Barnmaven

So sensitive

I think of the bloggers I follow as friends.  Some of them know that, and perhaps feel the same way about me.  Some don't.  I feel they are friends because I have shared in their lives through the medium of their words and in them I have recognized myself. 

But sometimes I don't understand their sensitivity to the slightest insult. 

Perhaps my experience as a blogger doesn't lend to understanding.  It helps to have a small audience.

It helps to not be (s0) sensitive (anymore, after years of therapy and, one must say, getting old).

It helps that in almost five years of blogging I have probably only had one truly negative comment on this blog and one or two on posts elsewhere.

Even so.  I've had negative comments in other places that mattered way more than this space.  At work.  From friends or in organizations I belong to.  I'm no stranger to hearing really remarkable things being said about me - some true, some not.  Some nice, some ugly.  Whatever.

I don't care if you want to criticize me.  It's fine.  Go ahead.  I can take it.  If I weren't prepared to be disagreed with I wouldn't be putting my words on the internet for the world to view.  Offering opinion invites scrutiny.  Invites differing opinions.  Invites others to be amused, outraged, insulted, offended, enraged. (With any luck, not so much of the enraged. One hopes.)

Rarely am I critical of other bloggers, at least publicly.  I tend to be a supportive person, and I think that life's challenges for other people are for them to work out.  I think most people know what they really need to do to solve their problems, and the best way I know to help them is to just let them know I care.  I might have my own opinions about why they're in the pickle they're in, but personally I don't know that its helpful to share those opinions.  Besides, unless I know the person intimately, there are details of their particular situation that are invisible and unknowable to me.  That's the point where sharing an uninformed opinion might just make me an asshole. 

But just because someone's being an asshole doesn't make them a troll.

Very rarely will I leave a negative comment on another's personal blog, with the notable exception of Penelope Trunk, who absolutely makes me want to weep in frustration.  Other than that, mostly I believe I'm benign.  But I believe very firmly in the value of the critic. 

Insulting for the sake of insult is childish.  Taking umbrage or offering a different opinion is something different.  Perhaps others don't dialogue the way one would like them to, always, but the opinion that is offered is nonetheless often quite legitimate. 

 My sincerest advice to any blogger ( or friend on facebook or person on Twitter or coworker or RL person I love) is to let the voices of the angry horde blow by you like so much dust in the wind.  Listen to your own heart.  Do what you think is right.  It might not be right for me, it might be a bad choice that you make, but you have the right to make it and you have the right to ignore all advice to the contrary.  This is, though, only a first step.  Learning to put your life out there for the world to comment on means starting at step one:  Let it go. 

You could stay there forever at step one, learning to let what others think mean just what it does.  Staying at the first step is an option, certainly.  There's another place to grow, though, if you're up to it.  If you are secure enough to handle a little criticism, hear what is offered.  Receive it from a different place than one of defensiveness.  Listen to criticism with ears that are not  emotionally engaged.  Sometimes the simple act of doing this will grant you the ability to garner insight out of what you might have one time dismissed.  You don't have to take everything to heart, you don't have to take anything to heart. But don't be afraid to sift through it.  Dismiss what doesn't resonate, accept what might be worth digging in to a little deeper.  Do it without apology, without anger, without judgment.  Without EGO.

I appreciate the sense of community that being online offers.  I have a deep and abiding sense of gratitude to so many bloggers who have made me laugh, made me cry, made me think, made me mad.  Every interaction I've had has helped me to know myself better, helped me to grow.

But I think many times some of us fail to make the distinction between those that are critical of us and those that only wish to make us be quiet or be hurtful.  I think it is too easy to lump all negative commentary into one big cooking pot and label it "troll soup."

Yes, there are those that simply leave nasty words because for whatever reason at the time they wrote them, they felt joy in being destructive.  So what?  Unless they're threatening you bodily harm, their words mean nothing.  Hell, when I wrote the piece a couple of years ago about my daughter punching a boy  in the junk, the secondary syndication of that post on a nationally read platform actually had one commenter suggesting readers look me up via my BlogHer profile and pay me a visit.  (You bet, pal, I welcome you into my yard, so long as you're fine with really big dogs and if you don't mind the police officer who lives across the street may wish to handcuff you if you get out of hand.)  That kind of crap is out of line.  But whatever.  Someone calling me a jerk or a bitch or saying I'm a terrible parent or a terrible human being?  Those are just words.  Those words don't carry any more power than I lend them.  The ability to cope with the virulence of others, the responsibility to cope with the opinions of others , lies not with others.  It belongs to me.

Those who put their words in the court of public opinion have known this truth for as long as the written word has existed.  People will never as a whole respond to my words in the manner I hope they will.  I can deal with that.

I don't have to be angry with people because their opinions of me or my writing aren't what I hoped they would be.  Neither do you. 

Skyrockets in Flight and What I Look For in People

        Image Credit

Yesterday on the brilliant green grass at a local soccer field, against an azure blue sky, we sent rockets into the air.  One, two, three - and then again - and then again.  I've never set off a rocket before.  I can't wait to do it some more.

What kind of man buys rockets and motors and fuses and everything for his girlfriend's kids?  What kind of guy spends time thinking about activities that will enrich his girlfriend's children and get them off the computer and into the outside?  (Its not that I don't think about how to get them outside, but I'm somewhat less...um...creative.  Go outside and playis about as much as I seem to be able to manage.)  What kind of man patiently shows two very sensitive, obstreperous and distractible children how to put the wadding and the parachute and the nose and the motor and the fuse and the plug into their rockets?  MINE does.

The other best part about setting off rockets is having two hyperactive and overstimulated children around to run around and pick up all the parts from where they landed and bring them back to you.  It tires them out.

~*~*~*~*~*~

I was thinking a bit about the post I wrote earlier this week about the snobby people at the party who didn't think I was good enough to talk to.  Then I thought about other people at the party who I might not have tried to talk to either, and wondered if that made me just like the people I was sort of lambasting for being rude, self-entitled bastards.  Naturally no one wants to be thought of negatively, part of becoming a mature and self-actualized person is accepting that not everyone you meet is going to like you and you do not have to wrap yourself up in a pretzel trying to make them see just how wonderful you are.  But another part of becoming a mature, self-actualized individual is reviewing how you treat others and determining whether your actions are in line with your core values.  And since I value being treated kindly, is this something I give to others?

 

                    Image Credit

I was at ComiCon'11 in San Diego a couple of weeks ago.  "Crowded" falls woefully short of even beginning to describe the mob scene I encountered there.  The entryways, the escalators, the stairs, the eating lounges, the convention hall floors, the hallways between the session rooms - all were most of the time so shoulder-to-shoulder with people that if a fire had broken out the death toll would have been horrific.  And I like people but I hate crowds.  I hate being jostled and pushed and shoved and unable to easily navigate the fifteen feet between me and the booth I want to visit.  I hate not being able to take a clear picture of anythingbecause there's no way on earth you can make that many people stop walking between your camera lens and the giant Perry the Platypus bus they set up in the pavilion hall.  So when its me and that many people, I'm not bloody likely to be smiling and friendly.  Much, anyway.  But every time I was in line for something or stopped and sitting somewhere, I managed to find someone to talk to.

I like to have someone to talk to.  I don't necessarily want it to be the homeless guy who smells like old booze and possibly urine, but if he's my only choice?  I'll probably talk to him.  If its the girl who got on the plane and sat down next to me looking like Barbie but who is a real-life full-ride-scholarship law student who spent the summer in Croatia, I'll talk to her, even before I figured out that her cover didn't even begin to describe the book inside.  Pretty much if you make eye contact with me and don't throw something at me or rush away with a frown on your face (why do people do that?  Do I look like Quasimodo?), I'll probably at the very least smile at you or say "hi."

Sometimes at parties I have to breathe a little bit and I'll pull back to the outskirts and observe people.  I like to watch what people do in a group, watch the hierarchies develop and figure out what people are like.  Sometimes I'll seek out the person who looks like they're feeling left out or afraid of the crowd and I'll try to engage them.  And other times I'll want to be on the middle of the dance floor or in the center of the conversation with a big group of people.  And when I say "sometimes" I mean in the course of just the one party.  On a day when I'm feeling normal, I'm all over the map. 

But there are times and for certain reasons (I'm stressed out, I'm uncomfortable, I'm not on my game, I don't feel well) when I don't talk to people.  When I feel singled out.  When I'm new and don't know anyone yet.  When I first started working at my current job, I hated walking into the lunchroom when everyone was on break.  I didn't know people's names yet and I'm not good at remembering the ones I've already been told, and I don't like feeling like everyone's trying to figure out who I am without actually talking to me first.  And so I would kind of sneak in, get my water or my hot cocoa or wash my dishes, then leave again without making eye contact with anyone.  And so I imagine that the guys sitting around the table might, without being able to read my mind, get the impression that I was standoffish and cold.  (Four years and four Christmas parties later, they know better.  They've seen me play beer pong and make a fool of myself on the dance floor.)

And I think of the times I've been somewhere and avoided meeting the eyes of the homeless guy begging for change or the soccer team selling candy bars or the guy in the white suite and red hat asking for donations for his religious charity.  And I know I pretended I didn't see them because I didn't want to talk to them.  I don't want to buy whatever they're selling and I don't want to donate money to a group whose objectives I disagree with, and I need the $10 in my wallet because I'm a single mom who is fighting to make ends meet and I wish I could give it to the homeless guy but I can't.  But is that reason enough not to at least look at them and be friendly?  No.  Its not.

I imagine that maybe people who have money get hit up a lot by people they don't really know but who want something from them - a job, a hand up, a loan, a ride in their fancy car.  And I suppose that might make them naturally suspicious about people.  They may meet more people who want something from them than people who are just being friendly.  And maybe they're reacting to me the way I'm reacting to the homeless guy because they don't know me at all and they don't realize that I'm not asking them for anything, I just wanted to be friendly.  But still - just as its not a sufficient excuse for me, I think its not a sufficient excuse for them.  Because we all need to be better not just at being human but at being humane. 

I'm not better than the homeless guy.  I'm more fortunate.  Maybe he's not a nice person, but I don't know that until I meet his gaze and say hello. 

 

 

Relatively speaking

About once every two weeks I browse through the "people you may know" feature on LinkedIn.  If you're a social media junkie, you know that LinkedIn is the business and career (i.e. clean and sanitized) version of Facebook.  People post their resumes and job experience, connect with colleagues and business contacts.  No friday-night drunken party pictures or gratuitous photos of children and pets, just all work, all the time.  Well, mostly, anyway.  Every once in a while I link my blog in a very discreet place on my LinkedIn page, followed shortly by a wave of fear that causes me to un-link saidsame blog.  I have nothing to hide.  I have everything to hide.  I'm not sure if I ever decide to go job-seeking that a prospective employer would be truly impressed by reading about my bleeding hoo-haw or my dogs or my very special and very challenging children.  (One of these days I'll post more about how I'm going to make a bajillion dollars when I create MyFaceLinkTwit+ and everyone migrates their social media addition to it.)

One time, before they added the feature where you can scroll through profiles of people who are connected to people who are connected to you they used to just make a few suggestions by name.  Once LinkedIn suggested that I connect to my Mother's cousin's daughter's husband, who I have not seen since 1996 and who lives in South Carolina.  How did you know, LinkedIn, HOW DID YOU KNOW???? 

So last week I'm scrolling through the list of people LinkedIn thinks I want to connect with, and I see a name that I recognize. Its the daughter of the alcoholic I lived with some twenty or more years ago, the daughter of the man who glued me to the path of the codependent, the daughter whose father owes the state of New Jersey some $54,000 in back child support.  Wow, LinkedIn, REALLY?  How did you know?

As it turns out, the suggestion wasn't that mysterious, she is the connection of a connection.  And then I look at my list of connections and I start to have that strange sensation of sinking into a swimming pool filled with marshmallows.  Goosebumps rise on my forearms as I consider the breadth of people represented in those several hundred names on my contacts list.  High school friends.  College friends, sorority sisters.  Ex lovers.  Coworkers current and past.  Business associates, fellow Bastards, fellow bloggers. 

All across the web, we are connected.  We are connected on Facebook, we follow each other on Twitter, we know someone who knows someone who knows someone who...fill in the blank. 

Connected.

Interrelated.

I think now, more than ever, the average non-adopted person can understand what its like to be an adoptee "in reunion" and living with relatives from two (or sometimes even more) families.  Adoption, divorce, remarriage, step-familying - my children have a brother from another mother, I will likely soon be acquiring another step-offspring, I have a brother and cousins by adoption and brothers and sisters and cousins by birth, because their father and I are both adopted, my children have at least eight sets of grandparents, and that's not counting potential future stepgrandparents.  But when viewed in the context of the world of social networking so many of us inhabit, it no longer seems strange, does it?

We may not be one people, but we are all on one planet.  Social Media has provided the material framework to prove what I've known all along - we are connected, each and every one of us, if not by blood and birth then by common acquaintance and if not by that then by common interest or common point of contention. 

And yet, more so than I can remember in my very brief lifetime, the dividing lines between people in my country are wider and more stark.  We live in a world where we can connect to one another at will, with an ease and speed never before known in the history of humankind, and the beliefs and the politics that we cling to drive us even farther apart.   The juxtaposition of these two concepts, our connectedness and our difference, flattens me with the irony it engenders.

Together.  One.

Apart.  Many.

Friends.

Enemies.

To quote Burns, I dinna ken how that may be.

Rant ON.

Finally, something has me more frustrated and angry than relationship issues.  I guess I just needed a good controversy to pull me out of the soup.

I can't recall that I've ever used this space to address my complete and utter distaste for Fred Phelps and the Westboro Baptist Church.  Consider this a remedy of that omission.

The fun-loving folks over at WBC sent out a press release on Saturday announcing their intention to picket the funerals of the 6 people who died at the hands of Jared Lee Loughner in Tucson on Saturday.  Their "press release" (I hadn't realized that "press release was the new terminology for delusional hate-filled ranting.  Apparently I'm out of touch) contains such gems as "Thank God for the shooter!", "God sent the shooter to shoot you!  And He's sitting in Heaven laughing at you!", "Your federal judge is dead and your (fag-promoting, baby-killing, proud-sinner) Congresswoman fights for her life."  The pick of the crop, though is this one:  "WBC prays for your destruction - more shooters, more dead carcasses piling up, young, old, leader and commoner - all."

As if it weren't disgusting enough that they own the rights to the domain name "godhatesfags.com," they've also managed to acquire "godhatestheworld.com," among other gems.  They protest at military funerals, celebrity funerals, memorials, at churches and even the Holocaust museum.  They've been allowed, in the name of free speech, to torment more families in mourning than I thought was humanly possible.  And they do it all to spread the hate of God.

That's right.  God hates us all, according to the Phelps family, who comprise the majority of this so-called "church"s 71 members.  They spend around $200,000 a year to fly protesters to every event possible so they can spread their belief that every tragedy in the world is the result of increasing tolerance and acceptance.  After poisoning my eyesight researching their filthy rhetoric I've concluded they pretty much hate everyone.  Possibly even themselves.  No group that I can see has been excluded from the reach of the hate-speech that flows from their lips and pens like reeking sewage.

I'm not sure how WBC can actually qualify as a "church" or how in the name of all that quacks like a duck their hate rhetoric can be equated with a "religion," but I'll bet ya dollars to donuts they take that religious exemption on their federal tax filings year after year. 

Fortunately, the hole they've been digging themselves into with their vituperation has begun to fill to the neckline with a rising tide of common sense.  There's a case sitting in front of the U.S. Supreme court now resulting from them being sued by the father of a soldier whose son's funeral they picketed.  The initial ruling awarded $2.9 million in compensatory damages to the Snyder family.  They appealed, of course, and the district court upheld the ruling.  The Snyder's momentum in the case fizzled a bit in 09 when a federal appeals court reversed the lower court's award and ruled in favor of the WBC.  However, the U.S. Supreme court granted certiorari in March of last year.  The case has been heard and a decision is expected this summer.  I'm a big fan of free speech, but the events in Tucson show us the cost of fanaticism flamed by the fires of hateful words.

There is no room in the national dialogue for the kind of words that reduce our level of communication to that of locker-room bullies.  We must, in the name of enlightenment, peace and justice, condemn the seeds of hate that people like Fred Phelps and his "congregation" sow. 

Fortunately, legislators in Arizona have pulled together to pass a nonpartisan bill that bars protesters from coming within 300 feet of funeral services.  With the distance afforded by this tidy little bill, a group of angels is forming to ensure the families of Christina Green, Gabe Zimmerman, John Roll, Dorwin Stoddard, Dorothy Morris and Phyllis Schneck will not have to listen to or see Fred Phelps and his evil, intellectually challenged minions. 

A young University of Arizona student, 20-year old Chelsea Cohen, has organized an angel action inthe tradition of those created by Romaine Patterson to protect mourners at the funeral of Matthew Shepard.

 

In addition, both local Dems and Repubs have asked members to line the funeral routes to form a human barricade between the mourners and the Nuckfuts from the WBC.

When I see the things that people like Fred Phelps say and promulgate, I want to throw up.  In this world where violence and hatred end human life every single day, it is easy to become jaded. Its easy to look the other way and say "oh well, it's not about me, so why should I care?"  Ultimately, it IS about you.  About me.  About the humanity and the spirit that lives within all of us.  I might call that spirit God and someone else might call it the Universe and someone else just might call it Life, but regardless of what you believe, I know you must agree with me that a human life is worth more than simply being the tool for a hate-filled, delusional whackjob like Fred Phelps to spread his ugly rhetoric.

May God grant peace to the families of all of the victims in Tucson, especially those who have died.  May God's justice prevail as Jared Lee Loughner stands trial for his crimes and as the courts consider the question of whether the WBC should be liable for the pain and suffering it has caused so many.  And may we, every one of us, be reminded that life is both short and precious and let that impel us to show more love, more tolerance, more acceptance, more grace. 

Characters

The holidays are winding down to a close, and mostly the Christmas cards have arrived, with their pictures and their annual letters detailing trips to the coast, braces for Sally, debate team championships for Billy and its off to college for little Susie and Matt.  Faces are smiling, life is good.  I usually write a Christmas letter of my own, I love to do that.  Its a nice bit of fiction, isn't it?  We're happy, we're good, never mind the dust elephants or the piles of dog crap in the yard or the coating of dirt on the windowsill.  

Its sort of like this blog -- it could all be a load of hooey for all you know.  Maybe I'm not really me at all, maybe I'm an overweight 57 year old man named Walter who lives in his mother's basement and has bad skin and a deep and abiding love for frozen pizza, Star Trek collectibles and a real light saber.  OK, well, maybe I'm really me.  But how do you really know that? 

I think the cold medicine is getting to me.  I've been sick since Christmas, actually since Christmas Eve, and I'm beginning to suspect that somehow this is tied in to the fact that I was just not as good as I could have been all year.  Hard to imagine me getting any better, I realize, but there you have it.  I was naughty and Santa caught me out.  Hence, the nasty little virus that's currently creeping its way through my upper respiratory system.   I managed to haul my sick ass into work today, which in retrospect may have not been a good idea as in my current state I'm crabbier than a pregnant sow in August and I've probably managed to spread the plague to every poor soul inside a 50-yard radius.

So my imagination, fueled by two big fizzy tabs of "plop, plop, fizz, fizz, kiss your sinuses goodbye," reads the Christmas letters and wonders what the world would be like if the fiction of 90% of the world's Christmas letters (mine included) were erased, and people wrote about their actual lives.  The parts with the fingerprints on the windowpanes, cat piss under the bed and the crack pipe hidden inside the toilet paper roll.  The lives where spouses cheat, we doubt our sanity, we fail at our jobs and we drink ourselves into oblivion nighly before 5:30 PM.  Where our kids are likely shaping up to transform into carnival sideshow freaks or third world dictators.  Where that cute puppy in the picture is actually a vicious animal who took out half the neighborhood cats this fall and currently sits in a dark, steaming corner, salivating hungrily as he plots ways to take down the guy who reads the water meter every month. 

Hi friends!  Well, I made a mess of everything this year.  My fiance broke up with me in March after he met a cute little redhead in the supermarket checkout line. He's known her for a long time but once she got that boob job he lit out for greener pastures.   I'm trying to keep my head above water, although  I can't seem to pay a bill on time to save my life and my ass grew three sizes. Most days I pick my kids up from school still wearing my pajamas.  I haven't had a real haircut in something like 8 months and the batteries in my electric toothbrush have been dead for even longer than that.   The dog ran off a month ago but I'm not complaining because at least I don't have to buy dog food, although now I do have to clean the cat litter box a lot more now that he's not eating the poop out of it.  The kids seem to be surviving just fine, I haven't gotten any calls from the juvenile authorities in at least three weeks.  I managed to hang on to my job by a fingernail at least through the end of the year and if I'm lucky I'll get a severance package next year when they finally figure out I'm the one whose been stealing the toilet paper out of the bathrooms.  But for God's sake, have you seen the price of paper products lately?   Here's hoping our annual Christmas letter finds you in better shape than we are.  Love always, us.

 

Just blame it on the cold medicine.  I do.

 

Its all something

I actually wrote this post several weeks ago.  Then my post about my junk-punching child was syndicated by BlogHer and then TodayMoms.  I forgot about it until I was trying to think of something coherent to blog about this morning.  Interestingly enough, it wasn't even about that event or even some other current events, but it seems to fit somehow.

 

I'm a fan of overused cliches.  "Its all good."  "It is what it is."  "You're entitled to your opinion."  "If you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything at all."   They're the things we throw out when we either can't say how we really feel or don't care enough to have an opinion about something.

But that last one, that "don't say anything at all," that's the one I often am drawn to.  Maybe that's a byproduct of my generation's upbringing.  Maybe it means that despite the fact I'm often an opinionated, blunt, annoying pain in the ass, at heart I'm really a softie.  

I love LOVE the blogosphere.  I'm a social networking junkie.  I read a couple of handfuls of blogs at least a couple of times a week.  I have daily favorites and blogs I catch up on once a month or so.  I love to follow some of the controversies that explode in the Twitterverse between the A-listers.  There's such a cast of characters out here, and really, its high entertainment. 

Some blogs I read because the writing is so incredible.  The words on the screen evoke images and feelings and smells and pull childhood memories up from long-forgotten places.  These are my guilty pleasure blogs, the ones I just can't stay away from simply for the beauty. 

There are the bloggers who have special needs kids, who I read because we often live the same lives, deal with the day to day crazy that having these wonderful kids can be.  There are the bloggers who I started reading because of a circumstance in their life that drew me to them - a loss, illness, a challenge - and I keep reading because I want to know how they are doing, I want to see how their story unfolds. 

There are the people who question things, stir things up.  Get people talking - sometimes heatedly - on topics controversial or around this blogging world.

All of them - I love them.  I feel like I know them, just a little. 

One thing the internet invites is The Crazy.  Its constantly lurking out there, in people who don't blog but froth at the mouth in other people's comments, people who DO blog and whose posts and comments around those posts become unbelievably twisted and angry and horrifying. 

If you're someone I really care about, I"ll be as kind as I can with my words if I don't agree with something, but more often than not, if I read or see something that doesn't entirely click, I'll just leave it be.  Its not my job to tell people what to write, how to write, what to share, how to live their lives.  I enjoy as much as I can and for the most part, I leave the rest.

I have a few things I have opinions about.  One or two issues I have incredibly deep-seated issues about.  Things I'll gladly hoist myself on my own petard over.  But for the most part, in this crazy world of blogging, rarely do I see anything that I feel I must get so upset about that I would leave a comment or send an email to a blogger that was hateful or just outright crazy-mean. Or feel like I was somehow the person responsible for setting them straight.

Something about this strikes me as scary and unstable.  That there are people who have such deep-seated control issues that they think they have to control the internet, of all things.  That if someone has a differing opinion, they're either mean, or a horrible person, or somehow committing a crime.  

Its something I have no answer for.  Part of me wants to gently ask people if they might need to be taking better care of themselves, if they're getting help, because truly, being that angry and upset all the time just isn't healthy.   There are causes and there are causes -- there are things we tackle in this life because doing so makes a difference in a way that's meaningful and reasonable.  But how do we know the difference between pursuing justice in a way that's meaningful and just simply bashing ourselves against the wall in a meaningless display of frustration? 

****

Now, join hands and sing with me.  You know the words.  Kum-ba-ya, my Lord, Kumb-ba-ya....

 

 

 

Oh, by the way:  There are amazing things that happen on the internet, where all of us come together and do something important.  Yesterday, Jenny the Bloggess wrote a post with a giveaway of gift cards for people who were struggling financially around the holidays.  And you know, after the number of cards she had to give were gone?  A lot of people stepped in to keep the giving going.  And its still going.  Beautiful and amazing, and heartwarming.  Tear-worthy.  Go check it out.

 

What you think of me is none of my business

Really, its not.  So I continue to remind myself, with ever-increasing frequency.

The post about the incident with my nutsack-punching daughter garnered a lot of comments when BlogHer picked it up, so I was curious to see the reaction from a larger pool of perfect strangers when TodayMom's picked it up.  As I expected, it caused a stir. 

The biggest part of recovering from codependency for me has been to learn to see myself through my own eyes and not the eyes of others.  Other people are not mirrors of my self - not my partner, my parents, my children.  Other people are separate and discrete and while its affirming to have people agree with me, like me, its not realistic to expect that to be the case.  My sense of self-worth can't be dictated by public opinion, and the moment that it is I might as well slink back into the morass of codependent self-loathing that my life used to be.

So I'm not over there commenting back to the commenters on my post.   I did over at BlogHer where the forum was smaller, more select and more comfortable.  It is easy to have a discussion with people when even where the opinions differ, they are offered with a coating of respect.  We can talk about anything in the world as long as we remember, you and I, that we don't have to agree with one another.  What we need to keep in mind is that as human beings we have differences and similarities - we probably have many things in common - and that our opinions are shaped by our experiences.  Just because you have a different experience than I do doesn't mean we should not treat one another with dignity.

Ultimately, I'm not going to change anyone's mind with the things I blog about.  This isn't a political blog or an activist blog.  Its just me working on making the words come out and seeking to make sense of my life and my world.  Its an outlet for my particular creative drive.  Some people paint, some people make music, some people sew and knit and craft.  Some of us write.  Not for profit, not for a living, but simply to engage in the act of putting together words and sentences to set free a thought that is begging to be expressed.  I have no expectation that the thoughts I share here are going to be universally agreed upon, nor that they will, in contrast, be praised.  But I realize, more so today than ever, that when by placing my words and my thoughts in the public domain, I am inviting people to respond.  To affirm or to negate.

Over there, on the TodayMom's blog, I'm not responding to comments.  I'm letting the dialogue happen without me.  There are some thoughtfully written opinions over there, both for and against, and there are a large number of trolls.    About halfway through the day yesterday I discarded my curiosity about what was being said and I stopped reading.   Really, its all happening in a delightful cacophony of words and opinions that don't need my presence to pollute the water.  Its a big bucket full of what makes the internet such a fascinating place to inhabit. And considering that in the not long ago past I would likely be wringing my hands and letting the negative voices be the loudest voices I hear - and letting those voices dictate my state of mind and sense of self-worth - I realize how far I have come and how grateful I am for my recovery.  I'm able to just exist side by side with this controversy.  I realize that more than ever, I KNOW who I am.  I don't need other people to be mirrors of myself.  With the knowing that I am both perfect and imperfect, that I exist as a child of God, loved regardless of anything I or others might do or think, I can choose my level of engagement with the controversy based on what I feel and need, not on others expectations.  (Ouch, that was a long sentence).

The journey to release my fear so that I could stop trying to control others in order to cope with it has been, second to being a mother, the most amazing journey of my life. 

 

.....

 

Note:  While I don't have any editorial control over at BlogHer or at TodayMoms, I DO have editorial control here.  I have never moderated comments on this blog and I hope that will never be the case.  I delete comments from spammers, but to this point have never deleted a legitimate comment from a reader, positive or negative. I welcome dissenting opinion, provided it is delivered with respect. Trolls will not be ignored, they will be summarily dismissed and, if overly persistent, blocked, not because anything they say might hurt my feelings but because attack without the expectation of reasonable dialogue isn't useful.

 

I really screwed up

I injected what I think was a note of sarcastic humor into yesterdays post.  At the time I was reeling, and trying to make it at least a little funny was my own way of coping with what was happening around me.

I also didn't want to post too many details, because at the time I thought the reason the sitter was jailed was because of something far more innocent than the real reason she was in jail.  Today I learned why she had been arrested, and let me tell you, when I learned why, my blood ran cold.

Let's start at the beginning. My sitter was last employed by a family in my town as a full time nanny for their two children, the older of which has autism and needed a caregiver experienced in special needs.  According to testimony and news stories, not too long after she started working for this family, the mother confessed to her that she wanted to kill her husband and run away to Mexico.  Some weeks after this confession, the sitter realized that the woman was actually serious and informed the husband, who then involved the police.  The police involved the sitter in a sting operation whereby the wife thought the sitter was helping her to obtain drugs to help her in her endeavor, but which were not really drugs and the whole pass-off was videotaped and wiretapped.

The wife was arrested and charged.

Six weeks after this, the husband fired the sitter and obtained a restraining order against her, claiming that he thought she was trying to take the children and was giving them drugs.  The sitter responded with a restraining order in return, things got all weird and sordid.  The wife eventually took a plea deal to lesser charges and was released from prison with credit for time served.  A month ago, the sitter filed a lawsuit against the couple in civil court for damages related to defamation of character, etc.

The police have never charged the sitter with any crime, though they thoroughly investigated her.

Because the sitter was never charged with anything, my background check which included a search of all felony arrests or warrants, turned up NOTHING.  A misdemeanor from when her daughter was a teen and stole her car, where the sitter claimed that she had let the child drive in order to keep her out of trouble, but she had told me about that in the interview.  In fact, it was comforting to me to see that she was so truthful she had owned up to the ONLY thing that came up on the background check when I ran it after the interview.

Had I run a simple search engine lookup on her name, I would have learned the details of the family she had worked for before.  In all likelihood, I would not have hired her.  Not because I thought she had done something wrong, but because there were active restraining orders and ongoing court cases and I don't need my children in any way involved with someone who is a tad notorious, even superficially.

Instead, I trusted her, gave her a key to my home.  Allowed her to pick up my children from school.  Take them to the library and the park and to her house for macaroni and cheese.

What I did not know:

This woman was in an ongoing battle with some long term acquaintances.  Over the weekend she told police the women had attacked her.  An investigation ensued, and no evidence could be found that such an attack had taken place.  What the police were able to find, though, was damning evidence that my sitter was engaging in a threat campaign against these women via text, email and voicemail, leaving them threats.  Serious threats, including a threat to "beat one victim to a bloody pulp with a bat" until she was dead.

Yesterday, after learning she was jailed, I went home early and had my locks changed.  I assumed, offhand, that she had been arrested for mistakenly violating a restraining order.  I thought I might be overreacting, but I wanted to make sure I took steps to keep my family safe.  After learning of the details of her arrest, I am glad I took those steps.  

I am horrified, reeling, unsettled, shocked.  At any point my children could have been harmed by this apparently unstable woman.  I don't know the details of the feud with the other women involved, but heaven forbid one of them was retaliatory toward my sitter AND MY CHILDREN WERE WITH HER.  Or if she had been arrested this week any day but the day I work from home, and my children had been present.  My mind keeps going over and over all of the details, fragments of conversations, thoughts, observations.  In no way did this woman seem to be the kind of person that would leave someone violent threats.  If anything, she just seemed a little too nice and possibly even naive.  I was completely mistaken about her character and the reality of what was going on in her private life.

Lessons?  Many.

Background checks are NOT enough.  An interview is not sufficient.  There are many good unlicensed people out there providing childcare.  I was unlucky enough to find one of the few who was a high risk.  There was nothing in her manner or words or ANYTHING to indicate she was a potential danger.

I'm not even upset about needing to find yet another caregiver for my children.  I'm grateful instead, grateful that my children were not harmed.  Perhaps they were never really in danger, but in my opinion we dodged a bullet on this one.  Things that could have gone wrong didn't.

Ultimately, I count myself at fault.  It is my job to protect my kids.  To be thorough in researching the people who are providing their care.  I didn't do that.  If my kids were in danger, they were in danger because I didn't do my job.  I'm incredibly thankful that the cost of learning this lesson wasn't as high as it could have been.

There's a lesson in this

Nothing good can last

DO look a gift horse in the mouth

Nothing is ever quite as good as it seems

If it seems too good to be true, it probably is

And last, but really not least:  ALWAYS GOOGLE THE PERSON YOU ARE THINKING OF HIRING AS YOUR SITTER.  BACKGROUND CHECKS ARE RIDICULOUSLY NOT INFORMATIVE.

You'd think that researching the criminal background and historical address files of a person would be sufficient.  If you're like me, you'd never assume that anyone in your relatively small community might have some notoriety.  If you're like me, you don't read much beyond the first few lines in local newspaper stories unless they have to do with you personally or are about politics.

So if you're like me, you might one day find that your babysitter does not show up at 7 am as expected.  You might leave her a few messages and then start to get worried because you know of some health issues she has.   You might make other emergency arrangements for your childcare because you have a very busy day at work and meetings that require your presence.  On the long drive to work you might start trying to reach the few people you know who might be able to check on her.  You might start imagining her passed out or even worse alone in the apartment she shares with no one.  You might even, after you get to work, try to locate someone at the church she is a member of to see if someone can check on her.  Finally, you might call the local police to go to her apartment to do a "welfare check" to see if she is OK.

While you're waiting for the officer to call you back, you might consider that maybe there was a car accident that she was involved in or something similarly catastrophic, and thinking that perhaps if the newspaper reported it they might include a victim's name, so you might google her name.

That's when you find out all the things that probably would have prevented you from hiring her in the first place.  And when the officer calls you back to say that she failed to show up for work today because she is in jail?  By that time you won't be the least bit surprised.

Then you'll leave work early, go home and have your locks changed.