Category: Let’s Do Better

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Hinsdale High School Cowers in the Face of an AK-47 (T-Shirt)

If you’re local to Chicago, you might have been following the story of a suburban boy who was suspended last week from Hinsdale Central High School for wearing a t-shirt with an image of an AK-47 on it.  As reported by Annemarie Mannion in the Chicago Tribune, the student in question wore the t-shirt pictured below and was stopped by hall monitors because of its provocative nature.

Photo from the Chicago Tribune used with permission.
Photo from the Chicago Tribune used with permission.

The dean of students then gave him three options:  1) remove the t-shirt; 2) turn the t-shirt inside out; or 3) go home for the day and be marked with a suspension.  The boy opted for the third option and was sent home.

Today, the boy appealed his suspension to the Hinsdale School Board, arguing his first amendment rights were violated.  The Board then reversed the dean’s original suspension and it will be removed from the boy’s PERMANENT RECORD.  You all remember the threat of something landing on your PERMANENT RECORD, right?

So much of this story disturbs me, I don’t quite know where to start, but let’s do this.

  • Guns have no place in our schools.  I don’t know what else to say about this.  Guns and schools do not mix.  End of story.
  • First amendment, schmirst schmendment.  This kid went in front of the School Board to assert that his first amendment rights were being violated.  “I decided to go home for the day because I felt it was a infringement of my First Amendment right to freedom of expression,” he told the board.  What, exactly, was this student attempting to express by wearing the inflammatory image of an AK-47 on his t-shirt?  The AK-47 is an assault rifle, an Avtomat Kalashnikova, first manufactured in World War II Russia for the sole purpose of killing in a military combat setting.  Not hunting.  Not providing food for family.  Not for sport.  Solely for killing human beings in a more efficient manner.  Do you know how many results will be found if you Google “school shootings with AK-47”?  1,650,000.  If this student could articulate what exactly he was attempting to express, not whine that his rights were being violated, I would want to hear it, but I am fairly certain I would strongly disagree with any POV that advocates for personal use of an AK-47.
  • Discipline must be consistent.  Hinsdale Central’s school dean is who first meted out the suspension on the grounds that the provocative t-shirt, and yes, the image of an assault rifle is provocative, most especially in a school setting, violated the school’s dress code policy.  Per the Tribune, “The handbook states that students are subject to disciplinary action when they wear clothing that ‘is deemed vulgar, inappropriate, unsafe or disruptive to the educational process (e.g., advertising/display of alcohol, drugs, tobacco, sexual innuendo).'”  The dean determined that an AK-47 depicted on a t-shirt in the school environment was indeed inappropriate and disruptive, correctly, I believe.  The school superintendent originally agreed with the dean’s actions, stating that schools maintain the right to prevent school children from wearing offensive clothing.  Today, the board reversed the suspension.  Kid wins.  Hooray for AK-47s being glamorized in schools everywhere!  Parenting 101 mandates that when a punishment is handed out, a punishment is handed out.  The best and easiest way to create chaos for children is to provide inconsistency in their parenting and discipline.  If an assault rifle on a t-shirt is found to be disruptive to the educational process, then it is disruptive to the educational process.  My writing this blog post is evidence of that — it is front page news in Chicago.  Send a message to our children that discipline is discipline.  Be consistent.  Stand by your dean and common sense.
  • Guns have no place in our schools.  Again, this is self-explanatory.
  • Stop confusing the issue of guns.  After reversing their decision to suspend the boy, the superintendent today said that school personnel will, moving forward, attempt to distinguish between lawful images of guns that do not promote violence and other images that do promote violence.  Huh.  Last I checked, all guns promoted violence.  I mean, that’s kind of the whole point, right?  Guns are made to harm and/or kill.  All guns.  It just is the nature of the beast, no getting around it.  What the Hinsdale School Board did with their reversal today was confuse a pretty straight forward issue — guns have no place in our schools.  By opening the door to this idea of gun clubs being harmless entities when those same clubs use the deadly image of an AK-47 with the lingo, “Team AK,” well, they are sending an extremely confusing message to their student body and loads of headaches for their staff.
  • Guns have no place in our schools.  

I make no bones about where I stand on the gun issue.  In our beloved Constitution of these United States of America, the Second Amendment guarantees the right of its citizens to bear arms.  I get it, I will not argue with that, own a gun, as it is your right.  But times have changed, folks, and we have become a gun loving society that embraces its guns beyond any stretch of common sense.

This child, an 18 year old Eagle Scout for cripes sake, believes he has the right to express himself in a school environment by wearing the image of a deadly weapon used expressly for the purposes of killing human beings more efficiently. What he is trying to express is beyond my peace loving comprehension, I know, but for the life of me, I cannot understand why the Hinsdale School Board would kowtow to the feeble arguments about expression when children across America are being gunned down in classrooms.

It is simple, Hinsdale School Board.  Set an example.  Structure a school environment that does not tolerate the glamorization or romanticization of guns in any instance.  Be consistent with the message.  Educate instead of placate.  Guns have no place in our schools.  Period.  Class dismissed.

Click here for a list of schools shootings in America from 1764-today.  

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Emotions 101

Everybody has a hobby, right?  Some folks run marathons, others read mysteries or climb mountains, twee folks go antiquing on the weekends. Me?  I emote.  It’s sort of my thing.  I’m damn good at it, too.

I’m so good at it, my friends, that I opted to make a career out of it.  In my mid-20s, after years of friends and strangers alike telling me their problems, confiding in me easily, I opted to get a Master’s degree is social work (the extremely versatile, albeit unprofitable MSW) and make emotions my life work.  That was one of the best choices I’ve ever made, as it harnessed a natural talent and paired it with education and training.

Much to my surprise, my clinical focus came to be on older adults and the hard work of aging.  I helped older adults talk about the difficulties and indignities of getting older, the insults of a body and mind that fail you slowly (or quickly), the prospect of growing limitations and dependence, how a family copes with a matriarch and patriarch who are aging and changing, and the grief and sadness that abound with the imminent prospect of death.

It was heady, amazing work and I loved it.  I was damn good at it, too.  I miss it.

Some of the work I did was in hospice, bereavement, and caregiving. That is no longer a good line of work for me after my daughter’s death. You see, when you are working with a 90 year old who is staring death in the eye and their 60-65 year old children who are traumatized with the prospect of losing mom or dad, you need empathy for them.  All of them. They deserve that.

Losing a four year old daughter has shifted my perspective so completely that I can no longer, at least right now, muster up the necessary empathy to feel what a therapist needs to feel when a 90 year old dies or for their survivors.  I feel sadness, yes, because anytime a light goes out it is sad, but I currently lack the empathy or patience to help people process the emotions attached to the death of an older person.  I no longer have the tools to sit across from a 65 year old daughter sobbing over her mother’s death, legitimately worried that she will not be able to cope.

Unpretty and unsympathetic as it is, folks, it is my truth.

One thing I have learned in my personal and professional life related to emotions is that we all have them.  Some of us feel them deeply, some of us stuff them completely, some of us actively run the other direction from them, worried that emotions are somehow frivolous, dangerous, or unnecessary.  Some of us think of emotions as something you “get through” or resolve in order to get back to the business of living.

I know better.

emotions

For me, emotions are as present as the sky, as necessary as oxygen.  Not all of us operate that way and I completely get what an exhaustive prospect that is for some.  My husband is not terribly emotional, though he is extremely kind and generous and sensitive.  We’re a good fit that way.

Emotions are like a pair of eyeglasses that I rely on to see.  They make things clearer or blurrier, they can make people look good, or just be a really bad fit.  They are, and always have been — even as a wee, young girl — my constant companion.

That is why I was surprised yesterday when I wrote a quick Facebook status update about being sad now that Mother’s Day nears.  For me, Mother’s Day is complicated on every front.  My Mom died in 2005, my daughter died in 2009, and this year I will be celebrating Mother’s Day with a baby that has a second mother, his birth mother.  I imagine the pain she too must feel as the day nears, and yes, feel some guilt attached to that pain.

It’s complicated, yo.

So I do what I do and popped off a status update.  Early in the resulting thread, a longtime reader and supporter gently told me that it wasn’t fair to my sons to feel sadness.  Huh.  Okay.  I gave her the benefit of the doubt and responded that I didn’t see the connection — that my sadness in no way prevented me from feeling happy for their presence or experiencing the joy they bring me daily.  I was simply sad.  She then responded that she totally understood, of course, but that I needed to be happy and understand all the blessings in my life.

Alrighty!

If only emotions worked that way.  Be happy!  Oh, okay, I get it now, thank you — I wish I had thought of that sooner!

Sarcasm aside, it grates on me that someone suggested my legitimate sadness was in some way harming my two surviving children.  I CHOOSE HOPE, dammit!  I work my emotional a$$ off to ensure that my burden of grief does not become my children’s burden of grief.

Long story short, emotions are not mutually exclusive.  It is entirely possible, and most likely probable, that any any given moment we are feeling a conflicting jumble of feelings.  Happy that Dad’s suffering is over, sad that he is dead.  Grateful for my child’s growing independence, lonely that he/she no longer needs me in the same way.  Terrified to get that pink slip, relieved to no longer have to deal with that madman boss.

To be sad and to state that sadness is okay.  To be happy and to state that happiness is okay.  But often times, it is more complicated than just the black and white of happy and sad.  To be both happy and sad, empty and fulfilled, resentful and grateful simultaneously is the stuff of life, folks.

One of the most lasting lessons I learned from Donna was to feel my emotions fully and completely — really feel those suckers, you know? — and then to move on.  To feel the fear attached to a needle poke, to cry about it, whimper a little, to smile afterwards, to show the scary nurse the door when she was done, and thank her for that needle poke, and then to play and get on with the day.

Feel your feelings.  Feel all your feelings.  Scary as that is, emotions are a beautiful, complicated part of being a human being.  And they don’t have to be so scary or sanitized.

Hey!  May is Mental Health Awareness Month!  If you want to educate yourself and learn more, let Moms Who Drink and Swear teach you!  Visit her site here.  

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Liking How I Look at 44

I grew up with a beautiful mother.  KABLAMMO, man, she was insanely gorgeous.  Like Hollywood starlet gorgeous.  Like men might weep in her presence gorgeous.  Like strangers would compare her to Jackie Kennedy and Audrey Hepburn gorgeous.  Gorgeous.  Except, she never really thought so.

My Mom's 1958 engagement photo. My Dad still wonders how he landed such a looker.
My Mom’s 1958 engagement photo. My Dad still wonders how he landed such a looker.  And it is a damn shame this beautiful woman ever doubted herself.

You see, she grew up hearing she was skinny and had bad teeth.  It was a different era, pre-war/depression America.  Plump was where it was at beautywise, as it denoted status and enough wealth to have an abundance of food, and my Mom was never plump.  She was naturally thin and couldn’t keep weight on until her middle age set in.  Ha!  None of her daughters were blessed with that genetic trait.

Once or twice my Mom and I talked about the poor self esteem she had related to her looks.  It was painful for her to talk about, this mindset that had its roots in her childhood, and so she didn’t.  My Grandmother is both revered and beloved in our family, too, so speaking the truth, that she had unkind words for her youngest daughter at times, is not something my Mom wanted to dwell on or publicize.  Truth be told, I feel a bit like I’m talking out of school even writing these words.

But my Mom’s story is directly related to my story, just as my Grandmother’s is, too.  It’s called “motherlines,” and with most things related to womanhood, our mothers impact us like few others.

I, too, grew up with poor self-esteem related to my looks.  Mine was nothing related to anything I heard from my folks.  To the contrary, my Mom would often tell me I was pretty.  Well, in college she would encourage me to wear more blush and unbutton a button or two at my collar, but she was never ever unkind in any way.

I was such a squirrel of a girl, that my natural inclination was always to cover, withdraw, blend into the background.  That, I think, is something my Mom and I had in common.

Another thing my Mom and I often discussed was that 30 was her hardest birthday.  She was fairly convinced in 1964, the year she turned 30, that it was all downhill from there.  She described a sad transition into her third decade that I found hard to relate to.  When I turned 30 I was working at a job I loved where I was recognized and respected.  I was not yet engaged, but in love with the man who I would go on to marry.  The world was my oyster, you know?

Honestly, I had a lot of time to make up for.  It wasn’t until my mid-20s that my poor self-esteem improved.  At 30, I was just getting started.

At 44, I no longer feel that way, but, with a qualified “for the most part,” I like what I see when I look in the mirror.

There is an endless litany of women who complain about their looks on this here Internet.  Women think nothing of disparaging their thighs, their hair, their waists, their unwanted hair, their everything, in excruciating detail.

Let’s stop doing that, okay?  Let’s have a collective call for enough!

At 44, I look as good as I will ever look for the rest of my life.

My hair is enviable.  My eyes and lips are full and expressive.  My skin is well cared for from years of fleeing the sun and moisturizing — something my Mom taught me was important.  The breasts are top notch and still perky.  The view from behind, my husband says, is still enjoyable.  I’ve got good style and know the value of a scarf tied just so or what a difference a well plucked eyebrow can make.

Is this conceited of me to say, or empowered?

If I were younger, I might care what you thought, but now, at 44, I don’t quite give a fig what you think, because I know the truth.  It’s important to like how you look.  And if you don’t, well, for the love of guacamole, change it, but don’t complain about it online.

The truth is, I work a bit to like the way I look.  Moisturizer and hats and sunglasses are some of my best friends.  And I now sit in a chair for three hours four times a year to get the hair color that used to come naturally to me.  Not so much anymore.  I glance at magazines to see what the youngsters are wearing these days.  I dance in my kitchen when the spirit moves me.  I don’t and won’t stress about eating a brownie or a cheeseburger.  I choose hope.  It’s free and not always easy, but damn does it improve most everything in life, including the woman who stares back at me in the mirror.

Because of that, too, I won’t dwell on the things about myself that I wish were different.  Suffice it to say one of them rhymes with hate.  Or fate.  Or wait.  (See what I did there?)  I know, too, that when the resolve is there, when my dissatisfaction outweighs my pleasure in a neatly plucked brow, I will tackle my flaws, but you won’t hear me bitch and moan about it online, or in person either, for that matter.

Not bad for a 44 year old gal.
Believe in your selfies!

I am 44 and I like the way I look.  My 12 year old self should be so lucky. And I think my Mom would be proud of me, too.

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