Changing for the Better; Write Every Day Challenge, Day #23

Wow.  It's been over a week since I've posted.  I can explain, I promise!  My last blog post (Day #20 of my Write Every Day Challenge) was on October 4th.  I wrote on the side for the next two days (Day #21 and Day #22).  Then I got sick.  So I'm counting that seven days as a sick week.  People get sick weeks, why can't I?  ;)  So today will be Day #23.  I've realized over the week that I just don't have that much to blog about, since I don't have any type of theme except for my (obviously failing) Write Every Day Challenge.  I know that I will be writing (hopefully) almost every day during November for NaNoWriMo, but as far as this blog goes, I don't have much to write about.  So I think I'm going to introduce some types of mini-themes that I've seen other bloggers use, like "Friday Five," etc.  (I just found out the word for this is "meme" - at least, that's the closest thing I'm finding to answer my Google question "What do you call things like Friday Five?")  But I will start that on another day.  

Today I had planned on writing a whole rant about the MTV show Teen Mom, the spin off of MTV's 16 and Pregnant.  I was initially drawn to 16 and Pregnant because at the time of the initial airing of it's first episode, I was almost 7 months pregnant myself.  I wasn't anywhere close to being a teen, but I thought that it would be interesting to see these girls' stories and how they compared to my own.  Around the same time, the show I Didn't Know I Was Pregnant was showing it's first episodes, and I watched a couple of those, but they ended up kind of freaking me out more than anything.  (As any pregnant woman will tell you, the impending labor and delivery is the most nerve-wracking part of being pregnant - or at least that was my experience.)  So 16 and Pregnant it was.  

I saw so many things in those shows that made me cringe, made me almost cry, made me laugh.  When the spin off, Teen Mom, aired, I was excited to see the continuation of the stories of Maci, Catelynn, Amber, and Farrah, but mostly, I was excited to watch as those adorable children grew!  When the first episode aired, my son was just 3 months old, and the children on the show were several months older, but I was still interested to see their milestones, triumphs, and cute little failures.  I knew that it was the drama surrounding the young moms and dads that drove the show, but I continued to watch.  Then I started getting angry at the people on the show.  I started judging them left and right, finding faults in their parenting styles, and using not-so-nice adjectives to describe them to my husband, who does not watch the show.

With the impending season 2 finale, I found myself thinking, "I finally have an idea for a blog post!  I can voice my opinions of these people!"  I was planning on talking about each mother in turn, and rant about the things that made me crazy about each one.  In all fairness, I was going to commend each of them on certain things as well, but the main gist of my post was going to be pretty negative.  

And then I realized, this is not the point of my blogs.  Many of my previous blog posts have been about love, about equality, and, most importantly to me, about kindness.  These are the things that I believe in more deeply than anything.  And for me to write a blog, pointing out the faults and errors of others, is simply wrong.  It's not this blog, and it's not me.  But I know I'm not perfect.  I've judged a lot of people.  I've said unkind things about a lot of people in the past.  And I also know that, in the future, I'm sure I will say more unkind things.  But I will definitely try not to.  I am constantly trying to better myself - trying to be a better person.  And I will continue to try to be kind to everyone.


It's funny, because I thought about writing the ranting post a couple of days ago, thinking that I would write it after the finale.  Then, before I had even watched the finale I realized my mistake.  Then, today, I was planning on writing this blog post.  This morning I watched yesterday's episode of Ellen.  Perez Hilton had asked to be able to come on her show (she was not a fan of his - she thinks of kindness as one of the highest virtues, too) so that he could let everyone know that he is in the process of changing his blog.  He realized, in the wake of all the teen suicides, that he is a bully, and that his blog was wrong.  He admitted his errors and pledged to change, not only himself, but his blog as well, for the better.  And it made me realize how right I was to not write a blog post full of rude comments and harsh criticisms.  And I wish Perez Hilton and his blog all the luck in the world.  Maybe more people will come to realize how hateful and harmful they are being, and try to change for the better.

Questioning the Ideas Around You: Write Every Day Challenge, Day #16

A "friend" of mine (I say "friend" because he's really just an acquaintance, but we're "friends" on facebook) posted this quote on his facebook profile the other day:

We were not born critical of existing society. There was a moment in our lives (or a month, or a year) when certain facts appeared before us, startled us, and then caused us to question beliefs that were strongly fixed in our consciousness -embedded there by years of family prejudices, orthodox schooling, imbibing of newspapers, radio, and television.  This would seem to lead to a simple conclusion: that we all have an enormous responsibility to bring to the attention of others information they do not have, which has the potential of causing them to rethink long-held ideas. Howard Zinn, 2005

This made me think about the time when I began to question the beliefs around me.  I was in the fourth grade, living in a suburb in the Bible Belt of America.  I was raised Lutheran, and sometimes I would attend a Baptist church with my next door neighbors who had a daughter my age.  Stephanie and I were good friends, but I had another friend, Kelli, who I thought of as my best friend, and I think that Stephanie was a little jealous of this fact, especially since I had known Stephanie longer.  But I enjoyed spending time with both of them, and I enjoyed going to church with Stephanie and her family.


Then, one day, Kelli's dad died.  He had a sudden heart attack just after running/biking around a park with Kelli.  I remember my parents telling me about it, and my whole world view changed.  I suddenly was so overcome with grief for my friend, and so scared at what would happen to me if my father was to die.  I spent that school day with Kelli at her house.  I remember giving her a hug and watching television with her while our mothers talked.  While this was a horrible event, and it surely was worse for Kelli than for me, this wasn't the event that started making me question things around me.  


That event happened a few days later, when Kelli came back to school.  I remember being on the playground with her, and Stephanie came up to us, and I don't remember the whole conversation, or if there was even anything said besides what Stephanie said to Kelli.  She told Kelli that her dad, who had just died, was going to hell because he didn't go to church.  Now I know that Stephanie was just a kid (we were only 9 or 10), and that she probably was just upset that Kelli was getting most of my attention before her father died, and certainly was getting all of my attention since her father died.  I do not hate Stephanie for this sentence (although Kelli might), because I do not think that she was really that horrible of a person.  I'm sure, if Stephanie remembers this now, she feels incredibly guilty for saying this.  She is not a bad person.  


But neither is Kelli and she did not deserve to hear something like that.  And her father, although I did not know him well, was not a bad person either.  So this statement did not sit well with me at all.  I disagreed with the idea that not going to church meant you were headed for hell.  I also disagreed with the idea that the simple act of going to church meant that you were safe from eternal damnation.  These two ideas may seem like they are the same thing, but they are not.  People can be horrible and go to church, but this shouldn't mean that they won't go to hell simply because they attend services every Sunday.  


So thus began my questioning of the beliefs that were around me.  I started re-thinking religion.  I started re-thinking things that were important to my 9 or 10-year-old mind:  being popular vs. being a so-called dork; doing what others wanted me to do vs. what I wanted to do or thought was right; etc.  And I realized, at some point, what I now know to be the utmost important thing in life:  kindness.  I know this sounds very "make love not war" or like I'm a hippy or something, but I really believe that being kind to others is the most important thing, for me, in life.  And this affects everything that I do, every idea I have about the world, about politics, about religion, about society.  You might call me crazy, think that I'm unrealistic and too optimistic (actually, I think of myself as more of a rationalist), but I truly believe that, simply with more kindness, the world will be a much better place.

Soapbox Rant

So my challenge kind of fell by the wayside this Labor Day weekend. Instead of giving up, I'm just going to pick back up where I left off. Write Every Day.

I think I may get up on my soapbox for a minute. I'm really tired of all the hatred in this country these days. I realize there were times in the history of the United States where there was more hatred floating around, but I feel like we have evolved, learned, and become a better country. So why all the hatred?

All these people speak of "family values." Here's the problem: not everyone has the same definition of family. I have this old, 1974 edition of The Merriam-Webster Dictionary that used to be my mom's, which I use often. Here's the definition of family found there:

fam•i•ly \'fam-(ə-)lē\ n, pl -lies 1: a group of persons of common ancestry: CLAN 2: a group of individuals living under one roof and under one head: HOUSEHOLD 3: a social group composed of parents and their children 4: a group of related persons, lower animals or plants; also : a group of things having common characteristics

So, yes, this is a major definition of family. But it seems like, these days, most people automatically think of a family unit comprised of a mother and a father and children. But the thing is, that is only one type of family unit. There are families comprised of divorced parents, families where one or both of the divorced parents have remarried, families where there is only one parent (whether by neglect on one parent's side or by death), and blended families with children from each previous marriage. And this is only the tip of the iceberg. There are families with adopted children and foster children. There are families of married couples with no children. There are extended families, grandparents who move in with their adult children, grandparents or aunts or uncles that take care of the children. Cousins living in the same house. Children who have had both parents die, who are living with people who are not blood relatives, but godparents or friends of their parents, whom they had maybe never met but are now family. And then there are the controversial ones: the unwed mothers and unmarried couples living together with or without children, couples of mixed races, and the homosexual couples with or without children. I'm sure I've forgotten someone.

Another way to look at it is to think of yourself. How did you define your family as you've grown? As a baby, most likely your only family was you, your parents and your siblings. Maybe a few close grandparents or other family. As you got older, your aunts, uncles, cousins, grandparents, etc. came into the mix. You may have lost a family member or two or more. Then as you become a young adult, you may view your family as separate from you as you venture out on your own. Your parents may become extended family, especially if you find a spouse or partner. If you have children, you now become the adult in the family unit, and your whole perspective of family may change. As your own children grow and find their own spouses and have their own children, your view of family may change even more. If you do not have any children, grandchildren, etc., your view of family may stay the same as it was when you were a child, might include a spouse or partner, or it might simply be just you.

Then there are the changing roles of everyone in the family. You start out being a child, a sister, a brother, a niece, a nephew, a cousin, a grandchild. You may grow to be an aunt, an uncle, a mother, a father, a grandparent, a great aunt, a great uncle. Within those roles, you are expected to act a different way. And these expectations change with the times. Mothers were, until quite recently (and in some places, still are), expected to do all of the housework, do the child rearing, and abstain from working outside the home. I am a stay-at-home mom, but I think that I am a minority in that respect.

Then you have different cultures that come into play.

My point is, when people realize that every family unit is different, and that everyone views family differently, and that the roles of family are always changing, you can't expect everyone's "family values" to be the same. Where I live, though, it seems like this term means putting family and Christian faith first. It means that if you have "family values," you are pro-life and conservative and a Christian. Now, I know this is a generalization and that not everyone may feel this way. But it seems to me that this is what politicians, at least in my state and a few nearby, mean when they say "family values." It's like saying that you don't value your family if you don't agree with these viewpoints. They speak of morality, and I think they also don't understand that everyone has different morals, along with different "family values." Yes, we all know that murder is bad. Yes, we all know that slavery is wrong. Yes, we've all been taught the golden rule. But I also thought that, at least in America, we've kind of come to the conclusion that hate is wrong. That prejudice is wrong. That all men (and women) are created equal.

I have a son, and I plan on raising him right. Or what I think is right, which, in my state, might be considered wrong. I will raise him to be kind to his fellow humans. I will teach him to respect his elders, to be polite, and to not hurt anyone. I will raise him to be kind to animals. I will raise him to try to put himself into the shoes of others, to try and understand why people do the things that they do, rather than condemning their actions. I will raise him to understand that men and women are equal. That no one is superior to anyone else, whether you are white, black, brown, American, Mexican, British, Iraqi, Chinese, Korean, Pakistani, Christian, Muslim, Jewish, Islamic, Buddhist, Agnostic, Atheist, tall, short, thin, fat, pretty, ugly, straight, gay, bisexual, transsexual, rich, poor, male, female, Republican, or Democrat. He will learn that we are all human. We are all equal, and, in America, we all have the same rights and should all have the same opportunities. I will teach him, that, above all else, kindness is the highest virtue. I will not teach him to be intolerant. I will not teach him to hate.