Thanksgiving Game Anecdotes

Okay, there are two posts today. The one above is about an amusing St. Catherine's Day custom, and this one is merely to give the Americans among you a space to report on their Thanksgiving.

Strangely enough, I went to a Thanksgiving Dinner myself, here in sunny Scotland, at a nice seventeenth century house across the fields. There was a toast to the American Founding Fathers and, I think, the Declaration of Independence, on which the Scottish Nationalist Party may be rather keen. B.A. had been invited, of course, but he was too sick to go, so I went unescorted, and various fellow guests asked where he was.

This reminded me of my Single readers being asked where your non-existent husband are, and although of course my case is completely different, it just goes to show that any woman who shows up sans man at parties may excite curiosity.

Okay, if you played one of the games, enter your points below.

The Car Poll

*
As Shiraz pointed out, my car poll was flawed. Instead of providing the choice "my ideal man would not necessarily have a car", I threw in "my ideal man would not even know how to drive." There's a difference between the lack of a skill and the lack of an object, of course. I'm going to make a sweeping statement based in 40 years of being a Western woman who hangs out with Western women and say that, in general, Western woman care more about what men can do than what they have.

As a matter of fact, one woman of 163 found virtue in ignorance of driving. That such women exist should come as a relief to men who really hate cars that much. And I'm not knocking men who hate cars that much; there are real environmental and economic reasons to dislike cars. If they wish to eschew one of the great pleasures of life--getting out of the rain or snow into a warm box-on-wheels that smells nice and plays music and takes you wherever you want to go--that is okay by me.

Now, women who really could not care less about cars (but whose ideal man has a license to drive them) and women whose ideal would possess one got jumbled up, thanks to my even-less-scientific-than-ever-poll. But I think it worthwhile to point out that there were 147 of them, which was roughly 90%.

Yes, 90% of those who answered the poll said their ideal man had a car that was merely clean enough for them to sit in. I hope this knocks off the highway and into a ditch the libel that all women prefer men with flashy cars. We couldn't care less about flashy cars.

Well, 90% couldn't care less. Ten women out of 163 (6%) claimed their ideal man would have a really expensive-looking car. What is with this 6%, of whom I am numbered (which got me into a spot of trouble on the home front)?

Are we super-shallow? Or is there something symbolic about expensive-looking cars that speaks to something in our psyches? Many women despise expensive-looking cars because to them they represent overblown male egos and a waste of money better spent on something or someone else, like Iraqi orphans. But some women (a very small number) see the lines and shininess of an expensive automobile and the blood thrills in our veins. Maybe it represents adventure or speed or escape or comfort or all of the above. Or maybe it is about beauty. If Chesterton could get all dreamy and romantic about a lamppost, surely we can get dreamy and romantic about a luxury sedan.

Amusingly five women out of 163 (3%) claimed their ideal man had a car that would cause their brother(s) to weep with envy and their ex-boyfriends to contemplate suicide. Possibly they would not have thought up this choice on their own, and had never contemplated the possibility before I dangled it before their eyes. I assume our five chose it in a gleeful spirit of mockery at male vs male competition. That said, I would suggest they not make relationship choices primarily to annoy other people.

Of course, perhaps these women love the finest automobiles that money can buy but believe that they themselves will never possess them. In that case, I suggest they wiggle their way into the automotive industry, by hook or crook. If they were to become valets at one of the hottest spots in town, for example, they might finally find themselves inside the automotive exemplars they crave. They would also meet the men who drive them and then could decide for themselves, with experiential data, if a man with a glorious, outrageously pricey, car is a man worth having.

*If you know what model and make this is, you are probably not a woman. If you are, you probably have fetched a particularly car-crazed guy to tell you.

Holy Housewife, Batman

Here I am in Lazio visiting Hilary White who is, as you may know, now currently having chemotherapy. At the moment she is napping, so here I am on her computer, blogging away.

So of 160 readers who voted, 29 of you would prefer to work full-time until retirement and 131 of you would prefer to be stay-at-home mums (or, if American, moms). The fact that 97 of the housewife hopefuls are Americans reflects that fact that most of my readers ARE American. (Next come the Canadians and the British.)

"Shaidle was right!" chortled Hilary, and she was referring to yet another Canadian blogger, that one being called Kathy Shaidle. (Since many many people complain when I link to Kathy, follow the link at your own risk. Kathy is a polemicist, and she writes dirty.)

Kathy Shaidle often says that most women would rather just stay at home than have to go out and work for a living. Of course, this might be true of most men, too, and quite a number of men in various countries just sit in the town square playing games all day while their wives scrape together some kind of living so their husbands and children can eat. But possibly I digress.

The truth is that many young women would love, love, LOVE to be able to stay at home like most (but certainly not all) Western women in the 1950s and create a home and keep it looking and smelling nice and improving it with handicrafts and also bottling jam. I was going to say "middle-class and wealthy women", but as a matter of fact many working-class women stayed home too. Many working-class men were proud that their wives "didn't HAVE to work", and in exchange expected dinner on the table soon (if not immediately) after they got home. If they got home. (Some working men stayed in the pub as long as legally possible instead.)

So if any of the minority of my male readers have been moaning that today's young women don't want to stay home and look after their home, husband and halfings, they need look no further than my last poll. Lots of women want to stay home.

You know what? As much as I can't stand dating websites, I would support a dating website for future housewives and the men who want to marry them. Since a woman can't exactly go around telling men she wants to be a stay-at-home mum, and since a man is afraid to say he would prefer his future wife to stay at home and raise kids, this dating service would eliminate all the embarrassment and fear of slaps.

The thing is, chickadees, that you can't stay at home as a grown-up person if you (A) aren't married or (B) have wracked up a huge student debt. And since so many women have huge student debts, I just have to ask, if you want ultimately to be a stay-at-home mum, why did you wrack up that college debt?

If you went to community college and learned to be a chef or a florist, for example, you would have a good solid trade that would keep you fed and housed "in case" as my Grandmother once said, "you don't get married." Or if you went to a state university and studied Chaucer, you might still know as much about Chaucer as you might have had known you gone to Notre Dame. (If, however, you have always wanted to be an English professor, than the Big Name school might be the way to go, since academia is one of the rackets in which Big Name School means something.) You would just have a smaller student debt.

At any rate, if you dream of being a stay-at-home mum, then stop racking up student debts. Do not apply to do an M.A. or PhD in Theology. Seriously. Get your B.A. (if you really want that B.A.) and then get a job. Spend your evenings at, or planning, social events. Go to lots and lots of Young Catholic (or Other Young People of Good Will) meetings. Go to World Youth Day. Go on the annual Chartres Trid jamboree.

Now there are indeed some women, and I honour them, and heck, so does everyone else (on paper), who are so interested in an academic topic or their business or their careers that they are willing to go without kids and marriage, if that's what it takes. Because, sadly, sometimes that's what it does take.

This is not me saying that if you go to grad school you'll never get married. It is NOT. I know lots of women with advanced degrees, most of them much younger than me, who got married. But I also know women with advanced degrees who have the most appalling student debts. You don't need to get a graduate degree to be a stay-at-home mum, and now I'm going to tell you something horrible. Hold onto your coffee, for it is ghastly.

Men don't necessarily want women to be smarter than they are. Women, famously, want to marry men who make more money than them, are at their intellectual level or even challenge them intellectually. But many, many, many men don't care about these things. They don't expect women to make more money than them; if she's attractive and fun, they'll sweep a waitress off her feet and carry her out of the bar. (Fact: I know a real live barmaid who was indeed swept off by a millionaire.) They also don't expect women to be smarter than them, and many don't like it when women are.

These men are not just 65 year old prosing away on the golf course. I delicately brought up the subject of intellectual companionship in marriage to a handsome and very well-educated NCB and he laughed. He. Actually. Laughed. That was not what he was looking for, he said. His future wife could be intellectual or not intellectual. It didn't matter to him. And, anyway, he hadn't met many women who were his intellectual e--. Okay, I will now draw a curtain over the scene.

Germaine Greer or Gloria Steinem would have hit him with his chair, but I was merely in awe that at such a young age the NCB knew what was important to him and what was not and, above all, that he was not afraid to say so.

Of course, there must be NCBs who really do hope for wives that are their intellectual equals. B.A. and I are traditional, but we're not so traditional that we don't have fights about politics and conversations about matters philosophical. I often tell people intellectual conversations are not a daily feature of marriage, but as a matter of fact, they do crop up in mine. I suppose it all comes down to core values again. That said, I have a terrible suspicion that B.A. would have married me even if I didn't know Hegel from Hume. It is much more important that I am too smart to make the mistake of making the man I love feel stupid.

New Poll--Appeal to Catholic Men Under 30

I don't have many male readers, so I appeal to you all to spread the news of this poll to male Catholic blog-readers. They have to be Catholic because the question, which arises from the hopes and dreams of some of my female readers, is specific to Catholics:

I, a Catholic man under the age of 30, hope to support a stay-at-home wife and large Catholic home-schooled family.

Yes.

No.


Those Catholic men who answer the poll are invited to leave remarks on this post. The usual restrictions apply, which means that if I think a comment will offend or even frighten many of my female readers, I will take it down ASAP. Strong arguments are okay, but insults and bad language are not.

The home-school part is not optional.

Theology of the Bawdy Poll Results

Dear me! Colour me surprised, girls and tiny minority of boys, but I was not expecting these results. Evidently those Seraphic Singles readers who like to vote are a clean-speaking, clean-listening bunch!

Now, I forgot to vote, so we had 179 voters. A whopping 165 were women, and 14 were men.

Of the women, 28 thought it was okay to make bawdy jokes (e.g. "One more drink and I'll be under...") in mixed company. Only one woman thought it was okay to tell these jokes to all-male groups (but not women). But 63 women ruled that it was okay to tell bawdy jokes only to groups of women. And then--to my amazement--73 women (40% of all voters, male and female) did not think it okay to tell bawdy jokes in public at all.

Of the men, four thought it okay for women to tell bawdy jokes in mixed groups. None thought it okay for lone women to make these jokes to groups of men. However, four thought it okay for the lassies to say these things to other lassies. But six did not think it okay for women to make such jokes in public ever.

I do not know what to make of these numbers. They would certain startle a pollster: "44% of women nix saucy jokes for women." And they in no way reflect American, British and Canadian entertainment media, that is for sure. They might not even reflect Shakespeare's plays, though I suspect such bawdy jokes as told by women are left up to characters like Juliet's Nurse.

I suppose one conclusion we could make is that it is a very bad idea to channel Dorothy Parker at coffee-after-Mass. Possibly we all know that, though. The danger zone isn't coffee-after-Mass but drinks-after-lunch-after-coffee-after-Mass when a girl thinks she can let down her hair, roll up her sleeves and tell one or two hot ones to keep the party spirit following. This is particularly true when the jokes are flying thick and fast--at least amongst the men--and you want to join in the fun yourself.

Sometimes this works beautifully, but sometimes the equivalent of the "gold standard" dinner party sketch occurs. (Alas, I cannot access youtube, so if you haven't seen the "gold standard" sketch ["Women, Know Your Limits!"], off you go to look at it.) The male recipient of your witty sally does not laugh but instead looks at your with dark, puzzled eyes, like a confused pug dog. The female recipient gets a horrible frozen expression, and swings her shoulder in your direction--like a door in your face--and makes a remark to someone else.

Tonight I am going to an Important Cocktail Party, so I have to go to the hairdresser and have no more time to blog. So please, dear readers, especially the 179 voting readers, feel free to discuss the results in the combox. Are you prim, or are you proper? Do women entertain or disgust when we acknowledge the sexual realm in our jokes? Is it inherently unfeminine to channel Oscar Wilde? Is it simply un-Catholic? Is it a sin? And--a very important issue to many readers--does it make men think we aren't wife material? What role does context play? Please get the ball rolling below.