Daddy Lost His Head

Behold a children's book I borrowed for my kids at the library: 'Daddy Lost His Head' by Quentin Blake and Andre Bouchard.

I feel a bit strange about it, because to start with I really really enjoyed it, and laughed myself silly at the Daddy in the book, who'd left his brain at work because he needed it for a really big Ultrasupertopimportant project. The hijinks his family get up to when Daddy is effectively not there are, predictably enough with Quentin Blake's terriffic illustrations, quirky and very very funny.

But then after a few days, and a few re-reads, I began to feel uncomfortable in my skin when I thought of or read the book to my kids.

And now I think that there are some problems with it, and not small ones, either.

The Daddy in the book is behaves in a totally absent and preoccupied manner because he either brings work home with him, or cannot seperate his work and home lives. He is distracted and literally headless, so lacks presence completely when relating to his family.

The Mummy in the book firstly enjoys him not having a brain, as she can direct him to do anything she wants...the cooking, cleaning and other housework all feature. Then she gets Daddy to dance with her, which he does with a little too much zeal. So, Mummy also has an absent partner, who unthinkingly does things that should please her, but leave her essentially feeling unfulfilled. The children make a papier mache head for their Daddy to wear, and get up to all sorts of hijinks with him, including running up huge credit card debts in a toy department. Buying affection, anyone?

My discomfort stems from wondering why Daddy gets excused from looking to his relationships with his partner and children when something big at work is taking up his time, and why it is left up to women and children to look after the emotional terrain while the man is thus absent. Not to mention looking after his body while his head is absent, too! Cooking, cleaning and ironing notwithstanding.

Feminism is about more than how we divide the housework, money earning and childcare. How we split the emotional load-bearing is also an issue. If one parent's attention is elsewhere for some reason, then surely a balanced acknowledgement and discussion of all that this entails is in order? And possibly some commitment to creating time to spend with family members to redress the balance...

The fact that there is a book about this psychological absence normalises this for children, and conditions them to accept absent parents, fathers in particular. I find it particularly distressing that the mother in the book puts up with/makes do with an absent partner. I guess the scope of a children's book is too brief to go into whether this is an explicit agreement that they have or not; why do I get the feeling that this would definitely not be the case?

New Love

Sometimes I read something that is just so right, so much a fit with the nebulous thoughts about life, politics, and hope in the face of the unravelling state of the world that my breath catches and I have to remind myself to breathe whilst revelling in the wonder of someone articulating just exactly what I've had in my mind.

And the rejoicing that someone, and an author no less, has thought these things, and thinks that it's worth putting them out there. That a voice is worth having, that no matter how small that voice seems, it is worth hearing. Especially when the things written have excited 'mainstream' accusations of treason and un-patriotic sentiment in the author's home country.

Who has excited me to this point of adulation and bluster? My newfound love, Barbara Kingsolver (author of The Poisonwood Bible) and a collection of her writings, Small Wonder: Essays.

Published in 2002, it contains some considered responses to the events of September 11, 2001. These are notable for their poetic calls for a common sense and heart-centered reaction to the attacks on America. But the collection is so much more than just that. Barbara, (I just can't bring myself to come over all undergrad and call her Kingsolver) by including a selection of essays that covers life's topics in all their breadth, puts the war in Iraq into an everyday context; reminding us that while lives are expended in a faraway land in the name of a vengeful justice, we still grow our children up, wash dishes, worry about species extinction and genetic engineering, work out our relationships with our mothers, and embarrass ourselves occasionally. She calls us to remember that the 'news' of the day on the box or in the newspaper may not be our news of the day, or what we want to know about what happened today.

In a world where we're expected to be up-to-the-minute informed about the latest whatever, Barbara Kingsolver stands up and asks, "Says WHO?" She advocates for a thoughtful approach to what you let into your mind and life, and ask everything to prove it's usefulness to you. This is not to say that she shies away from the difficult topics. The very opposite is true: careful reading and research go into her essays, and, one gets the impression, into her life. I was inspired by her courage to write words like these:

Political urgencies come and go, but it's a fair enough vocation to strike one match after another against the dark isolation, when spectacular arrogance rules the day and tries to force hope into hiding. It seems to me that there is still so much to say that I had better raise up a yell across the fence. I have stories of things I believe in: a persistent river, a forest on the edge of night, the religion inside a seed, the startle of wingbeats when a spark of red life flies against all reason out of the darkness...I'd like to speak of small wonders, and the possibility of taking heart.

Indeed.