My Planned Parenthood Story

 

"It's all too much."

My late maternal grandmother used to say this regularly. She loved politics and gossip and pontificating and ruminating, and it was basically impossible to get though any discussion without hearing it more than once. I say it quite often myself, and when we say it now my mom and sisters can't help but chuckle to ourselves: "She was right. It just really is all too much."

I wrote a little about Caitlyn Jenner. It was less about her and more about how the event impacted my family's ability to communicate effectively about our perspectives. We learned a lot, and our points of view are only a little different.

I wrote nothing about same sex marriage. I claim non-conformity on that one. No rainbow or papal flag on my profile pic. I'm going with the power of the pause on this issue, a technique touted by a number of Catholic orders and other religious traditions. It's a deliberate "we'll see." I have a number of concerns, but you know, we'll see. I have a daughter in a Catholic college, and if legal ramifications threaten the orthodoxy of the college..... and pause. We'll see.

But I will write a little about Planned Parenthood. I have a personal story here, and it's one that has impacted many decisions in my life.

Story One

 

 As a young teenager, I used to babysit for a family down the street. They were a nice family and I always appreciated the money. ($2/hour was a lot then.) One of the best things about it was the referrals. This neighbor told many of her friends about me, and I was able to branch out and do quite a lot of babysitting for other families. Through these referrals, I met the Jones family. (No, of course that's not their real name.)

I loved them. I LOVED them. The mom was SUCH a cool mom, the two kids adored me and the dad was great too. The oldest child once gave me a little stuffed duck literally named "I love Katie." I did long-term jobs over vacations and summers, and I even went on a trip with them once to watch the kids in the hotel. (I was 15 and this was SUCH a treat!) Mrs. Jones took me shopping and we had quality "girls time." I referred my best friend to them once and she babysat for them too. Mrs. Jones was attentive and gushed over us. Some of my siblings babysat for them too; so really, the Joneses became a big part of our lives. When Mrs. Jones got a full time job, she asked me if I could be available for a more regular arrangement one summer. It was a lot of work, so I figured I'd better ask my mom about the schedule. I was still dancing about 20 hours per week and wasn't in school for the summer, but I wasn't sure I could balance it.
So I asked her....

Story Two

 

My dad was once the President of Arizona Right to Life. I can't remember if my mom served a term too, or if she was a Vice President or something, but they were both heavily involved with the organization. It was in the mid-eighties I think, and my older sister and I have many memories of stuffing thousands of letters in thousands of envelopes for AZRTL and making "Stop Abortion" and "Abortion Stops a Beating Heart" signs. We had people at our house painting signs and for meetings. We stood in front of abortion clinics with our signs, attended conventions, and there were always fetal models about the house showing the scale of a developing baby. That 10-week model was my favorite. So tiny, and so perfect. I also knew that my parents had bone-chilling stories to the eavesdropping kid: stories about what you find in trash cans in the alleys behind abortion clinics.

As children, we were educated about the abortion process and the burgeoning big business of abortion. We also did work for the Aid to Women Centers. I believe my parents were careful with making sure we did not harshly judge or harbor anger toward mothers who might abort; our focus was to raise awareness about the life inside of them, no matter how it got there, and to educate the public about non-abortive services which would help a mother with pre- and post-natal care and parenting or adoptive support. I knew from a very young age that I would never view abortion as a way out, much less the only way out of an unwanted pregnancy. I knew the difference between a Planned Parenthood and a Crisis Pregnancy Center too.

Then a Crossroad 

 

 So I asked my mom about the babysitting schedule:
"Mrs. Jones got a job and needs me to babysit more this summer."
"Oh. What kind of job is she doing?"
"She's a counselor at Planned Parenthood." (pause.) "But she says she knows how I feel about abortion and she doesn't counsel anyone to get one hardly ever. She does other counseling stuff and helps women who need medical care."

This is the part that I know now, as a mother of a teenage daughter, must have been a defining moment for my mom.  I honestly thought my little explanation would be enough. 
Guess what she said...
She said no.
It was a super duper quadruple no. Under no circumstances whatsoever would I be allowed to babysit for her, at all, maybe ever again.
I was positively dumbfounded. I demanded to know: "Why not??? She said she doesn't counsel for abortions! I need the babysitting money and her kids love me! Why can't I do it? It doesn't make any sense! Are you kidding me? I can't babysit for them ever at all? How am I going to tell them that?" I'm sure I told her how unfair and dumb it all was.

But she explained...actually BOTH my parents intervened to explain this to me. I could not in good conscience work for them. She worked for a business that not only performs abortions, but consistently lobbies for unrestricted access to abortion at any time even up to the day before birth. They lobby against waiting periods, against informed consent, against parental consent, against spousal consent, etc. I can't make a sign and stand in front of a clinic on the weekend, and then babysit for a worker at that same kind of clinic during the week. It's a matter of principle. My actions had to match my principles, otherwise my principles are rendered meritless.

But.
But.
But.

I was so mad. So so so mad.

Eventually, I got it.  I mulled it over and over and eventually conceded that they were right. I pretty much hated that I decided they were right. Ultimately, I was able to separate the situation from just my parents. It wasn't just that my parents were my parents and I had to do what they said and they had a good point. I began to own it. I realized this was a line in the sand moment, and I had a chance to act on it. I could explain the reason I can't work for them, and hope that they would understand.

Truly, I don't remember the rest. I know we tried to compromise and say I could babysit for them as long as Mrs. Jones wasn't at work, but that didn't last. It wasn't long before we had no relationship at all any more. My best friend still worked for her, and I was jealous. Why didn't my friend's parents have the same problem with it? My friend thought the whole thing was really dumb, and it was hard to remain convicted.

But I did stay convicted. And the lesson was bigger than a single issue. I learned to put my money where my mouth is. Even if I'm not very vocal about an issue, I at the very least have to conduct my life in a way that is consistent with what I claim to espouse.

This is something my parents and Mrs. Jones taught me. Even if the PP organization provides other necessary services (which women can access at plenty of other places, including Crisis Pregnancy Centers and Community Health Centers) they are not absolved from their agenda. If maybe as much as 92% of pregnancy services at Planned Parenthood consists of abortive services, it's not hard to see what their agenda is. Here's a look at what defunding Planned Parenthood might mean.

In the meantime, my grandma was right.
The social wars are too much. (That doesn't mean I want to opt out of speaking up, I just don't document my every reaction in this blog or on FB.) The debate is too much. The partisan politics is too much. The spin doctors are too much. The inhumanity is too much. Millions of lives lost to abortion is too much. For the post-abortive mother or father, one abortion is too much. For Planned Parenthood, one illegal transaction of harvested baby organs should be too much.

Shark in the water! Right? Is...is that a shark?

My kids are watching Jaws 3 again and they are laughing their heads off. There's totally a severed head and everything in that movie. It's all la-ti-da  "isn't a lovely day at Sea World" and then all hell breaks loose.

Anyhoo, that's not what I should be writing about. I mean...about which I would be writing. (groan) I thought my next blog would be part 2 of the series-in-my-head on the lasting impacts of divorce, and I will get to that. 

Ha. Here's the part where they just saw the baby shark and are trying to keep it in the park. They're so excited about what this could mean for the park. They're going to make a spectacle of the thing...

My blog description says:

"Observational humor and social commentary

 from a Catholic mom on parenting, social politics,

relationships, and swimming upstream." 

Most of the time I'm all la-ti-da my kids say funny things, and isn't life full of poignant lessons, and here's some stuff I've learned because I'm over 40 and if I don't write it down, I'll forget it.

But the divorce thing is really the first social issue I attempted to write about. It's also the subject that got me my first "hide post" and even a "hide all posts." It's reasonable to suspect that if you put something out there, not everyone's going to like it. I can try to write about a touchy subject as carefully as possible, but someone's still not going to like it. I'm going to have to be okay with that. I've said it before, this blog is open because I appreciate that something I have written or experienced might resonate with other people and ultimately let them know they're not alone.

Oooh they moved the shark from the holding tank to a display tank... the shark's health is still precarious, so that was really dangerous, and oop- look, it died in front of everyone. The poor marine biologist resigns to let those evil media folk photograph her prize, now gone...

Hot-button issues wasted no time at all in overtaking social media. Social sites quickly became not just a place for family and friends to share news and photos, but a place to express an expanding universe of politics and philosophy. I have two teenagers. My oldest is 18, and is basically part of a "flagship" generation on social media. Over the course of her teenage years, we have watched an eruption of media sites. There's no stopping it; it's been my job to set expectations for my teens' activities on these sites. Their online behavior (that I have seen) has been, for the most part, perfectly within reasonable limits.

Here's the hard part. I don't always know what they read. I can't always tell who they follow. I can't 100% control what they're exposed to. (um,..to what they are exposed?) I don't drive myself crazy trying to limit screen time. I expect them to come when I call, get their chores done, respond the the "real" world before the online world and other we-live-here-in-our-real-life, not just on-the-internet ideas. All I can do is try and model how they should respond. Sometimes I'm pretty good at that. Not so much other times.

Wait wait just a sec.. the shark's mother is inside the park!?! oh holy night what now... Are they going to try and catch that one too? No wait- I think they just go straight for the kill...

I got super duper mad at my oldest a couple of days ago. She tweeted a note she had written and I went ballistic. We did a terrible job communicating with each other about what made me so upset. I huffed.  She shut down. She didn't want to talk to me, She didn't want to discuss the issue. We resorted to messages. I begged her to read articles I had picked, without considering her sensibilities. She sent me an I-will-not-be-responding-to-this note. My temper got shorter and she got further away- even though she was only in her room.

Oh haha- that little girl sees the mama shark and tells her dad to look at the cute little fishie...

We were at a stand off for about a half-day. Then, a local Catholic university called her back and reported to her that she's qualified for a ton of scholarships. Turns out they really want Catholic High School grads who want to major in Theology.

uhh...

Oh yeah. That's what she wants to do.

um...

  

Holy carp (intended)-

there is no shark here to kill us. It's a little fish, not a shark.

I congratulated her, but our unresolved issues made it strange. We had to fix things. I changed my tone. I sent her another article that struck kind of a middle ground, and she changed her tone. I sent her another note asking her to help me with a do-over. We both realize that while we have different opinions on the gravity of the matter about which she tweeted, we don't have to see a shark. We can see a fish. 

Sometimes people need a do-over. I can't control what kind of do-over they think they need.

Her tweet was about a do-over, and I am posting it with her permission:

I really don't like the f-word. I don't like the "accept it or f-off" tone. I don't fall comfortably into using the pro-noun "she."

But seriously. That's all I don't like in this tweet.

I'm not going to presume that she can completely understand why those things make me uncomfortable. I did not ask her to take down the tweet or change it in anyway. We spent some time talking about how "accept it or f-off" is uncharitable to some groups of people, and applauded by others. We talked about how our consciences are all still in formation. We talked about how forming our consciences with reputable resources that cover all angles of an issue is necessary. I suggested that maybe part of her calling to Catholic Ministry would be to help navigate these relatively uncharted waters in a pastoral way.

Oh hang on-they blew up the mother shark. My 12-year old is laughing her bloody head off.

After wading through it all, I was happy when we settled into a dialogue about mercy. It is a skill to operate from a point of mercy. I believe that mercy is the only thing that can connect people who cannot or will not agree about something.

Mercy Definition

dictionary.search.yahoo.com

n. noun

• 1. Compassionate treatment, especially of those under one's power; clemency.
• 2. A disposition to be kind and forgiving. a heart full of mercy.
• 3. Something for which to be thankful; a blessing. It was a mercy that no one was hurt.

I'm not going to comment much on Caitlyn. I didn't know Bruce. I know my daughter, and I care about her formation of conscience. She's 18, and I may not be the official responsible party for her formation anymore, but my behavior is still a model for her all the time. I take that pretty seriously. She is on the edge of making an impact on the world I cannot predict, and the best thing I can do with any touchy issue is to make sure she knows what the official Catholic teachings are, and then teach her about mercy by the way I act and the way I treat others, both here in our real life and on the internet. I started to get a little passive aggressive about Caitlyn on Facebook, and I initially chimed in a little here and there, but I deleted and "unliked" a few things that sent messages in a less than compassionate way. I'm not going to view this as "apologizing" for my perspectives. It's not. I know what my perspective is, and it's just not needed out there today. Besides, I linked in Fr. Leo's post because I feel it resonates well with how I feel right now anyway.

The first thing I saw when I read her tweet was a shark. I went straight for the kill. I missed. We almost created a situation that could have caused a lot more damage than it did. That phone call came in at the just the right time. I asked for a do-over. She gave me one. No blood in the water. 

There's so much that can be said about the use of this quote, but seriously I can't do everything for you.

P.s This post exposes my daughter's perspective. Don't comment negatively about her.  Believe me, I will not be inclined to be a cute little fish about it. I'll be, you know, the other thing. (as nicely as I can)

10 things about 14 things about 6 things about 4 things about 43 things.

As a new blogger, I spend a little bit of time every day reading other blogs. I have liked (and sometimes subsequently unliked) a dozen or so mom and dad humor blogs and other parenting blogs and pages recently. (I’ll write about unliking pages another time. S’gonna be funny.)

It’s a jungle out there I tell ya. There are mean mommy blogs, nice mommy blogs, religious mommy blogs, happy dad blogs, and bitter and angry daddy blogs. There are “I know everything” blogs, “I know nothing” blogs, “drink wine all the time” blogs and “never eat this or that blogs.” There are the blogs which are set apart from others with the fact that they have a NAUGHTY word in the page title. oooOOOoooh. There are political blogs right, left, up and down, and blogs that blog about blogs.

And what stands out to me? I’m a little mental, I know. (Example: I have debated with my husband for years about why comedies are actually tragedies and I’ll probably never let that go.) But what caught my twisted humor’s attention was the numbers.

The numbers! My head is swimming in numbers after reading what’s out there in the blogiverse.

Not sure what to make for breakfast? Here are 14 ideas you can make in 5 minutes using 2 pans and 17 ingredients. Easy as 1.2.3.
Need ideas to keep your toddler busy? No sweat! Here are 18 ideas which he will blow through in 16 minutes and you only need 42 items from 3 different stores and $235.

Can’t get your little darling to sleep? Your worries end here. You just need to follow this 82 step algorithm, and you’ll wonder why you ever had trouble with naptime or math in the first place.

Raising a teenager? Guess what? YOU ONLY NEED TO KNOW 10 THINGS! 10! (There will be 800 articles on the 10 things you need to know, and the 10 things in each of the 800 blogs will all be different. That’s only 8000 things you need to know about raising teenagers, which sounds about right to me.)

It’s ridiculous but I can’t get passed the chronic listing of things and things in lists. I’m just totally consumed with how bloggers listers list and list and list and list. List-i-posts are e.v.e.r.y.w.h.e.r.e. I can’t not see them anymore. Sorta like dead people.

Maybe it’s the shortest way to get a lot of content out there? Maybe it’s become a self-fulfilling, self-propulsion thing and since everyone else is writing 11 things about 9 topics or 89 ways to do 45 things, then the self-aware blogisphere thinks everyone really just wants a listosphere? Maybe it’s really a marketing thing, and if an article has only 8 “things” in it, bloggers think the holders of the all important “like” readers might take 300 seconds to read their brilliant 8 things? (Some of them are totally brilliant, but some of them also suck. 9 ways to fold socks? Really?)

You know how you might get a new faux alligator purse or something, and you think it’s all original, until you see it EVERYWHERE and think damn, that was a big faux alligator? (Obviously the natural progression of argument WOULD evolve from listing stuff to faux alligators, which are totally a thing.)

Here’s the part where I try not to alienate anyone who’s ever written a list:
I’ve already been tempted to do it.

It seems like a natural attention grabber, and provides a structure for writing. But then again, so does a drawing of a hamburger.

I usually play Ask the Googles at least once when I write, so this time I just started typing in “1 thing” and “46 things” and “39 things,” and I still haven’t found a number under one hundred that doesn’t have oodles to teach me about rap music, the Dalai Lama, graduation speeches, how to not be a party-pooper, what your 5th grader should know, how to tie shoelaces, and program computers. Try it sometime. It was kind of a hoot actually (Hey- do you want to know 11 or 16 neat things about owls?)

And my closing remark is that at some point, I will probably have already put a number in the title of a post. Or maybe 5, but NOW it’s just because it’s too ironic to pass up.

Aaaaaaaaand I just realized there’s a number in the title of movie with the dead people remark. See? My subconscious is obsessed 2 I guess.

An Overcooked Halloween Stew

If you're anything like me, Halloween starts sometime in late September, when the kids start asking about costumes and when the zombie baby stores start resurrecting in empty store pads.

I absolutely hate zombie babies. (I know. I said I don't really hate anything. But I hate zombie babies.)

My husband would transform our house into a haunted maze if he could, and for years and years and years and years he has talked about wanting to open a real haunted house corn maze thing for reals. I vacillate between encouraging him to go ahead and try to make that a reality and just doing the uh-huh-can-you-go-find-the-plastic-pumpkins thing.

He has a couple of pretty scary ghoul things that I make him take to work because I find them too gruesome. He has also collected a couple of borderline scary pirate skeleton gadgets that talk on motion sensor, and are kind of funny, unless you are a two- or three-year old who is both fascinated and repulsed by said gadgets. One of the pirate skeleton heads goads you along and croaks- "closer, come closer, closer" and then when you're close enough, it does this maniacal holler/laughing "nanny nanny boo boo" thing. It's creepy. And hilarious. My husband proudly displays his little collection all over the entry to the house, and then my three-year-old avoids the front door all month until "the closers" are gone. I would prefer cutesy ghosts and spiders and bats and that kind of thing, but allowing a little scary here and there is just a concession I've made over the years.

Terrifying. Look away.

 When I was a kid, my mom made great costumes and my dad would take us around the neighborhood to trick or treat. Mom made chili and garlic bread and out we went. I always intended to continue that tradition, and for the most part, that's the basis for what we now do. We gather with friends and family, have chili and cornbread and dress in costumes from a party store or second-hand store. We stop first at our neighbor's house, where the elderly lady who lives there proudly gives each of the kids a personalized treat bag and beer to the parents. Hilarious. Then we descend upon the 'hood in a group of 15 to 25, weaving our way down to grandma and papa's house. Their house is the last stop, and we collapse there while the kids re-enact the Wall Street trading floor with chaotic candy trading. It's great.

However.

There was a time when it was proposed to me, specifically and personally, that any Halloween celebrations were in league with the devil, trick-or-treating was a nod of support to a high holiday of the occult, and that as a Catholic, I should denounce all Halloween festivities altogether. I was a young mom, and I was given a children's book about why Christians should not participate in any Halloween festivities, no matter how benign they seemed. I was engulfed by a current which would not even utter the word "Halloween," favoring "All Saints Eve" or "All Hallows Eve" and the like. (And no, it did not seem to matter that these phrases meant THE EXACT SAME thing as "Halloween." The word "Halloween" was awkwardly and deliberately avoided in conversation.) It was heavily suggested that my tiny family should not begin a tradition of trick-or-treating and Halloween decor, in favor of purely saint-oriented activities, since "All Hallows Eve" was the evening before the Catholic feast of All Saints Day. (On All Saints Day, Catholics call to mind all saints living and dead, and then proceed to honor All Souls Day the next day.) I was young, I did begin to try to conform to the expectation very clearly placed in front of me, but I was extremely uncomfortable doing it. I just did not agree that my mom's chili, a Princess Lea costume, and a butterfinger were evil.

Even so, as my "good girl" pattern often dictated, I tried this anti-Halloween thing out once. One year about 15 years back, we put wings on our little girl so she would be an angel and went to a Halloween alternative "saint" party on "All Hallows Eve." There were little ring toss games and bowling games all with Catholic themes (i.e. knock down the seven deadly sins and you win or name the saint games.) I found the whole thing very divisive, because I sensed a very clear "WeEEee don't go trick or treating or celebrate 'Halloween.' WeEEee celebrate All Hallows Eve and we are very holy for doing so." Maybe that's likely not what everyone there was intending, but it was what I perceived. My head was a whirlwind of thoughts but I went through the motions with everyone else, clapping with glee when a kid tossed three balls in three jars labeled Jealousy, Envy, and Gluttony. Eventually, I found my courage, and I had one of those pivotal moments where I decided this was not the path I would choose. After about an hour, I shoved a wand in my angel's hand, told her she was now a fairy, and we went trick or treating.

For the record, I think saint parties are fine and Catholic themed games are just fine. I love learning about saints, and actually, some of them would make for a really gruesome costume. (Alas, no St. Lucy's eyeballs on a plate at that saint party though.) What I didn't like, was that I felt forced to default to the anti-Halloween mindset because MY Halloween trick-or-treating tradition was suddenly being labeled by another as akin to the demonic.

There's so much more to unpack here. I can't possibly do it all at once, but for starters:

Sorry pagans and occultists, Halloween is a CATHOLIC holiday.(Although plenty of American celebrate it as a "uniquely American tradition" and attach no religious significance to it whatsoever. Costume parties and candy work just fine within a secular context.) Here's one of 8 million articles about it. I always found it ironic that we were, at that time,  discouraged from Halloween traditions by other Catholics.
--and--
Much of modern anti-Halloween sentiment is actually rooted in anti-CATHOLIC sentiment. Here's another of 8 million articles on that. It's totally crazy that when some Catholics are favoring "Harvest" parties over Halloween parties, they are actually emulating a tradition that definitely has pagan roots.

As far as I'm concerned, if you claim to be anti-Halloween and won't dress up or trick or treat because of what occultists have attached to Halloween, and yes that is a reality, that's fine. (You're actually anti-occult, not anti-Halloween. That's good. So am I.) But you better pray against that just as hard on every other night of the year as well, because evil doesn't rear its ugly head on one "big" night and then go away. If you believe Jesus conquers all, then believe it 365 days of the year. Jesus isn't a 364 day warranty that runs out every Halloween. Don't equate me or anyone else with the devil's cohort because I dress my kid as Buzz Lightyear and hand out snickers, and because we're a close target.

After that year, I made no apologies for celebrating Halloween the way we wanted. I empathize with those who fear Halloween, but I will not pretend to be one of them, even in the midst of many people who loudly denounce the holiday. I don't like the super-gory and super-slutty direction some secular traditions have ventured into, and we avoid those elements of Halloween.

On Halloween, we dress up our houses and ourselves, we're little bit scary and lotta bit funny, we make chili and wander around the neighborhood big and small, and we laugh as the big kids teach the little ones to say "trick or treat." We get a little scared here and there, and then we follow up with telling the kids about how fear is always conquerable. We laugh at the dark and spooky. We go to Mass the next day and spend two days honoring friends and family who have passed away, and we spend time thinking about our souls and praying for all dead and alive. Sounds pretty Catholic if you ask me.

Sometimes, People are Just Jerks

“Do my eyes deceive me or are you blessed again?”

“And do we have anything we’d like to… announce?”

“You would love this detox idea, you could lose 20 pounds in a month.”

“I have other friends who just bounced right back after having a baby at 37. Hmmm. I just don’t see why it’s that hard.”

“And he’s your youngest? Are you sure?” wink wink, glanced at my, ahem, middle.

And that was just over the last year. This is part one of a series I’ll call:

I made none of these up. I was on the receiving end of all of these at some point over the last year. If I tried to catalogue how many other examples of moron-ness I have had the pleasure of navigating, I would need to drink a winery. (And I don’t even drink wine, so first I’d need to start, then pretend I like wine, then find out how much wine a winery holds, and drink it all.)

Here’s how I replied. Allow me to repeat the questions:

“Do my eyes deceive me or are you blessed again?”
“Yes. I’m blessed, because you’re already missing one tooth and that’s gonna make it really easy to knock out another one.”

“And do we have anything we’d like to… announce?”
“Yes. I’d like to announce that you’re a complete idiot, but fortunately most people already know that.”

“You would love this detox idea, you could lose 20 pounds in a month.”
“Hmm. 20 pounds in one month? What do you weigh, like 130? What if I’d like to lose 130 pounds, like, a LOT faster? Also your statement is a comma splice but whatever.”

“I have other friends who just bounced right back after having a baby at 37. Hmmm. I just don’t see why it’s that hard.”
“Wait… you have friends? Plural? Do your cats know?”

“And he’s your youngest? Are you sure?” wink wink, glance at my, ahem, middle.
“Oh my heavens he’s not! I must’ve left my real youngest at Fat Burger!”

I wish. OF COURSE I didn’t say any of that. (Read my post about why I blog. I’m POLITE, dangit.)

What did I do? What would you do? Shake it off? Oh they’re just well-meaning and don’t really understand? Oh just don’t be too hard on people? Oh they just want the best for you?
NO.
I pushed it all waaaaaaay down. Buried it six feet under and put up a fricken’ headstone that says
“Here Lies A Person Who is Too Polite to Tell You You’re a Moron and Your Words Actually Hurt People.”

Sometimes I cried. Sometimes I laughed it off. Sometimes I cold-shouldered it. Once I had to leave church because I was doing that try-to-hide-it-cry and I just couldn’t hide it well enough. (uh-huh, church. because that’s where I was for one these golden nuggets.)

Sometimes I pretend it’s a catalyst to get back or keep going to the gym. I start dealing with the hurt by fixing ME. I kick over the headstone and declare NO MORE! And then I diet and gym (yes, it’s a verb now) and I try to be just so grateful that those people said those things to me and now I’m so liberated! Oh Thank You, Morons!! What would I ever have done without you? If only you’d insulted me sooner then I’d have been a size 6 a long time ago! Oh, I mean a 4 - does a size 4 make you happier? okay then I’d have been a 4 a lot sooner! Oh bless you, Jerk E. Moron! Then I obsess call it focus and I try harder just to fail again and I’m flailing about in the thunder and rain and I slip into a muddy unfinished pool with skeletons everywhere and I can hear Craig T. Nelson out there screaming "YOU TOOK THE HEADSTONES BUT YOU LEFT THE BODIES DIDN”T YOU!! YOU ONLY MOVED THE HEADSTONES!!" And then my house explodes and I eat a cookie or five.

(I have a clinical problem with metaphors.)

I always go after the wrong problem, see. If a jerk cuts you off on the road, do you try to be a better driver so that nobody will cut you off again? If someone steals your political yard signs out of your yard, do you change your vote? OF COURSE NOT.

It is very hard for me to sell myself the fact that each time a jerk says something about my appearance, that I am not the problem. The jerk is the problem, and no matter what I do to fix myself, I cannot fix the jerks. I can fix myself on my own time table. But will the jerk still be a jerk? A resounding PROBABLY.

If I had a time machine, I could fix so many things. I could say the things I always wanted to say now that I’m trying to be braver, and maybe I could even make sure that tucking jeans into boots never became a thing in the 80’s. Sadly, I don’t have one yet. (Somebody needs to get on that STAT.) But like usual, once I have something in writing, I tend to hold myself more accountable. How will I handle it next time? I don’t really know, but hopefully I will save myself from a muddy swim with the skeletons and arrive more quickly at the conclusion that sometimes, people are just jerks.

Be Gone, High School Royalty Courts

Can someone please explain to me why on earth, in this day and age, we still embrace the useless popularity contest which is the High School Homecoming Royalty Court?

I went to my daughter's high school homecoming football game last night. It was the first and last football game I have ever been to at her high school. I have nothing against football, and when I do go to a game I am usually surprised by how fun the atmosphere is and ask myself why I don't do this more often, yadda yadda yadda. We're just not a very sports-y family. My daughter was singing the national anthem for the game, so it was a perfect opportunity to go to just one game.

She did a great job, but as it happens at smaller schools, the antiquated speaker system was not cooperating and we could only hear every other word. Oh well.
My daughter went off with her friends, and my parents and I decided to stick around at least for a couple of quarters and maybe see what goes on at half time. My mom actually teaches at the school, but she doesn't go to the games in general either. She just came along to hear her granddaughter.

From what I could tell, not much has changed at the high school football scene. The boys crash into each other like big organized cavemen, and the girls decorate the sidelines, tossing themselves and each other around in short skirts and ribbons. I don't really have a problem with this. I suppose there are times when one might use this scene is a microcosm of everything that is either wrong or right with gender roles in society, but I'm not terribly concerned with that right now.

HOWEVER- what did get my hamster wheel turning was the half time performance. After the standard dance line number, it was finally the time we had all been waiting for, apparently. Loads of parents, teens, and administrators strutted out into the center of the field, accompanied by the drum of unintelligible introductions and accolades pouring forth from the speakers, for we would now all witness the crowning of the Homecoming King and Queen.

Oooh that's right. I remember this stuff. I asked my mom:

"Is this a merit-based nomination or something?"
"No."
"Is it still just a big popularity contest?"
"Yes."
"What does it accomplish?"
"Nothing, really."
"Well then why do we do it?"
"I really have no idea."
"So, the administrators all line up and applaud these kids who got votes- and we don't know how they earned those votes? Does anyone even WANT to be the homecoming king or queen these days?"
"Well it's usually a football player and his girlfriend, who is usually a cheerleader."

And there it was. That's how it was at my school 20 years ago, how about yours?

My sister's niece had been crowned the queen at a homecoming or prom the year before, and she broke up her crown and handed pieces to all the nominees. We've heard stories about winners who hand their crowns to fellow nominees. These are genuine gestures to share or even deflect the spotlight; but really, why are we doing this in the first place? So I asked my daughter the next day:

"So, how do people get nominated for homecoming royalty?"
"I don't know. Nobody even cares."
"Do they campaign or something?"
"No"
"Well then why are you doing it?"
"I don't know. The same people win year after year anyway. Honestly no one cares."

Why are administrators perpetuating this tradition? (Unlike student government or student councils, winners don't seem to DO anything after their "elections," right?) The stands full of kids weren't watching who won, my mom the teacher didn't really have much to add on the matter, and my daughter couldn't have cared less. I did see a mom or two fawning all over their daughters and sons on the court but that's about it.

I would like to believe that the apathy I saw was because the kids are smarter than the administrators on this one. It hasn't quite occurred to them that maybe they should attempt to put an end to it, but IMHO, this kind of fake-y popularity stuff needs to go the way of the dodo bird. Keep the fun homecoming banners and alumni parties and honors and all, but this whole robing of a king, queen, and court seems like a perpetuation of bad stereotypes which have seen their day and need to go bye bye.

I did a little research out of curiosity, and asked the Googles things like "Why Homecoming Courts Are Lame" or "How to be Homecoming Queen." And yes, I was specifically looking to see if I'm the only one on the planet who might hold a less than favorable opinion on homecoming courts.

It looks like I might be.

I discovered an article which details specifically how to lay groundwork to get yourself voted in as the Homecoming Queen. It had been viewed over 115,000 times. (Oh good. only 115K. But also WHAT? 115k people read this!) More interestingly, I found what seems to me as a sort of new and evolved contest for the hearts of communities in articles about court nominees who are autistic, special needs, gay, transgendered, or any other nominee who seems to break the "football player and his girlfriend" mold.

Hmmm.

So, if we throw in a nominee "type" that catches attention, then suddenly these homecoming courts are worth watching? One article called homecoming courts "important" for breaking old stereotypes. (okay. Point taken) Another article boasted of how pro-active they are about removing racism from their nomination process.(Well, duh!) If homecoming court nominations are a platform for our social and political landscape, then suddenly there's a stamp of approval on THOSE kinds of popularity contests? I'm not convinced. IT IS STILL A POPULARITY CONTEST. I'd love to hear if someone has a convincing reason for when popularity contests are ever okay.

Pretend the homecoming court is a sandwich. Maybe it was always a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. If I take the peanut butter and jelly off the slices of bread and put ham and cheese there instead, it is STILL A SANDWICH, and I'll pass either way, thank you very much.