Lesson for a New Momma

Symbiosis,” I told the class of semi-attentive 6^th grade students,” “is to creatures living together in a close relationship. At least one member of the relationship benefits.”

Three girls in the front row nodded. The boy in the back twisted in his chair to grimace at a friend across the room. I paused, and stared at him until he sheepishly turned around.

“There are three types of symbiosis,” I continued after ensuring that I had his gaze if not his attention. “Mutualism, commensalisms,and parasitism. In a mutualism both members of the relationship benefit. Sea anemone and clown fish have this sort of relationship.”

“A clownfish like Nemo?”

“Like Nemo.”

The class then began citing quotes from the Pixar film, but I eventually found my way back to the lesson.

“When creatures are in commensalisms, one creature benefits, but the other is neither harmed nor benefited from the relationship. He’s indifferent. In the last type of symbiosis, parasitism, one creature is harmed while the other is benefited. Then we launched into contemplations of ticks, fleas, tapeworms and other such organisms.

I wanted to ensure that students remembered the concept, so I decided to give them a couple of examples from my own life. “My husband is reconstructing one of our bathrooms and repairing our aging house. In return, I prepare dinner and maintain the housework. We both enjoy a tasty meal and a newly renovated home. This is a mutualism.”

A boy raises his hand. “My dad says that once you get married, you don’t have time for fun anymore. Your wife is always asking you to repair this or that.”

I smiled and thought, “It’s not marriage that absorbs your leisure, it’s homeownership.”

Then I rubbed my blossoming, kicking belly and continued with my examples. “Sometimes, I jestingly tell my husband that being pregnant is like having a parasite. I am providing nourishment and a comfortable incubation site for a creature that is sapping my energy, changing my appearance and consuming approximately half of my meals. The baby benefits, but in some ways I am harmed – or at least not entirely benefited by the relationship.

“Now I want you each to write down an example of a mutualism, parasitism, and commensalism. Some of your examples can be human ones, like mine, but at least one must be based on nature.”

When I read the students’ assignments a few days later, I was amazed at how revealing they were. Here are some memorable responses:

Parasitism: My sister borrows my CDs and scratches them. She never lets me borrow any of hers.

I share my shoes with my cousin and she borrows my clothes. That’s a mutualism.

Every Friday night, my family eats pasta. Everyone in my family likes pasta but me. They are benefited and I am harmed. This is a parasitism.

Then two responses made me pause.

Mutualism: My mother makes dinner, cleans the house and washes the dishes. In return, she gets us.

An example of a mutualism is a pregnant mother. She provides the baby food and a comfortable place to sleep. Then she gets to have a baby!

I wondered if these students missed the concept of a mutualism. The relationships they described seemed nearly parasitic. What were the students giving their mothers in return for their labors? Where was the mutual benefit?

As I ponder their responses, I realize they my students had perceived a truth that I had not. Children are a blessing and a benefit.

Even when considered from a strictly economic viewpoint, children are a worthwhile investment. My in-laws have saved little money for retirement, but they have reared eight children who love and respect them. None of my sisters or brothers-in-law would consider allowing their parents to suffer deprivation, and thus, they have a more secure future than many with 401K’s and saving bonds. My husband’s parents will not be need to worry about their future, even if the economy collapses, inflations rises to just a point that a loaf of bread costs $500 and Mexican crime lords overrun the White House. Their children will care for them.

Yet, children are a blessing in many less quantifiable ways. For example, children teach you to give, explains Anne Lamott in her delightfully human book about writing, Bird by Bird. Lamott says that both writing and raising a three-year-old “teach you to get out of yourself and become a better person for someone else. This is probably the secret to happiness. … Your child and your work hold you hostage, treat you like dirt, and then you discover that they have given you that gold nugget you were looking for all along.”

Christians call it edification. The painful stretching of oneself into become a more humble, loving, beautiful soul. That gift of stretching and the opportunity to serve more and more selflessly is the benefit of being a mother.

I drew a smile beside my students’ answers. Yes, the mother-child relationship is a mutualism, not a parasitism.

Player Piano

Book Reflection

At my husband's recommendation, I read Kurt Vonnegut's Player Piano. Perhaps one of the most striking things about this 1952 tale of dystopia is how it seems to embody some of the ideals of the agrarian author Wendell Berry.

In his crisp, succinct language, Vonnegut describes the hollowness experienced by those living entirely dependent on machinery. The common man has only two career options available: to join the army or to join the reconstruction corps. Both offer only mundane tasks that cannot provide satisfaction to the worker. Their work serves little more purpose than to prevent loitering and looting. They have no true need for work as much of their needs are computed by machines and then manufactured by other machines. They have readily available any thing they desire - as long as what they desire can be massed produced. They have achieved what Wendell Berry calls in his essay Feminism, the Body and the Machine, "the higher aims of technological progress," which he defines as money and ease. Although surrounded by money and ease the people of Vonnegut's tale find little satisfaction. They cannot find a place or purpose for themselves.

Vonnegut suggests that the common man has accepted innovation without consideration -- a thing Berry cautions again. In Feminism, the Body and the Machine, Berry says "The question of the desirability of adopting any technological innovation is a question with two possible answers - not one, as has been commonly assumed. If one's motives are money, ease, and haste to arrive in a technologically determined future, then the answer is foregone, and there is, in fact, no question, and no thought. If one's motives is the love of family, community, country and God, then one will have to think, and one may have to decide that a proposed innovation is undesirable."

In Player Piano, man's blind acceptance of technology resulted in his slavery. Machines became more efficient and precise than men and eventually supplanted men. Not only could the machine perform the task more rapidly and with fewer errors, it did not require lunch breaks, bathrooms, or coffee. The machine was the ideal slave. But by being so, it enslaved man. "Any one who competes with slaves becomes a slave," writes Vonnegut. Man could not achieve the iron perfection of the machinery and thus were subjected to fruitless, menial tasks.

The idea of being enslaved by machines - and by the mass-produced efficiency they provided - is repeated throughout the novel. It's particularly evident when the Shah of Bratpuhr tours America's grand mechanized society. Much to the exasperation of his host, the Shah insists on referring to all common Americans as slaves. Rather than refuting his opinion, the Shah's visit reinforces his view of man provided for by machines and engineers as slaves. Their status being determined solely based on their IQ and a college degree. Those with intelligence and appropriate lineage were admitted into colleges and eventually became part of the higher class - those of managers and engineers. Those who were not able to earn degrees were condemned to a position of slavery.

Vonnegut's book cries for modern man - whether it's the man of the 1950s or of 2010 - to carefully consider technology before accepting it. Not all innovations, his story warns, leads to joy. There is a danger in pursuing only ease, money and efficiency.

Book Review in Brief:

In his first novel, Kurt Vonnegut creates a society where the majority of work is completed by machines. The elite rulers are either engineers or managers responsible for the machines and the common man is left without a role. Readers follow engineer Dr. Paul Proteus as he learns of the unintended consequences caused by this society.

While Vonnegut's tale occasionally displays its age, it also provides plenty of fodder for our current generation to consider. His commentary on technology, the role of man, and life in general remain fresh.

In conclusion, I would recommend reading this book, but I would not place it amongst my top 10 favorites.

Summer sunshine

Ahh... Summer vacation. Students have crammed for exams, waited with eagerness to hear the results of their study and have now left the school for three months of bliss and boredom.

Those same three months promise much bliss and little boredom for me. I plan to devote the cool morning hours to my herb and vegetable garden. The sweltering sunshine that bathes our yard gives great cheer to my most crop of tomatoes. The broccoli raab, however, has bloomed, overgrown its allotted foot of garden space and now shall be uprooted and supplanted by seeds for a fall crop. My arugula will suffer a similar fate, after its blooms have seeded and fallen.

My afternoons will be spent preparing the baby's room, organizing the house, and, of course, reading. I hope to have all things in order before my life changes. After the baby's arrival, I doubt there will be time to scrub or sew.

So, my summer is divided into two: The first month and a half will be devoted to cleaning and preparation. Then - at some unknowable time - it will transition to diapers and midnight feedings. A veil seems drawn over this second half. Hints and illusions to what changes I will undergo can be gleaned from those who have already passed into motherhood, but I, a mother-in-waiting, can only imagine what awaits me. Just as I know the general shape of my child - one head, two arms, two legs, 10 toes - I know the general shape of my life as a mother. The particulars of both are hidden to me. My baby's gender remains a mystery, as does his eye color and personality. My own personality as a mother has not yet been revealed, but shall be soon.