I am really moved by the upcoming Presidency of Obama. I wish I could watch the inauguration, especially his speech live, but I will be working and am not sure I will be able. Do the kids know what a significance this is? I wonder. I don’t think I can even wrap my brain around it.
I am struck this morning in the change of things.
Elizabeth had a date Friday night and I asked her the usual.. what is his name, where did you go, and then I asked if he had paid for the movie. She said no, they had paid their own way. Then I asked, ” well, who asked who to the movies?” She said that they both kinda did, so I said, “ I guess you went Dutch then?” Mum, what does “Dutch” mean?
So I got the Wikipedia short answer and sent her the link and a few motherly pearls of wisdom in an email:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Going_Dutch
here is what you should know about the term. Generally, going Dutch means, for a girl, that you are not interested romantically in the boy. If the boy allows you to go Dutch, then he is cheap and you should dump him.
love you
don’t date cheap boys
they will only cost you in the end.
mum
Things have changed. Terms like going Dutch are not part of my children’s nomenclature. I guess in the world of feminism, we lost this tradition of the guy paying for the first date. Sorry to see that go. What place the guy picked and how he handled taking the check was such an important tool for telling the girl what type of guy he is. But perhaps it is for the better to let this stuff go. My girls will have to navigate their own worlds, different from the one I live in.
When I voted this past year, I did so based on the person and what he brought to the table. Who was the best candidate for upcoming job, because whoever is chosen then belongs to all of us. Not just those on the left and those on the right. Barack Obama became our elected leader because of who is his, not becuase of the color of his skin. At least that is how I chose to see it.
What a huge transition in our culture.
