Our Division of Labor

The last few months have been an ordeal, and I mean that in its most literal sense. Our word ordeal, despite appearances, is not from Latin or Greek origins. An ordeal in our teutonic forefathers' tongue meant something like "that which is dealt out" (assumably by the gods). When we today complain of something being an "ordeal," we are, without recognizing it, comparing our trials to the more brutal juridical proceedings of our German ancestors, who if accused of a crime, in order to be proven innocent, were required to walk blindfolded and barefoot between red-hot plowshares. Escaping this ordeal uninjured would result in the dismissal of the accusation, for naturally the gods had unanimously decreed the defendant's innocence with such divine protection.

Ordeals such as these persisted into the Christian era. Peter Bartholomew, who gained notoriety for discovering a shard of the holy lance in Antioch on the First Crusade, braved an ordeal voluntarily to prove the veracity of his divine visitations--apparently the Savior Himself visited him regularly--by walking through a bonfire and emerging unscathed. So he claimed at least--he died, presumably from his injuries a week later. Now, after my own ordeal, let's hope I don't suffer a similar fate.

Of course, my ordeal was not of the medieval sort, but much like Peter Bartholomew, I undertook mine voluntarily. After living the good life in the oil-rich emirate of Qatar, we decided to return to the impoverished US to try our hand at higher education. Without health insurance or full-time employment, we attempted to pursue my dreams by applying for doctoral programs in history (an ordeal in and of itself) while having a fifth child, homeschooling our children, exploring other avenues of employment with the US goverment, teaching a full load of English and Turkish classes, and improving my credentials as an English teacher with a second MA in TESOL. I say we because clearly no individual could hope to attempt all these things at once.

You see, I did not survive this ordeal but we did. My wife accompanied me through the flames, and lest we stumbled and succumbed to the unbearable heat, we had the steady hands of experienced grandmothers to pull us through. Ultimately, we became artful in our division of labor. Grandmom McCollum never tires of shopping and holding little fuspot babies. Grandma Dryg can entertain the rambunctious bears for hours with wholesome stories and intricate railroad construction. My beloved wife does what no other can: educate the three silliest boys in the western United States. Finally, I do what I do best: I educate myself while somehow managing to make enough money for us to eat.

At this time of year when we express our gratitude and remember that one individual who came to do what we couldn't do for ouselves, I would like to express my thanks for those who did what I could not. I have a heavenly Savior in Jesus, but I also have an earthly one in my wife. She has believed in me when I could not and has endured all my whimsical endeavors, no matter the cost. Her light awakens me long before the sun light peaks over the mountains and lifts me out of bed when all my strength has vanished. Thank you, Bunsy.

The Nanny State-ment

"We were reluctant at first, but let me tell you, it was the best thing we ever did." Thus ended the persuasive declamation of our acquaintance on the advantages, nay the blessings, of acquiring a live-in nanny. Now, to someone from the States the idea of a live-in nanny sounds, well, elitist, expensive, and just plain uncomfortable. That's there, but in the Gulf (Persian that is) the "nanny state" takes on a whole new meaning. Not only do the governments hand out entitlements that would have Vladimir Lenin turning in his ice box, but there also happens to be an abundance of third-world nannies ready to make your dreams of self-actualiztion possible at the expense of your children's future. These nannies can be quickly pressed into service as your modern-day indentured servants for the low price of a plane ticket from Indonesia and a few bucks to line the pockets of sundry shady businessmen.

Yes, slavery is alive and well, and you don't have to turn on some sappy Indie film or watch CNN's Anderson Cooper wax strong about it with a feigned tone of sincerity to learn about its pernicious and pervasive presence throughout the world. No, you can experience it and exploit it for yourself; all you need is a job in the Gulf. What is even better is that you don't have to feel bad about exploiting these people because they are not really slaves. Sure, they look like it--they have no skills, they have no education, and they spend their lives with a dour, depressed look on their faces--but they aren't slaves. They signed away their lives because "it is so bad in their own countries they'd rather come here and be your slave." To put this all in persective, as one of my lessons devolved into tangential conversation with my Qatari students, the topic of nannies came up. I confided to my students, who of course were all raised by these nanny slaves, that "I just don't think I would feel confortable having some strange person living in my house." My substitute: "I'd rather get some sort of a helper monkey. You know, a little monkey that could fetch the paper for me, wash the dishes, maybe even play the accordion if I so desire." Of course, I was just being silly, but one of my students responded to my ramblings with grave sincerity. "Teacher, no, you no want helper monkey. Monkey very expensive. Monkey, like 10,000. Human, like 1,000" (dollars, I assume he meant). The lesson: humans are cheaper than monkeys.

So, we have these cheap pseudo slaves and we can feel OK about it because it's really an act of charity taking these people in from war-torn Sri Lanka or impoverished Nepal (one is reminded of the mid-nineteenth-century defence of slavery as a patriarchal institition), but the real clencher is that these nannies don't just make our lives easier, they make it better. We can finally forget about cooking, cleaning, and all the other desultory and meaningless chores of life. Now we can spend our lives creating what we really want to with our life: learn to paint, sail, ski; open your own business; see the world. No longer do we need to worry about home; like some less glamorous expat incarnation of the Kennedys, we can stroll the malls of Doha childless(they're at home with the nanny), our I-Phone in one hand and our shopping cart in the other.

This would all be a marvelous life if we lived in a sitcom world where children rarely appear due to child labor laws. The problem is our children are always there even if we are not. We can build our childless self-actualized life with cheap imported labor, but this is not tantamount to having our cake and eating it too. At the end of the day parenting takes time, and that time is often gruelling and seemingly unrewarding. We expats spend hours making sure our kids get into the best schools, after-school activities, and sports, yet we rarely think of the hours they spend being watched by people we purchased at the lowest price. What are our children learning when they are not at school? That brown poor people should do all remedial labor? That mommy and daddy are too busy pursuing their "dreams" to sit down with their babies and give them a bottle? That manners are to be employed only when conversing with Westerners? Ultimately, we leave our children to be raised by people who, for the large part, have had no formal education and for whose culture we have little appreciation and understanding and then we have the audacity to tell ourselves that we're doing the best thing for our family. Perhaps those hours we spend at home doing the day-to-day routine are the most valuable time we have with our children. After all, shouldn't we be grateful for every moment we have been given with them even if it may involve the family cleaning up that nasty poo stain the potty trainee left on the toilet seat?

Is the Sediment Weighing me Down?

If one thing can be said of my wife and I, it is that we are not sedentary folk. Live in the same place all our lives? What are we, from Utah or something? After one year in most locations we're usually anxious to pull up the stakes and move on. Sometimes when the watchful eyes of my spouse are directed elsewhere, I take a few minutes to look at the world map on our wall and imagine where our next adventure will lead us.

These moments, however, are becoming few and far between. In the few minutes of silence I enjoy, the more pressing matters of financing our ever growing tribe seem to encumber my thoughts. Ibn Khaldun, the famed fourteenth-century "Herodotus of the Arabs", observed in his treatise on universal history that the growth of empires resulted from powerful nomads who, trained by the harsh conditions of their lifestyle, directed their military prowess against their wealthy but impotent sedentary neighbors. Once wealth accrued, according to Ibn Khaldun, impuissance and decline were inevitable. The once vibrant force of nomadic life gave way to the luxuries of city life, a malaise invariably ensued until another nomadic and bellicose force absorbed the city dwellers into their new empire. Hence, Alexander's march across the decadent Achaemenid Persian Empire, the Germanic migrations that usurped the power of Rome, or the Bedouin Arabs that toppled the Sassanids and sent the Greeks cowering behind the walls of Constantinople.

Where is my family located on Ibn Khaldun's cycle of growth and decline? My gaze, once fixated on the horizon, now concentrates on the numbers in my bank statement. Our cushy job here in Doha makes us reluctant to move; it is the lure of the sedentary lifestyle. Like Shahs or Caesars of old I am more preoccupied with my coffers than the glory of the advance into the unknown. Full of financial worries and longing for the insouciance of my earlier life I now confront our dilemma: should we stay or should we go?

Sharing Doesn't Work; How about Fratricide?

My family and I were invited to eat at a friend's house tonight. You may ask, why would such a mundane occurrence as a dinner invite merit a blog post? Well, for most families, surely it wouldn't. But for ours, this is quite a rare occasion. You see, I believe our reputation precedes us. With four of the silliest boys on this hemisphere we seldom receive an invite and with good reason too. My wife and I remarked that the host family must surely be so new to Doha that they haven't heard of our tempestuous boys.

Well, after tonight they definitely heard them. If it wasn't Hector screaming frantically for milk, it was the other three fighting relentlessly to dominate their young host's toy car collection. As I listened, or rather attempted not to listen, to Cinci's high-pitched wail as Sherman repeatedly "stealed" his toy from him, I could hear my wife with a veneer of calm and understanding encouraging Sherman to share with his brother. After two hours of our children's shreiking cacaphony, I'm certain our departure relieved our hosts.

Driving home with a few moments to contemplate as my wife dozed and my children, perhaps exhausted from two hours of incessant yelling, settled into a pristine silence, I wondered why my children can't share. " With four boys you'd think they could learn how to share, " I had heard my wife complain to our gracious hosts. Well, maybe sharing just isn't what boys do. The dynastic troubles of monarchies of old are replayed in the microcosm of my family. It seems that boys have always wanted everything within reach.

It's no marvel to me that the first recorded homicide in Western history was fratricide, Cain's killing of Abel. As man developed, it seems, boys had a tendency to quarrel over their share of an inheritance. As families began to acquire wealth, they realized that such capital, rather than being dispersed equally between heirs, should be concentrated under one patriarch in order to preserve the family's wealth. But to whom should go the greatest share? In the West the law of primogeniture entailed the majority of an estate to the oldest male heir, thus solving the internecine feuds that often ensued the death of a powerful patriarch. The Ottoman Turks had a different way of dealing with a boy's inherent desire to obtain his share, they codified the law of fratricide. With the death of the sultan civil war inevitably ensued as brother would contend with brother as each struggled to ascend the throne. Finally, the victor, he who had killed all of his brothers, claimed the spoils, and thus the empire, rather than being entailed away to the various offspring inhabiting the Ottoman harem, was consolidated in the hands of one man.

Unfortunately, neither primogeniture nor institutionalized fraticide appear to be suitable antidotes to the civil strife in my domain. Should we choose to impose primogeniture upon our family, Atticus, I'm sure, would be elated but his brothers would be loathe to acquiesce in his predominance. Although from the high-pitched shrills emanating from our walls the neighbors may conclude that fratricide is the law in our family, I'm afraid my wife doesn't have the stomach for it. So, it would seem that the search for a Pax McColluma will remain elusive in our lands.

The Last Paperboy

My wife and I, when we have a few moments of uninterrupted conversation, often attempt to predict the future of our children. Of course, this is a fruitless endeavor: we cannot draw upon our own formative experiences to foresee our children's future. The world has changed and, more precisely, parenting has changed to such a dgree that our children will spend their formative years in a social and economic environment radically divergent from our own. So much of our lives as children passed in absence of the constant attendance of adults. Like the characters of a Charlie Brown holiday special, we enjoyed near total autonomy with the occational appearance of an incomprehensible adult.

But all that has changed. Today's children must be constantly and rigorously invigilated lest some harm or malfeasance happen upon them in the blink of eye. From our current perspective, perverts, pedophiles, and predators abound lurking in all quarters. Drug dealers and drunk drivers prowl the streets awaiting the opportune moment to slaughter adolescent innocence. Did these dangers not exist when we were children? Has the world changed or is it just our awareness? Are these the dangers to be feared by parents or is it our own stifling of childhood independence that presents the real threat?

A friend recounted to me the other day a story of Utah woman who recently received a child endangerment misdemeanor for allowing her seven-year-old to ride to school alone on her bike. Heck, the moment I learned to ride a bike I was off. By the time I was seven the majority of my friends and I rode well over a mile to school and back each day. These days, however, we would all be stopped by the police and our parents arrested for doing such!

My wife and I lament these changes and wonder with nostalgia, "where have all the paperboys gone?" We have come to the conclusion that we are the last generation of paperboys. Partially from economic necessity and partially due to the new parental control of youth, the adolescent paperboy has become extinct. At the age of nine, I experienced for the first time true economic independence when I collected the first ten dollars from one of my customers. With my brother I then promptly rode to a mall across many busy intersections to enjoy the fruits of my labor at the Galactican Arcade. I doubt my children will ever experience such independence before they become a legal adult.