Month: July 2015

Happiness Is A Warm Gun

/ bolettew / Leave a comment

Yes, I know there are multiple interpretations of Lennon’s lyrics, but my topic is the most literal one; guns or no guns?

I grew up where there were no guns. Period. People did not own guns, police did not carry guns. Guns were something migrant Americans were shooting at native Americans in movies with music by Ennio Morricone. I have never seen guns except in museums and I find them foreign and scary.

Here are some numbers from 2007 to illustrate the difference between my native and adoptive country:

In Denmark there were about 12 civilian firearms per 100 people, in the US the number was 89.

In Denmark there were 15 homicides by firearm which were 32% of all homicides that year. In the US there were 9146 homicides by firearm which were 60% of all homicides.

Another way of looking at it is that per 100,000 people in Denmark there are 0.3 homicides per year that are caused by firearms. In the US that number is 10 times higher.

Needless to say, in my opinion the answer is no guns. But of course my opinion does not matter, and things get a bit more blurry as I have kids and, to be gender prejudiced, a son.

My 10-year old son loves guns, he has nerf guns a la carte, he plays laser tag and video games full of guns, and when electronics time runs out, he will convert old cardboard boxes into guns and rifles with markers and paints.

This passion of his makes me cringe. I fought it for the longest time. I forbade toy guns in the house. I gave him all the speeches on peace on earth, how guns breeds violence and that we (=Danes) don’t do guns. I even said that since I am so uncomfortable with it, he should be considerate and not play with guns.

It is of course grossly unfair to put that kind of responsibility on a little boy.

My husband is alternating between Frozen (‘Let It Go!’) and Grandpa (‘Boys will be boys’) and sloth (‘Why do you even waste energy on this?!’) so no overwhelming support for my pacifist mission from that side.

This is a major moral dilemma; abstinence or prevention? If it had been sex it would have been so much easier. Everyone knows that teaching abstinence only really does not work, quite contrary in fact. Sex happens no matter if the kiddos know how to protect themselves or not. That is universal.

While the fascination with guns might be universal, too, it really only translates into gun violence IF GUNS ARE READILY AVAILABLE. They seem to be. However much I dislike that there is nothing I can do about it, but get the hell out of Dodge which I am not about to do.

Short of long is that the rationalist voice in my head is saying to be like Sting (‘if you love somebody, set them free’) while the very much more emotional mommy voice is saying ‘Gotta keep all shooting, sharp and blunt objects away from my babies. Gotta roll my babies in bubble wrap that won’t even pop anymore!’

In Danish there is a saying; Trust is better than control. I guess I will just have to trust that my darling boy will grow into a sensible young man whose hormones kick in early and strong enough to drown out the sirens’ song of the firearms, which by the way is one of the many interpretations of John Lennon’s immortal words.

Colin Powell Did It For Me

/ bolettew / Leave a comment

Recently some Dane in my FB realm reposted a piece from BuzzFeed called ’34 Things Every Dane Living Abroad Has Experienced’. It was hilarious and heartbreakingly true, because it poked fun at all the places where the cultural differences are large and so ingrained in your Danish DNA that you don’t notice until it is too late.

Like when you discover you are the only topless person on the beach, or you wonder what party it is you are not invited to on Sunday mornings, that everybody else is dressing up for or how you are in the grips of an overwhelming existential angst every time someone asks you ‘How are you?’, contemplating an honest answer lasting less than an hour and ending up mumbling something incomprehensible while hastily stepping away.

I am Danish, married to another great Dane and have two amazing American kids. Hubby and I have lived in the US for 16 years now and there is no doubt that it has had a profound effect on us. I like to think I inhabit the best of both worlds.

I love living here. Southern California is like a perpetual Danish summer day on steroids and (almost) without the bug bites. You work hard, you play extreme, you pursue your dreams in whichever way works for you, and you take yourself seriously with a great deal of humor.

This is however not how it started out. I never imagined I would live in the US, let alone like it. Before I got on a plane to move here, my picture of the US was this big, slow bully with a goofy grin. And that picture I fought hard to uphold the first couple of years I lived here. We would get together with other Europeans to talk about how crude and ignorant our host country was and where to special order our traditional rye bread and salty licorice.

But it got harder and harder to dis this great country (though President Bush helped immensely) and still justify us staying. If we really did not like it, we could just move back to our puny sorry ass shoebox of an arrogant fatherland and file the experience under ‘been there, done that, not going back’. The fact of the matter is, though, that we did and still do like it. A lot.

There is so much more room here; physically, mentally, spiritually. That is liberating and exhilarating and also scary. You can live your life exactly how you want to – within the law, of course – but that requires you to figure out what that life looks like, embrace it and it leaves you no excuses if you do not get it. That is very unDanish. We are the world champions of everything being somebody else’s fault.

A few months after our first child was born we were fortunate enough to end up at a company retreat in the Bahamas where Colin Powell was the guest speaker. He is one of the most charismatic people I have ever been in the presence of. Agree or disagree about his politics, but he is not slouching around in the corner. He was so proud, had so much integrity and spoke about the future and the difficult choices and the responsibility the US had to live up to as a world leader. Somehow that did it for me. Somehow that made me realize that either we fully embrace this American life (pun intended) or we pack up and go home. We chose to stay and have never regretted it.

Now, it may sound like I turned my back on Denmark. Nothing could be further from the truth. Denmark is where my roots are, where my history is, my starting point. It is a huge part of my identity that I am not letting go. In fact, it is so much of my nuclear family unit’s identity that I want my children to be familiar with it and hopefully proud of it.

In a weird convoluted way, it makes them even more American. Every American is a dual citizen no matter the number of generations residing here. And that is what the melting pot is about; bringing the best of your background to expand the perspective further.

So I am going to bring my perspective; the salty licorice perspective. There are still so many American quirks that make me pause; in disbelief, in awe or both. And hopefully my integrated outside perspective can add to yours.