Get Used to Disappointment

Inigo: “Who are you?”

Masked man: “No one of consequence.”

Inigo: “I must know!”

Masked man: “Get used to disappointment.”

– The Princess Bride

I spend a lot of time at my friend’s house and she has three kids (ages around 5, 10, and 1). Her kids are great and I love them. I don’t have a lot of others kids in my life right now and it’s always so interesting to me to watch them do things that I remember doing. Not the big things like family trips or going to zoo or whatever, but all the little things. The white lies I also tried on my parents. The sneaky little ways they try to get out of chores. How they learn the same weird facts I learned with the same amount of awe and wonder. It’s really fun to see them go through the same motions in their own ways.

One thing that I remember as a kid is wanting to know everything. It’s a trait that I see in my friend’s kids quite often. They want to listen in on conversations, ask “who are you talking about?” every time they walk in the room, and learn all the gritty details of any drama that might be happening. Beyond just regular life, they also crave experience and knowledge that may not be good for them. They want to click the suspicious link, they want to read the book way outside their age level, and they want to watch the movies that might scar them for life. How will they know it’s bad if they don’t try it out?

This is something we all have to either eventually grow out of or we risk becoming the busy-body “friend” that no one can talk to who learned way too much way too young. You have to be okay with not knowing things in life. First off you can’t know everything anyway, so jot that down right away. Secondly, not everything is for you. Thirdly, not all knowledge is good for you. As they say, ignorance is bliss. I’m not advocating for just ignorance in general though.

But there are things that we learn to avoid, usually due to bad experiences. I learned to avoid horror movies because they were too much for me. I had nightmares and spent a lot of time thinking about them, even if I had only seen a commercial. (I’m not as sensitive to them anymore but I tend to avoid them anyway.) Something that I found I had to combat due to this is my natural curiosity. When I would happen to catch part of a trailer or part of a horror movie, I would become curious. That’s what entertainment does, it asks a question that you want answered. So you watch the show/movie or read the book. When I had the standard “I wonder how it ends…” pop into my head I had to learn to actively tell myself, “I don’t care. It doesn’t matter.” It became my internal motto whenever I was confronted with something I knew I didn’t need to know. Horror movies? Don’t need to know. Erotic romance? Don’t need to know. Certain true crime documentaries? Don’t need to know.

I have my reasons for all of these things. Overall, I just don’t want to put those things in my head. I know that I will dwell on them too much and it will not be healthy for me. As an adult, I’ve spent a lot of years figuring out what is good for me and what isn’t. I know there are things I don’t want in my thoughts. I’m sure everyone reading this has, at some point, seen or heard something they wish they hadn’t.

Children don’t have the years of experience to understand that they don’t need nor really want, to know it all. They can’t comprehend that learning some things will make their lives worse. They really just want to know. It’s a very natural thing to want. There are people who never really grow out of this and end up spending way too much time consuming media that is bad for them.

What media you watch/read/listen to is important to consider and it’s equally important to consider your own limits. I have spent a lot of time considering my own limits and also considering how I’m the only one who can make those limits. If I can’t handle horror then it’s my responsibility to deal with that. It’s my job to turn it off, leave the room, etc. Sometimes, I’m wrong. I’ve avoided movies and books in the past because I believed they had content I didn’t want to deal with. Then I would read an article, talk to a friend, or see a review about it and end up realizing I was wrong. Sometimes I’d go ahead and watch/read it after that and find it was perfectly fine. Other times I’d find out that while it was okay for me now, it wouldn’t have been fine for me when I first heard of it.

And that’s what so many people get caught up on, especially kids and teens. They fear being wrong and missing out on something that would’ve been fine. Which is, I think, the more important part of this to wrangle with. It’s not just choosing to not know something that could be harmful, it’s being open and aware that you will miss out on things. Whether that’s missing out on spending time with friends who want to do something you know isn’t for you, or just missing out on sharing childhood memories of different cultural movies/books with your peers.

It took a while but I have become much better at choosing to not know things. A popular erotic romance book? I don’t need to know. Family drama of my friends? It’s not my business. Does that guy survive this horror movie? It doesn’t matter.

My life goes on without this information and in many ways it is better without it. Like I said, I’m not advocating ignorance in general. But I think we all need to be aware and careful of what media we consume. Being okay with not knowing things is an important part of that.

Plagiarism as a Child

I’ve been writing for as long as I can remember. I still have a lot of my old writing and sometimes I look at it and think about how absolutely stupid it is far I’ve come now. I also realize how much I used to plagiarize.

Plagiarism is taking someone else’s work and passing it off as your own. Sure, there’s cheating in school but young kids don’t think about that as plagiarism. I never really thought about it, especially since I was homeschooled; cheating wasn’t much of an option when I was the only one in my grade. But that didn’t stop me from copying a lot of published authors.

I devoured books as a child. I read constantly. All the way through high school I always had a book in my hands. I read things I liked and, in turn, wrote things that I liked. Sometimes, those two things looked a little too similar. I would read a book about a dragon rider and then turn around and write a story about a dragon rider. I would read about a child with magical abilities and then turn around and write a story about a child with magical abilities. Sure, the names would be changed and sometimes I’d make the dragon purple instead of blue, but in the end, I was just rewriting someone else’s book thinking it was mine.

It’s not uncommon for kids to do this. I was talking to my best friend who mentioned finding a story she had plagiarized as a kid. She said that she had clearly just changed a few names and written the same story she’d been reading at the time. This kind of thing obviously wouldn’t be something we’d do now, because plagiarism is serious and bad and we know that more acutely than we did as children but it’s really interesting to see how we did it as kids. Both of us would change names (I only had like five names I used, shout out to anyone named Michael) and make minor changes (like the color of the dragon) but we borrowed a lot of plots. We just wanted to write well and these authors were our examples and inspiration. We wanted to sound like professional authors.

As I got a little older, I realized that when I was copying things, I wasn’t as focused on copying plots as I was focused on copying the author’s voice. When I liked the way an author wrote, I would plagiarize their work (imitation is the sincerest form of flattery I hope) trying to make it mine. I would use their vocabulary and try to make it sound like them. In doing so, I started to develop my own writing voice.

If you’re not familiar with the idea of voice in writing, it’s essentially how someone writes. Voice is everything about the feel an author gives. It’s what makes an author unique and helps them stand out. If you have a favorite author, I bet I could line up three or four different paragraphs from their peers and one from them, and you could pick out the one your author wrote. That’s what voice comes down to. How an author speaks into the story. It’s the culmination of every part of the author’s writing.

So when I was taking other people’s work, what I was really trying to steal was their voice (like a freaking sea witch in a Disney movie or something). I wanted my writing to sound like them because I liked the way they sounded. This really helped me in my own work. Even today, I sometimes find myself mimicking an author I just read. If I recently read a historical fiction book then my work tends toward poetic and flowery. If I recently read a science fiction book then my own work will lean toward technical and straightforward. It’s actually really fun for me to look at some of my stories and remember what I was reading at the time I had also been writing.

I am far beyond plagiarizing these days. Everyone should be, by the time they reach the end of high school. At this point, I can recognize when I’m using a little too much of someone else’s ideas or voice and I can correct it. It really is about practice to get to your own writing voice and style. I can see a few quirks have hung around since my younger writing days and I don’t mind them as much as I used to. I thought I’d really developed my end-all-be-all writing voice by the end of college but this blog has certainly kept me going.

Do you write? Did you also plagiarize as a kid? I hope me and Charlotte aren’t totally alone in this early writer’s trait! Let me know your thoughts in the comments!

You’re Not Under-Qualified

This may come out a little… pointed. Maybe a little irritated. But I think it needs to be said either way so I am trying to say it with as much love as possible.

I have a nice little hometown church that I go to every Sunday. I love it. I love the people, and our pastor is very committed to preaching from the Bible. My parents are always involved in whatever church we’re attending. They teach classes and help out wherever they can. They’ve always had the mindset, in their whole lives not just at church, that if you see something that needs to be done then you do it. I wish everyone had that same attitude.

We have a small group of kids who regularly attend so we have a children’s program for them. A program run by two people. Just two. My mom and the pastor’s wife. We only have one service on Sundays and my pastor’s wife is the pianist so she has to be in the service. So my mom is always with the kids. Every Sunday. She hasn’t been in a church service since July. Maybe that doesn’t sound too terrible to you. But imagine always feeding others and never being fed yourself. She pours out her spirit for these kids to learn and grow and then she doesn’t get to be filled herself. She needs to be able to learn and grow too but she can’t on Sunday mornings because there’s no one else who will be there for the kids.

My mom has tried many times to find more people to help out with the kids program, to ask about taking one Sunday a week. But the response is almost always the same, “I don’t feel qualified for that.” What? You don’t think you’re qualified? It’s not even hard. My mom puts in a good amount of effort, don’t get me wrong. But you just have to tell the kids a Bible story (chosen in advance) and then talk to them about it. It isn’t complicated. Everyone in my church is capable, it just seems like they don’t want to do it.

You know what I’m not qualified for? Running a church’s social media. Yet here I am, making posts and designing content for my church’s Facebook page. Why? Because I saw a need and chose to fill it. Did I know every in and out when I started? No. But I took the time to do my research. I learned. Because it was needed.

I’m also not very qualified to make and run the slideshow on Sunday mornings. Yet here I am, doing it anyway. Why? Because I saw the need for it. Sometimes I don’t feel like I have time during a week to do it but I manage it anyway. I don’t always like making the slides but I do it anyway. Because it’s needed.

If you’re part of a church then you should be doing more than attending. God calls us to serve. Are you serving at your church? If not, look around. What needs to be done? Don’t see anything? That’s okay, go ask. Ask whoever is doing the children’s ministry if they need volunteers. Ask the pastor if you can help in some way. There’s always a lot to be done. You don’t have to do something big to serve. You don’t have to be “in the spotlight” or anything crazy. But you should be serving.

Stop focusing on the things you “can’t” do. Stop saying you’re “not qualified.” I’ll tell you a little secret: if you’re attending a church, then you’re qualified to do more than you think. Stop making excuses. Get training. Ask the children’s teacher to train you. Ask to be shown how so that you can prepare to take over at times. I didn’t know how to do slideshows until I learned. I didn’t know how to make proper social media posts until I learned. I didn’t know a lot of things until I learned them. It’ll be the same for you. Volunteer. Learn. Serve.

When you do this, you offer rest to those who are doing it all. You show commitment and love. God tells us, many times, to serve others. So do it. Find the need in your church, and then fill it.

I Am Unimpressed

I’m not really an experience-focused kind of person. By that, I mean I don’t necessarily care about going to big events or landmarks or things like that. I’m completely uninterested in visiting the Grand Canyon or flying in an airplane or going to concerts or “seeing the sights” or mostly anything else. Of course, there are a few exceptions to this, like I’m always down for a hypnotist or magic show because those are awesome. But even those are things I wouldn’t go out of my way to attend. And of course I sometimes want to get out of the house to hang out with friends. But as a general rule, I’m not into going to things.

This week, my sister took me and our friend’s two kids to the zoo. I was invited to basically be a second babysitter more than anything else. When she asked me if I wanted to go, I did not want to go. But because she needed me (and was going to pay for me), I said yes. So we were off with an 8 year old and 3 year old for a fun-filled day at the zoo.

We headed to the polar bears first. I was unimpressed. I mean, it’s a bear. Cool. I see these in books and on movies all the time. I like learning about polar bears and watching documentaries but seeing it just wasn’t that cool. Maybe it was just my generally high apathy level or my over-confidence in the 6-8 inches of acrylic plastic between me and the 1200lb wild animal that kept me from being in awe. Honestly, if I couldn’t be impressed with this polar bear then I wasn’t sure anything in the zoo was going to impress me. I definitely faked some excitement for the sake of the kids. (I didn’t want them to follow my example to become boring, jaded, apathetic human beings who don’t get excited for anything.) So that kind of helped me be a little open to seeing these animals with new, less adult, eyes.

We made it through the aquarium and most of the zoo and it was fun. It was cool seeing the kids reactions and to help them learn a little more about these creatures that share this planet with us. Watching kids experience things that we adults find mundane is like experiencing the thing all over again. Which is cool. Except I’ve been quite apathetic for a large portion of my life, so seeing and experiencing some of those feelings again doesn’t make it all the way through to my heart of stone.

I figured the whole day would be like that. But I was wrong.

If I wrote a list of what I consider the least exotic animals, they would all be savanna animals. Lions, elephants, giraffes, zebras, gazelle, etc. Absolutely nothing wrong with liking these animals. I like them. But I would say that these animals are often the most overused in books and on tv shows and games and everything. Kids’ stuff especially has these animals all over shirts, blankets, and toys. Even in kid’s bedrooms or classrooms or playrooms, they’re put on posters or painted on walls. They’re cool, but they’re the group I would consider the most mundane of the exotic.

So color me surprised when we got to the savanna animals and I actually got pretty excited. I was so blindsided by the feelings because they were so genuine. I really enjoyed watching the elephants and giraffes and ostrich and we could kind of see the zebras but they were mostly out of view.

Weird, right? Like, why am I so excited to see these animals that I don’t even consider exciting? Why do I feel so weirdly connected to this particular group? I’ve gone through the whole zoo with barely restrained apathy and now I suddenly really care? Why?

I’ll tell you why.

Zoo Tycoon.

Hear me out before you start laughing too hard. Zoo Tycoon is an old PC game (I’m partial to the original 2001 game) where you build and run a virtual zoo. Super fun. My siblings and I played it CONSTANTLY growing up. At first, we just threw things together and played without restraint. But we slowly learned how to better make our animals happy and how to manage the funds for the zoo so we didn’t go broke every five minutes. Each animal has habitat requirements and also has a few paragraphs about its real life counterpart. If you want to make your zoo the best for your animals and guests then you have to learn about the real life animals.

What does that have to do with my sudden affection for savanna animals specifically? Well, in the game, those are the first animals that you have access to. You have to wait a year (in game time, about an hour of play) for all the animals and objects to be unlocked. So those are the animals I spent the most time with in the game. They’re the ones I would have from the very start to the very end of any zoo I built. They’re the first ones I spent time reading about in order to make their virtual lives better. Lions, zebras, and gazelles were always part of my basic zoo package.

I think that’s what really made me care about these animals. I’m partial to cats but the jaguar we saw earlier actually annoyed me because I remembered that in Zoo Tycoon it was the literal worst animal because it was NEVER happy. So this educational PC game shaped my feelings for real life animals.

Weird but true. I didn’t think that Zoo Tycoon was changing me as a person. I’m not sure what I’ll do with this realization. For now, I’ll be happy to have had those feelings of excitement and connection, a small reminder of the wonders of childhood and experiencing a zoo for the first time.

I Asked An 8 Year Old to Write My Blog Post

I don’t think that when I started this blog I realized how hard it is to figure out weekly content. I love writing this blog and even though my initial thoughts were to make it a writing blog, it’s definitely become a much more personal one. Which I like. I don’t like being tied down to one topic (even though I know there are many possibilities within a given category) because I’m pretty eclectic when it comes to my writing styles and genres and what I’m feeling like doing with that.

But it can be a struggle, even with this knowledge that I can write about literally anything I want, to narrow down a single thought or idea to do each week. Like I wrote about in my Blank Page post a couple weeks ago, endless possibilities can be just as intimidating as they are freeing.

So I was joking with my coworker that I should just ask her eight year old daughter to write my post this week. Her daughter was at my house at the time because my mom babysits sometimes. My coworker laughed and said that would be fine (I asked explicit permission even though I don’t plan on publishing her name. Though this blog is small, I want to respect her privacy, especially as a minor). I’ll be using a pseudonym for her daughter, we’ll call her Abby.

Fast forward to yesterday evening. I asked, very casually, if Abby would write my blog post. She agreed, if a bit hesitantly. I pulled up a word document and she didn’t know what to write about. After a little back and forth, she decided to write a story.

This story:

Once upon a time there was a princess named Chloe and there was a prince named Chase. Chloe lived in a castle near Lake Michigan. Chase lived in the neighborhood near by Chloe. But they never met before.  One day Chloe decided to go on her daily walk. She always likes her walks because she gets to hear the birds chirp and she gets some fresh air and she gets to smell the flowers.  In the middle of the woods she was looking at a spider when she hears footsteps. And she gets a little scared.  Then she turned around and saw a boy. He was a little tall and he had blond hair and he was skinny, she couldn’t help but notice he was cute.

“Oh my goodness,” she said. “You scared me.”

“Sorry that I scared you,” he said. “My name is Chase what’s yours?”

“My name is Chloe.”

“You’re pretty. Maybe this is a little weird, have you heard of the ball tonight?”

“Yea I have heard about the ball.”

“Will you go with me please?”

“Um sure.”

“Yay well see you tonight.”

Then he turned and walked away. Chloe feels happy now.

Then she goes back to the castle to tell her big sister the big news.

I love it. I love the classic start. I love the very basic but straightforward dialogue. I love that it switches from past to present tense and then back again. I loved watching her process. She’d write a line and feel stuck so I’d ask her questions about what she thought should happen next or how her characters were feeling. I showed her how to format the dialogue but she came up with pretty much all of it herself.

It was a lot of fun to help her and it was weird feeling like I had to hold back. I didn’t want to interrupt her own creativity even though I had my own ideas. I helped by asking questions or correcting spelling but beyond that, I let her do her own thing. It was hard to keep myself from pushing her one way or another on plot or dialogue. I mean, I know how to write a story, I went to school for it and everything. Abby clearly does not hold a degree in creative writing. But she does have a good imagination. I think my favorite detail she put in that came very much out of the blue was that the main character stops to look at a spider. Like, weird, but okay.

It’s so authentic and innocent and it reminds me of young me writing stories. No idea what I was doing but having fun and throwing things together anyway. I’m glad I asked her to write this week because I think we both gained something from working together to make this week’s post good.

Feminism Told Me

This post will likely be surprising to anyone who knows me in real life. It will probably be a surprise to anyone who’s been reading my blog for the last few years as well. I haven’t told anyone about my change of heart. I haven’t voiced this to anyone.

*Edit: An important thing to note here is that in this post I am exclusively referring to third and fourth wave feminism. I really appreciate the efforts of first wave and to a large extent, second wave feminism, but my loyalty ends there. For a quick reference, here is the short wikipedia page that gives a little information about each wave.*

I’ve always been open about not wanting kids or even a husband/significant other. But I’ve never been one hundred percent against it either, I know opinions/life goals can change. But I was still pretty settled on being alone the rest of my life. And I was content with that thought. I’m independent and capable. I don’t need anyone to complete me and I certainly don’t need any kids.

That’s what society was telling me.

It’s not as though I didn’t put a lot of thought into that as well. I wasn’t blindly following this ideology. Or was I? Why didn’t I want kids? Why didn’t I want a husband? Why did I want to put a career first? Because that’s what I was told by the feminist rhetoric of our day. Pregnancy ruins your body! Kids are wildly expensive! You shouldn’t be tied down to one person for your whole life, be free!

I ate it all up. I thought, yeah, I can’t afford kids, as if children are just a monetary investment. Pregnancy is hard and birth is painful, as if nothing in life is worth it because it’s hard/painful. Traveling with kids is impossible, as if I could travel now anyway. My favorite is the “having kids is selfish” reason. Really? Is it really selfish to give up your body, your money, your time, a third of your life, to nurture, love, and care for another human being? Is that what you’re saying?

Feminism told me that I should be happy working. That so many people fought to earn me the right to work and be able to vote and get a good education, etc. I’m grateful for that. I’m grateful for those things being possible for me and others. What I am not grateful for is the pushing, the prodding, the not-so-subtle nudging I’ve felt for so much of my life to work and be happy with not having a family of my own. Be happy being single. Be happy with just my cat. Be happy with my debt. Be happy with my job. Be happy working until I die. Who will be at my bedside at my death? Not the CEO of the company I poured my life into. They won’t care. They’ll just fill the position once I’m gone. What will my lasting impact be? That I was a good worker for an okay company that made lots of money? Sounds sad.

You can disagree. You can argue that feminism doesn’t preach this. You can say feminism is all about choice. You can say feminism is fighting for exactly this, the ability to decide for myself. But I won’t swallow that anymore. That is not what I’ve heard from feminism. That is not what I’ve experienced. Feminism told me career first. Feminism told me to wait to get married. Feminism told me to wait to have kids. Feminism told me that there aren’t enough women in the workforce. Feminism told me that I should be the breadwinner. Feminism told me that a husband isn’t needed. Feminism told me that the traditional family is toxic. Feminism told me that having kids isn’t a fulfilling life. Feminism told me my Christian values are dangerous. Feminism told me that motherhood isn’t what women should want. Feminism told me that life is all about me. Feminism told me I would be happier on my own. Feminism LIED to me. And I LET it lie to me.

Well, I guess I finally woke up.

This didn’t come out of nowhere. I have been thinking about this for over a year now. I started having doubts. My last life update compounded those doubts. What am I doing? I’m directionless. I’m paying off loans and working and then… what? I’m doing my best to live for God but I’m starting to feel like I’ve been ignoring Him. Like I’ve been listening to the world and not to Him. Singleness is good in its own ways, Paul talks about it being good for the church. But I feel less and less that’s what I am meant for. That maybe I’ve been trying to make myself an exception the rule.

Recently, my brother and his wife had a baby. She posts about him all the time and I love it. I love how much they’ve changed as a couple from being unsure about starting a family, thinking that a baby doesn’t fit into their lifestyle, to being loving, adoring parents who want the best for their little boy.

A close friend from college has grown so much as a person after having her baby last year. She still has all the same hobbies and finds plenty of time for doing what she wants to but is SO HAPPY to have her little girl and her husband there for all of it.

I have a friend who had a baby very young and she constantly talks about how that was the best thing to happen to her. She now has a husband and another kid and she talks about them like they are her whole world and she seriously never sounds happier than in those moments.

The catalyst, the final nail in this coffin for me, was a facebook page. It’s not a big page. It’s called Feminine, Not Feminist and it gave me the final bit of courage to fully admit these feelings to the world. These feelings of doubt and this feeling of being tricked by the very people who said they were there to empower me. I don’t necessarily agree with every little thing on this facebook page but I found solidarity. I found that there were others, not extremist youtubers who yelled into the camera, not articles painting feminism as the end of the world, not those who want to throw women back into ONLY being housewives, no. I found people. Real human beings, mostly women, who felt just as tricked as me. Who love traditional life. Who talk about how beneficial it is for them and their families to be a stay at home mom.

They showed me I’m not alone. Because somehow, it still feels lonely in this camp of traditionalism. It feels like a counterculture. It feels more radical than it should be.

 

I’m Still Not Good with Kids

The title may be a little misleading. I am good with kids… for a while. I’ve been told I’m a very patient person, and while I maintain that I’m not super impatient, I find I have less and less patience around kids. The more I’m around kids, the less I want to be around kids.

Last weekend I painted the kids’ Sunday School room at my church. To help me, I enlisted two of the kids at the church: ages 8 and 11. They were both helpful and well-behaved and overall just good kids.

However.

They are still children and honestly, by the end of the 5 hours I had them, I was done.

We started painting around 11am so it wasn’t very long before they both started complaining they were hungry. Obviously kids are human and require a couple meals a day to survive. So we broke for lunch and came back to paint more. I think it only took like 32 minutes for the 8 year old to get bored. She was switching brushes, trading colors, and going from place to place on the wall. For the most part, all fine. I wasn’t irritated or anything about it.

Something about kids is that they like to talk. Really like to talk. VERY MUCH ENJOY TALKING. Even if they don’t have anything to say, they’ll keep going. They also like to do whatever they want to do. They also like taking lots of breaks, and naps. Also they like to experiment no matter how many times you tell them to stop. I anticipated most of this and it was pretty much fine.

What I did not anticipate is how much it all grated on me. We were 4 hours in and I was not a happy camper. I kept my cool. I didn’t snap or explode at anyone. I kept telling myself, “They’re kids. This is what kids do. It’s fine. They’re just being kids.” Because that’s all it was. Kids need to be told the same thing a hundred times. Kids have to have good directions. Kids get tired. Kids don’t have enough life experience to have good intuition. Kids don’t know all the basics that adults take for granted. These kids were being their own normal selves. I was being incredibly annoyed by every normal thing they did.

Don’t get me wrong, I enjoyed most of our time together. The wall turned out really nice and I think they also had a good time. I was just very finished with dealing with children by the end. I’ve said before I’m not very interested in having kids. I know that it’s different when they’re your own children (that’s what everyone says), but I can’t help but feel like this excursion was just another reason for me to not have children.

I’m totally cool with kids for a short period of time. I can babysit for a few hours and hang out with families and have a really good time. I’m not saying I hate kids. I’m just saying that I’m not going to willingly spend 6+ hours one-on-one with any children any time soon. I’m convinced anyone who chooses to raise children is crazy. My parents are crazy for raising six of them. How does anyone deal with this? These kids weren’t even obnoxious and they were getting on my nerves.

Children are insane. People who have kids are insane. I know kids are a blessing from God and all that, but I still don’t know how anyone deals with them for years. I don’t know how anyone dealt with me for so many years, I was a terrible child. My mom deserves sainthood.

You Don’t Have to (and Can’t) Give to Everything

The bookstore I work in ran a book and toy drive this month. It ends today and we managed to blow past our store goal and have had many more books donated than expected. All the donations go to local foster kids so it’s really a cool program and I liked it enough to push it pretty well with our customers.

As far as I know, I managed to get the most donations (I have to double check the numbers today) and I think that’s just because it was something I could really believe in. Books are incredibly important, especially for kids. Reading fosters creativity, imagination, literacy, critical thinking, interest in learning, etc. If there is a way I can help get books to kids who need them then I will do it.

I would always present the book drive by gesturing to the suggested books we kept at the register and giving a very short summary of what it was before asking if they would be interested in donating a book. I actually went a little bit the extra mile by making sure there was a wide price range available for the books I suggested at my register. If someone was hesitant about the $15 book that was in the front I could easily suggest a $5 or $10 book that was more what they were willing to donate. I never tried to press people into donating beyond making it as easy as possible to do so. (I don’t think any of my coworkers tried to guilt anyone either or press them into doing something they clearly didn’t want to do.)

Sometimes when I would present the book drive the customer would say that they had already donated at their church or they usually donated to some other charities. To them I would say, that’s wonderful! And I would move on with no more pressure to give a book. Occasionally, a customer would say that they wish they could donate but just had so little money right then that the gifts they were buying was all they could afford that week. To them I would say, that’s totally fine! And I would move on. I know people can feel guilty about not donating, especially when it’s something they feel connected to in some way. If a customer expressed that kind of sentiment I was always quick to say that you can’t do everything.

This time of year, everyone is asking for donations. Money, toys, books, etc. It can be very overwhelming very fast. You can’t do everything. There are a million charities out there because one charity could never perform all the duties necessary. You have to choose where to put your support. I know I would love to be able to give a lot to many charities because there are a lot doing an insane amount of good. But I can’t. Neither can you. And that’s okay. You don’t have to.

It may be awkward for a moment with the cashier when you say you’re too broke to give but we understand. How are you supposed to work and give when you can if you can’t pay your rent this week? Give when you can to what you can and don’t beat yourself up about not giving all the time. I encourage sharing with those less fortunate than yourself but I think it’s better to make a difference in one place rather than spread yourself too thin across many.

 

 

I won’t be posting next week as it will be Christmas Eve.

I hope you all have a Merry Christmas!

Like It or Not, You Are Your Pet’s Parent

I do not call myself my cat’s ‘mom’ or ‘furmom’ as some these days identify. I don’t consider my pet a person or anything like that. I did not birth this animal. I did not adopt through a process that would require me to make sure my entire life and home will be tailored specifically to the care of this animal (I don’t know the entire adoption process for children but I’m gonna go out on a limb and say it’s a lot more intensive than getting a cat).

But I am still my cat’s parent.

“What?” You might ask. “How can you say you’re not a pet parent yet say you are a pet parent?”

What does a parent do for their child? They love, feed, teach, admonish, and encourage. They make sure they’re eating properly, they take them to the doctor when they’re sick, they correct negative behavior, and when the child is young or nonverbal, they have to be in tune with every aspect of the child’s life to keep them healthy. Parents have to use tough love sometimes in order to keep their child safe, they have to get good care for the kid when they can’t take care of them for a time. There’s a lot more but I’ll stop there.

What does a pet owner do for their pet? They love, feed, teach, correct, and encourage. They make sure they’re eating properly, they take them to the vet when they’re sick, they have to use tough love sometimes in order to keep them safe. They have to find good care when they can’t take care of them for a time. They have to be in tune with every aspect of the pet’s life to keep them healthy.

See some similarities? The difference being that most children grow up and are able to tell parents what’s going on. My cat can’t tell me how her day was like a teenager can. An animal is voiceless. They cannot tell you where they are hurt, they cannot tell you why they’re acting out, they can’t point out their abuser, they can’t talk out their stress, etc. The only one who can speak for your pet is you. You have to know your pet. You have to understand what their actions mean. You have to tell the vet what’s been going on in their life. You have to make judgments based on what is best for them without knowing if they like those choices or not.

There’s a cheesy quote out there about how your pet may be only one part of your world but you are your pet’s entire world. It’s usually painted over a picture of an adorable puppy or kitten to tug at your heart strings. Despite the emotional ploy to get you to share/like, this quote is true. My cat knows nothing beyond me and my family. She doesn’t have connections outside this house. She can’t choose to leave. She didn’t come here because she wanted to. This is the only world she knows. How can I willingly choose to hurt or abandon her? She can’t call the police on me, she can’t talk to friends about the care she’s receiving. And why would she? I feed her and love her and she seems happy with that. I know she’s happy because I pay attention to her. I spend time with her. Animals have relationships with their owners just as people have relationships with each other.

Committing to care for the life another living creature is a big thing. It’s not something that you should ever choose on a whim. A cat is a 12 to 18 year commitment and a dog is similar depending on the breed. That is literally like having a child. If you’re not ready to take care of an animal for the rest of its life, don’t get one.

If I am no longer able to care for my cat then it is my responsibility to make sure she is still cared for. If I knew I wouldn’t be able to take care of her for more than the next few months and I spent that time deliberating over whether or not to take her to a shelter, she wouldn’t know. I can prepare myself for that day. I can make myself feel better about the decision. I can say goodbye. She can’t. I am her whole world and when I walk into that shelter all she knows is that it’s a new, loud, scary place with people she doesn’t know and strange animal smells everywhere. She would look to me for security and safety in this new place but suddenly I’m not there. (I understand that circumstances change but at the same time I feel like it can be an excuse to drop animals off at shelters. Find a new home yourself, where you can keep in touch with the new owners to make sure the animal is well cared for.)

Do you remember when you were six and lost sight of your parent in the grocery store? Can you recall that moment of total panic while a million horrible scenarios ran through your mind? Multiply that by ten and perhaps you will feel what an animal feels when suddenly the person who was supposed to be there, the ONLY person they have known for most of their life, leaves them with no explanation.

I am not against people finding new homes for pets they can absolutely no longer care for. But I think that people should be more responsible in the first place. An animal is a commitment, not a fling.  It’s a long term relationship. It’s not having a child, but it’s like having a child. You are responsible for that animal. Whether you like it or not, you are that pet’s parent, their only voice in this world. Act like it.