Monthly Archives: October 2017

Day 21: Why #notallmen Is Important

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I saw an article yesterday that said #notallmen is not relevant because all women are at risk of sexual harassment or assault or worse. And it bugged me. But I wasn’t sure why for a while. But as I thought about it, here’s what I came up with.

1. All women are at risk. It’s really unlikely that a woman has never been catcalled or touched inappropriately or had a conversation with a guy that suddenly turned all weird. Maybe she hasn’t experienced all of those, but at least one. I’m willing to bet money on it. BUT this fact, that every woman–including me and my daughters–has to deal with this issue, doesn’t negate the importance of #notallmen.

The truth is, not all men do these things. They don’t let themselves get swept up in desiring or mentally undressing a woman. They don’t say the sexual thing that pops into their heads. They don’t touch or manipulate or overpower a woman (conscious or not). Some do. But most men don’t.

And we have to recognize and give appropriate respect to these men. We can.not sweep them under the rug or, worse, into a group of “all men are rapists…some just haven’t acted it out yet.” Here’s why…

2. We need these men. We need them. We cannot fight this battle entirely on our own. We need the men who will stand with us. We may even need them to come to our rescue. We need their help and their support.

Of course, there are parts of the battle that women must fight. We have to report the instances when they happen. We have to talk about it with our sons and make sure the issue remains part of the cultural conversation. We have to do the hard work of shame recovery. We have to fight for ourselves.

But we also have to invite these #notallmen to join with us. We have to humble ourselves and ask for their help. And then, we have to do the hard work to empower them and equip them to respond correctly and helpfully. They need us to invite them in. They need us to give them clear directions: how to speak up, what to do, who to call, how to comfort or help someone who’s been assaulted. They won’t know this on their own; we have to tell them.

And I get it. No one really wants to do this. It’s hard. It’s easier to dismiss all men out of hand. It’s easier to say they should just know all this stuff and we shouldn’t have to teach them. It’s so obvious to us, after all.

But if we do that, we’ll be wrong. First of all, it isn’t obvious to us. A woman who’s been degraded, physically or verbally, doesn’t always know how to respond or who to tell. When the online chat suddenly turns sexual, we don’t immediately know what went wrong or how best to handle it. We don’t know, and the shock of it (and the shame that follows it) keeps us from doing anything at all sometimes. So we can’t blame the #notallmen if they don’t know right away either.

Second, dismissing all men out of hand, grouping all men with Weinstein and others like him, will result in a gender version of what’s been called the Ferguson effect. Because police risk being called racist, they are less likely to check on suspicious behavior which means more crime is being done and more people are being killed. Whether you agree with this concept in racial terms or not, it’s entirely plausible that a similar effect will happen in the #metoo conversation. Men would might have fought with us will be disempowered and discouraged, and they will simply walk away, leaving us more at risk than we were before.

Third, demanding that they “figure out” what we need from them puts them in an incredibly frustrated position. “Help,” they’ll hear. “But not too much. And not in the wrong way. And never in the wrong place or time. And you should just know what all of that means and apply it correctly all the time.”

It’s too much. We have to educate. We have to have hard conversations with the men in our lives, especially our sons. It feels humiliating, but we have to keep saying it until they understand. Until they really get it. And when they get it, they’ll be empowered to act. They’ll know they can ask if they are unsure. And they’ll have the basic skills and information they need to work with us.

The ultimate goal of #metoo cannot be just to air our dirty laundry. The ultimate goal can’t be just the destruction of lives and reputation. The ultimate goal has to be redemption, healing, and restoration. To unify and empower all of us, men and women, so that we can protect the weak, give boundaries to the powerful, and heal those who have been damaged by the selfishness of others.

But to make that a reality, we need #notallmen. And we need them on our side.

Day 20: Why #metoo is important…and hard

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I don’t really want to talk about #metoo. It makes me sad. The stories I’ve heard and read are discouraging. I had a horrible dream last night that was totally related to this conversation.

But as hard as it is, it is important.

First of all, #metoo. It hasn’t happened often (I don’t even need a whole hand to count the instances), but there have been rare occasions that a man spoke to me in a way that made me terribly uncomfortable.

But second, I’m not sure where to place my experience. None of them should have happened. But to hear the conversation, “all the other women” experience this kind of treatment so often it’s a casual reality of their life. And I can’t figure out which of us is the unusual case. Am I strange to have so few, or are they unusual to have so many?

And where do the men stand in all of it. To hear the conversation, all men are basically Harvey Weinstein. Or wannabes, anyway. And when someone says “not all men,” they get scolded. But many, many men do not behave this way at all. So which is the strange one? The man who doesn’t take advantage of or speak inappropriately to women or the ones who habitually and intentionally make those comments or gestures or advances (or worse)?

Last of all, I fear that the entire conversation misses the real point. The way a man treats a woman–or whether, like in Hollywood, a woman might comply for some reason–is a heart issue. We can’t fix it with laws or bringing social pressure to bear. Oh, we can drive it deeper into the shadows and corners, but it’s still going to happen. Because the issue is one of making ourselves important. It’s a problem of seeing others as means to an end (MY desired end) instead of people in their own right. It’s a problem of control and power and trying to fill an emptiness that we spend a lot of time and money hiding.

And without Jesus, it cannot be changed. Yes, we need to teach our boys. Yes, we need to change the laws to protect the victims. Yes, we all (men and women) need to stand up against and call out those who choose this perverse and damaging path. But unless we include Jesus in the conversation, we have no hope of making any lasting change.

Which makes a hard topic, even harder.

 

Day 19: Why We Give Back

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I don’t really care where or how you give back. I really don’t. But I am firmly convinced that we all need to do it. It makes unimaginable differences for us to get out of our own heads and share something with another person…both for them and for us.

And we all know that, really. But here’s the thing.

I’ve noticed this huge assumption in our culture right now that we are supposed to fix all.the.things for all.the.people right.this.very.second. And if we can’t, you know, undo all racism and all sexual abuse and all poverty and all child hunger (and on and on), then we shouldn’t even try. Or if someone does try, they get mocked because it isn’t big enough or flashy enough to fix all.the.things. The gesture seems so small in the face of the huge mess we make of things that we punish them for daring to call their effort valuable.

Can I please encourage you to find and eliminate that kind of thinking? Please? If you have been avoiding doing that one thing you can do because it can’t fix all.the.things–that’s okay. Do it anyway. If you’ve been harping on people whose honest attempts to do one small things didn’t seem sincere or grandiose enough–could you consider giving them the benefit of the doubt?

It does take a lot of time and energy to give back well. It can come across and condescending or smarmy, like when we give money or time but don’t stop to see the person who’s in need of it. Or it can be utterly useless and self-serving, like sending sweaters and broken junk to a donation drive for hurricane relief.

But it can be done well. And we need to keep trying and learning and doing it so that we can learn to do it well. I tell my kids, “How do you get better at doing something? You practice!” And the same holds true for me and giving.

So what can you do?

Well, our PTO stumbled on a neat way to help out another school that was devastated by the hurricanes right before the start of school. We did a fundraiser with our kids. Then we discovered that we can use that money to purchase books online for their school’s Scholastic Book Fair. They can tell us which books they can use, and we can order them as a donation which Scholastic will then ship straight to their school for free. AND the money we spend counts toward their profit which determines the Scholastic Bucks they earn through their Book Fair (which they can use to get even more books), so in effect, the money our kids raised does double-duty in helping this school replace the books it lost (ALL of them, people…they lost ALL of them).

This route took a bit of research. And chats with our librarian. And a phone call to our Book Fair rep. But (I think) we are actually going to be able to give back in a tangible way. Our “help” is actually going to be useful to them. We can meet an actual need.

We don’t have to solve ALL the problems of EVERY school that was devastated by a hurricane this fall. We don’t even have to solve all of the problems of THIS one school (they’re still in temporary buildings, they still don’t have pencils or paper or anything). BUT we can do this one thing and do it well.

And so can you. Look for the one thing that you can do, for someone or a group of someones who needs what you can offer. And then do another. And another. And if we all make that our pattern, I think we’ll make a bigger difference than we can ever imagine.

Day 18: Why Timmy Is Awesome

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Because he’s never met a person he can’t be friends with (the other day he hugged around the waist a complete stranger sitting outside our local Amish bulk store – YIKES!)

Today, he wrote his very first story problem: “Mom loves Timmy. How many did she love him?” (I answered 10. He said, “Mom, it’s a story problem.” Apparently there aren’t supposed to be numbers in those.)

Tonight he sat down at the only seat at the dinner table that didn’t have a plate at it and didn’t realize it until Erin pointed it out to him.

This afternoon, we played Uno and did hidden pictures and looked up jokes on the Highlights website. He can even use the mouse by himself.

When Megan got to go with Grandma by herself, he cried loudly. I told him I thought he’d survive. “No,” he sobbed from his car seat, “I don’t think I will survive!”

Because this is how he ate breakfast one day last week:

And then, he had this exchange with one of the teachers today:

She: “Timmy, how old are you?”

Tim: “I’m the number between 3 and 5.”

She: “When is your birthday?”

Tim: “December 29.”

“So,” she said, “your birthday is right after what?”

Tim: Halloween!

 

Day 17: Why Looking Back is Valuable

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I wrote this post last year on this date. I’m reposting it today (with some edits) because I found it valuable. Maybe you will, too.

So I have these two verses on my mind today.

Jeremiah 9:23-24 This is what the LORD says: “Let not the wise boast of their wisdom or the strong boast of their strength or the rich boast of their riches, but let the one who boasts boast about this: that they have the understanding to know me, that I am the LORD, who exercises kindness, justice and righteousness on earth, for in these I delight,” declares the LORD.

1 John 3:10 By this it is evident who are the children of God, and who are the children of the devil: whoever does not practice righteousness is not of God, nor is the one who does not love his brother.
They struck me, one from a Bible study I’m doing with some fabulous ladies and one from my own personal study, because they are total opposites. Old Testament, New Testament. Whiny prophet, Beloved disciple. Written to Israel, written to Christians. They are from opposite ends of every spectrum. But they are remarkably similar, too. Like snapshots, taken from two different angles of the exact same God.
And I got to thinking…There are a lot of people, Christian and not, who are all about justice. The poor. Modern-day slavery. Racial inequalities. The real, nitty-gritty, hard-to-face and harder-to-fix problems that people all around us are dealing with. And they bang this drum loudly: remember the “widows and orphans and true religion,” people. You gotta “Love your neighbors.”
And then there are many Christians who are all about right and wrong. Right doctrine (which is super important). Right motives. Right behaviors (or not, since we Christians are SO good about pointing out ‘wrong’ behaviors, aren’t we?). These people major on the righteousness. Be holy. “Put away your old man,” they remind us and “put on the new man.”
And the thing is…God majors on righteousness. It’s really a big deal to him. And he ALSO majors on justice. He is the God of justice. He does them both. He wants them both. And according to these verses, He DELIGHTS in both.
Which totally caught me by surprise. He delights in them? They both thrill his heart? When God sees acts of justice and acts of righteousness, he has the exact same response? I think he does. And they bring God JOY.
We, on the other hand, get so bent out of shape over which one is the bigger deal. No joy, only in-fighting. Or nit-picking strategies while missing the real issues. And maybe the whole time we’re bickering, God is trying to get us to see the even-bigger picture. He wants them BOTH. They aren’t mutually exclusive. And (gasp!) they actually might work together (when He’s the one doing the work) and result in real, true, God-like love.
Let’s ask him to teach us to DELIGHT in ALL the things that delight Him, not just the one we are most drawn to. Let’s practice cheering on those whose call is in a different arena. Let’s see what happens when we get excited, really joyful, over the things that bring God joy. Because that would be an awesome, pretty-darn amazing thing, wouldn’t it?

Day 16: Why We Have to Listen

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Yesterday, my kids were on it, I tell you. Out of nowhere, they hit me with the real stuff. And man, I am so glad I was not so distracted or busy (for once), that I actually listened.

In the morning, on the drive to church…

Meg: (from the back of the van) “Mom, how do you do real life?”

Me: (thinking I’d misheard) “What? What do you mean by real life, babe?”

Meg: “You know, how I get distracted by my ponies and toys. How do you do real life?”

Well, then. She wanted a real answer. “Well, no one really knows, Meg. Pretty much everyone is doing the best they can. But there isn’t a for-sure answer to that question. There are certain things we know that, if you do them, will make sure your real life goes well. And other things we know about that, if you do them, will make your real life go badly.”

It was a great chance to say other important things, too. “See Meg, we believe that God, in the Bible, gives us a plan for how to do real life well. He knows what will make for a good life, so we try to learn and do what He says about life. It’s why we go to church every Sunday and read the Bible and try to know what God wants us to do. It’s because we think His way of doing real life is the best one.”

So yeah…nothing like a curveball from the back of the van on the way to church. And then it was bedtime…

I was closing down, turning off lights and getting ready for bed. Standing at my dresser, I heard little feet coming fast. It was Tim, and he was visibly upset.

“Mommy, I was siting on my bed and I told myself that you said I couldn’t be in the family anymore, and it made me feel yucky inside.”

Me: (dropping to my knees and hugging him tight) “Buddy, no! Help me understand. Did you just think that you couldn’t be in the family anymore, or did Mommy say something that made you think I didn’t want you in the family anymore?”

Tim: “No, I just said it to myself, and it made me feel yucky inside.”

Me: “Oh, buddy! That would make any one feel yucky inside. And NO, absolutely not, would you ever, ever be kicked out of our family. You belong forever.”

I felt him relax instantly and sent him to hug his dad, who, I promised, also would never kick him out of the family. And we talked about how God never kicks us out of His family either. He was all smiles again, and I walked him back to bed and prayed over him, repeating again how he was safe with us and with God. And he fell asleep.

But I was totally shocked. Who knows what made him think that? Was it a guilty conscience about something? And what if he had not come immediately to check with me? He’d have internalized that fear to immense damage.

Oh, my. I went to bed praying for my boy, and thanking God that he’d kept Tim from that kind of fear so young. And also that I was not so busy or distracted (again) that I’d missed the chance to calm a little boy’s heart.

And the thing is…we all have to listen. Not just to our kids, but to other people. I need you to listen to me. And I need to listen to you. We all need to listen more. To the mom who’s so frustrated she’s ready to explode (whether in anger or tears). To the checkout lady who’s acting bored and stand-offish but is really hoping someone will reach out to her. To the kids–ours or other people’s–who need someone to see them and hear them and take their big questions and yucky feelings and hold them for a while, too.

We need to listen to each other. Black and white. Churched or not. Democrats and Republicans. Grownups and kids. We all want to be seen. We want to be heard. We want to walk away knowing we were listened to…even if we can’t resolve every issue.

It is possible to recognize a chance to listen. I usually miss them, but yesterday, I didn’t. And I was reminded again how important it is. We have to give each other the grace of listening.

Day 15: Why Kids Play Sports

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I see a lot of sports posts. The pictures of the kid whose team won their tournament. Or maybe the video of a child hitting to the outfield. We hear a lot from the parents who cheered all weekend or all season.

But we don’t hear a lot from the other kids’ parents. The kids whose team didn’t win. The kid who pitched the ball that was hit to the outfield. But we need to start talking about those kids on Facebook, too.

Why?

1. We do our kids a disservice when we don’t applaud the effort. Erin’s softball team played fall ball this year. They will move up to 10U in the spring, and the rules are changing. Kids will pitch, bases can be stolen, play continues until you get an out. All of that requires new and different thinking.

So for six weeks straight, in rain and sun, we played. Two games each Saturday. And we lost every single one. A couple were close. Mostly, though, we got skunked. It wasn’t the kind of season you ever see posted about.

BUT. It was not a wasted season. Those girls played every game as well as they could. They got better every time they went out. They were playing girls too old for our division, and they never complained. We warned them at the outset we might not win, that we were here to learn, so they threw themselves into learning. And they learned so.very.much.

In other words, they succeeded mightily.

2. We need to remind ourselves about what’s really important. My daughter knew what we  were about. But sometimes, when the other coaches put their older girls in positions that would prevent our girls from even making it on base, it was hard to remember myself what our focus was. Sometimes I was that mom. The one who groaned a little too loudly or talked down the ump for a call.

I need to tell you about the games and seasons when my kid doesn’t win because I need to remember why they play. For fun. For experience. For the chance to learn teamwork and discipline and how to show up even when it’s not fun and you know you’re going to lose again. That’s why kids play. And as much as I would love a win, they learned more in this season of losing than they would have with 12 easy wins.

Our kids do not need more pressure to become a world-class player in 10U. They really don’t. And how we talk about them–if we talk about them–when they don’t win is every bit as important as all the pictures when they win.

And I need to remember that.

Day 14: Why Shallow Things Annoy Me

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Nothing is allowed to be real these days. Simple. Even boring, if it’s called for. Instead, we have clickbait titles to everything, posters and proposals for a homecoming dance, and people who don’t believe you have to BE happy as long as you APPEAR happy.

This is NOT okay, people. Why?

1. Not everything has to be shiny. My weekly roundup email from our financial site today was titled “Look how pretty your money is this week.” Wait, what?!?

What did they do? Wrap it up in spanx so it would fit smoothly into some sequined dress? Was there lipstick involved? Glamour photography? People, my money isn’t pretty. It isn’t supposed to be pretty. It’s supposed to be there. It’s supposed to be working for me. It’s supposed to be a lot of things, but pretty isn’t one of them. And my program that tracks all of that…shouldn’t be worrying about what my money looks like. I don’t mind a non-ugly site. I don’t mind useful graphics and graph functions. But seriously, treat my money as a serious thing. Because it is.

2. Appearance can be faked. My husband’s proposal of marriage didn’t involve candles and posters and videos. And I can tell you, it still happened. All these showy things for little deals like dances and such don’t really mean that much. They don’t prove anything about who the guy or girl are. They don’t prove the depth of love (or attraction or commitment or whatever). They are a competition for likes and hits, which are then equated with value or influence.

My non-showy husband asked me to marry him on a hike in the woods. It wasn’t flashy, but it was entirely genuine. It was him. It was us. It was perfect. And it wouldn’t have gotten more than a few likes on Facebook. And that’s okay. I want more of life to be like that proposal because we’ve built a real marriage on that day, and that is a very good thing.

3. We are people, not brands. The Culture Translator this week talked about a study done with teens recently that showed teens view themselves as brands, not people. So everything related to their actual name had to be positive or appear happy, in order to protect their brand. But we are NOT brands. We are people. Real people with emotions and ups and downs, and true connections cannot be made if we sell that out for a logo and in-right-now color scheme.

We can be actually happy. But it means going deeper. Loving harder. Risking greatly. Making mistakes (sometimes gigantic mistakes). Saying the wrong things while we’re learning what’s a better thing to say.

We can be real. We are supposed to be real. We were created to be real. And it’s okay to buck our culture and live real. Whoever we are and wherever we live.

Day 13: Why I can’t think of anything tonight

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I am very tired for some reason. I could barely keep my eyes open while Erin was reading me a library book tonight.

It’s already 9:30 on a Friday night.

I actually have too many things rolling around in my brain, so I’m struggling to pin just one of them down.

It’s been almost two straight weeks of blogging, and I haven’t missed a day yet. It’s been a long time since that happened.

I had to do a lot of math today, people. A LOT of math.

I waited too long to pick today’s topic. Feel free to make suggestions, if you have any.

I figure no one is really going to read this tonight anyway, so I’m lacking motivation.

I guess I’ll just wait until tomorrow. Hopefully, I’ll have some good WHY to take up then.

 

Day 12: Why I Love Chatting with My Sister

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Because she calls me a couple of times a week on her way home from school. I appreciate that more than she knows. Even on the days I can’t answer because of crazy homework circuses and whatnot.

Because she’s my teacher reference. Whenever I have a question about what the kids are supposed to be doing or how something school-related works, she talks me through it (having a 3rd grade teacher in my arsenal is pretty fantastic).

And most of all, because she’s hysterical. In yesterday’s post, I asked what exactly Alex was supposed to “explain” on his math homework. Today before we hung up, she started to answer that for me. I told her about the problem.

I said, “The question asked something like: ‘The polar bear wears 1623 pounds. About how much more does the brown bear weigh? Explain.’ There was a picture of the second bear holding a sign with his weight on it. So Alex rounded and subtracted, got the right answer no problem. But what was he supposed to explain?”

The answer we came up with: The second bear probably weighed that much more because of an emotional eating problem. Or maybe because he felt the keepers didn’t really like him.

Now that’s a math paper explanation I can get behind. 😀