Buttons being pushed.

I think I realized something about myself. (ETA at the end - added midmorning)

I get frustrated and angry - out of all proportion that I should - when I feel like I'm being judged in some way. Even when it's by a person I've not met and who would not know me from Eve.

An example: the occasional populist commentator who describes university faculty as leeches on society, sucking down valuable tax dollars while doing very little useful work. It frustrates me because 60 hour weeks are not completely unheard of for me, I frequently take grading home, a number of students I have taught have gone on to productive careers, I generate lots of credit hours, I worry myself almost sick over whether I'm doing what I "need" to be doing to get the students where they need to be, I'm tired all the time, etc., etc.

But I feel like there's nothing I can say that will convince someone who thinks I'm a lazy tenured radical bent on brainwashing their kid to vote a certain way (I don't even talk politics in class) of anything else.

And while I should just shrug and let it go, under the heading of "People are Strange," I can't, quite.

I don't often talk politics on here. And I'm not really going to today, except to refer to something a politician said.

Mary Fallin thinks she's automatically more qualified for public service because she's raised six kids.

Okay, fine: I grant that raising children successfully takes a pretty big level of time-management ability. And maybe a parent - MAYBE - understands the problems of families a bit more intimately.

But. What I hear when I hear that comment, right or wrong, is "People who don't have children just aren't as capable."

And by extension, stuff I've heard from other people - "If you're not married, you're just an overgrown adolescent." "You're selfish, because you didn't have kids." Or, my least favorite: "You should take on this [thankless volunteer task that the person asking does not want to do], because you don't have a husband or kids to take care of."

(My new rejoinder to that last one, if I ever hear it again: "Yes, but I also don't have a husband to occasionally do a load of laundry, or run to the store for milk and bread when my life is too busy to do so. And I don't have kids to occasionally run up to me, arms open, and tell me how much they love me." And yes, I DO think that occasionally explicitly being told by someone that they love you makes your life better and easier. And I will admit - since this is already a wee bit of a pity party - that it's something I hear far too seldom. I mean, yeah, I know, I'm supposed to ASSUME it in a lot of cases, but if you're someone who was trained by your peers to doubt your own worth...it helps to get a little reassurance now and then.)

But anyway. I realize the statement was likely taken out of context (I didn't see the debate in which it took place). But it makes me sad to think there are people who look at me and can't see all the other stuff I do, they can only see the stuff I haven't done, and they think of me as being "less" for it. And that little I could do or say is going to change that fundamental belief of that person.

(And yeah, yeah, I know: people who were genuinely discriminated against - the African-Americans, the Jewish people, the gay people - are probably all rolling their eyes and saying something like, "oh please.")

But I don't know. I suppose it's that I'm viewing it through my own lens of perfectionism and people-pleasing: that I feel like I need to be the BEST EVAR! at stuff, and if I'm demonstrably not, I start to wonder why I'm even bothering.

And it also feeds into my whole "fake grownup" neurosis: people who think people who don't have kids are selfish, overgrown brats who can't take care of anything. And that's why I'm so twitchy about having my house clean in case someone comes over. And that may be why I've taken on responsibilities at times that exceed my ability to fulfill all of them and still keep my sense of balance in life. And that may be why, as someone once said about me, that I'd "crawl 20 feet into Hell over broken glass" to do something I said I'd do.

I don't know. It's a sucky reason for being responsible: doing so partly so people won't look at you and see some kind of 40-year-old teenager, but yeah.

And if I'm such an irresponsible slacker (as I assume some people see me), why am I not having more fun?

I don't know. This week itself (Monday through today) I have done little other than grade and work on research, so I'm probably just kind of tired and worn down and that's part of it. But I'd happily invite anyone who thinks I'm "sucking at the public teat" and only working 12 hours a week to come walk in my shoes for a while.

I'm even wearing flats today, so you wouldn't have to be able to negotiate heels...

(ETA: I don't know why the whole "being judged by some other person and feeling like they find me deficient" thing bugs me so much. Some things I can more or less laugh off. I remember reading somewhere that Emily Post, in one of her etiquette commentaries, made some remark along the lines that women over 25 who still wore their hair out long looked childish and immature and it wasn't "proper" for a mature lady to do so. I can kind of roll my eyes about that - what should anyone care how I wear my hair provided it's clean and decently kept? (And I wonder if Post's comment - again, I seem to remember she was praising shorter hair on "mature" women - would have been written at a time when most of the women who kept their hair long into adulthood were either immigrant women, or farm-women, or women in some religious groups, and I wonder if her comment showed just a bit of her own personal bias. I don't know. Or maybe it was sour grapes; maybe her own hair didn't look good and she didn't want to be "upstaged" (in her mind) by women with prettier longer hair.)

But I will admit it does nettle me a bit - even though I can ultimately laugh it off - to hear someone opining on long hair on "older" women. (Actually, it ultimately brings out my stubborn side: "Yeah? Well, I'm'a let my long hair go grey, I'm not even going to dye it, and I'm going to wear it in a big bun on the back of my head. Because I can, and because I saw an older lady at a concert once who had that kind of hair and I thought it looked great. So nyaaah!"

But I don't know why the grown-up/childrearing/marriage thing I can't quite laugh off so easily, or get stubborn about.

I think part of it is that I recognize, in many ways, I am odd or strange or even "bad" in some ways, but I don't like others to remind me of it. It's like the weight thing: I know I'm overweight. I do what I can to try to keep it under control. But I recognize I'm fat and I will probably always BE fat, barring some kind of horrible health problem I develop. But it makes me angry to have someone else tell me I'm fat, at least in the sense of "You know, you should try diet X..." Again, I think it's the telling-me-what-to-do thing that frustrates me.

It's also like my Ms. Perfect neighbor who kept handing me the cards for her lawn crew. Don't tell me how to keep my lawn! My lawn is fine! It's just not as golf-course like as yours!

But I think the "fake grown-up issue" may not be something I can laugh off, because perhaps on some level I've bought into the hype, and maybe I really do think I'm less "responsible" because I've not proved I can raise a child without screwing that up. I don't know.

Perhaps it's like the old, "No one can say bad things about our team, except for us, the fans!" bit.)