it got very stale and formulaic this past season). Beyond the obvious-- that both activities are portrayed as being primarily made up of African-American girls who sport t-shirts with unique nicknames on them-- the series showcase a style of athletic dance that many outside of the subcultures don't know much about. As I wrote that I wasn't sure about "technique" in majorette dance, I don't know much about double dutch technique beyond the obvious "Don't step on the rope!" Because double dutch is difficult I would have loved to learn how both speed and tricks are taught, especially the timing. How much cardio do the jumpers do to prepare for two minutes of speed rounds? We primarily saw two categories of competition on the show, but are there others? And what about team sizes? Much more to mine here beyond the four episodes and the inherent drama of moms, daughters, coaches, and competition.

Some other observations:

*Teams wear uniforms for competitions, but no sparkles, which seems deliberate. Avoiding a non-athletic label? (Note that in NYC double dutch is considered a varsity sport) Given that I was surprised there isn't an accepted "double dutch" shoe or sneaker. How do competitors decide what shoes they like best? Learn to tie knots in their shoes that they are sure won't come out while jumping?

*Loved that they showed a girl (and her mom) wearing hijabs. Unlike many other girls' activities the lack of uniformity in dress and appearance may make this a more welcoming option? On a similar note, how much thought goes into hair styles when considering jumping; are braids heavier, no big hair, etc.?!

*As populations have migrated out of urban settings, has double dutch (originally a street game so strongly associated with cities) also migrated? We only saw urban teams on the show; do they dominate or is there an inequality we weren't shown?

*If Lifetime picks up this series for a second season they will have lots of drama to mine with Coach Quaniee daughter being on the team, and being one of the best. The old rivalries angle was also interesting. I assume the majority of coaches were themselves competitive jumpers in the day? If so, how many turners go on to coach?

*I wonder if Coaches Quaniee and Layla got their public school teaching jobs back?

This is the most I have seen since Disney made a 2007 movie called Jump In! starring Keke Palmer and Corbin Bleu. I'm wondering if it will spark a revival, especially given the potential health benefits. The combination of rhythm, dance, athleticism, artistic expression, teamwork yet individual distinction, and competition make it an appealing activity for both kids and adults interested in childhood well-being, including doctors, teachers and parents.

I for one would jump at the opportunity (yes, pun intended) to learn more about this world and hope someone can answer some of my questions!

A Life That's Good/You're So Beautiful: Thoughts on Empire and Nashville

I've never been a big live music person; in fact, I can probably count on my hands the number of concerts I have attended. That said I *love* musicals, which helps explain why I enjoy watching ABC's Nashville and Fox's Empire (though I was late to the game on this one and recently binge-watched the first season).

In many ways both shows are essentially the same-- plot lines include guns, sex, disease, jail, drugs, homosexuality, music production, musical sabotage, etc. Both also address topics usually untouched in their respective communities, like mental illness and homosexuality. They also boast casts that are overwhelmingly white and overwhelmingly black (can you guess which is which?!).

They are soap operas in the true sense of the word, despite airing in prime time. But while Nashville is a soap opera in the tradition of Dallas or ER (down to the everyone sleeping with everyone they already know phenomenon), Empire has elevated the genre with a combination of Shakespeare, The Godfather, and Bravo camp (can't you just picture Cookie at a Real Housewives reunion being interviewed by Andy Cohen?!).

As a sociologist of culture one of the things I most appreciate about both shows is the behind-the-scenes element of music creation (though of course this is still over-simplified). You get a taste of the Art World (in the Beckerian sense) that goes into producing a song including writers, performers, musicians, producers and how they interact with not just machines and technology but also business. Time is particularly fluid in both shows-- sometimes it seems as if a song is created and recorded in a day, along with a concert or performance-- and that almost certainly is not true to life, and at times it doesn't even work well to dramatic effect. Nonetheless Nashville and Empire hopefully give young kids other types of musical aspirations.

The shows have also offered platforms for talented, yet unknown, performers to showcase their triple threat skills. Empire in particular has created starring roles for relative unknowns-- though with some other high profile actors and guest stars-- whereas the marquee talent on Nashville is stars, while giving young guns some portion of the spotlight as well.

Two of my favorite recent songs are by "unknowns" from both shows, referenced in the title of this blog post-- You're So Beautiful from Empire (which I love singing and dancing to with my youngest son) and A Life That's Good (by the heavenly Lennon & Maisy), a song that makes me tear up nearly every time I hear it. Admittedly I don't normally listen to country, so it's saying something my iPod reports I've listened to it about 40 times.

Both shows could do with paring down some of the story lines in their next seasons, but I'll continue to keep a season pass for Empire and Nashville while pondering:  Is the Lucious Lyon character aspirational, or based on an amalgam of people like Sean Combs, Jay-Z, Quincy Jones (I actually imagine him to be a Michael Jackson like figure, down to criminal issues [though of a different type], if MJ had united his family and started a business empire with them)? Why doesn't Rayna offer half her liver to Deacon (or why don't they check Maddie?!)? Will Cookie ever have to deal with the consequences of getting an "innocent" man killed?

On the meantime, back to listening to my TV-inspired iPod playlists...