Archives: November 2010

Finding Community When You Feel Trapped at Home

11.30.2010 10:26 PM

Reading Elizabeth’s musings on Elizabeth Fritzl as well as the book Room, made me think of the term “shut in.”  Growing up in the church and even as a pastor, we had members that everyone called the “shut ins,” meaning those who were sick or elderly and could not leave home.  We would make special arrangements for the pastor or a Eucharistic Minister to take communion to them in their home each week.  A wonderful way to remind members that even though you are not able to be in worship and fellowship with us at the church building, you are not forgotten.  We see you, we value you, and most importantly, you are important and seen by God.

Although almost all the hospice patients we serve would be considered “shut in,” the forgotten ”shut ins” are the caregivers.  Depending on the arc of the disease process that the patient travels, a caregiver could be juggling full-time work, a family, and caring for an elderly parent or spouse for years.  And by caring I mean very practical stuff–preparing meals, feeding, toileting, bathing, making sure medications are taken properly, and trying to find actitivities that are enjoyable even with declining abilities.  The path of caregiving is a much needed but lonely one.

I recently read an interesting paper by The Remington Report on “How the Web and Social Media have Influenced the Home Care Decision-making Process.”  They surveyed 210 unpaid caregivers who had cared for an ill or ailing family member or spouse within the last 12 months.  Although they are highlighting how caregivers are using the web to discern which home health or hospice organization to choose, I focused on how their research shows that for many caregivers the web offers an outlet for community that until now has been there but difficult if not impossible to access.

“We found that 92 percent of caregivers considered the Web either a “very valuable” or “somewhat valuable” source for healthcare information and 65 percent actively read news sites or blogs…

61 percent indicated that they were either “somewhat likely” or “very likely” to dialogue with other caregivers in an online caregiver forum or on a social media site.”

The good news is that although still feeling trapped at home, caregivers do have and seem to be starting to access community through the web.  So, virtual reality can help us cope with actual reality.  However, the next question of course should be about the quality of the community that is found.


Categories: Aging, Disability, Death, Dying
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Room

11.30.2010 4:25 PM

In April of 2008 I was riveted by the case of Elisabeth Fritzl, a young woman in Austria who, many years earlier, had been imprisoned underground by her father and bore at least six children to him (one, a twin, died shortly after birth).

For weeks I couldn’t stop thinking about her and reading about her. She was about my age. We had the same name. We were both mothers. She had been held captive for 24 years. I couldn’t stop thinking about all that I had done in those 24 years. I couldn’t stop thinking about having and raising children alone in a dungeon.

I wrote to her, to tell her… that I couldn’t stop thinking about her. That I joined many people around the world in loving and caring for her and her children’s well-being.

Some weeks later I got a letter in the mail from Austria. Inside was a photocopied letter, thanking me for the message and telling of the outpouring of kindness. It included Elisabeth Fritzl’s signature. On the outside of the envelope, in the same handwriting, but this time in original writing, was my name and address. She had touched the envelope. She had written my name. To me it is one of the most sacred items in my home.

I was thinking of her again today, as I often do, when I saw on the New York Times’ 100 Notable Books of 2010 list a novel called Room, by Emma Donoghue, which is said to be a story “narrated by a 5-year-old boy, whose entire world is the 11-by-11-foot room in which his mother is being held against her will.”

I know nothing more about the novel. Maybe it was inspired by other events or the author’s imagination. Or, maybe she too was obsessed by Elisabeth Fritzl’s story and that of her children.

Meanwhile, I wonder…how you can bear to read a novel about that. How you can bear to live inside that reality to write a novel about it. But mostly, how the human spirit can survive 24 years of youth — and a whole childhood for each of her children — living in hell.


Categories: Childhood, Motherhood
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Step-Families & The Loss of Being

11.30.2010 8:34 AM

Here is an excerpt from my book, The Children of Divorce.  Excuse the length of this post, but it wrestles with why step-families may be so hard from an ontological perspective. (For a definition of “pure relationships” see my last post):

Divorce in late modernity is a two-edged sword. It assumes that the freedom of the pure relationship can set the terms for the marriage, yet such terms cannot support the being of the children this marriage creates. The obligatory bond of biology provides an unalterable chapter in the child’s biographical narrative. While he or she can choose to enter and leave multiple relationships to formulate an identity with continuity over time, the child nevertheless must come to some kind of acceptance of the relationship that resulted in his or her being. When there is division in that basic union, the narrative of the self lacks coherence (we will discuss this further below). At some point in defining who you are, you must come to grips with where you come from.

Therefore, the promise of late modernity that identity can be formed and reformed on the terrain of intimacy does not work when it concerns parent and child, for identity (who you are) cannot escape definition, even when intimacy is not present. Even if I do not know my father (thus making intimacy impossible), my very being is drawn to his; his being becomes (even in not knowing it) that by which I define myself, or that by which I fail to be able to define myself because I do not know him. Read More


Categories: Childhood, Children of Divorce, Faith and Families, Marriage
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Episode 3 of The Anonymous Us Project

11.29.2010 3:34 PM


Categories: General
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The Southern Poverty Law Center and Gay Marriage

11.29.2010 2:58 PM

In a bizarre move, the Southern Poverty Law Center has put the National Organization for Marriage on its list of “18 Anti-Gay Groups” of which it says some will, next year, be listed by the same organization as “hate groups.”

Why bizarre? Because even the SPLC’s own summary of NOM (scroll down) doesn’t contain any examples of anti-gay statements or activities by NOM leaders (lacking any other material, instead they finger a guy who drove the NOM bus). In fact the SPLC even says that the group “emphasiz[es]” its “respect for homosexuals” and that NOM on its website says ”Gays and Lesbians have a right to live as they choose… [but] they don’t have the right to redefine marriage for all of us.”

For the Southern Poverty Law Center, is anti-gay marriage the same thing as anti-gay? (Apparently the answer is yes.) Does opposing gay marriage qualify you for possible “hate group” status by this historic and noble civil rights organization? (The answer appears to be a troubling “maybe.”)


Categories: Marriage
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Brookings/Princeton blog: ‘Who Needs Marriage? Children Do’

11.29.2010 2:02 PM

At the Future of Children blog (associated with the journal co-published by Brookings and Princeton) Lauren Moore responds to the recent Time/Pew Study:

As reported in Time Magazine’s November 18th cover story, according to a new Pew Research Center nationwide survey, a growing number of Americans believe that “marriage, whatever its social, spiritual, or symbolic appeal, is in purely practical terms just not as necessary as it used to be.”

The claim raises the question, “not necessary for whom?”

The Future of Children‘s Fragile Families study, referenced in Time’s feature, Who Needs Marriage?, suggests that for some, and particularly for children, marriage is more necessary than ever.

And despite the more general findings that Americans believe that marriage is unnecessary for a host of issues, when it comes to raising kids, more than three-quarters say it’s best done married. Read more.


Categories: Childhood, Marriage, Marriage and Money
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You Really Hurt Me When You Hid That

11.29.2010 1:51 PM

You Really Hurt Me When You Hid That

New song, dedicated to the DC community. This recording is not produced- working on it…
Lyrics:

I am not technology
I’ve got a face, I’ve got family
Surprise, surprise- I am here to make you happy
Deny, deny- why must I hide that I’m unhappy?

You invoke hypocrisy
Minimize biology
This isn’t wise- why must I try to make you happy?
I really mind- I hate to hide that I’m unhappy.

I just want someone to love, I just, I just want someone to love
I just want someone to love, you say, I just want someone to love
But that’s not enough

Your mirror and mine aren’t pitted with the same mystery
Your mind and mine aren’t fitted with the same history
Your mirror and mine aren’t pitted with the same mystery
Your mind and mine aren’t fitted with the same history

I just want someone to love, I just, I just want someone to love
I just want someone to love, you say, I just want someone to love
But that’s not enough

What’s with the lies? You really hurt me when you did that
Why hide what’s mine? You really hurt me when you hid that
What’s with the lies? You really hurt me when you did that
Why hide what’s mine? You really hurt me when you hid that

You really hurt me when you did that

You really hurt me when you hid that


Categories: General
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Starbuck

11.29.2010 1:03 PM

Starbuck: A mid-20s slacker makes ends meet by donating his sperm for money until his life gets turned upside down by news that he is the father of 533 children.

Starbuck: A comedy, about… sperm. Sometimes  you have to laugh so you don’t cry.

I’ll probably buy the DVD.


Categories: General
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Gay Marriage, Evangelicals, and the State

11.29.2010 12:31 PM

FS reader Peter Hoh points up this new piece on the gay marriage debate and evangelicals at First Things. Thanks Peter!

When even Christianity Today is asking, “Is the Gay Marriage Debate Over?” the issue has become so critical that it demands close attention. Believing (wrongly) that the debate is over, some evangelicals have decided that Christians should let the state define marriage any way it chooses and focus their attention only on what the Church does. This would be a fundamental mistake. Read more


Categories: Marriage
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Humanist Marriages

11.27.2010 7:12 PM

I’ve sometimes heard people wonder if marriage loses its meaning when one ceases to be religious. Here is an article written by an atheist who finds marriage to be deeply meaningful apart from religion. While religion has been a traditional carrier of marriage, it has many secular reasons, as well.


Categories: Marriage
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‘Marriage is Alive and Well’

11.27.2010 6:12 PM

At the Washington Post today, reporter Kathleen O’Brien documents responses to the new Time/Pew study, including by family scholar David Popenoe.

It turns out that Americans love marriage. They hope to marry, and most eventually will. Those who called marriage obsolete might be voicing a fear, not expressing a wish, said David Popenoe, a former Rutgers University sociology professor and co-director of the National Marriage Project.

…Popenoe has his theories as to why a fair number of people approve of marriage, yet don’t actually get married.

“Everybody knows marriage is a weak institution, so they have to be a little more careful in choosing a mate,” he said. “Marriage has become so fragile it’s a sense of, ‘Let’s not go through a divorce if we don’t have to.’ “


Categories: Marriage
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Glenn Stanton on the New Time/Pew Study

11.27.2010 6:05 PM

Glenn shared his write-up with me earlier in the week. With his permission I re-post it here. Thanks Glenn!

“Nearly 40% say marriage is becoming obsolete”

by Glenn Stanton

So says USA Today and the Associated Press based on a new report from the Pew Research Center.

Let’s take a closer look at this new Pew Report to see the good and bad news about marriage and family in the United States. The report is a compilation of both family formation trends as well as attitudes of American adults about marriage, family and parenting.

The bottom line, which is not new: Americans are actually very pro-marriage, pro-family, pro-parenting in their attitudes and deepest desires for their own lives, however not so much in their general views and practices.

First, let’s look at the “Marriage is Obsolete” claim.

The Pew report itself says this is not quite what it seems. They cite the 2006 World Values Survey (which Focus on the Family also cited in its Summer 2009 World Family Map Prototype Report) that only 13 percent of Americans agreed that “marriage is an outdated institution.” Our 2009 report also found that 90 percent of Americans disagree that marriage is an outdated institution.

Indeed, Pew’s new data shows that 39 percent of adults agree “marriage is becoming obsolete.” But this is a general question about marriage as a social concept.

When Pew asked people about their own feelings about their present or future marital and family prospects, we see a much different picture – one that shows the majority of Americans still have a deep desire for marriage and family in their own lives. Let’s take a look at the numbers. Read More


Categories: Marriage
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“Facing Death” from the Front Seat of my Mini Van

11.27.2010 4:23 PM

First the “Service Engine Soon” light appeared on the dashboard. 

‘Okay,’ I thought, ‘I’ll do that…soon.’ 

A week passes and then a yellow triangle light with an exclamation point in its center appeared as well and I accepted that “soon” was here.  I drove our mini van to our trusted mechanic asked for help.  I imagined that a total assessment, diagnosis, and an expensive treatment plan awaited me and my van.  As I joined the other silent, worried car owners in the waiting room, I pondered how many critical car part transplants I could afford.

As I awaited the van’s fate, never once did the mechanic escort me to the van, open the hood, point to the intricate universe that is the engine and ask my opinion, saying, 

“Now, Ms. Amy, we’ve connected several tubes and hoses that are supporting the van’s transmission and fuel injector something or other.  We’ve replaced the critical thing-ma-bob and run diagnostics on all the whats-a-ma-whoozits.  What would you like us to do now?  Do you want us to do everything we can for your van?” Read More


Categories: Aging, Disability, Death, Dying
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Happy Birthday 81

11.26.2010 4:58 PM

Today is my biological father’s birthday. He was born Nov.26, 1952- not sure where. He studied respiratory medicine somewhere near L.A. in the mid 80′s. He was 5’9″ with blond hair and blue eyes. He was raised Catholic. He liked to ski and scuba dive. He was Polish.

His donor number was 81. Unless he’s died, he is 58 today.

Happy Birthday… Dad, wherever you are.


Categories: General
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Is Marriage Becoming Obsolete?

11.24.2010 5:23 PM

 David and I blogged on the Time/Pew study at National Review’s The Corner.


Categories: Love & Marriage in Middle America, Marriage, Marriage and Money
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Feminists for Prostitution

11.23.2010 12:39 PM

Natalie Dylan chose to auction her virginity to the highest bidder. Ten thousand men responded with a cap offer of 3.8 million dollars. In this Tyra episode, Natalie is asked by her host, “So you think this is Feminism?” Natalie responds, “Oh yeah, this is being pro-choice with your body.”

Natalie is a Women’s Studies major trying to pay for grad school in Nevada. She is confident in her research of the psycho-social landscape that condemns prostitution and is critical of the conservative notion that women shouldn’t capitalize on their natural talents and assets. Basically, we should be able to do whatever we want to do, and get rich doing it.

I love cash and I love freedom, but when sex, reproduction and money are thrown around as easy and elegant ways to solve problems (tuition fees, childlessness, fantasies of a certain function), what we get are certain social problems:

  • Participation in risky transactions involving sex and reproductive capacities with sellers and buyers that are not mature or responsible enough to handle the associated costs.

Prostitution is stigmatized because when women have sex with men, there is a reasonable chance that they will become pregnant. And for most of human history, it was considered a negative thing to have a lot of bastards running around. Even if the social stigma is entirely removed and prostitution becomes as virtuous as waiting tables or getting a Women’s Studies degree, the consequence would look something like this: A world where more babies are born without fathers that love them and are there for them.

Also, how does the mind of a child grow when she learns who she is and who her parents are, and she knows that one exploited the other’s body and the other, accepted this exploitation, for a sum of cash? Prostitution and gamete donation are one in the same for the effect it can have on children born via these transactions.

Natalie, I’d love to have your 3.8 million dollars, but you’re not making the world a better place.


Categories: General
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We “Donate” When We’re Desperate

11.23.2010 10:58 AM

Please email this man and encourage him not to sell his children away.

Craigslist- you’re great for apartments, but when it comes to some things you’re really not making the world a better place.


Categories: General
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The Pure Relationships & The Children of Divorce

11.23.2010 9:29 AM

In this excerpt from The Children of Divorce I’m drawing from Anthony Giddens’ concept of “the pure relationship.”  Giddens believes almost all our relationships in late-modernity are “pure,” by which he means they are free from the obligation of tradition or village or ethnic group, etc.  We now get to choose whom to love and whom to hate:

 

Divorce itself, in late modernity, is the product of reflexivity. People divorce because they are free to imagine their identities anew outside marriage. Marriage in late modernity must bow to the fluctuations of the pure relationship. Where earlier marriage bowed to political mergers and labor negotiations, today marriage bows to the reflexive project of self-identity. It seeks intimacy on the horizon of the future. No-fault divorce allows marriage to take on the marks of the pure relationship. No longer are individuals bound to the institution of marriage itself. Rather, no-fault divorce allows the self the freedom to rework its identity as it moves into the future with or without the spouse. This may be good for the selves of husband and wife. But what about their children? Read More


Categories: Children of Divorce, Faith and Families, Marriage
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Every day we get closer to normalization

11.22.2010 11:51 PM

Celebrities not only cavalierly shop for children, they just as easily (pretend to) sell them too.

Every video like this makes donating egg & sperm that much more of a normal aspect of our culture.


Categories: General
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The Health of the Children of Divorce — New Research on Stroke Risk

11.22.2010 6:18 PM

At a meeting of the Gerontological Society of America in New Orleans, University of Toronto researcher Esme Fuller-Thomson presented new findings associating childhood divorce of one’s parents with double the risk of stroke for the child later in life.


Categories: Aging, Disability, Death, Dying, Children of Divorce
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