You would think that after nearly 60 years under a female monarch it would be a no brainer for the UK to amend its succession laws.  Not so fast.  It seems it’s more complicated than that.

Mixed into the fuss about Prince William and Kate Middleton’s wedding (which I’m guilty of following) I came across this article about the laws of succession.  As the law stands today, the firstborn male descendent of the sitting monarch is first in line for the throne.  If Prince William had been a girl, Prince Harry would be on deck after his father, and his sister would be a royal footnote.

Apparently the current law was set into place with the 1701 Act of Settlement.  While I don’t mean to oversimplify things, I’ll go ahead and say that I’m pretty sure things have changed a little bit since then.  Not surprisingly many people find the current laws “antiquated and sexist” so I can only assume that an amendment giving female royal offspring the same rights as their male counterparts would enjoy reasonably broad support.

From my perspective it seems that this is the most opportune time to implement this kind of change.  Since QE2′s first child was male (Prince Charles) and his first child was male (Prince William) changing the law now would do nothing to upset the existing succession plan.  Further, with a long-standing and well-respected queen on the throne I think any argument about how a man is more qualified or suited to fill the role of monarch is basically indefensible.

So if the time is right to make this change, what’s taking so long?  I realize that the British monarchy is not exactly an institution of progressivism and social reform.  But gender discrimination was outlawed in Britain in 1975.  These are hardly cutting edge ideas.  At this point we’re talking about just catching up.  What are the British people and lawmakers holding onto?

The reason this issue interests me is not really because I have a particular interest in the British monarchy – though I will be tuning in for the wedding – but because it piques my curiosity about the way we approach tradition.  The British monarchy is, at this point, a tradition.  It is symbolic.  It is a point of pride and source of comfort for many Britons.  But this sexist aspect of it has lasted into the 21st century for no apparent reason other than as a function of tradition.

I firmly believe that traditions are important and valuable.  They help us stay in touch with our roots.  They remind us of people and places that aren’t with us anymore.  They provide us an intimacy and kinship to our own lives that gives them meaning.  But the thing about traditions is that sometimes we abide by them mindlessly.  Sometimes we forget how they emerged in the first place.  And sometimes they cease to serve their intended purpose and are merely an empty shell of something that doesn’t exist anymore.  And in situations like that – like this – by continuing the tradition we actively honor something that perhaps shouldn’t be honored.

It is hard to break with tradition.  I get that.  But when a tradition can’t be earnestly advocated – when it exists for the sake of tradition alone – that’s when it’s probably time to find the next tradition.

Before we get started, I want to thank all of you for your kind words and condolences in response to Monday’s post.  The loss of a horse isn’t exactly the most relatable experience in the world, and it means a great deal to me that you all offered your heartfelt support nonetheless.  Thank you so much for your virtual embrace.  It was warm and snuggly and just what I needed. 

If you could masquerade as someone else, would you do it?  If you could masquerade as a different version of yourself, would you do it?  What would it take for you to cast aside your existing notions of who you are and try on something else entirely?

I ask these questions because I recently had a conversation with a friend that traveled down this path.  My friend is single and nearing 40.  She confessed that she’d like to “have someone” when she turns 40 in a little more than a year.  This friend of mine is thoughtful, sincere, funny, and feisty.  I’ve long been amazed that some clever suitor didn’t snatch her up a long time ago.  But as we got to talking about it she confessed that she’s not good at meeting new people.  My friend, whom I’ve always found to be charming and outgoing, has a shy streak.

Interestingly, her shy streak develops a shy streak of its own when she travels.  She could strike up a conversation with anyone in a hotel bar, and easily chat over two or three drinks.  In these situations she knows she’ll never see her new friend again and abandons all traces of self-consciousness.  I asked her why she can’t behave the same way at home and she replied that she’s too worried that she’ll do or say something foolish and it will come back to haunt her (despite the fact that she lives in a huge city).

So I challenged her.  “What if you entered into a trial period?  What if you became your ‘travel self’ for a period of, say, 30 days?  Be as confident and unself-conscious as you would if you were in some other city and see what happens.  The measure of success isn’t whether or not you meet someone, but whether or not you regret having taken on this persona in your home town.”

As we talked more about it I wondered in what other ways this trial period could be applied.  Sure, it has limitations.  Someone who is inherently a class clown probably won’t turn into a wallflower, or vice versa.  But if there are aspects of ourselves that already exist, but lurk beneath the surface and need nurturing to really bloom, could we bring them out into the forefront of our personalities with a little nudging?  I say yes.  With a little honesty and a little gumption I think we can each find things we’d like to change about ourselves, but haven’t.

I’ll go first:  I want to be a person who goes shopping without an insurmountable magnetic pull toward cableknit sweaters.  I want to accesorize more boldly.  And I want to not worry about every purchase I make being “timeless.”  There are obviously more substantive changes you could make, but this is where I’m starting. 

So whom do you want to be?  What do you wish were different about yourself?  And would you be willing to try that person on for a month?  At the end of 30 days you could decide if this new version of yourself should stay or go.  In the meantime, you get to add a little adventure to your life.  Who’s in?

I’ve spent quite a bit of time this week thinking about travel.  Throughout our visit to Washington, DC last weekend I was reminded of why I love to travel as much as I do.  And as I’ve reflected back on the trip over the course of the past few days I have been further energized about other trips that are on our horizon.  In that vein, I’ve compiled a brief list of the things I love most about traveling that I felt compelled to share.

1. Getting away.  This sounds obvious, but I think it’s worth stating anyway.  There is something so cathartic about being away from your normal routine; leaving behind to-do lists, chores, schedules, and other obligations.  When a friend of mine returned from her honeymoon a couple of years ago she had become so mentally disengaged from her regular life that upon returning she couldn’t remember any of her computer passwords at work and they all had to be reset.  That is getting away!
2. Going with the flow.  Travel requires flexibility of all stripes and being thrust into sometimes-unpredictable circumstances is really good for me.  I also like traveling with IEP for this reason.  When we are home I am intensely protective of his schedule and routine, but I also think it’s important that he is, from time to time, forced to adapt to something different. 
3. The locals.  During our trip we chatted with a cabbie who landed in DC after the Korean War, worked for the Labor Department for a number of years, and now drives around the city waxing philosophic about the location of the bike lanes.  You really get the flavor of a place by talking to the people who live there.
4. Walking, walking, walking.  GAP and I are big walkers.  We take subways when it makes sense, but only rarely take taxis (#3 notwithstanding).  By walking we’ve found churches that weren’t on Rome’s maps, funky bodegas in Brooklyn, and made an inadvertent trip through the GWU campus in DC.  (This also enables a great deal of eating, eating, eating, which leads me to…) 
5. Regional food.  I ate more lobster, crab, and oysters last weekend than I have in ages.  In Italy I ate almost nothing besides pasta, gnocchi, and gelato (with the odd salad thrown in) for two weeks.  In Switzerland we dipped things into melted cheese over and over and over.  What a treat it is to eat authentic food in its original home.
6. Different points of view.  This one is most notable overseas.  I’m always fascinated to find out what people’s perception of America is.  I love learning what people think of their own countries, what they like and what they don’t.  And of course cultural differences are fascinating to me as well.
7. Coming home.  My own bed.  My dogs.  My kitchen.  My friends.  And (if he wasn’t with us) my son!  Home is a wonderful thing, and, I believe, becomes even more so when we’ve seen other corners of the world and after a time are ready to return to the comforts of the familiar.

Throughout my childhood my family ate two meals together every day.  We sat down to breakfast as a family and reconvened for supper at the end of the day.  There were exceptions here and there – sleepovers, evening sports games when Anne and I were a bit older, and so on – but by and large we ate together every day.  I’m fairly certain that I didn’t recognize the value and importance of this at the time.  I’m completely certain I didn’t recognize the amount of effort put forth by my mother to pull this feat off day after day.  And as I look into the future of my own family I wonder how I will manage to bring my family together every evening.

It’s fairly common knowledge that there is a distinct positive correlation between the absence of family meals and the presence of a myriad of behavioral problems in kids.  This article by Kari Henley cites a 10-year study done by Columbia University which found that kids whose families eat dinner together fewer than three times per week had significantly increased likelihood of tobacco and marijuana use, eating disorders, and depression.  I don’t take these statistics lightly.*  And I want to be sure that our weeknight routine is one that facilitates awareness and conversation and involvement in each other’s lives.

So where does that put my family?  IEP is nearly two years old.  He eats his supper earlier than GAP and I do, and we eat together after he’s asleep.  Our days are fairly regimented.  We have a nanny schedule, a dog-walking schedule, a workout schedule, etc.  We’ve found a routine that works for us, but I wonder at what point it will cease to work for us.  Or more importantly, when will it cease to work for IEP?  Before too long we will need to eat dinner as a family, which will, in turn, up-end our existing weeknight routine.  I certainly value my evening workouts (regular exercise keeps me sane), but if my kids need me at the dinner table each night, I may have to sacrifice some of my gym time.  (Yet I also care about setting an example of physical health and fitness, and so where does this figure back in?)

The other thing that scares me a bit about the family dinner is my role as a working mom.  My own mother quit her job when she was pregnant with me and never looked back.  I’ve taken a different path and the wonderful example that was set for me as a child may not work for me as an adult.  I will need to find ways to make sure that we all sit down to a home-cooked meal each evening, even on days when I’m in the office until 5:30 or later.  I’m sure this will involve conscientious menu planning and Sunday afternoon prep work.  And knowing myself I’m relatively confident that I’ll pull it off most of the time.  But that doesn’t mean that the whole premise doesn’t still overwhelm me. 

As I write this I remind myself that parenting isn’t for the faint hearted.  I made it through the first six months of overnight feedings.  I made it through teething.  I’m currently surviving increasing two-year-old tantrums.  I suspect I will also survive all of the unknown challenges that await me.  I just hope that I manage to get dinner on the table in the process.     

*I do think it is important to point out that one misnomer regarding these types of studies is correlation versus causality.  Family dinners are correlated with more stable and well-behaved kids and teens.  They do not cause that improved behavior.  Rather, families who eat dinner together regularly are more likely to experience fewer behavioral problems because family dinners are symptomatic of parents who are actively involved in their kids’ lives.

Queen Elizabeth is not feeling festive.

It was reported this week that her biannual staff Christmas party (which entertains more than 1,200 staff members from a handful of palaces, estates, and private residences) has been called off.  It was confirmed by a palace muckety-muck spokesperson that the cancelation is the result of the shaky economy.

I wonder about this.  Specifically, I wonder about the example it sets.  Is it a good example or a bad one?  Let’s explore this.

Position A: It sets a good example.  She is aware that much of the rest of the world is facing uncertainty of some kind.  People are preparing for a modest holiday season.  They are adjusting their expectations (some for the second or third year in a row…) according to their budgets.  For the queen to host an extravagant party during such a time would be callous and insensitive. 

Position B: It sets a bad example.  While many people are scrimping to get by these days (especially in the servant set) there are fewer treats and perks to go around.  As the figurehead of the nation and a person whose own financial circumstances are not tenuous she comes across as miser-y to cancel the event when she could treat her minions to something special.

I think the ultimate lesson of this conundrum is that when it comes to money (which is really what this is all about) rarely is there an easy choice that makes everyone comfortable.  There is no “normal” when it comes to money.  There is no “right.”  And this means that most people are easily made uncomfortable by discussions and decisions surrounding it.  We are each left to choose the path that we think is right, and hope to step on as few toes as possible in the process. 

I hope that QE2 (the woman, not the ship) made her decision with Position A in mind, but I’ll never know (we’re not close…).  I’ll also never know how this decision will strike the staff themselves.  Hopefully they too will believe it sets the right tone and was made with the best of intentions.  At the very least, the people who would have been staffing this massive gala will have the night off.

There are many reasons why I find Julia Child inspiring.  Her passion for good food is foremost among them.  But as I’ve been making my way through her posthumously-published memoir My Life in France I’ve fallen in love with her for many other reasons.

She was nervy and determined.  She was a bit of a bohemian.  She was an intrepid rookie with the French language.  She was a beloved misfit in a nation of prim and tiny women.  She was staggeringly in love with her husband.  She didn’t take herself too seriously. 

These are all both laudable and endearing in the same breath. 

But on pages 71-72 of her book she makes the following confession:

But I was bothered by my lack of emotional and intellectual development.  I was not as quick and confident and verbally adept as I aspired to be.  … Upon reflection I decided I had three main weaknesses: I was confused (evidenced by a lack of facts, an inability to coordinate my thoughts, and an inability to verbalize my ideas); I had a lack of confidence, which caused me to back down from forcefully stated positions; and I was overly emotional at the expense of careful “scientific” thought.  I was thirty-seven years old and still discovering who I was.

It is well-known that Julia Child didn’t discover her passion and talent for cooking until she was in her late thirties, and her famous cooking show “The French Chef” didn’t debut until she was 50.  But the quote above resonated with me even more than her late-blooming career.  For her struggles in this vein are highly similar to demons I’ve battled many times myself.

I am thirty-three now.  I am a wife, mother, and professional.  I have a graduate degree.  I should be able to defend any position I have, right?  I’m not so sure.  What I do know with certainty is that I continue to struggle with many of the same issues that our beloved Julia describes.  When challenged I sometimes become nervous and emotional, rather than confident and knowledgeable.  I have become comfortable with many of my beliefs without first really questioning why they are so.  And when situations arise that call for me to explain or defend myself I rarely find myself short of words, but often find myself short of well-formed thoughts.  When I am flummoxed I get quiet.  And for any of you who know me in person you know that “quiet” is a highly out-of-character state for me. 

But it seems I am in good company.  I’m learning from her memoir that Julia Child was a work in progress – an unfinished product – throughout most of her adult life.  I find this heartening on a number of levels.  First, it spares me the shame of not having it all worked out yet.  Second, it means that I have a lot of living yet to do.  (How sad and dull life would be if by the age of 33 there were no mental gymnastics left for me to attempt.)  And lastly, it reminds me that no matter how much of my world view I am able to articulate, there is always more to learn.

Or perhaps, rather, a curse and a blessing.  For in this situation it seems that the blessing arrives eventually, but only once the curse has run its course.  A little background…

GAP and I have long wanted to adopt.  He has a brother and sister who were adopted and it was only a few months after we started dating that he confessed to me his desire to also adopt one day.  It had never occurred to me until then, and it wasn’t something for which I shared his passion initially.  But as I got to know his family; as I watched the video of his brother and sister joining their new family for the first time; and as they became my own family I grew to share GAP’s passion for adoption.  Since we got married our tentative family plan has always included two biological children and two adopted children.  That plan has also included children who are adopted outside of their infancy, since GAP’s brother and sister were older when they were adopted and he has a particular soft spot for kids he believes might otherwise be overlooked.  We believe – strongly – that adoption is one of the best things we can do.

Given all of this, you must imagine the sucker-punched feeling that developed in my stomach as I read this blog post over at NYT’s Motherlode.  It discusses one book and one documentary which speak some painful truths about this act which we like to believe is unilaterally positive.  Of course I understand that expanding your family via adoption carries with it some very different and pronounced growing pains.  But in all of my visions of a future with adopted children I’ve never played any role but the good guy. 

However, adoptive parents (particularly in the world of international adoptions where the kids tend to be a bit older – just the kind of adoption we intend to enter into) are not always seen by their adopted children as the good guys.  As it turns out many of these children no longer hail from orphanages, but from foster homes.  They may spend the first two or three years of their life with a single set of foster parents, who, by the time they are adopted, are the only family they’ve ever known.  I know a lot of two- and three-year-olds.  They know exactly who their parents are.  They know exactly what “home” is.  They know when things feel strange, and unfamiliar, and frightening.  I cannot imagine the traumatic horror that must ensue every time a little [insert nationality here: Chinese, Russian, etc] child is yanked away from their whole known world just because some nice white lady in the States will be able to provide him orthodontia send him to a four-year undergraduate program.  And yet, that is exactly what I plan to do.    

Yes, that last sentence is probably a bit dramatic.  In the long run most internationally adopted children are far better off in their adopted homes (with health care, safe housing, education, and a constant, supportive family) than they ever would have been as a product of the foster care system.*  But as a mother I can only imagine what my son would experience if he were handed over to another set of parents on another continent merely because their ability to provide for him surpassed my own. 

I’m struggling with this.  I do not have a tidy conclusion for you.  I believe that adoption is a good thing.  I believe that I am a good person trying to help make someone’s life better.  But I cannot yet reconcile the fact that for me to do this thing I believe is good, I must first do this thing I believe is horrible. 

If any of you has any experience in this realm (I’m looking at you, Jane!) I hope you’ll see fit to offer it here.  I’m really feeling quite lost at the moment.

*I mean no disrespect to foster parents.  Most of them are saints, doing hard work in imperfect circumstances.  I mean only to assert that the stability of a permanent family is almost always preferable to the uncertainty of most foster programs.

We are becoming a culture of instant informational gratification.  With wireless internet and web-enabled phones around us at all times there is nearly nothing we can’t find out in mere moments.  What won the Oscar for Best Picture in 1968?  Is this a poisonous or edible variety of mushroom growing in my backyard?  What is the third-tallest mountain in the world?

I don’t know the answer to any of those questions.  But I could find out in less than 30 seconds if I wanted to.  (Except the mushroom one.  I don’t actually have mushrooms growing in my backyard…) My immediate response is that this is a good thing.  It is a good thing that I can answer my own questions quickly, easily, and with a reasonable degree of confidence.  In these situations my costs to learn are very low.  How could anyone ever cast a shadow on fast and free information?

Naturally, someone had to rain on the internet’s parade.  (Poor internet…)  In this article Ben Greenman argues that instantaneous answers perhaps do us a disservice by satisfying our curiosities too easily.  He suggests that when questions go unanswered for a period of time they have the opportunity to fester and grow.  Such questions may even develop into legitimate passions, he argues.

I’ve given Mr. Greenman’s premise some thought over the past few days.  I wanted very much to agree with him.  I wanted to applaud his notion that making things harder makes them more valuable.  I wanted to jump on his bandwagon of belief that things that cost more must be worth more. 

But I just couldn’t do it.  Not with information.  Not with learning.  For the first time in human history we are approaching a place where information is equally available.  The internet gives the same answers to a kid in Kansas as to a kid in Cambridge.  And that is a huge statement.  (I will, for the purposes of this post, conveniently ignore China’s censors of Google.  I’ll keep my rant contained to the domestic.)  Rationing information for our children just because we had to work harder for the same answers (or live without them in many cases) when we were younger doesn’t accomplish a thing.  Not to mention that in my experience a passion must be fed, not starved, in order to flourish. 

In that regard the internet is a magical playland for our passions.  It allows us to dip our toes into something and make an educated decision about whether or not in impassions us.  It allows us to explore new interests until we are bursting with information.  The internet allows us to skim across the surface or dig deep into any topic.  We can meet people who share our passions, but whom we never would have met in the offline world.  Truly, the internet is a veritable petri dish for passions. 

I’m sorry Mr. Greenman, but I call shenanigans on your position.  Your heart, I am sure, is in the right place.  But your logic, I fear, is not.

Sometimes I am broadsided by issues that I had no idea were issues, such as last weekend when my family and I attended the Japanese festival in town.  Like all the other festival-goers we meandered around the grounds taking in the sights and demonstrations.  And when the time came we waited in line to pay for little paper boats of soba noodles.  We plopped down on a set of stairs, pulled our chopsticks from their paper sleeves, and gobbled away.  It was a beautiful evening and I had nary a care or concern all evening.

Then I remembered this article that I read last week about the environmental drain of disposable wooden chopsticks.  Apparently China goes through about 45 billion (with a “b”) pairs of chopsticks annually, or 130 million pairs a day.  Less jaw-dropping but still troublesome is the export market for chopsticks which tallies at 18 billion pairs per year.  In terms of land usage that means 100 acres of trees (about 100 American football fields’ worth) need to be felled every day.    

This is one of those topics that catches me off guard.  I had never once considered the environmental implications of wooden chopsticks.  Frankly, I prefer them because they don’t slip between my fingers and I feel less clumsy using them.  But now it seems that with every spicy tuna roll I eat, I’m killing the earth just a little bit. 

Like most issues, this one has a flip side: the economic implications of the wooden chopstick industry.  Apparently it employs more than 100,000 people in more than 300 factories throughout China.  Those people would, presumably, be out of work if there were a blanket conversion to reusable chopsticks.

The final component of this conundrum (not for me, but for the Chinese government) is cost.  Apparently disposable chopsticks cost about a penny a piece, whereas sterilization of reusable ones can cost anywhere from 15 to 70 cents.  Restaurants are disinclined to absorb this cost, but consumer advocacy groups are staunchly opposed to it being passed on to consumers. 

This isn’t an issue I can solve.  If I’m being perfectly frank it isn’t even an issue about which I have strong feelings one way or the other.  (There seem to be merits to each side.)  The reason it caught my attention is because it pulled me out of my little Midwestern work-a-day life and reminded me that there is more to the world than the radius in which I orbit.  Sometimes it’s good to be reminded of these things.  There are problems other than my own, that I might never have imagined, but which are no less significant to the people they affect than mine are to me.  (Also, if I’m feeling particularly green, I might start taking my own chopsticks with me.)

A year ago I would have cared very little about the ensuing battle over “net neutrality.”  I would have been content to let the big players fight it out either in the court of public opinion or, more likely, actual court, and wait for the verdict to be handed down.  As it is, that is still what will happen (I am not even a two-bit player on the World Wide Web) but I have a dog in the fight these days.

The moment I launched this little blog such issues suddenly mattered to me (even if I didn’t realize it at the time).  This site is exactly the type of site that would not get priority treatment in the new internet landscape that is being floated.  If I care that I can easily post and you can easily read, then I want to make sure that the web facilitates that transaction.

At any rate, net neutrality is not really my point today.  Rather, in all of my observation of the coverage of the net neutrality battle, I came across this interview with Eric Scmidt, the CEO of Google.

In it, Schmidt talks about the dangers of online anonymity.  Specifically he says, “In a world of asynchronous threats, it is too dangerous for there not to be some way to identify you.”  This freaked me out a little at first.  There are all sorts of things that I wouldn’t want made public.  What if I Google an old boyfriend?  What if I look up the procedure for declaring bankruptcy?  What if I look up the symptoms of some horrible disease?  (All of the above are hypothetical, by the way.)

Then I read Schmidt’s follow up comment: 

“Privacy is incredibly important,” he said, adding, “Privacy is not the same thing as anonymity. It’s very important that Google and everyone else respects people’s privacy. People have a right to privacy; it’s natural; it’s normal. It’s the right way to do things.”

And this commentary struck a chord with me.  As I thought about it I realized that many of us (at least myself, for sure) have long equated online anonymity with online privacy.  I can go just about anywhere on the web and unless my computer is hacked no one will ever know.  While that is a monumental comfort to many internet users who are up to no good (What, there are people online other than touchy-feely bloggers?  No.  Couldn’t be…) as Schmidt says, it’s dangerous.

There is a lot of private information about me out in the world.  It resides in places like my doctors’ offices, my HR department’s personnel files, my tax returns, even my fingerprints.  This is not data that I want made public, but it is data that I am comfortable residing in the hands of trusted keepers.  The strange thing about the internet is that we inadvertently make lots of different parties keepers of our private information.  Google.  Amazon.  Yahoo.  These major sites are some of the biggest players.  But any site where you’ve made an online purchase has data about you on file as well. 

In the pre-internet world I could walk into a bookstore and make a purchase without anyone logging that purchase into a catalog of previous purchases that is constantly evolving into a user profile designed to predict my preferences.  I still can.  But if I order my books online (more likely) I have to be comfortable with the knowledge that Amazon.com is amassing volumes of data about my shopping and purchasing habits.  They are one of my keepers now. 

While I think Eric Schmidt raised some eyebrows with his comments about online anonymity, I actually think he’s on the right track.  Online anonymity has facilitated all kinds of atrocities in the real world (look up some back episodes of Dateline if you’re curious…).  Online privacy, on the other hand, will protect those of us who are harmless yet don’t care to have our affairs made public.  The tricky part is deciding whom to make our keepers.  It’s hard to trust someone you’ve never met.  And yet we do it here in cyberspace every single day.