I warned y'all in my last post that I would be throwing out questions. This one has been tumbling in my head of late and I just have to ask it:
If you are married, how did the marriage (or lack thereof) that you grew up with influence your marriage now?
On a related front, if you have children, how did that marriage influence how you raise and relate to your children?
To be really specific: IF your parents divorced, what impact does that have on your marriage and your parenting?
To be really, really specific: IF your parents divorced, do you find yourself holding your breath until you have been married longer than your parents were?
I think every person, no matter how awful or wonderful their family of origin, enters adulthood, marriage and parenthood with an idea of what they want to repeat and what they want to change. I certainly did. Mostly, I wanted to change things.
My parents didn't have a good marriage. They managed to stay together for 31 years and 11 months, but it was not a good marriage. I may or may not, one day, make my best attempt at a detailed analysis, but I know that my conclusions would be skewed by limited information and my own subjective experience. But as I moved my way toward adulthood and seeking a husband for life, I already had in my mind so many ways I wanted things to be that were different from my parents' experience.
On the whole and by the grace of God and with the help of my most awesome husband, I have experienced a marriage beyond my imagination. There is nothing like sharing my life, my whole life, with my best friend. When I have been fed up on a husband/wife level, I have hung on anyway because, after all, he's my best friend and what would I do without my best friend? I know that this level of companionship was not something that my parents ever had. On a scale of 1 to 10 (10 being darn near perfect) I would currently put ours at perhaps an 8.5. Room for improvement, but overall a pretty good thing.
Yet with all of this goodness given to me, I get uneasy. The other day I was thinking about how we are closing in on being married for 24 years. Statistically speaking, that's pretty good. Yet I was struck with terror. My parents were married for almost 32 years. Twenty-four doesn't mean anything, it doesn't guarantee anything. If my parents could throw in the towel after 32 years......All the marriage books and all the sermons and all the articles and all the counseling in the world still doesn't take away that uneasiness for me. In my world dads leave and moms are left holding the bag and cleaning up the mess.
That is just one example of how my personal experience still colors my marriage. Parenthood isn't excluded either.
Matt always remarks how I tend to take on more responsibility than is actually mine, especially when it comes to parenting and guilt. Only today was I able to explain to him that when I say that I feel like I've failed as a parent because I didn't do this and I didn't do that, that I'm NOT saying this because I feel he has no right or no role with my children, I am saying this because this is all I know. My father was absent physically and/or emotionally for most of my life. Other than the dispenser of the really, really hard spankings (in my tender tush experience), he pretty much had very little role in my life. In my experience it all falls on the mother (and is therefore always the mother's fault). Sometimes I even forget that there is a role for the dad in our family because I don't really know what dads do.
Again, it isn't that there aren't enough books out there to detail every jot and tittle of family life, it is just that, when the rubber meets the road, it's a case of Monkey See, Monkey Do.
I know that God is in the business of changing lives and changing patterns. But I think he usually does this by first pointing out to us that which needs changing in the first place. How can we give him the glory if we don't even know what he has done? If we aren't aware of the influences in our lives, we aren't aware enough to ask, "Am I doing what is best or right or healthy or am I doing what I know?" For some of us it is a matter of having to drive the truck out of the well worn rut and blaze a new trail.
Friday, January 27, 2012
The Written Word and Questions
In case y'all haven't figured this out yet, I'm a relationship kind of person. Not just in a task oriented vs. people oriented sort of way, but also in a cause and effect sort of way. I am fascinated with how our experiences color our thoughts and our thoughts influence our feelings and how both our thoughts and feelings, for better or for worse, govern our behavior.
So the other day I got the hankering to ask a question but, alas, there wasn't anybody around to ask it to. I suppose that my kind of questions would be appropriate for group discussions but finding a venue is tedious and my topics aren't necessarily the stuff of riveting social amusement. I could try to ask some of my questions in a church type setting, but I rarely have an audience. Anyway, I suck at the spoken word.
There is something about opening my mouth in a group of people that renders me, well, speechless. My brain circuits fry and my mouth dries up and my tongue turns to stone. I stammer a bit and look to my husband with pleading eyes and beg for help because of course he is bound to know exactly what I am trying to say. He gives me that helpless, exasperated, amused shrug and I, realizing that I am on my own, manage to blurt out a tumble of words and phrases that make about as much sense as the instructions for my washing machine which were translated into English by kindergartner from Seoul.
I learned long ago, after a rather unfortunate transaction with a realtor who must have authored the book Bulldozing for Dummies, that I could stand my ground much better in writing than on the phone with someone who took the descriptions of demanding and ruthless to new levels. On the phone I'm a wimp, but in writing I'm a confident, information machine and can turn bulldog, if need be, to protect my client.
On a more personal front it is just easier to let thoughts tumble in my head for a while until the words spill out. If it takes me 38 seconds to think of that word that was just on the tip of my tongue, so be it, and nobody's the wiser. I am also someone who really, really needs feedback. It is totally unnerving for me to speak up about something in a group only to be met with those awful blank stares and hollow eyes and question marks hanging in the atmosphere like half inflated helium balloons. Yes, I can see them there.
So it is with the written word I will stick. And I will ask questions. And I will want answers and discussion. Be aware that an invitation to written dialog is coming soon to a blog near you.
So the other day I got the hankering to ask a question but, alas, there wasn't anybody around to ask it to. I suppose that my kind of questions would be appropriate for group discussions but finding a venue is tedious and my topics aren't necessarily the stuff of riveting social amusement. I could try to ask some of my questions in a church type setting, but I rarely have an audience. Anyway, I suck at the spoken word.
There is something about opening my mouth in a group of people that renders me, well, speechless. My brain circuits fry and my mouth dries up and my tongue turns to stone. I stammer a bit and look to my husband with pleading eyes and beg for help because of course he is bound to know exactly what I am trying to say. He gives me that helpless, exasperated, amused shrug and I, realizing that I am on my own, manage to blurt out a tumble of words and phrases that make about as much sense as the instructions for my washing machine which were translated into English by kindergartner from Seoul.
I learned long ago, after a rather unfortunate transaction with a realtor who must have authored the book Bulldozing for Dummies, that I could stand my ground much better in writing than on the phone with someone who took the descriptions of demanding and ruthless to new levels. On the phone I'm a wimp, but in writing I'm a confident, information machine and can turn bulldog, if need be, to protect my client.
On a more personal front it is just easier to let thoughts tumble in my head for a while until the words spill out. If it takes me 38 seconds to think of that word that was just on the tip of my tongue, so be it, and nobody's the wiser. I am also someone who really, really needs feedback. It is totally unnerving for me to speak up about something in a group only to be met with those awful blank stares and hollow eyes and question marks hanging in the atmosphere like half inflated helium balloons. Yes, I can see them there.
So it is with the written word I will stick. And I will ask questions. And I will want answers and discussion. Be aware that an invitation to written dialog is coming soon to a blog near you.
Thursday, January 26, 2012
The Wonderful, Awful Bathroom
I find it interesting that just one hundred years ago you could still buy house plans that did not include a bathroom. The concept of indoor plumbing was pretty new and I suppose that for those with limited means or access to technology, or perhaps for those prone to the thrill of adventure, the indoor "necessary room" just wasn't all that necessary.
Best I can tell from what I've seen (I'm a realtor) and read (I like history), by the 1920s most new homes came with a full bathroom and by the '50s the concept of a master bathroom or at least master half-bath seemed to be catching on, but it wasn't until the '70s that having 2 full bathrooms seemed to become the norm. Nowadays, any house with only one bathroom is considered "functionally obsolete," yet there are plenty of people out there perfectly willing to live in these houses and share their most basic facilities. However, the first thing that most home buyers will do when encountering a one bathroom house is try to figure out how to squeeze at least another toilet into the landscape of the home, stomach bugs being what they are and all. It is one thing to have only one tub, but yet another thing entirely to really need to go when the only bathroom is otherwise occupied. This may explain why I've seen so many toilets in basements. By themselves. Lonely, but useful.
Our first house was built in 1926 and had only one bathroom. When we lived there only two of us needed to make any real use of it (other than for bathing, of course) while the other two were too young and undeveloped to catch on to the concept and need. Our second house was built in 1925 with only one bathroom, but long about 1939 a half-bath was added when a porch was closed in. (We know that it was 1939 or so because that was what was stamped on the underside of the toilet tank lid. Isn't that a nice little trick?)
It was a wonderful, awful room at all of 3x5 feet. The toilet had been placed so close to the wall that you had to sit on it sideways if you were taller than a toddler. You could simultaneously throw up in the tiny, adjacent sink, if necessary, making it an excellent oasis for the gastronomically challenged. Efficient? Yes. Comfortable? No.
Because the toilet had been manufactured long before green building, long before low-flow toilets and water saving devices, long, even, before the first Earth Day, it flushed with passion and style and authority. Our kids wore cloth diapers and it was customary to dump and rinse out the solid waste (AKA poop) before exiling the wads of cotton to the pail. The first time I used this toilet for such a purpose I darn near lost the thing in the fight. I had not before and have not since encountered such sucking force from a piece of plumbing.
Once you were done with your business, whether it was sitting or dunking, came the hand washing adventure. The sink was original as well with a hot faucet and a cold faucet and never the twain shall meet. This made for a brief and, at times, uncomfortable hygiene experience.
By far the worst part about this room was its location: on the exterior wall of the house (correction: UNINSULATED exterior wall of the house). There was no heat source. One day I got the brilliant idea of putting a thermometer in the room to get a read on just how cold it really was in there. The little red line never got above 40 degrees. Over time the flushing mechanism in the toilet broke and so, in order to flush, you would have to take the tank lid off, plunge your hand into seemingly near frozen water, and pull up on the flap. It was pretty close to using an outhouse. In the winter we just waited our turn elsewhere.
For all the frigid, cramped, broken down-ness about this room, I loved it. A lot of "firsts" (of which I will not elaborate for fear of certain estrangement) happened there. In September 1993 I found out I was pregnant in that room, thanks to the window sill that held my pregnancy test. I managed to give my kids baths in that teeny, tiny sink with the hot and cold faucets. More paint and brownie batter and mud were washed off of hands and faces and feet than I can now imagine. It took me a while to discover that the old plaster on the walls served as entertainment and a certain someone, with great pleasure, sat and peeled it away, while taking care of other business.
After we had lived in the house for 7 years we decided to remodel the kitchen. Involved in that was moving the half bath to an interior wall. We demolished the old and built in the new. It was a great new bathroom with it's own character built-in and for the next 4 years we actually gathered a few memories in that room as well. But there was something just so wonderful about that old bathroom. That wonderful, awful bathroom.
Best I can tell from what I've seen (I'm a realtor) and read (I like history), by the 1920s most new homes came with a full bathroom and by the '50s the concept of a master bathroom or at least master half-bath seemed to be catching on, but it wasn't until the '70s that having 2 full bathrooms seemed to become the norm. Nowadays, any house with only one bathroom is considered "functionally obsolete," yet there are plenty of people out there perfectly willing to live in these houses and share their most basic facilities. However, the first thing that most home buyers will do when encountering a one bathroom house is try to figure out how to squeeze at least another toilet into the landscape of the home, stomach bugs being what they are and all. It is one thing to have only one tub, but yet another thing entirely to really need to go when the only bathroom is otherwise occupied. This may explain why I've seen so many toilets in basements. By themselves. Lonely, but useful.
Our first house was built in 1926 and had only one bathroom. When we lived there only two of us needed to make any real use of it (other than for bathing, of course) while the other two were too young and undeveloped to catch on to the concept and need. Our second house was built in 1925 with only one bathroom, but long about 1939 a half-bath was added when a porch was closed in. (We know that it was 1939 or so because that was what was stamped on the underside of the toilet tank lid. Isn't that a nice little trick?)
It was a wonderful, awful room at all of 3x5 feet. The toilet had been placed so close to the wall that you had to sit on it sideways if you were taller than a toddler. You could simultaneously throw up in the tiny, adjacent sink, if necessary, making it an excellent oasis for the gastronomically challenged. Efficient? Yes. Comfortable? No.
Because the toilet had been manufactured long before green building, long before low-flow toilets and water saving devices, long, even, before the first Earth Day, it flushed with passion and style and authority. Our kids wore cloth diapers and it was customary to dump and rinse out the solid waste (AKA poop) before exiling the wads of cotton to the pail. The first time I used this toilet for such a purpose I darn near lost the thing in the fight. I had not before and have not since encountered such sucking force from a piece of plumbing.
Once you were done with your business, whether it was sitting or dunking, came the hand washing adventure. The sink was original as well with a hot faucet and a cold faucet and never the twain shall meet. This made for a brief and, at times, uncomfortable hygiene experience.
By far the worst part about this room was its location: on the exterior wall of the house (correction: UNINSULATED exterior wall of the house). There was no heat source. One day I got the brilliant idea of putting a thermometer in the room to get a read on just how cold it really was in there. The little red line never got above 40 degrees. Over time the flushing mechanism in the toilet broke and so, in order to flush, you would have to take the tank lid off, plunge your hand into seemingly near frozen water, and pull up on the flap. It was pretty close to using an outhouse. In the winter we just waited our turn elsewhere.
For all the frigid, cramped, broken down-ness about this room, I loved it. A lot of "firsts" (of which I will not elaborate for fear of certain estrangement) happened there. In September 1993 I found out I was pregnant in that room, thanks to the window sill that held my pregnancy test. I managed to give my kids baths in that teeny, tiny sink with the hot and cold faucets. More paint and brownie batter and mud were washed off of hands and faces and feet than I can now imagine. It took me a while to discover that the old plaster on the walls served as entertainment and a certain someone, with great pleasure, sat and peeled it away, while taking care of other business.
After we had lived in the house for 7 years we decided to remodel the kitchen. Involved in that was moving the half bath to an interior wall. We demolished the old and built in the new. It was a great new bathroom with it's own character built-in and for the next 4 years we actually gathered a few memories in that room as well. But there was something just so wonderful about that old bathroom. That wonderful, awful bathroom.
Monday, January 23, 2012
Fit for a Queen?
Back in early '95 some friends were getting rid of a queen sized bed and asked if we wanted it. At the time we had 3 kids under the age of 5 who, strange as it seems nowadays, actually liked being with us. Especially at night. Our bed was full so an extra 6 inches of horizontal sleeping surface seemed like a dream come true and we took it.
This had been our friend's bed before he got married and he was not a small man. Plus, he had done what anybody does when you don't have to share a bed; he slept in the middle. Therefore, by the time the mattress made its way into our possession it was really less of a mattress and more like a large, springy bowl.
The mattress made its way in the wear 'n tear department serving as trampoline and changing table and sleeping surface to sometimes upwards of five people, the kids piled up like puppies on all sides of us. Within a year the bowl had deepened significantly. By then I was hugely pregnant (I was always hugely pregnant) and found getting out of the bowl a useless fight against laws of physics. Without the wherewithal to rig a pulley system or a catapult, Matt took to shoving me from the back any time I needed to exit the bed.
By the time Baby #4 made her appearance (ON the bed, by the way), we knew the vast expanse of springs, fabric and dust mites had to go. I would spend the entire night attempting to defy gravity by not rolling downhill into my husband. Sometimes I was unsuccessful and we crashed in the night like a couple of bowling pins laid to waste. Then one night I had just finished nursing my newborn to sleep. She was peacefully snoozing on the outside edge of the bed when I sat up and watched her roll, literally ROLL, downhill toward the middle. Like a burrito or maybe an egg roll caught in an avalanche.
From there on out my memory is fuzzy, likely due to lost sleep. The mattress was passed on to some unsuspecting soul or perhaps to the landfill, I do not remember. I do know that I have never taken a good mattress for granted again.
This had been our friend's bed before he got married and he was not a small man. Plus, he had done what anybody does when you don't have to share a bed; he slept in the middle. Therefore, by the time the mattress made its way into our possession it was really less of a mattress and more like a large, springy bowl.
The mattress made its way in the wear 'n tear department serving as trampoline and changing table and sleeping surface to sometimes upwards of five people, the kids piled up like puppies on all sides of us. Within a year the bowl had deepened significantly. By then I was hugely pregnant (I was always hugely pregnant) and found getting out of the bowl a useless fight against laws of physics. Without the wherewithal to rig a pulley system or a catapult, Matt took to shoving me from the back any time I needed to exit the bed.
By the time Baby #4 made her appearance (ON the bed, by the way), we knew the vast expanse of springs, fabric and dust mites had to go. I would spend the entire night attempting to defy gravity by not rolling downhill into my husband. Sometimes I was unsuccessful and we crashed in the night like a couple of bowling pins laid to waste. Then one night I had just finished nursing my newborn to sleep. She was peacefully snoozing on the outside edge of the bed when I sat up and watched her roll, literally ROLL, downhill toward the middle. Like a burrito or maybe an egg roll caught in an avalanche.
From there on out my memory is fuzzy, likely due to lost sleep. The mattress was passed on to some unsuspecting soul or perhaps to the landfill, I do not remember. I do know that I have never taken a good mattress for granted again.
Sunday, January 22, 2012
Flannery Meltdown
It's been a week since I had my Flannery Meltdown. I had always heard that her stuff gets to the heart of you but I never believed it. Maybe it was because I had only ever read Good Country People, which, to my limited and shallow literary mind, was a humorous story of a brooding girl who thinks she's going to get lucky with the Bible salesman only to have him run off with her prosthetic leg. A sad but embarrassingly funny little essay, I thought.
So, the other night I hijacked Su's literature book and ambled through the pages, stumbled upon another Flannery O'Connor, and set to reading. The story is the relationship between a befuddled and quirky woman with her traditional views of society and her brooding, self-centered, progressive son. I was reduced to sobs.
I remember so well trying to divorce myself from everything my mother stood for. I remember my need to establish myself as a separate person. I remember the irritation with every little thing in her. And even after I should have known better and should have related better and should have loved better, how I still kept her at a stiff arm's length. I didn't know how to get close without getting smothered. Instead of navigating the whirlpool of her unrealistic expectations and emotional needs, I opted to sit on the sidelines. I kept my safe distance. I didn't risk anything to love her.
But there, in the story, Everything That Rises Must Converge, I see this selfish and haughty son behaving as badly as I did. Or rather I see that I behaved as badly as he. And I want to shake him out of his contempt and replace it with compassion before it is too late. As the mother drops to the pavement of a likely stroke, O'Connor penned:
After my mother died it was different. Perhaps God knew that, after the trauma of her last weeks, I couldn't deal with the regret/guilt nuclear meltdown. He gave me a total peace that even though she may have doubted my love for her while on this earth, now she knew better. Now she knew that I had loved her, I just wasn't able to do it in the language she understood.
But something has happened in the past 2.5 years since her death. I have gone from being the cold, heartless, arrogant son to the quirky, clueless, irritating mother. It is a harsh realization. I guess I had it coming.
Up until recently my experience with motherhood was so....so.....one dimensional, I guess. I was never a "good mother" type: the Supermom, complete with cape and freshly ground wheat berries and chore charts and precious Bible times with each child. I knew I could never be that kind of mom. But I could be the kind that talked about anything and was open about my own failures and had fun and majored on the important things and let the little stuff go.
Maybe it's a rite of passage, but I seem to have morphed into someone whose very presence on the planet is an irritation to my offspring. Whether it is from hormonal teenagers with their explosive emotions or young adults struggling with far more serious and sinister and heart wrenching issues, I have now been on the receiving end of eye rolls and sarcastic comments and stiff, stiff arms and, on occasion, the emotional (but not actually physical) big middle finger. I didn't think it would happen to me and if it did, I didn't think it would hurt so much.
On my worst days I feel that this is my due, that God is getting me back for how I treated my own mother and blamed her for every pain and weakness in my own life. On other days I know better... that God doesn't exact revenge in those ways. That my sins are removed as far as the East is from the West. Either way, I now see how easy it is to dish it out and yet so hard to take.
It really does beg me to ask the question: Was I really so arrogant to think that I could do a better job than my mother? I am humbled beyond recognition.
Like a small child with a broken toy, I bring my heart to Jesus. I bring my family to Jesus. "Fix it", I plead. "Fix it, please."
I'm thankful, so thankful, that he can redeem even my pathetic attempts at motherhood and turn them into something good.
Halleluia!
So, the other night I hijacked Su's literature book and ambled through the pages, stumbled upon another Flannery O'Connor, and set to reading. The story is the relationship between a befuddled and quirky woman with her traditional views of society and her brooding, self-centered, progressive son. I was reduced to sobs.
I remember so well trying to divorce myself from everything my mother stood for. I remember my need to establish myself as a separate person. I remember the irritation with every little thing in her. And even after I should have known better and should have related better and should have loved better, how I still kept her at a stiff arm's length. I didn't know how to get close without getting smothered. Instead of navigating the whirlpool of her unrealistic expectations and emotional needs, I opted to sit on the sidelines. I kept my safe distance. I didn't risk anything to love her.
But there, in the story, Everything That Rises Must Converge, I see this selfish and haughty son behaving as badly as I did. Or rather I see that I behaved as badly as he. And I want to shake him out of his contempt and replace it with compassion before it is too late. As the mother drops to the pavement of a likely stroke, O'Connor penned:
There is nothing like the regret that seizes you when the person you have failed to love adequately is swept from this earth. In the case of my dad's death, my regret came immediately. "Why didn't I go visit him before he died?" "Why didn't I call him more?" "Why didn't I push as hard as I could to have a relationship with him after my parents divorced?" Some of those questions are likely a normal response to a death. I was unfamiliar with death at that point. And losing a father, even one I had hardly known, was a blow.
After my mother died it was different. Perhaps God knew that, after the trauma of her last weeks, I couldn't deal with the regret/guilt nuclear meltdown. He gave me a total peace that even though she may have doubted my love for her while on this earth, now she knew better. Now she knew that I had loved her, I just wasn't able to do it in the language she understood.
But something has happened in the past 2.5 years since her death. I have gone from being the cold, heartless, arrogant son to the quirky, clueless, irritating mother. It is a harsh realization. I guess I had it coming.
Up until recently my experience with motherhood was so....so.....one dimensional, I guess. I was never a "good mother" type: the Supermom, complete with cape and freshly ground wheat berries and chore charts and precious Bible times with each child. I knew I could never be that kind of mom. But I could be the kind that talked about anything and was open about my own failures and had fun and majored on the important things and let the little stuff go.
Maybe it's a rite of passage, but I seem to have morphed into someone whose very presence on the planet is an irritation to my offspring. Whether it is from hormonal teenagers with their explosive emotions or young adults struggling with far more serious and sinister and heart wrenching issues, I have now been on the receiving end of eye rolls and sarcastic comments and stiff, stiff arms and, on occasion, the emotional (but not actually physical) big middle finger. I didn't think it would happen to me and if it did, I didn't think it would hurt so much.
On my worst days I feel that this is my due, that God is getting me back for how I treated my own mother and blamed her for every pain and weakness in my own life. On other days I know better... that God doesn't exact revenge in those ways. That my sins are removed as far as the East is from the West. Either way, I now see how easy it is to dish it out and yet so hard to take.
It really does beg me to ask the question: Was I really so arrogant to think that I could do a better job than my mother? I am humbled beyond recognition.
Like a small child with a broken toy, I bring my heart to Jesus. I bring my family to Jesus. "Fix it", I plead. "Fix it, please."
I'm thankful, so thankful, that he can redeem even my pathetic attempts at motherhood and turn them into something good.
Halleluia!
Thursday, January 19, 2012
On Pickles and Pregnant People
A dear pregnant friend mentioned on Facebook today her experience of not eating enough breakfast only to find herself woozy from hunger. As per the usual in crises like these, she did what she had to do. She bought a rotisserie chicken at the grocery store and proceeded to dismantle and devour the bird in the parking lot. Who doesn't love stories of pregnant women and the desperate measures they take to satisfy their cravings and sustain their blossoming babies?
Now everybody knows the jokes about pregnant women and pickles. Whether cravings for pickles are truly more common among the pregnant among us, I don't know (but I can find out), but for the third of my four pregnancies I developed a hankering.
This hankering wasn't just for any old pickles but for a specific flavor of Vlasic pickles. Something along the lines of Super Zesty. I think this line even came with numbers rating the spiciness, with a 4 being the kind to keep your kid dancing the samba in utero for hours on end.
Somewhere along the way I hit upon these particular pickles at our local Wal-Mart. Thrilled to the bone that my taste buds would finally have a party, I bought two huge jars and trotted them home.
At that time we had 3 concrete steps that led up to our back door. I was tired and hugely pregnant (I was ALWAYS hugely pregnant, it seemed). My young daughters (then 4 and 2) were cranky and in need of the elusive nap. But I had pickles, glorious pickles. Two huge jars of pickles in plastic bags... I walked up the steps, the bags broke in unison (or maybe both jars were in one bag, I can't remember... I've blotted that part out), and the jars smashed to smithereens on the steps. I don't remember much else. What I do remember is sitting there. On the steps. Sobbing. Sobbing away as my daughters looked on, wide-eyed, while their mother imploded over pickles. Good pickles. Good, crunchy, ZESTY pickles.
The thought occurred to me to try and salvage the pickles, rinse them off, and enjoy them anyway. But the thought of slicing my insides with shards of pickle jar failed to appeal so I scooped up my ruined treasure and vowed to start over.
Alas, when I went back to Wal-Mart the next day the pickles were gone. No more. Nada. My dear friend Kris, who lived across the state in Greenville, heard my sob story and took pity of me. A few days later the UPS man showed up with a package and inside, bubble wrapped, were 2 jars of my beloved Vlasic Zesty Pickles. Apparently the UPS man in Greenville had a pregnant wife and fully understood the need for pickles to be sent across state as quickly as possible.
I don't think Vlasic makes those pickles any more. But if they do, I'm gonna buy me a case of them, regardless of my reproductive state.
Now everybody knows the jokes about pregnant women and pickles. Whether cravings for pickles are truly more common among the pregnant among us, I don't know (but I can find out), but for the third of my four pregnancies I developed a hankering.
This hankering wasn't just for any old pickles but for a specific flavor of Vlasic pickles. Something along the lines of Super Zesty. I think this line even came with numbers rating the spiciness, with a 4 being the kind to keep your kid dancing the samba in utero for hours on end.
Somewhere along the way I hit upon these particular pickles at our local Wal-Mart. Thrilled to the bone that my taste buds would finally have a party, I bought two huge jars and trotted them home.
At that time we had 3 concrete steps that led up to our back door. I was tired and hugely pregnant (I was ALWAYS hugely pregnant, it seemed). My young daughters (then 4 and 2) were cranky and in need of the elusive nap. But I had pickles, glorious pickles. Two huge jars of pickles in plastic bags... I walked up the steps, the bags broke in unison (or maybe both jars were in one bag, I can't remember... I've blotted that part out), and the jars smashed to smithereens on the steps. I don't remember much else. What I do remember is sitting there. On the steps. Sobbing. Sobbing away as my daughters looked on, wide-eyed, while their mother imploded over pickles. Good pickles. Good, crunchy, ZESTY pickles.
The thought occurred to me to try and salvage the pickles, rinse them off, and enjoy them anyway. But the thought of slicing my insides with shards of pickle jar failed to appeal so I scooped up my ruined treasure and vowed to start over.
Alas, when I went back to Wal-Mart the next day the pickles were gone. No more. Nada. My dear friend Kris, who lived across the state in Greenville, heard my sob story and took pity of me. A few days later the UPS man showed up with a package and inside, bubble wrapped, were 2 jars of my beloved Vlasic Zesty Pickles. Apparently the UPS man in Greenville had a pregnant wife and fully understood the need for pickles to be sent across state as quickly as possible.
I don't think Vlasic makes those pickles any more. But if they do, I'm gonna buy me a case of them, regardless of my reproductive state.
Friday, January 13, 2012
Lots of Hooey
Earlier today I read an article on rules for parents of daughters. (You can read it here.) It consists of 25 rules to go by when raising girls. Most of the rules involve what you are to teach your daughters and most of them are pretty reasonable and have a smack of humor about them.
There is a decent amount of language and a bit of a feminist slant but, for the most part, these rules are pretty good. There are a number that I might have to tweak to my liking and two that I outright would have to disagree with. Rule #19 (Don't let your daughter marry young. Encourage her to get out and see the world, live on her own and figure out who she is and what she wants in a partner before she settles down.), I feel, is unnecessary but I will go into why in another post at another time. But the one that really gets my goat is Rule #25.
Rule #25 is as old as time itself and it is the same old lie that the serpent sold Eve. "Teach your daughter that her choices in life are limitless. She really can do anything - except maybe use the Men's Restroom." Now that is nothing but a bunch of hooey. I've heard this sort of dung my whole life and it is usually packaged up in really sappy sayings like "Whatever you believe, you can achieve" and the like. Get real, people. That's not life and I refuse, I say REFUSE to teach my children otherwise.
To tell your child that she is can do anything she wants, that her choices are limitless, is to sell her a lie and to set her up for frustration, failure, and heartache. Reinhold Neibuhr, in The Nature and Destiny of Man says "man is insecure, and ... he seeks to overcome his insecurity by a will-to-power.... He pretends he is not limited."
Tim Keller in Counterfeit Gods makes the point: "Human beings have very little real power over their lives. Ninety-five percent of what sets the course of their lives is completely outside their control. This includes the century and place they are born in, who their parents and family are, their childhood environment, physical stature, genetically hardwired talents, and most of the circumstances that they find themselves in. In short, all we are and have is given to us by God. We are not infinite Creators, but finite, dependent creatures."
The truth is we are not limitless. That doesn't mean that we are powerless. It just means that we operate within a framework. I would rather teach my children to pursue what they can control and what God has called them to do... (To do justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God. — Micah 6:8) than teach the "follow your dreams" sentimentality that sets them up to pursue man-made goals as the be all and end all to life. What a tremendous amount of pressure, to believe that having THAT is what will give you a fulfilling life and getting THAT is all up to you.
A good deal of the brouhaha out there is the concept that a girl can do anything. This just isn't true. A girl can't do ANYTHING. And neither can a boy. I am all for positive thinking (Phil. 4:8) and believing that God will give us the strength to do anything that he has called us to do (Phil 4:13). But I want the encouragement to move ahead, to love, to serve, to achieve, to succeed, to be built on the solid rock of truth and not on the dust devil of trumped up dreams.
There is a decent amount of language and a bit of a feminist slant but, for the most part, these rules are pretty good. There are a number that I might have to tweak to my liking and two that I outright would have to disagree with. Rule #19 (Don't let your daughter marry young. Encourage her to get out and see the world, live on her own and figure out who she is and what she wants in a partner before she settles down.), I feel, is unnecessary but I will go into why in another post at another time. But the one that really gets my goat is Rule #25.
Rule #25 is as old as time itself and it is the same old lie that the serpent sold Eve. "Teach your daughter that her choices in life are limitless. She really can do anything - except maybe use the Men's Restroom." Now that is nothing but a bunch of hooey. I've heard this sort of dung my whole life and it is usually packaged up in really sappy sayings like "Whatever you believe, you can achieve" and the like. Get real, people. That's not life and I refuse, I say REFUSE to teach my children otherwise.
To tell your child that she is can do anything she wants, that her choices are limitless, is to sell her a lie and to set her up for frustration, failure, and heartache. Reinhold Neibuhr, in The Nature and Destiny of Man says "man is insecure, and ... he seeks to overcome his insecurity by a will-to-power.... He pretends he is not limited."
Tim Keller in Counterfeit Gods makes the point: "Human beings have very little real power over their lives. Ninety-five percent of what sets the course of their lives is completely outside their control. This includes the century and place they are born in, who their parents and family are, their childhood environment, physical stature, genetically hardwired talents, and most of the circumstances that they find themselves in. In short, all we are and have is given to us by God. We are not infinite Creators, but finite, dependent creatures."
The truth is we are not limitless. That doesn't mean that we are powerless. It just means that we operate within a framework. I would rather teach my children to pursue what they can control and what God has called them to do... (To do justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God. — Micah 6:8) than teach the "follow your dreams" sentimentality that sets them up to pursue man-made goals as the be all and end all to life. What a tremendous amount of pressure, to believe that having THAT is what will give you a fulfilling life and getting THAT is all up to you.
A good deal of the brouhaha out there is the concept that a girl can do anything. This just isn't true. A girl can't do ANYTHING. And neither can a boy. I am all for positive thinking (Phil. 4:8) and believing that God will give us the strength to do anything that he has called us to do (Phil 4:13). But I want the encouragement to move ahead, to love, to serve, to achieve, to succeed, to be built on the solid rock of truth and not on the dust devil of trumped up dreams.
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