Belly Rings and Mennonites
A few years back, bellies started showing up. Here a belly there a belly. Unsually the bellies were flat and very young. That combination, even with Cleopatra eyeliner, failed to break the illusion of stupid (umm...innocent)youth. They were just too cute.
My sister, mother of young girls, complained bitterly about them. I defended them. We, I said, used to go about in skirts up to our cracks. We were young and cute then and they are young and cute now. So there!
But over time, more bellies came out, child bellies, not so good. Someone dressed them, just exactly what for is a mystery to me. Older bellies, some with stretch marks and wrinkles, some with belly rings, some with visable hair! I closed my mouth and wished that they would buy a mirror. Then pregnant bellies, some of them with belly rings. Then at last fat bellies and even one senior belly. Have all the mirrors in the land been broken?
Now stretch marks and wrinkles, babies and fat are all part of life and a lovely part at that. But not on public display; framed by low rider jeans and boobs.
Then I met, under sad circumstances, a different girl, young, trim, lovely. She had on "plain dress", a clean face and shinning hair in a long braid down her back. She was confident, well spoken, polite. In my heart, I knew that she was what American girls could be. I felt some little grief for what we have robbed ourselves and our daughters of.
My mother said that American culture and society quickly began to falter when men stopped wearing hats. It wasn't the hats of course. It was the habbit of taking them off indoors and tipping them to women that constantly reminded men of the division between indoor and outdoor life.
The bellies alone are neutral. A belly is just a belly. Fat or flat, wrinkled or smooth, with our without piercings. But the mind is not neutral. Without dignity sufficent to prevent it from putting the belly on display in the public arena it probably lacks dignity sufficent to produce and maintain a citizen, a mother, a wife. A dear friend summed it up thusly: Ain't she got no pride?
My sister, mother of young girls, complained bitterly about them. I defended them. We, I said, used to go about in skirts up to our cracks. We were young and cute then and they are young and cute now. So there!
But over time, more bellies came out, child bellies, not so good. Someone dressed them, just exactly what for is a mystery to me. Older bellies, some with stretch marks and wrinkles, some with belly rings, some with visable hair! I closed my mouth and wished that they would buy a mirror. Then pregnant bellies, some of them with belly rings. Then at last fat bellies and even one senior belly. Have all the mirrors in the land been broken?
Now stretch marks and wrinkles, babies and fat are all part of life and a lovely part at that. But not on public display; framed by low rider jeans and boobs.
Then I met, under sad circumstances, a different girl, young, trim, lovely. She had on "plain dress", a clean face and shinning hair in a long braid down her back. She was confident, well spoken, polite. In my heart, I knew that she was what American girls could be. I felt some little grief for what we have robbed ourselves and our daughters of.
My mother said that American culture and society quickly began to falter when men stopped wearing hats. It wasn't the hats of course. It was the habbit of taking them off indoors and tipping them to women that constantly reminded men of the division between indoor and outdoor life.
The bellies alone are neutral. A belly is just a belly. Fat or flat, wrinkled or smooth, with our without piercings. But the mind is not neutral. Without dignity sufficent to prevent it from putting the belly on display in the public arena it probably lacks dignity sufficent to produce and maintain a citizen, a mother, a wife. A dear friend summed it up thusly: Ain't she got no pride?
posted by DarkMirror | 6:15 AM
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