I just put a lot of time and effort into writing what (I thought) was a funny post about the best places to flee to if you are upset over Obamacare and Marriage Equality.  Then, I had to step away from the computer to run an errand, and on my way back I thought, “That isn’t helpful.”  Maybe this isn’t helpful either, but at least it isn’t mockery.

My heart is too heavy to fight, or make fun right now.  As excited as I was to see the SCOTUS thumbs-up to healthcare and marriage equality, I haven’t been able to shake the church shooting in Charleston.  And, as I was celebrating marriage equality, another story came across my news feed relating that three Black churches have been burned down in the past five days, and I can’t help seeing it as response to the outrage Charleston provoked, and as a threat to people that they need to sit down and take what’s shoveled at them, or die.

I have this to say:

Shame on you if you think you are better than someone else, or deserve more than someone else because you like your sex missionary style.

Shame on you if you think you are better than someone else, or deserve more than someone else because your skin is light.

Shame on you if you think you are better than someone else, or deserve more than someone else because you have more money in the bank.

Shame on you if you think you are better than someone else, or deserve more than someone else because of your religion.

Shame on you if you think you are better than someone, or deserve more than someone else because of who your parents are.

Shame on you if you think you are better than someone else, or deserve more than someone else because of where you are from.

If you feel superior to anyone, or think you deserve more than someone else based on something you were born with, bought in a store, or were gifted as your heritage, shame on you.

Get with the program.  If you’re yelling in wounded outrage because someone got something you have always had, howling that them getting some of your entitlement means your entitlement isn’t any good anymore, there is something wrong with you.  And you for sure are not behaving like Jesus–who told his followers that if they have something, and someone asks them for a little of it, they were to give over all they had.  You have two coats?  You give them both to the cold guy.

Think about the message you are sending your own children:  You are okay UNLESS you are this thing.  If you are ever this thing, I will not love you, or want to live in the same country with you. That’s a great message.  My love for you is conditional, based on your color, your sexuality, your faith.  Think about that.

Then, think about what Jesus says about his love.  Nothing can separate you from his love for you.  If that’s your leader, follow him.  Put down your rocks, stop yelling at people, trying to hurt them the way you feel hurt, and follow your leader.  He’ll take you to the right place, which is probably going to land you right smack in the middle of what you hate most, serving those you thought were unworthy.  If you’re not man, or woman enough to do that, quit calling yourself a Christian and just name yourself what you really are.

Earlier this year, I learned about ASMR videos on YouTube, and they have become my guilty pleasure.  Guilty because I feel like the time Chandler Bing was listening to tapes to stop smoking, and became a strong, confident woman.  Pleasure because those things knock me out into a good night’s sleep better than anything other than that coedine cough syrup I wanted to develop a lasting relationship with a few winters ago.

My favorite ASMR content creators are Heather Feather, ASMR Massage/Dimitri, and Psychetruth/Corrina.  I skip around to sample other content creators, but I’ve developed imaginary Therapist/Patient relationships with those three (safer than with a narcotic.)  I lie still, and they tell me to be quiet, relax, and that everything is going to be okay, sometimes with accompanying Tibetan singing bowls, light brushing sounds, and some laughing–because those Psychetruth content creators can barely take themselves seriously sometime, much less convince me to.

After a few rough days, I decided some positive affirmations were in order, and I pulled up a video labeled as such and settled back.  Five minutes later, I was too frustrated to relax.  It was worse than the time I tried to meditate.  I kept mentally answering the affirmations.

“You are a good person.”  Mostly.  Yes.  Good.  I try.  Trying is good.
“You work hard.”  Yes.  That’s true.
“You deserve a break.”  I need a break.  I don’t know that I deserve one.  Coffee is for Closers.
“You deserve to take time just for yourself.”  Mmmah…unless it interferes with family.
“You deserve to be happy.”  That’s not exactly true.  I deserve to be able to pursue happiness, but happiness isn’t owed to me.
“You deserve to do whatever it takes to feel joy.”  Uh, no I don’t!  No!  That is wrong! 
“You deserve to do what it takes to make yourself happy.”  Is this a justification track for Dexter?!  No, no I don’t!
“Everything is going to be okay.”  Also not necessarily true!
“You deserve for everything to be okay.”  I’m out.

And I was. 

I was telling B about it earlier, and he suggested I needed a Demotivator affirmation track.  I thought I should do my own.  Honest Affirmations by Lane.  They would go:

You are a Human Being.
You deserve to be treated with basic respect and dignity.
You deserve to be able to work for a living.
You deserve a safe, secure worksite, with reasonable accommodations.
You deserve to be served by a capable, conscientous government.
You deserve to serve your community.
You should treat everyone as you want to be treated, regardless of the outcome.
You should take care of other people because it is the right thing to do.
You deserve affordable health care.
You deserve affordable food.
You should derive joy from service.
You have the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
Coffee is for Closers.

I’m not thinking anyone is going to want my track.

You see a lot of fashion at the roller skating rink.

Last night, some college-age kids were there in their best approximations of 80s gear. One girl had on shimmer-fabric, neon pink leggings under a pair of multi-colored neon shorts, with a neon green tank top, and a hot pink headband. It was very 80s-Barbie, and also awesome.

Another girl skated around in a snow cap, with this amazing anime-purple hair spiking out from under it. My kid was in gray cargo pants, and a “Creepers Gonna Creep” t-shirt. I wore black leggings under a black, swing tunic. Then, a couple of young teens came in wearing some shorts that make people ask the question, “Would you let your child out of the house like that?”

When the question came up, I barely swallowed the reflexive, “Hell no!” It went down like a hard lump, but I managed to burp out an, “I don’t know?”

And, I don’t know.

Let’s hop in the TV time machine for a second and travel back to those halcyon days where everthing was about Marcia, Marcia, Marcia, and girls wore dresses so short wicker furniture posed a very real threat to thighs. The Brady girls, That Girl, Buffy and Sissy from Family Affair, even Shirley Temple were all legs–all the time. Short skirts and matching spanky pants were the stuff, and it wasn’t a sexualized thing.

Long hair, short skirts. Cover the ears, reveal the knees!

Let’s switch the channel to ESPN. Tennis. Figure skating. Volleyball. Cheerleading. Soccer. Swimming. Gymnastics. LEGS. Everywhere. Firm, fit, bare legs (and some barely covered crotches) on women who are jumping, running, kicking, spinning, flying, and falling all over the place. I defy you to tell one of the Williams sisters they are dressed immodestly. Champion level skaters would probably sooner put a toe-pick in your forehead than entertain the notion that they need to cover up.

So, why am I so shocked when I see a pair of Daisy Dukes on a fifteen-year-old? What is it that makes me want to throw a blanket over her, and hustle her off to a corner for a lecture on propriety?

My buddy and I were talking that over. Both of us are moms. We asked each other what we would say to our daughters–hers real, mine imaginary–about shorts-like-that.

I want to say first, that it is very easy to judge a stranger. It is very easy to look at a stranger’s shorts and assign all sorts of meaning to them. Fashion becomes shorthand to reading a person’s character. 80s Barbie? Fashion shorthand for a vapid twit. Anime snow cap? Fashion shorthand for outlying subculture. Creeper t-shirt? Fashion shorthand for a kid who spends all his time on video games. Short-shorts? Fashion shorthand for attention-seeking.

Shorthand doesn’t even tell a tithe of the story, though. It sure didn’t when I was the fifteen-year-old in short shorts.

As we talked through scenarios, we both agreed that the one thing we didn’t want to do was frighten our daughters. We didn’t want to scare them that a pair of shorts could be the reason someone hurt them. Shorts don’t make rapists rape. To paraphrase my son’s t-shirt, Rapists Gonna Rape. Molesters Gonna Molest. Just ask those Duggar girls, whose thighs haven’t seen daylight since they were in diapers.

We didn’t want our daughters to feel funny about their bodies, like something was wrong with them, or dirty about them. And neither of us could figure out a context whereby we could explain that it was okay to show your thighs at the beach, or in your cheer uniform, or when you were competing at a sport, but not when you went roller skating with your friends, or to a movie, or to a barbecue.

We couldn’t figure out a way around the fact that it is perfectly fine for those high school track boys to run the streets wearing nothing but a pair of tiny, tiny running shorts, socks, and sneakers, but the double standard was that our daughters would be stoned for trying the same thing.

In short, we didn’t come up with any answers. Ultimately, I said I’d have to know my daughter. I’d have to know the girl, to know what was the right conversation. My buddy said it came down to intent, and until you could understand the intention of the child, you couldn’t know how to approach it. And that took me back to how easy it is to judge a stranger.

It also took me to how easy it is to be jealous of a stranger. How dare she come in here, all youth and legs, looking like a million dollars worth of desirable, when I’m fighting a losing battle against gravity? How dare she be so young and beautiful, taking more than her share of the Male Gaze and the attention that goes with it? The arrival of a younger, more biologically attractive, more seemingly available woman can make the hide crawl off a middle-aged buzzard like me, even when I’m not after the attention she’d be receiving.

Those long, pretty legs are a reminder of my mortality. Her desirability reminds me of my impending invisibility. If I could get her into some Mom jeans, at least I could feel better about how my physique turns every pair of trousers into Mom jeans. If I could wrap her in a blanket, at least I could feel maternal and nurturing. If I could lecture her on how she’s sending inappropriate signals, and how her thighs are an invitation to danger, at least I could feel like I was doing a public service while I scared and shamed her.

That’s an awful lot of Me projected onto a child, who just wanted to go roller skating.

I am navel-gazing enough to care more about why her shorts bother me, than to worry about getting her into different pants. I care more about the root causes of my visceral reactions to things like that, than the catalyts for them. I know the problem is me, not the kid, who is out having fun with her friends.

And, if my projections are sometimes right–if she is out using her thigh meat as boy bait, well? So? I was fifteen once. I haven’t forgotten how that felt. Even in my top-button-done, Haiwaian print shirt, with matching capri pants, Capezios, braces, and bad hair, I just one quivering, hopeful lump of boy bait. I was normal. So is she.

So, I decided that the conversations have to be with my real son, not my imaginary daughter. The conversations have to be about respect, consent, empathy, kindness, and self-control, not dress codes.

The onus isn’t on me as a woman, to warn girls. The onus is on me as a mother, to raise a good man.

Being a kid is hard work.

When Thor was tiny, and losing his little mind because I had picked the wrong color spoon, or had cut his banana into seven, rather than five pieces (or had cut it at all), or because the wind had blown, I tried to keep that in mind.  I tried to keep in mind that he was still developing, and that if you had taken me, stripped me of my motor skills and ability to communicate effectively, rendered me helpless, unable to feed myself at whim, or even manage my own entertainment, I would have been under so much stress, I’d have been losing my mind over spoon color, too.  I mean, how hard is it to get the green spoon?!

I used to say to him, “I am so sorry that you live in The World of No.”  Because he did. 

No, you cannot ride the dog.

No, you cannot eat the bug.

No, you cannot climb the table.

No, you cannot have every toy you see.

No, you most certainly cannot bite me.

No, you cannot scream.

No, you cannot be awake at 3am.

Yeses come few and far between when you are a two-year-old.

I muddle through as a parent, striving, and correcting when I fail, and being quick to apologize to my son when I’ve made a mistake that affects him.  I think that’s one of the things I do well because I am modeling the behavior I want him to have.  I want him to try, I want him to succeed, and I want him to own up when he makes a mistake.  Then, I want him to course correct, and try again.

I wish I were a perfect parent.  I’m not.  But I love my kid.  I make sure he’s fed, clothed, protected, feels secure, and knows how much he is loved, so I hope that goes a long way toward padding for my failures.

As he has grown, his ability to manage coexisting complexities has grown with him.  Now, if I give him a red, rather than green spoon, he can juggle the desire for the green spoon with the excitement of getting ice cream.  He can make a split second decision about which is the priority: Spoon color, or ice cream.  99% of the time, he gets it right.  The other 1%, we deal with because if I’m not perfect, I can’t expect him to be.

We’re creeping up on the Tween years, and I can see changes in how he processes information.  I can see the inner struggle to choose between obedience and rebellion.  And I see flickers of an incredible man emerging–a man I am going to be so proud to know.  I also see flickers of the teenager who is going to keep me up for longer nights than the toddler ever did.  We’re heading into a new World of No, but this time, he’s going to be looking down at my face, not up into it.

I should interrupt myself to say that Thor-watching is a favorite hobby.  I love watching him.  I love studying how he responds and reacts, and learning his thought processes.  I’m always asking him how he arrived at decisions because I want him to be able to retrace the factors that drove him to a choice.  I want him to understand how actions are born of thoughts, so he can police himself (thereby avoiding the police in later life.) 

As I’m seeing this new growth in him, I’m also seeing a new tenderness and a vulnerability.  He seems so exposed.

I think about a young tree.  Saplings are on their way to strength, but for the moment a hard wind can uproot them.  Too much water will kill them just as fast as not enough.  Neglect and mistreatment might not kill the tree, but you’ll see the evidence in the grown body.  You have to prune, but you can’t cut away too much.

Parenting is hard work.

We got him to age 5 without breaking a bone, and to age 7 before he needed stitches.  Lord willing, we’ll get him to 10 before he threatens to run away from home, or starts yelling that he hates us.  Having lived with the boy every day of his life, I feel like these are huge wins!  I also see that the truly hard work is coming.

Protecting his body and keeping him alive and healthy has been the challenge of the first decade.  The challenge of the next decade is protecting his heart and his spirit, so that he can keep himself alive and healthy.  What we do in the next ten years will directly affect how he treats himself in life, and what he has left over for other people.

Right now, I am stockpiling snuggle-time and working to build in him self-sufficiency.  Self-sufficiency equals pride and confidence.  Snuggles equal a feeling of security.  I’ve got to get enough of both of those in there, that when he hits 13, 17, 21, and has his first hard failure, hard humiliation, hard heartbreak–because those are coming, whether I like it, or not–he doesn’t break.  His heart might.  His pride might.  But he won’t.

I’m trying to build all that in so that when I fail hard in the future, he can reach past the moment and know that I made a mistake–not that he is a mistake.

I love that kid more than my own life.  I’ve got to build enough of that into him, that one day, he can offer the same kind of devotion to his own parenting.  So he can enjoy it as much as I have.

Because even on the Green Spoon days, that boy makes a World full of No feel like a Carnival of Joy.