may news roundup

Gah! There is so much I want to talk about, yet so little time. Between being a Mom to two wonderful and busy kids and working part-time and cleaning my house and trying to exercise and remembering to breathe, I just can't fit in blogging. Something has to go. I think I need a Facebook detox.

To finish off the month of May, here is a recap of some news items I thought were particularly fascinating:

First: Attachment parenting.



Happy Mothers' Day to all moms out there. I love my mom, I love being a mom, I appreciate all moms. Time Magazine sure wanted people to talk about what being 'Mom enough' meant, huh?

I've done a post on attachment parenting before, and to say the least, I don't particularly subscribe to it, but I will say this: people do what they want. Get over it.

I feel like my life is funny, because I'm in two worlds:  I have my non-Mormon hippie Washington friends (and some Mormon hippie Washington friends) and my reeeeeeally conservative non-native Washingtonian Mormon friends. Lots of hippie moms looooved this article. Lots of Mormon moms loathed this article. I was astounded when some moms in my ward commented on Facebook about the article and one called it "disgusting." Really? Disgusting? I kind of took offense to that. If you don't wanna do it, don't do it. It's not your boob. But at the same time, the hippie friends had their own in-your-face reactions. I'm on a Facebook group about breastfeeding and they posted something like this, "Fill in the blank:  I am Mom enough to _______." The first thing that came to my mind:  I am Mom enough to catch puke in my hands so it doesn't get on the carpet. Seriously. I said that. However, eeeeeeveryone else had another agenda to push: they were Mom enough to breastfeed until age 5, Mom enough to co-sleep with 4 kids, Mom enough to blah blah. Talk about tooting your own horn, sheesh. Not one person said "Mom enough to let my kid cry it out at 4 months so we all got some dang sleep." Evidently that is the wrong kind of "Mom enough" thinking.

Basically, after talking to lots of friends about this, here is my conclusion:  Moms think they are right, no matter what it is. Why else would you do whatever it is you're doing? No one would raise her child knowing she was doing it wrong, right? So we've all just gotta be nice to each other, thinking we're all right while everyone else is wrong. I think that is the deal. I try to be cool about it, but deep down inside if I don't agree with it, I'm still being kinda judgmental, right? I think so. And so are you. So, let's just try to play nice.

(The issue really is not whether moms are doing things right or wrong, but what kind of people are we raising. Are the kids of attached parents going to be particularly annoying in the Pre-K class or during the teenage years? And now my kid has to deal with your kid? Or vice versa? THAT is the debate.)

Second: Gay Mormons.

I read this article not too long ago, and I cannot stop thinking about it. WOW. The article just blew my mind. (Especially since I recently learned for a fact -- not that I didn't suspect it already, mind you! -- that my Mormon nephew is gay.)

The article is about a gay man who served a mission and realized he was gay, but really struggled and wanted to remain active as a Mormon, and how he was able to find happiness. It's truly "not fair" (if that is the right thing to say) that Mormons can't really be gay and have fulfillment with their relationships. I am active in the Church and love it, and I believe the "right" thing is to be in a married, committed relationship with someone of the opposite sex. We bring different characteristics and qualities to our marriage, our home, our child-rearing. It's God's plan. I believe that.

What I also believe is that people deserve to be loved for who they are. Same-sex attraction (SSA) is real, and no one should feel like they're a mistake in God's eyes. I LOVED this article because it was by a man who realized SSA was his temptation, but he had such a firm foundation in the gospel he wanted to remain active despite his struggle. He had some of the most spiritual experiences of his life working through this. I believe that no matter what our struggles are (believe me, I have mine), we all deserve real spiritual experiences working through them. He got that. Good for him. And in the end, he chose to remain active in the Church and marry a wonderful woman -- along the way discovering feelings and testimony in himself that I wonder if I even have. Wow, I can't stop thinking about this story.

My nephew, on the other hand, totally left the Church.

There's been an incredible amount of publicity lately about gay Mormons, especially those who attend BYU. I learned that in 2007 (5 years after I graduated), BYU changed its policy and said that a student could come out and be openly gay without fear of being expelled. That's awesome. There is this fine line between having SSA and identifying oneself as gay and then acting upon those tendencies, however. I understand that. It's hard. I want people to find relationship (sexual?) fulfillment, but I also want people to have a relationship with God, too. I wonder what will happen with this whole gay marriage thing. I've been living in the Pacific Northwest for almost 10 years now, I know plenty of gay people at this point, and my feelings have definitely changed, although I don't know all the answers.

Third: More Mormon news.

Well, homeboy Mitt Romney appears to have cinched the nomination. Am I excited? Ummm not sure. Basically my feelings are this:  For many people, Mitt Romney will be the only Mormon they know. And people either love or hate a president. So, if they love or hate the only Mormon they know, how will they feel about the Mormon Church in general? Every feeling they have about Mitt Romney will translate into every feeling they have about the Mormon Church. So that kinda scares me.

This article is a most awesome one. The non-Mormon author describes how it isn't right that it seems permissible to make fun of Mormons when it isn't for other divisions of folks (be it race or culture or religion). And why is that? Mormons are nice people -- why does society permit ragging on the Mormons? It makes me so mad. That Jeffries guy earlier this year (who called us a cult and was completely rude) made me absolutely sick. If he said that about blacks or Jews or almost any other division of people he'd be forced to apologize. It's just not right. I'd like to see some accountability for some of these rude people. Not sure it'll ever happen.

Lastly: More religious people being ridiculous.

This article was a hoot. It was in the Seattle Times today and told of this pastor who uses poisonous snakes in his sermons because he believes the Bible teaches that we shouldn't be afraid of snakes, and God will prevent them from biting us if it be His will. This pastor, when he was 15, saw his father die from a poisonous snake bite. And this man's son got to watch him die the other day.

Someone posted something funny on Facebook the other day..."I'm not saying we should kill all stupid people. I'm saying we should just remove all warning labels and let the problem sort itself out."

Don't handle poisonous snakes. Duh.

I am reminded of an experience I had with someone the other day. She had decided NOT to vaccinate her children, saying she "prayed about it" and "felt very strongly" that this was what the Lord wanted for her family or something. And I thought to myself, "do you realize there is an epidemic of whooping cough in Snohomish County? Like, 1,000 cases this year already? And this does not terrify you?" And then I also thought to myself, "I believe God helped invent vaccines."

People:  God is not going to do something for you that you can do yourself.

End of thought.

Well, there is your May news wrap-up! I hope to post much more in June. Feel free to comment with your favorite news items from the month, or comments on mine. I do love current events. Thank you, BYU Communications program. Stay tuned until next time!