BEDA #15: Tooth Fairies, Racist Holidays And Other Lies My Parents Told Me

Going to the dentist was never one of my favorite pastimes, but my last visit was especially unpleasant. I was sitting in the chair, my mouth opened uncomfortably wide and my eyes squinting in the light of what looked like a miner’s torch on top of his head, as I tried to read my dentist’s facial expression. Even though it was hard to make out much of his face behind his glasses and mouth mask, I didn’t think he looked particularly worried, so I relaxed a little, until:

                ‘It looks like your upper left wisdom tooth doesn’t have enough space. As it stands now, it’s likely that it will push your other teeth out of place.’ He said.

                ‘What does that mean?’ I asked anxiously, speaking as clearly as I could in spite of having medical tools and what felt like ten sticks of cotton wool in my mouth. I feared the worst, and with good reason, because:

                ‘I’m afraid I’m going to have to remove it sometime in the future.’[i]

I, having worn braces for over four years only to get my teeth in the somewhat straight state they are in today, was rather upset by this news. I was also very scared at the prospect of possibly having dental surgery, so, naturally, I whined to my mother about it. She, however, had a word of comfort:

                ‘Look at it from the bright side!’ she said, with an unconvincing smile.

                ‘I fail to see a bright side to this situation.’ I replied, sadly.

                ‘Well, there’s always the tooth fairy.’ She sniggered.

I could only laugh about this comment, so I guess it cheered me up slightly. It did, however, also make me think about the tooth fairy as a concept. I suppose it’s not surprising that an important aging process like losing your baby teeth is surrounded by a myth, but sometimes I can’t help but think the adults were just trying to find out how many nonsensical stories they could make their kids believe before they would start asking questions, all the while laughing at their our stupidity.  This made me think about other lies parents tell their children, and especially the lies my parents told me. Less than true stories I was told as a kid certainly weren’t limited to the existence of a tooth fairy.

For example, whenever there was a rainbow in the sky, my parents used to say that the chickens were celebrating carnival. I know that sounds ridiculous. I can’t even imagine how I could ever have believed that, but apparently I did, because in second grade, after my teacher asked the class when rainbows appeared, I raised my hand in Hermione-like fashion and replied enthusiastically:

                ‘When the chickens have carnival!’

My mom, who heard the story through my confused teacher, still likes to recount the tale and laughs herself silly at my foolishness. I wasn’t a little Einstein as a kid, it appears. I must have thought colored light beamed from chickens having a great time, which is kind of sad, because, really, most chickens don’t have a very great life at all. Oh, dear, I didn’t mean for that dark turn to happen. Moving on!

Another curious and rather cruel thing my parents used to say, was that my sister and I weren’t their biological children, but that they had found us under the bridge near our house. Again, this is a weird thing to say and it makes me doubt my parents’ sense of humor. I imagine they got the inspiration from the stories of Moses and Romulus and Remus, but I am at a loss as to why they applied a similar story to us. But then again, this came from the same people who, whenever we asked where they were going, replied in acted seriousness: ‘We’re leaving the country on a little white horse.’

The things I’ve mentioned so far really seem to have had no purpose whatsoever, but my parents also fed us some lies to teach us lessons. For instance, to keep us from chewing on our own hair, they told us that this could lead big hairballs to form in our bellies, which we would then have to throw up the way cats do. This gory, yet kind of awesome warning was very effective, although I don’t really get why chewing on your hair is such a terrible habit.
Likewise, to keep us from pulling weird faces and sticking out our tongue at random people on the street, we were told that if we did either of those things, and the clock started to chime, our faces would fix and stay weird forever. I don’t know if it was as a result of this story, but to this day, I have never stuck out my tongue at anyone.

Maybe the most wide-spread of lies parents tell their children, is the one of Santa Claus. After all of this, you might be surprised to know that my parents told me Santa was fake from the start[ii]. Santa Claus isn’t very popular in the Netherlands, and even though we celebrated Christmas and decorated the house with some Santa Claus figurines, it wasn’t about getting gifts from that fictional character. We celebrated another holiday instead on December fifth. This very typical Dutch holiday is called ‘Sinterklaas’, and the story around it, is that at the end of every year, Saint Nicholas comes to visit from Spain. He arrives with his helpers in November on a large boat, so he can give all the Dutch kids gifts on the evening of his birthday, December 5^th. Saint Nicholas’ arrival is a grand spectacle including a parade that thousands of people go to watch, and it airs live on national television.  It involves special Sinterklaas songs, actors dressed up as Sinterklaas and his helpers, and the throwing around of cookies. Then, from the day of his arrival up until the actual celebration, Saint Nicholas visits towns[iii], leaves gifts and candy in children’s shoes, and every evening there’s a news show all about him, which is no less serious than the regular eight o’clock news. Basically, the entire country works together to trick the children.

[A sidetrack, but I wanted to note something problematic about Saint Nicholas’ helpers, otherwise known as ‘black Petes’. The thing is that they are black, whereas Saint Nicholas, who is basically their boss, is white. You can interpret this as sending the message to little children that white people are in charge of black people. Also, the story of Sinterklaas tells us that, to deliver presents to children, black Petes would climb through the chimneys to get into their houses, which is given as an explanation for their dark skin color. These things are both extremely racist and factually incorrect. On top of all this, there is actually a Sinterklaas song that literally translates to “Even though I’m black as soot, my intentions are good”, which is just so wrong that I don’t even know what to say about it.]

Anyway, to return to the story, Sinterklaas is one of the best kept secrets in my country. Yet, believe it or not, I figured out that Saint Nicholas wasn’t real before I figured out that chickens weren’t responsible for rainbows. I was seven years old when I realized that the handwriting on the presents I got for Sinterklaas was that same as my mother’s and my parents tell me that I “cold-bloodedly confronted them about it and didn’t seem surprised in the least”. Maybe I was a little Einstein after all.

Why was I writing about all of this again? Oh, right, I’m getting my wisdom teeth removed.  Well, that sucks. As to conclude this post, I still have no idea why parents tell their kids weird lies. I suspect they just like to sit back and laugh about it.

So, that’s all for today. I have to go leave the country on a little white horse.

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[i] By the way, have you ever noticed how dentists and doctors always say things like “it looks like”, “it seems that” and “I’m going to have to”? Even in Dutch, they tend to use similar euphemisms. What’s that about? It’s not like it make things any less scary and/or painful…

[ii] I’m sorry. I really hate to you if you didn’t already know. I hope you were sitting down.

[iii] Here’s a clip of me playing the saxophone at the Sinterklaas parade in my town last year: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oaUBHdcgfdg

BEDA 4: Counselors, CAREERS and Cops

The other day, I got an email from my faculty’s career counselor, asking me if I was close to making a decision about next year’s specialization. She kindly reminded me that my specialty would be of crucial importance for my FUTURE CAREER, and that she expected to hear back from me ASAP.

‘Oh, crap.’ was my first thought. I obviously needed a solution for this. This woman expected an email from me. ‘I can do that. I can type.’ I told myself, all the while ignoring the fact that the pressing problem was not the need to send an email, but the need to choose a FUTURE CAREER.

So, I typed and typed, and I wrote a lengthy email explaining what was not by any stretch of the imagination a fair representation of the truth. I told my counselor that I’d spent some time doing research (I had googled the words ‘career in Latin’ and ended up watching Latin dance on YouTube. That actually happened.*), that I had talked to my parents about it (which I hadn’t), and that I had narrowed it down to three different possibilities (Make that twenty-five). I failed to tell her which three specialties I considered, because I was smart enough to realize that I shouldn’t say anything she’s be able to pin me down on. So, I sent the email and relaxed a little. ‘Danger averted’, I thought, cleverly.

Ever since that email, though, I have been thinking about my FUTURE CAREER, and it struck me that I’ve always known things I wanted to do and jobs I wanted to have, up until the point where it actually became relevant and important.

For instance, when I was thirteen or fourteen, I wanted to be a police officer. I don’t know why I thought this job would suit me, because I have horrible eyesight (which means you’re not allowed to be a cop), I’m far from athletic (I reckon you need to be able to chase criminals on foot) and it doesn’t take much to scare me. Yet, I was completely obsessed with it. I read books about it, crafted myself a fake police badge and would never put a toe out of line. This went on until one night, as I was on my way home from volunteering at the community center (I figured this would look good on my application for Cop School), the police caught me violating the law. You see, we have this law that every bicycle needs to have lights on it for visibility, like cars do. It just so happened that the lights on my bike had stopped working earlier that week, and I hadn’t gotten around to buying new ones. I tried to explain this to the cops, but they didn’t want to hear it. They were mean, patronizing, and acted like I was just another careless teenager with no respect for the law. ‘But they don’t get it’, I thought, panic-stricken. ‘I do respect the law’. I kept saying  over and over again. I even showed them my badge.

After this incident, I felt sad and humiliated and I was kind of done with the police. And let’s face it, I wouldn’t have been a great cop anyway.

[Off topic, but, incidentally, I recently found myself in another brief accident with the police. You see, I was in Rome in Christmas Eve, at the opening of the nativity scene on St. Peter Square. There were more than two hundred people there and it was kind of a big deal for lovers of Christmas, like myself. The public was supposed to stand behind fences, while the important church people sat on soft chairs, being serenaded by the marching band. This seemed kind of unfair to me, and all of a sudden, just as the church people were being led away through the crowd, this Italian woman next to me broke through the fence and ran towards the scene. Now, I kind of wanted to take a closer look at that too, so I followed her, because, you know, when in Rome… The scene was very pretty (It had real water!) and I got some very cool pictures. The thing was, though, that I wasn’t exactly supposed to be there. Which is where the cops come in. One of them grabbed me by the arm and pulled me away, while rattling off an endless stream of incomprehensible Italian words. I imagine he wasn’t raving about the beauty of the nativity scene, but I can’t be sure. I didn’t go down with much of a fight, but still, I thought it was kind of an adventure.]

So, anyway, back to the topic: my obsession with the police force was quickly replaced by a radically different love: ancient languages. Ancient Greek and Latin had always been my favorite subjects in High School, and in my last two years they kind of became the only things I did. This was coincidentally around the time I had to choose a university and a major. Strangely enough, this didn’t make me nervous at the time, because the only thing I ever did was Latin anyway, so I thought I might as well major in it. I took it all very lightly. I knew what I wanted, my parents liked it, my Latin teacher took me to universities and I had everything figured out. I didn’t know what to do with a degree in ancient languages yet, but I was convinced that would come soon enough.

I did go to the career counselor at that time, which was a weird experience. I had never met this woman before, but within three minutes of me walking into her office, she had completely figured out what kind of person I was. I was, in her opinion, a very “girly” girl*, whatever that means, and even though I hadn’t yet spoken more than a couple of words, she knew that I was “an incredibly social young woman”, and that I would definitely do well with a FUTURE CAREER in communication. I was a little surprised and kind of wanted to laugh, but decided it was unfair to make fun of this woman, who obviously tried to do her job, so I answered in earnest.

‘Well, that sounds great, but I was thinking about majoring in Ancient Greek and Latin.’

Her facial expression went from cheery to concerned within a second, and she looked at me in pity, as though I was about to be given some bad news. She got a little book with information from her desk drawer and put the page about studying languages in front of me. Before she got around to dream crushing, she showed me something.

‘Do you know what that Greek sentence  means?’ she asked, pointing at a Russian line.

I didn’t, of course, and after telling her this, I decided the conversation was not to be taken seriously.  So, as my counselor showed me all the statistics in her book, about how the career prospects in Latin and Greek were really poor and how I could never make a lot of money (which is, of course, the ultimate life goal), then proceeded to gently force me to look at the statistics for communication (‘Lots of jobs! And you’re so social!’), I made up some things I wanted to major in. I specifically picked fields with zero job opportunities and jobs that wouldn’t pay a lot of money.

‘How about Egyptian culture, though? What are the statistics on that? Oh, not good? How about Hebrew? Babylonian? Assyrian?’

I think that when we reached Assyrian, my counselor gave up on me. She sent me off with some candy, which was really the only thing I got out of that conversation.

I suppose that counselor meant well, I just chose not to listen to her. I went ahead and majored in Ancient Greek and Latin anyway, and I totally love it. But what if I had listened to her? I would have been stuck being all social and communicative by now. And now that I still don’t know what I want to do with my degree, whose advice am I supposed to take? Is a counselor really an expert at making other people’s decisions? Should I ask friends, family, strangers? Should I listen to nobody?

All of this is to say, I have no idea what to do for a FUTURE CAREER. Feel free to leave possible career suggestions in the comments, preferably something that involves Latin. Or dance.

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*During my “research”, I also came across this piece of crucial information about studying Latin:
“How cool is it? To be fair, it isn't. But if you want to cultivate the image of an aspiring intellectual, then this is the subject for you.”
How nice of them to say that! Why, yes indeed, I AM spending years of my life just to come across as an “aspiring intellectual”.
(Source: http://www.independent.co.uk/student/career-planning/az-alevels/latin-644178.html)

* People have told me that this term is generally used for girls who like to wear make-up, dresses and enjoy braiding each other’s hair , non of which I have ever done. I’m uncertain where my counselor got the idea that I had.