Category Archives: being mom

  • submission-umbrellas

    Worst Clobber Verse EVER – Christian Patriarchy Edition

    Featured

    In a more perfect world, the title of this post would be complete jibberish to all of my lovely readers. But alas, we live in a world which is in the process of being redeemed, so some of you know all too well about Christian Patriarchy and clobber verses. However – joy of joys! – we live in a world which is in the process of being redeemed and I know that some of you have no idea what Christian Patriarchy or clobber verses are. So, for the blissfully uninitiated, allow I to explain a bit.

    At its simplest, Christian Patriarchy is the teaching that there is a God ordained hierarchy in which men are over women and children. A daughter is under her father’s headship until she marries and responsibility for her is transfered to her husband. Ideally in this arrangement, the man is responsible for protecting his wife and daughter from other men as well as providing for her and overseeing her spiritual, moral and personal development. In exchange for this protection and leadership, a female treats her father/husband with respect, obedience and deference. Although this arrangement has been propagated around the world and throughout time irregardless of religion, Christian Patriarchy proponents insist that this is a Christian arrangement rather than just something people have had a tendency to do. Like going to war or practicing dietary restrictions.

    A clobber verse is a verse of scripture which is used to provide definitive proof – in the mind of the person using it – that a particular idea or teaching is true, biblical and theologically unassailable. Now I have a few verses which I will use this way all day, everyday. “God is love” for example. What makes a clobber verse a clobber verse is that inevitably, they are pulled completely out of the context they were spoken into. Nearly always, on closer examination  the verse in question doesn’t even say what the person using it seems to think it is saying. And as a rule, the clobber verse is used to support something which is expressly forbidden by scripture – like oppressing someone, condemning someone or creating division in the body. An example of a classic clobber verse is “I am the way, the truth and the light. No one comes to the father but through me” getting pulled out as proof that only Christians will go to heaven. Even though it doesn’t actually say that at all.

    submission-umbrellasNow, the theological problems with Christian patriarchy are so numerous and obvious that books have been written on the topic. (In fact, if someone wants to give me an advance, I’d be happy to add another one to the genre!) Pretty much every point used to support the idea can easily be unwound to reveal it for the hot mess it actually is. But for today, I just want to focus on the clobber verse that gets used as a foundation for the whole thing. It’s Ephesians 5:23:

    For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which he is the Savior.

    And we may as well throw 1 Corinthians 11:3 into the mix for good measure:

    Now I want you to realize that the head of every man is Christ, and the head of the woman is man, and the head of Christ is God.

    More than any other, these verses get pulled out as incontrovertible proof that it is the job of the husband to protect and lead his wife. Just like Jesus does the church. Except that Jesus offers very, very little protection to his followers. And his leadership of the church is, to put it mildly, not so strong. Now, even among those who aren’t Christian patriarchy types, this idea of Jesus as protector and leader may seem obvious and perhaps I lost you there, but really, let’s look at the evidence.

    I know that many of us have and do pray to Jesus for protection which is fine. But really, we’re talking about a man who repeatedly told his followers to expect to be crucified. And many of them were in the years after his death. If it’s protection you are looking for, Jesus isn’t really your go-to guy. In fact, if you’re really big on safety, Christianity probably isn’t the religion for you anyways.

    There are two times I can think of that Jesus actually expresses a desire to protect anyone. The first was when he lamented over Jerusalem saying:

    “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing.”

    (For those of you who aren’t up on your barnyard basics – a hen is a FEMALE chicken, btw. Not really a great support for the idea of men as protectors.*)

    And then in his prayer over his disciples in John 17:

    “Holy Father, protect them by the power of your name—the name you gave me—so that they may be one as we are one. While I was with them, I protected them and kept them safe by that name you gave me.”

    Which is fine except that the whole prayer is one expressing ideas of equality, mutuality and unity – NOT hierarchy. Jesus protected them so that they would survive to act independently without him, not as a sign of his position above them!

    As for leadership, let’s think for a moment how exactly Jesus leads his church. Did he give his followers a plan to follow once he was gone? Nope. Did he tell them how to pick leaders? Nope. Did he tell them how to dress, how to handle their money, where to preach or leave behind a catechism to follow? Nope, nope, nope and nope. If you’re looking for justification for command and control leadership, Jesus definitely isn’t the role model you are looking for.

    Of course, Jesus did frequently tell people to follow him. And he was recognized as a teacher by his followers. But even in his life, his goal was always that those who followed him would be able to learn and then go out into the world independently. He sent his disciples out to practice preaching and casting out demons on their own, for example. In Luke 6 he says, “a student is not above his teacher, but everyone who is fully trained will be like his teacher.” Jesus asked people to follow him so that they could become like him, not so that they could be under him.

    So, there are elements of protection and leadership between Jesus and his church. But to read that a husband is to his wife as Jesus is to his church and come away with the idea that protection and leadership are what a husband ought to orient himself to is absurd. If we want to take this verse seriously, we need to look at what Jesus’ actual relationship with his people is. Jesus variously said that he came to lift oppression, offer freedom, offer rest, challenge, love, rescue, save, comfort, bring salvation. Those verses which say that the husband is to his wife as Jesus is to the church are saying that men ought to do for their wives what Jesus does for his church: offer freedom, rescue them from oppression, offer rest, love, comfort, etc. Like Jesus did with his followers, husbands are to help their wives get to a point of being able to stand on their own two feet and go out into the world as a strong, whole human being (ie unified). The verses which say that the husband is the head of the wife have nothing to do with hierarchy, power, control or roles and responsibilities. In reality, they teach just the opposite of what Christian Patriarchy proponents take from the verse.

    The truth of the matter is that Christian Patriarchy takes a man-made construct which addresses worldly concerns like who is over whom and attempts to use Christianity to justify it. But it doesn’t work. It’s not consistent with Jesus’ teachings or his behavior. The whole thing is nothing more than an illustration of that bible verse that says, “There is a way that seems right to a man, but in the end it leads to death.” (Proverbs 16:25) The idea of men over women has seemed right to humanity for a very long time. And yet, it does lead to death. Despite having been tried for thousands of years and in a myriad of contexts, there has never been a culture in all of human existence where placing men over women as worked to make a peaceful, abundant, just society. All too often it has meant literal death for women at the hands of the men who were supposedly placed over them to protect them. Far from being God’s design for men and women, putting women under men is exactly the sort of thing which husbands are instructed to be rescuing their wives from – just as Christ rescued his people what was oppressing them.

    If you haven’t already, you can read some of my other writing on women and Christianity by clicking this link.

    ****************************************************************************************************************

    *Slightly off topic, but I feel compelled to address the issue of men as protectors a little more. I have had men react very strongly to the ideas I’m explaining here. For some men, being a protector is part of their identity and seen as one of their primary purposes in life. When I have challenged the idea of husband as protector, they felt personally attacked and diminished. So let me be clear: I think that men who view themselves as protectors can be a wonderful, Godly thing. Especially men who feel called and compelled to stand up for those who are too weak to stand up for themselves. I in no way mean to say that this impulse and virtue in men is bad.

    However, a willingness to protect is in no way primarily a male virtue. This is shown in scripture where God describes himself as a protective mother bear or mother eagle. As well as in our everyday lives where women are often fiercely protective of others. In fact, I have known several people who were raised with predatory men and always the mother was judged in the harshest terms for not protecting her children from the abuser. For all our talk about men as protectors, we have strong expectations that women be protectors as well.

    The problem we often run into with men as protectors is two fold. First of all, protection often becomes a justification for restricting the freedom and autonomy of the people being protected. In contrast, the model seen in scripture is primarily protection by driving away threatening forces so that the protected can live freely and unencumbered. Secondly, male protection has a tendency to fixate on physical safety to the exclusion of the daily need to protect hearts, spirits and even emotions from being crushed. As we see in scripture, Jesus wasn’t really concerned with the physical safety of his followers – he promised them death. But he was careful to protect them from the enemy who could destroy their souls.

  • you_are_loved

    Do You Know How to Feel Loved?

    Featured

    Pretty regularly my three year old Olivia will tell me, “Michaela loves me.” Or Noah or Dad or whoever in the family she’s just been dealing with. Believe it or not, this doesn’t just happen when someone hands her a piece of candy. Often it’s just after being hugged or read a book or being talked with. Just simple things that seem to make her realize that she is cared for. As a mother, I don’t think I’ve ever heard more reassuring words come out of a child’s mouth than Olivia’s, “everyone loves me.”

    I know people who would probably think it is unseemly to declare oneself loved. We’re supposed to tell other people that we love them, not proclaim ourselves as loved. Even if it’s sweet for a 3 year old to say such a thing, it would seem weird and awkward for us to say it. However, as much as we tell people we love them – and we should! – what a gift to tell people that we have received and experienced the love they have for us as well. I know from experience – and I’d bet most of you do too – that there is little which is more hurtful than a loved one rejecting our love. To be a parent who realizes that as fervently as they have loved their child, that for one reason or another that child doesn’t feel loved. A spouse whose partner feels unloved after they’ve poured themselves out heart and soul for them. Or a friend who prayed over and sat with a dear one only to hear, “no one cares about me.” As wounding as never hearing, “I love you” can be, “I don’t feel loved” can be even worse.

    Sometimes the people around us don’t feel loved because we’re doing it wrong. But I know a lot of people who simply struggle to experience the love directed their way. They may know that their own love for others is true, deep and passionate. Yet they tell themselves that others are just being nice, don’t know any better, or simply saying what they think they are supposed to say when people direct love towards them. I know I’ve done this. It wasn’t until I had my own daughters that it dawned on me that my own mother might actually have meant all of the kind, encouraging things she had said to me over the years. I knew she loved me, but I had rarely allowed that love to actually touch me – to feel it. Even with my own children, I’ve tended not to allow their love to reach me. After all, kids will love even the crappiest mom – it wasn’t personal. Except of course, it is personal to them.

    It took me a good amount of time as well as being on the receiving end of the “your love can’t touch me” phenomena for me to realize that I was doing this. And that’s it’s not OK. I’d like to say that I realized that it’s not right that someone as lovable as me would not feel loved. But really, what finally got through to me was my middle daughter. She’s a sensitive, passionate girl who sometimes reminds me of myself as a child. And she loves me. As a preschooler she would regularly set-up and invite me to “I love mommy” parties with water in her tea set, crackers on napkins and stuffed animals wrapped in blankets as presents for me. For a while I figured this was her way of getting me to play tea party with her. Then one day I looked at her and remembered how fervently I loved my own mother as a child. And it occurred to me that it was wrong for me not to allow for my child’s love to be just as real and intentional as my own had been. Whatever the reasons for not allowing love to touch me were, it was wrong. And I needed to stop.

    Now I very intentionally pay attention to the love which is directed my way. And as I am given a hug or kind words or a gift, I follow Olivia’s example and tell myself, “s/he loves me”. I will myself to actually experience the love being directed at me – to feel rather than simply know it. And more and more I am able to feel the love that comes my way. But in doing this, I’ve found that there’s something very, very deep in me which resists receiving love. I’m sure I could come up with all sorts of ideas as to why – self-protection after being hurt, lack of trust, not feeling lovable, my sister sneezing in my hair that one time when I was three. Who knows? But of all the false ideas and beliefs which I’ve confronted over the years, this one seems particularly deeply embedded. There’s something about allowing myself to feel loved that feels very uncomfortable and dangerous to me.

    Often when my brain is filled with toxic muck as it is sometime wont to be, I will use a mantra to crowd out everything else. I’ll focus so strongly on a particular phrase or prayer that my brain simply can’t get another word in edgewise. Often I’ll use the Jesus prayer. Or if I’m really struggling, I’ll tell myself over and over, “all you have to do is take a breath. And then another. And another.” The other day I woke up from a night of bad dreams to the sound of my dog vomiting up what looked like squirrel hair on my bedroom floor. And somehow I just knew that I needed to focus my brain on one thought: “God loves me.” Over and over for the last couple of days I’ve repeated to myself, “God loves me”, breathing in on the “God” and out on “loves me”.

    It’s been like magic. Within a couple of hours, I felt better than I have in I’m not sure how long. Yet in the quiet moments, when I’ve been able to really pay attention to this mantra, I’ve found myself wrestling with the idea that God loves me. And it’s felt an awful lot like that same struggle I have with allowing myself to feel loved in general. It feels dangerous, I realized, because some of my hurt has become bitterness. Because at times God’s love has felt like a lie. And maybe the truth is that it often feels like I’m serving a demanding God who just takes and takes from me, until I’m completely drained. Just like I often feel with everyone else in my life.

    But it occurs to me that the real problem is that I don’t get to dictate the terms of God’s love – I just have to accept it as it comes. I don’t get to hold out for something more to my liking. To feel loved by God, I need to forgive God and myself and my life for not being what I thought it was supposed to be. I just have to allow myself to ease into what is and enjoy the ride. Because that’s all I have – the right here and now. Where God loves me. And might my struggle to accept love from other people in my life have its roots in the same realities?

    I’m still wrestling with this hard part of myself that doesn’t know how to be loved. Perhaps it’s like loving itself – it’s an ability, not a feeling or even a choice. Something that has to be learned and nurtured. And yet, here comes Olivia telling me, “you love me.” It makes me think that perhaps if we’d focus a little less on convincing each other of our love for them and a little more on offering the gift of letting each other know that we see and receive their love, we’d all be better for it. And if our own love is received, perhaps it won’t be so hard to allow ourselves to receive it from others as well.

  • hope1

    Wrestling Hope

    Featured

    “Totally without hope one cannot live. To live without hope is to cease to live. Hell is hopelessness. It is no accident that above the entrance to Dante’s hell is the inscription: ‘Leave behind all hope, you who enter here.’” Jurgen Moltmann

    I’ve wrestled a lot with hope in the last few years. Mostly to try and send it away. “Hope deferred makes a heart sick.” I’ve had enough of being sick. But allowing oneself to venture into hell is a dangerous thing as well. I know – I’ve wandered into hell more than once as of late and couldn’t muster the strength to find my way back out.

    I’ve taken to resisting comfort. I’ve fallen for it too many times before. I’ve read the words of scripture and their promises that God will not abandon me or let me fall. My heart has leapt at them only to find that holding onto comfort is like holding onto water as it slips out between your fingers. And God is no where to be seen but my failure is all around me. Better not to let myself try to grab hold any more.

    I’ve gazed at the cross with its promise of redemption after suffering. But Jesus’ suffering lasted for a weekend and mine is lasting for years. Jesus’ suffering was probably greater than mine, but it’s not a competition. My neighbor’s broken leg doesn’t make my broken heart hurt any less. I’d say I just want my suffering to end, but the damage has already been done. What difference does it make now?

    And then I realize that it is an evil thing I’m fighting with which bids me to remain in hell and refuse comfort as too little too late and far too quickly gone. I’m tired of keeping up the fight. But behind this evil that I’m wresting with are a whole hoard of demons just waiting to rush forward and devour the ones I love. There are generational curses straining mightily to break through. And demons of rejection and abandonment waiting to sink their teeth into young children’s hearts. There’s resentment and confusion that will lead a teen down misshapen paths to no where. There’s weariness and betrayal and anger that never rests looking for unguarded cracks to set up infection in a barely healing soul.

    I resent it – being pinned down by all this evil. Having to keep up this fight rather than allow myself to walk away or be swept up by some worldly comfort until it takes my life with it. Even Jesus got to die in the end.

    And along comes a three year old who drapes herself into my arms, looks up at me and says in her baby way, “you love me mom.”

    Yes I do baby.

    “I love you. I love Noah. Noah loves me. Everyone loves me.”

    Yes they do, baby.

    And then an 8 year old comes in.

    “I just want to be with you for a minute.”

    How come?

    “I dunno. I just feel good when I’m by you.”

    A six year old brings a picture she’s painted.

    “It’s for you. It says ‘joy’! Do you like it?”

    She’s made her J backwards so it really says “Loy”.

    It’s wonderful, pretty girl.

    “Joy” it is.

    I start to find my feet again for the first time in days. The evil’s still there, but I’m not pinned down under the force of it now.

    Later I’m stumbling again and a 17 year year old boy stops to put on a song for me before putting his arms around me. When he was younger he made his own sound effects every where he went. Today, he keeps a sound track going.

    “What you need to remember is that you’ve done good, mom. Even if the rest of the world is to stubborn to admit it to you, you’ve done good.”

    I wanted life to be better for you. I didn’t mean for it to be this hard.

    The thirteen year old chimes in.

    “We’d both be ruined if it weren’t for you. Life is hard. But at least we know that we can handle it. That’s more than most people can say.”

    And finally, finally, the ones I keep up the battle for have gotten me steady enough on my feet to walk away out of hell and away from the evil. I don’t know that I’m ready to hope exactly. But I think it will be a while before I wander back into hell again. And that’s no small thing.

  • Trotter children are immediately identifiable by their curly hair

    Do Your Kids Know Their Own Story?

    Featured

    Trotter children are immediately identifiable by their curly hair

    I’m having some trouble writing at the moment, so in honor of my daughter Olivia’s 3rd birthday, here’s a repeat which ends with the story of how Olivia came to be – aside from the obvious, of course. (At the time this was written, my husband and I were separated. We’re back together now. For those of you following along at home.)

    Each of my children has a story we tell them about some way in which their lives have mattered.  I believe that it’s one thing to tell a kid they are important and that they matter, but it’s something of a gift to them to be able to tell them how they have mattered.  Then they’re not just a lowly child floating out in the world with no real base or purpose to start with.  It grounds the message that they have value in their real world.  It’s concrete evidence for them that just because they exist, the world is a different, better place.

    My oldest Noah was born when his father and I were not married.  If it wasn’t for him, we would not have formed a family and his siblings wouldn’t be here.  And his birth also changed me.  Before having him, if you had walked up to me at any given moment and said, “I’m sorry, only real humans are allowed here.  Penguins such as yourself belong elsewhere” and I would have shrugged at being caught and thanked you for telling me I was a penguin – I had been wondering about that.  I had a bad case of imposter’s syndrome.  Practically from the start, parenting Noah was something I just knew how to do and I felt completely comfortable doing it.  It was almost like working out of an area of spiritual blessing and was an important step on the way to me knowing (hopefully) more and more of who God created me to be.

    Collin, who is now 12 was born while his dad was very sick.  His medical care was awful but we were young and hadn’t yet realized that the system works differently once your illness has no identifiable cause or treatment.  They eventually told us that he was crazy – really, they did.  They even gave us a black binder with a report saying so.  In fact he was crazy in a way.  Unbeknownst to anyone, his body had stopped processing B12 years before.  Your body uses B12 to coat nerve endings so they can communicate smoothly.  He was not thinking clearly and became difficult to the point of being unsafe to leave the kids alone with him.  We had been married a year and if we hadn’t had Collin right away, I doubt I would have stayed.  He was only diagnosed when he nearly died.  If I hadn’t been there to call 911, it could have been days before someone found him.  So, Collin kept us together which ended up saving his dad’s life.

    Michaela was the one child I that was my idea.  This time I was the one to talk the qxh (quasi-ex-husband) into having another kid.  He was ready to be done, but I really wanted a little girl.  Believe it or not, but I had never had any intention of being a parent and it had rather disrupted everything else I had wanted to do with my life.  So I figured that as long as I was going to be a parent, I at least wanted to try for a girl.  Against his better judgment, the qxh went along to make me happy.  When Michaela was a few months old, he came and thanked me.  “She’s my heart,” he said, “I can’t believe I didn’t think I needed her.”  The qxh had all sort of very retrograde ideas about how to raise boys – many of which revolved around putting as much parental inflicted suffering on a kid as he can take in order to train him for the rigors of manhood.  But with girls, he took a cue from Chris Rock: “my job is to keep her off the [stripper's] pole!“  The qxh sees a father’s job as demonstrating to his daughter how she should expect to be treated.  So Michaela was the one who helped him find a much softer, gentler and more patient side than he had been working from before she was born.  Which made all of our lives more pleasant.

    Sophia is my second daughter.  She was all the qxh’s idea.  There is an almost 6 year gap between Collin and Michaela and the qxh wanted Michaela to have a sibling to play with.  Two weeks later, Sophia was on her way.  Sophia was the child we had no real reason for having.  Most likely in the scheme of things, having Sophia meant that Michaela wouldn’t be completely ruined by being her father’s only daughter!  But when we tell Sophia her story, we tell her that she was the baby we had for the fun of it.  It was a gamble, but it paid off.

    And then there’s my baby, Olivia.  She has a strange story that I’m glad I don’t have to try and explain to her yet.  Just over three years ago, the weirdest thing kept happening.  My four kids would all be in a room with me and I would count them because I thought someone was missing.  I told a friend who has 5 kids about it and she immediately responded, “uh-oh.”  (Many people assume that large families are a sign of contraceptive issues, but it really comes from a completely different mindset towards having children.  Among those who have large families, this sense that someone is missing is often given as part of their reason for having another child.)  Shortly after that, the qxh came out of no where and announced that he had no idea why but he was suddenly gripped with a desire to, um, do his part to assist in the creation of a new Trotter.  And I said, “well see – that’s strange, because I have had this odd sensation of someone being missing.”  Weird, right?

    So we talked about it for a couple of weeks and I came to the firm conclusion that having another baby was a really, really bad idea.  My husband was sick of being the sole breadwinner and our youngest was starting preschool that fall so I could start working on building something myself to contribute to the family finances.  And my then 13 year old stepson was coming to live with us, so I would be going from having 4 kids to 6 in a very short time.  And babies are sooooo much WORK.  We didn’t even have a vehicle big enough for all of us as it was!  Bad, bad, bad idea.

    However, a couple of weeks later, I was complaining to God (yes, I complain to God a lot.  That way everyone else doesn’t have to listen to it!).  “Where’s my joy?” I demanded.  And clear as anything the words, “she’s here with me.  Waiting.” just popped to the front of my head.  I knew immediately that this was about that bad baby idea.  So, I told God that I thought it was a really, really, really bad idea and I wasn’t going to do anything to help bring it to fruition, but if it was really what he wanted and it was that important, that I would trust him.  6 weeks later on the first day my period was late, I didn’t need a pregnancy test.  I knew.  I had been forwarned.

    The next 8 months ended up being a nightmare for so many reasons that I began to hope that the baby (due at New Year’s) wouldn’t come until January just so she wouldn’t be associated with 2009.  Turns out 2010 was even worse, so 6 of one, half-dozen of another.  The pregnancy was difficult, I had become depresses which made life very unenjoyable and there were some really serious family problems that came up that fall.

    When the baby did make her appearance, it was just after Christmas.  I was in labor for nearly 48 hours and I’m certain that my ambivalence about having another child contributed greatly to the long-drawn out ordeal.  I knew she was “sunny side up” (facing the wrong way – face up) and that I should have been doing things to help turn her, but the nurses and doctors didn’t believe me so I pretended not to know either.  It wasn’t until the doctor used a suctioning device to assist with the delivery that he realized that I was right - she was facing the wrong way.  It seems her nose seemed to had gotten caught on the way out.  We named her Olivia Joy.

    And of course, I love her.  I still think it was a really bad idea to have a baby just then.  And it was really confusing.  It seemed so clear to me that God intended her to be here.  So, why would he send her into a family that was falling apart the way ours suddenly was?  Sometimes I would think that Olivia’s existence must mean that things were going to work out and we were going to pull through.  Unfortunately, everything worked out much worse than I had been afraid of when I decided that having another baby was a bad idea.

    Now she’s two and she’s gotten to be my little buddy.  She’s a very sweet, loving little thing.  Although she climbs like a monkey and is into absolutely everything.  (Like pouring salt into the sugar.  Or into the soup minutes before I was going to serve it.  We are now keeping the salt on top of the fridge.  She’s been trying to figure out how to stack chairs up to reach it, but so far, no dice.)  When I was at my lowest, she would come and shove my head off my pillow and say, “get up!”  At which point I would have to get up because what kind of shlub mom am I if my toddler’s forcibly trying to get me out of bed?  It still doesn’t make any sense to me that it was so important for her to be here, especially at such an inopportune time.  I’m sure it will all be clearer later.  Right now it’s probably enough that I know she was purposed to be here.

    And really, that’s why I tell my kids these stories about themselves.  I want them to know that they have a purpose for being here.  I want them to understand how important they – and all people – are just through their existence.  And researchers know that people who see their lives as an unfolding story rather than a conglomeration of events and periods in one’s life are happier and more fulfilled.  I want my kids to know how to create their own stories and claim their credit in the world.  I always think these stories we tell our kids about themselves are like a little building block we can give them to get them started.

    Do you have any interesting stories to share about your kid’s effect on your world?  Do you tell them to your kids?

  • family dinner

    Jesus Saved Our Christmas Dinner

    Featured

    We have a seating problem in our home. Well, two of them actually. The first is that our chairs don’t match and the folding chairs have all lost their stuffing. It’s not very Martha Stewart-ish. Or comfortable. The second is that I have 3 girls under the age of 8. Who all have very strong opinions about where they ought to sit at dinner. And those opinions change nightly. (Yes, yes, I know – each person should have their own seat that they sit in every night. Please, feel free to show up at my house for dinner each night to execute that plan. I’d be mighty appreciative and the best of luck to ya.)

    I almost had the whole thing fixed this summer when I got the idea to have the kids basically draw straws. I marked the tips of 5 sticks with a color. Each color corresponded to a spot at the table. The color of the stick you drew told you which spot you would sit in. The only trouble was the 2 year old hadn’t actually agreed to and didn’t care to understand this plan. So if she wanted to sit in a spot one of her sisters had pulled a stick for, all hell broke lose. If I managed to get the baby to chose a spot first, she would often simply change her mind part-way through. So whatever. We’re back to our nightly game of “who’s going to sit where and who’s going to be upset about it?” It doesn’t happen every night, but often enough. In fact, on occasion a child will even storm off and refuse to eat when a settlement to their liking is not reached. Depending on what we’re having for dinner that night this can be a good thing because, you know – more for me. But not for Christmas dinner. So when my most emotional, dramatic daughter stormed off right before Christmas dinner due to a seating dispute, I figured I ought to go and fetch her.

    One of the things which I am keenly aware of during the holidays is how easy it is for special occasions to be ruined by conflict between parents and kids. The kids are wound-up and hyper and probably a little overwhelmed and the parents are stressed and busy and feeling insufficiently appreciated. It’s very easy for both parents and children to end up behaving worse than usual. Which is clearly all the kid’s fault but I suppose someone has to be the grown-up, so it might as well be the parents. As much as I wanted to go upstairs and yell and rant and drag my daughter downstairs to sit and sulk in her seat at the table, I don’t particularly care to have this remembered as the Christmas mom ruined. So I want up to her room where she was calming down by doing math problems (seriously – this is one of the ways she calms herself down – by doing math problems). I sat on her bed near her and thought for a minute. Finally I asked her, “do you love God?”

    A nod.

    “Do you want to make him happy?”

    Another nod.

    “Do you know that Jesus is God?”

    Hesitation and then a nod.

    “Did you know that Jesus once talked about picking which spot to sit at when you go to dinner?”

    She looked up from her math, gave me a slightly dubious look and a head shake.

    “He did – seriously. He said that when you go to a meal, you shouldn’t try to sit in the best spot. You should sit in the worst spot. Because if you pick the best spot, someone else might come along who is supposed to sit in that spot and they’ll make you move. And then you’ll feel bad. But if you pick the worst spot, then if you ever have to move it will be because it’s your turn to sit in a better spot and then you’ll be happy.”

    “Yeah, well – no one else does that.”

    “Your brothers do. You don’t see them getting upset over where they sit, do you?”

    Head shake. She switched from math problems to writing random words.

    “Besides, you want to be loving don’t you?”

    Nod.

    “You have to actually do things to be loving. It’s not enough just to feel it. That’s what Jesus was trying to teach us – how to actually be loving. Like he said that we should put ourselves last because people always try to put themselves first and then we’re always mad at each other and fighting. It doesn’t work, but we keep doing it because we want our way and keep trying to fight to get it. But it doesn’t work, does it? Besides, fighting’s no fun and it makes people feel bad. You like playing with your sisters when you’re not fighting, right? But you guys spend an awful lot of time fighting with each other. You can’t do anything about what your sister does – no matter how mad you get or how hard you try. You might as well decide for yourself that you’ll do it the way Jesus said to do it. I mean, God made this whole life we’re living – he might have a pretty good idea about how to do it right, don’t ya think?”

    Sheepish nod.

    “Heck, wouldn’t it be nice if after a while you didn’t feel like you had to fight all the time? Besides, I have a secret – it turns out that the last spot is usually the best spot. You get to see and learn a lot of interesting things and meet interesting people when you go last. If you go last and just pay attention, you’ll see what I’m talking about.”

    She stopped her writing, sat looking thoughtful for minute and then agreed to come back down to eat with us. As we left her room she grabbed on to my waist.

    “It’s hard. Doing things the way God says. It’s really hard. But just at the beginning. After a while you figure out that God’s ways actually are better. And then it’s really easy. Much easier than doing things your own way ever was. It’s only hard for a little while.”

    So drama girl and I went back to Christmas dinner, hand in hand. And I made her brother move so she could sit next to me.

    (Now before anyone is tempted to be impressed, y’all ought to know that last week my almost 8 year old picked baby Jesus up from the nativity set and said, “I forget – who is this baby supposed to be?” Jeeze.)

  • 414612_4359910869558_2071656243_o

    For the Woman at the Post Office Who is Reporting Me for Child Abuse

    Featured

    I gave her my name, so I’m kind of hoping she googles me. Cuz that’s how cool I am – if you google my name, it brings ya here. As long as the cops never figure that out, I’m good. ;p

    Anyhow, the reason I hope she googles me and finds this is because like her, I care very much about the proper treatment of children. In fact, I care so much about it that I even care about the damage which is done by those who see something very good – caring about how kids are treated – as an opportunity to tear vulnerable people down, be self-righteous and judgmental. (Sound familiar? It’s ugly behavior outside of a Christian context as well!)

    So what happened was I was at the post office with my 3 year old daughter Olivia. The one who was walking at 8 1/2 months. The one who we couldn’t let Great Grandma hold when she met her at 5 months because she was too squirmy for an old woman to hang onto. The one who can scale our refrigerator by holding the handles. The one who can hoist herself up to your waist and onto your back and onto your shoulders all by herself as you struggle to peel her off before she’s sitting on your head like an ill behaved cat. She climbs on counters and tries to launch herself onto your back as you pass by. That one. Up there in the picture looking all abused. Because she got into my lipstick and gave herself a plum unibrow.

    So anyways, I admit that I give my kids a free-er reign than a lot of people. I won’t let them be excessively loud or climb things or tear anything up. But I do let them move around freely as long as I can keep an eye on them. So Olivia, being Olivia was being extra squirrelly and trying to play “keep away from mom”. I’m 100% certain a few people were wondering why I didn’t grab her and get her under control. But she wasn’t being bad or hurting herself or being a nuisance. Plus she is very, very strong and can throw her body weight around like a pro. So I waited until I was at the counter to force her to stand by me. She got away a couple of times and I just calmly brought her back. But when she stuck her head between my legs, I took the chance to catch her and tightened my legs so she couldn’t easily pull her head back out. Trapped! Bwahahaha! Evil mommy strikes again!

    So anyways, I honestly wasn’t paying as much attention to her as it sounds. I have 5 kids. I’m on autopilot and talking with the postperson anyways. Olivia made a very half hearted attempt or two to escape, but mostly settled down to look around from her novel position. She’s really strong – if she had really wanted to, she could have escaped. So, I was a bit surprised to here a voice behind me say, “am I really seeing you restrain you child by holding her head between your knees?” I turned around to the fashionably dressed woman who spoke and said, “yes. Absolutely.” At which point she told me that she was a mandatory reporter and had to report me. I told her to go ahead. In fact, later after getting Olivia into her coat, hat and gloves (she was doing her limp noodle routine), and picking her up off the ground where she was doing her dead weight routine and slinging her over my shoulder because she was doing her “I’m going to throw my weight around with great force and see if I can tip you over” routine, I went over to the woman and gave her my name and address. She said thank you. And like I said, I do hope she looks my name up because I wasn’t going to force Olivia to wait while I explained some things to her.

    I want her to know that I know something about child abuse and the damage it causes. My husband was brutally abused as child. I spent 3 1/2 year volunteering with boys in prison – all of whom had been abused. I know quite vividly the damage it causes. And I also know how hard it is to overcome and not pass on to your own children. Parenting is hard. Parenting when your only example is to use violence to control your children is immeasurably more difficult. You don’t know who you are talking to. You don’t know how much effort has gone into raising our kids without relying on violence and authoritarian control. If this woman had a brain in her head, she would have observed that I was not angry, I had not raised my voice or even been irritable, I certainly didn’t pinch, hit, smack or otherwise accost my daughter, shame her or scare her. She clearly wasn’t in any distress. I was being a good parent to a challenging, hyper-squirmy child.

    This woman, on the other hand, was very deliberately trying to shame me. If I were a bit younger, a bit less experienced or unsure of myself or otherwise vulnerable, she would have succeeded in causing me shame. A shamed parent is no better than a shamed child. It’s a potentially harmful thing to do to a person. And if a parent is harmed and feels shame, guess who ends up paying the price? The kid. Shaming a parent in public is the opposite of helping a kid. You might as well walk up to a kid and stomp on their toes for all the good it does. If you are really that concerned about a child’s wellbeing, you offer to help the parent. You could say, “boy she looks like a real handful. Would you like me to amuse her while you finish what you’re doing?” When you just want to be indignant and self-righteous, you do what this woman did.

    And when someone does something like what this woman did today – publicly reprimand and threaten a parent engaged in nothing more serious than restraining their child – it doesn’t just affect that parent and that child. Other people saw it. A man came up to me in the parking lot outside the post office to tell me that I did nothing wrong and express how angry he was at this woman. As he talked phrases like “bleeding heart liberals who think they know every damn thing” came out of his mouth. Do you suppose that the next time he runs into someone talking about the benefits of gentle parenting, he’s going to be more or less open to the idea? Do you suppose that his obvious disdain for “bleeding heart liberals” became more or less entrenched today? Do you suppose his trust in his fellow citizens and our government’s ability to deal with abusive parents was strengthened or weakened a bit today?

    Not only is shaming a parent and threatening them wrong and potentially damaging to the parent and their child, it helps to rip this already fragile fabric of our society apart just a little bit more. It makes us believe that our neighbors are not only idiots, but dangerous to our wellbeing. With your “mandatory reporter” status announced, it creates the impression that our government is a danger to parents and children rather than a support. There is no good thing which can come from what this woman did today.

    So, if the woman who saw me at the post office today and was so appalled at my treatment of my daughter did look up my name and find this, please, look around my blog. Here’s the link to my page on “Spiritual Parenting”, in fact. And if you want to contact child services and tell them that this Christian mom who advocates gentle parenting and is working hard with her husband to break numerous generational curses for their kid’s sake needs to dealt with, go right ahead. I have nothing to fear. You, on the other hand, will have exposed yourself as arrogant, foolish and one of the people responsible for making this world I’m raising my kids in a worse place for all of us.

  • Do You Treat God Like Old Aunt Myrtle?

    Do You Treat God Like Old Aunt Myrtle?

    Featured

    “Truly I say to you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God like a child will not enter it at all.” Luke 18:17

    When ever I have hear this verse taught the point is pretty much the same: we should have a child like trust.  What does that even mean?  It gives me a vision of children sitting around gazing up at us with trusting goo-goo eye all day.  As if.  Obedience?  Ever known any real-live children?

    Become like little children.  Perhaps Jesus meant this comment more literally than we usually take it.  I happen to know a thing or two about children and off the top of my head, here’s a quick list of typical behaviors:

    • They bring you their boo-boos to fix
    • They follow you around chattering about any little thing they can think of, just to be with you
    • They ask questions – lots and lots of questions
    • They test boundaries
    • They look to you to show them who they are
    • They sometimes have to learn things the hard way
    • They like to make you laugh
    • They seek you out when they are lonely, bored, restless
    • They like to learn more about you and your life
    • They ask more questions
    • They like to show off what they’ve learned
    • They want you to approve of them
    • They want to share all the tiny details of their lives with you
    • They must often be prodded, pushed, persuaded and sometimes even punished to behave properly
    • Their love for you sometimes boils over and they have to let you know how much they love you
    • They push back to learn where and how firm the boundaries are, what the motivation is, and if you can be trusted to be fair
    • They need you to understand them when they mess up and forgive

    Of course, not all children behave like this.  Some have been hurt and have withdrawn.  Some are afraid.  Some children hide from the adults in their life in order to avoid criticism or punishment.  If we are not careful, we may find ourselves approaching God this way.  Instead of running in with mud all over to show off the frog you just found, do you approach God more like he’s an elderly relative who expects you to be well behaved, clean and sitting still?

    How different would it be if you approached God like a happy child with a doting parent:

    • I bring God my boo-boos to fix
    • I just chatter to God in my head through out the day
    • I ask God questions – lots and lots of questions
    • I test boundaries
    • I look to God to show me who I am
    • I sometimes have to learn things the hard way
    • I like to make God laugh
    • I seek God out when I am lonely, bored, restless
    • I like God to tell me about himself
    • I ask more questions
    • I like to show off what I’ve learned to God
    • I want God to approve of me
    • I want to share all the tiny details of my life with God
    • I must often be prodded, pushed, persuaded and sometimes even punished to behave properly
    • My love for God sometimes boils over and I must express it
    • I push back to learn where and how firm the boundaries are, what God’s motivation might be, and to see if we can trust God to be fair
    • I need God to understand me when I mess up and forgive me

    I posted this list last year and Drew Downs added in a few more childish behaviors we’d probably do well to adopt:

    • Following God around the house, doing what God does.
    • Saying back to God what God says to us.
    • Trying to figure out how to do what God does.

    Of course, sometimes being childish means behaving in ways we really do need to grow out of. I‘m often struck by how similar some of my children’s behavior when they are upset or in conflict is to how we often behave with God:

    • Making big messes and expecting God to clean them up for me.
    • Getting into arguments over whose turn it is to sit in the fancy chair and running to God to demand that he rule in your favor.
    • Getting your feelings hurt when you’re called a name and screaming loudly until God shows up to comfort you. (Be sure not to mention that name-calling was preceded by you pulling the other person’s hair.)
    • Responding to discipline or denial by screaming, “you’re always mean to me! You don’t even love me!”

    What would change spiritually if you did behave like a small child with God?  If you were not simply trusting, but free with God?  If you could be silly and excited and real with God?  How would our understanding of our faith walk change if we could see it in this frame work?  That we are children, young and foolish, but learning.  It takes time to grow up.  But before we can grow up, Jesus says we must be like little children.  I bet there’s a munchkin in your life somewhere who can give you some pointers!

    What are your suggestions for childish behavior we can emulate when relating to God?

  • MOD002~Nudo-Accosciato-1910-11-Posters (1)

    You are a beautiful woman . . .

    October 9, 2012

    Leave a comment

    Ok Gentlemen, if you could leave us alone for a moment, I have something I’d like to share with the ladies real quick. Well, I guess if you want to pass this along to your wife or daughter, you can stay and eavesdrop.

    Now, ladies I don’t know about you, but it seems to me that as a culture we have not only fetishized flawless female beauty, we have made feeling bad about our bodies and beauty a virtue. Hopefully you are as lucky as I am and you have a husband who has managed to convince you that you really are beautiful and that the odd lumps of your figure are sexy rather than repulsive. However, I suspect that many women go through their whole lives not feeling entirely comfortable with themselves. Which is a shame.

    I have heard that once upon a time it was generally accepted that 1 in 5 women would be classically beautiful. The other 4 could be comfortable in their plainness, or dowdiness or oddness and rely on the power of their personalities and femaleness to be attractive to the 4 out of 5 men who were likewise not going to win beauty contests. Today it seems that we all feel obligated to either achieve beauty or to feel badly about ourselves.

    What is funny is that men do not seem to look at us this way. Continue reading »

  • pmsangel

    PMS, Reinterpreted

    September 28, 2012

    Leave a comment

    Do women tend to have higher natural emotional intelligence (EQ) than men? Most people think so although research hasn’t settled the argument yet. But if women do have higher EQ, I think I know the reason: PMS. (Men, you need to hear this, so don’t check out on me now!)

    There’s this weird thing which happens with PMS. Every month you have a day or two where you are completely convinced that your life is awful, with no redeeming qualities, hardly worth living. You will find yourself collecting evidence to support this perspective. The money problems. The kid’s dirty clothes. That hole in the wall that’s needed patching for as long as the baby’s been alive. It’s all your fault, evidence of your failure. And it’s hopeless. You know for a fact that all those people saying things like “you don’t lose until you quit” are delusional unicorn-friending idiots. At some point you start to understand women who abandon their kids to smoke meth in a motel outside of Vegas with a truck driver. It makes perfect sense in fact.

    But here’s the thing: while you are busy wondering if you actually have the cajones to go to the local truck stop and start talking up potential new boyfriends, it never, ever occurs to you that any of this is anything but gospel truth. It’s not until the next day when you discover for a fact that you are not pregnant that you realize – it’s just hormones! It’s not actually real. Continue reading »

  • 100_0948

    God:Me::Me:The drama troupe I gave birth to

    September 5, 2012

    1 Comment

    I can’t begin to imagine where they got it from – probably their father’s side – but I have some rather dramatic children. We still laugh about the time we told 5 year old Noah to put a book away and he contorted his face into a picture of agony, lifted the book above his head and bellowed, “noooooooooooooooooooo!!!!!!!!!!” like a super-hero villian whose plans had been thwarted again.

    Just last week, one of my daughters was telling me all about how she wasn’t going to do what I said, she’s going to do what she wants to do and there’s nothing I can do to stop her, humph. Whilst I was escorting her to her room, she tried grabbing the bannister and corners and anything she could grasp to try and stop me. So I gave her a swat on the behind. Now, I’m not much good at spanking. I am completely certain that if I hit a housefly the way I occasionally swat a child’s behind, the fly would be OK. It might be dazed for a second or two, but it would fly away unharmed by the encounter. However, my daughter, not having the tough constitution of a housefly, began shrieking “Help – I need immediate medical attention”. She’s a delicate soul.

    Her slightly less dramatic sister went through a phase where she came to me crying because she was afraid that I might die. I get that sort of sensitive imagination – I am hoping to use all the crying I’ve done while imagining my mom dying as credits towards the actual event. Sort of an emotional pre-payment plan I made up in my own head. Later this daughter came and told me, “remember how I was really scared that you were going to die? I realized that if you died I would be able to do whatever I want. So I’m not worried about you dying anymore.” Continue reading »