Previously published in Georgia’s Coastal Illustrated Jan. 11, 2012
One of the world’s most renowned and influential anthropologists, Jane Goodall, once said simply, but yet so poignantly, that “to be fully human; we need to have meaning in our lives.”
I couldn’t agree more, so I search daily for that “human” connection to the world that makes this one life I have been blessed with as worthy and meaningful as possible. For me, in this moment, my “meaning” is to guide my two girls into womanhood with a healthy balance of grit, grace, and gratitude.
Like knitting a pair of socks that turn out to be the same size or making it through a Justin Bieber video without a few eye rolls, this is not as easy as you think it’ll be when you first start out.
Take for instance, their last sleep over. I had grand plans, I really did. Nothing too Kardashian like a backyard fireworks display and a thousand dollar designer goodie bag, but I did have a few surprises up my plushy green-grey bath robed sleeve. I’m talking glittery mani-pedis, chocolate covered popcorn, and a 3D movie marathon with extra long red Tweezler sticks.
Alas, it didn’t turn out the way I expected. As soon as I entered the living room, movies in hand, five sets of eyes stared me down as if it were high noon at the O.K. Corral, not seven thirty p.m. in a small, family suburban neighborhood. Now, my grandmother on my father’s side taught me to play poker before I could walk, talk, and add so I can tell when someone is bluffing. They were not.
But it's ok, really, I know when I am not wanted… or in immediate danger…..so I quickly retreated to my bedroom and shut the door. I felt, well, just a bit like Jane Goodall herself, at first shunned by the very subjects she had set out to observe and aid then relegated to the outskirts of the tribe, on top of a hill, with only a pair of binoculars and a notebook to guide her.
However, I did not posses binoculars, or a notebook, or a hill for that matter, so I settled for the next available thing; Direct TV, a remote to mute at will, my super comfy bed, and a glass of Chardonnay behind my slightly ajar bedroom door. Oh yeah, and a marathon rerun on Bravo of the “Real House Wives of New York” followed by “The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills.”
Y’all I swear, this program can make even a novice in the study of human behavior fill up their field notebooks, scratch their heads, and then redraft even the sanest of cultural assumptions and theoretical suppositions of societal norms. Even those that have been touted as fact since man and woman were able to walk in an upright position, negotiate a fair price for bread, or hail a cab.
Before I get into my own anthropological study of modern day “domestic” women, it’s important to note here exactly what Jane Goodall did and how her forty five years of studying and interacting with the chimpanzees in Tanzania changed the way we look, not only at the early socialization of pre-hominids, but at evolution as well.
Three important discoveries were found behind those binoculars on foreign African soil. One, she discovered that chimpanzees were, in fact, meat eaters much like early humans. This went against the conventional thinking of her time that primates were only vegetarians. It seems they liked to indulge in a smaller monkey or two from time to time when the inkling hit….or they were trying to impress a date, or stick to the one of those new fade paleo diets or cannibalism....whatever you called it back then, I’m not really sure.
She also noticed they were able to use “tools” to procure food; for example, using small sticks to retrieve tiny termites out of mounds in the dirt. This challenged the theory that man was the first creator of food gathering/hunting apparatuses. I’m not so sure what is appetizing about termites but they could quite possibly have also used the sticks as early back scratchers while their mate was down the road a piece and couldn’t scratch it for them.
Lastly, Goodall discovered those cute, furry alpha females could, on a dime, turn into savage and destructive beasts. As in kill the young of other chimps and then head up a few camp time activities like female mutilation if they felt the hold on their own turf was in question, still making sure to be home in time for dinner.
It seems to me, especially after watching my Bravo marathon that these women have evolved by leaps and bounds in some regards. Who needs a male to scourge for food when you have a driver, two maids and a personal assistant? But sadly, it seems that in close and influential communal quarters like New York and L.A., the alpha female doesn’t fall far from the African banana tree, if you know what I mean?
Here are the top three things I learned NOT to do from my “study (a/k/a eight hour straight viewing)” of the “Housewives”:
1.) Never come to a party/fundraiser/lunch/fundraising planning lunch/or any get other together LATE (especially if it involves Pinot Grigio.) This is because you will, without a doubt, be talked about in a catty way before you eventually show up. Upon arrival, you will be showered with kisses (on both cheeks), after being told you look fabulous, then gawked at as you eat a small piece of food from a tray as if it were a mortal sin that surely involves a membership to Jenny Craig and a group intervention.
2.) Never come to a party/fundraiser/lunch/fundraising planning lunch/or any get other together EARLY (again, especially if it involves buckets of Pinot Grigio.) This is because you will inevitably be set up to “talk to” one of the other housewives you upset at the last party/fundraising/lunch even though you don’t know what you did to make her angry or take a valium or threaten a law suit. Besides, a finger in the chest is never fun even if its a hundred dollar French manicured one.
3.) Never take three Xanax and then drink a bottle of champagne and two mojitos….ever…. even if you hate to fly and particularly if you plan to wear a bathing suit made out of three crochet men’s pocket squares. Trust me. It’s just not smart, especially if the other women’s husbands are around.
I could go on and on but chances are you have already seen all the episodes anyway (not to mention Atlanta, Orange County, D.C., etc.). At least that’s what my girl friends tell me seeing as I was the last one of us to jump on the “Real Housewife” bandwagon (or town car so to speak). There is something strangely addictive about it: the realization and then requisite relief you feel knowing your life may not be as “fabulous” but is just fine without all the drama and self-absorption. You don’t need fame, money, expensive clothes, cars and boats to have class or, like I want to teach my girls: grit, grace, and gratitude.
The opposite is actually true. It’s the search for meaning, as Jane would tell you, that make us human, not all the other superficial stuff.
I am probably being way too critical or over analytical. The “housewives” are just people after all and who I am to be a voyeur into their world, while judging them all the same? Because maybe, just maybe, there is a little bit of Jane in all of us, poised on top of a hill, looking down from a distance, trying to make sense of something that puzzles, perturbs, and excites us all at once.
As Ms. Goodall also said, “Every individual matters. Every individual has a role to play. Every individual makes a difference.”
Whether you agree or not with our expert, it’s hard to argue that these alpha females really don't make for some pretty, great T.V.
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