In just a few hours, 2009 will be in the past and, as I do at every year's end, I find myself pondering the possibilities inherent in a brand new year. I also like to think back on the lessons I learned in the year ending.
I'm not much for making New Year's resolutions. I think resolutions ought to be made and their achievement attempted as we go through our everyday lives. My faith teaches that I am to constantly "press toward the mark of the high calling in Christ Jesus," in other words to make everything I do and say edify God in some way just as Christ did.
I'm not called to do this on January 1, but every day. And just as most people's resolutions begin to wane a few months into the new year as their old habits and the vagaries of life muddy up things, so do I struggle to make my daily words and deeds worthy of presentation to God.
It's hard, and I often fail. The difference, though, is that every minute becomes a fresh opportunity to right my wrong, fix what I broke, or seek forgiveness for a misdeed. A perpetual work in progress, to be sure.
Looking back into 2009, I offer up the things I learned -- in no particular order -- in the hope they might save someone else from having to learn similar lessons the hard, firsthand way:
Having a child in the hospital is worse than just about anything else, except maybe having a child off fighting in a war.
Homeschooling is still better than anything public or paid private education can offer.
A whole year of not watching TV has made ME smarter. (My kids have never watched.)
Growing older is not bad as long as you don't grow dumber. I don't fight the former, but I do the latter.
Anytime a politician makes a promise he or she will only be able to keep a precious fraction of it.
Atheists think those who believe in God are irrational. I think it's the other way around.
You really can overcome your fear of public speaking if you have something you passionately want to impart to others.
When it comes to old friends, you are fortunate to get a second chance at knowing them.
Suicide is still a bad idea.
It's true that children should be seen, but I think it's also important that they be heard.
One child is a blessing. Four children are more than I deserve. I am humbled.
Boys should always be different than girls and we'd do well as a culture to nurture that fact.
Every single day I wake up with the physical wherewithal to do the things that need doing is a gift of immeasurable value.
Our parents and grandparents learned to do more with less. My generation has managed to do the opposite and it pains me beyond words.
Faith without works is dead. But so are works without faith.
Income redistribution never solved anything.
No matter how much I don't have, I still have more than I need.
And finally, my all-time favorite saying still holds true: "He who hesitates is lost."
Wordly discourse on everything from the sad state of public education, politics and world peace to vegetarianism, breast vs. bottle, religious persecution, bad media, and all manner of life's vagaries.
December 31, 2009
December 10, 2009
From China, just in time for Christmas
Nothing says Christmas like cheap junk from China. Unless it's one-sided advice.
The Copenhagen conference on climate change/global warming/upcoming apocalypse featured a Chinese official who earnestly counseled attendees on the importance of population control as a remedy for what ails us all.
Quoting from an article in the China Daily (12/10/09):
The Copenhagen conference on climate change/global warming/upcoming apocalypse featured a Chinese official who earnestly counseled attendees on the importance of population control as a remedy for what ails us all.
Quoting from an article in the China Daily (12/10/09):
"Population and climate change are intertwined but the population issue has remained a blind spot when countries discuss ways to mitigate climate change and slow down global warming, according to Zhao Baige, vice-minister of National Population and Family Planning Commission of China (NPFPC) .
Although China's family planning policy has received criticism over the past three decades, Zhao said that China's population program has made a great historic contribution to the well-being of society.As a result of the family planning policy, China has seen 400 million fewer births, which has resulted in 18 million fewer tons of CO2 emissions a year, Zhao said.
She admitted that China's population program is not without consequences, as the country is entering the aging society fast and facing the problem of gender imbalance."I'm not saying that what we have done is 100 percent right, but I'm sure we are going in the right direction and now 1.3 billion people have benefited," she said.
She said some 85 percent of the Chinese women in reproductive age use contraceptives, the highest rate in the world. This has been achieved largely through education and improvement of people's lives, she said.
And forced abortion, incentives to snitch on your pregnant neighbor, and imprisonment.
Oh, and let's not forget the orphanages throughout China crowded with abandoned babies (mostly girls) whose mothers could not safely or legally keep them.
For more on China's wonderful family planning program, Google the name Wei Linrong. Linrong, at 7 months into her pregnancy, was carted off to hospital by government officials and forcibly injected with poisons that resulted in a stillbirth.
The Virginia-based non-profit Population Research Council reports that of the more than 13 million abortions performed in China every year, most are forced and are the direct result of China's "one-child" policy.
Is this really what the world should embrace?
November 30, 2009
The mothers of damaged children
My daughter is autistic.
To be more specific, she has Asperger's Syndrome, a form of autism that some experts argue should not be called autism but instead given its own special category. Others say autism is autism, regardless of the degree to which it manifests.
Day to day, mothers like me don't really care. All we know is that our lives are different -- in some ways more lonely -- than those of our peers whose children are "normal."
My daughter has a brilliant mind. It's so brilliant, in fact, that it frustrates me endlessly because her ability to communicate and demonstrate what she really knows and can do is hog-tied by some sort of neurological glitch -- a barricade that prevents the "real" her from shining through.
I will probably never know exactly why my daughter has Asperger's. In my darker moments, I've struggled with the guilt that maybe I should have eaten something different during the pregnancy, taken my pre-natal vitamins more religiously (they made me nauseous so I sometimes skipped them), refused the epidural in the delivery room (did the drug they used cross the placenta and somehow damage the baby?), or just said "no" to the forceps the obstetrician used to pull her out when she got stuck halfway. Was it the Hepatitis B shot or the Vitamin K injection routinely given at birth? They both likely still had mercury preservatives in them the year my daughter was born. I've combed through my memories of relatives who had eccentric or weird behaviors -- was this genetic? And when no answers come, I agonize over what the future holds for a beautiful girl with such pronounced difficulties.
Asperger's primarily afflicts social skills -- reciprocal communication, turn-taking, staying on topic, reading others' body language, using humor or having tact at the right moments. All things neurotypical people take for granted.
What little is known about Asperger's is the same "little" that is known about autism in general. The primary differences between the two are that children like my daughter developed language on time, their intellect is not shadowed by hints of mental retardation, and they are generally very teachable both academically and practically.
It all sounds good, doesn't it?
The problem lies in the day-to-day training, teaching, reminding, re-training, re-teaching. It lies in the $120 per week social skills therapy sessions that our insurance will not cover because my daughter's problem was not caused by illness or injury that we can prove. It lies in the deep-seated fear that no matter how much money we spend, no matter how much time we take, the end result will be someone who can never live independently and may never fully understand why. Worse yet, they may not care.
In some ways, people with Asperger's have it tougher. Outwardly, they appear so normal. Sometimes, if the phase of the moon is just right and the stars are properly aligned, they say and do the socially acceptable thing at just the right moment. People who don't know them well are led to believe they're just "regular" people, too.
But like the guest at a party who starts out lively and likeable before drinking so much he becomes weird and off-putting, the Asperger's sneaks in and compels the person to say something out of context, off topic, or otherwise just plain awkward. That's when you can see the distancing that takes place as peers, adults, and even family members start to pull away.
They're uncomfortable. They know how to feel sympathy (or pity?) for someone in a wheelchair, someone obviously disabled. They don't quite know what to do with someone who looks so deceptively fine until that person opens their mouth.
But the mothers of children with Asperger's know all too well what to do. The routine is familiar by now and wearisome in its repetition. Take the child aside, remind them of the relevent trick or tip they've learned in therapy, reassure them everything is okay (even when you're not sure it is) and send them back into the group in a sort of desperate sink-or-swim maneuver.
Children with Asperger's usually get invited to parties. Once.
Same for playdates.
Usually, the only thing that saves them is if they have siblings who are not autistic. Then, they get to tag along because the neurotypical sibling has been invited and parents feel bad about excluding anyone. Playdates work because their siblings do all the interacting and playing, so visiting kids don't mind coming over now and then, although they learn pretty quickly to avoid the child with Asperger's.
As I sit in the waiting room of the speech center where my daughter goes for social skills therapy, I watch the other mothers of children who come there in search of their own magic bullet. Some of the kids are deaf, some have Down Syndrome, some are severely autistic with language that consists of little more than grunts and shrieks, and some are like my child -- developmentally delayed just enough to need intervention.
As I watch these other mothers struggle with their writhing, screaming, crying, grunting, socially challenged children, I wonder at their capacity to love. I marvel at their ability to cajole and corral. And I realize all over again that I am one of them, the mother of a child the world says is damaged and who must be fixed.
And once again I debate whether I have the luxury of time to cry and pity myself or whether just like every other day for the past nine years I must summon the courage to plow ahead.
The tears last for a few minutes. The plowing, for the rest of my life.
To be more specific, she has Asperger's Syndrome, a form of autism that some experts argue should not be called autism but instead given its own special category. Others say autism is autism, regardless of the degree to which it manifests.
Day to day, mothers like me don't really care. All we know is that our lives are different -- in some ways more lonely -- than those of our peers whose children are "normal."
My daughter has a brilliant mind. It's so brilliant, in fact, that it frustrates me endlessly because her ability to communicate and demonstrate what she really knows and can do is hog-tied by some sort of neurological glitch -- a barricade that prevents the "real" her from shining through.
I will probably never know exactly why my daughter has Asperger's. In my darker moments, I've struggled with the guilt that maybe I should have eaten something different during the pregnancy, taken my pre-natal vitamins more religiously (they made me nauseous so I sometimes skipped them), refused the epidural in the delivery room (did the drug they used cross the placenta and somehow damage the baby?), or just said "no" to the forceps the obstetrician used to pull her out when she got stuck halfway. Was it the Hepatitis B shot or the Vitamin K injection routinely given at birth? They both likely still had mercury preservatives in them the year my daughter was born. I've combed through my memories of relatives who had eccentric or weird behaviors -- was this genetic? And when no answers come, I agonize over what the future holds for a beautiful girl with such pronounced difficulties.
Asperger's primarily afflicts social skills -- reciprocal communication, turn-taking, staying on topic, reading others' body language, using humor or having tact at the right moments. All things neurotypical people take for granted.
What little is known about Asperger's is the same "little" that is known about autism in general. The primary differences between the two are that children like my daughter developed language on time, their intellect is not shadowed by hints of mental retardation, and they are generally very teachable both academically and practically.
It all sounds good, doesn't it?
The problem lies in the day-to-day training, teaching, reminding, re-training, re-teaching. It lies in the $120 per week social skills therapy sessions that our insurance will not cover because my daughter's problem was not caused by illness or injury that we can prove. It lies in the deep-seated fear that no matter how much money we spend, no matter how much time we take, the end result will be someone who can never live independently and may never fully understand why. Worse yet, they may not care.
In some ways, people with Asperger's have it tougher. Outwardly, they appear so normal. Sometimes, if the phase of the moon is just right and the stars are properly aligned, they say and do the socially acceptable thing at just the right moment. People who don't know them well are led to believe they're just "regular" people, too.
But like the guest at a party who starts out lively and likeable before drinking so much he becomes weird and off-putting, the Asperger's sneaks in and compels the person to say something out of context, off topic, or otherwise just plain awkward. That's when you can see the distancing that takes place as peers, adults, and even family members start to pull away.
They're uncomfortable. They know how to feel sympathy (or pity?) for someone in a wheelchair, someone obviously disabled. They don't quite know what to do with someone who looks so deceptively fine until that person opens their mouth.
But the mothers of children with Asperger's know all too well what to do. The routine is familiar by now and wearisome in its repetition. Take the child aside, remind them of the relevent trick or tip they've learned in therapy, reassure them everything is okay (even when you're not sure it is) and send them back into the group in a sort of desperate sink-or-swim maneuver.
Children with Asperger's usually get invited to parties. Once.
Same for playdates.
Usually, the only thing that saves them is if they have siblings who are not autistic. Then, they get to tag along because the neurotypical sibling has been invited and parents feel bad about excluding anyone. Playdates work because their siblings do all the interacting and playing, so visiting kids don't mind coming over now and then, although they learn pretty quickly to avoid the child with Asperger's.
As I sit in the waiting room of the speech center where my daughter goes for social skills therapy, I watch the other mothers of children who come there in search of their own magic bullet. Some of the kids are deaf, some have Down Syndrome, some are severely autistic with language that consists of little more than grunts and shrieks, and some are like my child -- developmentally delayed just enough to need intervention.
As I watch these other mothers struggle with their writhing, screaming, crying, grunting, socially challenged children, I wonder at their capacity to love. I marvel at their ability to cajole and corral. And I realize all over again that I am one of them, the mother of a child the world says is damaged and who must be fixed.
And once again I debate whether I have the luxury of time to cry and pity myself or whether just like every other day for the past nine years I must summon the courage to plow ahead.
The tears last for a few minutes. The plowing, for the rest of my life.
November 26, 2009
Educated and STILL ignorant
"People of different heritage, people of different culture, tolerance, group problem-solving, making friends, losing friends — all of the things that come with a public school education."
Yes, yes. This is a direct quote from a news story carried by Fox about a case in New Hampshire that involves a 10 year-old girl who is homeschooled.
The child's parents are divorced, and awhile back a court ordered the girl back into public school because she too vigorously defended her religious beliefs during a court-ordered counseling session. The girl's parents are divorced and the above quote is from the father's attorney.
The argument here is that the father is concerned his daughter -- who by all accounts is likable, sociable and, yes, academically on par or advanced relative to her peers -- is not getting everything she needs because she is, gasp, being taught at home.
Sadly, we assume our attorneys are well educated. After all, they are supposed to be able to argue from standpoints of logic, reason, precedence, cultural relevance, the Constitution, right?
All the things that ostensibly come with a public school education CAN come with a homeschool education, too. It just takes pulling one's head out of dark environs to see this.
Yes, yes. This is a direct quote from a news story carried by Fox about a case in New Hampshire that involves a 10 year-old girl who is homeschooled.
The child's parents are divorced, and awhile back a court ordered the girl back into public school because she too vigorously defended her religious beliefs during a court-ordered counseling session. The girl's parents are divorced and the above quote is from the father's attorney.
The argument here is that the father is concerned his daughter -- who by all accounts is likable, sociable and, yes, academically on par or advanced relative to her peers -- is not getting everything she needs because she is, gasp, being taught at home.
Sadly, we assume our attorneys are well educated. After all, they are supposed to be able to argue from standpoints of logic, reason, precedence, cultural relevance, the Constitution, right?
All the things that ostensibly come with a public school education CAN come with a homeschool education, too. It just takes pulling one's head out of dark environs to see this.
November 24, 2009
We should heed William Bradford's warning
Since Thanksgiving is nearly upon us, it seems appropriate to quote from the tombstone of William Bradford.
Bradford, governor of the Plymouth Colony on numerous occasions and author of the history of the Pilgrims' search for a place to practice their religion freely, was a smart man.
He had the good sense to write down the story of the English Separatists and their trials and travels. He also apparently sensed the fragility of his newly adopted way of life.
At the age of 67, Bradford died and is buried at Plymouth Burial Hill. His tombstone reads:
"Qua patres difficillime adepti sunt nolite turpiter relinquere."
“What our forefathers with so much difficulty secured, do not basely relinquish.”
What a pity this tidbit of near-prescient common sense is absent from so much of our national dialogue these days. Certainly you won't find it in any public school textbook.
With the exception of the brave men and women of the U.S. military who hourly give of their time and risk their lives on behalf of our country, we as a people sit idly by while our president traverses the globe, bowing, apologizing and, in some cases, kowtowing as he goes. We are slowly but surely "basely" relinquishing our national identity, our heritage, and even our history itself -- all in the name of progress, tolerance or diversity.
This Thanksgiving, read an account of Bradford's life. Read HIS account of the Pilgrims' struggles. Contemplate his remarks and observations in light of what we are today.
Then take a good look at what we have become and see if we haven't in fact fallen far short of the mark of excellence Bradford and his kind established nearly 400 years ago.
It's worse than embarrassing. It's a sin and a shame.
Bradford, governor of the Plymouth Colony on numerous occasions and author of the history of the Pilgrims' search for a place to practice their religion freely, was a smart man.
He had the good sense to write down the story of the English Separatists and their trials and travels. He also apparently sensed the fragility of his newly adopted way of life.
At the age of 67, Bradford died and is buried at Plymouth Burial Hill. His tombstone reads:
"Qua patres difficillime adepti sunt nolite turpiter relinquere."
“What our forefathers with so much difficulty secured, do not basely relinquish.”
What a pity this tidbit of near-prescient common sense is absent from so much of our national dialogue these days. Certainly you won't find it in any public school textbook.
With the exception of the brave men and women of the U.S. military who hourly give of their time and risk their lives on behalf of our country, we as a people sit idly by while our president traverses the globe, bowing, apologizing and, in some cases, kowtowing as he goes. We are slowly but surely "basely" relinquishing our national identity, our heritage, and even our history itself -- all in the name of progress, tolerance or diversity.
This Thanksgiving, read an account of Bradford's life. Read HIS account of the Pilgrims' struggles. Contemplate his remarks and observations in light of what we are today.
Then take a good look at what we have become and see if we haven't in fact fallen far short of the mark of excellence Bradford and his kind established nearly 400 years ago.
It's worse than embarrassing. It's a sin and a shame.
November 22, 2009
The shocking truth about Thanksgiving
Hold on to your hats, your cats, your kids and any preconceived notions about what Thanksgiving is and why we celebrate it nearly 400 years later.
Ready?
Religious freedom.
I'll wait while those of you who have been brainwashed, er, taught to believe the Pilgrims risked their lives on a three-month trip across the Atlantic because they wanted to, they were bored, or they were eager to see what another continent looked like gather yourselves together and attempt to process this startling, yet true, information.
Let me know when you've caught your breath again and your eyes have ceased to bulge from your head. . .
Sarcasm aside, I've had it with the dumbing down (deliberate deception?) of the origins of Thanksgiving. No doubt I'm gonna piss off the ACLU with this post -- since anything that defends religion or religious freedom tends to make those morons come unglued -- but I can't let another Thanksgiving go by without speaking up.
Last year, it was a coloring book I'd bought for my daughters to use along with a study of the origins of the Thanksgiving holiday itself. The book, purchased through a well-known supplier of materials for homeschoolers, was supposed to tell the story of the Pilgrims' voyage as it presented pictures for kids to color. Its opening line? "The Pilgraims were a group of people who came to America from England."
Oh? Why?
The question is never answered. I relegated the book to the mishmash of our playtime puzzle and coloring books. It wasn't worthy of a place on the shelves where we house our serious academic materials.
This year, it's me trying to put together materials for my son (the one who managed to cancel his own birthday party -- see previous post --) to make a simple unit study about the Pilgrims and the whole Thanksgiving gig.
Hunting across the internet for freebies to print out for his folder, I came across a little printable book that purports to tell the story of Thanksgiving.
Its opening line? "In the year 1620, the Pilgrims sailed from England to look for the New World on a ship called the Mayflower."
Seriously? To look for the New World?
What was there to look for? The colony at Jamestown had already been settled and abandoned by the time the Pilgrims set sail. Before that, Spanish explorers had canvassed much of the southern and western parts of the country, and Columbus had pretty much nailed down the West Indies and their neighbors before that!
I think the New World had already been found by 1620, don't you? The Pilgrims weren't needed for that particular job.
No, the Pilgrims (the name of which even means a person who travels for RELIGIOUS reasons) came to the New World TO LOOK FOR FREEDOM FROM RELIGIOUS PERSECUTION.
Don't believe me, read it for yourself in William Bradford's journal. Bradford, the first governor of the colony at Plymouth, tells the story like no one else can and he pulls no punches.
Bradford writes about the persecution of the Separatists in England (later called Pilgrims) and how no amount of influence or intervention on their behalf relieved the pressure to conform to King James' state church: "They proceeded by all means to disturb the peace of this poor persecuted church, even so far as to charge some of their chief opposers with rebellion and high treason against the Emperor (King James) and other such crimes."
Then Bradford goes on to describe the Separatists' decision to flee to Holland in search of religious freedom: "Being thus constrained to leave their native soil and country, their lands and their livings, and all their friends and familiar acquaintance, it was much, and thought marvelous by many. . . It was by many thought an adventure almost desperate, a case intolerable, and a misery worse than death. . . But these things did not dismay them (thought they did sometimes trouble them) for their desires were set on the ways of God and to enjoy his ordinances. But they rested on his providence and knew whom they had believed."
Bradford then carefully lays out the arguments for and against going to America, including the acknowledgement that the Separatists would face hardships at sea, "savage" Indians once they landed, a different environment altogether, and possible death. He discusses the other options available to the Pilgrims at that point including Virginia, where English were already settled.
He explains why the Separatists decided NOT to head for Virginia: "If they lived among the English which were there planted, or so near them as to be under their government, they should be in as great a danger to be troubled and persecuted for the cause of religion, as if they lived in England, and it might be worse."
I ask you, dear readers, DOES THIS SOUND LIKE THE DELIBERATION OF A PEOPLE WHO JUST WANTED A JOYRIDE ACROSS THE ATLANTIC FOR A GOOD LOOK AT AMERICA?????????
The next time the child in your life brings home a book about the Pilgrims and the first Thanksgiving or you consider buying said child a coloring book, puzzle book or other so-called educational resource that purports to discuss this historic time in American history, read through it first, will you?
If you do not see the words, "religious freedom" somewhere in the text, put it down or send it back. It is not factual, it is not correct, and it is not the truth!
Without the truth, we perish as a people and as a nation.
What a shame it would be, considering the sincerity with which our Pilgrim fathers and mothers established the colony at Plymouth so long ago and the tremendous sacrifices they made.
Ready?
Religious freedom.
I'll wait while those of you who have been brainwashed, er, taught to believe the Pilgrims risked their lives on a three-month trip across the Atlantic because they wanted to, they were bored, or they were eager to see what another continent looked like gather yourselves together and attempt to process this startling, yet true, information.
Let me know when you've caught your breath again and your eyes have ceased to bulge from your head. . .
Sarcasm aside, I've had it with the dumbing down (deliberate deception?) of the origins of Thanksgiving. No doubt I'm gonna piss off the ACLU with this post -- since anything that defends religion or religious freedom tends to make those morons come unglued -- but I can't let another Thanksgiving go by without speaking up.
Last year, it was a coloring book I'd bought for my daughters to use along with a study of the origins of the Thanksgiving holiday itself. The book, purchased through a well-known supplier of materials for homeschoolers, was supposed to tell the story of the Pilgrims' voyage as it presented pictures for kids to color. Its opening line? "The Pilgraims were a group of people who came to America from England."
Oh? Why?
The question is never answered. I relegated the book to the mishmash of our playtime puzzle and coloring books. It wasn't worthy of a place on the shelves where we house our serious academic materials.
This year, it's me trying to put together materials for my son (the one who managed to cancel his own birthday party -- see previous post --) to make a simple unit study about the Pilgrims and the whole Thanksgiving gig.
Hunting across the internet for freebies to print out for his folder, I came across a little printable book that purports to tell the story of Thanksgiving.
Its opening line? "In the year 1620, the Pilgrims sailed from England to look for the New World on a ship called the Mayflower."
Seriously? To look for the New World?
What was there to look for? The colony at Jamestown had already been settled and abandoned by the time the Pilgrims set sail. Before that, Spanish explorers had canvassed much of the southern and western parts of the country, and Columbus had pretty much nailed down the West Indies and their neighbors before that!
I think the New World had already been found by 1620, don't you? The Pilgrims weren't needed for that particular job.
No, the Pilgrims (the name of which even means a person who travels for RELIGIOUS reasons) came to the New World TO LOOK FOR FREEDOM FROM RELIGIOUS PERSECUTION.
Don't believe me, read it for yourself in William Bradford's journal. Bradford, the first governor of the colony at Plymouth, tells the story like no one else can and he pulls no punches.
Bradford writes about the persecution of the Separatists in England (later called Pilgrims) and how no amount of influence or intervention on their behalf relieved the pressure to conform to King James' state church: "They proceeded by all means to disturb the peace of this poor persecuted church, even so far as to charge some of their chief opposers with rebellion and high treason against the Emperor (King James) and other such crimes."
Then Bradford goes on to describe the Separatists' decision to flee to Holland in search of religious freedom: "Being thus constrained to leave their native soil and country, their lands and their livings, and all their friends and familiar acquaintance, it was much, and thought marvelous by many. . . It was by many thought an adventure almost desperate, a case intolerable, and a misery worse than death. . . But these things did not dismay them (thought they did sometimes trouble them) for their desires were set on the ways of God and to enjoy his ordinances. But they rested on his providence and knew whom they had believed."
Bradford then carefully lays out the arguments for and against going to America, including the acknowledgement that the Separatists would face hardships at sea, "savage" Indians once they landed, a different environment altogether, and possible death. He discusses the other options available to the Pilgrims at that point including Virginia, where English were already settled.
He explains why the Separatists decided NOT to head for Virginia: "If they lived among the English which were there planted, or so near them as to be under their government, they should be in as great a danger to be troubled and persecuted for the cause of religion, as if they lived in England, and it might be worse."
I ask you, dear readers, DOES THIS SOUND LIKE THE DELIBERATION OF A PEOPLE WHO JUST WANTED A JOYRIDE ACROSS THE ATLANTIC FOR A GOOD LOOK AT AMERICA?????????
The next time the child in your life brings home a book about the Pilgrims and the first Thanksgiving or you consider buying said child a coloring book, puzzle book or other so-called educational resource that purports to discuss this historic time in American history, read through it first, will you?
If you do not see the words, "religious freedom" somewhere in the text, put it down or send it back. It is not factual, it is not correct, and it is not the truth!
Without the truth, we perish as a people and as a nation.
What a shame it would be, considering the sincerity with which our Pilgrim fathers and mothers established the colony at Plymouth so long ago and the tremendous sacrifices they made.
Is this what God does?
I'm not pretentious enough to claim to know the mind of God so what follows is purely speculation in the name of good, clean philosophizing.
My son, soon to be five, has had his birthday party cancelled and the presents returned to the store. A decidedly unfestive air hangs over our house as we approach what should typically be a monumental day in any kid's life.
You're probably asking yourself what happened. I can sum it up in two words -- bad behavior.
My children live comfortable lives and want for nothing. They have all the basic needs -- food, shelter and clothing -- fully met as well as a boatload of "wants" -- toys, books, activities, education.
We've done our dead-level best as parents to cover all the bases in the hopes our kids will grow up to be the productive members of society so desperately lacking in some quarters rather than the shiftless pieces of crap that haunt the halls of places like Congress or the insurance giant AIG.
But even the best-intentioned parents make mistakes and I can only conclude we've made a big one. We haven't let our kids suffer enough consequences for rotten behaviors. Oh sure, we issue time-outs, removal of privileges, etc. but we seldom bring the hammer down with memorable consequences.
Only evil parents do that, right?
I'm not so sure.
Before I finish the story of my badly-behaved son, I am reminded of an incident a few years back in which a father, disgusted by his sons' obnoxious actions, auctioned off that year's highly coveted video game system on eBay. He reasoned that his sons had done nothing to deserve the expensive toy, explaining that their behavior as Christmas approached got worse and worse.
So to teach them a lesson in the pitfalls of ingratitude, he sold their super-fabulous gaming system.
Public opinion was sharply divided, much to my dismay. Where was the unanimous support for a parent standing up to rotten behavior? Had society given up on the possibility that horsey kids can and SHOULD be corralled?
Apparently some did because the father was publicly castigated for his cruel and unusual punishment. To his credit, he stood his ground and the boys did not get their game.
I supported that dad and filed away his story for future reference and inspiration.
Today I dug it out of deep memory as I pronounced my son's fifth birthday party cancelled.
So what did happen to cause this extreme shift in my intentions? Namely, that from the minute my son woke up this morning he complained -- about the clothes he'd been given to wear to church, about the way I brushed his hair (the same way I've always brushed it), about the fact I wanted him to eat breakfast, about the family's tradition of going to church on Sundays, about something I said to him, and finally about not making his breakfast after he refused to eat anything I suggested.
In a split second it came to me: This child is ungrateful and does not deserve a party or presents or accolades in the wake of such utterly obnoxious behavior. If he doesn't appreciate on some basic kid-level what he already has, why would he care about anything else he might get?
Now I know some of you are going to say, "But he's ONLY four years old going on five. How much gratitude should you realistically expect from someone that age?"
By the time a child is old enough to understand reciprocity -- the giving and taking inherent in all social relationships -- he or she is old enough to understand that if you take and take without ever giving, you will get little to nothing in return.
The same naysayer argument could be used to justify the bad behaviors of the guys at AIG and Enron or Bernie Madoff. "Hey, they're just human/in their 50s,/depressed/etc. How much integrity should we realistically expect from someone like that?"
See how ridiculous it gets when taken just a bit further?
The fact is that personal responsibility has to be learned and it starts as soon as children are old enough to argue, to reason, to observe and comment on what they see. It starts as soon as they're old enough to engage in a conversation about things like the Ten Commandments, the notion of right and wrong (moral relativism aside), and the importance of character.
My son is there. He can articulate right from wrong, give examples of both, and understands the concept of consequences.
If we don't teach him now that repeated bad behavior will bring no blessing, only cursing, exactly when will we teach it? How will he learn it if his own family doesn't summon the courage to set boundaries?
I'll tell you how. He'll learn it when he's 18 or 19 and out on his own and the world kicks back hard against his unruly ways. The world will not love him enough to care where he ends up or what trouble he finds himself in. The world will build him up just to tear him down.
Our job as parents is to build discipline, character and integrity into our children so that they will escape the worst of what the world has to offer.
To do anything less is to essentially do nothing at all.
If there are any hand-wringers reading this, don't lose sleep. The birthday cake was bought before the party was axed, so on my son's actual birthday we'll gather as a family, put a candle on it, sing and eat. There's one present I can't send back so he'll still get that, too.
But the party, the big coveted chance to be a star? That's gone, and no doubt my son will ask again what happened and why. When he does, we'll have the opportunity to tell him how much we love him and why that love means we simply cannot reward bad behavior.
What the world doesn't love him enough to say, we will.
And that, in my opinion, is what parenting is really all about.
I have to wonder if this is what God does sometimes, too. What if, when we turn from Him, he continues to love us and doesn't punish us per se but simply withholds whatever blessing He had next in the pipeline for us?
What if the secret to receiving more is to first give thanks and appreciate what we already have and to live it like we mean it?
Reciprocity. Could it be a universal law after all?
My son, soon to be five, has had his birthday party cancelled and the presents returned to the store. A decidedly unfestive air hangs over our house as we approach what should typically be a monumental day in any kid's life.
You're probably asking yourself what happened. I can sum it up in two words -- bad behavior.
My children live comfortable lives and want for nothing. They have all the basic needs -- food, shelter and clothing -- fully met as well as a boatload of "wants" -- toys, books, activities, education.
We've done our dead-level best as parents to cover all the bases in the hopes our kids will grow up to be the productive members of society so desperately lacking in some quarters rather than the shiftless pieces of crap that haunt the halls of places like Congress or the insurance giant AIG.
But even the best-intentioned parents make mistakes and I can only conclude we've made a big one. We haven't let our kids suffer enough consequences for rotten behaviors. Oh sure, we issue time-outs, removal of privileges, etc. but we seldom bring the hammer down with memorable consequences.
Only evil parents do that, right?
I'm not so sure.
Before I finish the story of my badly-behaved son, I am reminded of an incident a few years back in which a father, disgusted by his sons' obnoxious actions, auctioned off that year's highly coveted video game system on eBay. He reasoned that his sons had done nothing to deserve the expensive toy, explaining that their behavior as Christmas approached got worse and worse.
So to teach them a lesson in the pitfalls of ingratitude, he sold their super-fabulous gaming system.
Public opinion was sharply divided, much to my dismay. Where was the unanimous support for a parent standing up to rotten behavior? Had society given up on the possibility that horsey kids can and SHOULD be corralled?
Apparently some did because the father was publicly castigated for his cruel and unusual punishment. To his credit, he stood his ground and the boys did not get their game.
I supported that dad and filed away his story for future reference and inspiration.
Today I dug it out of deep memory as I pronounced my son's fifth birthday party cancelled.
So what did happen to cause this extreme shift in my intentions? Namely, that from the minute my son woke up this morning he complained -- about the clothes he'd been given to wear to church, about the way I brushed his hair (the same way I've always brushed it), about the fact I wanted him to eat breakfast, about the family's tradition of going to church on Sundays, about something I said to him, and finally about not making his breakfast after he refused to eat anything I suggested.
In a split second it came to me: This child is ungrateful and does not deserve a party or presents or accolades in the wake of such utterly obnoxious behavior. If he doesn't appreciate on some basic kid-level what he already has, why would he care about anything else he might get?
Now I know some of you are going to say, "But he's ONLY four years old going on five. How much gratitude should you realistically expect from someone that age?"
By the time a child is old enough to understand reciprocity -- the giving and taking inherent in all social relationships -- he or she is old enough to understand that if you take and take without ever giving, you will get little to nothing in return.
The same naysayer argument could be used to justify the bad behaviors of the guys at AIG and Enron or Bernie Madoff. "Hey, they're just human/in their 50s,/depressed/etc. How much integrity should we realistically expect from someone like that?"
See how ridiculous it gets when taken just a bit further?
The fact is that personal responsibility has to be learned and it starts as soon as children are old enough to argue, to reason, to observe and comment on what they see. It starts as soon as they're old enough to engage in a conversation about things like the Ten Commandments, the notion of right and wrong (moral relativism aside), and the importance of character.
My son is there. He can articulate right from wrong, give examples of both, and understands the concept of consequences.
If we don't teach him now that repeated bad behavior will bring no blessing, only cursing, exactly when will we teach it? How will he learn it if his own family doesn't summon the courage to set boundaries?
I'll tell you how. He'll learn it when he's 18 or 19 and out on his own and the world kicks back hard against his unruly ways. The world will not love him enough to care where he ends up or what trouble he finds himself in. The world will build him up just to tear him down.
Our job as parents is to build discipline, character and integrity into our children so that they will escape the worst of what the world has to offer.
To do anything less is to essentially do nothing at all.
If there are any hand-wringers reading this, don't lose sleep. The birthday cake was bought before the party was axed, so on my son's actual birthday we'll gather as a family, put a candle on it, sing and eat. There's one present I can't send back so he'll still get that, too.
But the party, the big coveted chance to be a star? That's gone, and no doubt my son will ask again what happened and why. When he does, we'll have the opportunity to tell him how much we love him and why that love means we simply cannot reward bad behavior.
What the world doesn't love him enough to say, we will.
And that, in my opinion, is what parenting is really all about.
I have to wonder if this is what God does sometimes, too. What if, when we turn from Him, he continues to love us and doesn't punish us per se but simply withholds whatever blessing He had next in the pipeline for us?
What if the secret to receiving more is to first give thanks and appreciate what we already have and to live it like we mean it?
Reciprocity. Could it be a universal law after all?
November 6, 2009
Justice for Riley Sawyer
Riley Ann Sawyer was just two years old when the pieces of crap that passed for her mother and stepfather decided she needed to be disciplined for not consistently saying "please" and "thank you."
Because Riley, like most two-year-olds, was not performing to this ridiculous standard, her mother (and I use that word loosely and with the greatest contempt) and stepfather beat her, dunked her under water, and eventually threw her so hard onto a tile floor that she died of her injuries.
Then they stuffed the body in a plastic bin and dumped it out to sea.
God has a way of bringing the truth to light and a fisherman found the bin washed up on an island in Galveston Bay.
Today, stepfather Royce Ziegler was convicted of capital murder and sentenced to life in prison with no parole. Riley's mother, Kimberly Trenor, was convicted earlier this year and is also serving a life sentence.
Normally, I would advocate the death penalty for these two but in retrospect I think they've been dealt a far worse hand. Ms. Trenor will have to live with the horror of her actions for the rest of her life. She's young, not yet 30, so that's a long time to be locked away in physical and mental hell.
Fine by me.
The stepfather will have his own row to hoe, as we say in Texas. It's common knowledge that convicted felons, no matter their own crimes, reserve a special sort of hatred for their criminal brethren who have committed crimes against children.
None of this brings little Riley Sawyer back, but at least justice has been served.
Because Riley, like most two-year-olds, was not performing to this ridiculous standard, her mother (and I use that word loosely and with the greatest contempt) and stepfather beat her, dunked her under water, and eventually threw her so hard onto a tile floor that she died of her injuries.
Then they stuffed the body in a plastic bin and dumped it out to sea.
God has a way of bringing the truth to light and a fisherman found the bin washed up on an island in Galveston Bay.
Today, stepfather Royce Ziegler was convicted of capital murder and sentenced to life in prison with no parole. Riley's mother, Kimberly Trenor, was convicted earlier this year and is also serving a life sentence.
Normally, I would advocate the death penalty for these two but in retrospect I think they've been dealt a far worse hand. Ms. Trenor will have to live with the horror of her actions for the rest of her life. She's young, not yet 30, so that's a long time to be locked away in physical and mental hell.
Fine by me.
The stepfather will have his own row to hoe, as we say in Texas. It's common knowledge that convicted felons, no matter their own crimes, reserve a special sort of hatred for their criminal brethren who have committed crimes against children.
None of this brings little Riley Sawyer back, but at least justice has been served.
November 1, 2009
Halloween and why we don't bother
An old friend of my mother's from college recently lambasted our family's choice to not celebrate Halloween.
What business it is of his remains a mystery, but I'm never one to shy away from answering the hard questions.
So here's why we've always found something else to do come Oct. 31.
1. It poses a conflict for us from a religious standpoint. As followers of the Bible (yeah, yeah, that pesky old tome responsible for the death of more "fun" than anything else in the world), we take seriously the observation that Christians are the children of light and not of the darkness. Halloween has morphed into the darkest of traditions -- death imagery takes up far more space in the costume aisles of Walmart and the front law decor of my neighbors than do the bats, pumpkins, and smiling witches on broomsticks of yore.
2. It poses a conflict for us from a dental hygiene standpoint. We have crappy dental insurance and usually have to pay out of pocket for our kids to receive good care. Most of the candy they'd get going door to door is junk -- not even the good stuff like Hershey bars -- and I don't want them going into corn syrup/artificial coloring/artificial flavoring overload, nor do I want the cavities from the Skittle or gummy bear that got missed by the dental floss.
3. It poses a conflict for us from a financial standpoint. Why do I want to buy candy for a bunch of kids I don't know and who probably don't even live in my neighborhood?
4. It poses a problem for us from a personal safety standpoint. My husband and I are old enough to remember the infamous case in Pasadena, TX back in the 1970s when a guy who came to be known as the "Man Who Killed Halloween" substituted cyanide power (rat poison) for powdered candy in a Pixie Stix and killed his little boy to inherit a life insurance payout. Ronald O'Bryan was eventually executed for the crime, but not before putting a damper on the holiday that lasted well beyond my highschool years. Now some 35 years later, the internet has given rise to even more ghoulish, depraved and dangerous ideas. Who knows who knows what or wants to try it out on little kids going door to door for candy? It's a risk I'm just not willing to take.
So, my mom's friend thinks we're raising our kids in a bubble, unequipped and uneducated enough to deal with the "real world." Somehow, he transitioned his Halloween gripe into a scathing (albeit ignorant) attack on homeschooling in general, but I won't bore you with that nonsense here.
Suffice to say, for anyone worried about whether my children know a ghost from a vampire, a trick from a treat, a tombstone from a flagstone, let me put your worried minds at ease. They do, and they don't care. And my heart sings to know that this little slice of cultural crap registers as merely a blip on their radar screens right alongside Hannah Montana and High School Musical.
May it always be thus.
What business it is of his remains a mystery, but I'm never one to shy away from answering the hard questions.
So here's why we've always found something else to do come Oct. 31.
1. It poses a conflict for us from a religious standpoint. As followers of the Bible (yeah, yeah, that pesky old tome responsible for the death of more "fun" than anything else in the world), we take seriously the observation that Christians are the children of light and not of the darkness. Halloween has morphed into the darkest of traditions -- death imagery takes up far more space in the costume aisles of Walmart and the front law decor of my neighbors than do the bats, pumpkins, and smiling witches on broomsticks of yore.
2. It poses a conflict for us from a dental hygiene standpoint. We have crappy dental insurance and usually have to pay out of pocket for our kids to receive good care. Most of the candy they'd get going door to door is junk -- not even the good stuff like Hershey bars -- and I don't want them going into corn syrup/artificial coloring/artificial flavoring overload, nor do I want the cavities from the Skittle or gummy bear that got missed by the dental floss.
3. It poses a conflict for us from a financial standpoint. Why do I want to buy candy for a bunch of kids I don't know and who probably don't even live in my neighborhood?
4. It poses a problem for us from a personal safety standpoint. My husband and I are old enough to remember the infamous case in Pasadena, TX back in the 1970s when a guy who came to be known as the "Man Who Killed Halloween" substituted cyanide power (rat poison) for powdered candy in a Pixie Stix and killed his little boy to inherit a life insurance payout. Ronald O'Bryan was eventually executed for the crime, but not before putting a damper on the holiday that lasted well beyond my highschool years. Now some 35 years later, the internet has given rise to even more ghoulish, depraved and dangerous ideas. Who knows who knows what or wants to try it out on little kids going door to door for candy? It's a risk I'm just not willing to take.
So, my mom's friend thinks we're raising our kids in a bubble, unequipped and uneducated enough to deal with the "real world." Somehow, he transitioned his Halloween gripe into a scathing (albeit ignorant) attack on homeschooling in general, but I won't bore you with that nonsense here.
Suffice to say, for anyone worried about whether my children know a ghost from a vampire, a trick from a treat, a tombstone from a flagstone, let me put your worried minds at ease. They do, and they don't care. And my heart sings to know that this little slice of cultural crap registers as merely a blip on their radar screens right alongside Hannah Montana and High School Musical.
May it always be thus.
October 20, 2009
They're gettin' nothing for Christmas
At least no toys.
Yep, my husband and I have banded together as one big collective Grinch and have decided our four little darlings won't be getting any toys this year. (Okay, the toddler is getting one toy, but he's the exception because he's the baby.)
Oh, they'll still get stuff -- some candy and fruit in their stockings, a few books, some art supplies -- just nothing that will require assembly, a battery or excessive shipping charges. Nothing that will become something cumbersome to step over or move around the play area as the new year rolls in.
They have everything they need now. Why pile on?
I've already talked about this with the three oldest and they were surprisingly willing to go along with it. "As long as we get something, we don't need any more toys," my 7 year-old said.
So here's what's on tap for Christmas 2009:
The toddler gets a toy -- a new toy telephone because we have only one and he never gets to use it since his three older siblings usually have it employed in their pretend play.
Other than that, it's stocking stuffers of the consumable kind;
Sticker books (good for car trips or waiting at the dentist's office)
Home-made coupon books good for things like a trip to the zoo or the natural science museum.
Art supplies like sketch pads, new crayons, colored pencils
The opportunity to pick out "gifts" in the form of charitable contributions to charities like World Vision, the local animal shelter or an ocean conservation society.
A shopping trip to buy toys for the annual charitable toy drive for poor kids
That's right. This year we're buying toys for OTHER kids, kids whose families have lost jobs, health insurance, homes, cars -- and there are a lot of them out there. Some of them I know personally.
And when I look at the ridiculously small amounts of money it takes to support a World Vision project for kids not only in foreign countries but right here in the United States, I cannot help but think that my kids are already heavily blessed and that now is the time to teach them what our faith teaches us about sharing what we have.
Yep, my husband and I have banded together as one big collective Grinch and have decided our four little darlings won't be getting any toys this year. (Okay, the toddler is getting one toy, but he's the exception because he's the baby.)
Oh, they'll still get stuff -- some candy and fruit in their stockings, a few books, some art supplies -- just nothing that will require assembly, a battery or excessive shipping charges. Nothing that will become something cumbersome to step over or move around the play area as the new year rolls in.
They have everything they need now. Why pile on?
I've already talked about this with the three oldest and they were surprisingly willing to go along with it. "As long as we get something, we don't need any more toys," my 7 year-old said.
So here's what's on tap for Christmas 2009:
The toddler gets a toy -- a new toy telephone because we have only one and he never gets to use it since his three older siblings usually have it employed in their pretend play.
Other than that, it's stocking stuffers of the consumable kind;
Sticker books (good for car trips or waiting at the dentist's office)
Home-made coupon books good for things like a trip to the zoo or the natural science museum.
Art supplies like sketch pads, new crayons, colored pencils
The opportunity to pick out "gifts" in the form of charitable contributions to charities like World Vision, the local animal shelter or an ocean conservation society.
A shopping trip to buy toys for the annual charitable toy drive for poor kids
That's right. This year we're buying toys for OTHER kids, kids whose families have lost jobs, health insurance, homes, cars -- and there are a lot of them out there. Some of them I know personally.
And when I look at the ridiculously small amounts of money it takes to support a World Vision project for kids not only in foreign countries but right here in the United States, I cannot help but think that my kids are already heavily blessed and that now is the time to teach them what our faith teaches us about sharing what we have.
October 15, 2009
The list grows -- terrorists, silly people, and now . . .
Racists.
Apparently that's what those of us who still don't like the government's health care proposal are now. We are racists.
Why?
Because our president is half black and half white and because. . . because . . . because critics of the critics can't find anything else to hurl at us so they hurl the most inflammatory accusation they can find.
If you are opposed to anything President Obama says or does you must be a racist. Period. Now that should shut down all further discussion and dissent.
Enter the pesky Constitution.
This crusty old rag of a document is still in force and it guarantees the people our right to criticize our government at any time for any reason. It doesn't say we get to criticize only white politicians or black politicians or Greek or Latino politicians. It just says we have the freedom of speech and the right to petition the government for redress of our grievances.
When George Bush goofed up, I complained and no one labeled me as anything but a disgruntled taxpayer.
SoI wish Obama supporters would go on and get over the fact that President Obama is partly black and let me gripe about him, too. He's not black first and THEN he's the president. He's the PRESIDENT and as such he must not be put upon a pedestal and criticism of his performance deferred.
Apparently that's what those of us who still don't like the government's health care proposal are now. We are racists.
Why?
Because our president is half black and half white and because. . . because . . . because critics of the critics can't find anything else to hurl at us so they hurl the most inflammatory accusation they can find.
If you are opposed to anything President Obama says or does you must be a racist. Period. Now that should shut down all further discussion and dissent.
Enter the pesky Constitution.
This crusty old rag of a document is still in force and it guarantees the people our right to criticize our government at any time for any reason. It doesn't say we get to criticize only white politicians or black politicians or Greek or Latino politicians. It just says we have the freedom of speech and the right to petition the government for redress of our grievances.
When George Bush goofed up, I complained and no one labeled me as anything but a disgruntled taxpayer.
SoI wish Obama supporters would go on and get over the fact that President Obama is partly black and let me gripe about him, too. He's not black first and THEN he's the president. He's the PRESIDENT and as such he must not be put upon a pedestal and criticism of his performance deferred.
The blessing of an ordinary day
A Colorado family found itself in a big panic this morning when they thought their six-year-old son had found his way into the gondola of an experimental balloon, managed to untether it, and then floated 10,000 feet above the earth.
For several hours the cable news channels followed the story, their cameras trained on the silvery, lopsided object that looked more like an inflated chefs hat than the hot-air balloons of old.
When the balloon finally came to rest, rescuers found no boy inside.
Turns out he'd been hiding in his family's attic the whole time.
I watched this saga play out on a TV mounted high up in the corner of a local deli where I went with my mom and my children for lunch before running some errands. My heart was heavy as I thought about the mother of this boy and how worried she must have been. When my own four-year-old son came around the table to give me a hug, I hugged him just a little bit tighter than usual.
There we were, I thought to myself, sitting solidly on terra firma, our stomachs content from a lunch of soup and fruit and sandwiches, with a beautiful day outside and the possibility of stopping by a local church's pumpkin patch to pick up some live autumn decor.
A perfectly ordinary day. Perfect in its ordinariness. Extraordinary in its perfection.
We ran those errands and we did visit that pumpkin patch. As I watched my kids cavorting among the pumpkins, picking them up, turning them over, hollering to each other about this one or that, I couldn't help feeling blessed and sorrowful at the same time.
Blessed, because my children were all there and well and happy and fed and I was with them to witness it. Sorrowful, because I knew that just like that mother in Colorado there were many other mothers who, for one reason or another, were separated from their children and that there was nothing I could do about it.
For all the mothers who read this 'blog entry -- but especially those who homeschool their children and who sometimes feel like they haven't done enough, their kids aren't brilliant enough and their houses aren't tidy enough -- I hope it will encourage you to think of the most mundane of days as the greatest gift you've ever received.
If you got to be with your children today and everyone was alive and well, you were richly blessed.
Praise God for ordinary days!
For several hours the cable news channels followed the story, their cameras trained on the silvery, lopsided object that looked more like an inflated chefs hat than the hot-air balloons of old.
When the balloon finally came to rest, rescuers found no boy inside.
Turns out he'd been hiding in his family's attic the whole time.
I watched this saga play out on a TV mounted high up in the corner of a local deli where I went with my mom and my children for lunch before running some errands. My heart was heavy as I thought about the mother of this boy and how worried she must have been. When my own four-year-old son came around the table to give me a hug, I hugged him just a little bit tighter than usual.
There we were, I thought to myself, sitting solidly on terra firma, our stomachs content from a lunch of soup and fruit and sandwiches, with a beautiful day outside and the possibility of stopping by a local church's pumpkin patch to pick up some live autumn decor.
A perfectly ordinary day. Perfect in its ordinariness. Extraordinary in its perfection.
We ran those errands and we did visit that pumpkin patch. As I watched my kids cavorting among the pumpkins, picking them up, turning them over, hollering to each other about this one or that, I couldn't help feeling blessed and sorrowful at the same time.
Blessed, because my children were all there and well and happy and fed and I was with them to witness it. Sorrowful, because I knew that just like that mother in Colorado there were many other mothers who, for one reason or another, were separated from their children and that there was nothing I could do about it.
For all the mothers who read this 'blog entry -- but especially those who homeschool their children and who sometimes feel like they haven't done enough, their kids aren't brilliant enough and their houses aren't tidy enough -- I hope it will encourage you to think of the most mundane of days as the greatest gift you've ever received.
If you got to be with your children today and everyone was alive and well, you were richly blessed.
Praise God for ordinary days!
September 5, 2009
First we were terrorists, now we're just silly
Name calling. It's usually the stuff of playgrounds and of badly behaved children whose parents haven't taught them the Golden Rule.
For any athiests or those from non-Christian backgrounds who may be reading this post, the Golden Rule was spoken by Jesus and says, in effect, don't do something to someone else if you don't want it done to you.
It's so simple even a child can understand it, and around here my children are not only expected to understand it but to demonstrate it in their daily lives.
I guess our Speaker of the House must have slept through this part of her Catholic elementary school class since she saw fit to call folks protesting the proposed healthcare legislation, "terrorists."
White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs, also a Catholic, apparently slept through his Christian religious instruction, too. He's quoted on the Drudge Report as saying he thinks we've "reached a bit of the silly season" in reference to parental protests nationwide over the plan to air a speech by President Obama to students during the regular school day next Tuesday.
Silly? Really?
I'm working overtime to understand how thousands of American parents, many of whom are raising their children on one income or no income but who still trust in the government schools to do the right thing deserve to be indirectly referred to as "silly."
It's "silly" of parents to NOT want their kids' precious instructional time taken up by some asinine worksheets that ask questions such as "What do you think President Obama is trying to tell you?" or that queries kids about ways in which they can help the president and then submit their answers for later review and discussion with their teachers?
It's "silly" to think that teachers have a million better things to do than probe the minds of children light years away from being able to vote much less use their still-developing thinking skills to contemplate ways they can help the president?
And what sort of "help" does the president really need from school-aged children? See, that's the part that creeps me out. Anyone with half a working brain can find the stories online about the various youth groups nurtured by leaders in such sunny places as Maoist China or 1940s Berlin.
I'm still waiting for the White House to tell us what it took OUT of the speech and the accompanying lesson plans after the s@$# hit the fan last week. Betcha we'll never know.
For any athiests or those from non-Christian backgrounds who may be reading this post, the Golden Rule was spoken by Jesus and says, in effect, don't do something to someone else if you don't want it done to you.
It's so simple even a child can understand it, and around here my children are not only expected to understand it but to demonstrate it in their daily lives.
I guess our Speaker of the House must have slept through this part of her Catholic elementary school class since she saw fit to call folks protesting the proposed healthcare legislation, "terrorists."
White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs, also a Catholic, apparently slept through his Christian religious instruction, too. He's quoted on the Drudge Report as saying he thinks we've "reached a bit of the silly season" in reference to parental protests nationwide over the plan to air a speech by President Obama to students during the regular school day next Tuesday.
Silly? Really?
I'm working overtime to understand how thousands of American parents, many of whom are raising their children on one income or no income but who still trust in the government schools to do the right thing deserve to be indirectly referred to as "silly."
It's "silly" of parents to NOT want their kids' precious instructional time taken up by some asinine worksheets that ask questions such as "What do you think President Obama is trying to tell you?" or that queries kids about ways in which they can help the president and then submit their answers for later review and discussion with their teachers?
It's "silly" to think that teachers have a million better things to do than probe the minds of children light years away from being able to vote much less use their still-developing thinking skills to contemplate ways they can help the president?
And what sort of "help" does the president really need from school-aged children? See, that's the part that creeps me out. Anyone with half a working brain can find the stories online about the various youth groups nurtured by leaders in such sunny places as Maoist China or 1940s Berlin.
I'm still waiting for the White House to tell us what it took OUT of the speech and the accompanying lesson plans after the s@$# hit the fan last week. Betcha we'll never know.
August 6, 2009
I am going to EXPLODE!!!!!!
For years children in America have been exposed to dolls and other toys made of crappy materials from China, dolls and toys that look like everything from the monster in your worst nightmare to prostitutes giving it all away.
Now comes a doll from Spain that -- gasp -- promotes BREASTFEEDING.
Contain your horror, please.
I know, I know, there's nothing more subversive, more reckless, more abhorrent than a woman using her breasts for the one thing they were intended. The thought of encouraging little girls to think about someday nursing their babies instead of giving them the more civilized (not) bottle of artificial flavors, chemicals, and soy protein is just beyond the pale.
What were the Spanish dollmakers thinking?
Even sadder were the comments of parents interviewed for the story (I originally saw it on Foxnews.com), the ones who said they wouldn't buy such a toy for their daughters because it might traumatize them psychologically or, worse, promote an early interest in sex.
ARE THEY SERIOUS??????????????????????????????????????????????????????
That's like saying my daughters who are 9 and 7 are going to hook up with guys before they're of legal age JUST BECAUSE they've seen me breastfeed their younger siblings.
Prove it.
Children accustomed to being around nursing mothers don't think that's any weirder than, say, bathing, going to the bathroom, eating a sandwich, driving, breathing or sleeping.
If critics of the doll are going to trot out the psychological damage argument, they'll need to include children from the wilds of South America, China, Japan, Russia, Sweden, Africa, and India who routinely breastfeed and witness their mothers and neighbors breastfeeding, too.
African kids are traumatized alright, but by war and poverty and AIDS. I challenge anyone to prove their sleepless nights are the result of witnessing babies feeding at the breast.
In an age when dolls like Barbie and the horrid Bratz collection feature impossibly proportioned bodies or slutty clothes and makeup, I can't get too worked up about a baby doll that makes sucking noises when a child clutches it to her bosom.
What a shame, though, that some folks can.
Now comes a doll from Spain that -- gasp -- promotes BREASTFEEDING.
Contain your horror, please.
I know, I know, there's nothing more subversive, more reckless, more abhorrent than a woman using her breasts for the one thing they were intended. The thought of encouraging little girls to think about someday nursing their babies instead of giving them the more civilized (not) bottle of artificial flavors, chemicals, and soy protein is just beyond the pale.
What were the Spanish dollmakers thinking?
Even sadder were the comments of parents interviewed for the story (I originally saw it on Foxnews.com), the ones who said they wouldn't buy such a toy for their daughters because it might traumatize them psychologically or, worse, promote an early interest in sex.
ARE THEY SERIOUS??????????????????????????????????????????????????????
That's like saying my daughters who are 9 and 7 are going to hook up with guys before they're of legal age JUST BECAUSE they've seen me breastfeed their younger siblings.
Prove it.
Children accustomed to being around nursing mothers don't think that's any weirder than, say, bathing, going to the bathroom, eating a sandwich, driving, breathing or sleeping.
If critics of the doll are going to trot out the psychological damage argument, they'll need to include children from the wilds of South America, China, Japan, Russia, Sweden, Africa, and India who routinely breastfeed and witness their mothers and neighbors breastfeeding, too.
African kids are traumatized alright, but by war and poverty and AIDS. I challenge anyone to prove their sleepless nights are the result of witnessing babies feeding at the breast.
In an age when dolls like Barbie and the horrid Bratz collection feature impossibly proportioned bodies or slutty clothes and makeup, I can't get too worked up about a baby doll that makes sucking noises when a child clutches it to her bosom.
What a shame, though, that some folks can.
July 18, 2009
Dad and the Moon
Today is July 20, 2009 and in just about 20 minutes CST we will remember the 40th anniversary of Neil Armstrong's moonwalk.
I'm proud of Mr. Armstrong. His place in history is assured by the fact that there can be only one first man to take the first step on to the moon.
But on a more personal if less glamorous level I'm proud of my father, Dallas Evans. My dad was one of the thousands of Team Moon people who made Armstrong's walk and all the moonwalks that followed possible. His contribution to the space program was to design experiments to divulge the Moon's many closely guarded secrets.
Dad passed away in October 2003 just before his then-greatest love -- the unmanned mission to Mars with its Martian rover -- saw success. I like to think that wherever he was on THAT momentous day he was feeling a sense of euphoria all over again, just like that day so long ago in late July.
My father was a physicist whose interests in astronomy, meteorology, marine biology, and aviation landed him a job with the newly created NASA. Before the Johnson Space Center complex was built out on the rice fields south of Houston, my dad was already starting to gather data -- what little there was in the early 1960s -- about the atmospheres on the various planets. President Kennedy had given his instruction that America should go to the moon. My dad's first job was to help figure out what astronauts might encounter when they got there.
The Apollo Lunar Surface Experiment Package (ALSEP) consisted of various experiments bundled to fly on each of the lunar trips. My dad was the principal investigator or co-investigator on several of them:
LACE, the Lunar Atmosphere Composition Experiment, flew aboard Apollo 17;
CCG, the Cold Cathode Gauge Experiment (measured the lunar atmosphere), flew aboard Apollos 12, 14, and 15;
SIDE, the Suprathermal Ion Detector Experiment (measured effects of solar winds on the moon), flew aboard Apollos 12, 14, 15.
My dad never seemed to mind the unrelenting work schedule during those heady Apollo days. Everyone was caught up in the dramatic drive to beat the Russians and to live out President Kennedy's dream. Around our house, spaceflight was always the topic on the table. A war was still raging in Vietnam but aside from the nightly news in black and white, it wasn't up for debate. My dad had no time to follow social trends or the latest Hollywood gossip. He was preparing to help put men on the moon, and nothing was more important.
Except me.
I am his only child, and despite his commitment to making history my dad still managed to make time for me. His excitement and awe at the incredible majesty and complexity of outer space was contagious and 40 years later I find myself grasping for the right words to infuse my own children with this same sense of wonderment.
I remember Neil Armstrong's grainy image on our black and white television that glorious day in July. I remember complete silence in the living room as my parents sat transfixed before the screen.
I remember knowing that this had something to do with Daddy's job, but being only three years old I wasn't sure what. Didn't men walk on the moon all the time, I wondered. I'd been hearing talk of spaceflight for as long as I could remember, and this seemed like just another episode of that dialogue.
It wasn't until nearly 30 years later that the real significance of the first moon landing hit me, and in the strangest of ways.
I was sitting in a Luby's cafeteria located not too far from the Johnson Space Center waiting on a girlfriend to come through the food line and pay her bill. I'd found us a table and had sat down to start eating when for reasons unknown my eyes were drawn upward to a series of large photos on the wall in front of me.
There was the famous photograph of Earth -- you know the one that makes our planet look like a beautiful multicolored marble. As I casually studied it, trying to figure out which of the continents I was seeing beneath the cloud cover, I had a revelation.
Suddenly my father's accomplishments and the accomplishments of so many others came sharply into focus.
IF MEN HAD NEVER LEFT THE EARTH, WE WOULDN'T HAVE KNOWN WHAT IT LOOKED LIKE.
The photo of our amazing planet is today ubiquitous, found on everything from flags and tee-shirts to bumper stickers and school notebooks.
But does anyone ever stop to think about HOW we came to have that picture?
Lives were put on hold as scientists like my father devoted countless hours to research, design, development, re-design, troubleshooting and more re-design of everything from experiments to astronaut suits and communication systems. I won't even try to fathom the science behind the rocketry that propelled our men into space.
Lives were lost and risked and risked again. Apollo 1 with its three astronauts incinerated by an oxygen leak during a test run in1967. Apollo 13 with its crew that nearly became lost in space in 1970. Apollo 11 and subsequent flights, all of them accompanied by a long list of "what-ifs" -- what if the men landed but couldn't take off again, what if they took off from the lunar surface but missed their one chance at a rendezvous with the orbiter, what if they made the connection only to have the return capsule burn up on reentry through the Earth's viciously hot atmosphere.
There were only so many contingencies NASA could prepare for. At some point, it was up to fate or luck or God.
Four decades later, we have learned much about spaceflight, the moon, Mars, and other planets and the knowledge is taken for granted. What should we as a people, a nation be doing with all of this. Spaceflight has become commonplace in just a little over 40 years. Have we lost our collective sense of awe? And what do we need to do to get it back? These and similar questions weren't even on the radar in 1969. No one would have believed that only four years later, the Apollo program would be scrubbed.
My dad never took the rocket ride into space like Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin, Michael Collins or any of the brave men and, later, women who would follow them, though I suspect he made that trip more than a few times in his mind.
No, on the whole he seemed content to share what he knew as an earthbound man, braving mosquitoes and smothering hot Houston nights to perch atop the trunk of our car in the driveway with binoculars or telescope for a mini-lecture on the worlds beyond our own.
I always loved my dad for who he was. But now, as an adult with children of my own, I can also love him for what he did to further our understanding of the handiwork of God. It's a legacy I'm proud to pass along to the grandchildren Dad never got to know, and I hope that some day, when they have children of their own, they will want to do the same.
The heavens declare the glory of Him Who made all things . . .
I'm proud of Mr. Armstrong. His place in history is assured by the fact that there can be only one first man to take the first step on to the moon.
But on a more personal if less glamorous level I'm proud of my father, Dallas Evans. My dad was one of the thousands of Team Moon people who made Armstrong's walk and all the moonwalks that followed possible. His contribution to the space program was to design experiments to divulge the Moon's many closely guarded secrets.
Dad passed away in October 2003 just before his then-greatest love -- the unmanned mission to Mars with its Martian rover -- saw success. I like to think that wherever he was on THAT momentous day he was feeling a sense of euphoria all over again, just like that day so long ago in late July.
My father was a physicist whose interests in astronomy, meteorology, marine biology, and aviation landed him a job with the newly created NASA. Before the Johnson Space Center complex was built out on the rice fields south of Houston, my dad was already starting to gather data -- what little there was in the early 1960s -- about the atmospheres on the various planets. President Kennedy had given his instruction that America should go to the moon. My dad's first job was to help figure out what astronauts might encounter when they got there.
The Apollo Lunar Surface Experiment Package (ALSEP) consisted of various experiments bundled to fly on each of the lunar trips. My dad was the principal investigator or co-investigator on several of them:
LACE, the Lunar Atmosphere Composition Experiment, flew aboard Apollo 17;
CCG, the Cold Cathode Gauge Experiment (measured the lunar atmosphere), flew aboard Apollos 12, 14, and 15;
SIDE, the Suprathermal Ion Detector Experiment (measured effects of solar winds on the moon), flew aboard Apollos 12, 14, 15.
My dad never seemed to mind the unrelenting work schedule during those heady Apollo days. Everyone was caught up in the dramatic drive to beat the Russians and to live out President Kennedy's dream. Around our house, spaceflight was always the topic on the table. A war was still raging in Vietnam but aside from the nightly news in black and white, it wasn't up for debate. My dad had no time to follow social trends or the latest Hollywood gossip. He was preparing to help put men on the moon, and nothing was more important.
Except me.
I am his only child, and despite his commitment to making history my dad still managed to make time for me. His excitement and awe at the incredible majesty and complexity of outer space was contagious and 40 years later I find myself grasping for the right words to infuse my own children with this same sense of wonderment.
I remember Neil Armstrong's grainy image on our black and white television that glorious day in July. I remember complete silence in the living room as my parents sat transfixed before the screen.
I remember knowing that this had something to do with Daddy's job, but being only three years old I wasn't sure what. Didn't men walk on the moon all the time, I wondered. I'd been hearing talk of spaceflight for as long as I could remember, and this seemed like just another episode of that dialogue.
It wasn't until nearly 30 years later that the real significance of the first moon landing hit me, and in the strangest of ways.
I was sitting in a Luby's cafeteria located not too far from the Johnson Space Center waiting on a girlfriend to come through the food line and pay her bill. I'd found us a table and had sat down to start eating when for reasons unknown my eyes were drawn upward to a series of large photos on the wall in front of me.
There was the famous photograph of Earth -- you know the one that makes our planet look like a beautiful multicolored marble. As I casually studied it, trying to figure out which of the continents I was seeing beneath the cloud cover, I had a revelation.
Suddenly my father's accomplishments and the accomplishments of so many others came sharply into focus.
IF MEN HAD NEVER LEFT THE EARTH, WE WOULDN'T HAVE KNOWN WHAT IT LOOKED LIKE.
The photo of our amazing planet is today ubiquitous, found on everything from flags and tee-shirts to bumper stickers and school notebooks.
But does anyone ever stop to think about HOW we came to have that picture?
Lives were put on hold as scientists like my father devoted countless hours to research, design, development, re-design, troubleshooting and more re-design of everything from experiments to astronaut suits and communication systems. I won't even try to fathom the science behind the rocketry that propelled our men into space.
Lives were lost and risked and risked again. Apollo 1 with its three astronauts incinerated by an oxygen leak during a test run in1967. Apollo 13 with its crew that nearly became lost in space in 1970. Apollo 11 and subsequent flights, all of them accompanied by a long list of "what-ifs" -- what if the men landed but couldn't take off again, what if they took off from the lunar surface but missed their one chance at a rendezvous with the orbiter, what if they made the connection only to have the return capsule burn up on reentry through the Earth's viciously hot atmosphere.
There were only so many contingencies NASA could prepare for. At some point, it was up to fate or luck or God.
Four decades later, we have learned much about spaceflight, the moon, Mars, and other planets and the knowledge is taken for granted. What should we as a people, a nation be doing with all of this. Spaceflight has become commonplace in just a little over 40 years. Have we lost our collective sense of awe? And what do we need to do to get it back? These and similar questions weren't even on the radar in 1969. No one would have believed that only four years later, the Apollo program would be scrubbed.
My dad never took the rocket ride into space like Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin, Michael Collins or any of the brave men and, later, women who would follow them, though I suspect he made that trip more than a few times in his mind.
No, on the whole he seemed content to share what he knew as an earthbound man, braving mosquitoes and smothering hot Houston nights to perch atop the trunk of our car in the driveway with binoculars or telescope for a mini-lecture on the worlds beyond our own.
I always loved my dad for who he was. But now, as an adult with children of my own, I can also love him for what he did to further our understanding of the handiwork of God. It's a legacy I'm proud to pass along to the grandchildren Dad never got to know, and I hope that some day, when they have children of their own, they will want to do the same.
The heavens declare the glory of Him Who made all things . . .
June 25, 2009
Saving sharks one signature at a time
My 7-year-old is currently enamored of sharks. Not the clever billiard players epitomized by Paul Newman (RIP) in the "Color of Money," but the toothy, fearsome, swimming creatures depicted so realistically in "Jaws."
We visited an area aquarium awhile back and for reasons I still don't understand but completely respect, it was love at first sight.
Currently working on a shark-themed project that involves reading, writing, research and original artwork, my daughter has also unearthed the gruesome truth about sharks on the verge of extinction largely because of a practice known as FINNING.
Finning is the cutting off of a shark's fins for use in sharkfin soup, a delicacy in places like China.
The shark -- any species will do -- is captured, mutilated while still alive, and thrown back into the water completely defenseless. Unable to swim, it sinks like a stone to the ocean floor.
Its death may take anywhere from several hours to several days.
Why, my daughter asked indignantly, would anyone want to eat soup so badly that they would do this to a shark?
Why, indeed.
Sadly, she's now starting to wrestle with the same questions that began to bedevil me back when I was about her age. A neighborhood boy caught a water moccasin in a drainage ditch near our street, stretched it out full length upside down on the sidewalk for us all to see and then quickly slit it from head to tail with a knife while the animal was still alive. Inside its belly was a large egg.
I was horrified. Not because a dangerous snake was only feet away from me but because I realized that snake hadn't hurt anyone and yet it was being destroyed for the heck of it.
That initial horror later dulled into a deep and abiding sadness from which I guess I've never fully recovered. But it also spurred me on to various volunteer and paid jobs working with animals as well as conducting letter-writing campaigns to everyone from pharmaceutical companies to elected officials urging them to stop one form or another of animal cruelty.
Somewhere along the way I became a vegetarian although in the spirit of full disclosure I do own a couple pair of leather shoes. Oh, and my childproof furniture is also upholstered in cowhide.
Regardless, some of that old fire stirred again in me last night when my wide-eyed, beautiful child with a heart as big as the world itself set her dainty jaw, furrowed her brow and said, "Finning is just wrong and it has GOT to stop!"
Can one child make a difference? No, but as I learned long ago one child (or one person of any age) multiplied by many more very often does sway opinion.
Type in "finning" online and see how many different campaigns are up and running on behalf of sharks. Lots of kids have jumped on the bandwagon, too, perhaps because children do see things so much more clearly than the grownups. If it's mean, it's wrong. Period.
Those of you who live locally and who know our family, I ask you to take time out to sign Julia's "No Finning" petition the next time you see her. The signatures will be forwarded to the Shark Research Institute in NJ for compilation and mailing to governments worldwide in an effort to outlaw this barbaric practice.
Sharks, as we've learned, are a vital part of the marine ecosystem. They keep various populations in balance so that there is enough food, enough habitat for everyone. Their only enemy is man.
You have a better chance of being struck by lightning than being attacked by a shark.
More than 100 MILLION sharks are killed every year worldwide and roughly 15 various species are on the brink of extinction.
Julia is right. This has got to stop.
Just say no to "finning."
For more information on this issue, visit the websites of Sea Shepherd International, The Cousteau Society, or the Shark Research Institute.
We visited an area aquarium awhile back and for reasons I still don't understand but completely respect, it was love at first sight.
Currently working on a shark-themed project that involves reading, writing, research and original artwork, my daughter has also unearthed the gruesome truth about sharks on the verge of extinction largely because of a practice known as FINNING.
Finning is the cutting off of a shark's fins for use in sharkfin soup, a delicacy in places like China.
The shark -- any species will do -- is captured, mutilated while still alive, and thrown back into the water completely defenseless. Unable to swim, it sinks like a stone to the ocean floor.
Its death may take anywhere from several hours to several days.
Why, my daughter asked indignantly, would anyone want to eat soup so badly that they would do this to a shark?
Why, indeed.
Sadly, she's now starting to wrestle with the same questions that began to bedevil me back when I was about her age. A neighborhood boy caught a water moccasin in a drainage ditch near our street, stretched it out full length upside down on the sidewalk for us all to see and then quickly slit it from head to tail with a knife while the animal was still alive. Inside its belly was a large egg.
I was horrified. Not because a dangerous snake was only feet away from me but because I realized that snake hadn't hurt anyone and yet it was being destroyed for the heck of it.
That initial horror later dulled into a deep and abiding sadness from which I guess I've never fully recovered. But it also spurred me on to various volunteer and paid jobs working with animals as well as conducting letter-writing campaigns to everyone from pharmaceutical companies to elected officials urging them to stop one form or another of animal cruelty.
Somewhere along the way I became a vegetarian although in the spirit of full disclosure I do own a couple pair of leather shoes. Oh, and my childproof furniture is also upholstered in cowhide.
Regardless, some of that old fire stirred again in me last night when my wide-eyed, beautiful child with a heart as big as the world itself set her dainty jaw, furrowed her brow and said, "Finning is just wrong and it has GOT to stop!"
Can one child make a difference? No, but as I learned long ago one child (or one person of any age) multiplied by many more very often does sway opinion.
Type in "finning" online and see how many different campaigns are up and running on behalf of sharks. Lots of kids have jumped on the bandwagon, too, perhaps because children do see things so much more clearly than the grownups. If it's mean, it's wrong. Period.
Those of you who live locally and who know our family, I ask you to take time out to sign Julia's "No Finning" petition the next time you see her. The signatures will be forwarded to the Shark Research Institute in NJ for compilation and mailing to governments worldwide in an effort to outlaw this barbaric practice.
Sharks, as we've learned, are a vital part of the marine ecosystem. They keep various populations in balance so that there is enough food, enough habitat for everyone. Their only enemy is man.
You have a better chance of being struck by lightning than being attacked by a shark.
More than 100 MILLION sharks are killed every year worldwide and roughly 15 various species are on the brink of extinction.
Julia is right. This has got to stop.
Just say no to "finning."
For more information on this issue, visit the websites of Sea Shepherd International, The Cousteau Society, or the Shark Research Institute.
June 19, 2009
I had better things to do . . .
It's my own fault. I'm the one who sometime back bought a crafts idea book for my seven-year-old daughter who eerily takes after Martha Stewart when it comes to all things creative.
The book, all about "mermaid" things to make, has proven to be a challenge. Its various colorfully illustrated craft projects are tantalizing but tricky for a young child without extensive help from an adult.
Today, the coveted prize was a "seashell purse" made from formed paper, cardboard, and lots and lots of paint and glitter. Mermaids must have glittery purses, I'm told.
Preoccupied with other more pressing things, I'm ashamed to admit I was relieved when I realized we didn't have some of the necessary supplies -- glitter among them -- to make the purse but then my daughter said, "Well, it IS still daylight. Can't we just go to Hobby Lobby?"
Sigh.
To know her is to love her and to love her amazing sense of pragmatism. It was so simple: Don't have it? Just go get it!
So we did, and when we got home it was really time to start supper but the child said earnestly, "Now that we have everything, I think we should at least get started."
Translated, this means, "Momma, the others don't need to eat but I do need this paper and cardboard seashell purse so never mind everyone else, just help me make the darn thing."
Reluctantly -- because I also really wanted to catch a quick peek at my email before I started cooking -- I sat down with the craft book in front of me and carefully analyzed the half million steps necessary for completing the purse.
Did I mention the numerous steps involved?
An hour later we had completed Seashell Purse Phase I and my daughter was satisfied I wasn't going to bail on the remainder of the project. After all, we'd come too far to abandon our effort now.
Did I say "our"?
I meant, "my" as in "MY effort." While it's true the seashell purse is for my daughter and she is the one who initiated the whole production, I am the hired help who sat and traced and cut and shaped paper and then slathered Mod Podge over the whole thing before blanketing it with colored tissue paper.
To be fair, my daughter did tear the tissue paper into pieces for me. Oh, and she did offer helpful hints when it came time to cut the purse out of cardboard.
So with Phase I in the can, I was allowed to take a breather.
Woefully I began to survey all that had remained undone during my pursuit of a purse to rival those of Louis Vuitton.
A pile of unfolded laundry. Dishes in the sink. Trash to be taken out. Books to be reshelved. Clothes to be washed. Rugs to be vacuumed. Checks to write and bills to pay.
Then I glanced over at the counter where earlier I'd been sorting photos of my children from the past several years. My throat tightened as it dawned on me how little the kids in those pictures were -- too little to make seashell purses or read stories of mermaids or use scissors or glue or sequins. And I remembered how especially in those early days of motherhood I eagerly anticipated a future in which I'd sit around a table with my little ones to share in the fun of arts and crafts.
That's when it hit me hard. Today was that day! The future was now! And I nearly blew it off in favor of a nap or yet another load of laundry?
Suddenly, the seashell purse has became the most important goal I have, and I made a point to reassure my daughter we'll finish it up tomorrow.
Tidying up the house after the kids were all in bed, I marvelled at how quickly the future of a few years back was now sitting squarely upon me as the present. Picking scraps of tissue paper off the floor and scraping glue off the kitchen table reminded me that, indeed, I had better things to do today.
Thank God I figured out what they were and did them.
The book, all about "mermaid" things to make, has proven to be a challenge. Its various colorfully illustrated craft projects are tantalizing but tricky for a young child without extensive help from an adult.
Today, the coveted prize was a "seashell purse" made from formed paper, cardboard, and lots and lots of paint and glitter. Mermaids must have glittery purses, I'm told.
Preoccupied with other more pressing things, I'm ashamed to admit I was relieved when I realized we didn't have some of the necessary supplies -- glitter among them -- to make the purse but then my daughter said, "Well, it IS still daylight. Can't we just go to Hobby Lobby?"
Sigh.
To know her is to love her and to love her amazing sense of pragmatism. It was so simple: Don't have it? Just go get it!
So we did, and when we got home it was really time to start supper but the child said earnestly, "Now that we have everything, I think we should at least get started."
Translated, this means, "Momma, the others don't need to eat but I do need this paper and cardboard seashell purse so never mind everyone else, just help me make the darn thing."
Reluctantly -- because I also really wanted to catch a quick peek at my email before I started cooking -- I sat down with the craft book in front of me and carefully analyzed the half million steps necessary for completing the purse.
Did I mention the numerous steps involved?
An hour later we had completed Seashell Purse Phase I and my daughter was satisfied I wasn't going to bail on the remainder of the project. After all, we'd come too far to abandon our effort now.
Did I say "our"?
I meant, "my" as in "MY effort." While it's true the seashell purse is for my daughter and she is the one who initiated the whole production, I am the hired help who sat and traced and cut and shaped paper and then slathered Mod Podge over the whole thing before blanketing it with colored tissue paper.
To be fair, my daughter did tear the tissue paper into pieces for me. Oh, and she did offer helpful hints when it came time to cut the purse out of cardboard.
So with Phase I in the can, I was allowed to take a breather.
Woefully I began to survey all that had remained undone during my pursuit of a purse to rival those of Louis Vuitton.
A pile of unfolded laundry. Dishes in the sink. Trash to be taken out. Books to be reshelved. Clothes to be washed. Rugs to be vacuumed. Checks to write and bills to pay.
Then I glanced over at the counter where earlier I'd been sorting photos of my children from the past several years. My throat tightened as it dawned on me how little the kids in those pictures were -- too little to make seashell purses or read stories of mermaids or use scissors or glue or sequins. And I remembered how especially in those early days of motherhood I eagerly anticipated a future in which I'd sit around a table with my little ones to share in the fun of arts and crafts.
That's when it hit me hard. Today was that day! The future was now! And I nearly blew it off in favor of a nap or yet another load of laundry?
Suddenly, the seashell purse has became the most important goal I have, and I made a point to reassure my daughter we'll finish it up tomorrow.
Tidying up the house after the kids were all in bed, I marvelled at how quickly the future of a few years back was now sitting squarely upon me as the present. Picking scraps of tissue paper off the floor and scraping glue off the kitchen table reminded me that, indeed, I had better things to do today.
Thank God I figured out what they were and did them.
June 5, 2009
The death of George Tiller
George Tiller was shot to death while serving at his church last week. It's bad enough to be killed in a house of worship, but it's even worse when your death gets lost amid the neverending debate about the ethics of abortion.
Tiller left behind a wife, four children, and some grandchildren. To them, he was Husband, Dad, Grandpa. He wasn't the infamous late-term abortionist whose very existence was a lightning rod for heated dissent.
He wasn't the man who, on one hand, served his Lutheran church faithfully for years while making a living terminating pregnancies well up into the ninth month.
He wasn't the man who, upon being wounded in both arms once before, vowed to continue his practice, cloaking it in the guise of helping women.
He also wasn't the man who singlehandedly had enough clout to bring about an end to society's acceptance of late-term abortion but never saw fit to try.
Some critics of Tiller's critics said that messages of condolence espousing a genuine respect for all life -- even Tiller's -- were insincere and that secretly they were glad he was gone.
I'm not sure "glad" would be the right word. Perhaps relieved?
Tiller committed no provable crime according to the laws of his state or the federal government so I can't support his murder, nor can I agree that depriving his children and grandchildren of his companionship is acceptable.
But Tiller did commit moral crimes, hundreds of them, and I'm not surprised it finally caught up with him.
Some would call it bad karma. Others would eschew such a supernatural law.
Me, I call it going out on a limb one too many times. Eventually it breaks and brings you down with it.
Tiller had choices. He just didn't make a good one.
Tiller left behind a wife, four children, and some grandchildren. To them, he was Husband, Dad, Grandpa. He wasn't the infamous late-term abortionist whose very existence was a lightning rod for heated dissent.
He wasn't the man who, on one hand, served his Lutheran church faithfully for years while making a living terminating pregnancies well up into the ninth month.
He wasn't the man who, upon being wounded in both arms once before, vowed to continue his practice, cloaking it in the guise of helping women.
He also wasn't the man who singlehandedly had enough clout to bring about an end to society's acceptance of late-term abortion but never saw fit to try.
Some critics of Tiller's critics said that messages of condolence espousing a genuine respect for all life -- even Tiller's -- were insincere and that secretly they were glad he was gone.
I'm not sure "glad" would be the right word. Perhaps relieved?
Tiller committed no provable crime according to the laws of his state or the federal government so I can't support his murder, nor can I agree that depriving his children and grandchildren of his companionship is acceptable.
But Tiller did commit moral crimes, hundreds of them, and I'm not surprised it finally caught up with him.
Some would call it bad karma. Others would eschew such a supernatural law.
Me, I call it going out on a limb one too many times. Eventually it breaks and brings you down with it.
Tiller had choices. He just didn't make a good one.
Aren't they always "good boys"?
One thing I've noticed over the many years of reading news stories that nearly every time someone's son, juvenile or adult, is implicated in a heinous crime their behavior is dismissed by family or friends because, after all, he's a "good boy" and thus incapable of rape, molestation or murder.
And so it goes with four boys down in Florida, all of them middle school students who have been charged as adults for repeated sexual assault of a 13-year-old male classmate in the boys' locker room.
The boys have all admitted to the crime. One of them is 15, the other three are 14.
Even more frustrating than the fact that such young people voluntarily engaged in such horrific behavior is the fact that the assaults were witnessed on several occasions by others who NEVER CAME FORWARD to let school officials know this was happening.
To say that everyone involved -- alleged perpetrators and witnesses -- suffers from an extreme lack of integrity is an understatement. What compels some kids to do these things and others to be complicit by their silence?
The headline to this story would have been enough for me if I hadn't been so curious to see whether the "good boy" card would be pulled.
Sure enough, towards the bottom of the piece, "Defense attorneys told the judge their clients were good students and had never been in trouble before. Attorney Tim Taylor, representing Randall Moye, said his client's family is among the finest in the community.
So what are they saying? Aliens stole these kids' brains and turned them into hateful, vicious monsters?
Once again, someone has confused good grades and admirable lineage with character.
And so it goes with four boys down in Florida, all of them middle school students who have been charged as adults for repeated sexual assault of a 13-year-old male classmate in the boys' locker room.
The boys have all admitted to the crime. One of them is 15, the other three are 14.
Even more frustrating than the fact that such young people voluntarily engaged in such horrific behavior is the fact that the assaults were witnessed on several occasions by others who NEVER CAME FORWARD to let school officials know this was happening.
To say that everyone involved -- alleged perpetrators and witnesses -- suffers from an extreme lack of integrity is an understatement. What compels some kids to do these things and others to be complicit by their silence?
The headline to this story would have been enough for me if I hadn't been so curious to see whether the "good boy" card would be pulled.
Sure enough, towards the bottom of the piece, "Defense attorneys told the judge their clients were good students and had never been in trouble before. Attorney Tim Taylor, representing Randall Moye, said his client's family is among the finest in the community.
So what are they saying? Aliens stole these kids' brains and turned them into hateful, vicious monsters?
Once again, someone has confused good grades and admirable lineage with character.
May 24, 2009
Soldiers we're supposed to forget
My family tree is riddled with soldiers, so Memorial Day holds deep and varied meanings for me. My earliest documented fighting ancestor decided he didn't want to live under British rule and so signed up to be an American patriot in time for the Revolutionary War. My most recent military relatives include a cousin who spent much of 2007-08 at an airbase outside of Baghdad and another who currently serves in the tarpit known as Afghanistan.
In between my revolutionary great-great-great-great-great grandfather and my cousins there is a whole host of other fighting men I'm proud to claim as my own.
My father's three older brothers each served their time during WWII, one in airplanes over Europe, another on the ground at the infamous Battle of the Bulge, and one in the Pacific. My dad was drafted during the Korean War, doing his time stateside but doing it nonetheless. My mother's brother served in the Navy, and his son is the one who went to Iraq.
Further back in time, though, are the Confederates, the men who took up arms against the North during the Civil War. They had no way to know they were destined to become part of a national identity crisis that some believe will begin to abate now that a black president has been elected.
My great-great grandfather could never have predicted that his descendents would be asked to bury his memory alongside his bones and thereafter speak of him only in hushed, apologetic tones.
Veterans groups nationwide cringe at the thought of including Confederate representation in their parades and commemorations and, indeed, some have banned them altogether. The Politically Correct Among Us are all too happy to protest any symbolism associated with Civil War soldiers from the South, so the pressure to keep things nice and comfy is huge.
Confederates go largely unnoticed by all but a handful of dedicated genealogists, Civil War buffs, and people like me who owe their very existence to the fact that at least some southern soldiers made it back alive.
None of the the men in my family who fought for the South in the years 1861-65 owned slaves. Not a one. They were fathers, brothers, sons, farmers, shopkeepers, several of them were dirt-poor and there was only one with any college education.
Two families each sent three sons to war. One family got all theirs back. The other family lost two.
The surviving son, John Stephens, made it back to Arkansas where he married, had twelve children, and became in time a banker and respected member of his community. One of his daughters taught first grade for 50 years, helped care for her infirm and aging older siblings, believed in God with a quiet tenacity, and raised a child in spite of an alcoholic husband whom she quickly summoned the courage to divorce. That child was my grandmother and she used to tell me stories about her grandparents and their hardships after the war during Reconstruction.
John's two brothers died far from home. The one buried in Macon, Ga. has a tombstone with his last name misspelled. The other, blown to pieces by a cannonball during the Battle of Vicksburg, was never buried because there wasn't much left, my grandmother said.
Another Confederate ancestor was only 16 when he was wounded in battle and piled atop a wagon to be taken to a prisoner of war hospital near Citronelle, Al. He was eventually released and made it home to Arkansas minus an arm.
There are others in my family, but these give a glimpse into the lives and sacrifices of the soldiers we're all supposed to forget.
What I can't forget, and what I won't let my children forget, either, is that these Civil War kin had names. They were someone's son, brother, husband, father, friend. They fought a war without penicillin, clean clothes, armored tanks, anesthesia, night-vision goggles, automatic rifles, the internet, bottled water, USO shows, MREs, or Chapstick and Off!.
I'm proud of them for doing what they thought was right at the time, for having the courage of their convictions and for enduring unimaginable pain and suffering in defense of their "country."
Some of you reading this will not agree. You'll say the southern soldiers deserved every hardship that came their way. You'll want to vilify them for supporting slavery because you'll have not read your history books to know their cause was nowhere near that simple.
But in our family, on this 'blog, on this day, we remember with love and gratitude John H. Stephens, Benjamin F. Stephens, William G. Stephens, Thomas Hamby, Elijah T. Wells, John Blevins, William Blevins, and Hugh A. Blevins, Jr.
They, too, were America's sons. Part of her family. Part of mine.
In between my revolutionary great-great-great-great-great grandfather and my cousins there is a whole host of other fighting men I'm proud to claim as my own.
My father's three older brothers each served their time during WWII, one in airplanes over Europe, another on the ground at the infamous Battle of the Bulge, and one in the Pacific. My dad was drafted during the Korean War, doing his time stateside but doing it nonetheless. My mother's brother served in the Navy, and his son is the one who went to Iraq.
Further back in time, though, are the Confederates, the men who took up arms against the North during the Civil War. They had no way to know they were destined to become part of a national identity crisis that some believe will begin to abate now that a black president has been elected.
My great-great grandfather could never have predicted that his descendents would be asked to bury his memory alongside his bones and thereafter speak of him only in hushed, apologetic tones.
Veterans groups nationwide cringe at the thought of including Confederate representation in their parades and commemorations and, indeed, some have banned them altogether. The Politically Correct Among Us are all too happy to protest any symbolism associated with Civil War soldiers from the South, so the pressure to keep things nice and comfy is huge.
Confederates go largely unnoticed by all but a handful of dedicated genealogists, Civil War buffs, and people like me who owe their very existence to the fact that at least some southern soldiers made it back alive.
None of the the men in my family who fought for the South in the years 1861-65 owned slaves. Not a one. They were fathers, brothers, sons, farmers, shopkeepers, several of them were dirt-poor and there was only one with any college education.
Two families each sent three sons to war. One family got all theirs back. The other family lost two.
The surviving son, John Stephens, made it back to Arkansas where he married, had twelve children, and became in time a banker and respected member of his community. One of his daughters taught first grade for 50 years, helped care for her infirm and aging older siblings, believed in God with a quiet tenacity, and raised a child in spite of an alcoholic husband whom she quickly summoned the courage to divorce. That child was my grandmother and she used to tell me stories about her grandparents and their hardships after the war during Reconstruction.
John's two brothers died far from home. The one buried in Macon, Ga. has a tombstone with his last name misspelled. The other, blown to pieces by a cannonball during the Battle of Vicksburg, was never buried because there wasn't much left, my grandmother said.
Another Confederate ancestor was only 16 when he was wounded in battle and piled atop a wagon to be taken to a prisoner of war hospital near Citronelle, Al. He was eventually released and made it home to Arkansas minus an arm.
There are others in my family, but these give a glimpse into the lives and sacrifices of the soldiers we're all supposed to forget.
What I can't forget, and what I won't let my children forget, either, is that these Civil War kin had names. They were someone's son, brother, husband, father, friend. They fought a war without penicillin, clean clothes, armored tanks, anesthesia, night-vision goggles, automatic rifles, the internet, bottled water, USO shows, MREs, or Chapstick and Off!.
I'm proud of them for doing what they thought was right at the time, for having the courage of their convictions and for enduring unimaginable pain and suffering in defense of their "country."
Some of you reading this will not agree. You'll say the southern soldiers deserved every hardship that came their way. You'll want to vilify them for supporting slavery because you'll have not read your history books to know their cause was nowhere near that simple.
But in our family, on this 'blog, on this day, we remember with love and gratitude John H. Stephens, Benjamin F. Stephens, William G. Stephens, Thomas Hamby, Elijah T. Wells, John Blevins, William Blevins, and Hugh A. Blevins, Jr.
They, too, were America's sons. Part of her family. Part of mine.
May 11, 2009
Pillowcases For Mother's Day
It's hard to escape the fact that I'm a mother. After all, four little voices and four sets of needs, confront me every hour of every day, reminding me, cajoling me, rebuking me for all that I have or have not done to make their lives paradise on earth.
So when the older ones realized Mother's Day was coming up, they began to regale me with promises of treasures untold, each one trying to outdo the other in the, "Just wait until you see what I give you" department.
I wish I could say I didn't have a favorite gift this year, but I'd be lying.
One of my daughters wrote for me a sweet poem that actually rhymes. She's not prone to spontaneously generated verse, so this is pretty precious.
Another of my girls drew for me a beautiful picture of red roses. She's our resident artist, so this offering was not entirely unexpected, although it, too, is very much appreciated.
No, the clincher -- the gift of all gifts to give a weary mum on her special day -- came from my rambunctious, sometimes obnoxious, always handsome and astonishingly brilliant four-year-old son.
No candy, no writing, no flowers. Just. . . pillowcases.
Two of them. Blue cotton sateen.
"Mama," he said, his big blue eyes earnest in a face of delicate features, "I'm going to give you a present for Mother's Day. Do you know what I'm going to give you? I'm going to go up and get something from my room and that will be your present."
He often complains he doesn't have any money and won't have any until he grows up and becomes an electrician and buys his own house and little car to drive around. This day was no different. "I'm just a little kid and little kids don't have lots of money," he said, his voice trailing off as he went up the stairs to his room.
When he returned, he was hiding something behind his back and excitedly asked me to guess what it was. When I couldn't, he proudly produced the two pillowcases packaged in a little drawstring bag just as I'd bought them on sale some months ago to use in his room. That was then. Now they took on a whole new aura -- they'd become a Mother's Day present.
"Do you love them?" my son asked gravely. "Will you put them on your pillows tonight?"
I assured him his dad and I would be thrilled to have nice new pillowcases on our pillows that night and for many nights to come and he seemed satisfied that his mission was complete.
"Now I'm going to give you a big Mother's Day hug," he said. "Even though you are big you are still precious so I'll call you precious."
And with that, two little wiry arms wrapped themselves tightly around my waist.
I'd originally hoped to get a nap for Mother's Day. That didn't happen, but in retrospect I got something much more useful and enduring. Every time those blue pillowcases make an appearance on our bed, I'll be reminded of the deep and sincere heart of a four-year-old boy and the privilege I've been given of being his mother.
Thanks, God.
So when the older ones realized Mother's Day was coming up, they began to regale me with promises of treasures untold, each one trying to outdo the other in the, "Just wait until you see what I give you" department.
I wish I could say I didn't have a favorite gift this year, but I'd be lying.
One of my daughters wrote for me a sweet poem that actually rhymes. She's not prone to spontaneously generated verse, so this is pretty precious.
Another of my girls drew for me a beautiful picture of red roses. She's our resident artist, so this offering was not entirely unexpected, although it, too, is very much appreciated.
No, the clincher -- the gift of all gifts to give a weary mum on her special day -- came from my rambunctious, sometimes obnoxious, always handsome and astonishingly brilliant four-year-old son.
No candy, no writing, no flowers. Just. . . pillowcases.
Two of them. Blue cotton sateen.
"Mama," he said, his big blue eyes earnest in a face of delicate features, "I'm going to give you a present for Mother's Day. Do you know what I'm going to give you? I'm going to go up and get something from my room and that will be your present."
He often complains he doesn't have any money and won't have any until he grows up and becomes an electrician and buys his own house and little car to drive around. This day was no different. "I'm just a little kid and little kids don't have lots of money," he said, his voice trailing off as he went up the stairs to his room.
When he returned, he was hiding something behind his back and excitedly asked me to guess what it was. When I couldn't, he proudly produced the two pillowcases packaged in a little drawstring bag just as I'd bought them on sale some months ago to use in his room. That was then. Now they took on a whole new aura -- they'd become a Mother's Day present.
"Do you love them?" my son asked gravely. "Will you put them on your pillows tonight?"
I assured him his dad and I would be thrilled to have nice new pillowcases on our pillows that night and for many nights to come and he seemed satisfied that his mission was complete.
"Now I'm going to give you a big Mother's Day hug," he said. "Even though you are big you are still precious so I'll call you precious."
And with that, two little wiry arms wrapped themselves tightly around my waist.
I'd originally hoped to get a nap for Mother's Day. That didn't happen, but in retrospect I got something much more useful and enduring. Every time those blue pillowcases make an appearance on our bed, I'll be reminded of the deep and sincere heart of a four-year-old boy and the privilege I've been given of being his mother.
Thanks, God.
April 29, 2009
What one pageant bigwig says about the Bible
Keith Lewis is the co-executive state pageant director for the Miss California competition. He is also gay and while his remarks towards Miss California Carrie Prejean -- the one who had the audacity to say she thought marriage should be defined as being between a man and a woman -- were much more diplomatic than some, he also offers up the thoroughly modern opinion of what the Bible is and what it represents. Sadly, Mr. Lewis is in good company and that's why folks like Ms. Prejean face such stinging rebuke when they use the Good Book to support their positions.
As quoted on FoxNews.com, Mr. Lewis, who was raised Christian, says, "(T)he Bible I have now come to know is an amazing historical document that was written in a time by people who had a different understanding of what our world was. We live in a world that’s very different at this point, our understanding is very different."
Ah, there it is. The left-handed compliment. The Bible, an amazing historical document, but definitely not the Word of God, a living book of rules to safely guide those who will follow it.
Nope, it's just a bunch of dusty old stories told by crusty old men who obviously didn't have enough to do what with scratching out their livelihoods at a time when pretty much everyone had nothing. Give it no credit for changing lives, healing bodies, or otherwise forming the very foundations of civilized nations. Its contents have inspired no one to greater good, made no martyrs -- Harriett Tubman, Corrie Ten Boom, Abraham Lincoln, Florence Nightingale, Albert Schweitzer notwithstanding.
At least this is what athiests and all who are repulsed by its contents would have us believe.
I agree with Mr. Lewis that we do now live in a world that's very different from the one nearly 2000 years ago. It's different alright, but it's not necessarily better.
As quoted on FoxNews.com, Mr. Lewis, who was raised Christian, says, "(T)he Bible I have now come to know is an amazing historical document that was written in a time by people who had a different understanding of what our world was. We live in a world that’s very different at this point, our understanding is very different."
Ah, there it is. The left-handed compliment. The Bible, an amazing historical document, but definitely not the Word of God, a living book of rules to safely guide those who will follow it.
Nope, it's just a bunch of dusty old stories told by crusty old men who obviously didn't have enough to do what with scratching out their livelihoods at a time when pretty much everyone had nothing. Give it no credit for changing lives, healing bodies, or otherwise forming the very foundations of civilized nations. Its contents have inspired no one to greater good, made no martyrs -- Harriett Tubman, Corrie Ten Boom, Abraham Lincoln, Florence Nightingale, Albert Schweitzer notwithstanding.
At least this is what athiests and all who are repulsed by its contents would have us believe.
I agree with Mr. Lewis that we do now live in a world that's very different from the one nearly 2000 years ago. It's different alright, but it's not necessarily better.
April 21, 2009
The beauty queen and the Book of Hebrews
By now, you've likely heard about the obnoxious and politically-charged remarks of gossip columnist Perez Hilton directed at Carrie Prejean, the 21-year-old woman who represented California in Sunday's Miss USA beauty competition.
Hilton was one of the contest's judges and Prejean, favored to win the competition, drew his question and ultimately his wrath.
When asked what she thought about legalizing gay marriage, Prejean said she thought marriage should be defined as a union between a man and a woman.
That answer cost her the crown.
As if losing the title wasn't bad enough, Hilton saw fit to castigate Prejean on his 'blog, calling her all manner of foul and obscene names.
Hilton is a vile little man whose only claim to fame is gossiping about Hollywood's rich and famous. Prejean is just 21 -- someone's beautiful, smart, and obviously courageous daughter whose decision to honestly answer a question seemed to result in a big loss.
But maybe not.
Prejean, a Christian, says she just couldn't bring herself to compromise her beliefs. Coincidentally, the May 4 issue of a magazine called the Christian Science Sentinel features an article by Principia College Professor of Religious Studies Michael Hamilton in which he explores the topic of how the New Testament holds the keys to a more God-based life. Hamilton writes, "Hebrews appears to be addressed to a people who believe that they have lost everything: their status, their respectability, and their place in the community. Their loyalty to Jesus has apparently cost them their membership in the Jewish synagogues; they are being shunned by the religious authorities and their countrymen. Under the stress of such circumstances, why live a Christ-based life? Is it too hard, or worth the effort?"
Hamilton then quotes Hebrews 3:14. "We are made partakers of Christ if we hold the beginning of our confidence steadfast unto the end."
I don't know Carrie Prejean, but I like her a lot and if she was my daughter I'd be bursting with pride right about now. It's not because she managed to piss off the Politically Correct that prey upon us at every twist and turn or because she tweaked the twerpy Perez Hilton. No, I like her because she spoke the truth as she knows it to be and did so unequivocally and unashamed. And in the days after the pageant, she refuses to waffle or retract.
With character like that, she did well to lose out on the beauty competition. She's obviously destined for greater things.
Congratulations, Carrie. You've just restored my faith in the next generation.
And btw, Hilton's trashy insult in which he called Prejean a "dumb b**ch," just proves how dumb HE is. Prejean is studying for her bachelor's degree with plans to earn a master's in special education. She has also been involved in several faith-based outreach programs including one to help young women victimized by the pornography industry, another to help mentor children in foster care and yet another to teach English to refugees.
Tell me again what Perez Hilton has contributed to the culture?
Hilton was one of the contest's judges and Prejean, favored to win the competition, drew his question and ultimately his wrath.
When asked what she thought about legalizing gay marriage, Prejean said she thought marriage should be defined as a union between a man and a woman.
That answer cost her the crown.
As if losing the title wasn't bad enough, Hilton saw fit to castigate Prejean on his 'blog, calling her all manner of foul and obscene names.
Hilton is a vile little man whose only claim to fame is gossiping about Hollywood's rich and famous. Prejean is just 21 -- someone's beautiful, smart, and obviously courageous daughter whose decision to honestly answer a question seemed to result in a big loss.
But maybe not.
Prejean, a Christian, says she just couldn't bring herself to compromise her beliefs. Coincidentally, the May 4 issue of a magazine called the Christian Science Sentinel features an article by Principia College Professor of Religious Studies Michael Hamilton in which he explores the topic of how the New Testament holds the keys to a more God-based life. Hamilton writes, "Hebrews appears to be addressed to a people who believe that they have lost everything: their status, their respectability, and their place in the community. Their loyalty to Jesus has apparently cost them their membership in the Jewish synagogues; they are being shunned by the religious authorities and their countrymen. Under the stress of such circumstances, why live a Christ-based life? Is it too hard, or worth the effort?"
Hamilton then quotes Hebrews 3:14. "We are made partakers of Christ if we hold the beginning of our confidence steadfast unto the end."
I don't know Carrie Prejean, but I like her a lot and if she was my daughter I'd be bursting with pride right about now. It's not because she managed to piss off the Politically Correct that prey upon us at every twist and turn or because she tweaked the twerpy Perez Hilton. No, I like her because she spoke the truth as she knows it to be and did so unequivocally and unashamed. And in the days after the pageant, she refuses to waffle or retract.
With character like that, she did well to lose out on the beauty competition. She's obviously destined for greater things.
Congratulations, Carrie. You've just restored my faith in the next generation.
And btw, Hilton's trashy insult in which he called Prejean a "dumb b**ch," just proves how dumb HE is. Prejean is studying for her bachelor's degree with plans to earn a master's in special education. She has also been involved in several faith-based outreach programs including one to help young women victimized by the pornography industry, another to help mentor children in foster care and yet another to teach English to refugees.
Tell me again what Perez Hilton has contributed to the culture?
April 20, 2009
Columbine
Every once in awhile someone asks me why our family decided to homeschool our children. I always wish I had a lofty, highbrow answer to give -- something along the lines of, "Oh, my husband and I both speak eight languages, do complex mathematical equations over brunch, and read in Latin and Greek for entertainment so we want to make sure our children visit Cambridge at least twice a year and have an audience with winners of the Nobel Prize in science."
But I can't lie. The truth is that we plunged headlong into homeschooling while our first child was still in utero because of Columbine.
I didn't know it at the time, but the life I was living and thought I'd continue to live was radically changing as the events of the morning of April 20, 1999 unfolded.
That day, the day two highschoolers shot up Columbine High School in Littleton, CO and killed 12 of their classmates, a coach, and finally themselves sent shockwaves across the nation.
One of those waves hit me right in the stomach, figuratively speaking, where my firstborn child floated in the dark safety of my womb.
I was only four months pregnant and this baby meant more to me than, well, life itself. I'd been coming to grips with the fact that babies take your energy and turn it back on you, that they come into the world the center of your universe and duly self-centered.
But I didn't plan for a tragedy to take the model of maternal self sacrifice to a whole other level.
When I got home from work and flipped on the TV only to see the endless loop of footage from Colorado, I snapped.
All I could think about was how the parents of Cassie Bernall, Rachel Scott, Corey DePooter, Isaiah Shoels, Daniel Mauser, Daniel Rohrbough, Kyle Velasquez, Steven Curnow, Matthew Kechter, Lauren Townsend, John Tomlin and Kelly Fleming sent them off to school that morning, fully expecting them to return home alive and well that afternoon.
Their precious and beloved sons, their beautiful and talented daughters -- all gone.
A lot of folks mourned the loss of those young lives. I found myself mourning for their parents. So many dreams and expectations . . .
Sheer panic swept over me and I began to cry, wondering how on earth I'd ever be able to let my child go off to school on that fateful, inevitable First Day.
What if she didn't come home? What if, what if, what if?
When my husband got home from work that night, I told him I wasn't letting our daughter go off to school. "Never?" he asked, a bit perplexed but also wary of a pregnant woman with a vow and a mission. "Never," I affirmed. "At least not for many, many years and even then we'll have to weigh it carefully."
And thus it was that we decided to homeschool. In the beginning, we did it out of paranoia, fear and the near-obsessive love most parents feel at the sight of their newborn child.
Over time, we began to see other virtues to our new way of thinking and living with our daughter as we added more children and delved into the astonishing array of learning opportunities unconfined and undefined by traditional classroom walls.
I don't know whether we'd have opted to homeschool if there had been no Columbine. I wish I did. I wish I could say unequivocally that we were dedicated to the ultimate sacrificial style of parenting from the day I found out I was pregnant, but I'd be lying.
Teaching your own children is not easy, it's not even always fun. It doesn't come with an ironclad guarantee that your kids won't grow up to do stupid or bad things and it does usually force radical restructuring of every single priority. It leaves scant room for self indulgence. It compels a family togetherness practically unheard of in an age in which children and parents are regularly disconnected from each other by space, time, and multiple love affairs with televisions, video games, cell phones and computers.
Columbine propelled me into the best life I never dreamed I'd have even as it shattered the lives of so many others, and it taught me from the very beginning of my parenting experience that every day with our children is a gift of monumental importance.
In memory.
But I can't lie. The truth is that we plunged headlong into homeschooling while our first child was still in utero because of Columbine.
I didn't know it at the time, but the life I was living and thought I'd continue to live was radically changing as the events of the morning of April 20, 1999 unfolded.
That day, the day two highschoolers shot up Columbine High School in Littleton, CO and killed 12 of their classmates, a coach, and finally themselves sent shockwaves across the nation.
One of those waves hit me right in the stomach, figuratively speaking, where my firstborn child floated in the dark safety of my womb.
I was only four months pregnant and this baby meant more to me than, well, life itself. I'd been coming to grips with the fact that babies take your energy and turn it back on you, that they come into the world the center of your universe and duly self-centered.
But I didn't plan for a tragedy to take the model of maternal self sacrifice to a whole other level.
When I got home from work and flipped on the TV only to see the endless loop of footage from Colorado, I snapped.
All I could think about was how the parents of Cassie Bernall, Rachel Scott, Corey DePooter, Isaiah Shoels, Daniel Mauser, Daniel Rohrbough, Kyle Velasquez, Steven Curnow, Matthew Kechter, Lauren Townsend, John Tomlin and Kelly Fleming sent them off to school that morning, fully expecting them to return home alive and well that afternoon.
Their precious and beloved sons, their beautiful and talented daughters -- all gone.
A lot of folks mourned the loss of those young lives. I found myself mourning for their parents. So many dreams and expectations . . .
Sheer panic swept over me and I began to cry, wondering how on earth I'd ever be able to let my child go off to school on that fateful, inevitable First Day.
What if she didn't come home? What if, what if, what if?
When my husband got home from work that night, I told him I wasn't letting our daughter go off to school. "Never?" he asked, a bit perplexed but also wary of a pregnant woman with a vow and a mission. "Never," I affirmed. "At least not for many, many years and even then we'll have to weigh it carefully."
And thus it was that we decided to homeschool. In the beginning, we did it out of paranoia, fear and the near-obsessive love most parents feel at the sight of their newborn child.
Over time, we began to see other virtues to our new way of thinking and living with our daughter as we added more children and delved into the astonishing array of learning opportunities unconfined and undefined by traditional classroom walls.
I don't know whether we'd have opted to homeschool if there had been no Columbine. I wish I did. I wish I could say unequivocally that we were dedicated to the ultimate sacrificial style of parenting from the day I found out I was pregnant, but I'd be lying.
Teaching your own children is not easy, it's not even always fun. It doesn't come with an ironclad guarantee that your kids won't grow up to do stupid or bad things and it does usually force radical restructuring of every single priority. It leaves scant room for self indulgence. It compels a family togetherness practically unheard of in an age in which children and parents are regularly disconnected from each other by space, time, and multiple love affairs with televisions, video games, cell phones and computers.
Columbine propelled me into the best life I never dreamed I'd have even as it shattered the lives of so many others, and it taught me from the very beginning of my parenting experience that every day with our children is a gift of monumental importance.
In memory.
April 16, 2009
We needed Susan Boyle
Thanks, Scotland, for sharing your hidden treasure with us. I'm referring to Susan Boyle, the 47-year-old woman who went onstage recently before American Idol's curmudgeonly Simon Cowell and his co-judges for the British version of the show.
Boyle is unemployed, has never been married, and lived with her mother for many years taking care of her until her recent death. Boyle is not a physically beautiful woman.
I can say that last line without a hint of shame because she and I have much in common. At 43, I'm not thin, my hair is not styled, my clothes are not fashionable, and I could give a professional makeover crew a run for their money.
Now, though, thanks to Boyle I'm not even gonna bother.
So what is Susan Boyle's sudden and breathtaking claim to fame?
She sings like an angel.
Cowell and his skeptical audience were fighting off a bad case of the snickers and smug head waggings when Boyle came out on stage to perform. She was tongue-tied, unsteady in her dowdy heels, and not at all the poster child for poised, fabulous talent.
Then she opened her mouth.
Out came the incredibly beautiful but difficult song, "I Dreamed A Dream" from the musical Les Miserables and the judges and audience went wild.
Oh, and a lot of them cried.
Judging from reader comments on British newspaper sites, the makers of Kleenex should have seen a spike in their stock prices following Boyle's performance because crying is listed as the first and most popular reaction to watching her video.
I myself contributed to that spike. I've watched Boyle's online video about five times now and just can't fight back the tears. I'm not sure why. Maybe it's the song with its lyrics of a life wasted and vanished dreams. Maybe it's the surprise of seeing Boyle, so plain, so regular looking cut loose with a voice as good as any pro. Or maybe it's watching the very obvious transformation of a skeptical, haughty audience and the show's judges as they struggle to reconcile their ears with their eyes.
Susan Boyle has done more for middle-aged women in under three minutes than all the self-help books, well-meaning counselors, beauty consultants and Photo Shop airbrush artists ever could.
She's reaffirmed the worth of the individual from the inside out.
I wish she didn't live so far away. I really want to hug her.
Boyle is unemployed, has never been married, and lived with her mother for many years taking care of her until her recent death. Boyle is not a physically beautiful woman.
I can say that last line without a hint of shame because she and I have much in common. At 43, I'm not thin, my hair is not styled, my clothes are not fashionable, and I could give a professional makeover crew a run for their money.
Now, though, thanks to Boyle I'm not even gonna bother.
So what is Susan Boyle's sudden and breathtaking claim to fame?
She sings like an angel.
Cowell and his skeptical audience were fighting off a bad case of the snickers and smug head waggings when Boyle came out on stage to perform. She was tongue-tied, unsteady in her dowdy heels, and not at all the poster child for poised, fabulous talent.
Then she opened her mouth.
Out came the incredibly beautiful but difficult song, "I Dreamed A Dream" from the musical Les Miserables and the judges and audience went wild.
Oh, and a lot of them cried.
Judging from reader comments on British newspaper sites, the makers of Kleenex should have seen a spike in their stock prices following Boyle's performance because crying is listed as the first and most popular reaction to watching her video.
I myself contributed to that spike. I've watched Boyle's online video about five times now and just can't fight back the tears. I'm not sure why. Maybe it's the song with its lyrics of a life wasted and vanished dreams. Maybe it's the surprise of seeing Boyle, so plain, so regular looking cut loose with a voice as good as any pro. Or maybe it's watching the very obvious transformation of a skeptical, haughty audience and the show's judges as they struggle to reconcile their ears with their eyes.
Susan Boyle has done more for middle-aged women in under three minutes than all the self-help books, well-meaning counselors, beauty consultants and Photo Shop airbrush artists ever could.
She's reaffirmed the worth of the individual from the inside out.
I wish she didn't live so far away. I really want to hug her.
April 12, 2009
You might be a right-wing extremist if . . .
The U.S. Dept. of Homeland Security (is it just me or does even the name of this entity inspire disbelief) has released a report detailing characteristics of the population that will be assessed in the months and years to come as part of its effort to weed out right-wing extremists.
After reading the list, I'm beginning to think that not only do I meet many of the the criteria but so does just about everyone else I know.
At this rate, the department's job is exponentially bigger than I think it realizes.
You might be a right-wing extremist if:
You don't agree with the current president's policies (I don't)
You didn't vote for the current president (I didn't)
You believe America should be a sovereign nation and are concerned that it might not stay this way (I do and I am)
You are a professed (as opposed to underground) Christian (I am)
You don't like to pay income tax (I don't)
You're a U.S. soldier returning from duty overseas
You reject federal authority in favor of state or local authority (I think the feds mangle too many things)
You are opposed to ILLEGAL immigration (I am)
You are opposed to abortion (I am, with some caveats)
You are not in favor of increased restrictions on firearms (It depends)
You have more than a passing interest in so-called "end times prophesies" (Nope)
You have a bumper sticker on your vehicle touting Ron Paul, Bob Barr or other alternative presidential candidate (Nope)
You are a racist (No, but I know a couple of these and while their vitriol is offensive, I have to stand by their constitutional right to be morons)
My personal total is 9 out of a possible 13. I'm sure they omitted homeschooling by accident, otherwise I'd have 10 out of 14.
The report states the DHS will be working with state and local agencies over the next several months to determine the levels of right-wing extremist activity in the U.S.
Big Brother just keeps getting bigger.
If my 'blog disappears, you'll know why.
After reading the list, I'm beginning to think that not only do I meet many of the the criteria but so does just about everyone else I know.
At this rate, the department's job is exponentially bigger than I think it realizes.
You might be a right-wing extremist if:
You don't agree with the current president's policies (I don't)
You didn't vote for the current president (I didn't)
You believe America should be a sovereign nation and are concerned that it might not stay this way (I do and I am)
You are a professed (as opposed to underground) Christian (I am)
You don't like to pay income tax (I don't)
You're a U.S. soldier returning from duty overseas
You reject federal authority in favor of state or local authority (I think the feds mangle too many things)
You are opposed to ILLEGAL immigration (I am)
You are opposed to abortion (I am, with some caveats)
You are not in favor of increased restrictions on firearms (It depends)
You have more than a passing interest in so-called "end times prophesies" (Nope)
You have a bumper sticker on your vehicle touting Ron Paul, Bob Barr or other alternative presidential candidate (Nope)
You are a racist (No, but I know a couple of these and while their vitriol is offensive, I have to stand by their constitutional right to be morons)
My personal total is 9 out of a possible 13. I'm sure they omitted homeschooling by accident, otherwise I'd have 10 out of 14.
The report states the DHS will be working with state and local agencies over the next several months to determine the levels of right-wing extremist activity in the U.S.
Big Brother just keeps getting bigger.
If my 'blog disappears, you'll know why.
April 4, 2009
Wow, I must be REALLY good or else. . .
the standards of some public school teachers are really low.
I've recently been involved in an email discussion with a local school teacher about the controversial decision by our school district to put ads on the sides of its school buses beginning this fall. The goal is to raise money that the superintendent says the state cannot or will not pony up. I wrote to him and to an online community group expressing my dismay at such an uncreative and commercialized effort to raise cash. The aforementioned teacher saw my post to the community group and wrote to tell me she thinks the ads are a great idea and that, contrary to my assertion that students are being put up for sale to the highest bidder via the advertising campaign, "we are not selling kids."
I never said the district was going to sell kids. I said the district was going to sell advertising which, in turn, implies that products or services depicted on those ads are endorsed by the district. Not to mention the negative effects of even more commercial marketing targeted at young and impressionable minds.
Anyway, in my private reply to this teacher, I outlined in some detail my own thoughts on the subject based on ideas that resonated with me after reading other people's research as well as information from organizations such as Coalition for a Commercial-Free Childhood.
She wrote me back to say she "didn't need a novel" and that I'd done a good job "copying from some unnoted source."
Wow. I've been accused of plagiarism!!!! Because my own writing was, what, too lofty for a public school teacher who has communicated to me in unpunctuated, uncapitalized and incomplete sentences?
Maybe she thinks no real person really writes like I do unless they are old, obnoxiously scholarly and graduates of Oxford or Cambridge. Can't give credit to a good 'ol gal from South Texas?
There was no "unnoted source." It was all ME, my opinions, my sentence structure, my version of the ideas that are widely available to anyone literate and curious enough to ponder and dissect them.
I replied courteously enough, explaining that I have neither need nor desire to steal other people's words, but thanked her for thinking my work was too good for me to have produced.
Regular readers of this 'blog will vouch for my careful inclusion of reporters' names or original sources for excerpts from which I quote.
I've recently been involved in an email discussion with a local school teacher about the controversial decision by our school district to put ads on the sides of its school buses beginning this fall. The goal is to raise money that the superintendent says the state cannot or will not pony up. I wrote to him and to an online community group expressing my dismay at such an uncreative and commercialized effort to raise cash. The aforementioned teacher saw my post to the community group and wrote to tell me she thinks the ads are a great idea and that, contrary to my assertion that students are being put up for sale to the highest bidder via the advertising campaign, "we are not selling kids."
I never said the district was going to sell kids. I said the district was going to sell advertising which, in turn, implies that products or services depicted on those ads are endorsed by the district. Not to mention the negative effects of even more commercial marketing targeted at young and impressionable minds.
Anyway, in my private reply to this teacher, I outlined in some detail my own thoughts on the subject based on ideas that resonated with me after reading other people's research as well as information from organizations such as Coalition for a Commercial-Free Childhood.
She wrote me back to say she "didn't need a novel" and that I'd done a good job "copying from some unnoted source."
Wow. I've been accused of plagiarism!!!! Because my own writing was, what, too lofty for a public school teacher who has communicated to me in unpunctuated, uncapitalized and incomplete sentences?
Maybe she thinks no real person really writes like I do unless they are old, obnoxiously scholarly and graduates of Oxford or Cambridge. Can't give credit to a good 'ol gal from South Texas?
There was no "unnoted source." It was all ME, my opinions, my sentence structure, my version of the ideas that are widely available to anyone literate and curious enough to ponder and dissect them.
I replied courteously enough, explaining that I have neither need nor desire to steal other people's words, but thanked her for thinking my work was too good for me to have produced.
Regular readers of this 'blog will vouch for my careful inclusion of reporters' names or original sources for excerpts from which I quote.
March 30, 2009
She just doesn't understand
Last week I had a lady who paints murals and borders come to the house to give me an estimate on doing some work in my daughters' room. As she walked in our front door, her eyes were immediately drawn to our dining room on the left. This is where we do much of our homeschooling seatwork, and the table was covered that day -- as it is every day -- with books, papers, drawings, pencils, rulers, art supplies, plastic geometric solids, a puzzle or two, and a globe from the 1960s that I've marked up to reflect contemporary changes to geopolitical information. Oh yeah, I also drew the equator and prime meridian in with black permanent ink so they'd show up better.
Anyway, I quickly hurried her up the stairs to the room I wanted her to paint. As we reached the landing, I cautioned her to steer clear of the toys, dolls, books, train track pieces, and other miscellanea of childhood.
My daughters' room was actually quite tidy that day, but I could tell she wondered about my younger girl's small roll-top desk fairly bursting at the seams with papers, puzzle books, crayon box, paper dolls, sketch pad, and complete Hello Kitty art set in a hot pink plastic case. My older daughter's nightstand piled high with books was also a sight to behold.
After our consultation as to colors, mural theme, etc. we went back downstairs and finished up our visit in the entryway where only a legally blind person could miss the enormous pile of unfolded laundry on a bench nearby. That, and the equally enormous pile of folded laundry that rose up out of a chair in the family room back behind me.
Smiling, the woman said to let her know when we were ready to have her come to work her artistic magic, and as she walked out the front door she remarked, "You know, I have a good friend whose name I'd be happy to give you. She's a professional organizer and I know she could help you dig out from under all this. Is it alright if I give her your phone number?"
I mumbled something about having four children, homeschooling, and being abnormally busy 30 hours a day and then graciously thanked her for her concern. The personal organizer did call a few days later. For a minimum of $200 per three-hour session she could come to my house and make it into a showplace.
If I had that kind of cash to burn, it would be tempting. Tempting, but not likely to happen. Here's what she'd find and I just know she'd want me to re-shelve, discard, donate or hide all of it:
The "tares and the wheat" sculpture my girls made in Sunday School to illustrate the famous parable. It sits on our mantle and competes for visual attention with a colored picture one of my daughters taped up nearby.
The wooden bin near the fireplace that's overflowing with battered but much-loved board books my toddler son likes to "read."
The stack of empty cardboard boxes all four of my children use as cars, boats, planes and other modes of transportation.
The 3-D sculpture my oldest girl made from discarded objects as part of a study on recycling and the environment.
The stacks of books that appear every few days like sprouting mushrooms alongside every toilet in the house, the window seat in the kitchen, the sofa table, the end table near my comfy chair, the kitchen table, the kitchen counter, and on pretty much any flat surface not already occupied by other books. We have shelves, we just don't like the hassle of re-shelving books we know we're going to want to see again in the next 48 to 72 hours. My two oldest read voraciously and they're not picky about where they do it. My two youngest also like to study books and be read to, so we can't skimp on them, either. Since none of the kids ever watch TV or play video games, their books, each other, and the great outdoors ARE their entertainment.
The reams of paper and cardstock for use during art lessons, private drawing sessions, lapbooking, scrapbooking, and diagramming of everything from nuclear fusion to the water cycle. "Here, let's draw a picture so you can see how this works," is a familiar refrain around here.
The boxes of photographs and scrapbooking supplies that I need to chronicle the lives of my four beautiful and immensely entertaining children -- if I ever get enough downtime to actually do this.
The egg-carton "gardens" my girls made in Brownies that sit on the counter over my sink.
The costumes that drape themselves around the house after my younger daughter and her brother have finished playing yet another game of knights and princesses, cowboys and Indians, Pilgrims and Indians, Bible-era characters, or house with them as Mom and Dad and their little brother as the baby.
The train tracks, gears, flashlights, magnets, wires, and other gadgetry that belong to my inquisitive four-year-old son -- they are literally to be found in every room and in every configuration possible.
The magazines -- nature magazines, literature magazines, homeschooling magazines, current affairs magazines, religious magazines. We read 'em. We need 'em. We share 'em, we cut 'em up for notebooks and art projects. We like their portability so we keep stacks of them in the van for long trips.
The video camera I leave out in case one of the kids does some unusually and awesomely film-worthy thing. Or we see a cool bird, or it snows, or the children put on an impromptu dance recital.
The paper lanterns my kids made to celebrate Chinese New Year.
Boxes of completed homeschool workbooks, notebooks, and art projects. I save it all in case the state or anyone else REALLY wants to know what we've done these past three years. That's a lot of stuff to sift through. . .
Boxes of clothes catalogued by size and gender so I can find the next set of hand-me-downs as my kids grow.
Toys that all get played with, maybe not every day but by the end of a given month. Their worn places, scrapes and scratches attest to their regular use. "We love them all and we use them all," my six-year-old proclaims. "We get so busy going from one activity to the next we don't want to take time to put them away," she explains earnestly.
Puzzles for all age ranges -- some with missing pieces, true -- that escape their cabinet for the great outdoors of the family room.
Projects to be done on rainy days or the hot afternoons of upcoming summer -- papermaking kit, crystal growing kit, perler bead kit.
In short, the only way my house will ever make it into the annals of Better Homes and Gardens is if one of two things happens: Either my children all grow up and leave home or we stop homeschooling so we're never home to think, learn and do and, by default, mess things up.
Some days I wonder if the first will really ever happen, knowing we'll be sad when it does. But I never contemplate the second option.
I love my house because everywhere I go I am reminded of four beautiful brilliant minds hard at work on the mysteries of life, and this blesses me more than uber-neatness ever could.
Besides, $200 will buy a lot of books.
Anyway, I quickly hurried her up the stairs to the room I wanted her to paint. As we reached the landing, I cautioned her to steer clear of the toys, dolls, books, train track pieces, and other miscellanea of childhood.
My daughters' room was actually quite tidy that day, but I could tell she wondered about my younger girl's small roll-top desk fairly bursting at the seams with papers, puzzle books, crayon box, paper dolls, sketch pad, and complete Hello Kitty art set in a hot pink plastic case. My older daughter's nightstand piled high with books was also a sight to behold.
After our consultation as to colors, mural theme, etc. we went back downstairs and finished up our visit in the entryway where only a legally blind person could miss the enormous pile of unfolded laundry on a bench nearby. That, and the equally enormous pile of folded laundry that rose up out of a chair in the family room back behind me.
Smiling, the woman said to let her know when we were ready to have her come to work her artistic magic, and as she walked out the front door she remarked, "You know, I have a good friend whose name I'd be happy to give you. She's a professional organizer and I know she could help you dig out from under all this. Is it alright if I give her your phone number?"
I mumbled something about having four children, homeschooling, and being abnormally busy 30 hours a day and then graciously thanked her for her concern. The personal organizer did call a few days later. For a minimum of $200 per three-hour session she could come to my house and make it into a showplace.
If I had that kind of cash to burn, it would be tempting. Tempting, but not likely to happen. Here's what she'd find and I just know she'd want me to re-shelve, discard, donate or hide all of it:
The "tares and the wheat" sculpture my girls made in Sunday School to illustrate the famous parable. It sits on our mantle and competes for visual attention with a colored picture one of my daughters taped up nearby.
The wooden bin near the fireplace that's overflowing with battered but much-loved board books my toddler son likes to "read."
The stack of empty cardboard boxes all four of my children use as cars, boats, planes and other modes of transportation.
The 3-D sculpture my oldest girl made from discarded objects as part of a study on recycling and the environment.
The stacks of books that appear every few days like sprouting mushrooms alongside every toilet in the house, the window seat in the kitchen, the sofa table, the end table near my comfy chair, the kitchen table, the kitchen counter, and on pretty much any flat surface not already occupied by other books. We have shelves, we just don't like the hassle of re-shelving books we know we're going to want to see again in the next 48 to 72 hours. My two oldest read voraciously and they're not picky about where they do it. My two youngest also like to study books and be read to, so we can't skimp on them, either. Since none of the kids ever watch TV or play video games, their books, each other, and the great outdoors ARE their entertainment.
The reams of paper and cardstock for use during art lessons, private drawing sessions, lapbooking, scrapbooking, and diagramming of everything from nuclear fusion to the water cycle. "Here, let's draw a picture so you can see how this works," is a familiar refrain around here.
The boxes of photographs and scrapbooking supplies that I need to chronicle the lives of my four beautiful and immensely entertaining children -- if I ever get enough downtime to actually do this.
The egg-carton "gardens" my girls made in Brownies that sit on the counter over my sink.
The costumes that drape themselves around the house after my younger daughter and her brother have finished playing yet another game of knights and princesses, cowboys and Indians, Pilgrims and Indians, Bible-era characters, or house with them as Mom and Dad and their little brother as the baby.
The train tracks, gears, flashlights, magnets, wires, and other gadgetry that belong to my inquisitive four-year-old son -- they are literally to be found in every room and in every configuration possible.
The magazines -- nature magazines, literature magazines, homeschooling magazines, current affairs magazines, religious magazines. We read 'em. We need 'em. We share 'em, we cut 'em up for notebooks and art projects. We like their portability so we keep stacks of them in the van for long trips.
The video camera I leave out in case one of the kids does some unusually and awesomely film-worthy thing. Or we see a cool bird, or it snows, or the children put on an impromptu dance recital.
The paper lanterns my kids made to celebrate Chinese New Year.
Boxes of completed homeschool workbooks, notebooks, and art projects. I save it all in case the state or anyone else REALLY wants to know what we've done these past three years. That's a lot of stuff to sift through. . .
Boxes of clothes catalogued by size and gender so I can find the next set of hand-me-downs as my kids grow.
Toys that all get played with, maybe not every day but by the end of a given month. Their worn places, scrapes and scratches attest to their regular use. "We love them all and we use them all," my six-year-old proclaims. "We get so busy going from one activity to the next we don't want to take time to put them away," she explains earnestly.
Puzzles for all age ranges -- some with missing pieces, true -- that escape their cabinet for the great outdoors of the family room.
Projects to be done on rainy days or the hot afternoons of upcoming summer -- papermaking kit, crystal growing kit, perler bead kit.
In short, the only way my house will ever make it into the annals of Better Homes and Gardens is if one of two things happens: Either my children all grow up and leave home or we stop homeschooling so we're never home to think, learn and do and, by default, mess things up.
Some days I wonder if the first will really ever happen, knowing we'll be sad when it does. But I never contemplate the second option.
I love my house because everywhere I go I am reminded of four beautiful brilliant minds hard at work on the mysteries of life, and this blesses me more than uber-neatness ever could.
Besides, $200 will buy a lot of books.
March 24, 2009
Hair and windowpanes -- math instruction gone awry
Our local public school district has come up with some inventive, nay ridiculously complicated, ways to teach what ought to be fairly plain and simple.
Ever heard of "hairy" math?
Yeah, this was new to me, too, until someone in a neighborhood chat group mentioned it and I had to know more.
I am always interested in what my children's publicly schooled peers are doing because I don't want my kids to grow up saying things like, "Gosh, I don't know this because I had the misfortune of being homeschooled."
Turns out that instead of teaching first and second graders how to count money using the tried and true methods of handling actual money, memorizing the values of various coins based on the ways the coins look, i.e. the copper-colored Lincoln guy is always worth one cent, the students are being asked to draw lines or "hairs" out from pictures of coins to help them count by fives.
In other words, a nickel is worth one hair. A quarter would have five lines emanating from its edges.
A former teacher clued me in as to the asinine reasoning behind this practice.
If you guessed the Almighty Standardized Test At Whose Throne All Texas Students Must Bow you're right.
The ASTAWTATSMB drives the boat when it comes to public education such that not much real education takes place. Instead, it's all about test-taking strategies.
The hairy math is a visual crutch, my teacher friend tells me. It's used so that students who aren't developmentally ready to tackle abstractions like assigning values to coins can still manage to score high on the damned standardized tests.
Never mind that these kids aren't developmentally ready.
The windowpanes are a whole other joke.
These are used to help students organize information in word problems, I'm told. But instead of helping kids actually work the problems, this artsy element wastes their time. Kids who can get the right answer without plugging numbers into empty squares get points off for NOT using the windowpane. A friend of mine whose son had to use this method in elementary school said she and her husband had to attend a special parents' event just so they could be taught what to do to help their children with homework!
She left the school that night dazed and confused, wondering why they didn't just teach kids to look for key phrases that would tell them whether a word problem was calling for addition or subtraction.
I wonder the same thing.
Homeschoolers are often warned to watch out for gimmicky programs that promise to teach our kids geometry in 10 minutes a day or conversational German in just 48 hours.
Looks like parents of kids in public school might benefit from a similar warning.
Gimmicks, smoke and mirrors. No wonder American students STILL lag behind other countries in math and science.
When you're spending all your time splitting hairs and drawing windows, you don't have much left over in which to do actual work.
Ever heard of "hairy" math?
Yeah, this was new to me, too, until someone in a neighborhood chat group mentioned it and I had to know more.
I am always interested in what my children's publicly schooled peers are doing because I don't want my kids to grow up saying things like, "Gosh, I don't know this because I had the misfortune of being homeschooled."
Turns out that instead of teaching first and second graders how to count money using the tried and true methods of handling actual money, memorizing the values of various coins based on the ways the coins look, i.e. the copper-colored Lincoln guy is always worth one cent, the students are being asked to draw lines or "hairs" out from pictures of coins to help them count by fives.
In other words, a nickel is worth one hair. A quarter would have five lines emanating from its edges.
A former teacher clued me in as to the asinine reasoning behind this practice.
If you guessed the Almighty Standardized Test At Whose Throne All Texas Students Must Bow you're right.
The ASTAWTATSMB drives the boat when it comes to public education such that not much real education takes place. Instead, it's all about test-taking strategies.
The hairy math is a visual crutch, my teacher friend tells me. It's used so that students who aren't developmentally ready to tackle abstractions like assigning values to coins can still manage to score high on the damned standardized tests.
Never mind that these kids aren't developmentally ready.
The windowpanes are a whole other joke.
These are used to help students organize information in word problems, I'm told. But instead of helping kids actually work the problems, this artsy element wastes their time. Kids who can get the right answer without plugging numbers into empty squares get points off for NOT using the windowpane. A friend of mine whose son had to use this method in elementary school said she and her husband had to attend a special parents' event just so they could be taught what to do to help their children with homework!
She left the school that night dazed and confused, wondering why they didn't just teach kids to look for key phrases that would tell them whether a word problem was calling for addition or subtraction.
I wonder the same thing.
Homeschoolers are often warned to watch out for gimmicky programs that promise to teach our kids geometry in 10 minutes a day or conversational German in just 48 hours.
Looks like parents of kids in public school might benefit from a similar warning.
Gimmicks, smoke and mirrors. No wonder American students STILL lag behind other countries in math and science.
When you're spending all your time splitting hairs and drawing windows, you don't have much left over in which to do actual work.
North Carolina judge demonstrates educational ignorance
By now, most of you who are homeschoolers are familiar with the North Carolina divorce case of Venessa Bell in which her admittedly adulterous husband has acknowledged the successes of the couple's three homeschooled children yet wants them put in public school.
The judge in this case is no less an idiot and has ordered Mrs. Bell to finish out this year with her children at home and then to enroll them in public school in the fall so that they can, in his opinion, receive proper socialization and a well-rounded education.
If the stakes weren't so high, this last part would be funny.
Turns out that Mrs. Bell is a member of a church that is not recognized among mainstream Christian denominations. The judge thinks her young children should be "challenged" in their faith so as not to grow up with horns sticking out of their heads or fangs protruding from their mouths.
Divorce cases are messy and best left to jurists to sort them out.
Children who are thriving in a homeschooling environment in a state where home education is LEGAL ought to be left alone.
The judge in this case is no less an idiot and has ordered Mrs. Bell to finish out this year with her children at home and then to enroll them in public school in the fall so that they can, in his opinion, receive proper socialization and a well-rounded education.
If the stakes weren't so high, this last part would be funny.
Turns out that Mrs. Bell is a member of a church that is not recognized among mainstream Christian denominations. The judge thinks her young children should be "challenged" in their faith so as not to grow up with horns sticking out of their heads or fangs protruding from their mouths.
Divorce cases are messy and best left to jurists to sort them out.
Children who are thriving in a homeschooling environment in a state where home education is LEGAL ought to be left alone.
It happened in 'O3 and I never even knew it
Here's one for my Cultural Erosion file -- the subtle yet powerful revision of one of the most common words in the English language.
"Marriage".
Did you know that in 2003 some popular dictionaries in the U.S. began including same-sex relationships under the definition of this word?
My advice to any parent who isn't ready to confront the issue of homosexuality with their young and curious learners is to make sure your dictionary was published before '03.
Otherwise, you may be getting the "how can two guys be married to each other" question long before you're ready to answer it.
"Marriage".
Did you know that in 2003 some popular dictionaries in the U.S. began including same-sex relationships under the definition of this word?
My advice to any parent who isn't ready to confront the issue of homosexuality with their young and curious learners is to make sure your dictionary was published before '03.
Otherwise, you may be getting the "how can two guys be married to each other" question long before you're ready to answer it.
March 15, 2009
Teach Your Children NOT to bully
Children with varying degrees of autism -- known as being on the "autistic spectrum" -- are being diagnosed in record numbers. Unfortunately, most of them either attend public school or will someday. Professional educators who actually know what to do with these children are far and few between, from what I've been reading, and this means too many of these kids are falling through the cracks. Special ed. or mainstream? A little autism or a lot? Is it autism at all or just quirky and eccentric behaviors?
Regardless, even with the most accurate diagnosis and the best interventions these children often face a rough road as they struggle with, among other things, learning to read the social cues given by other people. It's called mind blindness, the inability to read faces or body language, and to tell the difference between sarcasm and sincerity. It can also manifest as an inability to control one's own behaviors, tone of voice, and facial expressions.
Failing to do any or all of these things puts children on The Spectrum at an even greater risk of being taken advantage of than their unaffected peers.
Many children with mild autism are extremely bright, some with IQ's far above average. They are not mentally retarded nor are they purposely weird.
Our society goes to such excruciating lengths to teach its children tolerance for those who are of different races, different sexual preferences, and different religions, how about hammering home the message that children with autism are to be tolerated, too.
What does this mean? First, it means explaining to unaffected kids what autism is and that it doesn't manifest the same way in any two people.
Then it means teaching unaffected kids why they ought to not be afraid of their affected peers.
Take that one step further and explain that bullying autistic children is as bad as teasing someone about the color of their skin or the fact that they wear a hijab or have two mommies.
Make the penalties for harassing autistic children -- or any children with disabilities -- as strong as the ones for offending kids who are gay or black or Jewish.
Autism is not something children or their parents ever wish for, it is not a reason for celebration, it is not easy to live with or to accommodate.
But for the families of these amazingly brilliant, beautiful, quirky thinkers the failure of other parents to teach their children well is perhaps the most hurtful of all.
Be grateful if your child does not have autism. Teach your child to be a blessing to one who does.
Many children with autism want to have friends, they just don't quite know how to make them.
Regardless, even with the most accurate diagnosis and the best interventions these children often face a rough road as they struggle with, among other things, learning to read the social cues given by other people. It's called mind blindness, the inability to read faces or body language, and to tell the difference between sarcasm and sincerity. It can also manifest as an inability to control one's own behaviors, tone of voice, and facial expressions.
Failing to do any or all of these things puts children on The Spectrum at an even greater risk of being taken advantage of than their unaffected peers.
Many children with mild autism are extremely bright, some with IQ's far above average. They are not mentally retarded nor are they purposely weird.
Our society goes to such excruciating lengths to teach its children tolerance for those who are of different races, different sexual preferences, and different religions, how about hammering home the message that children with autism are to be tolerated, too.
What does this mean? First, it means explaining to unaffected kids what autism is and that it doesn't manifest the same way in any two people.
Then it means teaching unaffected kids why they ought to not be afraid of their affected peers.
Take that one step further and explain that bullying autistic children is as bad as teasing someone about the color of their skin or the fact that they wear a hijab or have two mommies.
Make the penalties for harassing autistic children -- or any children with disabilities -- as strong as the ones for offending kids who are gay or black or Jewish.
Autism is not something children or their parents ever wish for, it is not a reason for celebration, it is not easy to live with or to accommodate.
But for the families of these amazingly brilliant, beautiful, quirky thinkers the failure of other parents to teach their children well is perhaps the most hurtful of all.
Be grateful if your child does not have autism. Teach your child to be a blessing to one who does.
Many children with autism want to have friends, they just don't quite know how to make them.
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