Family values. I hate that term. Whenever someone uses it, the listener is supposed to automatically know what is being discussed. It's one of those feel-good terms that is basically meaningless because, well, it has no meaning.
How can any intelligent person expect to coin a phrase like "family values" and expect it to fit all families? I think it's just a propaganda term churned out by the radical right/religious fundamentalists to further their cause against us Commie liberals who believe a woman should have a right to say what happens to her body, that all people should have the right to marry, and that legalized murder in the form of the death penalty is still murder. There is an inherent meaning to the phrase that implies there is just one model of family, that in which the male is supreme and the female inferior.
If there is a hell, then surely it exists here on earth, in a family where the...
As a volunteer who works with students in two elementary school classrooms each week, I'm floored by the number of kids who consistently come to class without having done their homework. And the excuses are, well, inexcusable. "I had to go to my dad's, and he was busy." "We were shopping all night." "I don't get to do my homework until late and I was tired." Usually these excuses come from the kids who truly need work on their skills and knowledge base.
One weekly assignment involves using spelling words in sentences that reflect the students' comprehension of each word's meaning. I'm not exaggerating when I tell you there are 10-year-olds who don't know the meaning of the word "faithful." Others can't seem to keep their eyes open to read to me because they were up until midnight, playing video games. Where are your parents, and what are you doing? It's obvious what you're not doing.
You made the choice to have...
As a toddler, Max earned the nickname Barnacle Boy. I called him that because he was literally attached to me nearly every waking moment. As an infant, I wore him in a sling as I went about my daily routine. When he began walking at 9 months, he’d follow me through the house so closely that when I stopped moving, he’d run into the backs of my legs and fall over from the impact. If we watched a movie together, he was in my lap. We shared a family bed, too, so when I rolled over in the night, Max was right there, snuggled against me. It is not an exaggeration to say I was never without that boy.
Tomorrow, Max turns 13. That’s a milestone birthday, more for a boy, I think, than for a girl (for girls, it’s the Sweet Sixteen). No longer a child, but not yet a man, 13-year-old males are in an amazing stage of life....
Dear Mom,
My first Mother’s Day without you. It’s been 6 months of “firsts,” none of them good. I turned 40 feeling more lost than ever because you were supposed to be here to help celebrate that milestone. Your leaving wasn’t in my plan. There’s still so much I want to share with you, so many things I would have told you had I known that I’d never see you again when I left you standing on the sidewalk last August.
My stomach lurches when I pass a display of Mother’s Day cards. I have no verses to give you, but I have a well-worn, faded magazine clipping you sent me decades ago. It’s a poem called “Only Violets,” and upon reading it all those years ago, I finally realized that you were more than my mom. You were a woman whose dreams and wishes went unfulfilled, despite the fact that you weren’t asking for much. Only violets.
Had I known you were...
Four-year-old Bella and I had a recent conversation following her weekly AWANA (church) meeting that went like this:
Wes: Bell, what happened on Good Friday?
Bella: Jesus died. But he only stayed dead for three days.
Me: Then what happened?
Bella: He came alive again.
Me: Where’d he go?
Bella: Heaven.
Me: Wow! You were a really good listener during the story.
Bella: Yep, I was. (pause) Then I choked a boy.
Me: Bella! Why’d you do that?
Bella: (brief contemplation) I felt like it. But he wanted me to. He said “Thank you for strangling me; it’s a dream come true.”
Her mischievous grin belied the truth. I called her on her fib and she admitted she was kidding. She did halfheartedly attempt to choke a boy, but he didn’t exactly enjoy it. In her defense, she wasn’t serious about cutting off his oxygen supply. Sometimes Bella equates bodily assault with affection. We’re working on that.
Bella goes through life at full throttle from the moment she awakens until she finally...
Big, fat snowflakes were gently falling when I awoke one morning earlier this week. I’ve been sick for what feels like an eternity, but what has actually been merely a couple weeks. I haven’t been this sick since I was a child, and I longed for my mother’s comforting touch.
Something’s been off lately, and it goes beyond the exhaustion of being ill. This sense of the world not being right has its roots in my soul, and it’s left me feeling off balance. After the kids left for school, I sat at the kitchen table and stared out at the glistening blanket of snow that was quickly forming. It was a Christmas Eve-type snowfall, the kind that muffles the sounds of the world outside. And as I waited for my coffee to brew, it slowly dawned on me that I’ve been so focused on the everyday details of life that somewhere between here and Nov. 3 when I got the...
If you listen to the radio, flip through TV channels, or pick up a newspaper, you probably already know that the religious right is warning the public at large about the dangers of SpongeBob Squarepants. Somehow, this innocent yellow sponge has been forced into the ranks of those dangerous rabble rousers known as Barney and Tinky-Winky.
We are to shield our children from the sponge because he is one of hundreds of cartoon characters featured in a video that — horrors! — preaches tolerance. How dare he!
SpongeBob, Arthur, Winnie the Pooh and other beloved cartoon characters are featured in a video — with voice-over provided by Bill Cosby — produced by We Are Family Foundation, a group whose mission is to foster a greater understanding of cultural differences. Those of you who are around my age may remember the disco hit by the same title, performed by Sister Sledge. You’ll recall that there is nothing pro-homosexual about the song. According to...
A May 2004 Gallup poll asked Americans their opinion of the morality of a number of social issues. According to that poll, 60 percent found it morally acceptable for an unmarried man and woman to have consensual sex. However, only 49 percent found it morally acceptable to have a baby outside marriage. And to confuse things further, just 40 percent found it morally acceptable to have an abortion. Wow.
These statistics present quite a conundrum. Here we have a majority of people believing unmarried sex is OK, but having a baby out of wedlock isn’t. Yet obtaining an abortion is even less acceptable. So what would these people have us do? Enter into a marriage for the sake of a child because…
…because what? Here’s where the logic ceases to exist for me. How can the same people approve of the act that creates a child if they don’t approve of the existence of that child, and approve even less of the...
My job for the past seven weeks has been to index a 6-volume set on feminism in literature from antiquity through the 20th century. Indexing is the kind of work which, once you stop for the day, your brain keeps categorizing and developing term hierarchies. So as someone is talking to me, in my mind, I’m indexing the terms and concepts that come out of his mouth. It’s exhausting.
These days my head is full of feminist theory and criticism. Having read so much about it, I can’t help but think about how the concept relates to me, and more importantly, to my children.
Time was, feminism was the dirty F-word. Media painted all feminists as militant, man-hating lesbians, hell-bent on destroying family values and undermining the infrastructure of society. Many of the freedoms and choices we women (and our daughters) enjoy today came at great cost to our foremothers. But what about the boys?
Feminism isn’t just a female thang. I was...
Last week, disgruntled Granby citizen Marvin Heemeyer went on a rampage and bulldozed several buildings in his town, leaving in his wake millions of dollars in damages. Satisfied with the job he'd done, Heemeyer put a bullet through his own head and ended what appeared to be years of tormenting anger at a town he felt betrayed him.
Amazingly enough, Heemeyer didn't physically harm another living soul. He demolished businesses belonging to people he felt were mean to him. He razed public buildings as well, including the library. And that's what really got me.
My former husband and I used to live in Granby, many years ago. There wasn't a lot to do there. We had no TV; for a while, we had no phone. In winter, we often got snowed in. The library was our primary source of entertainment. It was a small library and didn't have a wide array of books from which to choose. There was no "New Books"...
