Topsy-turvy Land

Topsy-turvy Land

This morning, my son came into my bedroom with a (relatively new) tube of toothpaste and asked if there was another tube already opened. I replied, “that one is open, isn’t it?” He checked it, said yes, and walked off. A few minutes later, he reappeared and said that his dad had got him to brush his teeth. I responded that I have asked him many times to brush his teeth, but he never listens to me. “Yeah, but you don’t yell at me or lecture me for an hour about why I need to brush my teeth,” he said. I asked him, “Really? That’s what you want? Someone to yell at you and lecture you?”

Two out of three of my children have chosen their father over me. He is constantly criticizing me to our children, while I rarely do that to him. They all agree that he yells too much, while I hardly ever yell. He lectures, while I prefer to use a more pragmatic approach which explains consequences of not doing what I asked. Despite these personality differences, and despite psychological research which tells us not to yell, lecture and demean, two out of three of my children prefer exactly that.

Human behavior is never going to be an exact science. We can research behavior and responses to various stimuli forever and never come any closer to understanding people. Decades of evolution and progress has not really brought us very far. Two of my children need to be yelled at and lectured. Racism is still rampant throughout the world. Government at the local and national level is run by sexual predators, pedophiles, racists and inexperienced cronies. As a nation, we have gone backwards. Just as we were making progress with affirmative action, cultural appropriation, cultural sensitivity, and women’s rights, we have begun to once again normalize racism, sexism, and mediocrity. One third of Americans get their proverbial panties in a bunch when you bring this to their attention. One third of my readers have either already stopped reading this entry once I got past the story about my son, are wondering why they didn’t stop reading when the other lemmings stopped reading, or are going to read to the end in spite. This is the state of our nation, though. We live in Topsy-turvy world. Here it is OK to yell at your children, talk bad about their mother and lecture them. They like it. It’s alright to be a racist bigot. There are many others just like you who also hate people of color. There used to be a time when getting a blow job by an intern would get you impeached, but if you are a wealthy Republican celebrity, it will get you elected, and then you can endorse a pedophile. As children, we are taught that only the best and the brightest get to be President. We look up to our local and national leaders. The global respect and admiration for the president is now gone. The world does not take Donald Trump seriously and two-thirds of Americans don’t either. Local and national government has become a running joke instead of something to be desired and aspired to.

The Vice President’s son at my former place of employment told me that I should “stick with my own race and age group”. Such comments, in tandem with the aforementioned predatory behavior of our local and national leaders and their blatant racism, would have at one time resulted in termination of employment. Instead, it resulted in the termination of my employment. To get ahead in Topsy-turvy land, you have to yell and lecture. You have to demean, demoralize, and exploit women and persons of color. We are currently playing an endless game of “opposite day” that I am not sure we will ever be able to completely stop and reverse when we finally wake up.