First, this is simply my opinion. In no way do I intend to state that my opinion is right, nor do I intend to imply that those with other opinions are lacking intelligence or are in some way wrong. Furthermore, if I have missed the boat on something or am really just not seeing things clearly, please feel free to correct me.
For those that haven't read any articles on this yet, I've included some links below. I tried to look for the most reputable sources, which was a lot harder than it should have been.
http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2014/06/30/326926331/companies-can-refuse-to-cover-contraception-supreme-court-says
http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/hobby-lobby-wins-contraceptive-ruling-supreme-court/story?id=24364311
I believe a very dangerous precedent has been set in our country today. As a woman and a mother to two young daughters, this makes me afraid for the future of their rights. To be a little dramatic, our country has been set back about 75 years. That's 1938, I did the math.
My first point is that to me, this is not about religious freedom. I fully support the freedom of religion, and I agree with the Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1993 that states the government not infringe on religious beliefs "unless that action
constitutes the least restrictive means of serving a compelling
government interest." I believe all people should be able to celebrate their chosen religion without fear of negative consequences. And yes, this means that if I saw a Muslim praying in my back yard, I would wait until he was finished and then offer him some coffee and cookies, dammit. It comes down to being a decent human being.
What I don't understand is how this can be considered a win for religious freedom when the companies in question are actually forcing their religious beliefs on their employees. As my husband said, then don't work there. Okay. Done. But the Supreme Court has said that this is okay. This is what scares me.
While the Hobby Lobby and Conestoga Wood Specialties Corp. do in fact have sincerely held religious beliefs (that is not in question), I wonder how long it will be before other companies miraculously have those same kinds of beliefs. I bet a few large companies are already drafting petitions to be included in this declaration so they simply don't have to pay for their employees' contraception. Where is the line drawn for which companies this applies to? How can you say yes to two companies and not others? When you brought treats into the classroom, did you bring enough for everyone?
My second point has to deal with the contraceptives themselves. For those that haven't read anything on this, the companies are not refusing coverage of all contraceptives but rather only four. These four types may have the effect of preventing an already fertilized egg from
developing any further by inhibiting its attachment to the uterus. Given their religious beliefs, I completely understand why they would want to do this.
I understand it, but I don't accept it. A woman's decisions (good, bad or otherwise) are her decisions. Let's play a little game to prove a point.
Scenario 1: A young woman, after a night of drinking, sleeps with a man. Upon waking up, she realizes that no protection was used. Not even remembering the name of the man, she quickly heads to the drug store and picks up a Plan B pill. A few weeks later, she is reassured that she is not pregnant.
Scenario 2: A man and woman who are in a committed relationship wake up to find a broken condom. Having already decided that they are not ready for children, the woman takes a Plan B pill. Again, after a few weeks, they are relieved to know they will not be parents soon.
Scenario 3: A woman has unprotected sex with her husband. Unfortunately, this woman is also terminally ill. At the fear of having child that might not survive, she takes a Plan B pill.
So what do you think of these women? Do you view them differently? How do you feel about their experiences?
Trick question. Unless that woman is your daughter, significant other, friend or family member, your feelings don't matter and aren't necessary.
So why do these companies care what their employees are doing in their extremely personal lives?
My third point is that this debate over contraception is actually a symptom of a much larger problem we have in our country. I've heard horror stories about young people that didn't understand that sex leads to babies. We have sexual education in school, but it's clearly not doing jack crap. Sex in the United States is both taboo and sensationalized. We want to be sexy and sought after like celebrities and the rich. We have an incredibly hard time differentiating between sex and sexiness.
There is much debate about abortion and contraception and how we handle things after-the-fact. We are stuck in a reactive rut when it comes to sex. The biggest question we should be asking is What can we do to help decrease these unwanted pregnancies from even happening.
Offering contraceptives for free is a great start. Some women also need the health benefits of contraceptives and use it for this primary reason instead of preventing pregnancy. A more novel - and shocking - idea is to talk about sex. Sex leads to a number of things: emotions, diseases, and babies to name a few. Sex is tricky in this day and age and to not talk about it has proven to be detrimental. Instead of learning about sex from movies (because it never happens like that), we need to accept that we are a sexual country and deal with it accordingly.
If my son came home from high school one day and informed me he had impregnated a girl because he didn't know what he was doing, I would feel like I had failed him. Not because he got a girl pregnant, but because I didn't educate him on the emotions he was having and the consequences of those emotions being carried out in physical action.
This is not to say that simply talking about sex will prevent people from being irresponsible. That's where the contraception comes in. When it comes to abortion, that's a topic I'd rather not discuss (right now). However, if we can be responsible enough to use the knowledge we have without fear, we can greatly reduce the need for morning-after pills and abortions. And you can call me crazy, but maybe addressing the root cause instead of arguing with gavels and religious writings in hand all day might produce a little more progress.
I will be curious to see where this goes in the coming weeks and what impact it will leave in the coming years. I wonder if there will come a day when a woman as to decide where she wants to work based on their religious beliefs. This also doesn't just apply to Christianity either. Did you know that Conestoga Wood Specialties Corp. are Mennonites? This shouldn't matter, and the Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1993 does not distinguish between religions. Does this mean that a company owned by a Muslim family can force their employees to participate in daily prayers?
Okay, maybe that's a little extreme.
Or is it....? Again, when the Supreme Court brought treats for the class, did they bring enough for EVERYBODY?
Monday, June 30, 2014
Wednesday, June 25, 2014
A Few Hours at a Time
Today is a (somewhat) typical day. I say somewhat because no day is really typical. You'd think that being a stay-at-home parent would mean that every day was the same, but it's anything but.
I just looked in the mirror. Bad idea. Haven't showered since Sunday night. Seriously. I haven't found enough energy and time coinciding to shower in the last 52 hours. I had planned on doing that this morning at 5am (my "normal" bathing time), but all three kids came down with a massive head cold and I was room hopping all night. I'm lucky only one of them ended up in bed with us and kicking me in the face.
I've been up for an hour and a half and am just now sitting down to eat breakfast. Breakfast for me is a loosely applied term referring to food that is eaten in the morning. Today it is toast with butter, cinnamon and sugar. If I am lucky, I'll get to finish both slices of bread before the kids' radar goes off and they realize I am sitting down and eating. Even though they already had pancakes this morning, mom's food always seems to be on the menu.
My coffee, which was poured about an hour ago, is cold, but I'm drinking it anyway. Filling my cup with a warm liquid would for sure instigate some sort of crisis that would only let it sit on the counter for another hour.
And then it happens, just as I predicted. I hear a sound, so I get up to check it out. My daughter has once again broken into our bedroom and dumped all the cat food into their water, then dumped it on the floor. This is becoming a weekly routine despite the time-outs, taps on the butt and locked doors (she's a master lock-picker at the age of 2). I get up and scold her, then close and lock the bedroom door - again. She follows me out to the kitchen and having used her spidey-sense, realized I was in the process of eating - without her! How dare I! I must now share my food or face the consequences.
Wait, what's that she keeps saying? Is that the world "pee?" Yep. Sure is. Underwear are soaked. Time to change, the first time of many today, I'm sure. She's potty training and some days are good, but some are bad. I yell at her to get off the table, with her pee soaked pants and all.
Oops, turns out the pee-soaked pants were also full of poop.
Meanwhile, the baby is still sitting in the high chair, full of pancake and ready to evacuate. Since I am obviously busy cleaning up poop, the baby starts to scream for my attention.
And of course, right on queue, the guy is here to fix the windshield on the truck. As I close the door behind me to lock out the screaming kids, I notice that he won't make eye contact with me and my greasy hair.
Back inside, I clean up the toddler and get new pants on her, clean up the baby and the high chair, and let my son go over to the neighbors to play (and by let, I mean ushered out the door with an enthusiastic wave of my hands).
For one spare moment, all the kids are clean and the house is quiet. I plop down on the floor with my two girls, who are innocently playing with their dolls. The giant stuffed bear is making an excellent pillow and I close my eyes for a moment. It's 9:30am. I've been awake for 2 hours and I'm exhausted. I have another 12 hours to go. I have dishes, laundry and dirty floors calling my name, not to mention my stinky B.O. which is even starting to bother me. But for one quiet moment, I lay down and try not to concentrate on my back pain or to do list. Instead I watch my girls play and realize how happy they are.
This. This one moment makes it all worth it.
And in just a few moments, the next round of chaos will start, and I'll still be exhausted but I'll be ready and I'll handle it because I can.
{By the way, if this blog keeps any of you from either coming to visit or from letting your kids play with my kids, I understand and I take no offense to it. We really should be out in the middle of nowhere and sequestered from society.}
I just looked in the mirror. Bad idea. Haven't showered since Sunday night. Seriously. I haven't found enough energy and time coinciding to shower in the last 52 hours. I had planned on doing that this morning at 5am (my "normal" bathing time), but all three kids came down with a massive head cold and I was room hopping all night. I'm lucky only one of them ended up in bed with us and kicking me in the face.
I've been up for an hour and a half and am just now sitting down to eat breakfast. Breakfast for me is a loosely applied term referring to food that is eaten in the morning. Today it is toast with butter, cinnamon and sugar. If I am lucky, I'll get to finish both slices of bread before the kids' radar goes off and they realize I am sitting down and eating. Even though they already had pancakes this morning, mom's food always seems to be on the menu.
My coffee, which was poured about an hour ago, is cold, but I'm drinking it anyway. Filling my cup with a warm liquid would for sure instigate some sort of crisis that would only let it sit on the counter for another hour.
And then it happens, just as I predicted. I hear a sound, so I get up to check it out. My daughter has once again broken into our bedroom and dumped all the cat food into their water, then dumped it on the floor. This is becoming a weekly routine despite the time-outs, taps on the butt and locked doors (she's a master lock-picker at the age of 2). I get up and scold her, then close and lock the bedroom door - again. She follows me out to the kitchen and having used her spidey-sense, realized I was in the process of eating - without her! How dare I! I must now share my food or face the consequences.
Wait, what's that she keeps saying? Is that the world "pee?" Yep. Sure is. Underwear are soaked. Time to change, the first time of many today, I'm sure. She's potty training and some days are good, but some are bad. I yell at her to get off the table, with her pee soaked pants and all.
Oops, turns out the pee-soaked pants were also full of poop.
Meanwhile, the baby is still sitting in the high chair, full of pancake and ready to evacuate. Since I am obviously busy cleaning up poop, the baby starts to scream for my attention.
And of course, right on queue, the guy is here to fix the windshield on the truck. As I close the door behind me to lock out the screaming kids, I notice that he won't make eye contact with me and my greasy hair.
Back inside, I clean up the toddler and get new pants on her, clean up the baby and the high chair, and let my son go over to the neighbors to play (and by let, I mean ushered out the door with an enthusiastic wave of my hands).
For one spare moment, all the kids are clean and the house is quiet. I plop down on the floor with my two girls, who are innocently playing with their dolls. The giant stuffed bear is making an excellent pillow and I close my eyes for a moment. It's 9:30am. I've been awake for 2 hours and I'm exhausted. I have another 12 hours to go. I have dishes, laundry and dirty floors calling my name, not to mention my stinky B.O. which is even starting to bother me. But for one quiet moment, I lay down and try not to concentrate on my back pain or to do list. Instead I watch my girls play and realize how happy they are.
This. This one moment makes it all worth it.
And in just a few moments, the next round of chaos will start, and I'll still be exhausted but I'll be ready and I'll handle it because I can.
{By the way, if this blog keeps any of you from either coming to visit or from letting your kids play with my kids, I understand and I take no offense to it. We really should be out in the middle of nowhere and sequestered from society.}
Wednesday, June 4, 2014
Tolerance v. Acceptance
Before I state my opinion on something, I generally like to know what I'm talking about. Making rash decisions and statements leads one to not consider all the facts and viewpoints and turn out to sound uneducated, naive and intolerant.
There's that word again: intolerant. I've heard that word, and it's derivatives, a lot lately. There are a lot of issues plaguing our country these days; abortion, gun laws, gay rights, the government in general. Those that stick hard and fast to their ideals and opinions on such matters are seen as intolerant. Those that don't have strong statements on these matters (or those that don't feel the need to share them all the time), are seen as accepting, passive and really just not caring.
For a long time, I've thought that tolerance and acceptance were the same thing. I was actually searching for a quote about tolerance when I found one that stated they weren't. This got me thinking. What is the difference between tolerance and acceptance?
Of course, I turned to the dictionary for the answer. Here is what I found.
Tolerance:
noun
This all boils down to what I'm going to teach my children and how I guide them in interacting with this world. Given that goal and after doing some diving to make sure I'm using all the knowledge I have, I know what I'm going to teach them.
Tolerate the opinions. Accept the person.
There is a reason there is distinguish here between the opinion and the person. At first, I thought this was an all or nothing deal. If you don't accept the opinions, you can't accept the person. Then I started thinking about all my friends that have different viewpoints than I do on a number of issues. Yet these people are still my friends. Why? Because they are good people. They have qualities that I admire, that I gravitate toward and that are symmetrical with the qualities I'd like to think I have. Why would I let a silly little thing like a difference in opinion keep me from missing out on such a wonderful person?
There's another word that has significance: person. Being a person is important. The literal definition of a person is a human being. It doesn't distinguish any other characteristics. You simply have to be human to be a person.
In true fashion, an opinion is a personal view. It's a view made by a person, one formed for many reasons. People have opinions because of the type of person they are.
So then how in the hell are we supposed to separate the person from their opinions?
That's where tolerance comes in.
People have opinions for their own personal reasons, and as another person, we have no way of completely understanding those reasons unless we were to live life as that person, or be that person. Likewise, another person will never have a 100% accurate understanding of your own personal viewpoints and opinions. Another way to put this is another definition of opinion: a belief or judgment that rests on grounds insufficient to produce complete certainty. There is no right answer when it comes to an opinion.
So why lose sleep and be upset about a different opinion? And why try to make our opinions into fact or become upset when others don't treat them as such? By pure definition, an opinion can never be proven.
Yes, there are sources that people base their opinions on, and people regard these sources as facts. While it's not necessarily false that these sources are fact, it all comes down to how the person interpreted those facts, again, based on their own personal beliefs. Two people can read the exact same scientific article and have two completely different opinions. The highest compliment of humanity is those two people being able to discuss the article, share their different views, and walk away as friends without any judgement or ill feelings towards each other.
Sadly, this hardly happens. On the brighter side, if this did happen all the time, we would make no progress. That's about as fine of a line as one can draw.
What this really all means is that I will teach my children the following:
1. Educate yourself. Form your own opinions and make sure you have them for the right reasons.
2. Protect your opinion and stick to it. If you have all the facts, this shouldn't be hard.
3. Understand that an opinion is never right or wrong, even yours.
4. Tolerate others opinions. Listen to them without judging.
5. Accept that there are other opinions in the world and that this is part of what makes it such a beautiful place.
6. Understand that a persons' opinion does not directly reflect on them as a person. A person is a person. This doesn't mean you have to like everyone, but have enough courtesy to stay away from those you aren't very fond of.
In short: Tolerate the opinions. Accept the person.
My greatest hope is that my children will listen, not just to me, but to themselves and to others around them. With that listening, I hope they will learn from themselves and others. The result would be that they will be able to think for themselves without demanding that others think like them, or worse, demeaning others that don't.
After all, we're all just people with our own opinions trying to survive in this wonderful world.
There's that word again: intolerant. I've heard that word, and it's derivatives, a lot lately. There are a lot of issues plaguing our country these days; abortion, gun laws, gay rights, the government in general. Those that stick hard and fast to their ideals and opinions on such matters are seen as intolerant. Those that don't have strong statements on these matters (or those that don't feel the need to share them all the time), are seen as accepting, passive and really just not caring.
For a long time, I've thought that tolerance and acceptance were the same thing. I was actually searching for a quote about tolerance when I found one that stated they weren't. This got me thinking. What is the difference between tolerance and acceptance?
Of course, I turned to the dictionary for the answer. Here is what I found.
Tolerance:
noun
1. a fair, objective, and permissive attitude toward those whose opinions, practices, race, religion, nationality, etc., differ from one's own; freedom from bigotry.
2. a fair, objective, and permissive attitude toward opinions and practices that differ from one's own.
3. interest in and concern for ideas, opinions, practices, etc., foreign to one's own; a liberal, undogmatic viewpoint.
4. the act or capacity of enduring; endurance: My tolerance of noise is limited.
Acceptance:
noun
In short, tolerance is a fair and objective attitude towards something outside your own opinions. Acceptance is the approval and belief in those opinions. It is also worth noting that both of these are nouns, meaning they are things and not actions. We have the capability, and the choice, to turn them into actions.
1. the act of taking or receiving something offered.
2. favorable reception; approval; favor.
3. the act of assenting or believing: acceptance of a theory.
4. the fact or state of being accepted or acceptable.
This all boils down to what I'm going to teach my children and how I guide them in interacting with this world. Given that goal and after doing some diving to make sure I'm using all the knowledge I have, I know what I'm going to teach them.
Tolerate the opinions. Accept the person.
There is a reason there is distinguish here between the opinion and the person. At first, I thought this was an all or nothing deal. If you don't accept the opinions, you can't accept the person. Then I started thinking about all my friends that have different viewpoints than I do on a number of issues. Yet these people are still my friends. Why? Because they are good people. They have qualities that I admire, that I gravitate toward and that are symmetrical with the qualities I'd like to think I have. Why would I let a silly little thing like a difference in opinion keep me from missing out on such a wonderful person?
There's another word that has significance: person. Being a person is important. The literal definition of a person is a human being. It doesn't distinguish any other characteristics. You simply have to be human to be a person.
In true fashion, an opinion is a personal view. It's a view made by a person, one formed for many reasons. People have opinions because of the type of person they are.
So then how in the hell are we supposed to separate the person from their opinions?
That's where tolerance comes in.
People have opinions for their own personal reasons, and as another person, we have no way of completely understanding those reasons unless we were to live life as that person, or be that person. Likewise, another person will never have a 100% accurate understanding of your own personal viewpoints and opinions. Another way to put this is another definition of opinion: a belief or judgment that rests on grounds insufficient to produce complete certainty. There is no right answer when it comes to an opinion.
So why lose sleep and be upset about a different opinion? And why try to make our opinions into fact or become upset when others don't treat them as such? By pure definition, an opinion can never be proven.
Yes, there are sources that people base their opinions on, and people regard these sources as facts. While it's not necessarily false that these sources are fact, it all comes down to how the person interpreted those facts, again, based on their own personal beliefs. Two people can read the exact same scientific article and have two completely different opinions. The highest compliment of humanity is those two people being able to discuss the article, share their different views, and walk away as friends without any judgement or ill feelings towards each other.
Sadly, this hardly happens. On the brighter side, if this did happen all the time, we would make no progress. That's about as fine of a line as one can draw.
What this really all means is that I will teach my children the following:
1. Educate yourself. Form your own opinions and make sure you have them for the right reasons.
2. Protect your opinion and stick to it. If you have all the facts, this shouldn't be hard.
3. Understand that an opinion is never right or wrong, even yours.
4. Tolerate others opinions. Listen to them without judging.
5. Accept that there are other opinions in the world and that this is part of what makes it such a beautiful place.
6. Understand that a persons' opinion does not directly reflect on them as a person. A person is a person. This doesn't mean you have to like everyone, but have enough courtesy to stay away from those you aren't very fond of.
In short: Tolerate the opinions. Accept the person.
My greatest hope is that my children will listen, not just to me, but to themselves and to others around them. With that listening, I hope they will learn from themselves and others. The result would be that they will be able to think for themselves without demanding that others think like them, or worse, demeaning others that don't.
After all, we're all just people with our own opinions trying to survive in this wonderful world.
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