A future for my children

So I've never been one to sit comfortably in this space I share with others. I find conformity unbearable and I find the soft middle class immensely dull.

I am sometimes amazed with how advanced my teenage mentality was. I was right that consumers are pathetic followers. I was right that malls are evil places created for the mindless masses. I was right that the government sucks and couldn't care less about the people.

As a 36 year old mother of three, I still have this mentality. I did try for a few years, in my previous marriage, to conform. I was married, had the suburban home that I actually said "bye" to everytime I backed out if the driveway, as if it were somehow a living entity....I'd literally say, "Bye, pretty house." No joke. How pathetic to be that attached to a thing.

I had two kids, two cars, and even got a full-blooded dog. He was a Miniature Schnauzer. (So cute) He was the perfect reflection of the tension that saturated the family within the walls of the "pretty house." If my ex and I walked him together, he turned into a crazed, barking maniac. If I walked him alone, he was fine.

My marriage, which started out great because I dove headlong into being exactly what I thought he wanted, ended up being a relationship of bored sighs and my plans to escape. And escape I did, in our last year. I felt so incredibly stifled in that middle class picture that I took two trips alone that year. One to Orlando for a work conference...how convenient, and the other to New Orleans. I didn't want to return and it is funny that my ex didn't think I would return. I did though. My children and my dog were in Kentucky.

Anyway, today I watched a documentary called, There Will Always Be London. It's about one of my favorite bands, the Sex Pistols. Anyway, the part that got to me most was where Johnny Rotten is on the your bus yelling at all the"poor people" on the streets and asking them, "do you have a life?"

I realized the questions he was yelling to them were the exact questions I was yelling to myself the last few years of my previous marriage. I had become, during those years, the very thing I've hated practically my whole life!

I shopped at the mall...and even worked there! I paid hundreds for bags and shoes. I still tried to stay ahead of fashion trends, but I bought mall crap! I drove a CAMRY. It doesn't get much more middle class than that. I lived insuburbia with a husband who had such a nondescript job that I couldn't tell people what he did, because I really didn't know. "Some sort of office management, I think." I'd say.

There was no creativity.

I tried to get it back in my own life. I made natural lip balm. I quilted. I painted. I tried going to shows.

While I loved doing those things, I have learned (since leaving all that behind) that I am most happy when I'm surrounded by happy, creative, open, honest people.

In that stifling relationship, what I did most was drink.

Now I laugh. Now I give my opinion. Now I LIVE.

I am me again, just as I was myself as a teen, and didn't give a shit who liked it or didn't.

I respect those who stand up for themselves, help those who can't, and love those who love me in return.

So all of this has me thinking of what I want for my children. I really don't want them settling into a middle class life. I don't want them digging a bastard of a hole of debt just to have a bunch of crap they don't need.

I want them to be creative, whatever that means to them. For C, it is welding cool figures. For T, it is survival in nature. I want them to do what they want. To do what makes them happy. I don't want them to do anything just because others are.

I'd rather my kids did the wrong thing on their own, than to do the right thing because others were.

I hate the soft middle class.
I hate this consumer culture.
I hate this Facebook world that gives the illusion of closeness, when it is only serving to hermitize the world.
I hate global communication that is killing individuality.

I think we need to fight for ourselves.
I want my kids to fight for their individuality; to know that they are important and perfect just as they are.

They don't need perfect teeth, or designer clothes, a corporate job,  bigger boobs, or 6-pack abs to be someone in this world. They don't need to conform to the cookie cutter "ideal," that is bullshit, in reality.

I want my kids to be confident enough to make mistakes.
I want them to use their voices to speak up for themselves and others.
I want them to stand on their own and for what they believe in, even if others disagree.
I want them to laugh daily.

I want them to love who they are, whatever that may be.