Grace Lansing, Diplomatic Wife Extraordinaire
On Monday May 17 1999 this spiteful article appeared in The Ottawa Citizen under the byline Vita Urbis. We reprint it here with the permission of The Ottawa Citizen. Following the article, a letter to the editor from Nancy Fraser was printed. It is appended here.
This week, from the savage world of spiteful Ottawa stereotype, we bring you The Diplomatic Wife, a cruel character cliché that bears no relation whatever to real people in our real community.
Grace is pleased to be back home in Canada for a while. Truth be told, she found the last posting a bit trying, what with the oppressive heat and the flies and the servants you could never really rely on to prepare food properly or hygienically. She had to supervise constantly. Sometimes she actually had to do things herself.
Last posting, Grace found odour a particular trial. The smell of teeming humanity quite overwhelmed her, from time to time, when she walked through the commercial section several blocks from the residence. And that wasn't the worst. Occasionally, she literally had to step over the beggars - right over their bodies, careful to avoid the outstretched hands - there were that many of them on the streets. It quite put her off her dinner.
But always she smiled sweetly, ever mindful of Rule Number One in the Diplomatic Spouses' Guide to Living Abroad: Be charming and never, ever, utter a single contentious word about anything. Not a word. About anything.
At embassy receptions, if one of the locals asked her how she was enjoying her stay in their country, she'd chirp away happily. And lie through her teeth. After 40 years following George from posting to posting, Grace is supremely confident about her ability to skirt unpleasant truths - although there is no denying the challenge involved.
But then, Grace Lansing has always been a great sport about life's challenges. That's how she defines herself, really. That's the quality about her that George has always loved: her perennial ability to rise gamely (smile always at the ready) to whatever demanding occasion his career with External, as she still insists on calling it, has thrown her way.
"Brave girl," he says to her admiringly, though he means it in a way that applies to all she has ever done or can do, an awesome litany of accomplishment.
Why, Grace can whip up a gourmet dinner for 12 on an hour's notice. Is a whirlwind of activity in the local tennis club, where she organizes its seasonal highlight, the annual International Tournament (for which she convinces even the most reticent members to don traditional costume and bring exotic food). Goes to all opening-night performances and fund-raising galas at the National Arts Centre. Can regale Canadian friends with the most amusing anecdotes about foreign misadventures involving ill-trained houseboys and eccentric cooks. Orchestrates a rigorous redecoration program for every new residence they find themselves in abroad. Delights George daily with sumptuous breakfasts she prepares herself, serving them at a table set daily with fresh-cut flowers. Remains busy in the Diplomatic Spouses' Association, even after all these years, to ensure that rightfully acquired perks remain untouched.
(The hue and cry in the press from time to time, silly though it is, is quite unnerving. She shudders to think how ghastly life would have been had she and George not been able to send the children to Ashbury and Elmwood, and Queen's after that - or fly them back and forth from Canada while they were posted around the world. Grace, with her instinct for justice, vows that younger diplomatic families will never have to enjoy less than what she and George have.)
Small wonder, then, she often thinks of herself as a renaissance woman.
"Grace is amazing," she knows George's colleagues say enviously. "What a sport. What a fine woman. What a hostess." Which is all true, of course. If anyone can measure out her life in sterling silver coffee spoons, she can.
Over the course of four decades, through marriage and career, she has been there, a constant in an inconstant world: Grace Lansing, Diplomatic Wife Extraordinaire. There has been no better rose for George's dapper lapel.
Re: Grace Lansing, Diplomatic Wife Extraordinaire Monday, May 17, 1999
What great timing! The Citizen is obviously preparing to welcome another year's worth of diplomatic spouses home, and each of them will be delighted to see the stereotypes so clearly delineated.
The problem is that she (or he; 25% of foreign service spouses are now male) will be so frantic trying to get her life back to some state of normality that she may not be able to focus on all the elements of this cliche so she can fulfill them all. First there's the job search that will be made more difficult because she has that ominous gap in her CV because she was unable to work in the host country for the last four years, matched by the gaps from most of her previous postings. Unpacking will have to be fitted in between registering the kids in school and helping them to adapt to Canada, a place that may feel like another foreign country because they've been away for such a large percentage of their short lives. Of course the older children will be relieved to live a family life after being in boarding school while their parents were living where there was no education for them. Dealing with their devastation at leaving friends in those so vulnerable teen years will be another matter.
Then there's finding storage space for all that china and linen that is only used when she and 'George' entertain on Canada's behalf using skills such as preparing a dinner party for twelve on an hour's notice. That stereotypical expertise she could easily have done without, but there is so seldom enough money in the budget to allow them to take official guests to restaurants that Grace was forced to acquire the skills, and the stress that comes from being judged on her efforts.
Come to think of it, her dental bills will be reduced when she no longer grinds her teeth so often choosing when to tell the truth and when to relax into an identity other than 'the diplomatic spouse'. She's never ever defined her personality as 'diplomatic', but that's private. She knows there will be problems in adjusting from the anachronisms of life where calling cards and titles are daily realities, but then she brightens when she thinks of living her own life back home where no-one cares about her opinions of foreign policy or, for that matter, how many courses she serves.
Yes 'Grace', welcome home, and don't concern yourself with the stereotypes, you can get on with your real life now, until the next posting of course.
Yours sincerely,
Nancy Fraser,
retired 'diplomatic spouse'
Member of the executive
Foreign Service Community Association