Chandra Clarke

Award-winning entrepreneur. Author. Professional Optimist.

The Tooth and Nothing But the Tooth

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Photo Credit: Needpix

 

There’s nothing like becoming a parent to make you re-examine your values and start asking yourself the bigger questions. Things like: What is the meaning of life? Why are we here? And (when looking at yourself in the mirror and discovering more baggage under your eyes than Air Canada has ever lost): When did I get to be a 47-year-old mother of four?

In the United States, some school systems are (still) embroiled in legal battles over a similar question: What about the origin of humanity? Some fundamentalist groups are advocating something called “intelligent design” which believes we are very complex beings that could only have been designed by a creator. On the other side are those who would prefer to keep the public school system curriculum secular and stick with teaching the scientific explanation, evolution.

Personally, I’m not sure either side* has it right when it comes to explaining some of our features. Consider teething, for example. I’m sure every mother would agree that when it comes to nursing, the fact that babies are born toothless is very intelligent indeed. On the other hand, why does teething have to involve pain? It doesn’t hurt to grown fingernails or hair or toes. And why, oh why, do babies only teethe at 3 am?

Babies also tend to put everything in their mouths. I do not understand how we still have this trait after thousands of years of evolution, as it’s not very conducive to survival. Back in our cave days, a baby might end up grabbing and chomping a poisonous plant. These days it’s even worse: he might grab and slurp his toddler brother’s favourite Thomas train.

Then there’s the waking up all through the night thing. In a way, having to settle your baby several times a night is much like using a computer. You get an error (crying), try to investigate the cause (usually no discernible reason), and reboot (pat him off to sleep). I don’t know about you, but I can’t think of a single person who thinks computer operating systems are intelligently designed.

Having a baby wake up crying in the night can’t have been good for our ancestors either, as you’re not likely to survive long if you advertise your position to the local wildlife. Plus being sleep deprived can make mothers do dumb things (like hand the bottle to the husband and the beer to the baby) or dangerous things (like cutting a sandwich in half and forgetting to move your finger). Er, or so I’ve heard.

Humans can’t walk for almost a full year and so must be carried around. From a design point of view, this doesn’t seem very smart … unless the creator is also the patron saint of chiropractors, in which case it all makes sense. Humans can’t talk very well for ages either, and so to an inexperienced cave mother, “waaah!” could mean “Feed me!” or “I’m tired” or “Look out! You are about to be stepped on by a woolly mammoth!” and she’d not know the difference.

Our feet do not seem to have been designed with, nor have they evolved with a protective layer against Lego bricks. We have only two hands to deal with four bags of groceries, a toddler, a baby, a purse, a diaper bag, and a stroller. And in spite of what our kids sometimes think, we do not have eyes in the back our heads, and darn it, that would be a really, really handy feature.

So what about our origins? Where did we humans come from? Clearly, there is only one answer:

We were designed by a committee. After a lot of arguments. And at least one of the committee members had a very sadistic sense of humour.

 

 

* For the purposes of this column. For reals though, evolution. Science is a thing.

 

Child’s Play

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My living room on any given day. Image credit: Pixabay

They say you learn a lot about life, and yourself, when you become a parent. As the mother of four children, I can safely say that’s very true. I have learned many things over the past several years, and I’d like to share them with anyone out there who is contemplating becoming a parent.

Clothes: Pregnancy books and magazines make a big (ha!) production over maternity clothes. The idea is that you need a special (read: expensive) wardrobe to help you stay fashionable as you expand. This is nonsense. The time you really need a special wardrobe is *after* giving birth, to help you deal with spit-up, spilled milk and diapers. Think Teflon-coated. Think Scotchguarded. Think, yes, biohazard suit.

Diapers: If you’re not feeding them, you’re burping them, and if you’re not burping them, you’re changing a diaper. Non-parents often think that parents exaggerate ‘the diaper thing’ but just do the math: change a baby approximately every two hours, 24 hours a day, for an average of 10 diapers a day. Seven days a week, for six months… jumpin’ Jehosephat! That’s 1800 diapers already! Save yourself a ton of money and the local landfill a ton of space, and buy reusable cloth diapers. Washing diapers is no more icky than changing them and you’ll need the money you save to buy…

Ankle bandages: No matter how young they are, no matter how many times you tidy up in a day, there will be toys on the floor. And you will step on them. In an effort not to crush them and/or avoid severe plastic pokey bit perforation of your foot, you will twist one way or the other and thus wrench your ankle.

Arm strength: While pregnant, it’s a good idea to work on your upper body strength, particularly arm muscle tone. This is because you will have to lift your child no less than 347 times per day. You need to be prepared for both this, and the fact that your child is gaining weight at a rate well beyond what any fitness trainer would set for your Nautilus machine. You will also have to do at least 299 of your child lifts in the wee hours of the morning while half-asleep.

Arm strength 2: Figure on also having to carry at least 30 pounds of baby gear wherever you go. Children do not travel lightly, and at any given time you will need to have on your person: wipes, diapers, formula/milk, rattles, cereal, change pad, baby biscuits, eight changes of clothes (for you), changing pad, 10 changes of clothes (for the baby), more diapers, and toys.

Sleep deprivation: The pregnancy books all talk about preparing yourself for something called “sleep deprivation.” This term is deceiving — it makes it sound like you’re going to be a bit groggy every morning. Figure on not getting ANY sleep for the next, say, 20 years or so.

Strong stomach: If you’re the type that gets queasy easily, do not have children. Either that or prepare yourself for the sight (and feel) of pureed peas sneezed over a five metre radius.

Repetition: At all costs, stay away from electronic toys. This is not because the old toys are intrinsically better than the new toys. It’s because the electronic toys are not yet Internet-enabled and thus play only two tunes. Two. You will go mad listening to these same two tunes all day.

Weight loss: Getting back into shape after being pregnant is easy. Getting back into shape after being pregnant if you’re looking after a child, which, yes, goes kind of hand in hand with having been pregnant, is a whole ‘nother matter. This is because you will have sleepless nights and constant demands on your time during the day, and you won’t even have time for a sit-up, much less those Body Bounce classes you were taking last year. Also: it is one of life’s great cruelties that housework does not burn many calories.

Smiles and giggles: If you like this sort of thing, then parenthood is definitely for you. Children give them out freely, and it’s what makes it all so very worth while.

Even the sneezed peas.

 

 

Why you should absolutely believe Margaret Mead and Mr. Rogers

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Art and photo by Mark Reinhart. Used with permission.

 

A change of pace today: I’m going to tell you a little story.

Once upon a time, there was a smallish community located in a large and cold kingdom. The land was suffering from a great plague that, like many sicknesses before it, shuttered people in their homes, caused many to die, and many more to suffer.

In this community, the people who remained blessedly unaffected by the plague recognized that there was suffering, especially amongst those who, even in the best of times, didn’t have much on which to sup. So they sent messages by special courier to one another, and plotted and schemed for weeks to gather the spare resources of the kingdom. And they came together — in their thousands, as much as was safe to do so during a plague — and gave those resources to those in need. Yes, just handed them over, no conditions, no tributes required. It was a joy to see, and everyone celebrated the great day. The effort was even commemorated in artwork across the land.

Lovely fairy tale? Utopian dream?

No.

In fact, it’s a true story.

The plague, of course, is the coronavirus pandemic, and the community in question is Chatham-Kent, Canada. On May 16th, 2020, some 5000+ volunteers, following physical distancing protocols and wearing masks, collected more than at least 678,200 pounds of food, donated by residents (who had been asked to leave a non-perishable item on their porch or front step for collection). The goal was to restock local food banks, because donations had tailed off due to the lockdown. You can read about it here, and search for more info by looking up the community name and “May 16th Miracle.” The whole thing was organized in about three weeks, via video calls, texts, and emails. Local artists documented the effort, and also worked to provide inspiration throughout the lockdown.

And this is just one of many similar stories to come out of the pandemic.

I tell you this because right about now, after weeks of depressing news headlines and even more depressing comments on social media, I bet you can use the lift.

But even more important, I figure you can use the inspiration.

You see, problems like pandemics, climate change, homelessness and poverty all seem intractable. Too big to contemplate, much less solve, right? Especially if you’re just one person.

Except, the May 16th Miracle was just one person’s idea.

And the people who helped were just ordinary people.

This wasn’t organized by government. Or a church. Or any kind of organization, really.

It was just a bunch of people who saw a pressing need and decided they were gonna be the ones to fix it. And they got together and did so.

Fred Rogers, of PBS children’s programming fame, once said that in a crisis, it was important to “Look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping.”

He was right. There are always people who are helping, even in the worst of times. Many, many more than the media or those awful clickbait websites would have you believe.

Margaret Mead once said: “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has.”

She was also right. You don’t need everyone on board. You just need enough.

Believe them both. And then have a think about what you might do to make a fairy tale come true in your community.

Because I believe you can.

 

Monkey See, Monkey Do

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“Did you *see* what they did with that press release, Frank?” Image credit: Pixabay.

It’s tough being a humour columnist right now. There’s a flood of whacky stories, and it’s difficult to tell what’s real and what’s satire, and what’s just flat out fake.

So, it was with a jaundiced eye that I read an old news release by the Zoological Society of London about chimpanzees. After explaining how chimps are our closest living relatives, with similar expressions and behaviours, the group — apparently in all seriousness — calls for volunteers to talk like chimpanzees.

“Animal behaviour experts at ZSL are asking volunteers to ‘talk chimp’ in everyday life,” says the press release, “and see how primate patter can resolve workplace conflicts, express emotions and strengthen human bonds.”

The Society helpfully provides a form that explains six chimpanzee behaviours, and asks you to report back where you used the behaviour and how it helped you. Never one to shy away from progress and research, I have performed my own experiments. Here are the results:

Distress: For this behaviour, you’re meant to form an ‘o’ with your mouth and make a short, high pitched “oo oo oo” sound. I attempted this during my last call to technical support, while navigating the voice mail options. After pressing 384 for “please start again because you’ve gotten completely lost,” I made a very loud “oooooo” noise. An operator immediately broke in over the hold music and asked if I was okay. Results: I made several more noises, and was not only immediately patched through to a technician who solved my problem, but I received a free software upgrade CD.

Fear: Here you’re supposed to bare all your teeth, lower your head, and crouch down. I did this the last time the postman brought me a fistful of utility bills. Positive results: He doesn’t come around anymore. No more bills! Negative results: No more Christmas cards either, I suspect.

Play face: This requires a smiley type face and a high-pitched hoot that rises, sometimes changing into a throaty laugh. I did this several times at the last hockey game that I attended. Results: No one appeared to notice.

Authority: Usually demonstrated by males, during this display the chimp makes as much noise as possible to shock and awe his foes, brandishing objects and trying to seem bigger. Results: I didn’t bother trying this one as clearly there are a few world leaders using this behaviour already.

Greeting: Here the arm is to be extended with an open fist, and the greeting is to be accompanied by a throaty “huh huh huh.” I never did work out what an open fist was supposed to be, but I tried this behaviour at a convention recently. Positive results: I had several offers of employment. Negative results: They were all for, erm, ‘adult chat’ phone services.

Grooming: A more dominant chimp presents his or her back to another chimp for grooming. Since the best place to observe groming behaviour in modern society is at a teenaged girl’s slumber party, I crashed one this weekend. Positive results: I have way cool hair now. Negative results: I am also sporting a tattoo that says “Hoobastank rocks!” and I have no idea what this means.

The Zoological Society claims that it will publish the results of this study later this year. Given the reactions of some of the people I tried “chimp talk” on, I suspect the study will say one of two things:

1) “The chimp talk experiment provided valuable data on both chimp/human interactions and corporate communications techniques.”

or

2) “The lads at the society had a jolly good laugh at the expense of all the dorks who actually went around talking like monkeys at their family and friends. Results: It’s amazing what you can get people to do with a press release!”