Becoming Mother

A book and a blog for first-time mothers

Category: In the News

January 31, 2022

Getting COVID: Two Years into the Pandemic

You know on New Year’s Eve, when we sing “Auld Lang Syne” and imagine that most of our troubles (certainly, not all–let’s not be greedy) are far behind us… And in the back of your mind, you’re kind of already rehearsing tragedy. Preparing what you cannot imagine is coming next.

That’s a good way to describe the feeling that I had on New Year’s Eve this year.

Sure, this year is going to be better. I toast my glass of water (because age has made me incapable of processing alcohol… Like, at all).

I suppose it’s a small feat to have managed to have made it to nearly two years into the pandemic before contracting the virus.

But that all came to an end this past month.

Mark it down: January 2022 will go down in my memory as one of the least enjoyable times of my life.

***

Wednesday, January 5th

After two days of remote work, I drop four-year-old Henry at daycare and drive in to work for an in-person work day. Because now, we have two different kinds of work days: 1) remote and 2) in-person. I park my car and head toward the COVID testing site, which is a free service offered by my university. The line–normally minimal over the last few months–is 30-people deep. Not a good sign. I don’t have symptoms of COVID, but I figure I’ll get tested since we plan to have people over on Saturday, January 8th for breakfast. And this Omicron strain is going around.

While I’m waiting in line–NOT KIDDING–I get a call from the daycare.

Henry has been exposed to someone who tested positive for COVID. He needs to be picked up within the hour. He can return if he tests negative on a COVID test five days from exposure. Or he can quarantine for 10 days.

I hang up and start looking for a COVID test appointment on Sunday, January 9th, but nothing is available in the nearest 50 miles until Monday, January 10th.

As best I can, I try to adopt a neutral attitude about being home with him January 5th-10th. I encourage Doug to stay at work while I stay with Henry. I let Henry paint and use Play-Doh. We use tangrams and crayons, building blocks and Legos. I break out Tablet Time as a last resort. We get through it.

Monday, January 10th

Rapid-test appointment for Henry at a local CVS. We take his backpack and coat because I’m going to drop him off as soon as I get the negative test result.

However, it might be a few hours to process the results because of the backlog.

No problem, I think. I’ll take him to a park even though it’s 15 degrees. He has energy to burn off.

Henry runs from me to different trees in a field, over and over again while I stand there in the cold, refreshing my phone, waiting for the test result to come in.

New Test Result Received.

I clicked on the link.

POSITIVE, it reads in giant red letters, as if to tell me, NO, THIS IS NOT A DRILL.

My first thought? Honestly?

F***. How many more days of quarantine NOW?

I do not think, Oh no! I don’t want to get COVID!

Instead, I think, Sweet Jesus. How many more days of full-time parenting do I need to survive? I am not cut out for this.

Henry has no symptoms. I feel fine. I’ve been around him for five days. I’m vaccinated AND boosted. I decide that we are going to skate past this plague because we are prepared.

I call the daycare with the update.

Well… now that he’s tested positive, he can return 10 days after his positive test result.

SAY WHAT NOW?

So that means… the daycare director shuffles papers on her desk. He can return Friday, January 21st.

10 more days? Seriously? Should I NOT have tested him?

Gone is my positive attitude. I’m going to be home, working, with this energetic preschooler for the next 10 days. Doug cancels his travel to a conference in Las Vegas and says that he will work from home and help. This helps, but my mood is still in the toilet.

I miss My Life.

Tuesday, January 11th

Doug develops a fever. Muscle aches, pains, weakness. He can’t move. It’s up to me now to take care of Henry, work, check on Doug, and keep the household going. Henry still has no symptoms. We wonder if it could be COVID, but we have our doubts. We are vaccinated AND boosted. Probably the flu.

We do not play with tangrams or building blocks. We don’t paint or play with Play-Doh. When Henry isn’t sitting with Doug in the TV room, he takes his tablet and crawls underneath the desk where I work and curls up in his “cave.” Using his finger, he “colors” in pixels of a unicorn with a flowing mane for hours upon hours. It’s now Endless Tablet Time and I have zero Mom guilt.

Every now and then, Henry taps on my leg to let me know that he’s ready for me to tap the last pixel of the picture that he’s working on. Together, we watch as the single tap sets the picture into an animated replay of his coloring. His face lights up and in moments like that, it’s hard to be upset that he is home.

But then, I remember all the times I’ve yelled, Listen to me!

And it all comes rushing back.

Wednesday, January 12th

Doug gets a doctor’s order to get tested for COVID and flu. By the end of the day, I’m wondering if I am feeling rundown from carrying the load of the whole family… or if it is something worse. I go ahead and look to schedule a COVID test. The first one available at a CVS in the nearest 50 miles to my house is Sunday, January 16th.

Thursday, January 13th

I skip my exercise, which if you know me, is kind of a big deal. I don’t do that unless something is really wrong. I’m feeling… off. I don’t know how to describe it. Hazy? Slight fever. Some body aches. But I cope. Doug’s test results are in: Negative for flu and positive for COVID.

Okay, then, I think. Here we go.

Doug is still hurting, so I keep everything going. We send the kids to bed early and I embark on a 13-hour sleep trek that I haven’t treated myself too in… Ever? I cannot remember the last time that I slept longer than 12 hours. Was it before kids? I spent years of my life just trying to get 7.5 hours of solid sleep. Remember all those times, waking up to a screaming baby and trying to figure out what kind of scream it was? My God… How many hours of sleep did we lose?

I fall asleep before I can figure it out.

Friday, January 14th

Doug is feeling better. He is able to work and do household chores. I definitely don’t feel well, but it isn’t enough to keep me from doing the things that I need to do.

Sunday, January 16th

I get tested for COVID.

Monday, January 17th

I’m sick. The kind of sick that makes you want to curl into a ball and forget about the world. It feels like every cell in my body is turned down to 30% energy. For the duration of my illness, fatigue is the biggest symptom that I have. Utter fatigue. Hard-to-climb-the-stairs fatigue. Feeling as tired as I did at the end of a long day while being eight months pregnant. That kind of fatigue.

Tuesday, January 18th – Friday, January 21st

My test results come in at 2:00 a.m. on Tuesday morning and with bleary eyes I see the word that I’m expecting:

POSITIVE.

And all I can think is how NEGATIVE that word feels in my life right now.

POSITIVE?

I’m POSITIVE that this is going push me to the absolute edge.

What happens during these days? I call in sick to work and lie on the couch while Henry watches Encanto, Raya and the Last Dragon, Sword and the Stone, and Robin Hood on an infinite and unpredictable loop. Henry creates The Triangle, the space between my bent knees and the couch, where he shoves his little body so he’s nice and snug while I drift into and out of consciousness to the music of We don’t talk about Bruno… I sleep 13 hours a night. I sweat in my sleep and don’t remember peeling all my clothes off. I develop a brain fog that leaves me feeling completely stupid and helpless.

I MISS MY LIFE. I LONG for Henry to return to daycare so I can finally be left alone to recover. On one day, Felicity complains of a headache at school and the school nurse firmly recommends that we pick her up since she has been exposed to COVID at home.

Sure, I think. Why not have everyone home while I’m trying to get better?

I envy all those people sick with COVID who don’t have to care for children or houses while they are sick. Those people who can walk away from their responsibilities, turn on Netflix, and check out of Reality until they feel better.

But hey, listen, I KNOW.

At least I was employed at a job were I could take sick leave. At this point in the pandemic, that’s not guaranteed anymore. At least I have a partner. At least I have the money to pay for my health care. At least I have a car to pick up contactless groceries for the family. At least I was vaccinated and was able to recover in two weeks. At least I have a house and food.

I know.

***

I was looking back at this blog and thinking of the giant hole that is missing in this chronicle of my life from 2020 to 2022. I have been writing, but not here. Maybe because I don’t know what to say here other than this:

We have been holding on.

For two years, we have been holding on. Waiting for it to get better. And finding over and over again that… Maybe this is it.

We have been navigating…

  • remote learning at home (worst idea ever)
  • remote learning at daycare (a paid version of worst idea ever)
  • mask policies–official and unofficial
  • teleworking policies (1 day per week in person? 2 days? Actually, stay home now. Okay, come back. Actually 2 days per week in person was probably enough. We think?)
  • our own level of risk as a family
  • a revolving door of quarantines (seven–YES, SEVEN–so far)
  • quarantine flowcharts (does the unexposed sibling need to stay home?)
  • the New Social Normal
  • missing our friends
  • missing gatherings

But now I’m really wondering…

What if this is as good as it gets? (At least for the foreseeable future)

“What if this is as good as it gets?” -As Good As It Gets, 1997

Indeed…

What if this is as good as it gets?

***

I have recovered from COVID. The last symptom that I’m still getting over is catching my breath while I’m exercising.

I am grateful for vaccines and modern medicine. I wish more people used them.

In the back of my mind, I’m wondering if/when I’ll contract COVID again. It’s entirely possible. Or perhaps I have gained this “super immunity” that researchers are starting to report.

In looking at pictures from the last two years, I’ve seen my children grow from 3 and 6 years old to 5 and 8 years old. I see them with masks on at the apple orchard, masks hanging from their ears while they are in the car, pulled below Felicity’s chin while we’re touring Chicago. Their childhood will forever by marked by the presence of masks. There’s nothing to be done about that. I don’t hate masks and I don’t love them.

I’m pro whatever-keeps-my-children-in-school-and-daycare. Just tell me what to do AND I WILL DO IT.

I’m simply doing everything I can to move us all forward.

One day at a time.

For the last 700 days.

One day at a time.

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January 20, 2021

Ramblings about the End of the Trump Presidency and Blue Lives Matter

My son was born four years ago, just a few weeks after Trump’s inauguration. My life turned both inside-out and upside-down. Inside-out, as I struggled once again with bringing the life inside me into the outer world. Upside-down, as events that would once grab headlines for days, if not weeks, were now coming every few hours. The It’s-Not-a-Muslim-Ban Travel Ban. Michael Flynn. Betsy DeVos. I would put my son down for a nap, fall into a half-sleep for an hour, and then wake up to a new horrible reality of Things that Were Now Possible in the U.S..

I knew there was a reason that when I entered my classroom on the day after the 2016 election that I could barely keep from crying in front of my international students. My heart knew what was coming, even if they didn’t know it yet. I felt somewhere deep in my heart that the life that I had built teaching English and fostering intercultural understanding was now dangerously at risk of disappearing altogether.

It turns out my worry was completely founded and warranted. Because two years later, international student enrollment plummeted where I was teaching, just as it was everywhere else in the United States. I grieved the fact that I needed to seriously reconsider my career choice. It was a path that I pursued tirelessly just to be employed full-time.

Now here we are, four years later. I have left teaching, but I have managed to stay in the field of education. There are things that I miss about teaching (advising students, talking with families, joking before class, sharing snippets of American culture) and things I’m wholeheartedly grateful that I never have to do again (grade essays, sit in a faculty meeting that could have been an email, eat like a wolf at my desk while answering emails, just to name a few).

And miracle of miracles, we are saying good-bye to legitimately the Worst President in American History. I don’t feel that those words are too strong to use. And because I believe in supporting my opinions with reasons, here are just a few:

  • “They’re rapists. They’re murders. And some, I assume, are good people.” On the campaign trail, 2015
  • “There were fine people on both sides.” About the Charlottesville white supremacist rally, 2017
  • Separating children from their parents at the border. 2018.
  • “I would like you to do us a favor.” Asking the Ukrainian president for non-existent incriminating information about Biden, 2019
  • “No one saw this coming.” About the COVID-19 pandemic, March 2020.
  • Suggesting that “disinfecting” the lungs by injection may help with treating coronavirus, 2020

There is so, so, so much more.

Before the pandemic, at some point in 2019, I remember talking with friends about how concerned I was about the end of this presidency. I believed that if Trump lost in 2020 and we were following his playbook, he would say the elected was rigged, that voting fraud was rampant, and he would refuse to concede. I really wondered if he would have to be dragged from the White House. We talked about at length about the limitations of what Trump could do to hold onto power. My friends reassured me that the military swears an oath to the Constitution, not to the President.

Some of those words were comforting.

And then January 6th came.

Just. What. The. Fuck.

(Photo credit: Kent Nishimura, Los Angeles Times)

***

I’m not exuberant about Biden being sworn into office. I’m hopeful. But honestly, at this point, I’m drained. Not only by the division between Americans that is visible at the national level, but also by the division between Americans in my own community.

One of our neighbors STILL has a yard full of Trump-related campaign signs decorating her lawn. All Lives Matter. Back the Blue. Lock Her Up (a fav from 2016). God Bless America. And then to string the whole mess together in a frightening display of cognitive dissonance, a “patriotic” Christian cross, lit with red, white, and blue lights.

In January, the Trump flags are still flying.

This is deeply unsettling to me.

I drove through a middle-class neighborhood a few weeks ago and everything about it felt familiar and cozy. American flags hung from the porch or next to the mailbox or from the awning of the house.

Then I saw something new.

Blue Lives Matter flag

How can I explain to you how this made me feel? To see this bizarre twist on an American flag, flying as high and next to American flags?

I had a stone in my stomach just looking at it.

I felt disbelief, anger, and frustration.

I felt cold.

What are we? What is the United States when we cannot even agree about which flag deserves to represent what we hold most dear? Are we really so divided that we’re putting aside the flag that brings us together and pledging allegiance to something else?

It’s not just a flag. People fly flags to identify themselves. And if you choose to fly a Blue Lives Matter flag in your front yard–especially when it’s the ONLY flag in your yard–you are making a bold statement about what principles you follow and what values you hold.

That thin blue line on that flag is a clear divider.

The question stands: Who does it divide?

Who is on either side of that line? Is it police on one side? Community on the other? If it is, then I really don’t understand. Because I thought that the jobs of police officers were facilitated by working with the community, not fighting against it.

Or perhaps the flag is finally saying what we’ve all known to be true for a long time. I grew up on Cops. The theme of the show is very hard to miss. Poor people–almost always black–are criminals. Police keep us safe from them. I don’t recall a single episode where a tax evader or embezzler was dragged from his corporate office for defrauding a company for millions. But a coked-out dude running from the police? Every episode.

But we now live in a world where militarizing police departments is common in the U.S., so perhaps I shouldn’t be so shocked that this is where we are, debating on the meaning of flying the Blue Lives Matter flag in your front yard. My reflective self wonders if we are just on a slow slide into a police state. My gloom-and-doom self cries out that we’re already there. But my hopeful self remembers that we are not there. Yet.

But we could be.

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June 17, 2020

Truth about the Things We Bury

Lately the American flag looks like nothing but

blood and bandages

layered one on top of another

the blood never seeping through

frozen by the iciness of heart

clogged by the pain of Too Many Hurts

each demanding to be seen, felt, but not

the blood doesn’t flow

it stays, (Hands up!)

the bandages wrapped, we bury it again

it is a great whitewashing of hurt

that has become part of the American experience.

Everything is fine.

We didn’t witness the collapse of the American financial sector and the global economy because of rampant unchecked corporate greed.

Invest today.

We didn’t have mass shootings that killed 20, 40, 60, 80 people.

We are safe.

We didn’t just watch our President escape impeachment for collaborating with a foreign government to interfere in our presidential election.

We are fair.

We didn’t just enter a pandemic with no real national strategy or leadership.

We are prepared.

We are not witnessing the death of hundreds of thousands of Americans, their bodies held in refrigerated trucks.

We are warriors.

We are not watching voters in Wisconsin and Georgia stand in line to vote in a primary for 6-8 hours during a pandemic.

Voting is a privilege.

We are not watching our politicians heartily encourage us to return to work and shopping in order to save the Great American Economy.

Exercise personal responsibility.

We are not watching our black citizens being murdered by police, over and over and over.

We are a country of law and order.

We are not explaining, once again, why we need more social workers and fewer police officers.

Justice has been done.

We are not allowing a narcissistic sociopath to use military force to dispel protesters to take a picture with a Bible in front of a church.

Don’t believe fake news.

To acknowledge such truths would be too harmful to what we hold dear about being American.

Freedom. Equality. Justice. Bravery. Compassion. The High Road.

We cannot hold these realities in our minds.

Can you imagine the pain if such a reality were true?

“USA flag” by kmezon is licensed under CC BY 2.0

This year, the flag is all blood and bandages to me

With each star a reason that we may die for it

For shopping and dining and entertainment

For living in nursing homes, or hospice, or prisons, or jails

For watching our grandchildren or going to church

For protesting or policing

For going to college or opening a business

For treating patients or collecting our garbage

For being a suspicious shade of skin

For looking like someone else

For, for, for.

***

But things that are still alive don’t stay buried

And things that have long been dead don’t bleed

No matter how many times we send the living to the grave

The stone inconveniently rolls away again

They rise, healing in Their wings

For the price of seeing

For believing in the wounds, without needing to touch them

For gazing upon the faces of those whom the systems have killed

They rise again

But we do not sing hallelujah

Because we don’t need to be forgiven.

Because we have done nothing wrong.

We are sure of it.

We don’t feel hurt, so there is no hurt.

And anyway, we all hurt from time to time.

Life is hard.

It’s wonderful to just be alive and live in this great country.

For now.

Oh. But you are bleeding.

Here.

Take a bandage.

There, there now.

All better.

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April 30, 2020

What is Getting Me Through (Week 5-7 of Pandemic Coping)

Weeks 1-2 were a mix of denial and anger, all set to rhythms of Survival Mode, acquiring food and necessities, making sense of pandemic life, and figuring out how to rearrange the landscape of life in a way that we can all live with in this house.

Weeks 3-4 have been, so far, my low point. Replete with the constant wishing things were different, feelings of helplessness, and depression.

Week 5 was my Saturation Point of News. Since then, I’ve only been able to stomach 20 minutes of NPR while I’m making dinner. It’s just enough for me to think, Yep, things are still awful and No, we still don’t have a handle on this.

By Week 6, the depression started to lift as we were faced with the news that we’d been expecting for weeks: Sorry, no more school for your kids this academic year.

And our President thought it would be a good idea to look into using disinfectant to “clean out the lungs.”

This week, Week 7, I feel mostly resigned to living life like this through the summer and well into fall. In my mind, I overestimate (I hope) that we’ll be doing this same type of life through Christmas.

In Week 7, I was able to see my mom in person, though from six feet away and with masks.

In Week 7, I learned that COVID-19 is not just a respiratory disease–it affects the whole body through blood clotting. And I read this ICU nurse’s account of the inconceivable situations and grief that she and other healthcare workers are facing right now.

***

In all this darkness, I want to make plenty of room for the things that are still bringing me light.

  1. My partner–My rationality, my burden-bearer, my chef and gardener, accountant and engineer. The person I still love to watch TV with (although we rarely have time to do that anymore).
  2. Running. Sweet, sweet exercise. Early in the morning. Nothing but feet on the pavement and music in my ears.
  3. Watching my kids grow closer together–This is both unexpected and welcome. They (generally) love being around each other. My daughter tucks my son in at night and tells hawks to “Stay away from her little brother.”
  4. Working with co-workers via Zoom. Sharing our little victories in helping faculty teach online.
  5. Attending church services via YouTube. I was surprised by how much my nerves are calmed every week by just hearing familiar songs and the liturgy. When so much is changing, my mind craves the unchanging, the stable.
  6. Taking on a short-term contract to help move some classes online that otherwise wouldn’t happen.
  7. Re-watching the entire American Pie series. And then all of the Austin Powers movies. (Apparently, this is the extent of problem-solving and just the right level of dumb that I need in my life to balance out all the soul-crushing news.)
  8. Reading “Dear Students: There is No Afterwards,” a letter written by a professor to Notre Dame students who won’t be returning to school. Profound and spot on.

It is freeing if we learn to accept that our lives are on loan and we are meant to give our lives over to others. That is the kind of lesson we are taught when we are young, though it often remains on the level of a noble idea that we may opt into or out of depending on our mood. What all the many sufferings of adult life show us is that this idea is actually the high and unbending rule, and it governs our bodies and our relationships and everything else, without exception. 

Leonard J. DeLorenzo

There will be no return to “normal” because we are all forced to face our own vulnerabilities now. And so the question put to us now is, How will we react to this vulnerability? What will we do?

9. Listening to Kate Tempest’s “People’s Faces.” But first, grab a box of tissues. You’ll need it.

Her poem hits all the right notes for this moment in time.

The uncertainty, the desperation, the frustration, and the sadness.

But also the hope.

The current’s fast, but the river moves slow.

Kate Tempest, “People’s Faces”

Holding onto that truth today.

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April 11, 2020

The Line Between Exasperation and Gratitude: (Week 3 and 4 of Pandemic Coping)

…is so very real, is it not?

I feel emotionally dizzy.

I mean, honestly, what bizarre disaster movie are we living in?

From what I recall, even Hollywood couldn’t conceive of the current crisis. In all the apocalyptic movies that I can recall (Deep Impact, Armageddon, 2012, The Day After Tomorrow, Independence Day), the fictionalized president of the United States displayed a measure of calmness and wisdom that the balanced the public frenzy.

We don’t have the opposite of a calm and wise leader.

What we have is actually much worse.

We have a delusional, narcissistic, inattentive compulsive liar. In addition to his irredeemable character flaws, throughout the duration of his time in office, he has managed to drive away all of the last bastions of intelligence and competence from the White House so that he is now solely surrounded by sycophants and butt-kissers that hold onto their jobs by constantly showering him with unearned and exaggerated praise for even the smallest achievement while covering up his most egregious errors, which he makes based on his personal intuition (“That’s my metrics.”) which has always been and will always be directed by his own self-preservation.

Could we ever have imagined that a President would suggest that healthcare workers are either “squandering” or stealing masks? Or who would stand by the statement that the National Stockpile doesn’t belong to the States? Or who would encourage the general public to buy drugs that haven’t been properly vetted for fighting coronavirus? Or who would push conspiracy theories that the media is purposefully overhyping the coronavirus because they want to hurt his chances of re-election?

Just… what?

WHAT ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT?

NOBODY IS THINKING ABOUT THE ELECTION.

At least nobody who’s immediate livelihood is dependent on whether or not they are able to keep their jobs three weeks from now.

Just when you think our President cannot possibly make us feel worse about having him as a leader…

He rises to the challenge.

I just cannot.

This is literally the worst time to have this man in office.

I would take so many other politicians in his place right now.

Mike Pence, whom I despise for his “spiritual” quest to rid the country of birth control and abortion? Yup. Approved.

Mitch McConnell? Put in him.

Lindsey Graham? In this pandemic, I LOVE Lindsey Graham.

Mike DeWine, the governor of my home state of Ohio, whom I didn’t vote for in the last election? I kiss his feet.

I would literally take just about anyone in this entire country who has the ability to apply reason to situations, seek advice from experts, and speak in a calm manner.

My six-year-old is a better choice.

My three-year-old is a better choice.

(Although, admittedly, he’s at his best first thing in the morning or after a nap. Even then… He’d probably be less dangerous to the American people because he would be distracted enough to let others do his job. As long as tiny Oreos are involved.)

***

So that’s the exasperated part of me, lately.

But I want to clarify that it’s not my only mode right now. Because at the height of my exasperation, when I feel that I cannot possibly take another day’s news, my rational brain kicks in and I remember gratitude.

Despite the madness that continues to swirl around my house, we’ve managed to create a zone of (mostly) peace and normalcy within these walls.

It’s different.

It involves more teleconferences, Zoom meetings, and screen time than I’d like to admit.

But it also involves being in the yard and the garden a lot. And taking walks. And having the kids around as we prepare dinner. And reading books together. And listening to audio books as I fold laundry, do dishes, change sheets, and vacuum.

We took our kids to fly kites. They loved it.

It doesn’t leave much time for us (parents) to be alone.

Being a parent during a pandemic without any tangible social support networks turns out to be hard.

It’s hard if you’re still lucky enough to have a job that you’re trying to do while the kids are awake. It’s hard if you’ve just been laid off and are looking for work when all the jobs that are hiring require you to put your health and safety at risk. It’s hard if you have a job–but you’re wondering for how long.

But who am I kidding? It’s hard for just about everyone in different ways.

So, gratitude.

We have jobs.

Getting into the field of e-learning last year turned out to be the absolute best decision I could have made at this point in my life. I recently took on a short-term contract as an independent consultant to advise and collaborate with faculty at a small, private university who are moving their traditional face-to-face summer courses into the online format.

We have a home. We have a yard where the kids can play.

We have food. More than enough food, honestly.

We have education. And friendship. And camaraderie (even if only online right now).

We have love. And laughter. And a sense of humor.

And these days, we **do** have something that we didn’t have two months ago.

Shared purpose.

A reason to look beyond the frustration and stress that we’re experiencing and look for those whom we can help.

For there is always someone who needs more help than you do.

***

And here’s where the emotional dizziness comes in. Because if I think about it long enough, my mind swings back to the realization that…

Wait… I cannot stop at gratitude.

If all I do is focus on what I’m grateful for and not be concerned about how others are suffering, nothing changes.

The cracks in our systems that are opening and swallowing so many people, they will remain.

Just because I have what I need does not, and SHOULD NOT, make me stop noticing and raising issue that the systems that are supposed to support and protect Americans are broken.

It does make me wonder though…

…will Americans finally put their collective foot down?

Will they push for the urgency of providing health care to all Americans?

Not a stop-gap. But real, actual, tangible access to health care that anyone–working, unemployed, full-time, part-time, retired, disabled, even (gasp!) non-citizens–can receive health care at a low cost?

What about sick leave?

What about family leave?

What about universal child care and preschool?

What about humane systems of incarceration?

What about preserving the human rights of anyone who is in this country, not just those who are citizens?

Or will we, once again, be too busy to push for real change?

Will 45% of Americans, as always, follow the President’s advice?

Not me.

Each day’s news, each day’s death toll, each day’s mental and emotional burdens are driving this experience deeper and deeper into my memory. It’s exposing all the flaws of capitalism run amok.

This cuts too deep for me to allow it to be “quickly forgotten.”

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March 20, 2020

Online Learning for Those Who Just Can't Anymore

So I’m in the unique position of being able to look at the pandemic through the lens of the exhausted higher education faculty member as well as the eLearning professional.

In the past year, I’ve started working as an eLearning professional at a community college. Before that, I taught for 15 years as an ESL instructor with almost all of that teaching done in the face-to-face modality. I have also taught online and used a flipped learning approach frequently over the past few years.

My Lens as a Teacher

Just last week, a new group on Facebook emerged: Pandemic Pedagogy.

In the first few days, as instructors swarmed to the site, it became clear that there were a few currents of sentiment that went like this:

Just… like… how the hell am I supposed to teach online?

I’m utterly exhausted from teaching already, and now I have to do even more work?

I’m an adjunct instructor and I don’t get paid for this extra work. LET’S REVOLT.

Be kind to your students! Their lives are completely disrupted, just like ours, and they may not have reliable internet access! Figure out how to maintain educational equity!

I’m falling apart because the kids are home and I’m creating all this new content and I’m not keeping up with grading and I keep getting desperate emails from students and I’m worried about my health and the federal government is a mess and I can’t find toilet paper anywhere and my spouse says my job is so easy because it can be done online and I CANNOT DO THIS ANYMORE.

My empathy for teachers everywhere right now is real. This flat-out sucks. Teaching online isn’t “easier.” Having done it, I can say that it is definitely more time-consuming, as you are constantly communicating with students, generating or posting content, and trying to keep up with grading.

Then, multiply all those efforts times THREE, FOUR, or FIVE and you start to understand why some teachers are seriously ready to bail out in the middle of semester and work at Kroger or Amazon (They’re hiring!).

What I want to say is that you have every right to be frustrated and stressed about the situation. I hope you take your moment to blow this whole thing off for a period of time. But when that moment passes, and for most of you I think it will, please know that no one (at least reasonable people) is expecting you to perform miracles.

So when the anxiety keeps you up late at night, you are definitely not alone.

My Lens as an eLearning Professional

As an eLearning professional, I’ve been reviewing hundreds of courses over the past week to check whether the course is ready to go live on March 23rd.

At this point, we are not looking for stellar courses. Quality Matters alignment is out the window. We are simply looking at whether students can access an updated schedule and can find the content that they need for the first week or so of class.

So let this be my first reassurance: If you’ve got an easy to find document/post where students can tell what they should do on which date, you are already ahead of the curve.

As for the rest of it, here are some snippets of advice:

On Getting Oriented

Consider prominently posting an introduction to the second half of the course on your LMS course page. Video is best because it establishes visual instructor presence, but even a nicely worded document can do. Reassure your students that you will get through this course together. Practice kindness with your students and ask them to be kind to you. Go over any FAQs that you want to make sure that all students know before you embark on this journey. Make what works for you. Providing this kind of introduction provides reassurance and stability to your students that they desperately crave right now.

On Teaching Synchronously

Please, please don’t feel that you have to generate all new content for every lesson. Don’t feel that you have to record all of the lectures that you would have given face-to-face. And if you’ve been given different advice from administrators, I implore you to do what is best for your students anyway. This is not the time to listen to bad advice.

Here’s the truth: Students do not want to watch you teach synchronously during the same hours that you had been spending together face-to-face. Their lives have been completely disrupted. Their kids are out of school. Maybe they lost their job or are working a new one. Maybe they have limited connectivity at home.

This doesn’t mean that you don’t teach your content. It means that you find accessible ways to do so. If you used to teach for 50 minutes on a topic, extract the key points and boil it down to 10-15 minutes, followed by a series of exercises, problems, or case studies, whatever works for your field. Make sure your students have access to the answers so they can assess themselves and track their understanding. Remember that your students can re-watch the videos. There is an incredible amount of repetition, re-clarification, and reiteration that happens in in-person teaching that is simply not necessary in online teaching. Say what needs to be said and move on. They can re-watch the videos and ask question in the forums that you provide. (And don’t be afraid to embed instructional videos that others have made. If the videos are on YouTube and allows for you to embed it on your course page, the content creator benefits from the additional views.)

My advice is: Offer an optional synchronous office hours time, maybe just 1 hour per week, where students can drop in and ask questions.

Be prepared: It’s likely that the ones who come won’t even want to talk about the class in the first session. They may just need someone to process the disruptions in their lives. This is how you build rapport, community, and more importantly TRUST. If your students trust you, they are more likely to stay engaged over the long haul and struggle through the challenges of learning in an era of disruption. You don’t have to be specially trained to do this. Just BE KIND and listen. Acknowledge what they are going through. If you feel like it, share how this crisis has affected your life.

I also encourage you, with the permission of your students, to record your office hours and share the recording with the class, to build that sense of community for your students who are not able to attend synchronously. Even simply watching an asynchronous recording of you talking with other students can go a long way toward helping all students feel connected to you in this time of uncertainty when everyone is so isolated.

On Organizing for Student-Centeredness

Give students a course schedule, an updated syllabus, or even a basic pinned announcement or post that is your students’ cornerstone for the course. Tell them what to do on a weekly basis so they can keep track. I recommend labeling modules by weeks or dates and organize content inside of those weeks. Students don’t want to go to 8 different modules to pull together all of their content for one week’s work. (Spoken by a teacher who has organized her class like this! Learn from my mistakes!)

Rest assured: No one is expecting you to do a stellar performance this term.

On Online Quizzes

If you’re going to administer a quiz online, please preview the quiz as a student and consider any tweaks that can make it less stressful for students. Do what works for your situation and remember that some of your students are likely to have spotty connectivity, which can make it stressful for them to do an online quiz between a certain time period, especially when it’s timed.

Final Thoughts

So if you just seriously can’t anymore, you are definitely not alone.

Keep your class simple and clear.

Do what you can.

Be kind.

We are all just trying to get through this.

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March 14, 2020

Pandemic, Here We Go: Stream of Consciousness # 2

Where to even begin.

For me, it really started on Tuesday, March 10th. There was an emergency meeting of the eLearning division entitled “Pandemic Planning,” which had been set the previous Friday. We were told to expect that very soon all in-person classes would be suspended. As an eLearning division, we would abandon all projects and previous plans and meetings. We would come together as a group to help the university faculty–especially those that have never taught online–be prepared to teach everything online.

Thursday afternoon, 3/12
Deserted hallway at Sinclair.

Yes, it was a bit of a shock. But honestly, I was already on high alert because just a few hours before this meeting, the chair of a department wandered into our media production studio, holding a printed email in her hand, asking me if I would come to a department meeting to help her faculty members understand how to teach online.

I remember the way she looked as she hesitantly held the box of an unopened webcam that we loaned out to her. It was that moment between reluctance and resignation and all the body movements that come with it. She was going to have to be the one to rally her troops.

But none of us were expecting that the end to in-person classes would literally be just hours from that moment.

And then the spotlight swung to the eLearning Division.

***

Ah, eLearning professionals. The unsung heroes of this whole mess.

Here’s how to do a web conference. Here’s how to record it. Here’s how to upload slides into your web conference. Hey, look! You can draw on the slides. Here’s how to do picture-in-picture. Now, you’ll need to publish it, share the link with students, create a document with the list of links. Captions? Here’s how you do that. Should you make all your lectures right now? Why don’t you work on just one week’s worth of content? And keep your videos short. Seriously. Think about what is necessary to say. Remember, they can re-watch the video. IT is working on purchasing more webcams. In meantime, do you have a laptop with a camera?

It’s been fun.

But seriously, it feels good to be able to help others who need help. It is my life’s true calling and I’m happy to do it.

***

In the meantime, we will be fine.

We may run out of toilet paper.

But by God, there will be sausage. And eggs.

***

Kidding aside, yes I’m concerned.

It’s hard not to be in the midst of so much social disruption.

But I know that if I get it or my kids get it, we will likely be okay. It sounds like having it is going to be awful, but hey, our mortality is low.

My prayers go to my mother in her 60s, who is also immunosuppressed right now.

To my stepfather.

To my niece, who lives with Type 1 diabetes.

To 75% of my church congregation, older than 60 years, with whom I typically worship every Sunday.

To all of the grandparents who, now that Ohio K-12 schools are closed and parents need to work, may be watching their grandchildren, some of whom are currently carrying this virus and don’t know it.

To all of the small businesses (and the families that rely on them) that are going to be hurting because everyone is staying home.

Despite the negligence of our current President in treating this public health crisis with the attention and seriousness that it deserves, I’m encouraged, nay comforted, by the leadership of Ohio Governor Mike DeWine. (A REPUBLICAN! Look! It’s possible to do the right thing even when it contradicts what the President says!! LOOK!)

My hope is that leadership at the federal level can also get some legislative pieces in place to protect and aid the most vulnerable. This isn’t time for your lesson in Bootstrapping of whatever other American Resiliency morals you’re trying to teach via withholding vital healthcare services.

And it’s sure as hell not helping to keep on driving the Anti-Immigration narrative by calling COVID-19 a “foreign virus” and adding more countries to the travel bans.

The neat thing about viruses is that they have no nationalities (Did you know?), they don’t need to apply for visas, and they can’t be turned away at the border. And bonus points for them: They’re likely bringing ALL of their family.

And there was no wall that could have been built that would have stopped this from happening.

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June 3, 2019

Funerals

The last post that I wrote was over three months ago.

I’ve started a few posts, but haven’t been able to finish them.

Partly because I haven’t really had an hour to breathe since mid-February.

Partly because I have nothing to say.

Partly because I have so much to say that I don’t know where to start.

Truth be told, this time of year always gets me a little down. Every year since my dad passed away in June 2014, a general malaise and “I’m-so-done-with-this-whole-life” attitude sets in around Memorial Day and doesn’t lift until mid-June (which, sadly, is always when Father’s Day happens).

There are still a few hundred others things I should be doing right now (and as I type this, I’m falling further and further behind), but I am utterly burned out, and WHATEVER, I need to do this.

In the mood for some rambling?

Here we go.

***

Three months. Three funerals.  

One, a lifelong friend who has known me since I was 8. Her death, expected, but still difficult.

One, an acquaintance, whom I had only met only a few times. Husband of my colleague. Father of four. His death, sudden and unexpected, the last page of his story, ending in mid-sentence. Tragic, confusing, and unbelievable.

One, someone whom I have never met, but whose words created a new space for me in the Christian faith. Writer. Theologian. Mother of two young ones. Her death, also unexpected, tragic, confusing, and unbelievable.

The lifelong friend that I lost was the mother of a close friend, the kind of person who knew everything and anything about how you grew up, who you were, and what kind of person you are still becoming. Her funeral was the only one that I had any time to process, a full “luxurious” nine hours to speak at the funeral, cry, and rest with a coffee cup in hand while hearing and telling stories. (Thank you, babysitters.)

And then there were three tornadoes that tore through my hometown, though mercifully not through my neighborhood. On the morning of Tuesday, May 29th, I got texts and messages and emails, “Are you okay? Let me know.” Our community’s tragedies, front page national news.

This is the tough part of Life.

When you have to keep doing all the responsibilities, all the work, the chores, the parent-teacher conferences, dentist appointments, birthday parties, oil changes, groceriesgroceriesgroceries, not to mention all the future-focused, long-term plans (Should I go back to school? When? Change jobs? When? What kind? Where? How?)

Do all of that, while you’re reminded over and over again that:

It.

Just.

Doesn’t.

Matter.

We will all die.

Our children will die.

The homes that we build and the things that we acquire will blow away, burn, or crumble.

The great achievements that we work toward and glory in will fall into ruin and be forgotten.

Even if what we do amounts to something on this planet, Earth is still in the midst of the Milky Way, which is spinning towards Andromeda, and billions of years from now, all of this will explode in another fiery end.

What does it all mean?

pexels-photo-1205301

Image credit: 01234567890, pexels.com

***

Okay, right, obviously it does matter to my children that I teach them how to love and show kindness. That I live my life in a way that I want them to live.

Of course, yes, that matters.

I guess what I’m wrestling with is the truth that,

the plans and aspirations and goals that I have in my life… aren’t really that important at all.

What does it matter if I never have a boss that can appreciate my competence rather than be threatened by it?

What does it matter if I’m never paid enough for the work that I do?

What does it matter if I never make another creative thing–a book, a post, a video–that other people enjoy?

Why does it matter so much to me that I be productive, that I continue to achieve… because all of things that I’ll make and achieve are really just dust.

Or, more likely, bits of data, easily erased or buried.

It.

Just.

Doesn’t.

Matter.

That truth is the same for all of us.

But perhaps what is different is our conclusions about that truth and how we let it affect our lives.

***

And then there were these words from Nadia Bolz-Weber at Rachel Held Evans’ funeral.

While it was still dark.

***

So I guess there is something that you find at the bottom of the pile of grief, that continues to grow because there’s never time to process it all.

Peace.

There is some measure of peace in knowing that it’s okay.

Whatever I do.

Whatever I don’t do.

Whatever I plan to do, but am never able to accomplish.

It’s okay.

All is well.

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October 10, 2018

Elon, Take Me Away

Elon,

After this last month of news that American women have had, I think I can safely say…

Take me away in your spaceship to the stars.

 

I haven’t always been interested in space travel.

Truth be told, I’ve only recently found the idea very appealing.

I’m pretty sure the strong desire to leave this planet is emanating from a deep sense of doubt in humanity’s ability to overturn–or at the very least disrupt–rampant systems of oppression.

  • Women continue to not be believed when they are sexually assaulted. Or if they are believed, their pain isn’t important enough to actually change political will.
  • Wall Street continues to do its ludicrous work even though it robbed American taxpayers out of trillions of dollars.
  • Gerrymandering continues to silence and marginalize the most vulnerable.
  • Refugees and immigrants continue to be the scapegoats for every imaginable social ill.
  • Trump. Trump. And Trump.

I could go on. I won’t. I’m sure you’re familiar with the issues.

And so. Here we are. Women are told to vote (assuming our vote makes a difference–it doesn’t always). We are told to run for office (assuming we have the means and support to do so).

Sure, I’ll vote. I always do.

But in the meantime, if I’m really being serious, I have more faith that you can get us off this planet than I do in the American electorate’s ability to consistently move our country forward. Climate change is happening fast and if we’re still having arguments about whether or not it exists…

Is that sad or cynical? Maybe.

Or it could just be a logical estimation of the possibility that enough people who disagree with the direction of the country will actually be motivated enough to travel to a polling place and cast a ballot.

Societies are slow to change.

For most of human existence, patriarchy has been systemically and structurally embedded in society after society. (Precious few have managed to organize society differently.) Now that many of the factors that originally led to the necessity of patriarchal societies have been altered (division of labor, access to education, etc.), those same underlying assumptions that supported patriarchy are being either called into question or actively fought against.

Yes, societies are so, so slow to change.

Unless, that is, the people in those societies are taken out of their cultural context–and planted somewhere else.

This is one of the reasons why New Zealand and Australia were the first nations in which women gained the right to vote (1893 and 1902, respectively). European settlers (or invaders, from the indigenous people’s perspective), removed from their previous cultural context and banding together to build a life in a new land, were suddenly very flexible on the issue of women’s rights.

Women were, in fact, key to building these societies.

The same happened in the United States.

Women in the U.S. first gained the right to vote in…Wyoming.

And so, Elon, it’s not so crazy to believe that hitching my wagon to your star is, ultimately, quite feminist.

Might I suggest that our new civilization have some political structure where 50% of positions of power are necessarily occupied by women?

Just a thought.

***

I know people have called you erratic for smoking pot on Joe Rogan’s show…

Really? That was the main takeaway?

You talked about so many more interesting topics than that, like your vision that AI could be used as a tertiary level of cognition. And the fact that everything we put on the Internet is “a projection of our limbic system.” (Mind. Blown.)

I watched the whole thing (in 10-20 minute snippets over the period of a whole week while I folded laundry, graded papers, and ate lunch at my desk while simultaneously answering emails…).

I think you’re magical.

PayPal wasn’t your passion. It was just a $100 million thing you did so you could sink money into what really interested you: developing real plans for getting humanity off this planet (since we haven’t mustered enough political will to seriously try to figure out how to stop completely trashing it.)

You create electric cars that can drive themselves.

You build rockets that can take off–and land back on Earth.

You dig holes to develop a futuristic hyperloop that someday might take us across the country in like, 10 minutes, or something obscenely fast.

You create solar panels for roofs and electric semi-trucks that can haul the entire weight of a diesel truck–Uphill.

And you talk about the future with not only hope, but confidence.

 

I dig it.

You’ve made me a believer.

When I saw Interstellar, I thought, “Okay, if I were living on a spaceship that is basically a moving city, I could totally be sold on the idea of leaving Earth.”

Let’s leave behind a world that makes fun of science and learning and instead, embraces curiosity, courage, and the path less traveled (or never traveled, as the case may be).

Let’s try once more to make a different world where systems of oppression don’t emerge because of our lack of resources, tribalism, and ingrained patriarchy.

Let’s colonize, Elon. (#commassavelives)

Elon musk 2

***

Maybe you can’t tell, but I have a celebrity-crush on you. One of those crushes that you have for famous people that you’ll never meet in real life, but somehow you still think that maybe there’s the very minuscule possibility that our paths could cross… And if they did…

Nah.

You probably have a girlfriend. That’s cool.

I’m married. To a very great man, at that. He is extremely smart, too. He had me at his tattoo of the Golden Ratio.

(Can he come, too? Oh, and maybe my two kids? I swear I’m raising them to be decent human beings.)

Your achievements have come up in conversations among our friends, many of whom are engineers. I’m pretty sure my husband’s words were, That dude doesn’t care about money and he’s just crazy enough that he might actually succeed.

Admittedly, I am not a scientist or engineer. I did well in high school biology, physics, and chemistry (I excelled at balancing formulas.) I struggled in algebra, but I loved geometry (Proofs were fun.) But science and math were really not my thing although I have tons of respect for those who live and breathe those fields.

But your new world is going to need more than scientists and engineers who can help take us into the future.

It’s also going to need people who can make sense of our past.

We need stories to help us understand who we are and where we’re going. I am quite certain that without stories, humanity is lost. Human beings need storytellers.

I am a storyteller.

And I am full of stories.

I have other qualities that make me a good addition to your “space-bearing civilization.”

  • I am curious and I love to learn. I changed my major in college to linguistics because concepts like a universal grammar and the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis fascinated me. (Arrival was an amazing movie on several different levels.) Also, I loved the rule-governed nature of phonology, morphology, and syntax.
  • I’m down-to-earth (merely a figure of speech, I assure you), persistent, and hard-working.
  • I balance life between being driven by outcomes and diving into creativity for creativity’s sake.
  • I enjoy a good pun.

My special talents include:

  • writing
  • teaching
  • knitting
  • speaking in cartoon-ish voices
  • gestating life well past 40 weeks (for a few more years)
  • giving birth with no drugs

Thanks for giving me hope that as a species, we may not be doomed to a future in which misogynistic, narcissistic, entitled men are necessarily destined to rule this planet indefinitely, to the detriment of the vulnerable and voiceless.

People like you make me remember that there are many people in the world who are trying to improve the planet and preserve the longevity of our kind.

Sincerely,

Me

P.S. Can we please leave Mitch McConnell and his ilk behind? Much appreciated.

 

And oh, and this is AMAZING.

 

And for those of you who didn’t immediately get the reference in the title…

 

2 Comments
September 29, 2018

Republicans: It’s All About Protecting Unborn Life, Right?

A few warnings:

I kind of ramble in this post. Forgive me for that. It’s very hard to create any coherent stream of thought in regard to this thick web of issues that have become impossible to disentangle as we talk about today’s current events.

If you prefer not to read a woman writing in an “unladylike” manner, now’s the time to close this page.

Call me bitchy. Or unladylike. Whatever.

Like many other women my age, you can’t shame me for not being ladylike.

Because we have seen that being the good girl often doesn’t get you ahead and it sure as hell doesn’t get you heard.

So if you’re still here, allow me to bitch away.

***

Republicans,

You’ve got a problem. With women, specifically.

You do realize that 50% of this country is women right? You do realize that women vote, don’t you? You do realize that younger women (a.k.a. the future electorate) are more likely to believe that women are not to blame for their own sexual assaults, right?

I don’t think you do. I think you’re still banking on the idea that there are enough people in this country that aren’t completely offended by your support, nay, your approval, of a man who has been accused of sexual assault by three different women.

But why should it matter to you?

After all, 19 women accused Trump of sexual assault and harassment, and “the American people” still elected him.

Right?

Your political calculation is pretty clear to me.

You have been so, so very eager to get to the godly business of making sure that women can’t have abortions. Ever, if possible.

(At least, that’s the cover story. I’m fairly certain your fervent support of Kavanaugh has more to do with your expectations about how he’ll rule on matters of political finance and other much more boring, but far more pernicious, topics that don’t captivate the attention and ire of millions of Americans.)

No. You are very eager to “protect the unborn.”

***

That’s still what all of this is about, right?

Protecting unborn life is the reason that you’re willing to promote a man who is accused of sexual assault by three women to the Supreme Court.

(Excuse me for a moment: My brain just threw up…)

That’s why millions of us watched Christine Blasey-Ford’s worst nightmare come true on live TV. That’s why we all tuned in to see what Brett Kavanaugh had to say about the accusations.

We’re in this political maelstrom because Judge Kavanaugh may be the deciding vote on future court cases that may overturn or severely chip away the protections of Roe v. Wade.

In short, what you, Republicans, are saying is that the rights of the unborn are decidedly much more sympathetic compared to the rights of women who have been sexually assaulted.

But today, many young women see attacks on Roe v. Wade as what they really are: attempts to control women’s sexuality and their bodies. 

Maybe you’ve noticed lately that women in their 20s and 30s and 40s are not so easily shamed anymore by the old, “You don’t want to be a bad girl, do you?” playbook.

That has to be hard: to know that the women are becoming more impervious to the blows that knocked previous generations down far quicker and for far longer.

Today’s women get up much faster. They speak out much more.

And we aren’t going away.

***

Republicans,

Let me lay it out for you in the simplest terms possible (because I assume you are skimming. You’re busy. I get it. #MomLife)

You suck at making policies that help women.

(Probably because so many of you are Men-Who-Cannot-Imagine-the-World-Through-the-Eyes-of-Women.)

This is what is so frustrating about the Republican platform. Your campaign messages champion upholding family values, strengthening the economy, and keeping government small, but your political actions aim to create a very different reality for all of us. 

Republicans, your track record is awful. Let me count the ways.

You hurt women by admitting that Blasey-Ford’s testimony was heart-wrenching and credible… but she still must be mistaken about who her attacker was.

You hurt girls by insisting that sexual assault committed by teenage boys is just “horseplay” or “roughhousing” and that men shouldn’t be accountable for the actions that they commit in high school.

But let’s not forget all of your…

Favorite Hits of Ways to Hurt Families:

You hurt families by cutting spending on education and forcing teachers into unspeakable working conditions. And then appointing Betsy DeVos. (Sigh).

You hurt families by cutting Medicaid even though most of your constituents depend on it.

You hurt families by cutting food stamps or raising the work requirements for those receiving welfare.

(Haven’t you heard unemployment is at an all-time low? What’s wrong with you? Go get an $8 an hour job to support your four kids, you Low Life! In fact, go get three of those jobs just so you can make ends meet and never see your kids. What? You can’t get enough hours in one place to qualify for health insurance? Guess you should have thought about that before you had four kids! Why didn’t you use birth control? Well, whose fault is it that you can’t afford it? It’s not the government’s responsibility to make it affordable for you to have birth control. Just stop sleeping with your husband or make him wrap it up. That shouldn’t be too hard, right? Take some responsibility for your reproductive powers!)

…is the message that seems to come together in a person’s brain when they consider the barrage of “typical conservative things to say in an argument.”

You hurt families by saying nothing when the leader of your party allowed children, toddlers, and babies to be taken from their parents’ arms when they came to the border seeking asylum from violence, blamed Democrats for the problem, backtracked, refused to accept responsibility for his actions (does he ever?), and then left our government bureaucracy to clean up his mess. (Oh, right. Sorry. Immigrants don’t count as “real families,” right? Feel free to disregard this point.)

But, remember, you also hurt the working poor by applauding Trump’s efforts to “blow up” Obamacare, even though it’s providing crucial health care for dying coal miners.

***

But what hurts the most today, in this moment, is that you hurt families by using women’s bodies as a political weapon.

And make no mistake–chipping away women’s rights hurts families.

But you care about protecting the unborn.

Right.

***

Does it scare you?

The very noticeable fact that…

We are on to you.

Who are we?

Women.

Women who work full-time, part-time, all-the-time.

Women who still make less money then men who do the same work (thanks to the cultural dilemma of gender in salary negotiations).

Women who pay taxes.

Women who still don’t have any nationwide guaranteed parental leave after giving birth.

Women who give birth in a country with unreasonably high maternal mortality compared to other developed countries.

Women who spend half of their salary on DAYCARE just so they can go to work. (Citation: Me).

Women who raise kids by themselves, with their with a partner, with cobbled-together daycare and babysitting, with parents, with friends when the sitter is sick.

Women who are routinely passed over for promotions based on the assumption that, because they’re mothers, they’re probably “more family-focused” at this point in their careers. (Never considering that those same families would probably benefit greatly from their mother’s promotion.)

We’re women who run PTOs.

And women who run for political office.

Women who do the grocery shopping, the oil changes, the doctor’s appointments, the RVSPs, the thank you cards, the school pictures, the flu shots, the pharmacy pick-ups, the fundraisers, the endless permission slips and photo releases and medical forms.

We’re almost always the ones that get called at work when a child is sick. And we’re often the ones who end up staying home with them.

We’re women.

Educated. News-watching. Well-read. Thinking. Talking. Podcasting. Blogging. Campaigning. Running. Voting. Women.

Republicans, you’re the first to talk about how expensive universal preschool would be or how un-American subsidized daycare would be, or how much guaranteed paid parental leave would hurt business…

In short, you sure know how to make women feel unusual, unwelcome, and burdensome.

But you’re welcome–for giving birth to your future tax-paying citizens.

(Can we please not pretend that our birthing and raising of children has no economic value? Since, apparently, that’s all you seem to care about. Oh right. No. You also care about “protecting unborn life.” And “born life?” That’s my responsibility. I’ve got it. Thanks for the clarification.)

***

I watched both of their testimonies.

And I believe her.

I. Believe. Her.

I think it’s clear that Ford is not some manufactured pawn in a widespread liberal conspiracy.

I also believe that Kavanaugh is furious that his family and his credibility are being raked through the mud now. (Maybe he grew up over the years? Maybe he’s different? Maybe he’s the same aggressive drunk that he was in high school? Hard to say. Maybe the hard-won FBI investigation will help clarify?)

And I believe that Kavanaugh is furious that Christine Blasey Ford is so credible and that his big chance of having his greatest dreams realized is coming crashing down all because he acted like a giant douche in high school.

Is that really so hard to believe that Brett Kavanaugh may have done these horrible things to girls and women?

Not for me, it isn’t. And I don’t think it’s hard for many women. We all remember guys just like him in our high schools. We remember similar jokes circulating in school about boys who joined the “Name of Girl” club, as a way to mark their sexual conquests.

We remember the college parties where some entitled, rich White guy drank way too much and thought shoving his penis in women’s faces was funny.

The more we’ve heard about Kavanaugh’s yearbook and the nicknames, the more we remember how small and dirty we felt when we received the jokes, the taunts, the “innocent” slaps or pinches, the touches.

And for some of us, we remember the groping. The assault. The rape.

All of us remember the shame, the shame, the shame.

I hope it’s all worth it to you, Republicans: the loss of confidence, indeed, the complete betrayal that women all over this country are feeling right now.

(And the women who don’t feel betrayed are still playing by your Good Girl playbook.)

But that’s not what angers me the most.

***

What angers me the most is that you hurt of all these people…

…and still most White evangelical Christians support your party.

Because, apparently, they believe that everything else is secondary to the primary goal of…

…protecting unborn life.

God works in mysterious ways…Who’s to say that Donald Trump isn’t a vessel that God is using to accomplish his purpose of ending abortion in this country?

… is a maddening rationalization of every abhorrent thing that our president has ever done and will do.

As a former evangelical Christian, this reasoning doesn’t surprise me.

But as a progressive Christian now, this logic absolutely disgusts me.

Republicans,

When you write policy against and vote against the poor and the vulnerable and the voiceless, you don’t represent the God’s love.

And it’s embarrassing for you to claim that you do.

But what do you care?

You’ll still be able to pay for an underground abortion if your wife finds out at 16 weeks that her baby has anencephaly and she’s already grieving for her child and you don’t want her to continue to carry the pregnancy, give birth, and watch her child die in her arms.

You’ll still be able to secure an abortion if, one day, your daughter really needs one–because she doesn’t want to raise a child with her prom date just because he didn’t have a condom and you thought she wasn’t old enough for the pill yet. (And the whole experience puzzles you because, it’s weird. Your daughter isn’t usually the kind of girl that gets in trouble like this. It’s not like she’s a slut, like the girls that this usually happens to. Right?)

But for me, you have crossed the point of no return on this.

You will never win my vote back. Ever.

Oh, it’s true, I was pretty sure that I’d never, ever vote Republican again after Trump was elected even though the entire country heard his raspy, old codger’s voice saying, grab ’em by the pussy. 

But presidents aren’t elected for life.

So, never again.

You will never win my vote back. All because of your lack of empathy and foresight.

Because for you, the possibility of overturning Roe v. Wade was such a juicy prize that you were willing to steamroll right over the bodies of dozens of women and their claims of sexual assault.

But I wish you had courage to say what you really mean.

(Courage: Maybe you are familiar with the concept? It’s what Blasey-Ford demonstrated when she talked about her trauma, live, in front of a national audience.)

So, yes, I wish you had the courage to say what you really mean:

You don’t trust women.

Deep down, maybe you think women are conniving, manipulative, back-stabbing, selfish, and left unrestrained, whorish.

(Not the ones that you know, of course, but other women, definitely. You see it happen all the time.)

Deep down, maybe you think women need these laws to stay in place. To keep them from sleeping around and being sluts. Deep down, maybe you think that these laws will actually stop abortions from happening. Deep down, maybe you think that these laws will actually stop women from having sex with men with whom they don’t intend to have a family. (Or being raped by men with whom they don’t intend to start a family.)

Just kidding. Women can’t get pregnant by a “legitimate rape,” right?

But let’s be real.

Outlawing abortions won’t stop them from happening. Did Prohibition work? Nope. Instead, we got mafia and bootleggers. Did making marijuana illegal work? Nope. Just ask Jeff Sessions.

Or let’s turn to guns, your other favorite issue. Did making the AR-15 illegal work?

Oh, right. Just kidding. We would never dream of making a semi-automatic rifle illegal. That’s our constitutional American right. Right, Brett Kavanaugh?

But the right for women to control what happens to their bodies?

Nah, that’s not theirs to decide.

What happens in a woman’s body is no one’s business but the government’s.

Unless she’s assaulted by a future Supreme Court nominee.

Then what happened to her body is the business of the entire country.

It’s our right to be able to judge for ourselves how traumatized she really is.

It’s our right to be able to compare ourselves to Blasey-Ford and insist that we would definitely report a real sexual assault and speculate about the gaps in her testimony.

It’s our right to be able to hear all the details of the assault from both sides and decide that, ultimately, we’ll never know who’s telling the truth (and an FBI investigation would just take too much time and the Blue Wave is coming…), so let’s just quickly vote on this guy (even though we blocked Obama from having his SCOTUS nominee) so we don’t lose our chance to…

…protect unborn life.

Right?

I think I’ve got it now. Thanks for listening.

It all makes so much more sense now that I’ve written it out.

Supreme court

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