Way back when, I wrote about my struggle with my daughter to get her to give her teeth to the Rat instead of the Tooth Fairy. Last time I updated, the Tooth Fairy was winning big time. She kept up her winning streak until last week when my daughter lost her 8th tooth. This was our conversation:

Her: My friend at school told me that the Rat can bring you more money than the Tooth Fairy.

Me: No, the Rat will bring you a nice tooth and that’s it.

Her: Well then, I want the Tooth Fairy to come get my tooth.

Me: What do you prefer – money that you’ll spend in a day or a nice tooth that will last you a lifetime.

Her: *thinking* Uh, the money.

Me: Does that make sense to you?

Her: Okay, fine! I want the Rat to come.

Hooray! Well, considering that the 7 before have gone to the Tooth Fairy, it’s not a complete win, but I’ll take what I can get at this point.

So, the next day we called the Rat from the window of our apartment and told him that we were sending him a beautiful tooth and in return we wanted an ugly one. As soon as the deed was done, my daughter (who is afraid of her own shadow) turns to me and says, “The Rat better not come to my room tonight.”

Small victories, I say

I’ve talked about race relations here in Caracas, but I’ve yet to mention gender. That’s because it’s complicated. Since I have yet to enter the professional workforce here, it’s hard to provide details of how women are viewed/treated and I didn’t want to rely on my few interactions with friends.

I would like to first preface my observations with stating that I am a part of Generation X. What this means is that I’ve had a healthy dose of women’s lib and while we want it all, we know we have to work for it. This is in contrast to the Millennial Generation (or Generation Y) who wants it all, right now and who is said to be more accepting of women marrying for social gain. I didn’t make it up people – it’s what the researchers are saying.

Now, women’s liberation means different things depending on the culture. From an American viewpoint, it appears that women here are much more open about their sexuality. While I think this is a good thing (part of women’s lib, right), I think there’s an appropriate time to communicate this. For instance, I often see professional women wearing extremely tight suits showing lots of cleavage. I don’t care what anybody says, that’s distracting. If you want people to pay attention to the words coming out of your mouth, you wouldn’t wear a big read clown hat, would you?

In terms of heterosexual romantic relationships, it seems they have a different idea about monogamy. Men often refer to “casa grande” and “casa chica” – the former the house where your wife lives and the latter the house where your mistress lives. If this culturally acceptable, I can understand that. However, it is only fair if women have the same privileges and I don’t think that’s the case.

Another place I’ve noticed a gender-biased is at certain restaurants and cafes. On several occasions, I have arrived at a restaurant earlier than a friend I was meeting (who happened to be male) and they will not offer me a menu until he arrives. At first I thought they were being presumptuous and assumed I was meeting someone, but my male friend has the complete opposite experience. This doesn’t happen everywhere, but when it does I’m always surprised.

I’m sure that there’s a lot more to gender relations here and when/if I enter the workforce, I’ll be sure to share that aspect, as well.