Yes, there are more pressing issues. But this is making me crazy.
I know that language, especially English, is a work in progress. English complicates things by being an assemblage of other languages, and breaking its own rules with regularity. So, things change; I understand.
I can get on board with new words - we had to figure out what to call the Internet after its invention - or new usages (text, anyone?) But we do not need to change or substitute sounds. We really don't.
Here's my problem: the word "yes." It's a perfectly good word. It's succinct and easily understandable. It's one of the first words we learn as infants. We do not need it to be "yass" or "yuss" or "yiss."
I mean, for crying out loud, what IS that? How did it start? For one thing, it sounds like baby talk. How are grown humans OK sounding like toddlers? And WHY in the world have we decided that it's cuter or more acceptable, or... what do people think that it is, anyway? And what mass hysteria is causing so many of us to use it?
My husband has a tendency to mush vowel sounds. You'd think that a man named "Dan" with a father named "Don" would be more attuned to vowel sounds, but somewhere in his elementary schooling (which, he says, did not include phonics or the ubiquitous instruction I often received to "sound it out") some teacher made a passing reference to the schwa, and he internalized the idea that vowels are interchangeable. It makes me crazy. For instance, the word "if" usually comes out of his mouth as "eff." Ugh.
Sometimes, when he mispronounces some vowel sound or other and then rolls his eyes when I correct him, I say, "OK, Dun."
I mean pin, pen, pan, and pun are entirely different words! Vowels - they're important!
The thing is, he's doing it unconsciously, or because he's actually unaware of the correct pronunciation. He hasn't made a conscious choice to mispronounce something because he thinks it's cute or fashionable or somehow, what, more effective than the correct pronunciation. It's an honest mistake, and it still makes me crazy. Imagine how aggravating I find it when someone does it on purpose, for reasons on which I am completely unclear - fashion? Habit? Conformity?
In the name of sanity, when you're enthused, stick with the word we already have - "YES!" Drag out the sound if you want. If you're approximating a Southern US accent, feel free to go with "yay-es!"
Just know that if you write "YUUUUSSSS!" or "YAAAASSSS!!!" or anything similar, on your social media or anywhere else, I think unkind things. I may shave my estimation of your IQ down by several points.
Yes, I know that this makes me a curmudgeon and the language police. I don't care.
We have a perfectly good word. Please use it.
Saturday, January 9, 2016
Monday, January 4, 2016
"What Would You Do If...?"
One of my children has spent a lifetime in experimenting with her ideas of parental affection, and how and why it's bestowed. "Will you still love me if I do this? Will you still love me if I do that? Will you still love me if I'm different from my siblings?"
I knew from reading extensively that this was very normal, and I didn't take it - don't take it - personally. It didn't resonate with me emotionally, though, because I could never recall feeling that way myself. My parents' feelings were a constant, like the mountains. I don't think I felt particularly capable of affecting their affection, one way or another. I didn't either luxuriate in it or long for it.
One of the problems this child and I have in understanding each other is that she's a figurative speaker and thinker, who chooses her words for the effect she thinks they'll have instead of for their accuracy. I am a literal thinker, who chooses my words for accuracy, and understates when in doubt.
This means that she frequently looks for hidden meanings when there aren't any. She also tends to think that I'm being sarcastic when I'm not. When given any household chore as a child, she was likely to ask, "Why do I have to?" The answer was always, "Because you live here." She was sure that this was me being a smart mouth, even after complaining to other adults in her life and being told, "That's honestly why you have to."
(Sometimes, though, she took me at my word. In her early teens she wanted to know, "What would you do if I dyed my hair blue?" I responded, "Nothing. It's hair. It'll grow back." She never did dye it blue; it wasn't as much fun if her parents wouldn't be scandalized.)
She was also convinced, deep in her heart of hearts, that if other people disagreed with us, especially if they were people she liked, or a number of people that she considered to be significant, we were legally and morally obligated to change our minds and our rules. At 13, she was sincerely convinced that if we didn't send her to summer camp, we'd go to jail. ("Don't all kids think that?" she asked as an adult. Um - no, Child, they don't.)
"So-and-so thinks your rule is stupid!" we heard repeatedly. I'd usually reply with something like, "Well, I make the rules in my house," which she thought was both a cop out and "stupid." At 12, after I'd pulled rank and said, "I'm the parent. I get to decide," she said, "So you get to do things just because you're the mom? I thought we were all equal here!" My reply of, "Then you thought wrong" infuriated her.
If she kept at it, I'd say, "So, if they get to make the rules for my family, I get to make the rules for their family, right?"
"NO!"
"Why not? That seems fair."
"Because your rules are STUPID and theirs aren't!"
"All my friends think you're so mean!" she snapped at me, after I'd said no to something.
"Good. That means I'm doing my job right." Like most parents, I would die for my kids, but that doesn't mean I should cave to their every whim. The kids would think I was a fantastic parent if I threw out every rule and let them do whatever they wanted, but that wouldn't be good for them, or create healthy, functioning adults.
After my daughter huffed away, another mother pulled me aside to assure me that she spent time with my daughter's friends, "and none of them think you're mean. They all really like you." It was sweet of her, but she needn't have bothered. I do what I think is right; I don't try to win the approval of children. (Or adults, for that matter.)
Throughout her childhood, we heard a constant litany of, "What would you do if...?" More than once, she asked, "What would you do if I was sent to prison?" The answer was always, "Visit you on visiting day."
She must not have believed me, because she was still asking into her mid-20s - "What would you do if I was in prison?" One day, after getting the usual answer, "Visit you on visiting day," she said, "What if it was for a really terrible crime?"
"Visit you on visiting day."
"What if it was for a really awful, messy, premeditated murder?"
"Visit you on visiting day."
"Really?"
"Are you planning on murdering someone?"
"No. But would you really?"
"If you've done something stupid or violent, I expect you to face the consequences. I'm not going to lie for you. I'm not going to hide you from the police. I'm not going to whisk you away to a country with no extradition. I'm not going to bake a file into a cake and help you escape. But you're still my child, and I will always love you. I will visit you on visiting days, and I will be there on the day that you get out."
She must have finally believed me, because she hasn't asked since. (She has not planned or committed any murders, either.)
I think this is how we treat God sometimes. "Will you still love me if I do this?" "If you're really a loving parent, you'll love me even if I do that." Or, "You can't possibly love me after what I've done." "If you love me, you'll give me what I want. If I don't get it, you must not love me."
Sometimes, I think we sound like small children. Any of us who are parents have faced furious or despondent offspring, just sure that if we love them, we'll let them have candy for breakfast, buy them a pony, abolish bedtimes. They can't believe that we ignore their tears or their feelings or their protests. We're sometimes like that. We're seriously, deeply hurt when things don't go our way. Doesn't God love us? Shouldn't that mean that life is easy and we are always happy, and we get what we want? We recognize that our children don't have our perspective and experience, but we can't imagine that God knows something that we don't.
Or, we go the opposite direction. We decide that God loves other people, but not us. We screwed up. We did stupid, willful, harmful stuff. No one could ever love us after that.
The older I get, the more I see theology as a parent/child relationship. God is the parent. He loves us, more than we will ever know. He always will, no matter what we've done. That does not mean that he should always give us what we want - even if not getting it pains us and makes us sad or angry, and even if other people agree with us and think things should be done our way. He not only knows best, it's his job to do things as HE sees fit, not as we see fit.
Like every parent, he will be disappointed, exasperated, angry. Yet he will be beside us whenever he can, and he will be waiting to help us start over and get it right after we've screwed things up. He will do this even if we hate him or think that he's mean.
Because that's what good parents do.
And if we humans can figure that out, trust me, God knew it long ago, and he's better at it than we could be.
I knew from reading extensively that this was very normal, and I didn't take it - don't take it - personally. It didn't resonate with me emotionally, though, because I could never recall feeling that way myself. My parents' feelings were a constant, like the mountains. I don't think I felt particularly capable of affecting their affection, one way or another. I didn't either luxuriate in it or long for it.
One of the problems this child and I have in understanding each other is that she's a figurative speaker and thinker, who chooses her words for the effect she thinks they'll have instead of for their accuracy. I am a literal thinker, who chooses my words for accuracy, and understates when in doubt.
This means that she frequently looks for hidden meanings when there aren't any. She also tends to think that I'm being sarcastic when I'm not. When given any household chore as a child, she was likely to ask, "Why do I have to?" The answer was always, "Because you live here." She was sure that this was me being a smart mouth, even after complaining to other adults in her life and being told, "That's honestly why you have to."
(Sometimes, though, she took me at my word. In her early teens she wanted to know, "What would you do if I dyed my hair blue?" I responded, "Nothing. It's hair. It'll grow back." She never did dye it blue; it wasn't as much fun if her parents wouldn't be scandalized.)
She was also convinced, deep in her heart of hearts, that if other people disagreed with us, especially if they were people she liked, or a number of people that she considered to be significant, we were legally and morally obligated to change our minds and our rules. At 13, she was sincerely convinced that if we didn't send her to summer camp, we'd go to jail. ("Don't all kids think that?" she asked as an adult. Um - no, Child, they don't.)
"So-and-so thinks your rule is stupid!" we heard repeatedly. I'd usually reply with something like, "Well, I make the rules in my house," which she thought was both a cop out and "stupid." At 12, after I'd pulled rank and said, "I'm the parent. I get to decide," she said, "So you get to do things just because you're the mom? I thought we were all equal here!" My reply of, "Then you thought wrong" infuriated her.
If she kept at it, I'd say, "So, if they get to make the rules for my family, I get to make the rules for their family, right?"
"NO!"
"Why not? That seems fair."
"Because your rules are STUPID and theirs aren't!"
"All my friends think you're so mean!" she snapped at me, after I'd said no to something.
"Good. That means I'm doing my job right." Like most parents, I would die for my kids, but that doesn't mean I should cave to their every whim. The kids would think I was a fantastic parent if I threw out every rule and let them do whatever they wanted, but that wouldn't be good for them, or create healthy, functioning adults.
After my daughter huffed away, another mother pulled me aside to assure me that she spent time with my daughter's friends, "and none of them think you're mean. They all really like you." It was sweet of her, but she needn't have bothered. I do what I think is right; I don't try to win the approval of children. (Or adults, for that matter.)
Throughout her childhood, we heard a constant litany of, "What would you do if...?" More than once, she asked, "What would you do if I was sent to prison?" The answer was always, "Visit you on visiting day."
She must not have believed me, because she was still asking into her mid-20s - "What would you do if I was in prison?" One day, after getting the usual answer, "Visit you on visiting day," she said, "What if it was for a really terrible crime?"
"Visit you on visiting day."
"What if it was for a really awful, messy, premeditated murder?"
"Visit you on visiting day."
"Really?"
"Are you planning on murdering someone?"
"No. But would you really?"
"If you've done something stupid or violent, I expect you to face the consequences. I'm not going to lie for you. I'm not going to hide you from the police. I'm not going to whisk you away to a country with no extradition. I'm not going to bake a file into a cake and help you escape. But you're still my child, and I will always love you. I will visit you on visiting days, and I will be there on the day that you get out."
She must have finally believed me, because she hasn't asked since. (She has not planned or committed any murders, either.)
I think this is how we treat God sometimes. "Will you still love me if I do this?" "If you're really a loving parent, you'll love me even if I do that." Or, "You can't possibly love me after what I've done." "If you love me, you'll give me what I want. If I don't get it, you must not love me."
Sometimes, I think we sound like small children. Any of us who are parents have faced furious or despondent offspring, just sure that if we love them, we'll let them have candy for breakfast, buy them a pony, abolish bedtimes. They can't believe that we ignore their tears or their feelings or their protests. We're sometimes like that. We're seriously, deeply hurt when things don't go our way. Doesn't God love us? Shouldn't that mean that life is easy and we are always happy, and we get what we want? We recognize that our children don't have our perspective and experience, but we can't imagine that God knows something that we don't.
Or, we go the opposite direction. We decide that God loves other people, but not us. We screwed up. We did stupid, willful, harmful stuff. No one could ever love us after that.
The older I get, the more I see theology as a parent/child relationship. God is the parent. He loves us, more than we will ever know. He always will, no matter what we've done. That does not mean that he should always give us what we want - even if not getting it pains us and makes us sad or angry, and even if other people agree with us and think things should be done our way. He not only knows best, it's his job to do things as HE sees fit, not as we see fit.
Like every parent, he will be disappointed, exasperated, angry. Yet he will be beside us whenever he can, and he will be waiting to help us start over and get it right after we've screwed things up. He will do this even if we hate him or think that he's mean.
Because that's what good parents do.
And if we humans can figure that out, trust me, God knew it long ago, and he's better at it than we could be.
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