I just spent almost 3 weeks in a small Saskatchewan town. That was an eye-opener! First I encountered some severely racist attitudes...particularly toward Aboriginal Peoples, then a kind of closed-mindedness to many things progressive. First, the "Indians" were compared to animals in that you can't 'teach em anything, they're too wild'. WOW! Was I in Canada still? The other thing I noticed - particularly on coffee row - was that many people tend to take a personal anecdotal occurrence and make it the rule in society. Never mind that their experience might be the exception to the rule or that they may have not had all the information. Now, I know that this kind of thing happens everywhere - in fact, i remember it happening in a conversation with some "progressive" friends at Christmas regarding our privilege as white, middle-class people in our society. But I digress....
Of course, even as I write this I realize that I am using anecdotal evidence to generalize across rural prairie towns. But it was so striking. Nobody talked about what the trends were or stats or studies. Even the talk show host out of Saskatoon constantly uses anecdotal evidence to support his (mostly) right-wing rants against climate change, taxation, social program spending etc.
I can't help but draw a comparison to the small town in BC that I have been in since four yesterday afternoon - Fernie, BC. When driving through the prairies, I was hard-pressed to find a coffee shop - local or otherwise - with wifi. Here in Fernie, there are 5 in walking distance! As I sit in the Cincott Organic Market and Cafe and eavesdrop on the conversations around me, I haven't noticed the same kind of prejudices in the conversations. Perhaps I'm biased. Perhaps I need to be sitting in a different kind of coffee shop. Perhaps we just have lots of work to do across our great nation to dispel those kinds of attitudes.
Right now, I don't want to go anywhere else. The organic Moroccan soup is too good.
Monday, July 27, 2009
Monday, July 06, 2009
Mommy Addiction
I have been wondering what to write about. It occurs to me that there are so many things that can take up this space - food security, Canadian foreign policy, comment on BC's Health Minister saying it's OK to have private billing....the list goes on. But today, I opened my email to the Globe and Mail and started reading an article on 'the new mommy'. Those women that are recent moms (like in the last 10-15 years) and what they are now doing to cope with the hard work of motherhood.
So, lets be clear. I have no idea what it means to be a mother. I suspect that my own dadhood is no where near as difficult as motherhood. I didn't really see it at the time, but my kids mom went through hell in becoming a new mom. Cut off in many ways from adult contact, rarely doing things in the day that would be considered "stimulating" - endless loads of laundry, breast feeding, reading and playing, breast feeding, soothing the child, breast feeding....you get the picture. And now, 12 years later my sister had a child. This independent woman turned into a wide-eyed, house-bound crazy woman! Gawd, I'm glad I'm a man!!!!
So I was very interested to read this article. That there are moms out there that take time to themselves and with their friends is refreshing. Of course, the author has to quote professionals that warn against alcohol consumption - particularly for those that are "predisposed" to alcoholism. This is precisely the kind of thinking that our current policy on drugs and the "war on drugs" is based on.
In the 1970's, psychologist Bruce K. Alexander and his colleagues at Simon Fraser University conducted experiments using rats and morphine - kind of like B.F. Skinner did in the 1950's. Our current drug policy and our understanding of addiction is based on these experiments by Skinner. He would place a rat in a box and feed it all the morphine it wanted. As expected, the rat would become hopelessly addicted. Alexander changed it up a bit. he placed the rats in their natural environment - in a colony with all their needs met: food, hiding places, toys water and....plenty of morphine. Curiously, the rats would try the morphine from time to time but none of them became addicted. This was a problem. So they put the rats in Skinner boxes and made them addicts. When they went back to rat park, they detoxed themselves and would continue to occasionally use morphine but never became re-addicted!
Many of us medicate ourselves for various reasons. We have been doing it for time immemorial. These experiments are essential in our understanding of addiction. The rats in rat park were using morphine recreationally - like going out for a drink with friends. It wasn't until their environment severely stressed them in the Kinner box that they actually medicated themselves to relieve the emotional pain that they became addicted. None of them were "predisposed" to addiction and the drug itself (known to become "addicting") made them addicted.
So back to the moms. Moms deal with extremely stressful environments. Some are even painful. So though I agree that some of these moms could be joking about alcohol to cover up an addiction, it is not because they are "predisposed" to it. It is because they are trying to cope with stress, pain, isolation and unstimulation, often with very little support (yes dad's, get your ass in gear and contribute to at least half of the housework!). So lets give a shout out to all those moms out there living with the toughest job in the world. And let them know that there are ways to cope with their environmental stressors other than self-medicating.
And while your at it, check out these awesome websites:
http://momswhodrinkandswear.com/Home.html
http://junecleaverafterasix-pack.blogspot.com/
http://www.whymomdrinksrum.net/
So, lets be clear. I have no idea what it means to be a mother. I suspect that my own dadhood is no where near as difficult as motherhood. I didn't really see it at the time, but my kids mom went through hell in becoming a new mom. Cut off in many ways from adult contact, rarely doing things in the day that would be considered "stimulating" - endless loads of laundry, breast feeding, reading and playing, breast feeding, soothing the child, breast feeding....you get the picture. And now, 12 years later my sister had a child. This independent woman turned into a wide-eyed, house-bound crazy woman! Gawd, I'm glad I'm a man!!!!
So I was very interested to read this article. That there are moms out there that take time to themselves and with their friends is refreshing. Of course, the author has to quote professionals that warn against alcohol consumption - particularly for those that are "predisposed" to alcoholism. This is precisely the kind of thinking that our current policy on drugs and the "war on drugs" is based on.
In the 1970's, psychologist Bruce K. Alexander and his colleagues at Simon Fraser University conducted experiments using rats and morphine - kind of like B.F. Skinner did in the 1950's. Our current drug policy and our understanding of addiction is based on these experiments by Skinner. He would place a rat in a box and feed it all the morphine it wanted. As expected, the rat would become hopelessly addicted. Alexander changed it up a bit. he placed the rats in their natural environment - in a colony with all their needs met: food, hiding places, toys water and....plenty of morphine. Curiously, the rats would try the morphine from time to time but none of them became addicted. This was a problem. So they put the rats in Skinner boxes and made them addicts. When they went back to rat park, they detoxed themselves and would continue to occasionally use morphine but never became re-addicted!
Many of us medicate ourselves for various reasons. We have been doing it for time immemorial. These experiments are essential in our understanding of addiction. The rats in rat park were using morphine recreationally - like going out for a drink with friends. It wasn't until their environment severely stressed them in the Kinner box that they actually medicated themselves to relieve the emotional pain that they became addicted. None of them were "predisposed" to addiction and the drug itself (known to become "addicting") made them addicted.
So back to the moms. Moms deal with extremely stressful environments. Some are even painful. So though I agree that some of these moms could be joking about alcohol to cover up an addiction, it is not because they are "predisposed" to it. It is because they are trying to cope with stress, pain, isolation and unstimulation, often with very little support (yes dad's, get your ass in gear and contribute to at least half of the housework!). So lets give a shout out to all those moms out there living with the toughest job in the world. And let them know that there are ways to cope with their environmental stressors other than self-medicating.
And while your at it, check out these awesome websites:
http://momswhodrinkandswear.com/Home.html
http://junecleaverafterasix-pack.blogspot.com/
http://www.whymomdrinksrum.net/
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