The Culture of Difference, The Canadian Way

Differences are all around us. Whether we are completely conscious of it or not, we encounter differences in nearly every aspect of our daily lives. We can differ by ethnicity or language, by economic status, by political views, or even in opinion on any given topic. In many ways, it is by these differences that we define ourselves as individuals and as groups of individuals who share a common bond. In the article, “The Civilization of Difference,” by The Right Honourable Beverly McLachlin, differences are examined under a political microscope in an attempt to see where we, as Canadians, are going based on where we have been. The author suggests that Canadians in particular have a unique relationship with difference. It is not only present in our daily lives lived in this culturally diverse nation, but it is also the foundation on which this country was built. Though it has not always been a tolerant and welcoming country, today Canada strives to be a leader in good will and human rights. The defence and protection of all people, regardless of who they are, is at the heart of what it means to be Canadian.


It is true that we humans have a need to identify with a group, to belong to a community. In her article, McLachlin suggests that it is often by process of exclusion that we find where we are included. By process of deduction and elimination I can learn who I am from who I am not. The African proverb that is used in the article rings true on many levels. “A person only becomes a person through other people” can on one hand mean that in comparison to others we can find who we are, but it can also mean that we find ourselves when we find belonging with others.


Finding an identity, a group to belong in can be both rewarding and destructive. Once we identify ourselves as being a part of one group, we are also saying that we are not a part of a different group and from that point it is a logical next step to look down on the other group as being not as good as our group. The other group appears less worthy than our group, making ‘different’ become synonymous with ‘bad’. It is also true that treating others badly has the effect of making us feel more powerful; the oppressive effects of this dynamic have been felt throughout history. McLachlin’s article focuses in a few of these examples, most notably Hitler’s regime where the ultimate goal was to completely eradicate everyone who was different. It is easy to see that this concept of identification through difference permeates not only just our history but also through our present. Virtually all conflicts are started over differences of one kind or another; it is the very nature of war.


So what do we do about this culture of difference which inevitably leads us to fight with each other? The text offers two possible solutions to this problem, each with their own set of virtues and drawbacks. Firstly, the idea of separating groups within autonomous nation states. Though it would give the members of the group security and the authority to self-rule, it is no way a guarantee of prevention of war. In fact, it may serve to deepen resentments because there would also be a territorial boundary to dispute, on top of the ethnic differences already in question. As well, this division along physical borders does nothing to account for immigration as you can’t ensure that all people from one ethnic background will stay living within the boundaries of their assigned territory. Furthermore, and in my opinion, segregation leads to ignorance and ignorance leads to hate.


Alternatively, the text suggests that promoting respect and accommodation within the nation state is what will ultimately lead us to tolerance and peace. This idea is contingent on a basic philosophical principle that all humans are created equal and that the core of one human is exactly equal to the core of another. It is a great concept in theory, but it may be far more difficult in practice. As well, it is always debatable that when two things are different, can they really truly also be equal?


In Canada, we have tried to embrace this notion of accommodation and respect within our borders. It has given us the legal language of protection as written in our Charter of Rights and Freedoms to use in defending our differences against attack. As a nation, we have accepted this way of life making it implicit in what makes us Canadian.


Unfortunately, we have not always been so free to welcome those who differ. Though it is true that Canada was founded on the coming together of two cultures with different languages, and our Constitution was written to protect those very differences, we must also look at the dark side of Canadian history and the many cultures that faced terrible discrimination within our “tolerant” borders. For the purposes of this paper, the atrocities are too many to list with appropriate detail but McLachlin does a good job in her article of paying due attention to many, from the deportation of thousands of Acadians to the eugenics practice of sterilizing the intellectually handicapped. Even women, who make up 52% of the population have had to struggle to attain an equal status, only becoming legal “persons” in 1929. It is arguable that this inequitable treatment of women persists today, as evident in a 2oo6 study by catalystwomen.org (www.catalystwomen.org) which shows that only 15.1% of corporate officer positions are held by women. Employment and pay equity for women are far from being a reality.


On this point of discrimination in Canadian history, arguably the worst offense is that of the First Nations People, or Aboriginals. As the text points out, this was a clear case of “institutionalized discrimination” (300), whereby laws were created to give legal backing to practices that amounted to nothing less than theft. The treaty system was just a legal way to steal vast amounts of land from a culture that not only had no real concept of “ownership,” but for the most part also lacked the literacy skills needed to fully understand the documents they were signing. If that wasn’t bad enough, further laws were enacted that attempted to take away their culture and identity, the very spirit of the Aboriginal people. In 1857, the Act to Encourage the Gradual Civilization of the Indian Tribes in the Province was created with the sole intention of converting the “savages” into “civilized” people, giving them new Christian names, and turning them into “non-Indians” under the law. The Indian Act of 1876 took this one step further when it outlawed traditional Native ceremonies, turning the Sundance and Potlatch traditions into illegal acts.


It is hard to imagine how alienating and emotionally devastating this theft of identity could be on an individual. To make matters worse, it must have been extremely confusing that the society that was trying to convert them to join its ranks, was at the same time excluding them from becoming full members with equal rights. In the text, McLachlin refers to this as the assimilation-exclusion model. Of this she says, “the simultaneous pursuit of exclusion and assimilation produced cultural displacement, marginalization, and tragic loss of identity and self-esteem.” (301). The effects of this treatment are still being felt and the resentment that it has left is far from over, despite the Federal governments attempts to make amends. In 1995, the Liberal government issued a Federal policy on Aboriginal Self-Government which essentially states that section 35 of the Canadian Constitution recognizes the inherent right of self-rule, giving back to the Aboriginal people the ability to govern themselves within the greater framework of this country. As well, some financial restitution has been paid to certain bands that have successfully sued the Canadian government for discrimination, theft of property, and abuse of power. Gains are being made in reparation of this relationship, but the pain and anger runs deep and likely will for many years to come.


In writing her article, Beverly McLachlin maintains an optimistic view of Canada as the defender of differences, the ambassador for diversity on the world stage—and I cannot agree more. We have an impressive array of distinctive cultures and ethnicities within our borders and are constantly welcoming, with open arms, immigrants from around the world. We are also a nation with two official languages, and our Charter of Rights and Freedoms that was adopted in 1982 is more than a legal document, it is practically an instruction book on what it means to be Canadian.
Whether you were born here or just recently arrived, the culture of acceptance that exists in Canada is tangible and can be felt as both warm and welcoming. Though our country has experienced many internal challenges and our freedoms have been hard won, we have grown to embrace the differences that make us unique and doing so makes us proud. It is possible to suggest that the true Canadian identity is in its refusal to conform to just one. The Canadian way is as diverse as its occupants, as vast as its terrain, and that is just the way we like it.

Defending the Self

Returning to school after a twelve year hiatus has been nothing short of incredible. I feel sometimes as if I have jumped through a time warp, setting down my pen and paper at one end, and picking up my laptop at the other. As I look around the classroom at my peers, I am stunned by their technological abilities. The seamless way in which they toggle between screens, chatting online with their friends while still managing to take notes from the lecture that is unfolding before us. The one time that I personally attempted this feat, I was so distracted by trying to do everything that I’m pretty sure I actually accomplished nothing. It’s true, I am in awe of the multitasking abilities of this generation, but it also makes me wonder: am I missing something here? Or are they?

The possibilities of this digital age are endless, and the speed of progression is exponential. No other single technological advancement has propelled us forward as quickly as the personal computer. Though Marshall McLuhan did not live to see the day that his students used laptops instead of pencils, his reference to the “electronic age of instantaneous communication,” (1995, p. 237) was eerily prophetic. Of this he says, “...unlike previous environmental changes, the electronic media constitute a total and near-instantaneous transformation of culture, values and attitudes” (p. 237). If digital advancements have the power to transform a society instantaneously, it raises the question: Are we, the people in that society, mentally prepared for it? With such a sudden emphasis on the external stimuli of the digital age, we are at risk of allowing the internal complexities of introspective awareness die out completely, but only if we let it. Succumbing to the superficial distractions that surround us at every moment is a personal choice of our own free will and is not inevitable.

In The Gutenberg Elegies, Sven Birkerts (1994) suggests that we are entering into a period of “social collectivization that will over time all but vanquish the ideal of the isolated individual” (p. 130). This is both completely true and utterly false, depending on how it is read. On the one hand, of course we are collectivizing. What is the World Wide Web if not a collection of ideas and information from many different sources and added by many different people. Wikipedia, an online encyclopedia built entirely by its users, is a testament to this collaborative process. But this does not mean that we are all thinking with the same brain. Yes, we may have a similar pool of information to draw from on television or the internet, but is exactly the “isolated individual” who interprets that information, and every interpretation will be different, based on the experiences of that individual and the context in which it is taken. Unless we all share the same upbringing, emotions, memories, and life lessons, we will all continue to approach things from a unique vantage point—a vantage point occupied solely by an individual person.

It would be impossible to engage in this dialogue of technological supremacy versus individual free will without mentioning the massive popularity of social networking websites like facebook and MySpace. On these sites, we are able to build up a digital vignette of ourselves—complete with photos, interests, and hobbies. My facebook profile is a two-dimensional, electronic extension of my three-dimensional self, and makes me immediately accessible to anyone who goes looking for me. In fact, anyone who looks at my profile may even get the impression that they know me, the intrinsic me, the me that can answer questions and participate in a discussion. But it is not me. As Socrates described the limitations of paintings and the written word in his dialogue with Phaedrus, so too are the limits of a web page:
"The productions of painting look like living beings, but if you ask them a question they maintain a solemn silence. The same holds true of written words; you might suppose that they understand what they are saying, but if you ask them what they mean by anything they simply return the same answer over and over again." (Plato, n.d., trans. Hamilton, 1973, p. 97).

The constraints that the computer operates under are even further limited by the very nature of what comprises the language of computer data—the binary. This is what McLuhan refers to as the “two-bit wit” (Marchand, 1989, p. 253). A computer is designed to answer either “yes or no.” Even at its most advanced level of communication, it lacks the ability to see something as “yes and no,” a concept which the human brain has little or no trouble with at all (Marchand, 1989, p. 253). So where is the self in all of this? The self is sitting at the computer, manipulating the page, choosing what information to share, and what picture to post. The third-dimension that has been missing from this equation is still in control and has been all along. The private self has chosen to display a public version, and can at any time chose to retract it—there has been no loss of intrinsic awareness.

A common misconception when thinking about the on-line matrix of the World Wide Web is that we are all anonymous out there in cyber-space. It would seem so much easier to post a nasty comment in a chat room, create a racist blog, or even stalk an unsuspecting victim when we feel that our identity is hidden. Most notably, pedophiles have used this cloak of anonymity to lure children out of the virtual realm and into the real world, sometimes by posing as children themselves. It is true that we can create an on-line persona to reflect ourselves in any light that we wish, but we can only hide to a certain extent. Our ability to take cover in cyber-space is limited by the unique fingerprint that our personal computers leave on everything they touch. It is called an IP address, and it is specific to only one computer in the world and is therefore specific to that one person who is guiding its actions—the registered user. By itself, the PC is an innately inanimate object, completely dependent on the key strokes of the human who directs it. Once the computer has been personalized to a specific user by the addition of passwords and IP address, it has become as unique as the individual who is operating it.

Now, getting back to my problem with multi-tasking in the classroom, I’d like to point out that the day that I brought my laptop was the day that I learned the least. I was engaging myself outwardly on so many levels that I was completely neglecting what was happening on the inside. In these moments of over-stimulation, my consciousness existed totally outside of myself and at the expense of my internal awareness. I completely lacked the mental capacity to internalize, digest, and comprehend the lecture that was being spoken. The words could enter my ears and exit my fingers onto the keyboard, but something was getting lost in the translation. It was here that I fully understood what Socrates meant in his instructions on the difference between recollection and memory. The notes that I was taking while distracted were merely “receipts for recollection” (Plato, n.d., trans. Hamilton, 1973, p. 96). That is, I had not yet learned the true knowledge of the thing in order to have a memory of it. All I had were words on a page that I would one day read in hopes of learning the truth of what was spoken in that lecture. It seems to me that this is a rather long way around, and if I had been truly engaged in the discourse at that time, I would have cut out the middle man and already have a memory of the subject. Though I do take some notes in class, those that are taken by pen to paper have a much shorter distance to travel, and therefore seem so much closer in proximity to my internal thoughts.

There is something very puzzling in the way that my peers will flippantly tell me “we’re just products of our culture,” when I press them about their laptop use. It’s true that we are all products of the culture from whence we sprang, but more so I believe that we are products of our nature. Half a million years of human evolution has brought us to now, and there is no way that the naked ape has made an evolutionary jump in only one generation that would allow us to devote pure attention to many stimuli, instead of just one. Scientific experiments such as dichotic listening tests have proved that conscious thought only has the capacity to pay attention to one source of input at a time (Lindsay, Paulhus, & Nairne, 2006, p. 179), yet erroneously, my peers seem to assume that this limitation of the human brain does not apply to them. The truth is that the “multi-taskers” in the classroom are both distracted by everything, and conscious of everything simultaneously which can only result in a superficial awareness of anything. Recognition of our natural born limitations are key to maintaining the inner self, even in this sped-up culture of over stimulation.

As human animals, we have been given the unique gift of self-awareness and the ability to self-determination. We are not now, nor have we ever been, hurtling uncontrollably towards an inevitable collective consciousness. The individual will survive this hyper-culture of the digital age even if it means adapting to exist within it. Certainly the technology of this age will play an enormous role in shaping and evolving our society. Sven Birkerts (1994) assertion that “the idea of what it means to be a person living a life will be much changed” (p. 130) is categorically correct, but is in no way a condition that is unique to this period in history. Human existence is always shifting to incorporate new facets of our constantly evolving reality, and human animals have always proven themselves to be adaptable. We are in no danger of that changing now.



References
Birkerts, S. (1994). Into the electronic millennium. The Gutenberg elegies. New York: Ballantine.
Lindsay, D. S., Paulhus, D. L., & Nairne, J. S. (2006). Psychology: The adaptive mind (3rd ed.). Toronto: Thomson Nelson.
Marchand, P. (1989). Marshall McLuhan: The medium and the messenger. Toronto: Random House.
McLuhan, M. (1995). Playboy Interview. Essential McLuhan. (E. McLuhan & F. Zingrone, Eds.). Toronto: House of Anansi
Plato. (n.d./1973). The inferiority of the written to the spoken word. Phaedrus and the seventh and eighth letters: Phaedrus. (W. Hamilton, Trans.). New York: Penguin.

Growing Pains

It feels like only minutes ago that my little Nova child was safely encompased in my jumbo sized gut and awaiting her curtain call to enter this world. I have never felt so confident of her safety and whereabouts as I did then, and never will I feel that again. My daughter is growing up and is leaving the sanctuary of my womb.....and I'm a wreck!
Tomorrow morning at 9.00am, she is getting on an airplane and flying to Vancouver to visit her dad for 6 whole terrifying days. This trip has been planned for months, discussed for years, and dreaded since insemination. I am doing all that I can to but on a brave face as I discuss it with my little Nova. I say: "Are you so excited to go and visit your daddy? You are going to have so much fun at the beach!" In my head: "Oh my God, is this the last time I'm ever going to see you alive? Please don't die! Please don't die!"
My brave little 3 year old, a born adventurer, is seemingly oblivious to all of the dangers that await her out there in this big, bad, unforgiving world. I mean there are bears in British Columbia, jelly fish at the beach! What if she's allergic to seawater?! What if there is a swarm of angry bees? Or she could be seriously injured in a forest fire! Or worse......get eaten by Pine Beatles!!! What if...what if.....what if..... What if I go completely insane before she gets back?
A Prayer for my Nova baby...(even though I am in no way religious, it really can't hurt, can it?). Ahem......
"Dear Lord, or Lady, or Mother Nature, or whatever......please watch over my precious and beautiful little Nova Child as she explores our world and help her to grow from all that she experiences. Give her strength to bond with her father and his family, and to feel completely welcomed by them. Help her to not miss me as much as I will miss her and please keep whispering in her ear how much I love her. Return to me a child who has learned, laughed, and loved. Most of all, please keep her safe from danger....I want her back. Thank you, I will be forever in your debt."
I am having growing pains. Much like I did as my belly was expanding to make room for my ripening baby, I feel myself expanding further. It goes to show you that even though the baby does one day exit your womb, it remains firmly planted in your gut forever.

Holy Shit

Today goes down in the annals of history. Under the careful guidance of her mentor and mother who leads by example and encouragement, I am so proud to announce that on this 17th day of August in the year 2006, my future Mensa member of a toddler has achieved total control of her bowels and has made a poo in the potty.

This Nova Mama is so proud, she could cry.

I Have Mental Problems......The Sequel

This totally crazy thing used to happen to me when I was a kid. I would hear a voice in my head that would tell me to do something and if I didn’t do it, I would have to suffer the consequences. For example, if I was too chicken shit to jump off a 10’ high roof (as a 4’ person should be), the voice would say “if you don’t jump, your mother will be killed by an axe murderer.” And so I would actually convince myself that by jumping-even if I broke my leg in the process-I would actually be saving my mother from her certain bloody demise! Of course I would jump! What kind of sick and twisted kid wouldn’t?! Oh wait…who’s the sick and twisted kid?

Around the time that I was being plagued by these disturbing voices, my mom was finishing up her PhD in psychology. Interesting coincidence, no? I remember clearly the day that we sat in my kitchen and I explained hearing these “voices” to her. She was (naturally) excessively alarmed. After years of reading behavioral psych books and prepping herself for conversations of this nature with total strangers, I think I took her rather off guard when, at about age 9, I told her that I was hearing voices that predicted her grizzly dismemberment…and that of my father and sister too. Looking back on this day from an adult perspective, I believe that she thought I might be showing signs of early onset schizophrenia. She made me promise to tell her about the voices every time and we devised a strategy of talking back to the voices to tell them to go away. I’m not sure that my 9 year old self was able to properly convey what the real problem was. These “voices” were not random or external, they were not coming into my mind out of nowhere and commanding me to do something dangerous, the voice was MY voice. It was my way of pushing myself to overcome my own physical or emotional boundaries. And for some reason, the only incentive that I could come up with that was convincing enough was the threat of death in my family. Thinking back on it all now, and knowing who I am today, I think it really had more to do with an overactive imagination, some dark creative genius, and some very deep anxiety.

I was reminded of all of this--the voices, the darkness, the death and dismemberment--the other day when Joe failed to show up at my house on time….or even within many hours of on time. In fact, no phone call and no answer to my 10 or more attempts at reaching him. And so, fed by my anxiety, my imagination began to go haywire….and once the blood and guts start oozing, there ain’t no stopping the imagination train that’s heading straight to Horrorville. In my head, I had Joe tripping in front of a car just in time to have his head run over, his skull crushed with a great POP that left brains, blood and eyeballs spattered all over Bloor St. Or maybe he had been attacked by a dog that went straight for the neck and he bled out, blood spewing like a fountain with every weakening heart beat. I can still see his eyes starting to go milky as he gasps for one last breath, blood bubbles forming from his open windpipe.

Okay. So Joe wasn’t dead (though I could’ve killed him when he finally DID show up, but that’s another blog topic entirely). What is it in my deeply disturbed brain that causes me to go to these awful places? And why does it seem so damn real? When I was a kid, if my dad was late coming home I would work myself into an absolute panic within minutes. I was able to convince myself for SURE that he had been killed in a car accident, a head on collision with the most gruesome outcome possible. I was orphaned in my own daydreams more times than I can count.

These images that I can conjure in my imagination don’t feel like make believe, they feel like memories, like I have actually SEEN Joe’s grey matter mashed into the tire tread, or my dad’s face break through the windshield on impact, his body hurled through the air like a bloody rag doll. It’s enough to make me feel physically ill sometimes. And now, as a mother, there is no greater pain that I can imagine than something awful (so awful I won’t even write it) happening to my child. I could cry just thinking about it. So why do I do this to myself? It’s emotional masochism and I can’t seem to turn it off.

Now before you go calling the insane asylum on me, let me tell you that I KNOW these things aren’t true. It’s just my overactive and runaway imagination, spurred on by some anxiety disorder that probably has a name. Having lived with this for so long, it has become manageable. I’ve developed ways of talking myself out of a panic and bringing myself back down to reality. I do know the difference between reality and delusion, which is what separates me from the truly insane (among other things, I hope).

It would be easy to blame all of this on the trappings of the modern world. I could argue that images from horror movies, TV shows, or even the 6 o’clock news have all contributed to my bloodbath of an imagination. Furthermore, my anxieties are constantly being fed by the “fearmongering” and constant speculation of terrorist plots that is rampant in the media recently. I mean who isn’t feeling more anxious these days? Anyone with even a shred of OCD has been bleaching the bathroom, washing their hands, and checking the stove with greater gusto than ever before. It’s just this world that we live in…it’s making us all crazy! Sorry, I don’t believe it for a second. As the brilliant Viktor Frankl once said, “We cannot control our surroundings, we can only control our reaction to our surroundings.” And, having survived the Holocaust, he should know that our surroundings are not what drive us to insanity but rather our internals.

So now that I have exposed my own craziness, my Nightmare On Elm Street anxiety disorder, maybe you can start feeling better about your own particular brand of lunacy. And don’t try to tell me that you’re completely mentally sound, I’ll only think that you’re suffering from acute delusions of grandeur, which, in my untrained opinion, is crazier than I am. Yes, we are all nuts in our own special way. But before I go and check myself into the loony bin, I think I’ll give David Cronenberg a call and see if he wants to collaborate on a film. After all, it’s a very thin line between genius and madness.

The Socially Acceptable Alcoholic

The other day on the phone, my ex (who is currently residing in rehab for a myriad of substance abuse problems) asked me if I was drinking a lot these days. I lied. Then it hit me...was I lying to him or was I lying to myself?

I feel as though I am living in a subculture of functional alcoholics. With very few exceptions, we all drink too much. Drinking has become such a normal part of everyday life that we don’t even realize anymore that this is NOT normal everyday life. I’ve been thinking about this a lot recently. What is it that makes us all drink so much, why has it become so important to us and at what point does it become not acceptable anymore?

This dirty little secret that we all share is not just confined to my group of friends. No, it’s an addiction that we share with an entire group of likeminded, upwardly mobile, left leaning, music loving, hockey watching, financially comfortable, fun loving and style conscious individuals. We are a generation of young adults who are caught in a routine of working and drinking, and not much else. Is anyone else dying of boredom?

Our intentions are always good. We’ll set out to play poker, play baseball, go camping, have a good talk, go to the beach, whatever. All of these are activities that should be able to stand on their own two legs, all really fun things to do. But then, every single time, without fail comes the inevitable question: “So what’re you drinkin’?” As if it’s an official rule of Texas Holdem, YOU MUST BRING BEER. You cannot raise the blinds without first being half in the bag. And then, after the activity has taken place, we all go out and celebrate its successful completion with a few rounds of beer. Does anyone else see the redundancy in this?

Nothing means anything anymore. It doesn’t matter what the event or activity might be when really it’s just a thinly masked excuse to get together and drink. It all just becomes meaningless. We are not moving forward, not furthering ourselves on this planet, not becoming better or smarter or happier. The alcohol has dulled our expectations of life and made us content with simply maintaining our existences. Life is now filled with meaningless chatter, promises that are only made to be forgotten, and that special morning feeling of guilt mixed with headache and an empty wallet with nothing to show for it.

I am not trying to preach, I am as guilty as anyone else…sometimes even worse. I’ve thrown a stink eye in the direction of someone who turned down a beer. I’ve probably even goaded someone into staying out way later than was advisable and I’ve definitely called a man who was trying to get home to his woman “whipped,” which is the surest way to get him to stay. We are all instigators, we are all enablers, we are all addicts. We each have our subtle (and not so subtle) manipulative ways of ensuring that we all remain on this sinking ship together, all of us going down.

Take a good look at how much you drink. Now take an honest look at how much you drink. How much money do you spend on a weekly basis to “rent” your beer? Really think about it. Do you lie to yourself or others about how much you’ve been drinking? Have you ever woken up and thought “I will NEVER do that again” and then done it again? Have you ever called in “sick” with a hangover? Have you wondered why, at age 30, you still get zits? Perhaps your clothes aren’t fitting properly and you’ve had to “upgrade”? So remind me again…..what’s so damn good about drinking that makes us do it all the time? Are we really such insecure, unimaginative, two dimensional people that we need alcohol to be fun? Are our lives so stressful and constantly miserable that we need the booze to calm ourselves and relieve the pressures? Please tell me what it is because I have forgotten why this is supposed to be fun.

I think that we could all stand to learn a lesson from my ex who is very hard at work, and for the first time, learning to be honest with himself. Let’s all be honest with ourselves and ask “What do I want out of life?”

Okay……now put the pint glass down and go get it.

(NOTE: Try filling out this questionnaire and see how you do. Mine was downright SCARY.)

Truly Terrible Two

At 2 years, 3 months and 24 days old, my daughter has been magically transformed into a head spinning, fist throwing, kicking and screaming little pain in the ass. It's as if someone came to her and whispered in her ear "YES, little Nova child, you ARE the ruler of the universe and don't ever let your mommy forget it for an instant." She has gone from my adorable little angel of a "mini-me" to vicious snarling spawn of satan in no time flat. It scares me.......it really does.

Apparently I've been living under some blissful delusion that my daughter would skip the entire Terrible Two's phase. I had somehow tricked myself into believing that my work as a mother was so outstanding, so vastly superior to all of the work of my predecessors, that she would just simply mature gracefully without ever questioning my authority. But then......with one look at her sprawled out in the middle of the floor in the Wonderbra section of The Bay, screaming bloody murder, my fantasy has been forever shattered. I am not a perfect mother......and I certainly don't have a perfect kid.

Exhibit A: As I am dressing the demon seed this morning, she hauls off and hits me in the face. I had told her that she needed to put on some pants and was attempting just that when she gets in my face and yells "No, YOU put on some pants!" The "YOU" was punctuated by her fist making full contact with my nose. I reeled backwards from the force of the blow. (At this point, the intense fury and rage causes time to slow down considerably and I have time to ponder my next move. Part of me wants to haul off and hit her back, part of me wants her to join a boxing gym.) What does a good mother do in this instance? Clearly I am not one, because I have NO clue. And so I do the worst possible thing.......I hit her back (softly) and say with all the force and conviction that I can muster "NO HITTING." Oh great......how confusing was that for the poor kid? Yell "NO HITTING" at the exact moment that my hand landed on her cheek. I think I have a lot to learn.

Exhibit B: Daycare has a policy about not drinking a bottle while playing. If you want to drink it then you have to be sitting down....(I know a few grown-ups who could benefit from this policy). So we arrive at daycare and the kid, bottle firmly planted in mouth, makes her way to the sandbox. Something just told me that this was going to be an ordeal, so I braced myself for the worst and asked her to hand it over. "NO." So I ask her to go and sit on the mat until she's finished with her juice. "NO." And so I try again.....and again. At this point I notice the daycare worker eyeing me up and down. She can tell I'm having trouble and is probably thinking to herself "No wonder this kid is such a little bitch, her mother has no control over her." I start sweating as my parenting skills are coming under direct fire from a professional. Do I snatch the bottle and run with it? Do I let the heathen child have her way? I was stuck. As the childcare worker made her way over to us, I braced myself for a lecture. Instead, she calmly asked my daughter if she wanted to finish her bottle. "Yes." Then, with the most silently forceful finger I have ever witnessed, she pointed to the mat. The satan spawn went and sat down. I think I need to get me a finger like that.

All I can say is....look out world. This is going to be a bumpy ride.