BlogHer Topic - Family - Editor's Picks

Leave Shy Children Alone!

SarahKnight — Mon, 13 Feb 2012 17:57:04 +0000

Last weekend, I took my two daughters to the Disney store at the mall. We were immediately accosted by a sales clerk.

“HI PRINCESSES!” the man boomed at them.

Both girls tried to hide behind me.

“YOU ARE SHY!” he shouted at them.

“WHAT ARE YOUR NAMES?!? HOW OLD ARE YOU?!?"

At this point, both girls were cowering and trying to shrink from his view. I tried to be polite but firm as I told him, “They are cautious with new people.” Then I grabbed their hands and we tried to walk away.

He followed us.

“I LOVE YOUR SHOES!” he shouted at my terrified four-year-old who immediately began to cry.

Then another sales clerk came over and it started all over again. We had to leave the store.

I understand that most people mean well and are genuinely trying to be friendly. What I don’t understand is why so many people view shyness as an offense and a challenge -- a problem that they can personally cure.

As someone who was a painfully shy child and who still struggles in certain situations, I can tell you: shining a spotlight on shyness is the worst thing that you can do. A shy person feels attention directed at them as actual physical pain. Yes, PAIN. Your skin burns, your stomach hurts, your heart pounds, your muscles start to shake. And the more the attention is directed, the worse it feels.

The very best thing you can do for a shy child (or any shy person) is to be friendly and kind and then give them the space that they need to be comfortable. My older daughter needs to spend the first half hour of any big social event (birthday parties, family gatherings, etc.) near me or my husband and not speaking -- just watching. If everyone leaves her alone and lets her get comfortable then she can start to join in. Then, she is usually laughing and playing within an hour. And after that she doesn’t want to leave.

I think shyness makes people uncomfortable and that is why they want to fix it right away. Especially if the shy person is a child. But shyness is natural -- and in some cultures, even the norm.

If you give a shy child enough time and space they will often come out of their shell. But it’s not going to happen by commanding them to speak or pursuing them in a store.

It happens over time, with quiet encouragement, patience, and practice. So if you meet a shy child, please understand that they are not rejecting you. They are scared and nervous. If you want to be kind, do not force them to speak or try to “cure” them. The kindest thing to do is to let them know that it’s OK to be themselves.

So it’s OK to say “Hi!” and smile. But if a child is scared or shy don’t keep pushing them (it’s scary), don’t call them “shy” (it’s embarrassing), and don’t call attention to it (it’s painful). Give them a chance to get comfortable.

In other words, put their social comfort above your own.

Sarah Knight is the mother of two very cautious children. She is also the co-founder of www.mamasagainstdrama.com

Photo Credit: arcticpuppy.

A Letter to the Father of Hannah Who Posted “To My Parents” on Facebook

Red Dirt Kelly — Mon, 13 Feb 2012 13:47:33 +0000

Last night an acquaintance of mine posted this video on his Facebook page. He had retrieved it from Reddit and was heralding the dad’s actions. Then another acquaintance of mine chimed in and sent a rally cry through her post in favor of the dad as well.

Then I watched that video which had been cheered on by two of my Facebook connections ...and was filled up with an overabundance of sobering thoughts, one of which was, “Okay, this puppy is going viral I’ll bet. It will be in the headlines tomorrow.”

And it was. On the front page of Yahoo’s news stories, the disappointed father of Hannah was featured with a story detailing the contents of the video. I was still processing quite a few aspects of the particular situation when I ate lunch with two of my colleagues, both of whom were male, both of whom own guns, both of whom were family scientists (one’s research specialization area is adolescents and family) and who both had an opinion about the video.

They liked the idea of a father using the same medium as the daughter to communicate a message to her. They did not agree with the father’s tactics of sarcasm, one-uppance, shooting the laptop with eight rounds from him and “one from the mother.” Then the subject changed, and I continued to process the situation through this evening.

So tonight I’m ready to write to the father of Hannah who posted the “To My Parents” note on her Facebook. I'm done with my processing, but I'm sure he's not close to being done...and I'm thinking about their family.

Here is my letter to you, dad…

Dear father of Hannah:

I watched the video you posted for others to see and thought about you, your wife and Hannah today. I talked to some friends about your struggle and I read a couple of newspaper articles covering the “news” of your video getting widespread attention.

I would imagine that things are really weird around your house right now. You’re probably getting quite a few media calls, Hannah is probably getting quite a few media calls too, and I would imagine that your life changed more than you could have imagined since last night. That’s a big consequence for the decision to make and post your video response to Hannah. I hope you all are okay through the hullabaloo, because after it dies down you all will have some healing to do.

How do I know that? Because of what you wrote, not because of what you said on your video. Here’s what I’m referring to in case the message is a little lost in all this chaos:

“Today was probably the most disappointing day of my life as a father and I don’t know how to correct the situation.”

Coming from a father who just shot his daughter’s laptop with nine rounds from his .45 caliber handgun, that’s a really open, honest, vulnerable and very real statement. In an odd way, I’ll bet Hannah could write a good portion of that message as well. She may not know how to correct the situation either.

From far away, it appears that Hannah is highly frustrated with the way things are right now in the family, and you (and probably your wife) are feeling exactly the same thing…highly frustrated with the way things are in your family. Actually, you both seem pretty miserable right now, and in a few ways it seems like you’ve been engaged in a battle of wits, sarcasm laced with disrespectful language, contempt and anxiety about your situation for quite a while.

Hannah used the gift you gave her to complain about your family publicly. You used a deadly weapon to complain about her behavior publicly. But I’ll bet that neither of you feel much better after she vented, and then you vented.

So, I just wanted to suggest that when all the hubbub DOES die down (and I’m praying this happens fairly quickly, before more dangerous and intense “one-uppance” behaviors continue) that you start where you almost finished…start with those words: “Today was probably the most disappointing day of my life as a father, and I don’t know how to correct the situation.”

THAT STATEMENT, dear father of Hannah, is a perfect place to start correcting the situation. And if you’re not sure where to go after that message, then there are some people who can walk you through…so you CAN know. And so your wife can know.

Having a daughter who is fifteen isn’t too late in the game to change the rules, dad. And just know this…I’m rooting for you. I’m rooting for ALL of you.

Sincerely,

A fellow parent

***

Find me at the Red Dirt Chronicles...

Best, Red Dirt Kelly

Nie Asks: What Are You Doing Valentine's Day?

nienie — Sun, 12 Feb 2012 01:51:43 +0000

It's Valentine's weekend! What are your HOT plans? I hope Mr. Nielson takes me out, maybe a some exotic chocolates, flowers,
you know the works. {Or a nice back rub??} What do you have in store for your sweetheart? Or are you celebrating in a different way or not at all? Tell me in the comments -- I want to know!

It's Valentine's weekend!

What are your HOT plans?

I hope Mr. Nielson takes me out, maybe a some exotic chocolates, flowers,
you know the works. {Or a nice back rub??}

What do you have in store for your sweetheart? O are you celebrating in a different way or not at allTell me in the comments -- I want to know!

Valentine's treats.

US Census Bureau to Dads: You're No More than a Babysitter

JennaHatfield — Fri, 10 Feb 2012 18:00:00 +0000

The US Census Bureau has decided that fathers watching their children is “child care” but when moms watch their kids, it’s parenting. No, really. All of that “it’s not babysitting, it’s parenting” when daddy “watches” the kids has apparently been tossed out the window and set us back decades. And by us, I am not just referring to the women who are somehow deemed the “designated parent” when both parents are present in a household, but the men as well. Apparently they don’t matter.

I’d like the US Census Bureau genius who came up with this idea to show up at my house for a three-day period.

On a typical day in my household, I rise with my perennial 7:00am waking child. I get breakfast on the table, grab my cup of coffee and get to work. My husband then takes over, makes sure that teeth are brushed and gets the kids to school. After preschool, he makes lunch for our younger son and normally plays a game of Yahtzee! or whatever the four-year-old so desires. He reads a book. He answers a billion questions. He kisses boo-boos. He reminds our youngest son to let me work eight billion times. He helps with the tasks of reading, computer usage and coloring. He gets our other son from school and proceeds to break up the sibling arguments that begin as soon as they’re both in the door. He makes a healthy snack. He asks about days. He helps with homework. He chases them down the hallway like a big monster. He gives me a big hug when I finish my work day about an hour after our oldest son comes home, and then he helps me in the kitchen.

Of course, every third day, he goes to work for 24 hours as a professional firefighter, and I’m left to hold down the fort in his keenly felt absence.

But according to the US Census Bureau, I’m the “designated parent.” And he’s doing nothing more than providing temporary care.

Oh.

And here I thought we were finding a balance for what works for our family, both providing the parenting care that our children need in our own ways. I can’t chase them like a monster, but I can tickle them until they squeal so loudly glass breaks. I didn’t realize that I was the designated parent just because I have a vagina. I thought, as we are both present and equally awesome, that we were the designated parents. Plural. Together. A team. The two of us making sense of the parenting world -- which rarely makes sense as it is. If we’re not a team, I’m screwed and so are the kids, because I’m going to mess this up on my own.

I just don’t understand how vaginas make a parent and penises make a babysitter.

I told my husband the news as I sat at my computer, working while he packed the boys’ lunches.

”Did you know that if you watch the kids while I’m working, it’s considered a form of child care. And when I watch the kids while you’re at work, it’s considered... well, parenting.”

He smirked. “Well, of course! Because society knows that no man is inherently capable of parenting. We don’t have an instinctual tug or love or any of that.”

We then joked that we should claim his time as “child care provider” on our taxes this year. I wonder if the IRS would agree with the US Census Bureau. My guess is that, when it comes down to the bottom line -- and the bottom line being money -- no. He is not a babysitter. He is not a form of child care. He is an active, involved father who doesn’t “step up” to care for his children: He just parents.

I get offended for my husband when these types of subjects come up. I get offended for my father, who worked midnights for the entirety of my schooling career so that he could get home in the morning with just enough time to usher us off to school, get some sleep, and wake up when we got home to shuffle us off to after school activities or make dinner with us or just... be... with us. I get offended for every dad I know who gladly spends time with his children, who doesn’t view it as “carrying his weight” or “providing care.” I get offended for every man who doesn’t want recognition for the work they do as a dad, but is lauded with, “Oh, it’s so nice of you to watch the kids when your wife works.” Or goes out. Or steps away from the kids for five seconds.

I get offended for every woman who has made the decision to work, in whatever fashion. I get offended for every woman who has made the decision to stay home with the children. I get offended for every family juggling their work schedules, their budgets, their hopes, their dreams.

If we want fathers to be involved, to do more than just create a child, then why do we keep telling that they are not just as vital to their kids’ lives as the mother? If we keep running PSA’s about how “anyone can be a father but it takes a special kind of man to be a dad,” why do we then tell these “special kid of men” that they’re not quite cutting it, that they’re not really doing anything more than the teenager down the street does on a Friday night, texting from the couch while the kids hang from the chandelier? Why do we act surprised when men just give up the fight and disappear; if they’re not valued, if their time and effort isn’t ever respected, how can we expect them to care?

The good news is that there are men -- dads, fathers, papas, whatever you want to call them -- that do care. They do more than provide child care. They do more than babysit. They do more than “watch the kids.” They parent. They love. They cherish. They teach. They are dads. Thank goodness for each and every one of them.

Reaction around the blogosphere seems equally ticked off:

Cassandra at Villainous Company shared her thoughts as a grandma whose son seems quite like my own husband.

One of the joys of being a grandma to two very active little boys has been watching the close relationship they have to their father. My son is a police officer and his wife works from home. They really do share parenting responsibilities, and I'm immensely proud of my son's involvement in his children's lives. There's nothing unmanly about his parenting style: men do most things differently when caring for children and their perspective on parenting is usually a net positive.
Chris Routly at The Daddy Doctrines thought he was a stay-at-home dad until he found out that the US Census Bureau took that title away since he makes income as a freelance writer.

The fact that I have XY sex chromosomes means that when I am acting as primary caregiver for my own children, while my XX chromosome’d partner is at work, I am just one more available kind of “child care provider.” I am not “parenting,” but merely providing a service to the “designated parent” (my wife), not unlike a nanny, au pair, or daycare center. I think the lesson here is that I need to ask for a raise.
Shannon at The Feminist Mystique points out that everyone should be upset by this change.

Setting up the survey this way makes it difficult to track changes about who is doing what in families at a time when parental roles are rapidly changing. And it should offend parents. Not just women, who are assumed to be the "designated parent" and whose care giving isn't considered work, but also men, whose parenting is considered to be nothing more than baby-sitting.

What are your thoughts? Are dads no more than child care providers?

Family Section Editor Jenna Hatfield (@FireMom) blogs at Stop, Drop and Blog and The Chronicles of Munchkin Land. She is an editor, writer and photographer. Her husband is a dad.

OMG! I'm Going To Be A Grandmother!

Denise — Fri, 10 Feb 2012 17:00:00 +0000

I've probably said "OMG I'm going to be a grandmother!" 800 times in the last five months. And when I wasn't saying that, I was saying "WOW!" and "This is awesome!" and also, did I mention, "OMG!"?

It's weird. I've never been one of those moms who spent a lot of time thinking about what it might be like for my children to grow up and parent their own children. Or what it might be like to be a grandmother. If my kids became parents -- OK. If I never became a grandmother -- that's OK, too. It was just not something I ever focused on. Even when Jenn, my oldest daughter, told me that she and Teddy were going to try to have a baby, I didn't spend much time picturing what that would look like or feel like. I pretty much never thought about it unless she called me and was speaking in that voice she uses when she either has something big to tell me or is trying to decide whether she wants to talk about something big.

When the call came, and she was using that voice -- it didn't even cross my mind that she was going to tell me she was pregnant and for quite a long time, all I could really say was "OMG!" and "AWESOME!" and I might even have let out an "OMFG, you're kidding me!" or two. (Yea, I'm that kind of mom.) Once I could get beyond that initial shock, not that I've really gotten over that shock, mind you, I started to ask real questions. Stuff like...

When are you going to make an appointment at the clinic?
When do you think you'll tell people?
When you choose a name, will you tell people or will you keep it a secret until the baby is born?
Do you want to know the gender?
Will Teddy actually BE there for the birth of the baby?
Most importantly, you're going to take belly shots so I can see the elephant (tattoo) grow, right?

Much to my frustration, my daughter who had been trying to get pregnant for quite some time had almost no answers to these questions. (In some ways she is her mother's daughter and other ways, not so much.) So I did what I do --

I urged her to make the appointment soon but also told her that if she wanted to wait to make sure that Ted could go with her, that would be cool -- but in a military hospital, that first appointment isn't much more than peeing in a cup and giving blood.
I told her that I understood how hard it was to tell people early in the pregnancy and that it's even harder when you're five time zones away from most of your family and I promised I would not blog or Facebook the news until she gave the OK. (Though I did break the promise and finally tell some of my coworkers before Jenn officially gave the OK - it was taking FOREVER for her to get some folks on the phone and a future grandmother can only wait so long before she has to tell SOMEONE.)
I told her that I wouldn't be upset if she decided not to tell me which names they'd chosen until the baby was born.
I reassured her that I didn't have an opinion on knowing the gender beforehand.
And of course, I told her that I hoped Teddy will be there but if he isn't -- I WILL BE THERE.
Then I put my foot down with YOU WILL TAKE BELLY SHOTS OF THE ELEPHANT.

Time passes and she called to tell me I was right about that first appointment. A little more time passes and she sends me a text message with a photo from a very early ultrasound that was done just to look for twins, since there is a history of twins in the family. More time passes and she's ignoring my request for belly shots. She's had no morning sickness, which annoys me since I was sick non-stop for six months when I was pregnant with HER. She's craving apples, which made me laugh because apples, really?

This led us to think up fun "apple" names for the baby:

Apple, like Gwyneth
Johnny, like Johnny Appleseed
Mac, like Macintosh apples
Fiona, like, err, Fiona Apple
Pippin, we really like Pippin.
Adam or Eve, maybe?

We have had tons of fun with apple baby names but now that we know we're having a boy, I've settled on Johnny Mac Pippin and suspect I might have to always call him that. What? Grandmothers can call their grandchildren odd names, right?

I sent Jenn apple-themed presents for Christmas. A set of little wooden baskets with apples, a silver apple necklace, an iPad, apple scented soap and I also sent her Chewy Sweetarts because that's what I craved when I was pregnant with her.

And, I finally started getting the belly shots I had asked for -- once a week, almost like clockwork.

I bought her a crib and cute elephant bedding. TW bought her a glider rocker. We've bought more cute baby clothes than I can begin to tell you. I'm well on my way to being an, (OMG), grandmother.

All of those things happened and I kept telling myself to blog this -- and yet I couldn't seem to do it. It's too big. Too weird. Going from being the mom of the infant to the grandmother, it's just too "OMG I'm going to be a grandmother!" How do you blog something that big? It's not at all like when I blogged about being the (reluctant) mother of the bride. Having a grandchild is different -- there's no ambivalence at all -- it's just a huge, glorious thing. It's also a frustrating thing since she lives in Hawaii and I live in Chicagoland. There should be a law against your child giving birth so far away.

OMG I'm going to be a grandmother! Can you believe it?

~Denise
BlogHer Community Manager
Life. Flow. Fluctuate.

How My Son Turned a Swastika into a Sign of Peace

BeyondSiri — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 19:02:06 +0000

While walking with my 8-year-old son near our home in Manhattan, he spotted a purple swastika scrawled across a billboard advertisement. As I took in the complexities of the situation, my son uttered words that made my heart break...

Across the nation, anti-Semitic bias cases have been capturing news headlines. Last month, two men from Farmington, New Mexico were sentenced to time in federal prison for branding a swastika on the arm of a Navajo man who suffers from mental disabilities. Swastikas were found graffitied on storefronts and homes across the New York metropolitan area, and a teenager has been charged with throwing Molotov cocktails at a synagogue in New Jersey, igniting a fire in the residence of the rabbi and his family.

The rash in anti-Semitic incidents prompted many leaders to talk about the need to "speak up and condemn these vulgar crimes" and to "respond forcefully." But how do you respond to bias when you're with your young child, and the crime is in your own neighborhood?

I was recently faced with this question while walking with my eight-year-old son down a street near our home in downtown Manhattan. He was the first to spot it -- a purple swastika scrawled across the forehead of a man on a billboard advertising a cruise line.

"Isn't that a swastika?" he demanded, pointing.

"Yes -- it definitely is," I answered. "Where have you seen one before?"

"Raiders of the Lost Ark," he said, staring up at the graffiti.

I was quickly taking in the complexities of the situation and what to say next when he said sadly, "The person who did that hates me, and he doesn't even know me."

You don't have to be raising a Jewish child to understand the heartbreak in those words. As I took his hand and we continued on our way home, I told him a somewhat disjointed story about my own understanding of the swastika and what it stands for.

I told him about how confused I felt when I first saw an ancient swastika carved on a temple in Thailand in my post-college backpacking days. And how the symbol, which originally had a positive, sacred meaning in Hindu, Buddhist and other traditions, was turned on its side (literally) by the Nazis and became a mark of Aryan supremacy.

This led to a discussion of Hitler's view of a master race, which is pretty tough to explain to a blonde-haired, blue-eyed Jewish child. (A friend fondly refers to him as "the Jewish Viking.") I was careful not to alarm him, but I wanted to be accurate and honest.

I am admittedly not an historian nor an expert on current day hate symbols, but we seldom wear our professional hats when talking to our children anyhow. What I began to see was that he needed to have a sense of control over what he had just seen. My telling him I was going to call the City's 311 information hotline to report it wasn't going to be enough.

"So what do you want to do about the swastika?" I asked.

"Let's get a can of black spray paint and cover it over," he suggested.

"That might feel good," I said. "But wouldn't we be destroying something that doesn't belong to us?"

"We could put something good over it," he said thoughtfully.

I couldn't imagine what that could be, but listened anyhow. Sometimes a child's internal compass points them to their own true north, and it's best for us adults to get out of their way. Armed with colored paper and markers, he came up with this...

Which I lifted him up to tape on the billboard the following day...

Clearly this is just a beginning. Anti-Semitic acts and other signs of hatred will not vanish over night, and our conversations and responses will evolve with each passing day. But the important thing is to keeping talking and to always, always respond.

For more information:

The Anti-Defamation League has an on-line resource called Discussing Hate and Violence with your Children which includes advice from Dr. Donald J. Cohen, Director of Yale Child Study Center and Professor of Child Psychiatry, Pediatrics and Psychology at Yale University.

Why "No, David" Is Bad for Kids

JennaHatfield — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 19:00:00 +0000

If you're a parent of younger children (or have been since 1998), you've probably ready No, David or any of David Shannon's highly popular books. We have the full David library in our home; they're a popular, easy to read favorite of my two sons. Jennifer Lehr of Good Job pointed out in a recent post that the David series is ultimately damaging for our kids. What do you think? Should we never tell our kids no? Are David books bad for our kids?

She takes specific offense to the author's note in the original book:

He thought it would be fun (!) to celebrate (!) the ways he was punished as a kid? I mean Shannon himself gives us a heart-wrenching picture of a little boy sitting in a corner with tears dripping down his face. Where’s the fun in celebrating that? Am I alone in finding his celebration perverse? I can see exorcizing his demons as liberating, but celebrating the ways his enthusiasm was punitively squashed?

Reading Shannon’s note, I couldn’t help but picture a confused, hurt and angry little boy being sent to his room, yet again, grabbing a pencil and paper and in the depths of his despair scrawling the words No! No! No! No!—so angry and hurt but ultimately so desperate for his mother’s love that he was ready to fall into her arms at the first sign of her softening. I imagine it must be so hard for young children to wrap their minds around the idea that things they’re inexplicably driven to do—like banging on pots and pans loudly and jumping around like a superhero—are so bad that they would cause the woman who loves them most to do and say and things to them that feel so hurtful.

Photo Credit: Read Every Day.

What Kids Can Teach Us

Natalcho — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 18:30:16 +0000

A couple of weeks ago when I was in Bulgaria, I had the pleasure of spending a little bit more time with my two nieces. The older one is at an age where she begins to question the world around her, her critical reasoning is developing and she is starting to appreciate that things are more complicated than she might have thought.

My niece only needed one week with me to teach me some very important life rules that I will try to live by from now on.

Lesson 1: Never ever try to explain the stone age to a 4 year old. She is now at this age where she asks "why?" whatever you say. So after 30 minutes of playing the "why" game, I found myself trying to summarize the complex plot of the Flintstones. And then I somehow found myself explaining how years and years ago people didn't have proper houses but they lived in caves. Her response: "Why?" Well, people didn't know back then how to build houses. "Why?" Well, they just didn't. "But why, why couldn't they build houses -- like this, it is easy!", she said putting her two palms above her head which I immediately recognized as the international kid sign for "roof." So yeah, I had to distract her with a story about princesses to get her off the topic of the Stone Age. Just try to avoid it if you can, ok? I figure it is more like a 5 year old topic.

Lesson 2: Always make time in your day for some play.

If people around you are not as committed to your play schedule as you want them to be, change their mind by repeating "why?" no less than 300 times irrespective of the answer they give you.

Lesson 3: Take pleasure in the little things in life.

Really, look around you and squeal with joy every time you see something moving, especially if it is sleazy and auntie runs away when you try to give it to her.

Lesson 4: Always make sure that you are surrounded by your friends. If you can color coordinate their outfits, make them kiss and marry every hour on the hour and bring them with you everywhere, all the better.

Lesson 5: When you cannot figure out the answer to a difficult question (like "Mommy, what would happen to all of the stuffed animals when all the people die? Will all the stuffed animals be bored because they will have no one to play with?"), just let it go. Knowing the answer is probably not that important anyway. Brush the difficult question away because really, "all the people will die far in the future, like in a couple of weeks, so I don't have to think about this now." Ah, my niece already reminds me of Scarlet O'Hara -- "I will not think about this now, I will think about it tomorrow"....or you know, in a couple of weeks.

More life lessons to come soon...

A Memory Sparked by Josh Powell and His Sons

Shannon_Lell — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 20:18:45 +0000

On August 28th, 1987 I know exactly where I was and what I was doing. I was nine. It was Friday and one of the last days of summer before the first day of 4th grade. That morning I was just another American kid riding my pink, banana-seat bike with streamers on the handle bars and listening to Madonna on cassette tape. By the end of that day, I learned what evil was.

There's a local news story here in the Northwest Region that has made the national news. It's not a pleasant one. In fact, it's one of the most horrible things you can imagine. A man named Josh Powell allegedly killed his two sons in an effort to cover up the alleged murder of their mother. The story has brought back memories from my childhood that are hard to think about.

When I was nine I lived in an average, middle-class, Midwestern suburb of Kansas City, Missouri. I played softball in the Summers, got poison ivy every year from traipsing through the woods and my best friends lived within walking distance of my front porch. There were oodles of kids in my neighborhood, among them were two brothers. Their names were Jeremy and Eric. Jeremy was 12 and had sandy blonde hair. All the neighborhood girls had a crush on him. Eric was only eight and a year behind me in school. They weren't my best friends, mostly because they were boys, but on August 28th, 1987 I spent the day with both of them building a go-cart out of scrapped wood. That evening, after the go-cart had been sufficiently tried and failed, Jeremy and Eric's mother, like so many mothers, stood at the top of the street in a white blouse and called them home for dinner.

On that warm summer night me, my best friend and some other girls from the neighborhood were playing truth or dare on the front porch. One of the dares involved running into the middle of the street and pulling your shirt above your head. I can't remember if it was my dare or not, but someone did it. Shortly after, a cavalcade of firetrucks and police cars descended on our street and we thought for sure we were going to jail for indecent exposure. To our shock they passed us by and stopped up the street right in front of Jeremy and Eric's house. The previously dark and relatively quiet night was now ablaze in flashing lights and loud, scary sounds.

We didn't see or smell fire and they weren't getting out their hoses. The longer the police officers and fire fighters stayed, the more curious we became. I was a brave little girl and I volunteered to go up the street and eavesdrop on the adult neighbors gathered on the sidewalks to find out what was happening.

As I stood across the street looking at the house where the boys lived, I glanced down to the police car in front of me. In the backseat, closest to where I was standing sat their mother. She was wearing the same white blouse from earlier only now it was stained with something dark. Her hands were cuffed behind her back and she leaned sideways, her head on the window looking down. I couldn't see her eyes, only the side of her face. She was so motionless and seemingly catatonic that I remember thinking she might be dead.

She wasn't dead, but her sons were. After she called them to dinner she took them to McDonald's and then to a motel less than a mile from our street. She stabbed them to death with a fishing knife. She had just lost a custody battle with her ex-husband and decided that having them dead was better than having them live with him. I didn't know her name then, but now I will never forget it, it was Nila Wacaser.

My best friend and I, we went to those boys' funeral. We planted trees at our school and tied ribbons around them in memory. I honestly don't know how my nine-year old brain made sense of that whole thing. Perhaps it is a part of the fabric of my life that has inspired me to want to understand the human condition?

I can only say that as an adult and through my desire to understand why people behave the way they do, I understand mental illness in a whole new way. I know now that people don't have to be coughing or in the hospital to be considered sick and that just because someone smiles at you from over the fence doesn't mean they are okay. I know now that mental illness can make people do destructive, incomprehensible, nonsensical things that will make you shake your head in judgment and horror.

Please do not mistake me as carrying water for these people. Calling Josh and Nila "mentally ill" feels like an insult to those who are suffering from mental illness. What these two people, PARENTS ~~allegedly~~ did to their OWN children and the premeditation involved in these acts goes so far beyond that technical definition of mental illness and yet, it feels like the best words I have to describe it.

Believing that you own your children because you helped give birth to them is a mentally ill. Believing that taking another life is better than having your own pride wounded or going to jail, then you are most definitely sick in the head. Operating out of a place where your own self-importance ranks higher than the life of an innocent child, your OWN child at that, is certainly, at the VERY LEAST MENTALLY ILL.

The only way I can attempt to make sense of Josh and Nila now is through the prism of my adult view of humanity. I believe that when people buy into their own self-importance, their ego, their pride, their sense of property, ownership and identity as being something other than, and separate from, whatever they call God, (but more importantly of COMPASSION and LOVE); then people can become severely, painfully, often times destructively mentally ill.

Josh and Nila are extreme examples of that kind of illness.

I'm not sure that I truly understand any more now than I did then what could drive someone to do something like this; not entirely anyway. All I'm saying is that Josh and Nila didn't know ONE thing about what it means to live and be alive in this world and perhaps its better (for many reasons) that neither of them are anymore.

My heart went out to Jeremy, Eric and their family when I was nine, and my heart goes out to Charlie, Braden and their family now. May all you boys have found the love that you deserved on Earth. Peace be with you now and always.

Photo Credit: leoboiko.

Racism in Adoption: Charging Different Fees for Different Races Is Not Okay

JennaHatfield — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 18:00:00 +0000

[Editor's Note: Adoption agencies charging different prices for different races is a hot button issue for me. That's why I love that Lara at Pocket Full of Prose shared her thoughts on the matter too. The more that we talk about this from all sides of the adoption triad the more that people -- and these unethical agencies -- will understand that this is simply not okay. -Jenna]

Racism in Adoption:

As a hopeful adoptive parent, I am constantly researching new ways to network to increase our chances of finding our baby. I am listed with an adoption agency, but I check out other agencies and adoption networking sites all the time to see if it would benefit me to use them.

There are a few -- quite a few, to be honest -- that cross a line I am not willing to cross. The have a fundamental flaw in their business that I cannot overlook. Plenty of Lifetime movies paint adoptive parents as so desperate for a baby they will do anything, absolutely anything no matter how despicable, for a baby.

Not true of me.

So what is the deal breaker for me?

Different adoption prices for different races.

Photo Credit: lizsaldana.