In her 8th month, Anisa is Happy Baby Girl, smiling, giggling, causing mischief, at least 80% of the time. The balance? Well, Cranky Baby Girl is tired, hungry or constipated.[i] Which makes her rather unhappy. So in honor of Cranky Baby Girl, let’s talk about our nation’s epic case of constipation that is making us all rather unhappy.
First. Two quick book recommendations.
Set in Watsonville, California, Gordo is an incredibly fun and moving series of short stories by Jaime Cortez about growing up in a farmworker family. A gifted storyteller, Cortez weaves together the trials and tribulations of childhood, migration and community in ways that left each character on my mind. Buy the book. You’ll love it.
A few months ago, a friend asked if I would write the foreword for documentary photography book, Finding American. “Happy to learn more,” I replied, expecting something fairly standard. Instead … through his travels to every state in the nation, Colin Boyd Shafer combined stunning photography with in-depth interviews to provide a captivating level of nuance and detail about each subject. Finding American will be released in October – you can pre-order here.
Oh, and thank you to DS for sending along this article laying out a range of solutions to address the maternal health crisis.
Happy Talk
Thinking people who write thought pieces are worried that we are terribly unhappy. I would never present myself as a thinking person. Nor would I claim Cranky Dad to be a thought piece. But, I read and respect such people.
In one of said pieces, Deepak Bhargava, Sharzad Shams and Harry Hanbury unpack the unhappiness crisis in Democracy Journal to conclude, “Our culture and politics are increasingly driven by this rising wave of unhappiness.” They are not wrong. Authoritarian forces tap into our unhappiness to undermine the public’s trust in institutions, much less each other. Our politics and our culture are spiraling into deeper and more intense levels of conflict.
Yet, as much as I agree with the dangers of an unhappy and scared populace, I can’t help but feel we are engaging in a bunch of, well, happy talk. Because as much as the “pursuit of happiness” is enshrined in our Constitution, happiness has never been enjoyed by all.
For example, in 2007, an Associated Press and MTV survey found that 72 percent of whites say they are happy with life in general, compared with 51 percent of Hispanics and 56 percent of blacks. Or, more recently, John Iceland and Sarah Ludwig-Dehm looked at Black-White differences in happiness from 1972 to 2014 to find that while the gap declined over time, “the gap in happiness between whites and blacks is substantial, with whites more likely to report being very happy and less likely to report being not too happy.”
“Among the specific characteristics that contribute most to the gap,” they offered, “are marital status and income. People who are married and who live in households with higher incomes are more likely to report being happier, and these attributes are more common among whites than blacks.”
Taking into account more recent data, Bhargava, et al, wrote, “White Americans appear to be losing ground in terms of happiness compared to their Black counterparts, despite persistent racial inequities.” In fact, while college-educated whites with high incomes experienced stable happiness levels or slight declines, “white Americans without a college degree saw a 28 percent drop in happiness from the 1970s to the mid-2010s.”
“By contrast,” they point out, “working-class Black Americans without college degrees experienced relatively stable happiness levels throughout the four decades, and higher-income, college-educated Black Americans experienced large gains, with 63 percent more Black adults with a college degree reporting they were “very happy” in the mid-2010s compared to the 1970s.”
So, why am I cranky about happiness? Or the lack thereof?
Well, it is the sense of entitlement to happiness that I find troublesome. Particularly since if we aren’t happy, our politics urge us to be angry at someone who is happier than us. And political anger, in the worst-case scenarios, is an onramp to something worse.
Generational happiness – which I would define as having the means to enjoy a certain quality of life – is a product of struggle. That struggle may have occurred generations ago; it may be ongoing. But at the risk of oversimplifying, someone, someplace, through a combination of hard work and good fortune, caught a break. Sometimes with a helping hand of government, sometimes without. Either way, as a result, there is a family or communal network around that individual that is “happy.”
Now of course, all of us should be able to pursue happiness. And obstacles to that pursuit should be challenged through individual or systemic actions. But, more and more, there is a conflation of the individual pursuit of happiness and public entitlement to happiness. In that conflation lies a conflict that is intensified by a political debate where we are led to believe only certain people should be entitled to happiness. The rest can pursue happiness, but their pursuit can’t get in the way of another’s entitlement to happiness.
It is a complicated mess of policies, politics and perceptions. Made all the worse by our hardened political identities.
In the end, I don’t want Anisa to be unhappy. But I want her to understand what happiness means and why all of us should be happy – whether through public policy or individual effort. And, should she ever be in a position to help others be happy, that she doesn’t limit that effort to people she agrees with.
Because if we don’t figure out a way to support each other’s happiness, our political constipation is just going to make us angrier and angrier.
Dogs
This section was going to be a bit of a screed against cats. But I don’t have anything against cats. They are odd creatures; but, so am I. Besides, I promised Anisa I wouldn’t get canceled before her first birthday.
I have to say that it is so much fun to watch Anisa and Lady become friends. Anisa beams when Lady follows us down the stairs every morning; Lady lies patiently near the crib as Anisa fusses herself to sleep. Both are thrilled when Anisa offers a friendly pat, or Lady a loving lick.
I am definitely a dog person. And I had no idea how great it is to have a dog in the house at this point in Anisa’s life.
The exciting part is that with Anisa weeks away from teetering and tottering around the house, her relationship with Lady will become much closer. Anisa will be the one licking Lady (Toya is so grossed out here), Lady will be the one patting Anisa. They are going to become best buds.
Anisa will grow up with Lady in her life. And, dog years being what they are, Lady will age before Anisa’s eyes. And, not to get too morbid here, Lady may be one of Anisa’s first experiences of loss.
Which makes every lick, every pat, all the more special.
Eating
When I left California for Boston in 1997, I complained about the lack of Mexican food. Over time, the East Coast Mexican food scene improved, and I came to appreciate the range of cuisines along the Eastern seaboard. But, I still missed the California produce.
Toya didn’t really believe me when I told her California produce was on another level. Then she had the peaches, apricots, tomatoes, cherries, berries … I could go on and on. It really is amazing. And, in Old Oakland there is a great farmer’s market that is low on the hipster scale, but has the best collections of Asian greens, fresh fruits and great fish. Anisa and I have become regulars.
Finally, a couple friends came over for dinner and I made my mom’s fish curry. It was super easy to do and turned out perfectly. Whatever leftovers there were, disappeared well before I made it to the fridge.
[i] Let’s just say my aging GI system is matched in complexity by Anisa’s growing GI system.
Always enjoy your posts! My oh my how your little one is growing!
Very happy that sweet Anisa has Lady to grow with. A side note—We recently listened to an excellent podcast about Allergies. We learned that children who are raised around animals are less likely to have severe allergies. And if you wouldn’t mind—fish curry recipe please! How i love a dish that is so good it doesn’t make it to “leftover’s”!