It’s Not About the Men

I’ve waited a long time to write this post.  By now, most of the noise and clamor of Believe Her/Believe Him has died down.  That’s the way it usually goes.  My mind ponders a subject, goes over it again and again, editing and rewriting without it ever getting on paper, desperate to have Just The Right Words that will have Just The Right Impact.  Even when I’m finally ready to commit my words to the screen where everyone can see them, I still second-guess myself.

But it’s been long enough, and some things need to be said, even when I haven’t achieved perfection with them.  If I don’t put my own words out there, if I only repost what others have written (no matter how eloquently), people can believe that I am only a Bandwagon Jumper, New To The Scene, and Not Really Passionate About The Subject.

The reality is, I don’t always like to share my heart online, and some subjects can be very painful for some people to read.  I don’t like to share my friends’ stories without asking.  I did ask, and receive permission, to share a few.

First, I need to get the obvious obligations out of the way.  I know men have problems.  I know men get assaulted.  I know some men are raped.  I know men are murdered.  No one is saying that these things don’t happen to men.  Of course they do.  We live in a world that can be shitty at times – a lot of the time, in fact.  Men have to be aware of dark alleys and lonely streets.  Men have to be aware of their surroundings.

THIS POST IS NOT ABOUT THE MEN.

This is for Janessa*, whose husband raped and beat her on multiple occasions.  She was told that because they were married, it wasn’t really rape.  Even the police ignored her cries for help.

This is for Amelia*, whose boyfriend raped her.  When she told a parent, that parent said that because it was her boyfriend, it wasn’t really rape.

This is for Nenia*, who was propositioned by someone she trusted.  When she said no, he stalked her for two years.

There are more stories, so many more.  I haven’t received permission to share them all.  It hurts to be reminded of times when trust has been betrayed.

For millennia, women have been suppressed, oppressed, trodden down, beaten, raped, and generally subjected to restrictions that no one would dream of applying to men.  Here in America, we are so blessed, so fortunate to not live through such atrocities where CHILDREN sold as wives is a common occurrence, where it it illegal for us to drive, where we can’t walk in public with our faces bared.  We are fortunate.  There will always be another place where other women have it so much worse.

There has never been a country where the women regularly rape the men without repercussion, where women can kill men for dishonoring the family by being raped, where men are not allowed to drive but women are, where women can vote but men can’t, where 10-year-old boys are sold as husbands to 80-year-old women, where men must cover their faces and bodies in public while women walk around uncovered, where it’s common for groups of large, strong women to chase and harass a lone man and demand sex because he’s wearing shorts and exposing his legs.  Flip it to the reverse, and those things happen to women every damn day.

Just because we’re not as bad as some countries, that doesn’t make the problems here go away.  We live in a culture where, if a woman is raped at a college party, the automatic response is, she shouldn’t have been there.  Okay, maybe it wasn’t smart, but SHE IS NOT AT FAULT.  The person at fault is the man who raped her.  If she hadn’t been there, he would have found someone else to rape.  The blame lies on the rapist.

No matter how aware and cautious men are, there’s a certain element lacking in basic, everyday interactions with everyday passersby:  fear.  Women (speaking in general here) have a constant hyper-awareness of every man they encounter.  We choose our words carefully.  Stroke the ego just enough so he doesn’t think we’re insulting him, but not so much that he thinks we’re flirting.  Know that on a date, if we let the man pay, he will probably expect – and might demand – sex.

Being beaten and mugged is horrible when it happens to anyone.  The thing is, men don’t usually have to worry about being raped into the bargain.  For men, although they might be injured, their most private areas are generally left intact.  For women, there is a very high chance of the assailant helping himself to her body as well as her money.  Very few rapists are actually arrested.  Even fewer actually are convicted.

Of course there are some instances of false reporting, but those instances are astronomically fewer than the number of rapists who walk free.  Women are shouted down, harassed, and questioned brutally if they even mention the assault.  No one wants to believe that “that nice guy” committed such an atrocity.  It’s easier to just say the woman is making it up or was asking for it.

No woman asks for rape.  No matter how inebriated, no matter how she’s dressed, no matter how friendly she was, that does not absolve the man of his behavior.  The blame for assault needs to be put where it belongs – on the assailant.  Every person is responsible for their own actions.



*These are real people and real stories.  Their names have been changed to protect privacy.  There are so many more stories I could share, but I won’t do that without permission from the owners of those stories.

Letting Go

As a parent, there inevitably comes a time when our children are ready to strike out on their own and be their own people.  For me, it’s happening much too quickly.

I have very clingy children.  They like to climb on me and smother me.  Even at ages 9 and 6, they still want to climb in bed with me at night.  They want to be snuggled to sleep.  They clamber on top of my head and rub my hair in my eyes.  They always say, “Mama, play with me!  Mama, watch this!  Mama, fix me a snack!  Mama, mama, mama!”



I do my best to meet their needs, but for years I have longed for just a bit of space to myself, some room to breathe, some time alone to think.  And suddenly, within the last few weeks, I have it.

I’m not ready.

We get to the playground at school in the morning, and instead of holding my hand and giving me a snuggle, Rowan (9) shouts a quick, “Love you, Mom!” and runs off to his classroom to dump his backpack, then heads off with his friends.  Henry (6) doesn’t hold my hand anymore, either.  He runs and skips and looks offended when I offer my hand.  When we get to his classroom, instead of me going in with him while he hangs up his backpack, he pushes firmly on my tummy when the door opens, to let me know that I am Not Welcome in his classroom.  This is his space, with his teachers and his friends.  Mommy isn’t needed there.

Oh, my heart.



I was talking this morning to Donna, one of the assistants in his special classroom.  She doesn’t see him much anymore, either, because he’s spending most of the day in the regular first grade classroom.  The fact that he is not just going there, but thriving and spending the majority of his days there, simply floors me.  There were many, many days and months and years when I doubted whether he could ever function in school at even a basic level.

Anyway, Donna and I were commiserating with each other about how Henry just doesn’t need us anymore, and she said, “Well, that’s really what our job is.  We provide as much and as little support as they need, and the ultimate goal is that they don’t need us anymore.”

Oh, that is so true, and it hurts!  Some part of me wants to cling to my little children forever, keep them snuggled up with me.  This morning Rowan opted to stay in his bed for ten extra minutes instead of having snuggle time with Mom in the rocking armchair.  And I love that he’s comfortable in his own bed, but my heart!

I know they still need me.  They still come to me for hugs and kisses and snuggles, to find their shoes, to fix their food.  There will always be a part of them that needs their mama.  But it is growing less every day, and while I am so glad and so thankful for their continued growth and development, I am not ready.

Back to School

Rowan (9) and Henry (6) went back to school today.  I thought briefly about taking pictures, but that thought was quickly driven out of my head when Henry went into full meltdown mode this morning.

It’s not that Henry doesn’t like school.  He really does.  He likes the structure, the activities, and the learning.  He loves his teacher, Mrs. A., and the two TAs who work with him the most, Donna and Sharon.  It’s just that he really, really enjoyed summer.

He loved waking up at 8:30 or 9:00, wandering into the dining room for cereal, then settling down to play Minecraft.  He loved lazy summer days spent outside in our backyard, driving trains over tree roots, throwing the ball for our dog, Lili, going to the river, and spontaneous visits to cousins or grandparents.

We’ve been trying to prep him for school the last few weeks.  He has always stubbornly responded with, “NO SCHOOL.”  Yeah, not happening, kid.  The staff at his school have many more tools in their toolbox than I do, to guide and teach through his autism.

So this morning he absolutely refused to wear any of his new clothes, despite them consisting of the same type of t-shirts and sweats he always wears.  I guess with everything else, it was just too much new  and scary.  We compromised at last with just a new t-shirt, and everything else old and familiar.  He’ll get used to them in time, I suppose.

There is a happy ending to this story.  When I picked him up, Sharon said that Henry had a GREAT day, and that his time in the regular first grade classroom [he bounces between the special ed room & the regular class] was “night and day” different from how he started in the regular kindergarten classroom last year.  He also got a candy for practicing safe body techniques all day, so that was great!

As for Rowan, while he wasn’t thrilled about going, he was excited to see his friends again.  He sits across from his friend C. and she offered to introduce him to all the kids he doesn’t know yet!  I got a running and jumping hug when he came out, and he told me that “today was the BEST school day I’ve ever had!”

In conclusion, I think we’re going to survive this year just fine.

Hello Again

Hello again.

I realized, looking on here, that it's been more than a year since I last posted.  I am sorry for that.  There have been many factors, not least of which is my ongoing depression.  I keep telling myself that I need to write, but I just couldn't do it.

Anyway, I'm back, and I'm taking steps to make sure that I'm staying around.

Different book, but still reading!

So, what's new?  I'll tell you.  Rowan, my 9-year-old, has fallen completely in love with Harry Potter.  Rowan, who was never, ever, EW, no WAY, Mom going to read Harry Potter.  Actually, he mainly listens to audio books instead of reading print.  It's easier for him to focus.  We've been listening to audio books by C.S. Lewis, J.R.R. Tolkien, and Roald Dahl.  Good stuff, yes?  But everything has its saturation point, and although I never thought I'd say this, I found myself begging to please never make me listen to Charlie and the Chocolate Factory again!  Enough!  No more!!






So I convinced Rowan to listen to just the first chapter of Harry Potter, and that was it.  He was hooked.  I made the introduction, and J.K. Rowling did the rest.  He's been binge-listening for the past three weeks.  He's halfway through book 5 now.

Yep, that's the face.

Naturally, this translates into nearly everything else he does as well.  Legos?  He's building broomsticks and having face-offs between the different characters.  Minecraft?  He built a boys' dormitory & girls' dormitory, both of which have a portal to the nether in the back.  Whaaaat?  I didn't think even Hogwarts was THAT unsafe!  He's placed a lot of armor stands around, decorated them with clothing, and named them according to various characters.  So far he has Neville, and Draco Malfoy and his gang.  Rowan, of course, is Harry Potter himself.

Whomping Willow?

He also roleplays at home, and insists that everyone joins in.  I alternate between being Hermione or Mrs Weasley.  Lili, our dog, of course plays Fang.  Henry, age 6, is generally relegated to being Ron, although Henry doesn't know or care, and refuses to follow instructions.  He's a free spirit.

So I apologize, friends, if sometime in the next five years I get tired of Harry Potter.  It's fun right now, but who knows where this obsession will lead!  You may have to save me from it all!

Wild as a summer storm.

Henry continues his search for Narnia.

Emotions Without Words

As the mother of two autistic children, I face a lot of challenges.  My two children are very different from each other in terms of abilities:  Rowan, age 8, is extremely bright in all the obvious ways.  He has read through The Chronicles of Narnia; he listens to Roald Dahl and J.R.R. Tolkien on audio book; he is finishing Garth Nix's Keys to the Kingdom series.  He has read Charlotte's Web and Stuart Little.  He excels in math, and is very articulate.  He has been speaking his mind in complete sentences since he was two.  He has an uncanny ability to use logic, and he is extremely creative.

Henry, age 5, is less obvious in his genius.  He is very low verbal, and much of what he does say is echolalia--repeating what he hears around him.  If he is hungry, he asks me, "Do you want food?"  If he pees his pants, he asks me, "Are you wet?"  He still wears pullups, although we are trying to get him fully potty trained before he starts kindergarten this fall.

However, Henry has been reading since he was three.  He continually astounds us with just how much he can read.  He reads everything he can get his hands on, and loves the text more than pictures.  Once we figured out that Henry's preferred method of communication is writing, things got a lot easier.  The first thing he said to us via "writing" was to spell "CHEERIOS" on the fridge with magnets.  He got the point across.

Thanks to two years in an extremely good preschool, Henry's verbal skills have improved.  Talking to him used to generate no response at all.  Now he answers simple questions and talks to let us know what he wants.  However, emotions are more difficult to convey.  Yesterday morning Henry went into meltdown mode, with nothing I could do helping at all.

He wanted his shoes off.  I took them off.  The howling continued.  He wanted to build train tracks.  Okay, I got those set up on the coffee table.  Then he threw a fit because he wanted to put them together himself.  I kept asking him what was wrong, but he couldn't find the words to tell me.  It's frustrating when you know there's something wrong, and you just can't get the message across!

At last, as he sat sobbing on the couch, Henry managed to say, "Where's the train?  Where's the train?  Where's the train?"  Aha!  He couldn't find a train to put on the train track!  Once the problem was known, it could be quickly addressed.

I think communication is probably the most challenging bit of parenting an autistic child.  What is your experience with that?  Do you have any tricks that work for you? 

 

Julie

Hi.  I've been gone for a while.  Have you noticed?

A lot has been going on with me.  I can't go into it right now.  Suffice it to say that I have been struggling a lot with depression, and things which would be distressing even without depression have exacerbated it.  I simply have not had the energy or focus that I would like to devote to writing.

There are sustaining forces, thankfully.  I want to tell you about one of them.  Really, I should have mentioned her long before now.  It always feels personal writing about someone I know, and it can be hard to get the words out.  I'll do my best to tell you about Julie.

This is Julie.  Well, one of them is.  They aren't both Julie.  The other person is Savanna, about whom I will tell you another time.

But seriously, guys, Julie is AMAZING.  I am an introvert by nature, and shy about asking people to hang out.  I haven't always been that way.  Years of unpleasant happenings and various rejections drilled that into my psyche.  So if I seem unfriendly, or I don't ask you over, or I say we should hang out and yet I never make plans--it's because I am terrified, TERRIFIED of rejection.

Somehow Julie understands this.  She texts me, "Hey, what are you doing this weekend?  Let's hang out."  And of course I want to, because she's completely awesome, and lots of fun.  I just find it really, really difficult to extend the invitation myself.

See, here's the thing.  I think that EVERYONE is much too cool to want to hang out with someone like me.  Logically, I know that's not true.  Logic doesn't play well with feelings.  It took years of Julie's persistence (I've known her since 2004!) for me to finally accept that maybe I'm not a pity case.  Maybe she actually does enjoy my company.

Quite apart from the much-needed self-esteem boost, she just does wonderful things.  When she moved to North Dakota, she gathered together a box of the most wonderful, random, exciting things and mailed it to me.  Such a lovely surprise!  Tea, chocolate, honey, and lots of fun toys.  Most of the cool mugs I use are from her, and I think of her every time I have my morning coffee or tea.

I can talk to Julie about what's going on in my life, without fear of judgment.  She dotes on my children, and they adore her.  I've been seriously depressed for some time, and last week she showed up with a bag full of good things, including an autographed CD.

Looking over what I've written, I realize that I still haven't managed to capture the essence of Julie.  She is goodness, she is hope, she is light in a dark world.  She is kindness personified, and she shares her journey toward personal betterment, which in turn inspires me to be a better person.  I can't believe how lucky I am to call her my friend.

Conversations with a 7-year-old

[Written April 30; not finished & published until now.  Because that's how it happens sometimes.]

This morning the kids slept in.  Which is to say, when I got up at 7:30 this morning (after actually getting enough sleep last night, for a change!), they were still snoozing.  I got a shower without interruption and got dressed, still without interruption.  The baskets of clean laundry which contained the socks I wanted to wear were in the kids' room, though.  When I walked in to get them, I saw Rowan lying in his bed, eyes wide open, looking peaceful.

"Good morning, Mama," he said.  

"You look quite comfy," I remarked.

"Yes," he said.  "Will you snuggle me for a while?"

I needed to work on finances.  I needed to have breakfast.  I needed to figure out the logistics of registering him for school today.  I looked at that happy face, just wanting some time with ME, and said, "Sure for a minute." It was much longer than a minute, of course.  We lay snuggled together and talked about our fun day yesterday, going to a children's museum and his cousins' house.  His eldest brother, Noah, turned twenty yesterday (!), and dyed his hair blue to celebrate.  

Rowan and I talked for quite a while before I asked, "So, what do you think you'd like to be when you grow up?"  

He thought for a while, then asked, "Do the people who work at fairs get to go on the rides?"

 I laughed.  "Well, not while they're working, but maybe after hours."

He thought again for a while, then said, "You know, Mama, when I grow up, I think I'd just like to be me." 

To be me.   Oh, that struck me right in the heart.  How many of us truly just want to be ourselves?  I mean, we talk about it all the time.  "Be true to yourself."  "Be the best YOU you can be."  "Just be yourself."  But how many of us really like ourselves well enough that that is our chief aspiration?   

I know there are parts of me that I really, truly don't like.  There are parts I like, too.  I am (mostly) kind.  I am (mostly) generous.  I am (mostly) thoughtful.  I am (mostly) honest.  But that honesty, that tends to get me in trouble.  Because the thing is, I like to be absolutely, perfectly clear about what I'm saying, with whomever I am conversing.  Sometimes that means over-explaining things.  Sometimes that means saying too much.  One can be honest without spilling everything in one's mind.  So then I try to backtrack or conceal, and I hate that, because that feels like deception.   

I want to just be comfortable being myself -- a bit too open, loving people fully and freely, speaking my thoughts without apology, saying what needs to be said without retracting it if it doesn't meet with the reception I hoped for.  I want to say what I think without worrying what other people think about my words.  I want to be considerate of other people's viewpoints without conceding my own. I want to accept that I am human, I am flawed, I make mistakes, and that's okay.  Making a mistake (or a whole heap of them) is not the end of the world.  Truly.   I want to be so confident in myself that others who are struggling can look at me and say, "If she can do it in her imperfect state, so can I."  

So can I!  I am trying to find the way to being authentic, being true to myself, to be the best ME I can be.  For now I'm here, putting one foot in front of the other, plodding along and trying to stay upright.  And that's okay.   

I squeezed Rowan a little tighter and said, "You know, Rowan, I think being yourself is the very best thing you can be."