Even though I’m open to adopting a second dog with some fear or behavioral issues to work through, one special guy has me longing for that happy-go-lucky companion.  You know the one: dog park approved, happy to meet anyone and everyone, obedient and submissive but still confident in himself.  Oh goodness, doesn’t that sound lovely?

The Murph!

Murphy is a goldendoodle, but don’t hold this against him  He is an absolute joy to be around.  He cracks me up at work and I always look forward to having him in my play group.  He can be a little barky when he gets excited, but he’s still a youngster in learning mode.  Of course he already has a wonderful family, but I do know that other dogs like him exist.  They’re out there, right??

Rufus searching for his perfect companion.

Don’t get me wrong – I looooooooooove my Rufus and all of his quirks.  But maybe it would do him some good to share his time with a well-balanced dog??  One that could show him how to lighten up in certain situations.  I think a dog like Murphy would be a great balance of fun while also allowing Rufus his own space.  Rufus is a man that needs limits, and that’s ok too.

Of course I’m just daydreaming right now, but it sure is fun to do.  Do you have a happy-go-lucky dog, or do you prefer a challenge?   Or do you have one (or more) of each, and if so how do they get along? I’d love to hear your experiences.

 That would be an intolerable state of affairs for me. Don’t most boys grow up like me with a bunch of pockets that they’re constantly stuffing things into? Candy bars, interesting rocks, pocket knives, frogs, earthworms…until they grow up and replace the cool stuff with boring junk like keys and loose change and wallets. [. . .] Ladies, doesn’t it warp your brain to have grown up without built in stashing places to nurture your natural acquisitiveness? I’m going to have to have a conversation with my wife about this.

Kids want to explore the world – pockets or no pockets. Image via Ask A Mum.

I’m just going to pretend I didn’t notice the part where he suggested that all women have some sort of brain warp because we didn’t grow up throwing cool stuff in our pockets. It’s irrelevant, anyway, since almost every little girl I know has some kind of starter purse, and it could probably fit more frogs and pocket knives than anything you boys were wearing.

Because maybe we are brain-warped – not by the lack of pockets for our playthings, but the gendered expectations our pocketlessness represents.

Far more brain-warping is growing up with the idea that nice girls don’t play with earthworms or get their dresses dirty or sit in an unladylike way that might give an upskirt view – even from the time we’re in diapers.

The lack of pockets in women’s garments has always been a bit of a feminist issue for me. Even where pockets are possible, women’s clothing doesn’t have them. Plenty of women’s garments have fooler pockets, little sewn-in slits that are made to look like a pocket but don’t actually open to store anything she might need in her day-to-day environment.

Even if she had pockets, she couldn’t use them. Image via E-Tailor Vietnam.

God, how much of my childhood was spent envying my father’s swanky inside pocket on his suit jacket, where he kept a pen and mechanical pencil at his constant command! And how disgruntled I felt when my (former) husband took me suit shopping and none of the women’s jackets gave me that same inner-pocket option. I’ve never forgiven women’s suits for that. I hope I never have to buy one again.

Women’s suits – and dresses, skirts, pants, shirts, and other garments – lack pockets because of the way these articles of clothing are cut, with the specific purpose of highlighting the female form in a sexy way, clinging and flaring a purely decorative fashion. Because women aren’t expected to need their clothing to be functional. Women are expected to be concerned, first and foremost, with looking pleasing for men.

Women’s garments, I’ve often said, are often designed to show men what the wearer would look like naked. When you compare them to men’s clothing, they’re absurdly form-fitting; there’s no way you could fit even the slimmest wallet into most women’s jeans. And you wouldn’t want to, of course, because women’s fashion has decreed that unsightly bulges constitute a horrifying faux pas.

I mean, Jesus Murphy. Men can get pockets in any garment they choose. I once borrowed a pair of swim trunks from my boyfriend, and they had pockets in them, for Chrissakes! Swim trunks! Can you imagine a women’s swim garment with pockets? Of course you can’t, because mainstream women haven’t been able to wear a non-form-fitting swim garment since the turn of the century.

It’s not a dramatic example of real-world sexism, like wage inequity or rape apologia or the mass murder of women. Rather, it’s the insidious everyday sexism that works more subtly, by communicating and normalizing the message that men need functional garments – including pockets to contain the practical detritus of their lives – but a woman ought to be more concerned with whether her skirt pockets would bulge and make her thighs look pudgy.

It’s easy to get disorganized without handy spaces for essentials – no matter your gender. Image via Real Simple.

It’s the idea that women should be decorative, not functional, which leads to our “death by a thousand cuts” – we look flighty and disorganized, and people assume “that’s just women in the workplace for ya”, while being denied practical accomodations that allow men to organize themselves effectively. But if we refuse to play by the rules of fashion, we get mocked for our frumpy, unattractive clothing choices, the very same clothing choices men get away with in the name of practicality. Ask any women who’s ever run for political office; too often we’re expected to look “feminine” even if that has nothing to do with the job at hand. Even if it impedes our ability to get the job done efficiently.

Because we’re decorative, not functional.

Those little pellets of attitudinal sexism add up in a big way.

My first act of resistance: I bought my Panda Ambassador pants in the men’s section of Le Chateau. (In case you’re wondering, I don’t love the store, but I picked it because it was close by my house and easy to access.)  The women’s khakis only went up to a paltry 34 inches, which they call a size 18 even though that’s demonstrably NOT WHAT THEY ARE. Because if your waist measures any more than 34 inches, you’re not a real woman – right, Le Chateau? And they’re “skinny jean” styles, which can be flattering on some bodies, but make me look like a citrus fruit with legs.

So I crossed over to the men’s section and picked a pair of drawstring-waist chinos that, in spite of desperately needing hemming (like every pair of pants I’ve ever bought) don’t look bad at all.

The pockets on these pants are MASSIVE. I’m so in love.

For the record, skinny-jean cargo pants don’t count. As if you could actually *use* those tiny, flat, can’t-disrupt-the-slim-line pockets. Image via QCI Style.

I felt as if I were an unwilling accomplice to torture. Echoes of the victim’s screams rang off the varnished walls. The door, tight shut though it was, could not block the cries of panic. A baby, alone and imprisoned in a cot.

The baby’s mother was visibly disturbed, too, pale and tearful. She was a victim herself, preyed on by exponents of controlled crying, or Ferberisation – that pitiless system, cruel to them both.

Controlled. Crying. The words speak of the odious aim: a bullying system controlling the feelings of a baby. The mother had been told the situation was the reverse, that the baby was trying to force her will on the mother, but all I could see was a one-year-old demented by abandonment. One American mother wrote poignantly on the internet: “Is Ferberisation worth my heartache or am I truly torturing my child? It seems like cruel and unusual punishment.”

The idea is that babies can be “taught” to stop crying by being left to cry alone. A parent will occasionally check on them, but will neither pick up nor stay with the infant. In time, the baby will learn that crying doesn’t bring consolation and will cease the attempt. Parents are encouraged to schedule and limit the time they spend checking on the baby. Does the system work? Of course it does. That is hardly the question. The real issue is why would such a thing be promoted? Why would it ever be accepted? What does it reveal about modernity’s priorities? And how does it suggest answers to the riddle of unhappy children?

Cuddled, snuggled and tended, most infants, throughout most of history, have known the world unlonely. Among the Tojolabal-speaking Mayapeople of Chiapas in Mexico, children in the first two years of life are always close to their mothers, instantly appeased with toys or milk, to prevent them ever feeling unhappy. For infants under one year of age among the Aché people – forest nomads in Paraguay – most daylight time is spent in tactile contact with their mother or father, and they are never set down on the ground or left alone for more than a few seconds. In India and many other parts of the world, children may share a bed with their mother until they are five.

Many parents’ reasons for using controlled crying can be summed up in one word: work. Parents who want “routines” are keen on controlled crying, says Gina Ford, a famous British advocate of the system, and she comments that babies who have been forced into a routine will later adapt easily to a school routine and, one presumes, be more malleable to a workforce system.

Yet whenever I have spent time in indigenous communities, I have never heard anything like the shrieks of fear and rage of the controlled-crying child. If an infant is satiated with closeness, commented the writer Jean Liedloff, then as an older child he or she will need to return to that maternal contact only in emergencies. Such an infant will grow up to be more self-reliant, not because of the scarcity of early contact (as the controlled-crying advocates argue) but precisely the opposite: from its abundance. By the age of about eight, the Aché children, who as infants were never alone, have learned how to negotiate the trails in the forests and can be fairly independent of their parents. In West Papua, I have seen how infants are held close and grow into children who are fiercely, proudly independent.

When children are older, the desire for freedom seems unquenchable. I recently gave a writing workshop in Kolkata for street children who had been temporarily corralled into a school where they were clearly well looked after and, in the main, happy. They thirsted for the one thing that the school would not allow them: freedom. “They want the freedom they knew on the streets,” a teacher said, “to go anywhere, any time.” In spite of the troubles on the street – poverty, abuse, hunger and violence – the children “keep running away”.

Once out of infancy, Native American children were traditionally free to wander wherever they wanted, through woods or water. “By the time he is five, he is grown up, beaming with health… delirious with liberty,” writes Roger P Buliard in Inuk, describing an Inuit boyhood. By about the age of seven, the boy handles knives and wants a rifle and a trap line, and from then on he “travels with the men, as hardy a traveller as any of them”.

When I spent some days reindeer herding with Sami people, I saw how the children were free not only out on the land, but indoors in the summer huts. They rummaged around for food, finding a strip of cooked reindeer meat or a freshly caught fish or a tub of biscuits, deciding what and when they would eat: a situation that averted that major source offamily conflict – meal times.

Autonomy over food from a very young age seems a feature of childhood in many traditional societies. The Alacaluf children of Patagonia fend for themselves early, using a shellfish spear and cooking their own food from the age of about four. Very young Inuit children may use a whip to hunt ptarmigans, lopping off their heads with a flick of the wrist. Travelling through the highlands of West Papua among the Yali people, I often saw village boys going off together, bristling with bows and arrows, to hunt birds, catch frogs and roast them in fires they would build themselves.

Meanwhile, in England, an environmental play project called Wild About Play asked children what they most wanted to do outdoors, and the answer was to collect and eat wild foods, to make fires and cook on them. This is the sign of independence demonstrated by children everywhere, controlling their own food and their own bodies. It seems that modern Euro-American children have two unusual food-related experiences: first, they don’t have early autonomy with respect to food; and second, they do experience eating problems.

As for physical freedom, a few years ago I spent a day with children of the sea Gypsies, the Bajau people who live off Sulawesi in stilt houses set far into the water. The children were swimmers and divers, boaters and paddlers, rinsed with seawater night and day until they seemed half-human, half-otter. I asked what their childhood was like. The answer was immediate: “Children have a happy childhood because there is a lot of freedom.” If happiness is a result of freedom, then surely the unhappiness of modern western children is caused in part by the fact that they are less free than any children in history.

I was struck by the obvious happiness of the Bajau children: spending the whole long afternoon with about 100 of them, not one was crying, cross, unhappy or frustrated. I can’t imagine spending an afternoon with 100 European or American children and not once hearing a child cry.

In Europe, one country seems to have honoured the relationship between freedom and childhood happiness in a way that the sea Gypsy children would have understood: Norway. A land of lakes and fjords, a country that has enshrined in law an ancient right to canoe, row, sail and swim, to walk across all land (except private gardens and tilled fields) in a freedom known as Allemannsretten, “every man’s right”, the right to roam.

In 1960, the American psychiatrist Herbert Hendin was studying suicide statistics in Scandinavia. Denmark (with Japan) had the world’s highest suicide rate. Sweden’s rate was almost as high, but what of Norway? Right at the bottom. Hendin was intrigued, particularly since the received wisdom was that Denmark, Sweden and Norway shared a similar culture. What could possibly account for such a dramatic difference? After years of research, he concluded that reasons were established in childhood. In Denmark and Sweden, children were brought up with regimentation, while in Norway they were free to roam. In Denmark and Sweden, children were pressured to achieve career goals until many felt they were failures, while in Norway they were left alone more, not so much instructed but rather simply allowed to watch and participate in their own time. Instead of a sense of failure, Norwegian children grew up with a sense of self-reliance.

Danish children, the study showed, were over-protected, kept dependent on their mothers and not free to roam. For Swedish children, a common experience was that, in infancy, just when they needed closeness, what they got was separation and a sense of abandonment while, in later childhood, just when they needed freedom, what they got was far too much control. Norwegian children played outdoors for hours unsupervised by adults, and a child’s freedom was “not likely to be restricted”. They had more closeness than Swedish children at an early age, but then more freedom than both Danish and Swedish children at a later age, suggesting that closeness followed by freedom is likely to produce the happiest children.

Unfortunately, in the decades since Hendin’s work, as Norway became more centralised and urbanised, childhood altered. Norwegian children now spend more time indoors in sedentary activities, such as watching television or DVDs and playing computer games, than they do outdoors. The suicide rate is now far higher.

In Europe and America alike, many kids today are effectively under house arrest, with 80% of them in the UK complaining that they have “nowhere to go”. It’s about four o’clock in the afternoon, you’ve got a couple of quid in your pocket but not a lot more. You’ve knocked off for the day and you’d like to be with your mates. The cheap cafes will be closed in an hour, you can’t afford restaurants and you are not allowed in “public” houses. You tell everyone who will listen that you don’t want to cause trouble – you’d just like somewhere that is dry, well lit and safe, where you can hang out and chat. So you go to bus shelters and car parks and the brightly lit areas outside corner shops. And then you are driven off as if you were vermin. The UK seems to be leading the way in how not to treat children.

A plan to erect a netball hoop on a village green in Oxfordshire was blocked “because residents didn’t want to attract children”. In west Somerset, an eight-year-old girl was stopped from cycling down her street because a neighbour complained that the wheels squeaked. Inone survey, two-thirds of children said they liked playing outside every day, mainly to be with friends, but 80% of them have been told off for playing outdoors, 50% have been shouted at for playing outside and 25% of 11- to 16-year-olds have been threatened with violence by adults for… for what? For playing outdoors, making a noise, being a nuisance.

Saddest of all, it works. One in three of the children said that being told off for playing outside does stop them doing it. If there is one word that sums up the treatment of children today, it is enclosure. Today’s children are enclosed in school and home, enclosed in cars to shuttle between them, enclosed by fear, by surveillance and poverty and rigid schedules.

In 2011, Unicef asked children what they needed to be happy, and the top three things were time (particularly with families), friendships and, tellingly, “outdoors”. Studies show that when children are allowed unstructured play in nature, their sense of freedom, independence and inner strength all thrive, and children surrounded by nature are not only less stressed but also bounce back from stressful events more readily.

But there has been a steady reduction in open spaces for children to play. In Britain, children have one-ninth of the roaming room they had in earlier generations. There has also been a reduction in available time, with less than 10% of children spending time playing in woodlands, countryside or heaths, compared with 40% a generation ago. Younger children may be enclosed on the grounds that adults are frightened for them, and older children because adults are frightened of them.

In the Amazon, I’ve seen five-year-olds wielding machetes with deftness and precision. In Igloolik, in the Arctic, I’ve seen an eight-year-old take a knife and carve up a frozen caribou without accident. In West Papua, I’ve known youngsters of 12 or 13 with such physical capability and confidence that, when asked to be messengers, they completed a mountain run in six hours – a journey that had taken me and the guides a day and a half.

This is not only a matter of physical competence: the freedom that Inuit children traditionally experienced made them into “self-reliant, caring and self-controlled individuals”, in the words of one Inuit person I met inNunavut in Canada. It gave them courage and patience.

Children need wild, unlimited hours, but this time is in short supply for many, who are diarised into wall-to-wall activities, scheduled from the moment they wake until the minute they sleep, every hour accounted for by parents whose actions are prompted by the fear their child may fall behind in the rat race that begins in the nursery. Loving their child, not wanting them to be lifelong losers, parents push them to achieve through effective time-use. Society instils a fear of the future that can be appeased only by sacrificing present play and idleness, and children feel the effects in stress and depression.

In many traditional cultures, however, children are held to be the best judges of their own needs, including how they spend their time. In West Papua, one man told me that as children, “We would go hunting and fishing and just come home when we heard the crickets.” In the children’s tipi where part-Cherokee man James Hightower spent so many hours of his childhood, games might be played until four in the morning. “The Indian is not like civilised children,” he recalls, “having a certain time to eat and sleep.” (In his mouth, the term “civilised” is not a compliment.)

“When we’re working, we just don’t have time to be bothering the kids,” Margrethe Vars, a Sami reindeer herder, told me. She broke off to drag on her cigarette, so her words, imitating European parents, literally came out smoking: “Have you washed your hands? Now you must eat.” She pulled a face: to her, children’s freedom was not only a right but a relief all round. As the summer stretched out in one long day, the Sami children would be up all “night”, and no one minded because every parent shared the view that children were in charge of their own time. So the early hours – bright with midsummer sun – would see the children revving up quad bikes, watching the reindeer, tickling each other or falling asleep.

“Here we sleep when we are tired, eat when we are hungry,” Vars said. “But for other societies, children are very organised. Timing is everything: when to eat and sleep, making appointments to visit friends…” She winced at the thought of the micromanagement. The Sami way produced powerfully positive results, not only in the reduction of petty conflict, but also in something intangible and vital. Their children would grow up more self-reliant, less obedient to outside pressure.

For the Wintu people of California, so deep is their traditional respect for the autonomy of the will that it suffuses the language itself. In English, if you “take a baby” somewhere, there is a sense of implicit coercion. The Wintu language cannot say that: it must phrase it as, “I went with the baby.” “I watched the child” would be, “I watched with the child”. The Wintu couldn’t coerce someone even if they wanted to: language won’t let them. When a Wintu child asks, “Can I…?” they are not asking for permission from an individual parent, but for clarification about whether wider laws allow it, so a child does not feel at the mercy of the will of a single adult with rules that can seem capricious and arbitrary.

Take a step back for a moment. Letting children have their own way? Doing just what they like? Wouldn’t that be a total disaster? Yes, if parents perform only the first half of the trick. In the cultural lexicon of modernity, self-will is often banally understood as brattish, selfish behaviour. Will does not mean selfishness, however, and autonomy over oneself is not a synonym for nastiness towards others – quite the reverse. Ngarinyin children in Australia traditionally grew up uncommanded and uncoerced, but from a young age they learned socialisation. That is the second half of the trick. Children are socialised into awareness and respect for the will and autonomy of others, so that, when necessary as they grow, they will learn to hold their own will in check in order to maintain good relations. For a community to function well, an individual may on occasion need to rein in his or her own will but, crucially, not be compelled to do so by someone else.

Among Inuit and Sami people, there is an explicit need for children to learn self-regulation. Adults keep a reticent and tactful distance. A child “is learning on his own” is a common Sami expression. Sami children are trained to control anger, sensitivity, aggression and shame. Inuit people stress that children must learn self-control – with careful emphasis. The child should not be controlled by another, with their will overruled, but needs to learn to steer herself or himself.

Will is a child’s motive force: it impels a child from within, whereas obedience compels a child from without. Those who would overrule a child’s will take “obedience” as their watchword, as they fear disobedience and disorder and believe that if a child is not controlled, there will be chaos. But these are false opposites. The true opposite of obedience is not disobedience but independence. The true opposite of order is not disorder but freedom. The true opposite of control is not chaos but self-control.

I already basically growl and bark at people, except I suck my teeth and occasionally use four letter words that aren’t “bark” or “woof!” Okay, the “woof” thing is a lie, but I use that to flirt and get booty (sniffing optional). We, as a society need some kind of social indicator that is universally accepted as “back the fuck off and leave me alone.” (Without having to say all those words). A glare can be misinterpreted, as can some verbal clues. Flinging your shit isn’t sanitary (and people tend to do that in the elevators sometimes. Seriously, I have pictures), biting isn’t acceptable. Perhaps a little interpretive dance. Nothing says “don’t come near me” like a couple of mis-executed pirouettes or some or some arm flailing. Yes, dance is the key, now that I think about it I did have the overwhelming urge to flee the scene when I saw the re-make of Footloose at the drive in. That movie made me want to get footloose, or saw off the feet of the actors involved. I forget which, a foot would be getting loosed either way, I suppose. 

In the deaf-blind community sometimes people will draw an “x” on someone with deaf-blindness’ back to indicate danger, the woman from the Helen Keller Center who presented this to the organization I work for said that it wasn’t really a universal thing. This lead me to believe that it would probably cause more panic that alerting people to danger. Perhaps we could steal the x-on-the-back thing from them (since most don’t even know what it means in the first place) and use that as an alternative to social displeasure. Asshole on the train rapping/singing/preaching/keening loudly? Just draw the “x” on their back, no harsh words need ever be exchanged.  Problem solved.  

You had a biology which, yes,  predisposed you to behave a certain way. But it is only one side of the story. A small portion. 

I recently listened to a speaker who argued that, men are they way they are because that’s how they were created (winners, competitors, bread winners). His view took a religious form, which likes to nicely and neatly compartmentalize humans into 2 distinct catagories: men and women. Each having very distinctive behavior patterns which are completely natural because that’s how the Creator intended them to be.

No evolution, through adaptation.

No socialization.

No observation as a child.

No communication.

No Cultural impact.

Your gender is culturally defined.

You don’t know how to be a male/female until someone tells/shows you how.

Sleeping is serious business for Bosco.

Special irony must be noted – I’m writing this while leaning against The Golden Theatre, about half block from where I first met Bosco. He’s home sleeping. Or pouting. Or both.

Okay, every blog I’ve written has been about progress. This time we’re talking about a little different type.

I’ve been so proud of how Bosco’s confidence is growing and growing. But I’m not praising his latest boost.  Last week he growled at me.

And Bosco learned no matter how confident he gets, he will not be top dog.

Now that I’ve got your attention, let me dial back the drama. Here’s the big picture:

As you know, he’s adorable. As you know, I can’t keep myself from cuddling the stuffing out of him. And this dog is VERY serious about his sleep. He puts himself to bed every night at 7:30, and he’s done. The only way to move him then is with a leash and firm commands.

Every night  I spend a few minutes before I go to bed cuddling him. I hunker down and pet him and tell him he’s a good boy. This is usually just before midnight, and he wakes up when I come upstairs, and he gets his cuddling. I always thought he liked it.

But not last week. Maybe he was on edge because nice weather brings squealing children outside and back into his environment (neither of us are particularly fond of them, but alas, their parents seem to want them to play in the sunshine). Maybe he was  mad ‘cuz I’ve been sitting on the sofa and working instead of cuddling him, and when I finally have time for him, he’s not in the mood (God I made that sound like a marriage, didn’t I?). Maybe he decided it’s time to tell me that he hates it when I nod off with my head on his bed.

All very valid points, but he missed the main one. He is not in charge. Not for a single second.

So….

I will admit that I was a little scared when it first happened. It was a very soft growl, and I had to double check to be sure I was hearing it. The look on his face was the same as when he found green beans in his mouth, so I knew it was serious.

My first thought was that I had no clue what the time frame was between Bosco’s warning, and a physical reaction (if there was going to be one). I probably withdrew for a few seconds, which gave him the impression that growling works. I gathered myself, gave him the “no finger” in his face, and spoke sternly. And then I put myself right back where I had been when it started, figuring I didn’t want him to think he’d won.  A few minutes later I resumed cuddling.

And he growled again. Again, we had a firm conversation about roles and responsibilities in our household.  He seemed to get it, and gathered himself for five minutes of cuddling before I turned off the light (oh geeze, that sounds like a BAD marriage!).

The next morning we sat on the sofa together, and had our regular cuddle session. And he growled. I know his issue was that he felt pinned in the corner, but let’s remember – this is nothing new, and he doesn’t get to respond that way.

So again he was reprimanded – more forcefully. I hooked my hand through his collar so he had to look at me. I used the same words as the night before. I kept my voice low and firm. But this time I added a twist – every other word was the f-bomb. That’s what happens when I get mad. Bosco’s never seen me mad.

Here’s what I learned – Bosco knows the f-word. And my meaning sunk in.

Don’t get me wrong – I recognize that solving this issue is totally a two-way street. I have modified my cuddling enthusiasm, and do ease off when he starts getting uncomfortable. But I don’t let him think the two actions are connected.  And I let sleeping dogs lie.

This was a minor hiccup, and our issues have passed. Bosco’s been super affectionate ever since. And I know he knows that “snack” means he’s a good boy, that “suppertime” is an event to celebrate, and “walk” means he gets to run around and leap up in the air.

And that the f-word means game over.

I went to an event today. It was the “Broomstick Pony Derby.” It was a fundraiser for a local non-profit artistic organization. Basically, people pay $15 to “build” their own pony. Then everybody races them. I convinced one of my friends, a chiropracter, to be a sponsor. I was technically responsible for building a pony to represent his practice, but I slept through the workshop. Hey, it was the day of my last final, okay?

So I’m running late, I had to shower. I stopped to actually put some makeup on, a task I rarely do. Mainly because I just don’t give a fuck. I show up. It’s hot. I stand in my friend’s tent and talk to my friends. I try to spot the woman I babysit for, as she was running the event. My heart stops. Is that—wait, no. No. Nonononononono. It can’t–why would he–MOTHERFUCKER. It’s my ex. I avoid clubs and bars and downtown because of him. I make an effort not to go to the same places he does. AND HERE HE IS. In daylight. At a children’s based event. He hates both of these things. BOTH, GODDAMNIT. THIS IS THE LAST PLACE I EVER THOUGHT HE’D BE. I turn to a girlfriend that’s there. My voice comes out extremely high pitched, like I’d been sucking on one of the balloon animals some clown was luring children with “So heyy diiiid youu, uh, diiiid youuu know XYZ was here?” I clear my throat. “Oh really? Huh. I don’t see him,” she says. “HE’S RIGHT OVER THERE NEXT TO KIM,” I snap.

Even polar bears facepalm.

He comes up to us. I busy myself talking to Chad, but I’m still facing him.
“Hi” he says, creating a high five position with his hand and waving it.
“Heyyy” I say, plastering a smile on my face.

I’m not terribly nervous, I’m not scared, I just don’t want to be there. So I go to Starbucks and get an iced coffee. Then I go to my car and get my cigarettes. As I crawl in my car to grab my purse, I consider bashing my head against the steering wheel. I refrain. I grab my book, in case I need to look busy. And then I trot back toward my certain death. He’s sitting at our tent, playing with his phone. I busy myself. Yeah, I get it. He saw me panic. He saw I had to leave. I feel him looking at me occasionally. I dodge eye contact. I’m sure I look shifty, but all I wanted was for him to just go away. GO AWAY.

Finally, he ends up leaving. He’s talking to a group of friends when my best girlfriend calls. I run past him, dodging in and out of the crowd to answer the call. We talk. I go back. He’s gone.

Uh, so apparently he knew I was going to be there and still showed up. He…this…the guy hates the outdoors, okay? He hates sunlight. And children. And being awake before 5pm in the evening. And going anywhere after 5pm that doesn’t serve liquor. I’m sure he also hates ponies, broomstick or otherwise, but I can’t verify that. I am reading way to far into this, but if he came to see me, I fail to see why…I don’t know. I don’t know anymore.

I AM SO MUCH BETTER OFF WITHOUT HIM, BUT GODDAMNIT IF I DON’T HATE THIS SO MUCH. He said he cared. He said all of those things last Sunday. Drunk or not. I’m sure he remembers something. And then he makes no point to contact me. None. Shit shit shit. I hate this. I wanted to scream at him ‘WHY DIDN’T YOU CALL ME? I THOUGHT YOU CARED. WHAT DID YOU MEAN BY WHAT YOU SAID LAST WEEKEND?” but I didn’t.

I want to call him. “Hi I know you got a new phone, and I didn’t know if you had my number or not and it was good seeing you today, what is going on between us, can we just fix things, I don’t understand, why didn’t you say hi, why didn’t you talk to me, you don’t even bother talking to me on gmail anymore, why, why is that, we used to talk on gmail, even when we were fighting, don’t you want to know how i feel, don’t you want to know what’s going on in my life, why don’t you care, I don’t understand, I thought you wanted to talk still, I thought you cared, don’t you remember what you said last weekend, is this it, are we just going to ignore each other, what the fuck is this, if you care why are you ignoring me, do you not care, is that it, you don’t care, I don’t want to care, but I do still, somehow, and I don’t know why because you’re no good for me, I’m no good for you, we’re always at each other’s throats, but I still stare at my phone and wish you’d call and I don’t know if it was easier when we talked every day or if it’s easier now, but please, what is going on, how do you really feel, because I’m so confused and I DON’T UNDERSTAND.”
If you read that in one breath, it’s pretty close to exactly how I’d sound.

So do bunnies.

“Just let it end,” my best girlfriend says.
I want so, so bad to be okay with it ending. I want so bad not to care. But I do. My heart doesn’t hurt as much when I see him, but it still hurts. But then part of me wonders why I wasn’t good enough to fight for. Didn’t he mean those things he said last weekend? Or was it all a lie? Are we just going to forget?

I think the worst part is knowing I could fix everything with a phone call.

Building Community – Cheering for your Team! Photo: Sam Howzit

This is the second part of an analysis of the infamously profane sorority girl’s primer on socialization and community building.  If you haven’t read it, you’ll need to spend a couple of minutes at the link to digest it before this post will make much sense.  Here’s the first part of the analysis.  A Mathbabe post claiming that anonymity in Facebook is necessary for privacy motivated it.

Newsflash:  Anonymity has always been a delusion that is motivated by fear and insecurity.  Double Newsflash:  You are always being watched and your behavior is always being judged.

We want to believe that we can stand in the corner at the party, not interact appropriately and perhaps nobody will notice.  It’s not hard from there to convince ourselves that there’s no need to go to the party.  Enough fear and insecurity and there’s no party.

Socialization Lesson 1 (from Primer:)  Get over your delusions of anonymity and behave as if you know you are being watched.  You’ll overcome your fears, your behavior will improve, the community will be stronger for it, and you’ll enjoy life more.

If you participate in a small community there are no anonymous interactions – in the public square or anywhere else.  People are watching you, collecting information on you, and sharing it with others.  They probably won’t share this information with you.

Community Building Lesson 1 (from Primer:)  If you want to be able to socialize, keep your behavior within standards set and enforced by the communities that you are interacting with and representing.  Otherwise, expect to be “punted.”  If standards are not enforced, those communities will become dysfunctional or die.

Community Building Lesson 2 (from Primer:)  There are separate and sometimes much lower standards of behavior set and enforced within the privacy of a single, smaller community – families and small groups.  At the same time, expectations for caring and compassion can be much higher.  People get to know each other and develop trust within the community.  Actions are less likely to be misinterpreted.  With this trust, people feel more comfortable sharing their emotions, expressing their needs and building a loving, caring community.  A profane rant might be acceptable within the small group but not externally.

Socialization Lesson 2 (from Primer:)  Love trumps integrity.

When our personal integrity conflicts with community standards of behavior, the loving community generally wins.  Our behavior will depend on the situation and the audience.

Should we eat meat sacrificed to idols?  The Apostle Paul explained to the Corinthians (1 Cor 8) that he personally had no problem with the practice.  However, if community standards did not permit it, he didn’t see the issue as worthy of dividing or destroying the church.  He wouldn’t eat it.  The sorority president implores her community not to concern themselves with sportsmanship (integrity) if their team commits a foul or breaks a rule. Just keep cheering for the team.  If you don’t support it when a bit of poor sportsmanship is displayed, trust will erode and the community will become dysfunctional or die.  Many “real-life” organizations are suffering because their members just don’t get this message.  The national leaders of the Delta Gamma fraternity that decided to “punt” the sorority president are unfortunately among them.

Community Building Lesson 3 (from Primer:)  Group privacy is essential. Standards of behavior that protect it must be enforced.  Otherwise, the loving caring communities described in Lesson 2 cannot exist.  Trust and intimacy will never form.  Communities will wither and die.

Community Building Lesson 4 (from Primer:) Anonymity permits one whistleblower to destroy a community.  You cannot enforce behavior standards needed in CB Lesson 3 when people have no fear of retribution through anonymity.  The loving, caring communities described in CB Lesson 2 cannot form if members fear anonymous whistleblowers.

But, oh, no, boo hoo, I’m sad, I hear you crying into your computer screen.  Won’t the leaders of these communities become powerful and corrupt?  Then won’t they abuse us?  Yes, they ……. will. That’s why a community has to work hard to build and maintain governance structures that limit abuses while preserving community.  Relying on the fear of whistleblowers is not a substitute and will destroy or neuter the communities that most people need.

Edit:  22 May 2013 14:38 EDT:  Photo changed from Wisconsin fans to Ohio State fans.

Building Community – Cheering for your Team! Photo: Sam Howzit

A couple of weeks ago a now infamous profane email rant from a sorority girl to her sisters went viral on the Internet.

The e-mail is full of insights into leadership, governance, socializing, coaching, and crisis management that we’ll delve into below.  There’s a follow-up post to this describing her approach to socializing and community building and analyzing anonymity and privacy through that lens.

Where to start?  I’d suggest reading the e-mail a few times.  Try to see the world through the president’s eyes before reading my deconstruction below.

I wasn’t part of Greek life in college but I have held several leadership positions that required cajoling college students to show up at extracurricular activities.  It’s frustrating and my efforts have generally been unsuccessful.  I can feel her pain even though I’m not Greek.

I read the e-mail as a coach’s pregame rant.

She’s coaching “social skills,” her troops have a game tonight, and she doesn’t think they are quite ready to play – “so far.”  She seems to have put a lot of work into organizing and policing the week’s events and wants tonight’s “dry” mixer with the matchup fraternity to be a success.

She’s getting her players ready to perform at their best.  Love – Bobby Knight style.  No different from a music director, platoon captain or coach of a sports team.  These girls may see her as a leader because she’s helping them develop interpersonal skills that we all need.  She’s willing to call them out for bad behavior and pleads for them to:

1.  Show no disrespectful behavior to the people with whom they plan to socialize.  Don’t get caught up trying to impress someone with social plans so much that you make others feel rejected.

2.  Make sacrifices and bind together as a fun-loving group that everyone finds desirable.  Show up with the right attitude, ready to have fun.

3.  Support the team you’re on and cheer for it.  People want to be part of a cohesive group.

4.  Promote sober co-ed socializing.

5.  Act in ways that make people like you.  See 1, 2,  and 3 above.

No matter how you read it, she wants her troops to succeed and emphasizes what that means – everyone showing up at tonight’s event with their game faces on and ready to play.  She cares about them and understands that the reputation of the group depends on how they project themselves externally.

She is comfortable communicating with them in crude terms because she trusts them and feels it’s the best approach for venting her frustrations and anxieties while eliciting what she considers appropriate social behavior.  In the dark ages, my college friends and I found profane rants enjoyable.  I have no doubts that hers was well within the boundaries of acceptable behavior internal to the sorority.  She’s betting those not yet fully committed to the mixer will respond to the rant by showing up with their game faces.  She’s probably right – her troops will not disappoint.  She’ll get results that most others, including myself, cannot.

When the sorority sisters socialize successfully at the “dry” mixer, they’ll gain respect for themselves, not lose it.

She closes the e-mail by noting that some people might consider it offensive.  She clearly expects that nobody in her chapter will take it that way or identify with the “awkward” behaviors described.

She trusts them so much that she’s blind to the risks of sending the e-mail.

Then Judas tosses her under the bus, sending the e-mail to an internet site and she’s forced to resign.  It’s not clear if Judas is a sister or someone outside the sorority that a naïve sister trusted with the forwarded e-mail.

It’s also not clear whether the sister’s saw the love in the e-mail that the author may have intended.  Many outside the chapter see it as abusive.  I don’t think you can make the call unless you are in the chapter and are intimately familiar with their behavioral standards and norms.

The next time you enjoy a nice concert, watch a team-based sporting event or read about military actions realize what it takes to get people to work together for a common goal.  For many, it means having a coach in your face willing to point out mistakes, develop grueling practice routines and ask for more effort – passionately.  It’s hard to lead and motivate.  People respond in different ways.  Lots respond positively to the “tough love” shown in this e-mail.

Looking back, I needed a “social skills” coach willing to confront me every time I engaged in destructive interpersonal behaviors.  Is there any better way to learn and grow?  I stayed away from the fraternities and rarely encountered anyone who confronted me about my destructive social behaviors.

This e-mail prompted my first serious reevaluation of my decision not to participate in Greek life in over 30 years.  I never realized what the Greeks might have to offer.

I’m still puzzled about why they punted the chapter president and disavowed the e-mail in a public statement instead of providing some context and owning it.  In the statement, they contend that the “email should not be depicted in any way as standard or routine or tied to any official sorority voice.”  This just doesn’t pass the snicker test.  Seems like it will be difficult to convince potential recruits that the sorority will support them when they screw up.  Somebody at the national headquarters needs to reflect on the sister’s point about the importance of knowing what team you’re on and supporting it – even when they exhibit a bit of poor sportsmanship.

If I had written the e-mail, I hope I wouldn’t feel ashamed of it.  She doesn’t appear to call out identifiable individuals for “awkward” behavior.  Everybody knows that college kids can be profane.  By my reading, she seems to be caring rather than abusing.  I would give her the benefit of the doubt until I got the truth from the chapter sisters who should have been responsible for punting in the unlikely event that it was necessary.

In terms of crisis management and public relations, governance mechanisms failed not only this chapter but also the entire fraternity.  An opportunity to explain Greek system values to outsiders was lost and a public relations disaster for the sorority ensued.  Fear triumphed over love. I hope that the game isn’t over.  Maybe cooler heads will see reality and love will prevail in the end.

Edit 4 May 2013 10:50 EDT:  Some references to the sorority girl acting as chapter president have been removed.  It’s not clear to me what leadership roles she played within the chapter.

Edit 21 May 2013 14:35 EDT:  Picture changed from Wisconsin fans to Ohio State fans.

© 2013 Risa Blair

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• The Plaid Chameleon (ecbjournal.wordpress.com)

Reason why I haven’t made videos lately, and Iron Man 3!

The romance industry conflates finding love with looking a certain way, and it’s hard even for the strongest of us not to internalize messages about the way we look. And worse, these messages are normalized. Just think of things people say when they are getting ready to date someone: ‘He’s cute,’ ‘He’s short,’ ‘He’s kind of chubby,’ ‘He’s tall and fine.’ Or men: ‘I prefer slender girls,’ ‘I’m not really into fat girls,’ ‘I prefer Asian chicks,’ and on and on. It is completely acceptable to say the most appalling things about the way people look when it comes to dating, and if someone is called out for it, their opinion becomes a matter of ‘preference.’

What gets ignored in calling this level of categorization ‘just preference’ is a history and culture of mainstream advertising that impacts our psychology, causing us to actually want to respond to certain things over others. It’s hardly a coincidence that people are attracted to images of femininity that have been beaten into their psyches….We are taught to prefer certain things over others, and when we repeatedly see the same exaggerated images of femininity and masculinity, we internalize a specific standard of beauty and begin to strive for it unconsciously. Considering the exaggerated nature of these kinds of images, preference is not really a ‘preference’; it is more like a culturally sanctioned fetish.

–Samhita Mukhopadhyay, Outdated: Why Dating Is Ruining Your Love Life

(via Queering the Game of Life)

#booksthatneedtobeonmyreadinglist

Dear Friday, I feel like I say this every week, but I’m so glad that you’re here! I’ve been looking forward to you all week, and know I feel like it’s time to celebrate! Wahoo! Lots of fantastic plans for this weekend- movie night with my husband, possibly a furry, four legged friend, and lastly, but most importantly, a birthday celebration for my great-grandmother! 90 years old! So much to look forward to, and it wouldn’t be possible without you, Friday!

Dear Spring Weather, You finally decided to stick around! And you better believe we’ve been taking full advantage of this awesome weather- dining alfresco with our new patio furniture, grilling out, watching the little baby ducks across the street- this has been the most perfect spring week!

Dear Husband, We got so much done this week! It feels so good to make progress on those projects that have been in the back of our minds for so long! Such a rewarding feeling! Thanks for keeping me motivated throughout the whole painting process- you are incredible! I can’t wait to see the finished product! Hard to believe a basement is so exciting, but you’ve seen it, you know how fantastic it looks! But mostly, I just want to thank you. For believing in me. For believing in this blog. For having dreams as big as mine. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. You are the most incredible man I have ever known, and I am so beyond blessed to be your wife! I love, love, love you.

Dear Friends, Followers, and Faithful Readers, What a week! What a week! We keep growing, reaching new goals, and having a smashing good time! And it’s all thanks to you guys! I may dream big dreams, but you are the ones making those dreams a reality. You are the best readers this little blogger could ever want or need! I hope you all have a fantastic weekend! Enjoy the sunshine!

Sociologically, things that are sacred are “elements beyond everyday life that inspire respect, awe, and even fear” (Witt 192). Simply put, things that are sacred need to be taken seriously because they are holy. Sacred things, however, all depend on what religion you adhere to. Praying 5 times a day is sacred to Muslims, but not necessarily to Christians. Bread becomes sacred to Christians when taking communion, but to most people, bread is just bread. Most times, people interact with the sacred through rituals. Rituals are “practices required or expected of members of a faith” (Witt 195). Every religion has numerous rituals for many different things. Christians have the ritual of communion, water baptism, confession, prayer, and many others. Muslims have the ritual of prayer, different holidays, a hajj, and many more, I’m sure. Each group has sacred rituals that, essentially, make up their religion.

Each person defines what is sacred to them based on their religious beliefs. Religious beliefs are, “statements to which members of a particular religion adhere” (Witt 194). There are hundreds of religions around the world and each one has its own set of widely varying beliefs. Some believe in a God, some believe in no God, some believe in many Gods, and some even believe aliens will come and take us to our next lives. For many people, what religion you are depends on how you grew up as a child. Some religions are very strict about their beliefs. This refers to the term fundamentalism. It’s when people “rigidly adhere to core religious doctrines” (Witt 194). When I think of fundamentalists, I think of the people who never cut their hair and only eat certain things because they take what’s in the Bible literally. In the Bible, women weren’t supposed to cut their hair, so they adhere to that standard because they view it as sacred. It seems like a very legalistic approach to religion, but they only do these things because they believe it is sacred.

On the flip side of this coin are things defined as profane. The profane are simply things that are “ordinary and commonplace” (Witt 193). As with things that are sacred, things that are profane vary between religions as well. A menorah might be sacred to Jews, but to others it’s just a fancy candle holder. As we grow up we learn, through our parents, what things are sacred and what things are profane. I think we can apply these words, not only in religion, but in other situations as well. If parents believe than drinking is wrong and show that to their kids, their kids will pick up on that and believe it as well. The parents have, in a way, placed not drinking in the sacred category and told their kids they need to uphold these standards. This is just one example, but there are many different applications for things that are sacred or profane, even if you’re not religious.

I grew up in the Pentecostal church, so I understand Christianity better than other religions. In my experience, I’ve found that some things can transform from profane to sacred. For example, I think the order of service has become sacred to the church. No one told us this is the way a service is held; it’s just always been that way. If that, somehow, changes, people will get upset because we are messing with what they believe to be sacred. When you mess with things that are perceived as sacred, you better watch out. People guard what is sacred to them with everything they’ve got and don’t want to give it up. I think the church needs to evaluate what is truly sacred and what is, in actuality, profane. People in the church always seem to be arguing about the carpet color or how to run the nurseries, or something of the sort. Are these really things worth arguing about? Are these things truly sacred to the church, or are they just profane? These are the questions, I believe, the church needs to ask themselves.

Not only does the church need to ask these questions, but I think each person, individually, needs to ask these questions. People need to find out what things are truly worth fighting for and what things are inconsequential. Everyone seems to be fighting for every little detail of life, when they should be compromising on the little things and choosing their battles wisely. Don’t waver on what is truly sacred to you, but if something is profane, normal and not holy, allow the possibility that it could be changed. For example, I firmly believe that there is a God and that he loves me. I’m not going to let anyone tell me otherwise. I also believe that Captain Crunch is delicious. Captain Crunch is profane, while my belief in God is sacred to me. Just because I think that cereal is good doesn’t mean I’m going to put it on a pedestal and fight for it. This is a dramatic example, but the concept still applies. Don’t let all the profane things in life become more than they really are. Find for yourself what you truly believe to be sacred and fight for it.

Works Cited

Witt, Jon. Soc. Ed. Gina Boedeker. 2011th ed. New York: McGraw Hill, 2011. N. pag. Print.

*****

In this series: Part One | Part Two | Part Three

*****

“I didn’t know it yet, but it was the first day of the rest of my life.”

I got older and middle school went by and it was time for high school.  My freshmen year, I met a new set of friends. They were the goth kids and they were awesome. All fucked up, suicidal, death metal freaks, but they were still christians.

My parents hated these kids.

At one point in time, my mother accused them of turning me into a lesbian because I didn’t have boyfriends. Never mind that I was not allowed to date and every attempt had ended brutally at their hand. It didn’t matter these girls were straight. I was hanging out with these strange girls and they were making me a lesbian.

When that tactic didn’t work, my mother tried to convince me that they were witches. She even had our pastor come visit and lecture me on the “appearance of evil.” They appeared evil. This didn’t work either, I was prepared with verses to counter his. When that failed, my parents decided they were going to put me in a girls’ reform boarding school. They wouldn’t take me. I had bad grades, but I was good kid. I didn’t smoke, I didn’t do drugs, I didn’t drink, I didn’t skip school, I wasn’t having sex. With the exception of my grades, I was a perfect teenager. I never once got in trouble at school.

I did not misbehave until the stress broke me.

The stress of all the pressure and the attempts to separate me from my only friends and still regular beatings with a belt, drove me to self harm. At the age of 15 I started cutting myself. My mother’s tactic for dealing with this was to hypothetically lecture me on how stupid it was to cut yourself, but she never actually acknowledged that I was doing it.

I cut myself for 3 years without anyone ever trying to stop me.

I made a couple more normal friends as well in high school and my senior year, I started attending church with them. It was there, a senior in highschool at the age of 18 that I met my future husband, but I didn’t know it yet. Honestly, the first time I met him, I thought he was giant ass. We had an argument on tithing in youth group. He believed there were legitimate financial reasons for not tithing. I did not

A month later, the church held a camp out. I had to beg and plead at the age of 18 to be allowed to attend a camping trip where boys would be present. Never mind that all of the adults were going too — there would be boys!

On that trip, my mother’s worst nightmare came true. I met a boy. An older boy.

We had our first date, he took me to a movie. I had to be home at 9 pm. She told me that she wouldn’t stop me, but that it was very inappropriate that Brian hadn’t come to ask my father for permission to date me. Before I could see him again, after this date, he would have to come meet my parents. So the next Saturday, I had him over for lunch. I had to show that I could be a good house wife. So I had to top to bottom clean the house and cook the entire meal by myself from scratch.

This wasn’t because of  Brian. He didn’t care.

My parents however, thought this was going to be a traditional Christian courtship and if I didn’t show off my womanly skills, he would find someone else.  Lunch went fine, and my partly tattooed 20 year old boyfriend showed up. Begrudgingly, my parents gave their consent, mostly because I was 18.

Sunday, after church Brian and his family invited me to go play miniature golf. I called my parents to ask permission and they gave it, even though they didn’t sound like they liked the idea. I stayed all day, had a wonderful time and made sure I was home by 9 pm.

When I got home, all hell broke loose. My parents hadn’t told me, but they had wanted to go grocery shopping that evening, but they would not leave the house while I was gone with my boyfriend. I had a 5 minute screaming match at the front door because I was home on time and they never mentioned I needed to be home sooner.

Sobbing, I walked to my bedroom and opened the door.

My bed had flipped upside down.

All of the clothes from my dresser had been pulled out and thrown on the floor the clothes were ripped from my closet and lying on the floor. My beside table drawers had been ripped out and dumped. My room was in shambles.

I turned around, walked out of my room to the kitchen, got a drink of water and my mother came in. She pointed to a pile of clothes on the floor and said, “You need to put these away and clean that awful mess in your room.”

I snapped and started screaming at her at the top of my lungs. My room had been spotless, I wasn’t putting away a damn thing (it may have been the first time I had ever sworn) and she needed to fix what she had done to my room because she had no right.

Then I heard the door knob.

Dad was home, I didn’t know dad was home.

For some perspective. I was 5 ft tall and weighed maybe 120 lbs. My father had almost a foot and more than 100 lbs on me. My stomach sank and I started running for the front door. He caught me and slammed me into the fridge. I pushed him off me and started running the down the hall to my room. He caught me again. I slapped him to try to get him off me. He swung me around and started choking me.

My mother screamed.

He let me go and I locked myself in my room. He told me through the door that I was no longer allowed to leave the house unless it was for school. No church, no extracurriculars, nothing. Then he hid the phones and went to bed. I couldn’t call the police, I couldn’t leave because they had set the alarm and even if I could get out, we lived almost 8 miles out of town and it was cold.  I sat on my bed holding my baseball bat all night waiting for my dad to come after me.

The next morning, after no sleep, I packed the $20 I had to my name and a couple changes of clothes into my backpack and got on the bus. I never went back home. I didn’t know it yet, but it was the first day of the rest of my life. It was only going to get better from here.

After school, my youth pastor picked me up and drove me to a battered woman’s shelter. The next day, the police tried to get my parents to release me the rest of my clothing. They refused and I declined to press charges. Between the church, my boyfriend and the shelter, they replaced everything I owned. I had never had new clothes before. All of my clothes came from goodwill and the dav. They looked awful, they were torn, and I only had two pairs of jeans and a couple shirts anyway. I ended up better off in that respect.

I endured several months of harassment. My parents tried to find the shelter I was staying at. Also had one very failed attempt at family counseling.

I ended up staying at my youth pastor’s house and dropping out of high school.  I couldn’t maintain a full time job, school, and my church duties — and, for the first time, a social life. About a year later, Brian and I  married. Now, almost 10 years later, my husband and I are happy, non-believing parents to three beautiful children.

Over the years, I have tried a couple times to form a relationship with my parents. However, it never worked out and I eventually ended up cutting them out of my life entirely. I am happy, healthy, and I have the family I never thought I could have.

My children are thriving in public school and the difference between them and myself at their age sometimes hits me like a brick wall. They are happy, they aren’t afraid me or my husband and they love it when daddy is home. They have friends and all three are such different people with distinct personalities. The monster in the closet isn’t a demon coming to possess or kill them. And when they do get scared, they come running to mommy instead of freezing in fear unable to move.

They are loved and can be themselves.

I think that is all any child ever really needs.

End of series.