Machismo, noun: A strong or exaggerated sense of masculinity stressing attributes such as physical courage, virility, domination of women, and aggressiveness.
I became familiar with the term during my two year stay in Mexico City, my Mexican friends would explain a variety of behavior by blaming it on machismo. This included parents who wouldn't let their college age daughters out after 8pm, yet let their sons stay out all night as long as they stopped by to say hello in the morning. Girls would congregate on the soccer field sidelines to cheer on their boyfriends, but rarely enter the game or play a game of their own. The only people my American friends and I could find to play soccer or basketball with were either guys or girls who didn't have boyfriends. My absolute favorite act of machismo (please note the sarcasm) was the undeterred and unashamed catcall or whistle. Any time this happened, I would think to myself, stupid machismo, women aren't objects, I hate machismo. This is not to say that machismo is only present in Mexico or even in Latin America, but this is where I became familiar with the term.
I've found that while working with many Spanish-speaking, primarily Mexican families, I've been operating under the assumption that most of my clients' fathers have machismo tendencies. Perhaps this is due to the fact that so few of them make it to my office, which often leaves my assumptions (false as they may be) uncontested. To date, I have met 5 fathers of the 60+ clients I have had since October. I met the fifth one earlier this afternoon.
I usually work with the client and his two siblings, their mom comes in at the beginning of the session to let me know how the week went and what things they did well. Today she told me that their father, her husband, would be coming in to talk with me later in the session. I had an immediate sense of trepidation, was he going to confront me for something I discussed with the client? I felt like I was in trouble because she said "he needs to talk to you", I immediately started thinking of ways to resolve the anticipated conflict.
After I worked with the client and his siblings, I had their mom and dad come in. My fears soon vanished when their dad sat down and said, "I really care about my kids. Soon they're going to be teenagers and I don't want them to resent me and run away because we have a bad relationship. I can be, well, I can get really angry sometimes and I say things that I don't mean, I yell at them and can't seem to control myself when I yell. I think I need help with my anger problem because it affects them. What can I do to be less angry?" My jaw about fell to the floor and all the preconceived machismo notions I had about this man disappeared. There has only been one other time that a parent has admitted he/she might need to change, instead of just expecting the child to "behave".
"What do you want to be when you grow up?" It seems like I ask this question frequently. Yesterday the answer from a 17 year old was, "I'd like to own a gas station, it seems like there's a lot of money to be made in gas stations". That's pretty original. I usually hear the typical answers like fireman, policeman, doctor, race car driver, basketball player, store clerk, president and teacher. Then there are the atypical ones like truck driver, car dealership president and WWE Smackdown wrestler (maybe that one is more common than I think). It makes me wonder what they'll grow up to be and makes me reflect on what I wanted to be at various stages in life.
Pre-school:
High School:
College and beyond:
My day started off non-eventful and rather mundane, with the added bonus of our note-writing computer application being on the fritz. This meant I had more time to catch up on phone calls and treatment plans instead of doing the tedious work of documenting sessions.
After sending out some emails, I went to greet my first client of the day. I knew the hour might be quite demanding when I stepped into the lobby and waited for my client and his mother to walk up the stairs. A man who had been waiting in the lobby with them walked passed me, looked me straight in the eyes and said, "You're seeing him? Whew, good luck with that one!" I looked back to the stairs and noticed that my client's mom was holding his shoulders so that he wouldn't make a quick escape, nudging him up the stairs. After I said hello, he answered me with a grunt, no, more of a growl. He continued to growl as we walked down the hallway. Once in the office, there was more growling and some innovative hissing sounds. I calmly asked the client to "use his words" as he tore around my office. In less than five minutes he had jumped on the couch, hid under both tables, ran around in circles in the middle of the room, and finally sought rest under a chair where he continued to make animal sounds. I sat on the floor next to him and asked,
"Are you mad?"
The animal sounds suddenly stopped, he looked at me and said,
"Yes. My mom wouldn't get me that toy."
"Oh, that's too bad."
"Yeah."
"Remember last time you were in here?"
"Yes."
"We practiced looking at each other when we're talking, remember?"
With his eyes toward the floor, he was trying hard not to make eye contact with me. Still looking at the floor he stood up and shouted,
"I'm evil! I'm the devil!!!"
"Oh, you are, are you? What does it mean to be evil?"
"Run around! Be bad! I'm bad!!!," he raised his arms into the air, making his hands into claws and growled like a lion.
"I don't think you're evil."
He sat back down, "You don't? Oh."
Perhaps I took all the fun out of his theatrics, it probably wasn't the reaction he wanted. He was fine the rest of the session, only running out of the room once and he didn't throw a temper tantrum like he usually does. Progress comes in such small steps sometimes.
It's always a nice change of pace to work with my girl clients since there are so few of them. I'm not exactly sure why 80% of my clients are boys, maybe they "act out" more, or maybe just more noticeably than girls. Today I was working with a 9 year old; she loves Bratz dolls, makeup, and anything with glitter in it. We were talking about how we should treat other people when she said, "We should say nice things to people". I told her it was a good example and asked her to draw a picture of it. She chose a bright pink piece of paper and drew these two stick figure girls with big hair and big lips. Over one of heads she wrote, "You rock!". Over the other one she put, "You too!".
I sat with a client last night who has endured a lot for being a mere eight years of age. When I visit his home, we sit together at the dining room table. He sits with his legs folded beneath him to give him added height in the chair, propping up his chin with his small arms. He's experienced a lot of turmoil recently, more than any child should have to withstand. Aside from the recent chaos, he lost his mother two years ago, though she never had custody of him. His father comes in and out of his life for months at a time, leaving the client and his siblings to live with their grandparents when he can't handle the stress of taking care of them. It's been four months since my client last spoke with him.
His behavior has been unruly and rebellious lately, which is pretty normal for his situation. Yet he still needs limits and boundaries, so I ask him what things he needs to work on this week. He starts to name them off, "Listen to my grandma, do my homework, go to bed when they tell me to..." I ask him to write them down so he can remember them throughout the week. Instead, he starts drawing a large heart and writes I love with my name written next to it. He looks at me with a huge smile. Then he looks back down at the paper and contorts his face as if something isn't right and adds next to my name, is my mom. I can feel the ache in my gut and I have to hold back the tears. I try to tell him gently,
"I'm your counselor, not your mom. Do you remember your mom's name?"
"Yeah."
"What was it?" He tells me.
"Do you remember what she looked like?"
He quietly says, "No, I can't remember." He then switches the subject, "Did I tell you about the new four wheeler we got?"
So I'm sitting with my funniest client (see previous post) and he tells me he's been having problems with his brothers lately.
"What kinds of problems?"
"Oh, fightin' and cussin', you know!"
"Are you calling your brothers names?"
"No, they call me names all the time."
"Like what?"
"Man, like, the B word! I can't say it here", he starts to whisper, "because it's not nice to say it, but I'll spell it for you..."
"That's okay, you don't have to, I think I know what you're talking about."
"No, really, I'll spell it for you. You know, B-E-A-C-H. I don't think he should be calling me that!"
Thankfully I have a job that I enjoy and is often entertaining because I work with kids. Yesterday I met with a client who is 8 and very talkative. I frequently have to redirect him back to what's pertinent to his therapy, but we end up on tangential conversations anyhow. This time he asks me,
"Man, where did you learn Spanish?" (I speak with his mom in Spanish, and I'm not sure why he refers to me as 'Man').
"I learned it while I lived in Mexico for a couple of years".
"Well, where did you learn English then?"
"In California."
"Oh. Hey, man, do you know French?"
I decided to not let those nine years of studying the language go down the drain and replied,
"Parlez vous francais?"
He became quite animated and nearly shouted, "HEY! You must be CHI-NESE!"
Needless to say, I was very confused by his comment but it was pretty entertaining.
Later that same hour...
Suddenly and completely off the topic of anger management he asks, "Hey, do you know who the Master of this earth is?"
"No, who is it?"
"You know- the MASTER of this earth!"
"Who are you talking about?"
He hits his forehead with his hand and shakes his head disapprovingly, "YOU DON'T KNOW?! I'll give you a hint, it starts with a G".
"Oh, you mean God?"
"Ye-ess! Do you know who is the master of, you know..." His eyes shift downward as he points to the floor. "You know, man." He continues to emphatically point his finger to the ground as he mouths the word 'hell' over and over.
It's hard for me to keep a straight face, "No, who is it?"
"You know...", he continues to mouth it, hoping that I'll say it aloud so he can tell his mom that the counselor said a 'bad word'.
I continue to look at him, but say nothing.
He says, "Man, c'mon you know, the devil! Sate."
"Sate?"
"Yeah, Sate."
"Do you mean Satan?"
"Oh yeah, that's it."
Boa Constrictor
by Shel Silverstein from Where the Sidewalk Ends
Oh, I'm being eaten
By a boa constrictor,
A boa constrictor,
A boa constrictor, I'm being eaten by a boa constrictor,
And I don't like it-- one bit.
Well, what do you know?
It's nibblin' my toe.
Oh, gee,
It's up to my knee.
Oh my,
It's up to my thigh.
Oh, fiddle,
It's up to my middle.
Oh, heck,
It's up to my neck.
Oh, dread,
It's upmmmmmmmmmmffffffffff...
If I think back long enough I can still picture my third grade class. Mrs. Harrison was an excellent 3rd grade teacher, with silvery white hair and a kind smile. My favorite part of the day was when she would call the class to come sit on the reading rug where she would take requests for our favorite Silverstein poems. It was probably against school policy for her to read us Dreadful, but she did anyhow. Why would Shel Silverstein write about eating a baby anyway?
It seems that dear old Santa lived to the ripe old age of 164. This picture conjures up memories of the first time I found out Santa wasn't real. Being the youngest of three sisters has its definite advantages, for which I'm grateful. Like getting to play outside on the weekends making mud pies because I was "too young" to labor furiously, carting wheelbarrows full of rocks like my sisters did- in order to landscape the yard. Teachers always had a good first impression of me, only because my sisters had the reputation of being likable students. However, I vaguely remember being 8 or 9 when my older sisters kindly let me know that Santa wasn't real! I was devastated. I had hoped to one day catch him eating the sugar cookies we made or drinking that glass of milk we always left out. I remember trying to wait up for a glimpse of the rotund man dressed in red until my eyes became too heavy to keep open.
During one of my sessions last week, I met with three siblings. They are some of my favorite clients to meet with because it's evident that they care for one another. All three have big aspirations. The youngest boy wants to become a doctor at a free clinic. The middle sister wants to spend her life as a research scientist. The oldest would like to be a professional soccer player by day, veterinarian by night. We are talking about what Santa is going to bring them this year, when the 10 year old sister says, "I really want some new CDs, like the Eminem CD". She still believes in Santa. Without thinking I say, "Your parents are going to buy you an Eminem CD?! I don't think they should buy that for you, you're a little young to be listening to that" (Needless to say, I'm not a big fan of Eminem and somehow I've become matron-like). Her face displayed confusion when I quickly corrected myself, "I don't think Santa should bring that for you." Hopefully my slip of the tongue didn't cause too much Santa damage for her parents.
Working with kids affords the most candid and sincere dialogues. My thirteen year old male client and I were talking about what he would like to do in the future. I often talk about the future with my clients because they need hope that there exist opportunities beyond what their backgrounds dictate. Most of my clients come from low-income, single parent families. Some of their fathers are in jail or on probation, some have never met their fathers, some of their older siblings are trying to stay out of jail.
So my client and I are discussing his future when he declares loudly,
"Miss, I wanna be a man."
I'm confused by what he's saying. "What do you mean, 'You wanna be a man'?"
"Miss, I wanna have my own garage."
I'm thinking maybe he means having his own house, which would mean having his own garage. "That would be nice, to have your own garage".
"Yeah, it would be, I want my own garage".
"What would you do with it?"
"I would make low-riders for Mexicans".
At this point I think that he could be on the verge of discriminating against all the other ethnicities (like he's even thinking this) so I say, "Don't you think you could make low-riders for other people too, besides Mexicans."
"Miss, have you ever seen any other people who like low-riders?"
I didn't really have a response for that. Although come to think of it, my brother-in-law had a low rider truck while he was in college and he's not mexican.
I do hope one day that my client will have the opportunity to work at something he really enjoys, and that one day he will have his own garage.
It seems that the year passes so quickly, it was summer not too long ago. When it's 30 degrees outside I miss those blazing 90 degree days of summer. It's yet another Christmas to get caught up in the frenzy of good tidings and mass consumerism. Not that I mind, though. In fact, I gladly told my husband all the things that I could definitely put to good use, not that I NEED anything more. I wouldn't mind having an easel on which to paint my mediocre paintings or I could also put a new car to good use. I wonder if I would miss my reliable little white honda with the stripe of red paint on the front bumper.
On a different note... in this business of counseling children for the government, I find that I am at the mercy of people's common courtesies. My client's parent tells me, "Yes, I will be there for our appointment tomorrow". I had four parents confirm this with me on the phone yesterday, and yet these same parents did not bring their children in today. This would be fine if I did not have a certain amount of "billable services" that I need to make each day... all contingent on people making their appointments. Maybe this will encourage me to be better about calling to cancel an appointment or simply follow through with my commitments.
