Girls' Camp Round Two

Before I talk about Girls' Camp this year, I would like to point out that the new Bourne movie had the same affect on me as other movies mentioned in my last post. I have thoroughly enjoyed this series (even the Jeremy Renner installment) and felt like the original three Damon movies were a very apt, and complete, trilogy. The Jeremy Renner movie is a great stand-alone. Enter this movie. Bourne is without purpose, fighting as a mercenary for money. He is torn between being a true patriot and being a man without a country. He has no closure and is still filled with horrific nightmares. Two blood-soaked hours later (the fighting is just brutal), he is still in exactly the same place. That being said . . . it is Matt Damon. He is that rare actor who has the ability to make something of nothing--like a really good-looking Tom Hanks.

But enough about that. Two weeks ago I finished my second week-long stint at Girls' Camp. Part of my thoughts here come from a mini-talk I gave the Sunday after.

My scripture study for the week had me in the book of Mosiah. I have been reading the Book of Mormon very slowly this year because I have a newish set of scriptures and lots of lovely white pages and blank margins for new thoughts. I think Mosiah, and the first half of Alma, are my favorite parts of the Book of Mormon. There is much to be gleaned about society, personal conversion, service, community and trials in this portion. Every chapter seems to offer deep and applicable truths. Anyway, I was reading about the people of Zeniff and their troubles stemming from an extremely tyrannical leader (Noah) and the fall out for years after his death.

In this section, there are two different groups of people that come under hardship because of oppression from a government that, in the beginning, they had willingly pledged themselves to live under. But because they are outsiders--different culturally and religiously--they become extremely persecuted. Additionally, one of the groups has false charges laid to them of serious wrongdoing. The upshot is, that largely through no fault of their own, the people are living under a lot of stress. They pray for deliverance that is not forthcoming.

However, in both instances, it causes the people to have great humility before God as they pray for their enemies' hearts to be softened. Additionally, the scriptures tell us that God didn't deliver them right away, but instead made their backs strong so they could bear their burdens.

I think it is easy to discount teenage girls' problems as "drama." And while, yes, teenage girls do create plenty of drama, my experience at camp this time around was that many of them experience trials that are deadly serious, for which there is no immediate or easy resolution. This time at girls' camp, I really tried to hear their stories.

I met a girl who anxiously awaits her father's release from prison next year--her family has tenaciously stood by him and attested to his innocence in his white-collar crime from the beginning. It was an LDS prosecutor who relentlessly assassinated his character during the trial and is responsible for putting him in prison.

I met a girl who is one of five siblings (some half/some full) who were adopted by members of her family when her mother was in danger of losing all of them to foster care. Her parents are also her aunt and uncle. One girl, who is more like a cousin, is biologically her sister and legally her aunt.

I met a young woman who has spent most of her childhood homeless and was shown by our camp nurse how to use the shower and wash her hair. One girl in her unit was complaining relentlessly about how much she disliked camp; this sweet girl replied, "I like it here." It may be the first week in her life when she got to act like a kid . . . and know where her three meals a day were coming from.

I met a girl whose mom suffers from depression--which suffering really translates to this girl trying to act as mom to the boys in her family.

I met a girl whose mom just got a clean cancer diagnosis after months of being told that she only had weeks to live.

I met a girl whose life was deeply changed by a stillborn brother, and whose mom is pregnant with a due date very near the due date of the previous baby.

I met lots of girls seeking for testimony they aren't sure they have.

It occurred to me that Girls' Camp is a fun place for these sweet (and sometimes bitter/salty/sour) young women to put all those burdens on hold for a few days. And while camp cannot take their burdens, it is a place for them to strengthen their backs. Our mortal experience is what it is. We are each a unique combination of biology, culture, personality and opportunity. Some of this is given by God, some of it is given to us by circumstance, some of it we choose. But I am coming to see that God will always strengthen us if we ask. He may not change our circumstances, but he teaches us to change the way we view them.

Doing Science-y Stuff

Commitment

My mom was in town this week (see Facebook for copious pictures) and we had a chance to talk about, well, just about everything. One of the things we talked about was the idea of commitment in the rising generation. She mentioned hearing some general authority or another talking a while back in a meeting about a current concern with the youth being that they just won't decide to live the gospel--they are wishy-washy in their adherence to gospel teachings, and complacent about finding and holding onto testimonies.

It is kind of a standing joke, almost a cultural icon: the eternally uncommitted 20 (or 30 or 40)-something male who just can't seem to pull it together long enough to get married or have children or, just, you know, GROW UP. The Peter Pan syndrome.

But it isn't just men that fail to launch, or women to whom they won't pledge. What I've been thinking is that what makes people commit to any cause, is that they feel the fire of it deep in their heart. What makes you speak out, march, pledge, donate time and treasure is a deep-seeded feeling of belief that what you are doing matters. That it makes a difference. That it might change the world, or at least your corner of it.

In the Book of Mormon, the direst descriptor given to any fallen people is that they are "past feeling." I wonder if this past-feelingness is becoming epidemic in our society. We speak so often about being desensitized to violence, but my thought today is the violence is only one of so many things we are desensitized too. I fear that with so much to fill our time, we have lost the ability to be still and allow the Universe to show us what it has to teach. To let the Holy Ghost feel up the empty recesses in our souls instead of more activities. More media. More noise.

In my Sunday School lesson today there was a quote from Brigham Young that you have probably heard about "the fire of the covenant." I remember a wealth of experiences both as a youth and as a young adult that seared that covenant into me, leaving a permanent impression on my heart. A fire I've learned to recognize and feel as the burning of truth and testimony.

I pray that the youth the Lord causes to be put in my way will feel. That they will feel anything. That they won't succumb to the fashionable ennui that is so common to teens in any age, and maybe most particularly to teens of this age. And that on the other hand they won't immerse themselves in false emotion so there is no room for the truer, deeper feelings the Lord would have them experience.

This epidemic of snark spills over into other areas of their lives as well. I see youth so unwilling to leave the nest, to serve, to try their own strength. Too many without a cause to hang their lives on. We cannot falter in our own dreaming and striving. We must show them how glorious and satisfying life can be when you have the courage to covenant, and to live those covenants. It takes courage to feel, to feel deeply and to be vocal about those tender and vulnerable feelings. We are in need of heroes with such courage.

Remembering

My mother sent me a letter on my mission in which she wrote, "You have the ability to glean a lot of wisdom from everyday experiences." I've often believed this to be one of the greatest compliments I've ever been paid, and a fortunate byproduct of my unfortunate tendency to overthink everything. In my mission journal and my letters home, my hands would ache and time would run out long before I was finished telling what I had observed, and how it had changed me. 

This month in youth Sunday School, the kids are talking about ordinances and covenants. The lesson outlines aren't as clearly delineated from one another as they seemed to be last month, and there is a lot of redundancy built in. The result is that I've read many conference talks this month on the sacrament. The recurring theme I have noticed over and over is the idea of "remembering." I was pondering this word a lot on Sunday. During my lesson, the Spirit was very strong, and the kids were really getting it. I don't know that they were a lot more forthcoming than usual, but there was a definite difference. They were more attentive, brows were more furrowed, and there were even a few glistening eyes. Then, boom, without it being according to plan, there was an account from my mission I felt impressed to share. It was a little thing really, seemingly unimportant, but somehow it was exactly the right thing at the right moment. It was a thing that hadn't been part of my preparation or even conscious thought for some years.

But it was a thing that helped my precious young class to see that their gospel preparation and knowledge is serious . . . and those years between baptism and the temple are vital. The moment was sublime and reminded me of every good reason we come to Church. I felt humbled and grateful that the Lord had put me in a place where I might make a difference.

And I understood something I've never quite seen before. 

Though it doesn't appear on any list, remembering, in its many and varied form, is itself a gift of the Spirit. Remembrance takes so many forms and meanings, each of them vital to gospel living. 

Remembering past blessings makes us grateful and humble.

Remembering is how we keep our covenants as we take the sacrament.

Remembering the Savior gives us the integrity to keep our covenants when we are away from Church.

Remembering our own weaknesses can keep us from judging others.

Remembering our ancestors helps us honor our religion and our liberty.

Remembering preserves our spiritual and familial traditions. 

My simple, unheralded event from my mission, came back to my memory in the very moment that my class needed to hear the words. If this is not the Spirit working, then I don't know what is. When I teach my class this week, I am going to ask them to pray with all the energy of their hearts that the Spirit will bless them with remembrance, so that it will be a shield and a protection to them against a world where everything changes and drifts into decay. 

In the words of Teryl Givens:

"I believe remembering can be the highest form of devotion. To remember is to rescue the sacred from the vacuum of oblivion. To remember Christ’s sacrifice every Sunday at the sacrament table, is to say “no” to the ravages of time; to refuse to allow his supernal sacrifice to be just another datum in the catalogue of what is past. To remember past blessings is to give continuing recognition of the gift, and re-confirm the relationship to the Giver as one that persists in the here and now. Few-very few-are entirely bereft of at least one solace giving-memory. A childhood prayer answered, a testimony borne long ago, a fleeting moment of perfect peace. And for those few who despairingly insist they have never heard so much as a whisper, then know this: We don’t need to look for a burning bush, when all we need is to be still and remember that we have known the goodness of love, the rightness of virtue, the nobility of kindness and faithfulness. And ask if we see in such beauties the random effects of Darwinian products, or can we not perceive in them the handwriting of God on our hearts?"

That almost sounds like poetry to me. 

Dreaming

I've been reading Whitney Johnson's book, Dare, Dream, Do in tidbits over the past several weeks. These days I don't read anything unless it is in tidbits. Whitney's book has proven very useful for this sort of disrupted reading. It is the kind of book better digested slowly if it is to have any impact on your life. Mostly it has made me ask myself the question, over and over: what do I want to achieve in my life?

Like you, the obvious answer to that is, "A lot."

I am not, however, talking about the things that most women want: a successful marriage, a safe place to raise her kids, children who become productive adults, the money to put good food on the table and and a roof over our heads, security, etc. etc.  I want all these things too, of course, but I think the purpose of Whitney's book goes beyond these things. Or, at least it does for me.

I want to know what unique thing I might accomplish that leaves a mark. An accomplishment that primarily belongs to me. Something I can point to with a mixture of humility and pride and say, "Because I did THAT, the world is a better place, and I am so grateful!"

I think I was always a teacher. There was never a time when I didn't want to improve and be in charge of everything around me, much to my little sister's chagrin, I'm sure. I've spent the last year thinking a lot about school. My kids' school, my own master's degree efforts, the structure and function of schools, the good and the bad in schools, and on and on and on. My dear, patient, Plantboy hasn't had such an earful about education since I was a first year teacher.

So I think I know what I want to do.

I want to start a school.

Oh, I have long toyed with the idea, but I always shirked for a lot of reasons. I couldn't see how a school could be built from the ground up and move from small to large. I couldn't see how to fund it. Public or private? Location. Logisitcs. And oh, my, the list of things necessary for creating a school are legion. But in a year's time, my oldest, very smart and unusual son will be in middle school and I have serious reservations about the school system in the city in which we find ourselves. I have sometimes spoken here about funding issues that have led to larger and larger classes and fewer and fewer days. for much that we love about living in our current city, we do have grave concerns about our sons laying a good foundation for reaching their potential.

So here is the school I want. I have no next step really. The "doing" part of Whitney's Dare, Dream, Do formula is still eluding me, but that school I want no longer seems like a such a pipe dream.

Here is a basic outline. I have more specifics in mind and may sometimes share them. If you have any ideas about what you'd like to see in a school for your child, please, by all means, share.

Grades: A 6-12 secondary school.

Enrollment: Each grade would max out at 60 students in three cohorts of 20. Cohorts would probably vary from year to year, at least for the first few years. 420 students would be the maximum enrollment. This doesn't mean classes would only be 20. Sometimes cohorts would combine--different types of instruction require different numbers of students.

Type of School: Charter. Public schools are nearly impossible to re-design from the top down; most decisions are taken out of administrative hands by those further up the hierarchy. Private schools are too expensive and exclusive.

Requirements: Because technology is utilized at the school to help individualize education, students from all academic backgrounds would be welcome. However, the rigors of the schedule and expectation of parental involvement will naturally weed out many from a  variety of demographics. That ever-hated lottery would probably have to come into play if the school model proved successful.

Yearly Schedule: The school would be organized around a trimester system, with students in school about 200 days each year. The format would be more of a year-round situation. 6-7 weeks on with a week off and then 6-7 more weeks with a larger break after that of 2-6 weeks. Students will get a major break at Christmas, in the spring, and a slightly longer one in the summer. There would be a fall semester (roughly Sept-Dec), winter semester (Jan-April) and spring semester (May-Aug).  Teachers at the school are paid more like full time employees with their vacations only occurring for 1-2 weeks between trimesters. When students are not in school, teachers are expected to spend intense hours in group and individual planning sessions, setting goals and writing and compiling curriculum.

Daily Schedule: Grades 6 and 12 begin at 8:15. Grades 7-11 at 7:15. The first hour in grades 7-11 is an exercise period, with each grade on a different schedule so that only 60 kids do each activity each day. (Research shows that brains are more active when exercise is undertaken prior to learning.) From 8:15 to 10:15 and from 10:30 to 12:30 students in grades 6-11 attend core classes in two, two-hour blocks. Half the school takes STEM first (Science, technology, engineering and math) and Humanities second (English, History and Art). The other half does the opposite. At 1:15 students go to the first of three elective hours that go 1:15 to 2:05; 2:10 to 3:00 and then 3:05 to 3:55. Parents pick up at 4. 6th (and possibly 7th) graders only do two elective hours in the afternoon and finish at 3:00.

Academic Schedule: Student education moves from being highly scripted in the 6th grade to being entirely student choice by the 12th grade. Each year's curriculum is integrated, meaning that in the core, morning subjects, students pursue a major course of study through the year, though this theme might vary between Humanities and STEM. For example, the 8th grade course of study would follow the theme, "Our Changing World." In science, students might study adaptation, genetic mutation, geology. In technology and engineering students would study a variety of transformative technologies throughout the ages, as well as how to make these technologies. Students would also learn how to read and make seismographs and study weather prediction. Math applications and projects would involve mutation rates, calculation of the age of the earth and other natural materials, and understanding seismological waves and data. In Humanities, English courses will focus on literature from 7th grade on. In the 8th grade year about change, the literary focus would be coming-of-age literature. History studies would revolve around major human migrations, diasporas and genocides. Art studies would revolve around transformative art movements.

Electives: Students would have a lot of choices in electives offered, and a concerted effort is made to offer EVERY class. This can be done through technology use as on-line courses become more varied and better. Students can choose up to 9 electives a year ("up to" because in younger grades their are more prescribed classes), though some of them are taught over two trimesters.  All but a few mainstream AP classes will be given as elective, on-line offerings, or through partnerships with local public high schools.

Teachers: As stated above, teacher wages are higher at my school because they are expected to work more hours. I would look for teachers with a varied background and multiple certifications and interests. They would spent most of their time in their speciality in their a.m. classes, but each teacher would be expected to teach two elective offerings a day as well. These electives would vary based on teacher attributes, interests and effective on-line courses.

Those brave few who have followed up to this point may want to check back over the next few weeks. I have a few more ideas to post, and some examples of what a day might look like for several different students at my dream school. I am finding the defining of my dream to be very satisfying and a little bit scary at the same time, probably because the satisfaction I take from the details now won't stay that way if I don't act.

Officially Filed Under "Duh"

This story appeared in my local newspaper today:

NASHVILLE, Tenn. - Billy Ray Cyrus says the Disney TV show "Hannah Montana" destroyed his family, causing his divorce and sending daughter Miley Cyrus spinning out of control.

In a December interview published in the Feb. 22 issue of GQ Magazine, Cyrus said he wished the show that launched his daughter to pop stardom had never happened.

"I hate to say it, but yes, I do. Yeah. I'd take it back in a second," Cyrus said. "For my family to be here and just be everybody OK, safe and sound and happy and normal, would have been fantastic. Heck, yeah. I'd erase it all in a second if I could."

Cyrus and his wife, Tish, filed for divorce in October. They have three kids together — Miley is the oldest — and two from Tish's previous marriage.

Billy Ray Cyrus said when he asked about the rumored video footage of his daughter smoking from a bong at her 18th birthday party in December, he was told it was none of his business. He refused to attend the party, saying it was wrong to have it in a bar.

Cyrus says in the interview that he tried too hard to be a friend instead of a parent to his daughter. He said he is scared for Miley and compared her current path to those of other stars whose lives ended tragically, including Kurt Cobain, Anna Nicole Smith and Michael Jackson.

"I should have been a better parent," Cyrus said. "I should have said, 'Enough is enough — it's getting dangerous and somebody's going to get hurt.' I should have, but I didn't. Honestly, I didn't know the ball was out of bounds until it was way up in the stands somewhere."

He said his entire family was baptized before leaving Tennessee for Los Angeles to protect themselves from evil, and he believes Satan is attacking his family."

Are there ANY circumstances under which you would encourage your child to become a star, or even attempt to go that direction? Is it possible for ANY teenager to properly grow up with such public scrutiny and money? I saw True Grit last weekend, and was astounded at the depth of talent and intelligence clearly on display by the young actress in the film. I am with a recent critic of the Academy Award nominations who said that is wasn't clear "exactly WHOM Hailee Steinfeld was supporting" indicating that she clearly deserved to be in the "Best Actress" category. With Miss Cyrus I've always thought, "What are her parents thinking???" and with Miss Steinfeld I can't help but think how awful it would be if she goes the same direction.

Maybe there is hope. Miss Steinfeld reports that her parents insisted she go to bed on time the night of the news release concerning Awards nominees. When her name was on the list, they came into her room and told her. The night that Miley Cyrus' most recent movie was released? She was seen lap-dancing with the director at a wrap party. She was 16. Her parents were not at the party. Satan can't get in your house unless somebody hands him the keys.

A Little Controversy

There is nothing like stirring people up to get the day going.

I get a regular e-mail from an on-line "magazine" of sorts called LDS Living. I believe it started when I ordered something from Deseret Book some time ago. I open it occasionally when there are news stories that look interesting or Family Home Evening ideas. Before my route this morning, and while I was trying to muster enough ambition to leave the house at 3 am in 25 degree weather despite a cold that has been lingering in various incarnations for three weeks, I opened one of these stories.

Here is the link.

The article is brief, but the upshot is that a high school with a majority LDS population decided to attend a cheer competition held on Sunday. It is a cheer competition inside Utah, with dozens of other Utah high schools participating, probably with similar demographics of LDS populations (according a commenter, anyway). Two girls told the coaches they wouldn't be going, expecting them to be understanding. They weren't.

Instead, they tried to have the girls removed from the team.

A meeting was held between parents, coaches and administration, where the parents argued that booting the girls from the team would be discriminating against them based on religion (not because they were refusing to fulfill team requirements). The coaches relented to avoid a big scene and allowed the girls to stand in the back of the main formations, with a small part so that they could be removed on competition day.

Due to scheduling conflicts, the cheerleading squad could only practice on Monday nights.

The girls complained again. This time they were booted. One of the mothers said the girls were "devastated," and the girls expressed how hard it was now to go to school and the games because they can no longer cheer. The article labeled the coaches, "unwilling to compromise."The girls' families said they don't want to make a scene.

It was very early, remember, when I read this. There were already two comments, speaking the girls' praises up and down. I had to create an account so I could make a comment.

Mine reads:

"I appreciate that what these girls did was hard for them, but the reality of my non-Utah LDS community is that our kids have to make decisions from the time they are very young to avoid competitive sports all together if they want to avoid Sunday participation. Nearly all of our youth leagues play at least a portion of their games on Sundays, and it can be very hard to find supportive coaches who are willing to tweak the schedule or work around being a man short on the Sunday games. Besides sports, LDS kids in our area seldom can attend birthday parties and a huge variety of community and school events because Sunday is the day of choice for so many activities. As a former teacher, it is also clear that the school did the best it could in the circumstances. I think the magazine blew this story way out of proportion by turning a very commonplace decision for LDS kids all over the world into a dramatic and newsworthy event."

As of noon today, there were 47 comments. Which, truthfully mostly seem to discuss my threadjack.

I'm not sure how I feel about that. I always like discussion, but I also realize I created a fair amount of conflict between people who all seem very sincere and mostly reasonable. I have not weighed in again.

I think I would like to here. What I cited above are not my only issues with the whole thing.

1 - We are talking about cheerleading, people. Cheerleading. The girls are not being denied any kind of academic activity. Remember, the ACTUAL purpose of the public school?

2 - And while we are talking about cheerleading. Just how modest ARE those uniforms? If we are going to get ticky about keeping unstated commandments, maybe that is worth addressing. (Just ask Loradona.) With the wholesome attitude toward the subjects of this article, it makes it sound as though cheerleading is some kind of inherently uplifting and virtuous activity. Not that it necessarily has to be the opposite, either; but if I had a daughter on a squad, I'd be as much concerned about certain types of dancing and uniforms as Sunday competitions.

3 - The coaches WERE accommodating. Very. They chose to allow the girls to stay on the team until they refused both to compete AND practice. There is no organization where you can just show up on performance/game/presentation day and expect to be unpunished. Maybe the coaches should have thought through signing the team up for the competition to begin with. There is no discussion from their viewpoint in the article--was a conversation held ahead of time with parents about this possibility? Did the team vote to participate? Again PUBLIC school. Nobody requires to the cheerleaders to actually do anything, or even exist for that matter.

4 - It is called a SACRIFICE, darlings. That is the whole point.

5 - And when your sacrifice is made public (the not-wanting-a-scene-mothers had to be interviewed for the thing, right?) and hundreds or thousands of people read it, and many comment on the fact that you are a "hero," doesn't this totally undermine actual spiritual growth that takes place in quiet moments of reflection and private decision making?

I want to reiterate that I can appreciate that this decision was hard for these girls, and they are to be commended for it. By their parents. But the "devastation" these girls feel shocks me with its lack of actual perspective. With its complete misunderstanding and overshadowing of the truly meaningful sacrifices young men and women make all over the worldwide Church every day. This is not a "Team Utah vs. Team Mission Field*" thing as implied by one appalled comment maker; it is a call to identify teenagers actually worthy of notice.

And here is the first one I'd like to call attention to: Sedrick Tshiambine. His story, found near end of this article, is one of true inspiration, sacrifice and dedication.

Clearly, the readership here is more selective, and probably more left of center than the mainstream US Church, and I'm interested in your take. Even if you disagree. Especially if you disagree.


* I really hate that term "mission field." I can't even begin to express why. Maybe another day. I think it is time to put the soapbox away for the day.

Sex and Power and the LDS Woman

I find myself singing to my kids often--snippets of songs, really. I think I do this because my mother did. And just like her I sing in snippets because I can't remember all the words and when I am on my own with no music I'm usually off key. One of my earliest mom-song-memories is Helen Reddy singing the great feminist anthem:

I am woman hear me roar
In numbers too big too ignore
And I know too much to go back and pretend
'Cause I've heard it all before
And I've been down there on the floor
No one's ever gonna' keep me down again.

It is funny, really, that this song, a huge hit the year I was born, should have so permeated my childhood. My mom did not, and definitely does not now, consider herself a feminist. And yet, she represented all that the movement wanted--she rose up from a difficult family life to attend college, told her boyfriend she wouldn't be married until she finished college (marrying in 1969), insisted on going back to work part time after her children were born, managed her own money and bank account for her whole adult life, had four children spaced exactly as she chose them to be. Growing up, it never occurred to me that there might be places in America where men and women weren't treated as equals. In my family, the women always had equal say with the men. Always.

And yet I don't consider myself a feminist either. It is ironic really, because I also completely recognize that my lifestyle, choices and self-actualization are a direct outgrowth from that time. I am not a feminist because for all the good the movement did for women in my generation, there were also heavy costs. A huge part of the movement, and the 1960's in general, was an exploration of sexual "freedom." Instead of helping to create a world where men were held to the same high standard that women had always been judged against, they advocated the freedom for women to act to the lowest common denominator. Empowering women became so wrapped up in sex that all the good work the feminists did ended up resulting in some pretty terrible unintended consequences. Women may now exhibit all kinds of lewd behavior without the consequences of a generation or two ago, but in the process these same women cause men to further objectify them. So much for the sexual revolution being anything more than huge step in the wrong direction.

A few months ago, Kathryn Soper, one of the lovely and talented women behind Segullah, posted an incredible article at a website called "Patheos." The article is about the ways in which we miss the mark when it comes to teaching teen aged women about chastity. Her insights are fascinating, the writing engaging, and her personal experiences deeply poignant. If you haven't had a friend send you the piece yet, you really should take a few minutes to go and read it. Ever since reading it a few weeks ago, I haven't been able to quite put it out of my head, and though I won't be as eloquent, I would like to add some of my own thoughts here.

The article begins by pointing out that most teenage girls do not engage in sexual activity because of an overwhelming desire to have sex. In fact, a New Yorker article from a couple of years ago, when reviewing the Twilight books, believed the popularity of the books was due to the fact that young women want love without sex. Soper asserts the same, and quotes President Ezra Taft Benson to back her up. The teen sex itself is a symptom of a deeper problem. Or problems.

Going further, Soper focuses the rest of her piece on just one of these problems: power.

Too many young girls, maybe particularly LDS girls, feel a lack of power. In this case, power is defined as a person feeling like they have a large measure of control over what happens to them. When we talk about power at church, we most often talk about Priesthood power--exclusive to men; or the power of procreation--inaccessible without a man. It isn't that there aren't plenty of examples of female power within the Church, it is just that our terminology doesn't acknowledge it.

When a powerless feeling is coupled with a strong need for love and/or attention, sexuality is the most obvious default for a teenager. Because, let's face it, ladies, men are wired to be deeply driven by sex. Women who learn from an early age to manipulate that desire can gain a lot of power. Of course, Soper reminds us, the power is just an illusion because it isn't based on something inside the young person, it is based on others' perceptions of her. Like the other power mentioned above, such burgeoning sexual power is based on something a man gives or does or notices.

I'd like to add that the power usually only lasts as long as the object of young man's desire is unattainable. Studies show that the vast majority of teen relationships end within a month or two of a couple's first sexual encounter. Girls, of course, have the most to lose in such a break-up, because it ensures that the temporary substitute for love is now absent, and to make matters worse, she has given up the only source of power that she had. In the self-image crash that inevitably follows, needs deepen further and our powerless young teenager finds herself repeating her mistakes because this time it will be "different."

The remainder of Soper's article is in the form of a personal essay, where she bravely talks about her first encounter with the realization that sexual power was within her grasp. In my own life, I was lucky not to have such an experience when I was in my mid-teens, though I knew that many of my friends understood that power. At the time, it didn't feel lucky. Other than a brief stint during my junior year, I could count on one hand the number of dates I had until I was twenty years old.

I was so jealous of the way my many friends could flirt and tease and even manipulate to find any number of boys with which to spend a Friday night. Or to take out the garbage. Or to lift something heavy. Or to hang on their every word. Or ultimately, to spend three months salary on a diamond ring.

Yet, even as my bitterness and mild disdain for what I perceived as the weakness of men grew (along with frustration over my sisters' cruelty toward them), I was busy cultivating other sources of power: intellectual, emotional and spiritual.

Then, when I was twenty years old, something remarkable happened. After a very unusual set of circumstances that landed me in Sacramento California and hanging out with a guy I didn't really like all that well, I looked into his eyes (too) late one night and I recognized exactly what Kathryn Soper is talking about in her article: sudden approval where before there had only been indifference. Bald desire that frightened me.

I kept my power and walked away from the situation, terrified at what I was capable of, and more than a little embarrassed. Because of this person's previous role in my life, for me to suddenly have such a hold was complete reversal, and more than a little exhilarating. What I learned that night, however, without really realizing it, was that "no," was more powerful than desire. My choice, my decision, was a product of every part of my power, not just my sexuality.

In Disneyland last month I was terribly disappointed not to see more evidence of Mulan: my favorite Disney-heroine and the consummate non-Princess. At the first of that movie, right after a disastrous trip to the matchmaker, she goes to the temple of her ancestors, made up and lovely. She is the classic picture of Chinese beauty. Yet, she knows as she catches her image in the highly polished stones that the gorgeous woman she sees is not a reflection of herself. As she wipes the make-up off just one half of her face, she sings,

Who is that girl I see?
Staring straight back at me?
When will my reflection show
Who I am, inside?

I saw this movie the summer I met Plantboy. I was quite self-actualized for 23, but I understood Mulan's sentiment exactly. How many times had I asked myself the same question, though perhaps without the moving vocals. Mulan is not just a love story between a man and woman, it is also a love story of a girl and her father, a girl and her country, a girl and herself.

Some time in my early thirties, I finally looked into the mirror one day and loved the woman I saw staring straight back at me. I found the place where I ceased to see myself through others eyes, even Plantboy's, and I felt deeply empowered. Intellectually, emotionally, spiritually and sexually. A balance that had taken me half my life to finally achieve.

The question I have today is, "why did it take so long?" What can be done to speed this process for the wondering and wandering young women we know and love so that they can be the heroines in their own lives?

Just a few weeks ago, a man in our ward gave a wonderful fireside about dating, but during his remarks he noted that if you believed yourself to be "in love" in high school, then you were just being ridiculous. (Ironically, his own wife, to whom he is very close, is his high school sweetheart.) I felt impressed to drive one of my young women home and speak to her a little more closely: she is dealing with some serious empowerment issues right now, and a serious boyfriend issue. I told her that loving another person wasn't ridiculous, and that part of the nature of women was to be loving. I reiterated that it is never okay to break the commandments, but that there are plenty of appropriate ways to give and express all kinds of love, even that feeling of romantic love. I pray that she will feel the power that comes into her life by choosing to be chaste. By choosing to love. By choosing her own path and asserting what she really wants. Mostly I pray that she will find her power before she finds herself on a road where she actually is helpless.

It is a hard thing we ask of our youth and young adults; it is a hard standard the Lord holds us to while simultaneously blessing us with such powerful needs, but we weren't sent here to fail, either. Empowerment is about realizing that we can do hard things. Because I am God's daughter.

A woman.

Strong. Feminine. Empowered.

Hear me roar!

In the past 24 hours I have been forcefully reminded that when you are working with teenagers they don't actually need another friend. Most of them have plenty of those, of varying degrees of loyalty. What they more often need from the adults in their lives is a parent. A leader. teacher. A mentor.

Sometimes the most loving thing is holding them responsible for their behavior.

Just don't expect them to love you in return for a long, long time. . .

Dear Mom

I am not sure if I will ever have a daughter. Oh, certainly one day there will be daughters-in-law, but I am not at all sure that there will ever be a teenaged woman in the same household as myself. In some ways that makes me very sad. Yes, really. I got into the whole teaching gig to begin with because I really love young people. I love watching them grow, change, develop and learn. Even when I was an older teenager, I loved taking the younger girls under my wing--showing them around the junior high school, helping them transition into our Young Women group, listening to all their problems and stories at Girls' Camp. Though I have no actual parenting experience when it comes to teenage girls, I have loads of experience observing them in almost every other setting. In the last 12 years, I have continuously been serving in the Young Women, teaching teenagers at school, or tutoring them one-on-one.

It is interesting to note that these three activities have seldom overlapped. It is as if the Lord knows exactly what I need or something.

For Mother's Day, here is a letter from the young woman living in your house. . . . or who one day will be. It is not a letter she would ever dream of sending herself, it is only in retrospect that she will come to see just how important some of this might have been. The trick with parenting is figuring out ahead of time what is important.


Dear Mom,

Let me tell you first of all that I love you very much. Yes, yes, I know I yelled at you just yesterday about the skirt you told me was too tight for me to wear anymore, but my temper really is short-lived. I won't make any promises about not letting it happen again. I'm sure it will. Please forgive me anyway. Your love and forgiveness is my soft place to land.

I know I grumble about early morning seminary and scripture study with the family. Oh, and sometimes prayer too. But it really is such an important part of my day. I know that when I am part of these things the bad influences at school don't seem as hard to deal with. Please don't give up on these habits, even when my attitude leaves a lot to be desired. Completing my Personal Progress program would also be easier if I had your help.

School is hard. Please remember just how hard. There are pressures there that don't seem at all temporary. If I complain a lot about a class, it is probably because I don't understand the material all that well, or I think the teacher is mean, or the kids in the class are really getting under my skin. And if I tell you that a teacher is out to get me, or hates me in particular, it is probably not true. Again, my talk like that is most likely hiding other issues. But if you don't listen to me long enough; yes, even through all my ranting, then you will never learn what is really behind my surface comments.

That friend I casually mentioned 10 times yesterday? He's a boy. And I'm crazy about him. Maybe even in love with him. And while my version of love seems very immature and even silly to you, to me it is very real. Don't you dare belittle or tease me about it. The same goes for when this same boy breaks my heart. One day I will see it as a learning experience; right now it just hurts. Validate me.

If I have a regular boyfriend, there is no doubt that we are kissing more than would make you comfortable. If I don't have a boyfriend, there is still somebody I have my eye on. Maybe more than one somebodies. My hormones are powerful. If you haven't talked with me candidly about sex then it isn't too late. Even if I roll my eyes a lot and try to tell you that I know all that stuff, I'm just blowing smoke. I need to know what you think about sex, and how intimacy between men and women fits into our belief system.

When I say candidly, I need to know more than just the biology and the mechanics. We watched THAT movie in 7th grade health. I need you to tell me what effect my specific actions will have on the young men I know--whether I'm trying to get away with a two-piece swimming suit at the water slide, or sitting on a boyfriend's lap, or French kissing . . . . if I haven't exhibited some of these behaviors yet, well, my friends probably have. And if not my friends then kids at school. Please help me to know how boys tick so that I can be careful.

At the same time, don't reinforce my negative stereotypes about boys. Don't teach me to manipulate and tease. Don't use dad as an ATM to support a shopping habit. Don't give my dad the silent treatment when you are angry. When you act that way, you are teaching me things about relationships that will not help me to create a pleasant home-life, and they will undermine my respect for men. It might even effect my desire to get married.

I know that I'm busy, but it is really good for me to have a set of expectations at home regarding my help. What I don't realize now is that when I am one day married with a husband and children of my own, much of my time each day will be consumed with the business of running a household. Before I leave home, I should know how to budget my money, change a diaper, clean a bathroom, wash and iron clothes, and how to cook some basic meals. To say the least.

As you teach me these things, your attitude towards these tasks will largely determine how happy I am doing similar things. If you treat your work of the home as drudgery, I will either feel the same, or reject my potential as a homemaker all together.

Even as you go about your many and varied household tasks, it is really good for me to see you doing other things as well. It is even good for me to be told that my own agenda needs to be put off because you are doing something else--even if that something else in non-essential. I need to be reminded pretty often that I am part of something greater than myself: a family, and that the needs of the family overshadow the needs of any one person in that family.

Manners are important. Teach me to be gracious, polite and grateful. I know it is a fine line to help me act with dignity while also teaching me to be strong and assertive. But I know you can do it! This is the same balance I see in you and the other women I look up to and respect. To me, the very essence of womanhood is that perfect mix of tough and tender that you seem to have figured out. Help me figure it out too.

I have a lot of friends; perhaps there are times when even you and I are great friends. I hope so. But there are times when I mostly need a mother--even if it means coming down on me in the way my friends never would. I will only have one mother, and you have a short amount of time to get it right. Please love me enough to put limits on my behavior.

Chances are that my friends and I are more ambitious regarding education and careers than the women in your generation were. Bear in mind that very few women have the inclination, let alone the luxury, of staying home with their children full time anymore. If I am ambitious then it greatly increases the chances of me finding a career that is fulfilling and joyful to me.

Having to chose between the many activities that I love will be really good for me. And it won't hurt me to have to earn my own money for some of these things either. When I have to start helping pay my way, chances are that I will get a lot more selective about what I participate in. You would be naive to believe me if I tell you that I will "pay you back" after you shell out money for band camp or EFY or another cheerleading uniform.

It doesn't matter how compelling my arguments are, there is no reason for me to have exclusive and unlimited use of a cell phone all the time, particularly if that phone has Internet on it. If I have one on my person, then I can almost guarantee I am abusing it. I'm texting at church and in class, I'm talking on it when I'm supposed to be studying; I've gotten inappropriate pictures, jokes and websites sent to me, even when I haven't asked for them. My generation's use of technology is teaching me that every random thought that pops into my head is worth sharing. My emotional status updates are seldom appropriate; it is up to you to follow me on Facebook or Twitter or Myspace to help me keep my public behavior in check.

I will resist you at nearly every turn, but please don't give up on me. My potential is beyond what either of us see.

Love,

Your Daughter


Feel free to add your own PS in the comment section.

Evilution

Some weeks back, a former student sent me a message on Facebook, expressing conflict over the way her high school teacher was presenting evolution in her science class. My previous school was in a predominately LDS small town in Utah. Knowing that she is a very religious person, she didn't need to say very much for me to understand precisely what her conflict is.

Over the years, as I've worked with young teenage women in the LDS Church (and heck, their mothers and grandmothers too!) I am often discouraged by what a bad rap science gets. Too many religious women view science as something for men to glom onto, or as something whose purpose is to undermine faith. For the uber-religious, science is too often synonymous with atheism. Because I usually am in the context of a church setting when working with these kids, it is not always appropriate for me to challenge their thinking when it comes to secular knowledge.

My young friend gave me a perfect opportunity to both share my faith, and my own seemingly contradictory journey to marry science with religion. It also caused me to do some careful research. A generation before the years that had a strong bearing on my adult self--both religiously and intellectually--the Church also underwent a time of growing pains. When Dallin H. Oaks (now an apostle of the LDS Church) was the president of Brigham Young University, there were deep divisions in Church administration regarding whether or not the subject of evolution should be presented at BYU. Though the Scopes Monkey Trial had been fifty years earlier, there were statements by general authorities in place--both official and unofficial--that were problematic for determining a mainstream course of action at the Church University.

Oaks settled the question by offering his professional opinion to those who made such decisions for BYU (including President Hinckley) by making the following statement, "If we stopped teaching this theory, within a few years students from BYU would not be admitted to…graduate schools. At that point we would cease to function as a recognized university and would, in the eyes of the world (especially the world of higher education), be little more than a seminary with added courses in the humanities. I have no doubt whatever that our accreditation as an institution of higher education would be lost."

He then added, though I must say he hardly needed to, "The issue is just loaded."

For further information, there are a couple of really great websites I found. The first contains any statement the author could EVER find on evolution put out by the Church. It is important to point out, however, that only four of these statements are deemed "official." The most recent of these official statements was actually given in the 1930's, and though each builds on a First Presidency Statement made in the very early part of the 1900's, over the years, each statement becomes more and more general, in the end merely emphasizing that God created the earth and that Adam was the "first man" and prophet. The eternal progression of man in the world to come is also reiterated (talk about evolving). This softening of language is indicative of a view of science at odds with those who would use the Bible as a scientific manual to teach Creationism.

The second website emphasizes the official statements, quotes from faithful LDS people and scientists regarding knowledge and the attainment of it, and a wonderful talk from Hugh B. Brown under the "LDS Articles" link. There is enough here to keep you busy for days if you are interested. If you are not, well, you've probably already quit and I'm already over it.

Years before going to bat for evolution, Elder Oaks issued statements to the faculty at BYU strongly condemning those who would make assumptions about their colleagues' commitment to the Church based on their training in the sciences. As your read excerpts from the letter I sent to my former student, I would ask you to do the same for me.

Enjoy.

"Dear K,

"My intention is not to convince you of a certain way of thinking: as always I want my students to think for themselves and draw their own conclusions, but sharing my story might help you to see that any worthwhile journey of faith and knowledge takes time, and that some answers and conclusions don’t immediately reveal themselves.

“My first good life science class was my AP Biology class. It was a bit intimidating—I was a young sophomore and my teacher was the head football coach. He was loud and disorganized and sometimes lazy. But I loved him. His perspective was unique. He had arrived at an interest in science only later in life when he realized that if he wanted to coach high school ball, he was going to have to actually get a major in something besides PE. Though in his early 40’s when I first knew him, he had only been a member of the Church a few years.

“When he taught the chapter on evolution (he called it “evilution” just to nettle us), he presented the information in the book and I found myself very conflicted. Though it seemed to contradict everything I’d been taught at church, the theory deeply appealed to my sense of logic. Furthermore, that appeal was disturbing to me—wasn’t my faith already weak enough to be wondering about such things?

“Then, on the last day of the unit he gave us time to express our opinions and discuss discrepancies between the stories of creation we had been taught and evolutionary theory. Most of us, though not all, were LDS, but most of the other kids were Christians of some variety and the conversation was lively and fascinating. Though I’m pretty sure neither our science or our religion was very factual that morning, it was wonderful to have such a discussion in an atmosphere where we didn’t feel chided for our questions about God, or unsophisticated for our belief in something beyond biological chemicals. It was because of his class I became a science teacher.

“Fast-forward to college, where I spent much of my first year spinning my wheels both spiritually and intellectually. Gone were the days of Christian science teachers helping you navigate your way through tough concepts—evolution wasn’t merely a subject you studied in biology, this theory and its huge body of supporting evidence provided the entire foundation for most of my biology classes. There was no question of it being ‘just’ a theory, this was THE theory. (If you look at the word theory from a scientific standpoint, you know that 'just' doesn’t really apply anyway.)

“. . . . I spent a lot of time questioning. I didn’t think it was at all possible for religious doctrine to reconcile with scientific teaching. Some people are given the gift of faith. My mother is one of these, and so is my sister. I am not. In fact, quite the opposite. My own gifts of intellect, practicality, logic and curiosity sometimes seem to work in direct opposition to having faith.

“Then, halfway through my freshman year until about halfway through my sophomore year, I was faced with a series of unexpected and very serious challenges. The details here would fill pages, so I will spare you, but suffice it to say, I had to really find out for myself if the Church was true, or if all this eternal-families-stuff was just a nice fairy tale to make us feel better about death and trials.

“It took some time, but I’m glad I didn’t give up. I came to know for myself that the Lord had a hand in my life, that the Atonement was real and personal . . . once I was finally at peace with my own beliefs, I was able to compartmentalize the science. It wasn’t easy, but I was determined not to let my perceived inconsistencies between faith and science either deter me from my religion or from the subject I loved.

“Time passed, and as my spiritual faith and secular knowledge both deepened, I came to realize that I no longer had to compartmentalize the two. My study of science had given me a greater appreciation for God and His magnificent creation. My study of religion had given me the influence of the Holy Ghost which helped me to separate truth from error, or to be settled with the questions that weren’t answerable. I eventually became a missionary and recognized how simple the core message of the gospel is, how simple salvation is. The more questions I asked and more curious I became, the more I also realized how few of the questions really NEED to be answered in order for you to live a good, righteous life. . . .

"Deseret Book published a collection of essays some years ago called “Reflections of a Scientist” by Henry Eyring (the current apostle’s father) that says some amazing things about faith and religion. (Excerpts here.) I will not quote it directly—I loaned the book out and it seems I didn’t get it back. But I remember him saying that true science and true religion would never be in conflict with one another. That if they seemed to contradict, it was because we didn’t have enough knowledge. As a member of the General Sunday School board, he of course asserted the truthfulness of the Church, but readily acknowledged how little had been revealed to us by God about the majestic workings of the universe, and that human curiosity should be boundless in trying to figure things out. . . .

“When my husband took his core biology classes, he was taught the evolution portion by a wonderful professor named Dr. Frank Messina. (I’d had Messina for graduate level evolution years earlier—one of the best classes I ever took . . .) In the upper level class, Messina dove right in on day one with micro-evolution content, assuming that if we had made it to that level then we were all on board. In the basic biology class (my husband’s) he spent the first several days reassuring the students that his goal was not to undermine their faith in any way. . . though not religious himself . . . he understood the culture of the area and had no wish to be seen as a destroyer. . . .

“Dr. Messina came to the conclusion . . . that both religion and science were ways of knowing. Religion uses the 'evidence of things NOT seen' (Hebrews 11:1) and science uses evidence we can observe through our five senses. Interestingly enough, at the same time I attended a Utah State Science Teachers conference and one of our break-out groups was facilitated by a BYU professor who broached the subject of teaching evolution in a conservative community. Many of his conclusions were identical to Dr. Messina—who are we to say how God created life on our planet? It is enough for salvation to know that He did. For me, my own life would be incomplete if I had not learned to use both the seen and the unseen to help guide my decisions and stimulate my mind and spirit.

“As for specifics? I’ve come to some of my own (very un-doctrinal!) conclusions there, and won’t share them. In time, if the reconciliation seems important to you, the Spirit will guide you into your own truth. Or it will help you to know that NOT knowing (at least for now) is okay too. What I will say very specifically is I . . . believe whole-heartedly that Adam was the first prophet—the first man who in body and mind was created in God’s image and with potential to become like our Father in Heaven. I believe that same potential lies in each one of us as well. I know that having faith makes life richer, fuller and better. . . ."

I told you in my last post that I was bundle of contradictions.

28 Days of L-O-V-E

Day 15

I love tax return time. It is true that we bought boring grown up stuff with our return this year-- a freezer and a house re-fi, but I also got to buy a plane ticket to visit my mom and sister at the end of April in Utah. We will also be attending Women's Conference at BYU. Rounding out this year's purchases is that I finally am going to get this framed.


No, in case you were wondering, it is NOT the original. It is just a print I bought a couple of years ago at the National Gallery. And while it might be a bit gauche to spend good money to frame a poster, it is better than leaving my walls bare because I can't afford actual art. And, oh, how I love this painting. The original is more concrete than a lot of Monet's work and has held me spellbind the two times I've been to the National Gallery.


Day 16

I love the Young Women program in the Church. No, I don't love that we never seem to have enough people to run our programs, but we do it anyway. I don't love being away from my family (sometimes) three nights in a week. I don't love continually re-living the drama of my own teenage years. But what I do love is how hard we work to teach girls principles to live by as much as commandments. I love what the program does for girls who make even the barest effort to let it touch their lives. I love the women that the program churns out. As I've started to see these girls as my one-day sisters in the Church, I've been amazed at how my love for them has grown. And unlike "real" daughters, I get to send these adorable and moody bags of hormones home to their mothers each night.


Day 17

I love blogging, but I do NOT love blogging every day. Have you noticed? In fact, I feel the need to re-focus on some other aspects of my life and am thinking I will probably give up blogging for Lent. But as I'm not giving up Mormonism for Lent also, I feel totally within my rights to fudge my own definition of "Lent." The Catholic holiday started this week, but I am going to observe for the month of March, up until Easter. (About five weeks.) I like the idea of finding ways to cleanse and purify yourself in preparation for this most important of all Christian religious holidays. I think it is time to remind myself that I once understood self-discipline much better than I do now.

Let's Talk About Sex

Education that is.


This topic was brought up, rather inadvertently, in my book group the other night. The group is affiliated with RS Enrichment, so we mostly do a good job of sticking to the topics in the book. As when I'm with (most) any group of LDS women, I've learned to just bite my tongue when snide comments are made about the global warming "hoax", Barack Obama being a commu-muslo-terrorist and the latest blog news from Glenn Beck. As much as I hate it when people assume I agree with them about politics because we have the same religion, in person I'm much less confrontational than my writing suggests and I don't like the argument that political discourse often engenders. Discussion yes, but argument, no. Besides, in our group there is a woman who is Canadian, a former social worker, and was a rabid Hilary supporter. She isn't afraid to have a little go-time.


But back to the subject. I only said the other to give a little bit of background into our group and its dynamic. One of our younger sisters was very angry about some diversity posters that were going to be hung at her son's elementary school. Coming into the conversation a moment late, I thought that she was perhaps over-reacting, but then she was specific about the content of some of the posters. A couple of them were about transgender and homosexual individuals with blunt vocabulary. I think some kinds of information, particularly presented in such a sound-byte fashion, merely give children more tools for mocking one another. Also, since homosexual and transgender lifestyles are so wrapped up in sexual behavior and not just inherent identity (like race), the teaching of such should be handled the way sex education is at schools, not the way mulit-cultural education is.

My friend, incensed, wrote a letter to the school. A second mother in the group, who has some older children, also indicated that she has had trouble with the sex education programs at area schools. I kind of cornered mother #2 later and tried to get specifics about her issues with the programs, but she wasn't really able to say. Only that when given the choice, she opted her child out and was promised he'd have other work to do at his seat. He did not, and ended up doing most of the worksheets the rest of the class was doing. Again, no idea about the age of the child in question or the content that was so disturbing to her.

Before I hit you all with my barrage of questions, let me give you a bit of my own history. My first knowledge of sex came from two sources: I was staying with a friend for a few days when I was about 8 years old while my parents went on a trip. While bathing together one night, she told me how babies were made. I was shocked, horrified and disgusted. She told me that it was true and if I didn't believe her I should ask my mother. How could I say ANYTHING like that to my mom!? I'd be in so much trouble. Looking back, I can see that this experience has turned me into a mother that is pretty much anti-sleepover. Don't even get me started on why her mother put two eight year old girls in the tub at the same time.

The second source was a cousin, my age, who loved to entertain us with dirty jokes while all of the cousins stayed up late in the huge tent set up on Grandma's lawn every Labor Day. When I first heard his naughty potty mouth, and his awful jokes were pretty much confirming in their perverse way what bathtub-girl had said, there was no possible way for me to talk to my mother. It was too embarrassing and too gross. Years later I would learn that she was waiting for me to ask, just as my older brother had asked questions while she was pregnant with my youngest sibling.

Then mom forgot to come of the second of our two maturation films at school. She was the only absent mother in the entire sixth grade class. Okay, like I can really know that. But it sure seemed that way. This has been a running family joke for years, but at the time it probably really affected my willingness to approach my mom about girl stuff. I was embarrassed beyond belief when I had to tell her I had started my period, and for years I wanted to die whenever I had to ask her to buy pads. And tampons! Let's not even go there.

Fast forward to junior high health. Our sex education unit took a whopping 45 minutes. Our lame-o health teacher showed a movie about the miracle of childbirth while the boy behind me made snide comments the entire time. I tried desperately not to keep my head on my desk so that I could pass the quiz later. I willed myself to disappear, but not having any magical powers, it was no good. When the movie was done--10 seconds before the bell rang--our teacher said, "If you have an questions, go home and ask your parents."

I did not.

Being a nurse, conversations about sex and even sexuality should have been doable for my mom, but she just kept waiting. It's crazy, really, we talk about all kinds of things now and have a really positive and wonderful friendship. But I was the oldest girl and my mom's own family had been fairly dysfunctional; it seemed like everything I did was uncharted water. Well, about the time I turned 16 and was taking AP biology, Mom figured that she'd just missed the boat. After all, she reasoned, I was exceptionally bright--I'd certainly put two and two together. (Or, in this case, one and one; though my experience was all cerebral and the thought of even kissing a boy terrified me.) As for the chastity stuff, well, I was getting plenty of teaching in church; my dad did give me some kind of object lesson about a boiling frog. But you had to be dating anybody more than once, and they had to be marginally attracted to you, to get anywhere near boiling. Chastity was not a problem.

When I was a senior in high school, my youngest brother went to the maturation film for boys. My mother did not forget to attend with him. I took him on a long walk that night and told him all about the girls' movie. I told him that he wouldn't get this talk from mom but that he was mature enough and smart enough to understand some things, and that I didn't want him to be one of those idiot boys who teased girls about things they didn't understand. I think I knew that afternoon that he would eventually be a doctor.

On to college. I learned a lot, again all academic knowledge, about the mechanisms of sex and birth control and anatomy and physiology and vocabulary and . . . . well, you get the gist. Biology girl, remember? My older brother and his sweet fiance gave me a ride back to school one weekend and in a conversation that must have required him to swallow a lot of pride and mortified her, he asked ME about birth control options. I was 19. I was very blunt. I still wonder if her reticence towards me stems from that single conversation.

I was nearly legal age before I really kissed a boy. We won't go into the depths to which I was naive and stupid about what certain kinds of kissing can do to a man, or how cruel it is when a girl ignorantly starts the launch sequence. The early days of marriage were a long, slow learning curve; and yes, for all my book learning, I was pretty embarrassed about nearly every aspect of intimacy.

My own views of what the schools should or should not include in their sex education curriculum has no doubt been heavily influenced by things I've seen as a teacher. I was 23 and a single student teacher when a gorgeous Hispanic senior came to me and asked me about fifty questions about pregnancy; she was a few months along and I was the first adult that she'd told. I was 24 and teaching 7th grade when some foster parents told me the girl that had guardian-ship for was dealing with the aftermath of a sexually abusive stepfather and an abortion the previous summer. As for my eye-opening experiences at my inner-city school in Texas, well, let's just say that I'm a big advocate of giving people some kind of a license or test before they engage in sexual activity, let alone pro-create! ;)

Permanently damaged by my convoluted sex education? No, of course not. But I would like to do better for my own kidlets. And don't go saying "Get your spouse's support" because we'd been married about twenty minutes when Plantboy said, in no uncertain terms, "you are talking to the kids about sex; you're the science teacher." He has a point, from my painfully bashful beginnings, I never miss a beat when I say sperm or egg or sex or mating or reproducing or penis or vagina or whatever in front of a group of 13 year-olds. It's just science.

But with my own (and my oldest is just five months away from that magic age of accountability), it doesn't feel like science. It feels like how they will normalize themselves to the opposite sex, especially because they don't have sisters. It feels like their understanding of sacred principles. It feels like their future chance at an eternal marriage. The facts are the same, but what my little ones DO with these facts will literally make or break their lives and spirits.

My cornered friend from book group talked about how she opens up the conversation by talking about stranger touch, private parts, etc. The rest kind of evolves from there, over time, as you children are ready for it and ask questions. This is the approach advocated by the Cub Scout Manual. But I remember how poor I was at asking questions, even in an atmosphere of love and trust that my mom always inspired. And my boys are such boys--so mechanical and busy and practical--I don't know if they ever even think about babies, let alone where they come from. I also wonder if by jumping right to the molesting conversation, we rule out any possibility for such touch to be good and wonderful and necessary? Of course, all that affirmation stuff is not really appropriate or desirable for quite a number of years still . . .

What are your thoughts here? Things your parents did well? Things that have worked with your older kids? Didn't work? And most all, funny stories; sex is serious and sacred, but it isn't ALL bad. ;)

May the Fall Be With You

I love fall: the cool afternoons, the crunchy leaves, the fabulous food and the pending holidays. So here and the really fall-y things we have been up to:

We picked apples when my parents came to town over Conference weekend. The above picture can really only be titled "The Precious." It is well to remember how much I love His Preciousness when I hear him in the other room trying very hard NOT to nap. The last couple of weeks have brought major changes in our house. My gorgeous doll-baby toddles all over the house trying desperately to communicate, "talking" in his own fashion, and in general acting much more like a little person than a baby. It is funny and tender. It is liberating and heartbreaking. It is happy and sad. In light of his growing up, and his uncanny understanding of how to use a light saber, he will get a new blognym: YOUNGLING.

My nearly four year old is having a rough fall. His tantrums, which had once seemed to be subsiding are back in full force. We are trying to work our way through this one. On the upside, he loves school and is acting like he wants to try and read. I'm not really surprised: I think he is going to be my odd-man-out in some ways. His older and younger brothers so far look a lot, and even act a lot the same. He does not. He spoke and walked earlier, he is stockier. He has my fair skin and exactly my eye color. When he isn't tantrum-ing (mostly age-related) he is easily the mellowest of the three. Though all of my kids are amazing to me in their own ways, this is the one I watch with fascination over the way his mind works. His new blognym is PADAWAN. If you aren't a Star Wars fan that will mean very little, so I'll explain. In Star Wars terms, a Padawan Learner is someone who is an apprentice Jedi. This is very apt for my #2 at this phase in his life. He is anxiously soaking up everything around him. He also thinks that he must follow older brother in every particular.

Here is the "baby" with Grandma J. The best shot of these two was actually on her camera. If I could somhow teach Grandma how to send me a picture I may actually get a copy of it one day.

Plantboy got a chance to go fishing on the Alsea River the weekend before my parents came up. His parents are visiting later this week. He has been given strict instructions not to take off on my again just before company comes. I was cleaning my house until about 30 seconds before my parents' arrival. The spotlessnes lasted about 10 minutes. I will say, however, that Plantboy's 15 pound salmon was delicious.

This is kind of a lame-o soccer picture. The rest is all video footage. I will spare you. Imagine a school of hungry piranha and you get a sense of Scallywag's swarm soccer team. Or not so hungry piranha--they run after the ball, but swarming would indicate some kind of sincere interest.

Youngling hasn't been able to stay out of the apples since they were picked. Plantboy tried this particular picture about 8 times. He kept running away. I've never seen an 18 month old with such a highly developed sense of teasing. I'm sure it comes from being the youngest of three rowdy-ish boys.

This is Plantboy during a backpacking trip with the young men. The boys griped for two days solid. I think this greatly diminished hubby's own pleasure in the excursion. He came home, sank down on the couch and said, "Do all 14 year old boys complain so much? I just don't remember being such a whiner. If I'd heard one more word about how much they wanted to be home playing video games, I would have probably strangled one of them." Take home message? Don't send your boys to Scout camp with a deranged leader.

In addition to this, we did another 20 pints of applesauce and another 10 of salsa. The salsa is Plantboy's pride and joy. He is torn between hording it and generously giving it to everyone he talks to so that that can share his success. I think that hoarding will probably win the day.

The last three, however, have to be the best. Scallywag's new blognym can be non-other than JEDI MASTER. The Star Wars thing is definitely our latest kick that seems it will last for a while. I'm taping the Clone Wars every Friday night, having a special order Darth Vader pinata made for his birthday (beating it sill with their light sabers is the compromise to the full-on war he wanted all of his buddies to be a part of for the party), and wanting all the paraphernalia he can get his hands out.

I found a costume on-line and nearly ordered it, but decided at the last minute to check The Goodwill instead. Jackpot! I found a "tunic" and leggings in nearly the right size (the top a size too small and the bottom a size too large though both pieces are to the same costume), but mostly I found the Jedi master robe. He wore if for a solid 24 hours, until I warned that it might tear before he had a chance to wear it at his birthday party or on Halloween. He folded it very carefully then and is waiting patiently for a few repairs and modifications.


I imagine this is who he is fighting. Life size of course.

When I asked him why he kept holding up his hand he said, "I'm just using the Force, mom." Right, duh.

Your Whole Life In a Moment

Whereas Plantboy is out of town this week, I had to have a paper sub this morning. Rather than being really smart and actually catching up on my sleep, I have been staying up to watch the Olympics. Insane, really, because by the time they show the "prime-time" events here, I can get all of the results on-line.



I truly meant to tape (we are too primitive for DVR at this house) the gymnastics last night and catch snippets of it during the day today, but after watching this girl for one round, I couldn't take my eyes away.



I like the little power packed girls like Shawn Johnson, simply because they are so strong, but Nastia Lukein turns gymnastics from a sport into an art. Remember Svetlana? She changed gymnastics by virtue of her unique body shape and innovative moves. She pioneered a new era in the sport with her graceful lines and poetry-performances, but she was just too angular and diva-ish, and well, unattractive, for me to take seriously. But Nastia's performances were truly a thing of beauty.


There was a bit of weird scoring last night and if the Chinese girl had overtaken Nastia at the end, I would have definitely said she'd been home-cooked. The two Americans were consistently great on each rotation and definitely deserved to go one-two.


But what I've been thinking more about was this girl, and the team final from a few days ago.



These young women prep their whole lives for for few minutes' worth of competition in the Olympics. Yes, there are American awards and World Championships which are wonderful to win, but the rare Olympics, the holy grail of sporting events, is a once in a lifetime (usually) experience for a select number of elite athletes. There are plenty of young athletes who dream of becoming a household name such as Nadia Comeneci or Mary Lou Retton or Michael Phelps or Tara Lipinsky. But there are only a few, genetically gifted and intensely driven young people who will make the choice to put in the thousands of hours it takes to stand on the podium and hear their anthem played. In the US, this means tens of thousands of dollars invested in lessons, coaches and traveling to meets.


Some friends and I got to talking the other day about our kids and their gifts. The conversation went to, "If you had a child who was truly gifted, would you encourage them to pay the price to make it work?" We also talked about the concept of sending your kids away for the kind of intense training that is done in China, or even to boarding school (something I perceived as extremely romantic when I was a teenager). I think we all said that we couldn't do it. Of course, none of us in the conversation had a child that we believed to be gifted in any extraordinary way.


Poor Alicia Sacramone. For her thousands of hours of training, the picture inserted above is the easiest one to find doing a Google search under her name. Wikipedia tells about her many and varied accomplishments: she is on a short list of just 4 gymnasts who hold as many world championships medals as she does. Despite awesome performances in the early part of this decade, a disastrous tournament to qualify for Greece kept her home in 2004. She stuck with it, being one of a handful of female gymnasts who has attempted to juggle university studies with the level of training necessary to win competitions against younger gymnasts. Despite a fantastic career, and the mathematical impossibility of the US beating the Chinese even without Sacramone's falls, she will be remembered in the minds of many as the girl who lost the gold for the Americans in 2008.


Though I can pinpoint some moments where seemingly small decisions sent my life in a different direction, I cannot say that I've ever had a moment that I believed was a make or break point for everything I'd ever wanted or worked for. I hope that in the end, these amazingly talented and dedicated young women see how much more there is to look forward to in life than what they have sacrificed their childhood for. I hope that Alicia Sacramone can get to a place where she says, "I did my best. I'm grateful for the lessons learned. Even my failures can translate to a different kind of personal success, despite what others think."


To close today, I think a little bit of Dr. Suess is appropriate. "You'll be the winningest winner of all. Fame! You'll be famous as famous can be, with the whole wide world watching you win on TV. Except when they don't. Because, sometimes, they won't. I'm afraid that sometimes you'll play lonely games too. Games you can't win, cause you'll play against you." I guess for each of us, with whatever mediocre talents we posess, have to realize that if we don't feel adequate enough without the world's adulation, we will probably never be complete even when we do recieve it. Good luck with the rest of your lives, Nastia and Alicia.