Man v Bear But Not Like That

Once when I was five, the woman who became my stepmom took me to FAO Schwarz. If you are unfamiliar, FAO Schwarz is the toy store featured in the movie Big — the one where Tom Hanks and Robert Loggia famously dance on the huge piano keys. This is the location that was on Fifth Avenue between 58th and 59th, and it had huge toy soldiers flanking the doorway.

I used to love going there as a kid, even though I understood I was just going to look around and play with the toys while I was in the store. My dad always made that clear to me. He would tell me everything was “too dear” and he’d get a pained look on his face if I asked whether we could bring anything home. This happened everywhere, not just FAO Schwarz. I learned never to ask for anything, because I never wanted him to feel like he was letting me down.

If that had been the pattern only with material things, it would have been okay. I understood on the early side that I didn’t need toys — and wanting some things you don’t get is part of life. It wasn’t a bad lesson, and it’s not like I didn’t have toys. What child needs more than two dolls, anyway?

My dad taught me the same thing when it came to my emotional needs, though. He’d get that pained look on his face if I was sad or anxious, if I missed my mom and wanted to call her, if I didn’t want to go to some “lady friend’s” house after school so he could bang her in the next room before we went home to my stepmom and he told her we’d gone to the museum.

I wasn’t supposed to cost him anything, I was supposed to provide — adoration, affection, entertainment, approval, comfort, and a listening ear. My unwavering love and support, even at four or five years old.

I don’t know why H and I ended up at FAO Schwarz without my dad that day, I just know that we did. She was twenty-three when they met, so she would have been twenty-four at this point. They’d been living together a year, and her family had disowned her for it. I knew it made her sad, I heard her sobbing quietly in the bathroom sometimes. She did that when women called the house, too. I loved her, she was sweet to me, even if she was moody like my dad said. It didn’t occur to me that she was moody for a reason.

I saw a teddy bear that day, but not just any teddy bear — the softest, cutest, most perfect teddy bear I’d ever seen. It had eyes that made it look real. I sat down and wrapped my arms around it. I whispered in its ear. I played with it long enough that H joined in. She was fun like that, neither of my parents were the kind to get on the floor and play with me.

Photo by Oxana Lyashenko on Unsplash

After a while she asked if we should bring the bear home. I could not believe it. The thought had not crossed my mind as a possibility. I think my mouth might have fallen open and my eyes might have welled up, because H laughed and said, “That’s it, this bear is coming home with us.” I threw my arms around her and thanked her.

H let me take the bear out of the bag as soon as we got outside. I carried him all the way home, through Central Park, talking to him all the time. I named him Bear, but I was five so don’t judge. H talked to Bear, too, we showed him the carousel, the baseball field, The Dakota. We walked up Central Park West and turned down our block, and walked up the brownstone steps and into our building. We stopped at the mailboxes and H got the mail, and then we walked up the flight of stairs to our apartment.

By the time my dad got home, Bear was sitting on the couch between us, and H was reading us a story. She was making goulash and the house smelled amazing. We called out to my dad when we heard him come in, and he walked up the stairs to the living room. I’m sure the scene looked cozy. I remember jumping off the couch and giving my dad a hug, and telling him how H had gotten me the most incredible bear. I wanted him to come see.

My dad’s face clouded over, though. He asked where we got the bear. He was looking at H. She told him we’d gone to FAO Schwarz. He looked at her like she’d done something terrible, like she’d betrayed him. The energy in the room changed and I froze. “You bought her that bear?” he asked. She said yes, I’d fallen in love with the bear, it was no big deal, she’d been happy to do it. He wanted to know how much it was, and she said it was fine.

H was young, but she was extremely smart and very talented. She was an architect. She paid half the bills, and it’s likely she paid more than half many months. “No,” my dad said, “the bear is going back, it’s too dear.” My heart started racing and I looked at H. Could my dad make us take Bear back? “Alan,” H said, “please. She loves it. It’s just a teddy bear, it’s okay. It was a little gift.”

I looked to my dad, hoping he’d relent. “You should have known better,” he said, turning to me, “you should not have asked H for something so dear.” H said I didn’t ask, she offered. I started crying. My dad told me to stop acting like a spoiled brat. “Get your coats on,” my dad said, “we’re taking the bear back.”

H objected, but my dad walked toward her and grabbed Bear by the head. His face was red now. “We are taking this bear back, let’s go. Now.” H looked as upset as I was. “I have goulash cooking,” she said quietly, “I can’t leave.” Her voice was shaking and I could tell she was trying not to cry. “Fine,” my dad said, “Ally and I will go. We’ll be back in an hour.”

H took the shopping bag out of her shoulder bag where she’d put it when we left the store. She fished the tag out of the garbage. Her eyes were not sparkling now, they looked far away, like they got when she thought about her family. I squeezed her hand, but it was limp. My dad pulled me out the door.

I didn’t ask to hold Bear, and I tried not to think about him sitting in the bottom of the bag. I tried to tell myself it was just a bear, nothing magical about it even if he had seemed alive. My dad talked all the way to the store, telling me how disappointed he was and how I should have said no when H offered. I knew H had wanted to get it for me. I didn’t understand why my dad was upset with either one of us. I felt something unfair was happening, but I couldn’t say that out loud. I knew better than to question my parents. I fought the lump in my throat and tried to keep up with my dad’s impossible pace.

When we got back to FAO Schwarz, he marched me inside. You’d have thought that I stole the bear the way he was behaving. We went to the cashier who’d checked us out when I was there with H. My dad said we needed to return the bear, that it was too expensive and I should have known better.

The woman looked at me kindly. “She’s very little to understand something like that,” she said. “She knows better, believe me,” my dad said. She processed the refund and my dad put the money in his pocket. When we got home, H refused to take it.

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As a grown woman I wonder what kind of man feels the need to assert his dominance that way. Imagine a twenty-four-year-old, making her own money and wanting to spend a little of it buying your tiny kid a teddy bear, and you can’t let her have that. You refuse to allow her to have even an ounce of power, you rob her of the joy of having provided something that delighted your daughter. Were we not supposed to bond?

How small and petty do you have to be to decide you’re going to strip away any tiny measure of joy and autonomy from the young woman you live with — more than twenty years younger than you — who has lost her family as a result, and who is just trying to be part of a new family? He would not allow us to have something together that didn’t involve him. He would not allow her to override his “too dear principle”, even if she made her own money and wanted to spend it buying me a bear. He was going to call the shots.

It was such a selfish and small-minded thing to do. It wasn’t necessary. It would have been so easy to celebrate this small thing, to sit down and say hello to Bear. It wasn’t about what was good for me or for her. He couldn’t see past the end of his own nose. I thought about which body part to use there more than once.

Of course I’m also thinking about what kind of man refuses to release SNAP benefits even after a federal judge says he must. Imagine deciding you’re going to allow children to starve as a political maneuver. Not just children, but veterans, elderly people, people who can’t easily leave the house, people barely getting by because huge corporations get ridiculous tax breaks (government handouts), but refuse to pay a living wage.

These people have no soul. Picture being the guy who defends the decision to let people starve while his boss builds ballrooms and throws Gatsby-themed parties.

“In the midst of a shutdown, we can’t have a federal court telling the president how he has to triage the situation,” Vance said.

Uhhh, yes we can. That’s exactly what a federal judge is supposed to do. It’s called checks and balances. I mean, it’s crazy that the President of the United States needs to be told to release SNAP benefits, I’ll give you that, but since he needed to be told, yeah, the judge did his job. The fact that this administration is appealing the decision is depraved and despicable, and I guess they did not understand what happened on Tuesday.

I want to underscore what a huge thing it was that in every single special election, Democrats won by decisive, bigly, indisputable numbers. Numbers so huge they couldn’t even make a case for recounts. We need to keep this momentum going all the way to the midterms. We need to say hell no to this administration every single day, and we need to keep the pressure dialed to eleven when it comes to our representatives.

I’ve started to see some articles about certain Democrat senators thinking about reopening the government as long as there is “a promise” to talk about ACA subsidies. Please, are you serious? These people would not recognize a promise if it showed up on their doorstep and sang them a song. In case you’re confused read this, my god:

House Speaker Mike Johnson reiterated his position that he would not commit to a vote on the subsidies in the lower chamber, underlining concerns from some Democrats that a future Senate vote on health care would go nowhere, even if it’s successful. Democrats emerged from a meeting on Thursday without divulging what was discussed.

Please call your senators and tell them how you feel.

It was really incredible to see people turn out the way they did on Tuesday. When Prop 50 passed, I cried. It was the last thing I was waiting to see. The whole night made me feel reassured there are millions of us who are appalled by what is happening to our country. We are not alone. We are doing everything possible to keep each other safe, to keep talking about a different vision for the future. I was thrilled to see so many women win.

Two days after Abigail Spanberger and Mikie Sherrill coasted to double-digit victories in Virginia and New Jersey, conservative columnist Russ Douthat of the NYT asked, “Did Women Ruin the Workplace?” Oh, Russ, you absolute asshat. You weak, scared, pathetic little shitweasel. Then they published a conversation where he talked about it with two conservative women writers who also think women have ruined everything. I can’t link to any of that trash, but I can link to this.

Guess what I think Russ should do, along with every man like him? Why there are women who want to help men who have zero respect for them is everything you need to know about internalized misogyny.

Of course I want the government to open, I want federal workers to be paid — there are so many things I want and don’t want. I want SNAP benefits to go out, and I don’t want to see ICE raids on daycare centers. I want a president who cares about the country and democracy and the rule of law, and it would be great if he was introspective and compassionate and had an understanding of what makes America great — because it isn’t cruelty or greed. It isn’t pettiness or lies. It isn’t pretending that you’re doing a terrific job when more than half the people you’re supposed to represent just made it very clear they are not having it.

A person’s character doesn’t change. Their thinking might change, and as a result, their behavior might also change. By seventy-nine, a person’s character is what it is. I have to tell you, a person’s character is established by the time they’re forty-one. These guys are not it. This administration is not it. These are the petty men who “put women in their place” and take teddy bears away from children if that’s what is required to maintain their dominance — and we need to punt them directly into the sun.

Foot on the gas, friends. Don’t let up.

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