Yvonne Battle-Felton

There is something to be said about realizing one's own limitations.

And I realize mine.

No matter how objectively I approach a play, I find myself reading or watching it with growing anticipation. No matter the type of play, they are all a sort of mystery to me where every word, every action, every prop is a clue and every word, every action, every prop is suspect. I find I expect to be changed from the experience: to learn from it, to grow. I read a play as if it contains a message hidden to me, one revealed typically through discussion. Without discussion I am bound by my own interpretations however limiting they may be. Discussion does not always mean agreement-for me it rarely does- for my intention is not to find like minds but to understand the motives, the perceptions of others. But none the less I approach plays with the respect of someone who lacks the patience to write one. Because I have not approached plays as a modern form of entertainment, I am often cast in the role of the uncomfortable dinner guest: still hungry.

My first introduction to Suzan-Lori Parks was a brief one; I was intrigued by this young African-American woman playwright featured on a PBS show. PBS followed Parks for a period of time before her debut of TopDog/ Underdog. I was drawn in to the momentum of her circus of casting, rewriting and anticipating. The camera captured candid glimpses of the expert way this young playwright carries herself with directors and actors she admires. Through its lens we see her sometimes perplexed look at the way an actor delivers a line, the way she timidly, then more forcefully asserts her vision despite quick editing and rewriting; and the grace with which she takes suggestion after suggestion. I was impressed by her.

I was not impressed by the play itself. I was not surprised at the audience reaction to Parks, she seems an engaging character and she deserved the standing ovation as did the actors, I suppose. But I am surprised by the success of this play. I have read the play and needless to say my first impression is a lasting one. Recognizing my limitations, my need for discussion to perhaps glean the reason for the success, the message I am missing I have decided to moderate and narrate a discussion in the form of a brief play. The obvious limits are that the moderation will only be as good as the moderator, but I am willing to take the chance that my imagination will prevail and my subconscious and research will overcome the limitations I have admitted to. So from one hungry diner to another, shall we dine?

Cast of Characters

Professor Meredith
Audra Student, 30-something Drama major
Leslie Student, late 20's Drama enthusiast
Harris Student, 50ish
Riley Student, 30-something
Dana Student, 50ish
Nicolas Student, early 20s

Writer's note: all characters are fictitious and any resemblance to characters real or fictional is unintentional.

Setting: It is early evening on the University of Maryland campus. The weather is unusually warm, the sky exceptionally clear. There is an air of anticipation on campus. Students slowly enter the classroom engaged in various on-going conversations.

Audra :( animated) But did you see those bikers? I mean really, it kills me how indecisive they are.

Nicolas: How what?

Audra: Indecisive. One minute they want to be cars so they ride in the street, the next minute they want to be pedestrians so they ride on the sidewalk, it's crazy. And those pedestrians! Don't get me started! They just walk out of a building and right smack in to the street, they really take that cross walk thing seriously on campus don't they?

Dana: ...my boyfriend and I went to see that play in D.C. I was telling you about...

Leslie: (confused) I thought you already saw that.

Dana: no, you're thinking of the one I saw the other week-with my husband.

Leslie: that's right, so this one is better?

Dana: oh yeah...he's a lot better than my husband

Leslie:-well I mean the play, was the play better than the other one?

Dana: (chuckle) same answer.

Harris: (on cell phone)...yes...I did...well; I said I did...it sounded what? No, I didn't mean it to...I...uh...yes, dear...sure...your mother's coming...I'm sure you mentioned it...right...if you say so...I mean yes, you're right...

Nicolas: (enters, glances at Dana. Leslie glances at Nicolas)

Professor: Good evening class, oh...small class tonight (checks notes...) a couple of students won't be in tonight but I'm sure we can have a lively discussion about Top Dog/Underdog

(Riley enters apologetically, slides in to a chair)

Let's start with a bit about the playwright, Suzan-Lori Parks. According to Bedford St. Martin's Press, Parks, born 1964, Parks has been awarded grants from the Rockefeller and Ford foundations and the National Endowment for the Arts. She has written quite a few plays performed on Broadway as well as off Broadway. Betting on the Dust Commander, Fishes, The Sinners' Place, and The America Play as well as The Death of the Last Black Man in the Whole Entire World and In the Blood. "Her full-length play Imperceptible Mutabilities in the Third Kingdom, won the Obie Award for the best off-Broadway play of 1990". She also wrote Venus which won the Obie award in 1996. According to "Women of color Women of Words." Parks is Associate Artist at the Yale School of Drama and was voted LA Times Faces to Watch 2000. She was awarded Macarthur Fellow in 2001 and that same year The New York Times voted her the year's most promising playwright. In 2002 she received the Pulitzer for Topdog/Underdog.
Despite winning a Pulitzer Prize, the play didn't always receive good reviews, here's one from the New York Times:
"''TOPDOG/UNDERDOG'' sent quite a jolt through Broadway in 2002 when it played at the Ambassador Theater, so much so that many companies may be reluctant to revisit it without letting a few decades pass first. But Luna Stage here has taken up the challenge, a doubly bold gamble given that in Luna's tiny house there is no buffer zone between actors and audience; if the performers fail, they fail a few feet from the front row.

Happily, though, the two men in this production, Jamahl Marsh and Shane Taylor, do not fail. They give a riveting account of Suzan-Lori Parks's sometimes funny, ultimately ugly tale of two down-on-their-luck brothers. In fact, watching this production, you begin to suspect that the performers are -- heresy alert -- better than the play, which won the Pulitzer Prize for drama"

The rest of the review praises the actors, but points out limitations of the writing. What do you all think? What's the play about?

Dana: Well the play is about two brothers Lincoln and Booth and it kind of explains their life, their circumstances...how they got where they are. One, Lincoln, works as a wax copy of the President replaying the scene where he gets shot by Booth-which is sort of ironic- and Booth, well he doesn't work but it is his place and he is sort of the housewife, but he doesn't really seem to clean and he doesn't cook either but he does dictate where the money goes. So I guess he's like the stronger of the two, the more powerful. Anyway, the play is about their relationship and how they survive.

Harris: but it's also about how they live and how they choose to live. I mean one doesn't even work, he steals for a living and it's not like he steals stuff they need, he steals what he wants. They had a name for guys like that in my day: crooks. And he wants to be a playboy but playboys have money so he's gotta pretend he has money so he can play the role of the playboy. He wants this girl, this Grace, to think he's the successful one so he steals these big shot clothes and he does look after his brother too, he gets him some-but he steals these clothes because clothes make the man, he said that right on page 27 and so now he's made.

Meredith: ok, so what is the play about? Is it about brothers, survival, what?

Riley: I think my objection to it is it's not real life. I don't know any one like them.

Meredith: who says plays mirror real life? And besides, for someone somewhere this may be their reality. So you are saying it's not real but you mean it's not real to you.

Riley: exactly. I feel like I was invited to glimpse someone's life, someone's dirty little secrets, like the business about them being abandoned and their inheritance, well really Booth's inheritance. I'm left wondering why did the mother leave? Why did the father leave? Not why did they leave one another, that's easy, but why did they leave their kids? Then I have to reflect on parenthood and parenting in America and figure out if Parks is saying parenting doesn't fulfill everyone like people say it does and I guess I don't accept that or like that. And I have to decide who considers $500 to be enough to leave two kids.

Audra: well it is just heartbreaking, it really is. What kind of people leave their kids anyway? What kind of people would choose to do that?

Riley: well who is to say they chose? I mean things were bad at home and maybe they felt the kids would be better off without them, which is pretty harsh to say life is awful with us but maybe it will be less awful without us. Who is to say Parks isn't addressing the American dream? Maybe this is the American family. They started out as the family of four: a mother, father, and two sons. Then there were two. But there is a dichotomy in their relationship where they even play to being...see right here on page...well in my book it starts on page 23. When Lincoln gets his paycheck he and Booth play a husband and wife routine. They rely on one another.

Nicolas: yeah but it's pretty messed up the way their parents split. It's like it's about legacies. Lincoln gets shot by Booth, I mean in real life and that's solved but its not over, Lincoln's not the only president to be assassinated, killed by a fellow countrymen, a brother. And in this play you have two brothers, for some reason they are pitted against each other even as boys, both parents choose one son over the other to leave $500 to and then the kids are bound to be messed up. The parents left because they were working hard to maintain a house, a family: the American dream and it still wasn't enough. They were still struggling against poverty, against each other and it was just too much.

Riley: about the legacy thing. Using the names, Lincoln and Booth, with a stretch I can say ok, Lincoln is known for having emancipated the slaves and Booth killed him. In the play, Lincoln was trying to emancipate himself and Booth killed him. That's the parallel I get and again, that's a stretch.

Dana: I wonder at the relationships with women in the play.

Leslie: oh yes, good point, they are motherless and now really they are still without women in their lives.

Dana: well, I wonder at the impression of Grace, I get the impression that she is not as serious as either Booth believes she is or as he pretends she is. And I wonder, if he is just reading her wrong or if he is leading us, well Lincoln, wrong.

Leslie: ah yes, I see. There really are no positive relationships in the play. But who is to say in life that every relationship we have is really as we see it? Like with Cookie, why would Booth sleep with his brother's wife?

Riley: why would she sleep with him?

Dana: well that's easy...he offered something Lincoln couldn't.

Nicolas: and he forgave his brother but couldn't forgive his wife (glances long at Leslie and even longer at Dana)

Meredith: maybe he didn't forgive him, one brother is dead and perhaps part of the title is that at any time it could have ended up being the other brother dead.

Harris: I saw the title in the cards. Ok, I used to see guys playing card games on street corners all the time, it was a hustle...a way to make money. The guy with the big talk got the girls. Card sharks aren't lucky, they're cons. So card games are always stacked in their favor that means the deck is stacked against you. You gotta know what you have, what the other guy has, you've gotta know the odds...the rules. Even then, that only stacks things in your favor but you can't really cheat at it, well you can but you end up dead that way. So you stack the cards in your favor and the odds are you're gonna win, and bam! Out of no where someone else wins. Now you know they either cheated you or you cheated you but either way you lose. That's life. You can plan and plot things, you can stack things in your favor: school, money, family, you know things. Odds are you'll win or succeed in this game of life but without warning, bam! Things could change at any time. A short cut here, a short cut there, an unexpected event and you could end up a failure. So Lincoln knows the cards but he has given up on them for a while because his friend died. Cards were how he made a living and how he lived; I mean he was more animated, more successful when he knew the cards, when he could rely on them. Now Booth wants fast money, there's no denying that but he also wants to have some control over his circumstances and cards might give him that but at first, Lincoln is holding out on him. He's reluctant to have him lead that sort of life, to play those sorts of odds but he does it. He teaches his little brother and bam! His little brother beats him at it, or at least gets good enough to think he can beat him at it and then bam! Lincoln comes back and still wins. Booth is humiliated and angry and acts, and then bam! He reacts by killing him or by stacking the odds back in his favor.

Meredith: excellent, excellent! Is this a play about race?

(All except Riley): absolutely, yes.

Riley: Now I wonder at that. Why is it a play about race? In my version of the play it doesn't say anything about the race of the actors. So it is assumed because the playwright is black that this play cuts a slice from black America. I think it is an American play in that it strikes at the American dream and how people are unequipped to attain it. If I hadn't seen it played by black actors on PBS, I probably would have pictured them black because of Parks but I wonder at why.

Meredith: would this play work with colorblind casting?

Audra: oh absolutely. That would add to it, of course, then the play would be about race. I mean if the brothers were played by say Lorenz Tate and Keanu Reeves then we would be wondering if the parents chose one brother over the other because of race; it would just add a different dynamic, another complication.

Meredith: but could the play work with a Chinese cast or a Native American cast?

Riley: yes I don't see why not. Most cultures feel the pull toward the American dream and the same string that pulls them is the same string that tightens around their purses.

Meredith: ok, what makes this play an American drama?

Nicolas: Well there is the element of race, if it is there and I think it is, because what about when Booth questions that Lincoln, a black man, is playing a white president?

Riley: oh I admit it is there, but I object to race existing as an element or a dynamic, I think it just is. Anyway, I like that Lincoln and Booth don't have the "sense of entitlement" of other characters in other plays. I mean they admit their life pretty much sucks as it is and while they are not powerless to fix that, they are powerless to fix it but so much. So despite the ideal that people can move in and out of social class easily in America, perhaps what makes this play an American drama is that Parks points out that the reality differs from the ideal.

Dana: to me, the sexual elements make this an American drama. Parks kind of deals head on with the male libido. She deals with the female sense of stability over sex versus male's sense of sex over stability.

Leslie: the play deals with family and the misconception of family unity and how that varies for people, to use what Riley said, it invites you in to their lives and sort of faces you to stay without asking you to choose sides.

Harris: this play is as American as they come. It has betrayal, adultery, gambling, sex, murder, poverty...what more can you ask for in one play?

Meredith: ok why this play? Why was it published?

Audra: because it gives a voice to what some people are thinking. I mean people feel every day that this is not what they bargained for, like they've been bamboozled. Sold something that just doesn't work any more. The ideal of family and tradition may not be suited for 2006, the family has changed, the economy has changed it. So many people can recognize their sense of bewilderment.

Nicolas: it's like someone changed the rules and no one knows what they are any more. People are succeeding who, well shouldn't be. I mean the college graduate with good credit, the good guy...we all know the good guy always ends up losing. He doesn't get the girl (glances at Dana), he doesn't get the corner office and he can't even afford a house any more.

Leslie: you mean he lives at home with his parents? (Shocked)

Nicolas: He might, she might...I mean the Universal "he." Somewhere along the lines the things we were told matter: rules, fidelity, trust, investment, somewhere they stopped guaranteeing success.

Dana: Even kids, they used to be good for the economy, good for the family image. They meant stability and they took care of their parents in their old age but now, parents are taking care of kids longer because kids can't or won't get good paying jobs.

Nicolas: well that's just it. We were taught you go to college, you get good grades, you graduate, you get a good job. Now people graduate and can't even get jobs in their majors but people without the degrees, they are the success stories.

Harris: but not everyone goes the traditional route. College isn't for everybody. Look at us, we are all adults going back to college because we still believe in the old rules. Someone changed them, we know they are changed but we are still here waiting for them to what? Change back?

Riley: maybe we are just stacking the cards, the odds in our favor. Maybe we do still believe that hard work pays off, that loyalty gets rewarded. I have to believe it. But I also believe in the gamble, not in the making the quick buck the hard way, because face it, life on the streets is hard. But I believe in taking a risk to get what I want and having the foundation of education, investments, common sense and morals to back up whatever I choose.

Leslie: so the play was published and performed because it was the right time to do it. because America is tired of the "get rich quick scheme" and the overnight millionaire?

Riley: and because Americans are tired of someone else stacking the cards.

I have a better understanding of the elements of this play and perhaps of other plays I will read. The value of the play may not be to entertain but to encourage thought, to provoke conversation, to stimulate imagination and to encourage activism. We are faced with reality every day and every day we have an opportunity, an obligation to do something about it. People like Lincoln and Booth are failed by the school system, by family and by society in fiction as well as in life but reading about them doesn't make them real for many of us. Seeing and hearing them breathes life in to them, in to their circumstance and makes them, us. I have gained a better appreciation of Suzan-Lori Parks through writing my discussion. I am proud to say I am again impressed by her.

Works Cited
Genzlinger, Neil. "Makes Them Want to Holler"New York Times. (Late Edition (East Coast)). New York, N.Y.: May 8, 2005. pg. 14NJ.11. ProQuest. 6 May 2006. http://proquest.umi.com.ezproxy.umuc.edu
Parks, Suzan-Lori. Topdog/Underdog. Theatre Communications Group, Inc.: New York, NY. 1999
"Suzan-Lori Parks Biography." Bedford St. Martins. N/D. 6 May 2006.
Weaver, Angela E. "Suzan-Lori Parks." Women of Color Women of Worlds .n/d. 6 May 2006. http://www.scils.rutgers.edu/~cybers/parks2.html

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Posted by Yvonne Battle-Felton at 10:26 PM | Permalink | Comments (31) | TrackBacks (0)

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My grandmother was born in 1919.

She was not the typical woman of her era. In her lifetime my grandmother went to college, married, worked a full time job as a nurse, raised four children, owned four houses and managed and owned a guest house. At the end of her work day she cooked, cleaned, washed clothes, helped with homework, read to little ones, paid bills and managed to find time to spend with her husband. As a child I remember watching her come home for the weekends clean the house, cook dinner for the week and prepare my grandfather's medications for the week. I hated that my grandmother had to work so hard. My grandfather was retired so I felt that he had time to cook and if the medications were important, he would remember to take them. Still, I never questioned my grandmother's weekly routine but I remember thinking "I will never do all of that for any one." I can't say he didn't appreciate it, only that he had grown to expect it.

And why not? She had trained him to expect her to do everything so if it ever bothered her nearly as much as it bothered me, it would have been difficult but not impossible, to change the situation. But she never did. Why not? She loved cooking or rather she loved to have home cooked meals but surely cooking had not been her passion in life, why was so much of her life consumed with it?

My grandmother has hundreds of suggestions on how my sister and I can improve our marriages by accepting more. We are both mothers, married, full time employees and full time students. When I ask more of what, she questions how long it has been since my husband and I spent time without the kids. At times I marvel at how progressive she is in her thinking. Those times are often overshadowed when she says we should reconsider our separation until the children are older I never fail to ask, "What have I done to deserve to be unhappy for so long?" She does not understand my question.

My grandmother is selfless and expects my sister and me to be the same. She expects us to happily postpone our lives for the sake of our children who she reminds us, "did not ask to be here" yet why, I ask, does my unhappiness guarantee their success? And why can't I ask and expect my husband's help with the children and household chores after he gets off of work? My grandmother was not born this way; she was not always grandmother, mother, wife, she did not always belong to someone else. She was born Charli Ruth Watson, it is a name she changed as soon as she could, assuming not only a new name but a new more feminine identity. But at what cost? For some reason she gave up any dreams she had of childhood along with much of her autonomy in her roles of dutiful daughter, selfless mother and industrious wife. When did it happen?

According to The Marriage and Family Experience "black women's conceptions of womanhood emphasize self-reliance, strength, resourcefulness, autonomy, and the responsibility of providing for the material as well as emotional needs of family members." (Strong et al 126). I have inherited the very chains that bind me and the wings that set me free for motherhood is at times a rather heavy gift to carry. As an African American woman, I am charged with the task of keeping my family together at all costs, even if it costs me my sense of self.
Women in general, African American women specifically, are sacrificing ourselves for the goals of the family. We are losing sight of our goals, dreams, inspirations and souls while assuming identities others find pleasing. Paule Marshall's Praisesong for the Widow, explores Avey Johnson's loss of identity as she merges in to the woman Jerome Johnson needs her to be, the woman Jerome Johnson can love.

Sometime before saying "I do" women seem to learn to think, feel and say "I will." Women appear to accept and encourage others to take our kindness as weakness and our strengths fore granted. We are constantly taking on new challenges, new goals to please someone. Successful women in media and literature are selfless, generous and tireless and if they are in a relationship they are working toward family goals or eventual marriage. The woman outside those boundaries, the woman who follows her own dreams first, is typically single and seldom by choice. If she is not single then she is "out of her cotton pickin' mind," (Marshall, 24).

Avey Johnson has spent much of her adult life becoming a woman she does not know. When she begins questioning herself and Jay's commitment to her she is sacrificing her identity as a strong, confident woman. Jay's late nights at the office give rise to her fears of his affairs with white women "that would be more likely to appeal to him," (Marshall, 92). These fears and her insecurities with her body and her pregnancy transform her one Tuesday evening into the woman on Halsey Street who represents the struggle of the African American woman (Marshall 106). That night he pulls away from her and she pulls as well, she continues transforming in the seconds it takes him to choose to stay with the family or leave "before either she or Sis could think to run after him or find the voice to call him back," (Marshall 111).

Through the years Jay's pursuit of education, rejection and eventual success transforms him into Jerome Johnson. He becomes critical of the things from their past from Halsey street to the music and especially of other African Americans. Avey feels the move from Halsey Street "was an act of betrayal," (Marshall 122) yet she moves for the sake of the family to a better neighborhood. She keeps her memories to herself, memories of what Halsey Street represents to her which is not the same as the poverty and embarrassment it represents to Jerome Johnson who is unable to say the streets name. Avey continues to keep most things inside "at a deeper level...unreconciled to the change, and as distressed and uneasy as she had been the first day," (Marshall 130). Seldom does Avey speak her mind, seldom do her thoughts venture far from Jerome Johnson's.

To speak her mind is to be victim to the "unsparing, puritanical tone that had developed in his voice," (Marshall 132) and to risk the delicate base holding their marriage up. Avey worries that Jerome Johnson will think the things she misses from her marriage to Jay "would even appear ridiculous, childish, cullud," (Marshall 136). And Jerome Johnson does not think highly of African Americans.

Avey resembles this cynical, joyless man: "they were getting to look, even to sound alike...
According to an essay by Dagmar Pescitelli some theorists believe a woman's identity is not formed until she has married or has children, that the family experience is needed for a woman to become complete or whole (Pescitelli). Pescitelli also finds that other theorists believe women's self concepts reflect the images of those around them. (Pescitelli). In "Praisesong" Avey's presence on the beach represents a certain place in life, being at a certain place at a certain time causes others to confuse her with someone else, someone that belongs. The people on the island "immediately stripped her of everything she had on and dressed her in one of the homemade cotton prints the women were wearing..." (Marshall 72). Alone, Avey is not afforded a separate identity from those around her; she is absorbed in to the group as one's identity is absorbed in to a family.

According to Sociology in a Changing World the role and contributions of the African American mother is all inclusive because it has to be. It appears few studies have been conducted on how the individual goals of African American wives and mothers exist before, during and after child rearing or marriage. My research on this subject has primarily returned negative information where African American families are headed by African American women largely because of "the difficulties faced by young black men with limited education when seeking jobs," (Kornblum 508) and that "life in the black community has been conditioned by poverty, discrimination and institutional subordination," (Kornblum 509). That may be true for some people; the women in my life suffer similar situations as mine: we all give unselfishly of ourselves.

I have learned the more I am willing to give, the more others are willing to take. According to Nancy Woloch's Women and the American Experience, historically various women in America have been responsible for child rearing, farming, making goods, cooking, housework, field work, laundry, working, etc. yet have been expected to be subservient and "deferential" to their husbands (Woloch). Women were expected to assume the identities of their husbands, their political opinions, goals and aspirations were to be of one mind, his. It is 2005 and as far as women have come, some where others of us are still finding ourselves unwittingly giving ourselves up when we say "I do." But we are waking up; we are realizing happiness does not begin when we end. It is important for women to maintain, enhance and encourage our identities. Analyzing Praisesong, I have had the opportunity to learn that women can do it all, we can be happy, seek our education, raise a happy family, be successful ,be productive and live happily ever after even after "death do us part."

Works Cited
Kornblum, William. Sociology in a Changing World. 6th ed. Belmont: Wadsworth, 2003.
Marshall, Paule. Praisesong for the Widow. New York: Plume, 1983
Pescitelli, Dagmar. "Women's Identity Development: Out of the "Inner Space" and in to New Territory." Simon Frasier University. 10 Dec. 2005 < http://www.sfu.ca/~wwwpsyb/issues/1998/spring/pescitelli.htm>.
Strong, Bryan, Christine DeVault, Barbara W. Sayad, and Theodore F. Cohen. The Marriage and Family Experience: Intimate Relationships in a Changing Society. 8th ed. Belmont: Wadsworth, 2001.
Woloch, Nancy. Women and the American Experience A Concise History. 2nd ed. New York: Mc-Graw Hill, 2002.

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Posted by Yvonne Battle-Felton at 10:17 PM | Permalink | Comments (20) | TrackBacks (0)

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When I got married almost ten years ago, it was with out preconceived notions-or so I thought-of happily ever after and till death do us part. As far as I was concerned, I didn't have many gender role expectations or limitations for my husband-to-be or for myself. I didn't know much about marriage. I was from a single-family household and the lives of the married people I knew were not ones to be emulated: the married people I knew were not happy and if nothing else, I knew I wanted to be happy. To be honest, I didn't give marriage nearly enough thought; if I had I would have done some things differently. Not the ceremony but the engagement. I would have talked with my fiancé more, or at all, about his expectations and given some true thought to my own. I also would have talked and listened to the couples around me. I would have asked the women in my life the question I ask us all to consider now: Are we sabotaging our own marriages?

Today I think if only someone had warned me... and I have to stop myself, that's not fair. There is no shortage of both solicited and unsolicited advice in books and magazines, on screen, in music and more importantly through friends and an often-overlooked resource: family. I can vaguely remember someone saying, "Marriage takes a lot of work" and reading something about the necessity of communicating to make a marriage work. They weren't talking about me-I thought-and to be honest, I just wasn't paying attention. So while I didn't take on the title Mrs. Sylvester Felton (I hyphenated), I did take on a new role: the Super Wife. I became my own worst enemy, my own nemesis. The day I got married, I unconsciously began sabotaging my marriage and eventually my own happiness.

You see, when I said, "I do" I was saying yes to raising a family, working a full-time job, putting my own needs second, and maintaining a household while being a loving, caring, supportive, understanding and forgiving wife. That's a lot of pressure and I have to say honestly it was self-imposed. My husband never said, "honey after you get off work can you cook dinner, help the kids with homework, clean the house, wash the dishes, do the laundry, put the kids to bed and then spend some time with me?" But I heard, or rather felt this undeniable pull, this necessity to do everything. At first, when he asked, "do you need help with anything?" I heard: "since you can't take care of it, I'll step in and take care of it." So my answer was always, "no, I'll take care of it." Meaning: "I can handle it." Over the years he stopped asking, anticipating my response, which unbeknownst to him was changing to: "can't you see I need help!" Instead of saying the words-and why should I have to, I thought-I began resenting him. I resented his stress-free day, his distance from child rearing, his assurance that the children and everything else was taken care of. But I didn't say a word until it was too late. When it started bothering me, I should have said something. By the time I said something, it had gone so far that I couldn't take any more. He couldn't recognize the magnitude of the problem and instead felt I had done things quite efficiently, so efficiently that he felt I no longer needed him. The problem is that by then, so did I.

With our marriage deteriorating seemingly beyond repair, we separated. That was actually the best thing for us to do. Over the course of our on again off again separation I have learned to say the things I usually held back, the words which I found were hardest to say: I need help. My story is not as unique as I once thought. Statistics say American marriages are in trouble; more importantly American women are in trouble. Some of us are forgetting that a marriage is a partnership. Which means we are not in it alone. At this point in my life it may not be as important to consider how or when I lost sight of this, as it is to figure out how to fix it. But since I am raising children I should at least pause to briefly reflect on the causes. According to Gamble and Gamble's book "The Gendered Communication Connection", the family is the primary source of what they gender socialization: "the family provides the most significant context for our learning about sex and gender (193). According to this theory the roles women adopt are based on roles we have seen enacted by our own parents or primary caregivers. It appears that we internalize and categorize behaviors as acceptable and unacceptable based on our experiences or perhaps based on reactions to those experiences. This does not mean that we necessarily emulate gender roles as they are, but rather as we would either expect or want them to be. Meaning I may not necessarily communicate with my husband based on my parent's communication patterns but in spite of them. Still we are impacted by our experiences and perceptions.

According to research compiled in his essay, Communication between the Sexes: Male Gender-Role Orientation and Confirmation/Disconfirmation in Marital Dyads, Thomas Veenendall agrees that parents are the primary source for gender role conceptions and expectations: "Acquisition of sex roles and gender roles and the identities that result from the acquisition process seems to be the product of several forces in combination" (63). Veenendall goes on to explain that the process of gender-role development may be well under way by the time the child is in preschool: "the preschool child has already distinguished sex-related standards of appropriate behavior and begins to exhibit appropriate behaviors," (64). Therefore the family, according to Veenendall's research, is responsible for a complex parental/familial socialization process that creates "sex-role and gender-role identities [that] become strong foundations for belief, attitude and value structures which strongly influence behavior patterns," (65). So when you look in the mirror and think you see your mother, you may be right.

But according to Gamble and Gamble we can't just blame mom. Women are also socialized and molded by society and are stereotypically cast in the role of caregiver. According to Gamble and Gamble: even when both parents work "research still reveals that mothers regularly spend significantly more time caring for children than fathers do," (203). Besides caring for children and working, women are still largely responsible for domestic tasks perpetuating the myth of the super woman. According to Gamble and Gamble, these expectations are reinforced through experiences outside the family. School, work, sports, culture and messages obtained through the media also conspire to form our gender expectations and actions. In short, our past may be sabotaging our futures.
All is not lost. According to Veenendall, "since sex roles are learned, they also can be unlearned and redefined," (68). Keep in mind when things are not working out it may be necessary to reevaluate how you communicate your needs. It may be as easy as acknowledging your role in your current situation, deciding you want a change and communicating your needs with your partner. If so, this is natural. According to research compiled for J. Lyn Rhoden's essay Marital Cohesion, Flexibility, and Communication in the Marriages of Nontraditional and Traditional Women: "when nontraditional women elect to marry, they may need to negotiate power sharing, changing needs, balance between their work and family lives," (248). As Rhoden explains, this renegotiation need not be negative and is not necessarily indicative of a marital impasse: "...processes like bargaining and negotiation do not create conflict but rather are an acknowledgment of and attempt at resolution of the conflict of interests and needs," (254). Effectively communicating your needs may increase your marital satisfaction, but Rhoden is quick to point out that "low marital stability, however, does not necessarily precede dissolution of the marriage, and degree of marital quality does not always correspond to a comparable degree of marital stability," (249). Rhoden's research shows "in both nontraditional and traditional marriages, effective communication is important to the cocreation of the marital culture through interaction of partners by exchanging perceptions and negotiating differences," (253). It appears that the first step in fixing a problem is acknowledging it and after that, you have to communicate to your spouse rather than hoping they will read your mind and change on their own. Unfortunately some spouses will resist change.

According to Nadya Klinetob and David Smith's study on the demand-withdraw syndrome-what she describes as "communication during which one partner attempts to engage the other in discussing an issue by criticizing, complaining, or suggesting change while the other partner attempts to end the discussion or avoid the topic..."-"the spouse with the most to gain by maintaining the status quo is likely to withdraw, and the discontented spouse demands the change. Insofar as the status quo in marriage generally tends to favor men, men will appear most frequently as withdrawers," (Demand). Further analysis of the Klinetob/Smith study leads her to the conclusion that communication may be the key to couple satisfaction: "a final explanation may be that healthier couples demonstrate greater flexibility in their communication styles than maladjusted couples," (Demand). Granted, positive change does not happen when one person acknowledges the need to change and the other denies it or refuses to consider it. In those cases communication may need to occur differently, through counseling. But still, experts and laymen seem to agree that communication is an effective step to changing behaviors.

So what do you do when you realize you need help? Now that you have trained him to think you don't need help and can handle it all, how do you get the man who used to offer to help, to offer now? According to relationship expert Dr. Susan Campbell, you ask him. According to Campbell, some women may have a hard time asking for what they want: "some people are uncomfortable expressing wants because they imagine they'll appear demanding or controlling," (Speak up). According to Campbell, asking for help when we need it is a healthy and positive necessity that can possibly bring couples closer, not farther, away by expressing vulnerability-which is not necessarily a bad thing. By not asking our husbands for help, some of us actually unconsciously set them up for failure by not allowing them to meet our expectations. Campbell explains that some of us have difficulty asking for what we want because we expect others to deny our requests: "when you operate as if this were true, you don't ask for very much, so you don't have to hear no very often," (Speak up). Don't let this stop you from asking for the help you want and need, advises Campbell.

Whether to avoid the trap of playing super woman all together or to change established patterns and redistribute responsibility allowing both of you to flourish, Dr. Brenda Shoshanna advises women to be careful of "communicating with double messages," (Pitfalls). While she focuses on the problem of saying one thing and doing another, I would stress that we avoid saying one thing and meaning another. When your husband offers to help and you need help, accept it. Or if he does not offer and you need help, ask for it. Struggling to do everything yourself will undoubtedly leave you feeling stress and resentment, and face it something or someone is bound to suffer. In her article Solutions to Your Top Two Communication Problems, Dr. Shoshanna stresses the importance of communicating our wants, needs and desires: "without effective communication, no relationship stands a chance." She reminds us that effective communication involves listening as well as talking: "each person can only truly 'hear' what is being said if they are willing to put aside their own point of view and really be available to know the heart and mind of the other," (Solutions). So while you are asking for what you want, be prepared for your partner to share some requests or concerns.

Asking your partner for help empowers both of you to positively affect your marriage and the success of your relationship. Communicating effectively may be difficult, you may be dealing with cultural gender role expectations which may limit your ability to ask for help and your partner's ability to see you need help, but transcending the limitations of culture and recognizing your needs as an individual opens your relationship up for success. It's 2006, women of today can (and are expected to) do everything from raising children, working full time, completing higher education, contributing to the household economy, caring for parents and sometimes grandchildren: we are all things to everybody. But it is time we do something for ourselves. From one strong woman to another, my advice to you is when you need help, ask for it-before it's too late.

###As appears on AC

Posted by Yvonne Battle-Felton at 02:29 PM | Permalink | Comments (13) | TrackBacks (0)

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A breeze lingers before my window and on it the faint scent of innocence. It's a slow moving, salt laden breeze and oh, how I've missed it-the breeze, not the innocence. I've been away from home for six months, long enough to forget how it makes my hair frizz, long enough to forget the slick feel it adds to everything it touches, long enough to forget a lot of things-but not to forgive them.

Soon it will be time to get dressed, in the black dress my grandmother picked out and out of respect, at least for her, I will wear. She thinks it will give me the aura of mourning not reflected in my eyes, I, for one, doubt it. I cannot mourn the death of a man I did not know in life. Well that's not true, I've mourned the deaths of innocents everywhere, and I've even mourned the loss of my own innocence, though I can't remember it. It's not even true that I didn't know him, I just didn't know him as one might expect under the circumstances. So I mean to say I won't mourn this particular man at this particular time, particularly-and this my grandmother does not know-because I killed him, well almost.

So when I say I haven't been home for six months, I mean I haven't been in the home I was raised in for the past six months. I have been in Atlantic City since then and because that was not a trip of leisure, I didn't notice the breeze. I visited my father the last time I was here, even then knowing he would die but not that I would be the one to kill him. A few weeks before my visit, I got a call from a colleague that someone was offering $75,000 to have my father killed and I wanted to know why. Not why someone wanted him dead, but why anyone was contacting me about wanting him dead. In the nature of my business it is common courtesy to contact an...agent before trying to kill a member of their family. Not only is it good business sense, its good common sense-I'm known to have a bit of a temper.

But no one knew we were related.

Anyway, my plan was to confront him in his living room, imagining his surprise to see me, since I didn't have a key. He would talk about his problems: how apparently he owed money to some people I knew, which in my experience isn't why they wanted him dead, and he told them I was his daughter and I would kill him if they touched him. Turns out he knew from a friend of a friend about my career and thought namedropping would save him. And it would have. They were still in the planning stages and hadn't ordered a hit; they were waiting to verify he knew me-which my visit would prove. I didn't like being put in a position to help him and even as I slipped in through the living room window, I hadn't decided I would.

I knew right away something was different, not wrong but different. In my line of work you know death when you meet it and it was staring me in the face and using my father's eyes to do it. Damn. Now I have to find out who killed him and just how they plan to make it up to me.

Posted by Yvonne Battle-Felton at 01:57 PM | Permalink | Comments (4) | TrackBacks (0)

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Whether it’s the top ten reasons couples stay together, the top ten reasons couples break up, the top five reasons he isn’t in to you, or the top five reasons you aren’t in to him, if it’s on your mind (or not), there’s a list for it.
I like, love, or tolerate lists as much as the next person –more or less—my acceptance of lists depends on the content, my mood, the language, tone, style…well, the list of things I like or dislike about lists is extensive: I’ll condense it here.

Why People (A broad general category to describe those who think like me, and those who do not) like lists:

1. Concise, manageable, chunks of information: easy to read.
2. They are every where
3. There is a list for everything
4. They are easy to remember
5. They are easy to forget

Lists are how we remember what to pick up from the market, what we like about a person, what we are looking for in a car. They are compact guidelines made in haste, in earnest or in vain.

I plot the tangibles: career, finances, vacations with children, qualities I am looking for in a man. The intangibles: qualities I am looking for in a mate or future spouse, I can neither plot, imagine or list.

I’m not that far in my pursuit of me to consider a pursuit of we. So, for now I create lists of places I would like to visit: Top five places to go before you turn 40; types of people to date: Top ten traits for a date; experiences to have: Top five things to do before considering saying I do.

But tomorrow, I will create more mature lists: You know you are ready to consider a serious relationship when…

And the day after that I will create one more: Top ten reasons not to create another top ten reasons list…

Posted by Yvonne Battle-Felton at 08:48 PM | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBacks (0)

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