Category: Manifesto

So Long, Facebook

~ ejmcewan ~ 7 Comments

A few weeks ago, I decided to withdraw from interaction on Facebook.

I did not delete my profile entirely, or completely disengage, but I decided to withdraw from anything deeper than base-level “social” interaction–cute photos of my kids, questions about popular culture, etc.  The decision was prompted by a long-distance friend hastily “un-friending” me after a brief exchange. The “conversation” was about negligent (in my opinion) parents who seem oblivious to their children’s lack of social skills–specifically, children who bully younger kids. After a few comments were exchanged back and forth between me, her, and a few of my other “friends,” she wrote me a message saying she was deleting me. She said she didn’t like the way my Facebook persona made her feel about me and thought it best to save whatever was left of her opinion of me. To her credit, I really, really like this friend and I think she was probably correct, in a way. And she did try to make it clear that she still likes me and thought the picture Facebook was painting of me was wrong. But, what happened with this friend solidified what I’d been thinking for a few months–I need to say “goodbye” to Facebook.

See, this is not the first time I’ve been “un-friended” for the way I expressed myself online.

A while back, and old acquaintance from high school deleted me after I posted a blog where I challenged American ideas of gender inequality, when compared with the severity of abuses committed against women worldwide.

A few months ago, another acquaintance (a friend of a friend, basically), deleted me after an exchange between me and few of my friends in which I joked about how my kids were going to be homeschooled. Other friends chimed-in, some of them homeschooled themselves and others very anti-homseschooling, and the conversation steered toward joking about how all kids end up as “freaks,” regardless of where they live or how they’re educated. She was offended by something that was said, commented harshly, then deleted me. I tried to contact this person to make amends, let her know she probably misinterpreted something that was said, and apologize for offending her, but she had blocked messages from me.

I’m sure these aren’t the only three people who have deleted me. And, in a way, it’s not a big deal. But, to me, it is a big deal. And that’s why I can’t do it anymore.

Why?

1. Social media is inherently disingenuous. We can all look good online. All we need is a few shiny photos, some clever quips about our day, a quote or two to say what we cannot, and we are suddenly desirable to the public. My guess is that most people are not nearly as impressive or interesting in real life as they are online–me included.

2. Facebook is not an intellectual medium. No matter what the topic, it’s impossible to have a truly intellectual (and beneficial) conversation on Facebook. The medium is simply wrong for it. Everything moves too quickly, people post too hastily, and many people chime into conversations that they have no business being a part of. Nearly every Facebook “conversation” I’ve been a part of has been derailed by someone who has no idea what is actually going on. These interactions are frustrating–emotionally and intellectually.

3. Internet relationships are not “real.” Yes, it is fun to connect with people online, to see their cute kids, their nice house, and to know what books they are reading. But, Facebook “friends” are not friends. Online relationships are relationships of convenience and comfort. We log on when we want, read what we want, engage when it’s desirable, and turn off those we’d rather not listen to. We have no responsibility to our online friends, and no commitment to respect or mutual benefit. It’s all the fun with none of the work. And this is exemplified by the fact that we can simply “delete” those who they don’t want to bother with anymore. Heck, I’m guilty of it, too.

Which brings me to the reason I finally had to draw the line:

4. Facebook makes me sad. A few weeks ago, when that friend sent me the message to warn me that I was being deleted, it crushed me. And that “friend of a friend” who deleted me a few months ago? I can barely be in the same room as her now. Why? Because I like them. And I want to be their friends–their actual friends. But, something I believe or something I say or the way I say it makes them so intolerant of me that they would rather turn me off–delete me–than engage in a constructive way to understand me. What it says to me is, basically, “I don’t mind looking at pictures of your kids, but I don’t want to know what you actually think about anything important.”

And this is the point:

Facebook is a joke. It’s disingenuous, anti-intellectual, and fake. But I already understood that. I made a bunch of “friends” and tried to use Facebook to socialize in a way that’s most natural and most important to me–to engage with people I like, about ideas. Other people might want to talk about books or movies or sports. I don’t care about those things. I care about ideas. And, so, I talk about ideas. But, when you talk about ideas, some people get really uncomfortable.

I understood the limitations of Facebook. And I understood that the people I engaged with online were important and valuable, even if they were different from me. This is why, on any given day, my Facebook feed covers everything from politics to parenting, religion to atheism, urbanism to professional sports. In the past, I have deleted people because I don’t actually know them or because we never interact, but I have never deleted someone because they liked the wrong football team or Presidential candidate–no matter what they said or how they said it.

I would like to think that anyone who knows me in real life is not surprised that I have strong opinions about things, or that I make friends with people who have strong opinions about things. And I would like to think that most people understand that strong opinions are only a part of the story and that a quip or quotation from a person cannot give you a comprehensive understanding of how they really feel about something.

In the world of Facebook “friends,” you can have strong opinions about the guy who cut you off in traffic, the referee in the football game, or the amount of/lack of snow on the ground but not about things that actually matter like faith or the goverment or family life.

So, I’m withdrawing from ideological interaction on Facebook.

For a Thinker-Introvert like me (I’m an INTJ–look it up), this is a painful decision. It means that I cannot connect with people the way I appreciate most–by hearing what they think about things that are important. And it means that I cannot express myself in a way that is most honest.

Instead, I’ll give you a “like” every once and a while and leave it at that. Oh, and I might ask for a movie recommendation or show you a picture of my new shoes or something along those lines. Apart from that, I’ll be MIA for a while.

If you want to know what I actually think about something, you’ll simply have to ask–in private–or engage with me on my blog. I won’t be commenting on Facebook.

Urbanism, Sub-urbanism, and why I’m tiring of the Streetcar debate.

~ ejmcewan ~ 39 Comments

I’ve lived in Cincinnati for 8 years.

My first job was at Kaldi’s on Main Street in Over-the-Rhine. Those first few years, I spent a lot of time in the neighborhood. I met my husband there and we were married a few blocks away.

Our first apartment was in Over-the-Rhine. We decided to plant our roots downtown for multiple reasons, many of which I won’t get into here. But, basically, we love Cincinnati and we believe that a strong urban core is the foundation of a strong city. There are other neighborhoods that we love, neighborhoods that might become our “home” someday. But, Over-the-Rhine was where our heart was.

The first two years of our marriage made me an “urbanite.” We lived in a large, industrial loft space in a barely habitable old brewery building. Both of our work offices were a mile away. Our church was a mile away. I learned to shop on foot, in small trips. I got used to the sounds of street life. We got to know our neighbors. We learned the history of our city, the feel of the streets and alleys, the loom of the buildings as we walked by.

We didn’t do touristy, out-of-towner things in our neighborhood; we learned to live there. When we first felt the call to purchase a home, we talked about multiple options, and multiple locations. I had one simple request: I must have either a walkable business district or lots of greenspace.

We tried to buy a monstrous estate on Dayton St. in the West End, but they refused our offer. (A friend bought it, instead.) We looked into purchasing a dilapidated old estate tucked away in North Avondale on 2.5 acres, but they weren’t interested in us as much as we were interested in them. They wanted to “develop” the land.

We walked through a few homes in Betts-Longworth; we walked through a few in Mt Prospect. And then we got an email from an acquaintance saying that he was selling his home in Over-the-Rhine and we called him right away.

The short version of the story is that the owner liked us. He liked that we are people of faith (like him). He liked that we were going to be raising a family in his old home, where he raised three children with his late wife. He liked that we are committed to a similar vision for the city as he had been for his 40+ years in the neighborhood. So, he reduced the price of his home to something we could afford and sold it to us.

That summer, we made the transition onto Orchard Street, which is perhaps the most beautiful street in the city. The house itself if a labor of love and a work-in-progress, but it offers plenty of space, room to grow, and everything an urban family could desire including a backyard (which will someday be functional as such).

I love our life in the city. I love the wealth of opportunities and experiences that it offers our children. I love the warmth of neighbors and passers-by. I love the architecture and parks and noise and lights. As a severe introvert, I love the ease of daily contact with other people, both friends and strangers, and the feeling of a city alive about me.

Living in the city is not always fun. It sometimes requires more work, especially with kids. So, I am sympathetic to those who say, “Oh! I could never do that!” And I am very sympathetic to parents who want a neighborhood where their young children can play outside unattended, where they can unload groceries from inside their garage, and where they don’t need to worry about issues like lead paint and air quality. And I believe that there are many legitimate reasons to live in sub-urban areas—closer proximity to family or work, for example.

There are times when my husband and I stare at each other from across the room and quietly suggest: Wouldn’t it be nice to park in front of our own house? And we often dream together of leaving the city far behind and relocating to a rural space where our kids can be wild and reckless in the woods and come home at sunset with dirty hands and muddy boots.

But, at the end of the day, I am officially an urbanite. And though some wild, faraway place may be in the cards for us someday, choosing against the suburbs is now a matter of principle for me, not simply preference.

What does this have to do with the infamous, polarizing issue of the Cincinnati streetcar? It’s become pretty clear to me that Cincinnati residents are not only divided on the issue, but that no one is budging. We’re at an impasse and the only deciding factor at this point is that the public voted a majority of pro-streetcar City Council members in the last election, which is why the streetcar continues to move forward.

The difficulty of the debate is that one side sees the development of a streetcar system as a legitimate investment in the future of the urban core and the other side sees it as frivolous spending on a pet project—“a streetcar to nowhere.” These are ideological issues, not issues of preference.

Basically, we don’t simply live in different neighborhoods; we live in different worlds.

There are legitimate reasons to oppose the streetcar. Heck, I’m a Conservative! I understand the need for fiscal responsibility and responsible spending. But even a fiscal conservative believes in the importance of sound investments, building a future, and creating a foundation. And even the hesitant supporters—those who support pursuing the streetcar project at a future time, though not now—would agree that a project like the streetcar has the potential to strengthen the urban core, bring economic prosperity, and offer opportunity for further development.

The problem is this: the majority of those in opposition to the streetcar have a fundamentally different view of the urban environment, its infrastructure, and lifestyle, than do its supporters.

They see the city as a holding place for poor, homeless drunks and a recreational facility for wealthy yuppies. They do not believe that normal people actually live here. They do not believe that people with their level of wealth or education would choose to live here.

They do not understand the design of cities and do not share the vision of car-lite, rail-strong city. They do not care about the thousands of Cincinnati residents whose lives would someday benefit from affordable, convenient public transportation. (How other people find their way to home and work does not worry them, so long as those people don’t end up living in their neighborhoods.)

Their lives are dependent on cars and highways. They have not conceded the high costs (physical, social, and environmental) of car-dependent communities. They do not know a world without a 30-minute commute.

They do not share parking spaces, driveways, sidewalks, front porches, or front yards; of course they cannot imagine sharing transportation.

They are willing to invest billions of dollars in improving over-used highways and bridges surrounding the urban core, while neglecting characteristically urban transportation options which bolster urban life.

They do not see the streetcar as a sound investment because they do not believe that a pedestrian, urban life is a legitimate lifestyle choice of rational people (and families). So, they refuse to relinquish their control of the urban core to those who actually live, work, and play there.

And no one is going to change their minds.

I am not, nor have I ever been, a die-hard streetcar supporter. As I said earlier, I believe there are legitimate reasons to oppose—or perhaps postpone—the project.

But, I am an urbanite.

I believe that a strong urban core is the foundation of a strong city. And so I have to trust the history of cities and contemporary experts of urban design. They both agree that a streetcar system is a solid investment for our city.

So, I am tired of the debate.

We don’t simply live in different neighborhoods; we live in different worlds.

I have chosen to invest in a historically-significant shared built environment.

Many others took out a half a million dollar loan for a private, .25 acre plot of former farmland.

I have already said that there are legitimate reasons to choose a sub-urban lifestyle. But, to oppose urban development because you do not believe that there is fundamental, inherent value to the urban core of our city shows a complete lack of understanding.

The strength of our urban core is the only thing that makes your comfortable life in the suburbs possible.

And, until you believe that, we have nothing more to discuss.

And, by the way–

Stop calling it a “trolley,” for pete’s sake.

It’s a damn streetcar.

Starting "School"

~ ejmcewan ~ 1 Comment

My son is 2yrs and 8 months old. He’s super gregarious, energetic, and has a great sense of humor. He also corners the market on creative play these days. But, about a year ago, I noticed that some of my son’s peers were surpassing him in learning things like “the ABC’s,” colors, numbers, and shapes. My son might be able to guide you on the mile long walk through the streets of Over-the-Rhine to the public library, but he can barely count to ten.

Many of my son’s peers are learning these basic skills (counting, identifying letters, etc.) from either watching television or attending daycare/preschool. Since my son does not watch television, nor attend daycare, it’s going to be my job to teach him.

We already read a lot. And we talk a lot in normal conversation about animals and colors and such. But, last week, we started our first official week of “school.” And for the next eight months or so, we will spend 3o minutes, 1-3 days a week, learning basic preschool things–letters, numbers, shapes, colors, and lifeskills.

I’m really excited to share the experience of homeschooling in the city where it’s possible to have a rich, exciting education, as well a socialization, apart from attending a standard school.

My son loved his first day.

Now I just need to prep for Day 2!

They Did Everything Right

~ ejmcewan ~ Leave a comment

Last week, news broke in New York City that an 8 year-old boy had been abducted, then killed and dismembered, after getting lost only blocks away from the place he was to meet his parents that afternoon. His error: he asked the wrong person for directions. That man took advantage of the situation and it ended tragically.

I’d rather not recount all of the details. You can read them for yourself.

As a parent raising children in an urban area, I am already well-aware of the perceived dangers of city life. I know that many of my peers, with children of the same age, think I’m nuts for planting our family here. And I will admit that I sometimes question this decision, as well, counting the cost of all the extra work my husband I and I have to do to keep our family safe and healthy in the city.

But the more time I spend here (we’ve lived in Over-the-Rhine for over three years now and I worked here for the three years before then), the more I am convinced that although there are certain dangers inherent to urban life, many of the dangers inherent to childhood transcend location. No matter where you plant your family, you run the risk of encountering danger. The likelihood of my children being abducted, breaking an arm, drowning in a neighbor’s pool, or getting hit by a car does not significantly decrease the further we are from the city. In fact, depending on where you live, some dangers will increase while others decrease.

On the issue of child abductions, some basic statistics:

  • Family members account for the majority of these reported cases (82 percent)
  • Non-family abductions account for 12,000 of these reported cases (18 percent)
  • Of non-family abductions, 37 percent are by a stranger

Link: http://kidsfightingchance.com/stats.php

In more tangible terms, for every 100 children abducted, 82 are taken by a family member. 18 are taken by a non-family member. And, of those 18, only 6-7 of them are taken by a stranger. Call me crazy, but this says to me that, if your child is ever the victim of abduction, there is 93% chance they are abducted by someone you already know. And, the people you know will be the people you know no matter where you live.

And this is just one example.

As an aside, consider this: as soon as summer hits, the news is littered with tragic stories of children drowning in a neighbor’s pool. I don’t know about you, but I can’t think of a single property within two miles of my home that has a backyard pool. And the two public pools within those two miles are surrounded by high security fences and manned by lifeguards when open for business. So, this childhood danger is actually greatly reduced by living in the city.

The most tragic thing about the boy killed in Brooklyn was not that he was abducted, or that he was killed, or that it happened only blocks away from his intended meeting place. The most tragic thing for me, as a parent, is knowing that his parents did everything right and it happened anyway.

The family lived in an insular Orthodox Jewish community, a community where you’d assume residents were safe and adults were trustworthy. The boy was a month shy of 9 years old and had been begging his parents to allow him to walk home from summer camp alone. This was the first time they’d allowed it and they even walked the route with him, to insure he knew exactly where to go. Somehow, he got lost anyway. And when he stopped to ask for directions, the man he asked happened to be the one person within who knows how many miles who would take advantage of the situation.

I think about my hometown, in the SW suburbs of Chicago. And I think about the twelve or so blocks between my childhood home and my middle school. I think about the millions of times I must have walked that mile when I was eleven years old. And I think about how “safe” it seemed, even though it involved crossing multiple lanes of traffic in a pedestrian un-friendly area.

And then I think about my friend Karen’s home, in Blue Island, IL, which was a far cry from my suburban neighborhood only seven miles away. And I think about riding our bikes around her neighborhood when we were probably no older than ten years old. I think about the first drug deal I ever witnessed. And I think about the stories she told. And I think about the first time I drove through Blue Island as an adult and thought: I can’t believe her parents let us wander around this neighborhood alone!

But now I think I understand.

I think about my neighborhood. I think about the ten blocks between my home and the public library and I think: My son already knows this route and he’s not even three years old. Of course, by the time he’s ten years old, I would assume he’s competent to take this walk alone, even if I wouldn’t yet allow it at that point.

The truth is, a good parent knows their child well enough to know when they are ready to “face the world alone.” And the best they can do is trust that they’ve given their child every tool necessary to take care of themselves on that walk down the block, then the walk around the corner, then eventually the walk down to the library. And when something goes wrong, if something goes wrong, chances are that it was nothing the parents could have foreseen and that they did everything right.

This is why it’s tragic when something terrible happens to a child. Regardless of what normal, natural, everyday thing they were doing when the tragedy happened, there is only so much we can do to protect them. And it doesn’t matter where they live. At a certain point, we need to allow them the freedom to take steps out the door alone.

I fear for my son’s life at least a dozen times a day. And my daughter, who is still about three weeks away from being born, is already stressing me out. But I know that, as they grow, the best thing I can do is provide the tools they’ll need to navigate this city without me. And the tools they’ll need here are different than the tools they’d need if we lived in the suburbs, but they are no more or less important. And my neighborhood is no more or less “safe.” It’s just different. The dangers are different. The people are different. The streets and houses and stores are different. And my children will be different because of it. (Heck, that’s part of the reason we’re here.)

The sentiment spoken at the boy’s funeral is perfect for the situation:

“He got lost, he got lost,” he said… “There’s nothing to say, he got lost. God wanted it.”

As a person of faith myself, I can understand what he means. For others, it’s a difficult thing to take in. But the sentiment is something we can all appreciate because it’s true: when something like this happens, there is often a simple explanation for how it happened. In this case, “he got lost.” I’ve been lost before. And you probably have, too. And it happens in the city and in the suburbs and on the hiking trail and in a foreign city. And sometimes you stop to ask the wrong person for directions and you end up more lost than you were before. Or sometimes it ends in tragedy.

Often times, there’s simply nothing you should have done differently.

I hope that little boy’s parents know that.

Quickening

~ ejmcewan ~ 1 Comment

The past six months are a blur.

For one thing, the weather in Cincinnati has been… disappointing… and has kept us inside more than I wish to admit. The perpetual rain has made it hard to feel motivated for the walk to work. And these recent, sudden hot/cold temperature fluctuations have been exhausting. Cincinnati has such fickle weather and I guess I’m more of a fair weather pedestrian than I’d like to admit.

Also, work got really hectic the past few months. Thankfully, my schedule has started to ease as June hit, but my husband is in the midst of the long, busy building season. Lots of late nights. Tired bones. And the end is nowhere in sight. Not for a few months, at least.

Oh, yeah. And I’m pregnant. I’m seven months pregnant at this point, which makes everything just a bit harder and each day a bit longer and every walk feel a bit more exhausting. And having a toddler has made this pregnancy different in every way from my last. And as I anticipate this new arrival, I am mourning how little time I have left to spend alone with my son, my first favorite baby, who will no longer be my “only” in just a handful of weeks.

As far as our city is concerned, the past few months have been a crazy time. The issues of the infamous streetcar and the casino, recent homicides in our neighborhood, businesses opening and closing. If I had not begun reading a Twitter feed with local news and neighborhood conversations, I would be clueless. And still, even with the Twitter updates, I always seem clued-in too late.

I just can’t keep up–physically or mentally.
And emotionally, I’m still a few months behind.
And when life moves so fast it can start to lose its charm.

Some friends came for a quick visit a few weeks ago on their way through town.
They are urban dwellers, living in Elgin, IL, a small city near Chicago that I used to call “home.” They asked about our work, the politics of the city, the changes in Over-the-Rhine.

My friends seemed so enchanted by our home, our neighborhood, and our family life here in Cincinnati. And when you stop to think about it, I guess we really do have something special here. Sometimes we just move too quickly to notice the small, subtle changes that make this city what it is.

We want change. We want better grocery options, an end to the hostility and violence among neighbors, less litter, fewer loiterers in the public parks, etc. But, sometimes we are so anxious for the big changes in our neighborhood that we forget to notice the small breaths of life that peek up around every corner. Day by day, this city–and the downtown area specifically–is becoming more healthy, viable, and safe. There may be a million naysayers living outside the city limits, but those of us who are here in the thick of it know the truth.

In pregnancy talk, there is a word for the moment a woman can feel the movements of her unborn child. It’s called “quickening,” and it’s a fabulous experience. Personally, it’s been the point when I can mentally accept that the thing growing inside of me is REAL, is LIVING, and is becoming more and more AMAZING every day.

As I type, I can feel this baby spinning circles inside of me.
And, while people outside our city are looking for quantifiable changes to prove the viability of Over-the-Rhine, those of us who live here can feel its “quickening.”
In fact, this city has been moving for years. But to understand it, you’ve got to crawl inside it, or put your hand up to its belly and feel it kick. You’ve got to walk its streets, play in its parks, explore its local flavors and colors. You’ve got to be willing to know it the way a woman knows her child, the way she nurtures it, the way she leans in and whispers “I know you’re in there,” and the way she anticipates its birth.

It’s a great time to live in this great city.
I hope I can slow down enough some day to take it all in before everything has progressed so far that we can’t believe its been so long since those first days when we felt it move.

How long have you been waiting?
And when did you first feel it?