It's Really Not Funny

It’s really not funny.

The talk about women being able to get promoted if they “get on their knees.”  Discussing being able to grab their private parts if you are famous.  Catcalling from amongst a group of other men at a lone woman in an attempt to make her feel uncomfortable and give you a laugh.  Jokes about women being there to make you a “sammich” (as if that “word” alone isn’t already vomit-inducing).

Immature, a tell-tale sign of your lack of confidence in your masculinity (or perhaps in your self as a whole), even a bonding ritual with others with the same underdeveloped psyche, but not funny.

Calling it “locker room talk,” it doesn’t make it better. Because there are a bunch of you that can only get camaraderie by putting down women just means there a bunch of you that have never progressed past a certain developmental level.

 

I know, I know, I can already hear the insults aimed my way in your head.  Go ahead, say them aloud.  I’m sure it will make me look at you in a much better light.

I’m a very intelligent woman.  I have high standards. I am not afraid to share my opinions or to stand up for what I believe to be right. I really don’t have a need for people who can’t treat women respectfully, 100 percent of the time.  I’m not going to apologize for that. I’m also not going to raise a son who thinks that what is termed “locker room talk” is ok, that it is just what it’s like to be a male, and I’ve done a pretty darn good job so far.  I have a 16 year old whose respect for all people, male or female, is something I am very proud of him for.

The more women have been coming out about abuse and harassment they have endured, the more disrespect I’ve been seeing from many men towards women, particularly in their words and their jokes, or my particular recent favorite, being told to just be quiet when I have an opinion.  I guess that is to be expected, there will always be a fight when the customary order of things gets interrupted.

 

We weren’t supposed to fight back, but we are. Things are changing.  Thank goodness, it is about time. 

That's why they have wine. 

The Thing About Respect

Respect.

It’s a word being tossed, well, OK, hurled around social media lately.  It is a word, however, that from what I have observed, often is misunderstood.

Respect is not an entitlement.  It’s not a one way street.  It’s not something that can be dictated.

If what I have been reading and hearing is the norm, it’s not even a goal, but rather the illusion of it is.

If your child is disrespectful to you, for example tells you that he hates you, how do you deal with it?  Do you try to teach about respect and act in a matter to earn it, or do you just demand it?  What kind of lesson does your child learn if you yell at him and speak to him in the same disrespectful voice he spoke to you in?  If we demand that he never say those words again or he will be punished, but he is thinking that he not only hates you now, but also resents you and feels that you haven’t even taken a moment to wonder why they were disrespectful in the first place, are you now being respected?  My answer to that would be no.  You might be comforted, and even smug, that the next time they don’t say it aloud to you, but if they are still thinking the same thing, is that truly respect?  No, it is just the illusion of respect, and you feel good because can feel like you don’t have to worry about whatever it is that was causing the problem in the first place.  Yet the problem remains, and the respect is not really there.

Unless you live under a rock with no internet, TV, radio, or newspapers, you’ve no doubt heard all the chatter about NFL players who have knelt during the national anthem.  People are upset, understandably so, because the feel the flag and our country is not being respected.  However, what is being demanded by many, including our President, is that they be forced to respect it by standing.  Forced to respect it.  Forced.  As if respect emanates from the position of our knees, and not from our souls.

This might be news to some people, but you can respect the flag and our country without ever hearing the national anthem.  The best way to honor our country is actually through real action: voting, being involved in your community, standing up for our freedom.  On the flip side, you can be standing with your hand over your heart at a football game, purely because that’s just what you do, not even thinking about our country but about where you last saw the beer vendor or how far away the bathroom is or making a mental note to buy bread on the way home, or, if a player, about your competition, just giving an illusion of respect.  We seem to have come to a place where we don’t realize the first, and honor the second.

If we feel someone is not respecting our country, our first thought should not be the not-really-respectful thought of “you are a scumbag,” but rather we should be wondering “Why?” and go from there, to deal with any issues that may be hindering actual respect.  That is, if our goal really is respect, and not just the illusion of it.  We probably should also give the respect of listening to other’s feelings and thoughts, even if we think they are wrong, rather than calling them “monkeys that are paid to dance” for us, and perhaps throw in a bit of understanding that if we don’t treat someone else respectfully, they are not going to listen to anything we have to say.

Respect or illusion?  What is your goal?

That’s why they have wine.  I’m going for the real stuff.

Thoughts of God in the Aftermath of a Storm

A friend recently posed a question online asking about the response “God is Good” when speaking about what they were spared from in Hurricane Irma, when there were people in the islands and other places that were not as lucky….

I answered my friend with a basic answer, that I believe most people use that as an expression that might be the same as saying “Thank goodness” about something, that it’s just an expression of gratitude that things weren’t as bad as they could be, and it really doesn’t have anything to do with what others might have experienced.   But there really is much more to say, I just needed time to figure out how to put into words what I just know in my heart.

As is the usual case with me, I think much more deeply about these kinds of questions than I think people are asking, so I thought I’d use my blog to put down my thoughts rather than taking over someone’s post.

First, of all, God is good.  God is the embodiment of love, and he loves each and every one of us whether we choose to love him back or not, even if we don’t believe in him.  Believing in him does not give us a monopoly on him.  He doesn’t love us more for having faith or for being obedient, he loves us all the same.  That is what the whole parable of the Prodigal Son is about. (Luke 15:11–32, if you would like to read it, just Google if you don’t have a bible.)

God never promised any of us a life without annoyances, bad things, or even tragedies.  He is not a helicopter parent, he doesn’t put a bubble around us because we believe in him.  Rather, he is one that gives us freedom to choose what we think and what we believe, and lets us do things on our own.  He is always there to guide, but he does not control, he is the parent that many of us strive to be.  He doesn’t magically whisk us out of the path of a storm with a snap of his fingers, but he will give us the wisdom to know what we should do if we are to choose to listen.  All of this, this is what is referred to as “free will” in the circle of believers.

Now, this is where it can get difficult for people, both for believers and unbelievers.  His idea of what is best is not always what our idea is.  We often get caught up in expecting God to do things in a particular way, but we are not in control of God.  I do believe he has the supreme knowledge, so when he disagrees with me, as much as it sometimes pains me because I’m quite a stubborn woman, I do try to listen and to understand his reasons.

So, back to the storm.

I would very much prefer that no hurricane ever come my way.  Ever.  I have prayed asking that they don’t, but, well, that doesn’t really work.  A storm, it has to go somewhere.  I have learned, however, to pray for comfort, and that is a prayer that has been granted.  I’ve had a lot of bad things happen in my life, from growing up in an alcoholic home to sexual abuse to rape to almost losing my child at birth to divorce to dealing with a child’s disabilities, and that is just the big things.  God has ALWAYS been there to comfort me, even when I sat under the kitchen table crying quietly so no one would realize I was there when my dad was throwing things around in an alcoholic rage, God was sitting there holding my hand.  He held my hand through this storm too, and because of that, I was able to hold other’s.

Bear with me while I tell my own little parable.

Once upon a time, when my son was a baby and colicky and never let me sleep, my 11 year old dog, who WAS my baby till then and was who I talked to and vented to and who was always there for me, died.  I was very upset, and I did pray for comfort. To try to help me feel better, my husband took me to his mom’s neighbor, whose barn cat just had kittens that were being given away.  Though I did not really think a cat could replace my beloved dog, I took a look at them.  I sat on the ground for quite a while, seeing what cat would interact and trying to figure out if any of them could somehow fill the void I was feeling.  The owner of the cats, after a while, she said “You know what, I have the perfect kitten for you.  Wait right here.”  She went inside and came out with a calico.  “I was going to keep her for myself, but something is telling me this is the cat for you.”

God is good, meaning I am thankful he created this woman who felt I needed this cat.

That cat, she is my 16 year old Ally, who some of my Facebook friends after my posts during the hurricane now refer to as “Weather Cat” or “Tier 8.”  She could never replace my dog, but she has an equal special place in my heart.

That cat, she saved my life and the life of my son 13 years ago, during one of our normal every day Florida thunderstorms, when one of my huge oak trees came down through my house.  To make a long story short, she made a hideous noise at me and ran, which made me follow her, and seconds later the tree came down exactly where I had been standing, holding my then 3 year old son. 

God is good, meaning I am thankful he created this cat to give me the warning.

  

Since then, she has been my weather guide. During this hurricane, she remained calm the entire time, whereas she WILL freak out if there is any impending danger, such as about a year or so ago when what may have been a small tornado during a thunderstorm mangled the basketball hoop in our front yard, or when our house got struck by lightning a few months after that (during which I paid no attention and got struck washing dishes).  She is what God gave me to give me my comfort.  And, funny, my silly posts about her on Facebook during the storm, I have found out later gave some others comfort too. 

And my comfort, it was what God gave my family to give them comfort.  While my mom, husband, and son were glued to the newscasts of the hurricane and were feeling stressed, Weather Cat and I were calmly watching a football game in the other room. I said “Ally is calm, I’m calm.” I'm the one with anxiety disorder, so this is something! Everyone came in periodically to sit down a few minutes with us and get their calm too.  As the hurricane was passing over us, my mom was sound asleep, my son was able to laugh that she was missing all the fun and he was asleep about 30 minutes later, and my husband, who was sure he would be up all night, followed shortly.  While we weren’t spared the storm passing over us, God did hold our hands.

And so, yes, God is good.  I would still be grateful for that even if the roof had blown off our house or we lost all that we had.  It filled my heart when my son said “Well, if we get a bunch of damage, we can get insurance money and fix it up and get more money when we sell it,” because he was able to get past the fear and find a silver lining.  My husband realized that he is willing to part with a heck of a lot of things in the garage, that they are just meaningless possessions. THAT is what God does for us, he gives us hope, he lets us see the positive, he lets us see what is important.  He tries to let us see the bigger picture, to see how everything affects something else, and to see how good can always prevail.

As far as the material things that were lost in the islands, I pray that God can give people comfort and hope and that they will find that their lives are still as precious as good as they were when they had those things, and that they can get help for necessities and rebuilding quickly, as he lays it in the hearts of others to assist.  As far as deaths that occurred, death is always a hard thing to deal with.  I am not going to say that death is good, but I will say that the number of deaths that occurred was infinitesimally small compared to the number of people who were in the path of the storm, and THAT is good thing.  I will also say that several people close to me have died in my adult life.  From each of those deaths, I can tell you something good that came from it, as strange as that may sound, and I can only hope that those people are able to smile down from Heaven to see the way they have positively affected the lives of others.

I’m not God, and I really don’t have all the answers, but I do hope he helps fill in the blanks in my mind over time.

That’s why they have wine.  If only I knew someone who could turn this supply of hurricane water into it…

I Learned You Were Racist Today

One day, back in 2008, when my son was in the second grade, as I did every day, I asked him how his day was at school when I picked him up.

“I learned you were a racist today!”

“Um, OK.  And how did you learn this?”

“We had mock elections, it was a lot of fun.  But if you didn’t vote for Obama, you were racist.  You are not voting for Obama.”

“It’s a little too complicated to explain to someone your age, but I’m not voting for Obama because I agree more with Bush’s policies, that is what voting is supposed to be about, policies.  I don’t choose who I vote for based on skin color.”

“Well, everyone at school says you are racist if you don’t vote for Obama.”

“Well, if you see me do or say anything racist, let me know.”

“OK.”

Years later, when my son was in middle school and had found an interest in history and politics, on the way home from school one day, he out of the blue said, “Mom, I’m sorry for ever calling you racist.”

“What?”

“Remember, about Obama.”

“Oh, OK.  Thank you.”

“You aren’t racist, and I really don’t like some of Obama’s policies either.”

“I’m glad to see you have learned to think about this stuff.”

In 2008, I did not have a Facebook account, and probably many of you did not either.  I wouldn’t doubt, though, that if we did, I’d have been called a racist there for the same reason as what my 7 year old had been told, and that is the point where I think all of this began.  By all of this, I mean the assumption that anyone that has conservative views or is Republican is ABC and anyone that has liberal or Democrat views is XYZ.  It’s when we really began categorizing people and assuming who they voted for told us everything there was to know about them. The popularity of forums like Facebook and Twitter really amplified it, even to the point that many people deeply believe that.  I really understand now why my parents would not even tell us kids who they voted for.

I’m don’t belong to either of the 2 major parties.  I haven’t voted for a Republican presidential candidate since that 2008 election.  However, it is not because I assume the party to be racist or any other mass categorization, I just haven’t liked the candidates and some of their policies.  Ditto with the Democrat candidates, I didn’t vote for them either, not because I assume them all to be snowflakes or any other mass categorization, but because I didn’t like the candidates and some of their policies. 

A week ago, I stated that, though the white supremacist groups may have a hate message, they still have the same rights as the rest of Americans, including their right to protest and to free speech (as does any other group) and I was deemed to be racist and supporting the supremacists.  It wasn’t because I actually have racist or supremacist ideology, but just because it was the narrative of the day.  Personally, I’m not worried about the people who may think that of me, any more than I was worried about it when my son told me he learned I was.  I know what is in my heart, and, honestly, there is no way to “prove” that to anyone else, others have the choice to think what they do.  However, that type of assumption towards large groups of people because of what party they may belong to or who they voted for or because they support the laws of our land, it just fuels more hate and it’s not productive.

If you ever see me actually do or say something racist let me know.  If you see your coworkers,  neighbors, friends, or family do the same, let them know. 

Be mad at those that are yelling racial or religious epithets, be angry at those who belong to white supremacy groups, say something when your neighbor whispers, “I think the people who bought that house might be black.”  Remember that bigotry comes in a lot of forms, and stop yourself when you are about to say something about Muslims when you are actually referring to a terrorist group or about Christians when you are actually referring to the actions of one televangelist.  Realize that a hateful response to hate only fuels more hate, and that hate can only be overcome by our own loving actions. Know that hate is something that consumes and blinds you.  Understand that if someone has hate in their heart, that the blame does not lie on anyone but themselves, and it can only be eradicated by appealing to their heart. 

Listen to people, accept that there are different opinions, realize that most situations have a lot of complexity that can’t be summed up in a sound bite, and truly try to understand that there are other legitimate points of view on just about every topic.  Grow from being the 7 year old boy who believed the soundbite generalizations to the middle school one that learned how to look at people individually.  That’s how we combat hate.

When we start assuming everyone’s motives are racist, we diminish those that experience real racism, and we lose sight of who the actual perpetrators are.  Don’t be a part of that.

That’s why they have wine.

It's Not About Us

Parenting.  It’s not about us.

Well before I had a child, there was a sermon in church that for some reason really resonated with me.  The point of it was that in order to effectively raise a child, you had to learn the “language” of your child, and that language would not necessarily be the same among all of your children.  That language, that is the thing that should guide you in how you talk to, discipline, and even love your child.  That language is how THEIR brain works, what they think, what is important to them, how they react to things.

I was blessed with a wonderful, funny, intelligent, strong willed child.  However, that blessing came with some issues, issues that caused friction, distress, and even pain in him that I was unaware of, that were the source of some frustrating behavioral issues.  I was so sure all I needed to do was be strict, to demand he behave in a certain matter, to punish him when he didn’t meet my expectations.  I completely ignored the message of the sermon that had really touched me a couple of years before.  I was sure that I knew how to make a child grow up to be the perfect adult.

I was wrong.  So terribly wrong.

I see some other parents or caretakers make the same mistake, and it breaks my heart.  It actually brings me to tears reading some posts online.

Our kids, the majority of the time, they aren’t being “bad” just for the sake of being bad, to hurt us, or to try to make our lives difficult, yet that is usually our first response.  So, we go into the situation concerned about ourselves, we take it personally, our focus is on our feelings of anger or disrespect.  I know this well, because this was me.

The result of my parenting choices the first 9 or 10 years of my son’s life was that I had a child who didn’t fully trust me, lied to me, hid things from me, hit or bit me, was afraid of me, was destructive with his belongings, got in trouble at school, and if he did what I wanted him to do, it was out of fear.  Something obviously wasn’t working.

Around that time, he also started failing in school.  He always had some struggles, but they intensified greatly.  Though I had previously brought up behavior issues to his pediatrician before, they were now taken seriously.  After extensive testing, he was then diagnosed with several disorders better known by their acronyms, and it was then that the sermon from so many years earlier smacked me upside the head.  This wasn’t about me, it was about my son.  Had I only realized that earlier.

I let go of everything I thought was right about parenting, and relearned it all.  I have learned not to react to things as if they are an assault on me, but to find out the WHY, and to deal with the underlying cause.  I don’t automatically punish, I approach everything with as a teaching moment.  I realized that as a parent, I am here to guide and teach, not to scare into compliance.

Right now, I’ve got a teenager who has above a 3.0 GPA at a private college prep school, who plays for his school baseball team, who has some incredible friends, who volunteers in the community, and, the next time he leaves his room to go get a snack or use the bathroom and sees the light on here in my office, will pop his head in just to tell me he loves me.  I can’t tell you the last time I disciplined him.  I’ve had to ask him to repeat himself in a more respectful manner, or to point out that something he said was rude, but that is normal teenage boy stuff, and I recognize that.

It's not about us.  It is about our kids, and I will tell you from experience, it is the most rewarding thing you will ever do to accept that.  This isn't limited to parents of kids with disabilities, this is relevant for everyone.

That’s why they have wine, a toast to the parents who all work so hard to have great kids!

Life, LIBERTY, and the Pursuit of Happiness

Freedom.  It’s what the second word in life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” means.  It’s supposed to be what America stands for, but is it?

I was mocked the other day for holding a certain opinion, not just because I had the opinion, but specifically because my opinion was that the option was what did not impede the freedom of Americans.  It was the freedom part that was mocked.  At first, all I could think was ”Was my nap today really decades instead of minutes, is freedom no longer important in America?” but then I came to realize that we have been slowly losing that concept for a while.

Bring up about any controversial topic, and what you will here is people talking about if it should be legal or not, how the government should deal with it.  We’ve become a country that no longer cares about the freedom for everyone to make their own choices, we want the only choices to be the ones we agree with, and we want the government to tell them so.  Every time we do this, that word liberty loses more of its meaning, and it affects the life and pursuit of happiness of millions of people in this country.

Many people can’t even fathom anymore that just because something is legal doesn’t mean it is right, or because it is illegal that it is wrong.  It’s the law, so “fact.”  We let the government tell us what we should think.

Drinking soda is not the healthiest choice we can make, but we’ve gotten to the point that instead of letting people make decisions about how much they want to consume, we allow laws to be made to regulate what size cups can be sold at convenience stores in various places. 

Making laws that take away freedom of choice does nothing to change people’s minds about what is right to do, what is good for them, or is even going to change their behavior.  The soda drinker who can’t buy a 20 oz cup can still buy two 10 oz cups.  Sometimes taking away that choice can be harmful to some, such as when we make marijuana illegal so that we can pretend that people then can’t use it recreationally, and in the process keep a useful medication from people such as cancer patients.

There is absolutely nothing wrong with having opinions on matters, feeling that something is right or wrong, is good for you.  As long as something does not infringe upon the rights of another or causes another harm, it shouldn’t be something that gets legislated, something that the government decides. Influence people with mature, reasonable discussions of matters (though the erosion of that ability could be a whole other blog post), that is how beliefs and behaviors will change.

Many times, trying to specify legalities to issues takes away our ability to use common sense.  The whole which-bathroom-does-a-transgender-person-use comes to mind.  We never really had a big problem with this, didn’t even notice who was in the bathroom with us, until we tried to decide this as a black and white matter.  It’s not black and white, it’s a great big, giant gray, a gray that can only be navigated with common sense on an individual basis.

I personally believe abortion outside of medical necessity is wrong, I feel that infringes on the rights of life of the child.  However, my goal is not to make it illegal, and it is also not a black and white matter.  My goal is to try to show people options and find ways to facilitate those options, to highlight the value of life, and to express my opinion on the correlation between the acceptance of abortion and the decline of the respect for life, in the hopes that maybe I can convince just one person to make a different decision.  Looking for the easy way of having the government say “No” isn’t going to change anyone’s mind, it’s just a way to hand over the responsibility of speaking what I feel to someone else.

Gay marriage, marijuana use, sodas, birth control, breast feeding, motorcycle helmets, and on and on and on are things that affect only the people who make those choices or not, let people make their choices instead of the government.

Freedom.  I hope that maybe I influenced at least one person to find that important again.

That’s why they have wine.

No, Thanks, I'm Good

Today when I was working (I work from home), there was a knock on my door.  Two twenty-something young men in dress shirts and ties and name tags identifying them as members of the Church of Latter Day Saints, asking me if I knew about Jesus.  "I'm a Christian, and I'm busy working," I replied.  "Well, can we help you to strengthen your faith?"  "No, thanks, I'm good."  I shut the door.

This inquiry into trying to trying to appeal to who I already am, someone who believes in Jesus Christ, but with the intention to sway me to abandoning my beliefs for a "better" way, made me think of something else I encountered this week that tried to do the same, and really bothered me.

Earlier this week I read a blog post, a post that used feminism as it's way to try to appeal to who I already am.  A post that touted the writer and others that engaged in her hobby of pole dancing to be someone that did so for the obviously commendable cause of furthering the lives of women in our society, particularly those who would never pole dance in public themselves.

Hmm, well, I wouldn't pole dance in public, so I continued reading to see what exactly she was doing for me. What I was supposed to learn was that I am supposedly afraid of my own sexuality, and that I am being repressed by society, that I had poor body image, and, the thing that really ruffled my feathers, that I was to be felt sorry for, yes, felt sorry for, because I couldn't possibly enjoy sex.

That was what I was supposed to learn.  

Let me clear up the fallacies here.

Because someone chooses not to make their sexuality public does not necessarily mean any of that. As an aside, many people who choose that activity as a profession actually do it because they have had sexual abuse in their past, but that is a vast subject for another post.

I just plain old don't think my "goods" are public property so I CHOOSE not to engage in activities or fashions that make it public.  That's it.  If you choose to pole dance, fine, but you are not doing ME any favors by doing so.  I'm not crying alone at night in the corner.  No one makes me dress how I do, it's my choice.  My body displays it's 50 years of living, with wrinkles and stretch marks and a little extra fat, and I'm good with that, I don't need to twirl around a piece of aluminum to convince anyone of it.  I find my sexuality to be something intimate to be enjoyed with only my husband, and I'm really not seeing why that is wrong, as a matter of fact I think it would be disrespectful to him to think otherwise.  And, guess what, people who don't pole dance still have good sex.

Base emotions and actions don't make us more powerful.  They just make us like everyone else.  If you want to do something in the name of feminism that actually helps me, then stand up against 6 month rape sentences, try with all your might to break into a male-dominated field of work, heck, just make your husband KNOW who your children's doctors are.  

Pole dancing doesn't make me an equal to anyone but those who pole dance.  I've not come this far in life so that I can spread my legs in a seductive manner for a bunch of men who are not my partner.  Don't feel sorry for me.

I'm good.

That's why they have wine.