Of Face Transplants & Difficult Offspring

[mallorys_camera]

What's the deal with face transplants? Why is there any debate over the medical ethics at all? Are they afraid that if the procedure becomes too popular, it will signal open season on all good-looking folk? (Early morning commando raid on the Elite Modeling Agency: "Men, they may try to use those portfolios as shields! Also remember: shoot low! Aim for the portal vein. Nothing above the waist!") Are they afraid it will fuck with the facial recognition software designed to enforce various permutations of the Patriot Act?

In other news, Ben's friend J's teenage daughter – let's call her S – tried to kill herself two days ago. Tylenol overdose – not a good way to die since it takes many, many hours during which you have ample time to change your mind plus acetaminophen dissociates into a compound that basically dissolves your liver so that when you do survive, you will wish you were dead.

J discovered the overdose when S staggered down to the breakfast table the next morning, bleeding from every orifice.

I pity the poor girl but I pity J more. J stayed in a loveless marriage to a hopeless drunk for the sake of those two girls. (The hopeless drunk would do things like urinate in the potted plants because he couldn't remember the way to the bathroom.) J worked at a job she hated – big muckety muck running IT in possibly the most essential government agency of them all – and every cent of her salary went to paying for the girls' private school. All that sacrifice. And for what?

I figure the girls hate J and they will never forgive her for whatever they figure she did to their father whom they also hate but at the same time love because that is the way between fathers and daughters.

Poor J. All she ever wanted to do is be a fangirl, smoke a little weed and get silly about Buffy the Vampire Killer (the TV series, not the movie.)

Offspring. Always difficult.

My own difficult offspring has been having a rough time of it lately in school. ISM is now wired for grades so I can now peek at Robin's midseason progress reports – they grade strictly by percentages, no curves, and he is working at a D+ level. Assignments, I must say, sound incredibly dull: Students will create a culture using 5 of the 8 Commonalities of Humankind. Students will write an account of their culture and decorated a pot to depict their creation. Decorate a pot. There's something a cyber-age kid can really wrap his head around! And what, pray tell, are the 8 Commonalities of Humankind and why do they have to be capitalized?

Two nights ago, I got the following email from Robin's math teacher:

Robin had an extremely rough day today in
mathematics class. He decided to inform me that the
class procedures were "stupid." The specific
procedures he was referring to pertain to
organization.

Due to the implication that Robin does not intend to
follow mathematics class procedures as they are
"stupid," I insisted that Robin sit in the main
office today for the duration of mathematics class.

I am keenly interested to know whether Robin plans
to follow mathematics class procedures in the
future.

Wow, I'm thinking. This is getting awfully personal. Robin thinks it's stupid for you to take points off a test because he wrote his name on the left side of the paper instead of the right side of the paper, mutters something under his breath and you have a Captain Queeg meltdown?

But of course as a parent I am One of Them, not One of Us, and so am forced to sit down with Robin, lecture him relentlessly, make him cry: "He's the teacher! He gets to make the rules!"

Of course I know ISM even with all its cultural enrichment is not the right place for a kid like Robin who is super-bright and thinks way outside the box. Why do I keep him there then? Simple: Robin is a lot like me, which means he's exactly the kind of kid who will get heavily into drugs if given the opportunity. I don't want to give him that opportunity.

Comments

[idylld.livejournal.com]

It is progress report time, isn't it? Emielia got a very disappointing summary report in Language Arts. She turns in a lot of homework late. 'Don't you have an assignment book?' I asked. I demanded to see it. There were happy faces drawn on most of the days. She said she can't unzip her backpack quickly enough to write down the assignments. So now we have to police her every spelling quiz. I hate that.

Face transplants make me think of my friend with neurofibromatosis (aka Elephant Man disease). She has a horribly disfigured face, about which she has never complained or let affect her incredibly sunny personality. Naturally, there is a darker side and I have known her long enough to be trusted with her more intimate feelings on the subject. My feeling is that she would not want the surgery because she knows she is OK 'the way she is'. This is a battle that she's fought all her life.

Though she is obviously someone for whom this procedure is intended (and for her sake I'd hope she'd consider it). I would miss her familiar discombobulation. It IS her now.

[mallorys-camera.livejournal.com]

Robin hands in lots of homework late too. But then he has so much homework! I don't remember having that much homework in the 6th grade (admittedly, back in the last Ice Age.) And yes, the constant policing and monitoring and punitive threats -- "No video games till you apply for Social Security!" -- is wearisome to an extreme.

Back in my journalist days, I once interviewed a wheelchair-bound woman who was then the highest ranking person with a disability in the CA state government hierarchy. She was adamantly opposed to mandatory vaccinations. (Her disability had resulted from a childhood bout with polio.) "What they're saying is that they don't want any more people like me!" she told me. I remember thinking that while I could follow her logic, it was twisted all the same.

[idylld.livejournal.com]

It's like the controversy about deaf parents refusing to grant permission for that operation which would allow their congenitally deaf children to hear. This decision is actually defended because a 'culture' is at risk.

I once asked the Superintendent at CA School for the Deaf (Riverside) what the school would do in another generation when that operation has been perfected and there are very few deaf children. He looked at me rather stunned.

[hotelsamurai.livejournal.com]

Oh man. I have lots of experience as a kid like Robin. Let me know if any of it can be helpful.

And I hate to be the one to say it, but removing opportunity will only keep a kid away from drugs for so long. I was trying to get high for years before I finally got my hands on something.

[mallorys-camera.livejournal.com]

Robin and you have something else in common: you both have one of those uber-accomplished big brothers. I worry that Robin sees "fuck-up" as the only available ecological niche.

[hotelsamurai.livejournal.com]

I got to the point that I was about as happy in trouble as out.

Don't worry, though. The long-term prognosis is good.

it's none of my business, but...

[hotelsamurai.livejournal.com]

I don't know Robin, and all I can offer is my own experience.

If I may be permitted briefly to take a personal interest:

Does he ever get to make uncoerced decisions?
Has he reached the decision point where he tried, sincerely, for once, to do right, and got in trouble anyway, thereafter deciding to fuck it all and throw it out the window?
Do the things he cares about get taken away capriciously? (capriciously, that is, in his worldview)

maybe I'm just more transparent than I like to think

[hotelsamurai.livejournal.com]

Robin and you have something else in common: you both have one of those uber-accomplished big brothers. I worry that Robin sees "fuck-up" as the only available ecological niche.

BTW, you're absolutely right, but I don't recall mentioning it. How do you know? Is this some kind of spooky voodoo shit?

Re: maybe I'm just more transparent than I like to think

[mallorys-camera.livejournal.com]

No spooky psychic voodoo. You've mentioned yr brother a couple of times in yr LJ. I picked up the ambivalence and figured it was the same family ecology I see on a daily basis under my own roof. It's hard to compete with someone you love who's "perfect." The only available niche is "fuck-up." And, of course, it's one of those dynamics it's almost impossible to see when you're stuck in the middle.