If the good old days were so good, why don't you live them?

I've seen some things on Facebook that follow a similar theme and they make me wonder.  One set says something like, "If I talked to my Mom and Dad like my kids (or other people's kids) talk to me, I'd get the crap beat out of me."  Another set says something about how as kids we played in vacant lots, ate sugar, walked to school, took aspirin, had vaccinations, etc etc etc ad nauseum, like and share if you aren't dead yet.

And this is all well and good, but it makes me wonder, if you liked those things so much, why don't you raise your own kids like that?

So, your kids are rude to you.  Who taught them that?  Who says you can't teach your children to be polite and respectful to you and to others?  Who keeps you from bursting their privileged bubble and telling them that you love them very much but Copernicus called and they are not the center of the universe?  Who made them think they were the center anyway?  OK, you can't beat the crap out of your kids, but how does that teach respect anyway?  Why didn't you raise kids you can send out in public and know they will be respectful, helpful, and kind?

No, don't answer that.  I don't care.  Just quit whining.

Part two: I drive my kids all over the place, pay for expensive lessons and teams, and they can't do anything by themselves.

STOP!!!!!  Stop driving them all over the place.  Stop paying for lessons they don't want but you are doing because you think they need structure.  Let them go play in vacant lots.  If you've put that little Facebook poster up, you probably don't live somewhere that is too dangerous to let your kids play in the front yard.  And by danger, I mean random shootings and rabid coyotes, not imaginary predators.  Please, you taught your kid not to get into a car with strangers, let them practice it.

Stop meeting their every want.  "I had to leave work to bring lunch to my son at school."  Why?  I've seen your son, it's not going to kill him to miss a meal.  It hasn't killed mine.  And then, funny thing, they forget less often.

If you want to drive your kid around, pay for lessons, bring them lunch ---- go ahead, but quit whining about it.  Just do it, but recognize it's your choice.  If you are afraid of the PTA president who looks at you funny if your socks don't match, too bad.  Funny looks don't kill.  Not preparing your child for reality might.  It probably won't, but it might.

And, yeah, I've brought forgotten projects, field trip money, and all kinds of stuff to school for my kids.  Some days you do it, because their lesson is too hard for you to learn.

I'm not saying don't pay for lessons, teams, or instruments/gear/stuff.  If your kid really wants to play... whatever... I say cool.  There are lots of life lessons from team stuff, musical instruments, scouts... but remember the lesson is theirs not yours.  Support your kids, but don't be your kids.

As the Facebook posts say, our parents and grandparents didn't make a profession out of parenting.  Even stay at home Moms did a lot of other things while their kids went outside to play in the drainage ditch... I mean lovely creek.  Just relax, do your job.  Love your kids.  Let them grow up.

My great big Agnostic Funeral

A couple of weeks ago, I went to a meeting of Faith Formation leaders from the Episcopal Diocese of Upper SC.  It was a wonderful group with a dynamic interesting speaker.  I thought about a lot of things, and I thought about things differently.  I went away inspired in my work with the children of St. Michael and All Angel's Episcopal Church, brimming with thoughts to share with the kids and the marvelous teachers.

But one comment/mini-discussion threw me off.  It didn't offend me, but it gave me a small ray of AHA!  Well, more like a hmmmm.  Something to think and pray on for awhile.

The speaker, Kyle Oliver, asked if anyone had ever been to a non-religious funeral.  Only a couple of people raised their hands, that I could see.  He said, "Wasn't it odd?  Didn't it feel wrong?"

And I said, very softly, no, it felt wonderful.

I was not always a Faith Formation leader in an Episcopal Church.  I was baptized and raised Catholic, and went to church and catechism classes until high school.  I was confirmed on my 13th birthday... but that's another story.  I was Catholic because my father was raised Catholic and my parents believed that it's important to be a member of a church.  Not for faith formation, but because in SC, the first question anyone asks you is "What church do you go to?"  St. Peter's Catholic Church is the wrong answer, but at least it is an answer.

My parents were agnostic or atheist, I'm not really sure.  I believed in God from a very young age, and don't know what it feels like to not believe.  But I do know that belief --- real belief, real experience of the Holy Spirit --- is a gift and not everyone has it.  My parents were Good People.  They treated others as they would like to be treated.  They found the good in people, they spoke out for the speechless.  While they were not religious people, they acted in a way that would be called Christian around here.

And so their memorial services were not religious ceremonies.  In both cases, people who loved them and people whom they loved came together to celebrate their lives.  It was humbling to realize how much each of my parents affected other people's lives.  The services were joyful and sad.  We laughed, we cried, we told inappropriate stories.  Afterwards, we drank too much and laughed and cried some more.

And so, when Father Oliver asked if it was odd, I thought no.  And then I thought, how in the world do you expect to attract people of good faith (small "f") if you think they are odd?  If your attitude is, here, I have the truth for you and you are obviously suffering and stupid.  I write this, and can't really hear Father Oliver saying this, but, y'know, that's kind of what he said.  That's kind of what I hear people say at my church when they talk about Atheists and Agnostics --- talking about people as if they are debauched baby-killers. 

If your way to God is through Jesus Christ, God doesn't like it when you block the path from others.  God doesn't like it when you call God's people odd.  I'm pretty sure... She didn't tell me in so many words.

One of my favorite hymns is "They will know we are Christians by our Love."  Not our tracts, not our lectures on how not to be odd, not our bruised knees.  They will know we are Christians by our Love, and with the Grace of God, they will want to be with people like us.  And maybe we can love and appreciate the face of God in all people, even those who don't pray like we do or even pray at all.

Kindergarten day one: real or pretend?

OK, first of all, let me say that I have nothing against Penny from The Big Bang Theory and truly meant to defend her right to be or act like a bimbo or a housewife or a theoretical physicist, especially if she is funny.  So let it go, Bob.

The thing with Penny from the Big Bang Theory and with many many other people, is that they are playing and they think they are real.  There is nothing wrong with playing, but it is important to know "real" and "imaginary."  Remember kindergarten?  That's one of the standards.  Real.  Pretend.

And so Penny from the Big Bang Theory plays at being a housewife.  Cool.  Then there are those who play at being homeless.   Or black.  Or blind.  Or in a wheelchair.  I suppose they believe they can develop empathy if they experience something.

But here's the thing: that's not how it works.  That's not how any of this works!

Empathy is the ability to sense the feelings and experiences of another.  It should lead to compassion. It shouldn't lead to the smug sense that you KNOW how it feels to be (fillintheblank) and can now be the impassioned spokesperson for the underprivileged.

Maybe if you are particularly non-empathetic you need to actually experience something, but then it is your experience not theirs.  And it is going to be different.

If you dress in a dirty $300 parka and sleep in the park instead of your home in order to experience homelessness, you are not experiencing homelessness.  You are camping.

If you roll around in a wheelchair to experience paralysis, but can get up and open the door for yourself when you choose to do so, you are not experiencing paralysis.  You are riding in a wheelchair.

Any time you can wash off your black face, take off your blindfold, get up and walk home, you are not experiencing, you are playing.

Maybe you will have an aha! moment, and that's cool.  Use it.  But empathy comes from listening, hearing, seeing, feeling, without being.  You don't have to literally walk a mile in someone else's shoes.

If you are privileged, and you probably are in some way, be aware of what you have been given.  And use those gifts to help other people.  Even if you aren't exactly sure of what others are dealing with --- listen, then help.

And keep your hands, feet, and other objects to yourself.

A special kind of stupid

It takes a special kind of person to stand on the shoulders of giants and say, "Really, this is the view? I've seen this."

And that is what Kaley Cuoco-Sweeting (of Big Bang Theory) and many other women like her are saying when they say, "I am not a feminist."

Mrs. Sweeting even said it herself, albeit with a shrug:

"It's not really something I think about," she told Redbook magazine for its February issue, on newsstands Jan. 6. "Things are different now, and I know a lot of the work that paved the way for women happened before I was around ... I was never that feminist girl demanding equality, but maybe that's because I've never really faced inequality," she said.
And so you slap the women who did face inequality (and still do, Don't be stupid, girl.)

Cuoco-Sweeting, 29, who married husband Ryan Sweeting, 27, on New Year's Eve last year, said that she cooks for him "five nights a week: It makes me feel like a housewife; I love that. I know it sounds old-fashioned, but I like the idea of women taking care of their men. I'm so in control of my work that I like coming home and serving him," she told the magazine.

News flash: it is a hell of a lot more fun to cook five nights a week and dress in slutty underwear when it is your choice and not what you have to do. She plays housewife, but she isn't someone who is responsible for the daily drudgery of housekeeping without a creative (sort of) outlet of acting or something else, without a choice.

Kaley and everyone else need to send a great big thank you to all the women who did take the chance and fight the battles so we can play a housewife or a stupid slut. and so we can truly be actors, writers, doctors, and anything we want. Men need to thank these women for freeing them from the restrictions of cavemen mentality. We need to thank the men and women who broke free from Victorian role playing and gave us the privilege of saying (no matter how delusionally) "I have never really faced inequality."

And every damn body who benefits from the fights of those women (and men) needs to stand up and say, "I am a feminist." And if you want to be a feminist who wears slutty underwear and cooks every night, go for it. NOW you have the choice.