To the Dieting Parents Club...

I'm a teacher... I hear things about you from your kids that I'm sure you'd rather no one outside your household knew... You probably didn't even know your kids noticed these things, let alone spoke about them in class...

Which is my point. Kids notice everything.

So, moms and dads, when you make that offhanded remark about needing to lose those pesky pounds you gained over the holiday season, your kids think they too need to lose a few...

It no longer shows up as kids talking about needing to diet... Because that's no longer your jargon...

It shows up when your children ask me at snack if an orange is healthy for them to eat.
It shows up when a child is outgrowing their sneakers and says sadly it's because they're getting fat.
It shows up when a child says that they are participating in a sport they hate playing because they are afraid of getting fat if they stopped.
It shows up when a girl says she would never wear a bikini - not because she doesn't want to show skin, but because she thinks she'll look fat, and get bullied because of her "flabby tummy".
It shows up when a young dancer is worried that the developing muscles on her arms and legs are actually fat.
It shows up when your kids talk about eating only half their sandwich at lunch, in order to "eat healthier".
It shows up when a boy asks someone if his pants make his butt look big.
It shows up when a child complains they are hungry, but then refuses to eat snack, because they don't want to become "a nosher".

I don't think any parent intends to give their kids negative body image messages, but keep in mind that they are constantly taking in the subconscious messaging of our culture about what is "normal" and "beautiful" and "healthy" (and what is not). Children are not sophisticated enough thinkers to understand the difference between their parents' opinions on what is healthy, and what our society says. An offhand comment by a parent could be interpreted as a ringing endorsement of everything else taken in on the subject.

New Book, New Year

So, this year we celebrate the secular New Year at the same time we start a new book in the Torah... Shemot, or Exodus. It's a big change... We go straight from the Israelites prospering under Joseph, to them being slaves under a cruel new Pharoah. From a heartwarming tale of salvation from starvation and family reconciliation, to families being torn apart by genocidal edicts.

The secular New Year is often a time for big changes as well.

Many people like to make New Year's resolutions... Promises to themselves that they will work to make themselves and their lives better.

It sounds all well and good, but I'm going to tell you it's not. In fact, I'm going to tell you to throw out any and all of your resolutions. If you haven't finished making them, good, and if you haven't even gotten around to starting them, even better.

Why?

Because all resolutions start in a place of self-hate.

There is something wrong with your life, and yourself, and you're going to fix it. You've tried in previous years to get it right, and this time, by golly, you're going to do it. No more fooling yourself, this time it's get it right or go home.

And by February, or March if you've really got it going, it all falls apart... Life intervenes and all your good intentions go out the door.

We plan, God laughs.

And where does that leave you? Feeling like a failure. Like damaged goods. I can't even get this little change to stick, how worthless am I?

Stop.
Just. Stop.

You're not worthless. And there was nothing ever wrong with you to begin with. You don't need to change. Things may not be perfect, but they're okay, and you don't need a resolution to change your life for the better.

This is not to say there is never anything that anyone needs to do to improve themselves, but rather, to elucidate that the kind of change people need isn't the kind of thing that can be accomplished by a lofty goal arbitrarily set at the beginning of the calendar year.

New Year's resolutions are usually made in frustration, because we are comparing our behind-the-scenes lives with everyone else's highlight reels... We're looking at the holiday party at our neighbor's immaculately clean home and comparing it with our own house the day after our kids all had the stomach flu at the same time...

You don't have a sparkling clean house... Okay... Do you need one? Would you really be happier with everything shining and sparkling all the time? Would that make your life better? Is it worth it to you to give up other things in your life, either time or money, to have a house that clean?

No? Then forget it and move on. You have more important things to do.
Yes? Then what do you need to adjust to either have more time to clean, or pay someone else to do it?
"I'm a failure at life because I have no skill at keeping my house clean - everyone else can do it but me, what's wrong with me"? Absolutely nothing is wrong with you... Not everyone is a domestic diva. You have plenty of skills in other areas, apparently cleaning is not one of them. You wouldn't tell someone they were a failure at life because they can't sing. Stop comparing yourself to people who are not only good at cleaning but also apparently love doing it. No one in your family is going to die if there's dust on top of the TV.

So, this year, love yourself and don't make resolutions.

Pharoah needed 10 plagues before he was able to make a change. (And even after that, he tried to take it back!)

Give yourself the respect, kindness, and caring you deserve, and that you would extend to others. Make reasonable and achievable changes for good reasons, love yourself for who you are, and appreciate all the wonderful things already in your life.

Ventimated

As a child, I coined this term to describe the "no frills" grocery items you found in the supermarket...

If you're my age or older, you will remember the canned and boxed goods with a plain white label and black text which simply stated the contents of the container. No photos, no brand name, often no other colors (Pathmark being the lone exception with red, white, and blue stripes around the top).

To me, frills were things you found on ballet costumes, not on groceries, and so I rejected the term "no frills" as being just plain wrong, and replaced it with what I felt expressed that the packaging had been violated, having all the color and joy sucked out of it... Certainly the insides had suffered the same fate, and so why would you buy it? "Eeww, mommy, don't buy that, it's Ventimated!"

I imagined a Snidely Whiplash character sneaking through the supermarket, pulling out an oversized ray gun, laughing evilly, and zapping the product shelves, pulling the flavors and colors right out of the cans and boxes, leaving them lifeless shells, withering on display, marked down in pity by the store clerks, waiting for some poor customer who didn't know better to purchase them, simply because they had been put on sale... Who knows what eating the contents would do to you?

Apparently this sort of thinking caught on, because I can't remember the last time I saw a ventimated product anywhere. Now we have "store brands" instead of generic "no frills", which feature colors and images just like their more expensive, nationally branded counterparts.

In some way, I think it's a good thing - lack of color really does bother me... But it also removed the stigma from buying for price... I remember when ventimated wasn't just about a lack of fancy labels, but also about the fear of being "caught"... If a classmate ever saw me (or even just my mom) in the supermarket and saw a ventimated can or box in our cart, it meant we must be poor, and I'd be on the receiving end of some nasty treatment the next school day...

On the other hand, are we simply reinforcing that looks are everything?

There really wasn't any difference between the peas in the black and white can, and the peas in the can with the photo of peas on it, as my mother insisted to me every time we went shopping... But I was certain there was something wrong with the peas in the black and white can... As a child, I was incapable of not judging a book by its cover (consider why children's items are all so colorful!)...

But, obviously a whole host of adults, who should know better, agreed with me enough that an entire industry changed from no frills labeling to store brands... The insides hadn't changed, the factories that made them hadn't changed, the type of packaging hadn't changed, just the look of the label...

While I certainly prefer my colorful store brand to the ventimated packaging of the past, as the song goes, it's just another brick in the wall... Just one more thing programming all of us to look at the packaging over the content...

The Missing Introduction

I had planned to be brave tonight, but the opportunity to say these words was not given to me due to decisions made beyond my control.  So, here is a slightly edited version of what I had hoped you would learn earlier tonight:

I made a promise to myself when I was in college.  I made a promise that if I was ever in a position to keep even just one child from experiencing what I went through in school, that I would take that opportunity without reservation.  To explain that promise, I need to tell you something about myself that I don't usually talk about. 

When I was 14, I attempted suicide.

It's not a secret.  Many of my friends know.  I'm comfortable talking about it... but it's just not a topic that comes up in casual conversation over bagels and schmear at shul.

All throughout my years in school, I was "teased" and "picked on".  No one ever used the word "bullied" back then.  Looking back, I would personally use the word "abused".  Anyone who knows me is very much aware that I march to the beat of my own drummer (sometimes literally).  I always have.  But, when I was a kid, I payed dearly for it. 

I was verbally and physically assaulted daily by my peers.   In the beginning I asked for help.  I soon learned to stop talking about it, because it was either my fault for being different and not working to fit in, or any punishment my tormentors received would make them attack me more often and with a greater vengeance.  It was easier to just deal with it myself than to trust in an adult.  Bumps and bruises, stolen and damaged property - I was clumsy and forgetful enough that it was easy to pass them off as accidents. 

After a while, I found the physical attacks easy to deal with.  I got good at defending myself, and my status as a teacher's pet meant that I never got in trouble for finishing a fight.  The verbal attacks were a different animal.  They called me everything.  I was fat, ugly, stupid, but also a braniac, too tall, and then too short, I didn't have the right clothes, not enough money, I was disgusting, unlovable, and worthless.  When they ran out of the run-of-the-mill insults, they came up with the worst label they could throw at me.  I must be a lesbian.  I was not only worthless, but now a deviant and a pervert, because I had no interest in chasing after my idiotic male classmates.  I was told everyone would be better off if I never existed.

And I believed them.

Obviously I'm still here.  I managed to survive because I realized that ending my pain would hurt my family more than living could hurt me.  Eventually I went off to college, where I found out I was quite normal and perfectly lovable, even the weird parts of me...  I am still proud of the fact that I was voted in the top 25 members of my college class for homecoming court.  I didn't win, but I didn't have to.  For the first time ever, I was a contender in a popularity contest.  (Ha!)

And so this is why I am telling you my story.

No one should have to experience what I went through in school.  My teachers tried to help, but had no support to make the broad cultural changes needed to keep me safe.  School leaders felt that teasing was a normal part of growing up, and that it even builds character.  Parents felt that children should conform in order to avoid being singled out, because it's "normal behavior" for children to pick on people who are different.

And there was a time in the not so distant past when that was also considered normal behavior for adults...

Making mountains out of molehills

I read this blog from the St Louis Jewish Light...

And I think the author is both right and wrong.  Or, more accurately, her conclusion is correct were her premises accurate, but from my experience, her premises are wrong.

You see, she feels parents are doing their children a disservice by trying to remove challenges from their life paths.  And I agree with that. I think challenge and failure are teaching tools.  Children need to learn it's okay to not always get what they want.

However, I don't think that parents are simply trying to make life easy for their children.

The author states that a child's mistakes don't mean much in the long run.  And this is where my present day experience runs counter to what seems like common sense...

A child's mistakes shouldn't mean much in the long run, but these days, they certainly seem to.

You see, where I live, I hear from parents that it is of utmost importance for their children to be able to go to a good college.  Sounds like a good thing to me...  But to do that, you need to do well in high school, and the students who are best prepared for college go to the best high schools in the area.  In order to get into one of these top high schools, you must attend one of the correct feeder middle schools.  In order to get into one of these feeder middle schools you must be chosen in a selection process which includes a look at your academic and behavior records throughout elementary school.

Therefore, a child's mistakes, at the time that they should be making them and learning from them, could cost them opportunities down the line...  They could be penalized in their academic and socioeconomic development in a way that no child could possibly understand...  Sorry honey, you can't watch cartoons now, you need to do your homework because your future employer is going to want to see a diploma from a good college.  What 7 year old is going to understand that level of cause and effect?

Of course a parent is going to want to hand-hold a child through their school years.  Especially when you sure as hell bet other parents are doing the same, if not more, in order to ensure their child's spot on the yellow-brick-road...

It's not that parents don't trust that their children can do it, but it's that the price of failure seems so high, can a parent risk having a child do their homework without help?

I can't really blame the parents, who are looking at today's economy and feeling the need to help their children get the best start they can.

But what have we become as a society, when a child's academics and behavior in grade school can effect his or her employability as an adult?

We are raising a generation that won't be able to handle challenges, both emotionally and cognitively.  At what point does that translate into needing a PhD to be hired for an entry level minimum wage job?

Random Thoughts on Gender

A recommended read: tinyurl.com/9vc2xon

I'm now thinking about how I have heard so many women tell me that this is exactly why they don't have many male friends - that eventually all of them end up acting inappropriately towards them.  It makes me wonder why I have so many male friends (and so few female friends), and that I have never in my life had a male I consider a friend act like a creep towards me.

Sure, I've experienced my share of creeps... guys at work, friends of friends, classmates, family members (*shudder*)... but never a guy I consider my friend.  And no, it's not that a guy who acts creepy falls off the friend list and no longer counts... I've just never had it happen where someone I considered a friend ever failed me in that respect.

If you had asked me years ago, I probably would chalk it up to not being considered "sexy", and so my guy friends had me firmly placed in the "friend" or "one of the guys" category (especially given my interests), and not in the "sexual object" category in their brains.  But, I've also had several male friends admit to me that they very much do consider me in the "sexy" category.  I guess I'm just lucky that my male friends seem to lack "sexual object" categories... they're all "sensitive" as the author above postulates.

Woo! I'm a statistic...

This post brought to you by some stupid political commentator on the radio claiming that the number of reports of rape and sexual assault are greatly exaggerated, because you legally can't be assaulted by someone you know. 

I'm writing a thing, and in doing so, attempting to distill the hell that was my middle and high school years into engaging sound bites.  I realized while writing that I was sexually assaulted my junior year.  Not raped, sexually assaulted...  A schoolmate violently pushed me against a wall, and the next thing I knew, his one hand was groping my right breast, and his other hand was down my skirt and inside my underwear...

Why I'm just realizing it, is that I never considered the incident sexual.  Even now, it was more about bullying me and the "you're ugly and worthless" theme that my classmates threw at me on a regular basis...  This time I was so ugly and disgusting that this boy refused to rape me, even though he had me at his mercy (or so he thought)...

So, the conversation in my head started asking questions that perhaps people might want to know about the incident...  For instance, what happened to him, did I report it?  For the record, no, because I had learned a long time before that telling people made the problem worse, not better. Though, also for the record, he walked away with a broken nose.

It occurred to me though, that he left school after that year...  

During his attack on me, he mentioned that this was his usual way of getting what he wanted, and that normally girls were flattered and pleased with his advances, because he only went after the especially good looking girls... And that I was somehow defective because I wasn't enjoying myself... And besides, I was fat and ugly and no one could ever find me attractive or lovable, therefore he was going to just leave me there hanging, because I was not deserving of his attentions...

I wonder now how many other female schoolmates of mine had to deal with him, and if this was the reason behind his quiet disappearance after that year...

So, that means that if you don't already know someone else who is a rape/sexual assault survivor, hi, I'm your 1 in 4...