Money for Babies

One of the reasons I was bullied in junior high?  We were Welfare People.  Why else would anyone have seven kids in the space of a decade?  The more babies you have, the more money Welfare gives you. The truth of the matter? My father was Catholic.  Birth Control was against his religion.  There were other Catholic families around, with a house full, and I honestly can't say if they got this treatment as well or if I was just an easy target. 

As an adult, I worked in stores and restaurants.  My coworkers were prone to making the same assumption about any woman with many children, especially if she was anything less than a fashionista.  Even the coworkers who got government help to supplement their meager income, or the ones who had a house full of kids themselves.  

I never had children, but was often seen with minions in tow.  I once had to stop my grandmother from "boxing his ears" when a man in the grocery store said something snide to us.  He saw an old lady, a young woman, a teenager, a preteen, and two smaller children shopping.  He jumped to the Welfare Mom assumption.  

I'd be a liar if I claimed I never used government assistance.  Hell, the name of this blog comes from the fact that I'm on SSDI and Food Stamps.  I'd also be a liar if I claimed I've never known a woman who gave birth for more benefits, or who simply accepted that if she couldn't support her surprise baby, she could get Welfare.  

I am in no way shape or form standing in judgement of Welfare Moms.  What I am saying is that for my entire life THEY taught me that "having babies for government money" is a vile thing to do.  But now there's talk of stimulating the declining American birth rate by... wait for it...  paying people to reproduce.  With government money.  

The dichotomy blows my mind, especially since it's coming from the same people who refer to "the parasite class".  What is the difference?  Anyone who thinks it's okay to cut every birthing mother in America a check needs to reconsider how they feel about Welfare Mom.  

Introspection

 He was born in the summer of his 27th year...  

It's a classic lyric, but it really isn't so far from my truth.  I was in my late twenties when finally prescribed fluoxetine.  

Oh, there were times as a child that I acted out.  What I learned from that was: I was unimportant, if not an outright burden. Everything was my fault.  I started writing stories as a coping method, even if I may not have realized it at the time.  And I always loved to learn.  Used to sit in the front hall reading encyclopedias.  

As an adult, I did explore specific issues, if they were pointed out in a kindly manner and if my inner seas were relatively calm. I took a few little vacations in the psych ward.  I even asked about medication because I saw how well the others in my group therapy did with it, but my request was dismissed.  I did not ask again.

As I said, I was past the quarter-century mark when yet another episode occurred.  This time the doctor suggested medication.  Prozac was fairly new at the time, and controversial, but it was a godsend for me. I tell people it saved my life.

Pop Culture has gotten better with its presentation of the mentally ill - we're no longer just comic relief or bad guys - but they still seem to get wrong the struggle.  Commercials for antidepressants make it look like you pop a pill and instantly everything is fixed.  A show's very special episode handles the situation in an hour or less.  That ain't how it works. 

Even if a pill could instantly repair chemical imbalances and emotional damage, there's the outer world to consider.  To make another reference, there's an exchange in one of the Harry Potter books that makes my point:  "You were the one who told me to stand up to people!"  "Yes, but not to us."  

Finally, I could consistently apply the coping methods I'd picked up over the years and learn more.  But the patterns remained.  My family still spoke to me as they always had.  I went to college for an associate's degree, but my previous work history was, shall we say, spotty.  The longest I had kept a job was a couple years and I'd been fired often.  So I was still washing dishes and ringing up groceries. 

But I was growing out of my despair.  I learned to separate what I felt from what I knew.  I went low (or no) contact with those who refused to respect my journey and the woman I was becoming.  I embraced myself.  

Now I'm on Disability, but I'm still writing and you can even buy two of my books on Amazon.  Nine out of ten of my personalities manage to keep that tenth one caged.  (Yes, I know that's inaccurate and maybe insensitive to people with actual multiples.  But I find humor opens communication.)  

But I wake up dreading the day ahead.  Once I get up and moving, that passes, but it's a rough way to start every day.   I have bad dreams. My feelings are easily hurt.  I'm not cured.  The commercials are fibbing.  The very special episodes are oversimplifying.  

Now that I'm gotten all this off my chest, maybe I can sleep.  It's almost dawn.  Thanks for reading. 

DNA

 My brother took an Ancestry DNA test.  The results are....  interesting.  

Our paternal grandparents were barely removed from the Old Country  (Germany in his case, Ireland in hers).  The majority of my brother's DNA is "Northern Europe".  "Germanic Europe" was a single digit percentage.  Knowing what I do about both DNA and history, I figure our Germans descended from invaders. Celts or Vikings are my best guess.  

Our maternal ancestors have been in this country much longer, so there's lots of cross-pollination potential.  The lines I've traced across the sea almost always go to Germany or Ireland, but so many generations in the Great American Melting Pot make them unpredictable.  

The Parkers having native heritage is one bit of family lore I've yet to prove or disprove, but anyone who has seen my mother or her father sees it.  I hoped my brother's results would help with that, but nothing has come of it so far.  

The way DNA mixes and sometimes gets lost in the shuffle, one of my other siblings could be bearing the genes we expected.  I'm just annoyed he didn't immediately match some Parker relative who knows all about *Great-grandpa the Indian Princess*!  

So far, I've had about a 50% success in proving family lore.  Some are disproven, some are proven, most are half-truths, and one or two linger in Limbo.  But a lot of my Parker lines stop at paywalls or simply peter out.  A lot of natives passed as something else to avoid The Removal.  A lot of births, adoptions, and marriages went undocumented.  

Maybe it's an amazing coincidence that everyone who looks at a picture of my mother asks if she was American Indian.  Scientists use physical traits to identify the racial identity of a skeleton, and most of us have some of those traits.  Logically, it doesn't fit to think my ancestors were lying or mistaken.  

This mystery ancestor is so far back the line, there's no way we qualify for any tribal membership.  Ultimately, it really doesn't matter to the big picture.  I just hate unanswered questions.  It doesn't matter if that one fellow died in a logging accident, either, but I want to know!  

Everything I find about how to research this tells me to start with the tribe.  One of my siblings believes we come from Miami stock, another Shawnee.  Both are indigenous to my area.  Both make sense.  My mother even went to far as to investigate a link to Quanah Parker of the Comanches.  Some of these Parker lines came from Virginia - maybe I'm one of the bazillion descendants of Pocahontas.   

It's quite maddening.  Like a Rubik's Cube.  

*Stole that bit from a book called How To Talk Trash in Cherokee.

My Trigger, My Problem

I broke my own rule this week.  I've often said that I am responsible for how I react to things and I should not expect the world to tiptoe around me.   

That's not to say my family and friends are perfect.  I know the problem isn't always me, but why get mad at Bob for acting like Bob?  Which is what I did.  Instead of taking a mental step back, instead of discussing my hurt calmly, I yelled and stomped away.  Been mad at myself ever since. 

I'm a bit confused about what exactly a trigger is, psychologically speaking.  Google says it's anything that negatively affects your emotional state.  Maybe I'm showing my age - I was diagnosed and did most of my research back when dinosaurs roamed the earth - but in my mind,  a trigger isn't something that makes you uncomfortable.  It's something that makes you think you are in actual physical danger. 

But I'll accept that things have changed.  If my usual feeling of inadequacy gets inflamed, I suppose that is a trigger. I won't, however, change my opinion on who is responsible for it.  I should have walked away and calmed myself, maybe even had a good cry.  What I should  not have done was verbally attack the poor guy for asking a question.  

BTW:  "Bob" accepted my apology.  

Mixed Messages

 One thing that seems universal, and especially for those of us on a mental health journey, is the mixed message.  Some of them are comical - a man with a cigarette punishing his kids for smoking, for example.  But the ones I want to talk about today are the ones we get when trying to apply things we've learned in therapy to daily life. 

I do a lot of people-pleasing, also known as going along to get along.  I don't even form strong opinions about mundane things (believe it or not) in order to avoid conflict.  I do enjoy a good, civilized debate about important issues, but that's not what I'm referring to.  I'm talking about "Where do we want to have lunch?"  

The home I grew up in was not conducive to disagreement.  If we were wrong about something factual, we were either stupid or lying.  I'm sure that played a large part in my love of research.   As for opinions,  I learned early on that Jeanie's opinion was trash.  None of my interests mattered, unless it happened to coincide with theirs. 

You may wonder what all this has to do with the Mixed Message.  You may think I've digressed.  I haven't, I promise.  Since I've learned to express those things that do matter to me, those old patterns create the mixed message.  Because others haven't broken with them.   

This is common with anyone on the road to Mental Health.  That's why family therapy is often recommended.  That's why addicts are encouraged to get a whole new group of friends.  Because if those around us oppose our new attitude, it's very easy to slip back into those old patterns.  They are comforting because we know them.  

But they are not harmless.  The behaviors that harm us, no matter what they may be, have harmed those around us.  If others aren't on the journey with us, but want us to heal, those messages are inevitable.  Because "I know I told you to stand up to people, but I didn't mean me" is a very real thing.  

On The Fringes

I'm going to start this blog with a little background information.  Bear with me, readers who already know this stuff.  I am a middle aged woman, never married, never had children of my own.  I come from a large family - seven siblings, all of whom have gifted me with at least one minion.  I became The Aunt.  You know, the one all families used to have: She babysat for free and caused a kid stampede every time she showed up, but she wasn't part of the nuclear family.  She lived on the fringes and was okay with it.

Several years ago, I moved in with a nephew.  The fringes I lived on got a lot shorter.  He and his wife said things like "I've got two kids.  A six year old and a forty year old."  They were in their late twenties/early thirties, so that was always good for a giggle.

Fast forward a little over a decade.  We didn't fight, not any more than any family would.  They didn't throw me out.  I didn't leave in a fit of rage.  I was simply ready to return to adulthood, which frankly had not been kind to me the first time around. 

Determining the new length of the fringes I live on, though...  WOW.  We treat it rather like I'm their grown child, gone off to college or something.  I do holidays with them.  His wife and I frequently run errands together.  I do laundry at their house and keep the boy overnight on a regular basis.

Some things have taken a little getting used to on all sides.  For most of the boy's life, it was the norm that Jeanie was going along on vacation or that he'd stay with Jeanie during one of Mom and Dad's weekend runaways. Mom "stealing Jeanie's truck" is no longer a given.  He's had to do the most adjusting, but even the extended family gets tangled in those changeable fringes.

My mental illness complicates things further.  Despite my meds and all the coping methods, that demon is still whispering constantly.  Despite the fact that my last major episode was fifteen years ago, those around me are concerned about my fragility.  I have to be very careful to make sure people know I'm okay with these changes, that I know they are healthy and sometimes even necessary.

All I can say it that it's a good thing I developed what little fashion sense I have in the early seventies.  I love fringes.  They're fun, if sometimes problematic.

Elizabeth Warren's DNA

I'm going start off with this:  Any comments about Warren's politics will be deleted.  

Elizabeth Warren has, for years, claimed to be an American Indian.  I have no doubt she believed it to be true and now DNA testing has validated the claim - to a point.  I doubt she can meet the blood quantum of any recognized tribe.  My point here is that Elizabeth Warren is not alone.  There are probably more of us claiming "great-grandpa was an Indian princess" than there are doing the opposite. (That line in quotes?  I totally stole it from a book called How To Talk Trash In Cherokee.)

Like Elizabeth Warren, I've grown up with stories of American Indian ancestry.  I've never claimed to be anything but the white girl I am, because I've got no documentation and because it's so far back I've probably got like one chromosome.  Most of the tales agree it came down the Parker line, and photographs of my mother and her father enforce that theory.

All the documentation I've found on my genealogy, however, lists the race as white.  This isn't proof that we're "lying" about the DNA being there.  Many American Indians chose to pass as other races, largely to avoid things like The Trail Of Tears.  Some claimed to be black, which speaks volumes about how they were treated... they'd prefer to be seen as black even before the Civil War!  I suspect something like this happened in my family.

Why do I insist on still believing it?  Because there is other evidence.  Physical Anthropology recognizes three skeletal types - one of which is Asian/American Indian.  Some of the physical markers?  High arches in the foot -- My mother had trouble finding shoes that fit comfortably. (Not that she wore them often, but I digress.)  Winged incisors and shovel-shaped teeth. High cheekbones, of course.  Shape of the eye socket.

With the skin on, of course, you also get the skin color.  All of these things are present in my documented-white family, varying in degree by individual.  Other physical indicators I've heard, but honestly have not deeply researched:  second toe being longer and slightly separated from the big toe.  Tendency toward diabetes and thyroid issues. All present in my family.

A note about DNA tests:  DNA can "fall away".  If Elizabeth Warren's test had not shown her native ancestor, it's possible he might still exist, especially considering the number of ensuing generations.  There is also the possibility that said ancestor was adopted into the tribe and therefore not genetically a part of said tribe.

When all the fuss started about Elizabeth Warren lying about her heritage, I was insulted.  She believed it to be true.  Just like me. If the university in question took her at her word, not requiring documentation, that's hardly her fault.  To say she lied is to say every one of us seeking our own hiding ancestry is a liar. 

The minds of the young, part 2

I just had an intelligent discussion of gun control with a child.  He is all for it - use both hands!  Okay, seriously, it was actually about how stupid people think teenagers are.  It started with his mentioning WW2 and how young the soldiers were.

Many memes play on the disconnect between how those men were seen and how men of the same age are seen today.  "Boys" stormed the beaches of Normandy.  Today, apparently, those same "boys" would be eating Tide Pods.  What happened?

My considered opinion, and that's really all this is, is this:  If anyone over the age of five (barring medical issues) is unable to think critically, their adults have failed them.  My minions are and were all over the charts on physical, social, and mental development.  Some of them were brighter at 10 than others at 30.  Some of them choose not to think critically, but that isn't the same thing as not being able.

Obviously, humans with still-developing brains are unable to understand things on a certain level.  I never expected them to.  "Don't stick your hand in the campfire" doesn't require a prolonged explanation of third degree burns.  "Those two men are married" doesn't need to include the Kama Sutra.  But I always have and always will respect the thinking abilities they have.

The young man I was talking to today is 13.  In many societies past, present, and probably future, he is considered a man.  He is expected to make adult choices.  But in modern America, he's still a child and therefore his brain is cottage cheese.  Yet he could discuss issues in elementary school.  Because his adults taught him to think.

There have always been Tide-Pod-Eaters.  Even now, they are not the majority.  As the song says, children are the future.  Teach them now and let them lead the way.

The Fashion Doll Market

Lots of news reports tell us that Mattel is foundering, that their signature doll lines are losing money.  I've been thinking about why that is and what they (and other companies) can or should do about it.  I realize the odds of anyone in power at those companies seeing this are slim.  I just want to get it out there, maybe stir up some conversation about it.

Monster High pushed Barbie off her throne a few years ago.  The first time I saw a Monster High doll, I was intrigued.  The offspring of classic movie monsters as fashion dolls?  And look at the articulation!  The striking hair colors and face paint!  Detailing on the wardrobe!

They lost their appeal for me, though, upon further inspection.  For one thing, I find them way too skinny and their heads are disproportionate.  They look like a lemon balanced on a chopstick.  I've never been a fan of anime eyes on dolls, either.

As I understand it from Monster High fans, the problem with the line is that product quality has fallen.  The Monster High dolls have lost the fantastic detailing.  The face paint is suffering - these formerly dynamic personalities are beginning to suffer from Vapid Face.  Yet Mattel's prices have remained the same, or even gone up.

Barbie doesn't seem to be suffering from a quality assurance problem so much as a customer feedback one.  They introduced different body molds and skin tones and reintroduced the sisters, which gave the line a boost, but then Mattel... sat on their hands.  I've yet to see those new body molds on anything but the Fashionistas and the sisters are stagnating while Mattel pushes 200 dollar dollhouses that can spy on you.

The sisters could be a cash cow. They could bring back the "sharing sisters" sets or even just make the sisters individual fashions.  I've heard that Skipper will be getting some friends, but Stacie has none.  And, oh, the play set potential!  Yet all Mattel gives them is yet another horse or dog.  Those horses really drive the price up, too.

Articulation was and is a big selling point on most doll lines, but your standard Barbie has very little.  The head turns and they move at the hips and shoulders.  Why would a parent pay as much for that as for another doll that can bend the elbow and knee?  Maybe even wrist and ankle?

All of the popular dolls lines are rooted in friendships. Kids are going to buy the "best friend" or "sweetheart" of the doll they already have.  Adult collectors are likely to do the same, for display purposes.  Most of the lines are officially set in a High School.  Teen Drama sells.

The companies need to get back to basics.  Kids want to use their imaginations.  Adult collectors want stunning detail work, and not in a motherboard.  Parents want a good value.  Stop with the amazing technology and just give us, you know, dolls.

Regifting

I have a niece who, for reasons beyond the control of either of us, I did not know very well.  I bought her gifts using her age and sex as a guideline. So, Barbies.  Eventually, I learned that she just wasn't a Barbie girl.  Simple communication could have prevented the whole situation, but that's beside my point.  She got unwanted and unneeded gifts.  What should she have done with them?    Kept them forever?  Threw them at me?

Regift like you have some sense, of course.  Don't open it and blurt out "I don't want this."  Don't turn around and hand it to Aunt Martha right in front of the giver.  But by all means, if I give you something you can't or won't use, pass it on.  Thank me for the thought, take it home (or wait til I leave) and wrap it up pretty to give Aunt Martha at her birthday.  Donate it to the charity of your choice,even.

The best course of action is to know what the receiver wants, of course.  I love the idea of registering for gifts when you marry or have a baby.  Kids write letters to Santa.  If you're close enough to them, you don't even need a list.  Items will jump off the shelves and scream their names at you.

Anyway, I have no problem with and even encourage regifting done well.  I'd much rather see Aunt Martha with it, if she'd love it and you don't.  If I get rich, I promise not to cut you out of my will for it.  Unless you did throw it at me.

White Privilege Revisited

I wrote a previous blog on the subject, which I'll summarize here.  In the previous blog, I took the position that white privilege does not exist.  I have since rethought the issue, learned more about it, and have relaxed that position.

My previous position came from having only been exposed to the issue by the polarized.  The fanatics, if you will.  As a result, the issue was not clearly explained and I felt attacked.  Cooler heads have since prevailed. 

Yes, I and my white brethren do get bullied (by civilians and by cops).  We do have to pay a debt to society if we break the law.  We did have ancestors who were mistreated and sometimes even enslaved.  We've had to work crappy jobs, live in crappy homes, and had folks misjudge us by appearance.   

American society has largely been shaped by rich WASP (White Anglo-Saxon Protestant) males.  Anyone who fails to meet that criteria automatically becomes somehow lesser.  The more of that criteria you fail to meet, the lesser you are.  The non-whites who get away with shenanigans that I mentioned in my previous blog do meet some of the criteria.  (Looking at you, Cosby.) 

The way history has played out, most non-whites are still struggling with poverty.  They are not WAS, even if they are P.  Half of them aren't male.  This is what folks are really referring to when they talk about white privilege. 

For example, it's against federal law to deny someone a job because of their race or sex, but it still happens.  The guy doing the hiring may not even realize it.  We're taught to prefer "normal" and that's usually based on the WASP model.  We are not doing it on purpose - at least not most of us - but we do it.  Even those of us, like me, who feel that being called a racist is a most vile insult.

I use race as a shorthand descriptive device.  What's Bob look like?  He's a skinny black dude.  Where'd we park?  Over by where that Mexican lady is loading groceries into her car.  Strictly speaking, that's racist.  Why is their race what makes them stand out to me?  Because I've been socialized to think of WASP as the norm. 

That doesn't make me a racist in the general meaning.  It just means we all, as humans, need to work harder on seeing what we have in common.

I Confess - I Don't Deserve Motherhood

Another tragic baby death in the news.  Another wave of judgement on the parents, who are already suffering the worst fate I can imagine.  But I guess now I know why God, or the Fates, or whoever you want to blame, denied me the one thing I wanted most out of life.

I'm not worthy of motherhood.  I've lost track of children in public places, which makes it very possible that one could have fallen into the Gorilla Enclosure.  I've forgotten the baby in the car because I wasn't used to having a baby in the car or because my mind was otherwise occupied.  It truly is a miracle that the dozens of children I helped raise lived to puberty.

How did Josh survive those repeated vacations with me?  What were his parents thinking, to allow him to travel farther than fifteen yards with such a terrible caretaker?  And then - horrors - Josh allowed his child to fly cross-country in my care!  Well, the grandparents went, too, but...   you know, the same folks who let Josh travel with me...  

My minions "know better" than to wander off.   But they still did and they still do.  I worry about children who don't simply forget the rules in exploring the wonders around them.  By the time they hit double digits, my minions know what to do if lost - or if grabbed.  Yes, I teach them of the dangers.  These things, apparently, render me unsuitable for parenthood.

As for the car, I guess my minions have been lucky that I had other people around to call me on my negligence.  The toddler who interrupted me (even though she knew better) to remind me about the baby - she saved Baby Sister from being MURDERED.  

I'm stunned that my flouting of gender roles for children hasn't resulted in a Pride Parade at family reunions.  And don't even get me started on the heinous crime of letting them have dirty faces or mismatched clothes.  But, thank the Higher Powers, my baby-forgetting and child-losing uterus produced nothing larger than that damn fibroid.  

Tarred With The Same Brush

My mother warred with the school, usually for justifiable reasons,  But there were times... like when my sister didn't want to take a required class or the English teacher who punished my brother for saying "ain't".  A few of my siblings were trouble-makers and the ones who weren't, Mother made up for.

I was the seventh Schmidt to go through that school.  Very few of the faculty saw me as the quiet, scholarly thing I was.  I was a trouble maker from the moment they saw my name on the roll.  One teacher even confronted me the first day of class to tell me as much.  That would have been bad enough, but the class in question was something I was looking forward to.  Eagerly.  Like Christmas. 

Creative Writing.  A subject already near and dear to my heart.  On one assignment, my character was meant to be brutally honest but came across - in the words of a classmate - like "an asshole."  I asked for advice on how to write the character better and the boy responded with something along the lines of "stop being stupid".  She ignored the vulgarity and the verbal abuse.  She had a student, near tears, in her class room and did nothing. 

The "Asshole" incident was only the most egregious example - in that class and in others.  Because I was a Schmidt, I deserved it.  It's on a much smaller scale, I admit, than racism or homophobia or religious prejudice. But the principle is the same. 

I've also been on and off Welfare all my life and been on the receiving end of "Get a job" (usually when I was already employed).  I've had people make snide comments to me because there's no way that lady using Food Stamps is not the mother of those kids that are with her. (I'm The Aunt.) 

I don't get offended at jokes about stereotypes.  I see them as a useful tool against ignorance. I will, however, give you the sharp side of my tongue if you believe those stereotypes.  Most of any given group are good people.  If I defend whites against being tarred by the same brush as the KKK, it is not because I'm white.  I'm just as likely to defend Muslims against the ISIS brush. 

Because no matter who you hit with it, no matter how small it is, that brush bruises souls.

Someday

Head's up, y'all...  this one's gonna ramble.  Something happened this week that touched a couple of nerves.  Not physical nerves, or literally a couple (you know who you are), but a few figurative ones.  

I blogged in the past about empty buildings and the homeless.  Just a few days before the event in question, I was discussing the same with a nephew.  I mentioned The Bodmer, a historic hotel here in my adopted hometown.  It was built in the 1930s as a hotel.  Beautiful architecture, massive building.  And it's been sitting unused for 30 years.  It's a local landmark.  Well, it was.  Turns out I was wrong when I told the nephew it was structurally sound.  One wall collapsed and took out another empty building next to it, which may have broken a third building (which is in use).  Both empty buildings were uninsured and neglected.  Why own them if you aren't going to take care of them?!  Likely response - "I was gonna fix it up someday."

My mother had a car.  It spent most of my childhood in the back yard, weeds grown up around it.  She did get it barely running from time to time.  But most of my memories of that car involve weeds and wheel-well wasps.  She had intentions of "fixing it up someday".  She eventually lost the house and the car went with it.  I have a few things I want to fix up someday, but I find a use for them and take care of them to the best of my ability in the meantime.  I don't park them in the backyard and let wasps live in them.  I don't let them collapse into Second Street and maybe bust another person's head or property.

I have a little table, for example.  The legs are wrought-iron or look like it.  I've painted them with Rustoleum just in case.  At some point, the glass top broke and my grandmother covered it with shelf liner so she could continue to use it.  Right now the top is a shelf from a broken TV stand - ironic, since I still think of it as Mamma's TV table.  My printer sits on it.

We had a lot of antique furniture when I was a kid, and some of the pieces are still around (I have seven siblings, after all) but far too many of them rotted away as they waited for Someday.  The legs broke off one of them - a huge, heavy buffet table - and I improvised legs for it and still used it. Looked awful, but damage was being minimized and it was still in use.  Eventually, it got "put away" for the proper repairs it would get Someday.  It's gone now.

I always said I'd hike the Appalachian  Trail... Someday.  I didn't stay in shape, I didn't save my pennies for gear, and now I know it's never going to happen.  Even if I come into millions, my poor ole body couldn't take it.  The owners of those buildings and my mother never got their Someday, either, at least in part because of their own lack of forethought.

If you want to do it, and you can't right now, take steps to make it possible if Someday ever comes. Don't let your Bodmer rot away because you can't fix it perfectly right now.  Upkeep, to the best of your ability, will make Someday much easier if it ever comes.

The Brains of The Young

Got into a discussion the other day, if you can imagine such a thing happening to me.  The topic at hand was the apparent homosexuality of a Disney character, but it rapidly became about something very different.  The other party insisted repeatedly that children are not capable of understanding homosexuality.

I've been a very hands-on aunt for most of my life.  My minions count in the dozens.  I've never come across a subject that children could not comprehend on some level.  You "dumb it down" for them, but they are capable of understanding.

Recently, I explained the transgender thing to a child.  I "dumbed it down" to having a girl brain in a boy body.  His head did not explode and he now understands the basic issue. We do have to be careful with our terminology - lesbians don't just love women, it's the getting-married kind of love.  We don't want little Suzie to decide she's clinically depressed because sometimes she feels sad.

Something else I've noticed about children is that they are more receptive to difference.  Race or religion are good touchstones here.  At a park, the kids all run and play together and it's no big deal if this one's a different color or that one won't eat a ham sandwich.  In fact, a conversation about those differences might start - thus they learn something about each other.  Adults could take a lesson.

It infuriates me that people so readily dismiss the brains of the young.  I have to laugh at some of the things I read in parenting magazines because otherwise I'd cry.  So much of that advice is stuff I've always done, without effort.  "When in the park, talk to the child about the various animals and plants you see."  WHO NEEDS TO BE TOLD THAT!?

Note I did not mention my position on having a girl brain in a boy body, or of wanting to marry a member of the same sex.  That all is really beside the point of this post.  The point here is simple.  Children are not stupid.  Simple, yes, but not stupid.

Am I Better Off Than Eight Years Ago?

"Are you better off than you were eight years ago?" is the recurring theme on my social media, with the transfer of Presidents happening today.  It's more of that ridiculous thinking that the President has The Power Supreme, that everything that's happened during his term is his doing.  So...  lets look at where I was eight years ago.

I was living with my nephew, his wife, and their toddler son.  I don't remember if I was still working, but if I was it was at McDonald's.  I have an Associate's Degree and I was flipping burgers.  (In the years since getting my degree, I had one job that sort-of fell into the area of Social Work and none that I couldn't have gotten just with my diploma. But I digress.)

I had, besides the ones I lived with, a slew of minions and grandminions.  In the years Obama was in office, those numbers increased.  Pretty sure he wasn't at any of those weddings or conceptions.  I made some new friends, mostly on-line, and developed new interests.  Don't remember Obama introducing me to any of that.  My father died in 2010, but that was cancer, not Obama.  But that's all personal stuff.  Let's look at the financial scene, which is what the question really refers to.

Now I'm on Disability and Welfare.  It's not much, but it's a steady income and I now have a little apartment of my own. My degree is framed on the living room wall.  So in that aspect, am I better off?  Is a steady income "leeched" off the government better than unsteady income from part-time low-wage work while I'm expected to pay back Student Loans?

I think it is.  Vindication is a wonderful thing.  I value the fact that finally, after all these years, someone in authority has recognized my problem.  If someone in authority had done so thirty years ago and given me the help I needed then, maybe I'd be working today.  But Obama did not do that.  The system that did that was in place before Obama was elected.

Obama did good things.  Obama also did bad things.  Everything he did, however, was within the system created centuries ago.  Yeah, it's been fine-tuned since then, but it is basically the same.  I'm better off than I was eight years ago, but Obama didn't do that.  I did that, with the help of the system that was around before Obama took office.

A Place Of My Own

The boy is twelve now, hardly in need of 24 hour supervision and able to do most of the chores that had been mine.  I started feeling rather useless, even though the family jumped up and down and insisted I was not!  There were also some minor personality issues. (I like sunshine and fresh air, they are vampires. I like to get 'er done, they procrastinate.)

Some folks seem to believe that I was kept in a deep dark dungeon and only let out to be a slave.  Looking at my history, there is a basis for this.  I have been known to stay in emotionally abusive relationships for far longer than needed, and even to defend the meanie.  But it is an insult to Josh and Chelle.  They treat me with more respect than most of the planet does.

I worried a lot about using my freeloading abilities to take more than I really needed, but several friends and family encouraged me to do it.  So I did.  I now have my own open window, sunshiny apartment with the help of those government programs for folks like me.  It's a nice little place and the only problem I've had is the smell of cigarette smoke.  Air fresheners are my friends.

I did have to leave Cleo behind, but she's happy at Josh and Chelle's.  Moving at the advanced age of seventeen might have been too much for her, anyway, and I do get to see her since I visit often.  I find myself talking to the Barbies.  I guess that's all right as long as they don't reply. 

Getting all my financial ducks in a row has been a little rough.  I'd saved the money for rent and deposits, big stuff like that, but the incidentals?  I had to buy a broom!  And a kitchen trash can!  Every time I turn around it, it seems like there's another small thing I need to buy.  Most of the big stuff is hand-me-downs - my family and friends are still offering me stuff.  

The conditions of my lease (IE limits on how long guests can stay) will protect me from being taken advantage of.  There's a reason Josh calls me The Big Sucker Lady...   So here I am, enjoying the sunshine and listening to Cat Stevens.  Maybe later I'll even open a window.  

Public Unisex Restrooms

I remember being a small child and asking why my brothers had to go into a different public restroom.  All the toilets were in little stalls, after all, and no one could see each other.  The reason given was that the urinals are not in stalls, and that some people will "peek" at the opposite sex.    

Forty years or so later, I still don't get it.  Urinals can be done away with, or put into stalls, or hidden in secluded corners.  I've been peeked at - by adult females and by children of both sexes.  So it's clearly not simply an "opposite sex" thing.

I also speak from the parental (more or less) point of view.  A female parent (or parental facsimile) can't go into the men's room, but may not feel safe letting the boy child go by himself.  Even if said boy child is "old enough".  Even parents who might take a boy into the women's room are reluctant to take a girl into the men's.  Those open urinals, I suppose.   Never mind that only Ron Jeremy might be able to use a urinal from a distance that would allow a sighting.

Which leads me to nudity.  There is nothing evil about any body part in and of itself.  No one's eyeballs have ever boiled from glancing at an unexcited reproductive organ, unless I missed that X-men comic.   Most people tend to shield those parts from view, anyway, even at the urinals.

The people who would hurt your child are not always of the opposite sex, nor are they always sexually motivated.  Sex-segregated restrooms do little or nothing to protect them.  In fact, if these predators target a woman's male child in a unisex restroom, she will be there to protect him.

I can't tell you how many times I've used a men's room because I was about to burst and the wait for the women's was forever.  Having a unisex restroom, smaller than the two combined would have been but larger than either alone, would make the wait shorter.  Builders could save at least the cost of that dividing wall.  A unisex restroom wouldn't need to be closed for cleaning - there's no issue of what sex the janitor is.

Unisex bathrooms simply make more sense, especially in a world where those lines are becoming more blurred every day.  Save money, time, and space.  Build unisex bathrooms.

Perception and Racism

My nephew-in-law is a black man.  He's been dealing with racism for his entire life, and now he sees it where it may not exist. I can understand this, as I do the same thing with Welfare.  If he and I were standing in line at the grocery and the cashier was rude to the food-stamp-using black person before us, we would jump to different conclusions.

Another example, from fiction.  Professor Slughorn is surprised by a student who was born to Muggles - non-magical people - excelling in his class.  Harry Potter, angry, responds with "One of my best friends is Muggle-born and she's the best in our year."  The first few times I read this, I thought Slughorn was in the wrong.  But what if his surprise came, not from the bloodline, but from the notion that a Muggle-born has no exposure to magic until the age of eleven?  Imagine a child raised with no exposure to music suddenly becoming a virtuoso!

I'm sure there are many others, but I'll get to the point.  We do not know the motivations of strangers. The cashier in my first example could have been rude for any reason - maybe even just be a rude person.  When I was a cashier in a grocery, there was a woman who came in regularly.  She always tried to buy twice as much food as she had money for.  Every time.  Had I been rude to her, it would have had nothing to do with her race or method of payment.

I had a chat the other day, with a ten year old, about "The N Word".  He said that sometimes people use it to mean "friend".  One woman I knew used it the way I use "Black".  Some folks use it as they do the term "White Trash"- but for black folks.  But the problem is, the perception of it as a slur is simply too strong, so I told the kid to never use it.

The same is coming to apply to the word "Redskin".  I've read lots of historical documents where that word was used simply as a synonym to "American Indian".  Clearly, having it used as the name of a sports team is intended as a compliment.  Those who the term applies to need to pull a Hermione Granger (back to Harry Potter) - she embraced the wizarding slur "Mudblood" as a badge of honor.  Basically... "Damn straight I'm a Mudblood.  Mudbloods are awesome."  It's too late, I fear, to save the N word, but the R word still has a chance.  

I'm not going to tell you racism doesn't exist.  We do, though, need to keep a calm head about our own perceptions.  That guy cut you off in traffic, not because you are a different color, but because he would have cut off his identical twin. That lady who tells you that your half-black children are beautiful means well, even if she is kind of ignorant.

Come to think of it, this advice applies to life in general.  Don't assume to know why people do things.  I bet everyone reading this has a different take on why the stick people family on my truck is huge.  Some of you, those who know me best even, might be wrong.

Showing Respect

Saw a post on Facebook this morning.  My nephew mentioned "John" and for a moment, I didn't know who he was referring to.  John is my brother.  His father.  He calls his father by his name, which I knew, but it got me to thinking about how we show respect.

When my grand-nephew referred to my father (his great-grandfather) as "Charlie", there were some protests.  How disrespectful!  The brother I mentioned has seven kids, and I don't think any of them call him anything but "John".  One of my sisters used to insist that her children call me "Aunt Jeanie" instead of just Jeanie.

I find it amusing and puzzling that people think titles are so important.  (Not that they are technically titles, but that's another blog.)  Is Grandmother respected more than Granny?  Is Dad respected more than John?  Would I be treated with more respect if I was Aunt Jeanie?  I don't think so.  I'd still be who and what I am, after all.  God help us if we start throwing in all the steps and exes.

And how do we decide which ones to use?  "Wife" and "Husband" as forms of address sound, at least to me, like ownership.  So does "Daughter" but not "Son".  Must be the male-dominated society I was raised in.  What about the relationships that defy labeling, like the friend who is as good as family?

My minions (nieces and nephews) mostly refer to me as Jean, or Jeanie, but the one who holds me in such regard that he moved me in to help raise his son?  "Fat".  It's an in-joke, but to outsiders it surely sounds terrible.

I don't really have a point with this blog.  I just want to share my musings and the cat isn't interested.