I don’t have an office. I don’t have a team of project managers reporting to me. I don’t ‘take lunch’. Heck, I don’t even pee with the door closed. One out of two days of mine is spent entirely within a 1800 square foot house (well, that’s including the basement/laundry room where, let’s be honest, I don’t spend much time). And most of the day I am left with the sinking feeling that I am not ultimately in control of my own life. I am needed desperately by both of my boys, one of whom I literally sustain nutritionally (how’s that for project management?) and it’s often hard to tell where I end and my family begins.
Many of my bloggers happen to be religious, and a lot of them share this on their sites. Sometimes this is done very subtly (with just a little graphic in the sidebar). Sometimes religion is part of the content itself. I have to wonder if this is going to affect their ability to monetize moving forward. And if so, should they stop mentioning it? I have had no problem suggesting to bloggers that they tone down their language if sponsorship is super important (even though that bugs me). But… somehow asking someone to stop talking about their religion feels inappropriate to me. I also have to wonder where these clients are drawing the line. Would I be out of consideration because I share my family’s Passover recipes?
My thoughts are interrupted by a sharp sudden "BOOOOM" to the wall to my left. The plywood rattles and releases a cloud of fine dust. Like startled deer in a field, all heads turn suddenly and stare at the wall, breaths halted. Frozen. Three solders are on their feet in an instant. Two have hit the ground on their hands and knees in a blink of an eye.
The volley of "not black enough" is cheap, silly and contrary to everything most people who care about racial equality want the mainstream to understand. A white person lumping all black folks into one experience would surely gain my side-eye. So, I'm sure you like rap music, right? Right? A middle-aged, African American civil rights activist using similar logic, when he sure as hell should know better, is damned offensive. Sharpton and his organization can honor whomever they want. (I won't even discuss the rest of the awardees, which included Judge Greg Mathis and Chris Rock...Mmmm hmmmm. I heard L. Joy Williams on Blacking It Up say Rock served up some witty commentary on how black women need to quit saying they don't need a man. So...yeah...) But have enough respect to not respond to legitimate and serious criticism with veiled inferences that detractors are failing at blackness.
I don’t really get the outright hostility that some adults have toward older kids who just want to dress up and have some fun. “They’re too old for that!” cry the naysayers. Too old for what? Dressing outrageously, wandering around town at night, and eating junk food? Isn’t that what being a teenager is all about?
My 12- and 14-year-old sons still trick-or-treat. Their costumes are well-thought-out, and their gratitude for your hard-earned candy is far more heartfelt than my two-year-old’s. But at their ages, many parents start putting the nix on the treats and the tricks. If my son still wants to trick-or-treat at the age of 16, will his friends be allowed to go with him…or will he have to hit the sidewalks alone, in a world where many keepers of the candy will judge him not on the volume of his Halloween spirit, but the size of his shoes?
I feel for the teenaged would-be trick-or-treaters. By this point, most of them have given up on the Easter Bunny, Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy, and Halloween is one of the last vestiges of childhood magic they’ve got left.
But this happens all the time. And nearly every time, the actor is applauded for their efforts. ”Can you BELIEVE how well they played ‘ugly’? It must have been SO. HARD. pretending to be *gag* average. GIVE HER ALL OF THE AWARDS. ALL OF THE AWARDS FOR ENDURING ‘AVERAGE’.” Sure, sometimes, often times, it’s deserved. But others, it’s just insulting to those of us…regular folks.
Let’s take a look at beautiful people slumming it. Good, bad, and average performances, I leave all judgment aside and say simply that I’m just curious as to why these people were cast in these roles and not someone who would have required much less work.
But it's Halloween. And Halloween is about dressing up in spooky costumes and being given candy. There is no tradition that's been set aside in favor of the emphasis on candy, no requirement that we "remember the reason for the season," no need for bemoaning the horrible commercialization of the whole thing. That's it. That's all there's ever been to it, from the days of old when you carried a turnip lamp over to the neighbors, uphill, both ways, in order to beg for cakes.
The self-loathing and shame had ceased to be even slightly productive, but it was too late to go back at that point, so I just kept going. I followed myself around like a bully, narrating my thoughts and actions with a constant stream of abuse.
Sometimes people say adoption is not ethical because what we should really be doing is preventing the problems that lead to adoption. They think that adoption is not ethical because it's not dambuilding. I disagree with this second one because I think it misses the whole point of what an ethical adoption should be. An ethical adoption should pick up the pieces of a tragedy that has already happened, when the rivers were too fast, when the dam wasn't there, when it's too late to prevent the problem because it has already occurred. Building a dam is too late for those kids. Adopting a child who has already lost his or her family does not mean that we don't think the dam is important (although we should be honest enough with ourselves to examine whether we really want the dam built now, or whether 'after my referral' would suit us better. I say that from painful experience).
Dam-building should be something that we do because we are human, and we care about other humans.
We should be doing all we can, where we can, whenever we can, to share what we've got, to make the world better, doing for others what we would want them to do if they were the half of the world who had nearly all of its riches. Dambuilding should not be seen as something that only adoptive parents should be invested in, or only the infertile, because honestly? The dam has not nothing to do with adoption. The reason I've drawn the dam on this map is not because the dam is part of adoption. I've drawn it to illustrate that it is emphatically not part of adoption. It should be separate. Living with one may well lead to an interest in the other, but they are not the same thing. They are not interchangeable. People who have a go at adoptive parents for not sponsoring children instead? Yes, we should all be helping where we can. But that includes YOU. And me. And it should have nothing to do with whether or not either of us ever plans to adopt.
This summer after our referral, I think I was at the apex of my adoption high. "We have a baby! He's gorgeous and he's mine! Everything is going according to plan. We've almost fully funded! Yes, it takes a long time, but the process is following the precise timeline laid out for us." Well, that timeline has disolved and with it my cheery adoption outlook. This is not fun. This is hard. Someone watching our process might see how hard it is and decide not to adopt, which depresses me even more. I'm trying to keep my focus on the situation in Thailand and not let myself wallow too much in self-pity, since I'm sitting here in my secure, dry home. This is just another layer in the DEEP ways that the Lord is teaching me through this process. Surrendering control time and time again, and choosing to trust. Hoping that some good news is just around the corner...for the people of Thailand and for those of us on the other side of the world whose hearts are in the flood.
I love the tradition of Christmas photo cards. I really do. I look forward to getting them every year, and I put them in a scrapbook each year that I pull out during the holiday season. It’s always fun to see how families (and hairstyles) are changing with each new year.
I also love making our own holiday photo cards. It is so rare to get all six of us in a photo together, much less while we are wearing clean and color-coordinated clothes. I do love that the annual photo card forces me to be intentional about getting portraits done.
I’ve already been trying to choose what card to use. I’ve used Shutterfly for a long time. They have a great selection and their prices are really reasonable. I’ve always been able to find designs that fit our style. But this year . . . they have outdone themselves. THERE ARE SO MANY CUTE CHRISTMAS CARDS THIS YEAR. Seriously. I don’t know how I will choose. I’m liking some of the bright colors this year:
I love these cards that let you incorporate your Christmas letter. If only I could condense my year to fit. Maybe not this year, but I think this is such a cool idea:
I’m also really loving the cards where the photo bleeds to the edge. It makes the picture more of the focus and gives a clean, modern look.
I like the layered look on these:
(On a completely unrelated note, I also love that Shutterfly is using so many multi-racial families in their advertising)
I haven’t quite decided which card to use. I can never decide if I want one prominent family shot, or if it’s better to highlight smaller shots of each child’s face. How do you decide?
This was a sponsored post by Shutterfly, but my obsession with holiday cards is all my own. And as a reward for those paying attention: I’m giving away 25 free Shutterfly cards to the first three commenters on this post. Lucky you!
What I Want You to Know is a series of reader submissions. It is an attempt to allow people to tell their personal stories, in the hopes of bringing greater compassion to the unique issues each of us face. If you would like to submit a story to this series, click here.
NOTE: I don’t usually editorialize on these posts, but I wanted to explain that this entry was actually an assignment turned in by a student in my cultural diversity class this summer. As a part of the class, I ask each student to write a historical exploration of their own racial development, with the aim of taking a hard and honest look at all of the racial messages, both overt and covert, that shaped their worldview. I then students share their essays with the class over the course of the semester. It’s hard to explain what a powerful experience it is to hear people talk frankly about the racial tensions they have experiences. The university where I teach has a very diverse population in the graduate program, and it is fascinating to hear how students of every race perceive issues of diversity, and how it has shaped their worldview and their relationships with people of other races. This assignment builds so much empathy among my students and I think they learn as much from listening to their classmates as they do from my lecture material. Without fail, some of the most impactful stories have been from students who grew up in the 60’s and remember experiencing Jim Crow and the implicit cultural acceptance of racial discrimination. It is sobering when we think about this history as being less than a decade behind us. I appreciated this particular essay because of it’s honesty, and because I think it paints a picture of the way so many people in this country were raised, and yet are reluctant to talk about. I asked the author, Karen, if she would be willing to share it on my blog and she generously said yes.
I am Karen, and my heritage is diverse, but mainly European. I am Irish, Scottish with a smidge of goofiness thrown in. My mother is 3rd generation Scottish and English, with her grandparents settling in North Dakota when they came to America. Mix that in with some Irish marriages at the turn of the century, and you have her side of my family. They were very strong people, farming in the rugged Midwest, and eventually all decided to move to California to escape the brutal winters when my mother was 2. My father’s family was primarily Irish. We can trace back to 3 generations when his relatives came over on a ship out of Cork, Ireland. When they reached the US, they decided to go to Oklahoma during the land run years in 1891. The family settled in central Oklahoma on parcels of free land given away by the U.S, Government.
In my immediate family, our traditions were typical of an American family in the 50’s, 60’s and 70’s. I was born in 1958, so I am at the tail end of the ‘baby boomer’ generation. It is VERY hard to describe how different life was when I was young, compared to now. I know that makes me sound old, but I don’t care. I can remember when we got our first TV in 1962, how excited I was because all of my little friends on my block already had one. My father was a truck driver, and we lived right over off of Bristol and Edinger, in Santa Ana. Back then, there was nothing where South Coast Plaza is now, except orange groves, strawberry and lima bean fields. We used to ride our bikes everywhere with no fear of anyone harming us. In the summertime, we would stay out until past dark, playing games amongst the orange groves and having orange fights.
As a child, I do not remember there being any question in my mind that there either was…. or was not, discrimination. It just was something that you accepted. It was the NORM. In the early 60’s, there were few Mexican families in Santa Ana, but there was a growing population of African Americans. My father, being from the South in Oklahoma was a true southern racist. He called the blacks the N word, with no thought. In fact, I can remember at Christmas time, that my Mom would put out a very special and expensive treat, a bowl of nuts that needed to be cracked open. They were mainly almonds, and walnuts, but there was one particular nut that I liked, a large dark brown/black nut. My father called it the niggertoe. No one ever thought that was wrong to call it that, we just did.
I do remember the stories my mother would tell me about ‘her President Kennedy’. She could not really talk much about him around my father and the Okie relatives, because they perceived him as a ‘negro lover’. His stance on civil rights was something that was very new to America. I do remember the day President Kennedy was shot. I was in kindergarten and I came out to the car to be picked up, and my mother was crying. She said that our president who was a very great man, who stood for equal rights for all humans, had died. I did not understand then, but later as I was growing up she shared with me stories about him. One in particular was his stance in 1962 against Gov. George Wallace on allowing the two ‘negro’ students into the University of Alabama to study. My mother admired Kennedy’s courage to stand up for what was right. She used to tell me that President Kennedy was the beginning spark in the storm of the civil rights movement in the 1960’s.
Every summer our family would drive in our car the 25-hour trip to visit the ‘Okie kinfolk’ in Oklahoma and stay for 2 to 3 weeks. My father was the only one in his family that lived in California. I had dozens of cousins, aunts and uncles…and my grandparents as well, that lived in the central part of the state, near Oklahoma City. In Oklahoma I saw a degree of racism that still puts the hair up on the back of my neck. I will never forget one day I jumped out of the car at Uncle John’s café and the very first thing I remember seeing was two water fountains, exactly alike, side-by-side. They were separate water fountains, but equal water fountains, if you know what I mean. One said “White Only” and the other said, “Colored Only”. Being from a big city (Santa Ana) in another state, I had never seen that so I asked my Mom “why?” She responded, “Because that’s the way it is here, sweetie.” To my left was a door so I bolted for it to get inside before my sister got there. Suddenly my Mom yelled, “Karen, stop! That is not your door. You go in the front door.” Sure enough, there was a sign above the door I was aiming for that said “Colored Only”, just like the water fountain. My door, the front door, said “White Only”. Separate, but equal fountains and now separate, but equal, doors. Bolting through ‘my’ door brought me into a world of smoke, Formica, ice tea, and blue plates. We sat down and it was not too long before my grandfather strolled in. He used the ‘correct’ door. Grampa was mighty nice, knew everyone in Shawnee and he went around shaking hands and saying hello to everyone, well….almost everyone. He never did once pass through the open archway into the back of Uncle John’s café to say hello to, or even acknowledge, ‘those’ other people. He completely ignored them…. even though they watched him the WHOLE time.
When I was 12 years old my father decided we must move to Orange, because the Jr High/High School in Santa Ana had ‘blacks’ in it, and my father did not want us to go to school there. Describe my Dad?....Just think, Archie Bunker…then add an abusive, Irish, rag-a-holic drunk every single night... that was my father. I went to Jr. High and High School in Villa Park, and I remember maybe there being a few African Americans and Mexicans. By then, 1969 the counterculture was in full force protesting every social and political injustice. As pre-teens, my sister and were stunned and somewhat fascinated with the rebellious spirit the protestors had and how they stood up to authority. I can remember watching history making on the TV, with Martin Luther King’s assassination, riots, civil rights, school segregation….everything you have read about in history books. I just remember being scared a lot, that everyone was angry about something and why couldn’t we just all get along. As I formed my own thoughts and beliefs, I had a wonderful role model. My mother was a woman who accepted others equally, and often told us to not judge someone by their race or color, but by their heart.
One final story for you…As for experiencing racism myself, the one time I experienced it was in 1979, when I moved to Chicago to put my husband through graduate school at the University of Chicago. The area was primarily black, and I had NEVER seen anything like the life I saw there. I was 21, and being from Orange County, California I was very underexposed to cultural diversity. Here in our Diversity class when we read the book, “Whistling Vivaldi”…that was ME! The University of Chicago is in Hyde Park. The situation the author described about whistling was on the very streets we lived on for 2 years. I was, one of the people who walked to the other side of the sidewalk ….when I was approached by a black man coming my way. Scared and uneducated, I never once thought about what my actions implied.
One of my positive experiences was when I would go to the grocery store, and sometimes I would be the only white person in the entire store. I liked to hang out in the produce section and ask questions to the very large older black women, who were filling up plastic bags with collard greens and onions. I loved chatting with them, and they were generally pleasantly surprised that I was interested in what they were going to cook. On a negative note; I did though experience a great deal of racial tension at the comptroller’s office where I worked at the University. Most of the office girls were black and young, and it seemed like they had a defiant attitude much of the time. If I went into the ladies lounge when they were all gathered in there, the conversation would immediately stop, and I would hear whispers while I was In a stalls in the bathroom. They did not include me in their conversations during the day as well. Sometimes, they would snicker and laugh as I walked by their desks, and I would go home from work and cry, as I wanted to be accepted so badly. There was though, nothing I could do to change the color of my skin…an interesting and frustrating dilemma. My time working there was stressful and quite life-changing, and even after 30 years I still try to use it as a way to understand, (in SUCH A VERY SMALL way), what discrimination might feel like. To this day I will never forget what it feels like to be excluded and made to feel different because of the color of my skin.
Well, part of the secret stress I was under last month is no longer a secret. Yesterday we announced the new happenings at ShePosts, the online news magazine I’ve been editing for the past year. In short, I bought it. I’m thrilled to be partnered as co-owner with my friend Deb, who has some great experience that I think will compliment mine. (Incidentally, Deb and I were both named in the Funniest Moms on Twitter list put out by Babble last week. And here we are, partnering on an industry news website. Which might be the opposite of a humor site. Oh well! We’ll keep yucking it up on twitter). Here’s a part of the announcement in the letter that went public this week:
We’ve been working hard behind the scenes, collaborating on an exciting future for ShePosts. As you may know, Esther Brady Crawford founded the website in 2009. Esther’s brilliance is calling her to grand things with the up-and-coming GLMPS iphone app and many other endeavors. We are excited to announce that a change of ownership has occurred through a sale of the site, with Kristen Howerton and Deb Rox stepping up to partner as co-owners going forward. Kristen has been acting as managing editor of ShePosts for the past year, and Deb brings a wealth of experience as an entrepreneurial business development and project management consultant with deep roots in the blogosphere as a blogger, agent/business liaison for bloggers and frequent conference speaker. We plan to continue Esther’s goal of being a knowledgeable resource for news, information and analysis about the influential women’s blogosphere.
So, yeah. Big stuff. It’s exciting and overwhelming at surreal, all at the same time. I’ve really enjoyed working on ShePosts the past year, and it’s been fun digging in and learning more about how women are shaping the online space. I’m excited to continue being a part of curating what’s going on. I love getting to shine a spotlight on women in online media.
This new role means that I’ve stepped back from some of the other writing gigs I’ve been doing – that’s been bittersweet but I’m trying really hard to pare down and focus on ramping up ShePosts for this season. I’m excited. Did I mention that?
It’s so funny – last night I was telling Mark how strange it feels that buying a url is my first big venture into the business world. Not at all what I imagined I would be doing back when I was in college. But then again. . . . back when I was in college, I had never heard of a website. Crazy times we are living in.
I’ve been wanting to do a follow-up post on the connection between child slavery and chocolate. In case you missed it, the low-down is here . . . but in a nutshell a BBC documentary revealed that child labor and even child trafficking is rampant in chocolate production, and that chocolate from most mainstream candy companies can be traced back to farms employing (and even buying) children to work in dangerous conditions.
For our family, the response to learning this has been to limit our chocolate purchases to fair-trade chocolate, which is a system that ensures that workers are paid and treated fairly. I believe that our purchases have the biggest impact on corporate change. The chocolate companies are well aware of the human rights abuses in the farms they are buying from, but unfortunately it is the profitability that is driving the ship, not ethics. I really do believe that consumers can change things. I think back ten years ago, when organic food was a fringe hippie thing that you could only by at specialty stores. Now, nearly every mainstream grocery store is producing their own line of organic foods. Consumer demand is what drives the market.
I realize that everyone is at different levels in terms of how willing they are to make changes. I’ve given ideas below for every level (rated 1-4 stars), from baby-step changes to full-on advocacy. Of course, personally, my hope is that everyone would at least give up mainstream chocolate, because I think it could send a powerful message.
If you aren’t quite ready to commit to alternative Halloween chocolate candies, then my recommendation is to purchase products from Mars (e.g. 3Musketeers, Mars, Milky Way, Snickers, Twix) and Kraft (e.g. Cadbury, Green & Black’s, Toblerone). These companies have recently taken basic first steps toward incorporating ethical, sustainable cocoa into their products. Mars has a stated goal of using 10% certified sustainable cocoa this year and an end goal of 100% certified sustainable cocoa by 2020. Kraft has also begun sourcing some of its cocoa sustainably. Keep in mind, though, that these corporations, and most mainstream candy companies, are still far behind when it comes to support for ethical chocolate. It’s likely these companies are using chocolate sourced from child labor. However, Hershey’s seems to be the prime offender. After my last post, I was contacted by one of the Human Rights Organizers at Change.org who alerted me to the #nohersheyhalloween campaign. Along with the International Labor Rights Forum and Green America, Change.org has mounted a huge campaign against Hershey's over the past few months, calling on them to live up to their promise and start buying certified cocoa. They have collected nearly 47,000 signatures on our petition on Change.org and have also created robust social media and press outreach campaigns to put further pressure on Hershey's. (I did get connected to the PR person for Hershey’s and posed some questions to her about Hershey’s stance, but I haven’t heard back yet.)
If you want to be a little more conscious but aren’t ready to commit to fair trade, you can stick to non-chocolate candy. However, keep in mind that sugar production has it’s own set of human rights abuses. (In fact, when you really do some research, the chocolate industry is only scratching the service of everyday products produced by children). If not buying fair-trade, it’s a good idea to stick to products made in the USA, since our country at least has some laws in place to prevent child labor and worker abuse. Mike and Ikes, Hot Tamales, Neccos, and Clark Bars are examples of US-made candy.
Buying fair-trade is the best way to ensure that chocolate has been ethically sourced, and it also sends a message to mainstream chocolate companies that there is consumer demand for Fair Trade Certified chocolate (which is ultimately what will lead to change). Buying organic is reportedly another way to ensure that your chocolate wasn’t produced by exploited children due to the checks on labor practices organic certification requires. Additionally, organic producers often receive higher (and more stable) payment for their goods than those who don’t use organic methods.
The best sources I’ve seen for a variety of socially conscious Halloween shoppers are the Global Exchange Fair Trade Store and the Natural Candy Shop. But since Halloween is just around the corner, here are some ideas for things you might be able to find at local stores. Also, if you are lucky enough to live near a Trader Joe’s, they have a great selection of organic and fair-trade chocolate.
Sjaak’s Halloween Peanut Butter Bites
Price: 35-43 cents per piece ($33.00 for a 1.5lb tub, about 93 pieces)
Where to buy: Online or select health food stores
FruitaBü Organic Smoooshed Fruit Rolls
Price:
Where to buy: You can find them in natural food stores and many supermarkets
Justin’s Nut Butter Peanut Butter Cups (with milk or dark chocolate)
Price: $1.50-$1.59 per package (of 2 cups)
Where to buy: These are available at most Whole Foods Markets and online.
Newman’s Own Organics Peanut Butter Cups (with milk or dark chocolate)
Price: $1.50-$1.80 per package (of 3 cups)
Where to buy: Whole Foods Markets, as well as other retailers and stores.
CLIF Kid Organic ZBars
Price: $.69 each
Where to buy: Trader Joe’s and many grocery stores
Stretch Island Organic Fruit Leather
Price: $16.49 for a 48-count box
Where to buy: You can find them in natural food stores and many supermarkets, or online.
Newman’s Own Organics Peppermint Cups and Organics Caramel Cups
Price: $1.50-$1.80 per package (of 3 cups)
Where to buy: Whole Foods Markets and large numbers of other retailers and stores.
Sun Cups Caramel or Almond Butter Chocolate Cups
Price: $1.90-$1.99 per package (of 2 cups; $1.99 for a package or $37.99 for variety pack of 20 packages)
Where to buy: Find a Store.
Funky Monkey Freeze-Dried Organic Fruit Snacks
Price: $26 for a pack of 12
Where to buy: Target, Whole Foods, and a variety of other grocery stores
El Rey Chocolate Squares
Price: 13-25 cents per square ($6.95 for 28 squares or $25.00 for 200 squares)
Where to buy: At retailers nationwide or online.
Equal Exchange Dark Chocolate (55%) Minis
Price: 17-20 cents per mini ($29.75 for approximately 150 minis, or $148.75 for 888)
Where to buy: Online or select health food stores
Divine 70% Dark Chocolate Bites
Price: 27-30 cents per piece
Where to buy: Online or select health food stores
Endangered Species Milk or Dark Chocolate Halloween Treats or Bug Bites
Price: 28-29 cents per Halloween Treat and 53 cents per Bug Bite
Where to buy: Online or select health food stores
Askinosie itty Bars
Price: 85 cents per bar ($127.50 for 150 itty Bars, a variety of single origin chocolates of high cacao content)
Where to buy: Online or select health food stores
Sjaak’s Halloween Orange Bites
Price: 35-43 cents per piece ($9.95 for a 6 oz bag or $33.00 for a 1.5lb tub, about 93 pieces)
Where to buy: Online or select health food stores
Sweet Earth Trick or Treat Chocolates,
Price: 50 cents per piece ($25.00 for a bag of 50 or $50.00 for a bag of 100)
Where to buy: Online or select health food stores
Sun Cups Sunflower Chocolate Cups
Price: $1.90-$1.99 per package (of 2 cups; $1.99 for a package or $37.99 for variety pack of 20 packages)
Where to buy: Online or Find a Store.
Earth Balls from Natural Candy Store
Cost: $8.39 for 35 balls.
Where to buy: Online or select health food stores.
Yummy Earth's All-Organic Lollipops
Cost: $6 for 50 lollipops
Where to buy: Select grocery stores
If you really want to advocate this Halloween, consider doing reverse trick-or-treating, where you give out fair-trade chocolate and a pamphlet as you go door-to-door. Individual participants or families can participate by visiting www.reversetrickortreating.org.
I do realize that fair-trade candy is quite a bit more expensive than the mainstream alternative. But again, I think we have to keep in mind – would we pay less for a product if a child was being abused to make it right in front of us?
I’ve also heard people express concern that children will be disappointed with fair-trade chocolate. In my house, my kids are equal-opportunity chocolate lovers. Quite honestly, kids who stop by my house should be lucky they aren’t getting raisins and pencils, because I’ve so been THAT mom before. But if we’re making our purchasing decisions because we’re scared that a bunch of American kids might be disappointed because they can’t gorge themselves on chocolate made by children in Africa . . . there might be a problem with our priorities.
This is a hard question to answer. Inevitably, some of our neighborhood homes will be passing out mainstream chocolate as we are trick-or-treating. I haven’t yet decided what our family will do. On the one hand, the candy is already purchased, so the only statement we would be making would be to our neighbors. And I know from the proliferation of nasty comments on my last post that people get all bent out of shape when they are told that something they love may be unethical. (I’ve since deleted the comments, but I got more hateful comments on that post than any I’ve ever written – everything from people accusing me of lying to calling me fat to telling me I don’t care about kids in the U.S.). I’m not sure that a drive-by trick-or-treating moment is the time to educate, and it would definitely put people on the defense. At the same time, Jafta is very educated on the issue and I can only imagine that he will be vocal about it, and I don’t want to stifle him, either. I haven’t yet decided what we will do.
What about you? What will you be passing out this Halloween? And how will you approach it if you decided to boycott mainstream chocolate but the kids bring it home?
I am feeling somewhat bi-polar when it comes to all things related to Occupy Wall Street. I have moments of pride and compassion and JOY to think of people rising up and taking action. And I have moments of disgust and anger at people whining and complaining and doing nothing constructive with their energy.
And so I give you She Said/ She Said.
On Wednesday I took Noah to karate, with Ezra and Ike in tow, and as I was directing Ezra to take a seat in the back, I caught a glimpse of myself in the giant mirror that lines the room. And I had that moment, like when you turn on your phone's camera to find it reversed and reflecting the underside of your chin(s), and you're shocked to see what you actually look like, and it's about 10 years older and 100 times more homely than you look in the mirror in your head.
People climb Mt. Everest.
This blows my head off as I can't even get my paper piles sorted neatly on my desk.
I can't climb ladders without tears.
I let myself down on a weekly basis with goal setting plans.
I am certain that it must involve some sort of awakening in the soul to make big life altering choices like flying around the world to climb the mountain that kills so many people. But people climb mountains and do so many great extraordinary things. People push fear down into their old toes every single day.
The government of Uganda claims that the LRA has only 500 or 1,000 soldiers in total, but other sources estimate that there could be as many as 3,000 soldiers, along with about 1,500 women and children.The bulk of the soldiers fighting for the LRA are children...Since the LRA first started fighting in 1987 they may have forced well over 10,000 boys and girls into combat, often killing family, neighbors and school teachers in the process.
Many of these children were put on the front lines so the casualty rate for these children has been high. They have often used children to fight because they are easy to replace by raiding schools or villages.
After four kids, I know now that it's all fleeting. I'll remember as much about their first year as they'll remember themselves, except for what I've captured here, in short stories and photos - my attempt to maintain some semblance of a baby book so that when they're older and asking me, I can say "Here. Read this. See, I was funny. And you were a royal pain in the ass.
I simply don’t believe that sending a child to Christian school makes a child more Christian. In fact, I’m pretty sure a carefully controlled religious environment can actually have the opposite effect. Which is to say, I knew more hypocrites inside my tiny, sheltered Christian school than I did once I entered public school. I was a hardened little hypocrite myself. There seems to be something about insularity–even for “good” reasons like protecting a child’s faith–that engenders hypocrisy and self-righteous religiosity.
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What I Want You to Know is a series of reader submissions. It is an attempt to allow people to tell their personal stories, in the hopes of bringing greater compassion to the unique issues each of us face. If you would like to submit a story to this series, click here. Today’s post is by an anonymous reader.
My road down self injury started with a diagnosis of depression when I was 14 and a prescription that didn't work. I tried cutting because I had heard about it as a coping mechanism and I needed to do something. I later got psychiatric help for my depression and gradually got to a better place. My depression and anxiety faded with therapy and medication but my urge to self injure has never left. I don't cut all the time; the frequency varies and I've become good at hiding my scars. I'm now 20 and still struggle with self injury from time to time.
There are an incredible amount of people who self injure, both men and women of all ages. We don't want attention and the majority of the time we're not suicidal. We hurt on the inside and its a way of release. Unfortunately, that release can become addictive like any unhealthy habit. This is a symptom of mental illness and we don't need stares and whispers, we need help.
I haven’t had time to write much this week. I’d love to talk a little more about the “What To Expect When You’re Expecting A Child From An Orphanage” series Mark and I are doing at Together for Adoption this weekend. (That’s not the real title, but it’s the gist of it). I’d also love to write a follow-up post about some practical steps for an ethical Halloween. I’d love to rant a bit about this mess. But alas, I also need to get some sleep. We drove from Orange County to Phoenix yesterday, and Mark and I spent the day ironing out our talks for tomorrow. Most of the time I am travelling to conferences alone and speaking by myself, and it is so nice to have Mark working on this with me. The kids are loving being in a hotel (as usual) and on our trip, inquired if we’d reached said hotel every time they saw a two-story building between Riverside and Phoenix.
![317733_10150438868520041_632995040_10837365_702270757_n[1]](http://lh6.ggpht.com/-_t58t-XdGOE/TqEn6xLB7LI/AAAAAAAAMGw/DY6EAndrUt4/s1600-h/317733_10150438868520041_632995040_10837365_702270757_n%25255B1%25255D%25255B2%25255D.jpg "317733_10150438868520041_632995040_10837365_702270757_n[1]")
Anyways, for lack of something profound to say, let me point you to two posts on adoption that really articulate what I’d like to say. This is a really great post on the ethics of adoption. (When people ask me where to start, I think I will point them here from now on):
And this is a really great post about adopting an older child is like after the emotional airport scene.
These are great reads for everyone, not just adoptive parents. Just today, I took part in a panel discussion with four other adoptive moms, and one of the things articulated by many in the room was just how isolating adopting an older child can be. Thanks to all of the people – strangers, friends, and family, who read my posts about adoption in an effort to understand, even if it doesn’t apply to you personally. I hope you will read the posts above – they are both really important.
The other day, my dad sent a card to the kids, along with a recent picture of himself. My kids grabbed ahold of that picture and ran around the house, exclaiming “it’s a real life picture! Look! A REAL PICTURE!” They treated it like a long-lost relic from the past. Their excitement over a printed photo was kind of a wake-up call for me. While I do a great job of curating our family photos on facebook, instagram, and on my blog, I am not very good at printing out real photos for our home or for my kids to enjoy. In fact, when I interviewed our last babysitter while the kids where at school, she asked to see a photo of them and I didn’t even have one. I had to pull out my phone to show her a picture.
In part, I blame the refrigerator for our lack of photos. In our early married days, our fridge was covered in overlapping photos. It was the spot I always put the pictures that were meaningful to me. But shortly before we had kids, we upgraded to a stainless model that doesn’t hold a magnet. So we have a pretty, shiny fridge, but no place to display our photos.
In an effort to remedy this, I created a little chalkboard/photo collage area in our house and (for the first time in years) printed some pictures out. The kids are loving it, and I’m hoping I can keep it rotating with all of our newest photos.
*Tip: trying to write on a chalkboard that has been painted over an orange-peel paint texture means your handwriting looks like you are 95 years old.
Kodak is currently running a promotion for folks like myself, who have great photos that they fail to print out. They asked us to identify “the one photo” – the photo that means so much – the one that captures a defining moment. That is a hard one to narrow down for me, but I do love this photo from Kembe’s homecoming. It’s the first time he has seen India since they were 18 months old. I love the tender hug she is giving him, and the way Karis is straining to propel herself out of the baby carrier to see what’s going on.
If you are wanting to get into the printing habit, Kodak is offering 20 free prints from October 17-23 to help you turn your virtual photo into a real photo. Time to set those facebook/instagram/iphone photos free! Click “like” on the KODAK Facebook page and you’ll receive a coupon for 20 free prints at a local KODAK Picture Kiosk. To find one near you, click HERE. National retailers include Target and CVS/Pharmacy. To sweeten the pot, Kodak has partnered with the popular Tumblr blog, My Parents Were Awesome. You can submit your own photos to My Parents Were Awesome Facebook Page throughout Free Prints Week and enter to win a Kodak prize package.
How about you? Are you good at printing out pictures? Do you have a spot where you highlight recent photos in your house? And what is “the one photo” for you? If you have in online, link it up in the comments.
{This post was sponsored by Kodak}
Mark and I are prepping to lead a series of discussions at the Together for Adoption Conference this weekend in Arizona. We will be leading four sessions there. The first two will be about transitioning children from living in a group setting to living in a family session. These will probably be most appealing to prospective or waiting adoptive parents, orphanage or group home directors, or parents with kids newly home – but I encourage all adoptive parents to attend because we will could definitely glean from each other’s wisdom in the discussion. The second two sessions will be on fostering attachment and establishing discipline techniques that fit with the with the unique needs of children adopted from orphanages or group homes. This will be relevant to prospective and current adoptive parents. You can see the full schedule for Together for Adoption here.
It’s been interesting to prepare for a talk about transitions, because naturally it is causing us to reflect quite a bit on our transition with Kembe. As much as we are trying to objectively pull from our knowledge of psychology and child development, our personal experience is probably informing us as much as anything. And, in truth, our failures are informing us as much as our successes.
I feel like we came into adoption well-prepared. We read all of the books, went to the seminars, and read all the requisite blogs. Still, we found the transition to be very difficult, and I know it was very difficult for Kembe, too. Adopting an older child is hard. In can be extremely difficult for a child, and still I believe the long-term benefits of love, permanency, and family outweigh the difficulties of transition. Still, I think that adoptive parents hold a sacred responsibility to acknowledge and attempt to minimize the traumas that can be associating with uprooting a child from all they know . . . even when all they know is a life of abandonment in a third-world orphanage with sub-standard care.
I think one of the most important ideas I want to convey in the sessions on transition is the idea that we, as adoptive parents, have to adapt our lives to the children we adopt. This is in direct conflict with most of the conventional advice on parenting, which advises new parents to try to train their baby to adapt to the parent’s lifestyle. While this may be effective with children adopted at birth (and it’s certainly the approach we took with Jafta, who was a baby at adoption), trying to force an older adopted child into your lifestyle and pace can be cruel and traumatic. I think there is not enough attention paid to the role of transition in adoption and attachment, and the sacrifices that parents need to make to initially provide an environment that is more familiar to the one from which the child came. I think this encompasses food, language, clothing, furnishings, and even daily routines.
This will be the focus of our first two sessions (I’ll try to sum it up here afterwards, and I’ll try to talk more about the two sessions on attachment and discipline later this week). For those of you who have transitioned adoptive children home from an orphanage or group home setting, I would love to hear more from you as we try to prepare other parents. What do you wish you had known prior to transition? Were there things you did that helped mitigate the trauma of so much change at once? Are there things you wish you had done differently? Were you surprised by how hard the transition was for your child? For you? And how long do you think it took before all of you felt back to “baseline”?
Over the summer, HP asked if I would like to review their new TouchSmart desktop computer. My family quickly fell in love with it, and thanks to my refusal to send it back my enthusiasm about the product, HP let us keep it a little longer. I mentioned in my previous review that I’m a little bit Amish about kids and computers. Yep, I’m one of those moms who thinks that the next generation is having their brains sucked out by the video games. I’m not against technology in general, but I do try to limit most of my kids’ screen time to pursuits were there is at least some semblance of learning involved. I’ve been really blown away by how well the TouchSmart aligns with my value for education on the computer.
Okay, we watch Ozomatli videos on it, too. What? We were going to a concert. Educational!
A couple months in, and Starfall remains a favorite website for both me and my kids. I’ve really kept their choices paired down to sites that I feel maximize their learning potential, and I continue to be amazed at how well Starfall integrates with the TouchSmart. In this video you can see India using the TouchSmart to move around word puzzles. She could play this all day. Even though she is still in preschool, she is sounding out words and beginning to read, and I really do credit this combo.
The touch screen elimates the need for a mouse, so even Karis (age 2) can play on this device. She has learned all of her letters and sounds with the help of the TouchSmart/Starfall combo as well. It really is amazing to see how fast kids can pick things up with the help of technology.
![[IMG_2871%255B4%255D.jpg]](http://lh3.ggpht.com/-uKt_n5A2QbI/TkK4doW6RjI/AAAAAAAAKDY/-SeLUCdCqiE/s1600/IMG_2871%25255B4%25255D.jpg)
When I first got the HP, someone told me about the free Angry Birds download for the touch screen. Jafta is absolutely addicted to playing Angry Birds on my phone, so I was a little reluctant to introduce it on the HP. I was worried I would never be able to pry him away (see above, about the video games and the sucking out of the brains). I held off for a while, but I finally relented and introduced it as an incentive to the completion of homework each day. It’s pretty effective. Here he is, trying it out on the first day:
Of course, we do use it for activities beyond education. It really has become our entertainment center. We use it to watch clips of musicals on YouTube:
It has also become our home stereo system, and the touch screen means the kids can control the pause and play when they are playing Freeze Dance:
Black people can’t talk to white people about race anymore. There’s really nothing left to say. There are libraries full of books, interviews, essays, lectures, and symposia. If people want to learn about their own country and its history, it is not incumbent on black people to talk to them about it. It is not our responsibility to educate them about it. Plus whenever white people want to talk about race, they never want to talk about themselves. There needs to be discussion among people who think of themselves as white. They need to unpack that language, that history, that social position and see what it really offers them, and what it takes away from them. As James Baldwin said, “As long as you think that you are white, there is no hope for you.”
[It might be a good idea to] lock up your Facebook page. I realize that lots of us had fun, drunken whore moments in college where we made out with our bestie and put our hands all over her knockers, then had our boyfriend take our picture, but I want to think of the sober version of you when you walk out the door to take my preschoolers to story hour. My recent profile pic might be me holding a Shake Weight in a compromising position with my mouth open like a fish, but we’re not talking about me here. My kids already know I’m a failure.
Who decided that kids who go to a birthday party need or deserve presents of their own? Back in the Paleolithic Era when I was a kid, what you got for going to another kid’s birthday party was GETTING TO GO TO A FREAKING BIRTHDAY PARTY. Period and the end. That was incentive enough. Because typically there was cake and cookies and candy and snacks and games and a maybe a movie or some putt-putt golf or something. And WHEE! OH, THE FUN! The idea that someone would give ME something to go to a party would have seemed beyond ridiculous. Asinine, even. Why? BECAUSE IT IS.
As both an adoptee and an adoptive mom, I have many feelings that come up around this stuff. I feel honored to be entrusted with his story. I feel a tremendous responsibility to share it with him in a way that’s both deeply honest and developmentally appropriate. And I feel the tentacles of my own trauma history try to wrap themselves around this process and shut me down emotionally. But I’m fighting to be present and to look at it all for what it truly is- both T’s grief and mine, both his loss and mine. And to be grateful for the amazing opportunity to be here for the healing. For all of us.
Do the parents know that the child they are hoping will have a better life if they drop them off at the orphanage's gate may grow up in that orphanage, age out, never knowing their biological family and never being placed in an adoptive one?
Do these mothers want to raise their babies...and if they do...why aren't they keeping them?
Is it fair to have an orphanage in every neighborhood (many of them funded by churches) and yet have nothing (or very little) in place in countries like Haiti for helping mothers and fathers obtain the skills they need to keep their children and care for them?
Is having an orphanage in every neighborhood helping to fight the orphan crises or are all these orphanages creating the crisis?
…maybe instead of shutting the door quick with a thud, or arguing theology until we’re blue in the face, we could open the door of our homes and offer a home-cooked meal. Goodness knows, it’s probably been a while since those guys have had one.
…maybe instead of using hurt-words like “cult” and “brainwashed” we ask our neighbors & classmates about their family, their story, their faith, their hopes, their dreams.
…maybe instead of drawing lines in the sand, we take a cue from our Mormon friends and choose to unify instead of divide.
Remember how you swore that when you were a parent, you would never, ever say the starving-in-Africa thing to your kid? Because that was just one of the dumbest things you'd ever heard? Remember?
Yeah, me too.
So much for that promise. Let's just say that in recent months, the worst thing that could've ever happened to my kid at mealtime was my having gone to Kenya.
I was very VERY disappointed that my first therapist’s office did not feature the classic analyst couch. I no longer expect to be able to plank, and have become accustomed to sitting, as it’s all the better to see their humorless faces unperturbed by my brilliantly evasive tap dances and rimshots. Still, I think therapists should at least tapestry up their joints to feel like Freudian parlors just as a matter of professional pride. I don’t ask for much, but I do like to see stainless steel at the dentist’s office, a high-fiving Maneki Neko at the sushi bar and a little mahogany and dark brocade when I’m about to handcuff das Über-Ich and waltz with my darling ego banshee. Tradition, people!
Is it hypocritical to expect a coach to show a restraint that I can't easily manage myself? Maybe. Maybe not. (He is getting paid, after all.) But with my kids now encountering peers on the playground who drop F bombs, and with almost every song they hear on the radio including a bleep or two for language and scads of unbleeped references to sex, it's clear that I have exponentially less control over the language and ideas they are exposed to. What do I actually have a small chance of controlling? Myself. And it ain't easy.
What I Want You to Know is a series of reader submissions. It is an attempt to allow people to tell their personal stories, in the hopes of bringing greater compassion to the unique issues each of us face. If you would like to submit a story to this series, click here. Today’s post is by an anonymous reader.
I have thoroughly debunked the myth that I'd heard from college male friends who naively repeated, "Girls don't poop." I unfortunately can't stop because I have inflammatory bowel disease, a chronic, stress-exacerbated disease that doctors don't know a whole lot about. Some doctors (including my sister) insist that I must be on medication which require regular blood tests to make sure my liver isn't failing. Other doctors (including my dad) suggest natural supplements, mind over matter self-control to avoid toilets, dietary restrictions and exercise. I'm caught in the middle with both sides of the argument condemning the other approach. This obviously doesn't lead to low stress levels.
Even though I've typically prided myself on being social, hard-working, over-achieving and courageous, now I just want to hide in bed because I'm afraid of a third flare-up that leads to nausea, losing 20 pounds I don't have and a weakness which limits my ability to walk. I try to comfort myself by remembering those who suffer more than I do, but that just makes me feel guilty.
Thankfully, my husband is willing to drop everything to go on de-stressing walks and help me talk about my internalized emotions. He also doesn't complain when I stop cleaning the dishes or the house because I feel overwhelmed by other things. We are concerned however about how our family will run once we add kids to the mix. Will IBD cause me to go out of commission and leave him with the kids I dream of? Will this stupid disease hinder me from reaching my dreams? If I gain the family I so desire, will there be too much pressure upon my dear husband because of IBD? Again, not low stress concerns.
I wish the doctors would stop contradicting each other so strongly leaving me feeling lost in the abyss. I wish I could be more honest with my husband, family and friends about what I'm experiencing behind the bathroom door without being afraid of disgusting them. I wish that my life choices didn't have to be affected by IBD. I wish IBD wasn't such a private struggle.
I’ve talked a lot here about my challenges with finding good help in my quest to outsource some of my daily tasks. I tried for too long to be a working mom while also doing all of the tasks I did as a stay-at-home mom. At the beginning of the year I made a commitment to use some of my earnings to outsource the things I would be doing if I was at home (the tough ones for me being laundry, organization, and administrative stuff). I felt empowered to stop trying to do it all myself. I like the idea of outsourcing in theory – but obviously making that a reality has been a challenge, for reasons both practical and financial.
Enter TaskRabbit, who heard my lament about finding good help and let me try their services for free for the past month. They are a jack-of-all-trades task networking site . . . sort of like a personal assistant buffet that you can hire for tasks as small and as big as you need. I am here to tell you: I am a convert. I am their new best customer. The experience this month was so great that I decided not to keep looking for household help . . . I’m just going to hire a TaskRabbit when I need something done.
Here are some examples of things I had TaskRabbit do for me over the last month:
TaskRabbit came to the rescue when I was too sick to make dinner. A TaskRabbit picked me up from the airport when my flight arrived during Mark’s work day. A TaskRabbit organized my messy cord closet, putting everything into labeled bins:
TaskRabbit pretty much overhauled my life.
It was incredibly helpful, in ways that I can’t even express. When our home flooded last year shortly after bringing home Kembe from Haiti, we had to hurriedly pack up every single belonging and put it in storage. Our house never fully recovered. We moved back in during a chaotic season, sometimes just shoving things into closets and drawers as we tried to keep up with the non-stop pace of raising four kids. We’ve not had time to dig in and re-organize. We’ve been living in controlled chaos for over a year, and as much as I am type-A and organized, I just did not have the margin to get us back to where we were before the flood. TaskRabbit seriously gave me my orderly home back.
I’m planning to use TaskRabbit in the future. They have people from all over the country who can act as virtual assistants. I’ll be outsourcing more administrative stuff, I’ll be using them for grocery shopping, and I’m hoping to have one help me tackle the garage. I’m really looking forward to how this can help me be more productive, and add some balance to this working mom gig. If you live in a city that TaskRabbit serves (or need a virtual assistant) I definitely recommend it!
With the new school schedule, I have two days a week where I’m home with just India and Karis. It’s . . . interesting. It’s so quiet. And so easy. I’ve actually been blown away by how different it is, and I think there is one main reason:
My boys don’t play with toys. My girls do.
My girls will sit for hours and entertain themselves with toys. They don’t need any prompting from me. They create little stories. They play alone. They play with each other. Independently. Quietly. For lengthy stretches. When they get bored . . . they go get another toy and play some more.
My boys, on the other hand, aren’t so interested in toys. It’s not for lack of trying – we have every kind of toy in the house and I’ve tried so hard to get them interested in the kind of quiet, solitary play that the girls engage in. I’ve outfitted their room with every possible toy set-up imaginable: shelves, bins, rotations, you name it. The toys are ignored.
I don’t want to make it sound like the girls are more advanced . . . they just have different skills. SKILLS THAT ARE QUIETER AND LESS ANXIETY-PROVOKING. While India is barely riding a bike with training wheels, Kembe is popping wheelies on a bike made for boys age 8-10. India may know how to draw an elaborate scene of she and Justin Bieber, but Kembe knows how to drop-in on his skateboard from the top of the playhouse.
My boys know how to entertain themselves, alight. It just comes in the form of razoring, skateboarding, throwing balls onto the roof, playing dodgeball on the trampoline, wrestling, swordfighting, and general mayhem.
I know that boys and girls are different, but I didn’t expect it to be quite so extreme. Coming from a family of all girls, their behavior is often baffling to me. I struggle with wishing they could just engage in a quiet activities. On occasion, I can get Jafta interested in Legos. For about 15 minutes. Kembe? He just sort of wanders aimlessly around the house if I ask him to find a quiet activity.
I also noticed that very few of the kids in Kembe’s orphanage played with the toys there. The toys were generally using for throwing at each other, or in the air, or to crash other toys, but I didn’t observe much pretend play. They were all boys . . . but is it a developmental thing, too? Lack of modeling or stimulation or something related to that setting? Or is this just a boy thing I’m overthinking? [Edited to add: check out this post for more on how orphanage life affects play skills]. My boys are certainly imaginative, but it's focused on physical activities.
The problem we’re facing is that winter is coming. And sure, we live in a moderate climate, but there will still be days that it’s too cold to play outside. Which means the boys are bored and climbing off the walls.
So, I’m a little curious. Is this phenomenon a typical gender thing? Do boys just not really play with toys? Any tips for getting them interested in the matchbox cars/transformers/superheroes/tool kits/lincoln logs/star wars figures we have littering the house so that we can stay sane this winter?
