The dangers of NPR. . . and the post where I talk about Batman and bullets

We've known for awhile that NPR was dangerous car territory.  Unlike your average parent, who is probably light-years smarter than I seem to be, I keep tuning into 90.1 while I drive to drown out the sound of bickering from the back seat.  For whatever reason, sometimes the fighting stops and all three children go silent (they're likely plotting when that happens - or torturing each other in the most whisperly of ways) at which point it is inevitable:  NPR will discuss something I don't want the children to hear.

Of course it's not NPR's fault, it's mine, but when your 2 1/2 year old son says Somali pirates? from the backseat, you have to wonder exactly how much he's sussing out from the news snippets he hears.  And now that they are 6 and 9, they hear and understand a lot.

And they ask questions.

Why would somebody shoot people at Batman? 
Why would somebody shoot people at a church? 
Why would somebody shoot people by a college? 

They ask the same questions we do, I guess. Questions for which there don't seem to be - at this moment - answers.

I've been trying to write this post since the day after Batman's opening night - and each time I sit down to the computer prepared to write something - there has been another shooting.  Yesterday's attack on the security guard at the Family Research Council actually happened when this post was half written.  I'm at a loss for words with my children and at a loss for words on this blog.  I guess now, I can only quote my friend Robin, who posted on Facebook yesterday:  Words I shouldn't have to say, much less say this many times a week: STOP SHOOTING PEOPLE

 I'll even be civil about it: Please stop shooting people.

Quiet for awhile, I know.

I've been mulling.  You see, I've written a lot about my deceased stepfather.  He's had an extraordinary influence on my life.  I have three other parents who have also had a significant impact on the person I have grown to be and as such, I wanted to write about that.  But there is a lot of stress in writing about the living.  I have the freedom of reflection on my relationship with David.  My relationships with my still-living parents are ever-unfolding.

My family doesn't look like this.  If I'm the one in pink, you need to add another Mom and  two step-sisters, though we probably maybe wouldn't all hold hands. Just imagine me in the middle. . . 

One of them is with my father.  That's the entry I've wanted to write.  But I'll be honest:  to say that it is complicated is a severe understatement.

I love my father as every daughter loves her father - the person who gave me shoulder rides and taught me to roast marshmallows over an open fire and taught me to think and discuss politics.  But there's the rub - the politics.

I have landed in a political position that differs from his.  I hoped for many years that we had gotten to a place of mutual respect, though.  That despite us having significant differences in our beliefs, we respect that each of us was an adult and was capable of making reasoned and rational decisions regarding what we valued - and how we communicated those values in our elected leaders.

Then Dad joined Facebook.

And honestly, I'm not sure what to say after that.  Over the course of these past three years, he has decided that I am a snobby, college-professor-talkin', rude, "THE LEFT" liberal who lacks respect, while I have decided that his internet persona is a sort of id-release for a snarling and angry personality who is convinced that we are a nation of Godless moochers and that the only answer is the eradication of social programs, a completely free market, and guns for all. He calls the President stupid (along with another extra special slur he whipped out a few times in cute old nursery rhymes and colloquialisms to cover up the depth of his offense) along with all other liberals, who he has grouped as "The Left" and demonizes daily.

What I know of him on the Internet is so utterly opposite his face-to-face behavior, I have a huge difficulty reconciling them.  Some days, I'd like nothing more than to defriend him and pretend that this internet persona didn't exist at all.

But I'm sad that it does. Let me be clear: I am not saddened that his beliefs differ from mine. Obviously, I value what I value and I highly doubt that will change. The same stands for him. We disagree, neither can see why the other holds the beliefs and values that they do, but that's fine. What's not fine is the bickering and berating and talking down (accusations fly from both sides, of course).  And I don't know what to do with that.

Back in the day, when I was a dual major in History and English, I was fascinated by the Revolutionary and the Civil Wars.  Not by the events so much as the psychology.  I wonder what the dinner table must have been like each evening. How did families survive that sort of thing - was the blood bond of birth stronger than politics? Then again - this was more than just politics - these were matters of deep values and world-shaping points of view.  How did families survive being so different?

I don't know. I really don't.  But I'm willing to bet being face to face at the dinner table diffused a lot of anger and that one downfall (or blessing? I don't know) of the internet is the fact that now we know what everybody is thinking. Particularly about us.

My father is a good man with a big heart.  It does me well to remember that - and to accept that there are always aspects of those we love that we don't love.  I hope he will do the same. In the meantime, I will return to my previous rule of non-engagement and remember that lovely quote from Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.:  "Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that.  Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that."

Addendum:  I realize that this is completely awkward and incomplete.  As I said, I've struggled with what to say. I still don't know.  But I can't keep waiting. I have to get it out.

Now We Are Six

When The Budge was about one or so, we'd go around Ketring Lake - Monkeymoo walking or running or jumping, and The Budge reclining in the jogging stroller, staring at the sky.  Every few months, we'd see an elderly couple walking in the opposite direction.  The gentleman half would look at The Budge and say:

When I was One,
I had just begun.
When I was Two,
I was nearly new.
When I was Three
I was hardly me.
When I was Four,
I was not much more.
When I was Five,
I was just alive.
But now I am Six,
I'm as clever as clever,
So I think I'll be six now for ever and ever.
          -A. A. Milne's "Now We Are Six"

I was thinking about him awhile back - the nice old man who greeted people with poetry instead of nods, and I was missing him, wondering about his life - what he was up to - hoping that he was still able to enjoy his life.  The next day, we walked around our lake again - this time with Tenacious E in the stroller while The Budge rode ahead on HULKSMASH (his new bike) and a gentleman stopped and looked at Tenacious E, saying "When I was one, I had just begun."

On the occasion of The Budge's sixth birthday, I'm thinking of this stranger and his poetic greetings and grateful for a world where that still happens - while hopeful that it continues.  Perhaps one day in the future, I'll be that lady whose hellos are poems.

And The Budge?  Clever as clever indeed.  Watch out world.

18 months of Honey Badgering

Dear, sweet, feisty Honey Badger, a.k.a. Tenacious E, a.k.a. my youngest daughter --

You are 18 months old today.  In the past 6 months you have learned quite a few new words - head, cheek, eye, knee, toe, mama, and daddy just to name a few. Every time you see a baby you say BABY BABY BABY just to make sure everyone knows there's a baby in the vicinity - in photos or commercials or real life (and anyone who is under the age of about 3, apparently, is a baby by your measure).

You are only now beginning to sleep through the night - occasionally waking up for a snack around 10 or so but generally sleeping from about 8 pm to about 5:30 a.m..  You nap as poorly as your siblings always did, but you are not the same as them.

Lilly didn't climb.  Carter climbed, but not like you.  You climb like George Leigh Mallory: because it is there.  You climb the chairs, the table, any bookshelves or stairs.  I've found you dumping out bins and boxes so you can climb them.  Every nook and cranny is a foothold.  No shelf is too high.  Nothing is safe.

(In fact, as I write this, you climbed a chair and pushed a half dozen books off the book shelf.)

Some days you scream so loudly, Honey Badger, that I wonder how long it will be before the neighbors call CPS.  Every tiny perceived wrong, from not being held when you want to be held to being told no, is met with ear-piercing shrieks and what we now refer to as Floor Fits, where you throw yourself onto your back and throw a classic kicking/screaming tantrum.

And as with your tenacity, I have to remind myself that these qualities, too, will one day be positive attributes  that make any parent proud.  No chair or table or bookshelf or box is without its use - or without some secret hidden foothold.  You are adept at employing the Tim Gunn mentality: you make it work. You're not afraid to try things and you're not afraid to speak your mind. Even if your mind is, you know, 18 months old and super angry just because that moth just flew away and you wanted it here.

We have a long road ahead of us, my dear, before those qualities stop being OHSOTOTALLYCRAZYMAKING and start being really, really awesome.  In the meantime, I'll hang on tight.  And buy some earplugs.

I keep meaning to link to this:

My friend Erica is doing an amazing blog on prayer and she was moved to write a piece that spun off of my Poodlehead/Poodlehead Redux posts.  She's an excellent writer and this is worth sharing, so here it is!