Friday, June 24, 2016

On Being Mom and Dad

“Single parenting is sometimes just a case of sitting around by yourself in mild despair, not knowing what to do.” – Simon Van Booy

I’m a mom who is also a dad.

My husband died 11 years ago and I inherited the “dad” crown. The only difficulty is, I still struggle with how to wear it properly. I know what a woman can provide for her children because I am a woman. But I don’t know precisely how or what a man provides.

I have a father. A great dad. And when I think about what he brought to my life, I think of safety and security. He was sure. He was steady. He taught me how to change a tire and check my car’s oil. He taught me not to keep too much crap on my keyring because the weight was bad for my car’s ignition switch. He showed me every day what hard work looked like.

Have you ever heard the saying, “I have to work twice as hard to be considered half as good”? I’m a single parent operating in a world that is still set up for a two-parent household. Schools have “Lunch with Dad” day. My daughter came home with that flyer from school and told me that her teacher said it didn’t have to be a dad. It could be a grandfather. Any “father-figure” would be fine. Somehow, though, me showing up to the lunch was not what they had in mind. But I’m her father figure. Don’t they see? Gender-specific theme meals hurt the kids. They cause the kids shame and pain and open them to teasing because, let’s just say it, kids are cruel and they use things like this to taunt one another. “Lunch with Mom” was equally painful for the little boy in her class whose mom had died from cancer earlier in the school year. Can’t it just be “Lunch with Parents”?  

I play both roles to my kids in an age when the idea of roles is supposedly becoming more fluid and less defined. Except when you are the only parent on duty, those roles are just as sharply limned as ever by you receiving comments like, “don’t you have a man to do that for you?” This was when I went to the auto store for new windshield wipers and asked how to put them on. Or, the only single dad in my daughter’s class brought cupcakes to the class Christmas party (the only party where we were allowed to bring sweets for the kids). One of the other moms told him they were adorable and asked where he got them. He replied that he made them. She paused for a moment and then said, “Oh, why didn’t your wife make them?” He and his wife have been divorced for seven years.

I’m the mom. I’m the one who cooks and cleans and snuggles and sings (badly). I tuck them in at night and wake them for school in the mornings. I nurse them when they don’t feel well; I do their hair. I’m soft, loving, warm, encouraging, hard-working, independent, and filled with sage motherly advice.

I’m also the dad. I drive. I teach them how to protect themselves from bullies, how to carry themselves, and how to know what they are worth. I know how to fix tiny things around the house, so they see me maintaining this castle of ours. I take the car in for servicing and take out the trash. I’m firm, grounded, dependable, steady, and occasionally want to tell them, “Go ask your mother.”


It’s hard to know if I’m giving my kids what they need from both parents, because I’m only one parent filling two roles. I can’t tell them how a man thinks because I don’t think like a man. I can only perceive how a man thinks. I can only prepare them for the extraordinary women they will become, for a broader definition of ‘personhood’, in a world that is constantly changing around us all.


Tuesday, June 14, 2016

Just One Man

“This is an attack on our people. An attack on Orlando. An attack on Florida. An attack on America. An attack on all of us.” – Florida Governor Rick Scott

This is not about the power of the Second Amendment, the right to bear arms. If you want to own a gun, own a gun. If you don’t want to, don’t. That is your right; it is your life.

This is not about the First and the Fourteenth Amendments; if you want to be a Christian, be a Christian. Or if you want to be a Muslim, be a Muslim. Be a Jew. Be a Buddhist. Be an Atheist. Be anything you want. You have that religious freedom. It is your life.

Do you see? It is your life. Yours. I cannot and will not tell you how to live it. Do with your life what you want to do, but do not tell me what to do with mine.

When I read the story about the shooting in Orlando, I was overwhelmed. So much death. So many wounded. People with families, friends. People who felt joy, and laughter, and sorrow. People who knew what it was to dread Mondays and long for Fridays. It doesn’t matter that Pulse is an LGBTQ+ bar. They were just people. And in the slim hours when Saturday night mysteriously changes to Sunday morning, one man decided to change the course of Pulse’s history forever.

One man.

Again, this has nothing to do with the First, Second, or Fourteenth Amendments. This has to do with a single person. You see, presidential candidates will use this event, as deplorable as that is, to further their campaigns. That means spin-doctors will come in and instead of saying one man caused this problem, suddenly it becomes a huge matter of politics and policy. But it isn’t.

This was the act of one man.

One man who twisted his own mind. One man who visited the night club a number of times to feel it out, get the layout, learn the rooms, and know where people would hide. One man who posted a profile on a gay dating app to take the measure of the “gay temperament”.  One man who preferred to drink alone and not engage in the “Pulse” around him (so to speak), unless he was intoxicated, in which case he became loud and unmanageable.

We can sit back and judge all we want. We can be desperate for a group to blame, to find a scapegoat, to find some way that this couldn’t have happened. At our safe distance, it is simple to rewind history and say, “Well, it never would have happened if...”. But how many generations of people will be blamed before they get to this one man?

Because it was just one man.

One man was the boogeyman in Orlando. It wasn’t because of a religion. It wasn’t because of guns. It was because of him. It was because he chose to pull that trigger over and over and over. It was because he selected that nightclub in advance. It was because he could not allow others to live their own lives, as he was allowed to live his, that he murdered 49 people and wounded countless more. I will not write his name, though I do pray his soul finds peace. The 49 deserve to be remembered not as martyrs, but because they could easily be you, because someone, somewhere, could simply decide he doesn’t approve of some facet of your life and will kill over it. You may be caught in the crossfire. Remember them. Even if just this once. Say their names. Because you would want to be remembered, too.

Stanley Almodovar III, 23
Amanda Alvear, 25
Oscar A. Aracena-Montero, 26
Rodolfo Ayala-Ayala, 33
Antonio Davon Brown, 29
Darryl Roman Burt II, 29
Angel L. Candelario-Padro, 28
Juan Chevez-Martinez, 25
Luis Daniel Conde, 39
Cory James Connell, 21
Tevin Eugene Crosby, 25
Deonka Deidra Drayton, 32
Simon Adrian Carrillo Fernandez, 31
Leroy Valentin Fernandez, 25
Mercedez Marisol Flores, 26
Peter O. Gonzalez-Cruz, 22
Juan Ramon Guerrero, 22
Paul Terrell Henry, 41
Frank Hernandez, 27
Miguel Angel Honorato, 30
Javier Jorge-Reyes, 40
Jason Benjamin Josaphat, 19
Eddie Jamoldroy Justice, 30
Anthony Luis Laureanodisla, 25
Christopher Andrew Leinonen, 32
Alejandro Barrios Martinez, 21
Brenda Lee Marquez McColl, 49
Gilberto Ramon Silva Menendez, 25
Kimberly Morris, 37
Akyra Monet Murray, 18
Luis Omar Ocasio-Capo, 20
Geraldo A. Ortiz-Jimenez, 25
Eric Ivan Ortiz-Rivera, 36
Joel Rayon Paniagua, 32
Jean Carlos Mendez Perez, 35
Enrique L. Rios, Jr., 25
Jean C. Nives Rodriguez, 27
Christopher Joseph Sanfeliz, 24
Xavier Emmanuel Serrano Rosado, 35
Edward Sotomayor Jr., 34
Yilmary Rodriguez Solivan, 24
Shane Evan Tomlinson, 33
Martin Benitez Torres, 33
Jonathan Antonio Camuy Vega, 24
Franky Jimmy Dejesus Velazquez, 50
Juan P. Rivera Velazquez, 37
Luis S. Vielma, 22
Luis Daniel Wilson-Leon, 37
Jerald Arthur Wright, 31


Tuesday, June 7, 2016

Only Yes Means Yes

“What really needs to be done is teaching men not to rape. Go to the source and start there.” – Kurt Cobain

Women are told it was our fault, that we dressed too skimpily, danced too lasciviously, or drank too heavily. They tell us, what could we expect? We were asking for it. But what were we really doing, we women? We were dressed in party clothes, like the men. We were dancing, just like the men. We were drinking, just like the men. And yet, somehow, “no” in our language translated to “yes” in theirs because we were “asking for it”.

What do you think a woman is thinking about when she dresses for a date? She is thinking that she wants to look nice. That she wants to look pretty. Maybe even sexy. Oh, but if she looks too sexy he might expect something. So, exactly what hemline sends exactly which message? Does she dress for herself? Does she dress for him? And why should she worry that her clothes could trigger some unstoppable urge in him? Shouldn’t that be for him to control? But she does have to worry about that. Every single time she goes out on a date she has to worry about that.

What happens when we submit to a simple goodnight kiss at the end of the date and he decides a kiss is not enough? Because we didn’t say “no” to the kiss, we must want everything else, right? Wrong. Maybe we didn’t even want the kiss, but we kissed anyway to end the date. And now it’s time to stop.

Only “yes” means “yes”.

If a woman is pushing you away, turning her head away from you, shaking her head, straining to get away, whimpering, crying, unconscious, unresponsive, saying “no”, saying “don’t”, saying “stop”, or if she is drunk or high at all, then you do not have her consent. And if she says “yes” and changes her mind at any time and then says “no”, you must stop because you no longer have her consent.

Back away from the woman.

A woman’s body is not a man’s right. Her body should not be his goal. Just as a woman never has the right to approach a man and arbitrarily begin molesting him, no man has the right to lay hands on a woman’s body without her express consent. If he has to force her, drug her, wait until she is unconscious, or in some other way incapacitate her in order to have sex with her, that is not consent.

Men, be better than this. We know you are better than this.

Consider this: 1 in 6 women is sexually assaulted, and every two minutes another American is sexually assaulted*. How many women are in your family? How many women friends do you have? Who do you sit next to in church? Who do you do yoga with? Who do you sit beside in school? You already know someone who has been sexually assaulted even if you have never heard her story.

What does this do to the victim? It sentences her to life, a life of feeling dirty, kernels of shame, of disgust. There is an endless loop of “what-if” that plays. “What if I hadn’t gone to that restaurant?” “What if I hadn’t walked home that night?” “What if I had put my mace in my hand?” She will never forget. She will have nightmares, she will often feel out of control, she will have difficulty trusting. For her, there will be no early release, no parole. She will serve every moment of her life sentence.

Rape and sexual assault are so much different than robbery and should be punished so much harsher. What was taken can never be recovered. It can never be replaced. The physical wounds can heal. Scratches scab over, broken bones mend, blood dries. But the innocence, the bodily sanctity that was ripped away will be gone forever.





*statistics courtesy of RAINN (Rape Abuse Incest National Network) 800-656-HOPE