Stuck In The Middle

Years ago, my husband, our kids, and I were the last ones arriving at an extended family party. When we walked in, the rest of the relatives were in the middle of an argument. Both sides pounced on us, expecting us to be the tiebreaker. The argument was about kids walking to and from school. There were two distinct camps.

One side believed that it was good for kids. Kids need exercise and independence, they said. Especially with childhood obesity rates soaring, kids need the exercise. They also needed to learn responsibility, and make sure that they got themselves to school on time.

The other side believed that it was profoundly dangerous to leave kids unsupervised in public. Letting kids walk by themselves was just asking for them to be molested, or abducted and murdered. No responsible parent would allow it, they said.

Knowing that we had school aged kids, both sides demanded, "What do YOU do?"

"We drive them to school, and they walk home," I said.

Everyone stared, puzzled. They were sure that this was an either/or situation, and we'd given them an "and." They all wanted to know, "Why?"

"We're not really morning people, so nobody would be ready in time to walk to school. But after school, they can dawdle on the way home."

The argument petered out, as no one seemed to be able to process the idea of doing both - and every school day, not even just occasionally.

That certainly wasn't the first, or last, time that I have puzzled or angered people by "taking both sides." I've come to believe that many people see most things as an either/or scenario, and I just don't. I'm not trying to be difficult or controversial. My analyses just often don't match those of other people.

Recently, in our women's meeting at church, the teacher asked how we all personally felt about abortion as part of our class discussion. Most times, when this subject comes up, whether in person or online, there are two sides who are convinced that theirs is the only moral and reasonable opinion. They break into two camps - abortion is murder, and women's choices are noone else's business. I think that both arguments have truth, and falsehoods, in them.

In class, I shared my opinions, and the personal experiences that I think back those opinions up.

Years ago, I watched video footage of some kind of meeting - I think it was a campaign event, but I no longer remember. The (male) speaker on the stage was opposed to abortions, for any reason. A (female) audience member challenged him - "What if the woman is young, and has no support from the baby's father? What if she has no parental support? What if she has no money? What if having this baby means that she will never finish college?"

Even before I met my oldest brother, I had opinions about abortion, but after I met him, I had even stronger opinions. When I heard the woman on the screen asking those questions, I cried, because she was describing my mother. 

The year after my mother graduated from high school, she was dating a man that she was serious about; we even have a certificate indicating that she changed religions at the time, so I think that they may have been engaged. Apparently very abruptly, they broke up, she burned every photo with him in it, and she moved 2000 miles away. We always knew this, and knew that she didn't like to discuss it. What we didn't know is that she was pregnant at the time, and just before she turned 20, she placed my brother for adoption.

Despite being brilliant, she never went to college. She obviously was no longer in a relationship, or even in contact, with my brother's father. I don't know what her family knew or didn't know, but I do know that she made the choice to move across the country from both of her parents, any of her friends, and from her extended family. 

And yet - my mother died at 84. My brother died at 74. We don't need to imagine what kid of lives they led; we know. I can state absolutely categorically that noone's life was ruined. My mother had a career that she loved and at which she excelled. She married, twice, and raised four children. She had grandchildren that she loved. She traveled, she gardened, she read - she had a great life. My brother describes his forever parents as "perfect." He went to college, served a church mission, married, raised nine children, traveled extensively, had not one but multiple careers that he loved and that he did well, had grandchildren that he loved. He had a great life.

Adoption was the best choice for my brother, his family, my mom. There's no question at all. I know that pregnancy and delivery can be dangerous; three of my childrens' births would have killed me and them a century earlier. That makes me admire women like my mother more. She gave joy to my brother, his parents, his wife, his children, and his grandchildren - and that's without even considering anyone outside of my brother's immediate family.

So, hearing someone opine that such a woman's life will automatically ruined if they carry an unplanned baby upsets me.

Sometimes when I share this story, people assume that I'm a "no abortion ever" kind of person. That's inaccurate. Yes, I think that many women should choose to place babies for adoption. I know too many adoptive families to think otherwise. But I don't think that abortion should be outlawed for a simple reason - when that happens, women and babies are at risk. They die. It's documented, over and over.

Plus, do you want someone who does NOT want to be a parent to be raising children?

I usually explain it this way; I don't drink alcohol. I don't think that anyone should. I can back that opinion up with study after study. There's the physical effects of alcohol - cirrhosis, addiction, and more. It's a depressant. There's all the deaths and mayhem from driving while drunk. There's the fact that the overwhelming majority of people in prison, whether they're there for white collar crime or violent crime, admit to being intoxicated during their crimes. Domestic violence is linked to alcohol consumption. Then there are all the ordinary "I wish I wouldn't have" moments when someone's been drinking, especially too much. There's so many reasons to avoid alcohol.

Yet, we know from experience that when alcohol is outlawed, bad things happen. People don't stop drinking, it just becomes entangled with crime, often violent crime. We, the country, tried it, and it doesn't work. People should make the decision to avoid it (or not) on their own.

Whether or not to have a baby follows the same pattern. People should be allowed to make their own choices. Otherwise, bad things happen. 

My religion tells me that free will is the most sacred gift that God gave us.

As with adoption, I have had personal experience that has solidified for me that my opinion on abortion is the correct one.

Between the births of my younger two children, I had what I usually describe as a miscarriage. It was actually an ectopic pregnancy, one where the embryo implants in the Fallopian tube instead of in the uterus.

I was in a play at the time, and we had a fairly extensive stretching routine as part of our warmups. I grumbled a bit, since I'm not very flexible. When I woke up on a Sunday with a sore lower back, I figured that I'd pulled a muscle. It was the last day of my period, so I was already uncomfortable. All through church, the pain got worse. Medicine didn't seem to touch it. 

Through the day, it got steadily worse. By evening, I was lying on the couch, unable to concentrate. My husband fed the kids and put them to bed. I tried to watch TV, but I couldn't. The pain just kept getting worse.

I went to bed at bedtime, but I couldn't sleep. It hurt too much. Even more worrisome, the pain moved from my lower back to my abdomen. It occurred to me that pulled muscles don't move. Just after midnight, a lightbulb went off in my head. I remembered one of my best friends describing his wife's ectopic pregnancy, and how she almost died on a camping trip.

At that point, I woke my husband, and said, "We need to go to the ER."

The hospital asked if I was pregnant, and I answered truthfully, "My period just ended yesterday," but I was not surprised at all when the pregnancy test came back positive. They did a scan and told me that the pregnancy was ectopic. I found out in a single hour both that I was pregnant, and that I could not have the baby. "We can't handle your treatment here," I was told. "We can't touch you if you're pregnant." They sent me by ambulance to a hospital across town, while my husband followed in our car.

Once there, they impressed upon me the seriousness of my condition. "If this ruptures, you will bleed to death before we can get you to the OR," they told me. This was a Catholic hospital, and there was no hesitation or discussion about what needed to happen. They informed me, not asked me. I would be having surgery. The entire Fallopian tube would be removed. And this, they impressed upon me, had to happen quickly.

I feel the need to point out that detail again. A Catholic hospital did not hesitate to perform my surgery, surgery that meant the death of the embryo. They also told me that the other Fallopian tube was almost completely clogged with scar tissue, so even with only one, my chances of having this happen again was astronomical. "Do NOT try to get pregnant again," they said. When I asked if they could "tie off' the remaining tube during the surgery, they recoiled and assurred me that that was not possible. "That's birth control, and we do not perform that procedure here." Yet with the ectopic pregnancy, there was no question. It had to be done, or I would die.

If a Catholic hospital had no question or hesitation, then there really isn't much reason for anyone else to be unclear. I have occasionally heard people say that the "life of the mother" consideration is a smokescreen argument instead of an actual reality. This is wrong even in healthy pregnancies, but it's not only wrong but deeply insensitive to say to someone like me who has lost a pregnancy. 

I was placed on the maternity ward after my surgery since I had "female issues," the only woman in the ward who did not have a new baby. They wheeled me past the waiting room where an OB was giving the news of a birth to the waiting relatives, who whooped and cheered. Even one of the doctors who checked on me while making his rounds started his conversation with me by saying, "How's the baby?" If you haven't experienced that, especially experienced that after having fertility problems, you have no idea what it feels like. And telling me that I should have accepted dying, and leaving the three children that I already had, strikes me as deeply immoral.

I told these two stories in my church meeting. Occasionally in moments like that, I'm told that I'm trying "to play both sides," or avoiding "taking a stand," which is so annoying. I'm actually analyzing situations on their own merit, instead of indulging in the groupthink of assuming that all I need is one piece of information, and all choices after that will be made for me. I'm used to making both "sides" angry. I have no patience for being told that I have to adhere to either a "liberal" or "conservative" philosophy. None of the women in that room said anything of the kind, or criticized me, at all. That was refreshing and appreciated.

I am aware that my medical chart says "medical abortion" (as opposed to "spontaneous abortion," the medical term for a miscarriage). As I said, in my head I classify the event as a miscarriage. The exception is when someone tells me that there's no excuse to end a pregnancy, ever. Then I have a lot to say. 

My middle daughter is even more blunt. "So, you're OK with my mom dying?" she asks.

I'm bracing myself for the chance that I'll be inundated with people telling me how wrong I am, in one situation or another, because I'm putting this out on the Internet. I hope that I'm wrong about that.

But I still think that I'm right about there being two valid sides to this issue, not just one.

Standing Your Ground

I've been thinking about my dad a lot lately. The news reminds me of him - and not just because he rarely missed the news.

My dad was many things - loved family member, career firefighter, award winning trap shooting coach. Many of his family and friends believe that he was also suffering from some kind of undiagnosed, unmedicated illness. Even people who knew Dad only casually were likely to use the word "paranoid" to describe him.

His worries were constant, overwhelming, and often irrational. He worried about everything. He worried that someone would charm his beautiful, younger wife away from him. He worried that people would judge him because his wife worked, or because he'd had to take early retirement for medical reasons. He worried that his kids were trying to make him look bad by acting up. He worried about the government (and whether they would take his guns). He worried that he'd become an invalid. And he worried, constantly, that younger, stronger men were going to victimize him.

Dad had been a star athlete in school, and had spent his adult life doing jobs that took physical strength. I only knew him as a senior citizen; I was 22 when he died at age 78. The older he got, the more he worried that he'd be the victim of a crime.

Once, my sister and her husband were staying with my parents. My brother in law said or did something that upset Dad, and he flew at my brother in law and began beating him. My brother in law responded in kind. My mom and my sister had to drag them off of each other, right there in the living room. When they both demanded to know what in the hell was going on, Dad said, with no trace of irony or embarrassment, that since there was a younger, stronger man in the house, he was afraid that he'd "take over" and become the new "man of the house."

He wasn't worried about romance with my mom - she didn't like this son in law, and I think that the feeling was mutual. He wasn't comparing incomes, since he was retired and Mom was the major breadwinner. He was worried about status, and was sure that his was in jeopardy, just because someone else was younger and stronger. And, he decided to defind that status by inflicting violence, on a family member, because that apparently made sense to him.

(No, charges were not filed.)

I thought about Dad as I listened to the news reports of a statement given by an elderly man about an incident at his home. He said that there had been a "big black man, over six feet" tall on his porch. He was sure that the man was "reaching for the door handle" and that he was in danger. So, he shot the "man," once through the door and once after he'd fallen.

As most people know by now, the "man" was a 16 year old kid trying to pick up his siblings. He'd accidentally gone to a house on 115th Terrace when he was looking for a house on 115th Avenue.

Also in the news in the same week are a young woman shot because her car used a driveway as a turnaround, two young women shot when they accidentally tried to get into the wrong car in a parking lot, and a 6 year old and her dad, shot after the ball she was playing with rolled into a neighbor's yard. 

My dad had a history of, shall we say, aggrassively defending his property. I cannot picture him hunting down a jogger because he thought they "didn't belong" in the neighborhood. But he did once sleep on the patio with a gun all summer long, and once chased my friends down the street with a loaded shotgun after they knocked on my window at night. If Dad thought that you'd set foot on his property uninvited, all bets were off.

So, as you might imagine, I can picture my family ending up on one of those news shows. I can picture my dad becoming frightened, picking up his gun, and something going very wrong. I feel, very deeply, the sentiment of "there but for the grace of God go I."

I can imagine him being horrified if someone actually died, but I'm very sure that he would also double down on his reasoning. He wouldn't use the word "frightened" - he'd say "threatened." "I felt threatened. They were on my property without permission." That, in his mind, would mean that he was justified.

 No one wants to think that their loved ones are, or could be, dangerous. That's because we equate "dangerous" with "evil" or "a bad person." The reality is, everyone can be dangerous under the right circumstances. It's an ordinary reality. Feeling unsafe or victimized is almost a guarantee that a person will lash out. But aside from the reality that ordinary people, who are not evil, can be a danger, we also need to also acknowledge that feeling that you are in danger does not mean that you are in danger.

Our laws, and most people's moral codes, say that you are justified in defending yourself or others. But, what if you feel endangered, but there is no actual danger?

It's a muddier reality than one in which it's easy to separate "bad" people from "good" people - but the idea that those divisions are easy, accurate and self evident has always been fiction.

And yes, reacism is absolutely a huge problem that must be addressed. I'm not including it here simply because fixing it will not eliminate all of these problems. In our case, my brother in law and my terrified teenage friends are white.

So, I find myself wondering what I'd say to my dad, if I could, and if he'd listen. Part of that is easy; I decided years ago that it's my job to do or say the right thing even if it is not recieved well (or at all). I have doubts about whether my dad would be interested in hearing my thoughts on the matter. But I find myself formulating them, anyway.

Maybe no one else will want to hear them, either. But I'm going to share them, anyway. Here's what I think people who might be a danger need to hear.

Look, I know that you are not a bad person. I know that your intent is actually to protect. But what you are doing is dangerous.

I know that you're thinking, "The world is a dangerous place! I am just reacting!" But look at the odds. You have decided that ordinary actions by other people equate to danger. "People are hurt every day!" you say. "They get killed going to school, or shopping, or to work." Yes; they are, by and large, hurt by people with guns. You are feeling unsafe, by and large, because other people have guns, but you think that you having one makes you safer. If more guns equalled more safety, society would be getting safer and safer every day, because there are record numbers of guns in our homes. But is society safer and safer?

And how often are people knocking at your door dangerous? The percentages are tiny. Thieves and rapists and murderers generally just do not walk up and knock on your door. They break in. So, your best defense is not a gun, it's locks. Have locks on your windows. Lock your doors. Even if you're home, lock your door. Even if someone has knocked already and your door is unlocked, lock it. If they reach for the handle, lock it.

And if they try to break it down, or if they break your windows? Then, you can know, absolutely, that they mean you harm. You can defend your home with the certainty that you are justified.

But if someone just knocks, or if they simply walk on to your property? Tell them to leave. Most times, they will. Seriously, they will. If they don't, call 911, announce that cops are on their way, and hunker down,

But until someone engages in a hostile act, assume that they are not a threat. Deciding that everyone is bad and out to get you will mean that most times, you are wrong. (Plus, it makes you miserable.) Identifying a threat means actually seeing a threat, not just observing that a person exists. You are not being vigilant by being wrong. You are not becoming a target by giving others around you safety. If you don't want others to shoot you just because you are there, you can't shoot them for it.

You know that people are the real threat, and that weapons only act when people operate them. So avoid being one of the people who uses them badly.

Then, you will be safer, and I will be safer, and our neighborhoods and cities will be safer - which will make you happier.

Checks and Taxes

 When my middle daughter was in high school, we were eating as a family at the pizza place where she worked part time. This daughter said that she and her friends were planning on going to a movie that weekend, and asked for movie and snack money. We said sure, and handed over some cash, probably a $20. While she was doing something else, her boss pulled us aside and said, "Do you have any idea how much she makes? She can pay for her own movie and snacks!" She was a delivery driver, getting significant tip money; he mentioned an average day's tips.

"I know," I said. "But she's still a kid, so we cover most stuff she wants to do. She only has to pay her own band fees, gas and insurance." He looked at us like we were crazy, and he was deeply unimpressed with our parenting.

"Oooookay," he said with raised eyebrows. "I just didn't know if you knew."

Yeah, we knew. We just figured that it's better for our kids to figure out how to handle money, and potentially make stupid choices, while they're kids and all their necessities are covered. Maybe that wasn't a great plan - I don't know. But even years later, it still seems like the best plan.

When the kids were little, and they got money for birthdays or Christmas, we helped them count out coins to pay tithing, encouraged them to put something in their college funds, and then pretty much let them decide what to do. By the time they were old enough to have their own jobs and paychecks, we were even more hands off. Don't want to save, or pay tithing? Want to spend it all on candy? Well, OK, but you may not like how that turns out, long term, but go for it. We have two who hate to spend any money, including for things that they really want, and two who would spend it before it was in their hands if they could. They all needed to figure out how to make money choices.

Having kept most of their choices in their own hands, I was really puzzled when my oldest, at roughly 11 or 12, said something about us "taking" money from the kids "to pay taxes." She said this with a considerable amount of anger, and narrowed eyes, but when I said, "What money?" she snapped, "Nothing. Never mind."

I wondered what kind of odd thing she was thinking of, but it was so far from reality that I just brushed it aside. In a few months, she brought it up again - "when you took our money to pay taxes." Again, when asked about what she meant, she responded, "Never mind."

As years went by, she'd bring it up not very often, but consistently once or twice a year. Sometimes, we'd be the only ones there, and sometimes other people would be with us, but we could not get her to explain what she meant.

We could not figure out what she was talking about. Did she mean a child credit on our income tax? We explained what that meant, and she looked blank. We tried very hard to explain all of our taxes - that income tax came out of paychecks before we got them, that our property taxes were paid with our mortgage payments, that sales tax was built into prices. We explained repeatedly over the years. She was probably 14 or 15 when I told her, again, "We have never, ever used money that belonged to you kids for taxes. Ever. We don't even use your money (meaning the savings accounts they'd had since birth, to which we contributed with every paycheck) for things like camp."

She rolled her eyes and said, "Whatever you used it for then."

"Used WHAT for?"

But the only response I ever got when asking her what money she meant was, "Nothing," or, "Never mind." It was maddening.

As she became an adult, we heard about it less often, but she'd still bring it up, and still refuse to explain what she meant.

When she was in her 30s, she made a passing reference again, and I said, "OK, you are going to have to explain to me what you are talking about, because we have never had any earthly idea."

She looked a little bit sheepish, but actually answered. "When you made us sign over our state fair checks."

Starting when they were literally in diapers, the kids usually entered something in the county or state fair - coloring, photography, and when they were older, scrapbooks and baking. We adults entered photos, crafts, baked goods. The kids wanted to be like us and get ribbons. The state fair also gave kids cash awards. It was $1 for a third place, $2 for a second place, and $3 for a first place. In reality, it usually just paid back the entry fees, which I think were $5 per child, but it was really exciting for the kids to feel that they'd won money.

Their first time entering the state fair was when the older kids were 7 and 8. They expected to be given cash, and were deeply disappointed when they were told it would be a check, and they had to wait for it to come in the mail.

When the checks came, they wanted to know how to spend them. We explained that checks were the same as Daddy's paychecks. They were used to watching us take their dad's paycheck and get it cashed every two weeks, but he cashed it at a casino. You can only do that after you're 21, we explained. "You have to take it to the credit union and sign it," we explained. "Then they'll hand you cash, or you could put it in your bank account."

"That'll take forever! When can we even go to the credit union?" Much complaining ensued. They wanted cash RIGHT NOW, because they'd already had to wait for the mail. This was despite the fact that they couldn't spend it at home, and couldn't go shopping without us.

"Well, as soon as you sign it, anyone can cash it," I said. "If you sign it, Dad can give you cash right now. Then when we get to the credit union, we can cash or deposit it." That sounded MUCH preferable to waiting, so they signed the checks and we handed them cash, probably $6 or $7 each.

The next year, they wanted to do the same thing - we asked, not assumed. Waiting is not a strong suit for children. They did it for years. Until they had their own paychecks coming in, and they handled checks themselves, they'd sign the fair checks, we'd hand them cash, and then we'd deposit the checks into their savings accounts. We told them we were depositing them into our account, but we weren't going to miss a few dollars.

I told her, "You signed the checks in order to cash them. We handed you cash for your checks, every single time. Then we deposited them in your bank accounts, so you actually got paid double for every one of those."

She looked stunned. "How much?"

"An average of $7 or $8 each. The year you won Grand Champion, I think it was $12."

"Oh." She looked sheepish again. "I thought it was a huge amount, like hundreds of dollars, and since I never had that much, I figured you guys took it."

"It was between $1 and $3 per ribbon, depending on placement."

"Oh."

I am just stunned, myself, by so much of this. My daughter has spent almost her entire life angry about something that she refused to discuss, even after bringing it up herself. That in and of itself is baffling. People, if something upsets you, talk to the people involved! This should have been an easy, quick fix, back when she was 12. Instead, we faced decades of, "Never mind." My daughter will avoid conflict whenever possible, so I'm sure that was her aim, but her actions actually created conflict. (If you bring something up, be prepared to discuss it! For everyone's sake!)

I'm also just baffled as to how a child who could read even when she got that first check, and who was always the one who opened the envelope with her check in it, did not know how much the checks were for. She understood decimals; we'd taught the kids that when writing things to do with money, things like prices, anything before "the period" was dollars, and behind it was cents. Plus, checks have the line with it written out - "six dollars and no/100 cents." Plus, she entered things in the fair up until she turned 18; in high school, her usual entry was her meticulously kept scrapbooks. She read the fair's entry packet, every year, and it spelled out the money involved. She also would have deposited those later checks herself, so she definitely ought to know what they said. How would she think that the checks were bigger when she was younger? Or that there was a separate check that she didn't see, but we cashed without a signature? Even if she misunderstood at 8, there were many more years when the process itself should have cleared up this confusion.

I just could not imagine how she wasn't clear on this. I'm an overexplainer, and the fair sent out a booklet, every year.

I think I've now figured it out, based on the first appearance of the "you took our money" complaint. That happened the year after her photo of a walrus took Grand Champion for the children's photo division. She got a huge purple rosette, and a ton of praise. Her uncle, a professional scenic and wildlife photographer, hung it in his living room (the only photo he displayed that wasn't his).

She was always worried about being out of step with her peers, or being wrong about anything, so she often took the opinions of other children as gospel. Kids have a tendency to take the word of their peers over their parents, anyway. I'll bet that when she mentioned earning Grand Champion to kids at school or at church, some kid said, "Wow, did you get a ton of money?" Instead of saying, "No way, the state fair doesn't hand out a ton of money," she started to worry that this kid knew something that she didn't. (She frequently worried that other people had access to information that was hidden from her.) Surely a Grand Champion got a ton of money! Where was it? She would not have accepted her own experience as making her the expert on this matter, even though she'd won the prize, and she'd entered for years, whereas the other kids may not even have known that the fair came with competitions for kids.

So, she decided that we took it. At least she decided that we had a good reason; fixating on "taxes" shows that she was starting to figure out how modern society works. At least she didn't figure that we partied with it.

I just cannot fathom this, though - that something that obviously made her so miserable was such an easy to explain misunderstanding. Why in the world did she not discuss this with us? Then again, would she have believed me when she was a kid? Obviously, she suspected us of something shady, when our entire motivation was to stop the complaining about waiting, by getting money into their hands as soon as the checks arrived. Note to self - just send complaining kids out of the room, and make them learn patience.

I'm just glad it's finally resolved. Good grief.

(I mean, it is resolved, right?)

"Going To Do Something"

When my oldest graduated with her bachelor's degree, we were excited and proud. For one thing, she'd worked hard to get there. For another, my husband, myself, and all four of her grandparents do not have college degrees. All of my children have some kind of secondary diploma or certificate, which makes me happy.

Usually, when we'd tell people she was graduating, the comments were predictable - "How exciting!" "What's her degree in?" "What are her plans?" But one comment just landed a bit wrong. One friend of ours did not actually seem very excited, and said, in an almost scolding tone, "She is going to do something with that degree, isn't she?"

"Of course she is," I replied brightly, ignoring the implied criticism. "She's going to be educated."

This elicited a sigh. "You know what I'm saying, right?" they asked.

"Yes, I do. You know what I'm saying, right?" I asked with a bit more edge in my voice.

They appeared genuinely puzzled. "No."

Oh, for goodness sake.

I didn't try to explain how many things that I found wrong with their query, starting with the fact that good news should be met with congratulations (especially if you're then going to nit pick or gripe). Then there's the fact, as I previously mentioned, that her parents and grandparents do not have degrees. Also, they had chosen to direct this gripe to someone else (me) who has chosen, as their career, to be a stay at home parent.

I was totally clear that my friend was alluding to stay at home parents, despite my being one. I have heard, not just from this friend, but from many people, what a "waste" that is. I experienced frequent verbal bludgeoning, myself, most of it from people who liked or loved me. "But you could do anything!" they'd say, and they were completely unsatisfied by my response of, "I know I could. And I chose." It was annoying and exhausting to deal with people who were sure that no one would choose my life unless they were stupid or trapped.

I've endeavored to teach my children to avoid being job snobs. Sometimes it works. But just recently, I chastized my youngest for saying "Susie Homemaker" in a scathing tone that indicated that the occuption was less desirable than shoveling manure. "You know that I am a 'Susie Homemaker' by choice, right? And besides, do you want me saying (using the same scornful tone of voice) 'people who work retail'?" I asked, since she works in retail. She glared at me, but I'm right about this. Don't denigrate someone else's job. If you do, don't be surprised or angry when they denigrate yours.

Criticism of choosing to be a full time parent (or homemaker without kids) is often leveled at religious people, somehow coupled with the idea that men must have coerced or threatened women into staying home. That may happen occasionally, because humans are infinitely varied. However, most of the stay at home parents that I know are doing it because they really want to be at home. I am also a rarity among us; most stay at home parents that I know not only have degrees, I know a significant number of them with master's degrees. When my kid needed a math tutor, we hired a mom with a master's in math who homeschooled her own kids.

Here's another thing that bothers me when someone tells me what a "waste" it is for bright, educated people to spend their days with children. Do we want only stupid people to spend their time with kids? That's such a bad plan.

Anyway, I knew that was what this person was asking me - "Is she going to spend all that money and time on an education, and then waste it by having kids and staying home?"

At the time, she was headed straight into a job in her chosen field. Her degree is in education, and she wanted a job as a teacher. She worked as a teacher for 10 years, too.

Now, she is not working in her field. (She's not a stay at home parent, either.) I was tremendously proud of her then. I am tremendously proud now. (I would be tremendously proud if she was a stay at home parent.)

Two of my kids are working in their degree field. Two are not. I'm proud of all of them.

I understood why my oldest chose her first career. I also know why she left it. I'm not going to go into all the reasons here. In fact, I'm going to choose just one - money. After 10 years of teaching, she left, and took a job in insurance. Her new job requires only a high school diploma, and she walked into a starting wage that was higher than her wages after 10 years of teaching. It was also fewer hours - no at home preparation or grading time, no parent conferences, no finding and prepping a sub if you're sick. She constantly marveled, "When the work day is over, I just walk away, and I'm done until the next work day!" Her weekends were totally work free.

She's now been there for a few years, and her last bonus almost equalled her annual income for her last year in teaching.

So, even if this was the only consideration - and it's not - I think everyone is totally clear on why she'd choose this job, and not one in her degree field.

In my opinion (and I'm right about this, too), education provides you with two things - knowledge, and choices. She still has all of her knowledge, and all of the experience she gained in areas like time management, setting and achieving goals, "people skills" (how to deal with various kinds of people), and learning how to sift unreliable sources from reliable ones. She has choices, as she can now take many jobs that other people can't. There are many jobs, for instances, that would suit me, but I can't even apply, much less be hired, because of my degree status.

So, Friend, and any other critics, the fact that she is now not working in her degree field does not bother me, or her employer, or her husband or the rest of her family, in the slightest. She is still "doing something with that degree."

As she would be, in my opinion, if she did become a stay at home parent.

Security

"Children need to feel that their parents are all powerful, especially in their early years," says a child development expert whose work I admire. I agree with him, really; I agree on most things he says. I just know that we did not achieve this with our first born.

We did all of the things that are supposed to make a child feel secure. We picked her up when she cried. Frankly, we picked her up when she didn't cry, because crying was rare. She rarely even cried to be fed; I had to watch the clock and say, "Feeding time!" or she'd only eat two or three times in 24 hours, even as a brand new newborn. We talked to her, sang to her, read books to her. I was a stay at home parent, so she was never without me. She was a quiet, easy child, so we took her out on our dates - to restaurants, to the movies. We wore her in a backpack when we couldn't carry her. As soon as she could do things like dress herself and speak, we let her make decisions - what to wear, what to order off the menu at a restaurant.

Everyone assumed she was happy, because she was quiet and self contained, and she probably was. She colored, she sang, she "danced" (she considered walking in a circle while music played to be dancing). 

Even when she wasn't happy, she didn't demonstrate it by fussing. When her little sister was born, and she was 13 months old, I was in the hospital for almost a week. She didn't cry, and she loved the new baby, but she broke out in a head to toe rash.

As nearly as I can tell, she never thought that we were all powerful or all knowing, though. She didn't think that she was - that was our second born - but she didn't think that we, or any adult, was, either.

I mean, it's not as if either of us drank, or traveled for work, or that she ended up pouring herself bowls of cereal because I neglected to prepare dinner. We were there, we were attentive, our home and neighborhood were safe, we had extended family and friends and church members who were there for all of us.

And yet...

When she was 8 months old, we took a road trip to see my sister and her family. The route that is the most fun takes us down the California coast, with stops in San Francisco, Monterey, San Simeon, or other beach spots before heading to Orange County. That's the route we took for that trip. We have photos of her in the backpack on Daddy's back at the Monterey Bay Aquarium, and on the beach in Ventura.

We didn't take a trip the next year, when we had a newborn and a toddler, but we did go the year after, when the kids were 2 and 3. Again, we went over the mountains from home, and took 2 or 3 days getting to Auntie's house, stopping at fun places along the way, and talking about how Ariel lived in the ocean.

We'd talked about how we'd see Auntie Lynne and her kids, and stay in their house, but knew that she'd have no memory of having visited before. Still, when we got there, both kids were having fun - who doesn't love the beach, aquariums, and cousins to play with? Plus, we went to Disneyland; it was a great trip.

The night before we left, I told the girls to start gathering their things, because we'd have to pack it all for the ride back home. I let them know that we had one more day at Auntie's, and then we'd drive home. It's about 7 hours in average traffic to get back home, so we wanted to do it in one day, which meant an early start.

"We're not going home," my three year old announced confidently.

"Not today, " I said. "But tomorrow, we are. That's why I want to start packing today."

"No! We're not going home!" she insisted. "You don't know how to find it!"

We reassurred her that, yes, we did know. "Just like we knew what roads to drive on to get to Aunt Lynne's, we know what roads to drive on to get home." We told her that we had done this many times, and that she had actually done it before, but she was a baby, so she wouldn't remember. She looked at us as if we were crazy.

The next day, she got more and more irritated every time we mentioned going home. Her attitude said that she could not believe that we were persisting with this foolishness, insisting that we could do something that was so obviously impossible.

We explained again that we had driven the roads before, and remembered. Then, we brought out our big California map book. (Remember the days of paper maps? I love paper maps.) We told her that these were drawings of where we were, and where we'd go. We showed her that the blue was the ocean, the green was land, and the lines were roads. "Even if we forget, these maps will show us which roads to drive on." 

Still, she insisted, "We can't go home! You can't find it!"

I started to wonder if she understood that we were deliberately visiting family. Did she think that we'd just gotten lost, knocked on a random door, and had strangers take us in?

Of course, we insisted that everything be packed, and we got in the car and drove away. Our second born fell asleep in the car, even on short rides, so she was fine, but our oldest made indistict elephant noises - "EEEEE-eeeee-EEEEEE-eeeeee" - for hours on end. HOURS at a time; I don't know how her throat didn't get sore.

About halfway home, I said to my husband, "The next town we go through, find a park so the kids can run and play, because we all need out of this car." We have cute photos that he took of a smiling me pushing smiling kids on the swings. It looks blissful. It was, in fact, a break necessary in order for all of us to avoid metaphorically exploding.

When we pulled up at home, she was absolutely astonished. "You FOUND it! You FOUND it! How did you find it?"

So we told her, again, about how we knew what roads to drive on because we'd done it before, just like we knew how to drive to her grandparents' houses, about 30 minutes away. We reminded her, again, that if we got confused or lost, we had the map book. She looked confused. "But, how did you find it?" It felt as if we would have had more credibility if we told her that we read it in our tea leaves.

A few days later, I was talking about her astonishment with my brother. "Aren't we supposed to have another ten years or so before she decides that we're brain dead? This just seems way too early for teenage dismissiveness."

He laughed. "Well, she knows that she can't do it, so she figures that you can't, either."

I'm certain that he was correct about this. That's exactly what she was thinking. I just could not - still cannot - figure out how she came to that conclusion after watching us, every day, do things that she could not. We could read, we could drive, we knew how to operate the TV remote and the phone (that hung on the wall, and only made phone calls) and the oven. She knew these things; she watched us, daily, do things that she could not.

So, despite my belief that the psychologist is right - children benefit from a "my dad could beat up Superman!" mentality - I am obviously unclear on how we could have instilled that kind of belief.

Illness Part 9: Breaking Up

 "Can I break up with my endocrinologist?" I asked my primary care doctor, a General Practitioner.

He smiled, and said, "Well, you're the patient. You can do whatever you want."

That's patently false. I spend much of my time getting medical tests and otherwise jumping through hoops, so that my insurance will pay for things. I am not in charge. (But I should be, along with my GP.) In actual fact, my insurance company is in charge.

But, still, I was glad. When I started seeing the endocrinologist, my GP had said, "If anybody can figure out what's going on with you, she can." I looked forward to that. My body chemistry has been just not quite right all of my life. I have developed an aversion to hearing the word "should," as in, "...you should be feeling..." and, "...this should be working...", because often, that is not how I feel, and that is not how my body works.

After my thyroid was removed, my sister wanted to know what had caused it to be enlarged and covered in nodules. I told her, "Nobody seems to know, and they're not particularly interested in finding out." But I wanted to know. Something caused it. Should it be treated? Will it affect other things? So, my family and I were very excited to send me to a specialist, one who would figure it all out.

At my first visit, I went over things going back to my childhood. She seemed interested; she listened, and occasionally asked questions. But it soon became apparent that she was not looking for what caused the gland to need removed. Her entire process revolved around the fact that it was now gone.

Well, OK. It's probably hard to diagnose after the fact. I get that.

Still, any symptoms I had also were disregarded as irrelevant. Every appointment, I'd be handed a sheet asking me about symptoms, and I'd check box after box. Near as I can tell, no one even glanced at those forms. All that was ever discussed were my blood tests. When I'd bring up symptoms, I'd be told, "Don't worry. You're still adjusting. It will all even out eventually."

Ten years later I can say with conviction: it never evened out. Ever. (Illness Part 4: Symptoms) Through different medications, different doses, different protocols, I still have almost every symptom. I had them before the thyroid was removed, too. Obviously, there's something we're not looking at. I have become convinced that we don't yet know even what questions to ask, much less how to check my body. I just hear over and over about what "should" be.

Soon, I rarely saw the actual doctor, and just saw her physician's assistant. Not a deal breaker. I also rarely recieved eye contact from whoever treated me; they spent the entire visit, minus checking my vitals, looking at a screen and typing on a laptop. Years ago, this became standard. I don't know if the directions came from the AMA or the malpractice insurance or the medical board, but every single provider now spends their visit looking not at the patient, but at a laptop. They spend more time filling out forms to "prove" that they're treating a patient than they do actually treating patients. That annoys me tremendously. But, as I said, it's standard; I can't really get away from it.

I have listed the issues that I had even getting an appointment (Illness Part 5: Caring For My Health). It was just so exhausting, and gave me a bit of insight into the fact that the office ran exclusively on PROCEDURE. Again, not terribly unusual and not a surprise, but so aggravating. Every office seems to expect everyone in the outside world to know about and comply with internal procedures as a matter of course. This is a problem, because the layperson doesn't work in your office, so of course they are not going to know How You Do Things.

Now, actually being seen at the office, I had to deal with the office staff too often for anyone's comfort.

For instance, I had to be seen every month. To me, that means "roughly every 4 weeks" or "in 28 to 32 days." Not to the office staff; to them, it meant in 30 days, exactly. If day 30 landed on a weekend, the woman making the appointments would fuss and huff and talk about "getting back on schedule next month."

I once pointed out to her that my monthly blood tests were not 30 days apart. I was sent home with a paper, and I took it to the lab and got tested whenever it was actually convenient. Usually, I did it on day 25 or so, but it might be on day 15 or day 29. She looked at me blankly, like she did not understand the language I was speaking, and then gave me a long explanation of how I had to come in every 30 days EXACTLY "so the records will be accurate." The fact that when my blood was drawn seemed far more critical than when I walked in the door to discuss it with the doctor seemed to just pass her by. Finally I just ignored it and resigned myself.

Then one month, as I was leaving, I was asked to come back in exactly 30 days, and I balked.

"That's the first anniversary of my mother's death. I don't want to even leave the house that day."

"Oh, you'll be fine. Just take yourself out to lunch, or maybe go shopping."

I stood there in disbelief and stared at her. What I wanted to say is, "Oh, of course, a nice restaurant meal will totally distract me from the fact that my mother is dead." But I didn't say that. (In retrospect, I should have.) Instead, I said, "I would really like an appointment on another day. Can I come a day later?"

"No, no, no, it's thirty days. You'll be fine. How's 11:00?"

I wanted to scream, "It is not FINE. She is GONE. Don't you have a mother?" Instead, I got an appointment for 11.

It wasn't too many months later when I ran into an issue that she couldn't bully me through. The only appointment available in 30 days was at 8:00 am. The office is 30 minutes away from my home, and I had to pick up a child, a child who did not yet drive, from a class at 7:30 am. The class was 10 to 15 minutes farther away from my house, so if my child walked out on the very stroke of dismissal, and I had great traffic and luck with lights all the way home, I could potentially leave home at 7:45. The math simply did not work, especially during rush hour traffic.

I explained all of that, and asked for another day. No, of course, I HAD to be seen on that day, and that was THE ONLY appointment available.

"I WILL be late. I can't avoid it," I told her.

"Just get here as soon as you can," she said.

Fast forward exactly 30 days. I browbeat my child, with instructions to come to the car immediately at dismissal, to not stop and say hello or goodbye to anyone, just run out to the car. Eyeroll; "I will, Mom." And he did. I drove like a crazy person home to drop him off, then sped across town. I was, as promised, and guaranteed by the laws of physics, late.

"You're late," the receptionist huffed.

"I know. I told you that I would be. (This was literally the same woman who made appointments.) I had to pick up my son across the valley at 7:30."

"Well, I don't know if we can even see you now."

"When I asked for a different day, because I'd be late, you told me that you couldn't do that."

"The patient after you has already been called in!"

"OK, you gave her my time slot, so give me hers." 

"Her appointment was scheduled after yours!"

"So you said. You have two patients, and two time slots. You gave mine to her, so give hers to me."

"We can't see you if the patient after you has already been called in!"

At this point, I threw out any pretense of being polite. I raised my voice; I'm an actor. I can project. "I told you that today was not convenient for me. I told you that I would be late. I asked for a different day or time. I don't know why I'm here, anyway! I can tell you exactly how this appointment will go. I will walk in and say, 'I feel great.' She'll say, 'But your numbers are terrible,' and I'll walk out of here with a new prescription. I COULD DO THIS OVER THE PHONE."

She stared at me, then out at the semi-full waiting room, and said, "I'll see if we can get you in."

And just like magic, they could. It took all of 15 minutes for the entire thing, from being called in, to being seen, to being dismissed. I walked out of the office with the predicted new prescription.

That was the day I decided that I didn't want to go back.

"I don't ever want to speak to anyone but you about my medication," I told my GP. "If I'm sick, I can see whoever's available. But I don't want to discuss this with anybody else. Ever."

Well, I didn't quite get my wish. I've seen the Physician's Assistant repeatedly. Now, my doctor is going on a church mission out of state. Some day, he will retire. Maybe, by then, I'll be OK with that.

But I have never regretted breaking up with my endocrinologist.

Big Foot

When I was in high school, one day a friend looked down at my feet and said, "Your shoes look really sloppy like that."

"Like what?" I asked. They were new, without holes or stains, which was not always the case. I am all about comfort, so I had been (and still am) known to wear stained or torn shoes. In high school, despite being, as all adolescents are, overburdened with crushing worry about what I looked like, for months I wore a favorite pair of fabric shoes that had holes directly over my pronounced bunions. My bunions stuck out through the frayed fabric. Any time someone would point it out to me, I'd say, "They're comfortable like this." I even bleached them, so they'd look cleaner and nicer while the holes got bigger.

But the shoes this friend was talking about were very new. I could not figure out what was sloppy.

"When you wear the laces like that."

"Like what?" This was making less and less sense. The shoes were laced and tied, all very normal and neat.

She sighed. I seemed to have that affect fairly often; my friends would sigh and wonder why I was clueless.

"Here. Let me fix them." She untied my shoe, then grabbed the laces and yanked, hard.

"OW!" My feet were always pretty uncomfortable, which I blamed on the bunions, and anything squeezing them was incredibly painful. While my oldest daughter was always self conscious about her bunions, and wore shoes that hid them, with pumps and ballet flats for dress shoes, I spent years buying only dress sandals, so my bunions could poke out through the straps. Sometimes, a friend would try to talk me into pumps, and I'd say, "Closed, rigid shoes hurt!" Anything tight across the bunions could make my foot scream, and my whole leg ache.

"What?" she wanted to know.

"You're squeezing my foot!"

She reached out and grabbed the sides of my shoe, trying to get the parts where the laces go through the holes to meet.

"OW!! That HURTS!" I yanked my foot away.

"This is as tight as they go?"

"Yes! This is as tight as they go!" I rubbed my foot and retied my shoe.

"You need bigger shoes!"

"These are half a size bigger than I normally wear." I showed her how I had over an inch between the end of my toes and the end of the shoe.

"Then you need wide width!"

"These ARE wide width!"

She looked aghast. "You should be able to close them, like this." She stuck her own foot out. The only part of the tongue that was visible was the tip, sticking out of the top of her shoe. The parts where the laces went through met in the middle and touched.

"I have never in my life been able to pull them that tight."

She looked just horrified. After a few more minutes (and comments like, "That's all your foot?") she sighed and said, "I guess you'll have to wear them like that, then."

"Yes, I will."

Obviously, I still do. That's my current pair of shoes in that photo, snapped on my cell phone.

I mean, isn't the whole point of laces to adjust them to the individual, because not everyone is the same? I think so. I always have. And yes, those current shoes are wide width. Yes, I still have an inch, maybe more, between the end of my toes and the end of the shoe. My toe hits well below the line of the triangle pattern.

Of the many things that have caused me to feel self conscious, this was not one. It was another instance, though, in which I wondered if her thinking was alien, or mine was. Not that it changed anything; I still have to loosen the laces when I buy shoes, but that's why there are laces, and not zippers.

I don't quite understand a lot of conventions on human interaction (that I have been told are just instinctive and built in). That's fine. But, if I may, I will suggest a way to have that conversation that was not alienating.

Example:

Friend: "Why are your laces so wide? Are they really loose?" See, asking questions is a great way to find things out - do not start out assuming that you know everything. This is hard, but necessary.

Me: "No, they're actually pulled pretty tight. I just have really wide feet."

Friend: "Really? That wide?"

Me: "Yeah. I have a hard time even finding shoes that I can wear, even in wide width."

Friend: "I've never had that problem."

Me: "You're lucky." And we'd go on about our day, and I'd have forgotten this conversation, instead of being annoyed by it decades later. I had dozens of conversations like that over my school years, and I can only remember the details of this one.

See?

Occasionally when I tell stories like this, someone will say that this is why we all need to guard against letting other people know our thoughts, because if people know what you're thinking, they won't like you. Respectfully, no, that is not the point here. The point is how you express yourself. I am deeply aware that a significant percentage of people will find my feet to be weird, gross, or just outside of their experience. This is normal. A few others will think that I'm exaggerating, probably for attention or sympathy. This opinion, too, is normal. The fact that both of those assumptions are wrong doesn't make them any less common. Thinking them is not a problem. Saying them is not a problem. Being rude because of what you think is a problem.

Making assumptions without asking is a problem. It should not come as a surprise to anyone that there are things that every person on Earth does not know, does not understand, or has not ever encountered before. Quit assuming that if it's outside your experience, it doesn't exist. Quit assuming that you know everything. Ask, politely - "why do you" instead of announcing, "that's sloppy."

Another problem is acting on your unconfirmed assumptions, especially in a way that leads you to cause someone physical pain. If you don't know what's causing something, your chances of messing things up are pretty high!

Also, let's say that I thought that loose laces were some kind of fashion statement that made me look cool. Telling me that you don't think so is OK. Insisting that I change because you don't think so is NOT OK.

The biggest problem for me, though, is why it still annoys me after decades - the assumption that I should experience shame because someone else didn't like my body parts. This girl's entire demeanor screamed, "Eeww, gross!" - which is, again, not uncommon - but then went on to assume that I ought to be just as horrified. I ought to hide my gross feet. I ought to hope that no one notices how gross they are. I ought to avoid lace up shoes. I ought to be depressed because something about me wasn't pretty. 

This is a problem.

In general, people talk about being proud of who you are, ignoring "the haters," realizing that "you're perfect, just the way you are" - until how someone is conflicts with someone's idea of how they should be. Women are told that they have less intrinsic value if they're not pretty. Men are told that they have less intrinsic value if they're not strong. This is garbage.

Women talk about how we don't owe it to anyone to be pretty, but a lot of us are then disgusted by bodies that just aren't pretty, or women who "don't even try" to be pretty; you know, the loose clothes, no makeup, short haired women. Or, we're not disgusted, but we decide that those women are probably lesbians, because men would just never be interested in them.

I just cannot buy into that. It's inaccurate. It's damaging.

That's why I'm still annoyed. Someone thought it was better for me to experience shame than to simply accept that this is how my feet are. I was born this way. 

When I had them surgically altered - bunions removed, etc - it was so they would work better, not because of how they looked. They're still wide. They're still hairy. They're not pretty. My laces are still loose.

I am not embarrassed by my feet. At that point, in high school, I was embarrassed by my saddlebags, my rounded tummy, my receeding chin, and probably more, but I grew out of that. Because even though my body is me, it is not what gives me value.

My feet have taken me great places. My shoes are comfortable. That's good enough.