Phrases That Irritate

Today, we're going to talk about phrases that really annoy me. I hear them frequently, and I take exception to them, every time.

"Those who can, do. Those who can't, teach."

We've all heard that one. Maybe we've even said it. It's not true. Remember, first, that everyone who "does" - every surgeon, painter, musician, teacher, parent - learned from someone. Sometimes it's by watching another's example, or by examining their work, or by formal instruction. Sometimes, they learn how to be better at what they do, and sometimes, they learn what to avoid, but none would be who they are without teachers.

People who choose to teach professionally truly love what they do. They wouldn't bother otherwise.

When Tom Hanks thanked his high school acting teacher while accepting an Academy Award, it was an amazing moment.

More recently, Kristin Chenoweth graciously shared her stage, and her applause, with a teacher. The video went viral.

Teachers do, every day.

"It's perfectly natural. How can you say that something natural is wrong?"

Almost three years ago, I wrote this in a blog post: "I'm tired of hearing about what is 'normal.' Cancer is normal. It's afflicted humans (and animals) throughout history. All disease, filth, decay and death is normal. Does that mean that we elevate it to the status of desirable?"

Behaviorally, selfishness, greed and violence are natural. Birth defects and mental illness are naturally occurring, most times dictated in utero by body chemistry. They are not dictated by a person's choices or actions. Yet, no one would ever say to a schizophrenic, "Well, you wouldn't have the voices in your head unless you were supposed to embrace them." I want to know if things are beneficial, not whether or not they're natural.

The blog post I just quoted was about bullying, but a family member and I recently had this same conversation about monogamy. (She believes that monogamy is completely unnatural, but extremely desirable and beneficial.) There are many other areas in which it applies equally. "Natural" or "normal" is many times immaterial.

"Since I don't have a uterus (or vagina), I don't get to have an opinion."

I've seen this frequently lately, and I've seen people applaud it. I can't imagine why. This is a sibling sentiment to, "Not in my back yard." It says, "As long as it doesn't affect me personally, I don't care." That's appalling. When people are indifferent to the suffering of others, we decry the idea that it's OK not to care as long as you yourself aren't affected. So why would it be OK in this case, or any case?

More to the point: I do not have a penis, and I never will, but I have very clear ideas about what someone who has one should, and should not, do with it. There are definite rules about when and where its owner should use it. There are acts that it should never participate in.

Chief among these "don'ts" are rape and pedophilia. Virtually everyone agrees that these things are wrong, whether they personally have a penis or not. This consensus is generally accepted to be a good thing. One reason for this is that those acts affect another person besides the owner of the offending penis, people who do not always get a choice in what that penis does.

The above statement is usually used in discussions about either birth control or abortion. These things also affect more than one person. Birth control is only necessary when a man and a woman engage in sexual activity with each other. One plus one equals two people. Abortion is only an issue when a pregnancy has resulted; one plus one plus one equals three people. (This, of course, leaves out siblings, grandparents, and extended family and society at large - the same kinds of people who are affected by sexual assault.) I do not think that the man's opinion, or the opinion of other family or citizens, outweighs the woman's in these decisions, but I think that they certainly do - or should - factor in. Then there's the fact that, with an abortion, the child will be the individual most affected, and we cannot ask them to weigh in. This is true whether you believe that the fetus is a full fledged person, or whether you think that it is potential only. It exists.

I do use birth control, but that is a joint decision that my husband and I make together. I do think that there are circumstances in which abortion would be acceptable, but I think that those circumstances are few and far between.

I also think that, even in circumstances in which abortion would be acceptable or understandable, it is not necessarily the only correct choice. Amanda Berry has reason, if ever anyone had one, not to want to bear a rapist's child. Yet she, and her family, consider the existence of her daughter to be the one good thing that resulted from Amanda's captivity. Bearing and raising such a child is not easy, but I am sure that Amanda feels that it's worth it. Jaycee Dugard's biggest fear in reuniting with her family after 18 years in captivity was whether or not they'd accept her daughters, because "I would never leave my children." They are hers, regardless of the genetic contribution of a man who is both a rapist and a pedophile.

I know many adoptive parents; they, too, are glad that someone did for them what they could not do for themselves, and carried and delivered their child (or children).

"He's a good father and a good provider. Isn't that enough?"

No. It isn't. Honestly. It's a good start, but it is not everything needed to be a good husband. A good dad, maybe, but that's a different job description. That's like saying, "Bob is a great mechanic, so he's obviously an excellent automobile designer (or manufacturer or assembly line worker or driver)." They might be related fields, but they are not the same.

"Love is all you need."

I wrote an entire post about this. It's like a politician's promise - it sounds good, but it fails to hold water.

Tune in next time for more Phrases That Irritate. There are more out there.

Pacific Coast Highway

Sunset magazine's current cover story is the Pacific Coast Highway, Highway 1 down the California coast.

It's a familiar destination for our family. We're only 4 hours away from the coast, and we've spent many hours on the PCH. In fact, my kids have gotten a little bit blase' about it. We have family on the central coast, and occasionally drive from there to the LA area on vacation. It's faster to go inland, but prettier to stay on the coast. Sometimes we'll opt for the beauty, and my kids will say, "Do we have to? It takes so much longer!"

"It'll be fun. We'll stop and see the seals," we tell our desert dwelling children.

In honor of the Pacific Coast Highway, I thought I'd offer a photo essay. Here's some memories along the PCH:

All photos copyright: The Reflection Works Photography

There It Is

This is the site of one of my favorite childhood memories.

My family took a vacation every year, and we almost always camped. For a while, we owned a Pontiac Bonneville station wagon (that my parents promptly named The Lemon, and sold before we'd had it for too many years). We took our tent camping; it was canvas, and therefore heavy, but big, roomy and sturdy. You could easily stand in it, and my parents loved to tell the story of the time we slept through a wind storm that knocked down every other tent in the campground. Ours didn't budge.

Still, it was time consuming to take out, put up and break down, so when we owned The Lemon, if we were only staying somewhere for one night, we'd just sleep in the car - me in the front seat, my sister in the second seat, and my parents in the back, with the third seat folded down.

We camped at this spot on the creek when I was eight. We kids spent our time in the water while the parents did the actual work of camping, like making meals on a camp stove.

There were several families there. I don't recall numbers, but there was quite the little crowd.

Most of the other kids climbed halfway or higher on the cliff face, and jumped into the pool underneath. It was the deep spot on the creek. I'm going to guess that it was somewhere in the 10 foot depth right up against the rock, but I can't swear to it. I never went down the creek that far.

I incurred the ridicule of the other kids, and a few adults, by staying directly in the shallows. My big accomplishment was walking all the way across at one spot - the water got to be about rib cage deep for a few steps, and this was a huge, "Look at me!" accomplishment.

Yeah; nobody was impressed.

But there was NO WAY that I was jumping off of the rock into the water. Do you see the height of that cliff?

OK, here's a little scale, for perspective. Here's my van in the parking lot. The creek is just off the frame to the right.

HO -LY COW. You could have put a million dollars in that pool, and I wouldn't have jumped. I'm a wade in the shallows person.

Some adventurous big kids - probably early teens - climbed all the way to the top before jumping. Their parents nixed any repeat of that behavior. Not on grounds that made sense to me, but on the grounds that the water needed to be deeper to jump from that height.

Years later, I asked my mom where this spot was. We'd been through six states on that trip, and I couldn't remember where this campground was. "It wasn't actually a campground," Mom said, "just a little rest area." Any more, I think that they'd shoo away overnight visitors.

We were driving my son to his university when we passed this spot, and I saw it for the first time in almost 40 years. "That's it! That's the place! We camped there!" I became very excited, and insisted on stopping for photos on the drive back home. My family could not understand why, but humored me on the grounds that there's just no accounting for my eccentricities.

It was almost exactly the way I remembered it. The biggest difference was that I remembered the rock being pink, and it's actually a rusty color. In my defense, my clearest memories are of the place at sunset. Everything else almost the same.

The biggest changes were that the willows along the bank were higher, and there's now a chain link fence at the edge of the parking lot, blocking access to the cliff face, except from the water. There used to be a defined path through the willows, leading from the parking lot to the water, but it's closed up without all the foot traffic. I'll bet that someone decided that it was courting humungous lawsuits to "let" kids jump off of it.

The only unpleasant association I have with the place is the mosquitoes. I'm one of those people who smell particularly yummy to mosquitoes. They'll feast on me, even when they're avoiding other people. This was shortly before we learned that taking a daily Vitamin B-1 makes a person smell far less yummy to the little bloodsuckers. (Sincerely, it works.)

Since we were only here for one night, we slept in the car. It got so stuffy that we kids insisted on keeping the window cracked open, even though Mom wanted it closed to keep out the bugs.

Mother knows best. I woke up several times to the distinctive whine of mosquitoes buzzing near my ear. When I woke up in the morning, my mother gasped, wide eyed at my appearance. Mom is a very calm person, not given to any kind of hysterics, so I was alarmed. "What?"

Mom doesn't sugar coat things; she's good with words and can usually find a non-offensive way to say things. Sometimes, though, she just laid it on the line. "Your face looks like raw hamburger!"

Stupid mosquitoes.

Decades later, we encountered no insects. My husband laughed at me as I insisted on wading out in the water again, taking photos. "I wish I had a picture of that," he said.

I, though, now have photographs to go with my memories. I can almost see the kids flinging themselves off of the rock face, laughing.

Ah, childhood.

It's good even in the shallows.