My Kids Go to Public School

Lately I have seen dozens of articles on social media and the web in general about how horrible American schools have become.  There are articles promoting home school as the best or only way to educate your children and if you don't home school, you're basically throwing your children to the wolves.  Well, I'm getting a little tired of it.

Are there issues that need addressing in public education?  Of course.  No system is perfect and no doubt, in every system out there, there will be a child who slips through the cracks.  Even with home schooling, there are definite issues that should be examined when making that choice.  And I'm not against home schooling or parents having a choice on how to educate their children.  But I do not like all the negativity I see and read when it comes to public school as a choice.

As a former public school teacher and now the parent of five children in public school, I have seen both sides of this issue.  I have worked with fabulous teachers who dedicate their life work to the children in their classrooms.  They toil over lesson plans and worry about their students' home lives and stew over ways they can help them with their limited resources and all the rules and regulations that restrict them.  And while I have not loved all of the teachers my kids have had, my kids have still thrived in their public school classrooms, even during the years they had teachers I didn't feel were fabulous.

So I want to set the record straight.  Public school teachers are up against some difficult challenges.  They are given a set of standards they have to teach.  They are expected to have all students, no matter their background, at the same level by the end of the year.  They are graded on how well the students do on standardized tests, nevermind that students' scores can vary depending on what is going on in their individual life at that time and some may just be so nervous about taking tests that they do poorly no matter how well they know the subject material or how well they've prepared for the test.  The testing method is not conducive to all styles of student learning, yet teachers are graded on student performance on said tests.  Yes, there are changes that probably should be made but until they are, this is what teachers are facing.

And I'm getting really tired of feeling like a bad parent because I choose to put my kids in public school.  I spent the last few evenings and days walking with my three older kids around their schools and meeting their teachers for this year.  They are going to have some fantastic teachers and I'm excited for them!  They ran into lots of their friends while walking the halls and compared schedules to see they have classes together and lunches together and lockers near each other. 

I'm excited that my 5th grader gets to try art and choir and band and that he gets to have several different teachers and interact with a lot of different students throughout the day.  Is there a chance he'll be bullied?  Of course.  But we have had trouble with our own children bullying each other in the past, so it's not like public school is the only venue for bullying.  Is there a chance that he'll encounter situations that are opposite to what we teach religiously in our home?  Of course.  But hopefully he'll talk to us about it like he's done in the past, and we'll have some teaching moments.  Hopefully he'll remember what we've taught him and stand up for his beliefs or ignore whatever it is, if it calls for just being ignored.

I know for a fact that if my kids were home schooled, they would have limited opportunities to go out and meet people (due to the fact that I'm an introvert and don't like going out and meeting people, even when I know them really well, it's hard for me to leave the comfort of my  home) and limited opportunity to try new things, due to a very limited budget--public schools offer these things for free or very cheap comparatively.  It doesn't cost me anything for my son to have a choral music elective once a week for the entire school  year, for example.  If he were home schooled, he'd have to join a children's choir group, which around here are not cheap in the slightest, and I would have to drive him to and from all the rehearsals.  But he gets to do it at school during the school day for free.  Why is that a bad thing?

My high school student gets to take architecture!  I have no idea how I would even give him that resource if I were home schooling.  I could give examples of this in almost every subject area for which I have a limited knowledge base.  So while home schooling definitely works for some people, I just know it wouldn't work for me. 

Am I throwing them to the wolves, from a Christian standpoint, by sending them to public school?  I don't think so.  They are part of this world and they have to learn to get along with society, even with people who don't believe the same way they do.  I realize that this might create a situation where they might stray from my teachings and follow the teachings of someone else that differs.  I don't like that idea at all.  However, I am intelligent enough to know that they could do that anyway as adults, or young adults, if I were to home school them to keep them protected from the world.  If my kids were home schooled, they probably wouldn't be around very many people who are different than them.  The home schooling groups I am aware of in my area consist of many likeminded families (same religion, same social class, even same skin color).  My kids wouldn't have their Latino and Indian friends who practice other religions if they were home schooled.  It would all be white middle class Mormons.

My high school student's principal posted this on his Facebook page earlier this week:

"It is one of the most important things for me to do as we get close to starting school. This will be my 41st year and I am excited. Today I walk the campus in prayer for our kids and our school. I pray that God would bless this place with greatness and more especially with kindness and service. I pray for our staff to be relational and to love kids. I pray for the safety of our place. I pray for guidance and I pray to be able to give my best with kids and staff always at the forefront of my mind. I pray for the energy and enthusiasm it takes to do this job and to be able to listen and respond with vision. I pray for humor and I pray for the incredible support it takes from family, ESC, staff, parents, community and the kids. I praise God for the opportunity to do this calling and to be the best I can be. We have a great place and i send incredible praise to our Lord for this. I pray.....ceaselessly for our WHS campus and Pirates. Thank you Lord! Thank you Lord!"

I feel pretty confident right now that my kids are right where they are supposed to be.  Will they have problems?  Yes.  Will they come across people who are mean?  Most definitely.  But public school will not ruin them the way so many in this country seem to think it will.  They will be just fine.  And I'm excited for another school year for them.

More the Same than Different

I am Mormon.  I was born and raised in the LDS Church, aka the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.  I have never been secretive about this fact.  I may not go around openly proclaiming it all the time, but when asked directly what church I go to, I have always been open about it.  My kids are too. 

In recent years, especially with the candidacy of Mitt Romney for president, I have seen a lot of hateful rhetoric spewed about Mormons.  I've frequented blogs by women of other faiths whom I admire only to find they are critical and downright rude about Mormons, to the point where I've found myself defending our church in the comments sections of these blogs.  The thing is, most of the blogs I have read belong to members of other Christian sects.  The writers have a lot of opinions and ideas similar to mine, which is why I would frequent the blogs.  I don't know if these Christian women even realize how we are so similar because often, when Mormonism comes up, they are very hostile towards our church.  They probably don't even realize how many LDS women follow their blogs.

I have always wanted to start a blog with a fellow Christian who is not a Mormon to show that we have a lot of similar beliefs and ideals and to show how our common ground could give us strength together.  I have never had that chance, mostly because most of the time, when one of these women finds out I'm Mormon, I am automatically shunned from their world.  I find this so sad because we have a lot in common.  Especially when Mitt Romney was running and many other Christians claimed they could  never vote for him because he was a Mormon.  They completely disregarded anything he stood for and just because he held different beliefs about the nature of God and what we Mormons call the Godhead, they couldn't find anything else in his platform they could agree with because they heard "Mormon" and stopped looking.  So I would like to talk about the similarities we have.

To begin with, let's dispel with the three great differences between Mormons and many other Christian sects.  First, we believe that God, Jesus Christ, and the Holy Ghost are three separate and distinctly different beings who are unified in purpose.  Many other Christan sects believe that they are all one and the same being, The Trinity.  This just does not make sense to me, but even with that different belief, we can still agree that Jesus Christ is the Savior of the World. 

Second, other Christians claim that Mormons do not believe in being saved by grace.  That is absolutely untrue.  The fact is there is a great deal misunderstood about grace, but we do believe in being saved by grace.  It is only through the grace of Jesus Christ that we can attain salvation.  However, that doesn't mean we can live depraved lives, making terrible choices, and still be saved because we proclaim we believe in Jesus Christ.  We do  have to try our best to be good and do good things throughout our lives.  But despite being wonderful, without the grace of Jesus Christ, we could not be saved.  That is what it means that we are a gospel of works. 

Third, the whole fact that we have another book that we call scripture in addition to the Bible is a disputing point for other Christians.  We simply believe that our Book of Mormon is another testament of Jesus Christ.  We also believe the Bible and adhere to its teachings as well.  How bad can we be when we claim to have more to know about Jesus Christ and his mission? 

So, there you have it.  The three doctrinal points that get other Christian sects all riled up about Mormonism.  There are other differences we have with individual sects that they also have with each other.  For example, infant baptism and/or baptism by immersion.  Some baptize by sprinkling, others by immersion, most believe in infant baptism, but we do not.  However, I have in my possession a list of doctrinal points that vary sect by sect and there are many that disagree with each other on many points, including the Mormons. 

But I prefer to focus on what we have in common.

Most people of faith believe the Ten Commandments and try to teach them to their children.  Mormons do this, Catholics do this, Baptists do this, and many other sects.  We believe that adultery is wrong, we believe in honoring parents, in not killing, etc. 

Most people of faith are trying to teach their children to live moral, upright lives.  Depending on the level of their commitment, this may mean no sex until marriage for many of them.  Mormons certainly believe that. 

Many people of faith agree that same sex marriage is wrong and distorts God's plan for families.  Many people of faith agree that abortion is evil.  Many people of faith believe there is value in having a mother be a homemaker and teaching boys to treat girls with respect and girls to treat boys with respect.  Many people of faith understand that pornography is evil and the effect it has on the minds of those who view and fight against it.

In a lot of ways, I am similar to my non-Mormon, but religious, mother peers in that I am trying to teach my boys to be respectful of women and to be honorable and valiant young men.  I am trying to teach my daughters to be modest and to believe in their worth as a daughter of God.  I am trying to teach my children that using profanity is not a good way of communication.  I am trying to teach my children that Heavenly Father loves His children and that they each have individual worth only because they are God's child.  I'm trying to teach my children to love one another, to succor one another in their trials, to be kind to everyone they meet, and to follow Jesus Christ. 

We may not agree on every doctrinal point, but we can agree that we are trying to teach our children to follow Jesus Christ and be like Him.  We want them to live moral lives, to contribute to society, to become good mothers and fathers who will lead their own children in the direction of light.  We are more the same than different on a lot of issues.  We believe in strong families and commitment to God.  We believe in righteousness and service.  I really hope that someday we can all come together and recognize our similarities and see them as a strength that binds us together instead of the differences in doctrine that divide us. 

Ten Things I'd Rather Be Doing Than Breastfeeding

I know, I know.  Just the title sends a horribly selfish vibe.  Yes, I suppose there is quite a bit of selfishness in the choice I have made the last six babies and will for this surprise number seven when it comes to breastfeeding.  With my first who was born early and spent two weeks in the NICU, I spent hours pumping and feeding him bottles while he learned to suck.  I then nursed him, but every feeding lasted about 45 minutes PER SIDE and then I still  had to give him a bottle for him to seem content and not hungry.  So after four months of doing that and pumping, I quit.  I just couldn't do it anymore.  It was way too stressful and gave me a lot of anxiety that left me with an upset stomach constantly.

With number two, he learned a lot faster and things went more smoothly, but by four months, again, I was nursing him from each side about 45 minutes and still having to give a bottle for him to seem content.  For him, it was a formula bottle, rather than pumped milk as with my first (whose pumped milk lasted another two months--so technically he got breastmilk through month six, the first did).  After one really long weekend where he wouldn't sleep at all and screamed and screamed and I was about ready to do something horrible to him, I decided that I needed to just give formula and allow my husband to take turns feeding him.  I was much calmer and happier after that. 

With number three, I tried again but only made it two months.  With number four, same thing.  With number five, I made it six weeks and then when number six came around, I still nursed her in the hospital to give her that good colostrum and tried for the first few weeks, but my heart was no longer in it.  I knew that it was a hugely stressful thing for me.  Plus, I don't know how other moms can just sit and pop a baby on and off, no big deal. I have to have about four pillows stacked all around me for comfort, so getting ready to breastfeed is a major project for me, and to have to do that every 1-2 hours for more than an hour at a time makes it a highly unpleasant experience for me.  I hate having huge achy breasts, I hate the feel of the baby suckling my nipple, and I just don't have the patience it takes to sit there for long hours without knowing if the baby is getting enough. 

I am grateful that modern science has provided an option in the form of formula and while I'm intelligent enough to understand completely that formula does not come close to replicating breastmilk and the amazing thing that it is, I still appreciate that it's there. 

As I'm coming up on the birth of surprise baby number seven, I am recognizing the massive anxiety and panic I am feeling over having to consider this choice all over again, as I thought I had left that in the past with number six and had finally gotten over the guilt of my breastfeeding-loathing.  Part of me doesn't even want to bother with it at all, just give him formula right from the start and forget about breastfeeding entirely, but I still feel guilt over this feeling of mine.  I will probably try again, knowing full well it's something I really hate to do.  So, as I was showering the other morning and thinking about the possibility of giving birth anytime now and realizing that the choice is upon me, I started thinking of all the things I'd rather do than breastfeed.

Keep in mind, these are things I really don't like to do.  Here it is:

#10.  Perform any type of car repair.
I know I'm capable of repairing certain parts of cars, like changing the oil.  I even replaced the light bulb in one of the front headlights of my husband's car for a Christmas gift to him, to save us $100+ on having a shop do it.  It was time-consuming and gave me anxiety, but I did it.  I didn't enjoy it,  but I'm glad to say I did it.  But I don't like trying to fix cars and even watching car repair videos on Youtube to see how something is done gives me anxiety.  But if I had to choose between sitting and breastfeeding a baby or changing that oil, I'd want to change the oil.

#9.  Cleaning up dog vomit.
This is something that since we've had a dog, I have had a hard time stomaching.  I have done it many times, but if the dog ever throws up when my husband is home, I make him do it because I can't stomach it very well.  It usually makes me heave and sometimes even throw up myself.  But I'd rather do that than have to sit and breastfeed.

#8.  Fly to Japan (or anywhere that keeps me on a plane for so long over water).
I haven't flown all that much in my life, and every time I do, I get nervous.  But the two times I flew over water, I majorly panicked.  It was really scary to me.  But I'd rather make that trip than have to breastfeed.

#7.  Plan and execute a social event.
Wow.  Planning any type of social event, even a birthday party for my kids, is not my forte.  I do not feel comfortable doing anything like that. I usually encourage my kids to choose a fun family activity, like bowling, rather than have a birthday party.  Planning social gatherings for adults is even more out of my comfort zone. I recently attended a cub scout banquet and was in awe at how well it was put together, with the food and the decorations and the activities.  Nothing my poor brain could have come up with or executed, especially the decorating part.  But if I had to choose between doing that and breastfeeding, I'd rather do that.

#6.  Go to the dentist.
Like most people, I do not like going to the dentist.  I don't like it for probably different reasons, though.  I don't like that there is a chance I may have a cavity, which means money will be spent to fix it.  I also don't like the sound of the scraping of my teeth.  It's a horrible sound, akin to fingernails on a blackboard, and there is no way to tune it out because it reverberates in my head, so even earplugs wouldn't work.  But I'd take that horrible, miserable 30 minutes over breastfeeding any day.

#5.  Eat brussel sprouts.
Even the smell of brussel sprouts give me the dry heaves.  The thought of how they taste just makes me feel sick.  But I'd rather eat a serving of them than sit and breastfeed a baby for one session.

#4.  Run a marathon.
I know there are a lot of people for whom running is a great escape and fills them with vigor and excitement.  I am not one of those people.  Ever since I was a little girl and was a gymnast, I struggled with the lung capacity to really run.  I hate running.  It is one type of exercise I just do not ever do.  But I would rather do that than have to sit and breastfeed a baby.

#3.  Make a phone call.
If you know me, you know now nervous this makes me.  Even when something important is on the line, I will postpone phone calls until I no longer can.  Or, if possible, I will go talk to that person IN PERSON over making a phone call.  Like taking care of a bill at a dentist office recently, I took the time to drive over there with my two little kids and sit with the insurance manager to go over it, which was definitely something that could have been done by phone.  I just am uncomfortable making phone calls.  But if making that phone call would get me out of breastfeeding, I'd do it.

#2.  Speak at an all-male convention.
Generally, I don't mind speaking.  In fact, I'd rather give a talk in church than have to make phone calls for a church calling.  But speaking in front of men makes me nervous.  I've never had any bad experiences around men, but I just prefer to talk to women over men.  In fact, I choose my kids' pediatrician and my other doctors from an all-female list because I know I will be more likely to ask questions and talk about any problems with a female than with a male.  Speaking in front of just men would terrify me.  But I'd rather do that than breastfeed, if that were the choice given.

#1.  Clean bathrooms or any other unpleasant household chore.
I would much rather do housework than sit and nurse my babies.  I don't mind bottle feeding them and then getting to work, but trying to breastfeed took so much time and effort that I was never able to get anything done.  So if I had to choose to breastfeed or clean the bathrooms, I'd rather clean the bathrooms.

Okay, I realize this earns me the "worst mom of the world" award and people can now start their mudslinging and symbolic stone-throwing.  I get so tired of reading articles and blogs that talk about how wonderful breastfeeding is and how essential it is to that mom-baby bond, but that there are medical exceptions.  However, in my opinion, the reasons don't really matter.  If a mom doesn't like to breastfeed and would rather pay hundreds of dollars every month to formula feed, she should have that right without being ostracized.  If she really tries hard to do it and just can't get it to work right no matter what she does and feels incredible guilt over it, she should be able to formula feed without being ostracized.

Besides, I never once was asked whether I breastfed or formula fed once my kids were past age one.  Even when we moved more than once and got new doctors, if the kid was over one, the question of whether I breastfed that child or not wasn't even asked.  It wasn't asked when they started school, it wasn't asked when they took IQ exams or gifted exams, never.  So far, my kids are pretty healthy and happy and well rounded.  Oh, and the bonding thing?  My six kids all seem to think the world of me (so far--we are getting into the teen years with the oldest, so we'll see, but so far, he still tells me I'm a great mom).  I guess I managed to bond with them after all, even though I didn't breastfeed for an entire year with any of them.  Somehow, we managed to bond and have healthy, happy kids without exclusively breastfeeding any of them, and only doing the bare minimum with a few of them.

That said, I will support any other mom's choice to breastfeed.  Just because I don't like it and can't do it very well doesn't mean I'm opposed to it and am all "formula is the way to go!"  I do wish I enjoyed it and that I wanted to do it and that I had been successful at it, but I'm not going to waste time and energy feeling bad about it when there is another option out there that, based on my life experience with my own children, has been a successful way to feed a baby. 

So there.  I said it.  I will not be breastfeeding beyond the first few weeks with this baby.  Not because I can't, but because I choose not to.  I don't like it and am a happier mom when I don't do it or spend hours trying in vain to do it.  Yes, it's hard, and I'm not willing to sacrifice whatever it will take to make it work.  I suppose I'm selfish for that, but I'd rather be happy and a little selfish than angry all the time because I'm breastfeeding.

Compassion in Our Modern World

Let me tell you a story.  On a warm summer morning, my husband was home from work, so I left the older kids with him to clean the house and the backyard and I took my baby with me on my errands.  I had to go to Costco, which was clear across town, the bank, and then stop at the grocery store on the way home.  We went to Costco first because I like to get my errands done in the order of the farthest distance from my house to the closest.  Then I hit the bank drive through, so we stayed in the car.  During this time, from Costco to the grocery store, my baby was quiet.  I was distractedly thinking about the other cars around  me (crazy that I was paying attention to the traffic, eh?) and thinking about other random things and not thinking about my kids or my husband.  Therefore, when I got to the grocery store, and my baby was asleep in her rear-facing car seat, I had forgotten that I had her with me on my errands.  My other kids weren't there to remind me to open the back doors of the car, and absent-mindedly and focused on my grocery shopping, I got out of my car and headed toward the store doors.  I was checking for my keys, my phone, my wallet, like I tend to do as I walk to the store and felt something was missing and then I remembered--my daughter!  So I went back to the car and got her out and took her in the store with me.  Phew!

This type of thing happens all the time.  It may not be a grocery trip or errand run.  It may be switching parents to drop the baby off at daycare or bringing groceries home and the baby is asleep so you let her sleep while you carry them in, but when you bring the last load in, you forget to go back out to the car to get the sleeping baby.  There are so many different ways this can happen.

Not only that, but there are other instances in which parents do things that might result in harm to their precious children.  For instance, maybe they put a video in to watch with their little ones and doze off because they are exhausted and they wake up to discover their toddler has gotten out of the house and gone into the road, or the ditch, or gotten tangled in a soccer net in the backyard.  Maybe Dad goes out to hitch up the trailer and Mom gets busy putting things away in the 4-year-old's room and doesn't realize Dad left the front door cracked and the 18-month-old has gotten outside to follow Dad and Dad doesn't know she's there and he backs the trailer over her.  Maybe Mom is nursing the new baby in the nursery and the older 2-year-old has climbed out of her crib for the very first time and up onto the dresser next to the crib in the upstairs bedroom and sees an open window and goes to look, pushes on the screen and falls two stories to her death.  Maybe you are visiting the grandparents, who have a pool, and are usually very careful about leaving the pool area locked and the outside doors locked, but your 3-year-old has figured out how to unlock the door and finds the pool gate open, so goes in, accidentally throws a ball in the pool, and then goes in after it.

All of these scenarios are real instances when parents that I have read about or even knew personally have done something, made either an error in judgment or a simple human error, a mistake, a forgotten check, and it has resulted in inexplicable tragedy.

Every single day, millions of parents put their little ones in harm's way when we strap them into our cars and take off down the road.  Sure, car seats have helped reduce the deaths, especially if the child is properly strapped in, but there are still accidents where children who are properly strapped into a car seat die.  Does that mean that every parent who puts their child into a car seat and drives away in the car should be charged with abuse or neglect or assault or whatever?  There is risk in everything we do and sometimes we don't even remember to do or not do something that results in a risky outcome.

That's why I am really tired of the way these parents are received by society when their story, their life-changing tragedy, their despair and grief, becomes news.

We say, "I would never do such a thing!"  "My children are my life and anybody who lets this happen to their child shouldn't have had children!"  "What kind of idiots are these people to let this happen to their child!  It would never happen to my child!"

The news story gets posted on a news website and then social media takes over, spreading it around the globe like wildfire with the purpose of stoning the parents or caregivers of the child who was lost, calling for nothing short of a murder charge and the death penalty.

It especially makes my heart ache when this happens in communities with a highly religious population, religion that is supposed to teach love and compassion.

Yes, there are a few parents out there who are really neglectful, who treat their offspring as garbage, and even purposely cause them harm.  But those are not the parents I am talking about.  I am talking about the pediatrician who forgot she was taking her baby to daycare and left her in the sweltering car all day.  I'm talking about the doting mother who fell asleep watching a movie with her little ones and her toddler went in the backyard and was strangled in a soccer net.  I'm talking about the loving father who didn't know his 1-year-old had followed him outside while he hitched up the trailer and he accidentally backed over her while moving it.

These parents are suffering the worst kind of grief and guilt imaginable, and rather than reaching out to help console them in their suffering, we throw stones and call for crucifixion of them.  We are no better than the Puritan society of "The Scarlet Letter" or the witch-burning tribunals of Salem.

The Gospel of Jesus Christ teaches that we should "Rejoice with them that do rejoice, and weep with them that weep." (Romans 12:15)  In the Book of Mormon, we are taught that to be called the people of God, we must be willing to "bear one another's burdens...and to mourn with those that mourn; yea, and comfort those that stand in need of comfort." (Mosiah 18:8-9) In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus said, "Blessed are they that mourn; for they shall be comforted." (Matthew 5:4)

Whether or not a person is a Christian doesn't matter.  Yes, those are tenets of Christianity, but I would care to wager that other faiths teach compassion and love also.

Compassion (n) as defined by my 9-year-old's school dictionary is "sympathy for suffering, kindness."  This is something that many people simply lack in our modern society that is so focused on "me" and doing everything with self in mind.

We all need to be more compassionate.  Is there a time and place to punish those who do inflict intentional harm on their children?  Of course.  Are some instances of accidental harm also punishable?  Probably.  But I don't think we should be so quick to stone others for these types of mistakes.  Accidents do happen.  Every single one of us is capable of leaving a child in a car or being unaware while our child wanders out of the house.  Every. Single. One.

I am tired of so much judging and casting of stones.  I think we would all do better to support each other and comfort each other.  It doesn't happen often enough.  Yes, there are times when the news picks up a story of real love, compassion and comfort, but in the public eye, it isn't seen often enough.  Especially on threads of news stories about parents making fatal errors.  Please, people, let's try and be more compassionate and more loving.  If there was more compassion in this world, think of what a better place it would be!

Doing More Good

I apologize for my long absence.  After having my daughter, I've been struggling with the adjustment to six kids, especially with one of them being a baby who constantly needs to be held. 

I've been thinking a lot lately about my life and my contribution to the world.  Certainly my six children are a contribution and I'm trying my best to raise them well. But I don't think I am doing all the good that I can do.  I have too  many distractions that keep me from fully being the person that I want to be.

I recently read several biographies of women from the mid-1800's.  They were mothers of many children; one had sixteen!  In addition to being mothers, they were involved in their communities.  One of them opened her home to travelers; another helped with feeding and clothing the poor and needy.  The reason I read these biographies was because they were posted as notable people of history for the city in which I live.  Of the sixteen people that were honored on a wall at the city offices, three of them were women from that time period. 

I have read much about women in history and how women were oppressed and not valued, etc.  Today's women celebrate how much has changed for us--how we are able to do so many things that women in earlier times were not allowed to do.  Almost all of these changes have been positive, but some of the fallout effects of these changes have not been.

Women in earlier times were typically "confined" to the home.  They weren't allowed to work outside the home or vote or be public figures.  Yet these women that were honored on this wall still did much good even without these opportunities.  In fact, I'd like to argue that they did more good than most women who are in high career positions and in the public eye do today. 

As I was reading these biographies, I was thinking about how I have all these freedoms and opportunities, yet I waste much time doing things that are not productive nor contribute much to my community or society.  Yes, I am raising my kids, but I also waste a lot of time watching TV, puttering around on the Internet (reading articles, posting comments, connecting through Facebook).  I think that these women had to work so hard just to keep their tables from being bare and their homes clean and kept up that they didn't have time for all the nonsense we have time for today. 

This got  me thinking about how I need to improve.  We have so many modern conveniences that make our lives easier.  We also invest our time in so many busy activities (carting kids around is something women then did not do--the kids worked alongside them and also had time to run free and play without supervision--another thing I could talk a whole lot more about another time).  These activities aren't inherently bad, but are they really making our lives better? 

After reading these biographies, I really felt like I needed to focus more on teaching my kids worthwhile things--like cooking skills and learning how to garden (I really don't know how) with them by my side.  I need to write that book I've been wanting to write for a couple of decades now.  I need to put more time and work into my community, most likely through PTA because helping at school is something I'm comfortable with and know how to do.  I need to spend less time puttering around and more time serving and helping others and teaching my kids to do the same. 

I need to do more good.  I see many women doing good, but I wonder, with all the progress we've made, are women doing more good today than they were when their opportunities were more limited?  In some ways, it doesn't seem like we are.  I want to be a woman who really makes a contribution to the world.

My Struggle

My daughter was born last week on March 14th, which is why I haven't posted anything in more than a week.

With every baby, I have struggled to breastfeed.  I am a perfectionist.  I am an avid reader.  I know all the facts about how nutritious breastfeeding is and how it's so good for both baby and mom.  I know it's supposed to be the best way to feed your baby.

But I hate it.


It's painful.  It's stressful.  It gives me anxiety.  I worry about how much they're getting because they seem to always be hungry.  It takes all my effort and energy.  I don't have time to eat or sleep or even use the restroom.  I'm in such terrible pain that I can't stand having my other kids within two feet of me.  I'm a grouch and I hate my life. 

Yet because I'm a perfectionist, I feel like a massive failure if I don't breastfeed.

My baby is one week and one day old.  On day five, I was a total wreck.  I was experiencing a postpartum hemorrhage.  The breastfeeding was not going well.  I was in terrible pain.  I had to go back to the hospital and spent the day in the ER, trying to nurse my baby with an i.v. in the crook of my elbow.  It was complete misery.  In between feedings, which only lasts about forty-five minutes to an hour, I was pumping because the engorgement was so painful.

After sobbing to my husband for about an hour that night, in the middle of the night, I decided that I just can't do it.  It's too hard.

So now I'm pumping every few feedings and giving formula when there isn't breastmilk to give.  My milk supply is diminishing.  I am going to bottlefeed and my baby is only one week old.  I feel like a bad mom.

But at the same time, I feel relief.  I am not as stressed out.  I am not dealing with massive anxiety and panic attacks.  I am in less pain.  I even feel somewhat happy.

I wish I could find a way to bottlefeed without feeling guilty, without feeling like a bad mom, without feeling like others are judging me.  I did try.  Probably not as hard as I should have.  Probably not as hard as others do.  But I had to weigh the pros and cons. 

I want to enjoy my baby, not loathe her.  She will be okay.  I have bottle fed five other babies after trying breastfeeding for various lengths of time, from two weeks to four months, and they have all turned out healthy and smart.  I know it's not the end of the world.

Yet somehow, it feels like it is in some ways. 

This is my struggle. 

Book Review: Fatherless

Fatherless by James C. Dobson

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


This book came out at an appropriate time.  I had just read about three articles before reading this book about the decline in population and its effects on the economy. 

I enjoyed this book.  The first several chapters were a bit confusing because he switched between the different major characters and I had a hard time following what was going on.  But once I got into it, I just wanted to read it.  I'm looking forward to reading the next two books in this series.

I felt that the issues he touched on--elective suicide of the elderly or disabled (he called it "transitioning"), fertility rates, genetic selection (choosing only embryos with "good" genes to weed out disabilities and chronic diseases), population decline, the disappearance of marriage, etc.--were very real issues, some of which are happening now and some of which I could see happening in the future.  These are some of the exact social issues that concern me, so it was a very interesting read.

The issue of "Fatherlessness", despite that being the book's title, didn't really come up as much as I thought it would.  It was more implied than actually talked about. 

I would definitely recommend "Fatherless" to my friends and family.



View all my reviews

The Ultimate Bully

My children learn a curriculum about once a month at their school called "Bully Blockers".  I don't really know what they talk about in that, and I'm doing more research to find out, but last week there was a news story about another young man who had taken his own life (twelve years old) due to bullying.  So I decided to talk to my kids.

"What do you learn about in Bully Blockers?" I asked.

Mostly it was about how bullying was bad and how they need to be nice.  All good stuff.  However, my biggest concern is that my child will be bullied and not have the strength to get through it, that in being bullied, like this twelve-year-old, they will not be confident enough in themselves and will believe the bully and consider the worst.

So we took the conversation in a different direction.  After all, bullies have been around since the beginning, and because of that, I decided to go back to the beginning.

"Do you know what happened before we came to Earth?" I asked.

My kids mumbled different answers.  So I reminded them of the Primary song I Lived in Heaven.  We sang it and talked about the words.  This is what I told them.

We lived in Heaven before we came here.  Heavenly Father had a plan for us to come to Earth and get a physical body so we could progress and then someday return to Him.  He needed someone to help with this plan, to be a Savior.  Lucifer volunteered, only he wanted to make sure EVERYONE came back by forcing us.  Jesus also volunteered, but wanted to let us have free agency. (We had a little side conversation on free agency).

Heavenly Father wanted us to have free agency and Lucifer (Satan) wanted to force us.  So a war broke out.  Some people followed Satan and others followed Heavenly Father.  In the end, Satan lost and his punishment was that he could never be born and have a body, and all of his followers got the same punishment.  And they were cast out of Heaven.

Then I told them,  "You are on Earth because you followed Heavenly Father.  If you had followed Satan, you wouldn't have been born.  Just the fact that you were born means that you followed Heavenly Father."

"Do you know what this means?  It means that you fought Satan in the pre-existence and won."

They all look at me, realization sinking in.

Then my 6-year-old shouts, "We fought the ultimate bully and beat him!"

And I tell them, "You need to remember that, if you are ever bullied, that you are strong enough to withstand it because you have already fought the ultimate bully and won!"

Think about that.  I hope to teach my children their value in the eyes of God.  Like the book, You Are Special, by Max Lucado, that it only matters what God thinks of them and He already thinks they are pretty special.  Their self-worth and a more eternal perspective will be what strengthens them when in a situation of difficulty.  I just hope that I can teach them this when they are young and it will stay with them as they grow.

Satan is the ultimate bully and they have already beat him once.  That is a pretty powerful thought.

A Family Community

I have been reading the book, The Entitlement Trap, by Richard and Linda Eyre.  Chapter Three, Giving Your Children Ownership and Equity in Your Family, is very enlightening.  In it, they talk about how important it is to give your children a strong identity.  They talk about how this identity comes from their roots, their families.  Kids need to be able to identify with their families and have connections with them.  The Eyres give quite a few ideas on how to instill these connections in your children.  For example, by having strong family traditions (holidays and regular practices), developing a family culture and infrastructure, having weekly family meetings, family laws, and family mission statements, etc. 

I have been watching a weekly show recently called Teen Trouble.  In this reality show, a young man named Josh, who was a troubled teen himself, is now a teen behavior specialist and goes around to troubled teens and their families and helps direct them on the right path again and straighten out their lives.  One common thread I've noticed between the teens who've been highlighted is the fact that their family life failed them somehow.  Their parents clearly love them and have always loved them, but they never built this family "infrastructure", this family identity that the Eyres talk about in their book.

As I've pondered this, I've realized that there are many things about LDS culture that contribute to this family identity and that we can use to our benefit to really strengthen our families.  I always knew that things like Family Home Evening and family scripture study and prayer were infinitely important.  However, I never thought about it quite this deeply before, about how these three things contribute so very greatly to family connectedness and to really strengthening family bonds.  I never thought about how through these family bonds, kids can grow up in such a secure way, really feeling part of something.

I remember having a few Family Home Evening lessons on family unity, but I think I missed the point back then.  I understand it so much better now, even better as I'm reading this book.  Families are so important to the emotional and mental health of children and that is quite evident as we watch the current trend of the breakdown of the family, starting with a sort of anti-marriage sentiment that is sweeping through modern culture.  If Satan can make marriage seem trite, then families will be less important, and then individuals can be more easily torn apart.

We like to have a fancy family meal on Valentine's Day, either breakfast or dinner..

Family is the basic unit of society and a  unit that can be eternal.  It's no wonder why.  Heavenly Father sure knew what He was doing when He organized us into families.

Love One Another

Friday's awful tragedy in Connecticut has left me pondering.  I tend to spend way too much time online and often I get sucked into reading stories and the comments that follow or spending time on question and answer boards.  In response to Friday's shootings, the debates are raging over gun control, awareness of mental illness, and school security.

I truthfully don't know all there is to know about gun laws in this country.  I only know what the second amendment says about having the right to bear arms.  I do know how to shoot a gun, not well, mind you, and I don't own a gun and nor do the majority of the people I know and spend time with regularly.  But it seems to me (personal opinion, not based on any facts or statistics or laws) that guns do not cause people to act heinously, nor does access to guns.  Guns aren't the only type of weapons out there--people can find out how to make a bomb from the Internet--not to mention knives, axes, screwdrivers, rocks, baseball bats, automobiles, etc.  In fact, if you think about it, since guns came about, people have owned them and used them and it's only been in the last few decades where we've had a rise in the number of such mass civilian shootings.  So I'm not sure that gun control laws would be the solution to this problem.

Mental illness is a big issue and a very real one too.  However, from what I understand, not all the shooters in these types of cases were dealing with a clinical mental illness.  Many of them had simply felt victimized or "screwed over" in life and had a lot of rage.  I guess excessive rage can be a form of mental illness, but anger is something we can all learn to control.  However, most people can't be forced to learn to control their anger, even if a judge assigns them the punishment of taking anger management classes.  They will still choose what they get out of such a class.  I do know there are a lot of people out there who deal with very serious mental illnesses, but the majority of them aren't going and shooting up an elementary classroom.  So is mental illness really at the root cause of such a tragic occurrence?

That brings me to school security, or security in general, I guess.  Many of the people on the sites I frequent are blaming the school for not having enough security.  However, if you really think about it, what could they do to make a school more secure?  People suggest metal detectors.  Many schools already have them.  People suggest a police officer guarding the one entrance to the school.  A gunman with rage could easily take out one cop.  Many schools already have screening processes (most do not truly make schools safer, either, as someone without a history of crime would easily pass the process).  The school my children attend has one open entrance during the day, all other entrances are locked and require a key card (worn by teachers and staff) to open, and the one entrance goes straight to the office where you have to check in.  However, you can easily see how this could be bypassed.  A gunman intent on getting in a school could take a teacher or staff member hostage and force entry by the key card or they could skip the office altogether and not check in.  In the case of many school shootings, the shooter was a student.  A metal detector may have helped in such a case, but there are ways to get past even that.  Clearly there are ways to get past such devices or there wouldn't be any "terror scares" in the skies in America anymore since airports have such heavy security that we must all pass through.  And personally, I don't want to have to go through such security just to drop off something to my kid at school or check them out for a doctor's appointment.

So then what do we do?

In order to fix these problems, we need to focus on where everything begins–the family.  If families would stay together and teach children to love one another, they would grow into adults who would do the same thing. There is a lot of anger out there–a lot of people harbor anger and grudges and cold hearts. Even on Internet forums (even on Facebook where we KNOW each other!) you see name-calling and bashing and unkindness. When parents are unkind and uncivil, their children learn that. Even if they have a tight-knit family, if they are teaching these attitudes and habits, that is what children learn and they will behave the same way. It’s become okay to act out in rage over the smallest, silliest things. When you hear of stories where a parent becomes outraged over something, most people stand there nodding their heads in agreement–that parent was right to react that way. Road rage, kids’ sports, etc., the list can go on and on. Yet we as a society have become more accepting of such behaviors because we feel we are “entitled” to being mad when our feelings get hurt. We have forgotten about forgiveness and love and those two things together have the power to change the world. Banning guns, treating mental illness, increasing security everywhere…those all seem to be logical solutions, but the solution truly lies in changing men’s hearts. Until that happens, we will always be hearing these stories in the news.

The Gospel of Jesus Christ is what will change men's hearts and keep them from turning cold.  Gun control, mental illness awareness, beefed up security might make a tiny dent in the problem, but the real problem lies in men's hearts.  That is where the change needs to happen.  Taking the Gospel, a gospel of love, to all the world is the only thing that will initiate true change.  Not an easy thing to do, for sure, but the way I see it, all these other things are like putting a bandaid on an arterial cut--not going to do a whole lot of good.  

Marriage and the Plan of Salvation

I recently read an article written by a gay man who actually said that "Jesus had nothing to say about sexual behavior of any kind."  He went on to say that Jesus taught love for one another, which is true, but he didn't teach us to love sin.  He didn't teach us that sinful behavior is okay as long as it is done in the name of love.


I guess if people want to be literal, then no, in the New Testament, Jesus himself did not say anything specific about homosexuality.  However, his prophets and apostles, who taught what Jesus wanted them to teach, did speak about it.  Recently, I saw an infographic going around Facebook.  Click over to the infographic and read it.  What gets me is how they compare homosexuality in the Old Testament with eating shellfish, pork and wearing clothes woven with different fabrics.  Now, I'm not an Old Testament expert, but I can differentiate between what are God's never-changing laws and what was cultural Jewish law of the time period.  They are not the same thing.  God's law never changes.  Cultural laws that reflect the time period did and do change.  I especially love the part on the graphic that says, "Have fun living your sexist, chauvinistic, xenophobic lifestyle.  The rest of culture will advance forward without you."  I don't understand why these people think that by accepting homosexuality and allowing same-sex marriages, culture is "advancing".  How does that make it advance?

It is clear in scripture that homosexuality is sinful, as are all other types of sexual sin.  These days, though, many people do not feel that sex outside of marriage is sinful as long as you are in a "committed" relationship or that you are "old enough" to make that choice.  The scriptures never say those things and certainly don't advocate any type of sexual relationship outside of marriage.

Let's take a look at marriage, then.  According the The Family: A Proclamation to the World, "Marriage between man and woman is essential to His eternal plan."  It also states, "God has commanded that the sacred powers of procreation are to be employed only between man and woman, lawfully wedded as husband and wife."  Can this be backed up by scripture?  In 1 Corinthians 7:13, Paul says "Let every man have his own wife, and let every woman have her own husband."  Also, Doctrine and Covenants 49:15 says that "marriage is ordained of God." 

Now that we've established a definition for marriage according to scripture and modern revelation, we should discuss the Plan of Salvation.  According to LDS theology, the Plan of Salvation is God's great plan of happiness.  In this plan, we lived in a premortal existence before coming to Earth.  When we are born, our spirits are given a physical body.  Our Earth life is a test of faith.  The plan includes the Savior's great redeeming sacrifice--his suffering for our sins and dying on the cross.  This part of the plan satisfied God's requirement for justice and also allowed mercy.  Our sins were paid for.  But we have to come unto Christ and follow Him in order to accept this sacrifice.  This includes faith, repentance, baptism, receiving the gift of the Holy Ghost, and enduring to the end by living a life full of love and service.  Then, we die.  At death, our spirits are separated from our physical bodies and go to the Spirit World, which is divided into Spirit Prison and Paradise.  One huge part of the plan is that all will have the opportunity to hear the Gospel of Jesus Christ and accept it, whether that be in our Earthly life or in the Spirit World.  After all have heard the Gospel and either accept or reject it, there will be a resurrection and then great day of judgment.  At the resurrection, our spirits and our physical bodies, now perfected, will be reunited to live forever.  The judgment is when we are judged for how we lived our lives and whether or not we accepted Christ's sacrifice.  At that time, we will be separated into three kingdoms:  Celestial, Terrestrial, and Telestial.  The highest kingdom, the Celestial, will only be for those who accepted Jesus Christ and all of the priesthood ordinances done and lived worthy lives.  The Terrestrial Kingdom will be for those who lived good lives, many who accepted Christ even, but didn't have the saving ordinances done (baptism by those in authority being the first of those ordinances).  The Telestial Kingdom will be for most everyone else, people who didn't accept Christ, people who lived immoral lives, people who murdered and thieved and never repented and changed.  The last place people will be sent is Outer Darkness.  Only the very worst will be sent there, the Sons of Perdition.

I realize that is a brief explanation of the Plan of Salvation, which is many Sunday School lessons for each part of the plan.  However, you can see from that plan that if we don't follow it, we won't end up in a place where we will experience eternal joy and happiness.  Following the commandments of God and the teachings of Jesus Christ lead to happiness, both in this life and the next.  As the scripture in the Book of Mormon says, "Wickedness never was happiness" (Alma 41:10).

Now, many people argue that homosexuality is not a sin.  In and of itself,  it is not.  However, when people act upon homosexual feelings and choose to express their love in that way, therein is where the sin lies.  So many people seem to misunderstand the LDS Church's doctrine regarding this issue.  Yes, people may have the tendency, the temptation, the trial of homosexual feelings.  I don't pretend to know why Heavenly Father would allow people to have such a struggle.  But I also don't pretend to know why he allows some people to have cancer or get into terrible debilitating car accidents.  There are many struggles we face in our Earthly life.  Some of them are perhaps merely the result of having a physical, carnal body.  Even heterosexual men and women in the Church are taught to restrain from certain physical affections before marriage, and even to control our very thoughts outside of marriage in that area.  It seems unfair to some, both in and out of the LDS Church, that homosexuals shouldn't be allowed to marry and finally be able to express those feelings.  However, if you look at marriage in light of God's plan of happiness, gender as "an essential characteristic" (Family Proclamation) of who we are and how that all fits into the eternal plan, it is more unfair to allow them to marry in this life because they won't be able to be with that partner in the life hereafter. Others say it's unfair to expect them to remain celibate throughout their mortal life, but the Gospel teaches that anyone who never marries should remain celibate. Why would the Church, which teaches love and eternal happiness, want to condemn someone's eternal state of being by allowing them temporary pleasure in this Earthly life, which we know to be merely equivalent to the "blink of an eye?"  It just doesn't make sense. 

This quote has been going around the Internet for some time:  "Our culture has accepted two huge lies: The first is that if you disagree with someone's lifestyle, you must fear them or hate them. The second is that to love someone means you agree with everything they believe or do. Both are nonsense. You don't have to compromise convictions to be compassionate." -Rick Warren

You can still be compassionate and loving toward those who struggle with same-sex attraction without changing your convictions about traditional marriage.  Not supporting same-sex marriage does not mean you hate your gay brothers and sisters or that you want to restrict their rights.  It means that you believe wholly in traditional marriage and that same-sex marriage does not have a place in God's plan of happiness.  You can still love them and treat them kindly and compassionately, as you should.  Definitely love your brothers and sisters, your fellow men, and treat them kindly.  That is something all can do.

"Cease to be idle..."

I  have no tolerance for laziness in myself and in my family members.  I should have been born in another time period when people had to work day in and day out just to live.  We have too many conveniences these days that have made us very prone to laziness.  Being idle is actually contrary to the teachings of the gospel.  In Doctrine and Covenants 88:124, it says, "Cease to be idle; cease to be unclean; cease to find fault one with another; cease to sleep longer than is needful; retire to thy bed early, that ye may not be weary; arise early, that your bodies and your minds may be invigorated."  This is actually a seminary scripture, one of those scriptures that students of our LDS seminaries are instructed to memorize.  My seminary class in Texas called this scripture the seminary scripture because it talks about not sleeping "longer than is needful" and we had early morning seminary.

I have always believed that work is a necessary part of life. It really, really bothers me when people are lazy simply because they can be (the people I'm thinking of, though, are mostly people that I am around every day, like members of my own family, although it does bother me to some degree to see random people in society acting with such laziness, especially teenagers).  There is always work to be done, but they think, "it's my day off, I can be lazy."  True, we are allowed a day off from our labor, but that is the Sabbath, during which we are admonished to still remain productive.  I recall my parents teaching that even on Sundays, the day of rest, we shouldn't just spend the entire day sleeping.  It is unproductive.  Taking a nap is fine, but sleeping all day is just lazy.

This is also why it's wise to "retire to thy bed early", so that we can get enough sleep to feel rested and not be so tired the next day that we are wanting to sleep in.  Growing up, I had a curfew of 10 p.m. on weeknights, even in the summer months.  That meant I needed to be home then, but I usually tried to be in bed by then as well.  Because I'm a person who learned very early in life that I do not function well with a lack of sleep, I had no trouble keeping to this curfew.  There were occasions where I was allowed to stay out later, but I always regretted it the next day when I still had to be up early the next day.

I take this scripture to heart and very sincerely try to live it.  There are occasional days where I succumb to laziness and I always feel bad later because I allowed myself to be so indulgent and unproductive.  This is probably why I prefer to have my children do chores, piano practicing and schoolwork when they first get up in the morning on summer days.  "Work first, play later" has always been one of my mantras.  I do try to spread out the work so that I do have time for play because I also believe what Brigham Young said about dividing our time wisely between work, recreation and sleep (wish I could find the exact quote, but I can't seem to find it).  However, I've found that often when you indulge first in recreation with the intention of working later, the work rarely gets done, or if it does, it doesn't get done to the quality that it should. 

*image from Google images  

I rather enjoy being productive.  I enjoy seeing the fruits of my labors.  I enjoy feeling as if I've accomplished something, even if all I've accomplished is keeping my house clean, getting my family fed, and maintaining some order while doing it.  I hope to instill this value of work into my children.

The High Cost of Child-rearing

Yet again, we are bombarded with another news story  that tells us how expensive it is to raise a child to adulthood.  I'm guessing 150 years ago, this wasn't even really a topic of discussion.  Of course parents worried about how to provide the basic needs for their children, but I seriously doubt they were freaking out about specific costs involved.

The advertisement I heard for this news story gave these statistics:  "$910 for diapers for a year" and "$13,000 for clothes for one child for 18 years". Those were the only two stats I heard in the ad.


I don't like it when news stories like this pop up.  Giving a huge figure that accumulates over the space of nearly two decades, most often a figure that isn't correct, scares people from having kids.  It makes them think that they can't ever afford them because the numbers are often huge.  I've heard anywhere between $100,000 and half a million to raise ONE child to adulthood. 

So I decided to do a little figuring of my own.  The news said $910 for diapers for one year.  I buy diapers at Costco, often using a coupon, so generally I spend about $35-$45 on a box of 175+ diapers (depending on size and brand of the diapers how many are in the box).  In the first year, I tend to buy about one of those boxes per month.  Given an average of about $40/box, I spend about $480 for diapers in the first year.  During the next two years, as they eat more solid food and have to eliminate less, they go through less diapers.  I tend to buy a box only once every two months, sometimes stretching into a third month.  That ends up amounting to between $160-$240/year for diapers.  Of course, in our family, we've often had more than one in diapers at once, but depending on the age and size of kid, generally, we still are able to get by in the second and third years with only buying 1 box a month, which is still only $480/year.  And if you do cloth diapers, which I've always felt I should but never been brave enough to try, you'd spend several hundred up front and then you'd re-use the same diapers for all your kids.

Clothes.  I don't know about you, but I don't see any point in spending full retail price to buy clothes that they will outgrow in two to three months.  I tend to buy most of my kids' clothes secondhand or at hugely discounted end-of-season clearance prices.  For one child, if I spend about $50-$100 twice a year on clothes to fit them and that aren't rags for each new season as they grow, that ends up being $3600 over the span of 18 years for the higher prices.  This does not double or triple with more kids because if you have kids of the same gender, anything not completely worn out can be passed down and worn again.  No need to be wasteful in a world that is always talking about "going green", right?

The news story also mentions housing.  For housing, you'd be living somewhere regardless of whether or not you had kids.  Many couples without children and single people live in a house close the size we have with five kids.  Our house is 1950 square feet with four bedrooms and two-and-a half bathrooms.  It's plenty of space to have five growing children.  Our daughter has her own room and so does our baby.  Our three older boys share a room.  There is so much space in their room that we could probably turn it into two smaller rooms if we needed to, and if we stay put, we just might.  I think a lot of people believe that each child has to have their own room.  That is simply not true.

The cost of food is also mentioned.  I'd like to explain that the cost of food doesn't multiply with each child.  It's not that hard to make a four-person meal into a six-person meal with a little manipulating.  Add an extra piece of chicken or some extra pasta, like in old times when they'd add more water to the soup.  I can make a three pound pot roast that I serve on Sunday last for two or three more meals with savvy planning and cooking.  So for four meals in one week for seven people, I will often only pay about $15 ($8 for the meat and $7 for the extra ingredients for all the meals).  All it takes is good budgeting skills and meal planning skills and taking the time to learn how to prepare meals from scratch (which taste better, cost less and are usually more healthy anyway). 

Raising a child to adulthood isn't as expensive as the news media wants you to think it is.  Sometimes I feel like this is media propaganda to convince people to limit family size.  All I know is that we live well on not a very large income with me staying at home even.  Our kids are even spoiled in a lot of ways where we give them too much and I feel like we need to cut back even more.  A friend of mine suggested I write a book about this--how to raise a family and not spend a fortune doing it--and I just might!

Two Things On My Mind

The last couple of days I've seen two different topics popping up on blogs and new sites:  reviews of Hunger Games (both the book and movie) and the topic of religion and politics.

I have been asked by many friends, acquaintances, and even family members if I've read that series of books.  They know I'm a reader and probably figured since they liked it, I would like it too.  After reading a brief synopsis of the books after they came out and reviews by other readers, I decided against reading the books.  Since I haven't read the books, I really have no interest in seeing the movie either.  Mostly, I'm just not interested in reading books where the setting is a dystopian society.  I really can't stand books or movies that are about the end of the world, or post-apocalyptic societies or dystopian societies.  I find them, as a whole, to be disturbing.  I don't like coming away feeling uneasy, which is how I'm left feeling after viewing or reading such a work.

Then I stumbled onto some blogs that railed on Hunger Games as being something not worthy of reading or watching, as Latter-day Saints.  The 13th Article of Faith states that "if there is anything virtuous, lovely, or of good report or praiseworthy, we seek after these things."  These bloggers were talking about how Hunger Games, both the books and the movie, did not fall into this classification.  Not having read the books, I couldn't say for sure whether they did or didn't, but reading what content was in the books, I could see how people would make those judgments.  Then people were commenting that Harry Potter was equally dark and violent and equating that to something that is not worthy for us to read or view.  But then that brings to question most entertainment generally.  I felt Harry Potter contained pretty strong Christian symbolism and the classic literary theme of good versus evil as well as following some of the classic archetypal characters you find in good literature.  Having not read Hunger Games, I can't say whether Suzanne Collins utilized those classic literary tools in her writing or not.

I still have no desire to read the series or see the movie.  I am just not interested in plots that take place in such a dismal setting. 

With politics and religion, many bloggers have been harsh on LDS people for supporting a certain candidate.  They feel that those of us who support him do because he is Mormon.  I feel that upstanding moral character is of great importance in a strong leader.  Those who say that moral character isn't important are mistaken, in my opinion.  A leader's way of thinking is formed by his moral grounding (or lack thereof) and often that relays back to the tenets of his faith.  If that person is truly living, as best as they can, by those beliefs, they often possess stronger moral character than someone who picks and chooses which tenets of their faith to live by and only live by the ones they like.  Most religions teach that sex should only be practiced within the bonds of marriage, that how we treat others is of great importance, that there is sanctity in the creation of life, that there is a great Creator or Supreme Being who is over all.  There are certain leaders we've seen in the last several years who profess to follow a faith but then they do not stay true to the tenets of that faith.  That, to me, shows a lack of moral character.  If a man (or woman) cannot hold true to the beliefs they claim drive them, what else are they deceitful about?  That is why I believe that what shapes a person is of vital importance to understand them.  If they claim to be Christian but have no issues with things like gay marriage or abortion or living with a partner outside of marriage, and so forth, I don't believe that they understand what their religion teaches, or they choose not to follow all of their religion.  If they are like that with something so influential of character as their religious roots, how will they be in other areas of their life?  Where is their integrity?

So whether or not I vote for a candidate because he's Mormon shouldn't matter.  The fact is that his Mormon faith shaped him to be a man of upstanding moral character, at least compared with many of his opponents (not all--some were equally moral, just with different parts of their platforms I didn't feel were sound).  If a man's Muslim faith, or Jewish faith, or Evangelical Christian faith did the same and he remained a person of integrity, I think I would feel the same way.

Integrity, moral character, those are things I look for in a good leader.  Our current president I feel is lacking greatly in those qualities.  He might be a fine orator and even a well-intentioned person, but he lacks qualities of character I think are necessary to be a good leader.

Free Range Kids

The four older kids playing in our side yard on a warm winter day, taken through the side window. 

Recently, I stumbled onto Lenore Skenazy's blog Free Range Kids.  Lenore Skenazy was in the spotlight a few years ago when she let her then 9-year-old  make his way home from a department store on the New York subway.  She got a lot of backlash from the media and parents all over our country calling her a negligent parent.  In the meantime, she's written a book about it and started this blog, which I find fantastic.

In fact, I will quote from her blog what Free Range Kids is all about:

Do you ever...let your kid ride a bike to the library? Walk to school? Make dinner? Or are you thinking about it? If so, you are raising a Free-Range Kid! Free-Rangers believe in helmets, car seats, seat belts — safety! We just do NOT believe that every time school age kids go outside, they need a security detail....Here's to common sense parenting in uncommonly overprotective times!

This blog really resonates with me.  After all, I grew up in the last generation of free range kids.  I remember at the age of thirteen riding my bike with my eleven-year-old brother several miles, under a freeway overpass even, to find some girl's house that he liked from school.  We figured out how to get there based on a map of our city that I had found in my parents' home office desk.  We took our backpacks with snacks and water and planned out the whole thing.  We told our parents we were going for a bike ride.  As long as we were home for dinner, they weren't too concerned about where we went.I can remember several incidences like that throughout my school-age years at different ages.

Fast forward twenty-five years.  Kids can't even go to the neighborhood park to play by themselves without CPS being called, the cops being called, and charges being filed against the parents.  Honestly, I'm more afraid of having the cops called on me for letting my kids play outside without me hovering over them than I am of anything actually happening to them.

I'll admit right now.  My two older boys (ages nine and seven) walk to and from the bus stop (three blocks away) completely by themselves.  I let my kids play out in our neighborhood without me there all the time. In fact, I let them take the baby out in the stroller when it's nice and they walk around the block with him.  I let them stay in the car if I have to run into the bank for something quick, grab a book on hold for myself at the library, or even run into a grocery store for one item. I have left the two older boys home for a brief amount of time (one hour) while I am at my daughter's dance class or running an errand.  My older boys have even walked to the bigger park that's a couple blocks away by themselves.  I even found out that they like to go down into the canal that runs next to the park and walk under the bridge and play down there.  I told them as long as they are careful to not do that when there is a lot of water, I'm okay with them exploring and enjoying their childhood.

But it's not just about letting them play without you nearby.  It's about letting them learn to do things on their own.  Lenore Skenazy's nine-year-old found his way home on the Subway without his parents hovering over him.  Nine-year-olds are capable of reading maps and following directions.  It's about letting them try things by themselves so they can practice it and get better.  My older three boys (so including the five-year-old) cut up fruits and veggies for me for dinner.  By themselves.  With a sharp knife.

When I was a new teacher, a veteran teacher gave me sound advice.  She said, "Never do anything for your students that they are capable of doing for themselves."  That was in the light of so many teachers doing so much of the work to ease the burden on the students.  Prep work and such.  Cutting out flashcards, that sort of thing.  It really lessened my load considerably as I didn't spend hours of prep time at the school that some of my colleagues did.  And my students became quite capable little people.  I like to apply that philosophy to parenting too.  It really works.

If the goal of parenting is to raise kids to be self-sufficient, independent and responsible adults, then we as a nation are failing miserably in a lot of areas.  You might be shocked at some of the things parents are charged for as you read about them on Lenore Skenazy's site.  I haven't read her book yet, but it's on my list of to-reads.  I am a free range parent and proud to be one!

Supermom

In Season Five, Episode Five of the TV show "Yes, Dear", the character Kim is portrayed as Supermom. She bakes individualized cookies for her child's preschool class, attends the PTA meetings, organizes field trips, keeps her house clean, and looks good doing it. During the show, her husband Greg comes home to tell her that yet another one of his assistants at work has quit and he doesn't know why. Kim's sister Christine, a recent college graduate, is looking for employment, so Greg hires her to be his assistant, partly to find out why the other assistants keep quitting, if it's something he's doing that's making them leave. We come to find out that the reason all the assistants are leaving isn't because of Greg, it's because of Kim, his wife, who keeps having his assistants, now Christine her sister, do her Supermom jobs--make flyers, organize field trips, pick up the dry cleaning, etc. We find out that Kim is not Supermom after all because she doesn't do all the work by herself.

What is a Supermom?  I always thought of someone as being Supermom who seems to be in control of herself all the time, very patient with her children, always looks good, has time to develop her talents, and is active in various social committees, whether that be on PTA or something else through church and community.  Someone who is very, very busy but seems to keep her cool.

Then somebody called me Supermom.  My husband came home from work and told me that one of his employees, someone who has watched our kids overnight before, thinks of me as Supermom.  Flattered though I was, I felt I hardly qualify for Supermom status.  I stay home and take care of kids. Occasionally, I do something really brilliant (in my mind anyway) like baking a cool birthday cake or sewing a dress or tweaking some recipe to make it better.  Mostly, though, I just hang out at home, trying to sludge my way through an ordinary day with a fussy baby who doesn't know what he wants (therefore I don't either), two preschoolers who don't want to play either outside or inside and are always hungry but never want to eat the food I give them, and two school-age kids who have bad attitudes and don't want to obey.  By bedtime, I'm ready to run screaming down the street most days.

I started thinking about this concept of "Supermom".  I decided that all of us moms who try our best to do our job are Supermom.  If I can qualify for Supermom status just because I take care of five kids and barely make it through most days then all other moms qualify for Supermom status too. 

All the moms I know are doing their best to teach their kids to make good choices. They want their children to develop talents and give them opportunities to do so. They try to stay involved with their child's education, whether they just keep up with what their child is doing in school, sign up to be PTA president, or home school their child. Many of them are involved with community service or service opportunities through church. The moms I know get up and get ready for the day. Some of them also balance careers with being a mom. Some of them are single moms and have a lot to deal with and worry about. The moms I know work hard at keeping their homes beautiful. They are always looking for better ways to do things, whether it be cooking, cleaning, or helping their child learn. The moms I know also take time to develop their talents and utilize those talents to empower them as parents. The moms I know do an awesome job.

We are all Supermom.

Princess Play

Yesterday, I saw this post on KSL.com about how playing princesses can have a negative effect on girls.  This type of article makes me so annoyed because girls have been playing princess and make-believe long before Disney was ever around.  After reading the article, I looked at the posts and really loved what this one person said:

Princesses are not smart, assertive, or strong?? REALLY, Jennifer Berger?

Cinderella, with a little help from her friends, overcame child abuse and basically being a slave to get the man she wanted, a crown, and a castle.

Rapunzel, kidnapped as a baby, escaped her abductor and survived living in isolation without suffering any mental illness and was kind and loving to her people.

Snow White, after fleeing from her would-be murderer, hired by her own step-mother, went out on her own, got a live-in job as a maid, and cheated death AGAIN before returning to her kingdom.

Belle (Beauty and the Beast) selflessly sacrificed her own freedom to save her father, won over her captor, and freed dozens of people from an evil spell.

Ariel (The Little Mermaid) broke free of her father's oppression and took risks to follow her dreams AND obtained her goals.

Need I go on? There is nothing wrong with girls liking princesses and playing with or pretending to be a princess. I have a three year old that LOVES princesses and she loves to dress up. She will also grab her brother's Hot Wheels or Monster Trucks or (GASP!!) Nerf Guns and run off playing with them whilst in her tutu and Cinderella slippers. Vrrrrooom-vrooom-bang!

My fourteen year old, a former princess, (still is!), is smart and strong and assertive. She also has great self-esteem and self-confidence.

There's nothing wrong with being pretty and there's nothing wrong with being nice. But, you know, Peggy Orenstein, if you think we should encourage our girls to play "Greek Myth Heroines", I suppose we can totally play MEDUSA after the tea party. (She was once mortal and very beautiful, until she upset Athena, who turned her hair into snakes and made her so ugly, you'd turn to stone if you looked at her, remember?)

I really thought it was very well-articulated.  I do think that there's nothing wrong with letting a little girl imagine that she's a kind, loving, beautiful princess.  Don't we need more king and loving people in the world? And these Disney princesses are not doormats, like all people opposed to Disney princesses would have you believe.  You can learn some very good lessons from these girls.  I wrote about Cinderella a few years ago even about this very thing.

So I say that I will continue to let my little girl play princess as often as she wants to.  I don't think it will damage her in any way.

My daughter with her favorite princess from last year, Cinderella, at last year's Princess Festival. We will be attending the Princess Festival again this year.

Frequency

Do you remember the movie "Frequency" that came out in 2000? It stars Jim Caviezel and Dennis Quaid and is about a father and son who are able to connect to each other over a time period of 30 years due to the northern lights affecting some radio waves.

I was thinking today about all the articles written about children and how they are raised today. Many of them are raised without fathers or mothers. There are articles out there that proclaim that a child will not turn out differently if raised by a single mom than if raised by both parents who are married or raised by a single dad, as long as there is love.

Then the movie "Frequency" popped into my mind. I found it interesting when I first watched that movie how differently they have the young man played by Jim Caviezel turn out depending on which type of parenting situation he came from. When he grew up without his dad because his dad died in a fire when he was six, he was a cop who seemed to have trouble staying in a committed relationship and was sort of unfriendly with some issues. When he grew up without his mom because she'd been murdered when he was six after his dad made it out of the fire alive, he was even more withdrawn and angry and not a pleasant person, one who hadn't even had a relationship with the woman he'd been in one with before. But when he grew up with both his parents because his dad survived the fire and his mom did not get murdered, thanks to the work he and his dad did over the radio waves, he ended up happily married with his own little son.

I think that even though it's a Hollywood movie, and Hollywood rarely gets things right, I think they did in this case. I think that their portrayal of how he turned out differently (not necessarily exactly how they portrayed him turning out, but that there were differences in each scenario) is pretty accurate as far as kids will turn out differently if they are raised with only one parent than if they are raised with both parents who are married to each other and stay married and committed.

Aside from the whole serial killer part, which totally freaked me out at the time I saw the movie (I had just moved to California where I lived by myself as a young teacher and didn't know anyone, so I went to see it at the theater at night by myself), I really have always enjoyed that movie for that reason--the way the son is depicted turning out differently in each scenario.