America's Dysfunctional Family Reality TV Show: Father Knows Worst

With the events in Charlottesville and the responses to it, I have been pondering, meditating, on the question of how to be in this America.  As a human, I am so sad and scared at the violence and the anger these events have engendered.  As a minister, sometimes I am just sitting with it and letting people have their experience.

I continue to have this nagging suspicion that on the spiritual level, Donald Trump was sent to heal us and to unify us.  That by being precisely the president that we don't want, he is causing us to find out who we are and to heal.

It strikes me that right now America is like a reality tv show with huge worldwide ratings about a family with a dysfunctional rage-aholic father. This crazy guy, who no one would ever want for a dad, really is our dad.  We could wish he is our step dad.  We could wish for him to leave.  But he is our real dad and he shows no signs of leaving.  Mom (who I guess in this scenario is the Republican Party/Congress/Cabinet) is unhappy and too scared to leave. She knows she made a poor choice of a partner.  She knows that he is tyrannizing her and the kids.  She knows that this will not end well.  But she is being held hostage by his rage, his power, and his clan (sic).

Some of the kids are really really clear that Dad is out of control and has to go.  Some of them try to pacify him and hope that he will not hit them or Mom.  He invariably hits them anyway.  He blames all the victims.  Nothing is ever his fault.   It is always the kids' fault or Mom's fault.  Or someone else's fault.  Some kids, the ones that are emulating him the most, sometimes hurt the other kids.  And then Dad blames the kids that got hurt as much or more as the ones who hurt them.  And then those kids feel abandoned and bewildered.  Mom apologizes for him and tries to get him to stop, and sometimes Dad apologizes and says something nice sounding for a minute, but then the next day, he's screaming again and saying terrible things.  And Mom is looking the other way again.

I remember one time I visited the family of a friend of mine who had grown up with a mean, violent Dad, who was long dead, but the scars and legacy remained. The night before my visit, her younger brother had gotten angry and had picked her up and thrown her against a wall.  She was a grown woman.  I knew her family fairly well by that time.  I called them all together in their living room and headed over.  I said, "last night one of you picked your older sister up and threw her against a wall.   And today you are all pretending nothing happened."   I said, "you know that's not normal, right? You know that's not what a healthy family does?"  They said nothing.  Heads hanging.  Shame-faced.  On some level, to the extent they talk, they admit that no one has ever called them on this.  No one has ever pointed out the obvious.  They have hidden it.

It occurs to me that what's playing out in the media and on the world stage today is the great airing of all America's sick not-so-secrets.  For generations, some of the kids have been hurting each other and much nicer seeming Dads have been letting it happen.  But because this version is public, and this Dad is really mean and really obvious about it, this time everyone is seeing how it has been.  This version, this epic, reality TV show in which we're playing the children is shining a bright spotlight on America's residual tolerance of racism, anti-semitism, sexism, violence and nationalism.

I know from counseling many people who grew up in families like this that it can take a generations to recover from this kind of upbringing; it can breed more dysfunction and pain and bullying. But some people can grow up in families like this and thrive and survive anyway.  They can come to see the experience of their childhood without judgment.  They can come to an understanding that even Dad, the raging, egotistical, self-centered, mean, violent Dad who terrorized them, was doing the best he could because he was a sick man whom others allowed to be that way.  And that somehow that experience shaped those who were raised in it and made them determined to be good parents, good people, kind and loving and giving people.  And to be grateful for everything that they have, and for life itself.

So my prayer is that we, the children of America, can come together in this crisis.  That we can help Mom to see that she can leave Dad and it will be safe.  That even if Mom cannot leave Dad, we can leave both Mom and Dad and make ourselves safe; that ultimately we can come together to make sure that all the kids, or at least the grandkids are safe; that this is can become a family in which we can speak out; we can say our truth; we do not have to hide who we are anymore.  We do not have to pretend anymore that Dad is not the way he is. We do not have to pretend that his behavior is okay. We do not have to pretend that it is okay to hurt each other.  That we can raise ultimately ourselves and parent ourselves and learn to forgive, to release judgment, to love all the kids in the family, no matter how much pain they are in and no matter how much they hurt us.  And we can, as so many adult children of dysfunctional families have, choose new role models, new parents who are capable of loving us as we are, no matter what.

The Myth of a Litigious Society Hurts Us So Much

Full disclosure, I haven't read this book.  I am using it as a prompt for a rant at the same time as giving publicity to the writer, David Engel, a well-regarded academic who happens to be a cousin of my husband and is a wonderful person.

I gather from perusing the table of contents of this book that it is mostly here to show us that even though we think we live in a society where everyone sues at the drop of a hat for everything, we don't.  That is a myth and I will add, that this is a myth that injures us so much.

The next book can be about all the ways in which this myth injures our society, our entrepreneurship, our health.  Maybe that should be David Engel's next book: the injuries the myth has caused.  I could probably write a post every day for a week and only begin to cover it.

Here's the first one:  Dentists x-ray you a lot more than they should.  This is live for me right now because our daughter has a dentist appointment this afternoon and we can't get them to clean her teeth without subjecting her to needless radiation.  All health professionals in the US have a ludicrously outsized idea of the risk that they will be sued.  This is supported by movies, tv shows, constant references.  And it is false.  Not only won't they be sued for harms they haven't caused due to negligence, they won't be sued for harms they have caused due to negligence.

In California, the risk that a health professional, clinic or hospital will be sued is even lower because all health professionals are protected by a law known as MICRA (the Medical Injury Compensation Reform Act of 1975) which capped compensations for medical injuries, even those demonstrably the fault of the provider at $250,000 for non economic damages--a cap so low that it effectively renders it impossible for lawyers to justify taking cases.  Consumer groups and consumer attorneys have tried several times to raise this cap or at least put a cost of living adjustment on it, but over and over again the myth of a litigious society is lifted up by insurance companies and big health care companies and Californians or their representatives willingly vote to effectively give away their right to a day in court.

So that brings us to dentists--amongst people who study the effects of radiation, it is well known that the amount of radiation that dentists subject us to in x-rays is way too high, despite precautions taken, to have annually.  Yet, "the industry standard" for dentists at least in California, is to x-ray every year. And when you, as I did yesterday, question dentists or their staff vigorously as to why that is the "industry standard," you learn that it is the perceived risk of being sued that is driving that "standard."  The only way you can get them to not x-ray you is to promise not to sue them.

Let me break this down for you:  dentists aren't worried that they'll harm you.  They are harming you. They are harming you annually with unacceptably high doses of radiation.  They are worried that you'll harm them by suing them.  And if they have an x-ray that shows that their own judgment and intuition about what was going on in your mouth is correct, they think their malpractice insurance will be lower (it might not be, different rant) and they think they'll successfully defend themselves. But, the reason Engel's book is important is that all of that is based on a lie: you won't sue them.  And if you live in California, you effectively can't.

I miss having a president

With the white supremacist attack in Charlottesville earlier this week, the bomb detonated at a Minnesota mosque on August 5th, and the constant threats by North Korea, I find that I am wishing that we had a president.  It's not that I miss President Hillary Clinton or President Barack Obama (well I do, but that's not what I mean), I just mean a president, a leader of the country.

As "my" Daily 202 in the Washington Post (a wonderful daily email that gives you snippets of everything that is happening in the news and good analysis) pointed out today, this is really the first time in modern American history that the president of the United States has abdicated his role as moral leader, as re-assurer in chief, as, well, a leader of the whole country.  Link to Daily 202: Trump Acts like the President of the Red States of America.

It's cliché today to express nostalgia for President George W. Bush, but even he understood that he was president of us all, and struggled to provide context and reassurance.  This president not only had a horrific response to the events in Charlottesville, but he has completely failed to address the bomb in the Minnesota mosque, having one of his spokespeople say that he needs to see if it's real yet, while the Governor of Minnesota has meanwhile pronounced it a terrorist attack.  And that's to say nothing of his responses to North Korea.

It feels scary and lonely not to have a president, even one I disagree with, who understands his job.   For months I have been recommending against holding out hope for an impeachment and the installation of Mike Pence.  I have frankly feared a competent rightwing ideologue over an incompetent rightwing ideologue.    But there is part of me that is beginning to yearn for President Pence as a way, you know,  just to have a president.

4 Snouts up for The Scots Punk Play at Shakespeare at Delaware Park in Buffalo

(:)(:)(:)(:) for the Scottish Play that starts with an "M" at Shakespeare at Delaware Park in Buffalo, NY. That's out of a possible 5 so its not the top, but it was a VERY solid production.  I asked my daughter if she thought the striking and unusual costumes were "steam punk"-- she said more like "Scots Punk"-- perfect.

Photo from the Buffalo News

Matt Witten as MacBeth himself (pictured below) was fantastic--pulling off the credible transition from loyal Lord to murdering despot with powerful presence and credibility.  Lisa Vitrano was as also strong as Lady MacBeth, although somehow didn't inhabit the role as fully as Witten.  The stark set, the gorgeous costumes and the strong supporting cast: excellent Chris Hatch as MacDuff, very strong Ray Boucher as Banquo, memorable Jamie Nablo as Lady MacDuff.  The 3 dancers that played the witches were unusually sexy and made marvelous "weird sisters"  

This production cements my conviction that I would rather see Shakespeare's tragedies than comedies.  They are just better stories, more powerful, and easier, frankly, to understand.

The weird sisters -- usually sexy witches--photo from the Buffalo News

A note:  I am saw minimal nontraditional casting in this play. Almost all of the actors were white. Also, at Oregon Shakespeare Theater they even sometimes cast women in male parts, a type of nontraditional casting that I think is long overdue.  Part of our transition to a more equal society, and acknowledgement of the changes happening in our gender continuum, needs to allow women to play traditionally male parts.  And this is more important than allowing men to play traditionally female roles because most playwrights are male, most parts are for men, and most actors are women, so there is a strong inequity in casting.  I am agnostic as to whether the parts should be re-written to be another gender, sometimes yes sometimes no depending on the play and what the director wants to accomplish and also the playwright's permission. I'd be wary about changing what a playwright has written.  Particularly with the bard.

Making Peace with True Gender Equality

At the aggregate level, the majority of college graduates across the United States are now women. The vast majority of college applicants with the highest grades, scores and accomplishments are women.  (A recent article I read noted that the single biggest beneficiary of affirmative action these days is white male college applicants as colleges scramble to come close to an equal number of women and men on campus--they fail--many colleges have 60% women or more) 

(why are all these women white? why couldn't I find a better picture?)

At the anecdotal level, most of young adults that I know that are succeeding in the world in conventional terms (education, career, independence from parents) are women (caveat: not sure if this is born out by statistics, but seems probable).  I should also note at this point that as I write, the distinction between the sex that someone is born with and the gender that someone identifies with is also completely being defined and so these changes that I am exploring increasingly do not take place in a binary gender universe, but instead within a continuum that I cannot entirely predict or imagine.

Yet we are still in a time when the vast majority of elected officials are men, the vast majority of CEOs of major companies are men, certain fields remain top heavy with men, and women (across all backgrounds) earn 70 cents to the dollar of men (across all backgrounds). 

So as this generation, in which women are, for the first time perhaps in thousands of years, more prepared to be the breadwinners than men are, comes into its own—the possibility for pushback is enormous.  The 119 cataclysmic election has been widely covered as part of the pushback, particularly as Trump beat the first female major party nominee for president.  Much of the analysis of why Trump won has focused on angry white voters rather than angry male voters, partly because white female voters defected in significant numbers from Clinton to Trump.

But I think we’re making a mistake if we think that men are the only people uncomfortable with a transition to equality.  In race relations, although I have no research to back it up, it is probably safe to assume that almost all people of color are comfortable with a swift transition to a leadership that looks more like the actual workforce or the electorate. 

But may not be the case with a transition to even an equal, let alone female-dominant, leadership of institutions.   In many instances, even some feminists, may be uncomfortable with a change of that magnitude—it shakes the foundations of family, of culture in a way that many can’t quite fathom.  I think it is not historical coincidence that we elected a male person of color president before we elected a woman (of any color).

I believe this because I see it in myself.  Here I am, a white woman, a lifelong feminist, and while I have no problem voting for female candidates (I do have a problem with Clintons, but I voted for her anyway), I do feel uncomfortable at the prospect of a world to come that might be disproportionately female-dominated.

Here’s an example, I’m a senior minister, the head pastor at my (small) church—an extreme rarity in the world of churches.  On the local email group of clergy, which is almost all male, my title often gets inadvertently dropped.  And I’m sensitive to this, and wish there were more female clergy in the world.    Yet, it makes me uncomfortable that in my denomination, the Centers for Spiritual Living, the vast majority of all ministers are women.  In 2014, in my graduating class from Holmes Institute for Consciousness Studies in Santa Rosa, CA, ten out of ten of us were women.

Until recently, that has worried me.  And I’ve had to look at that and do my work around it.  I’m irrationally bothered on both ends.  I’m bothered that the executive director and the Spiritual Leader of our international denomination (as wonderful as they are) are white men, in an organization that is dominated by women and has significant number of ministers of color and a commitment to diversity.  I’m bothered that in crowded fields of ministers vying to be called as senior ministers at larger centers, it seems (anecdotally) that the congregations are much more comfortable offering the pulpit to male than to female ministers. 

And yet I’ve also been uncomfortable with how few male colleagues I have.  It feels unhealthy and strange.  I grew up with a very strong relationship and identification with my (feminist professor advocate) father and my wonderful brothers and husband.  Yet, I also see that a strong part of my cultural upbringing is that it is women’s job to make men feel comfortable.  For example, in mixed company it is acceptable for men to talk about sports or comic books or microbreweries or other subjects that women may by and large take little interest in (or feign interest in).  Meanwhile, it is decidedly unacceptable for the women in that same mixed group to talk for more than a second about films that particularly appeal to them (acceptably and popularly demeaned as “chick flix”), shopping for clothing, or anything at all to do with menstruation or childbirth.  If women want to talk about such things, it is understood that they need to do it separately.  Men for the most part can talk about whatever they want, whenever they want (except extreme sexual objectification of women, which they are advised to take into their “mancaves.”)

I am reminded of the hilarious feminist comic Kate Clinton’s early bit on how if men menstruated, and they needed a tampon, instead of whispering shamefully on the sidelines and hiding it in a bag as they transferred it to another person, the men would shout out in groups, “anyone got a ‘pon?” and another guy, who would have a neat pack in his breast pocket, would say say, “sure, go long,” and pass it like a football.

So where am I going with this?  My point is that whether we realize it or not, every layer of our society, every class,  depends upon women trying to make men feel like men.  It is our job to do so.  And as we become the CEOs, the governors, the presidents, the senior ministers (all of whom historically relay on unpaid wives to bolster their careers and their egos and their lives), how do we do this?  Is there a role reversal?  Is it now men’s job to make us succeed?  Is it every person for themselves?  Who is raising the children? Is it to be generations of women giving birth and handing the child-raising over to men because they’re the ones with a paying job? 

I guess I sound like someone born 56 years ago that has more questions than answers and I’ve gone on too long.  Blog out.

No Substitute for Oral

I am not the classic luddite curmudgeon.  Born in 1961 towards the end of the Baby Boom, I nonetheless like to think of myself as an early millennial because my parents brought me up without limits or responsibilities and because I started being obsessed with computers and digital communication as a teenager in the 1970's.  Throughout my 35 years since then, I have always had a bias towards converting every form of everything to digital.

I'm that person in the office who has always driven everyone nuts expecting people to communicate through the cloud, keeping everything updated, uploading everything, like that.

So, it is not lightly that I admit, begrudgingly, and foolishly late in the game, that there is really no substitute for direct oral communication.  In the communication guidelines for Center for Spiritual Living, Santa Rosa, they hold themselves to a standard of never trying to make ANY decision by email.  Email is used only for information, not for discussion or decision-making.  I think it might not even be used to introduce new proposals.

I know one actual millennial who imposes similar constraints on texting. She will use it for logistics, but not for conversation.  She saves that for the phone, or in person--which puts her at odds with most of her peers, and with me.  I am, whether I should be or not, perfectly fine with text conversations, however un-nuanced and awkward they may be (which reminds me of a hilarious fake story comedian Paula Poundstone told on Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me about 2 people lost in the wilderness for 2 days whose survival was threatened because their cell phone batteries ran out and they were no longer able to express themselves or know what they were feeling without emojis😆 ).

I have come to understand that nobody really reads anything beyond a couple of emails.  While electronic apps and devices and great for organizing information, and for storing information, and for putting advertisers out of business, if you really want someone, anyone, to know or understand something you talk directly to them, preferably face to face and in person (side note that while I am a big fan of videoconference, particularly Zoom, I am capable of looking like I'm participating in a conversation on video while I'm really checking my email, which is practically impossible to pull off in person, so on balance, in person is better.  Also if you ever invite someone to a videoconference and they call in instead, its a lock that they are multi-tasking.   Some people hate videoconferences for the same reason that I like them, because they minimize multi-tasking.)

So that's really all I have to say.  Now I just have to remember this the next time I go mad trying to "communicate" online.

Chronic Pain--the Epidemic Behind the Opioid Epidemic--Who is Treating IT?

We've all read the headlines and started to understand that there is an opioid addiction health crisis in this country, but how many of the articles address the underlying driving force behind the addiction: chronic pain.

Millions and millions of Americans live with chronic pain.  Their experience of pain prevents them from sitting anyplace for long. Their experience of pain prevents them from walking, from exercising, reduces enjoyment of all fun occasions.  For a long time, physicians only answer to this pain has been the prescription of opioids.

Receiving pain killers as your doctor's solution to chronic pain is a little bit like taking your car into the mechanic with an engine failure light lit up on the dash only to have him disconnect the wire to the light instead of fixing the engine.  Pain is there to give us information about something that is going badly awry.  Covering it up with medication doesn't change the underlying situation.

Even worse, many if not most of the people who are regularly taking the opioids STILL experience a lot of the pain that drove them to get the prescriptions.  So now they are addicted, at risk of overdose and still in pain.  It's bad.

A good friend of mine is one part of a team that has opened a special residential treatment program in Camarillo (near Ventura), California for addiction free pain management.  It's called A Healing Place -- The Estates: Transformative Solutions for Chronic Pain.  Click here for an article on their website entitled "why addiction free pain management?" 

A year ago Center for Spiritual Living, Davis founded All is Well Institute where our first project is to teach and support people in using spiritual tools, such as meditation and forgiveness, to heal themselves from chronic pain and chronic illness.  The results we've experienced are tremendous.

Love Your Divine Feminine At Sister Spirit Sept. 14-17

If you don't have plans for September 14th through 17th (and you identify as female), it's not too late to sign up for Sister Spirit retreat at the beautiful Saratoga Springs Retreat and Healing Center near Upper Lake, California.
Several years ago, my life transformed as I attended the Woman Spirit retreat created and facilitated by Rev. Georgia Prescott and a wonderful team.  Going into that retreat, despite believing myself to be a feminist, and consciously walking a spiritual path, I really had no peace with my femininity--the really consistent loving presences in my life had been men, not women.  I liked myself in spite of being a woman, not because.

After a long weekend of playing, painting, dancing, sweating, crying and laughing with women in the woods, that all changed.  I loved myself and I had a Great Spiritual Mother to consult (as well as a Divine Father, which I'll always have and love as well).

Enter Sister Spirit, created by Abigail Schairer, inspired by the Woman Spirit retreat several years ago. At this point Rev. Abigail (Spiritual Leader of the Center for Spiritual Living, Peninsula in Redwood City, CA) leads one of these retreats in the fall and one of these in the spring.  This year's fall retreat has Lakiba Pittman as the featured speaker and Amy Steinberg as the featured musician. If you have no other plans, this is a wonderful way for you to heal yourself and restore and rejuvenate.  

If you want to register, there are still a few spaces left.  Click here for more information about Sister Retreat.   Click here to register

Since When is Sexism an Ideology Up for Debate?

Yesterday's coverage in the New York Times of the Google firing (Culture Wars Come to Silicon Valley) implies that reasonable minds can differ about whether women are genetically inferior to men, and that this is merely an ideological debate.   Let's be clear about this:  the Google software engineer wrote a detailed multi-page (internal) memo arguing that women are "genetically" incapable of high level work as computer programmers and that the company should stop trying to hire them. My question is, since when is the worst kind sexism ideological rather than just plain discriminatory?

There was a time in our nation's history when white men felt free to assert in public the inferiority of women and of people of color. Surely that time has passed, and we don't need to lament it.   If a similar memo surfaced claiming that people of color were incapable of being software engineers, would we claim that the writer of the memo was having their free speech censored because they had a right to these opinions?  No.  We wouldn't.  Well Breitbart and its ilk would, but the rest of us, including The New York Times, would not.    Is it the ascendancy of this kind of perspective in the White House that emboldens The New York Times to muse about this? You'd think that being routinely maligned as "failing" by the Tweeter in Chief would make it less likely.   In this case, though, The Times is "failing" us.

We have civil rights laws that protect us from discrimination on the basis of race and gender.  Google was well within its rights to fire this employee because he advocated and tried to justify illegal hiring practices.  This harms the company and puts it at risk for successful lawsuits.  Indeed, the publicity surrounding the surfacing of the memo may have even reduced Google's stock prices.  It's hard to see a more clear instance of an imperative firing.

Yet, many on the right are calling this firing a violation of free speech rights.   The folks raising these objections are in the same ideological camp that fiercely protects the "rights" of private companies (NOT the employees) to deny birth control coverage to employees and to not sell wedding cakes to gay couples.  Do they only want to protect the rights of private companies and employees with whom they agree?

I don't.  If that fired Google employee wanted to write his sexist screeds on the internet and the government suppressed his writing, or jailed him for his opinion, THAT would be a violation of free speech rights, however wrong his writings, unless he was advocating hate crimes against women.  I would protect this guy's right to speak, just not in the workplace.  And I would write against it (or, I might just ignore it, not wanting to give oxygen to such ludicrous nonsense).

Can we please all agree that in a civil society, we do not pretend that advocating discriminatory acts is somehow to be applauded?

What do We Mean by LOL?

I think we can agree that people around the world use LOL a lot in text speech and that we do not basically ever mean that we are laughing out loud.  So what do we mean?

It started to dawn on me about a month ago when I read a cute piece in the "failing New York Times" as "that awful Trout in the White House"* calls it, about how we laugh in text.  (Laugh and the World Laughs With you ).  I liked the piece and agreed with all of it except her analysis of why LOL is used so much.  

The author posits that LOL long ago ceased to have anything to do with laughter and that it is "basically the equivalent of 'K'" (which I have to confess I use a lot).  And then she closes the article with a throw away, "And no, Mom, once and for all it does not mean 'lots of love.'"

But is she right?  I think we can all agree that text speak is a particularly un-nuanced environment for communication (contrast texts with tweets which are obviously the perfect way to announce major public policy initiatives--but I digress into an over-discussed matter...).  There is much potential for hurt feelings, misunderstandings, a sense that people, in communicating so quickly and with so few letters, are being rude or mean.

Enter "lol" which does not mean laugh out loud and is not a stand in for "k" (which really means, "roger, I have received your message, over").  So what purpose does lol really serve?  I think that that lol is there to soften the hard edges of the text universe.  It is there to tell us that what we just said was not mean, was not terse, was not a sling or arrow, was just information.   And sometimes it is a question.  Many times I’ll text a little tidbit to someone only to have them text back, “LOL?” This question is asking, “how do I mean this to land?”  If I text back, “LOL” then I have confirmed that it is meant sweetly.  If I don’t, it means something in else.

In other words, Mom, it means “lots of love.”

BTW, "That awful Trout" is what my mother calls the President.  LOL

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Four Snouts Up for Detroit in theaters now

(:)(:)(:)(:) out of a possible 5 for the movie Detroit by (white) director Kathryn Bigelow in theaters now.  This is the second film in a row I've seen that I would recommend but that I did not enjoy.  The first was Dunkirk.   I didn't enjoy them because they are so stressful.  Both films are tense and terrifying throughout and very well crafted.  The similarity of course, ends there and the comparison should not have been made in the first place, apologies for that.

Anyway, some questions initially were raised about whether this white director would be able to create a film that adequately portrayed an African-American perspective of this terrifying night of psychological torture and murder at the hands of white Detroit police that this group of young Black men and 2 white women endured.  Obviously there's no way I'll be qualified to address that issue. Click to the right for one favorable review from an African-American perspective-- Daily Beast on White Director for Black Movies.

I appreciate the stress in Detroit because it put me in a frame of mind where I was forced to understand on a visceral level the fear, the distrust and the outrage of what it is to be an African-American dealing with (white or other) police.   I already knew this intellectually.  I was already furious about it.  And now, post Detroit, a level of fear has been experienced that I had not yet imagined.  I didn't relish that fear.  I don't particularly seek out that fear.  But I think it is important for me and other white Americans to witness this one chapter in the real life horror movie that continues to be the African-American experience.

Top 10 Ways NOT to Set Boundaries

I don't know a lot about how to set appropriate personal boundaries but I am an expert on how NOT to set them, so I'm going to walk through that now.

#10 -- First wait years to figure out that there's no appropriate boundaries between you and other people;  This is crucial.  If you set boundaries at the beginning of your life and hold them, they you might grow up with consistent loving relationships and where's the fun in that?

#9 -- Know that the other people are the problem & that if they would only stop doing this to you, then you would be okay;  I can't emphasize this enough.  If you don't blame other people for violating YOUR boundaries, then its very difficult to justify the implementation of the other 8 key tips;

#8 -- Figure out a boundary that you want the other people to observe;  Remember that in my dysfunctional universe, I believe that it is OTHER people's job to observe my boundaries (not mine).  So I need to come at the boundary from that perspective.  Like, if I don't want to talk on the phone with someone 6 times a day, I need them to stop calling me.  I never consider other options that I could control.  I don't stop answering. I don't turn off my phone.  I don't NOT call back.  I don't block their calls.  Remember this is their problem, not mine.

#7 -- Tell them why you have to set a boundary and how bad they have made you feel;  They must know how bad they have made me feel and they must be made to feel terrible about the years of harm they have caused me.  If I don't tell them why I'm setting the boundary, how are they going to get the motivation to change?

This is a boundary!  Stop crossing it!

#6 -- Describe exactly what the boundary is; since they will be the ones in charge of observing the boundary, not me, it is crucial that they recognize it.

#5 --  Tell them what they can't do anymore; Never make the mistake of thinking that you are in charge of only your own behavior.  It is THEIR behavior that is the issue here.  You're the victim.  They're the perp.  Therefore the spiritually enlightened thing is to tell them what they can and cannot do.

#4 -- Tell what you're going to do when (not if) they break your boundary;  talk to them in an angry blaming way about the boundary that you have failed to hold for years and make sure they understand that you now (contrary to before) mean business and that when, not if, you can't trust these people, they next break this boundary, this is what you're going to do. 

#3 --  When they do break it, don't do what you said you would do; u want to keep them guessing, so if you said that you are going to leave the room every time they speak to you in an abusive manner.  Next time they do that, stay in the room and sulk;

#2 -- Don't be quiet about this; if you choose to quietly without fanfare leave the room, or hang up, or change the subject every time someone crosses a certain line, they might not ever understand that they are the problem and everything might just quietly get sweeter and more serene.  Don't risk this.  See above.

And the #1 way to NOT set boundaries IS:
Whatever you do, do not choose to hold your own boundaries; the single biggest mistake you can make is to take responsibility for your own life and choices.  If you take responsibility for holding and maintaining your own boundaries, then everything in your life and everyone in your life and all your relationships will improve without anybody ever feeling bad about how they treated you, or getting angry that you've changed.  This, clearly, is a ridiculous result to be avoided at all costs.

Why my kids call me "Bob"

This is the photo that popped up
when I Googled "call me Bob"

Years ago when we were at a public pool or somewhere where everyone's name is "Mom," they had summer colds, and when they yelled for me, it sounded like  "Bob" instead of "Mom."

We all noticed that I turned around and responded a lot quicker than when they called me "Mom."  So they started using it even when they were not congested.  Other people in public places, it turns out, think you're saying Mom, or more likely, just don't care what you're yelling at all.  But I could pick out that it was Bob instead of Mom and it always seemed to hasten the process of the mother and child reunion.

It stuck.  Years later, long beyond the time that they would ever call out my name in public unless they needed me to pay a restaurant check, their name for me remains "Bob."

This has the added bonus of injecting an appearance of diversity into their lives when bring their friends home to meet "Dad and Bob"--some are shocked it's not a 2-dad family.

Conditional (:)(:)(:)(:)(:) for Cloudsplitter by Russell Banks

Abolitionist John Brown at Harpers Ferry

No one in their right mind would review a book before they've finished reading it, so I'm giving it a conditional five out of a possible five snouts up for Cloudsplitter by Russell Banks, page 436 out of 758.    I've had this book on my shelf for a couple of years, working my way around to the right mood for reading a fictionalized treatment of the life of abolitionist John Brown through the eyes of a surviving son.

But then I realized that I was headed to my mother's family reunion near Harpers Ferry, West Virginia.  Our Engle family settled near there throughout the 19th century including one of my direct ancestors who inauspiciously chose to fight for the confederacy even after his part of Virginia refused to secede from the union, sigh.  So this then, was the perfect time to read Cloudsplitter to better imagine those volatile times leading up to the civil war.

I even went one better and assigned Cloudsplitter as the Engle Etchison family reunion book (who does that?) to make sure that I read it.  I was certain that no one else would read the book.  And, now that I'm at the reunion, I've been proven right.  I, however, am absolutely riveted by the perspective of his middle son Owen brought up by this zealous, deeply Christian man who became convinced that it would take an organized insurrection to end the institution of slavery.   The imaginings in the book of his hateful rants towards weak, nonviolent white and black abolitionists, and his sense that he is somehow a better, more dedicated "Negro" than many actual African-Americans, holds me spell bound.  This book, a national bestseller and Editor's Choice of the New York Times Book Review in 1998, somehow holds up even better in today's climate where current administration policies are strangely reminiscent  of such outrages as the Fugitive Slave Law of the 1850.

Combine this reading as I have with a first trip to the African-American Museum on the National Mall, a viewing of An Octoroon at the Woolly Mammoth Theater and a reunion of my white West Virginia relatives and you've got yourself a real American party.