Giving Love

I just read Rosemary Radford Ruether‘s article, Diverse Forms of Family Life Merit Recognition, from the National Catholic Reporter, Vol. 3, 6/16/2000.

It got me thinking. What is a family?

The Sisters’ Sledge has a line in their song We are Family! that sums it up for me. When asked “Can they be that close?” she responds “Just let me state for the record, We’re giving love in a family dose.” So how do I define family? I did what I always do and headed for the dictionary or dictionary.com in this case.

Here are my thoughts.

Mother: to exercise protecting care over something else; origin or source. From Mater, female parent.

Father: to exercise care over other persons; paternal protector or provider. From Pater, male parent

Parent: to raise and nurture. From Parere, to breed.

Family: a group of persons who form a household. From Famulus, slaves.

Interesting no? So a family is a group of people who serve to care and protect each other. I think that this is the point that Ms Radford Ruether is attempting to make. Does anyone else find this remotely interesting that you can take out the gender in parents get the same answer? Does anyone else think its funny that the family comes from a word meaning slaves? When you said your famulus in latin, apparently, you were talking about the slaves you owned, that lived in your home.

In her article she proves that Bible literalistists do not advocate Biblical families, but post industrial families. (If they did, they would be pro slavery and pro polygamy, which they are not.) My question is why is she attempting to get merit from social conservatives? Why is 70% of society asking 30% for merits? I find this insanity. I hope that in 2009 we’re past asking anybody who claims to speak for G-O-D for anything but grief!

No amount of sermons on hate and division are ever going to convince me and my friends that we are not a family. We care for each other. We serve each other. Twisting the Bible around to say its opposite is an easy a trick and a very old one.

I grew up in one of the households Ms Radford Ruether documents as the majority. I had a two earner household with one male and one female parent (34%). Because my father was career military we moved often and my mother had many different types of jobs from teacher to counselor to administrator. I started a new school almost every two years. Our family had to be tight! We had to rely on each other to assimilate quickly! We were a family. We parented and raised each other. We had to pitch in with whatever we had.

And that’s why I have the friends I do. We all pitch in. We support each other; sometimes with money, sometimes with words. I found all my jobs through friends. I met my partner through friends. I found my church through friends. We’re a family. We’re giving love in a family dose.

We’re all family though. And that is what all the great teachers have been attempting to teach us. We have the same parents, we live in the same home. We certainly fight like siblings. We are responsible for how our home looks and what happens in our back yards. We are responsible being a supportive member in the family.  This is the mystery of mysteries.

Another quote from We Are Family! says: “Have faith in you and the things you do, You won’t go wrong. This is our family Jewel.”

Good Advice from a Sister!

STUFF YOURSELF

“Interaction over food is the single most important feature of socializing,” says Sidney Mintz, professor of anthropology at Johns Hopkins University. “The food becomes the carriage that conveys feelings back and forth.”[i] I believe that what we eat is only one factor in the obesity epidemic that our children are inheriting. “By the time children go to middle school,” says anthropologist Marquisa LaVelle of the University of Rhode Island in Kingston, “many families have basically stopped eating together.^“i So children by the time they are in middle school and are able to feed themselves had better have good eating habits. Our government has not made it any easier for families and schools to make healthy decisions. Speaking about the Farm Bill passed by Congress in 2007, Michael Pollan had this to say: “We would not need all these nutrition programs if the commodity title didn’t do such a good job making junk food and fast food so ubiquitous and cheap. Food stamps are crucial, surely, but they will be spent on processed rather than real food as long as the commodity title makes calories of fat and sugar the best deal in the supermarket.”[ii] How we socialize children about food and what it can and cannot do, what food is and what food is not, is at the root of passing on obesity to our children.

I would like to propose a program to be implemented in the public schools. I would call this program “STUFF YOURSELF!” or “Stuff It!” for short. Worldwide, a billion people are now overweight or obese, including 22 million children under the age of 5.In the United States, 64.5 percent of adults and 15 percent of children ages 6 to 19 are overweight.[iii] This is because they are not eating good food, nor are they absorbing useful information about that food and/or activity. For this program to be successful it needs a square meal approach. At the center of the meal is a safe school. Delivering this meal are trustworthy teachers. Also on the plate are balanced portions of Problem/Solution Identification and Goal Setting/Achievement Strategies.  “Stuff Yourself” would emphasize what needs to be put into a growing mind and body.

“Obese children reported scores [on a quality of life survey] that were as bad as cancer patients in each and every domain of life,” says Jeffrey Schwimmer, M.D., assistant professor of pediatrics at the University of California San Diego. “We were surprised it was that bad.”[iv] Although we could argue about which came first, the obesity or the negative self image, we still have a health issue that must be addressed. Why are our children eating themselves to death and shortening their lives? According to Joanna Poppink, a Los Angeles therapist specializing in eating disorders “People don’t have eating disorders because of food. They binge, starve, compulsively eat and purge as a way of self medicating themselves. There are feelings they cannot bear to experience. Often they don’t even know this. But when they eat to the point of emotional numbness, starve to an ethereal high, fill themselves up and get rid of it through vomiting or laxatives or excessive exercise, they are fighting off a terrible despair.” [v] I believe that if we address the issues that drive the unhealthy habits we will see healthier, better developed children. Improve children’s lives and you improve their health.

I would use as my template for “Stuff Yourself!” the common sense found in Dieting for Dummies by Jane Kirby. She lays it out very simply. She encourages healthy food eaten in a healthy environment. Healthy food would be information about all food, not demonizing one type of food over another. Food phobias and stigmas are how we got unhealthy eating habits in the first place. Healthy environments would mean eating sitting down, and perhaps around a dinner table without a television going. Too often we don’t just eat. We watch television and eat or read and eat instead of eat with our friends and family while enjoying their company. She would request that parents and teachers be credible examples and to never use food as reward or punishment. Lastly she would ask that we listen to a child about how they are feeling.[vi] I would add in my program an emphasis on academics to complement the body portion. Stuff your head with knowledge and stuff your body with health and you’ll be a success.

Adults have to model better behavior. These children are attempting to solve a problem through food that cannot be addressed through eating. Children will learn from adults they trust in a safe environment in which tough feelings can be addressed. A child in this environment will plan for the future and set goals. With the support of family and teachers they can achieve anything. Although this might seem on the surface a fairly complex problem, a simple look at basic behavior around socialized eating offers some extremely simple solutions. Are we willing to implement them? The solution doesn’t require much money nor training programs to implement, but these concepts must be engrained in our children. Gently. Like we would want them delivered to ourselves, because that’s where we have to start, after all. After we get our fill of information and have changed ourselves, we will be ready to: STUFF OUR CHILDREN WITH EXCELLENCE!

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[i]Time Magazine: Why We Eat; Kluger, Gorman and Park; June 07, 2004 from: http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,994388,00.html

[ii] New York Times: Weed it and Reap; Pollan, Michael, Novemeber 4, 2007. From: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/04/opinion/04pollan.html?scp=10&sq=Michael%20Pollan&st=cse

[iii] New York Times: Why We Eat (and Eat and Eat); O’Grady, Denise; November 26, 2002 from: http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=940DE1D81E39F935A15752C1A9649C8B63

[iv] Psychology Today: Sadness and Overeating; Lawson, Willow; May 30, 2003 from: http://www.psychologytoday.com/articles/pto-20030530-000001.html

[v] Joanna Poppink, M.F.C.C., licensed by the State of California in 1980, is a Marriage, Family, Child Counselor (License #15563) from: http://www.selfhelpmagazine.com/articles/eating/other/basics.html

[vi] Dieting for Dummies 2^nd Edition; Kirby, Jane RD (2003) from the chapter: Honor Your Child’s Body

THE HORROR!

I believe inequalities between urban, suburban and rural schools exist for very many reasons, both social and political. The minorities that go to these ‘schools’ are victims and we all agree to feel very sorry for them. We get to throw some money and run some terrible figures once or twice a year, but then do nothing else. We don’t adequately fund public schools because we don’t want public schools to be good. Public schools are low class. Teachers do not have good jobs (max tenure in New York is not that much). We need the public schools to be terrible so we can keep the poor engaged in strife and scuffle.

We send wealthy kids to wealthy schools to be socialized and become citizens. We send minority children to public schools to be criminals and servants.

Even though this is a democracy where one man equals one vote, the poor and minority in this country do not vote.

About 30% of single women,13% single males and around 5 % of the elderly are below the poverty line. They pay the least in taxes and don’t vote.

The government is not going to wake up and say “Wow! I see you over there in the sewage! You want a hand?” The poor and undeserved must vote. And use the law to hold the government to their obligations.

How does this happen? By a lot of people saying how does this happen and nobody doing enough about it.

Inequities exist because they serve some purpose. Find the purpose it serves, rip that out and it will correct itself.

Just an idea. What do you think?

JUST THE CASH, THANKS

Hills and Hirschorn in their article Best in Class: How Corporations Can Help Transform Schools (Earnst&Young2007) say in the introduction “The issues our schools face are so urgent that more companies must do more.” They go on the tell how corporations can do more to create the skilled workforce they’re going to need by partnering with schools to educate children.

These companies aren’t fast food vendors or soda manufacturers. They are technology and economics firms. They want to invest in the next generation of minds to solve the problems of tomorrow instead of using them as fuel for short term profits that we’ve read about in our text book.

Parents do need to partner with anyone that cares about their children. The fast food vendor and soda makers have shown that they do not. Universities have begun to partner with schools. Corporations have partnered with higher education for a very long time in our colleges and they aren’t plastered with garish advertising. It can be done and we already know how!

The schools need the money because we have seen time and time again that the funding models of property and sales taxes are not working. Its too direct. (I personally think this is honest, but I’m in the majority. I voted for every single tax hike and strategy that invests in our future, the children.)

They call it human capital. “Most corporations involved in education reform have focused their energy on improving the quality of human capital through professional development
for classroom instructors.”-again Best in Class. By using corporations to invest in teachers, schools and children we can begin the fulfilling task of reaching the human potential we’ve all known in which humanity was destined.

http://www.fsg-impact.org/ideasitem/503

YOUNG HUMANS

Do you remember how much you wanted to be just like an older person? Was it your older sister? Your dad? The star pitcher for the New York Mets? Or was it a media image? Do you remember?

Most of us LEARNED gender stereotypes early in our childhood and they were reinforced and reinforced until we could examine them as adults. As children we learned gender stereotypes in some very interesting ways, I believe.

Easily, we can look at our academic curriculum. We studied a history of racially homogeneous males engaged in violent behavior. Once a year we reviewed the sanctioned outstanding achievements of other races. Perhaps these others were native to the United States or perhaps they were forcibly relocated to this country. Perhaps we concentrated for a brief time upon concerns outside of a violent history traditionally taught. If the student was of color, did not resemble the persons that history records, where was the model? Color and gender are in the background, serving. Always serving.

The gender stereotypes we learn in school reflect this conflict of what happened; deemed valuable by those who do the recording. In my own experience I learned three things.

1. Boys are leaders. Where was ANYTHING that would contradict this? I had to be a leader to be a male. Conquer something, achieve, achieve, achieve! After all, there were people who will serve me in this regard. Not to take it up would a be relinquishment of the responsibility of my gender.

2. Girls are smart. But it doesn’t count. Girls don’t bully others about being smarter; for that matter smart boys don’t either. Smart boys don’t let it on that they are smart. Girls don’t matter because no body listens to them when it comes to making a meaningful decision. Smart girls attach themselves to boys that can be influenced to do what she desires.

3. Boys are mean. But they need to be, right? Boys must express and use power as soon as they are aware of it. Boys who learn of their power early by having it debased even earlier become bullies. Girls can be bullies too, but the level of physical violence is further along in the relationship if at all. Boys believe, too often, and backed up by the school setting and curriculum, that power is a finite commodity. Men must take power, or what is desirable, from others to have it for themselves.

Changing this dynamic involves the effective modeling of alternative behavior and attitudes from students’ elders. Parents must model cooperative problem solving in their internal and familial relationships. Children must see a disagreement among their caregivers that is congenial, honest, and holds the child with security in the center of any decision. Teachers must support this activity by having no tolerance for the teasing and bullying that is too often miss-characterized as ‘normal.’ We understand today that this attack posture indicates an angry child. This is a child who does not feel safe.

You are what you are……and you will teach that very thing. What are you teaching? What do the children in your life know about how you relate to others? Your experience with conflict? disappointment? triumph? Are you affectionate with your partner? or distant? Who is leading in what areas and how? What is your model?

Do our young humans know you?

Parents of Children

‘My Son Doesn’t Act Like a Boy.’Kalish, Nancy: Family Life; Apr2001, p60, 4p, 1c, 1bw

Reading this article was like going back home. Going back to my childhood. I didn’t play with dolls, but I insisted on clean pressed clothes and well prepared food. Insisted on classical music for dinner time and told my mother what to wear and bought her jewelry and got her colors done etc.

My parents love me and have always loved me. When I “came out” to them my mother said something very interesting. She told me she would have to morn the loss of her daughter-n-law and the grand children she wouldn’t have, not to mention getting to see me be a father.

One mother was pleased that her son’s dressing up in girl clothes was phase and states: “And though I know it’s no proof that he’s straight, I’m embarrassed to say that I’m relieved.”-McGinley

I’m sure that my parents would’ve preferred I was straight, but that’s only because that’s what they know, not because it would make me a different person. Every parent wants the easiest time for their child.

Advice for parents with children that do not conform to preconceived gender behavior: Say, “It’s okay to be who you are and to make the choices you do. You are unique, and we love you.”-Pollack

I was safe at home, but not in the world, school, church etc. I was stalked and teased until I left college (early). Families may be able to put this idea into practice, but until the greater society does, boys and girls will be stalked and tortured by other boys and girls.

It is better to be masculine than feminine in some ways, and worse in others. I still do not understand the value placed on a man’s thinking style above a woman’s. I hope I never do. The culture of men and the culture of women is set up to avoid violence. Where there is no threat to violence we have freedom. Do we believe in freedom or don’t we?

It takes DNA from two genders to create another person (and scientists are working on this too). That is the only inherent difference. The rest is on a scale. Some of this and some of that form a unique balance.

Are we raising free people or slaves of the past?

Hello world!

When I was five years old I won a coloring contest. The competition was supposed to be self portrait. Most of my class mates drew themselves with family or friends at school (including Mrs Petus, our teacher, in more than a few……I didn’t even think of flattering Mrs Petus).

My self portrait, the only I’ve ever done was me in a field of flowers and trees. All the trees and flowers and me were the same size. When my mother asked me what I called the coloring I said “Hello World” How appropriate to open this blog with “Hello World”.

This blog will be a sort of self portrait. Typing to myself.

I live in Brooklyn, New York and work in Manhattan. I have a great partner who has encouraged me in this endeavor. He thinks I’ll need him less to listen while I pontificate if I have some more productive method.

I’ll write essays and opinions on a whole range of subjects. From Alexander Pope and Jonathan Swift to Vernor Vinge and Samuel Delany. From my family to politics. From gay identity to work culture. From discriptions of urban characters to artist profiles.