Practical prolife
I have always, always been prolife, but I think that since adolescence I have been so in a practical way. I'll tell you what I mean by that, but first a little background.
Although I am a religious person I am not prolife for religious reasons. I am prolife because my mother was a poor, mentally ill woman with an abusive husband when she got pregnant with me. Then she started hemorrhaging, and the doctors told her to have a D&C (this was before Roe v Wade). They told her her child, if brought to term, would be so disabled she would wish she hadn't. Don't I sound like an ad for why woman should get abortions? I am so grateful my mother didn't.
I also think the Bible is a poor reason for being prolife. Not only should religion NOT dictate public policy, but abortion is never actually prohibited in the Bible. All you get if you rely on the Bible is that if a man causes another man's wife to miscarry
after the age of quickening, he owes the HUSBAND a fine.
So, what I mean by being practical in my prolife beliefs. Many prolifers I observe are coming from a conservative viewpoint that proscribes two things- gay sex and premarital sex. As for the first- those gay people aren't going to be getting each other knocked up and getting abortions, right. That's about 10% of the population out of the equation so leave them alone. As to the second, I think it be great if my kids all waited until they had a degree, a spouse and a full time job to have sex. That's a value I have and will teach them. But I have known so many people in my life who came from the "abstinence only" parents who had abortions
to keep their parents from finding out they'd had sex.(one was a Chinese co-worker of mine who specifically had an abortion so her father would not find out she's had sex with a white boy)
I vowed to be open enough with my kids that I would hopefully take that issue off the table.I want them to know that while I would prefer them to not have sex, if they are going to I want them to use contraception and practice safe sex, and I will help them in that regard. Sure, it breaks form the "Christian Parent party line", but I want to be realistic. A life may depend on it.
Lake fail :(
Olivia, Andrew and I tried to go to 5 Mile Lake today. It was a bit of fail. First off, it was too chilly. It was in the high 70s which would have been fine with no breeze, but it was really breezy. Andrew was hungry and we had forgotten to bring food. But the kicker was all the moms there, with their little kids, who were smoking! I could not walk around enough to get away from it. If I had been just over the county line in Pierce County that would have been illegal....why do we ban smoking in bars and not in places parents take their little kids???? I hope we get in more lake days before the summer is over.
New blog!
Andrew's just been so full of wacky lately we decided he needs his own blog. At this point I will mostly write it, but will eventually turn it over to him. Luckily he's eager for me to share his exploits with the world. Lest you think his older siblings will feel slighted, they are thrilled I don't find their exploits worthy of their own blogs.
(If Andrew is not book or movie deal worthy, I don't know who is)
Visit the wacky world of Andrew at:
http://turboandrew.blogspot.com/
No kids' table
I'm not a child nutrition expert, but I have kids, my kids have friends, and I work
withkids. I have had a lot of opportunity to observe they way we have kids and form a few opinions.
When I was pregnant with Matthew and announced my intent to breastfeed, I was told by one co worker that I would "have to give up garlic". Now, I was a first time mom with no family help in the area of breastfeeding support, aside form my husband, so maybe I didn't know anything. But the more I thought about it the more ridiculous it seemed. Did Italian woman give up garlic whilst nursing? Didn't take much research to tell me no ( and I didn't have
internet access then!)
Then they start eating food, and you can choose to force feed bland jarred food or fact, research shows babies will suck MORE if the mother ingests garlic!
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1200/is_n15_v140/ai_11494619/Then they start eating solids, and conventional wisdom has us
spoonfeeding boxed rice cereal and unseasoned mush
from a jar. Yum ,
thats's appetizing. If you go the make your own route, you're STILL advised to make it bland. WHY? Of course, with babies we have to introduce foods slowly in ca
se they have allergies, but why make it bland? Are we TRYING to set them up to be picky eaters? Another thing I see frequently is cutting the crust off bread, only feeding toddlers white bread, and a few years later complaining they won't eat a nice crusty slice of whole wheat bread. I seriously want to cry when I see someone cut the crust off their kids' bread. I know, that sounds like an extreme and irrational rant, but it's both wasteful and teaches kids to be picky eaters.
Most of us have a way we want our kids to end up eating, so it makes little sense to me to not feed them that way from the start. Fill your boobies with that spicy goodness. Give your baby finger food with lots of wonderful flavours-garlic, curry, basil, peppers. Expect your two year old to eat the same way you will expect him to eat at 12. Talk about where your food comes from, and plant at least one thing you can eat so they see first hand food comes from the soil, not a box. Never tell a kid "You won't like that" or "that's too spicy for you". (Of course, if I do say that to my kids they know I really
justwant it all for myself and demand some). Fill your child's life with flavour.
A bit of Andrew
"This jelly is gelatinous. Which is logical because jelly should be gelatinous. But this is exceptionally gelatinous jelly".
"I know why all the bees are dying. The queen bees are eating them!"
Me: "Bee mites. It's been established".
Him: "
Noooo, I just saw a bee and a queen bee flying and then the flew to the ground and she ate it's HEAD!".
"Maybe they were mating and she had no further need for him".
"No, the bees are just turning cannibal".
"Sanctity"of marriage- what does that mean, anyway?
With the defeat of Prop 8, the whole concept of the "sanctity of marriage" is being brought up again. The people who are using this term,
ie, the conservatives, are defining this as marriage between one man and one woman. This usage pretends that gay couples don't view their marriages as sacred. This gets to the heart of the problem with marriages in our society. Couples not viewing their marriage as sacred. We have ample evidence that plenty of straight couples cannot grasp sanctity of marriage, and plenty of gay couples who have stayed true to each other, with or without legal sanction, to prove that sexual orientation has nothing to do with being true. Maybe those of us who support marriage equality need to claim
sanctity of marriage. It's not about sexual orientation, or even the couple's beliefs about religion. Sacred marriage is about commitment.
