Writing Prompt: Have You Ever Been Told You Couldn’t Do Something Because of Your Gender?

In my past life as an English teacher, I liked having my students do a little writing every class. Sometimes I’d use the NYTimes Writing Prompts, which is a treasure trove of questions. I thought I’d spent some a couple mornings a week answering a question that I pick completely random from this massive list. Picture a globe-trotter spinning the globe index finger primed to pick the next exciting destination, except I’m just sitting here scrolling up and down on a website before clicking with my mouse.

I’ll write for 25 minute, read it over once, and post it.

Today’s Prompt:

Have You Ever Been Told You Couldn’t Do Something Because of Your Gender?

Well, here’s one where I probably need to check my privilege at the door for. I am a white, male who has had a pretty easy go of it in my life as far a gender prejudice, the only real prejudice I have felt first hand is around my Irish heritage (“Drunk Mic” tossed around at a party. Stay tuned for my take down of the mascot “Fighting Irish…”). My dad had some interesting stories to tell about his experiences as a young Irishman growing up during The Troubles in Ireland.

As far as gender though? I can’t really think of anything outside of small things uttered by small people (not morally small, just legitimately small. I’m talking kids.). At summer camp I’d goof around and wear wigs or put my hair in a little ponytail on the top of my head if it was long enough. “You can’t do that, you’re a boy” would come from the group.

My professional career as an elementary teacher placed me in the minority due to the ratio of male/female teachers that teach those grades. And my school was actually one that had quite a few males teachers. However, this is where I would feel the stereotype. It wasn’t so much that I couldn’t do something because of my gender, but it was so great for young boys to have a male influence in the classroom. Toss in the fact that I was a young male teaching fourth grade made it even more strange. I was clearly an outsider in this setting, I didn’t care because I was good at it and I enjoyed it. And people were right, we need more males in the elementary schools. I didn’t feel that stereotype from my co-workers, it was more from the outside world. The reaction I might receive from a stranger who asks what I do for a living or the looks I got at conferences.

My own school experience was rife with insecurities, but my middle school years, which are tough for most, were smoothed out by the fact that I was at an all-boys school. In the four years I was there, I saw classmates dress up as women for the school play sing acapella. I was also allowed to dapple in the arts without any real stigma. I learned to throw clay on the wheel and loved it and continued to do it through high school. I painted and found some pleasure in photography. Here I am projecting my own stereotypes onto gender, but I think those years afforded me the time and space to just be a person without people telling me what boys are supposed to do or can’t do.

I am grateful that I don’t have some scarring moment where the devil looked me in the eye and said, “Men can’t do that!” that would illicit some long heartfelt story. I know I’m lucky, but I know that there are plenty of men who have had that experience. Men who stay home to look after the kids. Men that aren’t the primary breadwinners (Hi, I’m a card carrying member right now…). Men who make their wives watch The Bachelor… (those guys are the worst.)

While this question leaves me uncomfortable because I don’t have an explicit moment or a collection of micro-aggressions and I feel completely out of my depth. It’s a valuable exercise to open my eyes and force me to reflect and hope that I have never been, and will never be, the person who pops into their mind when they are asked if they’ve been told they can’t do something because of their gender.

What Food Would You Like To Judge In a Taste-Off

In my past life as an English teacher, I liked having my students do a little writing every class. Sometimes I’d use the NYTimes Writing Prompts, which is a treasure trove of questions. I thought I’d spent some a couple mornings a week answering a question that I pick completely random from this massive list. Picture a globe-trotter spinning the globe index finger primed to pick the next exciting destination, except I’m just sitting here scrolling up and down on a website before clicking with my mouse.

I’ll write for 25 minute, read it over once, and post it.

What Food Would You Like To Judge In a Taste-Off

The first thing that came to my mind was pies. Wings came next (but not as exciting as pies). So let’s go with pies, the gut reaction seems like the most appropriate one for this topic.

Why the heck did pies come to mind first? I do love pies, all different types, and they are a food I am willing to leave my comfort zone for the sake of competition. I am not equipped to judge pies, because, as far as I can remember, I have never actually made a pie from start to finish. I have eaten hundreds of pies in my day (I first wrote thousands and then did the math, and that’s too many damn pies). I do know that you don’t want a soggy bottom and that first slice needs to slide right out cleanly. I need a Paul Hollywood type at my side to provide me with the rubric for a good pie (although his dashing good looks and sparkling blue eyes would put me second in the concurrent “Show of Handsome” contest being judged by the pie makers…)

Here’s what makes a good pie in my mind:

1) A good top: I don’t care what it is, lattice, crumbles, straight pastry with some crazy design to let the heat out as it bakes. Just make sure it holds up when I eat it. I want to use the edge of my fork and glide right through it. It can’t be too thick, don’t try to hide the rest of your pie under the top of it. Like the roof of a building, I should really only notice it if it’s incredibly beautiful or incredibly awful.

2) The crust: This is the foundation of the building; I for people to experiment here. Graham crackers, Oreos, Girl Scout Cookies are all fair game. If you’re gonna go with straight pastry though, there’s one important facet of that for me. It’s not what’s under the pie here, instead, it’s whats’s rising above the edge of the pie pan. My mom usually pinches off these edges with her thumb, creating something I called the “legs.” Like eating a pizza, I would leave these little bits of pastry to the end and I would even order the size of my slice by the amount of “legs” I wanted. A two leg slice was always the perfect second slice. This is an incredibly specific and strange thing for me as a pie eater, but listen, if I’m judging, your crust would have to either have legs or be so freaking good that it doesn’t need legs. And I haven’t had many pies like that in my life.

3) The Filling: The pie is named for the filling, so this has to be the main attraction, right? Apple pie was always my favorite as a kid, but I don’t like when the fruit, whatever kind, is more puree than chunky. If I’m eating an apple pie or a cherry pie, I want to feel like I’m getting some chunks of actual fruit. I’ve also had syrupy fillings, which I think is gross. Feels like it came straight from the can. I understand that some fillings need to be solid: pumpkin, chocolate cream, key lime. In the case of these fillings, I just don’t need too much of it. So the filling has to be balanced with the crust, don’t make your pie too high and allow the filling to take over the entire cake.

I can also get down with a meat pie, but I don’t have enough time to really dive into that word of craziness.

4) Role Players: What else am I getting with your pie? Ice cream (if so what flavor?)? Whipped cream? Some sort of sauce or custard (hopefully not custard… gross)? A coffee? A boozy dessert drink? These things matter to the pie experience, and if you don’t bring a solid role player, a Scottie Pippen to the Michael Jordan, if you will, then your pie isn’t going to be on the top of my list. I’ll probably fight Paul Hollywood with my fists about this, but that’s okay, because it matters that much to me.

Pie is delicious. I have been known to enjoy both warm and cold pie. I’ve gobbled down pie in the morning for breakfast (I mean, it’s just a triangular Danish, right? RIGHT?!) A good hand pie is also delightful, whether it’s packaged for that purpose, or it’s just your only option in the kitchen at 1am when you’re home from the bar and you’re too lazy to find a plate and a fork.

I’d be lying if I told you I have never cut a slice of pie and balanced the slice on the knife I used to cut the slice, holding it close to my face, my left hand hovering underneath in case the slice makes a run for it.

What food would you want to judge? Toss your thoughts in the comments.

A Writing Prompt: What Do You Remember Best About Being 12?

In my past life as an English teacher, I liked having my students do a little writing every class. Sometimes I’d use the NYTimes Writing Prompts, which is a treasure trove of questions. I thought I’d spent some a couple mornings a week answering a question that I pick completely random from this massive list. Picture a globe-trotter spinning the globe index finger primed to pick the next exciting destination, except I’m just sitting here scrolling up and down on a website before clicking with my mouse.

I’ll write for 25 minute, read it over once, and post it.

Today I landed on…

What Do You Remember Best About Being 12?

I was 12 in 1995, I was in sixth grade, and was living just outside Boston. I was in my third school in three years, a victim of a cross country move and then a disappointing fifth grade experience (for my parents, not me). I was starting at the all-boys school in the next town over, following a fifth grade year at the public school. I was not happy about it, but my parents didn’t care and forced me to change schools (in the long run, they were very right. And I would encourage more parents to make choices for their kids even if their kids don’t like them.)

We had moved from California the summer before. I was kinda fat. I was kinda awkward. I was decent at sports, and I loved them dearly. My brother was 8 (which is weirder to think about than remembering when I was 12). My sisters were 18 and 22, both out of the house for a while now because they both attended boarding high schools.

The funny part about my experience as a 12 year-old is that it did mark the start of some of my longest friendships, ones that still exist today. The summer before I started sixth grade, I attended a soccer camp where a tall, lanky kid befriended me named Phil. He was the best athlete at the camp. He wore high tops, loosely tied, and scored a million goals that week. No cleats. No problem. He was the type of kid you wanted to know you on the first day of school. I’m still friends with Phil to this day, and we’re actually meeting in Las Vegas next week for a few days of golf and March Madness gambling.

I also met Eliot during that 6th grade year. Our dads were friends back in the 80s before we moved to California, and it turned out that we both were going to the same school. Our dads picked up right where they left off. I’d say in many ways that my dad’s friendship with Rob was a model for what I’d look for in friendship and how to be friends. Rob and my dad, on the outside, were different. Rob had a cool, laid back vibe to him. Always joking around, but also incredibly smart and knew when it was time to work. My dad was more reserved, but Rob always managed to pull out my dad’s less serious side. Both men were intensely competitive, though. They ran the Boston Marathon together, Rob admitting he slowed my dad down considerably (and my dad not disagreeing…). Eliot and I bonded through hundreds of rounds of golf, and our dads ended up joining us on the course, too. If my dad was the running version of a scratch handicap, Rob was the literal scratch golfer, pulling my dad along in our father son matches (with my dad always managing to make some meaningful putt on the final three holes… I did say they were competitive, right?).

We traveled to Bermuda, Myrtle Beach, and Ireland as a group for the “Piss Pot Open.” Our annual father-son “tournament” where our dads guilted Eliot and I into giving my dad more strokes than he actually deserved. Rob got a hole-in-one on one of those trips, and his name is etched in the Mid-Ocean Club’s bar. Like two spoiled brats, Eliot and I were not happy about the 17th hole ace by Rob. It lost us our match and the Piss Pot Open.

But being 12 in 1995 was great. There were no stupid distractions. If you stayed up playing them all night, you were either just with your friends in the room or alone. When you were alone, you were truly alone. There was no phone to reach for, unless you wanted to make a call using a land line. There were more ways to escape in the mid-90s, and it didn’t mean I read more or did more homework or was a better person because I didn’t have technology at my fingertips like kids do now-a-days.

I remember my mom would drop me off at Kimball Farms for an entire afternoon. She’d hand me $20 and leave me at it. I’d get an extra large bucket of golf balls and hit them until my hands hurt. I’d go to the pitch and putt for another $4, or something like that, and play completely alone. Maybe I’d eat something, maybe I’d get a soda or an ice cream. My mom would come back and pick me up hours later, asking if I had any change and if I had put on sun screen (no and… probably no).

Our new house had two basketball hoops, one on each side of the drive way. Both hoops could be raised and lowered, so I could dunk. Which was amazing for an average white kid. It was my favorite part of the house, by far. We didn’t have cable, so those summer days were spent outside running around (or upstairs playing indoor soccer with my brother). Being the loner I was, I would play one-on-one basketball with myself, running up and down the court, doing play-by-play (practicing for those radio days at Holy Cross…). I ran up and down, hitting shots, (even stealing the ball from myself). I probably looked like a maniac, but I didn’t care.

Twelve was probably the last year for many people before the true painful awkwardness of adolescence slams into us with full force. Working in a middle school for thirteen years, I realized how grateful I was to attend an all-boys school. Sure it slowed any sort of social growth I had with the opposite sex, but I was just able to be a stupid, gross, insecure, awkward boy. I made some of my closest friends, which were the starting point of a lot of great trips and stories.

That’s what I remember about being 12. Hard to believe it was nearly 25 years ago…