You know what boils my blood?
Hearing all of the GOP presidential candidate frontrunners vowing to repeal Obamacare once they are in office.
To me, this is purely an "us vs. them" move. Conservatives vs. Liberals. Is it just a matter of jealousy? Is the GOP jealous that a Democrat president beat them to the implementation of a wildly successful nationwide healthcare access program? Is this why Congressional Republicans have voted over SIXTY TIMES to repeal the Affordable Care Act? Quite honestly, the jealousy angle is the only thing that makes sense to me. However, I have yet to hear a candidate propose a replacement plan for Obamacare.
I would hate to think that the alternative is true: that GOP candidates want to take health insurance away from the people who most need it, people who HAVE it now under the Affordable Care Act. They claim that they want to repeal Obamacare as an act of "liberty," a return to American "freedom," a fight against government control in our lives. But here's the thing - most of the people complaining about the infringement on their rights DON'T EVEN HAVE TO RELY ON OBAMACARE. Sure, they can paint it as 'sticking up for the little guy,' but I'm pretty sure the 'little guys' here are enjoying their access to affordable healthcare.
Perhaps a look at some common GOP-propagated myths will help us understand this insanity.
Myth #1: Obamacare is socialized medicine.
Not quite - it is a product of socialism, in the sense that everyone has access to it, but it is not funded solely by the government, the way socialized medicine is. Families and individuals with incomes in a certain range may qualify for a yearly tax credit to offset the cost of the health insurance plans available in the Marketplace. The tax credit comes from government funds, but it's the same idea as income tax refunds - and last I heard, the GOP is not against tax refunds.
Myth #2: Obamacare is a significant violation of your rights.
The right to go uninsured and pay out of pocket for all health-related costs? Yes. The right to die from a treatable condition because you couldn't afford the treatment? Sure. Other than that, your rights are fine. You can even retain your right to not participate in universal healthcare for a small fee. But honestly, why would you want to NOT have health insurance? I don't understand how this argument is working for the GOP candidates.
Myth #3: Obamacare is Big Government's way of controlling your healthcare decisions.
Only insofar as the decision of whether to have health insurance. And again, you can pay the yearly fine to be uninsured. The pundits make it sound like Obamacare is a dictator's dream: control who can access what, control what healthcare everyone gets, control everything related to your health.
Here's how the Marketplace actually works: you create an account with basic information about yourself, your income, your pre-existing health conditions, and your household living situation. And if this sounds like Big Brother, just remember that the NSA can collect more information on you through your phone and internet usage in ten minutes than is contained in your Marketplace application. Plus, HIPAA protections are still a thing. Relax. Based on your answers, particularly the ones about your income and the number of people in your household, either your application will go to your State Department of Health to determine Medicaid/Medicare eligibility, or you will be sent on to the actual Marketplace, where you can peruse health plans available in your state. You can see who the providers are, what the plan's yearly deductible and monthly premiums cost, what the plan covers, what the plan doesn't cover, and links to more information from the provider's website. Let me say this clearly: YOU GET TO PICK THE PLAN YOU WANT HERE. You are not assigned to a plan; you get to see all the options, not just the ones the site thinks you can afford; and none of the plans is provided by the federal government. In fact, since the providers are private companies, the Marketplace is a great example of the free market at work - several companies competing to be your health insurance provider, meaning that they are each trying to offer their services at a price that is just a little bit lower than the other companies' prices! How does the GOP not want this shining beacon of capitalism preserved?
Now, if you're bounced to the Medicaid route, then yes - in a sense, your healthcare decision has been controlled by the government. But even within Medicaid, there is a choice of providers (in Michigan, at least, which is the state I live in). In fact, I think I had a choice of 5 different providers when it came to my application. If you don't choose a plan, the state will choose one for you, but that doesn't mean you have to use it. Plus, you can appeal the decision that bounced you to Medicaid, and then you pay that yearly fine to go without insurance.
For most people, their employer has more control over their health insurance than the government does. the Marketplace is designed for people who are unemployed, who don't get health benefits through their job, or who opt out of employee health benefits. It's likely that your employer offers fewer options than the Marketplace does.
Myth #4: Obamacare is destroying the economy.
The economy is a complicated monster, but here's a basic rebuttal to this "economy destruction" claim. If people have affordable healthcare, they don't have to spend as much of their income on doctor visits, prescriptions, treatments, counseling, etc. If they are saving money in this area, they can spend it in other areas, like food, housing, clothing, family life, transportation, or, best of all, entertainment and material possessions. This will cause an increase in demand, which will encourage an increase in supply, and through some voodoo magic, a revitalized economy.
Here's another approach: if people can afford to meet their healthcare needs, they will be more healthy (imagine that). If they are healthy, they can go to work regularly and enjoy a high rate of productivity. From what I've heard, a strong economy needs consistent productivity, not flash-in-the-pan ventures. If people can generally rely on a steady job, steady economy, and steady access to basic need fulfillment, their stress levels go down. When stress goes down, mental and physical health goes up. And healthy people go to work.
Myth #5: Obamacare is just another program that we don't need and can't afford.
And a corollary - Obamacare is going to cost way more than Obama says. Here's what's happened instead: almost 30 million people have obtained insurance since 2013 thanks to the Affordable Care Act. That's people who weren't insured before, not people who have switched to Obamacare offers. Put another way, 18% of adults in this country didn't have insurance in 2013. Now, that rate is down to 12.3%. Repealing the ACA will put 30 million people back where we started, possibly even more people than that, based on GOP promises to make drastic cuts. Can you honestly get behind a candidate that wants to ruin people's lives like that?
As for the overall cost of Obamacare, the Congressional Budget Office estimates that federal subsidies (those tax credits I talked about earlier) will cost $208 billion less than projected initially. That's billion with a B. That surplus will go to cover deficits in other areas of the national budget. But, then again, Republican presidents seem to be more comfortable with budget deficits.
Myth #6: "Illegal immigrants are going to pour into this country now that they can get free healthcare."
Where to begin on this one...first of all, UNDOCUMENTED IMMIGRANTS is the appropriate term. Second, undocumented persons cannot apply for Medicaid or Marketplace plans because a social security number is required. The ACA doesn't provide free healthCARE to anyone, only free health insurance coverage. And only in very specific circumstances. Most people still have some premium costs or pay-sharing programs to contribute to. Emergency rooms are still required to provide emergency care to everyone, including undocumented immigrants, but that law was in place way before the ACA was passed.
I'm now tired of debunking myths. Let's switch to some facts, peppered with personal anecdotes and impassioned pleas for sanity.
1. The ACA made it illegal for insurance companies to deny coverage to individuals with pre-existing conditions. This meant that if a company found out that you had, say, depression, they could deny your application because it would cost them more to insure you than it would cost to insure someone without depression. This sort of discrimination is what caused so many people to be uninsured. It could have caused me to be uninsured. Now, people don't have to worry about that when applying.
2. The ACA allows parents to keep their kids on their insurance plan until they turn 26. Personal anecdote time: I turned 26 last October and I was not looking forward to it because I knew it would mean that I'd lose my dad's primo health insurance. That policy covered almost everything; most notably, unlimited counseling, physical therapy for vertigo, and incredibly dental services. The previous age was 22, I think, and I am so thankful that the age was raised to 26. I used more health services between ages 22 and 26 than I used in the previous twenty-two years combined. I wear glasses ($250 per pair), I take two prescriptions every day (almost $100/month for both in addition to the 15-minute psychiatrist visits 4 times per year to get the prescription) plus a number of over-the-counter supplements, I see my therapist once a week ($140/session), and I've had two episodes of disabling vertigo in the last year (I don't know what the physical therapy treatments cost). With five of us contributing to the yearly deductible, I didn't even have to make co-payments after, like, February every year. I miss that insurance so much.
3. The ACA is improving people's lives, if not completely saving them. One example - my mom is a physical therapist's assistant and her company has seen its number of clients soar because of the Medicaid expansion. And this is not just clients who want a massage, or are rehabbing a sports injury. These are people who are chronically unemployed because of chronic pain from a decades-old injury. These are people who have been injured on the job and worker's comp didn't cover their needs. These are people whose every last dime goes toward food, clothing, housing, and childcare, and who never dared dream that PT was within their reach. Can you really tell me that it is in our nation's best interest to keep "the least of these" trampled under our feet? Where is the Christian family value in that?
4. The ACA indirectly lightens the burden on community agencies that provide healthcare. This year, I'm working at a school that serves a high percentage of low-income families. We're talking Free and Reduced Lunch Program participation at 85% of students. Cherry Street Health Services provides free vision and dental check-ups every year to students who qualify for them. The dentists were at our school right before Christmas break and I made small talk with one of the dentists while I waited for a student I was working with. She told me that the number of students they've seen in schools has been declining in the last few years. I asked if this was a good thing or a bad thing, and she said that the decline was the result of increased access to Medicaid and Obamacare. This meant fewer free check-ups to provide, lowered stress levels for clinicians who were serving a population that just kept growing, and less strain on the budget for providing services to uninsured clients. So yeah...fewer student participants was a great thing.
5. The ACA represents a move forward for the United States. All this GOP talk about "restoring America's glory" and "making America great again" generally makes me roll my eyes because the ACA is a piece of legislation that caught the US up to other developed nations. Access to universal healthcare overwhelmingly raises the standard of living, longevity, emotional health, and prosperity of a nation's people. Why would the GOP not want this?! How does the GOP propose to "make America great again" if they're champing at the bit to cut off access to health insurance for 30 million of their own citizens? Does this party really represent the interests of our people?
By way of conclusion, a personal plea - please don't vote for any GOP candidate who promises to repeal the Affordable Care Act. The ACA has saved my life - from the extra four years on my dad's insurance to the expanded Medicaid access that I use now until I land a career job. The ACA has allowed me to attend over 150 therapy sessions for free in the last 3 years. The ACA provided me with physical therapy for vertigo, enabling me to return quickly to work and school. The ACA allowed me to put my money toward graduate school and training for a career that I absolutely love, instead of having to spend it on healthcare. Most of all, the care I've received under the ACA has kept me from giving in to depression, a condition which has tried to knock me out every day.
Please don't put anyone in office whose platform is to ruin my life and the lives of 29,999,999 other Americans.
Saturday, January 9, 2016
Sunday, November 22, 2015
Friday Mourning
Have you ever seen a heart at the moment it breaks?
I have.
On Friday morning, I saw twenty-five little seventh grade hearts break simultaneously. I stood in their classroom and watched their faces as our principal delivered the news that their beloved teacher had passed away the night before. Every teacher with a first-hour class had the wrenching task of delivering this news.
Some kids started to cry right away.
Some hid their faces in their coats and sweatshirts, or put their heads down on their desks.
Some had questions but couldn't make the words come out.
Some were simply blank. Blank faces, blank eyes, blank minds.
I don't even know what Jon said after that because, quite frankly, I wasn't listening anymore. Most of it was lost in that horrible halting voice that happens when you're trying to keep it together. I was still one of the blank ones, and I had already had an hour to begin digesting the news - Abbey Czarniecki, one of our science teachers for 7th and 8th grade, died very suddenly late on Thursday night because of an undiagnosed malignant brain tumor. I'm fuzzy on the details, and at this point I don't want to ask. Let's just say that this was never in anyone's realm of possibility.
The starkest moment of our new reality came between first and second hours, when the kids were moving from one class to another. The silence was terrifying. Anyone who has spent any amount of time in a middle school will know just how loud students can get. Screaming, screeching, slamming, yelling, cackling, and crashing are routine sounds. On Friday, few were talking. Few were laughing. Few were looking somewhere other than at the ground or at the person ahead of them. It was so out of the ordinary as to be deeply upsetting.
-----
As a school counselor intern at Wyoming Junior HS this year, I find myself in a unique position. I am only required to log 20-25 hours per week at the school in order to keep up with the total number of hours I have to complete by the end of the year. However, I've been working more or less full-time since the school year started. At first, I told people that it was because I wanted to get the full effect of working full-time as a counselor and to get ahead on hours in case I got really sick and missed a week or something.
But you know what? I'm beginning to think that there was a different reason for me to be there every day.
I am part of the Wyoming community this year. I am a fairly permanent fixture in the counseling office. The kids see me every day and know what I do there and they know where to find me if they need me. They know that I keep regular hours and that I can be depended upon to be available for them.
If I had put in only the minimum number of hours each work and chosen to work another part-time job, I wouldn't have nearly the understanding and love for this community that I have now.
I wouldn't know which teachers have been most torn apart by Abbey's death.
I wouldn't know which students have been hit hardest by their first close-up experience with death.
I wouldn't understand the effect of losing a colleague with whom you have worked for a decade and a half, as many of the WJHS staff are experiencing this weekend.
I wouldn't know which students were her basketball players, kids who have lost a coach in addition to a teacher.
Most of all, I wouldn't be tapped in so deeply to the communal grief taking place this weekend.
My individual grief is shallow - I didn't know Abbey beyond her roles as science teacher and coach. This weekend, other little tidbits have surfaced, isolated memories I have of Abbey, like the time she asked if I could switch a student out of her 3rd hour because he was driving her bonkers in exchange for a student that was driving another teacher bonkers. Or the time when I was first introduced to her and she told me that I had a picked a wacky place to work but I would come to love it in no time. (She was right, by the way).
These are small, almost inconsequential memories, and they are what I have.
For me, the communal grief is far more painful, like the moments when you have to see other people in pain. It's really hard to watch co-workers grieve, especially the ones I've had the most contact with and know better than I know others. It's really hard to watch them struck by a memory or a feeling or an image, something that only they can see, and then watch them try to keep their composure.
It's nearly impossible to watch my students grieve because I don't want them to have to know this feeling so early in their lives. They are not equipped yet to handle conflicting emotions - sadness over never seeing her again, fear that it could happen to anyone else, relief that she didn't suffer for very long, guilt about not saying hi to her in the hallway the day before, or about not feeling sad the way everyone else seems to be feeling, happiness over a particularly good memory of her class, shock and dizziness every time the grief train comes hurtling back...
School tomorrow will be hard. The funeral on Tuesday will be even harder. It feels like too much sometimes. No, a lot of the time. But I wouldn't dare stay home. This is the kind of grief you have to do together.
I have.
On Friday morning, I saw twenty-five little seventh grade hearts break simultaneously. I stood in their classroom and watched their faces as our principal delivered the news that their beloved teacher had passed away the night before. Every teacher with a first-hour class had the wrenching task of delivering this news.
Some kids started to cry right away.
Some hid their faces in their coats and sweatshirts, or put their heads down on their desks.
Some had questions but couldn't make the words come out.
Some were simply blank. Blank faces, blank eyes, blank minds.
I don't even know what Jon said after that because, quite frankly, I wasn't listening anymore. Most of it was lost in that horrible halting voice that happens when you're trying to keep it together. I was still one of the blank ones, and I had already had an hour to begin digesting the news - Abbey Czarniecki, one of our science teachers for 7th and 8th grade, died very suddenly late on Thursday night because of an undiagnosed malignant brain tumor. I'm fuzzy on the details, and at this point I don't want to ask. Let's just say that this was never in anyone's realm of possibility.
The starkest moment of our new reality came between first and second hours, when the kids were moving from one class to another. The silence was terrifying. Anyone who has spent any amount of time in a middle school will know just how loud students can get. Screaming, screeching, slamming, yelling, cackling, and crashing are routine sounds. On Friday, few were talking. Few were laughing. Few were looking somewhere other than at the ground or at the person ahead of them. It was so out of the ordinary as to be deeply upsetting.
-----
As a school counselor intern at Wyoming Junior HS this year, I find myself in a unique position. I am only required to log 20-25 hours per week at the school in order to keep up with the total number of hours I have to complete by the end of the year. However, I've been working more or less full-time since the school year started. At first, I told people that it was because I wanted to get the full effect of working full-time as a counselor and to get ahead on hours in case I got really sick and missed a week or something.
But you know what? I'm beginning to think that there was a different reason for me to be there every day.
I am part of the Wyoming community this year. I am a fairly permanent fixture in the counseling office. The kids see me every day and know what I do there and they know where to find me if they need me. They know that I keep regular hours and that I can be depended upon to be available for them.
If I had put in only the minimum number of hours each work and chosen to work another part-time job, I wouldn't have nearly the understanding and love for this community that I have now.
I wouldn't know which teachers have been most torn apart by Abbey's death.
I wouldn't know which students have been hit hardest by their first close-up experience with death.
I wouldn't understand the effect of losing a colleague with whom you have worked for a decade and a half, as many of the WJHS staff are experiencing this weekend.
I wouldn't know which students were her basketball players, kids who have lost a coach in addition to a teacher.
Most of all, I wouldn't be tapped in so deeply to the communal grief taking place this weekend.
My individual grief is shallow - I didn't know Abbey beyond her roles as science teacher and coach. This weekend, other little tidbits have surfaced, isolated memories I have of Abbey, like the time she asked if I could switch a student out of her 3rd hour because he was driving her bonkers in exchange for a student that was driving another teacher bonkers. Or the time when I was first introduced to her and she told me that I had a picked a wacky place to work but I would come to love it in no time. (She was right, by the way).
These are small, almost inconsequential memories, and they are what I have.
For me, the communal grief is far more painful, like the moments when you have to see other people in pain. It's really hard to watch co-workers grieve, especially the ones I've had the most contact with and know better than I know others. It's really hard to watch them struck by a memory or a feeling or an image, something that only they can see, and then watch them try to keep their composure.
It's nearly impossible to watch my students grieve because I don't want them to have to know this feeling so early in their lives. They are not equipped yet to handle conflicting emotions - sadness over never seeing her again, fear that it could happen to anyone else, relief that she didn't suffer for very long, guilt about not saying hi to her in the hallway the day before, or about not feeling sad the way everyone else seems to be feeling, happiness over a particularly good memory of her class, shock and dizziness every time the grief train comes hurtling back...
School tomorrow will be hard. The funeral on Tuesday will be even harder. It feels like too much sometimes. No, a lot of the time. But I wouldn't dare stay home. This is the kind of grief you have to do together.
Monday, November 16, 2015
Op-Ed: Why I Can't Completely Get Behind the #PrayforParis Movement
As you probably know by now, a series of explosions, shootings, hostage situations, and general mayhem occurred in Paris last Friday. Authorities have identified 129 deaths, and some 500 more with injuries. ISIS took responsibility for this coordinated effort amidst the chaos and confusion of rescue and President Hollande's declaration of a state of emergency. On social media, #prayforparis began to trend, Facebook users put a red/white/blue tint in the style of the French flag on their profile pictures to reflect their support, and hundreds of thousands of statements of prayer and solidarity erupted across many social media platforms.
You can probably guess that in the wake of ISIS's proud claim of responsibility, people got really upset and began to decry Islam as a religion of violence and terrorism. I even saw some Facebook posts pleading with God to guide the bombs dropped by France over ISIS training compounds, praying that they would hit their targets and wipe out all the Muslims.
Really?!
Are we really asking God to destroy an entire population (a population which numbers about 1.6 billion, by the way) based on the actions of one political extremist group? Are we really asking God to wipe out 1.6 billion human beings who He created in His image and has plans for? How is our blatant hatred of Muslims any better than ISIS's blatant hatred for the Western world?
Here are a few reasons that I can't fully support this #prayforparis movement.
1. Paris was not the only city devastated on November 13, 2015.
The western coast of Japan was rocked by a 7.0 earthquake.
Mexico had also been suffering earthquakes, registering about 4.3 and continuing for several days.
A suicide bomber in Baghdad targeted a funeral, killing 21 people and injuring 46 more.
Two suicide bombers in Lebanon killed 43 people and injured about 200 more. Exact numbers are not yet known because of the chaos in that area.
A suicide bomber belonging to ISIS killed 43 people in Beirut, Lebanon, and the number of injured is still unknown.
Some people caught on to this parade of devastation, sparking the hashtags #prayformexico, #prayforbeirut, etc., but the warcry against Islam was much louder. National landmarks across the world were lit with red, white, and blue lights to show support for France. Did anyone light up with colors for Japan, Mexico, Lebanon, or Iraq? If they have, it hasn't been publicized, which is a shame in itself.
I simply can't get on board with a campaign that supports so publicly one set of victims and remains silent on victims around the world. ISIS carries out acts of terror daily in the Middle East. Thousands have been killed by ISIS since the group first rose to power. Thousands. Why are we not outraged by that? Why are we not sending money and aid to their families? Why are we not coordinating efforts through social media to spread the word about safe places to stay and be taken care of? Why are we accepting only refugees who are skilled and educated (and, it needs to be said, wealthy) to our country?
Don't get me wrong. I am disgusted by ISIS's actions in Paris. I think we need to be more disgusted by what they're doing elsewhere on a much more regular basis.
2. There is implicit hatred for Muslims that hides behind innocent hashtags.
Let me reiterate: not everyone who uses #prayforparis also spouts islamophobic vitriol. I would argue that most don't outright hate Muslims, either. We have here a classic example of a few people ruining the whole batch, so to speak. We become lumped with the haters. The problem is that not enough of us are combating the anti-Islam rhetoric. Many of us stay silent, which is not the same thing as setting the record straight. I want to set the record straight:
The religion of Islam as a whole is not responsible for this past weekend's attacks in Paris, Beirut, Lebanon, and Baghdad.
In another example of "some ruining it for everyone," 1.6 billion Muslims are being painted as terrorists by the media, social media, and, I hate to say it, some Christians, all because of the actions of a political group styling itself as Islamic. Many people refuse to see the difference between Muslims and ISIS. Is it any wonder, when you consider the United States' history with the Middle East? Back in 2001, President Bush blamed the 9/11 acts of terrorism on Muslims, when, once again, preliminary evidence pointed to religious and political extremists. The terms "Arab" and "Middle-Eastern" became synonymous with "Muslim." The term "Muslim" became synonymous with "terrorist." Men and women who looked even remotely Middle-Eastern were rounded up en masse under suspicion of terrorist affiliation. The President says it was for national security, but let's be honest - detaining people based on their appearance and/or religion, holding them without criminal charges, denying their rights to legal representation, and playing fast and loose with their human rights? What does that sound like to you?
I saw a post on Facebook this morning that stated it really well - "If we can distinguish between Westboro Baptist Church, the KKK, and the average American Christian, we should have no trouble distinguishing between ISIS and the average Muslim." It's the same concept, folks.
3. We only seem to care when it affects people who are like us.
That's a rather simplistic way of stating it, but it goes back to the point I made about us not being outraged about ISIS targeting Muslims. ISIS activity only seems to become international news when it involves people who are white, or share a similar culture to ours, or practice a similar religion to ours, or share the same values as ours. Case in point - Paris attacks become international news shortly after they happen, but the bombings in Beirut that began two days earlier go unpublicized. Two people from the United States were killed in the Paris bombings, and the story goes viral. No United Statesians killed in Beirut; therefore, no outrage.
Why is this? I think the media is partly to blame, since they are of course going to cover the stories that will cause the biggest splash and make the most money for them. They know that lots of people have visited Paris (or at least really want to visit), and that most people don't know where Beirut is. Confession: I had to Google it. Learned Beirut is a city in Lebanon. I'd heard of Beirut before, but couldn't have told you where it was. The media plays on that. Paris is far more relatable to the average United Statesian, so Paris gets the coverage.
We can't blame it all on the media, though. We must shoulder this blame too. We have to figure out how to advocate for people who don't share our beliefs, culture, or value. We have to learn to recognize stereotypes and actively combat them. We have to learn to differentiate; to not take the actions and beliefs of an individual and apply them to the entire group. We have to stop promoting violence against our enemies in one breath and in the next breath condemning those who take violence against us. Violence is violence is violence, regardless of in whose name the violence is committed.
If we want the world to follow our example, we have to set a better example.
You can probably guess that in the wake of ISIS's proud claim of responsibility, people got really upset and began to decry Islam as a religion of violence and terrorism. I even saw some Facebook posts pleading with God to guide the bombs dropped by France over ISIS training compounds, praying that they would hit their targets and wipe out all the Muslims.
Really?!
Are we really asking God to destroy an entire population (a population which numbers about 1.6 billion, by the way) based on the actions of one political extremist group? Are we really asking God to wipe out 1.6 billion human beings who He created in His image and has plans for? How is our blatant hatred of Muslims any better than ISIS's blatant hatred for the Western world?
Here are a few reasons that I can't fully support this #prayforparis movement.
1. Paris was not the only city devastated on November 13, 2015.
The western coast of Japan was rocked by a 7.0 earthquake.
Mexico had also been suffering earthquakes, registering about 4.3 and continuing for several days.
A suicide bomber in Baghdad targeted a funeral, killing 21 people and injuring 46 more.
Two suicide bombers in Lebanon killed 43 people and injured about 200 more. Exact numbers are not yet known because of the chaos in that area.
A suicide bomber belonging to ISIS killed 43 people in Beirut, Lebanon, and the number of injured is still unknown.
Some people caught on to this parade of devastation, sparking the hashtags #prayformexico, #prayforbeirut, etc., but the warcry against Islam was much louder. National landmarks across the world were lit with red, white, and blue lights to show support for France. Did anyone light up with colors for Japan, Mexico, Lebanon, or Iraq? If they have, it hasn't been publicized, which is a shame in itself.
I simply can't get on board with a campaign that supports so publicly one set of victims and remains silent on victims around the world. ISIS carries out acts of terror daily in the Middle East. Thousands have been killed by ISIS since the group first rose to power. Thousands. Why are we not outraged by that? Why are we not sending money and aid to their families? Why are we not coordinating efforts through social media to spread the word about safe places to stay and be taken care of? Why are we accepting only refugees who are skilled and educated (and, it needs to be said, wealthy) to our country?
Don't get me wrong. I am disgusted by ISIS's actions in Paris. I think we need to be more disgusted by what they're doing elsewhere on a much more regular basis.
2. There is implicit hatred for Muslims that hides behind innocent hashtags.
Let me reiterate: not everyone who uses #prayforparis also spouts islamophobic vitriol. I would argue that most don't outright hate Muslims, either. We have here a classic example of a few people ruining the whole batch, so to speak. We become lumped with the haters. The problem is that not enough of us are combating the anti-Islam rhetoric. Many of us stay silent, which is not the same thing as setting the record straight. I want to set the record straight:
The religion of Islam as a whole is not responsible for this past weekend's attacks in Paris, Beirut, Lebanon, and Baghdad.
In another example of "some ruining it for everyone," 1.6 billion Muslims are being painted as terrorists by the media, social media, and, I hate to say it, some Christians, all because of the actions of a political group styling itself as Islamic. Many people refuse to see the difference between Muslims and ISIS. Is it any wonder, when you consider the United States' history with the Middle East? Back in 2001, President Bush blamed the 9/11 acts of terrorism on Muslims, when, once again, preliminary evidence pointed to religious and political extremists. The terms "Arab" and "Middle-Eastern" became synonymous with "Muslim." The term "Muslim" became synonymous with "terrorist." Men and women who looked even remotely Middle-Eastern were rounded up en masse under suspicion of terrorist affiliation. The President says it was for national security, but let's be honest - detaining people based on their appearance and/or religion, holding them without criminal charges, denying their rights to legal representation, and playing fast and loose with their human rights? What does that sound like to you?
I saw a post on Facebook this morning that stated it really well - "If we can distinguish between Westboro Baptist Church, the KKK, and the average American Christian, we should have no trouble distinguishing between ISIS and the average Muslim." It's the same concept, folks.
3. We only seem to care when it affects people who are like us.
That's a rather simplistic way of stating it, but it goes back to the point I made about us not being outraged about ISIS targeting Muslims. ISIS activity only seems to become international news when it involves people who are white, or share a similar culture to ours, or practice a similar religion to ours, or share the same values as ours. Case in point - Paris attacks become international news shortly after they happen, but the bombings in Beirut that began two days earlier go unpublicized. Two people from the United States were killed in the Paris bombings, and the story goes viral. No United Statesians killed in Beirut; therefore, no outrage.
Why is this? I think the media is partly to blame, since they are of course going to cover the stories that will cause the biggest splash and make the most money for them. They know that lots of people have visited Paris (or at least really want to visit), and that most people don't know where Beirut is. Confession: I had to Google it. Learned Beirut is a city in Lebanon. I'd heard of Beirut before, but couldn't have told you where it was. The media plays on that. Paris is far more relatable to the average United Statesian, so Paris gets the coverage.
We can't blame it all on the media, though. We must shoulder this blame too. We have to figure out how to advocate for people who don't share our beliefs, culture, or value. We have to learn to recognize stereotypes and actively combat them. We have to learn to differentiate; to not take the actions and beliefs of an individual and apply them to the entire group. We have to stop promoting violence against our enemies in one breath and in the next breath condemning those who take violence against us. Violence is violence is violence, regardless of in whose name the violence is committed.
If we want the world to follow our example, we have to set a better example.
Saturday, November 14, 2015
In Which I (possibly) Become a Guinea Pig
Hello, friends.
About a week ago, I was at the Christian Counseling Center for my weekly session with Sherry. Next to a stack of magazines, there was a new notice:
"Pine Rest is sponsoring a clinical research study for clients who have a diagnosis of Major Depressive Disorder (MDD) and who have not experienced relief through medication or therapy. Research is now being conducted to examine the efficacy and safety of Sirukumab, which is also being studied as a treatment for rheumatoid arthritis. If you have any questions or have interest in participating in this study, please call our research coordinator at (phone number)."
(That's the gist of what the notice said. It was a lot longer and had a lot more description and screening information. I would have wasted both my time and yours in retyping all of it.)
I mulled that study description over in my head for a week. What I should have done was asked Sherry about it right away at our session, since I had just read it and it piqued my interest. I had always thought that my diagnosis was more along the lines of Persistent Despressive Disorder instead of MDD, though, so it didn't cross my mind to ask her about the study.
Over the weekend, I kept thinking about it and I did some of my own research. What was Sirukumab? Where else was this study being conducted? Is this drug approved and safe and legit? Could I maybe get paid if I qualify to participate? Would I have to stop going to therapy? Thank goodness this sort of activity is all federally regulated and monitored, so there is an entire .gov website devoted to clinical trials happening in the US. I'll get into what the study is all about in just a little bit.
During the following week, I corresponded with the research coordinator at Pine Rest to tell her that I was interested and to ask for some more information to see if I qualify. I opted to do some pre-screening questions over the phone, but we couldn't get a solid half-hour on the phone til Friday because I had parent-teacher conferences and professional development during the second half of the week. Plus, I wanted to bring it up to Sherry before making any appointments. On Thursday, I had counseling again, so I got some more information and signed a consent form to be contacted about participation (just in case, I think, since I had already been in contact with the coordinator).
Then on Friday, after PD and some lengthy conversations with parents, I was able to get on the horn with Pine Rest for the pre-screening. She asked me a bunch of questions about my health, my age, my depression symptoms, comorbid conditions (i.e., my anxiety), and logistics of participating for the full six months the study would require (i.e., could I come to Pine Rest's main campus for appointments, could I take off of work if needed to accommodate appointments that might last up to five hours, would I be living in the area for the next six months, etc.). After answering all of her questions, she told me that as of right now, I seem to be a great candidate for this study. The only concern is whether my depression is "severe" enough. Anyone reading this who has depression will understand why I put that in quotation marks - one's experience of depression (and its severity) will fluctuate from day to day or season to season. In my case, the question is whether I am currently in a "major depressive episode." As in, is my depression worse right now than my baseline depression? Honestly, I couldn't begin to tell you, since what on earth is my baseline for depression? It's not "no depression symptoms present," since I haven't experienced that since I was 18. And if history is any indicator, my "major depressive episodes" tend to coincide with fall and winter, which means that I may be (and definitely probably am) heading into one right now. Plus, how are we gauging my symptoms? Symptoms with antidepressants + therapy? Symptoms with antidepressants without therapy? Symptoms with neither? It's too hard to evaluate myself on those terms since I've taken meds nonstop for four years and gone to therapy every week for three years.
Do you see why it takes so long for new treatments to hit the market?
Anyway, I will go to the study clinic on Thursday morning for official screening and, if all goes well, the initial contact session. Here's what the study entails, and some Research Methods 101 for those of you who are not familiar with how this sort of thing works:
- Participants will receive either an injection of Sirukumab, the treatment under investigation, or an injection of placebo (so that the doctors can determine if there is any clear benefit experienced by the people getting the Sirukumab). The participants won't know which injection they get, and neither will the study doctors, so that the results will be as free as possible from bias and unconscious interpretation. In studying a condition like depression, this is extra extra super extra important, as reporting of symptoms is entirely subjective - there's no blood test or exam to determine if my "level of depression" has gone down. If I think I'm getting the Sirukumab, I may unconsciously skew my reporting of symptoms by describing them as less severe than they may actually be. In other words, I may want so badly for this drug to work that I try to prove to myself and the clinicians that it is working. I'm hoping that my background understanding of research and my long-term experience of depression will help me to evaluate my symptoms accurately.
- Participants will get bloodwork done on a regular basis to see if the Sirukumab is having an effect on the thing they want it to have an effect on. From what I understand, Sirukumab works like an anti-inflammatory drug - something is signalling the body's immune (?) system to have a certain response, indicated by inflammation. And we're talking inflammation on a cellular level, not like inflammation of the lips or ankles. If only it were that visible. Introducing an anti-inflammatory tells the system to cool it, stop inflaming, nothing to see here. Sirukumab was first developed as a treatment for rheumatoid arthritis, which is all about inflammation, but research conducted recently claims to show a link between inflammation markers in the blood and experience of symptoms of depression. That is, the more "severe" the depression, the more likely it is that the person also has high levels of these markers. This study is meant to explore this link and see if an anti-inflammatory that is specifically designed to cooperate with antidepressants (many AIs are not) will lessen the severity of depression symptoms. Antidepressants have no effect on inflammation, so a positive outcome from this study could revolutionize the treatment of long-term depression (like I have) that doesn't go away with just antidepressants.
- Participants get three injections over 12 weeks, with appointments in between the injections as well, and then there are 5 or 6 appointments over 14 weeks after the set of injections is completed. This is probably to gauge response to the injection over time. To compensate for all the driving and time spent in the clinic, participants get a $50 Meijer card for every appointment completed. Lucky for me, I live in the Grand Rapids area and Pine Rest is not that far away from me. BLAMMO.
I really really really really hope that they will select me to participate in this. It's fascinating to me. While I have (more or less) come to terms with the idea that my depression may be a lifelong struggle, I still hold my candle of hope that new discoveries will be made that lessen the symptoms and severity of depression. This sounds like it could do that, since it's an entirely different direction for research of depression treatment. I honestly don't even care if I get the placebo. I just want to be a part of something like this. I want to put my depression to work for me, instead of working against me, like it seems to do a lot of the time. If it works and becomes a thing, I think it would be so cool to be able to say down the line, "hey, I was part of the clinical trials for that drug!"
This is going to sound like a very bizarre request, but would you all pray that my depression meets the criteria for "severity"? Odd, I know, to pray that a disease is bad enough instead of praying for it to get better. I just hope that I can convey to the interviewer that mine is the depression they are looking for - it may not prevent me from going to work or class or getting things done, but it is still with me every single day, in spite of meds and therapy. In fact, I think it would be a LOT worse without therapy. Maybe they can use my description of how I felt before starting therapy. Compared to now, that was pretty severe.
Hopefully, I will be able to tell you all on Thursday afternoon that I was accepted to the study! Until then, more middle school drama and joys of adolescence. I'll have to write about that sometime. That could keep me busy writing for weeks.
About a week ago, I was at the Christian Counseling Center for my weekly session with Sherry. Next to a stack of magazines, there was a new notice:
"Pine Rest is sponsoring a clinical research study for clients who have a diagnosis of Major Depressive Disorder (MDD) and who have not experienced relief through medication or therapy. Research is now being conducted to examine the efficacy and safety of Sirukumab, which is also being studied as a treatment for rheumatoid arthritis. If you have any questions or have interest in participating in this study, please call our research coordinator at (phone number)."
(That's the gist of what the notice said. It was a lot longer and had a lot more description and screening information. I would have wasted both my time and yours in retyping all of it.)
I mulled that study description over in my head for a week. What I should have done was asked Sherry about it right away at our session, since I had just read it and it piqued my interest. I had always thought that my diagnosis was more along the lines of Persistent Despressive Disorder instead of MDD, though, so it didn't cross my mind to ask her about the study.
Over the weekend, I kept thinking about it and I did some of my own research. What was Sirukumab? Where else was this study being conducted? Is this drug approved and safe and legit? Could I maybe get paid if I qualify to participate? Would I have to stop going to therapy? Thank goodness this sort of activity is all federally regulated and monitored, so there is an entire .gov website devoted to clinical trials happening in the US. I'll get into what the study is all about in just a little bit.
During the following week, I corresponded with the research coordinator at Pine Rest to tell her that I was interested and to ask for some more information to see if I qualify. I opted to do some pre-screening questions over the phone, but we couldn't get a solid half-hour on the phone til Friday because I had parent-teacher conferences and professional development during the second half of the week. Plus, I wanted to bring it up to Sherry before making any appointments. On Thursday, I had counseling again, so I got some more information and signed a consent form to be contacted about participation (just in case, I think, since I had already been in contact with the coordinator).
Then on Friday, after PD and some lengthy conversations with parents, I was able to get on the horn with Pine Rest for the pre-screening. She asked me a bunch of questions about my health, my age, my depression symptoms, comorbid conditions (i.e., my anxiety), and logistics of participating for the full six months the study would require (i.e., could I come to Pine Rest's main campus for appointments, could I take off of work if needed to accommodate appointments that might last up to five hours, would I be living in the area for the next six months, etc.). After answering all of her questions, she told me that as of right now, I seem to be a great candidate for this study. The only concern is whether my depression is "severe" enough. Anyone reading this who has depression will understand why I put that in quotation marks - one's experience of depression (and its severity) will fluctuate from day to day or season to season. In my case, the question is whether I am currently in a "major depressive episode." As in, is my depression worse right now than my baseline depression? Honestly, I couldn't begin to tell you, since what on earth is my baseline for depression? It's not "no depression symptoms present," since I haven't experienced that since I was 18. And if history is any indicator, my "major depressive episodes" tend to coincide with fall and winter, which means that I may be (and definitely probably am) heading into one right now. Plus, how are we gauging my symptoms? Symptoms with antidepressants + therapy? Symptoms with antidepressants without therapy? Symptoms with neither? It's too hard to evaluate myself on those terms since I've taken meds nonstop for four years and gone to therapy every week for three years.
Do you see why it takes so long for new treatments to hit the market?
Anyway, I will go to the study clinic on Thursday morning for official screening and, if all goes well, the initial contact session. Here's what the study entails, and some Research Methods 101 for those of you who are not familiar with how this sort of thing works:
- Participants will receive either an injection of Sirukumab, the treatment under investigation, or an injection of placebo (so that the doctors can determine if there is any clear benefit experienced by the people getting the Sirukumab). The participants won't know which injection they get, and neither will the study doctors, so that the results will be as free as possible from bias and unconscious interpretation. In studying a condition like depression, this is extra extra super extra important, as reporting of symptoms is entirely subjective - there's no blood test or exam to determine if my "level of depression" has gone down. If I think I'm getting the Sirukumab, I may unconsciously skew my reporting of symptoms by describing them as less severe than they may actually be. In other words, I may want so badly for this drug to work that I try to prove to myself and the clinicians that it is working. I'm hoping that my background understanding of research and my long-term experience of depression will help me to evaluate my symptoms accurately.
- Participants will get bloodwork done on a regular basis to see if the Sirukumab is having an effect on the thing they want it to have an effect on. From what I understand, Sirukumab works like an anti-inflammatory drug - something is signalling the body's immune (?) system to have a certain response, indicated by inflammation. And we're talking inflammation on a cellular level, not like inflammation of the lips or ankles. If only it were that visible. Introducing an anti-inflammatory tells the system to cool it, stop inflaming, nothing to see here. Sirukumab was first developed as a treatment for rheumatoid arthritis, which is all about inflammation, but research conducted recently claims to show a link between inflammation markers in the blood and experience of symptoms of depression. That is, the more "severe" the depression, the more likely it is that the person also has high levels of these markers. This study is meant to explore this link and see if an anti-inflammatory that is specifically designed to cooperate with antidepressants (many AIs are not) will lessen the severity of depression symptoms. Antidepressants have no effect on inflammation, so a positive outcome from this study could revolutionize the treatment of long-term depression (like I have) that doesn't go away with just antidepressants.
- Participants get three injections over 12 weeks, with appointments in between the injections as well, and then there are 5 or 6 appointments over 14 weeks after the set of injections is completed. This is probably to gauge response to the injection over time. To compensate for all the driving and time spent in the clinic, participants get a $50 Meijer card for every appointment completed. Lucky for me, I live in the Grand Rapids area and Pine Rest is not that far away from me. BLAMMO.
I really really really really hope that they will select me to participate in this. It's fascinating to me. While I have (more or less) come to terms with the idea that my depression may be a lifelong struggle, I still hold my candle of hope that new discoveries will be made that lessen the symptoms and severity of depression. This sounds like it could do that, since it's an entirely different direction for research of depression treatment. I honestly don't even care if I get the placebo. I just want to be a part of something like this. I want to put my depression to work for me, instead of working against me, like it seems to do a lot of the time. If it works and becomes a thing, I think it would be so cool to be able to say down the line, "hey, I was part of the clinical trials for that drug!"
This is going to sound like a very bizarre request, but would you all pray that my depression meets the criteria for "severity"? Odd, I know, to pray that a disease is bad enough instead of praying for it to get better. I just hope that I can convey to the interviewer that mine is the depression they are looking for - it may not prevent me from going to work or class or getting things done, but it is still with me every single day, in spite of meds and therapy. In fact, I think it would be a LOT worse without therapy. Maybe they can use my description of how I felt before starting therapy. Compared to now, that was pretty severe.
Hopefully, I will be able to tell you all on Thursday afternoon that I was accepted to the study! Until then, more middle school drama and joys of adolescence. I'll have to write about that sometime. That could keep me busy writing for weeks.
Friday, October 9, 2015
Op-Ed: A Dollar Sign on Every Forehead
Can we talk about Count Day for a few minutes? Until this year, I had never experienced fall Count Day because Christian schools don’t have to do it and my student teaching at Grandville was during the spring. Count Day is the first Wednesday in October and the number of students that attend school on Count Day translates directly into funding from the state. In fact, Count Day numbers are responsible for 90% of the school’s annual funding. NINETY PERCENT.
On Count Day, every single student has an imaginary dollar sign on his or her forehead. Or, more accurately, 7,500 of them.
That’s right - students in many Michigan school districts are worth about seventy-five hundred bucks on Count Day. If a student doesn’t come to school on Count Day, he or she doesn’t count toward the school’s enrollment for the year, and since funding is based on enrollment, the school loses money for that student, even though the student probably comes to school most of the time. You can probably imagine what a problem this causes for school districts.
Count Day becomes a game - incentives for attendance on this day are offered in elementary schools, like getting to wear your PJs to school, or having your teacher do something fun and crazy if everyone comes to school, or ice cream sundaes at the end of the day for everyone who was at school all day. Middle- and high school teachers remind students for several days leading up to Count Day about how important it is for them to come to school so that the government will give the school money to spend on their education. Administrators get pretty peeved when a student enrolls the day after Count because they won’t get any state funding for the student because he or she wasn’t at the school the day before, even though they will likely be enrolled for the next eight months.
But incentives and promise of rewards don’t always get teenagers to come to school. At their age, most students could care less about helping their school get the money it needs to teach them. Schools that could really use the extra funding pull out all the stops on Count Day: they arrange robocalls on Tuesday night to students who have a tendency toward absence and tardiness, secretaries put together the master list of students who are absent for Count and organize them by the neighborhood they live in, administrators and teachers who have first or second hour prep periods divide the list up and go to students’ houses to pick them up and bring them to school. I’m not even kidding. The stakes are that high - if each student is worth about seven grand, aren’t you going to do everything you can to put them in school on Count Day?
Some school districts are so desperate for funding that they put suspensions on hold - students who are suspended in-house get to go to class, and students who are out of school for suspension get to come back to school for just that one day. Teachers are strongly discouraged from sending kids to the principal or to in-school holding because their presence in class translates to thousands of dollars, even if the student in question is derailing the whole class. Some teachers even have to assume that the day is going to be a wash - if they make some progress on a lesson plan, great, but if they don’t, it’s because the money is more important and they just have to deal with the troublemakers being back in class.
What message does this send to our students? Students even as young as middle schoolers know what’s going on - they know that on Count Day, we don’t promote attendance simply for the sake of attendance and doing well in school. They know that as much as we don’t want to, we see them with dollar signs on their foreheads on the first Wednesday of every October. We can dress it up with incentives and school spirit and enthusiasm for learning, but underneath, we know that the system is so messed up and we just have to deal with it for what it is.
On the surface, it makes sense that the state government would base funding of schools on how many students it serves. The more students a school has, the more money it will need to pay for educational materials, teachers, parapros, support staff, food, building upkeep, etc. This system breaks down, though, when it comes to the actual implementation: to base funding on the attendance numbers of one single school day raises the stakes so high that some schools have to shift their focus from education and achievement and making a better life, which is what we’re at school for in the first place, to what is really pulling all of our strings: cold, hard cash.
This system uniquely punishes schools with high enrollment in low- or low-middle income areas. The more students there are, the more money the school will need to do educate them effectively. On the flip side, where there are more students, there are higher numbers of absences and truancy. Unfortunately, where there are more students, there are not always more educators. Large schools are already stretched for personnel, which makes the annual funding that much more important. Schools can’t (and shouldn’t have to) dispatch employees to go and pick up missing students, even for Count, just to get the money they need to educate these students the rest of the year. School should be about education, not about jumping through hoops and having to play a sinister zero-sum game.
Public schools are not in the business of making money, yet the State treats education as a business. Its policies reward the districts that are already doing well and punishes the districts that want to do well and could do well with the extra funding. Punishing the school by cutting its funding is not a simple “Well, you didn’t get your students’ tests scores up with the money we gave you, so we’re not going to give you as much as last year. It’s just not a smart investment for us.” Yet this is the mentality in the State legislatures. Cutting funding doesn’t just punish the educators by forcing them to do the same amount of work and achieve the same standard with less funding than before. It punishes the students who need education as their ticket out of the lives their parents are living. We say that to our kids all the time - education is your ticket out of here. But how can that be true if the State puts up all kinds of hoops and obstacles and contingencies?
Schools are not businesses from which to cut one’s losses. Funding should not be contingent on the attendance numbers of a single, isolated school day. What if we did Count Week instead? Students get sick. Students make appointments to see doctors. Parents can’t always be relied on to bring their students to school every day and on time. But does that make them less deserving of a well-funded and well-managed education? While it’s true that some administrators and educators don’t care enough about their job or their students to crusade so diligently for funding, most are not like this. The educators and administrators at my school, for example, fall into this latter category. You can tell by the way they conceptualize education - they educate the whole person, not just the content area they are responsible for. They are united in their commitment to lifelong literacy and learning. They communicate with colleagues and advocate for the needs of their students.
And then, when even their best efforts can’t get kids into school on Count Day, they are punished by being forced to do more with less.
Wednesday, June 3, 2015
Dear Tyler
Dear Tyler, love of my life, my Stinky John, my little man, my favorite...
First of all, let me say thank you for letting me use you as a great punchline these last two years when people ask me if there are any new men in my life. "Well, there is one...he's just great. He has these adorably soft brown eyes, a great smile, the softest hair...he's such a good listener and he laughs at all my jokes. He thinks my cooking is excellent, and he's content to just sit and cuddle and be."
Second of all...I am NOT ready to stop being your nanny.
Love, Nanny
--
Dear Tyler,
Taking care of you was my first full-time job. Technically, I did work full-time at the Conference Grounds, but that was only summers. You were my first 8 hours a day, 5 days a week job. And let me tell you, this was the best full-time job I've had so far! Fantastic bosses, no annoying co-workers to deal with, challenging enough to not get bored, but not so challenging that I got stressed out and stopped enjoying the job. There was not a single day where I dreaded coming to work. Do you know how rare that is? They say that if you enjoy your job 4 days out of 5, you're in the right job and very lucky. I am beyond lucky, young sir.
Love, Nanny
--
Dear Tyler,
In all that time, you never once peed on me. You did poop on me once, though. You were crazy sick, so I'll give you a pass on that one. You never outright puked on me, either. Plenty of spit-up that first year, but I won't count that. Spit-up is pretty easy to clean up and doesn't have that horribly pungent smell that vomit seems to have.
Love, Nanny
--
Dear Tyler,
The first time you said "Nanny," I just about died. I melted inside. I suppose it was a small glimpse of how parents feel when their baby says "mama" or "dada" for the first time. Going into your room in the morning and seeing you smiling up at me (or, when you were younger, seeing you in your bouncy seat start bouncing and giggling when you saw me come in) was often exactly the boost I needed. You see, I have something called depression and it's hard for me to get out of bed in the morning. Knowing I had you to look forward and that you would always be excited to see me helped a lot with my depression.
Love, Nanny
--
Dear Tyler,
Did you know that before I started as your nanny, I could count on one hand the number of times I'd changed a diaper? Now I am a diapering master. I could diaper anything. I could probably diaper a wet cat. I don't think I'd like to try though, because I'm allergic to cats and I feel like interacting with a wet cat would just flare that up. But I bet I could diaper a wet cat, if it came right down to it.
Love, Nanny
--
Dear Tyler,
Right now, your mom is 8 months pregnant with a baby that she and your dad have nicknamed "Gummy" because they are waiting to find out the gender until the baby is born. Right now, you're really bad at the "guh" sound and every time I ask you the baby's name, you say "Dummy." And I laugh every single time. Ditto the word 'banana,' which you currently pronounce 'badada.' Odd, since you're perfectly capable of saying 'nanny'...
Love, Nanny
--
Dear Tyler,
#thanksbutnotthanks for making me watch every episode of Daniel Tiger's Neighborhood. You love that show right now. You ask for it every time we enter a room with a TV. Even if we're in someone else's house. There were a few times this year where I brought you to my neighbor Allison's house so that I could go to internship interviews, and you would run right into the house, start pushing buttons on the their TV, and saying "Dan-yo, Dan-yo" over and over. You had similar feelings for Thomas the Tank Engine, which you affectionately referred to as "Tommy." So while I could go my whole life without ever watching either of those television shows again, it was a delight to watch you watch them. You just get so excited...
Love, Nanny
--
Dear Tyler,
The summer that you were a year old, you guys moved to a duplex in Grand Rapids after selling your Jenison house. This was before you moved to your house in Wyoming. That house was like a playground for you because it had a pretty open floor plan. Unlike the Jenison house, where we could put up a baby gate and keep you in the living room, you had access in the duplex to the living room, dining room, kitchen, bedrooms, and bathroom. We quickly learned to shut the doors. I didn't see you much that summer, because your mom has summers off, but it was a joy to see you get so excited about walking and running around a new house.
Love, Nanny
--
Dear Tyler,
I forgive you for all the times you sent nonsense texts to my friends. And for the time that you took advantage of my love of cuddling to steal my phone. See, I thought I had finally outsmarted you by keeping my phone in my pocket where you couldn't reach it. Then, one day, you climbed up onto my lap and wrapped your arms around me and I thought, yes, finally, this kid is gonna calm down for a bit and come and cuddle with me! This wonderful cuddle-bliss lasted about ten seconds. All of the sudden, you hopped off my lap with my phone in your hand and started texting away. Oh, the betrayal. But I forgive you and I commend your craftiness.
Love, Nanny
--
Dear Tyler,
I've never met another 2-year-old (or indeed, a child of any age) who loves coffee as much as you do. It boggles my mind.
Love, Nanny
--
Dear Tyler,
Speaking of coffee, I didn't start drinking coffee until this year, when you stopped taking a morning nap. Good thing your parents have a Keurig.
Love, Nanny
--
Dear Tyler,
Starting around the time you turned 2, you started realizing the comedic opportunity of farting. You would come over to me, sometimes climbing up onto my lap, let a big one rip, and then go back to playing with your toys. The funniest times were when you stop what you were doing, bend your knees just a little bit, and then fart. Hilarious. Also very stinky.
Love, Nanny
--
Dear Tyler,
Your favorite book right now is a Thomas the Tank Engine book. It is literally the only book that you will sit still and listen to. I don't remember the title, despite reading it to you elevendy-billion times. Every page ended with the sentence "'Peep, peep!' said Thomas." I would turn it around and prompt you with "Thomas said..." and then let you say the peep peep part. I suspect that's why you wanted me to read it to you so many times a day.
Love, Nanny
--
Dear Tyler,
You fall down a lot, despite having learned to walk a year ago. I think the sunken living room is to blame. Sometimes when you're really excited and running from place to place, you forget that there's a step down into the living room. You biff it into the living room at least 3 times a week. I hope you get the hang of this after I leave. Good luck.
Love, Nanny
--
Dear Tyler,
There are five pictures hanging above the fireplace in the living room. Four of you as a little baby, and a bigger one of you and your parents. Usually, when I ask you who's in the picture you say "mama. dada. tie-yo (you're not great at L's and R's yet)." Then, one day, instead of saying mama and dada, you said "wobbie" and "thoo-thee." I just about died. Hadn't laughed that hard in a long time.
Love, Nanny
--
Dear Tyler,
Back when you would eat baby food, I would try to craft elaborate mustaches on your face whenever we had prunes. You didn't particularly enjoy this, but one day you really got into it and I took a bunch of pictures of you and made it into a No-Shave November PSA. You can see it here. Click on the first picture and cycle through them to get the full effect.
Love, Nanny
--
Dear Tyler,
You didn't often get hurt, but when you did, I could usually make it better by kissing whatever body part you held out toward me. Next year, I'll have middle-schoolers whose problems are much bigger and more complex than a hurt finger and can't be fixed by kissing the boo-boo. I pray that the kiss-the-boo-boo method works for you as long as possible.
Love, Nanny
--
Dearest Tyler,
I'm really going to miss being your nanny. Like, so much that it hurts to think about. You were the best job I have ever had. You taught me what it means to be a mom (an 8-hour-a-day weekends-and-holidays-off paid mom, anyway). Taking care of you never felt like just a job. That's the best kind of job to have, as far as I can tell. It will feel so weird and difficult to know that I won't be coming back to be your nanny in September. I'll definitely still visit you, probably at least once a week, so long as it's okay with your mom.
Don't forget about me, okay?
All my love always, Nanny
First of all, let me say thank you for letting me use you as a great punchline these last two years when people ask me if there are any new men in my life. "Well, there is one...he's just great. He has these adorably soft brown eyes, a great smile, the softest hair...he's such a good listener and he laughs at all my jokes. He thinks my cooking is excellent, and he's content to just sit and cuddle and be."
Second of all...I am NOT ready to stop being your nanny.
Love, Nanny
--
Dear Tyler,
Taking care of you was my first full-time job. Technically, I did work full-time at the Conference Grounds, but that was only summers. You were my first 8 hours a day, 5 days a week job. And let me tell you, this was the best full-time job I've had so far! Fantastic bosses, no annoying co-workers to deal with, challenging enough to not get bored, but not so challenging that I got stressed out and stopped enjoying the job. There was not a single day where I dreaded coming to work. Do you know how rare that is? They say that if you enjoy your job 4 days out of 5, you're in the right job and very lucky. I am beyond lucky, young sir.
Love, Nanny
--
Dear Tyler,
In all that time, you never once peed on me. You did poop on me once, though. You were crazy sick, so I'll give you a pass on that one. You never outright puked on me, either. Plenty of spit-up that first year, but I won't count that. Spit-up is pretty easy to clean up and doesn't have that horribly pungent smell that vomit seems to have.
Love, Nanny
--
Dear Tyler,
The first time you said "Nanny," I just about died. I melted inside. I suppose it was a small glimpse of how parents feel when their baby says "mama" or "dada" for the first time. Going into your room in the morning and seeing you smiling up at me (or, when you were younger, seeing you in your bouncy seat start bouncing and giggling when you saw me come in) was often exactly the boost I needed. You see, I have something called depression and it's hard for me to get out of bed in the morning. Knowing I had you to look forward and that you would always be excited to see me helped a lot with my depression.
Love, Nanny
--
Dear Tyler,
Did you know that before I started as your nanny, I could count on one hand the number of times I'd changed a diaper? Now I am a diapering master. I could diaper anything. I could probably diaper a wet cat. I don't think I'd like to try though, because I'm allergic to cats and I feel like interacting with a wet cat would just flare that up. But I bet I could diaper a wet cat, if it came right down to it.
Love, Nanny
--
Dear Tyler,
Right now, your mom is 8 months pregnant with a baby that she and your dad have nicknamed "Gummy" because they are waiting to find out the gender until the baby is born. Right now, you're really bad at the "guh" sound and every time I ask you the baby's name, you say "Dummy." And I laugh every single time. Ditto the word 'banana,' which you currently pronounce 'badada.' Odd, since you're perfectly capable of saying 'nanny'...
Love, Nanny
--
Dear Tyler,
#thanksbutnotthanks for making me watch every episode of Daniel Tiger's Neighborhood. You love that show right now. You ask for it every time we enter a room with a TV. Even if we're in someone else's house. There were a few times this year where I brought you to my neighbor Allison's house so that I could go to internship interviews, and you would run right into the house, start pushing buttons on the their TV, and saying "Dan-yo, Dan-yo" over and over. You had similar feelings for Thomas the Tank Engine, which you affectionately referred to as "Tommy." So while I could go my whole life without ever watching either of those television shows again, it was a delight to watch you watch them. You just get so excited...
Love, Nanny
--
Dear Tyler,
The summer that you were a year old, you guys moved to a duplex in Grand Rapids after selling your Jenison house. This was before you moved to your house in Wyoming. That house was like a playground for you because it had a pretty open floor plan. Unlike the Jenison house, where we could put up a baby gate and keep you in the living room, you had access in the duplex to the living room, dining room, kitchen, bedrooms, and bathroom. We quickly learned to shut the doors. I didn't see you much that summer, because your mom has summers off, but it was a joy to see you get so excited about walking and running around a new house.
Love, Nanny
--
Dear Tyler,
I forgive you for all the times you sent nonsense texts to my friends. And for the time that you took advantage of my love of cuddling to steal my phone. See, I thought I had finally outsmarted you by keeping my phone in my pocket where you couldn't reach it. Then, one day, you climbed up onto my lap and wrapped your arms around me and I thought, yes, finally, this kid is gonna calm down for a bit and come and cuddle with me! This wonderful cuddle-bliss lasted about ten seconds. All of the sudden, you hopped off my lap with my phone in your hand and started texting away. Oh, the betrayal. But I forgive you and I commend your craftiness.
Love, Nanny
--
Dear Tyler,
I've never met another 2-year-old (or indeed, a child of any age) who loves coffee as much as you do. It boggles my mind.
Love, Nanny
--
Dear Tyler,
Speaking of coffee, I didn't start drinking coffee until this year, when you stopped taking a morning nap. Good thing your parents have a Keurig.
Love, Nanny
--
Dear Tyler,
Starting around the time you turned 2, you started realizing the comedic opportunity of farting. You would come over to me, sometimes climbing up onto my lap, let a big one rip, and then go back to playing with your toys. The funniest times were when you stop what you were doing, bend your knees just a little bit, and then fart. Hilarious. Also very stinky.
Love, Nanny
--
Dear Tyler,
Your favorite book right now is a Thomas the Tank Engine book. It is literally the only book that you will sit still and listen to. I don't remember the title, despite reading it to you elevendy-billion times. Every page ended with the sentence "'Peep, peep!' said Thomas." I would turn it around and prompt you with "Thomas said..." and then let you say the peep peep part. I suspect that's why you wanted me to read it to you so many times a day.
Love, Nanny
--
Dear Tyler,
You fall down a lot, despite having learned to walk a year ago. I think the sunken living room is to blame. Sometimes when you're really excited and running from place to place, you forget that there's a step down into the living room. You biff it into the living room at least 3 times a week. I hope you get the hang of this after I leave. Good luck.
Love, Nanny
--
Dear Tyler,
There are five pictures hanging above the fireplace in the living room. Four of you as a little baby, and a bigger one of you and your parents. Usually, when I ask you who's in the picture you say "mama. dada. tie-yo (you're not great at L's and R's yet)." Then, one day, instead of saying mama and dada, you said "wobbie" and "thoo-thee." I just about died. Hadn't laughed that hard in a long time.
Love, Nanny
--
Dear Tyler,
Back when you would eat baby food, I would try to craft elaborate mustaches on your face whenever we had prunes. You didn't particularly enjoy this, but one day you really got into it and I took a bunch of pictures of you and made it into a No-Shave November PSA. You can see it here. Click on the first picture and cycle through them to get the full effect.
Love, Nanny
--
Dear Tyler,
You didn't often get hurt, but when you did, I could usually make it better by kissing whatever body part you held out toward me. Next year, I'll have middle-schoolers whose problems are much bigger and more complex than a hurt finger and can't be fixed by kissing the boo-boo. I pray that the kiss-the-boo-boo method works for you as long as possible.
Love, Nanny
--
Dearest Tyler,
I'm really going to miss being your nanny. Like, so much that it hurts to think about. You were the best job I have ever had. You taught me what it means to be a mom (an 8-hour-a-day weekends-and-holidays-off paid mom, anyway). Taking care of you never felt like just a job. That's the best kind of job to have, as far as I can tell. It will feel so weird and difficult to know that I won't be coming back to be your nanny in September. I'll definitely still visit you, probably at least once a week, so long as it's okay with your mom.
Don't forget about me, okay?
All my love always, Nanny
Friday, May 22, 2015
Op-Ed: What's Missing From the Josh Duggar Molestation Discussion
I will do my best to avoid passing judgment or denigrating the Duggar's values/home culture/choices. But as I read more and more articles about this scandal (some of dubious origin and veracity), I find one thing missing. It's one very important thing: a discussion about what sexual abuse does to the survivor.
In case you're out of the loop, Josh Duggar, the oldest of Jim Bob and Michelle's 19 kids featured on TLC's series 19 Kids and Counting, admitted yesterday to molesting girls when he was a teenager. The allegations of abuse were brought to the media and when asked for comment, both Josh and his parents confirmed the story. Since then, PDFs of the redacted police report have circulated, rumors have swirled, and a witch-hunt has begun.
I've always enjoyed watching 19 Kids and I've read the books that the family has written about parenting, relationships, and their faith. I think their commitment to their convictions and their diligence in raising 19 children (and doing it well ) is very admirable. But when I read that four of Josh's five victims were his sisters, I had to see this police report for myself. I was skeptical, not because I believed a Duggar could never do such a thing, but because I figured the police would have done a better job of shielding the identities of victims when releasing official documents.
Alas.
The portion I have circled in red says: "The alleged victims are [redacted], [redacted], [redacted], and [redacted], who live with their parents Michelle and Jim Bob [redacted]." The report was made in 2006, but the abuse occurred over the course of a year, from 2002 to 2003. It doesn't take a psychic to figure out who these four redacted kids are. Even though the names are blacked out, their parents' names aren't, which strikes me as a quite poor job on the part of the person who was responsible for redactions before the report was released to the media. Personal pronouns and adjectives have been largely obscured, but if you read the rest of the report, you can find the occasional 'her' or 'she' that was missed. This would indicate that the victims were girls. The Duggars had 5 daughters as of 2003, so we know that four of them are named as the victims. (You can read the whole report here.)
Now that I've had my fun as an investigative journalist, let me talk about some of the glaring issues I see with the way that this whole thing has been handled by the family, the media, the critics, etc.
1. Redactions - come on, Springdale PD. What was the point of redacting the names of the victims if you're going to leave in other identifying information? It took me very little effort to figure out who these victims are because you left in the fact that their parents' names are Jim Bob and Michelle. If you truly want to preserve confidentiality and protect victims' identities, you've got to do a better job than that.
2. Immediate aftermath - Yes, Josh's actions were 'a mistake,' 'reprehensible,' 'inexcusable,' etc. What I have a problem with, though, is that Josh's parents did not take the appropriate action within a few days of Josh's admission to them of what he had done. The report of a police interview with Jim Bob and Michelle describes several disparate instances of Josh's behavior, spread out over the course of at least 9 months. Only after the last of these admissions did Jim Bob report any of Josh's behavior. However, no report was made to law enforcement initially. Jim Bob sought the counsel of his church elders, who recommended Josh be put into a treatment program. After Josh returned from that program, Jim Bob finally spoke with a law enforcement officer. The officer, an Arkansas state trooper, was a family friend and responded by giving Josh a "stern talk" and a warning about what would happen to him if he continued this sort of behavior. The state trooper concluded the meeting without filing a report. Big problems with this:
In case you're out of the loop, Josh Duggar, the oldest of Jim Bob and Michelle's 19 kids featured on TLC's series 19 Kids and Counting, admitted yesterday to molesting girls when he was a teenager. The allegations of abuse were brought to the media and when asked for comment, both Josh and his parents confirmed the story. Since then, PDFs of the redacted police report have circulated, rumors have swirled, and a witch-hunt has begun.
I've always enjoyed watching 19 Kids and I've read the books that the family has written about parenting, relationships, and their faith. I think their commitment to their convictions and their diligence in raising 19 children (and doing it well ) is very admirable. But when I read that four of Josh's five victims were his sisters, I had to see this police report for myself. I was skeptical, not because I believed a Duggar could never do such a thing, but because I figured the police would have done a better job of shielding the identities of victims when releasing official documents.
Alas.
The portion I have circled in red says: "The alleged victims are [redacted], [redacted], [redacted], and [redacted], who live with their parents Michelle and Jim Bob [redacted]." The report was made in 2006, but the abuse occurred over the course of a year, from 2002 to 2003. It doesn't take a psychic to figure out who these four redacted kids are. Even though the names are blacked out, their parents' names aren't, which strikes me as a quite poor job on the part of the person who was responsible for redactions before the report was released to the media. Personal pronouns and adjectives have been largely obscured, but if you read the rest of the report, you can find the occasional 'her' or 'she' that was missed. This would indicate that the victims were girls. The Duggars had 5 daughters as of 2003, so we know that four of them are named as the victims. (You can read the whole report here.)
Now that I've had my fun as an investigative journalist, let me talk about some of the glaring issues I see with the way that this whole thing has been handled by the family, the media, the critics, etc.
1. Redactions - come on, Springdale PD. What was the point of redacting the names of the victims if you're going to leave in other identifying information? It took me very little effort to figure out who these victims are because you left in the fact that their parents' names are Jim Bob and Michelle. If you truly want to preserve confidentiality and protect victims' identities, you've got to do a better job than that.
2. Immediate aftermath - Yes, Josh's actions were 'a mistake,' 'reprehensible,' 'inexcusable,' etc. What I have a problem with, though, is that Josh's parents did not take the appropriate action within a few days of Josh's admission to them of what he had done. The report of a police interview with Jim Bob and Michelle describes several disparate instances of Josh's behavior, spread out over the course of at least 9 months. Only after the last of these admissions did Jim Bob report any of Josh's behavior. However, no report was made to law enforcement initially. Jim Bob sought the counsel of his church elders, who recommended Josh be put into a treatment program. After Josh returned from that program, Jim Bob finally spoke with a law enforcement officer. The officer, an Arkansas state trooper, was a family friend and responded by giving Josh a "stern talk" and a warning about what would happen to him if he continued this sort of behavior. The state trooper concluded the meeting without filing a report. Big problems with this:
- As a state trooper, the officer was a mandated reporter. As in, once an instance of child abuse like this was brought to his attention, he was obligated under law to file a report and pursue police action. The fact that he didn't do so indicates that he broke the law to keep this secret. (The state trooper in question is currently serving a lengthy prison sentence for child pornography convictions, which surely isn't a coincidence.)
- As a friend of the Duggar Family, this state trooper would have been ethically bound to remove himself from handling this case because of the blatant conflict of interest.
- Not filing a report resulted in Josh continuing to live with his parents and his victims. It doesn't matter that Josh seemed to have learned his lesson from the treatment program, or that his victims and parents had forgiven him, or that he had apologized to everyone. There was absolutely no way for anyone to be sure that he wouldn't re-offend, and not removing him from contact with his victims is a clear child safety issue. Had a report been filed, Child Protective Services would have gotten involved and separated perpetrator from victims. Yes, it likely would have involved removing one or more kids from the home, but which is worse: breaking up a family while the matter is settled by law enforcement, or risking continued sexual abuse? Neither option is even remotely desirable, but one is clearly safer for the victims.
- This series of events only came to the attention of law enforcement because of an anonymous tip from someone who had read a letter written by a Duggar family friend, which was hidden in a loaned book. The tip came in 2006, three years after the abuse first came to the attention of Jim Bob and Michelle. At that time, Arkansas's Statute of Limitations regarding sex crimes was three years. This means that even though there was a police report filed and confessions made by Josh and his parents, no legal action could be taken because the Statute of Limitations had lapsed. I can't imagine that any parents would be chomping at the bit to turn in their kid, especially when the kid was clearly remorseful and repentant, and they got very lucky that they lived in a state with such a short Statute. I don't fault Jim Bob and Michelle for handling things the way they deemed best. I do take issue with lawmakers who refuse to significantly revise the laws surrounding Statutes of Limitations. It not only rewards offenders who can keep their crimes under wraps until the clock runs out, but worse, it robs the victims of justice. Sex crimes are hard enough to prove and prosecute without the pressure of a countdown clock.
3. Focus on past actions - It is understandable that the media are feeding on this story despite the fact that the abuse occurred over a decade ago. Some media outlets are reporting as if it's an ongoing, developing story, which it is not. Other media outlets are freaking out because they perceive yet a third group of media outlets to be persecuting Josh and the Duggar family for 'mistakes' and 'actions taken by a curious young teenager.' I have yet to find an article (or, better yet, a statement from any of the Duggars) that talks about the impact that sexual abuse has on a survivor. The media are getting bogged down by the initial scandal, the police report, Josh's decision to resign from his director position at the Family Research Council, how Anna knew about his past and married him anyway, and so on. Why is no one talking about the impact this media circus (and possibly, re-victimization) has had on Josh's sisters and the other as-yet-unidentified survivor? It is possible to talk about this without revealing their identities (even though the botched police report has already done so, to some extent) and it would go a long way in contributing to our national dialogue on sexual assault and domestic violence.
4. Lack of adequate and appropriate aftercare for all parties involved - According to the police report, Josh spent a few months at a location described, in different places, as "a training center," "some sort of rehab place," "treatment," and a "training camp." Other references have been made to the family arranging for counseling for the victims. It was later revealed that Josh was, in fact, sent to live for a few months with a family friend, where he helped with construction projects. This family friend was not a certified counselor of any kind, but more of a 'mentor,' according to Michelle. There is no proof that the parents did not arrange for counseling for the victims, but it does lead one to wonder what kind of counseling the victims may or may not have received. If a few months of physical labor with a non-counselor family friend is their idea of counseling for Josh, what did the victims receive?
From the report, it sounds like Jim Bob took charge of forming perception for the whole family through a pair of family meetings. Many of the interviewees say that Jim Bob told them what had happened, what Josh had done, how he was sorry, etc. It also suggests that Jim Bob considered the matter settled after Josh returned, as evidenced by his reluctance to bring Josh in for an interview and his assertion that "if [he] thought the incident was a problem, [he] would have taken care of it when it happened." (I inferred that it was Jim Bob making the decisions based on the Duggars' commitment to patriarchal views on family values. And there are other instances of responses like "[redacted] said she would discuss it with her husband," which suggests that Michelle does not make statements or decisions without Jim Bob.) All of this is to say that the Duggar girls were not given the opportunity (that we know of) to speak with non-family members or impartial professionals about what had happened. And as a counselor, that bothers me.
5. Lack of adequate sex education - The Duggars have become famous for their views on modesty and sexual purity, their courtship and physical contact rules, and their modest clothing and swimwear. On more than on occasion, Michelle has talked about how they have raised their daughters to stay away from clothing that bares their shoulders, thighs, and midsections because they do not want to cause any boys to have impure thoughts and, therefore, sin. While I can understand and appreciate this attitude and set of principles, it is somewhat sexist. It implies that men are incapable of curtailing their thoughts and actions and that it is the woman's responsibility to dress and act in a way that helps the man to keep from sinning. It is disrespectful to both men and women - it diminishes the man's capacity for integrity and self-control, and it tells the woman that men think she is good only for her body and her looks, so she should cover herself up. In fact, by focusing so much on their daughters' outward appearance, they are doing exactly what they find so repugnant in secular culture - namely, reducing a woman to an object to be presented.
The Duggars' approach to sexuality is extremely conservative, as one would expect from watching their program. They are famous for their courtship approach to marriage, in which the man and woman do not engage in physical contact beyond "side hugs" and hand-holding until after they are married. They teach that sexual activity (even something that most would consider fairly innocuous, like kissing) outside of marriage is something to be avoided because it fills the person with impure thoughts and desires that cannot be fulfilled without engaging in sex. While I can understand and appreciate this attitude too, it promotes a flawed understanding of human sexuality. It seems to imply that sexual thoughts and urges are sinful if you aren't married, and it is just best to avoid anything (clothing, bathing suits, books, television, movies, pop culture in general) that might even come close to bringing sexuality to mind. In a way, they are setting their kids up to fail - regardless of marital status, their kids will experience sexual thoughts and feelings, especially as they grow older, and it's not always something they will be able to control. That's just how thoughts are. Telling them that they are sinning when sexuality occurs to them will just make them feel ashamed.
I can understand the Duggars' reluctance to expose their kids to comprehensive sex education, particularly because it will force them to think about, in their opinion, sinful things. I don't think that's a good enough excuse, though. I firmly believe that it is possible to teach someone about sex while maintaining the importance of one's values. They don't have to hand out boxes of condoms to their courting children or bring them to strip clubs, but as we've seen, how you handle your kids' curiosity affects quite a lot. The "he was just a curious teenager who made a mistake" defense speaks to this. At 14, Josh knew that touching his sisters was not okay, as evidenced by his guilt and remorse and confessions to his parents. The fact that he did it more than once to more than one person is what is indefensible to me. Once is a mistake, twice is cause for concern, three is a pattern, and beyond that is unconscionable. I'm not trying to say that this could have all been avoided by a good sex talk, because we can't know that for sure, but their attitude toward sexuality has created a culture of fear, guilt, shame, and ignorance about a natural part of life.
6. "Now everyone can see what hypocrites the Duggars are!" journalism - I don't like to see the Duggars raked over the coals for the way they handled the situation twelve years ago, and I'll be really sad if they cancel 19 Kids for good. The war cries about hypocrisy and trashed credibility mostly just show a flawed understanding of the Duggars' faith. I've watched at least a hundred episodes, and I like to think I'm a good judge of character (at least, the character they have put out on the show), and never have I heard them assert that they are in any way perfect or above reproach. I don't think this story coming to light should cancel all the good they have done with their program and influence in the media. It is hypocritical on their part to oppose transgender protections legislation, claiming that it will allow transgender individuals to molest children in bathrooms, when they've known for years that their son molested their daughters. In that arena, their credibility is shot. However, it shouldn't forever negate their portrayal of positive family values or irreparably scar their witness to the world. We all sin.
7. "He did what he did, we need to forgive him and move on" journalism - The problem I have with this is that it tells the victims that they need to move on too because what they experienced is not a big deal. It's another variation on "Boys will be boys," which implies that men can't be held responsible for what they do in the heat of sexual haze. Yes, it sounds like his family and his victims have forgiven Josh, but that's not the same as moving on. Survivors of sexual abuse need to know that not only is the abuse not their fault in any way, but also that the healing process can take years and lots of hard, painful work. I highly doubt that a family meeting and a pardon for Josh was enough to make the girls get over it. Even it did work that way for them, they are in a very small minority. Treating the Duggar scandal this way in the media teaches other survivors that it is more important to forgive their abuser and move on than to take the time they need to come to terms with and make sense of their experience. There is considerable clinical evidence to show that avoiding and repressing traumatic experiences can often lead to that pain surfacing in other ways. Telling survivors to forget about what happened to them not only invalidates what they are feeling, but also tells them that their experience is not important enough to remember.
Those are my thoughts on the matter. Feel free to comment.
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