Why Caitlyn Jenner deserves the Arthur Ashe Courage Award

My first instinct when reading the angry - and often hateful - responses to Caitlyn Jenner and her gender transition was, "Why do people care?" After all, how does Caitlyn Jenner's journey personally affect anyone outside her own family and friends?

Then, I took a step back.

I realized her journey does affect people. Caitlyn Jenner has made her journey very public and in doing so is asking all of us to fundamentally re-examine our understanding of gender. 

That is huge. That is scary. I get that. 

But - like I tell my kids - anything worth doing is a little scary.

Over the past several decades, our society has taken the huge and scary step of re-examining what we believe about sexuality. I believe we are better because of it.

It is now time we do the same with gender.

It is not binary. It is not as simple as male and female. It never has been.

Since the dawn of time, this spectrum has existed. Some societies did a better job of understanding and valuing this unique perspective than others, but - make no mistake - there is VALUE in a culture that allows for a more expansive and embracing understanding of the human experience.

After all, we have all had personal experiences that conflicted with societal expectations.

Maybe you've gotten divorced. Maybe you battled addiction or obesity or infertility. Maybe you have chosen to remain childless. Maybe you've chosen to have a large family. Maybe you've faced bankruptcy or adultery or disability. 

Whatever it was, everyone has dealt with the shame of not always being what people want or expect us to be. If Caitlyn Jenner has lessened the burden of those swimming upstream of society's standards, then I say bravo. I say she deserves The Arthur Ashe Courage Award.

The award is for those who "transcend sports through courageous action" and there has been an outcry over those who believe Noah Galloway or Lauren Hill deserve the award more. 

Courage is a difficult thing to define, but I agree with Brené Brown's definition. 

“The root of the word courage is cor—the Latin word for heart. In one of its earliest forms, the word courage had a very different definition than it does today. Courage originally meant “To speak one’s mind by telling all one’s heart.” Over time, this definition has changed, and, today, courage is more synonymous with being heroic. Heroics are important and we certainly need heroes, but I think we’ve lost touch with the idea that speaking honestly and openly about who we are, about what we’re feeling, and about our experiences (good and bad) is the definition of courage. Heroics are often about putting our life on the line. Ordinary courage is about putting our vulnerability on the line. In today’s world, that’s pretty extraordinary.”

— Brené Brown

Noah Galloway is a hero. He put his life on the line in Iraq and he exhibited incredibly "heart courage" by going on Dancing with the Stars and putting himself out there for all to see. Lauren Hill is a hero. Her life was literally on the line and she used her personal tragedy to raise awareness for cancer research and inspire others.

However, it is not an insult to either of these incredible individuals to recognize the courage of Caitlyn Jenner.  This is not a zero sum game. There is plenty of praise and recognition to go around. 

Courage comes in many forms and the courage to your listen to your heart and put your "vulnerability on the line" deserves to be lauded as well. 

We all want a better world for the next generation. We all want a world where everyone is accepted for who they are and the unique contribution. There are so rarely two simple options. 

I'm always saying the world isn't black and white.  I used to say that the world is gray, but that's not quite right. Gray is singular. Gray is boring. Gray is uninteresting. 

We don't find gray when we finally stop seeing things in black and white. We find COLOR. So. Much. Color. 

And, y'all, it is beautiful. 

We all want a more beautiful world - now and for the generations to come. 

Caitlyn Jenner has taken some very courageous steps to make that possible and for that she deserves recognition. 

My thoughts on the Duggar sex abuse scandal

Let me be clear from the beginning. I have never liked the Duggars. I remember watching their first couple of specials when they were still 14 Kids and Pregnant Again! and their particular brand of wholesome never sat well with me. 

I don't believe God uses miscarriages to communicate his dislike of birth control. I don't believe God sends daughters first to help take care of the sons who come later. I don't believe a woman's hair is her "glory" or that modesty is important not to "tempt" men. 

I don't believe a lot of these things. I also don't begrudge Michelle Duggar's right to subscribe to this particular set of beliefs. To me, feminism means choice. If you want to vacuum every day in pearls like June Cleaver, go for it! Just don't tell me - or your daughters - they have to.

The hard truth about the Quiverful and other fundamentalist Christian belief systems is obedience is built into the foundation. You can't allow your children to explore lifestyles and belief systems outside your own if you believe God requires strict adherence.

With the recent admission by Josh Duggar that he sexually abused young girls, we see that the implication of the Duggar's adherence to strict fundamentalist principles goes FAR beyond restricting their daughter's education or children's lifestyle choices. 

Libby Anne of the blog Love, Joy, Feminism does an excellent job of discussing why basing one's sexual ethics around religious law has dangerous repercussions for victims of sexual assault in her post Josh Duggar and the Tale of Two Boxes.

She states: "Progressives do not have ethical or moral problems with premarital sexual intercourse—but they very much have a problem with child molesting. To conservatives this can look like an inconsistency—even hypocrisy—but it’s not. Progressive sexual ethics center around consent. Sexual contact that is consensual is okay. Sexual contact that isn’t consensual is not okay. And because children below a certain age do not have the necessary understanding and lived experience to be able to consent, child molestation is de facto nonconsensual. 

There are all sorts of problems with putting any sexual contact outside of marriage in the same category. For one thing, victims of sexual assault, including children, may end of feeling that they are in some way guilty of what happened—after all, sexual contact outside of marriage is considered sin. For another thing, a teenager sexually molesting children may be treated as a similar offense to a teenager having consensual sex with his girlfriend."

Elizabeth Smart, abducted as a child and raped during her nine-month captivity, has openly discussed how her fundamentalist upbringing - which emphasized purity and sex inside marriage - made her feel worthless after being sexually abused.

"I think it goes even beyond fear, for so many children, especially in sex trafficking. It's feelings of self-worth. It's feeling like, 'Who would ever want me now? I'm worthless.'

That is what it was for me the first time I was raped. I was raised in a very religious household, one that taught that sex was something special that only happened between a husband and a wife who loved each other. And that's how I'd been raised, that's what I'd always been determined to follow: that when I got married, then and only then would I engage in sex.

After that first rape, I felt crushed. Who could want me now? I felt so dirty and so filthy. I understand so easily all too well why someone wouldn't run because of that alone."

I grew up in a conservative Baptist church that emphasized sex inside marriage. I signed a True Love Waits card and remember vividly the youth minister's wife telling a story about how she wanted to give a dozen roses (representing her sexual purity) to her husband on their wedding night and how would he feel if she slowly gave each rose away to another man?

I was lucky to have a mother who conveyed a more honest and realistic message at home but I still internalized the message that my virginity was my worth. My favorite phrase was, "I can be like you whenever I want but you can never be like me again." I felt special. I felt valued. 

I cannot fathom what sexual abuse would have done to me in that state of mind. In fact, I had the exact opposite experience. I did have premarital sex and NOTHING bad happened. 

Nothing.

Not a broken heart. No hurt feelings. I didn't get pregnant or get a scary STD. I didn't have so much as a pang of regret. I had sex outside marriage and everything turned out just fine.

And it STILL left me feeling angry.

I felt lied to. I felt like I had spent my entire adolescence being sold a bill of goods. I was told sex was dangerous and scary and only belonged inside marriage. I have friends who waited until marriage and found it incredibly difficult to flip and switch and treat sex as this beautiful thing when they'd spent their entire lives avoiding it. 

This is why I left my conservative sexual ethics behind. This why my children will be taught progressive sexual ethics - based around mutual respect AND CONSENT.

This is also why I never liked the Duggars. I wish I wasn't right. I wish the worse that happened to the Duggar girls were missed opportunities and frustrated dreams but so often that is not the case inside fundamentalist environments. 

I also want to say that I do not believe villanizing Josh Duggar or his family is the answer. While he should absolutely be held responsible for his heinous acts, pedophilia is a mental disorder and the longer we cast those who have it as monsters the longer they will hide in shame and not feel safe asking for help. 

I have never liked the Duggar family but I have no desire to see them suffer. We can honestly discuss the beliefs they espouse and the repercussions of the current scandal without making them two-dimensional characters undeserving of our empathy.  

However, the two-dimensional characters they portrayed on television must come to an end.

It was NEVER as simple a family with a bunch of kids. NEVER. Just like it was never as simple as rich housewives or duck hunters with long beards or a sharp-tongued mom with eight kids.

Extreme beliefs and lifestyles make for great reality television, but the reality is not so great for those left behind after the cameras stop rolling.

Are you a fan of the Duggars? What do you think of the current scandal?

Do Sex Offender Registries Work?

Recently, I had a conversation with a group of mothers about a recent (and heinous) child abuse case in Arkansas. We debated whether or not one should ever feel sympathy for child abusers and I was reminded of this post I wrote several years ago on Salt & Nectar. 

Last week, my husband and I were watching Our America with Lisa Ling. In an episode titled “State of Sex Offenders,” Ling spent time in Florida, a state with some of the toughest sex offender registry laws in the country. She interviewed men forced to live in tents in the woods due to zoning laws, a sex offender who helps other sex offenders find places to live, a sex offender recently released from prison, and Lauren Book, one of the state’s high profile survivors of sexual molestation and the driving force behind many of Florida’s registry laws.

During the show, I found myself feeling something that as a mother you are never supposed to feel—sympathy for sex offenders.

It all started with Randy Young, the sex offender who helps newly released offenders find places to live. As he explained his reasons for doing what he does, I expected to hear that as a registered offender himself he knew the difficulties these men and women would encounter upon release from prison. Instead, he spoke about his mother and how she would drive him into dangerous neighborhoods desperately trying to find him a place to live. He could not live with her due to the registry laws that prevent a sex offender from living within 2000 feet of a place children congregate. He said he wanted to prevent the families of other sex offenders from going through the pain his own mother experienced.

There it was. Staring me right in the face. These men were sons and their mothers loved them as much as I loved my own son. And for me, nothing makes me feel someone else’s humanity more profoundly than realizing a mother once held that person—as a tiny, helpless infant—in her arms and loved them unconditionally.

As a society, we have gone out of our way to strip all humanity from this group—to the point where many are forced to live like the animals we believe them to be. We call them monsters because what they do is indeed monstrous. We call them predators because they prey on the most vulnerable of victims. But no matter what we call them or how we treat them, the difficult reality is that they are still human beings. They are someone’s son, someone’s wife, someone’s father, someone’s sister.

In a way, I think it makes us all feel better. If we don’t think of them as people, then we don’t have to worry about the people in our own lives. Of course, our doctor/neighbor/babysitter wouldn’t be capable of something like this. We would never invite a monster in to our home or our lives. If we can get on the Internet and find out where the real monsters live, then we can keep our kids safe.

The truth is most studies estimate 80-90% of molestation victims know their perpetrator and the same percentage of perpetrators have never been convicted of a sexual offense before. And according to some recent studies, the popular idea that all sexual offenders are likely to re-offend is unrealistic if not downright wrong. Unless, you factor in the opinion of many law enforcement agencies that feel that registry laws actually make a sex offender more likely to re-offend because it removes them from their support system and encourages them to disappear. So, what this tells me is these registry laws are not protecting children from the actual threat—a trusted member of their community who in all likelihood wouldn't be on the registry to begin with. Not only that, but that by continuing to punish the offenders after they are out of prison we might in fact be increasing the chances that they will harm a child.

So, what are we to do?

As a mother, I’m realizing that I can’t protect Griffin from everything. I can’t read the mind of every person he comes in contact with to determine whether it holds my worst fear. And I can’t help but feel that if I focus my energy on controlling everyone else I’m fighting a losing battle. Instead, I try to focus my energy on Griffin. We’ve already started talking about body parts and, as he grows older, I plan to continue that discussion to include appropriate and inappropriate touching. I never want him to feel like the subject of his body or sex is something to be ashamed of or embarrassed about.

But beyond that there is a message that I want Griffin to get loud and clear. A message I plan to repeat as often as humanly possible—which is there is NOTHING he can’t tell me. Nothing. I want him to understand that no matter what anyone else says there is nothing he could do or say that would make me stop loving him. I think as parents we feel this so profoundly we think it can go unsaid but it can’t.

At the end of the day, I know that if the unthinkable did happen, it wouldn’t be the police or a registry or even the offender I would blame—it would be myself. So, it’s up to me to do everything in my power to protect my son, including—and perhaps most importantly—giving him the tools and skills to protect himself.

P.S. Safety and risk and leaving children unattended.

The Real Problem With Pink Legos

My daughter turned four at the beginning of February. She’s interested in building things, pretend play, super heroes, and animals. Between those interests and the twin gift-giving holidays of her birthday and Christmas, my partner and I have had a lot of conversations about Legos in the last couple of months.

We try to be a household with a wide expression of the gender continuum. Although he works in an office and I stay home to be with our daughter and prepare our food, we pretty evenly divide everything else. He wears his hair long and I wear mine short. We both use the power tools, we both work on the cars, we both know how to sew and how to draw. We encourage our daughter to try everything, climb everything, say what she means, express her feelings and follow her interests into whatever subjects she’s curious about.

So even though our daughter’s favorite color is purple, buying the box of Legos that came in pink and purple still gave me pause. I dislike marketing that is aimed solely at girls (or women, for that matter). It feels limiting, distracting. “Here are the toys for you, little girl. Leave those other ones for the boys.” Even the hint of that message being aimed at my strong, smart and impressionable daughter makes my inner feminist mama bear come out snarling. The girl-targeted sets start to look like a soft and floral fantasy world where girls can play with cute little bunnies, in contrast to the more realistic world presented for the boys.

And yet… Many of the “regular” Lego lines also include weapons, or figures with unnecessarily scary faces. And I haven’t found many that include female figures. Or animals. The superhero sets are predominately male figures except for a couple of of bad-guy females (which admittedly is a larger issue with equal gender representation in the superhero world - this article delves further into that issue). The Lego Junior Fire Emergency set? All male figures. The Knight’s Castle? All male. Even when they could have easily put a princess in there, still all male.

But the sets that come in pink - The Pony Farm, The Beach Trip, The Princess Play Castle - those don’t have any male figures. There are no pink firehouses or police stations with female figures. In the pastel-heavy Friends line, there is a Vet Clinic, a Hair Salon, a Cat Walk (!!), a Juice Bar and a Farm. All of these have female figures, but not male. But they do have animals.

We weren’t the only ones talking about this issue this winter. I saw this cartoon in my Facebook feed at least 3 times in the month of December and it sparked debates in the comments each time. Back in 2013, a letter to Lego from a 7-year-old girl in the UK went viral. She had noticed the male/female figure issue and it bothered her.

“I don’t like that there are more Lego boy people and barely any Lego girls...I want you to make more Lego girl people and let them go on adventures and have fun. OK!??”

— Charlotte Benjamin

I eventually realized that my real issue with Lego sets marketed separately for boys and girls was that it was doing a disservice not just to the girls, but to the boys, too.

Kids learn from what they see. When girls see male figures (but not female) in fire station sets and female figures (but not male) at the hair salon, they are given the message that fire stations are where men belong and the hair salon is where women belong.

And the boys are getting that message, too.

Our girls need to see women in a variety of professional (and strong fantasy character) roles. And so do our boys. It is still a fact of our culture that there are more men in positions of power - politics, management, the courtroom - than there are women. They are the ones making the rules. Things are changing toward more equality, and I’ve seen that shift in my lifetime. But we need our children - the girls, but especially the boys - to see more equality so they will create more equality. Women should keep fighting for those rights, but men also need to stand up for it for it to become a reality.

My ex was a foreman (“fore-PERSON” she would say) in a local sheet metal worker’s union. She installed gutters, flashing, metal siding and metal roofing materials. Most of her day was spent on a roof or a tall ladder. There were one or two other women in her local, but they worked in HVAC, not on the roof. None of them were in leadership positions. Almost every week she would come home with a new story about the subtle but pervasive gender bias she ran into in her job. Job sites with no women’s toilet. Forms where all the pronouns were “he/his.” Jokes about her period or her sexuality. Rumors that she’d lost out on good job calls because the superintendent didn’t think she was strong enough (she was).

Would those superintendents have had a different perspective if they’d played with Lego builder sets with female figures? I don’t know. I hope so. Would there be more female firefighters if kids got play with fire station sets that came with female figures, so little girls had the aspiration to get trained and little boys grew up to hire them, and maybe work for them? I hope so.

The bottom line is that Legos are good toys. They foster engineering skills, creative play, and imagination. They strengthen tiny finger muscles and increase eye-hand coordination. I think Lego is misguided in their current marketing, but I don’t want to boycott their toys entirely for those decisions.

So this is what we did for our daughter. We chose a couple of sets that appealed to our daughter’s general interests. We chose a Lego Junior Fire Emergency set, because she’s very interested in helping people and animals in need, and a Lego Friends Jungle Bridge Rescue set, because it has vehicle like her dad’s Jeep and a helicopter like the one he trained with recently for his search and rescue team. This also happens to be the only Friends set that includes a male figure and the box depicts Mia, the female figure, flying the helicopter. We also got a huge Lego Technic Remote-Controlled Wheel Loader to build over several months with her dad because construction sites fascinate her and because he’s an engineer and can teach her all about those motors.

And we bought some ponytail hair pieces to turn one of those firefighters into a girl.

What do you think of Lego's girl-targeted sets? Would you buy them for your girl? 

Great discussion happening on Facebook!

Post by Sarah Stewart Holland.

Doña Bumgarner blogs about creative self care and mindful mothering at Nurtured Mama. She lives on the Central Coast of California with her partner, their 4-year-old and a collection of cats and chickens and gender-neutral building blocks.

How we talk about vaccines

Photo Credit: PAHO/WHO via Compfight cc

Let's get this out of the way. Both of my sons have received the Measles, Mumps, and Rubella vaccine. Not that I owe anyone that information, but I thought I would make it clear from the beginning considering the current fervor surround the measles outbreak.

My children have received all of their vaccinations but ... on an alternate schedule (except the flu shot). I do not believe that vaccines cause autism. However, I also do not believe that every child should be pushed through a system that treats every child (and their immune system) the same. I'm also not sure just because we can vaccinate that means we should vaccinate (I'm looking at you chicken pox).

I understand that our modern vaccination system has saved millions of lives. Overall, it is a medical marvel that does an incredibly good job at what it is supposed to do—prevent deaths from infectious disease. However, just because it is a good system doesn't mean it's a perfect system. It can and should be improved upon and not just by adding more vaccinations to an already crowded schedule.

For me, I approach vaccinations the same way I approach health care in general. In a nutshell, if we're talking about any kind of medical intervention, I'm going to start at "no" and you're going to have to convince me. If you want to perform a surgery on my child or inject my child or medicate my child, you better have a darn good reason. I'll listen to science and the opinion of my physician, but I'm also going to listen to my gut.

My gut said I did not want anything entering the body of my minutes-old infant except my own breast milk. So, I said no to Vitamin K drops, eye ointment, and the Hepatitis B vaccine. The reasons provided for interventions were just not good enough for me. That's not to say my children will never receive the Hepatitis B vaccine (Griffin already has), but I decided the risk of infection wasn't high enough for me to administer the vaccine at birth.

My gut also says I don't want my child receiving upwards of four to five shots at a time. First, because OUCH!. Would you want that many shots at one time?  Second, side effects are rare with vaccines but should my child have one how the heck would we figure out which vaccine was causing the problem? And third, our immune systems are tricky, tricky things and what I don't want to do is piss it off. (Scientific, I know.)

So, I've decided to follow Dr. Sears alternative schedule, which only allows for two shots per visit. As a result you come in once a month instead of once every two months, but I've decided it's worth it. I also think he does a great job of analyzing the risk of each infection with regards to the child's age and using that information to schedule the vaccines. Therefore, because whooping cough or rotavirus are particularly dangers for infants, those vaccines are given at the beginning, while chicken pox or Hep B are pushed to a later date.

Now, the mere mention of Dr. Sears would classify me for many as an anti-vaxxer worthy of scorn and there has been A LOT of scorn going around with regards to parents who chose not to vaccinate and the recent measles outbreak. 

Honestly, it makes me really uncomfortable.

First, I don't think it's productive. When was the last time someone called you an idiot and you thought, "You know what? They're right! I'm going to really examine where that person is coming from!"

Yeah, that's what I thought. Me either.

Alienating families who choose not to vaccinate their children by calling them names and insulting their intelligence accomplishes absolutely nothing. 

Second, I know a lot of these families. Families who make very different choices then I do and - let me tell you something - they love their children just as much as I love mine. Now, I understand this is not a Similac commercial. My decision to have a home birth or breastfeed or home school doesn't affect the safety of your child. However, my decision to vaccinate or not vaccinate can and does affect your child. 

That's why emotions are high. I'm about to have a newborn who will have no immunity to measles AND not be a candidate for vaccination - believe me, I GET IT. 

However, if the goal is to educate on the science of vaccines and change people's minds, then maybe we should also examine the science of PERSUASION - specifically how it relates to vaccines. 

“Facts and evidence, for one, may not be the answer everyone thinks they are: they simply aren’t that effective, given how selectively they are processed and interpreted. Instead, why not focus on presenting issues in a way keeps broader notions out of it—messages that are not political, not ideological, not in any way a reflection of who you are?”

— Maria Konnikova

So, let's stop insulting one another. As parents, our goal to keep our children safe and healthy but it is not our only goal. We also want to present examples of behavior that include empathy and compassion and understanding - behaviors worth emulating. 

There's a lot on the line but that doesn't mean we need to sacrifice our basic humanity.

Post by Sarah Stewart Holland.

Remembering Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

We recently saw Selma - the Oscar-nominated (and snubbed) film about the 1965 march for voting rights from Selma to Montgomery, AL. It tells the story of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., as well as James Bevel, Hosea Williams, and John Lewis, as they fought for civil rights for black Americans. 

I loved David Oweloyo's portrayal of King, including the difficulties he faced within his marriage. It is an incredibly powerful experience to remember that the legend that is Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was also a very real man with problems and flaws and struggles all this own. It is the same experience I had when reading the Autobiography of Malcolm X - the connection you feel to a historical figure when you remember they were a human being just like you.

To me, it is important because it not only takes Dr. King. out of the history books, but also the struggle for which he fought so hard. As today's holiday approached and school lessons filled with stories of Dr. King, my son and I have spent a lot of time talking about the work of MLK. I find it so difficult to impart the ongoing struggle of civil rights without taking away from the successes of Dr. King's life and work. 

I want him to be so much more than a speech to my children.

One of my favorite ways to remember there was a very real human being behind his famous speech is Freedom's Ring illustration of Dr. King's "I have a dream" speech. The video is a beautifully illustrated representation but also allows you to see the edits Dr. King made to his written speech and the way it varies from the famous spoken version.

Something about seeing his edits and thinking about how he must have worked and stressed over the speech makes the entire thing seem so much more real. 

I highly recommend it if you are looking for a way to remember Dr. King today or any day.

Further Thoughts on #Ferguson

Credit David Broome, UPI

When Michael Brown was shot and killed by Darren Wilson on August 9, two stories emerged. The first - complicated in its own right - is what happened between these two people. Some things we know for sure. Michael Brown was black, 18 years old, and unarmed. After being shot, he laid in the street for four hours. Darren Wilson was white, a police officer, and armed. 

Like any other violent altercation, the evidence is anything but conclusive. Memory is flawed. Witnesses conflict each other. We all interrupt events through the prism of our own perception. However, a grand jury found that there was not probable cause to charge Darren Wilson with illegal use of lethal force. 

That would seemingly be the end - at least legally - to the first story.

However, the second story is much bigger than the events that took place between those two people on August 9th. The second story is what the death of Michael Brown illustrates about black communities and white police forces, the militarization of our police forces, the legal responsiblity of police officers who use deadly force, and much much more. 

What bothers me is there seems to be a fundamental misunderstanding about what the conclusion of one story means to the other. When Michael Brown was first killed, the was a narrative that he was gunned down with his back turned and arms up. As the physical evidence suggested otherwise, all of a sudden all the valid criciticisms of our criminal justice systems and its treatment of the black community seemed to fall on deaf - mainly white - ears.

So, let me just say, I don't really care if Michael Brown stole those cigarellos. I don't care if he was disrespectful to a police officer. And while whether or not he charged at Darren Wilson is absolutely relevant, it doesn't change the fact that the interaction between these two people is still important to bigger issues in our society.

First, statistically, you cannot argue with the fact black Americans receive disproportionately violent responses from the police. They are stopped and frisked at higher rates. They are arrested at higher rates. They receive harsher sentences. They are incarcerated at higher rates. 

Now, what I hear in private conversations, is a lot about "personal responsibility" and "culture" and "poverty." Personally, that seems to be a round about way of saying "They deserve it." 

And if that's how you feel, then you let's just put it out there and address it directly. If you think based on the color of a person's skin, that person is more likely to be violent or criminal then just say so. But let's not pretend that because we have a black President, people - including police officers - have stopped making those assumptions. 

Because, they. have. not. 

And that's why people are so PISSED. Think back to a time when you were accused of something you did not do (if you're black, this should have be easy!) and think about how you would feel if this happened ALL THE TIME. Think about how you would feel if from preschool on you were treated as if you were bad and think about the how that would affect your pschye. 

Then, think about if you were not only treated unfairly on a day-to-day basis but also if you knew you and your family were fundamentally excluded from systems meant to provide others with opportunity - historical systems like home ownership as a path to the middle class, political representation as a path to political power, or education as a path to economic independence. 

These systems were big and impactful and to think that each generation starts with a clean slate with which to "pull themselves up by their boot straps" is naive at best and deliberately ignorant at worse.

To be honest, I don't know the role personal responsibliity plays in each of our lives. I struggle with this issue a lot - even within my own family. 

All I do know is that it's not simple and that it's different for every person. I also know that no amount of personal responsiblity can erase the racism that still exist in our society. 

So, the decision of the grand jury doesn't change anything for me. The second story remains unchanged. Black americans are treated unfairly by the police and under the law. Our police forces are over-militarized. Police officers do a very difficult job but they are still human beings that should be held responsible for their use of deadly force - something that does not currently happen in Ferguson or elsewhere. 

Why I signed the Duggar petition

The Duggar family - stars of the TLC reality show 19 Kids and Counting - is in the news again and not because they added a 20th child to their brood. No, an internet petition on Change.org is calling for TLC to cancel 19 Kids and Counting because of the family's recent opposition to an anti-discrimination ordinance in Arkansas.

The ordinance - which passed by the way - prohibits businesses and public accomodations from discrimination against people based on the person's sexual orientation or gender identity. 

I signed the petition.

In the spirit of full disclosure, I have never supported the Duggar's particular brand of conservative family values. I watched several of their specials before the family's reality show began and was always struck by how limited the roles for women were within their ideology. 

The family belongs to the Quiverful Movement - an evangelical Christian movement that eschews birth control and believes that heterosexual married couples should welcome as many children as God sees fit to give them.

Now, I do not subscribe to that belief. I believe children are a blessing - a blessing that should be CHOSEN because of the huge psychological, emotional, financial, and physical investment they require. I have children because I want to be fully experience raising them myself. For me, that does not mean a buddy system in which older siblings raise the younger siblings - a system Michelle Duggar has openly endorsed.

I also believe that there is room at the table for every form of family - from homosexual families to single parents to unmarried couples raising children from other partnerships. In fact, I think there is room for people who chose more conservative versions for themselves.

Let me be clear - I have no problem with conservative Chirstians who chose to have large families.

That is not what this is about. For example, my love for the Brown family of TLC Sister Wives fame is well-documented. These are conservative people who believe in a VERY different version of family than I practice in my own life.

However, unlike the Duggars, the Browns do not use their celebrity to limit the choices of other families AND do not proscribe the choices of their own children - especially their daughters. 

I remember one scene in particular during the first season of Sister Wives. Cody Brown was sitting with his eldest daugther with his first wife. The daughter wanted to go to the Air Force Academy after graduation. Currently, she was attending a private conservative Mormon high school. Cody was encouraging her to leave the religious high school and attend a secular public high school, which was accredited, to increase her chances of attending the Air Force Academy.

Let's contrast this with one of the few episodes I've seen of 19 Kids and Counting. Michelle Duggar was sharing how blessed she felt that God had given her all these daughters first to take care of all these little boys. While I'm as big a fan of sibling responsibility as the next person, what if the daughters had other plans. What if they didn't want to spend all their free time caring for younger siblings? What if they want to attend college? 

I know the Duggar children have been afforded great opportunity thanks to their family's reality show but what if they'd also like the opportunity to take a different path? What if they don't want to get married at 18? What if they don't want to have as many children as God blesses them with? What if one of those 19 children is gay?

There seems to be very little room for belief systems outside their own - inside their family and without. And that's what I can't stomach. I am a proud feminist. If you want to vacuum every day in high heels and pearls, GO FOR IT! If you want to have 25 children and let your husband run your life, more power to you! 

BUT don't tell me or your daughters or other families they have to follow in your footsteps because God says so. And don't use your considerable celebrity to promote dangerous stereotypes that limit the freedom of choice among others. 

With great power - which celebrity is - comes great responsiblity, it is my opinion that the Duggar family abuses that power.

That's why I signed the petition. 

P.S. Accusations of Intolerance