Beware School Districts Bearing Gifts
19 Nov 2011 Leave a Comment
in Culture, Education, Politics and Parenting, Uncategorized Tags: chat, children's constitutional rights, due process, email, evidence, kids, parenting, parenting rights, school district
Recently I received an email from my sons’ school telling me that the school district was going to give every middle and high school student their very own email account. The email read:
“In addition to streamlined communication between teachers and students, here are additional motivations for the District email initiative:
·Safe electronic communication system with protective internet filters.
·More effective enforcement of SVVSD Responsible Use Policy.
·Student access to digital communication tools, including instant messaging, real time document collaboration.
·Parent/Guardian access to their student s (sic) email account upon request.
Additional information about this email initiative is available on the District website where you can also access District policies concerning student Internet use. Parents and guardians who wish to exclude their student from this initiative are asked to complete the attached opt-out form and return it to your student s (sic) school by December 2nd.”
How nice, I thought.
Reading the Fine Print
But then, I wondered why would the district give children have a new email account when they know that most kids already have them? What’s in it for them? Safe internet access with protective filters. Great. More effective enforcement of the SVVSD Responsible Use Policy. Huh? What’s that? And why would the district give parents an opportunity to opt out? If it’s such a nice thing, they wouldn’t need to offer an opt-out, right?
NOTE: You can click the District’s link above to see the landing page which contains a link to the “Responsible Use Policy” page. That link takes you here: http://www.stvrain.k12.co.us/policies/E/EHC-E-2.pdf
On the last page of that policy was a statement that made the district’s new initiative make a lot more sense, “That the things that I do using a school computer or network are not private and that my teachers and District staff may review my work and activities at any time.”
According to this policy, to which all students must agree or be barred from use, the district will have access all content of children’s email accounts—including their chats. Legally, that means that there is no privacy between the children and the school district, staff, and teachers. Anything children write in email or type into a chat, no matter when it’s written, at home or at school, no matter what it pertains to, personal or school-related, can be used as a statement against interest, criminally and civilly.
Did You Say Criminally?
Yes! But the district’s policy doesn’t say that. It only says that if a student misuses school-owned technology that they’re at risk of suspension or expulsion. The district’s policy statement doesn’t say that kids could be prosecuted criminally or sued civilly, and that the content of their email can be used against them in court, with many of the due process protections of the Constitution waived by parents, inadvertently, by an act of omission—not opting out.
A quick background on children’s due process rights and the 4th amendment freedom from unreasonable search and seizure: kids don’t have the extensive protections against unreasonable searches that adults have. In fact, school officials need only a reasonable suspicion that a child is up to no good in order to search a locker or personal belongings. And a reasonable suspicion can be established by almost anything, and is quite a bit lower of a standard than the “probable cause” standard that applies to adults. Once a child is searched, any evidence found may be provided to police to prosecute the child in either a delinquency court or possibly in an adult criminal court. That makes sense. School officials need to do everything in their power to prevent violence and crime on school grounds and they should be able to search kids’ locker.
However, school-hosted email accounts are less private even than a kid’s locker, which is about as private as the trash left on your curb. The district’s stated goal is to better enforce the responsible use policy. It will not be long before the district discovers something in an email and hands it over to authorities as evidence against a child. The district needs no one’s permission to do that, has no obligation to consult with parents. The requirement for a reasonable suspicion has been waived along with the child’s right to be free of unreasonable searches.
Inadvertent Waiver
When we allow our children to email or chat on an unsecure, non-private email account for which we have unwittingly waived what few Constitutional rights they have, we put our children one dangerous step closer to “game over”. That is because the district’s opt-out policy skirts the prohibition against unreasonable searches in the 4th Amendment and 5th Amendment right to due process by obtaining parental consent to a search in advance.
Combined with the Zero Tolerance policy, the school district has an obligation to report and punish children for writing that is even remotely incriminating. Parents are waiving the regular rules of due process and evidence, which protect all of our rights, without even knowing that they’re making it easier for schools, police, and the DA to make a case against a child than the same would be against an adult.
That means that if we don’t opt out, we are handing our children over to schools and police, giving them power that extends far beyond the schoolhouse doors, into their personal lives outside of school, heretofore the province of parents alone. We give up our superior position as parents and abdicate our responsibility to discipline and guide our children—to the government—24/7. It also means that one little slip, and our child’s future could be over, and it is our own hand that will deliver them.
Picture this: Seventh grader who’s very expressive says something a little over the top to another student on a chat—as they’re wont to do. Teacher, who has a bone to pick with student, reads the chat thread and sees that little something. Teacher hands the transcript over to the principal, who may give that information to the Community Service Officer, who files a police report of harassment against the child. Never mind that the other child may not have even been phased by the communication, or perhaps even welcomed it.
The police have probable cause and evidence against the child. Child is arrested, released on bail, tried and the evidence admitted because the parent gave the district permission to invade the account in the first place. Remember that even one conviction can irreparably damage their school career as well as their prospects for college.
Without this email account, the school district, police, and DA have to go through the normal methods of building a case. They have to take statements, go through discovery, and subpoena the email or chat records to get that piece of evidence admitted—and defend motions to exclude evidence (motions in limine). With this ostensibly “public” email account, they can sidestep many of these due process procedures because of the parent’s waiver of their children’s access to constitutional protections.
You May Want to Waive Your Children’s Constitutional Rights
In all fairness, some parents may want their kids to participate in school-hosted and -regulated email, with the full understanding that they are waiving their children’s already limited freedom from unreasonable searches. Some parents know their kids are misbehaving and wish desperately for intervention from authorities. For those parents, by all means, do so. Just know what you’re doing consciously.
An anonymous member of the district told me yesterday that they don’t believe the district has any mal-intent in providing these email accounts and that they trust the district to not use email accounts against kids thought there are no assurances of that nor disclosure of the risks to children of criminal and civil liability in any of the district’s materials. Also the district member said, “behavior is always an issue in schools”. I agree. And I agree that the kids who are bullying, misbehaving, or worse should have to face the consequences of their actions. But I am not willing to hand my children over to the district or police if they make an error in judgment, which they will, that could easily be misunderstood or blown out of proportion, without the protections of the Constitution I have sworn to uphold and defend.
As a parent, I want my children to be afforded every protection the Constitution gives them, even if they make a bad choice. Especially if they make a bad choice. I will not waive their right to make a mistake and to recover from it. I may not bail them out of jail, but I won’t deliver them in handcuffs either—at least not by mistake anyway. And I’m not willing to leave it up to the goodness of the hearts of school officials to decide whether to prosecute my child or not. Because you know that the first time an incriminating email or chat comes up, the district is going to throw the book at the kid with all the firepower it’s got to make an example of him or her.
The district has an obligation to spell out exactly what the risks are so parents can decide based on proper disclosure. Every parent should make this decision with full understanding of what they’re doing. If you allow your child to utilize the school district’s email system, at this time, anything they say can and will be used against them in a court of law.
You be the parent. Keep control over your children and their online lives. Monitor them, teach them what is appropriate internet behavior. But don’t let the schools do it for you. Here’s the Opt-Out form:
Parenting and Puppy-Raising
29 Mar 2011 Leave a Comment
in Family Dynamics, Living In Community, Pets Tags: parenting, dogs, puppies, spiritual parenting, Monks of New Skete
Way before I had kids, I had dogs—Lady and Kodi—my rehearsal for parenthood. Better to find out that I stink at it before the real deal, right? Well, this week, I’m reliving of those early days as a dog owner and as a new mom because…there’s a puppy in the house! Buster, the six-month old Australian Shepherd!
Buster's doing a good job keeping our minds off the death of our Luna.
Having a puppy around makes me think about my shepherds, and the lessons they taught me, with new awareness. It’s not that I haven’t had dogs around. I inherited two geriatric gems, Peggy and Luna, when my fiancé and I moved in together. Luna was put down last week after a sudden downturn in her health, so I’m feeling introspective about dogs and kids—particularly of those early weeks and months of learning to be a good owner and a good mother. But by the time they arrived, Peggy and Luna were more like moving bric-a-brac than anything else. They needed sporadic attention and no training—not at all like a puppy.
Raising a Puppy is a Spiritual Journey, Like Parenthood
My first dog, Lady was a gift from my ex-husband when we lived in a not-so-ritzy part of LA. I’d always wanted a dog. My father would never let us have one. I already had a vision of the kind of dog I wanted to raise; one that is pleasant to be around, aware, obedient, personable, yet capable of doing the job that a good dog should do—protecting their pack. What I didn’t realize was that, to raise a dog to have all those qualities, the dog was really going to be raising me.
I read every book I could find on how to train a dog and ran across “The Art of Raising A Puppy” written by the Monks of New Skete—a Franciscan order in New York. The monks’ ministry is breeding and raising German Shepherd dogs. Theirs are among the most sought-after companion dogs in the world. As I read, I sensed that raising these dogs was going to be a journey that could change the course of my life and would teach me—on a cellular level—to be the kind of dog owner, no…person, I wanted to be.
Kodi--many years ago
For the Monks, puppy-raising is spiritual discipline. It opens us to a oneness with the divine that only surrendering to the smallest can give. It’s no coincidence that in advertising there are two things that always sell—dogs and babies. Because their mere presence in the world reminds us of our uniqueness among creatures. That we are given these beautiful beings to lead into maturity melts even the most hardened of souls. Their fragility demands our gentility. Their complexity demands our intelligence. Their sensitivity demands our gracefulness. Both puppies and babies bring us, unswervingly and unerringly into confrontation with ourselves. And we love them for it. Or hate them for it, as the overwhelming evidence of both child and animal abuse shows.
A Small, Painful, Joyful Reminder
Buster, as someone else’s puppy, was not bonded to me when he got here three days ago. He was nervous and scared, so that when I tried to put his leash on him to go for a run the morning he arrived, he dodged and hid from me barking in fear. Eventually, I got my arms around him but not before he sunk a lone tooth into my chin. I took him out for a run, talking sweetly and kindly, stopping to pet him and love him up.
Timothy’s sons were bewildered that I would continue to shower love on a dog that had just bitten me and I tried to explain that it wasn’t Buster’s fault that he was scared. He just was. But I couldn’t explain that underneath my calm exterior, I was struggling to like the dog. He’d just bitten me and it was looking like the week was not going to go well.
But, I remembered my old lessons…it’s my job to lead the pack…whether Buster likes me or not. I’m the Alpha. It’s my job to reassure this puppy that he is going to be just fine and to teach him not to bite out of fear. It was even harder to explain to the boys that this was not a one-time lesson but one that would begin at that moment and continue until Buster leaves our home next week.
When Buster and I came home from that run, he was a new puppy. He’d had the chance to trust me, to take his cues from me as we ran over the dam near our lake. He will not bite me again. As a good shepherding dog, he now follows me everywhere. But I’m on notice that he gets scared and I must stay aware of that so I can help him manage his fear whenever I sense it.
This same thing is true of parenthood. Raising a child, I know it sounds trite, is not unlike raising a puppy. Of course, there are huge differences, a main one being that we raise a puppy to be obedient and bonded to us for life while we raise a child to become independent and to be able to bond to others throughout life. But the early weeks and months of both new beings’ lives require our total attention and commitment. And I’d forgotten how true that is, now that my children are older and I don’t have a puppy.
Raising a Puppy and Raising a Child Require Deep Internal Work
Ask any mom and she’ll tell you how much self-discipline she must deploy every day just to get through. Ask anyone who has a new puppy and they’ll tell you how much self-discipline it takes to teach a dog to be the kind of animal people want around. The two joyous lessons my dogs taught me that prepared me to be a mother—Self-regulation and Discipline.
Self-Regulation. It didn’t take me long to figure out that my dogs took unspoken cues from me. They’d watch my face to see what expression I wore whenever they needed guidance. They could sense the tension in my body or the ease as well. If I were tense, they were tense. On the other hand, I also could calm them just by calming myself. When they barked at a stranger, I would give them my calm attention, put my forehead against theirs and just think calm thoughts. Often that did the trick. It worked with Buster the other day, and I’d forgotten how powerful an influence that can be. My experience with self-regulation as a mother began the day my first son was born. Ryan slept best when I meditated or centered myself first. Then one night that I’ll never forget, three-month Ryan was inconsolable. I stopped everything I was doing to attend to him. I’d already checked every possible cause of his crying and when I’d eliminated all those sources and he was still crying, I just sat down with him and held him. I quieted myself inside, assuring myself that I’d done all I could to calm him. Within a few moments his cries slowed, then became a whimper, then sleep. From then on, I realized quite clearly that my children were most upset when I was upset, most organized and calm when I was organized and calm. So it began. The proper feedback cycle—I began to deeply honor both my and my children’s feelings. By regulating myself, my children were able to regulate themselves.
Discipline. To teach a dog to be a good companion takes trust, love and time to practice each day. I try to tell my youngest son, who desperately wants a golden retriever of his own, that he not only has to feed, play with, and clean up after a dog, he must love it enough to train it. That means getting off his butt when the TV is on and taking his dog outside on a training lead with a training collar and teaching him to heel, sit, stay, come, fetch, catch. For children, the same is true. I have an acquaintance who used to yell at her kids from afar to do this or that. She was confounded, and often angry, that they never obeyed. But to me, this was not so much a failure on her kids’ part so much as laziness (or worse, lack of love) on her part. When you love your child, you will love them enough to get up off your butt and help them understand the meaning of your words. When you love your dog, you will teach him to not jump up on you because you want to keep loving him and a jumping dog is not lovable for long. With kids, the window for physical redirection is rather short. At some point, kids grow big enough that we can’t just turn their little bodies to where we want them to go. At that point, they must have a deep inner sense of trust in us and in what feels right to them, so that our words have import and heft. When our words don’t work, we need to get up off our butt and help them follow our guidance with more complex parenting skills. In the end, it’s up to us to continually acquire the skills we need to help our children become the kind of people who will leave the world a better place than they found it.
A dog is maybe a purer reflection of ourselves than our children are because they are far more “tabula rasa” than a baby. They’re more easily moldable, pliable, trainable than a child. So to that extent, the comparison does eventually fail. But in puppyhood and childhood, self-regulation and discipline are the gifts our little beings give us. Maybe these gifts are why we jump into dog ownership and parenthood so joyously. We know that in being good owner and a good parent, that we become more of who we really are. In that space that our children and our animal companions need from us, we can clear away the cobwebs of what doesn’t really matter or what no longer serves us. We become stripped of our monkey mind if only for a few moments every day because we have to stay clear-headed so we can help our little loved ones. This is the selflessness the Monks wrote of, the oneness in doing for another that brings us closer to the divine.
UPDATE: The other day, we took the boys to look at a puppy–thinking we may acquire one in the next few weeks. Note to self: Never take four boys to “look at” a puppy. We brought two home. Peggy seems to like them well enough and the boys have fallen in love! Here they are!
OMG! What Is That Smell?!
14 Feb 2011 2 Comments
in Culture, Education, Healthcare Tags: body odor, children, conscious parenting, Culture, education, mindful parenting, mindfulness, Mothering, nutrition, parenting
Are your kids getting a little ripe? Do they starting smelling a little funky if they haven’t taken a bath in a couple days?
I ask because, around here, as early as fourth and fifth grades, schools are telling kids to wear deodorant. They’re telling elementary aged kids, and I’m sort of paraphrasing, “You smell gross. You need to wear deodorant to school from now on.”
Next thing I know, my 11-year-old son is strutting around the house in a cloud of “Axe – Dark Temptation” spray deodorant—sending me into a tailspin of college memories I’d sooner forget. My son is so taken with the manliness of antiperspirant that he sprays himself with it from top to bottom.
Which one do you think is stinking up the joint?
The last time he did that, I marched him right back up the stairs and into the shower to get that god-awful smell off. I’ve confiscated the Axe and I dare him or anyone else to bring that into my house again. The recycle bin can hold a lot of spray cans.
This stinks on so many levels
First, our kids are hearing from teachers, not just television anymore, that their natural state, their natural aura is offensive. At the age of 10, before they’ve even hit puberty. Don’t our kids get enough messages that they are not okay as they are from every other corner of the world? Can we not just let it go for a few years—at least until they hit puberty?
Second, for the kids that really do smell offensive, empirically offensive, we’re overlooking the causes and going straight to a bad solution. After all, what’s worse than covering up a bad smell with a perfumed one? It fools no one and just makes the stink doubly disgusting.
Some kids-and adults-really do smell bad. But why cover it up instead of addressing the underlying causes of bad body odor? Instead of using the opportunity to address dietary, toxic, metabolic, and floral sources of the offending aroma, we’re telling our little kids to head to the nearest drugstore and pick up a stick of night-club scented deo and bathe in it. Health 911.com’s article here is a good start for pinpointing causes of unusually stinky BO.
There’s a kid that goes to school with my kids. I don’t know who he is or what his name is but the neighborhood kids talk about how bad he smells of both body odor and cigarette smoke. They’re certain this middle schooler smokes cigarettes because he reeks so badly—like Pigpen in the Peanuts comics. Has no one had a talk with this kid’s parents about how his coating of tar and nicotine are affecting his ability to hang out–the main activity of pre-teens? Surely if the parents knew they’d do something about it. Okay, maybe not but someone ought to try.
Don’t Cover It Up? Figure It Out!
Our natural scent is supposed to be pleasant, even the end-of-the-day stink should not be so disgusting as to make people breath out of their mouth. If we bathe somewhat regularly (for kids) and eat well, we should all smell reasonably good even when we sweat. I wish I’d understood earlier in life how apocryphal one’s personal bouquet is of so many things—good health and romantic compatibility being the top two.
If we cover up our scent, how will we sniff out that we have a toxic build up, or cancer, or systemic candidiasis? How will we know that our partner actually smells good to us and we to him or her? What happens when we find out we really don’t like their natural aroma and that we picked the wrong person!? Our sense of smell can confirm or deny so much about the world around us—polluting the sense with overpowering aromas only deadens our instincts (pun not at all intended) and our awareness of the natural world.
For the most part, our kids smell just fine if they’re eating a healthy diet as close to the source as possible. If they don’t, let’s at least be positive and helpful to each child. Let’s help them pin down the source and fix it–with love and humility. Don’t tell them they make you want to vomit–at least not until they start growing armpit hair. They already have enough to worry about in elementary school.
Co-Parenting Is Not For The Faint At Heart*
05 Jan 2011 5 Comments
in Co-parenting, Culture, Divorce, Family Dynamics Tags: Co-parenting, custody, divorce, Family dynamics, legal custody, parenting, physical custody
Even in the best of times, sharing parenting responsibilities with another human being is challenging. If you’re a married parent, you already know that the art of compromise is that the heart of any relationship and even more vital with parenting. Add the dynamic of a broken marriage to an already difficult balance and you’ve got trouble.
I live with two other single parents—all three of us share legal and physical custody of our kids with our ex-spouses. Across the street, my BFF Alexis doesn’t share custody with her ex, but she goes out of her way to make sure he sees their kids because she knows the kids thrive with both parents actively involved in their lives. Out of the four of us, Timothy, my fiancé, has the most cooperative, cordial, even warm relationship with his ex, Melissa.
Melissa, Devin, and Luka; part of my extended family
I’ve been at this co-parenting thing for over four years now and it hasn’t gotten much easier. But it’s worth trying every single day. Here’s why.
Shared Custody = Shared Decision Making
Divorced parents with equal legal custody share decision-making over major areas of their kids’ lives: healthcare, education, extracurricular activities, and dangerous instrumentalities (use of guns, vehicles, etc).
Did you notice that I didn’t include religion as one of the four? That’s because parents have constitutional rights to teach their children in the ways of their own religious or spiritual belief system. I’ve seen plenty of articles that say this is one of the main decision making areas parents share, but my reading of the case law suggests that, unless those beliefs pose a danger to a child (e.g. refusal of emergency medical care because it’s against one’s religion or disparaging of the other parent’s beliefs), parents can’t interfere with each other’s religious training.
When parents’ marriages are intact, they usually compromise on the main areas of child-rearing out of respect and love for one another. One defers to the other in some things and vice versa. Once broken, though, the incentive to compromise often goes down the toilet along with the marriage, replaced sometimes with a vindictive need to triumph over the other parent.
When parents can’t act in unison, children suffer, far more than parents ever will. That’s because kids then know that they can play one parent off of the other to get what they want. That’s just too much power for a child to handle–it tears down the basic premise of a well-bonded family–that the parents are there to care for the children no matter what. It’s not good for children to feel that they’re in control. If mom and dad aren’t in control, who is?
Who’s In Charge Here?
Kids need to know that the adults in their lives are in charge of their environment. While not perfect, parents stand between them and the big wide world out there. When parents are in charge and unified, kids aren’t forced to mature too early. They can grow at their natural pace not at the pace their parents’ divorce dictates. And both parents can more easily maintain an attachment to their children—a bond that will serve to regulate later teenage behavior and help to keep them out of depression, despair, and delinquency.
Different rules in two homes is standard in bi-nuclear families. Too much difference, though, can make one home way more attractive to children. If one parent is super lenient and the other sets clear limits, parents will inevitably hear “I want to go to Mom’s/Dad’s house!” While this may be gratifying to the parent who’s house the child wants to be at, it stretches the bond between parent and child. Sometimes the attractiveness of the one home stretches the bond with the other parent so far that it may break. And that break can plague the child well into adulthood, setting him or her up for unhealthy relationships, internal imbalance, and constant struggle with being real and authentic.
There are lots of therapists and experts that help people co-parent—to cooperate—so that kids have a strong beginning with two parents who can communicate respectfully and make decisions together. This is the ideal. The courts, however, are filled with parents who can’t make it happen. When parents fail at it, courts will sometimes give one parent decision-making power over one or more of the major areas—splitting authority for the sake of peace. That’s how important experts and courts think a harmonious co-parenting relationship is!
Wonderful Sons to Co-Parent
Trouble is, neither party can predict who will get what decision-making authority. Litigation around those determinations can persist for years! And children will continue to witness parent vs. parent, further confusing an already wandering internal compass.
With Clarity Comes Healing
High-conflict parenting is damaging to kids whether parents are married or divorced. In family law circles, it’s a basic principle that parents who remain in conflict with one another after divorce are actually maintaining their connection–albeit in a negative, hurtful way. Recently, I heard a statistic that said about 25% of co-parents have cooperative relationships, about 25% are in high-conflict, non-cooperative relationships, and the rest are somewhere in between. That high-conflict 25% are people who really do still have feelings for one another but aren’t able to acknowledge that and respectfully, lovingly separate.
The first 25% of parents recognize that parenting is not, should not, be about our adult baggage—though it does bring up old wounds for healing. Parenting is about putting someone before ourselves. It’s about raising a new generation to help solve the cultural and environmental problems we ourselves are saddled with, and to live full and abundant lives. When each of us puts our kids first, before our own difficulties even, we help create a healthy, promising, joyful future because we send out into the world people who have learned how to resolve conflict, how to honor the good in others no matter what, how to find balance in a tumultuous world. Divorce is not the worst thing that can happen to a family–though it does “suck monkey balls.” It’s a path to healing ourselves and each other.
So when I see my fiancé and his ex-wife chatting over tea, I’m really proud. The two of them must have done a lot of internal work to heal their wounds to be so kind to each other through one of the hardest jobs known to mankind–raising another human being.
*This post is not about families experiencing physical or mental abuse requiring immediate intervention–it’s about the standard, run of the mill divorced family with parents sharing custody. Abusive situations demand that the ties between abuser and child, or abuser and abused spouse be severed, sometimes permanently.
Skechers Zevo-3: How far is too far for marketing to kids?
11 Oct 2010 Leave a Comment
in Culture, Family Dynamics, Politics and Parenting Tags: childhood, children, Commercialization of childhood, conscious parenting, Consumerism, cradle-to-grave consumerism, Family dynamics, parenting, politics
One of my very favorite organizations (headed by the remarkable Dr. Susan Linn), Campaign for a Commercial Free Childhood (CCFC) filed a petition with the FCC to declare that Skechers new television program violates the very few rules we have in the United States about marketing to kids.
The FCC has given the public a chance to comment on the petition. Of course, I couldn’t help myself. This is my comment. If you’d like to comment too, see how to file a PDF here:
http://www.fcc.gov/Daily_Releases/Daily_Business/2010/db0922/DA-10-1762A1.pdf
October 11, 2010
Marlene H. Dortch, Secretary
Federal Communications Commission
445 12th St., S.W.
Washington, D.C. 20554
RE: MB Docket No. 10-190.
Dear Ms Dortch:
This provides my comment on the Petition for Declaratory Judgment filed by the Campaign for a Commercial Free Childhood for your consideration.
I am a mother, an attorney, and a former advertising executive. I worked in the advertising industry for about nine years before I retired to raise a family. My clients included Carl’s Jr. Restaurants, the LA Dodgers, Unocal, and Acura Automobiles among others. As a strategist and a manager, I have effectively leveraged communication for the benefit of my clients. This work I enjoyed. Over time, however, it became all too clear to me that the advertising and marketing industry is not one rooted in a sense of fair play or honor but in profit. The ad industry uses information, a key element to a free market economy, to its exclusive advantage. This information includes the emotional and psychological makeup of a target audience, not simply economic, demographic, and factual information. Feeling that I was compromising my integrity was also a part of the reason I retired from the industry.
During my years in advertising, which were quite exhilarating, I learned that ad campaigns are built primarily around creating and filling psychological needs in the target audience. For instance, in the automotive business, our strategies were based on people’s aspirations for more. “I want to look more [prestigious, smarter, cooler, etc.] than I feel inside.” Our campaigns were intended to make people feel better about who they were when they bought the right automobile.
Internally, though I didn’t much like the thought of making people feel less than they were, then “helping” them to feel better by buying a certain automobile, I was able to justify it because we were speaking to adults with some education.
Kids, Schools, and Shots! Oh My!
04 Oct 2010 Leave a Comment
in Culture, Politics and Parenting Tags: conscious parenting, mandatory, Mothering, parenting, parenting off the grid, politics, vaccinations, vaccines
In my inbox recently:
Dear Parent or Guardian of (Name),
If your child will be entering 6th or 10th grade this fall, please listen to the following message: All 6th and 10th graders must have received one dose of the Tdap vaccine before they begin school in August. The Tdap vaccine protects against Tetanus, Diphtheria and Pertussis (whooping cough). To avoid any missed school, contact your health care provider today to schedule an appointment before school begins. If your child has already received one dose of this vaccine, please disregard this message. Thank you for helping to keep your child’s school healthy.
You’ve probably gotten this or something like it. Many parents read it and rush off to the pediatrician to make sure their kids have been vaccinated because they think someone will meet them at the schoolhouse door and block their germy unvaccinated kids from getting in. The message to moms and dads is that they have no choice in the matter. But do they?
Maybe yes, maybe no.
When the Government Has a Say
There are two main areas where the government gets actively involved in meddling with an otherwise functioning and health family—education and vaccination. Federal, state and local governments all have laws and regulations about these two aspects of every child’s life. At the local level, these are affirmative laws, meaning that something is required of the family to satisfy a state’s interest in those children.
In the case of education, all children must receive a basic education through 12th grade. The reason for this is to reduce the burden on the country’s budget in having to care for the kids who are unable to fend for themselves as adults. I’ll save the debate of rightness or wrongness for another post as I’ve plenty to say on that too.
The other is vaccination.
The Story of Mandatory Vaccination
In 1905, when vaccines first became widely used, the Supreme Court ruled that the state could force parents to make their children submit to small pox vaccine[i].
But that ruling hasn’t been challenged since and for good reason. No one wants a ruling on whether that’s still good law because the rationale for the Jacobson decision has begun to fade due to the growing understanding that vaccines themselves pose a risk to children and that parents have a right to refuse treatment on behalf of their children.[ii]
Because the safety and efficacy of vaccinations are far from conclusive, a ruling overturning the Jacobson decision could endanger the CDC’s “mandatory” vaccine schedule. More and more parents might then opt out of vaccines if they knew more of the potential dangers and if it weren’t such a social stigma to be unvaccinated.
Vaccine manufacturers “immunized” against lawsuits
Vaccines had such a high rate of reactivity that Congress “immunized” vaccine manufacturers from lawsuits even for their own negligence in developing, testing, and making vaccines. Before this immunity, the pharmaceutical industry had begun to shy away from developing new vaccines because it’s impossible to make one that doesn’t cause injury. Their exposure to suit slowed research and development for new vaccines to a crawl.
Attempting to rescue the industry because of fears our population would be at grave risk without mass vaccination, Congress prohibited lawsuits for vaccine injuries. Forever.
No other industry in the world enjoys this kind of immunity. None. And with it, manufacturers have come flooding through the CDC’s doors insisting that must be vaccinated against all kinds of childhood illnesses that are both mild and catastrophic.
Consequently, through the miracle of modern “agency capture,” the CDC and FDA have become strongholds of the pharmaceutical industry. Thus, the people who stand to profit by mandatory vaccination are often those that set the policy behind it.
Love & Limits–A Lifelong Lesson
09 Jun 2010 2 Comments
in Family Dynamics, Living In Community Tags: Addiction, Agreements, Alcoholism, Intentional community, Living In Community, parenting
There’s a fine line between giving someone their space to deal with their own stuff and enabling. When does being supportive become giving someone license to hurt you? And what do you do when someone else’s addiction comes very near to destroying the life you’ve built?
We had a lesson in that recently. One of our tribe reminded us of the need to be watchful of addiction and keeping our eyes open when it comes to pain and suffering. A couple weeks ago, Todd got a DUI.
I’ve known Todd for 10 years. He’s still friends with my ex-husband—one of the few people who can easily flow between us. When I met him, Todd was clean and sober. He went to AA meetings and sponsored other men through the 12 Steps. He struck me as a guy who’d made it through, all the way. But, hah! That’s not how alcoholism works. You never actually stop recovering. You’re always and forever “in recovery” because one must always be vigilant for that single drink, the drop that takes you back over the edge into the abyss.
When his marriage broke up, shortly before my own, he started to lose his grip on sobriety. His wife, my dear friend Alexis, started over and left Todd to deal with the pieces of his own life. Within weeks, he had that first drink. Off he went into his dark place.
Because one of his greatest qualities is his ability to see himself clearly, he gave up custody of his kids knowing alcohol had regained its grip on him.
Creating Intentional Community
22 Apr 2010 1 Comment
in Culture, Living In Community Tags: consciousness, Culture, Intentional community, Living In Community, Mothering, parenting, parenting off the grid
When this all started about a year ago, I don’t think any one of us had in mind that we would become an intentional community. There are plenty of groups that make it their sole goal to become a community (visit http://www.cohousing.org). Ours came about from inner guidance more than from direct and verbalized intent. So if you’re not yet ready to go move into an established IC, start here. See what happens.
1. Pray/meditate on it. Living with others in an intentional setting is a spiritual as well as practical journey. Unlike the families of our birth, we have a say in how we craft our lives and whom we invite into it and how it operates. Bringing yourself into quiet awareness will help you access what you already know is for your greatest good. If your spirit resonates with the notion of community, you’ll know.
2. Get clear about how you want your life to look. The best people for your community will start to appear when you visualize how you want your life to be. Yes, this is a little bit of “The Secret” but it goes deeper than setting an intention and expecting it to come true. There is a subtle language to our bodies and spirits when we are clear about what we want. You may want community at a neighborhood or an in-home level. You may want community around your evenings but not your mornings. You may want a big community or a little one. Regardless, the world resonates with your thoughts. People who fit your vision will see themselves in your eyes, and that recognition will draw them to you, and you to them. Enjoy the inquiry, stay open.
3. Become aware of who you attract. You know how some people attract drama while others attract peacefulness? Well, if you know you attract drama, then you will attract it into your community as well. And that could be just fine, as long as you are aware of it and accept it fully. But attracting drama and then bemoaning it doesn’t help anyone. Ask yourself what part of you is served by attracting people who hurt you or prey on you or encourage you to wallow in your own crap. If that’s what’s in your life now, take a deeper look before you set your intention to live in community. Living in community offers us the opportunity to become conscious of our life structures, what serves us, and what no longer serves.
“Love is pull, not push.” Lolita Tademy in Cane River.
4. Follow your intuition. Your inner voice will have a lot to say about how you live and with whom. If you get that nagging feeling about a particular person, listen to it. There may be old baggage between you that needs to be unpacked, or the two of you may have differing communication or lifestyles that will take a lot of work to mesh. Honor your gut. If you can’t find a place of quiet peacefulness about living with this person, move on. But don’t miss an opportunity to dig into a challenging relationship either. Community is a place to learn how to resolve conflicts with dignity, honor, mindfulness, and hope.
5. Commit. Oh yes. Living in community requires commitment. Not marriage-like commitment but a vow to yourself and others to bring your greatest gifts to the whole. If you don’t believe you have any great gift, think again. Everyone has gifts to give. What is yours? Are you good with finances? Are you good with kids? Do you know how to help someone see themselves in a positive light? Are you patient? Do you have healing or sacred knowledge to share? Are you skilled in building bridges between people? Do you work with cars, with wood, with pipes? Are you most creative when cooking, or crafting jewelry, or writing, or photography? The beauty of living in community is that we have access to knowledge and wisdom that is beyond what we can access alone, even with the aid of the internet. No amount of Google searching is going to turn up someone who can show your son how to climb a super-technical spot on the local mountain bike trail. Nor can it offer Reiki on a sore neck. Nor console you when you ding your fiancé’s car. When you bring your gifts to the table, believing with certainty that you have something to share, you’ve invited others to come share themselves with you. You’ve opened the door.
6. Be Willing to Fail. Most of us are terrified of failure. But there is no life without it, certainly no feeling of success or mastery. Living with others means stepping right into our fears, most of which are from childhood. The things we couldn’t or didn’t get as children haunt us as adults and often interfere with our ability to get vulnerable and real with others. In community, having other adults around who know when we’re not at your best can feel scary and can help us learn to make mistakes well, to own them, and to become wiser from them, rather than be ashamed. The trick isn’t to be perfect but to find people who think it’s riotously funny and love you and encourage you even when you’re colossally imperfect.
7. Check your ego at the door. There is very little room for the ego in intentional community. Put on your big girl panties. And learn to take life a little less seriously. Living in an intentional community, we are able to see each others’ silliness in a whole new light. The dumb shit things we do aren’t used as ammo but as fodder for a good laugh.
8. Be Prepared for Change. We just learned this, again, when Corina told us that she’s setting sail for California. At her young age, it’s natural for her to want to go experience the wider world, and yet she’ll be missed by everyone. Feels like losing a limb. But now our job is to keep the light on for her as she goes out into the world and to reassure her that she has loved ones rooting for her. No sooner had Corina driven off into the west but three new folks arrived. Todd’s sister Beth Ellen, her partner Dwayne, and my nephew from California. As my father would smile and say, “How ’bout that?”
I would love to hear what you experience as you begin to think about crafting the life and community that you want. Tell your story, share your wisdom.
Next Up. Living in Community. Part III. Finances and Logistics.
Assisted Living for Kids. Part II. How It Works.
19 Apr 2010 1 Comment
in Living In Community Tags: conscious parenting, Intentional community, Living In Community, parenting
First Kickball Game of the Season
Of the nine adults here, we each will have our own observations on how it works but we agree that it does work, and that it has some amazing advantages as well as challenges. So I’ll just go on ahead and describe how I think it works and how we get through the challenges.
- We value each other and each child as whole beings with a lot to offer the world and each other.
- We each contribute according to what gifts we have—time, talent, and treasure.
- We try to stay neutral when something is out of balance and talk it over.
- We allow for emotions to come and go.
- We cook together.
- We eat together.
- We help each other’s children when a parent is unable to help either because the child has triggered an emotion in the parent or because they’re simply not at home.
- We care about each child, recognizing that we’ll always love our own best but can be powerful guides for the other children.
- We don’t discipline each other’s children, but we do set limits on bad behavior.
- We talk over difficulties using non-violent communication methods.
- We accept each other’s flaws and cheer on each other’s magnificence.
- We’re all pretty liberal and have similar political and spiritual belief structures.
- Our physical relationships are not fluid. They’re committed and monogamous. But there are only two couples here, me and Timothy, and Alexis and Dave. Everyone else is single but “free love” is not the name of the game.
- We laugh a lot.
- We celebrate the good things in life a lot.
- We cook bacon every morning. Bacon really does make everything better.
For a single person, and single women in particular, living in community offers a way to tackle life fully supported and with your eyes wide open. By having other people at your side to encourage you, to challenge you, to open you, and to care for you, life takes on many facets that would be unseen without the brilliant light of community shining through.
The abundance that I feel in this space full of loved ones is profound. I come home from a long day at school, and my love is in the kitchen making one of his wonderful meals (gluten- and dairy-free for me!), the fire is lit in the fireplace, my children are playing or doing homework, my friend is sitting at the table sipping tea and working on homework with her son. Life is good.
The picture isn’t always perfect. One kid may be arguing with another, the laundry may still need to be done. A child may have broken a precious picture frame. Dinner may be an hour late. But being with people I like, with all our basic needs met, food, shelter, clothing, I am able to be there fully present and alive.
Next Up. How to Build Your Own Intentional Community and How to Manage Finances and Logistics.
Assisted Living for Kids. Part I.
14 Apr 2010 2 Comments
in Living In Community Tags: conscious parenting, Intentional community, Living In Community, parenting, parenting off the grid
I’m the youngest of ten children. I’ve been continually surrounded by a symphony of people, each with their own unique expression on the earth, like flavors in an ice cream shop, dizzyingly delightful, sometimes scary. I like it like that—the raw material of life that makes a certain sense when you look at it from far away. Like an impressionist painting—at close range, a confusing smattering of blotches and smears, but from a distance, when you scrunch up your eyes and blur them, the image is breathtaking, ingenious.
My Brothers and Sisters, minus the eldest.
The sound of pots and pans clanging in the kitchen, water running through the pipes, voices of loved ones in the distance is the music of life in motion, conversing, arguing, learning, creating, struggling growing, and loving. Here, in my home filled with friends and family, I am certain of something. That life simply is.
I’m in my 40s now. My brothers and sisters all have their own lives. My parents have passed on. I am divorced with two kids, and I finally have the opportunity to create another family to travel along with my children and me and to be of service to. It’s taken me this long to figure out that I don’t have to go through life alone as a single parent, and I don’t want to. I can choose to surround myself with people who like who I am, who believe in my life purpose and who challenge me to live it out; who are willing to let me be imperfect and are willing to be imperfect too.
A wonderfully strange twist of fate dropped just the right mix of people into my life to be my new family—the family of my choosing. After my divorce, I was alone for the first time ever. [And I loved it!] I spent time getting to know myself and started to truly value who I am. I dated a bit and within a couple years, settled into a new and very different relationship with my now fiancé, Timothy.
During a time when he and I had stopped dating, I got a roommate, Kat, who, with her eleven-year-old son, rents the downstairs floor. She’s a nurse, a single mom, and a woman of piercing insight and deep spirituality. I didn’t realized it at the time we agreed to be roommates, but she turned out to be an amazing friend and confidante. A short time later, when Timothy and I reunited, he slowly, gingerly moved back in with his kids. Now, we three share my six-bedroom house with our five boys.
Very quickly, we realized we had a well-functioning combination of kids, schedules, and personalities. And magic happened. We were happy. Each of us began to feel a deep contentment with our lives—even the struggles were more fun and enlivening. Combining our resources—both mental and physical—we became more than the sum of our parts.
A few months later, one of my two dearest friends from California visited and, seeing how we worked together, decided to relocate here. Alexis moved in three doors down with her ex-husband Todd, their two children, and her boyfriend Dave who drops in and out. Shortly after that, my former nanny, Corina started working for Alexis as her executive assistant and also moved in with her (Hooray!)
The Wearing of the Green
Alexis and I have another friend from California, Joanne, who also landed permanently in the area, not too far away. Each of the three of us, who had been married when we met ten years ago, had since divorced or separated. Joanne lives about 15 miles away with her two boys—longtime friends of my and Alexis’ children. Joanne’s husband bi-locates between here and Los Angeles.
Between nine adults, we have nine children, three dogs, three cats (not mine), and various small animals and fish and five ex-spouses; one very present grandpa as well as a handful of other grandparents who visit often and offer their wealth of life experience.
!
Yes, that’s right.
?
The question you’re asking is, “Is that a commune or what?”
Well, I suppose you could call it that, but we don’t, mainly because the word “commune” is loaded with baggage. We refer to it as “living in community,” and we all sense that the way of living we’d stumbled on is the way humans will have to live in the future to prosper and be truly alive. Had it been more acceptable in the 60s, without so much of the “commune” baggage, I think more people would have opted in.
The next question that might have popped into your head is, “Why on earth would you want to do that?”
Because it’s easier. Plain and simple.
Life is easier when people support you—people who understand you, who care about you, and who want to help you thrive. Thrive, not just survive, though that’s terrific too. What’s so remarkable about our community is each person’s unstated agreement to contribute to the whole. There are no slackers here, no hangers-on, no free riders.
Everyone works or is working on their advancement in some way. Everyone contributes of their time, their finances, and their talents in whatever combination they are most able. Yet, no one has been asked to make a commitment for any particular thing (except housing expenses and that without written agreements, which for two lawyers should shout, “Danger, Will Robinson!”) Each adult puts in whatever they can at any particular moment to logistics and operations.
If a child has to be home sick, there is usually someone around to stay home with them to minimize the impact on that parent’s work. If someone needs an ingredient, one of the houses probably has it. If someone can’t get their kids to soccer, someone else can.
Each adult has a relationship with each child and some are closer than others. The kids have some adult they can play, talk, be vulnerable with. Each child has someone other than a parent to help with homework resulting in a giant reduction in homework drama.
We cook for each other, a meal a week, which alone is a giant blessing because each person only has to cook once and that meal can be as elaborate or simple as the chef wishes. As it turns out, we all enjoy cooking more and create make more extensive menus. We have all week to figure out what to make and can put some real effort into it. Each person is nourished inside and out in a way we could not be alone.
Dinnertime
Consequently, we can all ease up a little and enjoy our children more. We avoid being the helicopter parent because there are other people to tend to and the children see that each person is vital to the whole. When working on our relationships with our ex-spouses, we rely on each other to keep us real and in control. When confronting our own feelings of inadequacy or fear, we help each other see a better reflection of ourselves.
What greater lesson in life is there than learning to live together, resolve conflict, cooperate, grow, thrive, and love?
Next Up: Part II. How does it work and why?
