Archives: General

I spent my weekend at Governor’s Island  performing at an art fair on the east bank. Yesterday I brought my boyfriend and his 5-year-old. My boyfriend is tall and fit. He could beat a lot of people up if he wanted to, though don’t confuse him for a jock- that’s not my style. He’s more of a tortured geek trapped in the body of a street fighter. When I go anywhere with him, I automatically feel safe. The cat calls cease, and I enjoy a peace that is impossible when I’m walking anywhere in Brooklyn alone.

When he’s not present and someone tries to pick me up, I have to make an awkward effort to explain that I’m taken. “Are you married?” they ask. “Well, no.” I say. “Then you’re not taken,” they say back. This kind of exchange happens regularly enough where it’s caused me to wonder about the magical possessive quality of marriage. The geek in me wondered how much time I would save every week in managing unwanted attention from men if I could just wave a bejeweled finger in their face.

At Governor’s Island I had another such exchange. My boyfriend and his son were standing only a few feet away from me when I was being approached for a phone number. “Um, my boyfriend is right there.” I said. “Does that kid belong to the two of you?” he asked. “No.” I said. “And you’re not married?” he asked. “No.” I said. “Well then why can’t I have your number?” he continued.

Curious. Apparently, marriage is significant in defining not just your relationship to your partner, but the kind of relationships and exchanges we have with a range of people- from strangers to acquaintances to close friends and colleagues. It can change how people look at you.

While I was talking with a young woman named Candace whose father was never involved in her life, it struck me how the work of people like David Blankenhorn (Fatherless America) and Elizabeth Marquardt (Between Two Worlds) matters. I bet that 20 years ago—in the days of Murphy Brown—it wasn’t necessarily popular to express the opinion that a girl needs a father. Today, however, it seems like common knowledge, at least to many of the young women who grew up without dads.

 When asked about why a father matters Candace told me, “I don’t know, I really can’t explain that…I’ve read about it so much where girls are like that. And, I mean, I can see it so much, too, because it’s just…I’ve been through that, too, so I agree with it. I’m not sure why it is, it’s just the way it is…I think it’s like a general understanding, you would say.” Read More

At National Affairs, a useful summary of recently published scholarly articles on marriage and families.

Alana’s post below reminds me of a question I’ve had for years, and which I figured I’d go ahead and pose now. Remember, years ago, when you would “get” or “buy” or “find” a pet? When did people start “adopting” pets? Yet apparently this is what we now do.

My question is, do persons who were adopted have an opinion on the language of pet “adoption”?

I’ve decided that I’d like to one day become a foster parent. Someone’s got to pick up the slack and it doesn’t seem to be the infertile couples.

On NYC’s “Become A Foster Parent” site, they have a “meet our kids” page with pictures of all the kids and short descriptions of them, written to feature the kid’s selling points and endear them to the browsing viewer. It is a catalogue similar to online dating sites or pet adoption sites, or perhaps, donor/surrogate sites. You see a picture of the child, and learn their age and select personality characteristics. The children are rated on their severity of special needs: Medical/physical, Emotional/behavioral, Diagnosed psychiatric, Developmental delay, and Developmental disability.

Many of the children are rated as having severe special needs.

What struck me most, was how many of the kids had their picture taken when they were very young, yet are older in age. To me this meant that they had been in and out of foster care for years- some of them probably ten years total. It broke my heart. And out of 30-40 kids, only one or two were light-skinned. And almost all of the children featured were boys. Apparently, people are more willing to care for girls.

I thought about the practical concerns. As much as I want to be a gift to these kids in need, what am I inviting into my life when I invite a strange teenage boy into my home with documented severe emotional/psychiatric needs? What if, abused by a mother, he doesn’t trust women? What if he doesn’t trust white people? What if he becomes upset and violent and I can’t compete with the muscle and mass of a young male adult? What if what I have to offer isn’t good enough?

If you value ease and comfort, it would be a lot smoother to exit the foster care site and visit one of the many user-friendly donor/surrogate agencies recommended by the American Fertility Association. There you can raise a kid “right”, from the very start, and customize their features as to control the probability that you and your kid will get along and have a lot in common. You won’t have to worry about psychiatric needs, because your donor has been screened for clean mental health history. You won’t have to worry about physical disabilities, because you bought sperm from a former Olympic athlete. You won’t have to worry about racial tension, because your kid will look just like you. Commercial conception has a lot of great… selling points.

But while you’re deliberately creating a kid removed from their heritage and biological kin, defying nature, and rupturing the peace of wholeness in ontology, there are kids out there that need someone to welcome them into the world today. There are kids that need to discover kindness, and truth, and spirituality, and skills. There are kids that need capable ushers into adulthood. And these kids already exist.

How do you express your creativity and skill in parenting? By buying the perfect child? Or by spinning straw into gold through the incredibly difficult, but surely rewarding pursuit of foster-care and adoption?

A high-ranking leader of the LDS church, a 42-year old father of six, was murded in cold blood yesterday in California.  The motives of the murderer, who may have suffered from mental illness and may have been  a former church member, don’t seem yet to be clearly established.  Very sad, no matter how or why it happened.  One amazing thing, to me, however, is that the New York Times story on the murder says … absolutely nothing.  No coverage of it all, as far as I can tell.  Not a word. Like it didn’t happen.

In my last post, Ralph made the comment that no-one has a perfect childhood and that every kid will have to “work it out” through the dysfunction they’re subjected to. Because problems build character, right?

Well… I agree with him that life lends itself to trouble and compromise, and we’re all given challenges we must address and survive through. Where we differ though is our perception of how each individuals’ personal struggles do or do not threaten society. If only we all could function and react to life in our own little personal vacuums…

I once read a book called “The Lost Boys”- Why Our Sons Turn Violent and How We Can Save Them… The book is incredibly illuminating- James Garbarino eloquently describes the patterns of childhood and adolescent environments in which future criminals develop in. Little boys who fail to receive key experiences in good parenting, may be doomed to a future fraught with insecurity, anger and psychiatric antagonism. In other words, when someone down the street fails to responsibly raise their kid, your safety is jeopardized.

When I was in high-school, dealing with a step-dad I loathed coming home to, crying out for help through misbehavior, but with no one capable of pin-pointing where my problems came from, I had to “cope” with my non-perfect childhood- just like everyone does, right? Because my parents and all the prevailing authorities agree that deliberately denying a child their father is perfectly fine and has no negative effect on the kid, my slip-ups, poor grades, and substance abuse was a matter of my own personal character flaws. I waded through the murky swamps of my issues alone with no compass and no keen, insightful adults around willing or able to help.

I remember keeping a full bottle of vodka in my sock drawer, replenishing it once or twice a week. I remember driving my big, heavy old F150 home from parties two or three days a week drunk out of my mind. I was coping! I was numbing the pain and treating the symptoms effectively. And then I was threatening my life and everyone else’s life on the road with my 2,000 lb hunk of metal and “diminished” capacities.

Later, in college, I decided that the reason I was so unlovable by men was because I wasn’t skinny enough. My unenlightened mind kept searching for answers to my abandonment. So I thought about the “easiest” (mom always taught me the pleasures of ease) road to thinness (and love), i.e. meth. Cool, right? I don’t know if any of you have tried meth, but the come down basically turns you into a raging, vitriol-spewing hag. Kind of un-lovable. I lost weight but the self-hatred proliferated.

I did a pretty good job of rebounding quickly, luckily I’m cute and its easy for me to find people to pull me out of misery, but my point is that, if you’ve ever known a miserable person, perhaps a down-n-out druggie or even just a jealous, insecure nay-sayer, you may have observed the ripple of their radiating gloom.

My old best friend from high school, for example (surprise! another fatherless kid) got into heroin real bad and ended up stealing $10,000, yes TEN THOUSAND dollars from our mutual friend’s parents.

All to fill the void of despair.

So please, let’s be honest about the profound consequences of mismanaging the development of our kids. It’s not just their problem. It’s ours too.

I am he as your are he as you are me and we are all together. How many times do I have to say it?

I came to New York a year ago with minimal assets: a pretty voice, a little guitar, and a feature length screenplay saved to my google docs. I somehow magically formed a friendship with Michael Galinsky, a filmmaker based in Brooklyn- he wanted to interview me for a documentary he is slowly making about his family history, and the potentially numerous children he has sired through his work as an anonymous sperm donor in the 90’s. After spending some time with Michael he eventually agreed to read the script I had written and give me some pointers on it. After reading it he decided he wanted to help me make the movie! But there was still a lot of work left to do on the script before it would be a viable, competitive story in the festival circuit.

Since his engagement as my co-writer, I have had my world turned upside down. Allow me to explain… Read More

Just checking out youtube videos on sperm donation. This one is my favorite. The host launches into a shortlist of tips on how to make quick and easy cash if you’re a broke college student. First on the list: selling used books. Second on the list: sell things on eBay you “don’t need anymore”. Ask your friends, “What do you have that you don’t need anymore that you can sell?”

Then our host goes to Cryos International to talk about donating his sperm. First question that comes out of our host’s mouth is, “How much money can I make selling my semen?” Our host gets really excited that he can make between $50-$100 for “doing what he would do anyways.”

But you’re not getting paid to masturbate. You’re getting paid to give up your children. And I’m not a used book, thanks.

I was streaming an episode of my favorite TV series, Parenthood, when I was struck by the dilemma of one of the main characters. In episode 13, Lost & Found, Peter Krause plays Adam Braverman, a smart, capable dad married to the lovely Kristina (Monica Potter). Adam is the eldest and most responsible son of four fully grown children. He has two sisters, one being a single mom raising two teenagers, Drew and Amber, by herself.

His sister, the single mom, moves out of her comfort zone to approach Adam about coaching her son Drew for a baseball try-out. Adam is his uncle. He seems like an obvious shoe-in as the primary male to step in and help Drew master his sport of choice. We should expect Adam to get the coaching he deserves from an uncle who loves him, right?

But it’s not that easy.

His sister has a bad reputation within the family and his wife feels threatened by Adam choosing to spend time with his nephew when there are substantial problems already within his nuclear family, his primary family. As Drew cuts off an argument to head out the door he says, “Hey, I’ve gotta go. I’m late for Drew. I’ve got to help him with his baseball try-outs.” His wife Kristina says, “Oh, that’s so awesome honey. Why don’t you focus on our family right now?”

So even moms with a lot of brothers and positive male “figures” around may experience incredible struggle in the big effort to find male role-models and mentors for their kids. Essentially, fatherless kids are made to beg for time and attention from other people’s fathers. And the families of those other people’s fathers don’t appreciate having the time and attention of their beloved patriarch stolen away by a less important intruder.

So good, present dads are overwhelmed, and all the kids get cheated.

Four years ago my professor said to me, “Hey, I think you would really get along with my 14-year-old daughter P. Would you be interested in coming over and spending some time with her? Maybe be like a baby-sitter/big-sister?” My recently divorced Professor and his daughter P recently moved to the west coast from the South; and P’s older sister and mom stayed behind. “She misses her big sister a lot,” he said. I would be the substitute.

Soon thereafter I met the child that would grow up to be the closest thing to a sister I’ve ever experienced. P and I were inseparable. We wrote songs together, cooked together, created together. We made friends together, entertained together, and thought about the future together. Her dad invited me into their home. I became an honorary member of the family.

And people would often confuse us for family. P and I are almost the same height. We have almost the same eye color. We have exactly the same hair color; and our character and dispositions are in total synchronization. Which is perhaps why I began introducing her to people as my sister. It caught on and P embraced it. Anyone who met me or P between 2006-2008 is likely convinced that we are in fact sisters. I loved the reaction we got from people when I presented P to them as my little sis. “Oh my god!” they’d say. “The resemblance is crazy! And that’s so beautiful that you both write music!”

This was in huge contrast to the rainbow of confusion, anger, tacky ethnocentric high-fives for altruism, and suspicion of mockery I’d receive when introducing my adopted Korean sister as what she is legally: my sister. This was my first taste of what it meant to be related to anyone other than my mom. And I loved it.

Soon I started calling my professor my dad too. He felt like more of a dad to me than my step-dad, so since I felt it, that must make it an appropriate name, right? Because if family is who loves you and not who you’re related to then you can call anyone you love family, right?

P and I made plans to take an epic road trip. We packed up our car and left San Francisco in May, not to return until the following September. We sold CD’s at shows in every city we hit and survived off gas station peanuts and bulk oatmeal. Few people reading this blog have seen as much of America as we saw that summer. Every hour of every day was ecstasy.

Then we got to her hometown where her real sister lives. And everything changed.

P went from being the closest friend in the world to me, to oppressively distant and cold. Her mother and sister made few pains to engage me and I realized that my closeness to P was a huge threat to the family she already had. I couldn’t be a sister, because P already had a sister. I arrived on the scene too late, and out of the wrong womb.

P’s sister looked just like our “dad”. She was definitively his child. Every bone, every hue, even the cadence and character of her voice was the female identical of her father’s. I have to admit, I was very jealous.

Then it came. P let me know that she didn’t want to continue referring to each other as sisters. “It’s a lie,” she said. “I know what it means to have a sister. I still want to be close to you, but I can’t continue this lie.”

Those were close to the most hurtful words I had ever heard. I took it as massive rejection and cried for two days straight. Our frustrations with each other came to a head- we flung venom and with every accusation the mutual grudge built. Then we stopped talking to each other completely. Mostly, she stopped talking to me. She wouldn’t return my phone calls, nor emails. We spoke indirectly through stressful conversations with her dad. Then finally, he stopped calling me too. “It’s just really awkward,” he said. Online, P put up pictures of herself with her real sister. The captions under a couple of the photos said, “There’s nothing like blood.”

And so, with one bad fight, I lost a sister and a father. Mostly because, in truth, they were neither. They were just really good friends. And friends, even ones you have a lot in common with, even ones you love deeply, perhaps more deeply than your own family, are still just friends. And when the day comes that they decide they don’t want you around anymore- they have full authority to dismiss you and seek out a new friend.

This weekend P came to New York to visit me. We haven’t seen each other in over two years.

We fell in platonic love all over again and having her here restored a chunk of my heart that has been missing for a long time. Everywhere we went we held hands and sang jingles. Every person we came across mentioned our likeness and ease with each other. “Are you two sisters?” they’d ask.

As fast as I could I corrected them, “No, no. Just best friends.”

There’s less harm in telling the truth I’ve learned. And even though every inch of me wants to continue the sister delusion with P, I have to be an adult and accept that we’ll never share biology. I’ll never share the bond she has with her real sister. And I’ll never have a real father. Just a father “figure”.

It’s one thing to be lonely, it’s another thing entirely to be delusional.

An article just released by the New England Journal of Medicine reports that early use of palliative care significantly improves length and quality of life.  Doing less can be more: 

This study shows the effect of palliative care when it is provided throughout the continuum of care for advanced lung cancer. Early integration of palliative care with standard oncologic care in patients with metastatic non–small-cell lung cancer resulted in survival that was prolonged by approximately 2 months and clinically meaningful improvements in quality of life and mood… Rates of depression also differed significantly between the groups, with approximately half as many patients in the palliative care group as in the standard care group reporting clinically significant depressive symptoms on the HADS, and this effect was not due to a between group difference in the use of antidepressant agents.” 

Here’s a snippet of a conversation about divorce that I had recently with a young man, Brandon:

Me: What are your thoughts on divorce?

Brandon: “I just don’t like it….I don’t like it. I don’t think it’s good at all. Marriage—if you do the right things and put your cards on the table, and find the right girl, and you’re honest, and you’ve got yourself put together, and she’s cool—it’ll work. If you guys are both where you need to be. But that’s why I say honesty is so important—has to be.”

Me: Let’s suppose a person is married ten years and then one day says he’s unhappy. There’s no abuse or cheating going on—he’s just unhappy. What should he do?

Brandon: “It’s cool—divorce. Cause there’s just no way, you’re living in misery. No way. You’re not happy then…. If love isn’t there, or if you don’t feel happy, then why continue doing something that’s negative?” Read More

Please note our updated comments policy:

“Bloggers and commenters: be rigorous, be powerful, be funny, but don’t be mean. Inappropriate and off topic comments will be deleted. Repeat offenders of the policy will be banned from comments.”

Off topic comments are anything the moderators decide are off topic. These include, but are not limited to, comments about the civility policy itself and comments or questions unrelated to the post itself, including comments or questions about gay marriage on posts that are not about gay marriage. (There will continue to be, as there has been, posts about gay marriage where the topic of gay marriage can be discussed.)

We will be firm in deleting inappropriate or off topic comments and banning repeat offenders.

I spent this past winter in San Francisco, living at home with my mom, step-dad and kid brother. I went to help out my mom. My purpose there was to pick up my brother from school, take him to guitar lessons, and make sure the house was running well and stayed clean- to help my mom so she could focus on work and relieve a lot of her domestic obligations as she fought through the weeds of a sour California economy. I manned her open houses (she’s a realtor), and I was her cheerleader to get her to the gym  and be her personal chef (she lost five pounds in the first two weeks I was home). So it was a surprise to me when my step-dad fought tooth and nail to get me out of the house.

“You’re 23,” he said. “You shouldn’t be living at home.” Well, okay fine. I don’t want to be anywhere I’m not wanted.

I was surviving off food stamps (still am), and baby-sitting to afford the little necessities. The family I was sitting for decided to let me go because they couldn’t afford me. “The economy is rough,” they said. Yes, I know. So now I was jobless and no longer welcome at home, and in no position to pay rent in San Francisco, America’s second most expensive city. It was time to relocate.

The man who is co-writing and directing the screenplay I’ve spent the last year and a half on said that I would be welcome to come to Brooklyn and I could stay with them while I got on my feet. So I decided Brooklyn would be my new home and I had to find a way to get there. Read More