Resolutions... wishes...

A couple of years ago I decided not to make any New Years resolutions. In stead I expressed New Years wishes. The good part is that those weren't really dependent on me. The downside is that the reason I did this is a Finnish ailment: pessimism. Why try to change since it didn't work last year? How could I do any better next year?

Well well. Last year I made resolutions anyway, even while realizing that I might not be able to fulfill them. I thought that two resolutions would be enough: I'd give birth to a baby (very safe: he was about to come out anyway) and I'd finally finish my novel, big project that has been going on for way too long. Not finished, I'm sad to say. It seems my first resolution messed with my second one. I started off fine but then got too heavy and tired and then too busy and then too tired again... you know how it is.

With a 50% success rate I might try again, however.

It seems like I've lately had trouble with faith-related issues, so I'll work on that. Decided.

Baby needs mama to give a strong foundation in the Finnish language. I'll work on that. Decided.

Novel still needs to be finished. (It can't be impossible with 250 pages down already?!) Decided.

What's the 50% success-rate for this I wonder? Slight improvement in faith-related issues, no novel but excellent use of Finnish? Or something else?

Language minorities

Sometimes I think we people are not very generous. Take the position of minority languages. In most countries minority languages have difficulties even existing. Russia is a great example. Even in a western country like the UK, Welsh and Gaelic are seriously struggling, and nobody knows how many generations will speak those languages fluently.

Then there's Finland and Canada. Finland has some struggling official minority languages (the Same languages in Lapland) and one official minority language that's not struggling in the same way, Swedish. Besides these there are of course several unofficial ones. The problem in the language majority's eyes seems to be the Swedish. Their situation in Finland is apparently very much like the French language situation in Canada. It's a second official language of the country, so anyone should get service in any government offices in Swedish. Also, as Swedish speaking Finns have to study Finnish at school, Finnish speaking Finns have to study Swedish. And they hate it so much! In fact, this hatred sometimes envelopes all the Swedish speaking Finns too. They are happier than Finns, they seem to be richer than Finns (this is only true about a small part of Swedish speaking Finns, but since those are the very visible ones...) and they sing better and even write better than Finns (well, at least Tove Jansson, Bo Carpelan and Kjell Westö do in my opinion)!

People hate minorities that do as well, or sometimes better in their eyes, as the majority. Minorities should suffer. Minorities should content themselves with speaking the majority language.

Only, as majority language speakers we have no clue how hard minority languages are to maintain. At school cool kids sometimes speak Finnish on breaks. If they didn't have their own schools - or were in the same complex even as Finnish speakers - how long until Swedish would only be spoken during lessons? And how many of those kids would eventually speak Finnish to their kids?

I was raised in a Swedish speaking village and went to a Swedish speaking school. Obviously, I'm partial. But I'm partial for the rights of other minority languages too. And, incidentally, I think Spanish should be compulsory at school in America!



(Image of Moomin troll from Skolverkets modersmål pages. Oy Moomin Characters Ltd. All of the Moominvalley characters are globally registered trademarks.)

non-holiday post

Sorry, today I thought, once more, about skin color. Oh, I thought about Christmas too, a bit, but that wouldn't make much of a post.

The question of today was: what will we teach our child about this skin color issue?

My decision was (and husband might agree) that we will first teach him that skin color doesn't matter. This teaching should mostly be done non-verbally, only if there is an issue should it be discussed. Issue could be child asking, or situation seen.

However, a couple of years later we will also teach our child that skin color has always mattered. Hopefully at this point he will already take people as they are. I don't want him to become one of us whites who thinks black people are making an issue out of nothing - I want my child to understand how privileges define his world, and above all, that being a white male he can't get an idea of what it is like to be in America, or Finland, as black or as female.

Maybe this will eventually help him to create a world where people in fact aren't defined as white or black and skin color is pinkish-yellowish, or brownish beigeish, or deep brown, or copper-toned with slight tinge of yellow... and all of these are admirable.

How to teach this and when this should be taught is another matter. I have no clue. Any ideas?

Does Christmas translate to joulu?

A week ago was the first Sunday of Advent. Advent is something I learned at school. My teacher taught me it is waiting for Christ (Finnish schools were definitively more Christian and more Lutheran when I was a kid). On the first Sunday (actually the Monday, of course, no school on Sunday) in Swedish-speaking schools we lit up one candle from a four-candle holder and sang Hosanna David's Son and talked about Christ's triumphal entry into Jerusalem.

I was so sad this year that nobody even realized it was First Sunday of Advent.

There's an irony in all this. In Finland I had just started liking Christmas again. I had been suffering from a serious Bridget Jones syndrome ("once again I am humiliatingly spending Christmas Eve alone in my parents' house in a single bed") but then along came Current Husband, who, not prone to depression anyway, loved all kinds of Christmases, Finnish or American. So I spent two nice Christmases with him in Finland, enjoying how I enjoyed Christmas again, and then moved to America. Now I'm wondering whether I'll ever have joulu again.

Joulu is, for me, a Christmas tree (always a fir tree or spruce, whatever the difference between those two, never a pine tree) with a star on top, loads of Christmas presents and huge Christmas meal consisting of traditional Finnish foods and lots and lots of fish, all on Christmas Eve. All of this (except maybe the presents) I hated for several years, feeling it underlined my singleton status... but now I'd like it. Only, now I have a Christmas tree at my in-laws, and it might be a pine tree and it might have an angel, not a star on top. I have more presents than ever, but some of them come by mail to my own address and are opened once we leave for the holidays or once we come back, and are always opened on Christmas Day. I have loads of food, but random American Christmas food, so no knowing really what will come up except for jello salad (this is in Utah). I can't blame my in-laws since they really try to encourage me to cook Finnish Christmas foods and sometimes even open up the presents on Christmas Eve. I think my mother-in-law guesses that Christmas is a time of home sickness. But what's the point if everything is just a bit off anyway? Besides, Finnish Christmas foods are about the weirdest Finnish foods in people's eyes here (they're the most traditional ones, that's why.)



Did I start liking joulu again only to notice there is no more joulu? Will I just learn to like the American version of Christmas in itself, without attaching any childhood memories to it? But isn't Christmas very much about childhood memories?

Warming, warming, but what else?

Yes, I am aware of the fact that global warming isn't as trendy a subject to discuss as it was a couple of years ago or even last year before the health care reform, but it may still be important, as stated in this Onion news article.

I just wanted to point out something I've been thinking about yesterday, while walking with a stroller in the November gloom. That is, global warming isn't the only environmental issue facing us and it's not the only one we have to deal with. This thought isn't my own at all - hard core scientific environmentalists have brought it up earlier - but it doesn't seem to catch.

Don't get me wrong, I don't belong to the so-called global warming skeptics. In fact, these skeptics hardly ever doubt that the climate is changing (that can be measured) but many doubt that human behavior has influenced that change, and that human behavior could also slow or stop the process. These are valid points and brought up by many real scientists, but it seems that the majority of climate scientists believe that, in fact, the carbon emissions by humanity are warming up the climate at a worrying rate. The fact that all don't agree only shows that we're talking about a real scientific process where there needs to be dissenting voices. That's how the scientific community works.

Then there are those skeptics who might not be scientists and who feel that liberals and environmentalists are using this global warming issue for their advantage. This would imply that there is a conspiracy and that the research is distorted and so on. I sort of agree on environmentalists using this for their advantage, being one myself. And possibly Al Gore did it too. But I don't agree on the conspiracy theory. In fact, I'm not at all excited about any conspiracy theories. Occam's razor, everyone! But of course the environmentalists (we environmentalists) like to make a noise about global warming, since it sounds satisfyingly catastrophic and may get people to react, which "mountaintop removal mining destroys our scenic Appalachians and soils the water sources in West Virginia" doesn't.

The danger is that we'll be so caught up in global warming that we forget the other issues. Also, if global warming becomes a less interesting news item at some point we'll have hard times fighting coal with any other weapons, since that fight is tied up with global warming...

But still, I think we need to reduce our carbon emissions. In fact, I think I need to stuff something in that hole under the door of our house so that I don't use all that much heating.

The book of faces

Who remembers the discussion between Jane Fairfax and Mr John Knightley on the subject of letters? In Jane Austen's Emma there's a memorable exchange. Mr John Knightley (the younger Mr Knightley, not the hero of the story) is gently teasing Ms Fairfax, who ventured to the post office in the rain despite her delicate health.

"The post-office has great charm at one period of our lives. When you have lived to my age, you will begin to think letters are never worth going through the rain for."
There was a little blush, and then this answer,
"I must not hope to be ever situated as you are, in the midst of every dearest connection, and therefore I cannot expect that simply growing older should make me indifferent about letters."
"Indifferent! Oh! no - I never conceived you could become indifferent. Letters are no matter of indifference; they are generally a very positive curse."
"You are speaking of letters of business; mine are letters of friendship."
"I have often thought them the worst of the two," replied he coolly. "Business, you know, may bring money, but friendship hardly ever does."
"Ah! you are not serious now. I know Mr. John Knightley too well - I am sure he understands the value of friendship as well as any body. I can easily believe that letters are very little to you, much less than to me, but it is not your being ten years older than myself which makes the difference, it is not age, but situation. You have every body dearest to you always at hand, I, probably, never shall again; and therefore till I have outlived all my affections, a post-office, I think, must always have power to draw me out, in worse weather than to-day."

Lately I've noticed many friends of mine getting upset over this marvel called facebook in a very similar manner as Mr. John Knightley over his letters. I can't get upset. The people who want to get rid of facebook or who think it's a waste of time seem to live at least in the same country as most of their friends. I love every single silly posting of my best friends in Finland.

See, moving out of the country isn't death to family relationships. Those don't disappear nearly as easily as friendships. And so, in order to keep in touch with your friends, what would you do? Write letters, call with skype, send email... only, I never write letters, skype requires two people to be on at the same time which is difficult when the time zones are different, and even email is more often than not left unanswered. What better way to keep in touch than by a social network that shows you your friends' small thoughts - what they ate for dinner, when they are upset, anything they want to post as "status".

So give me your statuses! And comment on mine! I love facebook.

(Oh, election day was yesterday. If you want to hear my thoughts about that, please ask. Otherwise I'll leave it alone.)

Parent's rights, children's rights

Are you for parent's rights or children's rights?

Sometimes these two seem to be the same thing. Sometimes you can just talk about family values or similar. Surely it's best for the children that the government and everyone else supports parents in their duties in stead of the other way around, right? Right?

Here's the trick, though. All parents don't do what's best for their children. Really. They might think they do, or they just don't think at all. Honestly. I've heard the comments about "who should decide what's best for the children" and I say that sometimes it shouldn't be the parents. And if some parents aren't capable of it then there should be general rules. And that sort of means laws and regulations, and the government dictating at least some things parents can and can't do.

If not the government then who? Those who really want parents to have completely the right to decide over their children's lives need to admit that then there would be no laws against violence against children, or locking them in closets or similar atrocities. Most people feel these things should be forbidden, but are having hard times saying what else could or should be...

I'm for children's rights. I don't know in every case what would be in their best interest. But if parent's rights and children's rights do not meet, I'll go for the children.