An open letter to a Northeast Avalon Times columnist

Dear Ms. McGrath,

I believe what you were trying to write about in your January 2015 Column in The Northeast Avalon Times is gender and the harms that gender causes in our society. It's a pity that you obfuscated this very relevant topic with your thinly veiled hatred against girls/women with a particular hair colour and eye colour.

As someone who is blonde (and blue eyed) and has raised a blonde (and blue eyed) daughter I would like to point out a few inaccuracies in your article.

First of all, I am still blonde and I'm 47. Yes it did get darker and now it has grey throughout but I did not 'resort' to artificial products to 'restore' my natural hair colour. And neither has my now 20 yo daughter.

Secondly, and I know I can't speak for all blonde blue eyed women BUT my own personal glory was found by completing not one but two degrees, the first one majoring in Mathematics and minoring in Computer Science and the second a graduate degree in Engineering. I've got other glories lying around too and none of them have to do with the colour of my hair and/or eyes. My 20 yo daughter is currently accumulating her own set of glories that (shock!) also have nothing to do with her hair or eye colour. She is in her third year double majoring in International Development and Economics and is on the Dean's honour list. She is going to India on a placement in May. She backpacked Europe last summer. She volunteers. She is in the Student Leadership program. And (another shock) she wore pink as a child, as I did. I myself was not into the whole princess/doll scene but, alas, she was. But she also liked books. And interactive games. And swimming.

Thirdly, your attempt to determine whether me, my daughter, and others of our ilk are repulsive is, in a word, repulsive. It is also repulsive that you question how you would have treated your own daughter if she herself was blonde and blue eyed. It is also repulsive that you compared blonde and blue eyed people to albino bugs. It is also repulsive that you are given a public forum to voice these repugnant views.

Fourthly, apparently you know my Mother. How do you feel about her now, knowing that she raised not one but two blonde and blue eyed girls? Is your opinion of her diminished or does it remain the same since she herself is not blonde? Does she get demerit points for occasional buying (or making) pink items of clothing for us? Or letting us see a princess movie? These items need to be clarified.

And lastly, and most importantly, you realize that hating people on sight might be indicative of needing to see a psychiatrist? It's called being a sociopath. Unfortunately the prognosis is not good for this type of ailment. Maybe, with encouragement, you'll get the help you need.

Sincerely,

Orla Hegarty BMath MASc

P.S. If you wanna read up on the whole gender issue thing I'd recommend Gender Hurts by Dr. Sheila Jeffreys. It's available, for free, in our provincial library system.

The gender badge vs. the gender vadge

Dear Females,

I apologize for travelling along the third wave feminism road.  It was the road called equality and it seemed to logically follow the road my mother and grandmothers fought for. I apologize for calling it equality and erasing liberation from the nomenclature of feminism.

I apologize for believing that in the 21st century women had a right to choose to sell her body. I apologize for thinking porn helped further sexual liberation. I apologize for thinking pro-choice = reproductive justice.

I apologize for thinking that women and men were wired differently and I somehow won the genetic lottery by earning the right to call myself a mathematician and an engineer despite being born female.

The road to my enlightenment was long and twisted and admittedly, privileged.

My privilege came from a mother determined to not award gender badges to her daughters. A mother who allowed me firetrucks and my sister cowboy regalia. A mother who encouraged a love of learning and a love of math. And a father who 'allowed' this freedom and even (gasp) changed our diapers in the late 1960s. A father who 'allowed' my mother to be the primary wage earner and he even cooked our family meals during the week and took us to lessons and medical appointments. There were no gender badges awarded in my family growing up. And when my sister came out as a lesbian in her early twenties in the early 90s, my parents embraced her despite their catholic upbringing and a church determined to erase her reality.And we did not seek to give her the gender badge of butch dyke or femme lesbian. She simply loved women and we accepted that without needing to label her beyond lesbian.

And now my privilege is being slammed because I also have the audacity of having a gender vadge. I am a female that calls herself a woman and I happen to also have a vagina. The fact that my parents tried so hard to eliminate the gender badge from my life - as did other freethinking parents who saw the harms of boxing in their children into prescriptive gendered roles while children - is now considered irrelevant and even dangerous to third wave feminists. Flaunting the fact that I have a vagina and others born with one need liberation is deemed cissexist. Saying that someone born with a vagina is more likely to be penetrated in a violent act whether for money or torture is called sex-phobic. Telling people that I want access to female only space is pronounced transphobic.

The only thing that seems to be relevant today is what gender badge you feel like you have and the quicker you identify your gender then the quicker your "problem" can be solved if you don't have the right body parts to match. The solution ultimately  involves lots of drugs and genital mutilation surgery. But, if caught early enough, the gender badge will be awarded.

My vagina is not gendered, it is female. My brain is not gendered, it is human. My feminism is not gendered, it is about females. My privilege is not gendered it is about socio-economic class and education and race.

Ultimately I am sorry that it took me so long to wake up to our female born reality and what the true liberation of females entails. The road behind is only a couple of centuries old and I fear the road ahead is much steeper than it was before gender badges and gender vadges become priority #1 in First World Feminism.

The penance for my own third-wave feminism fiasco will be that for the remainder of my life I will cry every time I see another female shame another female for anything.

And I'm crying a lot these days.

Sincerely,

A 46 yo womens liberationist.

Public Consultation on Prostitution-Related Offences in Canada

The Government of Canada is seeking the public's input on the criminal law's response to adult prostitution (i.e. the sale and purchase of sexual services from persons 18 years of age or older). This online consultation is open from February 17 to March 17, 2014.

My responses are below. Please go to this link and provide your own.

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Consultation Questions

1. Do you think that purchasing sexual services from an adult should be a criminal offence? Should there be any exceptions? Please explain.

Comment: Purchasing sexual 'services'????? By framing this question in this way there is an implication that providing access to a bodies orifices is something that is required - like a tune up on an automobile. So yes, I think that purchasing sexual services from an adult should be a criminal offence. Sex is not a 'service'. It is a consensual act conducted *between* adults. Our society should be working actively to reduce demand by penalizing the people who regard sex with others as a service to be purchased rather than an act to be enjoyed between consenting adults.

2. Do you think that selling sexual services by an adult should be a criminal offence? Should there be any exceptions? Please explain.

Comment: No, I don't think that selling sexual services by an adult should be a criminal offence.

3. If you support allowing the sale or purchase of sexual services, what limitations should there be, if any, on where or how this can be conducted? Please explain.

Comment: There should be no limitations on the providers. By criminalization of the purchasers the providers can work with authorities to eliminate the purchasers they wish to remove from their clientele.

4. Do you think that it should be a criminal offence for a person to benefit economically from the prostitution of an adult? Should there be any exceptions? Please explain.

Comment: All pimps and brothel owners should be criminalized. Body guards should not be criminalized.

5. Are there any other comments you wish to offer to inform the Government's response to the Bedford decision?

Comment: I find it dismaying that this issue has been framed around the notion of sex=work. Any enlightened adult knows that good sex should be an act that allows mutual enjoyment. If it is reduced to 'work' then it is a sad reflection of how distant our Canadian society is from recognizing this.

6. Are you are writing on behalf of an organization? If so, please identify the organization and your title or role:

Comment:

Parenting: The young adult years, Take I

Daughter is home for reading week. Unlike the holiday break, this visit has no sense of frenzy. It is like the old days. Except. It's. Not.

I've always felt that I've been about one or two steps emotionally ahead of her. This is to say that yes, I'm an emotional misfit and most parents I've observed seem to have a lot more maturity than I've ever felt.

This feeling was driven home last night and in fact I am now suspicious that Daughter's emotional maturity is starting to catch up and even surpass mine. 

During last night's rather heavy dinner conversation I found myself unable to offer anything resembling answers to her questions. I hit the 'parenting wall'. I suggested that she try to nurture the type of relationship with her father in which she could ask him these same questions for I had no idea what to say.  All I could do was listen and then offer the physical support of a long hug that seemed to acknowledge my failure to provide adequate guidance as well as provide the soul soothing comfort of physical closeness that used to be so central to our relationship. Our physical need for one another seems to have been misplaced during her teen years, as is healthy and normal.

Daughter, at 18, is now an adult. And she is facing adult concerns. As a fellow adult that also is her mother I think the most mature thing for me to do is step back from my parenting pulpit and remind her that sometimes all we can do for our fellow man is offer a hug that reminds us that we are - fortunately - not alone facing life's trials and tribulations.

Inside, I am swirling with chaotic protective emotions that are screaming to protect her. Demanding me (and my inner annoying maternal perfectionist) to seek out answers that will better my vacant "I don't know what to say" responses from last night. I have to squelch the urge to email or text her father and make demands on him that will fall on dead ears (history is a brilliant teacher).

I was told recently by a wise man with more than four decades of parenting experience that conversations with my young adult child would start to get very interesting.  What I didn't realize when he said that was that the interesting bit was not necessarily just on the surface but would hit me in a place inside that until last night, I didn't know existed.

Moving out of your comfort zone.

After years of being the exception I thought I knew how to survive in the dark dangerous zone of unfamiliarity.  I was part of the brave new world where women were equal to men. I had obtained an honours mathematics and computer science degree from the prestigious University of Waterloo.  I had obtained a master's degree in engineering and was pursuing a doctorate degree in the same subject area.

The first inkling of a flaw in my internal logic with respect to gender came while I was pregnant for the second time (I miscarried my first).  I vividly remember being in the women's bathroom of my engineering graduate school department and looking myself in the mirror and saying to myself:  "Wow, being a woman sucks."

The precipitous 'event' which was less an event but more of an all encompassing new way of life for me at that time was being nauseous 24/7. It was horrible. Horrible enough to wish I wasn't a woman. It seemed grossly unfair to me that biology had dictated not only labour (of which I was mortally afraid and as it turned out, with good reason) but also this feeling of wanting to throw up, constantly.  Morning sickness became a cruel euphemism ridiculing my constant state of gagging. I wonder if Princess Kate had this same realization.

Upon reflection I see that this nausea was perhaps a biological reminder that by becoming a parent, you move so far out of your comfort zone that a warm up sure doesn't hurt. Science doesn't seem to support this idea but how could it?  How could this idea even be tested?

Yet, if you ask any parent if they believe having children moved them out of their comfort zone I believe you would get 100% concurrence on this sentiment as well as an addendum:  "Most rewarding thing I've ever done."

So, forgetting the science, ask yourself what is making you uncomfortable, right now?  Could it be something that if you persevere it will end up rewarding you?

I'm grappling with these questions even as I type these words.  Some of the reading I've been doing about the art and practice of writing suggests that if you are painfully extracting words from deep within, you have found your voice. I am all too familiar with this notion yet constantly reject practicing (i.e. like maintaining this blog). 

Certainty: A Fish Called Orla

It's been awhile.

I sit down to write this in desperation. I have arrived at a critical turning point. This is a middle aged crisis like no other. It is epic. It is a swirling dirvish of emotions that have seemingly arrived to a fine tuned epiphany. It is grandios.  It is socially media infused. It is happening on a grand scale and a microscopic scale.  It is neverending.

What?  What's that you write?  Tell me!  Are you okay?  Am I okay?  Am I too old for this?  Am I too young?  What are the warning signs?  What are the symptoms?  What are the cures?

Whooooaaaa. Don't worry yourself and thanks for your concern. This one is mine. All mine. I am in the middle, at the edges and in the nucleus of it. It is MINE. If I attempt to share it, it might explode, yes. And the detritus from the fallout might catch a wisp of your eyelash, yes. But it is not contagious. Unless, of course, you are a carrier. Then, and only then, might we reach a threshold of energy that could reach detonation proportions equivalent to the nucleur bomb or a universe exploding into existence.

But, my experience has shown me that is quite unlikely. After a near half century of waltzing around the planet nurturing the inner flame of this beast I have met few carriers. And us carriers are scattered enough to not be a threat to any large scale change. Scattered by culture. Religion. Media. Gender.

Alright. Phew. So then. I don't understand. What the heck are you talking about? I'm confused.  

Confusion is normal. Confusion is intended. We arose out of the primordial soup in the state of chaos. This is our default setting. Anyone or anything pretending otherwise is lying. History attests proof of this. Certainty is a simplistic mathematical exercise best left to the immature minds of children. Santa helps with that.

Santa?  Is this about Christmas? Everyone knows that you are not a big fan of that and another rant is kind of boring. I, for one, expect better when reading your shyte.

In a way, yes, it is unfortunately about Santa.  He is part of the maelstrom for sure but I used Him to exemplify how those of of us with sentient ability use a culture/religious/media icon like Santa to cement certainty into the brains of children.  Instead of opening children to the (nearly) limitless possibilities and chaos inherent in life we spend inordinate amounts of time/money/thinking towards reinforcing certainty and stability to the future generation.  This has led to generations of people (including myself) being perpetually disappointed with life because as we came of age, every single person has looked around and found endless chaos.  It's everywhere.  Even if you have a certainty about monotheism (culturally the most popular religion at the moment) each religious tradition has tales upon tales of times of chaos and upheaval.

And yet, we continue to preach stability. Certainty. Change is abhorred and when it rears it's inevitable ugly head we pronounce miracles (look at what this or that celebrity has overcome - or more often, not) or grant some deity ownership of the outcome (i.e. please pray for xyz outcome).

Wow Modern Times, you've really jumped down the rabbit hole during your 5 weeks absence from this blog.

Ha. Yes. I can see how you'd think that.  But let me spell it out.

In the last year I've travelled extensively (Peru, New York, driving nearly the entire width of Canada and spending time in Vancouver, Winnipeg, Kenora, Montreal, Gros Morne and St. John's). It has brought me so much joy and I hope to get to that on these pages, eventually. In my five week hiatus from this blog I've pondered on this and that. I've written some fiction for the first time in my life (this is perhaps the greatest revelation of them all but I'll get to that here too, I'm sure).

Underneath all of this for me is the bigger question and then there is also the shroud surrounding that question. The shroud is anger and the bigger question is still not known but I do know the answer: 42.

Picture taken from the edge of the Barrens towards Trepassey.
On the Irish Loop, Newfoundland, NL, Canada.
January 2012.

And now, she can vote.

In a curious alignment of the stars in the universe (and on this planet) today's date in 1994 had Johnny Depp on the cover of People magazine.  I missed that cover.  I was busily delivering what was going to be my own personal star that day. That morning, to be more precise.

My daughter was delivered at 11:50 a.m. on October 3.  Eighteen years ago today.

My daughter. My only. My star.

On that date those magical two words rolled off my tongue like the most exquisitely composed orchestral score for the very first time. My daughter.

We didn't know her gender and I had determined, through anything but scientific means, that I was carrying a boy. I can be stubborn like that, even still.  So when her little wee clearly female crotch came out of me and I saw it in the mirror they thoughtfully had placed in order to see the results of my 39 hours and 20 minutes of labour (yes, it was vaginal and yes I begged to be cut open but my family doctor thoughtfully refused even though I really really begged).  I almost didn't get to see that little crotch hanging half out of me and half still inside since I wasn't exactly in the mood for pensive mirror reflections (refer to previously detailed length of labour as to the explanation for the mood I was in).  It was my family doctor who was also my delivering physician, who demanded me to look. Again, I thank her for that thoughtful command.

The miracle of birth and the astonishment about my daughter's crotch simultaneously collided in my head and I was literally transformed from awkward pregnant blob into a full blown mother of a daughter in that instant. It was likely also the instant that the post-birth hormones were released since I've never felt that sort of high before or since. And the high sustained itself for days despite my exhaustion.  I can feel an echo of it even today by concentrating on that instant.

I've rattled and prattled about Daughter here before. Yes, she is in university now. Yes I've had a few struggles as a single mom and all that.

But there are a few things I've neglected to mention and on the occasion of her 18th birthday I think it's about time I came out with a few things about her.  First of all, she is awesome (and smart and funny and all those things you expect a mother to say about her child but in this case it's 100% true).  And second of all, she seems to have a fan girl crush on Johnny Depp. And since I just found out that he was on the cover of the world's most respected gossip rag (arguably) the day she was born I guess I'm gonna have to excuse her nearly lifelong attraction to this actor despite my (often stated) misgivings about the age difference. So I'll just come right out and say it directly to her:  "You can have him sweetie...I'll move out the way now....consider it your first birthday present as an adult :)"

"Next":  Command performance of 1st year birthday cake eating complete.
No more disgusting chocolate frosted cake. Where's the vanilla ice cream?

There are no rats in this race. None.

This missive serves as a formal thank-you note to the parenting warriors I know.  And no, you do not need to be a parent in order to be named a parenting warrior.

All of us wear, as a public front, the results of our parenting.  So if I directed you here I was informed by you and your actions as to my own parenting choices. I likely talked about you with Daughter in the form of "There is this really cool person I met from a food thing/school thing/random thing (including the internet)...this is their story or why they are cool". And some of you I know more intimately than that but I might not have directly named you in my story telling.

The internet allows me to mask identities with Daughter if I have intimate knowledge of something and I was to pass along a great story but not reveal true identity.  More often than not I have chosen to share stories of action rather than stories of identity so I guess that means I've fully rejected most notions of idolatry .Which also happens to make me a really great atheist, eh?

There are tumultuous times as parents. Birth. Toddler. Preschool/early school. Grade 6 (for estrogen heavy children especially). And then, finally, the holy grail of parenting: Teenagehood. A last childhood stage that hopefully finales with a goal towards further education (formal or otherwise) and intelligent voting (I'm not joking).

Daughter moved away to university yesterday. She and I both entered a whole new world. One where my role as a parent will have shifted away from one thing to another.  And, according the to the God (Dr.) Seuss :  Ah, yes of course. Thing 2 would like to clarify that just because he wears the number 2 does not imply in any way that he's inferior to Thing 1. 

And like everything else in this world, when life is tumultuous one tends to turn to others in order to support and inform. And sometimes literally carry you (extra long hat tip here to The Parents, luckily both still alive and healthyish).

So whether or not you knew it, if I've directed you here then you were part of my own personal strongly social media infused Information and Support Team: Parenting Branch. (Brief Aside to an interesting fact. I first went online in 1993 seeking out parenting support after a devastating miscarriage. This makes me an original netizen).

You were the people on whose backs I often trod. And most of you know I'm kind of addicted to learning so many of you were just plain teachers. But the best kind of plain teacher is the one that you actually learn from. So thank-you for teaching me even if you had no idea I used you for my parenting role model (especially if you are not a parent lol).

Parenting was the biggest challenge I ever took on and I had heaps and heaps of learning to do on the subject since I was not part of any large familial structure as a first generation Canadian. An extremely grateful Canadian, now.

Some of you I do not or can not name because our interactions were so brief I failed to obtain a name.  And some of you I do not name because you do not getz the social media internetz thang (remember, I am 45, GenX - we GASP wrote snail mail in our youth and many of us still do...not me though lol).  But I might actually snail mail a few of those sorts of characters.  And, of course in the age of social media, some of you I name, but do not know face to face since we have never actually met.  And sadly, there is one dear friend who I especially wish to thank but she recently passed on. She was, ultimately, a fatal victim to her own childhood demons.

Memory, being what it is, will forget some. And memory, being what it is, will enlarge some.

Be that as it were, I now attempt to name you here via various sorts of social media avenues including good 'old fashioned' email. Because, you see, in the land of social media I can now name my not-necessarily-blood-related-clan. And not only name you but sometimes to also publicly thank-you, without a face-to-face ceremony. And ceremonies traditionally employ food and it just so happens that I've broken bread with most of you. And much of it good healthy AND tasty food at that :)

I am transitioning to stage II parenting now. And I certainly feel a ceremony should occur. So this is mine.

My transitioning parent ceremony will occur over the course of the entire month of September and I will attempt to blog here regularly about my reflections on parenting as I drive across Canada from Vancouver to St. John's along the Trans-Canada Highway.  I'm also hoping to get a few cross Canada harvest food related stories up on my newish food themed blog (but not recipes: they are here).

Namaste and again, thank-you.  Go forth and multiply the intelligent and humane sorts of folks that we are capable of creating.  Be a seed, as it were.  Plant yourself, flower and prosper.

My angel will grow wings.

I had a nice day and evening planned for myself yesterday.  And none of it happened.  I'm delighted.

I feel like I was released from a sort of purgatory.  And I guess, in a way, I was.

Being the parent of only one child and being on my own for nearly her entire childhood had me in a state of purgatory.  I've known this for years and really felt quite powerless to change the feeling.

Oh wait.  Do you know what purgatory is?  My catholic upbringing gave me some propitiously delicious analogies and I forget that not everyone has access to them.  My childhood was filled with images of chubby unwinged (for they are not holy angels, the poor wee craters) and unbaptised babies happily whiling their infinity away in the in-between-heaven-and-hell state of purgatory.  So by using an analogy to purgatory I'm not referring to something negative.  On the contrary it is quite blissful and all the more so because of one's own ignorance about the other two greatly opposing states of heaven and hell.

So back to the end of my own purgatorial frolicking aka single motherhood.

I've blathered about Daughter leaving for university before. Well. It's happening. Tomorrow.

And yesterday I decided in the morning to throw away all the day's plans and take action on a crazy idea that's been simmering for a few weeks now.  And boom.  Bam.  That crazy idea looks like it is gonna happen.  I'm tickled pink.

The funny thing is, once I shared my idea with Daughter (over our Last Supper alone together since boyfriend is coming over tonight), she exploded.  I got a blow-by-blow account of every resentment, every flaw, and every fear that was simmering away inside her 17 year old self against moi, the far from perfect mother.  It was all laid at my feet.  And after a few passionate exchanges between us she finally blurted out:  "I'm petrified of moving away to university."

And there it was. My baby still needs me. Gratitude washed over me. But Momma needs to push her out of the nest.  I didn't share that with her but I did tell her that I won't dismantle said nest just yet.  Upon reflection this morning I am struck by how normal this exchange was.  And that leaves me with a feeling of enormous satisfaction and the sense of release from my personal and unconsciously self imposed state of purgatory.

And oh yeah...my idea?  A cross-Canada drive....from Vancouver to St. John's with this really cool service.  Crazy, right?

Darwin's Penetrative Force

"OMG, I allowed that man to orgasm in me. Without protection!  I wantonly willed it!"  My (68 yo) mother and I (45 yo) shared these thoughts together, yesterday on the phone.  We have both marvelled at the wonders of the biological clock over the years and at the choices we made when our own clocks were a buzzing.

"that man" is my XHusband (and "that man" for my mum is my Dad, her XHusband).

My mother, the slut (sarcasm alert), conceived me before an actual wedding date was set.  So my very being necessitated a hasty marriage to my Dad.  A marriage that was prompted by a cleverly planned emigration from Ireland (so no one was told of my conception).

This forced-marriage-emigration ploy by my parents was followed by a turbulent 15 year marriage.  An emigration to Canada (wtf? why not somewhere warm and kewl, like Australia or exotic like South Africa?).  All of which was finally sorted, for me, in my thirties (yup, it took me twenty years...longer than their feckin' marriage).

XHusband and I were married nearly 3 years when our first child was conceived (I was 26, he was 27 and this was the early 90s, so quaint).  The child that miscarried.  He impregnated me with Daughter a few months after that miscarriage but also started his dating life with his current wife.  I was very needy after that miscarriage.  I know he tried.  But he wasn't in it for the long haul and today, after 17+ yrs, I have to admit that I wasn't in it for the long haul for the right reasons either. BTW, it is only hindsight that allows me to admit this.

XHusband texted Daughter this week asking if she needed the money he had for her upcoming university gig.  He, a 46 yo grown man, texted his 17 yo daughter and asked her if he was allowed to use her university money for house renovations.  The house renovations that involve eliminating a bed in his house for her. A renovation that leaves her homeless if her other parent, moi, chose to do the same.

And today, all I can think of is:  A mother's instinct never fails.

Daughter needs protection from this imbecile I allowed to impregnate me.  And so, I will.  Continue to.


In whatever way I am able.  Just like my Mum has done for me.  


And I'm the first one to admit that I'm not perfect and I'm not enough.  But it's all we got.

Words are not Wordz

Lately I find I often grapple with the words to describe things.

For example, I worked long and hard on this sentence:  "The idyllic days of youth are more closely strung together whilst in our elder years the moments are."


I intended the quoted sentence to be a central theme to a blog post and I guess it is but not in the way I had originally jotted down my thoughts.


And that's the gist of this post.  Words are often not used as they were originally intended.  This post is going to be about two particular words that are pervasive in our culture and have acquired meaning beyond their original one.  I am not going to name them as yet because I'd like my thoughts to be digested before evoking a reaction from you, dear reader.


When Daughter was around six years of age we had our first meaningful sex education moment.  I think she already knew the birds and the bees (or birds and birds or bees and bees, I've been quite liberal in my approach to these issues, much to her chagrin as she got older).  I think she had probably just discovered, on her own, the pleasures of touching yourself 'down there' and she was doing this around me, at home.  I think she was doing it over her clothes...and perhaps even subconsciously, I don't really recollect the specifics.  At any rate, once I was certain of my observations I said to her that she needed to stop doing that in public because yes, it feels good, but there are things that we do in private and this was one of them.  I told her that what she was doing was called masturbation and it was a very pleasurable activity, yes, but it was something that each of us did in private.


The clearest part of my memory of this rather ordinary yet quite significant parenting moment is that her eyes widened at some point during my mini-lecture and she said, with incredulity in her voice:  "There's a word for that?  Wow!".


Hopefully you'll think that story was as cute as a button because that's what she was, in that moment, to me.  Absolute innocence.  It is also a stark reminder of the power we parents have, eh?

When people talk of their maiden names I always wonder (and sometimes voice) whether they were a virgin before they got married.  Not so long ago, women were property and men married virgins as unspoiled property and calling yourself a maiden harkens back to that time.  So why do most women still do this whole name changing thing again?  It truly baffles me the number of people that do and refer to themselves as maidens.

Anyways.  Back to words.  They have power.  Using the words masturbation or maiden in 2012 is, for the most part, uncontroversial despite my hatred of the word maiden due to the patriarchal culture it reinforces.

But these other words, the words I have in mind, used to be ones that caused no controversy and yet in the last week one of them has been tossed out into our cultural landscape without regard to the legions of mostly silent people that are most offended by it's use.


Have you guessed them yet?  Before I let them out of the hat let me talk about a speaker I heard at TEDxStJohns, Philip Riteman (pictured below).  In the photo I've posted from the event he is holding up his arm to show the audience something.  His Auschwitz tattoo.  His permanent reminder of the horror of losing each member of his immediate and most of his extended family.  His tale was powerful.  It took him forty years to tell his story, the pain was that great.  He choked up numerous times during his talk and it humbled each of us in attendance, I'm sure.  He put it best:  "Each of you live in heaven."


Now imagine Mr. Riteman attending a stand up comedy show and the comedien saying "some very generalizing and declarative statements about nazis always being funny."  Imagine Mr. Riteman then shouting out from the audience: "Actually, nazi jokes are never funny."  Would the comedian responding with "Wouldn't it be funny if that guy got taken by nazis.  Like right now.  And his whole family too." get a laugh out of the crowd?


Is that funny?  To anyone?  Would it be funny if he was not a holocaust survivor?  Why?  


A comedian in the States thought that using the word rape in almost the exact same context this week was appropriate and his attack was met with laughter. Note that I have no idea if the person who shouted out from the crowd has been a rape victim.  And I don't care.  I applaud her actions and hope that I would be as brave in a similar situation.  The ensuing 'controversy' over this guy's remarks (and the number of supporters he has) has made my head hurt.  Note that he has apologized.


So suffice it to say that these two words:  rape and nazi, are words whose uses are almost sacred to me and to many people that it has affected either directly or indirectly.  I dream of an age where these words will just be ancient relics of a barbaric society that also used terms like maiden to describe a human being with a high market value.

Today's culture is full of mostly wordz it seems and it saddens me to think that after the events that went down this week, rape is one of the new wordz on our radar joining other ones like nazi and feminist and maiden.  Do you have any others to add?

Holocaust survivor Philip Riteman showing his Auschwitz tattoo.
Click on the photo to go to the TEDxStJohns fb page where this was originally posted.

One squirt and the job is done, for far too many.

I had a Haitian-Canadian co-worker who had had two children with two different fathers by the time she was twenty-six.  She had her first at seventeen.  The second father had bankrupted her.  She worked two full time jobs and her mother looked after the kids.  I met her in her teacher job and we went clubbing together a few times.  She was intelligent and stunning and wise beyond her years.  We were quite sympatico as younger single mothers and we shared some good times.

In one memorable conversation we talked about how easy it is for fathers to walk away.  She'd had two "baby daddies" walk (my term, not hers) and I'd had one and both of our mother's had 'lost' our own baby daddies too.  Her French accent made her words that much more powerful when she used hand gestures to describe the birth of the child and she drew in the sky a line that represents the umbilical cord.  She said:  "You see this?  The umbilical cord???  It is attached and even though it is severed it represents the 9 months we have been attached to the child but once it is cut it is not like we can walk away...the infant is attached to our breasts then.  We mothers are attached.  And the fathers?  What do they do?  They squirt up here [use of hand gestures to illustrate this].  And then they walk away. Nothing is attached. Ever. They can walk away because they ARE NOT ATTACHED!!!"

Food Warrior Mother

I live in what's called an inner suburb of the city of Toronto.  What does this mean in practical terms?  Well, I have a 7 minute walk to the subway line or a 1 minute walk to a bus stop that will take you directly into the subway station with a very short ride.  Ergo I have easy and affordable access to all that a world class city like Toronto has to offer.

My daughter has 4 more days of high school classes.  This morning I reflected upon her years of education in the big city and my choice 13 years ago to move here and raise her in the most populous city in Canada.  A place in Canada that bears the brunt of criticism by the rest of Canada.  I myself was raised in a Toronto suburb and lived in Kitchener-Waterloo for over a decade and still can't understand why people hate '416' so much.  I love all parts of Canada and have visited nearly all of our all major cities and find the criticism well, rather childish really.

As a breeder I am thankful that 13 years ago my 32 year old self had the foresight/good fortune to recognize the advantages of moving to the city for my daughter's public school education.  As a breeder who did this on my own I am especially thankful.  Unlike the children of many of my suburban and rural parenting peers, once my daughter was old enough, she started walking to elementary school.  She was in grade 4 and started crossing a moderately busy arterial street without me and there is no crosswalk or lights (gasp!).  In grade 7 she went to an inner city alternative public school for middle school and took the subway everyday for this - she was 11 the fall she started doing this on her own (horror!).  Thus, starting in grade 7 I no longer had to transport or 'taxi' her to activities.  I have had years of being free of this duty.  I merely dole out money for TTC tickets and await texts of details of her social life and departure/arrival times and I don't even have to be home to receive these.  And I don't know how I'd even start to estimate the hours saved of me sitting behind the wheel of a car on the busy streets of the suburbs surrounding Toronto or the long drives from rural homes to lessons/friends/shopping.  I dated a suburban guy and recall many hours driving with him and his children and little else from the time we spent at his suburban home.  I don't recall any activity that didn't involve at least a 15 minute drive to get to out there.

Another significant advantage to raising her in Toronto has been the access to a large assortment of fantastic public schools including specialty schools for the arts and technical skills. Two personal favourite's are Bendale Business and Technical Institute's Horicultural Program in Scarborough and The culinary program headed by Chef Keith at Thistletown Collegiate Institute in Rexdale.  My own daughter went to three stellar public schools in this city:  West Prep, Horizon Alternative and Harbord Collegiate Institute.

I could go on and on but this is quickly becoming a melancholic soliloquy from a soon-to-be-empty-nester. I will sign off with two pics I took yesterday while on an urban farm tour.  There are many reasons to love the city of Toronto.  Urban parenting and the thriving urban agriculture scene in Toronto are at the top of my list today.  These two streams of thought are more connected than you might think.  A core philosphy in my parenting has been the choices of food I've fed my child with.  Fresh local food has been a central component of our  little family's diet and allowing other families affordable access to this is a passion for this particular Food Warrior Mother.

Artichokes growing on the rooftop of AccessPoint on the Danforth - a ladybug is the red spot.

A Newfoundland flag caught my eye across from one of the H.O.P.E. Community Gardens in Parkdale.

Cooking Companion

I've made very few meals since Shamrock died.  Today I forced myself to make a late breakfast.

The rhythms of ones' life can be subtle.  And once disrupted by something like the death of a family pet it is like a microscope gets placed on them and the rhythms start pelting out.

Cooking is something I've found solace in since I was a mere child baking homemade cookies.  Alone.  One of my most memorable gifts was my easy bake oven.  I shunned dolls but loved the miniature oven and once I was old enough to tackle the real stove I delighted in the whole process of cooking - and then eating the fruits of my labour and sharing them.

Daughter has not been taught cooking by myself.  I like to cook alone.  Or so I thought.  But the past few days have found me wailing with grief in my kitchen.  My constant companion is gone.  Every morsel brought out of my fridge was inspected by Shamrock from a respectable but often awkward distance on the floor.  The floor training was gotten to quickly...she was a large dog and had to be taught to give people distance around food. But if you ever fed her from the table she never forget who was slack about this and who was not.  Shamrock had the habit of lying directly in front of the fridge which made it extremely awkward while cooking but she made sure you didn't forget that she was there for any offerings of scraps while preparing a meal.

In her younger days she would prance with delight when a broccoli came out of the fridge.  In the last few months her eyes would perk up from the floor and I would place the stems directly in front of her to save her from having to pull herself up.  I ascribe those broccoli stems and the plentiful raw carrot treats to the great condition her teeth were in after 13 years.  Any opening of the fridge signaled to her that something good might come her way and it was more often than not in the last few years that I'd give her more than the usual offering of meat scraps and raw bones/cartilage on top of the many vegetable and fruit trimmings.

I keep two large glass containers of water in my fridge and a full ice cube tray.  She always preferred ice cold water and each morning I would top it up fresh cold and refill the containers in order to replenish throughout the day.  That was part of her fridge duty as well...eyeballing her water tray as if to remind me not to forget water duty.  I just poured myself a glass of cold water and started wailing.  I don't need 3 Litres of cold water in my fridge for two people.

Raw grief.  I was warned.

Daughter and Shamrock in Newfoundland on the
Skerwink Trail overlooking Trinity, 2008

We rise again.

Incredulous.  That is the look people would give me after I responded to their asking me if I was wearing my boyfriend's university jacket.  The jacket is black leather and has the University of Waterloo crest on the front and big white letters spelling out University of Waterloo on the back.  On one arm is 90 which signified the year I finished (and planned to...the choosing of this year for the sleeve was a bit dicey since that meant a commitment to finishing the program on time or looking foolish for the year/years that you hung around afterwards).  The other sleeve says HONS MATH.  The Honours Math thing makes me chuckle even now.  I picked this generic sleeve label since I switched programs within the Math Faculty about a dozen times before settling on the program that I actually completed which was an Honours Mathematic degree Operations Research major with a Computer Science minor.

I proudly wore that jacket and enjoyed the incredulity on people's faces when I would say, um, no it is not my boyfriend's jacket it is my own and why would you think otherwise?  These questions always came from people not on the University of Waterloo campus since I am happy to say that there were quite a few of us women sporting these jackets on campus in the late 80s.

Other than these first glimmerings of cultural bias against women (a woman studying math in university?  whoa) I lived in a cocoon throughout my youth.  My mother raised me on Michele Landsberg, Marlo Thomas and Our Bodies Ourselves and I believed that the hard work of early 20th century women had paved the way for equality for my mother and my own generation.   I neglected to listen to the stories my mother told of inequality because I felt she was just angry and perceiving sexism where basically it did not really exist.  I mean, even those questions about my jacket were kind of quaint in a redneck way, right?

It wasn't until I became a mother that I started to see how awry our world was.  Once I turned into a breeder the whole world got turned upside down for me.  I perceived everything differently.  And giving birth to a daughter made me recognize how connected all of us with wombs are.  The day I gave birth to my daughter I visualized the literal extending of the womb back behind me throughout my maternal ancestors.  Generations of women giving birth had led me to the birth of my own daughter.  I was connected to these women.  Permanently.

It was powerful imagery that remains with me almost over seventeen years later.  For the first time I had tapped into the strength of my feminine power and my blood memory was activated.  I could no longer think any sexist action was quaint or excusable.  Sexist against men or women but far too often it is directed against women.  Women with no voice.  Women with no choice.

As an exercise in hope during these darker regressive days for women I now invite you to play the below song while perusing the following hashtags on twitter (you don't need to belong to twitter to do this...that is the beauty of twitter).  While doing this I ask you to also think about the image of all of us descending from a womb and the chain of wombs behind you that allowed you to walk this planet right this very minute:  #IDidNotReport #MissRep #SlutWalk.  It is time to Rise Again.  Enough it enough.

Aboriginal Irish Blood Memory

I have been searching for a word lately. The lack of this word has seriously impeded my ability to communicate on this blog.  The word, or rather the lack of the word, has been the metaphorical brick blocking my creativity.  My writer's block had become a word and the lack of it was preventing me from writing.

I was in northern Ontario, Kenora, recently.  My dear friend has lived there for nearly twenty years now and it is only the second time I've gone up to her.  Now that my own child is nearly grown up I can avail of the independence both of us now have.  I am enjoying being able to make the time for trips and people I deeply care about.  This friend in Kenora is a special connection that I hope continues for many many more years and with many more shared trips such as the one I had last month.

In the early 90s, this friend of mine got her teaching degree and obtained her first position at the school I first attended in Toronto.  I only attended this school for not quite two years (junior and senior kindergarten).  My parents moved to Brampton before I finished kindergarten.  My friend and I thought this was an interesting coincidence since she moved to the very area I spent my early youth exploring with wild abandon.  She was not long for the city though.  Whilst knocking herself out in her first years of teaching she embarked in Ojibwa lessons at night so that she could move north and teach on a reserve.  She has native blood and it was screaming at her during our early friendship so she honoured this and arranged her life to be more in touch with this calling.

It is fitting that during my trip up to see her that she introduced me to the native concept of blood memory.  I had been mentioning a research article I had recently read that announced the fact that yes, the cells of our maternal ancestors never leave us and as mothers, we carry the cells of the all the children we have ever borne.  That moment, when she connected the native blood memory legend to the scientific reality of it was like turning on a light bulb to me.  I have always been drawn to native lore.  I think most people can't help it. Everything they talk about resonates with clarity in my being.  I heard Clayton Thomas-Muller, the noted indigenous activist, talk last week and not only did that one lightbulb of blood memory awareness get brighter but an additional stadium of lighting got lit up in my mind.  [If you want to see Clayton in action yourself, check out this fantastic 25 minute video of him talking about the indigenous perspective on the Occupy movement.]

My people are pure Irish.  I am Canadian born but my Irish ancestors go back at least two hundred years and most likely for thousands.  The burning of nearly all Irish records hinders the ability of the Irish to prove this reality.  The practical ramifications of the pillaging of Irish culture by the British means that we can not go back more than seven generations or so.  During the live talk that I attended, Clayton mentioned the many native legends about the seven fires prophecy.  I started to tingle when he mentioned this.  You see, while I was in Winnipeg I had written the following quote, penned by Lois Riel, and transcribed by myself into my brand new travel journal gifted to me by my Kenora friend, on Manitoba's Lois Riel day 2012:  "My people will sleep for 100 years, and when they awake, it will be artists who give them back their spirit."

And yet another interesting thing has happened as of late.  My maternal grandmother has visited me recently in my dreams.  This has occurred in the past and I've always found comfort in these shadowy meetups.  She died when I was quite young so have very fleeting memories of the last trip I had to Ireland when she was alive.  I was four and I'm the only descendant of my generation to carry any memory of her since I am the oldest of my cousins.  My mother is working on a memoir of her life and I eagerly await it.  There have been other Irish-themed occurrences that have demanded  my attention as of late.  An Irish friend gave me a necklace crafted in the manner and form that my ancestors would have done and in the area where my maternal line descends from.  In this relatively new blog I've already written twice (here and here) about ancient Irish celebrations.  Orangemen Order references by high school mates.  I reconnected with an Irish acquaintance who had been not far from my thoughts.  Etc, etc.

And now we return to that metaphorical brick, the word I was seeking out.  I felt it was Irish even though I do not speak Irish.  And after talking to my mother today and trying to suss out the word I realized that perhaps it wasn't a 'word' at all.  Perhaps it was my aboriginal Irish blood memory screaming for a voice.  And so here it is.  For me, the prophecy of the seven fires now includes the Aboriginal Irish.  We too are awakening and joining indigenous people across Turtle island.  Our ancestors, the ones oppressed, starved, murdered and culturally nearly annihilated are screaming in my blood.  I am listening and writing, once more.

This quilt was made by Kim Ratuski and is one of seven exquisite quilts made by her and are
 hanging in the music room at a Kenora high school.

Seaweed, wonder ! bread and soda pop

Daughter begged me for a drive to school today. She attends a downtown high school that is adjacent to Toronto's Koreatown.  She is heading into the final few months of high school so I'm an easy and melancholic target these days.

While in New York City I discovered a delicious snack food in one of the many stores and shops that are scattered throughout their subway system: wasabi flavoured seaweed. I have done a half hearted search here in Canada (unsuccessfully) so this morning I thought I'd check out the large Korean grocery store up the street from her school (P.A.T. Central, serving the community since 1972).

I have spent a few mornings in the last few years perusing this store after dropping Daughter off at school. I enjoy the dizzying array of foreign goods. I have purchased a few interesting fresh and packaged goods...including ingredients to make my own (delicious) Kim Chi from scratch.  Today I was there before they opened so I pulled into the parking lot in order to wait. For such a large store they have a very small set of receiving doors. As I waited, I watched two receivers negotiate 4 pallets of wonder bread and then a taller shipment of two litre coca cola bottles into the store.

As a rule, I rarely drink soda pop and after hearing Dr. Vandana Shiva talk at York University this week I don't think I'll ever look at soda pop the same way.  We all know, or should know, that soda pop and it's wide-scale deployment is contributing significantly to the diabetes and obesity epidemic.

But did you know that besides the pillaging of our bodies, the manufacturing process for soda pop involves huge amounts of water which is contributing to the pillaging of precious water resources in communities that have very limited water resources?

Dr. Shiva told the story of one village in India that had the 'good economic fortune' of having a coca cola plant move in. Jobs. Prosperity. We all know the spiel. The tar sands are being touted in a similar manner.

After a few years, the women in this town staged repeated protests and finally had the plant shut down. The reason? The opening of this plant, with it's huge water requirements, had led to the eradication of the local water supply and these women were fed up with having to walk miles and miles in order to obtain and carry back water for their families.

I think of this story as I watch the coca cola and the wonder bread get pushed through the doors of this long running Korean grocery store.

I again saw these same pallets when I went inside, prominently placed next to the more traditional items. I wondered how many 1st generation immigrant Korean children are facing their own diabetes diagnosis after being brought up in Canadian households with parents who shopped in Koreatown and bought North American 'treats' like coca cola and wonder bread. And then these same children go on to feed themselves at college/university with cheap processed food.  The stage is then set for an adulthood of 'convenience' foods that might fill the stomach but leave our entire body starving for quality food.  These processed foods have a basic nutritional deficit since synthetic additives are known to harm our bodies.

This sad immigrant tale can be applied to many of the new cultures brought to Canada after the 1967 change in immigration rules that allowed multiculturalism to blossom here.  Unfortunately, these new immigrants were also working long hours, often with both parents doing so, and they were simultaneously gobsmacked by the sudden access to cheap convenient foods.  My Irish born and raised mother tells me about how she couldn't get over the size and variety of ice cream products in 1967 Toronto grocery stores - the year my parents emigrated/escaped, pregnant with me.  Back in Ireland, ice cream was only commercially available in two forms in 1967.  Fresh whipped cones (that tasted deliciously fresh due to the fresh cream and eggs used) and plain white slabs that were purchased on an as needed basis from the corner grocer since freezers were not in people's homes at that point in Ireland, even in the larger cities.

And speaking of additives, I left the store without my wasabi flavored seaweed. All of the brands they carried had far too many additives. I have dried wasabi powder at home and nori seaweed so I'll try making some myself.  But I didn't leave empty handed!  The contents of my bags contained very few preservatives and no mysterious sounding chemical additives. I look forward to exploring a few more dishes with the products I purchased.

Hero Worship

Me with Michele Landsberg, a personal hero.

Last night I went to a showing of Miss Representation here in Toronto that was hosted by Crankytown.ca and Fresh Restaurants. In a curious twist of the universe and its gazillions of electrons, one of my own personal lifelong heroes attended as well. I am beaming with her in the above picture.

If any of you know her then you will not be surprised at her lofty status in my own story. She is a feminist. She was the only feminist in any mainstream Canadian media throughout my childhood. Her weekend columns were shared ritualistically and often aloud at the dining room table by my mother with a pot of coffee on lazy weekend mornings in our pyjamas. My mother often vocally cheered for her. She also often remarked on what a pioneer this woman was. My young fertile ears soaked this in.

I blame my mother, and Michele Landsberg, for my 16 yo daughter coming home one late night last summer and saying: "Thanks Mum, you've made me a feminist and boy am I angry." She was upset by the contradictory manner her male friends treated the females in her larger social group. I knew that my most compelling role as a parent had been fulfilled at that moment. Thanks Mum. Thanks Michele.

A couple of years ago I added Michele as a friend on facebook. My political connections on facebook had grown to the point that her name kept being suggested as a friend. I sent her a message informing her of her pivotal role in my formative years and how honoured I was to be connected virtually with her. She wrote back and thanked me, THANKED ME !?, for giving her the inspiration to keep plodding away finishing her latest book (Writing the Revolution, which is now on my to read shelf).

That message from her impressed me even further. Michele has a long road behind her of inspiring and serving the voices that are misrepresented in our culture. And last night, she shared with me her views on this awareness raising film in a manner that continues to reflect her absolute dedication to humanity: "Everyone needs to see this film."

Namaste Michele. I pledge to light my torch with your flames and soldier on towards the day when we can all stand up and say: WE Represent.

Satisfactorily Single

Myself at Macchu Picchu:  Satisfyingly Single

How many middle aged people get to take off, with a couple of weeks notice, and go on an adventure?  

The look of envy I've witnessed in the telling of my adventure tale of the last few months is curious.  I think all of us retain a sense of the wonder we experienced as a child when many things were brand new to us.  I think also that we are conditioned, as a species, to move towards stability in order to best provide for the continuation of our species.  Nomadic societies are successful but you and I are not likely direct descendants of them.  Our current world is ensuring the complete extinction of any remaining nomadic societies although the final frontier (space) may create an entirely new society of space nomads in the future.

I've spent a lifetime caught up in the mating trap.  I have been heavily conditioned by both nature and nurture to believe that 'every old sock has an old shoe'.  And, if I just went fishing often enough, then I too would land my catch.  I could write a book on my dating adventures (first internet date was in 1996, yes, 1996).  I met one person for a coffee back in the late 1990s and he told me he just wanted to have a viewing of what a woman looked like that would put an ad up in a singles column.  After experiences like that you would think I would have given up but alas, the reproductive mating urge is strong so I soldiered on.

Not once in my quest did I ever stop to think that being single is a viable option.  A viable permanent option.  During periods of not actively searching I would be buoying myself up to launch yet another search for "Him".

A few years ago I came to the conclusion that perhaps I was just too wounded to be partnered and I accepted, if not embraced, that reality and ended the search.  A truism came to life shortly after that decision, I fell in love.  A marvelous love affair ensued and the ending revealed to me that yes, I may be wounded but no, I can overcome that if I wish to.  And a new decision was arrived at:  I am satisfactorily single.  I am not single because I am wounded (all of us have baggage, mine is mostly stowed away).  I am not single because I am damaged.  I am single because I cherish my independence.  I cherish my lack of commitment.  I am single because I am an explorer at heart and to change my marital status would involve relinquishing something more precious to me than even my daughter:  my independence.

I look at the frenzy surrounding The Official Day to celebrate coupledom and think bravo for you if you find fulfillment in a partnership.  I have also found fulfillment there, at times.   But the fulfillment I am experiencing as a single adventurer so greatly outweighs my former aspirations I wonder why as a society we are not offering up this choice to younger people right from the get go.  "Happily Ever After" can and should involve a solo option.

Stand By Me

In the summer of 1984 a friend of mine had an abortion.  In the Canadian mid-eighties this was considered a radical thing to do.  It involved the exchange of money and a trip to a clinic that may or may not have had pro-life protesters marching in front of it on the day of your appointment.

A further complication for my friend was that we were catholic so the whole mortal sin thing was hanging over our heads.  I say our heads because I lent her money for the procedure.  So, in fact, I aided and abetted the committing of the sin that was to prevent my friend from going to heaven directly upon death.

I now know that I was what we call book smart nowadays but man, I was a long way from being life smart that summer I was 17.  And as a mother of a now 17 year old girl I see the mirror reflection of this reality.

This abortion was quite necessary for my friend.  Her parents were staunch roman catholics and she would have been kicked out of the home and goodness knows where her life would be today. One thing is for certain though...it would have been a much rougher ride for her and that yet unformed child.

My musings of this time are brought on by my recent Linkedin re-connection with the religion teacher I had that year.  He is now a principal of a catholic high school.  I wonder, in his prior role of a religion teacher/counselor, how many young women he had to discuss abortion with.  Because he did with me.  My friend's abortion caused a major moral dilemma in my life.  The first voiced dilemma of what would turn out to be many fruitless hours spent worrying and wondering if 'god' would be happy with my earthly actions.  This young religion teacher, at the time of this moral quandary, was fairly new in his career and not too far removed from the hippie protests I know he participated in against things like nuclear arms.  At this point of his new career he was also leading bus loads of people to the very pro-life protests my friend could have faced on the day she went for her 'secret' abortion.  I don't remember much of what he said regarding my moral quandary but I do remember he pleaded with me to support my friend in her decision, in whatever form that took.  This advice had the effect of soothing my conscience - at the time.  Many years later I felt outraged that he had managed to bypass the whole pro-life debate with me and for that I am sure he was quite grateful.

Seeing his name pop up this morning as a new connection on Linkedin floods my mind with these thoughts.  Thoughts of incongruent teachings by the church of my birth.  A church that provided many opportunities for moral quandaries in my life.  Parents separating/divorcing/annulling?  Check. Not going to church regularly?  Check.  Not going to confession/communion regularly?  Check.  Eating meat on Friday?  Check. Not giving up something for lent?  Check. Masturbation?  Check.  Pre-marital sex? Check.  Shacking up before marriage?  Check.  Marrying in a different church?  Check.  Using birth control?  Check.  Raising my child in the church?  Check.  A homosexual sibling?  Check.  Husband abandoning marriage and infant child?  Check. Wipe slate clean with an anullment?  Check.

Looking back on all those life events that shackled my moral compass for years I feel exhausted.  I feel exhausted because the years I spent under the duress of the obligations of mother church were so futile.  I can not take on the church.  Any church.  But as a parent I am proud to report that these shackles have been removed from my child.  Her moral compass lies within and my hope for her is that this freedom will allow her to channel her youthful energy into making the world a better place.  Because, you see, for too many generations my family has been segued through life with the roman catholic church observing and directing from the moral rafters.  Enough is enough.  I severed the cord and claimed complete moral responsibility for my child early on in her life and am almost ready to release her into the world.  She will have complete freedom to choose whatever tools she needs to nurture her own moral compass and I will support her as best as I can with her choices.  For isn't that the best we can do?  My high school religion teacher thought so too and made sure I heard that above all else.  I think I might send him this blog post as a thank-you.  I hope he 'gets' it.