Beren deMotier * writer * artist * human
How Stripping Prepared Me for Parenting
Generally speaking, I consider myself to have an adversarial relationship with my past. I don’t look back oh so fondly on those various stages of my life which have included hippie chick bisexual, radicalesbian feminist, leather queen wanna-be, and failed artistic poseur. Really, thank God I met my ever-so-sensible wife, I was going to hell in a hand basket.
However, I had an epiphany the other day. I share this desperate “grabbing at straws to make sense of life” effort because surely there are others out there who want to find a greater meaning, an intention to their prior and present existence, or a perfectly good cop out. And what I realized was that everything I had lived had led me to my present profession; parent.
Which may sound like a stretch, but bear with me.
My theory goes like this: we’re all just big recycling boxes. All of us. Whatever we’re doing with our lives. We may be in throwing away mode, or we may be scrounging in the bottom of that box for something we thought we’d never need again in a million years. But we are “one” with the box. In it goes all of our experience, or lack thereof. All of our hopes, dreams, failures, tragedies and successes. I’d like to think that all those plans we don’t finish (the half an art degree, the summer spent learning fire-fighting, Reiki 101), or the ones that turn out amiss (those fatalistic love affairs, that tattoo covering your entire left calf), have a purpose. And while this is a particularly narcissistic and self-serving philosophy (I am the last year of Boomer), there it is.
This came up last week because I found myself in a rather dry meeting of newly elected cooperative preschool board members. For the uninitiated, cooperative preschools are preschools where you pay very little up front, but give a pound of flesh until you are stripped to your very bones. You must volunteer, give, raise money, and take responsibility. They’re positively un-American. And unlike my usual self-preservatory stand, I’d allowed myself to be talked into being on the board. So at this meeting we were doing the usual hassling over petty details that lesbians call “processing”, and I couldn’t help but be reminded of some rather different days of old.
And see how stripping helped me become a better preschool parent.
First, let me get this straight, I am about as unidealistic as you can get without being in permanent mourning for your soul. But it was not always this way. Once upon a time I had endless youthful enthusiasm and volunteered at the college gay and lesbian organization (as well as hitting on every girl in sight), and knew all about processing. The room full of preschool moms eagerly taking notes and arguing the finer points of the Americans with Disabilities Act and how it relates to preschool attendance, was a close replica of those earlier college klatches of Birkenstock babes changing society one outing at a time. Then after college when I decided to hang out with the S/M dykes because I figured at least if they were going to objectify me, they’d do it openly, and without apology (you can see where the idealism was fading), we had these kind of meetings. The mode of dress was a little different….
Which is where the dancing comes in. Well, to make an already too long story short, you’d be surprised how much volunteering happens in the leather community, and I did nothing compared to most. But I did get out there and shake my booty to raise a buck. It was, to put it mildly, fashionable at the time. Lesbians doing erotic dancing for lesbians to raise money for the community. It was an 80’s kind of thing; like big hair, clean and sober parties and the blazer/jeans look. Being young, and as an ex-boyfriend once said, an artist in the act of self-exploitation, this looked pretty good to me, so I tried out.
Let’s not go into the ugly details.
In retrospect, my experiences with erotic dancing echo my initiation to the wild world of parenting. You’d like to think you get to do it because you’re talented when really it’s because you’re willing. And even though you’ve had no training in advance, once you squeeze into the costume (or squeeze out the baby), you’re on.
Which is where I figure my “recycling box” philosophy helps out. After all, here I am, there must be some rhyme or reason to it. I needed to be a hippie chick so I could relate to my kids’ inevitable rebellion. I needed to have my heart broken so I didn’t get saddled with some of the losers I fell in love with because they’d have made lousy co-parents. I needed to shake my bootay all over town so at least I didn’t think I had too much dignity to go through all the incredible indignities of parenthood, least of all the modesty-free act of birth. It had it’s uses after all. I got it out of my system. I learned how to sew a leather dress from an old pair of pants (which led to the ability to sew endless dinosaur costumes). I got more acquainted with the idea of spending time and effort to give to the community. And if necessary, I have a slam dunk store of funny stories to tell on a rainy day.