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The Citizen, 2018-05-17, Page 5THE CITIZEN, THURSDAY, MAY 17, 2018. PAGE 5. Other Views Motherhood: an existential question As a salute to motherhood this column is a week late — but after reading several articles over the Mother's Day weekend about the disadvantages of being a modern mom, I figured I should get in my two -bits' worth before motherhood becomes irrelevant. A certain class of women, many of them in positions of influence such as writers and media people, seem to have decided that not only are children the last desirable that you add to your life (after your house, stylish furniture and travel) but that, in the end, they're not all that desirable at all. Kids just get in the road of the good job and the good life. The writer of one article recalled attending a women's writers' conference and being told "motherhood is the enemy of art". Already a mother herself, she decided to ask the speaker to elaborate where she'd gone wrong. The speaker said that every child costs a female writer a book and a half — and given this author's opinion of the importance of her own precious words, probably a Pulitzer and a half. Elsewhere in the weekend paper was an interview with Canadian writer Sheila Heti, on the release of her new novel Motherhood, in which the main character asks herself at various times in her life if now is the time she wants to become a mother. "I wanted to give a sense of how exhausting this question can be and how, in some ways, it just doesn't end," Heti explained. "I mean, you can ask the same question for years and years and years and it's still the same question." Decisions! Decisions! Of course these women are only in the second or third generation of women who had to/could make that kind of choice. Until the 1960s things were simple: people got married, they had sex, Keith Roulston From the cluttered desk they had kids, unless one or the other of the partners was infertile. The contraceptive pill changed all that, meaning a woman needn't make the choice between participating in married love and possibly ending up with eight or 10 kids. With women able to decide how many children they want, and when, we've hit a population crisis. Apparently, just to maintain our current population, we need each adult woman to average 2.1 children. In Canada, the average is 1.6 — and we're doing well compared to Italy, Germany, Japan, South Korea and Taiwan where the average is 1.4 or lower. That's why, to keep our population from shrinking, let alone to grow it, we need hundreds of thousands of immigrants each year. The pill provided the ability to control the number of children women have, but greater forces out there shape the decision of how many kids are desirable — or if they're wanted at all. And in this time when having a job — any job — is seen as truly fulfilling for a woman while giving birth to, and rearing, kids is considered by some sophisticates as being nothing but being a "breeder", more women are choosing not to become mothers at all. There's a standard set by what we see around us or by what we see on television or movies or read about in books. In recent years more and more children are missing from the story, unless they're needed as a plot point — and even then the typical movie family has one kid, two at most. It wasn't always so. If you look back to the 1940s and 1950s, children were celebrated in movies like Cheaper by the Dozen and Yours, Mine, and Ours and on televisions shows from Father Knows Best to The Partridge Family. It's funny that under Hollywood's strict morality code, before the 1960s you weren't allowed to see a husband and wife in the same bed, and yet there were children everywhere. Today in movies men and women go at it like rabbits, and yet there are no kids to be seen. Storytellers in all media have reshaped history. The accepted narrative these days is that during the Second World War women were at last given the opportunity to get out of the kitchen and into the factories and offices to replace the men, and they at last found liberation. That narrative says that those jobs were taken away from them when the men returned after the war and women were forced back into the home to be mothers. Some probably were unhappy to become homemakers again, but I'll bet there were many women who were thrilled to become mothers and homemakers. I can't help thinking women have bought into the questionable desirability of something that had been beyond their grasp for so long. Because men held jobs and women hadn't, then the goal must be to be like men. Meanwhile, having children, the one thing that women can do that men can't, has been devalued. Certainly women are valuable even if they never become mothers, but the most important job in the world — birthing and raising the next generation — should be celebrated on more than one day a year, not devalued. Answers to questions no one asked When I was younger and had bought my first Apple -built Mac computer, there was a little-known hole in Microsoft's computer security that would allow anyone on a Mac to play some jokes on Windows users. It wasn't anything malicious, it just made a pop-up window appear with whatever text the Mac user wanted to show. I played a few pranks on my roommates, one on my wife (just one because she was not amused) and then, a few weeks later, the hole was patched and the pranks were done. If I were dealing with less computer -savvy people, I likely could've caused some havoc, maybe even got some people to send me their credit card number but, fortunately for most of the people in my life, I'm more interested in a laugh than I am in hurting other people. It was an important lesson, however, in the importance of computer security. That's why I was a little leary when I first heard about the Canadian Radio -Television and Telecommunications Commission (the CRTC) issuing a demand that wireless providers authorize a system to distribute urgent messages to cellular users. Let's get this out of the way right now: I don't think there is anything wrong with Amber Alerts, urgent weather reports or any other kind of message. That said, I think that the new alert system that many of you likely heard going off on May 14 isn't just, as some other reporters have labelled it, a spectacular failure, but something just inviting trouble upon everyone in the country. If you don't know what I'm talking about, congratulations, you're one of the few people still not receiving these alerts which, as of 2 p.m. on Monday, May 7, should have been received by almost every cellular phone, radio and television displaying a Canadian channel across the province and, at various other times, Denny Scott OM& Denny's Den every device across the country. Since The Citizen started becoming more active on social media, Facebook has become a pretty constant presence on our desktop computers and phones: we want to stay on top of what happens with our social media presence. The side result of that is we often see breaking news and Amber Alerts, giving us the opportunity to share them either through our own Facebook accounts or through The Citizen's if it's local. Like I said, I don't think that alerting people to important information is a bad idea, but this entire system smacks of being something that no one wanted. On top of that, it's something no one asked for that's being implemented as if no one cares about the final product. During its first test, most people who weren't listening to the radio or watching television didn't receive it. Monday, May 14 the system sent out an Amber Alert for missing Thunder Bay eight- year-old Gabriel McCallum. Just to let you know how great the alert system is, we had one person in our office who received that alert in a timely manner. Two more of us received the cancellation of the alert and then, hours after the initial alert went out, I received the initial Amber Alert. For those keeping track of that timeline, the alert showed up after the young boy had been placed in protective custody by police. The system is far from perfected. Actually, as far as I'm concerned, I'd say it's still in the alpha stages of testing (pre -alpha is the first workable testing stage for software, followed by alpha, open and closed betas and finally a candidate for release). It just wasn't ready. That concerns me greatly because, while I have the good sense to ignore any odd requests sent to my phone, earned through being burned once or twice, not everyone does. I'd be willing to wager a couple coffees that someone will get access to the system and will use it to, at best, mischievous ends or, at worse, commit nefarious deeds. Call me negative, but for a certain subsect of culture, something like this provides all -to - appealing a target for a prank or scam. I'd be singing a different tune if the program worked the way it was supposed to the first time, but with the holes and gaps in its operation, one can only assume there will be similar holes and gaps in its security. Heck, maybe it won't even be malicious, but a mistake like the ballistic missile alert accidentally set to residents of Hawaii a few months back. Meanwhile, this system seems to be reinventing a wheel on which the world was rolling along quite comfortably. Not to get too James Taylor on everyone here, but I've seen fire and I've seen rain (and tornados and cyclones and everything except an earthquake, really). Every time there is a weird weather event in Huron County, at least one of my parent scontacts me (either my mother because she drives a lot and listens to the radio or my father because he must be The Weather Network's number one viewer). Whenever there is an Amber Alert, I see a dozen Facebook posts about it within 10 minutes of it being issued. We're a pretty connected society and I think this may be one application overstepping its need. Shawn Loughlin Shawn's Sense Cry if you want to Jt was Lesley Gore who first sang "It's my party and I'll cry if I want to" back in the 1960s. Now, with all of these party politics (and allegiances that reach beyond policy and legislation), voters are the ones crying. It's nothing new, but in Donald Trump's world it really is disgusting what people will excuse away and misdirect due to their affiliation to a particular party or organization. Just last week, Ronan Farrow, the Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist who helped uncover the Harvey Weinstein sexual abuse scandal, was behind another scoop when The New Yorker reported that four women had accused New York Attorney General and outspoken 4ruetoo advocate Eric Schneiderman of physical abuse. He resigned just hours after the story was published. It contained gruesome details accusing Schneiderman of slapping, choking and threatening to kill several women with whom he'd been romantically involved. Immediately there was criticism. Ahead of a Farrow television appearance, author Emma Kennedy asked whether the night's interviewer would be asking Farrow about the "19 women who have accused Trump of sexual assault". Kennedy, clearly a Democrat, was ready to discount allegations against the Democratic Schneiderman and change the conversation to Republican Donald Trump and what he's done wrong. This is a strategy that has been the go -to in the Republican playbook for years. With Trump's mountain of scandals, when a Democrat didn't have an answer to reporting that showed Trump in a negative light — Trump just screams "Fake News" — the response was "what about Hillary Clinton's e-mails?" Farrow responded to Kennedy, saying that he had written a number of Trump stories in recent weeks and also highlighted similar responses he'd get after writing those stories. "The abuse of power knows no party," he said. "Reporting on one thing does not mean I'm discounting others." Farrow's response is at the heart of what reporters do and how we should all think. It's downright sick to think that someone would turn their head when someone's been sexually assaulted or abused simply because you and the accused share the same beliefs. However, we've seen this behaviour for decades, not just with political parties, but with organizations like the Catholic Church, which will silence accusers and protect pedophiles, all because they wear the collar. Being a slave to your party isn't just an American phenomenon. Things have changed all across Canada too, especially here in Huron County, where we were represented for many years by MP Paul Steckle. Steckle was a Liberal. He had his reasons for being a member of the Liberal Party, but leaned towards the Conservative side of things on several issues, including gun ownership. He, like the vast majority of people, thought with his head, not with a policy handbook. However, at every all -candidates meeting I have covered, the politicians all sit behind a massive binder containing their party platform and, when asked a question, read from the book, always referencing "their leader". The Paul Steckles of this world are dead (although, it should be noted that the actual Paul Steckle is very much alive). Politicians are told what their opinion is for the election and then instructed to go forth and do likewise. It's unfortunate and we have had some great representatives over the years, but next month, it really will come down to which of the binders has won your vote.