Okay, before I get to the exciting pictures, I have to share this video my sister-in-law posted on her site. This is absolutely hilarious. And as she says, “This very funny video highlighting some great homeschool stereotypes.” Without further ado, here it is…

Chloe Marshall is a plus size model who recently won the title of Miss Surrey, making her the first size 16 contestant to become a finalist for the Miss England title.

I think she is beautiful and I am excited, though not hopeful, about the changes she may bring help bring about in the fashion industry.

There are those that are hard on Chloe due to her weight. They claim she is a poor role model because she is saying it’s okay to be fat. Funny thing about that…her BMI is 25.3 (not the 26.3 being reported. If you take her height, 5′10″, and her weight, 176 pounds, and plug them into a BMI calculator, you will see that she is at 25.3), which puts her right on the line between healthy and overweight. So she’s either at the top of healthy or just barely overweight. Seems like a pretty good role model to me. She’s not grossly overweight and therefore telling teen girls it’s okay to be irresponsible with their eating and exercise but she’s also not giving these same girls an unrealistic expectation of beauty. She is, in fact, a model of the average American (or English, as she is from England) girl.

There are more overweight people than underweight people; I won’t deny that. But there are also a lot more people who feel ashamed for their bodies and feel pressured to become something or someone they are not. There are a lot of mentally unhealthy people out there. I personally believe one can not be healthy between the scalp and the feet until they are healthy between the ears. What good does living until you are 89 do you if you are miserable and self loathing the entire time? Who wouldn’t rather live until 70 but have loved themselves and their life for most of it? I would prefer that. Of course I would prefer to live until 89 and have loved every minute of it but if I had to choose, I’d rather be happy and short lived than miserable and long lived.

Teen suicide is on the rise again, raising from 6.7 percent of 100,000 teen deaths in 2003 to 9.4 percent of 100,000 teen deaths in 2007. 1. The CDC reports:

• 16.9% of students, grade 9-12, seriously considered
suicide in the previous 12 months (21.8% of females
and 12.0% of males) (Eaton et al. 2006).
• 8.4% of students reported making at least one suicide
attempt in the previous 12 months (10.8% of females
and 6.0% of males) (Eaton et al. 2006).
• 2.3% of students reported making at least one suicide
attempt in the previous 12 months that required
medical attention (2.9% of females and 1.8% of
males) (Eaton et al. 2006).

Female suicide thoughts and attempts are higher than their male counterparts. After the onset of puberty - after age 15 - girls and women are twice as likely to suffer from depression as boys and men. (The Female Brain by Louann Brizendine, M.D. p 53 and The National Institute of Mental Health.) There is a physical reason for this. Female hormones are much more cyclic than men’s but I wonder how much has to do with self image.

I know that I personally struggled with feelings of inadequacy and worthlessness. I usually attributed such feelings to my weight. I know that the more television I watched, the more I succumbed to poor self esteem. The more magazines I flipped through and the more I focused on “beautiful” models and compared myself to them, the more embarrassed and stressed I became about my body. I just wonder what these statistics would look like if the “height of beauty” were a little more realistic. I want to remind all my readers that the average American woman is 5′4″ tall and 154 pounds while the average American fashion model is 5′10″ and 117 pounds.

There was a recent study done that brought into question the “fat but fit” theory. Their study was based on nearly 39,000 women. They filled out a questionnaire on their level of activity (which is questionable to me because most people think they are far more active than they really are but oh well). The study, which based normal-weight/overweight/obese on BMI (20-25 being normal, 26-30 being overweight, and over 30 being obese) found that: “Compared with normal-weight active women, the risk for developing heart disease was 54 percent higher in overweight active women and 87 percent higher in obese active women. By contrast, it was 88 percent higher in overweight inactive women; and 2 1/2 times greater in obese inactive women.”

So, while being active while overweight does not remove your heightened risk of heart disease, it does lower it considerably from being inactive and overweight. Having regular exercise takes an overweight woman’s risk from 88% to 54%. That’s a 39% drop just by being active. If you are obese and active, your risk drops from 250% to 87 (lower than the overweight inactive group). That is a 65% reduction in risk.

So if you are overweight, start moving your body. “Women were considered active if they followed government-recommended guidelines and got at least 30 minutes of moderate activity most days of the week, including brisk walking or jogging. Women who got less exercise than that were considered inactive.” 2.

I was interested to see the statistics on underweight women’s risk factors for heart disease. We all know being overweight increases your risk. There are a lot more over weight than underweight people and so obesity is what’s been studied and reported about. I wonder what the underweight stats are. Are they higher or lower? I think of Luisel Ramos, Uruguayan model, who died of heart failure at the age of 22 after starving herself.

A simple Google search on “underweight heart disease risk” brought me some answers. Being underweight is unhealthy, too. The Scandinavian Journal of Public Health found that while being overweight or obese created more risk factors than being of a healthy weight, being underweight increased your risks as well.

Another study, this time from the Journal of the American Medical Association, came to basically the same conclusion. “Underweight and obesity, particularly higher levels of obesity, were associated with increased mortality relative to the normal weight category.”

What I would really like to see on television (when I watch it) and in magazines and commercials and on the big screen, is some women who are of a healthy weight. How about some women with a BMI between 20 and 25? Let’s start putting them in the lime light and setting them as our “role” models, if we must have some. Instead of setting ourselves up to fail, let’s have some realistic goals and maybe we’ll be able to walk back the “obesity epidemic.”

I hope that Chloe Marshall becomes the first size 16 model to become Miss England and go on to become the first to be titled Miss Universe. I hope that whoever judges these competitions are open minded enough to see that beauty is not conformity. And maybe, if England catches on, the rest of the world will follow. Maybe the U.S. will be next. Wouldn’t that be nice?

I just finished Lily Burana’s book, “Strip City,” which chronicles her cross country trip. Her cross country stripping trip. As she neared saying “I Do” with her very understanding fiance, she realized she’d not made peace with her stripping past.

She traveled to Dallas, L.A., Alaska, New Jersey, Las Vegas, and many other locales as she rediscovers the joys and pains of stripping. As she travels and dances in new places, some similar to the clubs she’d danced in previously and some vastly different, she revisits her start in the stripping industry. From the scuzzy Peepland to the posh Mitchell Brothers, her insights are revelatory.

As someone who’s never so much as seen the inside of a strip club or even an adult bookstore, the entire industry was a complete mystery to me. At times, while reading, the idea of stripping seemed glamorous and profitable and then a couple of pages later it would seem a horrible thing that held no appeal whatsoever.

Lily struggles with this paradox herself. She briefly entertains the idea of using her name as a respected writer to present the stripping industry as nothing more sinister than making a lot of money for providing an entertainment. She thinks of glossing over the darker side; the rule breaking; the exploitation of dancers; the obsession with body perfection. She woul dlike to claim she never felt objectified while stripping but honesty wins out. She shows it all, both on stage and on paper. This stark look at an industry most of us will never see the inside of is fun and informative. Many of my subconscious judgments have faded.

I never really knew my grandpa Roger*. He left my grandma Ellen* when my mom was about eight. He lived with another woman Fran*, raising their family. When my mom was about 14, Roger and Ellen were actually divorced. At that time everyone, except Roger kids with Fran, who didn’t know their parents weren’t married, thought he would now marry Fran. Instead he left her for another woman. I don’t remember ever meeting him until he was in the hospital dying of liver failure from alcohol abuse.

Not a great father figure. But, the I learned about his mom, Beatrice*. Whom I’d met once when my sister was graduating high school, when I was about 15. She died a couple of weeks ago, surprising me, since I had forgotten she was alive. I know that sounds horrible, but she had isolated herself from her family completely. She had kicked her daughter, Jane*, out of the house some thirty years ago and hadn’t spoken to her since. Beatrice didn’t even tell her when her brother died. My grandfather, Roger, started sleeping on park benches when he was around 10. So I’m thinking he didn’t have the greatest example of loving parents either.

I was talking to Israel this morning about some of the conversations he has or overhears at work. One of the conversations that he listened to yesterday but refrained from joining was about how tough these guys were because their parents were such bad-asses. One guy bragged that his mom didn’t have to spank them or slap them if they back talked. She would just throw whatever was nearby at their head. Book, full cup of coffee, shoe, whatever. Pitch it at their head.

Another time, when speaking about raising their own children, someone said, “Yeah, you got to beat her ass,” in reference to a daughter. Israel said, “No, we don’t beat our daughter. We spank her. We don’t spank her when we’re angry.” To which this person replied, “You gotta spank her when you’re mad. If you wait until you cool off, you won’t hit her hard enough. You gotta lay into her ass.”

Seriously.

That’s really what was said. “You gotta spank (or beat) when you are angry or you won’t hit hard enough.”

I don’t think people should be allowed to hit their children. I think my husband and I are better than most people (I really do. I’m sorry. We are thinking and they are not. We are learning new things and they are watching Survivor. We are trying to make our world a better place and they are buying new full size SUV’s and complaining about gas prices. Which of us would you rather have around?) and I think we spank correctly. As a punishment and never as a behavior modifier. We don’t spank to make her stop a behavior. We spank her as a consequence to behavior and hope that she will make the right decision to forgo the negative consequence and choose the right behavior. However, I am willing to give that up and find other forms of negative consequences in order to protect every other child out their from their abusive parents.

Because that’s what throwing things at your child’s head is. It’s abuse. I’m not even sorry for saying that. If your parents ever threw something at you in anger, you’ve been abused. If you’ve ever thrown something at your child in anger, you’ve abused. Simple. (I’m not talking a rolled up sock thrown in jest. I’m talking about hard, heavy things that should not be thrown at children. Use some common sense. If it would hurt you if it were thrown at your, it will hurt your child. Duh.)

So, I don’t think Straus’s study as reported in USA Today, is nearly as out of whack as I thought it was when I blogged about it a while back. I now think that since most people who spank are also the kind of people who throw things at their kids, most people who are spanked are going to have weird problems as adults. And the phrase “lay into her ass” has certain sexual overtones that are altogether creepy. So, while I still think USA Today did a shoddy job of reporting and that Straus should not have lumped masochism with risky sexual behavior nor should he have used so small of studies of the high schoolers, I’m not as out right opposed to his findings as I was originally. As I meet more and more people and get to know them and have these conversations with them, I become less and less comfortable with other people being allowed to corporally discipline their children.

Yes, I want special rights for me and my friends. But I am willing to give those up for the well being of ever potentially abused child out there. I’m creative. I can find other ways to discipline and train up my child and any future children we might have. But hundreds of thousands of kids out there won’t get a choice about whether or not they are routinely abused by those who are supposed to be taking care of them and protecting them.

*names have been changed. I’m fine with my name being plastered all over the internet but I don’t know about everyone else.

Not really quite sure where to begin on this one. I’ve honestly not read that many quotes of our Commander and Chief, George W. Bush, so I am surprised and appalled by his obvious and transparent fear mongering. In the following article, I am going to underline some key points and then comment (in red) immediately after. If you wish to read the article in its entirety without comment first, click on the title.

Bush Warns House on Surveillance

WASHINGTON — With the House poised to vote today on electronic surveillance legislation that the White House has said falls far short of its requirements, President Bush warned legislators strongly Thursday morning against passing what he called “a partisan bill that will undermine American security.”

In clear defiance of the White House, (which is a separate and not higher branch of our Federal Government) the proposal from House Democratic leaders would not give retroactive legal protection to the phone companies that helped in the National Security Agency program of warrantless wiretapping. (So they did something illegal or at least unethical, thereby worthy of litigation and now they want protection. Whoops.) Mr. Bush also threatened to veto any such measure, should it reach his desk. (So why do we even bother with the Senate and Congress if the only laws that are going to get passed are the ones the President agrees with. Why don’t we just let him run the whole damn country?) I’m going to interrupt my rantings to include a quote from Represntative John Coyers, Jr. (D-Mich), “At the same time the administration is trying to intimidate the Congress into giving it additional spying power, we find out yet again that it has abused its authority to pry into the lives of law abiding Americans,” Conyers said in a statement.

The Senate last month passed a bill that did provide such protection and also broadened government eavesdropping powers. (That’s great. Just great. I’ll tell you what the government needs more of…eavesdropping powers. Yup. They do not have enough power. Think how much easier Ruby Ridge would have been if they could have just listened to phone conversations and saved the trouble of sending a man up to trick Randy Weaver into breaking the law. I mean, think of the money we will save if we just give the Feds more power.)

Using tough language on a subject on which he has been persistent and unswerving, Mr. Bush warned (or what? He’ll send them to time out?) House members that “they should not leave for Easter recess without getting the Senate bill to my desk.”

He argued that failure to pass the Senate language would make it harder to detect emerging terrorist threats. (I would really like to hear about some of these emerging terrorist threats they’ve detected so far by eavesdropping on whoever the hell they want to. Oh, wait, that’s right. They are probably being held in the secret prisons which are in secret locations where we can do secret stuff to the them. I forgot.)

“Voting for this bill would make our country less safe,” (right…because removing rights from the populace is such a good way to make your people safe…Idiot.) Mr. Bush said. “Congress should stop playing politics with the past and focus on helping us prevent attacks in the future.” (First of all, Congress is not playing politics with the past [maybe they are but the result is not]. They are preventing, ironically, big companies from being shielded from the consequences of their behavior. Second, if Mr. Bush is really so concerned with future terrorist attacks, maybe he should get us the hell out of the Middle East. If we as a country had kept our word after the first Gulf War and removed our troops from Saudi Arabia, Mr. Bin Laden might still be on our side rather than organizing the bloodies terrorist attacks the US has ever seen.)

Democrats have accused the president of fear-mongering, (I have to agree) saying surveillance can be monitored more carefully without losing its effectiveness.

Administration officials say that the Democrats know that the House version would face probable defeat in the Senate. Mr. Bush has threatened, (There we are again with the threatening.) in any case, to veto such language. But House Democratic leaders have shown themselves more ready than in the past for a fight on national security.

Mr. Bush also argued again that the House Democrats’ approach would unfairly expose the phone companies to lawsuits that could potentially be enormously expensive. (HA HA HA HA. Enormously expensive. Not unjust. Not unfair. Not even unkind or mean, but enormously expensive. That’s great. At last the man has revealed that his god is in fact, the dollar bill.)

“House leaders simply adopted the position that class-action trial lawyers are taking in the multibillion law suits they have filed” against the phone companies, he said. This “would undermine the private sector’s willingness to cooperate with the intelligence community, cooperation that is essential to protecting our country from harm.” (Um, not really. I think he’s saying that if this law were passed, the private sector (that being the general populace, I assume) would see it as a precident of not bending over backwards to cooperate with the intelligence community. Why do they need our cooperation when they can just bug our phone. After all, by not cooperating aren’t we just revealing that we have something to hide, therefore giving them reasonable suspicion that we might be terrorists? And of course, that cooperation is ESSENTIAL to protecting our country from harm. Yeah. That’s what Hitler told the people of Germany. “Your cooperation in turning in your neighbors and friends is ESSENTIAL to protecting our country from harm.” Does that freak anyone else out?)

Instead of giving the companies blanket immunity, as the Senate would do, the House proposal was understood to give the federal courts special authorization to hear classified evidence and decide whether the phone companies should be held liable. (So instead of using a case by case approach, the Senate (and Mr. Bush) want to just pretend that there was never any problem and the phone companies couldn’t have possibly done anything wrong, because after all, they are a big business and stand to loose a lot of money if they are found in the wrong and then where would Mr. Bush and his lap dogs get campaigning money?)

But the president said that this approach “could reopen dangerous intelligence gaps (fear mongering) by putting in place a cumbersome court approval process that would make it harder to collect intelligence on foreign terrorists” (fear mongering) and could lead, he said, to disclosure of state secrets. (fear mongering) I would like to read about someone who was a genuine threat and was found through their phone conversations. I’d really like to hear about it. Maybe it’s happened and I’ve simply not been paying attention. If such a case has happened, please leave a link the sources so I can be informed.

“Their partisan legislation would extend protections we enjoy as Americans to foreign terrorists overseas,” Mr. Bush said. (Gee, I really don’t see that. If a terrorist is overseas having a phone conversation with someone in the US, and they are seen to be a threat, our government has the soveriegnty to apprehend the person on US soil. So, what protection are they “extending” to foreign terrorist overseas? Oh, that’s right. Mr. Bush has stated that any country that has a terrorists in it (or is suspected of having a terrorist in it) is an enemy of the US. So we can go apprehend them from any other country as well. I think the real problem Mr. Bush has with this legislation is that it would limit the number of countries he can order our troops to invade and would limit the frequency of such action.)

In a statement yesterday, 19 Democratic members of the House Judiciary Committee questioned the administration’s arguments.

“We have concluded that the administration has not established a valid and credible case justifying the extraordinary action of Congress enacting blanket retroactive immunity as set forth in the Senate bill,” they said.

Some 40 lawsuits are pending in federal courts, charging that by cooperating with the eavesdropping program put in place after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, the phone companies violated their responsibilities to customers and federal privacy laws. (But that’s okay and we should all be thankful that Mr. Bush is willing to set our rights aside to protect us from the evil terrorists. We should not hold the phone companies liable for their behavior. We shouldn’t ask them to be responsible or even ethical. We should give them immunity because…because…otherwise, you are a terrorist-loving, unpatriotic, sinful, ungrateful, tree-hugging turncoat and we don’t like you.)

A friend pointed this USA Today article out to me and in light of my most recent blog, I’d like to share my thoughts on it.

Israel and I talked at length last night and this morning about spanking and it’s place in our methods of discipline. We read the wikipedia articles on corporal punishment and spanking. We decided that the subject is complicated and worthy of deep thought. Here’s what I’ve got so far.

We do spank our daughter. We spank her for disobedience and lying. We do not spank because we are angry. How we feel about a behavior does not (or should not) affect the punishment she may or may not receive. We punish, not because we are mad at her, but because she has disobeyed and her disobedience is deserving of punishment. Our goal in doing so is to teach her through a non-damaging process that there are consequences for behavior. We reward her when she does good and punish, sometime with a spanking, sometime with loss of privilege (toys or playing), when she does wrong, thus teaching that actions have consequences, for good and bad.

But when reading articles such as this, I question our decision to spank and we rethink it a couple of times a year to make certain it still has a place in our disciplinary methods. I’m going to take you through this article the way I read it. My thoughts and comments are in blue.

Study: Spanking may lead to sexual problems later

Children whose parents spank them or otherwise inflict (You’ve gotta love the use of the word “inflict.” Nice work presenting spanking as bad in the first sentence.) physical punishment may (the word “may” here is what’s called a ‘weasel’ word; a word used to avoid making a straightforward statement. Notice the article’s author is not actually saying anything. They may also grow up to be lima beans. He’s not saying anything.) be more likely to have sexual problems later, according to research to be presented Thursday to the American Psychological Association.

The analysis of four studies by Murray Straus, co-director of the Family Research Laboratory at the University of New Hampshire-Durham, suggests (but doesn’t actually prove) that children whose parents spanked, slapped, hit or threw objects at them may have a greater chance of physically or verbally coercing a sexual partner, engaging in risky sexual behavior or engaging in masochistic sex, including sexual arousal by spanking. (Notice how ’spanked’ is listed with ’slapped, hit, or threw objects at’? Not every parent who spanks automatically does these other things, which I think most people would agree are abusive and Strauss lumps them all together. Also notice how it is just assumed that erotic spanking is a bad thing. If it’s consensual and enjoyable to both parties, what’s the problem, especially if a safe word is used and respected )

“It increases the chances of sexual problems,” though “it’s not a one-to-one causation,” Straus says. (To what degree does it increase the chance of sexual problems? Are they four times more likely to have sexual problems? Half a percent more likely? Which sexual problems?)

Elizabeth Gershoff, an assistant professor of social work at the University of Michigan-Ann Arbor, who reviewed 80 years of spanking research in 2002 in the APA’s Psychological Bulletin, says Straus’ work appears to be the first to link spanking with sexual problems.

Gershoff says that though many children have been spanked (85% in one 2007 survey), problems may depend on how they process the spanking. (Again with the weasel words…which suggests there is not sufficient research to say for sure what, if any, connection there is.)

“They may internalize that to mean that in loving relationships sometimes there’s pain or physical aggression,” she says. Another possible lesson is that “whoever is stronger and has more power can overpower the other person and use physical aggression to control the other person’s behavior.” (If you are spanking your child simply because you are bigger and therefore have the “right” to control your child, you are probably abusing them. Spanking should not be used to control behavior but as a punishment after the fact. Of course, the hope is that the spanking was painful enough to deter future disobedience but that is a side effect of the punishment.)

But linking sexual problems with spanking is a “big leap,” says human-sexuality researcher John DeLamater of the University of Wisconsin. “It’s probably one of many elements that might contribute to sex problems or risky sex, but it’s a long leap.”

Most children who are spanked escape from long-term harm, says Straus, 81, a sociology professor who says he occasionally spanked his own children but later became a staunch critic of spanking. His work on violence in families is regarded as landmark research. (Notice how, without saying spanking causes violence in families, it is alluded to by mentioning this unrelated work in the context of spanking?)

He is scheduled to present the studies today at the psychological association’s Summit on Violence and Abuse in Relationships in Bethesda, Md. Three are yet unpublished; one has been submitted to a journal. He plans to include two in a book this year. The fourth was included in a 1994 book. (Oooooo…not much peer review. Not a good sign for the legitimacy of his studies)

The two most recent studies examine sexual coercion and risky practices among 14,252 college students between 2001 and 2006. The third study, of 440 (not nearly enough to draw any realistic conclusions) high school students from New Hampshire, examined risky sex, such as premarital sex without a condom. The fourth study, of 207 (again, not nearly enough) students from the Northeast, focused on masochistic sex.

In each case, Straus found that those who had experienced corporal punishment had increased probability of coercing sex, risky sex or masochistic sex. (If he’s referring to abuse, ei. hitting, throwing things at, etc, who’s surprised? But because he’s not studied ’spanking’ and has only studied all forms of corporal punishment, the abused kids are included in the stats of the un-abused, but spanked, kids. Again, he’s lumped masochistic sex with inherently negative things, coerced sex and risky sex. Enjoying masochistic sex is not necessarily indicative of a sexual problem.)

The literature on effectiveness of spanking to correct behavior is still “very mixed,” says Robert Larzelere of Oklahoma State University, who has studied parents’ disciplinary methods.

“Like any discipline tactic, it depends on how it’s used,” he says.

The End

So, my conclusion is that if you are spanking your child in a manner that is abusive, your child is more likely to be abusive, just like every study on abusive situations has proven time and time again. What this article does not prove is that healthy, responsible spanking, causes sex problems.

I hope you all enjoyed this little trip into Becky’s brain. And I hope no one’s too scared.

You know, it is just amazing to me what a good night’s sleep will do. Life is so much more handleable today. We are supposed to have “abundant sunshine” today so we should be able to play at the park after Story Time. Tuesday was raining, last Thursday was raining and we were sick the Tuesday before that and the Thursday before that our friends weren’t able to stay and play. So, after three weeks of trying, Brodie and Jael and Isaac might actually get to play at the park together.

I am so glad that we have decided to home school Jael. Brodie just turned two. Isaac is about a year and a half. Jael can play fine with them. There is a little girl at play group who is a year older than Jael and she can play just fine with her. We went to one of Israel’s co-worker’s son’s birthday party a week ago and she played fine with the six and seven year olds. Yay for not being peer stratified!

I read an article last night about a teacher who has been verbally abusing the children in her class, calling them stupid and mean and threatening them. One of her students came to class with a tape recorder in her backpack. The student’s mother had put it there because she was concerned that the teacher might not be acting in an all together healthy manner. The mom’s fears were not unfounded. When presented with this information, the school board admitted that they’d had to discipline this teacher the year before for slapping a four-year old child. The discipline consisted of, get a load of this, one day suspension without pay.

*GASP*

A whole day with no pay! You mean, she took a day off and didn’t get paid for it? The horror!

Seriously though, there are a ton of problems with this situation. I’m going to start with the slapping because if that had been handled correctly, this second story wouldn’t have happened. The teacher should have been ordered to attend intesive thearapy and if she was unwilling than she should have been fired. My husband and I believe physical punishment has a place in a parent’s discipline regime. However, we don’t slap her. Slapping is a reaction and not discipline. We don’t ever spank her when we are angry. We don’t discipline based on how we feel about her behavior. We discipline because she has disobeyed and must be taught that there are consequences to disobedience. Slapping is reactive and is not thought out. So, not only was the teacher disciplining in a way reserved only for the child’s parents (corporal punishment), she was doing it badly.

Four year olds should not be in school. I’m an ardent supporter of homeschooling and we’ve started some with our four year old but only as much as she’s enthusiastic about. We’re considering not starting formal education with her until she’s about eight based on research showing that kids who don’t start formal schooling until 8 but are allowed to explore their world and learn through play, catch up with their conventionally schooled peers within six to twelve months. The “late starters” have better social and creative skills than their more heavily schooled peers.

Then you have the yelling at kids. What makes someone think this is okay? I mean, yeah, maybe your parents were verbally abusive but why would that make you think it’s okay to speak to other people’s kids that way? Don’t they cover the proper way to speak to kids and control behavior issues as a part of the “becoming a teacher schooling”? If that isn’t covered, than why in the hell are the masses letting these people spend eight hours a day to “professionally” teach their kids?

My husband has worked on cars since he was about eight years old. He worked as a Ford mechanic for about a year and has much experience working on a variety of cars in his personal time. He’s fond of saying, when presented with a car problem he’d not encountered before, “Why send my car to the dealership to have them screw it up when I can screw it up at home for free?” I ask the same thing about school. “Why send my kids away all day to be screwed up by a stranger when I can do it at home?” And of course, hopefully avoid some of the screwing up.

After ranting about strangers for a bit, I am feeling downright happy.

And I just cleaned off all (well most anyway) of the horizontal surfaces in my house (well, kitchen at least). I also swept the kitchen and vacuumed the house. No, I’m not manic. Israel asked me to clean the house today. A totally reasonable request but one I resented anyway. Until I got started and then it was so nice to have clean surfaces and a clean floor that I didn’t mind being reminded of my wifely duties.

Jael and I are off to Story Time.

Until next time…

Shortly after posting my previous blog, I received a phone call from my apartment manager. Michele was incredibly professional, almost friendly even. She let me know that the bookkeeper (who’d been out most of last week) had got back into the office yesterday, spent yesterday playing catch up, and gave her a call first thing this morning. They were prepared to send us our refund. Michele wasn’t sure if they were going to send it out right away or if they’d send it out with the rest of the bills on the tenth of the March. If we haven’t received our money by the 13th or 14th of March, we are to give her a call and see what’s up.

I wish so much that I could have heard that phone conversation. I like to imagine she got a royal chewing out. I’m a little concerned at the maliciousness of my thoughts. I wonder if I’ll still have this attitude towards skinny obnoxious women when I’ve reached my weight loss goals? I don’t have a problem with thin people. My good friend Chris is about a size 4 (I guess. I’m terrible at guessing sizes and so, Chris, if I’ve horribly misguessed, please don’t be hurt. You look great regardless of what size I think you are.). However, she had to lose thirty pounds before she got there and she works out regularly to keep her body fit. I only have a problem with thin people who didn’t work for it and then judge those who have to work to be fit.

Anyway, the “check’s in the mail” so that’s good news. I apparently need to forgive Michelle and Amber for being rude to me as I’m harboring a grudge which I don’t like. I like to be nice. I’m fat. I want to be fat and jolly, like Santa Clause. I don’t want to be fat and grouchy, like Jabba the Hut. Next time I refer to my apartment management team, hopefully it will be without the resentment I’ve expressed here.

As you may know, we recently moved into an apartment, from military housing, in the hopes that we would save some money. (If you don’t know this, check out this previous blog.)

Things have been going fairly well. A couple of things I forgot to mention in the previous blog. One of them was that when we signed our lease, we asked who the property management company was. We asked, not because we were that concerned, but because we’d had a bad experience with a company and simply wanted to make sure it wasn’t this same company. Bridgette said, nope it’s not that company but I can’t tell you who it it. We asked who the owners were and were again told that she couldn’t tell us that. Bridgette said, “That’s her policy. I don’t know why. I guess she doesn’t want people to know who she is.” We thought it was very strange but figured a little bit of internet research would shed light on the subject so we didn’t worry about it.

Another thing I forgot to mention on said previous blog is that we overpaid our first month. We moved in on the 10th and were supposed to pay $403 for the remainder of January. Well, when we set up our allotment…okay let me take a step back.

Military Partnership Program: If an apartment is a MPP participant, they agree to provide a special deal for military members. They do not charge the tenant or future tenant a security deposit, an application fee, or any other fees. In exchange, the military member pays for their rent as an allotment. An allotment is a payment that is paid by the military out of your check. So the military member never sees the money. Every paycheck, half of the rent is taken out and on the first of the month, the apartment gets a check for the whole amount.

Back to the story. Maison D’Orleans Apartments is a MPP participant. So we pay our rent as an allotment, as specified in our lease. When we set up the allotment, Israel set it up to begin in January, thinking, we get paid twice in January, $299 + $299=$598. Then they’ll get paid on the first of February. Yeah, unfortunately for us, the finance office is not in the business of telling you how things work. By setting up the allotment to begin in January, we were, in fact, setting it up as though we needed the month of January to be paid in full. So the last check of December had $598 removed from it. YIKES!

While we didn’t have to write them a check for $403 because they’d all ready received it we were concerned that we’d not see our money ever again. When I realized what had happened, about a week before moving in, I called, explained the situation and was assured by Bridgette, the leasing manager, that, though it might take a month or so, we’d be refunded the money.

After a month of haggling with them about the door (see previous blog), I went in to ask about our refund. As soon as I walked in the door, they, Amber, the assistant manager, Michelle, some blond who I assumed worked there because she was there all the time, and three maintenance men, began explaining how they would be getting to my door as soon as they could but they had a leak between apartments they had to find so they probably wouldn’t get it installed today. Yada yada yada. I said, “That’s fine. I’m actually here about some money you owe us and I was wondering about getting that refunded to us.”

Amber and Michelle both looked skeptical and seemed to by trying to blow it off like no big deal. I made it clear that it was a big deal to us and so Amber headed in to the office, I followed her and Michelle followed me. The maintenance men who were already in the office, remained. Amber rummaged around with some paperwork and said, “Yeah, there’s a credit here for a hundred and ninety dollars.” And then she just stood there looking at me.

“So, when can I expect a refund check?” I asked, trying to not reveal that they were making me very, very nervous. Both women are taller than me. Both are wearing heels. Both are very put together and by that I mean, gussied up. Both are thin and remind me of high school snobs. Amber is standing behind the chest high counter, Michelle is standing behind me in the door way, and the maintenance guys are standing to my left, watching us.

“It’ll be refunded to you when your lease is up, when you move out,” Amber said.

“That’s not what I was told when I called a month ago.”

“Who did you talk to?” Amber asked.

“Bridgette.” And upon hearing this, Amber rolls her eyes. You see, Bridgette got fired about two weeks ago. I don’t know why. The maintenance guy fixing some little things in the apartment gossiped to me that it was because she never gave messages. I don’t know. Maybe it was because she was a little too nice. So Amber rolls her eyes and I wanted to slap her and say, “Don’t roll your eyes at me. I’m not the one who hired her!” but I didn’t. However, when neither of them responded, I said, “That’s not acceptable to us. We’d like the money to be refunded to us now.”

“Well, that’s why you are supposed to pay the first month’s rent out of pocket so you can pay the prorated amount.”

I explained that, yes, we set up the allotment wrong. Blah blah. They countered with, well normally we would just credit it to the next months rent and you would only have to pay the prorated amount but they couldn’t do that because of the allotment. Blah blah. I countered with, well I want my money. (I hope I said it better than that but I might not have.)

Amber says, “Well this is our policy.”

I say, “I’d like to talk to your manager.” When I receive a blank look, I add, “I’d like to talk to the next person up.” Amber looks past me at Michelle, who is still standing in the doorway, as though she’s about to leave.

Michelle, I kid you not, scoffs, that little expulsion of air that accompanies a curled lip expression. “You’re talking to her. I’m the regional and that’s our policy.”

By now, I’m no longer being treated as a tenant. I’m being treated as someone they are threatened by. Gone is the thin veneer of professionalism and in it’s place is pure disdain and malice.

I, knowing a little about managers and policies, say simply, “I’d like to see that in writing.”

When my request is met by a blank look, I start to clarify (since it was such a confusing statement) but before I can say anything she says, “It’s…well it’s…a bookkeeping policy.”

To which I respond, “Okay, fine. I’d like to see a copy of this policy.”

After a bit more sputtering and stuttering, she says, “It’s not a written policy. It’s just a bookkeeping thing.”

I just want to repeat that in case anyone missed that “It’s not a written policy.” Do you read that? “It’s not a written policy.” Um, can you say “discrimination”?

Since there really wasn’t anything left to say, I said, “Okay,” then turned to Jael told her to gather her toys and we left.

Now, my ability as a writer is not what I wish it were because I’ve not portrayed the rage I was feeling. They purposefully physically placed themselves around me in such a way as to make me uncomfortable and off guard. They scoffed at my request. They implied that we were stupid for making a mistake. They tried to over talk me so that I couldn’t say anything. They implied I was retarded for believing anything Bridgette, the person I was supposed to trust enough to explain my lease to me, had said. They said the words “unwritten policy.” I left calmly and professionally but inside I was a boiling pit of lava.

Upon returning to our apartment, I began to take pictures of our door. I figured if we had to talk to Israel’s First Sergeant about the apartment management, we’d better have all our ducks in a row and have proof. I took a dozen pictures, inside and out, and a couple of videos of me bending the bottom foot of the door. I downloaded them onto my computer (which because I don’t do very often took me almost twenty minutes.) Just as I finished, there was a knock on my door and a maintenance man announced he had a door for me. Odd, just thirty minutes ago I’d been told there was almost no way they’d get to it today and yet, here they were, first thing. Strange, no?

Anyway, he replaced the door but as I left for story time, I took the camera with me, just in case. Upon returning home I began research to find the owners and management company. The property management company was easy enough to find. I Googled “Maison D’Orleans” and the third website was ApartmentGuide.com. I clicked on the tab labeled “Management” and discovered that they are managed by Evan’s Realty. Okay. Now for the owners. Tax records never fail. I looked up who paid the property tax’s for 2436 Beach Blvd, Biloxi, MS and found that it was Spencer E L Jr Family LTD PTN and/or Spencer Lumber Co Auburn, AL. Why the secrecy when the information is readily available online? I do not know.

The next day Israel and I went to the housing office and explained the situation. The gentleman we talked to was wonderful. He’s been working with military housing for about twenty years and he assured us that we were in the right and that the apartment managers did in fact owe us the money. As a MPP participant, they could not keep any money owed to us. If they did, it became a deposit, which they aren’t allowed to charge. He called them up and asked to talk to Amber. She wasn’t available so he asked to speak with Michelle. He explained why he was calling and was rebuffed. He explained that they were in violation of the MPP guidelines and that as such they could be removed from the list of MPP participants. Again he was rebuffed. She, apparantly, as we could only hear one side of the conversation, said to him, “That’s our policy,” to which he responded, “You may have a policy like that. We do not. That is their money and you have to give it to them.” She talked some more and said that no one else minded waiting until they moved out to have their money refunded to them. On and on. At one point, near the end of the conversation, our advocate said, “Okay, let me make sure I understand you. Your official response is that you don’t care.” She talked some more, back peddling I’m sure, and then he said, “Okay. You do that. Talk to your home office and see what they have to say.”

He advised us to give them seven to ten days to work it out and allow her to cool off. As he put it, “Michelle is not a happy camper right now.” No kidding.

We gave them 10 business days and then I went in again. As I walked in, I noticed that Amber wasn’t behind the desk. There was a new face. A nice looking girl actually, someone I would have like to have dealt with instead of Michelle, who, upon seeing me walk in the door, turned to riffle through a cabinet. “Can I help you?” asked the friendly looking girl.

“Actually, I need to talk to Michelle.” At this, Michelle turns to me and says, “They’ve not gotten back to me. I’ve left a couple of emails and haven’t heard anything.”

Then she goes on to say that Amber hates the Partnership Program and that’s why she said what she did. But the Michelle said it made it sound as though Amber had been the one talking to the housing guy. She said about one out of seven military members trash the place and then they, the apartment, are left with a trashed apartment and no deposit. They would just as soon be out of it.

As I continued on my way to the store, I thought about this and none of it makes any sense. You can’t fix a trashed apartment with $300 anyway. A deposit doesn’t begin to cover the expense of fixing an apartment. It barely pays to have the carpets cleaned. Why does the opinion of an assistant manager (Amber) effect policy for the whole complex? Does the home office hate the MPP? If so, aren’t there less damaging ways to leave the program? Why, if Michelle is the “regional”, is she at the office all the time? Does the “home” office even know this is going on or has Michelle simply not contacted them? Do they think we won’t sue for military discrimination? What the hell is going on here?

Israel and I discuss it at length. We’ve come up with a theory that makes it all make sense in a twisted sick sort of way.

What follows is theory so I’m going to put it in italics so as not to confuse the masses.

Michelle is mean. She’s also not very good at her job. She, and probably Amber as well, enjoys making people, especially overweight confident women, feel small and stupid. She made up a rule that her employees couldn’t tell people who the owners and management company are because she doesn’t want her employees to know, thereby hampering their ability to go over her head. She made a decision to not refund our money. Maybe it is unwritten policy. Maybe she made it up on the spot. Whatever the reason, she talked herself into a corner by saying the words “unwritten policy.” She has not contacted the “home office” at all in the hopes that we will just go away. Or maybe she hates the MPP and hopes we’ll get the military to drop them from the MPP participant list and then she can go to the home office and say, “Look what they did.”

What is our plan now? I think Israel is going to give Evan’s Realty and Mr. E.L. Spence Jr. a call and make sure that Michelle is in fact speaking for them before we take this back to the military. Because they are breaking their contract and the military will drop them from the list and I don’t think they’re going to like that. The kind of people who trash an apartment are also the kind of people who forget to pay rent. She said one out of seven. I’d say there’s at least a hundred military members here. That makes about 14 people who are dirtbags. Let’s say they have the same kind of unit we do and pay between $600 and $900 a month. That’s between $8400 and $12600. It’s not much but I bet they notice.

I don’t know what’s going to happen but I know it’s not over yet. So, do you think that the management is just incompetent or are they, in fact, evil?

Last Tuesday I watched a movie which I’d been waiting for for over four years, although I didn’t know it.

Six years ago, I began researching birth, labor, and everything else those two subjects entail. I began this study because I wanted to have a homebirth and my husband was not convinced. He asked me to convince him that it was safer, healthier, and overall better than a conventional hospital birth.

We were both surprised at how the evidence stacked up. Homebirth or midwife assisted birth was by far the safer and healthier option for most pregnancies and births. Indisputably so, though of course, many did dispute it. My husband was even called a murderer for risking his wife’s and child’s life for such a hedonist act. And yet study after study supported homebirth advocates’ claims that homebirth was the better option.

While reading books and articles from medical journals, I would experience feelings of rage and impotence as I realized the magnitude of the average person’s ignorance in things of birth. The American medical establishment purposefully misrepresents information or simply does not give information to expectant mothers. The information they do give them they present in such a way to inspire fear. Fear of this. Fear of that. Fear. FEAR.

The end result is the majority of women are afraid. They are afraid of the pain (which, while in fact painful, is not insurmountable, and I know; I was in labor for over two days). They are afraid of themselves dying or their babies dying, both of which are less likely in a midwife assisted birth than in a doctor assisted birth. They are afraid their baby won’t be healthy (higher apgar score from midwife assisted births than doctor assisted births).

Basically, the less the hospital, doctors and interventions are involved in a birth, the better the outcome and yet, no one know this. When I would tell people we planned on a homebirth, not only were they adamantly against it, they were completely ignorant of the issues involved. I could site sources until I was blue in the face but the simple fact is that most people do not understand or believe things unless they see them on their TV.

Fast forward four years from my daughter’s birth. A friend tells me of this movie called “The Business of Being Born” (for those who can’t run their trailer, here’s a YouTube link) and asks if I want to see it with her. We drive up to Hattiesburg where it is being shown on a college campus for free.

The movie was phenomenal. There were some technical difficulties with the movie and the equipment in the auditorium but we got to see about 95% of the movie. The movie is a lot more about women having choices in the birthing experience than an apology for homebirth. There are no judgments made. They simple state the nature of the problem. The U.S. has the second worst birth stats of industrialized countries. Midwives attend between 70 and 80% of the births in the other countries and the U.S. “stands alone,” having only about half of a percent of births attended by midwives. And yet more babies and more mothers die in the U.S. from birth related causes than anywhere else. Why?

The answer is simple. Money. What costs more, a simple birth with no interventions and no medications or a traumatic birth that results in days and weeks of hospitalization? A healthy baby or one that requires a day or two in the ICU? A routine vaginal delivery with no interventions or a surgery through the abdominal muscles and the uterus and the subsequent days of recovery?

“But…but…but…,” I hear you cry. At first I don’t believe this. Insurance companies wouldn’t stand for this. They want the cheapest labors and births as possible, right? Wrong. They want it complicated and expensive for mothers or else they wouldn’t keep paying the insurance companies. If birth was simple and at home, most mother’s could afford to pay their midwives out of pocket.

The insurance companies, the hospitals, the AMA, and doctors themselves have a vested interest in birth being traumatic, hospitalized, and filled with interventions. It’s job security. They are fighting for their continued existence and these are the people most women trust to tell them the truth about what they need for a healthy pregnancy and birth. Yikes!

(I can cite sources for all these claims but see no reason to look the info up again if no one reads this or cares. If you want to know, just ask and I’ll provide the source documents. Also, I realize there are exceptions to this. There are doctors out there who are great advocates of natural birth but they are the exception and not the rule and hospital policies do not generally support these doctors.)

Okay, I happened to run across this study while researching other things relating to home birth and I thought I’d post it. It confirms everything I’ve said here, regarding home birth being as safe with fewer interventions than hospital birth. While it is only one study it contains links, in the references section, to many more studies.