The problem with schooling

This blog may contain affiliate links: disclosure. Please see my suggested resources.

February 20, 2023 By Jennifer Lambert 3 Comments

School should be unnecessary.

Education is important, but school should not be necessary.

I realize our society is built upon two parents working full-time, all day every day, and therefore children are sent away to nurseries as soon as mothers must return to work after the birth, then to day care, and then school because nothing else is feasible. Parents must work to survive, and pay student debts, or at least to pay for childcare.

Our society’s children are essentially raised by people other than parents from as early as four to six weeks to eighteen years, when they typically graduate from high school.

Reasons people advocate for schools:

Adults work full time and need child care.
Adults think their kids need forced socialization.
It prepares kids for the real world/workforce.
Adults can’t help children with their homework.
It’s mainstream.

If anything, this recent quarantine has shown Western society how little the current idea of school is necessary or useful.

Millions of kids forced home to “do school” online, with worksheet packets, with little to no actual instruction, inflated grading, little or no assistance.

Parents were stressed, ignorant, frustrated, confused by suddenly schooling their kids at home.

After decades of expecting kids to attend school and be babysat and instructed by teachers, parents suddenly had to step in and spend time with their kids? While working from home and doing household chores? GASP.

Is it that parents suddenly have a new respect for teachers?

Of course not.

Parents complain and criticize and ridicule and question teachers, not that teachers are perfect, but they are educated and trained and tested and certified to teach their subjects to students.

All the social media posts saying that teachers need to be paid more isn’t really the answer. (but of course they need to be paid more – and respected more.)

The fact that parents can’t help or complete the assignments elementary children were given says a lot about the quality or usefulness of the assignments.

It’s made many realize how difficult it is to force children to do things that are unnatural, uninteresting, and not fun. Irrelevant lessons with no real world counterparts that make little sense or have no application for kids’ futures.

The quarantine definitely exposed the disparity between rich and poor, white and children of color.

Those with the resources certainly have a higher rate of success than those who do not.

There are lots of problems with the current model of schooling.

There are equity issues. The rich kids get vastly different schooling than the poor kids. There is racial profiling in schools.

We should limit or eliminate all the testing. We are not teaching critical thinking. We are eliminating history education. We should be out of our comfort zones!

No tolerance bullying? Ha! What about the teachers being bullies? The entire system is based on humiliation and shame. Why are there cops in school?

Violence in schools is a system of a larger societal problem, but it’s very scary and no one is doing anything helpful about it.

I Quit Teaching

When I taught middle school and high school, I soon knew the system was broken, but I didn’t really have words to express it then.

It was especially hard having come out of a university program that was supposed to prepare me to teach “inner city minorities” and then see those school systems continually set those children up for failure. I was constantly up against authorities (even Black principals!) who cited the rules and traditions that made no sense to me because they obviously weren’t helping and were even harming the students. The irony of my master’s degree classmates who then went on to teach in rich white schools. My university no longer offers this teaching program. I wonder why.

I was 21 years old, and I got a job teaching high school – 9th and 10th grade. I really didn’t have enough preparation for boundaries with teens when I was barely out of my teens myself. I had no mentors to help me with anything. I was really an ignorant white girl who thought I was going to be a savior for teaching literature. I grew up very isolated and alienated and didn’t even know much slang or history or current events and I was in no way prepared for how mean teens can be to a young teacher. There was very little support and a lot of negativity and complaining.

I felt like I was constantly at war with the system just to teach my students. Other teachers would look through the class lists before school began and warn the other teachers about certain students, which was so disheartening! I loved them and I loved teaching them how to love literature. Some of my favorite moments were seeing that little light of wonder in a big tough guy’s eyes who had never been exposed to Greek plays or dystopian novels and thought all school is drudgery. I had Latino boys doing skits on Medea and they loved it. I had huge football players reciting and writing poetry. A huge win was when my student Jamarious completed an amazing writing assignment.

But why is it the English teacher seems to be the one that doubles as a counselor?

I got reprimanded multiple times for interfering or being unprofessional, when I was desperately trying to keep my students safe from their own families and social situations.

I had a student who is a Black lesbian in 10th grade confide in me that her parents beat her because she was gay, and they forced her to attend church. The actual school counselor just shrugged when I reported it.

I had a poor White student in 8th grade who was being abused and neglected at home bring a bag of razor blades to school, so I requested the help of the school counselor, but I was almost prosecuted by the school resource officer for not reporting a weapon in the school building.

I had an autistic student who loved to give me full-frontal hugs, and luckily, his mother worked in the same school, so I was never accused of inappropriate contact.

It sucked that I couldn’t be a human.

I had a student accuse me of assault when she blocked my classroom doorway and I tapped her elbow. I couldn’t hug students who very obviously needed it. I always had to be super careful what I said. I got reprimanded by administration for telling my 10th graders their essay assignment was generally “crappy” because a student’s parent complained that I was vulgar. I couldn’t have books in my classroom without someone complaining of the content. Specialists use words like “rigor” & “canon” and “literary merit.”

I didn’t feel comfortable dining out in the same town where I taught in case I was seen by students and their families, or even other employees with whom I worked.

Several 8th graders mentioned me in their online diary forum and their parents complained to administration, like I have control about what kids do outside my classroom? I cannot imagine teaching with all the technology and smartphones and social media now. There are no repercussions and teachers have no support. This Indiana teacher was filmed on students’ TikToks and received no assistance from administration or fellow teachers. And there are so many instances of teachers being filmed without permission and bullied online.

Parents were a huge hindrance when I taught in public middle and high school. They apparently criticize everything I said and did. I was forced to change due dates, allow late work, apologize for things I said or didn’t say, or for things students imagined I said or misconstrued. Administration backed everything a parent said, no matter what. I felt like I was constantly called into the principal’s office to set out fires instead of preparing lessons and teaching.

When I moved on to teach writing at a local state university, the system wasn’t much better, even though the students paid for their time there. Parents still tried to complain!

Being an adjunct English professor seems more trouble than it’s worth. My department chair came to me crying in the public restroom at my university, about 15 years ago, telling me she was stepping down from chair to professor because she was told by the dean to encourage the department to inflate grades. She informed me she respected me for giving students fair grades that the students earned and that it was going to be much harder for everyone in the future.

I have taught in public high school, public middle school, private Christian school, private tutoring, and a local university.

I ended my teaching career when I moved out of state and stopped teaching. But I do still miss it sometimes.

Now that my kids are grown and teens and embarking on college courses, I realize I can never teach again. The system is broken beyond repair.

So many different kinds of families choose homeschooling to educate their children.

I don’t want to address the issues about evaluating home schools. Yes, I realize there have been abuses. Yes, I realize there are horrible misuses of powers and evil teachings when there is no oversight. I don’t have solutions or answers for all of it.

If adults who live in the real world and work don’t understand the things that children are being taught in schools, then are they really necessary for a successful life? What is education preparing children for other than taking tests? What workforce are children being groomed for with this “knowledge”? The real world requires a diversity of talent, ideas, and knowledge – not just a regurgitated curriculum of facts.
~Happiness is Here

It was not a smooth transition for us into homeschool.

While we never began public school, there was still some deschooling to accomplish on my part, and on the part of my husband. We were both public schooled. There were some rocky beginnings.

My eldest daughter attended day care and private preschool. We experienced year one and year two of our homeschooling journey in Texas, before PCSing. Those years laid a foundation for how our family wanted to approach learning.

Not only is risky play beneficial to children’s health and development but that depriving them of it can cause harm. Risky play is nature’s way for children to teach themselves emotional resilience and learn how to manage and overcome their fears.
Peter Gray

I do realize that homeschooling is a privilege. We struggled financially in the beginning as I was unable to find work and therefore couldn’t afford child care on a never-ending job hunt. So, I stayed home and then had more children and just never looked back.

Please read this excerpt from Weapons of Mass Instruction: A Schoolteacher’s Journey Through the Dark World of Compulsory Schooling by John Taylor Gatto:

Consider this: during WWII, American public schools—first in urban areas, then everywhere—were converted from phonetic ways of instruction (the ancient “alphabet system”) to non-phonetic methods which involved memorizing whole word units, and lots of guessing for unfamiliar words. Whites had been learning to read at home for 300 years the old-fashioned way—matching spoken sounds to written letters—and white homes preserved this tool even when schools left it behind. There was a resource available to whites which hardly existed for blacks. During slavery, blacks had been forbidden to learn to read; as late as 1930 they averaged only three to four years of schooling. When teachers stopped teaching a phonetic system—known to work—blacks had no fallback position.

Far from production as an ideal, it was consumption that had to be encouraged. School had to train in consumption habits: listening to others, moving on a bell or horn signal without questioning, becoming impressionable—more accurately, gullible—in order to do well on tests. Kids who insisted on producing their own lives had to be humiliated publicly as a warning to others.

A pathological state of youth, heretofore unrecognized by history, was designed by G. Stanley Hall of Johns Hopkins University. He called it adolescence and debuted the condition in a huge two-volume study of that name, published in 1904. Trained in Prussia as behavioral psychologist Wilhelm Wundt’s first assistant, Hall (immensely influential in school circles at the beginning of the 20th century) identified adolescence as a dangerously irrational state of human growth requiring psychological controls inculcated through schooling.

In thirty years of teaching kids, rich and poor, I almost never met a learning-disabled child; hardly ever met a gifted-and-talented one, either. Like all school categories, these are sacred myths created by human imagination. They derive from questionable values that we never examine because they preserve the temple of schooling.

School is a religion. Without understanding this holy-mission aspect, you’re certain to misperceive what takes place there as a result of human stupidity or venality or class warfare. All are present in the equation; it’s just that none of them matters very much—even without them, school would move in the same direction. Ordinary people send their children to school to get smart, but what modern schooling teaches is dumbness. Old-fashioned dumbness used to be simple ignorance. Now it’s been transformed into permanent mathematical categories of relative stupidity, such as “gifted and talented,” “mainstream,” and “special ed”—categories in which learning is rationed for the good of the system and the social order. Dumb people are no longer merely ignorant. Now they are dangerous imbeciles whose minds must be conditioned with substantial doses of commercially prepared disinformation for tranquilizing purposes.

Why, then, do we allow schooling to remain the way it currently exists?

Culture of learning by Racheous:

What are you interested in learning more about?
What do you want to learn about that specifically?
What projects have you been thinking about doing?
What would you like to create?
What skills would you like to improve on?

I am very concerned about what is happening in the Florida school system, removing and banning books, not allowing history education. An entire state changing policy for a national testing program. What happens if these ideas are adopted in other states? in our whole country?

The entire modern education system has basically been a colonizing exercise in white studies. We have been and continue to be trained to see and value ourselves and others, our ideas about intelligence and language, our relationship with the natural world, our connection to past and future, our notions of leisure and our sense of happiness, beauty and security through the prism of the white monoculture mind. Everything outside of this is essentially seen as inferior, ‘cute’ or antiquated. Even the term ‘global’ (as in ‘think globally’ or global networks and global solutions) is a masked way to extend and legitimize the arrogant spell of ‘whiteness’. In our collective struggles to decolonize in this historical moment, are we ready to dismantle and re-imagine the military-industrial schooling system and its inherent knowledge/cultural hierarchy. Or are we content with calls for more ‘inclusion’ and ‘reform’ in the same old game?
Manish Jain

Schools are designed around bullying, manipulation, humiliation, constant evaluation. There is no freedom or encouragement for critical thinking or enjoying learning. It kills everything interesting.

Kids are people, and they respond just as adults do to micromanagement, to severe restrictions on their freedom, and to constant, unsolicited evaluation.
Peter Gray

As adults, we assume that we have the right to decide what does or does not interest us, what we will look into and what we will leave alone. We take this right for granted, cannot imagine that it might be taken away from us. Indeed, as far as I know, it has never been written into any body of law. Even the writers of our Constitution did not mention it. They thought it was enough to guarantee citizens the freedom of speech and the freedom to spread their ideas as widely as they wished and could. It did not occur to them that even the most tyrannical government would try to control people’s minds, what they thought and knew. That idea was to come later, under the benevolent guise of compulsory universal education.
The requirement that a child go to school for about six hours a day, 180 days a year, for about ten years, whether or not he learns anything there, whether or not he already knows it or could learn it faster or better somewhere else, is such a gross violation of civil liberties that few adults would stand for it. But the child who resists is treated as a criminal. With this requirement, we created an industry, an army of people whose whole work was to tell young people what they had to learn and to try to make them learn it.
John Holt, Escape from Ch i ldhood

My husband and I were talking the other day about how little worries this girl has. All of the girls, really. But particularly thinking back to when we were 11, or what we hear of other children her age (last year of primary school). She honestly has very little worries or stress. The only thing she is slightly worried about right now is that we won’t be able to go on our annual camping trip with friends this year.
Her experience is so different from what we know and it is so great to witness. By now children usually have so much on their shoulders. Keeping up with schoolwork, tests, a strict schedule, social dramas, just to name a few things. They have been trained to focus on the future, rather than the present. The next class they have, the next assignment, the next test they have to study for. An 11-year-old without that pressure is able to rest in the present moment. Sure, she fantasies about what her life will look like when she grows up, but there is no worry about it (even though she is naturally quite the planner!). She wakes up each day and does whatever her imagination tells her. Following her interests, discovering herself. It IS all preparation for the future, but the experience she is having compared to mine at her age could not be more different. And from what I can see the pressure has gotten a lot worse for kids these days.
When you first start out with a toddler you have no idea what an unschooled 11 year old will look like! There are not many examples. You wonder if you’re making the right decision. Will things work out ok? But now I can say… YES! It’s brilliant! YES we have protected her childhood. YES she is happy and thriving and learning. YES she has heaps of friends. YES she is confident and independent and capable. YES she still loves to learn. YES she is connected to her family. YES she is passionate and inspired. YES she is carefree and happy. So many things I wished for her, mostly that she was free to be a child and free to be herself.
It’s happening. There is another way, you just have to be brave enough to take it.
Happiness is here

In “developed” societies, we are so accustomed to centralized control over learning that it has become functionally invisible to us, and most people accept it as natural, inevitable, and consistent with the principles of freedom and democracy. We assume that this central authority, because it is associated with something that seems like an unequivocal good – “education” – must itself be fundamentally good, a sort of benevolent dictatorship of the intellect. We allow remote “experts” to dictate what we must learn, when we must learn it, and how we must learn it. We grant them the right to test us, to measure the contents of our brains and the value of our skills, and then to brand us in childhood with a set of numeric rankings that have enormous power over our future opportunities to participate in the economic and political life of our society. We endorse strict legal codes that render this process compulsory, and in a truly Orwellian twist, many of us now view it as a fundamental human right to be legally compelled to learn what a higher authority tells us to learn.
– Carol Black http://carolblack.org/occupy-your-brain

Ironically, I got good grades in school. My kids who attend college are getting good grades. But my kids have never attended regular public school, so they didn’t learn to jump through hopes or hate it.

Yes, maybe my children would get good grades at school. I’m really not interested in that at all. Being “good” at school doesn’t mean it’s not damaging.
Happiness is Here

In 1886, John Milton Gregory authored his most well-known work The Seven Laws of Teaching, which asserted that a teacher should:

Know thoroughly and familiarly the lesson you wish to teach; or, in other words, teach from a full mind and a clear understanding.
Gain and keep the attention and interest of the pupils upon the lesson. Refuse to teach without attention.
Use words understood by both teacher and pupil in the same sense—language clear and vivid alike to both.
Begin with what is already well known to the pupil in the lesson or upon the subject, and proceed to the unknown by single, easy, and natural steps, letting the known explain the unknown.
Use the pupil’s own mind, exciting his self-activities. keep his thoughts as much as possible ahead of your expression, making him a discoverer of truth.
Require the pupil to reproduce in thought the lesson he is learning—thinking it out in its parts, proofs, connections, and applications til he can express it in his own language.
Review, review, REVIEW, reproducing correctly the old, deepening its impression with new thought, correcting false views, and completing the true.

We have come a long way from early schools in western society. We don’t encourage kids to think; we just require kids to regurgitate information for testing.

I don’t have answers. I am not a policy maker. But I know what I experienced as a student and as a teacher and now as a mother of kids in college. I have heard stories from other moms about their kids’ experiences in K-12. The system is broken.

I know the answer isn’t eliminating art, music, recess, all the fun electives. I know the answer isn’t longer days, fewer breaks, year-round school.

I know the answer isn’t adding Bible teaching or prayer in schools. The answer isn’t arming teachers. The answer isn’t more testing.

Resources:

Ending Curriculum Violence

Children, Learning, and the ‘Evaluative Gaze’ of School by Carol Black

How to Deschool YOURSELF Before Homeschooling Your Kids

Schooled Culture

6 Ways Schools Disempower Children

1.7 Million Students Attend Schools With Police But No Counselors, New Data Show

Black Kids Are 5 Times Likelier Than White Kids to Be Locked Up

We protest police in the streets, so why do we let police in our schools?

5 students tell you why they want police-free schools

Stop Stealing Dreams by Seth Godin

Teachers are Not the Heroes by Thomas White

How Teaching Interferes with Learning by John Holt

It seems we as a society never became comfortable to ask WHY SCHOOL?

You might also like:

Linking up: Anita Ojeda, Growing Garden, LouLou Girls, Suburbia, Jenerally informed, InstaEncouragement, Eclectic Red Barn, Pinch of Joy, Create with Joy, Silverado, Grammy’s Grid, Random Musings, Homestead, Pam’s Party, Jeanne Takenaka, Ducks in a Row, Fluster Buster, Joanne Viola, Soaring with Him, Ridge Haven, Penny’s Passion, Try it Like it, Slices of Life, Imparting Grace, Katherine’s Corner, Modern Monticello, Lisa Notes, Momfessionals, Answer is Chocolate, Pam’s Party, CWJ, Pieced Pastimes, Mostly Blogging,

You might also like:

Women’s Health

This blog may contain affiliate links: disclosure. Please see my suggested resources.

February 6, 2023 By Jennifer Lambert 2 Comments

Women are not just small men. Aristotle was wrong.

All the books and articles and research into health care and practices over centuries focused on men.

There is still so little we know about women and our anatomy and all the experiences surrounding women’s experiences with adolescence, fertility, menstruation, breast health, childbearing, menopause.

We are constantly ridiculed in doctor’s offices. Our pain is waved away. It’s all in our heads. Are we overweight? Are we imagining it? We’re told to take ibuprofen, try a warm bath, don’t stress.

Our symptoms don’t exhibit the same way for the same conditions as men’s symptoms are more well-known.

I had an abortion when I was 22.

I was a different person then – scared, poor and in debt, no insurance, newly married and separated from an abusive man I would later divorce, shamed by evangelicals, finishing my master’s degree, and in line for my first real job.

I wrote about my abortion here. I’m tired of editing that article, so I’m writing this one from a different place. I think the trajectory of my life would be drastically different if I had not had that abortion. I certainly don’t think my life would be better. It was a difficult choice, but I still think it was the right choice despite all the trauma it caused.

My parents kind of forced me into it like I was a young shamed teenager. They convinced me I would be ruined for life, saddled with a child too young and unable to really care for it properly. In a way, they were right, but they were not very helpful, caring, or supportive.

My parents never spoke to me about it again after that day.

Not talking about it is worse.

My first husband told me to tell his family that I had a miscarriage due to the stress of our separation, and I stupidly went back to him out of guilt or something. But that’s another story.

The evangelical Christian church shamed me. They told me that my baby or baby’s soul would look down on me from heaven in disgust. I would never deserve to have more children. I was unfit to be a mother. I was a murderer. I was a sinner beyond forgiveness. They wanted me to be haunted and scared forever. They relished my discomfort.

This is control.

I don’t attend church anymore.

But those lies still live in me – the patriarchy, the spiritual abuse, the hatred and disdain.

All four of my childbirth experiences were traumatic. Medicalized childbirth is dangerous and I was treated like a thing and condescended to by all the medical professionals and my own family members.

I have three teens who were born with uteruses and my fourth child is a boy. I am 46 and haven’t reached menopause yet.

It’s taken me this long to be able to come to terms with all the problems I have faced with my health. And I am a very healthy person. I cannot even imagine what other women face with their health if they have chronic pain or illness or weight.

And if I, a WHITE WOMAN with wealth, health, and great insurance experience so many issues with receiving good health care, what in the world is happening to poor women? to women of color? to women who are seen as other? Women are often left without care, with less than stellar care, with little or no pain management, ridiculed and humiliated.

Women are DYING.

Government Intervention

I am beyond devastated that states are enacting forced birth laws and government-mandated childbirth.

I’m concerned about what could happen to my children or even myself if there were unwanted pregnancies from rape or complications with wanted pregnancies. So many news articles discuss doctors unable to perform necessary procedures to save a mother’s life during ectopic or miscarriage.

In August 2022, a pregnant Missouri woman named Mylissa Farmer suddenly needed an abortion, just over a month after her state enacted its near-total abortion ban. Her water had broken 17 weeks into her pregnancy, and her medical records indicated a number of health factors placing her at greater risk of pregnancy-related complications, including increased risk of sepsis, loss of her uterus, and even death. Farmer is also 41-years-old. Doctors treating her recommended an abortion, but, of course, couldn’t provide her one under state law. Source: Jezebel

When one side of the “discussion” decides that the other side is murdering babies, there isn’t a discussion anymore – there’s a war.

I don’t want to hear your arguments for overturning Roe v. Wade. I don’t want to hear your pro-life praise.

At six weeks, it is “cardiac activity” (no organ has formed) in an embryo that is smaller than a grain of rice. It is not a “fetal heartbeat.”

Most of us love life and babies. Babies are a miracle. I do NOT support forcing pregnancy or childbirth on anyone who doesn’t want it.

Forcing sterilization on anyone is eugenics.

Pro-Life?

The pro-forced birthers are really good at marketing.

Pro-life is a misnomer. It’s simple politics. Pro-lifers only care about white men who are valuable to the capitalist machine. Children, disabled, poor people…these are not valuable. Women are not valuable. People of color are not valuable; they are seen as a threat.

I’ve seen hundreds of tweets about telling women to stop having sex if they don’t want to get pregnant but I’ve seen few calls for men to become celibate or sterile. It will never cease to amaze me how little men are blamed for getting someone pregnant. This is about control and patriarchy.

Men don’t suffer in childbirth; there is no risk involved for men. So many mothers forced into motherhood and risking their lives to give birth. Where will all the unwanted babies go? We already have overwhelming numbers of children in foster care.

My eldest and I have Mirena IUDs, supposedly to regulate and reduce our periods, which doesn’t always work.

My husband had a vasectomy after our fourth child (a boy) was born, and no one asked for my consent!

I’ve read some politicians are wanting to limit contraceptive devices. This is a frightening misuse of power that will endanger so many lives.

Some states are enacting obscenity laws about gendered clothing, or rules for girls playing sports that require menstruation tracking.

Anyone can have an opinion. Your opinion should only govern you. Celebrating policy that revokes the rights of millions is not an opinion; it’s bad politics. No one cares about your opinion. It’s your politics that’s a problem.

Women in Pain

It is ridiculous that I tell my kids to exaggerate and I also have to exaggerate my symptoms or pain levels to be taken seriously. I have often sent my kids to the ER or a regular doctor appointment with my husband, their father, to ensure they receive better care. I often have my husband accompany me to appointments like I am an inept child because I have received poor care in the past and the medical professionals will often talk to him about me like I’m not even in the room.

Also, women should be able to be sedated during IUD explant and implantation. It’s a very painful procedure, even after childbirth. The medical community doesn’t care about women’s discomfort. We can get more help from dentists for procedures than we can for procedures involving women’s parts.

Women can’t get labs when we want to know why we have symptoms. See this thread.

I know I have been dismissed many times when suffering from “women’s problems.” I suffered for years with incontinence and fibroids. I have seen the other women in my family suffer with urinary and gyno issues and receive no care.

Out of desperation, women turn to dangerous supplements and herbs, trying to relieve pain and discomfort and symptoms.

There is no such thing as hormonal balance and no herb/plant can change hormone levels.
Dr. Jennifer Gunter

Women can’t request sterilization. So many doctors refuse elective procedures like tubal ligations or hysterectomies during child-bearing years. These doctors require waiting periods, spousal consent, and other demeaning concepts (like questioning “what if something happens to your living children?” or “what if you change your mind?” or “surely you want to try for another child of the other gender?”) because women do not have bodily autonomy.

Also, insurance often does not cover elective or preventive procedures like pelvic floor therapy.

A little over a year ago, I had surgery to remove two u t e r i n e fibroids. They really wanted to just remove all my parts because that’s easier for the doctors. I am mid-40s and it’s a military hospital. The language was so demeaning. There was no follow-up or recovery care.

Rape Culture

Not enough people are talking about consent and rape culture. We need to teach all genders consent from a very early age, practicing with babies even! We need to change how we view bodies and autonomy. Most of us were taught sex ed from a high school sports coach and that’s tragic.

I constantly see articles in the news and on social media protecting abusers and hushing victims of abuse and assault. The pastors are transferred to another church and the women are told to keep quiet, pray more, forgive. Comedians are not really cancelled and are selling out auditoriums while the abused women are silenced and suffer. The #MeToo and #ChurchToo movements did some to help, but it’s not enough and there are still rape apologists who make the road harder.

And for the people who claim they would never get an abortion, great! But you don’t get to decide for everyone. You never know the circumstances and decisions others must make for themselves.

Also, period products should be FREE.

Resources:

The Vagina Bible: The Vulva and the Vagina: Separating the Myth from the Medicine by Dr. Jen Gunter
The Menopause Manifesto: Own Your Health with Facts and Feminism by Dr. Jen Gunter
I’m So Effing Tired: A Proven Plan to Beat Burnout, Boost Your Energy, and Reclaim Your Life by Dr. Amy Shah
Sex Ed Booklist
Consent
Why I Don’t Teach Purity
10 Things I Want to Tell My Children
My Laparoscopic Myomectomy
I Tried Therapy
Exvangelical
Choices Matter in Pain Management
No More Incontinence

Linking up: Grammy’s Grid, Pinch of Joy, Silverado, April Harris, Random Musings, Create with Joy, Mostly Blogging, Pieced Pastimes, Pam’s Party, Tuesdays Twist, STAR Garden, Suburbia, Jenerally Informed, InstaEncouragements, LouLou Girls, Penny’s Passion, Anita Ojeda, Try it Like it, Simply Coffee, Jeanne Takenaka, Joanne Viola, Imparting Grace, Ridge Haven, Slices of Life, Ducks in a Row, Fluster Buster, Artful Mom, Modern Monticello, Momfessionals, Lisa Notes, Answer is Chocolate, Homestead,

You might also like:

Gifting with Gratitude

This blog may contain affiliate links: disclosure. Please see my suggested resources.

January 23, 2023 By Jennifer Lambert 4 Comments

Way back when (in the early 2000s,) I loved Freecycle. It was fun and I felt so good not adding to waste. Then, we moved to Germany and I lost touch with it. Like Craig’s List, Freecycle forum doesn’t seem as popular anymore.

The “Buy Nothing Project” began in 2013 and local groups have gained popularity recently around the globe. People struggling financially or for lack of community have flocked to assist others in a gift economy. Not everything has to be a transactional relationship.

If we all bought less and shared more, we would save money and reduce the amount of waste going to landfills or washing up on our shores. Reduce, Reuse, Recycle…and Refuse.
Liesl Clark, Buy Nothing Project

Since the original creators of the Buy Nothing movement recently have created an app with lots of paywalls and tricks to find a local group, my geographic group has split from them and renamed our Facebook group. Because the truth is, most of us are on Facebook and it’s just easier for us to comment, tag, and send messages through that program than to fight with an app that is less than user-friendly. And of course they wrote a book and have a podcast. But I get it. Everything grows and sometimes gets out of hand, too big for two people to maintain. The app is surely progress, but we have chosen to be unaffiliated.

The founders created some rules:

No buying or selling.
No trading or bartering.
No strings attached.
No hate speech.
Nothing illegal. So no firearms, drugs, prescription medications, or expired goods, including car seats or cribs not up to current standards.
No judgment. Every gift has equal value. Every giver and asker have equal value.
No penalties. If you loan something, you have to be OK with the possibility that it might get damaged.
No double-dipping. You can only join one group. To be admitted, you have to live in that community.

I love to see it. It’s beautiful. It’s not even a barter system. It’s just donating, lending, and sharing with neighbors. Gratitude in action.

I love how different the Buy Nothing concept is than Buy/Sell/Trade pages and groups.

I feel fortunate to be able to donate generously than having to sell items to make ends meet. Because I have certainly been there and it was stressful.

I respect anyone who needs to sell items, but we also can specify if items we are gifting can be resold or not. I do get irritated by resellers who jack up prices on secondhand items as their job or hobby. I don’t care much for Marketplace and all the scammers who prey on people selling and seeking.

Subgroups are awesome too! We also have a Community Chat group for our greater area that encompasses a much larger geographic area. This ensures we can reach a larger audience if we have attempted a gift or ask with no response or if we have a question or concern for the larger community. Sometimes, members post challenges to help us declutter or do something fun for each other. It’s endearing to see how the community comes together to help people whose homes are devastated by fire or offering to outfit a new mother whose partner suddenly left her. It’s so lovely to see people helping others.

What can you expect to find in a gift economy group?

Everything.

I have seen incredible items gifted and asked for. I am constantly amazed and surprised by what people so generously gift. And I never thought to ask for things that I know I might use once and never look at again.

BOOKS!

Home décor.

Pantry cleanouts.

Closet cleanouts.

Bathroom cleanouts.

Baking pans to borrow for a single occasion.

Crafting supplies.

Kids hand-me-downs. These are so expensive and I love to see them used and reused and loved!

SHOES!

Vitamins and supplements tried and disliked.

Foods opened and used for a single recipe. It’s lovely to offer to someone instead of throwing out or letting it sit in the fridge or pantry for months until it is indeed thrown away.

Sports paraphernalia.

Lawn equipment to borrow or keep.

FURNITURE!

Winter gear to borrow or keep.

Barn cleanouts.

Regifting gifts received that didn’t work or were received from holidays.

Incorrect orders of really nice brand new items that are a hassle to return.

Broken electronics or lawn equipment for fixing up or taking apart and learning about. This was so neat to see!

Pet items.

Homemade items.

Leftover alcohol from a party or a flavor they didn’t like. For safety and legal reasons, these are always handed to a person who shows ID.

Coupons and gift cards!

Last minute supplies for a school project.

Gardening items – even live plants! I have scored a ton of houseplants and hostas and lilies this way.

Our group does Round Robins for puzzles, books, purses, seeds, and more!

Gifting with Gratitude

Gifting

Take a clear photo of an item and post it.

Facebook algorithms cannot handle multiple photos in a post, so additional photos can be placed as comments to the original post.

Honest descriptions are important. I try to post the true description and how old an item is. I post that we have cats in case someone has an allergy. Posting sizes for clothing or an item beside a common thing like a water bottle is nice.

Some people make it fun and ask for a favorite recipe or funny story in the comments or what is the person going to use the item for?

Once choosing a recipient, only then may the chosen person private message about it. If the person doesn’t respond within 24 hours, then choosing another recipient is reasonable.

I’ve seen gifts of time or people offering to pickup items for neighbors, friends, and family members. I love the people who offer to take things off your hands if you want to gift it but don’t have time or energy to sort and post it.

It really is a community.

Receiving

If I see an item I want up for a gift, I comment that I would like the item for me, or one of my kids, or my husband, sometimes why, and when I might be able to pick up the item.

There is no guarantee that commenting first or being able to pickup anytime will get me the item.

Some very popular and generous gifts are raffled off randomly either with a spinner app or names/numbers in a hat.

We do tend to see the same names come up a lot. We’re a fairly small group and I love to recognize people whom I may not really know in real life. Because we homeschool, my kids don’t participate in anything and we stay home a lot.

Certain people seem to get a reputation as being the plant lover or dog rehabber or foster parent. Some people are pickers and gather items off the roadside to regift so as to keep things out of the landfill.

Once chosen for an item, only then may a recipient private message about it, and in a timely manner, or it might go to another recipient.

Asking

I love how people ask for help or for an item to try or borrow, or something specific they realize they want or need. I’m not comfortable with doing that, but I love that others are! It truly shows how we are growing in community and helping each other when we can feel safe to ask and receive help.

Tip Tuesdays

Each week, one of the moderators of our group posts a tip to help us be kind or informed, based on the original rules or issues that have arisen in our group or community.

Wishful Wednesdays

Each week, one of the moderators of our group posts an image for a thread of asks that we can look over and see if we can meet anyone’s requests. It’s lovely to see these needs being met every week!

Thankful Thursdays

Each week, one of the moderators of our group posts an image for a thread where we can express gratitude over a specific gift or situation that has helped us in any way. It’s just gorgeous to see all the blessings!

Helpful

Archiving chats: in Facebook Messenger, instead of deleting chats after gifting or receiving, ARCHIVING is a great way to maintain the communication without clogging up my Messenger app. I can go back into the chat window history for addresses and gifts/receipts. Super helpful for when I find the charging cord that went with the thing or the 3rd book in the series I gifted last week.

Including the item in a message is helpful. Sometimes I gift or ask for several items in a week, so it helps for everyone to keep things straight. Something simple, like “Thanks for the blue shirt, I can come anytime tomorrow.”

Communication is great! Things happen. Let people know if you are running late or have some conflict with pickup. Letting people know you got the item is helpful too.

We are still in a pandemic, and lots of people are trying very hard to stay well, so please be kind and let people know if you or someone in your household is sick or has been exposed to someone is sick.

When gifting items, I usually leave them in grocery bags on my front porch. If there’s wind or precipitation, I place them inside a Rubbermaid bin. I attach sticky notes or cards to the bags with the recipient’s name. For larger items, it’s easier to set up a time window or even interact and help them load it into their car.

I love our local gift economy group.

I have enjoyed being generous in donating some of our items we no longer need, want, or use – clothes, books, décor, plant starts, craft supplies, our old TV and surround sound system, a water dispenser when we got a whole house system.

I have been gifted some amazing things! Homemade afghan and pot holders, vintage décor, holiday items, Indiana glass bowl, clothes, plants, furniture. I even scored a treadmill!

It’s such a great way to keep things out of landfills and into the hands of members of our community who really want or need it.

You might also like:

Best Books of 2022

This blog may contain affiliate links: disclosure. Please see my suggested resources.

January 2, 2023 By Jennifer Lambert 6 Comments

I read a lot…like a lot a lot.

We do read alouds for our homeschool every morning and some evenings.

I always have several books on my Kindle app or nightstand or side table, throughout the house, really.

I love exploring new concepts in history or self-help and reading fiction with my kids.

I try to intersperse fun and quick fiction reads. There are no fluffy, bad, or wrong books. There are just preferences.

I read lots of books. It tends to go in waves depending on what’s going on in my life, how busy we are, my moods and availability of library eBooks. I think I notice themes each year that help me grow and become a better person, wife, mom.

I don’t like quitting, but if I really loathe the book, the characters, and story, then I can’t find any reason to finish. Some books I read in a single evening. Others take a few days or even weeks.

I love, love, love historical fiction. My faves are Edward Rutherfurd, Ken Follett, Philippa Gregory. I’m also obsessed with cult memoirs, not sure what that says about me.

My Favorite Books I Read in 2022

The Myth of Normal: Trauma, Illness, and Healing in a Toxic Culture by Gabor Maté

A culmination of everything we need to address and change in our society.

In this revolutionary book, renowned physician Gabor Maté eloquently dissects how in Western countries that pride themselves on their healthcare systems, chronic illness and general ill health are on the rise. Nearly 70 percent of Americans are on at least one prescription drug; more than half take two. In Canada, every fifth person has high blood pressure. In Europe, hypertension is diagnosed in more than 30 percent of the population. And everywhere, adolescent mental illness is on the rise. So what is really “normal” when it comes to health?

Over four decades of clinical experience, Maté has come to recognize the prevailing understanding of “normal” as false, neglecting the roles that trauma and stress, and the pressures of modern-day living, exert on our bodies and our minds at the expense of good health. For all our expertise and technological sophistication, Western medicine often fails to treat the whole person, ignoring how today’s culture stresses the body, burdens the immune system, and undermines emotional balance. Now Maté brings his perspective to the great untangling of common myths about what makes us sick, connects the dots between the maladies of individuals and the declining soundness of society—and offers a compassionate guide for health and healing. Cowritten with his son Daniel, The Myth Of Normal is Maté’s most ambitious and urgent book yet.

Vita Nostra: A Novel by Marina & Sergey Dyachenko

This book is so unique and I cannot stop thinking about it. I preordered the sequel and read their other novel translated into English.

Our life is brief . . .

Sasha Samokhina has been accepted to the Institute of Special Technologies.

Or, more precisely, she’s been chosen.

Situated in a tiny village, she finds the students are bizarre, and the curriculum even more so. The books are impossible to read, the lessons obscure to the point of maddening, and the work refuses memorization. Using terror and coercion to keep the students in line, the school does not punish them for their transgressions and failures; instead, it is their families that pay a terrible price. Yet despite her fear, Sasha undergoes changes that defy the dictates of matter and time; experiences which are nothing she has ever dreamed of . . . and suddenly all she could ever want.

The School for Good Mothers: A Novel by Jessamine Chan

This book is not pleasant. It sure made me think and fear and wonder. What could our society turn out to be like if we stop trusting mothers, anyone? Do we really need a carceral state at all?

Frida Liu is struggling. She doesn’t have a career worthy of her Chinese immigrant parents’ sacrifices. She can’t persuade her husband, Gust, to give up his wellness-obsessed younger mistress. Only with Harriet, their cherubic daughter, does Frida finally attain the perfection expected of her. Harriet may be all she has, but she is just enough.

Until Frida has a very bad day.

The state has its eye on mothers like Frida. The ones who check their phones, letting their children get injured on the playground; who let their children walk home alone. Because of one moment of poor judgement, a host of government officials will now determine if Frida is a candidate for a Big Brother-like institution that measures the success or failure of a mother’s devotion.

Faced with the possibility of losing Harriet, Frida must prove that a bad mother can be redeemed. That she can learn to be good.

Wintering: The Power of Rest and Retreat in Difficult Times by Katherine May

A lovely reminder to rest. It’s not a reward; we need to practice more rest. A snuggly reminder any time of year.

Sometimes you slip through the cracks: unforeseen circumstances like an abrupt illness, the death of a loved one, a break up, or a job loss can derail a life. These periods of dislocation can be lonely and unexpected. For May, her husband fell ill, her son stopped attending school, and her own medical issues led her to leave a demanding job. Wintering explores how she not only endured this painful time, but embraced the singular opportunities it offered.

Bittersweet: How Sorrow and Longing Make Us Whole by Susan Cain

A great example of why positivity is toxic. Just let me be melancholy and feels all the feels. If we are content, we are not changing.

Bittersweetness is a tendency to states of longing, poignancy, and sorrow; an acute awareness of passing time; and a curiously piercing joy at the beauty of the world. It recognizes that light and dark, birth and death—bitter and sweet—are forever paired.

If you’ve ever wondered why you like sad music . . .
If you find comfort or inspiration in a rainy day . . .
If you react intensely to music, art, nature, and beauty . . .

Then you probably identify with the bittersweet state of mind.

The Maid: A Novel by Nita Prose

I’m not normally a fan of mysteries. This one surprised me and I can’t wait to see the film. I was shocked by the ending since I really didn’t expect that.

Molly Gray is not like everyone else. She struggles with social skills and misreads the intentions of others. Her gran used to interpret the world for her, codifying it into simple rules that Molly could live by.

Since Gran died a few months ago, twenty-five-year-old Molly has been navigating life’s complexities all by herself. No matter—she throws herself with gusto into her work as a hotel maid. Her unique character, along with her obsessive love of cleaning and proper etiquette, make her an ideal fit for the job. She delights in donning her crisp uniform each morning, stocking her cart with miniature soaps and bottles, and returning guest rooms at the Regency Grand Hotel to a state of perfection.

But Molly’s orderly life is upended the day she enters the suite of the infamous and wealthy Charles Black, only to find it in a state of disarray and Mr. Black himself dead in his bed. Before she knows what’s happening, Molly’s unusual demeanor has the police targeting her as their lead suspect. She quickly finds herself caught in a web of deception, one she has no idea how to untangle. Fortunately for Molly, friends she never knew she had unite with her in a search for clues to what really happened to Mr. Black—but will they be able to find the real killer before it’s too late?

The Sparrow: A Novel by Mary Doria Russell

I also read the sequel. It made me think about what makes us human. It made me question history, capitalism, caste and class. So much philosophy and religion examined.

A visionary work that combines speculative fiction with deep philosophical inquiry, The Sparrow tells the story of a charismatic Jesuit priest and linguist, Emilio Sandoz, who leads a scientific mission entrusted with a profound task: to make first contact with intelligent extraterrestrial life. The mission begins in faith, hope, and beauty, but a series of small misunderstandings brings it to a catastrophic end.

You might also like:

What did you read this year?

You might also like:

Hospitality

This blog may contain affiliate links: disclosure. Please see my suggested resources.

December 19, 2022 By Jennifer Lambert 3 Comments

I used to stress out over having dinner parties, birthday parties, gatherings in our home.

Now, I refuse to sponsor events in my home.

I protect our home as a sanctuary.

For years, the church told me that I must be ever ready for hospitality. I believed that – a little too much perhaps.

I wanted to be a good wife and mother. I thought that included planning and having parties.

I remember my mother having my birthday parties in our home. I’m an only child. My aunts and cousins and some school and neighborhood friends would come. My father was always on a business trip. My mom planned it every year while he was away.

I remember going to my aunt’s house for every holiday. It was festive and exciting. The decorations made it special – because my aunt went all out and it was just gorgeous. The foods and punch were only available those wonderful moments each year so I looked forward to them even more. My father stayed home alone every single year. My mom and his mother and I would go.

As a military family, we never got to experience holidays with family. We’ve always lived hours – or even oceans away.

When we planned our own little family holiday dinners, I was so stressed about making everything perfect that I would make myself physically ill. Every holiday, I would burst into tears because something wasn’t just right at dinner. The wine was spilled. The meat wasn’t cooked just right. I would forget something important, like cranberry sauce. But, I had no help. My kids were babies. My husband stayed out of the way while I worked myself into a frenzy. My mother had my two grandmothers for help and I just don’t think they really cared all that much about the details.

My kids are teens now and we cook together like a symphony.

I feel like a really horrible mom about not having birthday parties for my kids, but we bought all the themed decorations and I baked cupcakes and planned games…and no one showed up. Like, no one showed up for an entire year for my kids. No one RSVP’ed and no one came at all. We sat around as a family, staring at the cupcakes and snacks, until I went to the bathroom and cried because I realized what was happening. Then we turned on music and had our little family party.

I stopped planning my kids’ birthday parties about ten years ago.

After that year, we did everything almost the same for birthdays, but we invited no one. It’s not about getting lots of presents. It’s about celebrating my people.

My kids don’t get invited anywhere either because we homeschool and don’t go to church anymore and we just don’t have any one.

The people we thought were our friends promptly forgot about us the moment we moved away. We were even unfriended on social media. This was before I even knew what ghosting was. I’m still hurt by the lack of closure. Did I say or do something to offend? Did my kids hurt the other kids’ feelings? Did my husband upset someone? We will never know.

It was hard to socialize with my husband’s coworkers because we were often admonished for intermingling with different ranks. Even now that he’s retired and working at a local hospital, work events take place at work, so families aren’t involved.

The quarantine with COVID thankfully didn’t affect us all that much, but we’re even more isolated now. There is a gap in my son’s experiences since he has aged out of most the homeschool classes his siblings got to take. All the extracurricular activities were closed during COVID and now it’s too late for him at almost age thirteen.

My kids used to play in the neighborhood with a couple kids, but no one was ever allowed inside houses, and that’s so strange to me who grew up in the 1980’s and we were everywhere all at once. My kids lost the few acquaintances they had in the neighborhood the last year because they’re from ultra conservative families who were antivax and told us my trans kid is going to hell. My kids chose not to compromise.

I used to dream of being that house all the kids congregated at – with cookies and snacks and safety. No one over the age of ten is outside anymore. Kids are kept in classes, planned activities, rec sports, school-related extracurriculars. They have no time anymore. They have no freedom.

In Utah and Ohio, we invited people from church for celebrations and a few times it even turned out ok. I’ve been criticized by not having my kids more involved or cutting corners with store-bought cookie dough. But even when people brought a side dish, it was so very expensive hosting. I even learned how to make fun and delicious vegan dishes for the vegan pastor’s family.

It’s amazing how quickly turn against you when you begin questioning sexism and racism and capitalism in the church. We were only as valuable as we were available to work harder and spend our own money on entertaining the church. I was told to have a nice life as a dismissal. So, that chapter is closed in our book.

“Don’t leave the church because of the people who hurt you. Nobody is perfect, only God.” I’ll explain why this comment is not only not helpful at all, but also very harmful.
Jo Leuhmann

I tried to be kind to my eldest child’s friends. I invited her people over for dinner a couple times, but it’s stressful on my younger kids to feel they have to perform.

Now it’s about keeping us safe from antivaxxers.

Yes, I realize I sound whiny. But to constantly beat my head against brick walls eventually gets tiresome. We’ve been hurt and ignored and abused for so many years that it’s really hard to keep trying. I refuse to stay where I am not appreciated or celebrated. I would rather be alone. I would rather save my energy.

We desperately tried to be hospitable over the years.

My home is safe and a sanctuary from the world. I want my kids to feel safe inside our home and not hypervigilant against someone who might pose a health danger.

My introverted self is safer and happier alone in my home with my cats and my kids.

We don’t need Bible verses spouted in hate admonishing us to try harder.

Books That Have Helped Me:

Gabor Maté
John Gottman
Harriet Lerner
Susan Cain
Elaine N. Aron
The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma by Bessel van der Kolk
Jesus, the Gentle Parent by LR Knost
Motherwhelmed by Beth Berry
Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents: How to Heal from Distant, Rejecting, or Self-Involved Parents by Lindsay C. Gibson

You might also like:

Linking up: Pinch of Joy, Create with Joy, Suburbia, Random Musings, Homestead, Eclectic Red Barn, God’s Growing Garden, Jenerally Informed, InstaEncouragements, OMHG, Artful Mom, Life Beyond Kitchen, Slices of Life, Joanne Viola, Soaring with Him, Fluster Buster, Ridge Haven, Answer is Choco, Lisa Notes, Pieced Pastimes, Being a Wordsmith, LouLou Girls,

You might also like:

Adult Daughter

This blog may contain affiliate links: disclosure. Please see my suggested resources.

December 12, 2022 By Jennifer Lambert 5 Comments

My parents turned 80 last April.

They were married for about thirteen years before they finally had me.

I am an only child.

I really wish I could write a feel-good memoir about how my mom and I have always been great friends. I wish I could say that I was daddy’s girl. But, alas, that is not the case.

I am a disappointment to my parents because I never could meet their expectations in any way.

My kids don’t know their grandparents.

My Timeline as an Adult Daughter

I remember dreaming as a teenager how there must be some magical moment when I had freedom and trust and could do the cool things I saw others doing with their friends, peers, family members.

That magical moment never happened.

I was told to leave home at 18 when my father found a condom in my purse. They didn’t want me living in their home anymore – even though I was a good person, no drugs or problems. My boyfriend was a good man. We were both on a good trajectory in college and planning our lives and futures. My parents gave me the ultimatum that I could live at home or leave my boyfriend. It was such a difficult decision since I had no savings or any way to live on my own while continuing with college. I only worked part time at a drug store. Edward worked part time at Costco while living at home and attending college too. I often wonder if I could have managed and left, and what my life might have turned out like if I had rebelled then.

I eloped when I was almost 21. Then I was disowned for my first marriage. They mailed me a torn-up copy of their will.

They were angry when I got pregnant and I didn’t get a nice baby shower, just tiny token gifts from my aunt and cousins and co-workers. My parents came to the hospital to see us, but they got very upset and jealous that my first husband’s parents were there, and my mother-in-law was helping me, so they left in a huff. My mother arrived at my home the next week and I had to make her dinner while exhausted.

They weren’t much help with my first child and constantly complained about her, but they were relieved when I got divorced.

My parents adore adore my current husband.

The best thing I did was leave Georgia so it put some distance between my parents and me. I literally went through withdrawal for several years from all the abusive expectations and I didn’t know how to be alone or how to be an adult or wife or mother.

Very unfortunately, my husband’s parents both passed the first year we were married, so they never even got to meet their son’s kids. His mother did throw me a lovely baby shower and gifted us a lot of stuff that last Christmas.

My parents traveled to Texas for the births of my middle two kids. They stayed in a hotel. They were no help and I was more stressed out knowing I had to entertain them and keep peace. I was very sick after my second child was born and my father was just furious. After a Caesarean section birth of my third child, they wanted to go out to dinner, so I had to drag myself and a newborn with my toddler and young child to a restaurant or have no dinner. My husband was lost during all these games and didn’t know what to say or do.

My mother traveled to Hawaii for the birth of my last child, but my father couldn’t be bothered. She stayed in a hotel on Pearl Harbor naval base. They had both just come out for Christmas the previous year and it was too much for him to sit in an airplane from Georgia to Hawaii again. My mother was unkind to my three kids and I couldn’t really trust her or rely on her to help at all. She accused them of stealing her bracelet! It had fallen off the nightstand. My husband didn’t know any of this. It was very stressful when I should have been enjoying my newborn son.

During my husband’s first deployment in 2011, my parents decided that was a great time to visit me and the kids in Utah. They chose to come in May – not in March for my birthday, not the first week in April for their birthdays or my son’s first birthday, not around my third child’s birthday or on Mother’s Day, but just a random time in mid-May. They refused to stay at my house (even though I offered them my bed) and instead opted for a nearby hotel. They sauntered over midday, about lunchtime and naptime for my son. It disrupted our whole schedule and they kept telling my kids to go away and play outside or in the basement. I was super stressed and confused. My mom made my second child cry about something irrelevant and then lied about it. They didn’t want to go anywhere or do anything except sit on my sofa and they were very upset my TV was in the basement because they didn’t want to walk down a flight of stairs. Then, they got really mad and left early and I later received an actual letter in the mail – hate mail! – outlining everything that’s wrong about me, my children, and my lack of good mothering skills. Also, that I should hit my children to make them never cry and behave perfectly.

We didn’t see my parents again until May 2014.

Before we PCSed to Germany, I felt we needed to visit my parents…in case something happened while we were on another continent for three years.

It was a very stressful couple weeks.

My kids were banished to other rooms, constantly told to be quiet. The wildflowers they picked for their only grandmother were thrown away. We didn’t go anywhere except to the veteran’s park in their town.

I was told not to cook anymore since it was too messy, made too many dishes, was more food than they were used to having.

My father promised my son to take him to his barber to get haircuts, but the day arrived and my father took off on his own for the entire day and no one knew where he was. My son was devastated.

My father was also going to take my eldest child on a special trip to Andersonville since we had been studying the Civil War. He told her she didn’t deserve the trip with her bad attitude.

They were apprehensive when we went to Stone Mountain Park and Stately Oaks. They didn’t feel comfortable with us borrowing one of their three SUVs to go to the Atlanta aquarium. But they didn’t want to go anywhere with us.

Then, we visited them again June 2017, upon our return to the States, and it was again miserable.

My parents had promised my eldest their 2010 VW Beetle and money to help pay for college, but they swore they never promised any college money and told us all she didn’t deserve the car. They then handed over the car last minute, but made it clear they didn’t want to and that it shouldn’t go to her.

We left earlier than we had planned.

So, I haven’t even seen my parents since 2018.

They drove up to Ohio from Georgia, to surprise my husband for his promotion in February 2018.

They then drove up again for Christmas 2018 while he was deployed, but vowed they couldn’t travel anymore after that.

It was a little bit easier on my own turf with older kids who have learned to stay away from their grandparents and monitor their moods, which is sad.

I invited my parents a few times – to be told they couldn’t make it. It’s a lot more difficult for us to travel with four busy kids and two cats. My parents are retired, wealthy, no responsibilities. They could go anywhere, anytime…they do own three SUVs!

My father has had at least two tantrums when he gave me the silent treatment the last couple years – no phone calls, no emails, nothing. My mother is almost amused by this instead of disturbed. She feels superior, I guess.

We’re punished by no birthday cards – no gifts, no money, no phone calls. It’s like we’re erased, forgotten. How do I explain this to my kids?

My mom broke her sternum in a random fall and I didn’t find out for days.

My father fell and bruised his rib over the July 4th weekend and I didn’t find out until later that week.

My mom was rushed by ambulance to the hospital due to severe back pain and she had to demand he call us. She has a broken vertebra. It’s been a long time healing and she can’t drive, can barely walk with a walker. How about those three SUVs now?

I called them on Thanksgiving and that wasn’t the most pleasant conversation when I risked asking what their plans are for their future. They got mad that I brought up the forbidden questions and didn’t talk to me for two more weeks. My mother is never great with communication and my father emails me weather and football reports every few days like everything is just fine.

It’s hard being their daughter.

My children don’t have grandparents.

We’re jealous when we see families with grandparents. Most people assume this is the norm, and I’m sure it is – families who live nearby and enjoy each other, rooting for victories and sorrow with mistakes. We don’t have any family. I keep trying. It’s like banging my head into a brick wall.

I long for more. I yearn for my kids to launch into the world and fly back frequently to the nest. I wait with open arms because of the bitter memories I harbor of my own parents. I don’t want my kids to ever feel unwanted or unloved.

It’s a deep pain. It’s hard to swallow, even as an adult, that a parent simply isn’t interested in their child and never has been. Some parents will only approve of their children as long as the children follow the narrative those parents have chosen for them instead or embracing honoring who each child IS as determined by the children themselves!
The Wellness Point

Well Said:

Resources:

Mothers Who Can’t Love: A Healing Guide for Daughters by Susan Forward
Difficult Mothers, Adult Daughters: A Guide For Separation, Liberation & Inspiration by Karen C.L. Anderson
I Hate You – Don’t Leave Me: Understanding the Borderline Personality by Jerold J. Kreisman
Recovering from Narcissistic Mothers: A Daughter’s Guide by Brenda Stephens
Will I Ever Be Good Enough?: Healing the Daughters of Narcissistic Mothers by Karyl McBride
Becoming the Narcissist’s Nightmare: How to Devalue and Discard the Narcissist While Supplying Yourself by Shahida Araby
Recovering from Emotionally Immature Parents: Practical Tools to Establish Boundaries and Reclaim Your Emotional Autonomy by Lindsay C. Gibson
Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents: How to Heal from Distant, Rejecting, or Self-Involved Parents by Lindsay C. Gibson
When Things Fall Apart: Heart Advice for Difficult Times by Pema Chodron
Parenting Forward: How to Raise Children with Justice, Mercy, and Kindness by Cindy Wang Brandt
The Empath’s Survival Guide: Life Strategies for Sensitive People by Judith Orloff
The Highly Sensitive Person: How to Thrive When the World Overwhelms You by Elaine N. Aron
The Highly Sensitive Child: Helping Our Children Thrive When The World Overwhelms Them by Elaine N. Aron
The Dance of Anger: A Woman’s Guide to Changing the Patterns of Intimate Relationships by Harriet Lerner
The Dance of Connection: How to Talk to Someone When You’re Mad, Hurt, Scared, Frustrated, Insulted, Betrayed, or Desperate by Harriet Lerner

You might also like:

Linking up: Eclectic Red Barn, Pam’s Party, Pieced Pastimes, Silverado, Grammy’s Grid, Pinch of Joy, Random Musings, April Harris, Create with Joy, Suburbia, Mostly Blogging, Ridge Haven, Garden, Jenerally Informed, InstaEncouragements, LouLou Girls, Simply Coffee, Fluster Buster, Homestead, Life Abundant, Soaring with Him, Joanne Viola, OMHG, Penny’s Passion, Life Beyond the Kitchen, Artful Mom, Imparting Grace, Slices of Life, Modern Monticello, Answer is Chocolate, Lisa Notes, Being a Wordsmith, Pieced Pastimes, Momfessionals, Memory,

You might also like:

Overconfidence

This blog may contain affiliate links: disclosure. Please see my suggested resources.

December 5, 2022 By Jennifer Lambert 4 Comments

What is it about men and overconfidence?

It seems our society encourages men to brag, lie, deceive, exaggerate their abilities.

It’s way beyond just saying, “The fish was THIS BIG.”

It’s not cute. It’s not endearing.

I dated a boy in high school who bragged constantly and I really didn’t know any better then. He claimed he owned a 64 1/2 Mustang. He claimed he did yard work for the Monticello subdivision, and he led people to believe it was the highly affluent neighborhood on the far side of town. He made a lot of claims that I never could actually refute because I didn’t ever really confront him. The car was in storage (apparently it belonged to his uncle) and the subdivision turned out to be just some duplexes.

I’ve met lots of men who feel a need to brag and exaggerate and flat-out lie to appear better than they really are. Many just allow us to believe whatever we assume without any correction, as long as they look good.

Many men want constantly to relive their “glory days,” whenever they feel that was – high school, college, early adulthood. Whenever they felt biggest and baddest, strongest and most in control.

The really sad thing is that people who brag the most just can’t accept who they really are, so they have to portray themselves as somehow more than they really are.

Carry yourself with the confidence of a mediocre straight white man.
Lily Tomlin

When women believe men, they suffer.

As much as I despise about my father and all his faults, this is one area where he doesn’t fall short. I can’t remember him ever misrepresenting himself. He is 80 and still thinks he can do things he could do at age 50, but that’s a little bit different.

My first husband’s father told everyone he was retired. I believed him. Who wouldn’t? But, he didn’t pull a pension from anywhere. He never retired. He just quit working. He claimed when he became a Christian, he just couldn’t manage to work in secular jobs anymore. There has to be more to the story, but that’s all I ever got. I wasn’t allowed to ask questions. His wife worked herself to death and they lived on credit until they filed for bankruptcy.

My second husband used his religion to manipulate me and others. The final straw was when he was fired from his job and deceived me for over three weeks. He just pretended to go to work still. When I saw through his vast façade and tried to leave, he destroyed me in every way he could with outrageous lies. I lost my job. I lost my friends. I lost my church.

My current husband bragged for years about what a great gift giver he is, also how he could build a deck and fence. He is not really a good gift giver, some because I am not a good receiver, and I have purchased and wrapped all gifts for everyone for every holiday for almost two decades, but who brags about that? What is it about men who buy gifts for their wives that they themselves want or are the traditional no-no’s – electronics, foods, housewares? When we bought our house and I called him out on his stories of building decks and fences, he balked and we had to hire someone to replace the fence – who did a rather shabby job anyway. He helped his brothers-in-law build a deck over twenty years ago, but he didn’t singlehandedly design, plan, or implement anything. At least he can actually do basic plumbing and electrical chores.

My kids have known people, adults and children, who feel the need to puff up and brag about who they know, what they do, what they have, what their family and friends have or do. It’s rather distasteful and very disappointing when my kids find out the truth behind the lies.

The funny thing is that men are allowed and encouraged to brag, but women can’t even be honest about our accomplishments without being told to be more humble. Women are supposed to be modest or humblebrag to downplay ourselves and our accomplishments, our victories…especially when in the presence of men and their fragile egos. Women can’t appear to be efficient or capable or not needing a man to guide and protect us. Women are supposed to pretend to be helpless, less than we are, dumber than we are, powerless…so as to not emasculate men.

I was actively taught to exhibit this behavior by my own parents and teachers and adults. I have seen it in my kids and it disgusts me that I have actively tried to teach them to be confident and assertive.

We are living in dangerous times when men continue to grasp power and fight to keep power away from women, children, LGBTQIA+, and other marginalized groups.

Resources:

Mediocre: The Dangerous Legacy of White Male America by Ijeoma Oluo
Bad Feminist: Essays by Roxane Gay
Invisible Women: Data Bias in a World Designed for Men by Caroline Criado Perez
Dying of Politeness: A Memoir by Geena Davis
We Should All Be Feminists by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
The Body Is Not an Apology, Second Edition: The Power of Radical Self-Love by Sonya Renee Taylor
The Mother of All Questions by Rebecca Solnit
Entitled: How Male Privilege Hurts Women by Kate Manne
The Vagina Bible: The Vulva and the Vagina: Separating the Myth from the Medicine by Dr. Jen Gunter
The Menopause Manifesto: Own Your Health with Facts and Feminism by Dr. Jen Gunter
In Search of Our Mothers’ Gardens: Womanist Prose by Alice Walker
Sisters in the Wilderness: The Challenge of Womanist God-Talk by Delores S. Williams
Too Much: How Victorian Constraints Still Bind Women Today by Rachel Vorona Cote
Hysterical: Why We Need to Talk About Women, Hormones, and Mental Health by Eleanor Morgan
Hood Feminism: Notes from the Women That a Movement Forgot by Mikki Kendall
Women, Race & Class by Angela Y. Davis
Vox by Christina Dalcher

Linking up: Eclectic Red Barn, Pam’s Party, Random Musings, Ridge Haven, Mostly Blogging, God’s Growing Garden, LouLou Girls, Anita Ojeda, Jeanne Takenaka, Jenerally Informed, April Harris, InstaEncouragements, Simply Coffee, Joanne Viola, Soaring with Him, Homestead, Life Abundant, Create with Joy, Fluster Buster, Penny’s Passion, Artful Mom, Imparting Grace, Slices of Life, Beyond the Kitchen, Modern Monticello, Momfessionals, Answer is Chocolate, Lisa Notes, Being a Wordsmith,

You might also like:

Columbus Museum of Art

This blog may contain affiliate links: disclosure. Please see my suggested resources.

November 28, 2022 By Jennifer Lambert Leave a Comment

My kids had to visit art museums and choose a work of art to review for their college art history course.

We visited Columbus Museum of Art.

I always love Chihuly and this piece is magnificent.

There was a silly scavenger hunt for Among Us characters.

We had some favorites, but there are so many lovely pieces of art – paintings, sculpture, and more. There are always great special exhibits too!

We’ve been at least twice. I think Akantha went a third time. And I have no other pictures?

There’s a cute little cafe too.

Visit the Columbus Museum of Art.

You might also like:

Ruined

This blog may contain affiliate links: disclosure. Please see my suggested resources.

November 28, 2022 By Jennifer Lambert 7 Comments

It’s been about eight years.

And I know I should probably get over it.

But it’s symbolic of my entire relationship with my mother.

It doesn’t matter that I bought this shirt at a thrift store. It was my favorite shirt. I felt good when I wore it.

We visited my parents near Atlanta, in May 2014, before we PCSed from Utah to Germany. My parents are getting old and I didn’t know what could transpire during our three years on another continent. We hadn’t seen my family since 2011.

It was a stressful time for the kids and me, staying with my parents, whom my kids don’t even really know. This was just one incident in a series of problems.

During the ten days we stayed with my parents, I had to do laundry since we had been living out of suitcases for many weeks between our TLF stay in Utah, the road trip from Utah to Georgia, and anticipating a month in TLF once we arrived in Germany.

My mother has a weird obsession with bleach.

I bought and used organic laundry detergent that our family is used to using and I washed and dried our clothes. I hung up my pink ruffled shirt on the drying rack in the little laundry room off the kitchen.

My mother washed her towels and laundry, I guess, like she normally does, and somehow, oh my ever-loving god, the bleach splashed across three feet from the washing machine onto one of the ruffles on my pink shirt that was hanging to dry. I wish I had a picture of the bleached shirt. It was a huge bleached patch. Like, how does that even happen? Most bottles of bleach say they’re non-splash or something. It’s concentrated and easy to pour. Was she slinging the bleach around like the gas station scene from Zoolander?

And then, she wasn’t even really sorry. My shirt was ruined! I couldn’t color-match the bleach stain. I didn’t want to bleach wash the shirt to be something creative and different. I couldn’t find a replacement.

She just shrugged it off, like it was my fault. Like everything in my entire life is my fault. I shouldn’t have hung my shirt there. I should’ve been more careful. Maybe I shouldn’t have done my laundry at all.

Which is her attitude about everything in our entire lives! She refuses to apologize or admit she ever did anything inappropriate or wrong.

She recently told me I was not to blame them anymore and to keep the emails and conversation light or not at all.

There will be people that would rather lose you, than be honest about what they’ve done to you. Let them go.
Nate Postlethwait

I found this shirt on Poshmark, which I don’t think existed back then, and we were moving to Germany anyway, so… I know eBay has been around a long time, but I couldn’t find this shirt anywhere, anytime I looked. I couldn’t even really find the proper key words to search…until last month.

It was just a little something that grated in the back of my mind and broke my heart over and over. I know it’s just a shirt, but it hurt that my mother just didn’t care about ruining it. Just like she doesn’t care about me or my kids.

I now have my replacement shirt. I feel a little bit triumphant. I know my mother doesn’t even remember this episode, like she doesn’t remember anything very important that ever happened to me, good or bad.

I wish it were as easy to repair our relationship as it was to get a new shirt.

If you think you’re enlightened, go spend a week with your family.
Ram Dass

Resources:

Gabor Maté
John Gottman
Harriet Lerner
Susan Cain
Elaine N. Aron
The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma by Bessel van der Kolk
Jesus, the Gentle Parent by LR Knost
Motherwhelmed by Beth Berry
Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents: How to Heal from Distant, Rejecting, or Self-Involved Parents by Lindsay C. Gibson

Linking up: Eclectic Red Barn, Silverado, Random Musings, Ridge Haven, Pinch of Joy, Create with Joy, Suburbia, LouLou Girls, InstaEncouragements, Jeanne Takenaka, Jenerally Informed, God’s Growing Garden, OMHG, Blue Cotton Memory, Life Abundant, Fluster Buster, Joanne Viola, Soaring with Him, Homestead, Penny’s Passion, Try it Like it, Artful Mom, Imparting Grace, Lisa Notes, CWJ, Coffee and Jesus, Answer is Choco, Momfessionals, Being a Wordsmith, Slices of Life, Modern Monticello, Pam’s Party, Mostly Blogging,

You might also like:

Outgrown

This blog may contain affiliate links: disclosure. Please see my suggested resources.

November 21, 2022 By Jennifer Lambert 4 Comments

My eldest had a favorite pair of boots when she was about ten to eleven years old.

She wore those boots way longer than she should have and scrunched up her toes when they became too small.

The first photo evidence I have of the boots is November 2010, and the last evidence I can find is January 2012. Her feet definitely grew a lot during that time, and more than outgrew those boots. She had other shoes, but refused to give up those boots.

I always assumed I would be informed when clothes, shoes, styles were outgrown.

I have four kids and they’re usually really vocal about anything that isn’t just right for them. We’ve had tantrums over socks and tags and soap and hair.

I trusted my kids to tell me they needed new shoes. I asked if the boots were ok, but I should have checked and verified. It was a difficult time for our family, with moving across the country and deployment.

I could make a thousand excuses, but I failed to understand there was a problem in time.

Having too small shoes for about two years gave her hammer toes and affected the tendons and ligaments in her legs. She complained about the leg pain, but never about her toes or feet, or having too-small shoes. I purchased the kids all new shoes, but failed to fully inspect those boots, though I do remember checking at least once and I think she purposely scrunched her toes…and I just believed her.

When we went to the doctor, they were too quick to refer to a specialist – who recommended surgery! Then, we got another referral for physical therapy. We got new shoes, threw out the boots. The PT helped a lot. I also massaged her feet, legs, and back with essential oils. She was at the cusp of puberty and it was almost too late for healing, but we were all very diligent to help her heal and remind her to do her stretches.

She had to stop running track since the pain was too much. She never did pick it back up. Luckily, she was able to participate in Civil Air Patrol and did well in all the physical activities for the few years she was in it.

It’s so hard to watch a child suffer. It’s even worse when I know I should’ve been on top of it and prevented it.

There were too many years when I was in survival mode.

There were too many times I was neglectful and relied too much on my eldest to be older and more mature than she was.

Since I had no village, no family, no friends, no help…I relied on my kids to help…for us all to work together, especially when their dad was deployed. While this sounds great on the surface, it was not feasible long-term and it was really, really hard for all of us. I certainly learned self-reliance because no one else was reliable.

I had her babysit and told myself that she enjoyed the responsibility. She still brags that she potty-trained her siblings. I know she’s proud of that, but I am ashamed that it’s mostly true. She did too much, too soon, and lost much of her childhood too early. She didn’t deserve parentification.

I tried so hard to maintain balance and push her to play and experience fun things, but many of those things she had to do alone while I kept her siblings from interfering or disrupting. I know she is still resentful that I wasn’t always able to be there and give her my undivided attention all the time.

I projected my overly mature childhood onto my daughter and I enmeshed my emotions with hers. I expected her to be like me. And I wasn’t even fully aware that I wasn’t healthy then. So much damage was done.

And the church encouraged all this and told me that I was doing a great job in spite of everything I felt deep down inside that I was doing everything so wrong and I felt so lost and alone. I had no one, no help.

The church and military communities failed us.

I was supposed to be training up a mother’s little helper and raising my daughters to be good wives and mothers. Thankfully, we all balked at those proscribed gender roles and we are better now in our spiritual pursuits. But there is so much healing still taking place.

The boots are just a metaphor for all the times I missed the mark for about ten or more years with my daughter.

It’s not like we couldn’t afford new boots.

A tween girl often isn’t in a place to express herself safely or even know what’s wrong when that’s all she knows. There were some very bad times for several years and I was not always at my best in dealing with issues I had no reference or guidance for, and my kids are “good kids.” I was a “good kid.”

But I want more than just appearances.

This episode further pushed me in a different direction as a parent. I knew something had to change. I’m sad that this catalyst was necessary, but the outcome has been good. The trajectory has continued in a healthier, gentler direction for years.

My eldest child has taught me so much as a person, as a mom, as a daughter.

She taught me what it’s like to speak up for injustice. She’s always been vocal. As a baby, it was colic. As a wee girl, she was bossy and argumentative. As a teen, she was defiant. As a young woman, she is a leader.

She taught me compassion. She always looks to help ease others’ pain. I am proud of her for taking soup to a sick classmate and offering rides to friends. She has helped others to her own detriment at times. Yes, she’s been taken advantage of, and that’s the risk. She continues to have a huge heart.

She taught me a lot about mistakes and regrets and how to make amends, how to truly apologize and forgive. We will never get closure from her abusive father and his family. His parents have passed, so there is no one to ask about events anymore. My parents have no relationship with us and I have confronted them multiple times to no avail. We are really all alone, but she just shrugs away that pain and finds comfort in her friends who are her chosen family.

It seems like I have spent almost my entire life fighting. Fighting to be seen and heard, fighting for my daughter, fighting with my daughter, fighting society to be better for her and my other kids.

She sets boundaries and doesn’t stay in relationships that become toxic. I am proud of her for recognizing when friends and lovers are mean, unhealthy, or not right for her.

She knows when to quit. I always pushed through and maybe that wasn’t the best thing for me, but I saw few alternatives. I had different choices then, and certainly couldn’t envision the future that I am living now. She resents that I pushed her into early college and a part-time job, and I do regret that, but I still don’t know what else I could have done. I’m sad that her young adulthood is so hard and she doesn’t get to enjoy much, is struggling financially, trying to find her place. Outside circumstances with COVID and the university going on strike affected events beyond our control.

We are healing together.

While I wish she had never had to suffer the trauma of being the “guinea pig first child” and had to help to raise me as a parent, I am so pleased we are still close now that she’s an independent adult.

Here’s to more growing closer together.

Resources:

Gabor Maté
John Gottman
Harriet Lerner
Susan Cain
Elaine N. Aron
The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma by Bessel van der Kolk
Jesus, the Gentle Parent by LR Knost
Motherwhelmed by Beth Berry
Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents: How to Heal from Distant, Rejecting, or Self-Involved Parents by Lindsay C. Gibson

Linking up: Grammy’s Grid, Silverado, Pinch of Joy, Eclectic Red Barn, Random Musings, Ridge Haven, April Harris, Mostly Blogging, Pam’s Party, God’s Growing Garden, LouLou Girls, Suburbia, OMHG, Jenerally Informed, Create with Joy, Soaring with Him, Life Abundant, Penny’s Passion, Slices of Life, Fluster Buster, Homestead, Pam’s Party, Answer is Choco, Pieced Pastimes, Blue Cotton Memory, InstaEncouragements,

You might also like: